Dan Schorr clocked out today, typing “-30-” to 70-plus years in journalism and 93 on the planet.
Schorr spent his last two decades as a commentator at NPR, but he got his start at age 12, when The Bronx Home News paid him $5 for a scoop. He worked for CBS, landing a first-ever sitdown interview with Nikita Khruschchev; snagged a copy of a suppressed House report on off-the-hook CIA activities and leaked it to The Village Voice when CBS balked; wound up on Dick Nixon’s enemies list; and got in on the ground floor with CNN, way back when it still had dreams of being a news organization.
Schorr won three Emmys, but never learned how to use a computer — he wrote on electric typewriters into his 90s.
Today’s was a long and unproductive stint in the old VeloBarrel. VN.com remains a little twitchy — envision a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs — and this afternoon in addition to the usual hitches in its digital gitalong I started having trouble simply staying connected to the site.
This is problematical if you’re one of the people being paid to stuff bits and bytes up the digi-tubes linking France, Colorado, Wyoming and California. Thus I accomplished very little beyond rearranging the order in which I repeatedly delivered a short selection of choice obscenities.
Bring me one of these every 15 minutes until I pass out and every half hour thereafter.
Beats me what the problem was (and still is). My other usual haunts — The New York Times, Political Animal, DrunkCyclist and this miserable site — are chugging right along. And this site and DC are both WordPress-based models, too. So go figure.
“Is it too early to start fuckin’ drinking?” I IM’d web editor Steve Frothingham around 1:30. “It’s 9:30 p.m. in France,” he replied.
Speaking of booze, Frank Bruni has an item on the Bloody Mary over at today’s NYT.com. Writes Mr. Bruni: “The bloody mary bridges the speakeasy and the herb garden; it’s a liquid salad into which you can not only pour pretty much any kind of base alcohol you like but also sprinkle parsley, basil or cilantro, and, while you’re at it, cram in hunks of vegetables, usually pickled, of many types.”
He then goes on to describe an appalling series of effete East Coast beverages served up by sissified Noo Yawk bistros that must make a Sonoma County wine bar look like a Hell’s Angels clubhouse by comparison.
I was never big on Bloodies, myself. Back in my morning-drinker days the crowd I ran with favored the lowly red beer as a palliative for the daily brain sprain. This was simply whatever cheap lager was on tap at the nearest dive bar mixed with Snap-E-Tom tomato-and-chile juice, repeated as necessary. A wedge of lime upped the vitamin-C content while adding much-needed roughage.
Maybe I’ll have one tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll just get straight into the smack.
There ain’t nothing like that first week of the Tour, boys and girls. And this has been a particularly bad first few days, what with various other chores coinciding with my need to work five days a week for three weeks at VeloNews.com.
After 20 years of cracking lame cycling gags I occasionally find myself with a nasty case of writer’s block, and wouldn’t you know it? This was one of those times. And me with deadlines at Bicycle Retailer & Industry News (two columns and a “Shop Talk” cartoon strip) and VeloNews (editorial cartoon).
Never get out of the fuckin' boat!
I pushed the envelope so far it turned inside out, creating a wormhole that took me to an alternate universe containing a Patrick O’Grady who was still about half funny. Happily, when I showed up my dopplegänger was asleep under his drawing board with an empty bottle of tonsil polish in one limp paw (some things transcend time and space), so I appropriated his work and returned to my own universe just in time to beat my deadlines.
But is this my universe? Lance Armstrong is not winning the Tour — far from it, he sits in 18th place, 2:30 behind Fabian Cancellara, and is getting heckled by spectators calling him “dopehead” and “cheat.” And Mark Cavendish is getting his ass handed to him in the sprints. The renowned sprinter Andy Schleckhas more points than Cav’, f’chrissakes.
Shit. I should’ve listened to Chef. “Never get out of the boat.” Not even to beat a deadline.
Now here’s a goddamn bike race for you. Only one stage — but it’s 2,745 miles long, from Banff, Alberta, Canada, to Antelope Wells, N.M., and there are no soigneurs, domestiques, chefs, team cars, buses, officials, checkpoints, etc., et al., and so on and so forth. Strictly a garage-band sort of deal. Ride or die.
The Tour Divide runs along the Adventure Cycling Association’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, and the association has just hired the women’s record holder for the event, Jill Homer, as project manager and deputy editor of Adventure Cyclist magazine.
I like this note in the rules:
7. Tour Divide is a web-administered, do-it-yourself challenge based on the purest of wagers: the gentlemen’s bet or agreement. Nothing to win or lose but honor.
The Amgen Tour of California is finally over and done with, all praise to Cthulhu, may his (its?) tentacles grow ever longer. As tours go, it was not particularly captivating, but I did enjoy a couple of stages, including the last go-round of four in stage eight, the finale.
You have an untimely mechanical for defending champ Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack), U.S. national champion George Hincapie (BMC) off the front, Garmin-Transitions abso-fuckin’-lutely drilling it in the bunch for Dave Zabriskie, and a shitload of attacks from everybody and his grandmama on the final trip up to Mullholland Highway, all of which race leader Mick Rogers (HTC-Columbia) beats back all by his lonesome. Then a fast, scary descent to the finish with Garmin’s Ryder Hesjedal first across the line. Boo-yah.
Messy as hell, fun to watch, and if an Aussie won the overall and a Canuck the finale, so what? Tough shit. I like Aussies and Canucks. They’re kind of like Americans, only with bigger balls and better beer.
Now we can all go back to giving the Giro the attention it deserves. Anybody watch today’s stage? Count Vino’ looked like he was a quart low on the climb to Monte Zoncolan. Astana’s creature of the night finished fifth on the day at 2:26 behind Ivan Basso (yeah, no alarm bells there). Rainbow jersey Cadel Evans (BMC) was second at 1:19, and the difference between his climbing style and Basso’s was reminiscent of the Frazier-Ali fights.
Meanwhile, David Arroyo Duran (Caisse d’Epargne) still has the maglia rosa, but only in the sense that a clothes hanger holds a shirt until its proper owner slips it on. It’s a long way to the finale, with four more summit finishes en route.
Mad Blog Media 