Stockholm syndrome

October 9, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

That monumental clap of thunder you heard this morning was the sound of millions of Repuglican assholes slamming shut at the news that Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Mao Zedong Pol Pot Josef “Uncle Joe” Stalin Barack Saddam Hussein Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, I can sympathize with those who may consider this award a tad premature. It’s not unlike stopping the Tour on stage 5 and saying, “Aw, fuck it, give the jersey to Michael Barry. Nice guy, hard worker, real good sport. Chapeau. OK, guys, let’s ride on to Paris, whaddaya say?” There are a few other guys in the contest, and lots of summit finishes and hairpin descents and road furniture between here and there.

Still, it works just fine as a review of the eight-year-long rendition of “The Horst Wessel Song” as performed by the evil organ grinder Darth Cheney and his monkey. Perhaps the award should be renamed this year as the Holy Shit Are We Ever Glad the American Executive Branch Is No Longer Insane Prize.

One Gran Fondue, hold the napalm

October 3, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

A glimpse of the changing colors in Dog Country.

Legolas Leipheimer is leading a Gran Fondue through Sonoma County today, accompanied by some 3,500 of his closest friends, and embedded in the merry band is my old pal Chris Coursey, formerly a columnist for The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa.

Via e-mail, Chris notes that he is doing the 65-mile Medio Fondue, which features only 3,500 feet of climbing, as opposed to the full kettle of cheese — 110 miles with 6,500 feet of up, including the dread Coleman Valley Road. Going up is plenty tough — and don’t forget, what goes up must also come down.

Writes Chris: “The descent on the other side is hairpinned and potholed in some places, smooth and screaming in others. It demands a bit of skill, discretion and common sense. And I’m going to be sharing it with 3,499 other humanoids. When is the last time you saw 3,500 skilled, discreet and sensible people together in the same crowd?”

Uh, that would be never, which is only one of the many reasons I will go out for a short, solo ’cross-bike ride here as soon as the temps reach the knee-warmer stage.

Still, it could be worse — instead of cycling alone or in a crowd, we could be pounding ground along the Arghandab River in Afghanistan, a garden spot that the grunts of Bravo Company describe as “Vietnam without the napalm.” Sounds lovely. I’d rather do the backside of Coleman drunk on a unicycle with a rucksack full of nitroglycerin.

October surprises

October 2, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

It got good and chilly here last night — when I arose, it was exactly freezing outside. Now it’s 50-something, like me, and like me it took a long time to get there.

Last night I made another Martha Rose Shulman recipe, pasta with walnut sauce and broccoli raab, except I used broccoli florets. I had planned to do her stir-fried pork and greens, but Herself intervened on behalf of broccoli, and while I was surprised at her choice we were both pleased with the results. Plus there were enough leftovers for today’s lunch.

Tonight it’s back to caveman chow — a grilled flatiron steak from Ranch Foods Direct, some spuds and a vegetable to be determined by Herself, who is on a rare grocery-shopping excursion as part of a series of errands. I generally fetch the grub, since I do all the cooking around the DogHaus, but lacking any sort of work ethic I’m easily persuaded to sit on my ass and let someone else do the heavy lifting.

Outside the kitchen, meanwhile, Repuglican asshats and their enablers in the MSM are spastically jacking off over Barack Adolf Hitler Saddam Hussein Pol Pot “Uncle Joe” Stalin Mao Zedong Obama’s failure to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago and Steve Benen at Political Animal is predictably snarky.

I don’t know what all the fuss is about, frankly — Colorado voters told the International Olympic Committee to go fuck itself back in 1972, when a Denver group wanted to bring the Winter Olympics here, and we’re still on the map, albeit for all of the wrong reasons (Focus on the Family, Doug Bruce, Doug Lamborn — the list goes on and on). But at least we didn’t piss away 13 times the original estimate to host that frozen clusterfuck, the way California did in 1960.

Why, the Winter Games don’t even include cyclo-cross. That right there’s a deal-breaker as far as I’m concerned.

Mercury falling

September 21, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Summer vanished faster than the public option today. I was forced to retire my usual professional ensemble of shorts and sandals in favor of a ratty pair of sweat pants and moth-eaten socks, though I stuck with the sleeveless T for freedom of movement while rassling typos for VeloNews.com.

It was a slow day in the VeloBarrel, as the crew was scattered far and wide, either at Outdoor Demo, en route to Sin City or playing one-handed spit-in-the-carpet somewhere, and that suited me just fine. I don’t like Mondays, and I really don’t like cold, gray, windy and damp Mondays, especially when I’m staring down the barrel of a five-day work week like the rest of y’all. If I wanted to work, I’d get a job, a self-imposed sentence that I have successfully avoided for 18 years now.

Still, a slow day pushing pixels is not exactly hard labor, and I was able to raise my head for a quick peek now and then to see what was shaking in the hairy-legged world. It was not encouraging.

Dingbat W. Cleon Skousen is apparently enjoying something of a renaissance thanks to Glenn Beck, Texas Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry and other gibbering asshats. Remember your Ed Abbey (“You can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.”)

Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants more troops for Afghanistan. Kevin Drum is skeptical, and so am I, having read a little Kipling and observed some recent history. The Persians, Brits and Soviets all screwed the pooch — I see many bootprints entering, but considerably fewer leaving — and Uncle Sammy is batting cleanup? No, thanks. Bring ’em home, please.

And finally, apparently straight porn makes you gay. But I don’t even like show tunes.

Diary of a mad rumormonger

September 13, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

Another gray day in Bibleburg. Big Bill McBeef popped by to say howdy after his Sunday ride, and he was wearing some old long-sleeved Mad Dog Media kit, at least two iterations off the back, the real warm stuff we got from Aussie about a thousand years ago.

Naturally, being a cyclo-crosser (emeritus), I called him a pussy for wearing long sleeves so early in September. But I was slouched in my office chair with a cup of tea, in front of two large, heat-generating flat-panel monitors, editing copy for VeloNews.com, so there was little doubt as to whose manliness was in question.

We have a moment between revenue-generating chores here, so let’s take stock of what’s going on in the hairy-legged world.

First, Jim Carroll, the punk-rocking poet perhaps best known for his memoir “The Basketball Diaries” and his punk anthem “People Who Died”? He died.

Next, The Washington Post continues to undermine the notion that the media are controlled by a tiny group of media elites. (Thanks and a tip of the Mad Blog tinfoil beanie to Steve Benen at Political Animal.) Honorable mention goes to The Bibleburg Gaslight, which proudly lists the right-wing harpy Michelle Malkin as an advisory member of its editorial board, which is not unlike Sybil adding another demonic contributor to the list of voices in her head.

And finally, my buddy Hal Walter writes about net worth versus self-worth. Take a squint; it’s most definitely worth pondering over a hot toddy as you wonder why you are where you are — and where you left the snow shovel.