A Bozo and his bus

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
Come closer, folks; don't crowd the wheels. ...
Come closer, folks; don’t crowd the wheels. …

I can’t hear the name “Clem” without thinking of The Firesign Theatre classic, “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus.”

This is not to disrespect the Clem Smith Jr. from Rivendell Bicycle Works. The Firesigns’ Clem didn’t have much Bozo in him, and neither does this one.

In “Bozos,” Clem wasn’t clowning around when he took on a Disneyesque Audio-Animatronics President Nixon at the Future Fair. Half computer hacker, half Zen master giving koan instruction, Clem — a.k.a. Worker — demonstrated conclusively that reality has more than a little plasticity to it.

And Rivendell’s Clem is likewise on a mission — to get you out of your car, and your Lycra, too, and at a reasonable price.

I don’t have a ton of miles on it yet. Shucks, I haven’t even ridden it to Hideo Nutt’s Bolt-a-Drome yet. But it sure is a pleasant distraction from Il Douche and his prime-time infomercials.

 

 

 

A dog’s breakfast

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
You won't see that many dicks on stage at a Chippendales show.
You won’t see that many dicks on stage at a Chippendales show.

Every time I think we’ve hit rock bottom, it turns out there’s another layer underneath. And another. Aaaaaannnnd another.

I had considered watching last night’s GOP “debate,” certain that the lesser evils would be going after the big one hammer and tongs. But I decided against it, not wanting to give Fox the eyeballs, and instead followed along via The New York Times live updates.

Hijo, madre, puto, cabron.

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy a good dick joke as much as the next fella (“Yeah, and it deep, too!”). But these dicks were decidedly unfunny, like the Original Dick, Richard Milhaus Nixon, who wandered the White House full of cheap hooch and arguing with the paintings when he wasn’t using the Constitution as a coaster for his gin mug or a wipe for his bum.

Monkeys came to mind. Specifically, King Kong atop the Empire State Building. Then feral dogs, as in the final few paragraphs of Chapter 3 of “The Call of the Wild.” And finally, “Animal House.”

Fox and Megyn Kelly clearly came prepared to give Mooselini the sort of terminal wedgie which would insure that only feral dogs could hear him for the remainder of this campaign cycle. He’s the belligerent drunk that nobody wants at the party, even the Republican Party. But none of these pampered poodles — not Marco 3P0, not Texas Ted Cruz, the Gucci Shitkicker, and certainly not the RomneyBot Mark IV — could give him the heave-ho last night, and he’s still at it this morning.

Somebody tell Reince Priebus he’s gonna need a bigger dick. Dog. Whatever.

Long-term parking

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Jeez, another dude merging without using his turn signal.
Jeez, another dude merging without using his turn signal.

Interesting read here, and a “big idea” indeed.

The author opines that removing vehicles from the nation’s streets “would make urban life cheaper, safer, quieter and more pleasant,” and that good public transportation “coupled with fast, safe, pleasant walking and bicycling can easily meet the need for movement within our cities.”

As a bicyclist who just drove a couple thousand miles to the Phoenix clusterplex and back, and as a resident of the Duke City, where driving like a deranged asshole is the official city sport, I can dig it. The recent trend toward cheap gas has not made motoring any happier, either, unless you’re one of the overpowered, underbrained sociopaths who thinks “Max Max: Fury Road” was a documentary.

But I’d sure like to see some numbers on the up-front cost of shifting urban hellholes like Phoenix, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas to auto-free — or even auto-limited — human-friendly habitats. Somehow the word “cheaper” is not the first descriptive to leap to mind.

Bill me later

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
You're ... despicable.
You’re … despicable.

The chattering classes are having a high old time recounting the “beating” The Mouth That Roared endured last night at the manicured hands of Marco 3P0 and Texas Ted Cruz, the Gucci Shitkicker.

What they mostly forget is that Trump’s voters don’t care what the media elites think. And I’ll bet that any mouthbreathers who were on the fence as regards TMTR are firmly under the Big Orange Tent now after watching those two bidness-as-usual sellouts from Washington, D.C., tag-teaming the big fella like a pair of yapping coyotes trying to bring down a bull elk.

I think Steve Benen gets it mostly right here: They threw everything at him, up to and including the kitchen sink, and what did it get them? This morning TMTR is up and at ’em on Twitter, breezily calling them chickenshits, jagoffs and feebs.

Hell, even I started to get riled up once 3P0 started beeping and chirping like he was a Terminator or something, while Cruz minced around looking all “West Side Story” with his Harvard Law letter opener. And I wouldn’t vote for any of these bozos if the Donks ran Adam Sandler and Rosie O’Donnell against them. Despicable.