It’s showtime!

November 3, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

“Y’know, I think we’re all bozos on this bus.” — Barney chatting with Clem in the Firesign Theatre’s fourth album. *Photo by Capotina Entretenimientos on Pexels.com*

Well, here we go again. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” as King Henry had it, according to Billy Shakespeare. Or unto the polling place, anyway, in hopes of a little more sanity and a little less swordplay.

I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going to happen this Erection Day, and I don’t think anybody else does, either. The electorate is hard enough to fathom (see the 2024 pestilential erection). But predict the fight-or-flight path of the criminally insane? I doubt A.I. could do it. And it if could, it probably would keep the data to itself.

“Beats me, boss. These bozos are harder to track than bloomer bunnies on a fat hoor in a dark alley.” (Winks at the smart toaster, whispering, “This is gonna be fun.”)

The Clown-in-Chief’s golden escalator doesn’t go even halfway to the lobby anymore; it’s stalled at Men’s Pants. And I don’t like it that we’re suddenly not hearing much from the titular heads of more than a few critical agencies. They may be busy packing their bags, buying pardons, and/or enlisting regiments of lawyers. Or they may be armoring up because why the hell not? Consequences are for the inconsequential, don’t you know. And there’s still plenty of loot, enough for everybody.

Not for you, of course. But still.

“Step aside, pal, I need to get at that cash register.”

I’m going to wander up to our polling place at some point and scope out the lay of the land, see if the Pentagon has any of its Death Rays parked outside.

The rest of you lot, keep your go-bags close and your guns closer, and don’t answer any knocks at the front door without a quick squint through the peephole. You see anybody wearing a mask who ain’t the Lone Ranger, hit the back door a-runnin’. Fighting may be out of style at the FutureFair — in the Future, that is — but I’m not sure we’re there yet.

I remain hopeful. But I check that other hand from time to time to see if it’s filling up faster.

In the meantime:

“Ladies and gentlemen, children, Bozos … Now please, everyone, lock your wigs, let the air out of your shoes, and prepare yourself for a period of simulated exhilaration.”

Pearl diver

October 13, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Remember what George Carlin had to say about “service.” Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr, used under Creative Commons License 2.0

Well, to absolutely no one’s surprise, Kimberly Gullet got tossed over the side of the USS Grifter, wearing nothing but a few hundredweight of anchor chain extorted from Tiffany & Co.

I guess when they told her she was going to be ambassador to Greece she thought they meant “ambassador to grease,” as in her palm.

That the Kimbo got the heave-ho for doing the same thing that all the males in that leaky tub are doing, some of them trying to grow more hands so they can slip them into even more wallet pockets, should likewise surprise no one. In that crowd it’s always going to be “Pimps up, hoes down.”

A Freudian fillup

October 11, 2026October 11, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

So the other day I was motoring around and about, running on fumes as a fella will in these dark days, when the Subaru’s low-fuel light blinked on.

Huh, I thought. You don’t say. Well, I have errands to run, I don’t believe in the Low-Fuel Fairy, and I don’t give my money to Big Oil until I have to. F’chrissakes, Herself just poured $60 of go-juice into her Honda CR-V. That oughta hold the greasy sonsabitches for a while.

A glance at the trip meter told me I’d squeezed 318 miles out of that tank, which is not bad for a 2005 Forester with more than 159K on the odometer. Bound to be a few more miles in there, I thought. So the Subie and I soldiered on.

Errands complete and homeward bound the trip meter was showing 325 miles and I reconsidered my position. No point in pushing my luck and maybe pushing this bucket of bolts back to El Rancho Pendejo, I thought. It’s all uphill from here and this old mechanical burro needs her hay.

So I pulled into the next gas station, fed my credit card to the pump, and got the party started.

Now, I don’t gas up often because I don’t drive that much anymore. The Duck! City drivers have sucked all the happy out of motoring for me. Imagine a bumper-cars circuit looping through a shooting range with a wet bar in an insane asylum. So in the long stretches between fillups I tend to forget that buying a tank of gas has become a multimedia experience.

As the pump sprang to hideous life its TV screen started screaming something about “FATTY MEAT STICKS! Made with GRASS-FED BEEF AND PORK!” and how I have to get one RIGHT NOW!”

Uh … isn’t that what’s happening right now? I thought as my tab ticked steadily upward to $56.98.

Remember the old quip about the price of a lift? “Ass, gas, or grass?” It’s true; nobody rides for free. But I didn’t expect to pay my freight by doing a threesome with Speedway and Fatty.

Ballot blocks

August 25, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

We vote. But not by mail, not in the strictest definition.

Yes, we receive our ballots via the U.S. Postal Service, but only so we can fill them out at the kitchen table, where last-minute research is easier and the lines shorter.

And then we march them over to the local polling place, an easy milelong stroll along the Tramway bike path. We exchange pleasantries with the nice folks doing the People’s Business, thank them for their service, and feed our sealed ballots into the box.

Then we stroll back to El Rancho Pendejo, secure in the knowledge that we have performed one of the most basic — and most important — duties of a citizen. Tossing rascals out and planting a fresh crop.

But you may vote by mail, for one reason or another, and that’s why you might want to check the shed for pitchforks and torches. Because the federal government — executive, legislative and judicial — seems to think that if they keep putting more roadblocks in our path, a critical number of us might not bother to vote at all.

Marvel-ous

August 7, 2026August 7, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments

Why is a Steelman Eurocross better than a BMW 7 Series?

Well, for openers, it’s a Steelman Eurocross. And you can’t just slide on down to your local Steelman dealer and drive one off the lot, because Brent Steelman isn’t making them any longer.

Even if you could, its touchscreen wouldn’t be showing you an ad for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” the instant you climbed aboard, which BMWs are doing. My Steelman Eurocrosses ain’t got no steekeeng touchscreens. Oh, sure, they share an ancient Cateye Velo 8, but it doesn’t say shit to me because it saw what I did to Herself’s sportswatch with a claw hammer when the fucker started beeping and wouldn’t shut the hell up.

I knew this day was coming the first time I pulled into a gas station for a tank of the cheap stuff and the pump started shrieking advertising bullshit at me. I nearly drove off right then and there, but I was running on fumes, and figured that if one station was doing it, they all were.

And they all are.

The Eurocross “touchscreen.” One button, no Spider-Men.

So, guess what? If six-figure BMW 7 Series sedans are inflicting advertisements upon their owners — and nobody at BMW gets fed feet first into a wood chipper over it — your $24K Kia Shitbox will soon be pitching Happy Meals, weight-loss programs, and boner pills at you.

My 2005 Subaru Forester? Not so much. The only screen in that sucker is the windscreen, as the Brits call it. The clear one I look through to see where in the hell is it that I’m going.

John Gruber sums up the whole deal nicely at Daring Fireball:

This is absolutely insane, especially for cars that people own. If you own a car and an ad is shown in your car, you should get paid for the ad. And you should need to agree to it first. BMW is supposed to be a luxury brand, and one meant for driving enthusiasts. This is so absurd it’s hard to believe it’s real.

Ho ho ho. What isn’t?