Oh, bugger. Snowing again. These pissant “storms” that merely grease the trails and glaze the streets are slipping the proverbial tube steak to my carefully cultivated serenity.
Herself certainly picked the right time to hightail it out of Dodge. She and a couple of girlfriends are on the lam from winter this weekend, hiding out in a Palm Springs condo, eating, drinking and watching it not snow, not even a little bitty bit. They just called with the culinary rundown as I was whipping up a spartan meal of tacos, rice and salad. This is like telling a creekside wino all about your latest gourmet feast.
Speaking of things one does not wish to hear about, I understand Tiger Woods finally performed the obligatory mea culpa before the cameras and mics today. What a load of ice-cold horseshit. First off, if you’re gonna cop a plea, get ’er done while the dew is still on the lily. Second, rehab is for wankers. Show Tiger some pussy, then show him his bank balance. Choose one, big guy. Presto, he’s cured. Thanks, I’ll take my fee in cash.
I couldn’t care less about golf, and where Tiger’s putter has been fluttering is even further down the list of things that hold absolutely no interest for me.
“But what about the young people who view Tiger as a role model?” you ask. To which I reply, anyone looking to emulate the morality of the average multimillionaire athlete should also consult swine for advice on table manners.
I’m reminded of a line from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Glory Road,” in which Star tells Oscar: “I have known many heroes and some were such oafs that one would feed them at the back door if their deeds did not claim a place at the table.”
You want to learn how to pop some skinny nerd in the ass with a wet towel, or imprison him in a gym locker, ask a jock. For all other matters, consult a higher authority. Say, a Magic 8-Ball, or even your own conscience.
Mad Blog Media 
Can’t say I disagree. Good advice for what I paid. The check is in ze mail, mosieur. One thing though is that Eldridge isn’t a role model because he’s good with his putter (either one, naturally) but because the brand of Eldridge has been created to show a perfect person. And last I checked, there is no such thing on this mortal coil.
What he should be is a role model of bad behavior. As in: “Junior, I don’t give one patoot about your hook shot, but if you decide to lie, Daddy’s going to take away your livelyhood.”
Now, I know that logic will be lost on a lot of people, but it is the only kind of role model Eldridge should be. Because not a single person could be as perfect, squeaky clean as he was. I’m looking at you “the bike racer who shall not be named.”
Wood’s story was interesting to me in the same way as the Williams sisters. Some skilled black folks take it to the staid white world of golf or tennis. If Serena turns out to be a sleazy whore, I don’t really care — she doesn’t get paid to be the sort of spokesperson that Woods does. Woods was just able to keep his sleazy behavior under the radar for a long time — now that it’s out sponsors are bailing left and right…sounds like cycling a bit no? Athlete sponsorship and endorsements are a strange world almost all their own anyway — do they really make any sense when you think about them? Would someone buy one of those hideous Buick things that look like a rhino on wheels because they saw an ad with Woods standing next to it?
Annoying snow in the Springs? Gee, O’G, maybe you oughta consider moving out of there. Between the snow that’s just enough to be annoying and the politicians that’re just dumb enough to be affiliated with the Springs, I’m surprised you stick around, especially once you factor in how often we hear about Arizona and other warmer climes on this blog. I just arrived in Santa Barbara last week after a long move punctuated by a 24-hour race in Tucson. Tucson was warm compared to the Springs. Santa Barbara is even warmer, there are oranges growing in the yard for breakfast, and there are cyclists of all stripes everywhere. Roadies, MTBers, BMXers, DUIers, commuters, old folks, young folks, red folks, blue folks. It’s pretty amazing – on a ride through UCSB’s campus the other day, there was actually concentrated bicycle TRAFFIC. I think business may be good here.
Now, if only I can find some beautiful backcountry trails on which to get away from all these people… the Springs’ only saving grace in my opinion (other than the excellent friends I have there).
