Man at work

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Your Humble Narrator in the salad days, covering a race in Bibleburg.
Your Humble Narrator in the salad days, covering a race in Bibleburg.

While cranking out a column and cartoon to commemorate the upcoming 25th anniversary of the launching of the good ship Bicycle Retailer and Industry News back in 1992, it struck me that I was approaching a milestone of my own — as of today, I have been a full-time freelancer for 25 years.

That is not a typo.

After quitting my seventh and final newspaper gig, at The New Mexican up Santa Fe way, I raced the Record Challenge in Moriarty on Sunday, Sept. 1, 1991 (56:43 for 40km, a personal best), and the very next day I was up north in Bibleburg, trying to figure out how a burned-out newspaperman might pay for his bacon and beans.

I had three things going for me. One, I had been freelancing cartoons and light journalism to VeloNews since March 1989, and I began doing more of that, helping cover (now-defunct) races like La Vuelta de Bisbee, the Casper Classic, and the Cactus Cup, and lending a hand with copy-editing and production up in Boulder.

Two, Marc Sani at BRAIN wanted a comic strip for his brand-new industry magazine, and before long I was writing some stuff for him, too.

And three, Herself and I were living rent-free with my mom, who was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and required oversight. So we’re not exactly talking Hemingway-in-Paris here; we had a roof over our heads, three hots and a cot, and a small allowance for serving as live-in help while my sister managed Mom’s finances from Fort Collins.

At first I could and did work for anyone. But eventually the VeloNews and BRAIN gigs led to other work in the bike biz, and after a while that’s all I did. It’s hard to believe, but a guy could actually earn a semi-OK living scribbling for bicycle magazines, and eventually, bicycle websites. Who knew? Not me. Not until I had 15 years of newspapering under my belt, anyway.

Today I work for BRAIN and Adventure Cyclist, period. It’s not exactly heavy lifting. I get to make shit up for the one and play with other people’s toys for the other. I should be paying them, not the other way around.

You guys, of course, get the dubious benefits of 40 years’ experience for free. You’re welcome.

 

If you prick us, do we not leak?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments
Medicine, Buddha.
Medicine, Buddha.

Flats. Gah, etc.

The goatheads are after me again. Seems as though I can go for months without a puncture and then suddenly it’s pow, pow, pow. Or, more accurately, pssssshhhhhhh, hissssssssss, fyyyyisssssss.

This rhymes with “bliss,” but is not synonymous.

The smart Duke City cyclist runs goo-filled inner tubes or some tubeless setup to avoid needless pedestrianism. But as you know I will never be smart, so I generally wait for a puncture to replace a standard tube with a gooey one. And sometimes even then I’ll just patch the hole and drive on.

If cycling were really the new golf I’d have a caddy to do this for me, or some sycophantic huckster eager for my thoughts on his notion for a left-handed smartphone. “Just try to keep up, punk,” I’d sneer, and of course he couldn’t. It’s a Mad Dog-eat-dog world.

Yesterday I found a slow leak in the rear tire of the Sam Hillborne — it’s always the rear, isn’t it? — and instead of taking the usual half measures I instantly replaced both inner tubes with goopy tubes. Take that, goatheads. Y’pricks.

Dislike

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
You see any pie up there? Yeah, me neither.
You see any pie up there? Yeah, me neither.

OK, I admit that I don’t understand business, beyond the basics (buy cheap, sell dear).

That said, how does giving $10 million in state economic development funding to Facebook — yes, that Facebook, the one worth $350 billion — constitute good business for the state of New Mexico, which faces a projected shortfall for the current budget year of $458 million?

The deal to bring a data center to Los Lunas would also, according to the Albuquerque Journal:

• Guarantee Facebook 1.5 million gallons of water per day.

• Reimburse the sixth most valuable company in America for up to 75 percent of gross tax revenues from the center’s construction and operation.

• Waive property taxes for more than 30 years.

All for “up to” 300 construction jobs over seven years and 50 “permanent” jobs, which we know are anything but as restless gazillionaires in search of a better deal make struggling localities scrap like dumb dogs over an old bone.

As I said, I don’t understand business. And I know New Mexicans need jobs. But wouldn’t Los Lunas be better served in the long run by courting companies that love us for what we are, and might still respect us in the morning?

 

Sturm und Drang

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
The weatherman expects welcome moisture through the weekend before the inevitable warming and drying trend resumes.
The weatherman expects welcome moisture through the weekend before the inevitable warming and drying trend resumes.

The so-called monsoons have been washing away the memory of a too-hot July as August heads for the barn.

Mornings are nice and cool — just 61 at the moment — and the afternoon highs have been topping out in the upper 70s, with the rains rolling in around dinnertime. This is hard to beat, I don’t mind telling you.

Also hard to beat is Ronald McDonald McTrump, mostly because he has that pesky Secret Service detail frisking everyone for blackjacks, ax handles and baseball bats. Agent Orange just keeps bouncing around the country from rally to rally, not so much campaigning as entertaining, which makes me wonder whether he’s really after the presidency. Could he instead be pursuing some sort of honky media empire based on the WWF/WWE model of raising a fine crop of money in a carefully tended bed of fresh bullshit?

Think about it. As Stephen K. Miller noted over at National Review back in April, “Pro wrestling’s biggest stage was where Donald Trump the political populist was born.”

In pro wrestling you have good guys, bad guys and crooked referees. Nicknames abound (Little Marco, Macho Man, Lyin’ Ted, Jake the Snake). Everyone knows the game is rigged, but who cares? It’s showtime, baby!

God knows there’s not much to watch down at Konrad’s Kountry Klavern these days. They could use a little uplifting Christian entertainment. The teevee’s full to bustin’ with mud people, Jews, homos, trannies and smarties (they’re the worstest). Where are Joe Friday and Bill Gannon, Ozzie and Harriet, Ed Sullivan and Topo Gigio? (OK, so that was just a little gay.)

You’ll know I was right if at the first debate El Trumpo body-slams the Hilldebeast, Megyn Kelly smacks Gwen Ifill with a folding chair, and money rains down from the ceiling. Katie bar the door!

Feed-and-read zone

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
The fabled Three Pepper Hash, topped with two eggs over easy and a side of Lucky Irish Breakfast tea with lemon and honey.
The fabled Three Pepper Hash, topped with two eggs over easy, an English muffin, and a mug of Lucky Irish Breakfast tea with lemon and honey.

And on the seventh day … well, he didn’t exactly rest.

There was dog-walking, and cooking (my fabled Three Pepper Hash for breakfast). Both lawn and skull received a vigorous clipping. You get the idea.

But there was no cycling today. I could’ve squeezed in a short ride before the weather uglied up, maybe, possibly, but I didn’t feel like it, so there.

If there’s a downside to inactivity, it’s that I have more time for reading. Thus I present:

• “How Can America Recover From Donald Trump?” From the NYT editorial page, where someone is having a good deal of fun writing hand-wringing editorials lately.

• “‘Racialists’ are cheered by Trump’s latest strategy.” Not nearly as fun a read, but hey — we’re talking about the button-down klavern here. I remember when the sonsabitches wore sheets instead of seersucker. From The Washington Post.

• “Does Henry Kissinger Have a Conscience?” From The New Yorker. I expect you already know the answer.