‘An excess of stupidity’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
As Samuel Johnson once said of Thomas Sheridan, “Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.”

So, by now, even the dumbest, sheet-wearing, Stars-and-Bars, piss-on-the-fire-and-call-in-the-dawgs peckerwood has to know that the cheese has done slid right off King Donald the Short-fingered’s cracker, right?

Even a John Birch bedwetter whose head has been up his ass since Earl Warren fronted for the Supremes can see that the Tangerine Tyrant is long overdue for a stylish canvas blazer with wraparound arms and a corner table at the Rubber Room for himself and all those voices in his head, yeah?

Seriously. Anyone who’s spent any time around Alzheimer’s patients, drug addicts or the criminally insane have seen this behavior before. There is something dreadfully wrong with him, and yet nobody capable of frog-marching him to the screw factory for rethreading has shown any interest in stepping up and performing the necessary laying on of hands.

The hacks running today’s Grand Old Party seem perfectly content to let a lunatic hurl inflammatory and actionable idiocy from the White House like a monkey flinging his own dung in a primate house, as long as he continues to have a pulse and one hand not too busy with masturbation to sign whatever they set before him.

He also makes a lively distraction from their efforts to dismantle the Republic and sell off its parts.

“Mama, what’s ‘health insurance?'”

“Never mind, honey. Just watch the funny orange man.”

Judas Priest. What does a guy gotta do to get impeached around here? Oh, yeah, I remember now.

Rain, rain, go away. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
We drove out of that to ride the Paseo del Bosque and whaddaya know? I didn’t even need knickers, much less the rain jacket.

Yesterday I laid down my hammer and sickle and took time out for a refreshing spin with Friend of the Blog™ Pat O’Brien, who with his lovely bride Sandy popped round to see what’s what in the Duke City.

I didn’t document this major tourism event with photography, because frankly I didn’t think we’d get ‘er done. It was raining when Pat arrived in his manly Toyota Tacoma to pick me up for the drive to the Paseo del Bosque’s Alameda trailhead, and the forecast was grim indeed.

But my iPhone photo above depicts the worst of it. Down by the Rio the weather was warm and windy, and we did the full lollipop, riding south, then curving in a northeasterly direction to Rio Bravo before returning to the bosque trail for a (mostly) tailwind-supported return.

We were both aboard Somas, naturally. Pat rode his Saga whilst I piloted the old Double Cross, freshly equipped with SKS fenders just in case. This, and the fact that we both carried rain jackets, is almost certainly why the clouds didn’t open up during the ride.

Back at El Rancho Pendejo I learned that a deluge had struck DeeCee, washing away the stain on democracy that was Jim Comey. King Donald the Short-fingered, alas, remains perched atop his golden throne, his personal roll of Constitution toilet paper close at hand. Here’s hoping it’s a harder rain gonna fall on his crooked highway before much longer.

What in the Sam Hill?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
The Sam Hillborne recovers from its efforts in the sunny entryway at El Rancho Pendejo.

Yesterday was a Rivendell kind of day. The trails are usually crawling like anthills on a weekend, and the roads were busy, too. Plus I didn’t feel like doing anything of a serious nature, having chores on the schedule.

So Sam Hillborne and I pooted around on side streets and the Tramway bike path for a spell, just keeping the legs loose.

Some nitwit impatient to make a right turn honked at me as I proceeded through an intersection, with the light and pedestrian crossing signal working in my favor, and I reflected once again how concealed carry is a bad idea on a bicycle, if only for the sag a Ruger Model 3701 puts in a jersey pocket.

Afterward I mowed the weeds and retrieved some video from the old Canon ZR500 MiniDV camcorder, which Herself is eBaying along with a few metric shit-tons of other lightly used and heavily forgotten items cluttering up the nooks and crannies at El Rancho Pendejo.

The process of acquiring video from an old cassette camcorder is time-consuming and irksome, but proved rewarding in this instance. I unearthed some ancient footage of an elderly Chairman Meow and a very young Turkish, back when we still thought he was a she. So stay tuned for a short video trip down memory lane.

At ‘cross purposes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
When it comes to taking a tonic for what ails you, there’s nothing like a little sand in your craw.

After yesterday’s health-care debacle I prescribed myself an antidepressant: 90 minutes on a Steelman Eurocross cyclocross bike, doing laps around the Elena Gallegos Open Space.

The old beastie still performs (I’m talking about the bike here). Reynolds 853 tubes; Shimano Ultegra eight-speed STI; 175mm RaceFace 48/36 cranks and a 12-28 cassette; Mavic Open Pro SUP rims with Dura-Ace hubs, DT spokes and Michelin Jet tires; Paul’s Neo-Retro and Touring cantis, augmented by Froggleg top-mounted levers; Cinelli Eubios bar with Off the Front tape; Ritchey stem; Time ATAC pedals; and a RockShox boingy post wearing the usual Selle Italia Flite saddle.

Riding a racing bike after a steady diet of touring machines felt seriously weird at first, but it started getting good to me after a half hour or so. Nearly slid out in one sandy hairpin — that rear Jet is starting to look like a slick — but happily, I did not require medical attention, as cyclocross and crashing are both pre-existing conditions.

Vision quest

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
We’re all bozos on this bus. Some of us more than others.

Well, it seems the House is fixin’ to vote on a bill that they’ve not seen, and that the CBO has not scored, and since it only affects, oh, about a sixth of the economy, well, nothing to see here, move along, move along.

There is precedent, after all.

I’m thinking that a sizable portion of the electorate never looked at Ronald McDonald McTrump before they voted for him. 

Meanwhile, here are some thoughts from Charles P. Pierce on what it means to be healthy (or unhealthy) in the United States of 2017.