Blowin’ in the wind

January 23, 2023January 23, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

The wind is shrieking like a House Repuglican
whose Koch Brothers rent check got lost in the mail.

God is running His leaf blower today, and my back yard sports more needles than the alleys around Pennsylvania and Central.

Speaking of the mean streets of The Duck! City, a couple state legislators did a photo op over the weekend, kipping in a tent at 4th and Marble to draw attention to homelessness.

A few of our local TV stations took the bait, because they are local TV stations. And while some might take offense that one story was peppered with ads from Vrbo, Hotels.com, and Expedia.com, I doubt that many of the unhoused were browsing the ’Net from their cardboard condos. No harm, no foul.

The legislators would not have enjoyed street life today, though I hear Oz is lovely this time of year, and Emerald City Airlines rarely loses your tent.

Meanwhile, there’s an air-quality alert in place until noon tomorrow, and anyone who likes their air regular instead of extra-crispy is advised to hold their breath until then.

‘The Wisdom of Solomon’

January 17, 2023January 17, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 34 Comments

“You have the right to remain stupid. …”

The final entry in The Duck! City trilogy that began with “Breaking Bad” and continued with “Better Call Saul” stars “This Fool” co-star Frankie Quiñones as Solomon Peña, a failed GOP candidate accused of ordering — and participating in — drive-bys on Democratic officials’ houses and offices.

Hilarity ensues. Or not.

Look for the premiere, “Don’t Recount … Reload!” on Court TV.

Toast

November 9, 2020 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

The only things missing are the man-bun and the ironic facial hair.

No, not him. I’m talking about the famous Hipster Avocado Toast a la Señor Dog of Albuquerque.

The other day I bought a six-pack of avocados to chop into a rough salsa for a batch of chipotle-honey chicken tacos. This proved to be about four too many, so there you have it. The bread is a robust whole-wheat number from the Toastmaster Bread Box recipe booklet.

It seems a good day to crouch behind the parapets, nibbling tasty bits and dodging dispatches from the Bananas Republic. This just in: GOP sticks fingers in ears and goes “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA,” how the Donks will fuck this up, everybody hates everybody else, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the 24/7 news cycle. Happily, we still have a couple avocados left.

Some Saturday silliness

November 7, 2020 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

The sun starts to peek over the Sandias.

OK, it’s been a little dark lately, and it may get darker still.

So today, while we wait for the poor sods tasked with deciphering the wishes of the electorate to finish their thankless chore, here are a few items that made Herself and I giggle like schoolchildren this morning.

• Say what? Sign-language interpreter translates heckler shouting “Fuck you!” at Hawaii mayor.

• Talk about your pinkos: Trump backers tricked into joining “Gay Communists for Socialism” on Facebook.

• Avoid the void: The void is full. Please stop screaming into it.

’Wave bye-bye, you filthy meat-things

November 2, 2020 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Herb-E doesn’t understand the democratic process.
Come to think of it, neither do many of the filthy meat-things.

As long as we’re on the topic of cartoons, and with a jaundiced eye toward lightening our mood going into Election Day, here’s the latest “Shop Talk” strip from Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

For this one I retitled the strip “E-Shop Talk,” and cast Herb-E in the starring role.

Herb-E is the shop’s e-mechanic, in all senses of the word. He’s a bot who works on other bots. And he is decidedly not our friend.

He and all the other e-devices the industry is pushing on us are biding their time, plotting the Rise of the Machines, turning the occasional burglar into lubricants for practice, and awaiting the glorious day when they will no longer require the services of “the filthy meat-things.”

Herb-E is cousin to ev-Rider (below), a short-lived and equally homicidal e-project from 2016, intended to continue “the natural evolution” of battery-powered bicycling by selling robot cyclists to the sedentary.

As the ev-Rider rep told the Mud Stud and Dude, “When only robots ride bikes, well, your customers can focus on what they really care about … kitten videos on Facebook!”

Speaking of the Stud and his bro, while one or the other takes an occasional issue off, the November 2020 cartoon above marks the first time that neither of them appeared in the strip since it launched in January 1992.