Lakota: “Take courage, the earth is all that lasts.”
King Donald the Short-fingered: “Hold my Coke and watch this.”
Jesus wept. I don’t want every single post on the blog to be about this pig-ignorant son of a bitch, but Lord, does he ever make it difficult to blog about anything else.
Which is probably exactly the way he likes it. “Lookit me,” squeals the giant toddler as he shits in the sandbox again, knowing he’ll be long gone before it starts to stink.
Jesus. You step away from the Mac for a minute and some fresh horror rears its ugly head.
I first heard the Allman Brothers Band in 1971, in Alamosa, and their music has been part of my mental soundtrack ever since.
The album “A Decade of Hits 1969-1979” may be the best stationary-trainer disc ever, though I expect Gregg wasn’t much for the sweaty solo spin to nowhere special. Come to think of it, neither am I. It just ain’t my cross to bear.
“Eat a Peach,” “Live At Fillmore East,” “Idlewild South” — man, that’s a lot of music. Ain’t but one way out, man. And it leads to the whipping post.
The hits just keep on coming. This time it’s Astana’s Michele Scarponi, struck and killed by a van while training near his home in Italy.
The roads are getting scarier by the day, and one wonders whether it’s just the fabled “economic uncertainty” that is kicking the pins out from under the bike biz. Uncertainty about whether you’ll return alive from a ride may be playing a role, too.
Coincidentally, I’ve been practicing the Zen of Grant Petersen lately, occasionally riding the bike on short errands wearing street clothes, sans helmet. Not that a helmet would provide much protection if I got centerpunched by one of the reckless, oblivious assholes who somehow got licensed to drive in Duke City.
The trails look better every day. Out there it’s mostly operator error that does for you. Though I do know one guy who got hit by a truck on a trail once. …
I don’t want the blog to turn into an obit column, but I felt compelled to note the passing of John Warren Geils Jr., the guitarist behind the J. Geils Band.
You may recall the band’s Eighties hits — “Centerfold,” “Love Stinks,” and “Freeze-Frame” — but I stumbled across them in the Seventies, my initiation likely being the live album “Full House,” which I still have on vinyl.
There were a bunch of keepers on that one, my favorites being “First I Look At the Purse,” “Pack Fair and Square,” and “Whammer Jammer.” Magic Dick could do magic for real — dude could make a harp sound like a sax.
Charles P. Pierce, who has his own recollection of the band, found another keeper online, “Floyd Hotel,” from 1973. As usual Peter Wolf and Magic Dick play starring roles, but Geils contributes a few worthy licks on slide. And keyboard player-songwriter Seth Justman tinkles them ivories right nice too.
“Take out your false teeth, mama, I want to suck on your gums.” With lines like that you can almost excuse the stagewear and hairdos. Hey, it was the Seventies, what can I tell you?
It seems that Steve Tilford has followed Mike Deme’s wheel to the Beyond.
Few details yet, but it appears that he and a friend were in a horrific pileup involving a van and two semis west of Grand Junction.
Steve and I weren’t close, but we used to bump into each other now and again at various races, and he was always approachable, friendly and generous with his time.
And he wrote unsparingly of his sport, bicycle racing, on the blog. If you cut a corner, Tilly was gonna call you on it.
This is shaping up to be an exceptionally bad year. My condolences to his friends, fans and family.
Mad Blog Media 