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.

Easy, no; boring, si

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

John Wilcockson says this Tour has not been easy, and he should know, having covered 40 of them. Hell, anyone who’s ever raced a bike over any distance knows there can be no such thing as an “easy” Tour. Twenty-one stages covering 2,200 miles? Puh-leeze. That’s a job of work, is what that is.

But just because something is difficult doesn’t make it entertaining. If such were the case, ditch-digging, coal mining and bricklaying would be on TV instead of football, basketball and baseball. And while this Tour has had its obvious difficulties, it has been less than entertaining for those of us who like to follow the fight for the yellow jersey.

We’re two weeks into this Tour and the maillot jaune has yet to adorn the shoulders of anyone expected to have a chance of taking it home from the Champs-Èlysées. Just two men have worn it — Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara and Ag2r’s Rinaldo Nocentini — and the only reason Nocentini has kept it for six days is that nobody wants to battle Astana for it.

Astana had four guys in the top 10 until Levi Leipheimer crashed out, and for them Nocentini is a rolling coat hanger, holding the jersey for them until they’re good and ready for it. It’s like an extended version of the coronation stage into Paris. The only thing missing is the obligatory shot of a grinning maillot jaune toasting himself with a glass of champagne.

No wonder Bernard Hinault is so cranky. This Tour isn’t about working men earning a living — it’s about a rich one awaiting his inheritance.

• Extra-Credit Friday Foolishness: Jefferson County, apparently eager to out-dummy the bike-hating feebs in Larimer County, has announced plans to seek statewide legislation that would let counties ban bicycles from county roads as they please, warns Bicycle Colorado. According to a story in the Columbine Courier, the county attorney will draft the proposed legislation, and then Jeffco will try to find some brain-damaged geek in the Statehouse to sponsor it in the 2010 session. You may send NastyGrams® to the Jeffco commissioners by clicking here.

From Tour de Tedium to Rancho Pendejo

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Logged onto the Versus video this morning to catch the final kilometer of today’s Tour stage. Cav’ wins again; ho hum. GC unchanged. Close the laptop. Move along, move along, nothing to see here. More of the same tomorrow.

It was refreshing to read Andrew Hood’s interview with Bernard Hinault, who clearly is as bored as the rest of us. Asked what riders should do to break Astana’s stranglehold on GC, the Badger replied succinctly: “Attack! It’s necessary to attack. There are not 36 solutions, just attack!”

I followed Hinault’s advice and attacked, sprinting to the garage, grabbing my second-best Steelman and riding north along the New Santa Fe Trail into the Air Force Academy. The trail exhibits some erosion from the recent heavy rains, but it’s still easily handled on a cyclo-cross bike, though I saw plenty of sissies on mountain bikes. Army types, no doubt. Or maybe swabbies.

Just short of the North Gate, I veered right and tunneled under I-25 to Voyager Parkway, then hung a right to Highway 83. Lots of cheesy Rancho Pendejo-style shitboxes in that neck of the peckerwoods, along with a few half-built shoppettes. If it weren’t for the Zoomie Zoo, Pikes Peak and Nude Life Church you could be anywhere — SoCal, Phoenix, Cleveland, you name it.

I rolled along 83 until just past Academy Boulevard, then took a side street behind a struggling strip mall, crossed Woodmen and picked up the bike path again just past the Nissan dealership, southbound this time. It made for about two hours in the saddle, 30 miles or so, and an interesting study in contrasts.

The wingnut fucktards who rail against the feddle gummint while praising the private sector to the skies ought to take this ride sometime. ‘Cause if it weren’t for the feddle gummint and its Air Force Academy, the private sector would’ve covered that beautiful trail and the 18,000 acres surrounding it with Rancho Pendejo shitboxes about 30 years ago.

Falling star

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

I never met the man, but I feel obliged to send word that the Hipp Star, a.k.a. Chris Hipp of Team Labor Power, has gone on to where the city-limit sprints have a very deep field indeed.

I have followed the struggles of Labor Power for as long as my girlish nature could withstand the torrents of testosterone, and I send my condolences to those who loved Hipp and/or bumped elbows with him. Roger Worthington eulogizes the Hipp Star thusly:

Chris Hipp died today. Worst sentence I ever wrote. He was on his way to an early morning training ride. He never got there. Apparently suffered an aneurysm. I’m fairly certain he would’ve won the city-limit sprint otherwise. Lorraine has been comforted all day by many of their friends.  She’s an incredibly strong and brave woman — I know Chris loved her deeply.

We lost a strange and unique friend. He was many things: a hard core spee-r-inter, an inquisitive explorer (he loved maps); a cybergeek (he invented a server gizmo called the Blade but never got the credit he deserved); a pioneer in graphics (he wrote my law firm’s first news letter in 1990); a student of technofop (he preferred Gary Neuman to Jim Hendrix); and one of the warmest guys on the planet, which is odd because he always complained about not being warmed up before the final sprint.

He helped found Team Labor Power in 1990. In the past few years, when I took an extended time out and others moved on, he kept the Labor dream alive, single-handedly and with pride.

He helped write the cyclist’s dictionary, giving us words and phrases like: “pounding idiots,” “stoopid sport,” 12k dreamer,” “gritty not pritty,” and of course “EEEDEEEOTTS!.” He had an uncanny ear for odd sounds. He could entertain himself for hours making exotic chirps, trills, flutters and hoots. I think he was actually able to talk to the birds who frequented the feeder outside his window. I know he was able to talk to his cats.

