The Lord High Mayor spoke from the Orchid Office atop Slob’s Knob.
The Lord High Mayor of Slobbiton, Douche Baggins, addressed the people this fair morn.
He announced that Iran “appears to be standing down,” and declared that Slobbiton stood ready “to embrace peace with all who seek it,” especially if they happen to be porn stars (there’s nothing like embracing a piece of a porn star).
He also denied rumors that Slobbiton would resume conscripting young Slobbitonians for its various misadventures abroad, adding that even if such an order were to be issued, it would be easily dodged.
“Trust me,” he said with a knowing wink. “I ran, and you can too.”
Jaysis. I have no idea why the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free keep coming here.
Maybe they’re thinking: “Well, they hardly ever bomb anyone inside their own borders. Even the brown people.”
And they may have something there. I refer you to the late Professor Carlin: “You don’t have to be a history major or a political scientist to see the Bigger Dick Foreign Policy Theory. … It’s a subconscious need to project the penis into other people’s affairs. It’s called ‘fucking with people.'”
But then again, we have the Bill Burr Theory of Homeland Defense and Immigration Control: “You’re gonna build a wall from fuckin’ California to Texas? You actually think you’re gonna get this done? Look at the Freedom Tower. We actually wanted that shit, and it took almost 15 years to get it done. Half the people don’t even want this fuckin’ thing. … I’m telling you, by the time they finished it, this country would be so fucked up we’re gonna be the ones going over it.”
If Professor Burr is correct, it would seem that the Bigger Dick Theory applies to domestic affairs as well. They fuck with us here, too. Maybe all you brown people should save yourselves the climb.
Just more trashy humor, from the July issue of BRAIN.
Back in June, Gloria Liu wrote a piece for Bicycling headlined, “Hey, Bike Shops: Stop Treating Customers Like Garbage.”
The article had its roots in a survey about rider experiences in shops, which found that way too many people had had a bad day at the IBD, some of them more than once.
General condescension or snobbery was the most commonly cited behavior: “The bike shop employees … made me feel stupid for not being an expert,” said one respondent. Another said, “Shop employees tend to socialize with known customers. Until you’ve been to the shop a few times and made purchases, the employees tend to ignore you.” Other comments included being pressured into purchases or feeling looked down upon for having inexpensive bikes or being beginners.
“Core/bro culture,” mansplaining, and a smirking approach to the gravity-challenged were among the issues Liu discussed with customers and shop people. So, naturally, being core/bro, a mouthy know-it-all, and a relentless Lampooner of the Large whose next cartoon collection should be titled “Moby-Dickhead,” I went straight to the cheap joke for the July episode of “Shop Talk.”
The story reminded me of a passage in my favorite Thomas McGuane essay, “”Me and My Bike and Why,” reprinted in his collection “An Outside Chance: Essays on Sport.” The essay was about motorcycles, and those who ride and care for them, but it could have been about cameras, computers, guns, guitars or bicycles.
A fascinating aspect of the pursuit, not in the least bucolic. was the bike shop where one went for mechanical service, and which was a meeting place for the bike people, whose machines were poised out front in carefully conceived rest positions. At first, of course, no one would talk to me. …
One day an admired racing mechanic — “a good wrench” — came out front and gave my admittedly well-cared-for Matchless the once-over. He announced that it was “very sanitary.” I was relieved. The fear, of course, is that he will tell you, “The bike is wrong.”
Specialty shops tend to attract a specialty employee, the sort who is deeply immersed in the product and its use, and these people are not always a pleasure to be around when they’re in the throes of their particular ecstasy. It’s like walking into an unfamiliar church and announcing you’d like to get right with the Lord, and everyone starts laughing at you.
“Which one? You look like an Episcopalian to me, Tubby.”
“That a Bible you got with you? It better be the King James Version.”
“Tired of dancing on Sundays, huh?”
And it’s the same on the group rides. Swear to Eddy, some of these bozos want to crawl into your jersey with you and tell you how to sweat.
I think there’s always going to be a certain amount of this condescension in your life unless you’re one of these Renaissance types who don’t need no help from nobody. People who know things often like making sure you know that they know. And if you have a long fuse you can learn from these people.
