Tag: Bibleburg

Interbike 2013: Swimming to Santa Fe

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
The scene outside the passenger window near Wagon Mound, N.M.
The scene outside the passenger window near Wagon Mound, N.M.

SANTA FE, N.M. (MDM) — I arose this morning to partly cloudy skies and images of my old friend Jennifer Buntz on the TV, discussing some bikey issue on KOB-TV out of Albuquerque.

I chose to regard both of these developments as good omens, having left Bibleburg under threatening skies and surfed a couple of gully-washers en route to The City Different, the traditional first stop on the Road To Mandalay (Bay). It’s still raining back home, Herself confirmed this morning.

I expected more of the same in Santa Fe, but managed to sneak in a quick soak and steam under the clouds at Ten Thousand Waves, poaching the editorial kinks out of my moth-eaten carcass.

All my usual dinner haunts are closed on Sundays, so I grabbed some disgustingly healthy grub from Whole Paycheck and took a brief assay of what was on the electrical babble box. Not much. I can’t believe people pay American money to watch this shit. I likewise gave myself a day away from the Innertubes, being weary of that particular monsoon, too.

This morning it’s an overdue dose of green chile at Tia Sophia’s and then off to Flagstaff. See you along the road.

Countdown to Interbike

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
On the Road to Mandalay (Bay).
On the Road to Mandalay (Bay).

It’s rare that an upcoming trip to Sin City feels like a vacation in the making, but sheeeeeeeeyit, will I ever be glad to get the hell away from business as usual for a week.

You read the news this morning? Having shit the bed on Syria, the White House has turned to a Russian laundry to clean up the mess. An anonymous dossier makes Pat McQuaid look like Leo O’Bannion from “Miller’s Crossing.” Turnout is expected to be heavy as Bibleburg decides whether to recall Sen. John Morse for offending the penis-extension segment of the electorate, whose idea of a full magazine is decidedly not The New Yorker.

So, yeah. A nice long drive through the desert to clear the head (with the radio off); a few days of wandering about unfettered in Santa’s Workshop; eating meals I don’t have to cook — it all sounds like a little slice of heaven to me.

I’ll be providing daily updates from the show — or that’s the plan, anyway — so keep the dial tuned to WDOG for the latest and greatest from the Mandalay Bay Convention Center once the doors open a week from tomorrow.

Don’t expect me to come home with any $519 bibs, though. If that’s not an invitation to stack it on a rocky trail I never saw one.

Roll another one

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 31 Comments

Tattoo shops? Sure. Massage parlors? No prob’. Adult bookstores? You betcha. Predatory lenders, pawn shops and payday-loan outfits? Why not? Grog shops, alehouses and “smoker friendly” death merchants? Damn’ straight.

But retail marijuana sales? Hell, no. Are you nuts? That’s a jobs-killer, man!

No, sir. What we need here is a downtown baseball stadium, an Olympic museum, a new Air Force Academy visitors center, a shitload more Kum & Gos and. …

Uh, Mr. Mayor? Can we have a hit off whatever it is that you’re smoking? We’re gonna need an appetite to choke down all this pie in the sky you and your developer pals are pushing on us.

Postage due

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

Random observations on a snowy Wednesday:

• Sloth apparently has a genetic component. So, now, in addition to everything else, you can blame your parents for making you a lazy fat bastard.

• It doesn’t matter if you get shot by a loony. What matters is how many lawmakers might lose their jobs if even a watered-down bit of gun-control legislation were to pass Congress.

• Great idea, bad optics. I’m all for Denver making 2014 “the year of the bike,” having lived there for a few years that weren’t. But if you’re going to argue that bike-ped programs should be among your top budget priorities in a tough economy, it’s probably a good idea to not let a Denver Post scribe snap a staged photo that makes City Council look like a bunch of kids enjoying spring break on Mommy and Daddy’s dime.

• Seen descending a slushy Bibleburg hill: An Audi driver motoring one-handed with a cellphone clamped to her right ear. The very personification of the Angel of Death.