Month: October 2025

Boo!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
I always hate having my picture taken.

“My mommy always said there were no monsters — no real ones — but there are.” — Newt, in “Aliens”

Sing it, sister. I see one first thing every morning, if I dare to turn the lights on in the bathroom. And it follows me around all day, until I turn them out again.

Mama said there’d be days like this. I just didn’t think there’d be so many of them.

When did I stop ringing doorbells on Halloween and start answering them? Oh, Lord.

Thanks to outfits cobbled together by me sainted ma I have been a cowboy, Superman, and Mike Nelson from “Sea Hunt,” among other American icons. I even managed to talk mom into helping me suit up as Loadedman, a cartoon character I devised shortly before dropping out of college and going to work as a janitor.

She must’ve been so proud.

As an “adult” I have been a space pirate, Che Guevara, and once, memorably, Jesus H. Christ himself. Indeed, there was a time when I felt all that hair I was sporting limited not only my employment opportunities, but my costume options come All Hallows’ Eve.

All. That. Hair.

Sigh.

I didn’t know shit about limited options back then. Now the menu is down to a single item — basically, “Ugly-Ass Old Bald Dude.” The good news is, all I have to do for that one is get out of bed, take a leak, and put on some clothes.

In the dark, of course. Because there are monsters. I’ve seen them. They live in my bathroom mirror.

One bodhisattva for Katmandu, please

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Buddha don’t need no Rand McNally, yo.

The body may be at rest, but the mind wanders as it will.

Two songs have been getting heavy play on my cranial jukebox: “Katmandu,” by Bob Seger, and “Bodhisattva,” from Steely Dan.

The first, from 1975, ostensibly about salvation via relocation, is actually what Seger described as “an exasperated song” written near the end of a decade-long stretch “where I was going nowhere fast. …  I still had some of that defeatist mentality and you can hear it in there.”

The second is a 1973 critique of cookie-cutter spiritualism and its related divestiture of worldly goods that co-writer Donald Fagen once summarized as: “Lure of East. Hubris of hippies. Quick fix.”

Thomas McGuane was scouting that territory even earlier, in his 1971 novel “The Bushwhacked Piano,” in which the peripatetic Nick Payne’s father tells his wayward son: “I just find the Rand McNally approach to self-discovery a little misguided. … My rather ordinary human response has been to resent having to go to work in the face of all that leisure.”

That these musical and literary ingredients are suddenly bubbling to the top of my consciousness, such as it is, may be a consequence of having just finished McGuane’s latest story collection, “A Wooded Shore,” in which a selection of the damned find themselves adrift in various fashions and locations, Dante’s Sea of Excrement being among the hot spots. “I’m a realist, you see,” says that particular voyager.

“Sure rings a bell these days,” as McGuane told The New York Times. On the mark as usual, Tommy me boyo.

Mr. Jones and me.

Or perhaps it’s that I’m rocking a streak of vivid dreams about bicycling in outlandish circumstances, perhaps as a reaction to getting myself locked into a small selection of predictable 20-milers, your basic hamster-wheel loops, for no good reason that I can think of beyond sloth and convenience. An assist from Rand McNally is not required for this sort of tour de meh. Trying to break the chain I recently took two rarely ridden bikes on short outings, one of them involving a few miles of singletrack I hadn’t ridden since January. I dabbed frequently and shamelessly.

I suppose it could just be that fall is upon us, and with it our local elections and the fabled “fall back,” slated for Sunday, Nov. 2. Oh, good, an extra hour of nightmares.

When swimming the Sea of Excrement, I recommend the backstroke.

Chillin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
You can have my shorts when you pry them from my cold, dead legs.

I’m a late adopter. Hardware, software, pants in autumn.

Herself cracked this morning and pulled on the long johns — plus long sleeves, socks, and a vest — but not me. No, sir.

The uniform of the day until further notice remains Columbia shorts from the previous millennium, a mildly pilled Paddygucci T-shirt, and some battered old Tevas. Shucks, I even went outdoors in that kit to water the shrubs.

Not for long, mind you. But still. It keeps the blood flowing briskly and the neighbors at a comfortable distance.

“Don’t get too close, now. You might catch whatever it is he has.”

“Do you mind? You’re letting the cold air in.”

Miss Mia Sopaipilla, meanwhile, welcomes the advent of cooler weather. That means the Return of the Bedcave, a passive-solar getaway that’s like a day at the beach without the sand in your undercarriage. It’s the cat’s meow, if you will.

Sun, screened

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Hold the SPF 50 and gimme a slicker, please.

A spot of seasonal weather has rumbled into town, and thus the cycling is contraindicated for the moment. The gods are bowling up there and though I have three bikes with fenders, I’m not exactly eager to deploy them.

My last few outings have been on the coolish side, but dry. Arm and knee warmers have become part of the uniform of the day. Haven’t gone to tights, tuque, and full-finger gloves yet, but I can see that gloomy country from here.

It’s fair, as Thomas McGuane has taught us. (He has a new book out, in case you’re interested.) The fall to date has been spectacular, and as we know, anybody who chooses to live in a desert shouldn’t bitch about getting free water from the sky.

Unless you’re homeless and using an arroyo to hide your proud-ofs from the Chamber of Commerce street-sweepers. That’s a free ticket for a fast trip to the Rio, and it’s hard to hang ten on a shopping cart. Not exactly a day at the beach, as the fella says.

Speaking of street people, letting that orange mold run wild in the East Wing of the White House is like hiring a Central Avenue hooker to give a makeover tutorial to your teenage daughter. Or maybe it’s more like letting a roach design its own motel.

This we have money for. Head Start and food assistance, not so much. Any of you kids out there who want a bite to eat and someone to watch over you should probably sign on with the War Department, start sinking boats in a bigger bathtub.

Jesus H. Christ. Did the Heritage Foundation rewrite all the civics books when I wasn’t paying attention? Have the three branches of government become the Surprise Party Department, the Practical Joke Department, and the Fairy Godmother Department?*

If so, I wish the last would put down her knitting and do something nice for a change.

* A tip of the old war bonnet goes out to Major John Hay Beith, a.k.a. Ian Hay, via Robert A. Heinlein’s “Glory Road.”