The prez didn’t score any points here in Dog Country with tonight’s Oval Office address. More later after we gargle a little tonsil polish to take the taste of bullshit out of our mouths.
Month: August 2010
Bon voyage, Professor
Laurent Fignon died today in Paris of cancer. He was all of 50 years old.
Most Americans remember him as the pony-tailed dude that Greg LeMond punked by eight seconds in the 1989 Tour. But Fignon had a fine career of his own, winning the Tour twice (1983-84) and the Giro once (1989), and taking the flowers in some memorable one-day races as well (Milan-San Remo in 1988-89, Fleche Wallonne in 1986 and Paris-Camembert in 1989). Seventy-six victories in all. Not bad for a French hippie.
Fignon later confessed to doping during his career, and wondered whether it might have had some role in his disease. In his book “We Were Young and Carefree” he wrote: “In those days everyone was doing it. But it is impossible to know to what extent doping harms you. Whether those who lived through 1998, when a lot of extreme things happened, will get cancer after 10 or 20 years, I really can’t say.”
Requiescat in pace, Professor.
Keep on truckin’
Happy birthday to expat cartoonist Robert Crumb from me and Tom Waits.
Our latest false prophet
Elmer Gantry, courtesy of Sinclair Lewis:
“Let me count this day, Lord, as the beginning of a new and more vigorous life, as the beginning of a crusade for complete morality and the domination of the Christian church throughout the land. Dear Lord, thy work is but begun! We shall yet make these United States a moral nation!”
And Glenn Beck, courtesy of (who else?) Glenn Beck:
“We are 12 hours away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. And it has nothing to do with this city or politics. It has everything to do with God Almighty.”
The Gantry soliloquy comes at the end of the book. Let’s hope Beck’s tale is likewise coming to a close.
Attack of the Killer Bicycle
OK, yeah, right, not a lot of O’Grady®-label content around here lately, apologies, sorry sorry sorry. A tip of the Mad Dog propeller beanie to everyone keeping the sound cranked up to 11 in the comments so none of the other WordPress blogs can get any sleep.
Herself is on the road, helping her kinfolk marry off a youngun (no first cousins were harmed in the making of this marriage, or so I’m told). Thus, for a few days now I’ve been on my own, which is never pretty, as I revert to bachelorhood at warp speed.
Lacking adult supervision, I know that there is still a place for everything, but that place has become the floor. No one in authority suggests the use of the inside voice during attempts at debt collection. Meals tend to be infrequent, unheated and taken over the sink, and the only laundry that gets done involves colorfully sublimated Lycra.
An extra added attraction this time around is that my road bike tried to assassinate me, a titanium Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo to my all-too-vulnerable Don Vito Corleone, knowing that in Herself’s absence nobody had my back.
The treacherous titanium two-wheeler put me into a Death Wobble on a descent on Wednesday and I only survived the assault thanks to the intervention of the Blessed Virgin of Hell Is Full and Satan Is Busy But Your Call Is Important To Us And Will Be Answered In the Order In Which It Was Received.
Either that or the cats implored their dark lord to spare the hairy-legged roadie, if only until The Chosen One returns from West Texas. They have yet to master the filling of the dish and the emptying of the litter box.
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