If you prick us, do we not leak?

August 28, 2016August 28, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

Flats. Gah, etc.

The goatheads are after me again. Seems as though I can go for months without a puncture and then suddenly it’s pow, pow, pow. Or, more accurately, pssssshhhhhhh, hissssssssss, fyyyyisssssss.

This rhymes with “bliss,” but is not synonymous.

The smart Duke City cyclist runs goo-filled inner tubes or some tubeless setup to avoid needless pedestrianism. But as you know I will never be smart, so I generally wait for a puncture to replace a standard tube with a gooey one. And sometimes even then I’ll just patch the hole and drive on.

If cycling were really the new golf I’d have a caddy to do this for me, or some sycophantic huckster eager for my thoughts on his notion for a left-handed smartphone. “Just try to keep up, punk,” I’d sneer, and of course he couldn’t. It’s a Mad Dog-eat-dog world.

Yesterday I found a slow leak in the rear tire of the Sam Hillborne — it’s always the rear, isn’t it? — and instead of taking the usual half measures I instantly replaced both inner tubes with goopy tubes. Take that, goatheads. Y’pricks.

Dislike

August 26, 2016August 26, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

You see any pie up there? Yeah, me neither.

OK, I admit that I don’t understand business, beyond the basics (buy cheap, sell dear).

That said, how does giving $10 million in state economic development funding to Facebook — yes, that Facebook, the one worth $350 billion — constitute good business for the state of New Mexico, which faces a projected shortfall for the current budget year of $458 million?

The deal to bring a data center to Los Lunas would also, according to the Albuquerque Journal:

• Guarantee Facebook 1.5 million gallons of water per day.

• Reimburse the sixth most valuable company in America for up to 75 percent of gross tax revenues from the center’s construction and operation.

• Waive property taxes for more than 30 years.

All for “up to” 300 construction jobs over seven years and 50 “permanent” jobs, which we know are anything but as restless gazillionaires in search of a better deal make struggling localities scrap like dumb dogs over an old bone.

As I said, I don’t understand business. And I know New Mexicans need jobs. But wouldn’t Los Lunas be better served in the long run by courting companies that love us for what we are, and might still respect us in the morning?

Sturm und Drang

August 23, 2016August 23, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

The weatherman expects welcome moisture through the weekend before the inevitable warming and drying trend resumes.

The so-called monsoons have been washing away the memory of a too-hot July as August heads for the barn.

Mornings are nice and cool — just 61 at the moment — and the afternoon highs have been topping out in the upper 70s, with the rains rolling in around dinnertime. This is hard to beat, I don’t mind telling you.

Also hard to beat is Ronald McDonald McTrump, mostly because he has that pesky Secret Service detail frisking everyone for blackjacks, ax handles and baseball bats. Agent Orange just keeps bouncing around the country from rally to rally, not so much campaigning as entertaining, which makes me wonder whether he’s really after the presidency. Could he instead be pursuing some sort of honky media empire based on the WWF/WWE model of raising a fine crop of money in a carefully tended bed of fresh bullshit?

Think about it. As Stephen K. Miller noted over at National Review back in April, “Pro wrestling’s biggest stage was where Donald Trump the political populist was born.”

In pro wrestling you have good guys, bad guys and crooked referees. Nicknames abound (Little Marco, Macho Man, Lyin’ Ted, Jake the Snake). Everyone knows the game is rigged, but who cares? It’s showtime, baby!

God knows there’s not much to watch down at Konrad’s Kountry Klavern these days. They could use a little uplifting Christian entertainment. The teevee’s full to bustin’ with mud people, Jews, homos, trannies and smarties (they’re the worstest). Where are Joe Friday and Bill Gannon, Ozzie and Harriet, Ed Sullivan and Topo Gigio? (OK, so that was just a little gay.)

You’ll know I was right if at the first debate El Trumpo body-slams the Hilldebeast, Megyn Kelly smacks Gwen Ifill with a folding chair, and money rains down from the ceiling. Katie bar the door!

Feed-and-read zone

August 21, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

The fabled Three Pepper Hash, topped with two eggs over easy and a side of Lucky Irish Breakfast tea with lemon and honey. — The fabled Three Pepper Hash, topped with two eggs over easy, an English muffin, and a mug of Lucky Irish Breakfast tea with lemon and honey.

And on the seventh day … well, he didn’t exactly rest.

There was dog-walking, and cooking (my fabled Three Pepper Hash for breakfast). Both lawn and skull received a vigorous clipping. You get the idea.

But there was no cycling today. I could’ve squeezed in a short ride before the weather uglied up, maybe, possibly, but I didn’t feel like it, so there.

If there’s a downside to inactivity, it’s that I have more time for reading. Thus I present:

• “How Can America Recover From Donald Trump?” From the NYT editorial page, where someone is having a good deal of fun writing hand-wringing editorials lately.

• “‘Racialists’ are cheered by Trump’s latest strategy.” Not nearly as fun a read, but hey — we’re talking about the button-down klavern here. I remember when the sonsabitches wore sheets instead of seersucker. From The Washington Post.

• “Does Henry Kissinger Have a Conscience?” From The New Yorker. I expect you already know the answer.

The news just repeats itself

August 19, 2016August 19, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 27 Comments

https://youtu.be/p9BRia7J9P4

Now and then I miss working in a newsroom. This is not one of those times.

Most days, daily journalism is like any other gig, only more so. Hours of tedium interrupted by moments of pandemonium.

But news in the era of what Charlie Pierce calls He, Trump, is a whole other ballgame. It’s like trying to sip delicately from a fire hose hooked to a septic tank. It can’t be done, and nobody should have to try, not even for money.

And certainly not for free.

Instead I’ve been trying — and mostly succeeding — in paying attention to the bicycle, may God save her and all who sail in her.

There’s Bicycle Retailer‘s big 25th-anniversary celebration, for example. I need to dash off a column and cartoon on that topic, which shouldn’t be too much of a stretch, seeing as I’ve had 25 years of practice.

And I’ve ridden four different bikes in four days — Sam Hillborne, Steelman Eurocross, Soma Saga, Jones Steel Diamond — and loved every minute of it. Well, not every minute — the Steelman’s low end of 36×26 is a tad tall on steep, sandy single-track for an auld fella — but still, it beats perching in front of the Mac, letting the shit monsoon wash over me.

This morning I got up, grabbed some coffee, and when Herself went out to walk The Boo, I shut off NPR’s “Morning Edition” and started playing some John Prine instead. Sometimes a fella needs a little country to restore his faith in a bigger one.