Tag: Cheeto Benito

Shine on, Harvest Moon

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

I wish I could tell you that I’ve been enjoying all the decades-overdue dope-slaps Cheeto Benito has been getting from judges lately. Incidentally, you wanna wash those hands afterward, Your Honors. You don’t know where this mook has parked that fat orange mug of his.

Or that the GOP pestilential “debates” featuring the also-rans — a junior-varsity rogues’ gallery that Batman would hand off to Robin (“Here, kid, take care of my light work. …”) — have been must-see TV. I haven’t watched a nanosecond of them, preferring to let Charles Pierce (“doomed and useless”) and Kevin Drum (“shitshow”) handle that thankless bit of heavy lifting.

No, I’ve mostly been riding my bikes, awaiting tonight’s Harvest Moon — the last supermoon of the year — and fiddling idly with the WordPress Block Editor.

I’ve had several back-and-forths with a WP “Happiness Engineer” name of Liz about the Strange Case of the Spastic Comments, and she’s been very patient with this senile old fool, who basically wants to keep driving his 1954 Studebaker Conestoga of a blog editor until the wheels come off.

Which they may very well be doing. Who knows? My WP theme is retired, and so am I, but at least I remain functional. Most days, anyway.

Anyway, with one eye peeled for that instant when a wheel or two or three passes me and my Studwhacker as we’re getting our kicks on Route 66, I’ve been under the hood of an unused WP blog, banging on greasy bits I don’t recognize with a good hammer and a bad attitude.

Any of yis who are still experiencing technical difficulties with commenting on this blog are cordially invited to visit that one and try to comment, see if its swinging door leads to a jukebox and a barstool instead of the Three Heads of Cerberus (Drunk, Confused, and Angry).

It’s a one-post blog, with a new(er) theme called “Hemingway Rewritten” — yeah, I know, the gall of me — and none of the usual bells, whistles, and aaaooogah horns in the sidebar. Plus, since it’s a free blog, there are ads. Ick.

Frankly, you’d be better served by howling at the moon.

Trenchant commentary

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
A final trench coat.

If trial, conviction, and a long-overdue fatal stroke proceed apace we have a fine disposal site in the back yard for Cheeto Benito.

He would spend eternity in crucifixion pose, too, which should suit his persecution complex. Some might call it Death Yoga for Traitors.

I know, I know — it looks awfully narrow for his bulk. But it may actually be a size or three too large once Jack Smith is finished with him.

The biggest downside I can see, other than the strong likelihood that none of this will ever come to pass, is that all the poison he sucked through his pursed little piehole during a lifetime of culinary sins would probably kill all our new plants, shrubs, and trees.

Good reads

• Tom Nichols at The Atlantic. You have to love a guy who writes so clearly and forcefully, while throwing in a bonus reference to “The Verdict,” one of my favorite Paul Newman flicks.

• Michael Tomasky at The New Republic. Don’t mourn, party, sez he.

• Charles P. Pierce at Esquire. My man Chazbo, never at a loss for words, writes thusly:

In fact, it is in its precision where lies this indictment’s real power. In no place, does Smith get out over his skis. It is monumental as a historical document, but, as a legal document, it is carefully crafted, almost delicately etched. For example, there is no talk of citing the former president* for treason or for insurrection. Smith clearly has crafted an indictment precisely drawn to conform to the whopping silo of evidence he has compiled and nothing else. And it is precisely drawn to sit the former president* down under a swinging lightbulb in a dark interrogation room.

• Peter Baker at The New York Times. He’s covered five presidents, so you know he’d have some thoughts on this guy. Here’s one.

George Washington established the precedent of voluntarily stepping down after two of those terms, a restraint later incorporated into the Constitution through the 22nd Amendment. John Adams established the precedent of peacefully surrendering power after losing an election. Ever since, every defeated president accepted the verdict of the voters and stepped down. As Ronald Reagan once put it, what “we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.”