Watch out for the poison oak in and around SB! Years ago I ended up with such a mess from the stuff I was an example at a dermatology med student meeting. No more MTB riding for us there though it’s a wonderful off-season road cycling place. The wife’s parents live there and we sponge off them each holiday season for a couple of weeks, even keeping a couple of old Bianchi’s there year-round. We’ve just completed work on a self-guided tour there which should be posted a http://www.cycleitalia.com very soon. Take that FTC! A blatant, self-serving plug for a company we own and operate.
Larry, you’re right about the pro athlete sponsorship world being a strange one, but in Wood’s case, not so much. Yes, some sponsors have fled, but an equal amount have not. And for good reason – his image and who he is, regardless of his latest “transgressions”, still sell shit, and by the boatload. Maybe not Buicks anymore (does anybody still really drive those boats?) but Nike shoes without doubt. Have you heard a single word about his sex romps from the Nike camp? Hell no; you can guarantee that Phil and Company there at Nike are eating it all up and loving life. It all speaks directly to who they are selling the shoes, and it ain’t to a bunch of old farts like you, me and O’Grady. To the 18~30 male set – Nike’s core group – every move that Tiger has made those kids are secretly saying: “Hell yeah! That’s me baby! That’s what I want to do when I get older! Play golf all day and bang EVERYTHING that moves when I get off the course. Now where do I find me some ‘o them Nike skids…” Tiger will continue to bring in Billions before he calls it quits, no matter what he does off the course.
And Joey, I can second Larry’s warning about poison oak in the S.B. area. Two words: deadly. Learn to recognize ALL it’s forms if you wander off the tarmac. Nasty stuff…
Yipes, guys, now I’m not so ready to learn about the MTB riding here… thanks for the heads up, I guess I’ll just get used to it.
Charles Barkley said it very well “I am not a role model” for your kids.That is the parents job!
I’m here for the cats and the humor, seeing as I can’t ride anything with two wheels anymore since I got T-boned by a car on my motorcycle. Hard to pedal or shift with only one foot. Gents, I have to say, today you’re all spot on.
Added plus, anyone that can quote from “Glory Road” is at the top of my hero list.
I’m here for the cats and the humor, seeing as I can’t ride anything with two wheels anymore since I got T-boned by a car on my motorcycle. Hard to pedal or shift with only one foot. Gents, I have to say, today you’re all spot on.
Added plus, anyone that can quote from “Glory Road” is at the top of my hero list.
Joey, if you haven’t already met Ralph Fertig, President of the Santa Barbara Bicycling Coalition, say hello when you do meet him. They do good stuff. I met Ralph at the 1998 Pro-Bike/Pro-Walk. Only reason that Santa Barbara didn’t seem out of this world in terms of beauty is that I was living in Hawai’i at the time.
Good tip Khal, thanks! I’ll keep that name in mind – I’ve been meeting people left and right affiliated with some sort of bike organization or another. It’s pretty sweet.
Man, I’d leave here in a heartbeat if I didn’t love my wife (who loves her job), our house, friends and neighbors, the local trails, the pavement at the Air Force Academy, Old Town Bike Shop, Coaltrain Wine & Spirits and just about everything else about the place barring the dipshit politicos, our libertard daily paper and industrial Christianity trampling the local spirituality under its jackbooted feet. Plus you can’t get poison oak here.
What you can get here is freezing fog and black ice in February. I thought about riding — maybe the mountain bike with some seriously low tire pressure — until I took a gander at the streets and stuck my face into the damp breeze. Then I pulled on a shitload of clothes and went for a 45-minute run instead. Nearly went down a half-dozen times on slick bits.
It’s bad enough to crash a ’cross bike. But to crash while running? I’d never live it down.
It took a lot of folks to help hide Tiger’s indiscretions for so long. He didn’t do all this on his own. I’m sure the folks at IMG are very very good at managing NBA style behavior, but the expectations are so different on the golf tour that IMG’s golf staff never even thought to consult with the NBA staff–hence Tiger finally got caught. If Tiger was an NBA or NFL player, this stuff would have been leaked a little at a time as part of the “colorful personality” spin, and Tiger could have kept this going forever.
