Labor Day in the rear view

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

Your Humble Narrator in the salad days, covering a race in Bibleburg.

“Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.” — Anatole France, “The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard.”

Whenever I think of myself as a “worker” I have to smile.

Oh, sure, I have worked, for short stretches, whenever there was no suitable alternative available. Drug dealer. Janitor. Installer of storm windows and patio covers. Appliance deliveryman. Dishwasher. Schlepper of pizzas and sandwiches.

But I spent the bulk of my worklife scribbling silly-ass pictures and/or arranging words in some particular order with malicious intent, to wit, attempting to convey an idea to an invisible audience.

This is right up there with tagging freeway overpasses and howling at the moon. But it pays slightly better, and mostly you can do it in the shade, sitting down.

There is a game-show quality to journalism. Your team has to collect, confirm, compose, and condense a mind-boggling overabundance of information, then stuff as much of it as possible into a sack that keeps changing size until the buzzer sounds, heralding the start of that night’s press run.

If you beat the clock, you “win” and get to come back tomorrow to play another round.

The word “play” is used deliberately. There were some long hours spent shoveling, to be sure, but they were easy on the lower back and the calluses formed mostly on the mind.

If journalism truly was a game, for me it was the only one in whichever town I was inhabiting at the moment. Composing the first draft of history day in and out in the company of (mostly) like-minded maniacs.

On my third daily and already thinking about jumping ship, arr.

The U.S. Navy used to sell itself by crooning, “It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.” Journalism’s pitch was that it wasn’t just a job, or even a game, but a Calling — to preach the Gospel daily in the Church of What’s Happening Now (tip of the stingy-brim to Flip Wilson and the Rev. Leroy).

Now, if you think you are Called to preach, you are easy to exploit. And the gods could be unimpressed and indifferent.

“Fine sermon, Reverend. But that was yesterday. What have you done for Me lately?”

So, yeah. Long hours, and you frequently took the Work home with you. Sometimes it dragged you in early, or on a day off. Often it took you someplace you didn’t want to go, not even for money. Especially when you considered the paucity of coins in your collection plate.

But the Work found me when I was teetering along one of those ragged edges that beckon to oddballs like me. And it kept me in bacon, beans, and beer for nearly 15 years, though I backslid to the edge from time to time.

Finally I decided I liked the edge and set up shop nearby. A small chapel, nothing serious. My sermons were unorthodox, but so was the congregation. Same old gods, but hey, whaddaya gonna do? I dodged their lightning and kept that shtick up for 30 years.

Fortune eluded me, but I got all the low-rent fame I could handle, more than I deserved. God’s honest truth? I got lucky. In the right place at the right time, with friends in high places, and more than once, too.

Could a 20-year-old stoner with zero skills wander into the smaller of two daily papers in a medium-size city today and set his wandering feet upon a path that kept him out of jail for nearly a half-century?

Never fucking happen, to coin a phrase. There are no more two-newspaper towns, and damn few newspapers, period. Most are the journalistic equivalent of dollar stores, all owned by the same two or three outfits, all selling the same two-bit expired horseshit. And magazines are following them down the Highway to Hell, which is no longer paved with good intentions.

In 2023 the 20-year-old me couldn’t even go back to selling weed, because that’s just another job now. And you know how I feel about jobs.

I once was lost, but I was found. Can I get a hallelujah?

Brew-haha

July 22, 2023July 22, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments

Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Phineas and Fat Freddy
discuss labor issues while grocery shopping.
*© in perpetuity by Gilbert Shelton, all praise to his name.*

“What more could anyone ask for than to work for a beer company?” Fat Freddy wonders.

Well, a living wage might be nice, say the brewery workers on strike against Leinenkugel’s in Chippewa Falls, Wis. It’s the first strike against Leinie’s since 1985.

“We’ve just fallen behind every contract,” [John] McGillis said after wrapping up a strike shift next to a rushing creek, where neighbors have been dropping off doughnuts, pizza and words of encouragement. “We’re behind what everybody else in this area is paying.”

The corporate bigwigs at the Molson Coors mothership disagree, because of course they do. They’re about making money, not beer, and probably up to their third chins in a scheme to have A.I. brewing virtual lager for digital pubs on Facebook. Dispense with that irksome human element, don’t you know.

Or maybe it’s worse than we think. While the Teamsters are out in the streets some scab plumber is probably rerouting the toilets to the taps. And for minimum wage, too.

Remember your W.C. Fields: “I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.” People do those things, too, W.C. old scout. Say, does the “W.C.” stand for “Water Closet?”

• Java jive redux: In other news from the morning side of the beverage industry (for those of us who are not day drinkers, anyway) maybe I have to reconsider that occasional Starbuck’s Americano.

No joke, sport

July 13, 2023July 13, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments

Whew. Rough week in my old bidness.

The New York Times croaked its sports department, and McClatchy sacked three Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists — Jack Ohman of the Sacramento Bee, Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kevin Siers of the Charlotte Observer.

Having worked in one sports department and drawn more than a few editorial cartoons, I naturally view with alarm. Wit is without value but witlessness is rewarded?

When The Washington Post asked for comment on McClatchy’s abrupt erasure of three Pulitzer winners, the company — owned by Chatham Asset Management — supplied this gem from opinion editor Peter St. Onge:

“We made this decision based on changing reader habits and our relentless focus on providing the communities we serve with local news and information they can’t get elsewhere,” the statement said.

Ho, ho. That’s not the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s definitely on today’s leaderboard.

What local news and information that can’t be gotten elsewhere might McClatchy be relentlessly focused on providing in Sacramento at 3:10 p.m. Thursday Duck! City time?

And who says there’s no such thing as good news!

“The stories you’re seeing on the homepage are chosen by our local editors with help from an AI algorithm. The display includes the day’s important stories and recommendations for readers like you.”

