The Toasted Sandwich Pro Challenge will kick off with a prologue in Bibleburg, organizers announced today. It’ll be interesting to see what they use as a course — I recall seeing a couple of proposals online a while back and they all looked like shit to me. But what do I know? I’m only a cyclo-crosser, and a retired one at that.
The local wiseguys have estimated that staging a leg of the Sandwich Challenge could cost as much as $150,000, which is sure to go over well with the locals, who have seen their park crappers closed, streetlights turned off and swimming pools drained in the midst of the ongoing economic downturn. Expect the haters to dominate the comments section under the Gazette story.
One thing’s for sure. The city’s gonna have spend some of that $150K on patching potholes. Add a diving board and a lifeguard to some of ’em and you’ve got yourself a swimming pool, if it ever rains.
Click the image for the Election Eve edition of Radio Free Bibleburg.
. . . pun intended, the first Tuesday in November being a day on which we are invited to stick it to ourselves via the ballot box.
I just wrapped up my civic duty, voting the straight Democratic Party ticket, croaking all amendments, propositions and city-county questions devised by tea-baggers, Industrial Christians and other asshats, and retaining one judge I know personally from having endured jury duty in his courtroom.
Herself votes via mail-in ballot, but I enjoy walking the five blocks to the polling place and gauging the mood of the electorate. Plus it’s a beautiful fall morning day in scenic oligarchical Bibleburg and I’ll grab any excuse to get outdoors before the snow finally shows.
Poll workers said the turnout had been strong all morning, and at least one of them was getting anxious about the potential crush come lunchtime.
Of course, this being Bibleburg, I’m not certain whether this is good news or bad news.
• 6:15 p.m.: The polls are still open here in Colorado, so the bad news is so far coming from elsewhere. NPR just aired a few moments of frothing tea-bagger talking points from the insane fuckwit Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, which caused me to dash out and buy a bottle of Chamucos Reposado tequila as a palliative. Good sites to keep an eye on for real news, if you’re into self-flagellation, are Steve Benen’s Political Animal and Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo.
• 6:30 p.m.: If one of my readers would be so kind as to send me money for airfare (cash, no checks, please), I’d be happy to jet off to NPR HQ and slap the mortal shit out of Melissa Block and Robert Siegel behind the microphones. They and their correspondents are entirely too giddy for my taste this evening.
• 6:45 p.m.: It’s the economy, stupid. And the GOP talking points. If you believe NPR, the electorate is buying what the GOP is selling, which would not surprise P.T. Barnum, H.L. Mencken or Hunter S. Thompson.
• 7 p.m.: The polls just closed here in Colorado, so we’re braced for evil tidings. Well, I am, anyway. Herself is at the movies with a neighbor, knowing that this is the time of night when I commence to march around the house yelling shit shit shit and scaring the cats. Meanwhile, The New York Times has managed to piss me off with a banner hed that reads “Tea Party Victories Propel Republican Gains in Senate,” when only one seat has been called as switching hands; the Elefinks need 10. Shit shit shit.
• 7:15 p.m.: No more NPR for me, thanks. I’ve croaked the audio and placed my faith in Al Gore’s Innertubes, as God intended. The early news from The Denver Post is that Donks Michael Bennet (Senate) and John Hickenlooper (governor) are looking good, with 2 percent of precincts reporting. Two percent. Where’d I put that Chamucos?
• 7:30 p.m.: Bennet and Hick’ still looking good with 4 percent reporting. More of the same unsupported jabber from the NYT. The WaPo site appears to be in spaz mode. More servers in the ol’ farm for those of us trapped in flyover country, please.
• 7:45 p.m.: OK, we’re clearly stuck in a holding pattern here. I may be forced to resort to television. Meanwhile, I’m off to cook dinner before I lose my appetite. Or my life, if Herself comes home to a kitchen with no vittles in it.
• 9:15 p.m.: OK, the Post is saying Brewmaster Hick’ is gonna be Colorado’s next governor. This I will drink to. Incidentally, in case you had any doubts based on the previous update, I’m still alive. Breaded pork chops did the trick. This was a deliberate election-night menu choice, my reasoning being: Eat the pig before the pig eats you.
• 10 p.m.: The NYT is saying the Pachyderms have the House. The Senate appears out of the Elefinks’ reach for now, but the members of The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body® will all be occupied with running for president for the next two years, so it doesn’t much matter who’s calling the shots over there. Speaking of shots, mmmmmm, tequila. A la chingada con tu y tus amigos gabachos, Tomás Tancredo.