Until Mr. Trump came along.

Let them eat loans

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

Wilbur Ross, The Man in the $600 Embroidered Slippers, doesn’t understand why federal workers idled and/or unpaid by Darth Cheeto might choose to visit food banks instead of the other sort.

Well, for an appetizer, even idled and/or unpaid federal workers like to eat at least once a day.

For the main course, unlike regular banks, food banks don’t require collateral, charge interest or repo your lunchbox.

And finally, for dessert, idled and/or unpaid federal workers know they won’t have to look at some bogus billionaire wearing $600 embroidered slippers while doing business with the food bank.

Yes, yes, yes, it’s another low-fat, low-interest episode from Radio Free Dogpatch. Bon appétit.

And remember, Wilbur, the Big Dog always eats last.

PLAY RADIO FREE DOGPATCH

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with a Shure SM58 mic and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder and edited in Apple’s Garageband on a 2014 MacBook Pro. The background music is “Stay Away,” from www.zapsplat.com. That dog enjoying a meal comes from peridactyloptrix at www.freesound.org. And “Ahoy, polloi,” lifted from “Caddyshack” using Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack.

Girl Scouts to pay for Wall?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Eat me.

With neither Mexico nor the United States interested in underwriting his dreams of a Wall, President Wally O’Steele has proposed privatizing the project by handing it over to the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas.

“They’re gonna have to sell something a helluva lot tastier than Thin Mints to make the nut, but that’s how the cookie crumbles, amirite?” slobbered O’Steele, flanked by his alleged wife Melons, wearing a Girl Scout uniform three sizes too small and lobbing condoms and poppers into a mostly empty Luby’s parking lot in McAllen, Texas.

“No Brownies!” he added, digging with a stubby finger at a crust of Adderall clogging one nostril. “Not on this side of my Wall, anyway.”

In other news, Samsung’s new washer/dryer lets you decide when you’d like it to explode.

Days decrease, and autumn grows

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Yesterday’s clouds were a harbinger of mildly unpleasant weather,
the sort one expects in October.

It’s that time of year again.

This morning, instead of going straight to The New York Times to see what deviltry Cheeto Benito has been up to while we slept, I cued up Weather Underground to find out what Thor has in store for us here in our little corner of the Duke City.

Also, I was wearing socks. And pants. O, the humanity.

I already miss my summer routine. Reveille at oh-dark-thirty as Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) leaps into my rack. After a brief exchange of the usual courtesies it’s up and into the Columbia shorts, guinea tee and Tevas for the trip to the kitchen, where I burn an English muffin for Herself, pour a cup of joe for myself, and top off Miss Mia Sopaipilla’s kibble.

Next, open the sliding glass doors and a kitchen window. Fresh air reminds me we have two cats who haven’t mastered the flush toilet. But the litter box will have to wait. First, the news. One foul chore at a time, please.

With the international, national, regional and local butt-nuggets exhumed, examined and expunged, and a second cup of coffee to wash down a snack of some sort, it’s time to generate a bit of bloggery and/or paying copy before embarking upon some healthy outdoor activity.

Here we have another indicator of the relentless passage of time, as reliable as falling leaves. Come autumn, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News and Adventure Cyclist reduce their frequency of publication, and my income stream — hardly a raging torrent, even in the heart of the cycling season — becomes more of a dribble, the last warm sip from summer’s water bottle.

I delivered the video teaser of my Jones Plus SWB review to Adventure Cyclist on Sunday, and yesterday the November “Shop Talk” cartoon went off to BRAIN. Now I’m fresh out of other people’s bikes to ponder, and there’s just one more ’toon to draw for 2018.

And that healthy outdoor activity? Come autumn, it’s as likely to be a run as a ride. This year I started jogging again in July; this lets me sort of sneak up on my knees, give them time to grow accustomed to the idea that we enjoy this sort of thing, before winter winnows our options.

It’s a useful fiction, one that keeps me in shorts a while longer.