Never fear, I’m not back on the sauce. This drop taken was down to the bosque, for the first time this year.
It was a lovely day, if a bit windy — high of 80°, 65° when I started — and if I’d had my wits about me I could’ve finally ridden my age (in kilometers).
But I didn’t. After inspecting the state of the Rio Grande below the Gail Ryba bridge (still fluid, in a not-so-solid fashion), instead of pulling a U and heading home via the Paseo/North Diversion/Osuna-Bear Canyon trails, I noodled back to the ranch through Old Town to Odelia-Indian School and the Paseo de las Montañas/Tramway trails. Wound up 8 miles short of a birthday ride. In kilometers. Which is kind of like kissing your sister.
The Bosque Bandido never materialized, but I did notice a John Law parked on the gravel at trailside. We exchanged waves. Didn’t ask to see my papers or nothin’. Which was fortunate, because all I had on me was an elderly iPhone 13 mini, a water bottle, and a stick of Clif Blox. It would’ve been off to County Clare for Your Humble Narrator.
“Ireland? But your honor, my client’s bicycle doesn’t even have fenders!”
“Tough titty, counselor — he should’ve thought about that before his great-granddaddy came here to occupy a barstool that by rights belonged to a nat’chal-borned American. Next case!”
The good news is I missed whatever it was Melania thought she was up to behind the pestilential lectern, where nobody could see the rug burns on her elbows and knees, and that “Property of Satan’s Slaves’ tat’ on her ass.
Isn’t it about time we started relocating some of these Trumps to gilt-free cages in the swamps, deserts, and desert swamps of Wottalottaland, Lower Slobbovia, and Spaminacanistan? I mean, Christ, Boss Hogg is bombing anything he can’t steal, Melanoma’s doing this feeble impression of Richard Pryor’s “Now are you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes?” bit, and now Barron wants to start dealing speed in Florida?
Dude thinks he’s being cute by calling it “yerba mate,” which I think is Guarani for “murder tea.” Wait until he hears what the Cartel calls it. “Gringo failing to swim across the Gulf of America while wearing 300 pounds of chains, a jukebox, and a burlap sack,” is what.
See if you can get mommy and daddy to join you for that dip in the shark tank, kid. Your ould fellah could certainly use the exercise. Driving the golf cart and having people killed ain’t getting it done.
• Addendum: Artemis II made it home safely, and about 20 minutes after they were bobbing around in the Pacific off San Diego, boom! We got our first hummingbird of the new year at our feeders. Winning!
Mad Blog Media 
Seems like Melanomia has seen a smoking gun or sumtin. Getting ready to bail perhaps? No way you hoser without taking the best reason for abortion with you! Don’t forget to throw miller in the trunk before you haul ass to mara lardo.
Good on you for taking a sweet ride. Might go to the park after the jam session tomorrow to see what the El Tour de Zona folks are riding these days. Their Bisbee ride might be tough tomorrow with the winds forecasted to gust to 22mph.
A drop taken on the drops? I didn’t get on the drops much, but when the wind was up they were a great option. Music shop jam session this afternoon, so the new Taylor gets out of the house again.
Yeah, I was in the drops for the descent past I-25 and a fair amount of the bosque, too … the wind was in my teefers. Heckuva note when a fella has to pedal downhill. I spin out that 46x13T “big” gear pretty quickly.
Glad to hear you’re digging that new Taylor. I’ve been plink-plank-plunking along on both the Seagull Entourage Mini Jumbo and Art & Lutherie Roadhouse this past week, trying to decide whether I need to lose the MJ for a GS Mini. I prefer the size of the Roadhouse but the sound of the MJ. Decisions, decisions. …
Lose one to get another? Really? Patrick? Lissen to yerself, here, son. You doesn’t lose one to get another. Can’t keep the accounting department suitably on edge without too many of a good thing. Keep em both and get the Mini.
I don’t come here to get that kind of attitude.
Cheers,
BL
Whatever was I thinking? After all, a precedent has been set … we seem to be up to our eyeballs in Macs and bicycles around here, and none of them ever goes away when a new one arrives. Saved by the readership once again!
