Tag: Hunter S. Thompson

Road work redux

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments
The High Desert neighborhood makes a fine proving ground for touring machinery, with rolling terrain, light traffic and bike lanes.
The High Desert neighborhood makes a fine proving ground for touring machinery, with rolling terrain, light traffic and bike lanes.

Yesterday was one of those insanely busy days that should never afflict the underemployed. We’re not equipped for it.

The Marrakesh Express (c'mon, you knew it was coming sooner or later, right?).
The Marrakesh Express (c’mon, you knew it was coming sooner or later, right?).

With deadlines flitting around my scalp like Hunter S. Thompson’s Barstow bats I committed a few crimes against cycling, emailing back and forth with product managers, marketing wizards and editors; swapping bits of this and that from one bike to another; and bending fender stays around disc calipers, cutting all corners that looked even remotely cuttable, and beating on anything that wouldn’t cut with my favorite tool, the Bravo Foxtrot Hotel (look it up).

Then, before blasting off to the Whole Paycheck for supplies and liberating the Turk from the Nazi war dentist, I managed a brisk, 45-minute ride on the Salsa Marrakesh with full panniers.

It wasn’t actually snowing, which was nice —the temps were in the lower 40s, and I will even go so far as to say that this did not suck, not for January. You may quote me if you like.

This morning it was precipitating again, and Your Humble Narrator was all about writing bikes rather than riding them. Also, furthermore, moreover and too, there was the doctoring of the Turk, the roasting of the poblanos outdoors in a light snowfall, and the cooking of a medium-sized pot of lamb and white bean chili.

Speaking of cooking, now I seem to be slightly baked for some reason.

The cheese does not stand alone

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Fear and Loathing, Campaign Trail style
The more things change, etc.

So, dead heat between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in Iowa, eh? Guess nobody bothered to write in Haywood Jablomie, Jack Meehoff or I.P. Freeley.

Watching the food fight over the GOP pestilential nomination has been like watching a Coen Brothers treatment of Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72.” Or maybe a round of musical chairs with all the participants crazed on mescaline.

Mitt Romney keeps smiling because he owns all the chairs, the building in which they sit and the surrounding properties to boot. But that doesn’t make him any less a bag of runny owlshit that nobody’s buying as long as there’s anything else for sale.

The big cheese may eventually stand alone. All the smart money’s on it. But right now he’s doing a tango with Man-On-Dog Santorum, and he can’t be feeling too frothy about it.