Zoom, off we go for another circuit of Old Sol. Here’s hoping it’s not the bell lap. If it is, I don’t think I’m gonna finish in the money.
The birthday bash was low-key. A couple of phone calls and texts, a few choruses of “Happy Birthday,” and a great big ol’ green chile cheeseburger with bacon, white cheddar, and fries at the Range Cafe. This is something I’d never cook for myself, so yay, etc.
That’s a lot of comics rat there, Skeezix.
Herself, knowing my history with comics, scored me the collected “Watchmen,” by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. I was a superhero fiend early on, starting with DC and moving on to Marvel, then diverted to the underground comics for some years before losing track of the medium for an extended period.
When “Watchmen” came along in the mid-Eighties I was into changing newspapers like underwear and racing bicycles, and never heard a peep about it. I found Zack Snyder’s movie incomprehensible — Terry Gilliam had been tapped to direct but deemed the comic “unfilmable” and bailed — but I loved the HBO miniseries, so I’m looking forward to examining the original source material.
Got the 68-minute bike ride in on the trails around Elena Gallegos Open Space, and was lucky to escape unscathed for another lap of the sun. It looked like the Big I at the cocktail hour on Friday, is what.
Of course, back when I was still a man, instead of whatever it is that I am now, I would’ve ridden my age in miles, not minutes. But the rides were shorter then, and didn’t burn quite so much daylight.
Hell, I didn’t get my burger on until 2 in the peeyem as it was. If I’da gone for 68 miles I’da been having it for breakfast this morning.
Wowsah. One minute it’s icicles on the wisteria, the next it’s SPF 70 on the arms and legs.
Yesterday was my first outing sans arm and knee warmers this spring. Didn’t even bother to bring ’em along. As a consequence this morning I am a slightly darker shade of pale. In selected PG locations, anyway.
Chihuahua.
Elsewhere, the weather remains unsettled. Finding Ukraine unwilling to roll over and play dead, Voldemort Poutaine, the old commie spook whose military education apparently began and ended with World War II, may be inclined to declare victory and settle for trying to choke down a smaller bite of the country that he’s been chewing on for a while now.
Then again, his purse dogs keep yapping about Dropping the Big One to See What Happens. So, let’s not start dancing the Hopak just yet.
Meanwhile, the less said about the Ketanji Brown Jackson job interview, the better. Jesus H., etc. How Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley can take three steps in public without getting kicked in the nuts remains a mystery to me.
No wonder everyone wants legal weed these days. The whiskey isn’t doing the job.
Oh, well. Today we’re looking at a high of 76° (!), so I can apply another layer of color to my carcass. But if Pat O’B ventures out today he’s gonna need a space suit. Tucson hit 90° about five days early this year and it’s only gonna get hotter.
We got a little smooch from the gods as they thundered eastward to kick the shit out of Texas. Rained all day Monday, then started snowing overnight.
The Mad Dog Weather Widget says we got slightly less than half an inch, and we will take it, thank you very much, if only to keep the dust and pollen out of our snouts and eyeballs for a little while. Shoutout to Thor and Mjolnir for not taking the roof off en route.
Elsewhere, the water news is not as cheery. Reporting from the University of Utah’s Stegner Symposium on the Colorado River Compact, John Fleck notes, among other things, that:
Colorado River Basin water users are currently consuming 14-15 million acre feet of water from a river that for the 21st century has averaged 12.3 million acre feet.
Lake Powell is sinking toward “minimum power pool” – its lowest level since filling in the 1960s.
Summer drying is making it harder for snowpack the following winter to make it to headwaters rivers.
Hey Zeus, etc. “The crisis situation on the river made for some pointed conversations,” says Fleck, and I believe him.
“Would you like a whiskey with your wee-wee?”
“Yes, please.”
“Sorry, it takes water to make whiskey. It’s straight wee-wee for you, pal. Shall I catheterize you or would you prefer to sample our Wee-wee of the Week? This week it’s Pima Pee, and yes, we stole it.”
Signposts are few and far between in the Deadline Forest.
I am a creature of the Deadline.
When I was cartooning for my high school and college newspapers in the Seventies the Deadline popped round once per week. From 1977 to 1991, it was in my face every goddamn night, except for the one time I worked for an afternoon paper, when it was in my face every goddamn afternoon.
