Month: October 2016

Now we’re cookin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
"Is that an apple? May I have some?"
“Is that an apple? May I have some? That Man never lets me have anything good. And he beats me while you’re gone.”

Mister Boo is overjoyed that we’re back to business as usual around El Rancho Pendejo. That Lady Who Gives Him Things is making a fruit salad, and pieces of apple are rolling downhill.

Sweet dreams

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Mister Boo is overjoyed at the news of Herself's imminent return.
Mister Boo is overjoyed at the news of Herself’s imminent return.

Our long national nightmare is at an end.

I’m not talking about The Hilldebeast’s emails, which continue to be the gift that keeps on giving, even when they’re apparently not even hers. No, I’m talking about the imminent return to El Rancho Pendejo of Herself, who has been road-tripping for two weeks through Tennessee, Colorado and Utah.

Looking north from near the top of the Hillsdale Loop. To the south sits Interstate 40, which is a good deal less scenic.
Looking north from near the top of the Hillsdale Loop. To the south sits Interstate 40, which is a good deal less scenic.

The Boo will be ecstatic, or as close to that state as is Boo-manly possible (an excitable boy he is not).

Herself is the only human he really cares about. I am deemed suitable for short periods as a food delivery/excretion collection specialist (second class), but when she is around The Boo wouldn’t piss on me if I were on fire.

Oddly, though, his favorite spot for daytime naps — even if she’s home — is my office, just behind my chair. Go figure.

Meanwhile, yesterday in my capacity as commander of the 29er Jones Mechanized Infantry, I seized the Hillsdale Loop in the name of the people. Being a heavily armed elderly white guy I went unmolested by law enforcement. But I eventually gave it back anyway. Hey, somebody has to let The Boo out.

And finally, Khal checks in from scenic metropolitan Bombtown, where he is recovering from some medical experiments and limited to hollering at Siri via iPhone:

I am in an immobilization sling for another month so typing is “hunt and peck” with my left hand. Hence I don’t do too much of it.

It’s getting to the point where I might be able to take off the sling in a couple weeks to carefully work the right arm so might regain my voice, so to speak, and that will be a relief.

Probably no biking till January except on the stationary torture setup.

—K

P.S.: All the best to you and the gang.

 

The red, white and blue (and also, the brown)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
This dark chocolate sucked so much I could hardly eat it. Yet I managed, somehow.
This dark chocolate sucked so much I could hardly eat it. Yet I managed, somehow.

“America has become a dildo that has turned berserkly on its owner.” — Thomas McGuane, in “A Chat With a Novelist,” by Jim Harrison

The leaders and participants in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation got off scot-free yesterday. And if you had been following the occupation via TV and thought you saw crimes being committed, well, who you gonna believe — a jury of your alleged peers or your lyin’ eyes?

I’m thinking the wrong lawyer got tased after that verdict.

I’m also thinking that as long as these activities appear to be sanctioned by The People, I might just occupy a little feddle-gummint territory my own bad self, starting with the Denver Mint. And if any lesser authority should happen to complain about my collecting a few, um, souvenirs, well, I’ll just explain that they are sacred images of my ancestors.

Whoops, looks like that sacred-ancestors argument doesn’t work so well when made by the wrong kind of Americans. I like my pepper on the plate, not in my eyes, and delivered by a smiling server instead of a Terminator driving a tank.

Can we get a change of venue for all these cases? I’m thinking maybe Oregon.

Meanwhile, finally, something upon which all Americans can agree: Dark chocolate sucks.

Even so, it tastes miles better than some of the stuff we’ve been fed lately.

 

Fort Apache

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
Finally, a taste of actual fall weather.
Finally, a taste of actual fall weather.

I’m in Albuquerque, working on a bike review and watching it rain. Herself is bound for Mesa Verde on the next leg of her Gal Pals Getaway Tour.

And somewhere in the southern Arizona desert, the Three Percent United Patriots are making headlines, if only in Mother Jones magazine.

Anyone who has ever lived out where the hoot owls date the chickens has met at least one of these dudes. In Weirdcliffe it was the cowboy who claimed to have edibles and weaponry cached all over the Sangre de Cristos and inquired whether we would be “ready to kill” when it all went sideways and the “Mexicans” came boiling up Hardscrabble Canyon to … to … well, get the hell out of Pueblo, I suppose. And who could blame them?

I got the hell out of Pueblo. I also got the hell out of Weirdcliffe. And I’ve spent a little time in the Threepers’ AO, though I never saw one. (“If you saw them, sir, they weren’t Threepers.”)

Just once I would love to read about the lefty variation on these dudes. There has to be one, amirite? The Sedona Extremely Irregulars? The 69th Berkeley Berserkers? The 420th Humboldt County Doobie Brethren?

Or maybe that particular ship has sailed, or sunk.

Back in the Seventies, when I thought I was Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, the October League’s Denver chapter had just wrapped up another successful evening of smashing the State via withering rhetoric when a couple comrades mentioned that they used to be professional wrestlers.

“Bullshit,” someone said. And then they showed us, right there in the dark Denver alley. They were slamming each other into cars and up against walls, pounding each other with forearm smashes and trash-can lids, the works. It was entertaining as hell and absolutely nobody got hurt.

Then a window slammed open and someone advised us to shut the fuck up and we did. Shortly thereafter the revolution failed to materialize.