Category: Bibleburg

Twilight of the dogs

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
Riding into the sunset
Is the sun setting on the American Experiment? Just remember, things always look their darkest just before everything goes totally black.

Looks kind of rural and peaceful, doesn’t it? A fisherman stands by a mountain lake just before sundown. …

Actually, it’s a pond upstream from a water-treatment plant in north-central Bibleburg. The place is surrounded by high-traffic roads, a dog-boarding operation and a hamburger stand. And it wasn’t nearly as dark as the iPhone thought it was when I shot this pic on yesterday’s afternoon ride.

Likewise, things aren’t nearly as dark as they appear to be as the minority of Americans who actually take part in their representative democracy prepare to do so once more tomorrow.

Yes, there will be voting problems, both manmade and heaven-sent. And yes, fully half the people who intend to cast ballots are clinically insane, woefully unqualified to operate the napkin dispenser at a burger joint, much less the right to vote.

But I cling to the faint hope that there may be slightly more of us than there are of them, and urge you to drag your deeply disappointed selves down to your neighborhood polling place tomorrow, and take two or three friends and neighbors with you.

Unless you plan to vote for the RomneyBot v2.012, that is. Then please to stay home, clinging bitterly to your guns and religion.

A fine soft day (yeah, right)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
The green is wearing a bit o’ dew.

The first cold, clammy day of autumn always reminds me of why my forebears fled the Emerald Isle for Americay. It wasn’t so much the Limeys and the Prods as the weather.

Doesn’t help that Herself is enjoying a weeklong vacation on the Big Island with a gal pal. Beaches for her, bitches for me. ‘Tis not at all the same thing.

Of course, last time I went to Hawaii the locals endured a volcanic eruption and a tsunami. Maybe it’s better that I stay put. For them, anyway.

Pro cycling challenged

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
The peloton rockets down Tejon Street in Bibleburg during stage five of the 2012 USA Pro Challenge. Photo: Herself | Mad Dog Media

Well, shucks. I didn’t have a chance to observe first-hand the USA Pro Challenge as it barreled through Bibleburg.

I’m often critical of pro cycling, but I still like to watch it, the way some guys like to look at fake tits. Happily, Herself, who has neither need nor desire for surgical enhancement — not that this is any of your business — cycled downtown to observe the festivities on my behalf, as I was buried in chores that reminded me of the time I tried to dig my way out of the Supermax in Florence wielding only a cracked plastic spoon, a Mason jar of pruno and a finely honed sense of moral superiority.

Still, I was able to watch stage five from Chez Dog, via Adobe Tour Tracker, and as I had anticipated, spectatorship seemed sparse, confined mostly to Bibleburg’s infamous drinkin’-an’-fightin’ ghetto on Tejon, between Bijou and Colorado. Happily for those who earn a living from such things, the camera adds 10 pounds to everything, including crowd estimates.

Damiano Caruso (Liquigas-Cannondale) screwed the pooch on the finishing circuit, sprinting to victory a lap before everyone else even bothered to queue up. And who can blame him? Given the altitude at home, he might as well be racing on Mars against the Curiosity rover, sans spacesuit.

Tyler Farrar won, with Taylor Phinney second, and now everything shifts north to the People’s Republic, where I expect the crowds will turn out for real on Flagstaff Mountain. I won’t be there, either. But I will be watching via streaming video between chores, if only because Herself won’t let me watch videos of … well … you know.

Attack of the Democrats

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

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The prez popped in for a chat today, and a sizable crowd of Bibleburgers seemed happy to see him despite the astonishing disrespect shown for the Second Amendment by his security team. Why, the only people packing heat were the heat. Imagine my astonishment. Where’s Ron Paul when you need him?

The speech itself was basic campaign boilerplate, but it went over pretty well, especially considering we’d spent about four hours broiling under an August sun while waiting to catch Obama’s act. A small army of volunteers was passing out water to the masses, though my requests for three fingers of Chamucos with a beer back went unanswered.

It was quite a crowd infesting Cutler Quad at Colorado College. Blacks, Asians, honkies and Hispanics; old, young and in between; gay, straight and in between; haves and “waiting to haves.” While waiting for the prez to crank it up we chatted with a black Vietnam vet and his German secretary, a Buddhist who sits thrice weekly with three different sanghas, and (of all things) one of Herself’s friends from elementary school back in Maryland.

If there were any pro-Romney hecklers in the bunch I didn’t hear them. It was a fine departure from the horrid discourse one reads in the public prints. Strangers were passing water to each other, sharing the few bits of shade and taking care that everyone had a chance to see the famous tyrannical Kenyan crypto-Muslim socialist usurper in the flesh so they could scope out the horns and that big 666 on his forehead.

Frankly, there’s something reassuring about seeing that many fellow travelers packed into one place like red herrings in a tin. I caught more than one person giving another that appraising glance that says, “Oho, so you’re one too, eh?” Makes it easier to keep plugging along, knowing you’re not the only round peg in a town full of square holes.