I wouldn’t know anything about guitar, or bicycle, acquisition syndrome. I do know that after time you settle on favorites and the rest just sit. My guitar collection, just like my bicycle stable did, reached a state of balance. New ones don’t interest me, and I don’t think any of the ones I have will get sold. out of the six guitars I have, four are Taylors. Out of my three favorite bikes, two were Somas, a Double Cross Disc and a Saga. The mountain bike was a Niner. Your mileage will vary.
I may be a special case, as in “psychiatric case.” I ride all my bikes, except for the Steelman time-trial bike, which needs some adjustments to cockpit and gearing. Some I ride more than others: the two Steelman Eurocrosses, my custom Nobilette, two Somas — Pescadero and Double Cross — and their sister bike, the New Albion Privateer.
When it comes to Macs, I spend 90 percent of my time on the M4 MacBook Pro. The 13-inch 2014 MBP is for road trips, the 11-inch 2012 MacBook Air is for bare-bones road trips, the 1999 G4 AGP Graphics “Sawtooth” tower contains The Archives, the 2005 G4 “Little Al” PowerBook is the backup for when/if the Sawtooth fails, the 2011 Mini is for when the Apple TV box fails, and everything else is just sitting around gathering dust, though I do crank up the 2006 black-plastic Intel MacBook now and then to use its copy of Photoshop Elements. Wicked bad adhesive odor from that one, though.
Guitars? Just the two, and nobody wants to hear me perform on either of them, not even Miss Mia, who’s deaf as a stone. Still, I distrust even numbers, and have lusted after a Taylor Mini for quite a while now, so … watch this space.
Back in the early days of the interwebs, before it was all ‘instant gratification,’ I gandered at a Rickenbacker 12 string. I think Khal mentioned it some posts ago. Anyway, I had to email to get to quote for a new one, not that I’d seriously entertain the notion of buying. They emailed back to the address I shared with my smarter half. Now she is an accomplished managerial accountant, and deftly handles all our numbers. When she read the healthy four figure price, I got a rather terse message in my work email inbox.
It was sweet fiddle, though. The standard twelver is a beauteous sunburst that starts cream white in the center and fades through yellow and orange to a fiery red-orange on the edges. Hyper sexy.
The one I had quoted was the same fade, but with a green spectrum. Crazy unique, as I didn’t know that option existed. Words fail me…
12 string Ricks are legendary, especially in rock music. Unique sound instantly recognizable to guitar nerds. Do you play? If so, you should get one now.
Sell the car, drop the auto insurance and buy the Ricky 12. It seems logical to me. Or if preferred, sell the late model car you have, take a portion of the sale money and by an old beater auto vehicle, and then buy the Ricky 12. The logic works out even better if you’re already a two auto vehicle home. The savings might even justify picking up an e-bike grocery getter. Think of the room in the garage. And think of the music !
Oy. You bunch are relentless. I’ve only got three bikes, as I sold a flat-bar carbon Trek 7900 last summer. Had it tricked out with full Ultegra, including wheels, and took a bath on it. It had to go, as it followed a vintage tandem and a steel hardtail MTB, another Trek, the 930. So all’s I gots left is a Litespeed hardtail 26″ MTB that is a functional dead ringer for Patrick’s DBR, right down to the short-travel fork. My usual ride is a carbon Pinarello road bike, and no, it’s not a Dogma. That and a ’79 Chas. Roberts hand lugged steel frame Frankenbike with full race 8 cog rear and crank, downtube shifters, cow horn bar and side-pull brakes.
Back before there was the term ‘side hustle’, I was paid my tuition as a recording studio rat and did big outdoor sound reinforcement for weekend summertime regional bluegrass festivals, so I knew people.
As a result I had a basement recording studio full of pro gear. Multi-track deck, console mixer, a dozen and a half mics, racks of signal processing, reference grade speakers, etc. That and all my guitars exited via burglary in the late 80’s. I lost a stock Gibson SG, a custom made doubleneck (6 guitar X 4 bass), and my baby: a hot rodded 70’s Fender Precision Bass. It had a maple neck, EMG pickups, a solid brass headnut and the sides were shaved down so it was a lot narrower than stock. Bitch played like a dream.
All I got left these days is a Hohner acoustic, a Fender Stratocaster I bult from parts (read- also hot rodded), and a disassembled custom made ‘piccolo bass’ (with apologies to Stanley Clarke).