As for the young folks who follow Tiger, they’ll still follow Tiger. Youth’s definition of unacceptable behavior is very broad and flexible.
And what the hell is freezing fog? Seriously? I had to Google it to believe it. The pictures are beautiful and terrifying.
“Man, I’d leave here in a heartbeat if I didn’t love my wife (who loves her job), our house, friends and neighbors, the local trails…”
That sounds familiar, Patrick. I turned down the UT Austin job for just those reasons. Its been a painful few weeks since then, getting over the personal blowback from that decision and trying to get my shit back together here when I was one foot out the door.
But the sight of the Sangre de Cristo mountains staring back at me from across the Rio Grande Rift from the back of the mesa does sorta make up for it….as does watching bald eagles soaring over the Rio Grande up near Embudo Station.
Now, back downstairs for a little more of this Maker’s Mark I got for Christmas…and preparing for yet three more fooking audits…
Hey, K,
I wondered what had happened with that Texas gig. I’ve had a few of those moments over the years — should I stay or should I go? — but none lately, as my profession is not exactly in a growth phase.
Back in the Eighties I wanted to move to California in the worst way. I got an interview at the San Jose Mercury-News and tryouts on the copy desks of The Los Angeles Times and the Ventura Star-Free Press, but didn’t get hired in any of those places, and finally wound up at The New Mexican in Santa Fe about two weeks before the unemployment checks were due to cease.
Shortly thereafter the Ventura paper got in touch and said a job was mine if I wanted it. No thanks, I replied — these folks pulled me off the dole and I’m gonna dance with the one what brung me. Some other time, maybe.
Things worked out for the best, seems like. I met Herself in Santa Fe, started free-lancing for VeloNews and Bicycle Retailer there, and still have friends in town. We left in 1991 for Bibleburg, fled to Weirdcliffe for a taste of high-country living, and wound up back here, what, seven years ago?
I know the place like the back of my hand, and while it’s true that familiarity breeds contempt, there’s something about this weirdo burg that just says “home” to me. That’s something for a lifelong itinerant.
We humans are fickle beasts, eh, Patrick?
I have not heard from my former neighbor Roy Bates since he moved to Weirdcliffe from Bombtown about four years ago. Hope all is well with him and Jane.
U wouldn’t hold NIKE up as any example of anything except GREED. They’re in the same group as Trek for me — I’d buy a hundred whatevers from any of their competitors before I’d buy one of anything these bozos produce. We have a couple of pre-BigTex MTB’s with Trek’s name on ’em, I consider blacking it out pretty regularly. Maybe I should put LEMOND over it?
Khal,
UT/Austin was home for me. My wife and I met there 1st day freshman year. We did our best to stay as long as we could after graduation, but California showed up in 1993 and turned our sleepy state government/college town into something totally unaffordable for the young recently married types with liberal arts degrees and government jobs.
We still visit Austin once every couple of years. We’ll probably go at Spring Break with some friends next month. It’s only three hours from the PetroMetro.
As for remaining in the Land of Enchantment, my wife’s from ABQ, so that’s always a good call from my perspective. We’ve tried to move there a couple of times, but the money is so much better in the PetroMetro for my wife’s work (corporate law). Someday, there will come a time and we will leave Houston, thank Gawd. If I had any scientific/technical skills at all, I’d move to where you are!
Larry T: I’m with you about Nike and Trek. It’s a conscious decision for me. If I have the opportunity to choose something else, I do. I ride a Cervelo Team Soloist and Vittoria shoes. Any other sports related clothing is usually Adidas (probably no better at corporate behavior than Nike, but they do stoopid shit in a foreign language so I remain blissfully ignorant).
I’ve been wanting to get out of Dysfunction Junction for a long, long time now. This town has never felt like “home” to me, and it just keeps getting worse. The locals here are so very right right-wing, sort of like Bibleburg without the high IQ’s. Some of the biggest Tea Party rallies in the country are held right here, in a town of 50,000. Tell you something? I was once fired from a (bike shop) gig here just for the sole reason that I wasn’t Christian, how Christian is that? (“You’re doing a good job, we just don’t like you.”) I’d just like to move somewhere where I don’t have to watch what I say in public, is that asking too much?
