Tag: bicycling

On The Trails

jono55

The movie “Sinners” took the #1 box office slot this past weekend, and Robin and I were happy to help them attain that economic honor, even though we had to drive to Grand Junction to do our part. I had read a large handful of reviews of the film, and all of them had been glowing. (When you are going to spend 2.5 hours driving back and forth from the theater to see a movie, it is prudent to do a little research.)

As we walked out after the show, we asked each other the same question (as we always do) and it was “What did you think of it?” Turned out we both thought it was very good. And then we asked ourselves … who can we recommend it to? Because it is definitely a rough cob of a movie, and depends heartily on what one thinks of all the telling and retelling of the vampire legends you have already consumed in your life. But here’s the thing. It is a story with vampires in it, but it is not a “vampire movie.” It is much more than that.

The film has a pulse, and it is a thumper. Nearly all of the characters are bigger than life (the humans) or bigger than death (the vampires). All of them are involved in the struggle for their existence, and if that involves blood and sweat and great music and juke-joint dancing with a capital “D,” well, that’s just how it is. The story hurtles along and demands that you keep up with it for the two hours that is its running time. It was so engrossing that I still had popcorn left as the credits rolled. And that is something to say, if you ever saw me eat popcorn at the movies (not a pretty sight at all, what with using the hands as shovels and all that).

Here are my own ratings, on a scale of 5 :

  • Story = 5
  • Performances = 5
  • Sex = 4
  • Colorful language =5
  • Gore = 5, maybe 6
  • Cinematography = 5
  • Costumes = 5
  • Evocation of an historical era … time and place = 5

See it at your own risk. I nevah said nothin’.

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From The New Yorker

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There is a young woman who lives across the street from us, who bought a small Honda scooter last year. She doesn’t ride it often but when she does she goes helmetless.

I suppose that I could greatly endear myself to her with a harangue about cracked skulls and flying brain tissue and that such vehicles were called “donor cycles” by the neurosurgeons when I was a resident. I could do that.

But she’s young and bulletproof and would only nod tolerantly at some geezer giving her unsolicited advice. My own experience strongly suggests that if you’re ready to hear such advice you don’t need it. You’ve already bought the helmet.

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Yesterday morning I woke with this ear worm: Love’s Been A Little Hard On Me, by Juice Newton. You know about ear worms, right? A fragment of a song that keeps repeating in your brain, unwanted, often unloved, for no apparent reason? Well, scientists have created an earworm eraser, designed to get the darn thing out the way and preserve not only your sanity but that of those around you who must listen to you singing the same short phrase ad nauseam.

I make no claims as to the effectiveness of the “Eraser,” but hey, it’s free and it only takes 40 seconds to find out.

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Love’s Been A Little Bit Hard On Me

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There is an absolutely lovely stretch of bicycle path that runs from Ridgway State Park into the town of Ridgway itself. It follows the Uncompahgre River and offers picturebook scenes galore with often stunning views of the San Juan mountains. There is only one thing wrong with it and that is its length. Only three miles long.

Robin and I biked the path on Sunday, ending up in a coffee shop in Ridgway, where the kindhearted barista was able to conjure up a pair of mochas as good as your mother used to make … honest.

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From The New Yorker

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Secretary of Defense Hegseth apparently used the communication app Signal inappropriately yet another time, when he brought his wife, brother, and personal lawyer into conversations where he shared classified information. Information they were not at all cleared to hear.

President Cluck officially has full confidence in this blabbermouth, but somewhere in that morass of incompetence he calls an administration there must be be somebody who knows this is bonkers. Until they can figure out how to keep Hegseth from revealing even more secrets, I offer this simple fix. It would be removed only at mealtimes.

Either that or don’t tell him anything.

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Hard Times Come Again No More, by Ian Siegal

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Robin and I were on an exercise walk up in the Sunset Hills across the Uncompahgre River when we came across this item. Someone had taken the pains to create this tiny place-marker, carry it up the hiking path until they found just the right bit of natural material, and then insert it as an amusement to passersby.

We found two of these handmade op/ed structures, in different locations. I judged them to be completely disrespectful and almost perfect in their metaphoricness.

But of course it was littering. Tsk tsk.