I’d love me the Rick, and my toys are all still better than my ’16 Ford hybrid- which itself is pretty trick. I’m retired like some of y’all, and travel might be a higher priority than a beautiful guitar that won’t see enough playing time. Besides, having that sexy thing in bed with us prob’ly wouldn’t make me any more popular with the Accounting Department.
Wow! A sound man/audio engineer! Good on you. If a musician sounds good on stage, indoors or out, it’s because there is a smart and attentive person in the sound booth. I did sound man duty at a small, 60 max capacity, concert venue here using a 24 channel analog Mackie mixer with Bose main speakers and sub in the theater with two JBL monitors on stage. Just getting the hang of it when other volunteer work got a higher priority. Did you ever do sound for Doc Watson?
No Doc, but lotsa others. I did a show with Lester Flatt after he and Earl Scruggs parted ways. Lester’s band was a bunch of grey-hairs in matching suits and ties (dead ringers for me today) and a thirteen year old prodigy named Marty Stuart. Kid had big Nashville hair and looked odd with that bunch but, as we know, the boy then, and still today, has big chops, in spades. He mastered every instrument he touched.
Not to drop names, but I will, some were big at the time, and several are still in the biz. Hot Rize, Jim & Jesse, the Bluegrass Cardinals and others I’ve forgotten. Hot Rize was fun. Four young guys with a very authentic sound that insisted on using one mic- like they did at the Opry in the old days. And they knew (and still know) just what they’re doing.
There were a few acts right outta the hills. We’re talking handsewn shirts and dresses, bib overalls and muddy work boots on both genders. But shit, could they bring it. I’m a rock n roller f’crissake, but even I can recognize good players. Great fun after I’ve hooked up their mics get to sit back and listen to ’em go at it.
Then there was the ill fated show with Earl Scruggs at Slinger Speedway. The promoter didn’t know shit about tech and didn’t give us a head’s up. Earl’s people insisted that we hookup to a bunch of direct boxes to send sound from the instruments into the mic feeds. Not a bad idea, if you’re prepared for it. We (and everyone else in the biz) close-mic’ed all the instruments and vocals and mixed from afar. Earl’s sound man apologized to me in advance, cuz we both knew it was gonna sound like shit, but “what Earl wants, Earl gets.” He admitted that the direct boxes fed at a different impedance than mic level inputs we hooked them into, so It was a sonic shitstorm. Everything was fuzzily distorted. They got roasted in the local entertainment reviews. Funny thing was, that had we gotten the head’s up when we signed the contracts, we could’ve handled it. Knew what the boxes were and even owned a few. Oh well.
There was one group that played at the place I was training. The guitar player/lead singer also had a commercial recording studio. He had no trust in us at all and brought his own sound system including pa speakers, subwoofer, monitor speakers, power amps, mixer, and audio interface boxes. All we got in the sound room was a single combined direct out channel from their mixer to use for our video sound. Took them longer to set up and tear down that playing the two hour gig. It was only a $600 dollar gig for three players. Made no sense. Our stuff was a little dated, but not that bad. Anyway, I like things simple. When I played live, just for free in the neighborhood rec center, I used my Henriksen Bud 6 amp, with a Henriksen 6 extension speaker, a SM 86 microphone, and plugged the guitar ( Gibson L-00 with L. R. Baggs VTC or Rainsong WS1000 with L. R. Baggs Element) directly into the amp. Easy sleazy!
I cannot ride in the drops. I don’t have that kind of flexibility. My neck and my taintal region forbid it. There are times when I wish I could. I’m tall and thin so headwinds kill me. I’m great to draft behind if you don’t mind going slow.
I was at the guitar shop yesterday getting a new set of strings. It’s a dangerous place. So much nice stuff but all in the 4 digit price range. Way out of my league. I do have some spendy bikes but I’m a better rider than player (that’s not really saying much).
I surrendered to tall head tubes, short stems, and short-reach, shallow drops, which helps ratchet my rickety old head-neck-back unit into something vaguely resembling “the aero position,” if by “vaguely resembling” we mean “not at all.”
You checked out the price for a decent student flute these days? Jiminy Chris’mus, I’d have to sell a healthy organ to pay for one of those. And I don’t have many of those left.