Tag: Ides of March

Pinkos

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Pink over the Sandias (and at the O’Scars, too).

The weather suddenly has a nasty case of multiple-personality disorder.

First it was breaking heat records right, left, and center. Then yesterday, it was the thundering winds and the air so thick with particulates, pollen, and various monoxides and dioxides — hence the phrase, “Beware the ’ides of March!” — that one had to chew each breath 666 times before swallowing. The AirNow.gov klaxons were going all like aaaaaaOOOOOOgahh and the local air-quality monitors were an equally loud shade of red that matched my eyes.

I didn’t even think about going out for a ride or run. Nevertheless around 10:30 last night I was blown out of bed and into the spare room by an allergy attack the likes of which I haven’t suffered since LBJ was hoisting his beagles and the Vietnamese by the ears. I didn’t think it was possible for a human body to contain that much snot, unless maybe that body belonged to Karoline Leavitt.

I did wonder whether UFC bro’-brahs Addled Hitler and Bibi the Beast going all Michael Corleone around the Bible Lands might have had some effect on the global climate. I’ve heard it said that The Pestilence can change the weather in DeeCee just by dropping trou’. In any case both should be in cages, and if they wanted to fight, well, I’d buy a ticket.

Today we awakened to temps in the 20s with a forecast high in the 60s, which would be par for the course this time of year. But the forecast also calls for highs to ascend to the upper 80s by Thursday. Perhaps Lucifer has finally found the escalator that runs upward.

“The Devil you say? Wonderful to see you again, old chap. Bit of an upgrade from the trip downward, yes? ‘Hurl’d headlong flaming’ and all that? Will you have tea? Oh, I beg your pardon, something cool for a change, certainly. …”

Speaking of failed rebellions and free beverages, I see “One Battle After Another” took the big prize last night. At times I wonder if the Oscars aren’t actually the work of some third-rate TikTok movie critic name of Domhnall O’Scar, an Irish-American knee-walker who decides who gets what depending upon who’s underwriting his bar tab at the moment.

“One Battle After Another,” y’say? (belch) Is tha’ an empty glass I see before me? Yeer a gennl’mun an’ a scholar, sir. Down the hatch and up the rebels! (urp)”

Happy St. Shiv In the Ribs Day

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

Kevin Harvey's blue wheeler.
Kevin Harvey’s blue wheeler.

Charlotte is busy getting its St. Patrick’s Day drunk on. Never mind that March 15 is the fabled Ides of March, of which Caesar was famously advised to beware.

Maybe it’s a two-fer: Get horribly sideways on green beer and pennywhistle dirges, and then run about stabbing people, shouting the Gaelic for “Sic semper tyrannis,” which as I recall is “Fook the lot of yis!”

Lights, camera, action!
Lights, camera, action!

But we were talking about the North American Handmade Bicycle Show before we wandered off on this Irish-Roman tangent. And yes, it is a show, in which North American handmade bicycles play a leading role, and nobody was stabbed in the making thereof.

The bike I heard mentioned more than once was Kevin Harvey’s baby.  Dude has a day job — machinist for Andretti Racing — but he’s a lifelong cyclist and likes to work his metallurgical magic with two-wheelers in his spare time under the Harvey Cycle Works label.

Check out the Baja-bug lighting system he added to this one. He was deep in the weeds during this little project, fabricating the cap and screen to keep rocks from turning out his lights and crafting bits of this, that and the other to route the cable through the fork and make the whole system easily removable. The lights also can be raised and lowered and toed in or out.

After eyeballing a few more bikes, Adventure Cyclist editor Mike Deme, CycleItalia honcho Larry Theobald and I braved the wild streets of Charlotte, shouldering our way through about 18,000 tosspots in green T-shirts to dine at The Capital Grille. The wait staff seemed happy that the annual pub crawl didn’t include them, and the cop we saw outside the joint looked like she was having about as much fun as the average root-canal patient.

One unsteady reveler at curbside was either preparing to topple into the street, barf on his cellphone or both. Erin go blaaaaugh!