Some pigeons fly.
Others, not so much.
Share-cropping
Month: April 2019
Change of venue
A fella can only take so much news: payoffs to North Korea, measles making a comeback, and the relentless, all-hacks-on-deck pimping of Marvel’s “Avengers” finale.
AIn’t none of that shit goin’ on down to the bosque. So that’s where I went.
It was a beautiful day for averting one’s eyes from the ongoing collapse of civilization, with temps in the 60s and 70s, blue skies, and only the slightest wind.
Aboard the Rivendell Sam Hillborne I plunged down the usual route — Tramway, Roy, 4th, Guadalupe Trail and Alameda — to the bosque. But instead of hanging a left on the Paseo del Norte bike path and starting the 1,000-foot climb back to El Rancho Pendejo, as I had planned, I kept rolling.
Just past I-40 I picked up Mountain through Old Town, then headed for home via the North Diversion Channel Trail, Bear Arroyo-Osuna, Manitoba, and like that there.
It made for a pleasant, low-traffic 40-miler. And I had enough left in the tank to air the cats and mow the lawn when I got home.
The Cat on the Street interview
“Impeach him? Of course you impeach him. And convict him, if you haven’t been ‘fixed’ like the Turk, who by the way doesn’t think you ‘fixed’ anything by having his nuts cut off. They weren’t broken, f’chrissake. Not like the Senate’s, anyway. Talk about your nutless wonders.
“If this clown were a cat, we’d have hissed at him and swatted him and run his fat orange ass all the way back to New York by now.
“We’d have shit in Pelosi’s shoes, too. And barfed hairballs into the kneepads McConnell wears when he’s getting the Kentucky Meat Shower at those Federalist Society clusterfucks.
“And to think you call us pussies.”
It’ll all come out in the wash
The Wall Street Journal and Daring Fireball consider the clusterfuck that is the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
Ho, ho, etc.
Samsung didn’t give a rat’s ass about their top-loading clothes washers exploding like land mines in laundry rooms. What makes anyone think they’ll lose sleep over $2,000 smartphones that snap like Olive Garden bread sticks when the rubes try to fold them?
We owned a Samsung top-loader once and it became the subject of a Radio Free Dogpatch episode. After dogpaddling across that customer-service vale of tears I wouldn’t buy a life jacket from the sonsabitches if I were standing on the stern of a sinking ship in the North Atlantic, surrounded by sharks wearing bibs with my mugshot on them.
But I’m sure somebody would. And so is Samsung.
• Editor’s note: Speaking of washers, Kevin Drum explains that tariffs caused Americans to spend 12 percent more on these devices than they might have had Beelzebozo kept his big bazoo out of things he doesn’t understand, which is mostly everything. MAGA, etc.
The white-chinned mansplainers of spring
Must be spring. Herself has already spotted her first white-chinned mansplainer of 2019.
It was a busy weekend. One of Herself’s pals came to town on family business and on Friday they did an exercise class plus a trail run together. Then on Saturday she wanted to ride the bike for the first time this year, and so the two of us rolled around and about for a while.
Yesterday she joined a colleague and another woman for another, longer ride. And that’s when the white-chinned mansplainer flapped past, screeching its distinctive and decidedly off-key tune.
Like the black-chinned hummingbird, the white-chinned mansplainer is a sure sign of prime cycling weather. But while the hummers enjoy sipping nectar from flowers and feeders, the ’splainer prefers sticking his snotty little beak in your business.
Case in point: As Herself and a colleague were taking five on a Duke City bike path, waiting for the third member of their party to catch up, they spotted a white-chinned mansplainer rolling toward them.
This particular exemplar of the species was a geezer on a recumbent with a Chihuahua tucked into his vest, and Herself anticipated a prime opportunity to coo briefly over a cute little pocket pooch.
Alas, she lost interest after the geezer barked at them: “If you’re gonna stop you should get off the trail!”
Now, I’m told this bird had plenty of room to make a clean pass without threat to life, limb, or Chihuahua. Yet he felt compelled to sing his sour little song anyway, possibly because these were two women who seemed unlikely to slap his beak around to the other side of his head so he could squawk into his own ear and see how he liked it.
As a lifelong student of the bon mot and the righteous riposte I inquired whether they had replied that he should proceed elsewhere with all possible haste to consume excrement, enjoy carnal knowledge of himself, and perish. Herself said no, they hadn’t, but her buddy had flicked a soupçon of snark his way, “thanking” him for his unsolicited and oh-so-helpful advice.
Now, I don’t know much about other sports, but I’m certain ours has too many of these entitled old buzzards flapping around, shitting on everything and everyone in their path. I would not put it past them to drill chickens on the use of crosswalks. They certainly feel free to enlighten their fellow cyclists on a wide range of topics.
I encountered more than a few of these self-appointed bike cops during my Fred period. Happily, years of newspaper work had hardened my hide and I stuck it out instead of abandoning the sport for golf, bowling, or blackjack. By which I mean the use of an actual blackjack. One sap deserves another.
Not everyone is so tenacious. Some folks have a low threshold for gratuitous douchebaggery. Especially on Easter Sunday. I’ll wager Jesus wasn’t nearly so rude to the multitudes when he rode his dinosaur to Sunday school.
And yet we wonder why cycling fails to attract and retain new participants.
At least two of these women are in the market for new bicycles, and have cycling events penciled on their calendars. That’s good news for anyone who makes bikes, sells bikes, or writes about bikes. Just like this horizontal fart in a whirlwind is bad news for anyone condemned to those rackets.
Now, I know nobody in my crowd engages in this sort of appalling behavior. But if you know somebody who does, tell them in no uncertain terms to knock it the fuck off. Yapping at random strangers is the Chihuahua’s job.
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