The red, white and blue (and also, the brown)

October 28, 2016October 28, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

This dark chocolate sucked so much I could hardly eat it. Yet I managed, somehow.

“America has become a dildo that has turned berserkly on its owner.” — Thomas McGuane, in “A Chat With a Novelist,” by Jim Harrison

The leaders and participants in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation got off scot-free yesterday. And if you had been following the occupation via TV and thought you saw crimes being committed, well, who you gonna believe — a jury of your alleged peers or your lyin’ eyes?

I’m thinking the wrong lawyer got tased after that verdict.

I’m also thinking that as long as these activities appear to be sanctioned by The People, I might just occupy a little feddle-gummint territory my own bad self, starting with the Denver Mint. And if any lesser authority should happen to complain about my collecting a few, um, souvenirs, well, I’ll just explain that they are sacred images of my ancestors.

Whoops, looks like that sacred-ancestors argument doesn’t work so well when made by the wrong kind of Americans. I like my pepper on the plate, not in my eyes, and delivered by a smiling server instead of a Terminator driving a tank.

Can we get a change of venue for all these cases? I’m thinking maybe Oregon.

Meanwhile, finally, something upon which all Americans can agree: Dark chocolate sucks.

Even so, it tastes miles better than some of the stuff we’ve been fed lately.

Fort Apache

October 25, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

Finally, a taste of actual fall weather.

I’m in Albuquerque, working on a bike review and watching it rain. Herself is bound for Mesa Verde on the next leg of her Gal Pals Getaway Tour.

And somewhere in the southern Arizona desert, the Three Percent United Patriots are making headlines, if only in Mother Jones magazine.

Anyone who has ever lived out where the hoot owls date the chickens has met at least one of these dudes. In Weirdcliffe it was the cowboy who claimed to have edibles and weaponry cached all over the Sangre de Cristos and inquired whether we would be “ready to kill” when it all went sideways and the “Mexicans” came boiling up Hardscrabble Canyon to … to … well, get the hell out of Pueblo, I suppose. And who could blame them?

I got the hell out of Pueblo. I also got the hell out of Weirdcliffe. And I’ve spent a little time in the Threepers’ AO, though I never saw one. (“If you saw them, sir, they weren’t Threepers.”)

Just once I would love to read about the lefty variation on these dudes. There has to be one, amirite? The Sedona Extremely Irregulars? The 69th Berkeley Berserkers? The 420th Humboldt County Doobie Brethren?

Or maybe that particular ship has sailed, or sunk.

Back in the Seventies, when I thought I was Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, the October League’s Denver chapter had just wrapped up another successful evening of smashing the State via withering rhetoric when a couple comrades mentioned that they used to be professional wrestlers.

“Bullshit,” someone said. And then they showed us, right there in the dark Denver alley. They were slamming each other into cars and up against walls, pounding each other with forearm smashes and trash-can lids, the works. It was entertaining as hell and absolutely nobody got hurt.

Then a window slammed open and someone advised us to shut the fuck up and we did. Shortly thereafter the revolution failed to materialize.

Tanked

October 20, 2016October 20, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Going down? Don't you wish. ... — Going down? Don’t you wish. …

Sounds like Insane Clown Pussy achieved his usual level last night.

I’d be delighted to report that his performance in the final presidential “debate” will sink him, but fat turds float, and I expect this one will continue to bob around in the national crapper for the better part of quite some time.

Frankly, it seems unflushable. I’d say sell the house, but who’d want to buy with that thing spoiling every showing? Can we just wall it off with bricks the way Montresor did Fortunato? Pretend it’s not there? Do our business outside if need be?

Shit.

Anyone who was surprised that ICP refused to say he’d take his beating like a man has not been paying attention. He’s not a man. He’s not even a small-d democrat. He’s a two-bit totalitarian. And those dudes don’t go down without a vigorous flushing, and maybe a bit of elbow grease. OK, a lot of elbow grease.

Sadly, rather than get busy with the plunger, however distasteful a chore that may be, some of our fellow Americans insist on splashing around in there with him.

Insane Clown Pussy may be circling the bowl, but his stink will be with us for a while yet. Somebody light a match.

A public service announcement

October 19, 2016October 19, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

When the going gets weird. ... — When the going gets weird. …

Unless Zombie Hunter S. Thompson resurrects the National Affairs Desk atop a taco truck outside the University of Nevada-Las Vegas I will not be watching tonight’s final “debate.”

I suppose there might be some entertainment value in watching the increasingly deranged Ronald McDonald McTrump shout in answer to every question, “You’re fired! You’re fired! YOU’RE FIRED!!!” Or maybe lunge across the desk and sink his fangs into The Hilldebeast’s throat as she stabs him in the venom sac with a ceremonial dagger smuggled to her by the Illuminati.

But goddamn, I’ve had enough of this for one lifetime, in this realm or any other. It’s like watching Maude trade zingers with Yog-Sothoth on the Necronomicon Network.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”

“God will get you for that, Donald.”

As soon as early voting commences here in the Land of Enchantment, I will bicycle over to the polls and vote against Insane Clown Pussy. This may be pointless — Real Clear Politics has HRC solidly out front in New Mexico, and the NYT’s Upshot has her with a 92 percent chance of victory nationwide — but insulting him on Twitter seems to have had little effect. Thus I leave nothing to chance.

And if the GOP candidate should transmogrify into a Great Old One and devour the shrieking studio audience tonight, well, that’s showbiz. Doesn’t mean I have to watch.

If only it were true that whatever happens in Vegas stays there.

Let me forget about today until tomorrow

October 13, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun, it’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run.

I probably should have been conspiring with my fellow journalists about how best to speed the ongoing decline and fall of Ronald McDonald McTrump, but I felt like riding a bike, so I did that instead.

Anyway, it doesn’t look to me as though this virulent orange ball of flatulence needs my help to sink slowly in the west, into a sewage lagoon of its own making.

When I got back home I cranked up iTunes and worked my way through my admittedly limited Bob Dylan collection (“Blonde On Blonde,” “Blood On the Tracks,” “Bringing It All Back Home,” and “Highway 61 Revisited”).

I’m not sure ol’ Bob merits the Nobel Prize for Literature, but right offhand I can’t think of anyone else who has it coming, either. I know that I like him, and so I’m happy for him, and shall defer in matters literary to Thomas McGuane, whose opinion on Dylan (from “Nothing But Blue Skies”) I have poached before:

No one compares with this guy, thought Frank. I feel sorry for the young people of today with their stupid fucking tuneless horseshit; that may be a generational judgment but I seriously doubt it.