One of the many half-assed attempts to create a picture when 300 words were required.
Many years ago a managing editor asked me why I didn’t work harder at writing than cartooning, hinting that he thought me a better writer than scribbler, and now and then I’m forced to agree with him.
Case in point: Today’s Foaming Rant over at VeloNews.com began life yesterday as a cartoon. A couple hours and a half-dozen half-starts later I crumpled up the various rough drafts, shit-canned them and made a sharp left turn from the drawing board to the iMac.
This morning, what had originally been a one-panel sight gag is a 300-word setup for a five-word punch line, with a Photoshopped pic of Paddy McQuaid plus links to McQuaid’s open letter to pro riders and a YouTube video of Elvis Costello and the Attractions performing “Radio, Radio.”
Whether all that’s an improvement over a cartoon is open to debate. But it’s certainly an improvement over the one I was trying to draw yesterday.
Ho hum. Off to the Court of Arbitration for Sport goes Albuterol Clenbutador as the UCI appeals his Spanish get-out-of-jail-free card.
1996 seems like such a very long time ago, doesn't it?
Remember, doping these days is a stage race. There’s the prologue (allegedly winning the actual competition) followed by stage one (defending yourself before your national federation after tripping the Dope-O-Meter®) and stage two (battling either UCI, WADA or both at the CAS). Charles “The Explainer” Pelkey breaks it all down for you at VeloNews.com.
In between (and during) stages there is much bad noise from all concerned, worse than a battalion of drunken Belgians clanging cowbells. It’s particularly hard on the ears to hear Mr. 60% jabbering about “fairness” after cheating his way to his own Tour title.
Meanwhile, Counselor Pelkey warns against expecting a quick resolution.
“The time required by CAS to review documents, entertain motions from both sides, hold a hearing for oral arguments and then render a decision means that we won’t get a final and official word until much later this year,” he writes. “Indeed, we could see this thing pushed into late summer or early fall.”
Oh, goody. This means Clenbutador could race this year’s Giro and Tour before we get the definitive word on who won last year’s Tour.
Better start maintaining those record books online, boys. Makes it easier to airbrush folks out of the podium photos.
Speaking of freak shows, Kevin Drum — who thinks our crypto-Muslim Kenyan socialist overlord is a mortal lock to win in 2012 — is looking forward to the coming GOP primary.
“It looks like Michele Bachmann is going to run, Palin might run, Newt Gingrich is probably going to run, Jim DeMint seems like he might run, and I suppose Ron Paul will run again too. This is a freak show of stupendous proportions, and it would be perfect if Donald Trump really did decide to join all these nutbags on the stage during the debates.”
Parroting the usual insanity won’t make the nut with this lot, Kevin adds, meaning “the crazy wing is going to have to up the ante. …” And here we thought they’d already cranked it up to 11.
Just 'cause it's spring where you are doesn't mean it's spring at 14,110 feet.
Typical oddball Colorado weather today. Twenty degrees cooler than yesterday, a brief spell of popcorn snow from an otherwise blue sky, actual snow atop Pikes Peak, more of the winds from hell, and about umpty-ump pounds of tree pollen blasted straight up my snoot. Blaugh.
In other Bibleburg news, USA Cycling assumed the position — pardon me, assumed the UCI position — on race radios after initially deciding to allow squawk boxes in NRC events. That NastyGram® Paddy McQuaid sent must’ve really read out the old riot act, as in “IOC spank.” Don’t want to throw away your bucket while all that money is still spewing from the five-ringed faucet in downtown Bibleburg, don’t you know.
Who’da thunk race radios would end up being Dire Portents of the End Times, cycling-wise? Silly sods have been gobbling enough dope to bring Hunter S. Thompson back from the dead, mainlining each others’ blood bags and fleeing drug raids through hotel windows, and what finally does the job is Thor Hushovd’s inability to hear Jonathan Vaughters’ sideburns flapping in the breeze from an open window in the team Volvo.
Fat tires and drop bars — does it get any better than this?
Y’know, beaches are swell and volcanoes nifty, but there’s definitely something to be said for spending the first day of spring noodling around some familiar single-track on 700c wheels.
Palmer Park was packed, so I had to yield trail quite a bit — mountain bikers, dawdling hikers, one kid on horseback, led by her parents — but it was all good. Everyone was in a chatty mood, nobody was a dick, and Monday doesn’t come until tomorrow. I didn’t even fall off or anything, which always adds to the enjoyment.
As I waited for one pack of mountain bikers to clear a section one grinned, shouted “Crazy cyclo-crosser!” and slapped me on the shoulder as he passed.
“No brain, no pain,” I agreed before clipping in and carrying on.
Here's another Hawaii shot — of the sunset on Herself's birthday as seen from the lanai of our rental house.
Matt Goss won a pretty damn’ exciting edition of Milan-San Remo today, pipping Fabian Cancellara and Philippe Gilbert in an eight-man dash to the line.
I watched the last couple hours of the race via streaming video, courtesy of La Gazzetta dello Sport, and once again was left wondering just how much longer print-and-pix websites are going to be able to keep hold of their readers. I mean, how are you gonna keep ’em down on the old Velo-farm when a guy can watch the entire race online — attacks, counters, crashes and all?
An unimpressive bit of popular fiction I was reading during vacation contained an interesting aside about sportswriters. The author, a former journo’, had a cop-shop reporter say that the sports guys had to be pretty good writers because their readers had already seen the televised events they were describing a day late and a dollar short. It took that little something extra to hold the fans’ interest, and the sportswriters had it.
Looks like our gang is gonna have to ramp it up a notch or two. Or three. I’m too old, cantankerous and unskilled to go looking for work, especially since I don’t particularly want to find it.
• Late update: I just noticed that there were all of two Americans in today’s race — George Hincapie (22nd) and Tyler Farrar (46th). Where the hell is everybody else, racing industrial-park crits in Boulder?
• Later update: Oh, goody, another war. A day without war is like a day without sunshine. The 3rd Brigade grunts who just got back to Fort Cartoon must be delighted. A fresh desert to fight in, don’t you know.
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