Category: Small hat sizes

Creative class warfare

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
The Turk' enjoyed some backyard time while I cleaned a bike in honor of the summer solstice.
The Turk’ enjoyed some backyard time while I cleaned a bike in honor of the summer solstice.

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Just ask the Turk’, who enjoyed a little outside time in the Mad Dog Media Botanical Gardens, a.k.a. “Weedpatch,” as I washed a bike in honor of the solstice.

Shortly thereafter it began raining off and on, with thunder for flavor, and the feline outings, bicycle riding and Old North End Garage Sale took back seats to working and earning.

Speaking of which, I can see I’ve been going about the latter activities all wrong. Clarity is so 15 minutes ago. If a guy could only learn to deploy with a straight face semantically null phrases such as “further leverage,” “cultural and creative assets,” “place of choice,” “launching new ideas” and “preserving our rich cultural heritage,” why, People of Money would write us fat checks for doing absolutely nothing beyond talking authoritatively and incomprehensibly out of our asses.

Toward that end I’m pleased to announce the formation of the Caramillo Street Collective for Creative Obfuscation, whose sole purpose it shall be to talk shit for money. I know, that sounds an awful lot like what I already do, but trust me, this is a radical departure from business as usual at Chez Dog. It’s a means of further leveraging my cultural and creative assets from my place of choice to launch new ideas that preserve my rich cultural heritage.

Somebody owes me $20K now.

• Speaking of talking shit: Here’s Timothy Noah on the ethics of dog-crap disposal.

Dumb, dumber and dumbest

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 27 Comments

Jesus, Teh Stupid is coming so fast and furious lately I can’t possibly keep track of it all.

The racist dummy in Nevada got shoved off the front pages by the racist dummy in California, Oklahoma is about one half-assed dope deal away from killing its death-row inmates with a hammer, and we can’t afford to rebuild our own roads because we pissed away too much money blowing everyone else’s up.

The Nevada dummy’s goons are grilling motorists at checkpoints, Louisiana wants to jail panhandlers and hitchhikers, and Ralph Nader has crawled out from under his rock. (If he sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of racist dummies, botched executions and potholes.)

Thank God for deadlines. This is what I came up with based on a casual glance around between paying chores. Imagine what I could’ve laid on you if I were free-range today.

 

 

Honky if you love freedumb

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
Cletus don't got nothin' against no Negroes. He thinks ever'body should own one.
Cletus don’t got nothin’ against no Negroes. He thinks ever’body should own one.

Oh, Lord, the air must be thin up there in Dumbass Mountain, Nevada, where the peckerwood forest grows.

It’s not bad enough that we must endure the comedy stylings of Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus, Grand Wazoo* of the Holy Sheet Brotherhood & Posse Comatose.

No, we must hear from his daughter, too.

The wingnut didn’t fall too far from the tree there, now, did it?

I’m old enough to remember when we used to call people who stole things “criminals,” not “patriots,” and those who defended the practice by force of arms, “dead criminals,” or at the very least, “jailbirds.”

The times, she do change.

* And yes, I did manage to find a way to work in a cheap Frank Zappa gag there. Thanks for noticing.

 

Indoor sports

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments
Oak Creek Grade, between Cañon City and Weirdcliffe, where a fella is definitely gonna want something lower than 30x30.
Oak Creek Grade, between Cañon City and Weirdcliffe, where a fella is definitely gonna want something lower than 30×30.
The silver maple in the front yard at Chez Dog wearing a thick coat of snowy goodness.
The silver maple in the front yard at Chez Dog wearing a thick coat of snowy goodness.

“Man plans, God laughs,” goes the Yiddish proverb.

So, naturally, as I was contemplating the intricacies,  logistics and amusements of a bicycle tour, Management reminded me that spring is only a word, an arbitrary date on a manmade calendar.

Yesterday I was motoring around Fremont and Custer counties with the windows down, scoping out various back roads between Florence and Weirdcliffe with a Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer in the passenger seat while tugging frequently from a water bottle. Today I awakened to a few inches of heavy, wet snow on the deck, with more on the way.

No complaints here, mind you. Water from on high is water I don’t have to buy from Colorado Springs Utilities. And it sure beats being on fire.

So it looks to be a fine day for hanging around indoors, viewing with alarm. For instance, I notice that the Supremes are trying to make it less onerous for the 1 percent to run the country the way they see fit. And a Colorado judge is intent on making it harder for the 99 percent to catch them at it.

I’m starting to think Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito are deserving of life terms after all. Not on the high court, mind you, but in Leavenworth, making little rocks out of big ones for their crimes against the people.