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.

R.I.P., Charles Portis

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
“The Dog of the South,” by Charles Portis.

One of our best and perhaps least known writers, Charles Portis, has gone west. He was 86.

You may recall the name from “True Grit,” which was made into two movies (John Wayne and Jeff Bridges).

But the former New York Herald Tribune reporter also wrote “The Dog of the South,” about a former copy editor who pursues his wife, his Amex card, and her first husband with his chow dog, to Mexico. Being familiar with copy editing, the relentless vindictiveness of American Express, and chow dogs, this naturally spoke to me.

There was also “Norwood,” about an itinerant ex-jarhead trying to collect a debt; “Gringos,” featuring the search for a lost Mayan city; and “Masters of Atlantis,” about a cult based on the “secret wisdom” of that place.

His books were filled with screwballs, dingbats, and scammers, and his use of language was superb, particularly in “True Grit.” At times I wonder whether Thomas McGuane might have absorbed a bit of his style.

And yet hardly anyone knows him, or his work. He guarded his privacy, but the Alzheimer’s stole his wit.

A final bit of strangeness: Roy Reed, the reporter who wrote Portis’ obit for The New York Times, is himself dead. Another, Steve Barnes, handled the finishing touches.

Sunshine patriots

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment), demonstrates his readiness posture for the press.

Herself has three days “off” each week, but the “off” part is short for “off her rocker.”

Yesterday she pulled a full shift with Herself the Elder (eye appointment, lunch, New Mexico ID, etc.). And today she attended the local Donks’ 2020 ward meeting (she is a precinct chairperson and narrowly escaped sentencing to the pre-primary convention).

Tomorrow she has to give me a haircut. Yeah, yeah, I hear you laughing out there, but it’s harder than it sounds, chasing down and eliminating rogue hairs on my vast expanse of scalp. Like mowing the lawn for someone who doesn’t give a shit about lawns. Why can’t a fella go bald all over at once, is what I’d like to know.

In solidarity I went for a couple nice bike rides in the sunshine while the cats napped in sunny spots. Tough work, but someone had to do it.

Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
KC hipsters shake their groove thangs to the swingin’ sounds
of KCXL and Radio Sputnik.

I don’t remember what was playing on the radio when I was hitchhiking through Kansas City back in 1972. Number one on my personal hit parade was getting the hell out of Missouri.

Forty-eight years later, guess who wants in?

Radio Sputnik, that’s who. Actually, the Russian propaganda outlet has already landed, at three KC-area radio stations.

According to Neil MacFarquhar at The New York Times, Radio Sputnik — formerly Radio Moscow — is one cog in a state-run Russian “news” machine that focuses on “sowing doubt about Western governments and institutions rather than the old Soviet model of selling Russia as paradise lost.”

“(T)he constant backbeat,” says MacFarquhar, “is that America is damaged goods.”

Well. I guess it must be. It’s a hell of a note when we have to offshore our bitching and moaning to the Russians.

Can’t Alpine Broadcasting Corporation find some red-blooded, home-grown, U-nited States of America Americans to talk shit? I mean, I do it for free, which is about as cheap as it comes. Alpine honcho Peter Schartel has the Russkies and their stooges do it for him and he gets $27.50 an hour. What’s that work out to in rubles, or pieces of silver?

I don’t expect that KCXL plays many cuts from the early Merle Haggard catalog between swigs of milk and honey and preachin’ ’bout some other way of living. But if you slip Schartel a few dead presidents, why, I expect he might just accommodate you.

It’s a free country, but everything in it costs money.

The Granite Slate

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
Is Comrade Eeyore strictly a creature of the hard left?
Depends on who’s talking.

“There’s a lot of supposin’ going on in the immediate aftermath of New Hampshire,” writes Mojo’s David Corn.

Oh, yeah.

John Nichols at The Nation says Comrade Eeyore, lacking definitive victories and facing electability questions thanks in part to less-than-amiable press coverage, must move beyond simple sloganeering to make his campaign “a new center where Democrats, independents, and millions of new voters have a place. …”

Meanwhile, the talking heads who want those “new center” voters pretty much anywhere but Bernie’s place are taking heart in the rise of Amy “Minnesota Nice” Klobuchar and, to a lesser degree, in the tenacity of Mayor Pete.

Senator Professor Warren is now said to be sliding off the back by the same keen observers who ignored her performance in the Hawkeye State Hayride & Corn-Fed Clusterfuck®. If nobody covers you and your campaign stumbles, does it make a sound? Apparently so.

Daffy Uncle Joe is one step closer to that rocker on the porch.

And Mike “Stop & Frisk” Bloomberg still has a big, fat wallet and is looking to slap the shit out of someone with it.

Everyone seems astonished that the Democratic contest remains … well, a Democratic contest. Messy. Noisy. Inexplicable at times, with a smattering of candidates you wouldn’t elect to a school board.

But I guess I’m relieved that we don’t have an Anointed One this time around. Daffy Uncle Joe thinks it’s his turn, or did at one time, but he was and is sadly mistaken.

I’m gonna have to give Minnesota Nice a closer look. There’s something about her that rubs me the wrong way and I’m not sure what it is. Maybe she reminds me of a publisher I’ve butted heads with. There’s a certain smugness in her expression that says, “Oh, I think we can do nicely without you and your bullshit.”

And Mayor Pete? Can’t say I’m a fan. He seems a little too well drilled, and about half a Republican. I’d like to see him on the back foot, watch what happens to his confidence when someone snatches the script away from him.