From our Request Line

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
The Commander hard at work.

Friend of the Blog® Jon Paulos asks for a report on the feline members of the household, specifically, how they’ve adjusted to life in the upper reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert after spending their formative years in the posh Patty Jewett Yacht & Lawn Bowling Club.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla is on top of things.

Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) finds his new post slightly overwhelming.

Security was incredibly lax when The Commander first arrived to take charge, and he has spent many a long day (and night) napping furiously in search of some solution that doesn’t involve him actually, like, y’know, doing anything.

Aide-de-camp Miss Mia Sopaipilla, meanwhile, inspired by Herself’s midlife career change, is contemplating a lateral move into the library field. She can be seen at right cataloging back issues of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

In between naps and feedings they practice biological warfare in the litter box, enjoy occasional outings in the back yard (on harnesses), and keep a weather eye on Mister Boo, because you never know when a 12-year-old, one-eyed Japanese Chin is liable to get Western with you.

 

Dude, where’s my column?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
The homebound leg.

Whew. Finally, chucked another Bicycle Retailer column and cartoon over the transom, just in the nick of time, too.

This fake-news bidness isn’t as easy as some folks would have you believe.

Yesterday the brain-lock was so severe that I had to resort to vigorous outdoor exercise to shake the nickel loose and set the music to playing.

Apparently I wasn’t the only sufferer. The trails were alive with folks running, riding, or simply enjoying a beautiful day in the Duke City.

Today — not so much. Gray, cool and damp, which is to say fine weather for making up stuff indoors and enjoying a rare cup of afternoon coffee.

A fella who’s not making it up is my old comrade Hal Walter. Check out MotivRunning for one of Hal’s stories about his neurodiverse son, Harrison.

Just us

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
Lady Justice told us we were free to go.

While all y’all were hunting old welder’s masks, ski goggles and colanders with which to view the eclipse, I was sitting in room 127 at the Bernalillo County Courthouse, waiting to see if my wisdom would be required on a jury.

There was a sizable crowd of us, and three trials, the Duke City being something of a Russian novel, crime-and-punishment-wise. The first call missed me, as did the second, but the third hit the bullseye, and off I went with the rest of the remainders to the courtroom of the Honorable Beatrice J. Brickhouse.

We got the “All rise” and a cheery greeting from Her Honor … and that was pretty much it. The parties had agreed to settle mere moments earlier, and thus 12 angry persons would not be helping resolve their disagreement, whatever that might have been. Maybe it was about who got custody of the eclipse sunglasses.

It would be easy to get pissed over a morning down the judicial rathole, but everybody was just so darn nice I thought I had been magically transported back to Canada.

Plus I got paid $7.50 an hour for working on a Bicycle Retailer column and texting various cronies. Beauty, eh? Take off, you hosers. Go watch an eclipse or something.

R.I.P., Dick Gregory

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Dick Gregory, activist and comedian.

Back in 1978, as a young reporter at what then was called the Gazette Telegraph in Bibleburg, I spoke with two people who could not have been more different — David Duke and Dick Gregory.

Duke was all PR and puffery, arguing that integration wasn’t “bringing peace and harmony to America, it’s accomplishing the complete opposite.” He described his button-down version of the Ku Klux Klan as “a white counterpart of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” and crowed about “a surge of interest and membership in the organization.”

Gregory, as you might expect, approached civil rights from an entirely different angle, knowing a line of horseshit when he smelled it. It was a product he did not carry and would not distribute.

“As long as we have racism and sexism, we are a nation divided,” he said during a speech at the Fort Carson Field House, where he received a standing ovation before heading downtown for another talk at The Colorado College.

“If I walk about for a week with a pile of horse manure in my pocket, ready to throw on you, then whose pocket stinks for a week?” he asked. “And if I walk around with hate in my brain, what is that going to do with my brain?”

Pockets full of horseshit and brains full of hate. Nearly four decades down the road we’re still covering the same old ground. Sisyphus is all like, “Damn, y’all really like rolling that rock, huh?”

• Update: Rolling Stone‘s obit is a good bit more, uh, colorful, than the one in The New York Times.

• Update the Second: Holy shit, now Jerry Lewis has left the building.

A new dawn

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

Thanks to everyone for chiming in with their thoughts about El Bloggeroo, as we say down here south of the border.

I particularly liked Herb’s notion of going 30 days without a post mentioning … well, you know. That guy.

So, let’s! Starting today. For the next 30 days, anyone craves the latest news, analysis and commentary on that particular topic will have to look elsewhere while we air out the joint. Smells like bronzer and Coca-Cola in here.