Well, this place is making it easier for me to leave. Grand Junction has lately been making the top ten of most lists of the worst places to find a job. Unemployment here went in a matter of months from being the lowest in the state to the highest. Oh, and I’m unemployed; in fact, I haven’t found a real steady job since I graduated from the local po-dunk college a few years back.
My far better half has now graduated, so there ain’t much keeping us here. Except that prospects aren’t much better anywhere else. Still, my hope is that by the end of this year we’ll be somewhere else…finally. I’ll miss the good road riding though, but not much else.
And I won’t be going for a road ride today…it just started snowing.
What’s the job market in Santa Fe like anyway?
Santa Fe is pretty expensive and bimodal–the rich imports vs. the locals. I don’t hear anyone saying much about Santa Fe-Fe being a bastion of jobs so much as being a bastion of liberals looking out for themselves.
A good friend in high tech just got laid off in Albuquerque, which is a lot more of a real city with real industry. But until we pull out of this economic power dive, I don’t know what to say about jobs. My neighbor just got hired on up here as a rad control technician as we are taking down one of the old, retired plutonium facilities (TA-21), but she was hired by a subcontractor, not the Laboratory. Its hit or miss.
As far as Austin? I recently spoke to one of our mass spec industry insiders about my choice to stay in the Land of Entrapment. He said that they are having trouble keeping people working in Austin (or recruiting same) since the high tech boom has brought on high prices and the urban congestion that long time Austinites rebel against with those “Keep Austin Weird” t-shirts. The advantages to Austin would have been being back in an academic geology department and living in a real city. The disadvantages would be living in a real city on an academic salary and dealing with pollution, ozone, ever expanding suburbs, scorching summers, driving culture, and being surrounded by Texas–Austin must be our version of living in West Berlin during the Cold War. Not to mention, its strict leash laws. Here in BombTown, our hounds (and my mountainbikes) have the run of the mesas and canyons as long as they come when they are called–kinda like O’G’s dogs had in Weirdcliffe. And my wife has a really good job here as a technical writer and editor and balked at leaving it.
Los Alamos is basically a great place to live, and when one wants to escape the Hill, its a short drive to places like Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos. Talking my far better half into moving to TX was basically a lost cause once she spent a week there house-hunting and getting the lay of the land. Sigh…
By the way, y’all (see, I spent a week in TX) ought to come down to the League National Rally this summer in Albuquerque 3-6 June. Go here:
http://www.bikeleague.org/conferences/Rally10/index.php
Khal: Yeah, I’ve got a Keep Austin Weird hat.
You described Austin perfectly. The charm wears off really fast. You’ve either gotta show up with a ton of money, be making a ton of money, or you’re stuck way out in North Pflugerville with a 30 minute one-way commute that turns into an hour because of traffic. I can do that in the PetroMetro.
I guess home is where the job, the family, and the real estate are.
Santa Fe is the original nice place to visit if you know how to do it on the cheap. Living there costs a ton, same as any other spot the People of Money find nifty (Sedona, Aspen, Jackson Hole, and so on). The working stiffs who clean up after the Lucky Sperm Club can’t afford to live in The City Different — they come in from Pecos, Pojoaque, Española, wherever — and their resentment is both palpable and understandable.
While Herself and I were still in residence there back in the late Eighties/early Nineties, I occasionally got a taste of the uneasiness the Prods must have felt when my poteen-swilling, bog-trotting, ring-kissing ancestors shot them the stinkeye. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that a bunch of grumpy New Mexicans lopped off a snooty governor’s head and played soccer with it. The IRA would have approved.
Jeff, I am dying laughing at your last post, re: North Pflugerville. We actually saw an advertisement for a nice, inexpensive home in Pflugerville and decided to drive out to see it. Well, we started driving…and driving…and driving…and driving…and shit, pretty soon we were half fucking way to Oklahoma and still headed north! That kinda chilled the mood. I started calculating whether I would want to bike to work from that burb, too.