Anyway, here’s a random selection from AI’s random selections courtesy of your friendly neighborhood carbon-based life form:

• “Cirque du Soleil returns to Sacramento this summer: Here’s where, when and how to get tickets.” Sounds like a free ad to me, but maybe the AI got comped tickets.

• “More than 40% of Californians say they were affected by recent extreme weather, poll finds.” Do tell. I imagine the other 60 percent stayed home or attended an air-conditioned showing of Cirque du Soleil.

• “Prime Day is over, but there are still deals galore.” Any cut-rate Cirque du Soleil tickets?

Well, thank Boss Tweed there ain’t none a them damned pictures taking up space on the Bee homepage. There’s not much to read, either. But then the only reading that interests hedge funders and asset managers is of the bottom line, and McClatchy certainly seems to have gotten to the bottom of something here.

• Addendum: Speaking of bottoms, pour one out for Anchor Brewing, which is going down after 127 years, the final few under a disastrous foreign ownership. Anchor Steam may have been the first proper beer I ever drank, and the porter was superb.

Shakedown Trail

June 29, 2023June 29, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Don’t tell the industry, but a fella can still ride a 28-year-old MTB
if he wants to.

I’m not quite certain what (or if) I was thinking yesterday.

The bike docs at Two Wheel Drive had rung me up Tuesday afternoon to say my 1995 DBR Axis TT was out of headset surgery and doing nicely, but I couldn’t get down there to collect it before closing time.

TWD doesn’t open until 10 a.m., so I thought I’d go for a 45-minute trail run Wednesday morning before motoring down to fetch the bike. Sweat a little rather than a lot, don’t you know.

The scene of the crime … er, the morning trail run.

These things I did, then had a medium-heavy bite of lunch.

Sensible so far, yeah?

Don’t worry. It never lasts.

Weather conditions be damned, I just can’t not ride a new/recently repaired bike.

So I kitted up and rolled out to the Elena Gallegos for a short shakedown cruise that wound up being about 90 minutes.

It was toasty out there — just shy of 90 degrees — but bearable. And anyway, I barely noticed because I was having so much fun riding this 28-year-old mountain bike.

Don’t tell The Industry, but you can still mine a few giggles from a made-in-USA titanium MTB with a Tange steel fork, triple crank, eight-speed XT, V-brakes, flat bar, Grip Shift twisties, 26-inch wheels with 2.0 rubber, and a creaky old 1954 MeatSack® motor that couldn’t pass an emissions check in Mexico City no matter how much mordida you paid.

It’s frisky and maneuverable and weighs just under 24 pounds with a saddlebag holding two spare tubes, tire irons, and a minitool. The flat bar, V-brakes and plumpish tires let me roll over a few items I have to dodge on a drop-bar ’cross bike with cantis and 32mm knobbies. And the smaller wheels put me a little closer to the ground for purposes of falling off onto sharp rocks and spiky foliage.

I managed to keep the greasy side down yesterday through an abundance of caution and the avoidance of all truly technical sections, though I sampled a few rocky bits in the name of Science.

Mostly I was just noodling along, enjoying my little trip down Memory Lane, recalling the Good Old Days® when a rigid 26-incher with an eight-speed triple and 2.0 tires was as good as it got.

• Editor’s note: “Shakedown Street” is, of course, a tune and an album by the Grateful Dead, produced by Lowell “Little Feat” George. My favorite underground cartoonist — Gilbert Shelton (“Wonder Wart-Hog,” “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers”) — did the album cover art. Last, but not least, a resounding “Damn The Man!” goes out to the Save the Elena Gallegos rebels, who gave a righteous beatdown to an ill-considered plan to install an unnecessary and unwanted “visitors center” — the thin edge of a development wedge — in our little piece of paradise. Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart.

Comedy, and its opposite, gravity

February 28, 2023February 28, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

The final “Dilbert,” in its Sunday-funnies incarnation, anyway.

Wile E. Coyote never saw the edge until he went over it.

Then it was “Ffffeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww … pow!”

Working the ragged edge for fun and profit is a hazardous occupation. Become enraptured by your own artistry and suddenly you notice a certain lack of mission-critical support. That telltale rush of air. From joker to joke in one easy misstep.

Until cartoonist Scott Adams took his header I hadn’t read “Dilbert” in years, but I remembered the strip being funny, even though I hadn’t had any real personal contact with office culture since I quit The New Mexican in 1991.

Apparently the strip had become less amusing over the years — to some readers and editors, anyway — and then when Adams shat the bed with a David Duke impersonation over at YouTube, before you could say “Meep meep” it was “Ffffeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww … pow!”

I got a little too far out over my skis a time or two, mostly before Twitter mobs became a thing.

The University of Northern Colorado’s Mirror gave me the heave-ho after my cartoons inchwormed up some overly tight arseholes. Years later the weekly Sentinel chain in Denver showed me the door; it was part of the usual layoffs, but I got mine for being a dick. The publisher was a twat. These two things can coexist, even find happiness, but ours wasn’t a match made in heaven.

As a freelancer for VeloNews and Bicycle Retailer and Industry News I annoyed a few readers and advertisers with cartoons and columns, but my crimes were rarely felonies and management almost always had my back.

When I finally left it was under my own steam and nobody changed the locks afterward. There were no mourners, but neither was there a lynch mob. I’ll call that a win.

Dilbert and The Old Guy Who Gets Fat in Winter appeared the same year, in 1989. Thank Cthulhu old Fatso never made it as big (har de har har) as Dilbert did. ’Tis unknown what class of a dick I might have made of meself on the YouTubes.

• Editor’s note: Props to The Firesign Theatre’s Nino the Mind-Boggler for the headline.