A baritone storyteller who began with voiceovers on radio and TV, Nordine would go on to collaborate with Tom Waits, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and others.
He once said that the goal of his poetry was to “make people think about their thinking and feel about their feeling, but even more important to think about their feeling and feel about their thinking.”
I think he succeeded. Whenever I’d hear that impossibly deep voice softshoe out of my radio and into my head, I’d stop whatever I was doing and pay attention. They’re nodding and yessing and popping their fingers at Next World Coffee this morning.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin’ shoes.
Man, it seems I’m not the only person with a bad case of the Februaries.
Bicycle Retailer’s Steve Frothingham is at Frostbike in Minnesota, but it’s not a social call, and seems unlikely to break a streak of two weeks without exercise.
“S’what’s on the menu this evening?” I asked yesterday. “Partying with industry leaders?”
“Typing,” he replied.
Adventure Cyclist‘s Nick Legan, meanwhile, was riding that fabled Road to Nowhere in Colorado and looking forward to the Roll Massif, which will be conducted outdoors, with any luck at all in warmer weather.
Ooo, datsa baaaaaaad ol’ puddy tat. | Photo by Hal Walter
“I was on the trainer myself,” he said. “Tried distracting myself from the misery with intervals and a movie. Worked in some respects, didn’t in others.”
Up Weirdcliffe way, Hal Walter was dealing with single-digit temps, wind, and writer’s block in what he called “the worst winter in recent memory.”
He was also keeping a weather eye out for unwelcome company. When I asked what made those tracks, he replied, “Something that could eat you.”
Me, I was making my own tracks. I put on my sailin’ shoes — along with fleece-lined tights, two Patagucci long-sleeved shirts, an old ShaverSport wind jacket, tuque, and gloves — and lumbered off into a strong southerly wind that bore nary a whiff of sun-splashed desert.
I hit some sort of weirdo thermocline just past the turnaround and set about unzipping this and unbuttoning that. But by the time I’d left the trail and hit the short paved stretch leading home I was freezing my huevos off again.
It wasn’t what I’d call fun, but it was exercise, and some days that’s enough. Still, if you must run, don’t forget to take your Little Feat with you.
Doctor, doctor, well, I feel so bad
This is the worst day I ever had
He said, Have you this misery a very long time?
Well, if you ill, I’ll lay it on the line
You’ve got to put on your sailin’ shoes
Put on your sailing shoes
Everyone will start to cheer
When you put on your sailin’ shoes
Looking west from El Rancho Pendejo. Somewhere over the horizon Flagstaff is taking another pounding.
Yahweh is supposed to have another go at us over the next couple of days, and then the weather is expected to return to something more in keeping with late February in the upper reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, which is to say sunny and warmish.
Meanwhile, DeeCee is getting all hot and bothered over rumors that it will be Mueller Time almost any second now, no shit, really, this time we’re not kidding, it’s for reals, duck and cover, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.
Can you imagine how many Old Wise Heads will explode if he hits us with the prosecutorial equivalent of “Heckuva job, Trumpie?” Or if the Justice League buries the report down at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant with a 24/7 guard of Terminators? Maybe has China express-mail the sucker to the far side of the moon?
“The public is welcome to inspect the report there,” says Justice Department media liaison Phuq Yu. “We are nothing if not transparent.”
Base camp at the overflow area in McDowell Mountain Regional Park, circa 2004.
It’s been a chilly, damp winter in Albuquerque, which isn’t saying much.
Still, it grates after a while, and never more so than during February, a month that is simultaneously too short and too long.
Herself has been to Costa Rica, the neighbors just fled to Mexico, and some other friends beat feet all the way to France.
And yet here I sit (no, this is not a poem, and it is specifically not that poem), rattling the bars on my window of opportunity and losing arguments with the voices in my head.
I’ve written often and at length about my irrational hatred for February, and I was getting set to do it again when I realized, “Hey, I’ve written often and at length about my irrational hatred for February. Why don’t I turn it into a podcast?”
Which I did. This is it. You’re welcome. Now hand me the snow shovel on your way out, would you? I want to smack myself in the head with it.
P L A Y R A D I O F R E E D O G P A T C H
• Editorial notes: The “Mad Dog Unleashed” column headlined “On the Road Again: Frown Lines Search for a Few Tan Lines,” which is my onion at the bottom of this bitter pot of bitch stew, first appeared in the February 2004 issue of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. My line about February having roots in the French “febrile” is, as you may already know, complete and utter bullshit. The Cactus Cup has returned to McDowell Mountain Regional Park since that 2004 column — this year’s edition is slated for March 8-10. And finally, did you know that Peter “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow, pedal steel player for The Flying Burrito Brothers, was also a visual-effects artist and stop-motion animator who worked on “Gumby?” Neither did I.
• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica AT2035 microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. I edited in Apple’s GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro, adding audio acquired through fair means and foul via Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack (no profit was taken in an admittedly casual approach to various copyrights). Speaking of which, the pedal steel riff that closes the episode is from Merle Haggard’s “White Line Fever,” as performed by The Flying Burrito Brothers on their eponymous 1971 album. The background music is “Trapped” from Zapsplat.com. And the rewind sound is courtesy of TasmanianPower at Freesound.org.
Chili and cornbread, with a fake beer for a fake newsman.
The wind was howling like all the banshees in Ireland and the weather wizards were making snow noises, so last night I cooked a basic chili con carne to stave off pneumonia, chilblains, and the Galloping Never-Get-Overs.
This recipe, from Melissa Clark at The New York Times, is a favorite. It calls for ground lamb, white beans and poblanos, but I went with ground chicken thighs, pintos, and a mix of green bell peppers and Hatch chile.
And this morning is as you see.
Naturally there are onions, garlic, ground Hatch red chile, jalapeños, cumin, coriander, Mexican oregano and other bits of this and that.
This version is not nearly as richly flavored as the original, and for that I blame the chicken thighs. Ground turkey thighs might have been a better substitute, but that would have meant a trip to Keller’s, where the vast meat counter encourages deficit spending.
Likewise, poblanos would have been preferable to the bell peppers, but roasting them in that wind might have brought the fire marshals.
Herself contributed some delicious cornbread and a green salad (not pictured) fortified with clementine segments to ward off scurvy.
Beans and cornbread don’t always fight. Sometimes they go hand in hand, like corned beef and cabbage.
Mad Blog Media 