When we finally got to Pflugerville, it was a Twilight Zone experience. I expected to see some weird guy sitting on the steps of the Public Library with a stopwatch and a broken set of glasses.
Sadly, I really liked the UT campus and people and we did see a nice place on 47th and Red River–and briefly thought about mortgaging the farm and left testicle to buy it. This decision broke my heart.
Patrick nailed it with his description of The City Indifferent, aka, The People’s Republic of Santa Fe. As a kid of blue collar parents, sans degrees, who clawed my way up the fish ladder by wits, luck, and summer jobs, I have little in common with the Lucky Sperm Club and a lot in common with those who doubt its sincerity. I see little use for liberalism when it is drenched in entrenched class structure rather than eliminating same.
Santa Fe doesn’t sound much different than Santa Barbara, CA. I’m lucky enough to have in-laws who live there and for some reason, let me come visit with my wife whenever we like. Certainly a very stratified place with the rich folks and those who serve them. On the road on bicycles, there are two kinds of obnoxious motorists — the guy in the big german sedan who wants to get to his business meeting or the guy in the beat up pickup truck with the pool cleaning supplies in back — as some bozo on the road on a bicycle you’re having fun (obviously not working like them) and in their way as they’re doing important work. A fine place (especially weather-wise) to enjoy cycling for a week or two each winter, but I tire of it pretty quickly after that. Our weather in Viterbo right now is kinda crappy but when we do get out on the bike, the motorists are much more friendly overall. I have a tough time thinking of an ideal place to live in the USA..but I’m sure there are some of you who have found it…and probably want to keep it quiet to avoid all kinds of other jokers showing up to ruin it for you!
More and more of the U.S. is stratified into neofeudal society–the Big Beemer crowd and the battered pickup truck are good symbols. And those at the bottom, busily digging their own economic graves by supporting jobs in China and being anti-union, don’t know that the people they vote for, aka the Senator from Squibb and the Senator from Mobil, are the ones picking their pockets. I hate to think of what is going to happen this Election Day, with know-nothingism being a growth commodity.
You think you might need any help with those bike tours, Larry? I can resurrect my Italian pretty quickly.
Oh boy, if we’re all moving to Europe, count me in. I spent three months last year living in a small village near the German/Switzerland border, and I loved it. Being entirely of German descent, I just felt at home with such an efficient, competent people… and of course bicycles were everywhere.
Larry, Santa Barbara has always felt just the way you described to me as well – I liked coming here at Christmas to visit my girlfriend’s family, but couldn’t really see staying much longer. But now I’ve somehow ended up LIVING here, and I’m not yet sure if that’s a good thing.
Khal, I like your neofeudal concept, it is an interesting way to look at things. What of those of us who are trying to drop out of it entirely by scorning both sides? Where will we be headed over the next few decades? I realized after doing my taxes last week that my income has still never matched my career high of $20K/year in 2004 back in the Midwest. I’m hovering in the mid-teens and have been since 2005, but what’s really funny is that my quality of life – and savings – just keeps improving. I’ve just figured out that when I decided that consumerism isn’t desirable, I became much happier; I’m neither the guy in the BMW trying to afford that giant mansion, nor the guy in the little truck trying to afford whatever America is trying to sell me. Instead, I’m just a guy who enjoys things money can’t buy – like the outdoors, good company, and thoughts. Of course, whether this trajectory will serve me well in the long term remains to be seen. Here’s hoping – I’m not willing to throw away the present on what “the establishment” tells me to do about the future.
Heard Prez Ford’s old haunts in Vail are up for sale. Just south of $13M. If I can just scrounge up the remaining $12.98M, it’s mine.
I try not to pay attention to celebrity gossip, but the Tiger story is important not because of the story itself but because of our reactions. It’s one of those events that clearly demonstrates we are not a rational species. Some guy you’ve never met and who’s path you will never cross “owes” any of us an apology? A bunch of yahoos who will never sit down to a beer with Tiger offering their advice on what he should do?
