Tag: Dingaling Bros-Barnum & Beelzebozo Circus

NOAA shit?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Weather? Or not. …

Maybe it’s just that NOAA has been swept away by a tsunami of unitary-executive idiocy, but the weather reports around here lately are bordering on the comical.

Sure, that photo up top looks plenty ominous, but lots of stuff does first thing in the morning, especially since Jan. 20. By 10:30 the temps were in the mid-40s, and after checking the forecast I decided to drop my plans to go for a run and instead took my old road-racing bike out for what I said would be “a short ride.”

In terms of First World Problems this was an iffy proposition. Last time out on this rig I flatted the rear tire just a mile or so from El Rancho Pendejo, and trying to lever the sonofabitch loose of its rim to swap tubes was like trying to pry a Texas Republican’s lips from Beelzebozo’s diapered ass.

I did not want to be doing this in wind and rain. Or snow. But tomorrow’s weather looked worse, so off I went.

And whaddaya know? It was glorious. Bit of a wind, but going out and up it was mostly behind me. And when I turned around to head home I was able to duck in and out of various suburban neighborhoods and mostly keep it out of my face. Stayed out for 90 minutes of hills and even felt a bit overdressed.

Also, I didn’t flat. So, bonus.

When I got home, my iPhone told me it was raining. Huh. News to me. And fake news at that.

Herself, coming back from a run, said her iPhone was telling her the same thing.

I made us some lunch, then she hit the gym, and I rolled out to the bakery and the grocery. Still not raining.

By 4 p.m., it was still sunny enough for a haircut, so Herself broke out the clippers and had at me. Near the end of that process, which is like shaving a particularly lumpy and unlovely blue-eyed coconut, we thought we heard some raindrops on the skylight.

Rain me bollocks.

Nope.

And now my iPhone promises it will be raining in 26 minutes.

Huh. I guess it’s true what they say. You can’t believe everything you read. Especially if it has to do with stormy weather, in The Duck! City or the Oval Office.

P.T. Barnum was right.

• Postscript: And naturally, as of 7:24 p.m., it’s snowing.

Zero’s Day

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Understatement of the year. But it’s only March 5.

Congress is like a drunk dad watching as his sugar-crazed rug monkey tips over a display of Easter treats at an understaffed Walmart, wondering whether he should deal harshly with the little shit, blame it on the ex, or just hit the door running.

And no, we did not watch last night’s episode of “The Worst Wing.” I use the word “episode” in its medical sense, “an occurrence of a usually recurrent pathological abnormal condition.”

No, instead we watched the new Robert De Niro vehicle, “Zero Day,” in which the smart Black lady is president. (In this instance, Art does not imitate Life.)

But at least I didn’t already know what was going to happen in “Zero Day.”

You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to call the play on Zero’s Day in DeeCee.

Zero was going to rave like a poorly raised toddler. The Repugs were going to find it all oh-so-cute. And the Donks were going to be as bold, decisive and effective as a Walmart shopper, watching the kid step out of his overflowing diaper in the produce section as dad idly thumbs his phone, and thinking, “Somebody really should do something.”

Yes, somebody should. We’re still waiting.

Guess what. Didn’t stop. And this was in 1954.

I’m not picking on Rep. Melanie Stansbury here. I’ve met her. I like her. But god damn, etc.

You don’t derail the Dingaling Bros-Barnum & Beelzebozo Circus train by standing on the tracks holding a tiny sign, like Wile E. Coyote. What you get there is run the fuck over. Take it from a guy who knows what it feels like to get hit by a locomotive.

Midnight train to Gitmo

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Cool Hand Luke goes off the rails.

You think we’re shipping the wrong people to Guantanamo?

I’m old enough to remember a time when, if some civilian loudmouth waltzed through your front door barking orders, you could kick him in the plums, give him the old heave and also the ho, and get back to whatever it was you were doing before all the bad noise started.

Yet somehow, in the Year of Our Lard 2025, we’ve allowed this porcelain pissant from South Africa to start rearranging the national furniture, to say nothing of the org chart, without so much as a “Just who the hell elected you to anything, anyway, Fisheyes?”

Raise a ruckus and you get frog-marched out the door, either to the breadline or maybe a gated beachfront community that doesn’t feature in Beelzebozo’s plans for the tourist trade. Meanwhile, our media watchdogs just keep licking their own nuts; chasing random brain farts down countless odiferous ratholes; and “fact-checking” the arsonists who are burning down the government faster and more thoroughly than the Brits did during the War of 1812.

But be of good cheer: There’s plenty of bark and bite to be had in the latest edition of Radio Free Dogpatch!

• Technical notes: RFD favors the Ethos mic from Earthworks Audio; Audio-Technica ATH-M50X headphones; Zoom H5 Handy Recorder; Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack; Apple’s GarageBand, and Auphonic for a wash and brushup. The Captain from “Cool Hand Luke” and Yosemite “The Little Drummer Boy” Sam communicate to us from YouTube. The boot to the bollocks and subsequent heave-ho hail from Freesound. The French taunter you may recall from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Air travel to Gitmo, a newspaper’s printing press running, and soldiers on the march courtesy of Freesound. “Twisted Clowns” honk at us from Zapsplat. Charles P. Pierce does his barking from the Esquire Politics kennel. And last, but far from least, that’s Sam Cooke working the “Chain Gang.” All the other gang violence is the fault of Your Humble Narrator.

La mordida

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was less of a peace treaty and more of a détente, which is the French for “a pause while reloading.” | Photo lifted from RMPBS.

From the Feb. 2 edition of “Today in History,” by The Associated Press: “In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, officially ending the Mexican-American War.”

I guess nobody told the Dingaling Bros-Barnum & Beelzebozo Circus. Los siento mucho. Incoming!