He’s one of the few people I’ve known who really did mature like one of those fine wines you hear about without losing his playfulness. In my view, Hipp had found his stride. He was poised and comfortable with the size and scope of his life. He was the guy you wanted to share a foxhole with when the bullets started flying. You just knew he was going to keep his cool and help get you out of there unscathed. He made me feel safe.

“Never quit,” he always told me, with a mixture of sternness and optimism. “You never know what will happen in the end, you just might rally.”

Peace be with you, Brother Hipp Star. May you always take that Great Big City Limit Sign Sprint in the Sky.

What Brother Worthington said. There’s more here. Onward, brethren and sistren.

Much noise, little signal

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
"Calling all cars; calling all cars; be on the lookout for a Manx sprinter, 5-foot-9, 150, a pair of guns concealed under the Lycra ... that is all."
"Calling all cars; calling all cars; be on the lookout for a Manx sprinter, 5-foot-9, 150, a pair of guns concealed under the Lycra ... that is all."

Arrgghh. Another one of those days at Le Tour. “As exciting as watching flies do the nasty,” as I tweeted between bouts of posting stories and photos at VeloNews.com. And I don’t know which of those things is dirtier — flies doing the nasty, tweeting or posting cycling journalism to the Ethernets.

The peloton had its collective chamois in a bunch over the decision to ban race radios on this stage and one other, stage 13, which may explain the general lack of action.

Yet who among us can blame them? The riders found themselves alone, cast adrift on a roiling sea of asphalt, with no resources other than teammates, feed zones, cell phones, team vehicles full of directors, spare parts and complete bicycles, Mavic neutral support, the race doctor, guys on motos bearing blackboards, maps of the day’s route and their own intimate knowledge of the strategy and tactics of the sport. Oh, the humanity.

Sure enough, the lack of moment-to-moment radio communication between the team cars and their riders proved so decisive that (gasp) Mark Cavendish won a bunch sprint on a mostly flat stage! Imagine that, if you dare. I tell you, it had me whimpering like a little child.

Meanwhile, in DeeCee, the extremely junior Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Aryan Nations) tried to bitch-slap Supremes hopeful Sonia Sotomayor during day two of her confirmation hearing today and found himself munching a fat mouthful of his own feeble knuckle sandwich.

Contrasting Sotomayor’s approach to jurisprudence with that of Reagan nominee Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, saying Cedarbaum “believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices,” Sessions got whacked upside his pointy head with a one-two tag-team tap from Sotomayor and Cedarbaum, who was present at the confirmation hearing. It’s a wonder that Kluxer hood of his stays so white, considering where he keeps his head.

Said Cedarbaum, so beloved of Sessions that he didn’t know she was in the room, “I don’t believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging, and her personal predilections have no effect on her approach to judging.”

Quipped Ian Millhiser of the ThinkProgress Wonk Room in live-blogging day two of the Sotomayor hearing: “Note to Sessions: before you put words in a federal judge’s mouth, make sure that she isn’t in the hearing room to hear your false claim.”

I’ll bet the sonofabitch goes home, spills a generous dollop of Old Tennis Shoes on the carpet and blames it on the maid, then makes his wife fire her. This empty suit is a disgrace to rednecks ever’whur. Thanks and a tip of the Mad Dog gimme cap to Steve Benen of Political Animal.

Stranger in a strange land

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
The cartoon I drew to commemorate my 20th anniversary as VeloNews' editorial cartoonist.
The cartoon I drew to commemorate my 20th anniversary as VeloNews' editorial cartoonist.

So I hit the grog shop this afternoon as part of a grocery run (yes, French rosé is a food group) and as I’m headed to the door with a double armful of Gallic brain eraser some other customer inquires thusly:

“O’Grady?”

Regrettably, I am unarmed, not even a Buck knife, and thus am disinclined to lay claim to that tarnished crown until I’ve gotten a good close look at the speaker and some idea of his intentions. Especially since both of my hands are full of wine for which I have already paid.

Turns out it’s Felix Magowan, who with John Wilcockson and David Walls constituted the original Trio that owned VeloNews when I started drawing cartoons for the magazine beginning with the March 10, 1989, edition. The Trio had declined to hire me as managing editor, which worked out well for both parties; I wouldn’t have lasted six months as ME but I’ve cashed 20 years’ worth of VeloNews checks as a cartoonist, reporter, editor and occasional columnist. Sometimes they even arrived more or less on time.

When Competitor Group Inc. of San Diego bought Inside Communications in March 2008, Felix stuck around as a consultant, a gig that recently came to an end. Like Walls and a whole mess of other folks over the years, he is now formerly of VeloNews. Indeed, of the original cast of characters listed in the masthead of that March 1989 edition, when VN was first setting up shop in Boulder, only Wilcockson, Lennard Zinn and I remain. A Limey, a conehead and a pain in the ass. Throw some tits and a car chase in there and we’re talking boffo box office, if only in summertime.

“You’re officially a member of the Old Fart League,” quipped senior online editor Charles Pelkey, who has logged fewer years but more hours and actually quit once for a few months. Happily, he got bored with the quiet life as editor of a quarterly alumni magazine and leaped right back into the frying pan of UCI regulations, doping inquiries, live updates from grand tours, classics and other monuments of the sport, and weekly bouts of explaining the inexplicable in his “The Explainer” column.

Here’s to our noble selves. There are damn’ few of us left.