One rarely sees this many swole-up gasbags outside a meeting of the U.S. House Budget Committee. But we can’t see ’em at all, buried as we are in a Foothills cul-de-sac, which is as close as I intend to get to the “action.” Mustn’t distract the tourists from their primary mission, to wit, pissing away their hard-earned moneys here in The Duck! City, “Gateway to Los Lunas.”
Talk about your target markets.
I may celebrate the kickoff by riding my ballooner, the Jones with its 2.4-inch Maxxis Ardents, just because I can. Them big fatties come in handy when a fella has to bunny-hop onto the sidewalk to dodge a distracted out-of-towner watching the skies instead of the road.
But I’ll confess I am curious about this evening’s skydiving, if only because of its sponsorship. Here’s hoping nobody has to take one for the team.
As we backstroke across the bottomless sewer of the digital age, trying to keep our snouts above the stink, The New York Times throws us a 2,049-word lifeline on … the return of the cassette tape?
Holy hell. And I thought I was a retrogrouch. I don’t know whether to be tickled by this or go hang myself in the garage.
More than a few of us will recall the struggle to take our music along Back in the Day® when it was actually music, not the overproduced tuneless swill these crazy kids are drowning themselves in today.
Those tinny little transistor radios that fit in a pocket. Aftermarket FM radios to bring the local freeform set to whatever moldering shitheap you were driving after you got carpal tunnel trying to tune in KOMA — 50,000 watts at 1520 on your AM dial — while motoring through the Intermountain West on Coors, ditch weed, and fumes, coasting the downhills in neutral and praying for a gas station before the ground tilted back up again.
Eight-track-cartridge players, God help us all, bolted insecurely under the dash where evildoers could snatch them without getting all sweaty.
And then — the compact cassette.
I don’t remember whether my Japanese pickups of the Seventies and Eighties came with AM/FM/cassette packages, but if they didn’t, I certainly added that setup at my earliest possible opportunity. I was a driving fool, Maine to Spokane, Tucson to Tacoma, and a man had to have his traveling tunes.
Once a traveling companion jerked a Merle Haggard cassette out of my truck’s player and threw it out a window as we snorted that old white line across Utah. Something about turning 21 in prison doing life without parole doesn’t sound all that glamorous when you are basically a red-eyed, high-speed festival of felonies.
Who among us can’t recall spending a fun-filled hour teasing a tangle of cassette tape out of the in-dash player, then rewinding it past the wrinkled spot with a ballpoint pen?
“Goddamn it, I need this Creedence tape if I’m gonna make it across Nevada on US 50 without losing my fucking mind. …”
When the CD player came along I eventually “upgraded” to that like everybody else. Had to polish the discs more often than I ever did the truck, but the truck didn’t have to look all smooth and shiny to function.
These days when I hit the road I always carry a large box of CDs, but mostly scan the FM band for NPR affiliates, the way I once hunted for KOMA. I’m hoping to find some jazz, blues, classical, or the increasingly rare freeform set cobbled together by some kindred spirit.
But mostly what I get is pledge drives.
So I sing along with the voices in my head. That sure makes the miles fly by. And it isn’t hip or even illegal yet.
“We are all droogs, but somebody has to be in charge. Right? Right?”
Appy polly loggies, droogies, but I could not watch last night’s “debate” between Coach Walz and Clockwork Orange.
I made it past the explanation of the rules and maybe two questions in and then yelped “Out out out out!” like a doggie.
Bedways was rightways as I saw it. We weren’t going to learn anything from this gloopy chepooka that would change our rassoodocks about these two chellovecks.
The Coach seems a proper moodge who plays by the rules while Clockwork Orange is anything but. He’s a smart, mean grahzny bratchny who would steal the coppers off his dead granny’s eyes for his ante into the Big Game, with a few aces up the old sleeve courtesy of his prestoopnik pals.
And you don’t fight him with facts. A cutthroat britva is what a lewdie needs for this lot, O my brothers.
• O my brothers (and sisters): If you’re not conversant with the nadsat dialect Anthony Burgess devised for his characters, you’ll have to hunt down a glossary. Burgess was opposed to such assistance, but one of my copies went against his wishes.
Ninety-three yesterday as the last day of September dragged its sweaty arse into the National Weather Service record books.
Anyone who got out early yesterday had nothing to complain about. Come to think of it, anyone who got out late, well, likewise.
The Rio wasn’t snaking its way up the drainage channels to snatch up our kinfolk, pets, and proud-ofs. We are light on natural disasters here at the moment, barring the odd pedestrian getting run over by three (!) vehicles, one woman going after another with an ax, and the city council considering guidelines for artificial intelligence, when the real thing seems to be in such short supply.
We may have a spot of wind that will set us to dashing around the foothills chasing our lawn furniture, which we have not been using because mosquitos, which will be chasing us around the foothills, and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo-bee.
Meanwhile, a former colleague at Bicycle Retailer and Industry Newsreports that he and the fam’ are OK in Black Mountain, N.C., save for the lack of “water, internet, cell coverage or landline.” They have a propane generator that supplies electricity — as long as the propane lasts — and while driving is impossible due to downed trees and flooded roads, cycling is not. Stay high and dry, Dean.
Another former bike-industry bro in South Carolina says via text that he too is rocking a generator for power. The water is on, and he has plenty of grub, but the gas “is a bit tricky” and “cold showers suxxxx.” Word, TC.
The Shit Monsoon. They say the job isn’t over until the paperwork is done, and this one took more than the one roll.
I’ve only ever been a spectator at this sort of thing. Back in the late Seventies I got yanked off the Gazette copy desk to help cover the aftermath of a freak tornado that walloped Manitou Springs. And in Colorado we had to keep an eye peeled for fires.
One within eyesight of our shack in CrustyTucky had me scouting a back way off our one-road hillside. Another in Bibleburg had us taking in refugees.
Lucky for us, the worst we ever had to deal with was the occasional four-foot snowfall, power outages, and the fabled Shit Monsoon of song and story.
That was pretty crappy (rimshot). About like having a circus elephant with a crook gut let fly in the basement. But at least we still had power, water, and food … though our appetites were not up to snuff for a while.
I mean, c’mon. The place smelled like canned farts.
• Meanwhile, speaking of shitstorms, it’s been a while since I thumbed through the Book of Revelation, but it seems The New York Times is reprinting it in modern lingo.
Mad Blog Media 
