Month: April 2009

Rock’s not dead! Just brain-damaged

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Flowers that reared their pretty heads a bit early found themselves bowed by the weight of our most recent snow.
Flowers that reared their pretty heads a bit early found themselves bowed by the weight of our most recent snow.

Tyler Hamilton isn’t the only Rock Racing rider to find himself suddenly unemployed. Apparently homeboy Mike Creed is hunting work, too, and not of his own volition — renowned disco-denim maven and working-class hero Michael Testicle showed him the door on April 14, according to nyvelocity.com.

Mike chatted with Steve Frothingham of VeloNews.com this morning, and you can read Steve’s account of their conversation here. That Mike’s former employer continues to stump for a riders’ union is not unlike a tomcat proposing a Society for the Protection of Plump, Juicy and Delicious Little Songbirds.

While he apparently has an offer to race next month’s Joe Martin Stage Race with another team, Mike told me via e-mail that further on down the road he’s thinking about leaping from the titanium frying pan of pro cycling into the Sterno stove of velo-journalism, perhaps with a podcast or Internet radio show. While he considers his options, there’s at least one bright side in being jobless in this sport, in this economy — he won’t have to wear that ugly-ass Schlock Racing kit any more.

Here in Bibleburg, meanwhile, the Storm of the Century mostly passed us by. It snowed all damn’ day yesterday and left maybe three inches, tops. But it’s heavy, wet stuff, and the foliage will appreciate it. Some 75 miles southwest and a couple thousand feet higher among the hillbillies of Crusty County, my man Hal Walter reports five times as much of the white stuff surrounding the world headquarters of Hardscrabble Times and recalls a pair of earlier April storms.

Down here, it’s raining lightly — “a driving rain,” as my man Dr. O’Schenkenstein said. And he should know, because he just spent two hours riding in it. The man himself just appeared at my doorstep, looking as though he had been dipped in shit, and taunted me for cowering indoors like the feeble geezer I am. He has been watching old Paris-Roubaix videos, which will give a man notions.

Invisible twin made me dope!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

That’s how a supermarket tabloid might headline the news that Tyler Hamilton rang the Dope-O-Meter a second time and has retired, if that sort of rag bothered with niche-sport celebrities. VeloNews.com showed a touch more reserve. As the house fool I probably should be raving on this topic over there, but I can’t work up the requisite rage.

If Hamilton is telling the truth about suffering from depression — an assumption I do not make — I don’t feel obliged to add to his burdens in order to lighten mine. He may very well be the first U.S. national champion to test positive while wearing the stars and stripes. For sure he’s divorced from his wife of nine years, and his mom has cancer. That should satisfy any former fanboys aghast at the greasy skidmarks his feet of clay left on their man-crush dreamscapes.

I used to enjoy editing Hamilton when he wrote diaries for VeloNews.com. He seemed content in his work, and was generous in his comments about rivals and subordinates. And whether you believe he was doped or pure as the driven snow, he showed plenty of heart out there on the road.

A line from Shakespeare comes to mind — “Hamlet,” act 2, scene II: “(T)he devil hath power/To assume a pleasing shape. …” And another, from “As You Like It”, act 2, scene VII:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts. …

If the play’s the thing, as ol’ Will also wrote, then Tyler Hamilton must find some other role. This show has closed.

The calm before the storm

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Hail. With thunder. And sunshine. Must be April in Bibleburg.
Hail. With thunder. And sunshine. Must be April in Bibleburg.

The weather gods toy with us, like cats: a dash of rain; a soupçon of hail; a low grumble of thunder in the distance. I think I’ll bring the snow shovel indoors tonight so I can find it tomorrow morning. And check the bucket under our roof leak. And fill a couple coolers with ice as a redundancy system for our ‘fridge, which followed the rest of our appliances into early retirement just in time for what’s shaping up like the Storm of the Year. Jesus H. Christ on a flatcar. We need to find us some oil ’round here so’s we kin get us’ns a big ol’ Beverly Hills mansion with a cee-ment pond and appliances that work.

I got in a quick hour on the ‘cross bike this morning while the weather remained semi-springlike. Started out the door with short sleeves, arm warmers and knickers, then reversed direction and added layers; long-sleeve polypro, long-sleeve jersey, full-finger gloves. The NWS said 50-something, but it was not a dry heat.

Thanks to a relentless north wind, the ride was reminiscent of my first race back in 1987, a 40km out-and-back time trial near Strasburg, Colorado — 10 mph out, 30 mph back. I actually checked at one point to see whether I had a brake rubbing. Nope. Wind + lard = 10 mph.

Afterward, it was off to Ranch Foods Direct to stock up on dead animal parts for various soups, stews and whatnot to fend off the cold. That’s how I discovered our out-of-warranty Kenmore was on the blink — by loading $50 worth of meat into a lukewarm ‘fridge. I briefly considered cooking everything at once to keep it from spoiling, but then my cranial 20-watt bulb blinked on — uh, so where do you store the cooked food, Mr. Magic Chef, huh? I will never be smart.

But I can be less stupid. Via the miracle of the cell phone I consulted Herself, who reminded me that Larry’s Appliance had solved a number of issues with the Kenmore without having to resort to big hammers, voodoo or a second mortgage. Rang ’em up, and it just so happened that they had a cancellation and could come over straight away. One bum circulating fan and $112.84 later, the ingredients for posole, vegetable beef soup and a kung pao stir fry are cooling down nicely.

As is the outdoors. Hail again, with lightning this time. I’m off for the snow shovel.

Mad as hatters

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
"It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!"
"It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!"

“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I wonder what he would have made of the Tea Baggers. Short work, I expect. The Bibleburg Gaslight blessed our local wingnut festival with a live blog; I trust its editors will do likewise next time the lefties hold a peace rally. No word on whether the head count included the usual random assortment of winos, street musicians, homeless people, cops and Palmer High School stoners.

Meanwhile, like the good citizens we are, Herself and I laid a big, wet, four-figure smooch on our beloved Uncle Sammy today. We’ll probably both come down with herpes. At the very least we’ve contracted a temporary ailment that leaves one’s bank account as empty as a Tea Bagger’s skull. These pootbutts probably think Jesus does potholes, police work and snow removal whenever he’s not busy doing his legendary loaves-and-fishes thing.

Speaking of snow, it’s in the forecast again, and this storm is supposed to be a whopper. The last one was perfect — just a few heavy, wet inches that really perked up the lawn and trees — but this time the wise guys are calling for six inches to a foot over the next few days.

The Safeway of the Living Dead must look like George Romero Meets Cecil B. DeMille tonight. I have a pantry full of beans, rice, pasta and canned goods, so I’m unconcerned. Plus there are the firearms in case we crave a little long pig. A couple of our neighbors would not be missed, among them the dipshit NASCAR wanna-be who keeps racing the poorly tuned engine in his shitbox street racer and doing noisy laps around the block.

But he’s definitely a feedlot critter, the furthest thing in the world from free-range organic. Maybe I’ll just use him to sight in the Mini-Thirty, then go hunting Trustafarians at Colorado College. They’re pre-marinated and everything.