Tell me, who are you?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments

mcdowell-sunset

I took the Tube back out of town

Back to the Rollin’ Pin

I felt a little like a dying clown

With a streak of Rin Tin Tin.

—”Who Are You,” by The Who

When the machinery starts acting up, what’s the first thing the IT guy asks?

“Have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on?”

Well, I turned it off last Monday, but I didn’t get around to turning it back on until today. Sorry ’bout that.

I hadn’t had a good old road trip in far too long, so I took one. And I mean a road trip for me, one in which it was not necessary for me to be me for a few days. One must shut the fuck up from time to time, give the old pie-hole (and everyone else’s ears) a little R&R. Turn it off.

mcdowell-camp-dog
Camp Dog.

I suppose I could have taken a napping tour of Soho doorways, but that sounded a bit extreme, so instead I pissed off to McDowell Mountain Regional Park outside Fountain Hills, Ariz.

The park is a bolt hole I used for years, but hadn’t visited in a while, and it was a pleasure to return. The weather was stellar, neither too hot nor too cold; there were some brand-new trails to explore; and while plugging into the Innertubes is possible out there among the cacti and coyotes, it remains something of a pain in the arse, so I didn’t bother trying. I did check mail once, using my phone, to see if anything demanded my immediate attention. It didn’t.

Nobody gave me an Airstream Interstate Grand Tour EXT for solstice, so I used my old North Face Expedition-25 tent and a new REI sunshade for shelter. And as regards cooking mostly I did not, as like the daily parade of conspiracies on the Innertubes it had become something of a nuisance.

Instead, I noshed on bits of this and that — baby greens with avocado and tomato slathered in olive oil, Creminelli salami and Barber’s cheddar on crackers, fruit, yogurt, granola, LaraBars, rice and whatnot.

I did, however, brew the obligatory pot of powerful black coffee first thing every morning. After a cuppa and a LaraBar I went for a run, and after that it was another cuppa, some yogurt and granola, and a ride on one of the two bikes I’d fetched along. Lunch was either out of the cooler or at DJ’s Bagel Cafe, which to my surprise was still open — and still good — after all these years. For dinner it was back to the cooler.

Come evening I enjoyed the sunset, the moonrise and a brief coyote concert, then turned in, listened to a little Mozart from the Academy of St. Martin In the Fields, read a bit of poetry, and nodded off. Next day I did it all again, but on different trails.

It wasn’t all fun and games. There were notes and pictures taken, and video shot. But I did not publish, until today. And as you see, I have not perished.

marin-bags-granite
The Marin Four Corners Elite, tricked out with Revelate bikepacking bags.

Jabba the Hatt meets his maker

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
scalia-hat
Scalia may never have been the Court’s chief justice, but he was certainly its self-elected pope.

If Antonin Scalia were ever uncertain about anything, he certainly has all the answers now.

He always thought he was the smartest dude in the room, and there’s certainly no denying his intellect. But that powerful engine was buried to the driveshaft in June 21, 1788, when the Constitution was ratified, and as the nation whose legal foundation it was changed with the times he declined to change with it. An “originalist” indeed. You’d think the thing had been carved into stone tablets and fetched down from Sinai.

Predictably, before the body had cooled the GOP leadership was insisting that the prez follow their lead and not do his job, which includes nominating a new member of the Supremes.

“Leave it to the next president!” the Elefinks trumpet. Um, no. This one was elected to the job, twice, and last I looked he hadn’t cleaned out his desk yet. And the Constitution is pretty clear on the division of labor here, in Article II, Section 2:

The President … shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for. …

The Senate can certainly continue to ignore its duties, for which it should be roundly punished at the ballot box. But the prez seems inclined to shoulder his burden, and thus we continue to see the irresistible force doing battle with the immovable object.

One wonders what the Pachyderms are thinking here, or if. Is this a simple knee-jerk reaction to the man Turtle wanted to make a one-term president? Are they confident that a “reasonable” Establishment Republican (Bush) can take the Oval Office in November and tilt the Court further rightward? Maybe they think they can muscle a prez named Trump, Cruz or Rubio into doing their bidding (maybe yes with the latter, but good luck with the other two).

I’m surprised they’re not shitting themselves at the thought of the Hilldebeast filling that vacancy, or Comrade Eeyore. Were it me pulling those big red levers in the Senate, I’d be inclined to cut a deal with the fairly centrist fellow who has the gig now.

As for Scalia, well, he died as he lived, a creature of the elites, in a 30,000-acre West Texas resort where the rooms start at $350 a night and the little people are kept far, far away.

“If your goal is to get away and not be bothered and be in the lap of luxury,” [Marfa city attorney Teresa] Todd said, “it’s the perfect place.”

Scalia has gotten even farther away from us now. As to whether he’s being bothered, or reclining in the lap of luxury, well, that’s a question for the theologians, not lawyers or journalists.

Nuts

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Not exactly the Battle of the Bulge, was it? Unless you count the bulges at the portly patriots' American-flag belt buckles.
Not exactly the Battle of the Bulge, was it? Unless you count the bulges at the portly patriots’ American-flag belt buckles.

Could the Battle of the Budgies be coming to a peaceful resolution?

The Oregonian reports that the last holdouts at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon are ready to give themselves up, and that their patron saint, Cliven Bundy, was snatched up in Portland and faces charges from the 2014 debacle that triggered this whole clusterfuck.

Perhaps as they continue to enjoy the hospitality of the State at another venue these small fellows can take solace from a Longfellow, translating Friedrich von Logau:

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.

 

Bare trees

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
The Marin Four Corners Elite (dog not pictured).
The Marin Four Corners Elite (dog not pictured).

Back to work, and what a hideous chore it was, too — riding the Marin Four Corners Elite on a new-to-me trail south of Embudo Canyon.

Lots of dog-walkers out in the late afternoon; too many, actually. But who could blame them? It was fiddy-sumpin’, if windy, and a fine day to step away from the desk for a while.

Today should be equally pleasant, unless you live in New Hampshire, where evil weather and presidential aspirants abound. Marco 3P0 is still jammed on repeat (his programmers insist this is a feature, not a bug); Jeb (!) asked his mommy to fetch his testicles (apparently he’s discovered some use for them); and Trump, The Great and Powerful, is expected to dispute their very existence while simultaneously squeezing them (and everyone else’s) with his very small hands.

On the Donk side in today’s primary, Comrade Sanders is expected to deep-fry The Hilldebeast, who has let the Big Dog off the leash, which may raise as many questions as it lays to rest. As celebrity tag-team pairings go, this may not exactly be The High Flyers.

Whatever. As the elite political press corps says, after tonight we can all go back to not giving a shit about New Hampshire. There are bikes to ride, after all.