Hey, what can I tell you? The old Beatles album seemed appropriate for today’s indoor-cycling soundtrack.
“Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.”
Downstream appears to be where we’re headed, a’ight. In the SS Wall Street, a cruise ship full of coronavirus and cheap oil, captained by a drug-addled golf cheat with a crew of button-down barnacles, lampreys and other hangers-on.
Tomorrow may never know, but today isn’t exactly up to speed, either.
“Move” is the first cut on the 1957 Miles Davis album “Birth of the Cool.” And that’s what I did yesterday. Move.
Not much, mind you. It’s still just over two weeks since I broke that ankle, though it seems more like two years. But I’ve been treating the fucking thing like it’s made of Waterford crystal and all of a sudden I was sick of its bullshit.
So I clomped out to the garage, pulled the rim-brake Soma Saga down from its hook, clamped it to the old Cateye Cyclosimulator CS-1000, and went for a short “ride.”
It wasn’t as stupid as it sounds, probably. I did a half hour in low gears. Three-point-five miles with Miles, for an average speed of 7 big big mph. I was wearing my Darth Gimp boot on the starboard side and a Vasque Clarion hiking boot on the port, which kept me more or less symmetrical. Also, I dropped the saddle a couple cm to allow for a certain lack of flexibility in the wonky bits.
Sure, it felt creepy at first. If you’ve ever broken a bone you know that feeling — “Should I or shouldn’t I?” — about taking the damaged goods off the shelf for a little look-see.
“OK, yeah, right, here we go, show me what you got you miserable motherf. …”
But it went OK. The swelling continues to diminish, I’m seeing more definition in the foot, and with any luck I won’t need that bespoke piñon-and-turquoise peg and a Norwegian blue (lovely plumage) for my 66th birthday.
Incidentally, “Birth of the Cool” is also the title of a documentary about Miles, the man and his music. You can catch it on PBS.
Jaysis. As if the banjaxed ankle weren’t annoying enough, now the trees are conducting biological warfare against my tender sinuses.
I’ve actually been compelled to take drugs, and not the interesting kind, either. Blaugh, etc.
Last night I slept mostly not at all, and between that and the drugs I’m having trouble staying focused on all the Super Tuesday doings, beyond noting that the Anybody But Bernie Caucus is forming up right smart.
Crucifixion? Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each. Next?
Talk about the walking wounded: Herself, who brought a vile head cold home from Florida, joined me this afternoon for a hot lap around El Oso Grande Park.
I decided to leave the Darth Gimp boot at home and went with a simple Ace bandage wrap buttressed by an old Teva sandal. Didn’t quite burst into tears every time I saw someone soaring past on a bicycle. Waaaaaaaah.
Still, it beat listening to Marcus Wobbly, O.D., mumble about “very strongly” considering new travel curbs at the U.S.-Mexico border to keep the coronavirus at bay. Dipshit probably thinks you have to drink a case of Corona to catch a case of coronavirus.
One of the interesting aspects of occasionally wandering away from straight writing into “multimedia,” by which I mean short videos, podcasts, and what have you, is seeing how one thing can become another if you use a big enough hammer.
It’s not always a better thing. But it’s inevitably something different. So what we have here is a podcast that grew like a weed, a wart, or a boil from a couple of short blog posts.
When I blew up my ankle last Friday my instinctive reaction was to write a long blog post about the first time I did that, in 1983. I was a depressed 29-year-old fat bastard who had just quit one job in Oregon for another in Colorado, and suddenly, boom, there I was in a walking cast, on crutches, 1,400 miles from my new home.
A fiberglass foot makes it tough to drive stick. Hell, I couldn’t even load the truck. Stairs were involved. Plus I had two dogs who were nearly as ill-mannered as I was.
And then there was the time I broke a collarbone midway through a long-loop mountain-bike race. Lemme tell you, that shit will affect your finishing time. My cyclocross training proved useless. Couldn’t even shoulder the bike and run. Couldn’t drive then, either, and it was a long haul back to Bibleburg from Gunnison.
Happily, in both instances, I got by with a little help from my friends. Until this last time, when I was on my own.
Golly gee, Mister Dog, what happened then? There’s only one way to find out, sonny, and it’s not by reading — you gotta listen to the latest episode of Radio Free Dogpatch!
• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with a Shure Beta 87A microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, then edited in Apple’s GarageBand on the 13-inch 2014 MacBook Pro. Post-production voodoo by Auphonic. The background music was assembled from various loops in GarageBand by Your Humble Narrator, while the various sound effects were gleaned from G-band and the iMovie effects bin.
Mad Blog Media 