But it ain’t easy. One of the best copy editors I ever worked with was also the biggest asshole I’d ever met. He’s since slipped off the podium; I was young then, and my sample size was a good deal smaller than it is now.
That said, I couldn’t take more than nine months of his bullshit, and I was getting paid to do it. I can’t imagine having to pay for the privilege.
Moles don’t get that big, even if they drink beer. From the March 2019 issue of BRAIN.
Felix Magowan, one of the original Trio that acquired what had been called Velo-news from founders Barbara and Robert George, had long wanted to add Bicycle Retailer and Industry News to the Inside Communications portfolio.
He never got it done. Eventually Inside Communications sold VeloNews to a passing crew of brigands, and Felix wandered off to do other things.
Episode 19 of Radio Free Dogpatch, “Can’t Find My Way Home,” from February 11, 2019.
Imagine giving Dave Stohler’s Masi Gran Criterium to your meth-addict nephew as a present for graduating from reform school. A bleak period ensued, thick with the sort of belligerent dumbassery once found only in high-school locker rooms, family trees shaped like flagpoles, and the lower houses of state legislatures in the Deep South.
I finally sat up and slipped off the back because VeloNews seemed to be careening into the sort of future in which plague-carrying aliens burst out of people’s chests while they’re battling killer robots. The Old Guy Who Gets Fat in Winter went with me, to do the occasional walk-on in Bicycle Retailer’s “Shop Talk” comic strip.
And then, shazam! Felix reappeared as part of Pocket Outdoor Media, and not only reacquired VeloNews, but snapped up BRAIN and a couple other properties as well.
The Fat Guy and I didn’t go back to the old home place. I didn’t care about bicycle racing anymore, and anyway, we weren’t invited. But it seemed like a good time to make a meta joke about how Fatso was a spy for his old bosses.
Unlike the vulture capitalists who nearly burned VeloNews down to its foundation, the “Shop Talk” dudes seem to know they’re cartoon characters.
Also, unlike vulture capitalists, they’re funny.
• Editor’s note: Today’s blast from the past includes a bonus audio component — episode 19 of Radio Free Dogpatch from February 2019.
Well, the package is under the Christmas tree, but it’s not exactly what we hoped for, is it?
It’s a lot smaller than we thought, for starters. Missing a few pieces, seems like.
And we won’t get much time to play with it. A bunch of smirking old men wearing American-flag lapel pins are gonna take it away from us, just because they can. Doesn’t matter that we paid for it. Or that we’ll keep paying for it, for years.
When Vito Corpulento rose to power I thought that maybe, just maybe, the GOP would eventually wipe the blood off its flabby mitts, look around at the wreckage of the Republic, and say, “Whew. Well, we got almost everything we needed from the loony bastard. He’s not even a made guy. Let’s kick him to the curb.”
Wrong. The GOP is a gang, like the Gambino family, the Klan, or the Hells Angels. And gangs under attack tend to overlook any niggling internal disagreements.
Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the Angels as a tuneup for writing about Nixon, and tell me if this quote from a Frisco Angel doesn’t sound like your modern Republican Party:
“Our motto, man, is ‘All on One and One on All.’ You mess with an Angel and you’ve got twenty-five of them on your neck. I mean, they’ll break you but good, baby.”
They couldn’t do shit in the House except make a lot of bad noise, like a poorly tuned Harley. That’s the junior chapter over there, a bunch of prospects on mopeds, hoping to wear the colors some day. Good luck with that. The Senate wouldn’t let a bag of farts like Louie Gohmert in the back door to swab out the toilets after Taco Tuesday if he promised to use his tongue.
No, the Senate is strictly for the heavy hitters. It’s where business gets done. And by “done,” I mean done.
“Package? What package?” smirks The Turtle. “We never got no package from those guys. What could I tell you? But hey, it’s the holidays. There’s a lot going on. It’ll turn up, someday, maybe.
“Now get the fuck out of here. We’re doing business. Family business. And you don’t look like family to me.”
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