A Royal Flush, or Circling the Bowl

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
Goddamnit, this one will not go down!

What a week. And we’re only at Tuesday.

On Monday, the Donks intercoursed the penguin most savagely with an Iowa caucus that resembled nothing so much as the Batley Townswomens’ Guild’s re-enactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbor, only without the funny bits.

Come Tuesday, we got a twofer: First, the Senate “debating” whether to remove King Donald the Short-fingered from his golden throne; and the State of the Union Address, which seems certain to be even less funny than the Senate, the Iowa caucus, and the Batley Townswomens’ Guild.

And come Wednesday, His Lardship will skate on all charges, have Stephanie Grisham squeegee all those senatorial lip prints off his fat ass, and get back to wiping it with the world.

As if all this weren’t bad enough, well, I bring still more evil tidings — yes, yes, yes, it’s time for more political-science fiction from the K-9 Caucus at Radio Free Dogpatch!

Gosh. Whatever will Thursday bring? And News Dump Friday is gonna have to up its game big-time if it wants to keep being more than just another day of the week.

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with a Shure SM58 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 is “The Throne Room” from Sir Cubworth, via the YouTube Audio Library. The golf shot and crowd noise come from craigsmith at Freesound.org. Clock ticking and alarm ringing are straight from the iMovie sound-effects bin. And the sound of the world swirling down the loo? That comes straight from the guest bath at El Rancho Pendejo.

‘The Death of Iowa, Queen of Donks’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
P’raps it comes from the zoo!
The Iowa Democratic Party, not the penguin.

Well, without Larry and The Professor around to keep an eye on things, Iowa has intercoursed the penguin, caucus-wise.

It’s a bit early for Valentine’s Day, but still, what a lovely gift to the Republicans, que no?

“They can’t even run a caucus in Iowa, and they want to run the country? We’ll have more on the Fake Iowa Caucuses later in our programme. In the meantime we present the first episode of a new radio drama series, ‘The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots.’ Part One: ‘The Beginning.’ ”

• Editor’s note: For anyone unfamiliar with the voodoo that they do so badly in Iowa, here’s John Nichols on the procedure.

Stupor Sunday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments
His Excellency confers with the underside of his eyelids.

As you can see, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) and his adjutant Miss Mia Sopaipilla can’t wait for The Big Game to get under way.

We don’t follow the feets ball here at El Rancho Pendejo, having gotten our fill of artificially augmented athletes at that Boulder-based journal of competitive cycling.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla stands watch at the rear portcullis.

Indeed, we watch no televised sports of any kind, preferring to participate rather than spectate.

Oh, sometimes I’ll watch the U.S. cyclocross nationals, or ’cross worlds, if I can find a free feed uncontaminated by bots, viruses, Trojan horses, poltergeists, pixies, h’ants, djinni, cooties, boogers, and other agents of Chaos.

But I didn’t even watch worlds this weekend. My gal Katie Compton just missed the podium after a poor start, and Mathieu van der Poel — well, let’s just say that the dude might as well have been racing all by himself.

Anyway, this morning I had other concerns. Ironically, they involved my own doping regimen.

As I stumbled into the kitchen Herself intercepts me and goes all like: “Bad news. The coffee grinder’s broken again.”

Happily, she’d managed to brew just enough joe for me to pour a shot in each eyeball and then get to work rebooting the evil sonofabitch.

Mythed me!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Keep looking, sport. They’re out there, somewhere.
I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.

Well, I’d say this ought to park the mythical Moderate Republican right alongside Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the Easter Bunny.

It won’t, of course. But it should.

Good God almighty. A skeleton has more guts than this lot.

R.I.P., Dirt Rag

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Ah, Dirt Rag, we hardly knew ye.

Well, this sucks.

Dirt Rag has been in the bicycle-journalism racket exactly as long as I have. We both rolled around in 1989, though I was mostly on a road bike.

American Cyclery is getting a seismic refit and, eventually, it is to be hoped, a new owner.

I never thought of myself as a mountain biker. And Dirt Rag was never just a mountain-bike mag. Maurice Tierney and the gang were into art and culture and all manner of good shit. Did you know Mo is a deejay at KALX, 90.7 FM in Berserkly? True fact.

Also, this:

The oldest bike shop in San Francisco is on the block. American Cyclery built my Soma Saga Disc for me, and they did a stellar job. I haven’t had to do jack shit to that bike except ride it and fix an occasional flat.

I thought Friday was the day when all the bad news dropped. Trust the bike biz to get it wrong.