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.

Meanwhile, from Joe’s Garage . . .

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
It aint easy bein greasy.
It ain't easy bein' greasy.

. . . it’s BummerNacht, which marks the kickoff to the 2009 Festival of Zappadan! Burnt weeny sandwiches for everyone at St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast!

The faithful among you need no reminders, but for the noobs, Frank Zappa was taken from us on Dec. 4 and subsequently born on Dec. 21. As Blue Gal recounts, The Aristocrats (as is their God-given right) designated this period Zappadan — “the days of the year between death and birth, that ethereal time when there was no Frank, so we must celebrate him to keep his spirit safe until his birthday again. Or it’s just a great excuse for a party that has nothing to do with the greed and debt festival known as Christmas in America.”

I myself have already experienced a first Miracle of Zappadan. I didn’t feel like cooking tonight, and lo, when I went to the ’fridge to see what squatted therein, like a Toad of the Short Forest there appeared to me a vast tureen of chili con carne, and the fact that I made about six quarts of this swill the other day is not germane to this conversation. ¡Que milagro!

Mark Hoback is hosting this year’s celebration at his revived website, Fried Green Al Qaedas. Go thou and do likewise, lest The Central Scrutinizer afflict thee with Stink-foot.

Liam Clancy, R.I.P.

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

The last of the Clancy Brothers troupe, Liam, went west today. He was 74.

I saw the Clancy Brothers perform with Tommy Makem in Denver once, many years ago. Guinness was available in the lobby, and before long the crowd was about half in the bag and singing along with them.

They were most raucous during “I Never Will Play the Wild Rover No More,” hollering and stomping their feet ’til the roof shook. Here’s a video of the Clancys performing it on “Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger.” And here’s another of Liam and Tommy closing a 1977 concert in Dublin with “The Parting Glass.” Peace to you, Liam.

Broom waggin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Just enough snow to break a hip on.
Just enough snow to break a hip on.

Three degrees below zero and another quarter inch of snow. If this is fun, we’re having it.

Corner Mike beat me to the sidewalk-brooming this morning. I call him Corner Mike ’cause (wait for it) he lives on the corner. This helps differentiate him in casual conversation from Alley Mike, who lives — well, you get the picture.

Corner Mike and I are the only guys on this side of the street who are under 75, so we tag team  snow removal. As a part-time rumormonger I have more spare time than Corner Mike, who does something obscurely medical, but he’s an early riser and sometimes beats me to the punch.

He doesn’t do our driveway, though, and stops at the alley, so I still got a brisk upper-body workout in before breakfast. And after a mug of black tea I can almost feel my fingers and toes again.

Paging Dr. Thompson

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Oh, the weather outside is frightful. Just ask Turkenstein, who prefers a spot on my drawing board to a squat in the snow.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful. Just ask Turkenstein, who prefers a spot on my drawing board to a squat in the snow.

The Brakeman, a.k.a. Dr. Demento, Dr. Doom and Dr. Christopher T. Thompson, is up for sentencing today in the Mandeville Canyon road-rage case, if I recall correctly. VeloNews.com, which covered the trial from gavel to gavel, should have a story up tout de suite with my doppelgänger Patrick Brady on the case.

I don’t know about you, but I’m very interested to see what the judge lays on him. He has 10 years coming, and I’d like to see him serve every second of it.

Meanwhile, nobody will be mistaking Bibleburg for Southern California anytime soon. It was 8 degrees when I arose, and we are anticipating a “high” of 15. The Turk’ has asked to go outside exactly once, and after about five minutes of frigid freedom he’s parked on a sunny spot on my drawing board.

• Late update: Dr. Frankendick’s sentencing has been postponed to next year. The BikingInLA website reports that the continuance was due to — wait for it — a swine-flu-triggered lockdown at the slammer holding the good Herr Doktor. And to think they said irony was dead.

What has nine fingers and no new iMac?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Got outdoors yesterday for my first ride since dislocating my communications system (the middle digit on my left hand), and while it felt good to be cycling outdoors for a change, it also felt kinda creepy and weird.

The reconfigured Voodoo was just fine. But I haven’t had to rehab’ a damaged body part since my last broken collarbone in 1994 or thereabouts, and I had forgotten how tentative it always makes me. I kept lifting the damaged paw off the bars for every little bump, which is not always such a hot idea. But I lasted an hour without incident and was glad to have taken the plunge.

Especially when I awakened to 18 degrees, which is pretty much where the thermometer has been pegged all day. Got to get ’em while you can in December. And the splint came off today, so I may be riding inside for a while anyway, even when and if the sun shines.

Meanwhile, for everyone who called me a sissy for not immediately leaping on the chance to buy a new Mac, scope this out — seems the 27-inch iMac did an end run around quality control.

I read some of the comments and a few of these poor sods are on their third bum iMac. The things apparently are showing up with shattered screens, flickering screens, bootup issues, wireless keyboards and mice that won’t hold a Bluetooth connection, or just plain DOA. And the problems apparently are not confined to the 27-incher — there are a few 21.5-inchers in there as well.

Is it hardware? Software? A combination of the two? Or the fact that at least some of these iMacs are shipping in anonymous brown boxes that don’t tell the purchasers — or the delivery people — anything about there being pricey computers inside?

So, pffffbbbbllllllhhh to you and yours, wiseguys. I think I’ll wait until Cupertino chases the Chinese cooties out of this lot before I lay another truckload of Dead President Trading Cards on the Black Turtleneck Mob.