Author: Patrick O'Grady

After decades with his scabby little nose pressed to various grindstones of journalism, Patrick O'Grady came away with plenty of mental scar tissue, a good deal less hair to cover it, and an undiminished appreciation for three subsets of the craft: drawing cartoons, writing commentary, and composing headlines. All three are short, punchy attention-getters, the literary equivalent of yelling, "Hey, look at me!" before hanging a moon out the school-bus window, and thus own a natural appeal for an overgrown class clown with the attention span of a rat terrier raised on angel dust and bong water. And thanks to the Internet, the best thing to happen to journalism since the invention of movable type, he gets to do all three of them without having to go to work at a newspaper, where management has slowly devolved into a button-down mutant hybrid of the worst aspects of the Spanish Inquisition, the dental bits in "Marathon Man" and the DMV of your choice. He and his wife, the long-suffering Shannon, share an adobe hacienda in The Duck! City with their cat, Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Welcome to the feed zone

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Your Humble Narrator in the salad days, covering a race in Bibleburg.

A bitter wind continues to thin the herd of cycling journalists struggling to make headway in the bloody gutter of vulture capitalism.

Yet even as the ravens screeched “Nevermore!” for Zapata Espinoza and two colleagues at Hi-Torque Publications, Wade Wallace and Caley Fretz were crowing over the news that they had signed up enough committed members to launch their new venture, “the best damn cycling website on the planet,” a.k.a. Escape.

Turn your radio on.

The notion of journalism underwritten by membership is not new, not even for cycling journalism. The Greater Outside Globe-Spanning Vertically Integrated Title-Killing Paywalled Conglomerate relies on memberships (and vulture-capitalist beggary), and The Cycling Independent (which we help prop up with a monthly tenner) strives to get by on subscriptions.

It’s a rough old road, no matter how you ride it. The sport is pricey to do, and even more so to cover. Memberships and subscriptions can only take you so far. Advertising is a hard sell.

And the vulture capitalist? Basically a pimp who says things like “synergy,” “scale,” and “best in class,” instead of “bitch,” “hoe,” and “Shit, it’s five-o.” He might not take a straight razor to your lips if you don’t bring in the Benjamins, but he will cut the hell out of your masthead. He didn’t add you to the stable because he liked the look of your legs, honey; he thought you’d be a good earner.

The wild card in this bum hand at Casino Velo is the audience. A lot of people think information wants to be free. They want to be paid for whatever they’re doing for work, when they can find it, and actually show up to do it. But you, pal, don’t you bogart that information.

Lucky for you, you’ve stumbled into the cheap seats. We’re serving up another episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, absolutely free of charge, and we guarantee it’ll be worth every penny you paid for it.

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: The setup remains the same: Once again I set up shop on the dining-room table, using a Shure SM58 mic and the Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Editing was in Apple’s GarageBand, with a sonic bump from Auphonic. Zapsplat, Freesound, GarageBand, the 1988 world cyclocross championships, and Your Humble Narrator provided music and sound effects.

R.I.P., David Lindley

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

David Lindley has taken his act on the road for the final time.

Damn, but that dude could play. And play anything with strings, with anyone who was up for it, according to his obit in The New York Times.

His collaborators included Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Warren Zevon, Ry Cooder, Iggy Pop, Graham Nash, and David Crosby. And that’s just the shortlist.

Writes Alex Williams:

Ever on the hunt for new sounds and textures, Mr. Lindley had “no idea” how many instruments he could play, as he told Acoustic Guitar magazine in 2000. But throughout his career he showed a knack for wringing emotion not only from the violin, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer and autoharp, but also from the Indian tanpura, the Middle Eastern oud and the Turkish saz.

That’s a dude you want on your album. He could probably play Celtic harp, rusty bedsprings or a chain-link fence if you needed it.

My people and me, we mostly knew Lindley from his work with Browne on albums like “For Everyman” and “Running on Empty.”

That first album was a who’s who of the musical world when it came out in 1973. Hear that raging piano in the background of “Red Neck Friend?” That would be Rockaday Johnnie, a.k.a. Elton John. Also in the mix on “For Everyman” — Crosby, Joni Mitchell, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Jim Keltner, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Bonnie Raitt.

Our musical world is running a little closer to empty without Lindley, but that big band in the Next World just keeps on filling up.

Zapped

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
Another one bites the dust.

Zapata Espinoza and two colleagues just got the old heave and also the ho from their gigs at Hi-Torque Publications.

According to my man Steve Frothingham at Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, Hi-Torque plans to croak Road Bike Action and Electric Bike Action. Hence the pink slips for Zap, Tony Donaldson and Alex Boyce.

“(The) head winds proved too mighty” for the titles, Espinoza told BRAIN in an email.

Oof. When even a Mountain Bike Hall of Famer like Zap can get dropped you know them headwinds is fierce. Here’s hoping the lads find new homes soon.

R.I.P., Wayne Shorter

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Wayne Shorter has moved on to that Big Stage in the Sky.

The tenor saxophonist and composer was 89.

Dude played with everyone. I first heard him with Weather Report, then Steely Dan. He played with Carlos Santana and Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis and Art Blakey.

And he kept his ears, eyes and mind wide open. Writes Nate Chinen in The New York Times:

A lifelong fan of comic books and science fiction, he kept a shelf crowded with action figures and wore T-shirts emblazoned with the Superman “S” logo.

Throughout his career he refused to hew too closely to any tradition except that of fearless expedition. “The word ‘jazz,’ to me,” he liked to say, “only means ‘I dare you.’”

While we’re talking jazz, David A. Graham at The Atlantic — who also has some thoughts about Shorter — reminds me that it’s the centenary of another great tenor saxophonist, Dexter Gordon, who likewise had a habit of stretching himself.

Writes Graham:

He came to greatest popular notice when, in 1986, he starred in the jazz-themed film “Round Midnight.” It was his first and last starring role, and he was nominated for an Oscar for best actor. But the best Dex is blowing Dex. Take his classic “Go” for a spin.

Here’s “Cheesecake,” from that album:

Every time I hear a horn played like this, I wish I’d gotten in line a little quicker when they were passing out the instruments in music class back in seventh grade.

I wanted to try clarinet, but they were all full up, so I went with flute. Flute’s fun, but man, it’s not the sax.

Marching along

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
We went from gray to white in the blink of a shutter.

God is pitching softballs at us (graupel), and the temp just fell 10 degrees in as many minutes.

Looks like I won’t need to slather on the SPF 70 for that bike ride I won’t be doing.

Last year, March 2 was “sunny, virtually windless, 61-65°,” according to my training log. I was doing hill repeats and pulling off the arm and knee warmers.

Big Bill McBeef chases Your Humble Narrator upslope in a rare March cyclocross in Bibleburg.

And to think this year I haven’t even pulled them on. When I get out I’m still wearing long sleeves and tights. The only bit of me showing any color is my nose, and I think that’s windburn.

Well, March is always belligerent. Named for the Roman god of war, it marked the beginning of ass-kicking season, and it has kicked mine many a time.

In March 1994 the Mad Dogs put on a cyclocross in Monument Valley Park just to see what would happen and the answer was, “Not much.”

When even the cyclocrossers think you’re insane you might want to check yourself into the screw factory for a vigorous rethreading. We’d have gotten a bigger turnout promoting a St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl in Qatar.