• 10:15 p.m.: Well, since neither breaded swine nor cactus whiskey seems to be moving this election along, I’m gonna call it a night, since the news can only get worse. Plus Herself has a real job that requires (a) early rising and (2) an Irish-American serving up breakfast in the kitchen (what is this, Russia?). Meanwhile, try to look on the bright side — some day, we’ll all be dead.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla, being of the non-white, non-Christian, non-tea-partying persuasion, reports that she will be hiding behind the coffeemaker until the midterms are over.
We’re seeing lots of journalism from The Old Gray Lady, McClatchy and other national news sources lately about politics in Colorado.
And voters in Larimer County are said to be confused and angry, which will surprise no one who is actually from Colorado; Larimer is only slightly less fire-engine red than our own El Paso County.
Speaking of which, the local cage-liner has come out for Buck, naturally, and I expect Bibleburg to turn out in force for him, though we went for Obama way back when “change” wasn’t all that was left in our pockets. The electorate has the attention span of a retarded golden retriever and will eagerly bite the hand that feeds it, regardless of race, creed, color or religion.
Well, maybe and maybe not. The Washington Post recently undertook a massive survey of the so-called Tea Party “movement” and 11 percent of these fine, upstanding Americans said that the prez’s race, religion or ethnic background was either a “very important” or “somewhat important” factor in the support their groups have received.
Surprise, surprise. Some angry, dumb-ass honkies are scared of anyone who doesn’t share their skin color, superstition or ethnic heritage. They get to vote right alongside the smart people, and anger is a powerful motivator, especially in tandem with ignorance (ask any opinion-page editor).
Fact is, shit rolls downhill, and Obama and the Donks are living in the valley. Doesn’t matter that the Daffy-Fudd administration piled all those turds up there and then gave them a push on their way out the door — or that all us little folk are trapped down there in Smelly Valley, too.
Toss the rascals out! If only we were talking about the right ones. …
It's a damp fall morning in Bibleburg, and happily for us, all our worldly goods are inside.
The gods are bowling. We can hear them up there like so many really big Lebowskis trying to convert a 7-10 split. And somebody up there must’ve spilled his beverage, because we’re getting our first precip’ in the better part of quite some time. Hallelujah. A trail ride these days leaves my bike coated with a fine brown dust and sets me to wheezing.
The boisterous young swine who apparently have been evicted from the crumbling rental across the alley will not welcome a bracing rain, however. A crew of laborers spent the past few days piling their goods in the tiny back yard, and a mighty big pile it was, too.
The owner has a tragic history and according to Rumor Control was no better at picking husbands than she is at picking tenants. We’ve seen quite a parade of folks come and go at her rental property, most of them night-crawling yowlers who remind me very much of me at a certain age, only with more tattoos. Dogs were much in evidence, and once a child, but mostly it was a progression of shaggy young men with no visible means of support.
The cops paid a visit to the place recently, flanked by a fire truck and ambulance, and shortly thereafter the inhabitants vanished, leaving strangers to stack their worldly goods outdoors. A metal bed frame disappeared overnight, as did a bicycle. A battered Hotpoint range, boxes of cassette tapes and magazines, a stained mattress and a scattering of clothes remained when we sneaked a peek this morning.
They weren’t there for long, though. Word spread and a flock of scavengers in pickup trucks spent most of the morning picking through the refuse for objets d’art. Looks like the recession still has its hooks in some folks, no matter what The Wall Street Journal says.
Last but not least came the trash truck for the items nobody else wanted, even for free. There’s something kind of sad about that.
Still, there’s also something to be said for walking away from a fuck-up instead of packing it along with you like luggage. Here’s another bit of Thomas McGuane, from “Something To Be Desired.” Lucien Taylor and his estranged father are indulging in a bit of unauthorized camping, and as many things do in a McGuane novel, it ends badly.
His father circled the tent slowly, digging a finger into his disordered hair, inventorying the camp, the camp that a few days ago had been erected as a gateway to an improved world.
“We’re looking at under a hundred bucks,” said his father, standing at their camp. “Let’s walk away from it.”
Author and former New York Times reporter Tim Egan has apparently visited Bibleburg and observed the splash from the corporate money shot released by the strong right arm of the Roberts court. Here’s hoping he was wearing his raincoat.
Mad Blog Media 