Keep on the sunny side

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments

We’ll go honky-tonkin’ ’round this town.

Anyone besides Charlie Pierce and me digging the latest Ken Burns documentary, “Country Music,” on PBS?

I’ve watched the first three episodes and my toes have been tapping throughout.

I didn’t grow up on country music, though the old man was from Florida by way of Louisiana and mom was out of Iowa. They were into crooners like Frank Sinatra and big bands like Glenn Miller and His Orchestra.

Country got me as a hippie, of all things, when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Flying Burrito Brothers, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, and other alt-country groups were ascendant.

Those dudes get their due in Episode 6, and I can’t wait. Yeeeeeeehawwww, etc.

Shine on, harvest moon

September 13, 2019September 13, 2019 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

For me and my gal.

And on Friday the 13th, too. Boogity boogity boogity.

Paddy on the railway

June 29, 2019 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

“For it’s ‘Paddy do this,’ and ‘Paddy do that. …'”

This fellow waves at me every time I cycle past. And Paddy waves back. ’Tis no day at the beach, to be workin’ on the railway.

The Doctor is out

June 6, 2019 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

R.I.P., Dr. John, a.k.a. Mac Rebennack. From “Gris-Gris” to Popeye’s Chicken to Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem in just 77 years? I can’t top that, me. The Next World Orchestra just keeps getting biggerer and betterer.

Riding the (temperature) range

April 15, 2019April 15, 2019 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Everything’s growing in the yard, including
the amount of time I spend mowing it.

Yesterday was one of those days when you stare into the kit drawer thinking, “Fuck it, I’ll just take it all.”

The temperature was 33 degrees when I first checked in the ayem, and topped out at 74. That’s quite a range. Had it been a song, not even Roy Orbison could’ve sung it.

Steelman Eurocross No. 1 on the high side of Tramway Lane.

Oddly, it never felt quite that warm; not to me, anyway. El Rancho Pendejo is a dark house, lodged at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, and cool morning air drifts down the hill and surrounds the joint like bad news, delivering an inaccurate perception of the actual conditions outside.

Thus I whiled away the morning serving the cats, performing domestic chores, and shouting at various websites, and didn’t start my ride until noonish.

I set out with arm and knee warmers. But while I pulled the arm bits off toward the end, the knee ones stayed on, in accordance with the Bostick Rule, which went something like “Cover your knees under 65 degrees.”

What a beautiful day for a two-hour ride on a cyclocross bike*, though. A little pavement, a little dirt, a lot of laughs. You won’t catch me crying on a day like that.

* Batteries not included.