Category: All property is theft

Creative class warfare

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
The Turk' enjoyed some backyard time while I cleaned a bike in honor of the summer solstice.
The Turk’ enjoyed some backyard time while I cleaned a bike in honor of the summer solstice.

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Just ask the Turk’, who enjoyed a little outside time in the Mad Dog Media Botanical Gardens, a.k.a. “Weedpatch,” as I washed a bike in honor of the solstice.

Shortly thereafter it began raining off and on, with thunder for flavor, and the feline outings, bicycle riding and Old North End Garage Sale took back seats to working and earning.

Speaking of which, I can see I’ve been going about the latter activities all wrong. Clarity is so 15 minutes ago. If a guy could only learn to deploy with a straight face semantically null phrases such as “further leverage,” “cultural and creative assets,” “place of choice,” “launching new ideas” and “preserving our rich cultural heritage,” why, People of Money would write us fat checks for doing absolutely nothing beyond talking authoritatively and incomprehensibly out of our asses.

Toward that end I’m pleased to announce the formation of the Caramillo Street Collective for Creative Obfuscation, whose sole purpose it shall be to talk shit for money. I know, that sounds an awful lot like what I already do, but trust me, this is a radical departure from business as usual at Chez Dog. It’s a means of further leveraging my cultural and creative assets from my place of choice to launch new ideas that preserve my rich cultural heritage.

Somebody owes me $20K now.

• Speaking of talking shit: Here’s Timothy Noah on the ethics of dog-crap disposal.

Hail with a side salad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Our maple isn't quite down to its last leaf, but there's plenty of bald patches up there and more storms in the forecast.
Our maple isn’t quite down to its last leaf, but there’s plenty of bald patches up there and more storms in the forecast.

Herself and I spent some quality time together this morning, cleaning up the wreckage from yesterday’s blitzkrieg hailstorm.

I had to get up on the roof to broom off some of the detached greenery (and clear the gutters while I was at it). And then we set about collecting the stuff on the ground. This was about the time I decided that owning two-fifths of the block was something of a giant pain in the ass, or more specifically, the lower back.

We filled one of those big rolling trash bins and another smaller can with salad and sticks before saying the hell with it and going back indoors for lunch, after which we lost interest more or less permanently, especially since it looks like another storm may be blowing in here directly.

In other news, poor Cuddles lost his pretty pink shirt in the Giro. He has one flat stage for liver-gnawing purposes, tomorrow, before the ground tilts upward and the shit gets serious. Should be fun to watch. Rigoberto Uran Ran Ran Ran Da Doo Ran Ran looked tougher ‘n’ whang leather out there today, and taking time back from him will be like trying to steal stupid from Louie Gohmert.

Comrades, come rally

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

 Happy International Workers Day!

• Shiny objects, si; child care, health care, no.

• Guns, si; butter, no.

• Flipping burgers is the new black.

• Your papers!

• No, really, your papers!

• Losing the spirit of May Day.

• Turks defy ban on May Day rallies.

• An uncomradely copyright on Marx and Engels.

• Tim Carpenter’s politics of radical inclusion.

• May Day, then and now.

More rabble-rousing as I find it.

Roll on buddy

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
The back deck this evening around dark-thirty.
The back deck this evening around dark-thirty.

Jeebus. One of those days, to be sure.

I got up this morning, went straight to work, and with time outs to prepare two meals I’ve pretty much been at it ever since. If I’m so busy, how come I ain’t rich?

We got a nice little snowfall today. I moved some of it around this morning and should’ve moved some more this afternoon. What the hell, it will still be there tomorrow, and it will have company. Good for the lawn, what there is of it, and good for the trees. Good for me, too, as we have no gym membership and pushing the mouse around hardly qualifies as strength conditioning.

Speaking of wintertime activities, remember: Cyclo-cross worlds kick off tomorrow with the junior men and elite women. If you’re so inclined (and so equipped), you can stream the action at Universal Sports. Other possibilities include the various feeds at Cyclingfans.com and the UCI. Geo-restricted options may be workable using Hola — I downloaded a Firefox extension for same to the old MacBook and it seems to pull in the UCI feed just fine.

And don’t let me catch any of yis rooting for Marianne Vos. Lovely person, tremendous athlete, stout competitor, and to hell with all that. It’s time to be a shameless homer, goddamnit. Katie Compton über alles!