And after ’91 … well, it got complicated.
By then I was a full-time freelancer and either had a lot or nothing to do, depending on whether anyone other than VeloNews was buying what I was selling.
I was a regular at VeloNews, which began its Boulder residency in 1989 with 18 issues per year and then quickly ramped up with additional issues, special editions, race guides, and whatnot.
When Bicycle Retailer and Industry News came along in ’92 I was a regular there, too. BRAIN was brand-new, and started off with just nine issues that first year. But it soon found its legs and took off like free beer at an Interbike booth, to 18 issues a year, plus trade-show dailies, Sea Otter specials, and all manner of other projects.
So, yeah. I wasn’t a daily newsdog any longer. But I still had me some Deadlines.
In the early days I did my share of straight news, race coverage, and feature writing, with a side hustle of copyediting and proofreading. But eventually I settled into the one-two punch of cartoonist-columnist: an editorial cartoon in every VeloNews, and a “Mad Dog Unleashed” column and “Shop Talk” comic strip in every issue of BRAIN, with extra-credit cartoons in the various Show Dailies and other special editions.
When I started helping run the VN website I added “Friday’s Foaming Rant” to the mix. That came around weekly.
At my peak I was choreographing a conga line of cartoons and columns, each of which had to give at least a wave and a nod to bicycling. This is a very small and shallow pool in which to fish for one’s supper. There are trees nearby, but all the low-hanging fruit was picked long ago.
Happily, I had the Deadline.
You can’t bullshit the Deadline. It is not an essay question, or even multiple choice. You either make it or you don’t; true or false, right or wrong. And a freelancer only gets so many wrongs before an editor figures you are all the way wrong and stops giving you assignments and/or taking your calls.
The Deadline is harsh, but fair. It has no patience with the sluggard, but can be merciful to the weak. Sometimes, when the Deadline rumbles up to see you staring blankly into your wordless word processor or blank sheet of Bristol board, it rolls its Eye and growls: “Christ on a crutch. OK, hop in.”
“Where are we going?” you ask.
“Fuck do you care? Sitting there with your thumb up your ass. Can’t catch a ride like that. Hey, you gettin’ in or what? Tick-tock, shit-for-brains.”
So in you get, and before you can buckle up or even close the door, zoom, off you go, with tires smoking, on a high-speed, no-brakes tour of the back alleys in your brainpan, bowling over trash cans to see what spills out and leaning on the horn to get the Voices hollering.
At this point you are no longer writing or drawing. You are taking dictation and having trouble keeping up. …
When suddenly with a squeal of brakes your ride slaloms to a stop, your door flies open, and the Deadline kicks you sprawling to the curb. Where, in one white-knuckled fist, you clutch the finished Work.
“You’re welcome,” smirks the Deadline. “Pay window’s over there. See you next week, bitch.”
The arthritic old ornamental pear stretches its gnarled limbs.
Kinda gnarly-looking, I know. Still, EarthSky says it’s the vernal equinox, so I gotta go with it.
The allergies say spring. So does the unsettled weather. The NWS has issued a red-flag warning; no, it doesn’t mean the Russians are coming, but it seems we can expect winds of 20-30 mph with gusts to 45.
Last year I rode the equinox in shorts and arm warmers, which came off midride. The year before that I got rained on. So it goes.
Tracking alongside the allergies is another seasonal affliction, the wanderlust. One former colleague will attend next week’s Bicycle Leadership Conference in Dana Point, Calif. In a couple weeks he and some others will dive into the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey. And the Cactus Cup at McDowell Mountain Regional Park outside Fountain Hills, Ariz., has already come and gone.
Some old newspaper pals from California recently took a ski trip to Aspen. The friends who blew through here with their e-bikes on Friday were headed home to Fort Collins from Tucson. I’m starting to feel like the only guy I know who hasn’t traveled further from home than he can get on two wheels and one water bottle.
It all reminded me of a bit of grumbling I recorded last March for Radio Free Dogpatch, with an assist from kindly old Doctor Firesign and Ralph Spoilsport Motors (“The World’s Biggest”). I think I’ll give this ol’ baby a spin on the freeway. …
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