Ed Zink, one of the founders of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic in Durango, has gone beyond.
The Durango native died Friday of complications from a heart attack, according to The Durango Herald. He was 71.
Ed was a rancher, a retailer, and a pillar of the U.S. cycling community. He ramrodded the Iron Horse through good times and bad, helped bring the first World Mountain Bike Championships to his hometown, and was a gent when dealing with irksome cycling scribes who wished to quiz him about this, that and the other.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
Contributions in Ed’s memory can be made to Trails 2000 and the Mercy Health Foundation. My condolences to his family and friends.
It goes without saying that I listened to a lot of Cream as a young ne’er-do-well, and this cut was a fave. So was this one. And this one.
Baker was apparently not fond of reminiscing about those days — “Oh, God, Cream’s a bloody albatross around my neck,” he once said — but I remember them fondly.
What I remember of them, that is. At least I managed to steer clear of the smack.
The Yippies were first to run a pig for president back in 1968, but it took the Republicans to actually win with one.
Paul Krassner was instrumental in that first attempt, but we can’t blame him for the second. The founder and editor of The Realist was into absurdity — he had roots in Mad magazine, after all — but he must have left this world shaking his head at how the unreal had become all too regrettably real.
I spent a lot of time with Mad and its army of funnymen: Harvey Kurtzman, Don Martin, Wally Wood, Will Elder, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Sergio Aragonés, and the rest of The Usual Gang of Idiots. And I wasn’t their only fan.
Here’s a superhero Marvel hasn’t wiped its corporate arse with … yet.
In “Comix: A History of Comic Books in America,” Les Daniels called Mad “one of the most popular and influential mass circulation magazines in the country,” adding: “Along with Hugh Hefner’s sexy Playboy, it was one of the only two magazines produced in the Fifties that were successful innovations (excepting, of course, the reader service of TV Guide).”
In mourning the demise of “a true American original” on this Fourth of July 2019, contributor Tom Richmond wrote: “In the end in this day and age, the only reason anything is allowed to exist comes down to money. If something is profitable, it continues. If it is not, it ends. Mad is ending for the same reason anything ends … it’s all about the Benjamins.”
I gave Mad my Benjamins — OK, so maybe they were more like Washingtons — and oy, did it ever influence me. Mad led me down a twisted, anarchic path to Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, The Firesign Theatre, Zap Comics, The National Lampoon, and Monty Python, among others.
It was a trip worth taking, so much so that I’m still on it.
A memorial in honor of Bruce Gordon will be held June 30 in his hometown of Petaluma, Calif.
Bike rides start at 8 a.m. at McNear Park and conclude there at 11 a.m. The memorial starts at noon and wraps at 5 p.m. There will be a potluck, beer, a display of Bruce’s bikes, and a PA in case any of yis would like to deliver a few words about Himself. He would have plenty to say about you, so don’t be shy.
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