Mercedes 1, cyclist 0

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

Thanks to everyone who tipped me to the heartwarming story of a top-dollar money manager who does a hit-and-run on a transplant surgeon and gets charged with a misdemeanor (littering?) because a felony rap might adversely impact him career-wise. Yeah, right — like pulling a stretch in stir punches up the po’ folks’ résumés. I’d seen the story earlier but was reserving comment until I ran out of tequila and had placed the arsenal in the care of responsible neighbors.

Charles Pelkey at VeloNews, in his role as The Explainer, is in the process of trying to explain the inexplicable. Me, I’m on deadline with Bicycle Retailer & Industry News and contemplating a few hundred words of something less lawyerly (and less savory). Here’s a sample:

America’s terror of commies under the national bed has always befuddled me, since your homegrown pinko has, in my lifetime, been about as big a threat to the Republic as a dust bunny.

It’s the capitalists in plain view who cause most of our problems.

More as it develops. But first I have to feed the beast. And yeah, I was a commie until I started noticing that orthodox Marxist-Leninists and Industrial Christians had more in common — especially as regards their shared authoritarian “come to Jesus/Marx” streak — than either would care to admit.

Eschew obfuscation

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

OK, all you leg-shavers, listen up. Enough already with the “presented by,” “fueled by” and “powered by” in your already-overlong team/event names. That lame-ass marketing bullshit stopped being cute a long time ago and it fucks with the rhythm of a race story:

Kent Corner (PetsNotSoSmart-Dr. Moreau’s Are We Not Men? Animal Clinic Powered by Devo) bested Watcher Lion (PizzaMart-Liquor World Fueled By Whiskey River Gentlemen’s Club) in the Close Cover Before Striking Institute of Studying Appliance Repair At Home In Your Spare Time Tour de Industrial Park to Raise Awareness of the Hazard of Electrocution.

Seriously. Knock that shit off. You’ll notice that the real pros cuddle up to the simple hyphen, like HTC-Columbia, Garmin-Transitions or Omega Pharma-Lotto. Tell your sponsors that two big spenders make the team name and the ham-and-eggers get to hang out backstage. Money talks and bullshit walks, straight to the back pockets on the team jersey. And while we’re into the whole brevity thing, lose the “Cycling Team” part of your name. We didn’t think you were bowlers.

Finally, I notice while compiling results that all you bozos with the extra-long handles are mostly all hat and no cattle. When you’re racking up the DNFs or being timed with a sundial you want to give the working press something short, like Monk E. Spanker (OTB-Jacques).

Remembering Marvin J. Berkman

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
I took this still of Marv playing guitar while we shot a short video of him performing kiddie songs for his grandchildren. We coaxed him into playing a few tunes for the adults in the audience, and you can see that video by clicking the link below.
I took this still of Marv playing guitar while we shot a short video of him performing kiddie songs for his grandchildren.

While experimenting with video and audio the past couple days it strikes me that I overlooked the first anniversary of my friend and neighbor Marvin J. Berkman’s passing on Tuesday. I pegged the date in my mind based on the post I wrote about his departure, but without noticing that the post had, as usual, been a few days late and more than a few dollars short.

I rarely mess around with advanced technologies — most days I count myself fortunate if I can crank out a few static words and pictures for fun and/or profit. Indeed, the last time I got semi-serious about video was when Marv asked me to shoot him playing guitar and singing some nursery rhymes for his grandkids.

He burned through his juvenile repertoire in short order and Herself and I asked him to play something for the adults in the audience. I kept the camcorder’s tape rolling, and I’m so glad we did, because we wound up playing the edited video at his funeral, and burning DVDs for his survivors.

Every now and then I think I see Marv’ marching along some street somewhere. He had a style about him, and a distinctive gait, and once in a while some stylish, snappy elderly gent comes oh so close. But it’s always no cigar.

Marv’ was one in a million, and we miss the hell out of him around here.

Videocy

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

http://player.vimeo.com/video/16549877

Quiznos Pro Challenge: One prologue possibility from Patrick O'Grady on Vimeo.

More fun with technology. This time it’s an old Flip Video camera that spits out .avi files, one of which I converted using Evom and then fiddled with in iMovie 9. The video sucks, and my editing is worse (first time out of the chute with iMovie 9), but it’ll give you a blurry, jittery peek at one proposed course for the prologue to the 2011 Quiznos Pro Challenge (my bike for this shoot was a Vespa, and the Flip rode along in a jacket pocket).

Where would Jesus race?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

The Toasted Sandwich Pro Challenge will kick off with a prologue in Bibleburg, organizers announced today. It’ll be interesting to see what they use as a course — I recall seeing a couple of proposals online a while back and they all looked like shit to me. But what do I know? I’m only a cyclo-crosser, and a retired one at that.

The local wiseguys have estimated that staging a leg of the Sandwich Challenge could cost as much as $150,000, which is sure to go over well with the locals, who have seen their park crappers closed, streetlights turned off and swimming pools drained in the midst of the ongoing economic downturn. Expect the haters to dominate the comments section under the Gazette story.

One thing’s for sure. The city’s gonna have spend some of that $150K on patching potholes. Add a diving board and a lifeguard to some of ’em and you’ve got yourself a swimming pool, if it ever rains.