Pat Moynihan once said, we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. Clever line, but dead wrong. We’re not entitled to opinions on things that don’t impact or involve us. I don’t get to have an opinion as to whether the Large Hadron Collider will generate a black hole. It’s just not my lane. And the idea that everyone should voice an opinion on what Tiger should or shouldn’t do just strikes me as hillarious.
I’d love it if Tiger would randomly pick names out of the phone book and offer unsolicited advice. “While I have the mike, let me say, Dirk McPherson in Butt, Nebraska has the ugliest fooking kids I’ve ever seen. And that color he just slapped on his shutters doesn’t go with the base color at all. What was he thinking?” But the irony would be missed by just about everyone.
As Harry Callahan said, “opinions are like assholes; everybody has one”
Joey:
You’ve got it!
I hear that there are some absolutely awesome places to live in Central and South America where, if you can keep your consumerism gene from becoming dominant, life is pretty beautiful–especially when you’re too old to take care of yourself. As one example (I have others, but this one sums it up) I had a client who will retire in a couple of years to a small town in a country that flag waving, bible thumping Americans would consider an enemy. She is American–not a native of the country. She lived there as a young adult and goes back to visit often. Here in the US, she’s considered working middle class. Because she has some experience there and friends there, she knows that she can retire there on money that wouldn’t last five years here in the U.S., and the care there is not just adequate, but it’s provided as a way to honor the old and infirmed–it may not be state of the art, but it’s given in a way that makes you feel comfortable as you get older and finally pass on. Man, what’s wrong with that?
In America, if you don’t eat steak and wings for breakfast, have your first heart attack at 55, retire at 60, take 17 different prescriptions, play golf, bang ’til you’re 90, and die painlessly in a gilded bed in the corner suite of the Beverly Hills Senior Care Center, well, you’ve failed pretty miserably according to every commercial I’ve ever seen.
Khal: Sorry you made it to Pflugerville. Glad you made it back. Did you notice the signs for Del Webb’s Sun City in Georgetown? http://pulte.com/delwebb/communities/tx/georgetown/sun-city-texas/index.aspx That’s the same Del Webb from Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Oh, the irony.
No, we missed those signs–thankfully. But we did take Dessau Road all the way back into town. Actually looked like there might be some livable places there, but nothing I would tear my heart out for. Central Austin or bust, and I guess it was bust…
I assume your friend lives in either Nicaragua or Venezuela? Shit, those “flag waving, bible thumping Americans” consider all the blue states to be the enemy.
Joey, you’ve just described ny situation to a “T”. It’s easy to afford a nice house here in Wisc, and we live within 15 minutes of 3 State Parks with XC skiing, MT bike trails and great hiking. My wife’s obsessed with orchids & me with guitars, otherwise we don’t spend a lot. When we get a hankerin’ to road trip, we head to Door County, to Minnesota, or “up Nort” with the bikes. Of course there’s the Winter to deal with, but that sucker’s almost over, ain’t it?
Central Austin is quite nice.
South Austin and East Austin used to be the funky, scary, artsy, crazy parts where the housing was cheap. It may still be funky, but I don’t think it’s cheap anymore.
I used to ride my bike to work some days from Austin TO Pflugerville. It was a warehouse job, so smelling bad after a 30 mile commute wasn’t an issue. I was nearly purposefully run over by a dump truck on Dessau–dude chased me into a parking lot to finish me off when he realized his probation would probably be revoked if they found bike and body parts stuck to his truck. And there would have been witnesses. I never rode Dessau again.
Jezuz, Jeff. I thought they had right to carry laws in TX just to take care of people like that dump truck driver.
Texas does have carry laws–concealed weapons even. But at the time, I was a recent college grad without much money, so even a small pistol and a little ammo was outside of my budget. At the time, I was still in my “bike industry” phase–$6 an hour and all the Power Bars I could eat for wholesale plus 10%.