I almost forgot to pass along the word that John Crandall’s Old Town Bike Shop has once again been named the top local bike shop in the Colorado Springs Independent‘s Best of 2010 issue.
And Colorado Running Company recently scored a featurette in the Gazette noting (albeit belatedly) its 10th anniversary plus the opening of a second location up north in the Industrial Christianity Zone. CoRunCo is managed by longtime Dog John “Usuk” O’Neill, who is another portly Irish-American tosspot cluttering up the local sporting scene with his opinions on this, that and the other.
It's a damp fall morning in Bibleburg, and happily for us, all our worldly goods are inside.
The gods are bowling. We can hear them up there like so many really big Lebowskis trying to convert a 7-10 split. And somebody up there must’ve spilled his beverage, because we’re getting our first precip’ in the better part of quite some time. Hallelujah. A trail ride these days leaves my bike coated with a fine brown dust and sets me to wheezing.
The boisterous young swine who apparently have been evicted from the crumbling rental across the alley will not welcome a bracing rain, however. A crew of laborers spent the past few days piling their goods in the tiny back yard, and a mighty big pile it was, too.
The owner has a tragic history and according to Rumor Control was no better at picking husbands than she is at picking tenants. We’ve seen quite a parade of folks come and go at her rental property, most of them night-crawling yowlers who remind me very much of me at a certain age, only with more tattoos. Dogs were much in evidence, and once a child, but mostly it was a progression of shaggy young men with no visible means of support.
The cops paid a visit to the place recently, flanked by a fire truck and ambulance, and shortly thereafter the inhabitants vanished, leaving strangers to stack their worldly goods outdoors. A metal bed frame disappeared overnight, as did a bicycle. A battered Hotpoint range, boxes of cassette tapes and magazines, a stained mattress and a scattering of clothes remained when we sneaked a peek this morning.
They weren’t there for long, though. Word spread and a flock of scavengers in pickup trucks spent most of the morning picking through the refuse for objets d’art. Looks like the recession still has its hooks in some folks, no matter what The Wall Street Journal says.
Last but not least came the trash truck for the items nobody else wanted, even for free. There’s something kind of sad about that.
Still, there’s also something to be said for walking away from a fuck-up instead of packing it along with you like luggage. Here’s another bit of Thomas McGuane, from “Something To Be Desired.” Lucien Taylor and his estranged father are indulging in a bit of unauthorized camping, and as many things do in a McGuane novel, it ends badly.
His father circled the tent slowly, digging a finger into his disordered hair, inventorying the camp, the camp that a few days ago had been erected as a gateway to an improved world.
“We’re looking at under a hundred bucks,” said his father, standing at their camp. “Let’s walk away from it.”
Author and former New York Times reporter Tim Egan has apparently visited Bibleburg and observed the splash from the corporate money shot released by the strong right arm of the Roberts court. Here’s hoping he was wearing his raincoat.
You want to bend over for Fox News pimp Roger Ailes, fine. Just don’t try to give NPR a handjob while you’re assuming the position.
Juan Williams got the ax from NPR on Wednesday and the only question I have regarding the matter is, “Why did it take so long?” This wasn’t the first instance in which Williams farted higher than his ass, as NPR chief exec Vivian Schiller noted in an e-mail to affiliates, and his outrage — particularly given that Ailes promptly offered him a new three-year contract pegged at nearly $2 million — makes me laugh out loud.
In an essay on FoxNews.com, Williams says:
“This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air). This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.”
Ho, ho. A $2 million gulag. Send me there pronto. I can talk out of my ass as well as Williams can.
I had just wrapped up a bit of leaf-raking this afternoon and was vigorously applying water to what serves us as a lawn when my friend, neighbor and bicycle adviser John Crandall of Old Town Bike Shop rolled by to exchange pleasantries.
John, as you may recall, was involved in a horrific bike-auto accident a year and some months back, and in his recovery has suffered the trials of Job. He has been carved like a Thanksgiving turkey (and more than once); had parts installed and replaced; taken steps backward as well as forward; and endured physical therapy that would make the Grand Inquisitor say, “Aw, c’mon, guys, ease up.”
And now he’s cycling again, on the road; has been for a couple of weeks. Ten miles is a good day. He’s trying to figure out whether he can still ride a motorcycle, which must be an agonizing decision for a throttle-twister of some four decades’ standing.
But at least John is back on the bike. I should’ve taken a picture. He looked so happy.
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