Some Zappantani for breakfast

December 4, 2014December 4, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

This just in: Marco Pantani is still dead. So is Frank Zappa, but nobody killed him, not even the Mafia, Darren Wilson or Daniel Pantaleo.

That’s right, kiddies, it’s Round One of Zappadan, also known as BummerNacht, the anniversary of FZ’s departure to The Big Studio In the Sky. But don’t freak out, working yourself into an imaginary frenzy — he shall rise again on Zero Day, December 21, the anniversary of his birth.

So whip up a tasty platter of hot rats in lumpy gravy, ring up Uncle Meat and the Grand Wazoo, and go cruising with Ruben and the Jets. But first clean up that cosmik debris (it’ll cure your asthma, too). Now, everybody sing along: “Look, here, NASA … who you jivin’ with that cosmik debris?”

R.I.P., Lori Cohen

October 7, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments

My friend Lori Cohen went west on Saturday after a long battle with cancer.

“Doc” was my chiropractor, and she spent a lot of time and energy saving me from myself, so much so that she tried to get me interested in yoga to lighten her load a bit (sorry, Doc).

We shared a wide variety of interests — food and the preparation thereof, exercise to burn off the attendant calories, Santa Fe, Vespas, lefty politics, snark, and so on.

The final stage of her illness came on as we were beginning the transition from Bibleburg to Duke City, and I wasn’t able to give Doc as much attention as she deserved, having given so much of hers to me over the years.

But I did drop by on the day she was selling her beloved blue Vespa LX 150, to take it for a short test ride, make sure everything was in working order, and see how she was bearing up.

After I rolled the Vespa back into her driveway, Doc said she wanted to take a final spin on the scoot. The cancer had brought her quite a bit of pain, and limited her use of one arm, so I wasn’t eager to sign off on the ride, noting that if anything got horribly sideways her longtime friend and caregiver Jeff Tarbert would beat the shit out of both of us, but mostly me.

But Doc wasn’t going to let that final opportunity pass her by. She climbed aboard, twisted the throttle and putt-putted off up the hill. She didn’t fall off until Saturday.

My thoughts are with her many friends and family.

Calvin and Hogges

June 7, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Bill Watterson, creator of the fabled and much-missed “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip, got back in the game for a while this past week as a guest artist for the Stephan Pastis strip “Pearls Before Swine.”

The famously reclusive Watterson, who sent Calvin and his stuffed tiger sledding into history in 1995, collaborated with Pastis in part for fun and in part to help raise money for Parkinson’s research, according to Michael Cavna of The Washington Post.

Pastis did the writing and some of the drawing, turning Watterson loose in the middle panels. And both apparently had a wonderful time.

“I had expected to just mess around with his characters while they did their usual things, but Stephan kept setting up these situations that required more challenging drawings … so I had to work a lot harder than I planned to! It was a lot of fun.” Watterson told Cavna.

As for Pastis, he said: “It’s just massive … the biggest thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

R.I.P., Don Gale, 1959-2014

May 19, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

An old crony from Santa Fe went west on Saturday in Utah. Don Gale finally lost his long battle with colon cancer.

Don was a cyclist, a skier, and a snowboarder, one of several real-life wrenches whose character traits I shamelessly exploited when creating my cartoon character the Mud Stud. We hadn’t seen each other for years, and I feel badly about that now. But we exchanged notes on Facebook recently, and I was struck by how how courageously he was pushing on to the Big Finish Line. “Inspirational” is a term that has become cliché, but not in Don’s case. He made death seem a part of life, which of course it is.

Happily, like most of the 7.2 billion people on the planet, Don did not require my close attention; he was surrounded by family and friends at the end. My condolences to those who knew and loved him.

Time Machine Tuesday

January 21, 2014January 21, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 35 Comments

Over at Teh Twitters yesterday a gent praised a non-rant I’d written way back in 2002, saying it was one of his “all-time favorites.”

I had forgotten about it — these things vanish from my consciousness about a nanosecond after I hit the “Send” button — so I looked it up, and y’know, I kinda liked it myself. Even an old blind dog finds a tasty Milk-Bone now and then, it seems.

Written when we still lived in Weirdcliffe, it was prompted by a reader’s complaint (one of many, actually) that my stuff was too negative, which it can be. That my VeloNews.com column was christened “Friday’s Foaming Rant” didn’t help. A label like that tends to set a certain tone, and when I wandered off the Rantinista reservation other critics would jeer, “Call that a rant?” You can’t win.

But if two of us liked it, it must not be entirely lame, so here it is, reprinted in all its faded glory for your entertainment.

Continue reading “Time Machine Tuesday” →