And now, a literary moment

October 20, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

The other day when I mentioned ASO’s Tour de France route announcement and Apple’s impending MacBook Air proclamation I neglected to mention the third leg of this consumer trifecta, the release of a new Thomas McGuane novel.

As it was cheaper than a ticket to France to chase dope fiends around in person or a new laptop to chase dope fiends around from home I dashed straight out and bought the sonofabitch. And not from Amazon, either. An actual working stiff from Bibleburg sold me my copy. Thus I support local industry while lashing a few pennies into the city’s dwindling sales-tax coffers.

Over the years I have admired (and shamelessly lifted) many a McGuane line:

“I am on top of the earth and I don’t work for the government.”

“The lady doesn’t marry the carpenter unless he’s got a second home in Santa Monica or a two-foot dick.”

“I feel sorry for the young people of today with their stupid fucking tuneless horseshit; that may be a generational judgment but I seriously doubt it.”

That sort of thing. When he’s not cranking out the Great Flyover Country Novel he writes a great essay, too. “Me and My Bike and Why,” about an impulsive motorcycle purchase, is simply one of the best things I’ve ever read, period. You can find it in “An Outside Chance: Essays On Sport.”

While you’re buying that one, pick up a copy of “Ninety-Two In the Shade,” which is said to be an autobiographical account of McGuane’s days as Captain Berserko. And don’t forget “Nothing But Blue Skies,” which is that rare McGuane novel with what appears to be a hint of a whisper of a twitch of a happy ending.

Hell, buy his whole catalog. It’s cheaper than a Cupertino paperweight, and a weak McGuane (and there are a couple) is still better than nine-tenths of The New York Times best-seller list.

Scared strait

October 19, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

Hello, Comrade Yeti, me love you long time. — Zdravstvuĭte, tovarishch Yeti, me love you long time.

Ho, ho. The brownshirts who cuffed one journo’ and tried to intimidate a couple more during a Joe Miller tea party at an Alaskan public school are apparently active-duty soldiers moonlighting without approval from their chain of command.

You’ll notice in the video still that one of these Nazis is giving the sieg heil with the wrong hand. Thirty days close arrest, Heinrich. If you’re lucky. Dis-miss.

What is it with Alaska, anyway? These Arctic Circle assholes suck the public sugar tit drier than a popcorn fart, like Nosferaturu locked onto a fat artery after a few hits of killer bud, then complain that they don’t like the taste.

What say we hire a few of these out-of-work fellas I hear so much about lately in the lower 48 to saw this frozen shithole off the continent and shove it across the Bering Strait to to Siberia, see how these freedom-loving dingbats like it over there? Love it or leave it, beeeyotch. Preferably the latter.

That lame-ass beard surrounding Miller’s smirking yap ought to look like porn-star poontang to some horny Russian yeti. Probably be the first time that mouth of his has been put to good use since his mama whelped him in a Kansas trash can.

Tour de meh

October 19, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments

Oboy, oboy, oboy — the route of the 2011 Tour de France is announced today and there’s an Apple proclamation slated tomorrow. My cup runneth over.

Well, actually, not so much. I don’t give a shit about the TdF, other than as a source of income. Cav’ wins all the sprints, the Schlecks win all the climbs, the Euskaltels hit the deck, there’s no time trialing to speak of and the winner tests positive for something you never heard of. There’s your Tour.

And if Apple announces a leaner, meaner and cheaper MacBook Air, as is widely expected, well, I don’t much care about that either. The old black MacBook seems to be ticking along, and if it croaks again and I need to leave the DogHaus to do a job of work there’s always the 12-inch G4 PowerBook, the 12-inch G3 iBook, the 14.1-inch G3 PowerBook … we got more Apples than the average Washington-state orchard, is what I’m sayin’.

Meanwhile, it’s a beautiful fall morning — 30-something, with a high in the mid-60s forecast. A guy with any brains would be out riding his bike. And if he did, he might see me out there riding mine, too.

Read, then rip

October 18, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

OK, so I’ve been trying very hard to ignore the dismal political news, but it’s a kind of gloomy Monday (ever seen any other kind?) and so I’ll just direct you over to Steve Benen’s Political Animal, where he seems to be running a News to Make You Pull off Your Own Head roundup.

Just start at the top and work your way down as far as you can bear it. But unload all your weapons first and give the ammo to a neighbor for safekeeping. Also, remove all breakable objects from your immediate vicinity.

Finally, should you decide to pull off your own head, congratulations! You are eligible for a leadership role in the Republican Party!

Don’t blink or you’ll miss your ass getting kicked

October 17, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

After all these years of covering bike racing, you’d think I’d quit being surprised by how friggin’ fast the Euro pros are — especially when it comes to cyclo-cross.

I watched today’s UCI World Cup kickoff via streaming video and I had to keep picking my jaw up off my belly button. Judas Priest. It was like the top-10 dudes were on rails and jet-propelled. Plus eight of them were bunny-hopping the barriers. Remember when it was unusual to see someone like Sven Nys riding the boards? Not any more, Bubba. If you can’t do it, you ain’t shit.*

Tim Johnson, who is not exactly a back-of-the-packer, finished 26th — more than three minutes down on winner Zdenek Stybar, who is world champ for a number of very good reasons. When he lit it up it was hasta la vista muchachos.

One of the best parts of watching the race online was hearing the squeal of cantilever brakes as the big boys damped a little velocity diving into an off-camber turn or a hairy descent. Fuck a bunch of disc brakes. What a real ’crosser wants going into a dicey bit is a little speed modulation. You want to stop, hit something. Or someone.

* Full disclosure: I can’t do it. Draw your own conclusions.