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Wicked

jono55

I liked Chris Isaak, even before his video “Wicked Game” came out on VH1 in 1989. He seemed like a good guy, played beautiful guitar and worked with good material. And then Wicked Game came along, and my appreciation of the dramatic possibilities of sand sticking to skin rose to new heights. The video also showed how good a pair of men’s white skivvies could look when worn by the right woman.

Moments like that are why I look back on the MTV era fondly. MTV didn’t invent the music video, but they knew what to do with them and made them the background music for our lives for a few years. And then they stopped showing them and nobody picked up the concept and ran with it after that.

Everything changes. Things arise and things fall. This is the way of the universe. However … I wasn’t done with MTV yet when they quit the scene. It left me with a musicus interruptus sort of feeling.

(Don’t bother looking up that last phrase. It only looks like Latin).

But these creative short films are still out there. You just have to look for them. Being passive and spoon-fed (my favorite approach) doesn’t work as it did in the past. We have to do a little work.

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Note: the dramatic header photograph is not my own, but weakling that I am it was so striking
that I simply couldn’t avoid borrowing it.

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Finally broke out the electric bike. Many, many others with more fortitude than myself have been seen cycling around town since early March, so I am rather late to the party. It’s those chilly breezes that hold me back. But the machine itself needed no encouragement, all I had to do was turn it on and off we went.

Each summer I put about 600 miles on the bike just going to the grocery store and running errands. It replaces the missing second car very nicely. Especially in a country where rain falleth on many fewer days than it did back in South Dakota. Robin and I have panniers to carry stuff on the lighter errands and a Burley Nomad trailer for bigger loads.

We’ve had our Burley trailer for sixteen years now, so I haven’t looked at that market for a long time. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many brands and styles there are to choose from these days. When we picked up ours back in 2009 there might have been three or four brands to choose from, but that limited selection is history.

There are trailers for hauling kids, cargo, dogs, and even stand-up paddleboards. Teensy camper trailers . One-wheelers, two-wheelers, homemade ones … it’s a brave new world out there.

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The presidents of the United States and El Salvador have told us that there is nothing they can do about the innocent man now incarcerated in an El Salvadorean prison.

Do they think that the matter is thus closed? That we will accept this Alice in Wonderland brand of insanity? Are they so dangerously removed from reality?

Who would have thought that we would now have our own version of Los Desaparecidos here in America? If this man is not returned to the United States and freed, we are none of us safe. None of us.

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Mothers of the Disappeared, by U2

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I count myself a lucky man. To have had delivered to my door a problem I can sink my teeth into at this stage of my life. And I have Donald Cluck to thank for it. He has brought fascism home to us, with all of its colorful horrors intact. It is possible that most of the people who voted for him still think he’s a good guy and when the dust settles all will be well. But they are daily being disabused of that quaint notion, because this particular “good guy” has used them to get what he wanted and doesn’t need them any more.

He has taken a functioning economy and thrown it into the Vitamix. Of course there will be a little pain for awhile, he admits, but eventually this will pass and there will be endless possibilities of getting richer ahead of us. What he leaves out is that the pain is to be borne by the 99%, and the increased wealth will go to the 1%. Not a good sound bite, that ending, so he leaves it off.

Like all fascist leaders before him he has employed the tactic of providing us with enemies who are at our doors and who are reaching for our throats. And what an abundance he provides. People of any color other than white. People of any faith other than Christian Nationalism (which isn’t a faith at all). People who won’t do what he tells them when he tells them to do it. People who don’t lick boots or kiss behinds with enough fervor. Facts and truth being inconvenient, he has dispensed with them completely.

So what is my new job? To join with others who see clearly the tragedy unfolding in front of us. To work for the removal of Cluck from office. To work with others to address the injustices and inequalities that allowed someone as unworthy as Cluck to get power in the first place.

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Find the Cost of Freedom, by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

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It was a blue sky day. The temperature was around seventy degrees. The road through the Black Canyon National Park was still closed to automobiles two days ago, while open to bike and foot traffic. Sooooo … I loaded our machines on the rack and off we went.

When we reached the park, we found the road had unfortunately just been opened to cars, but we decided to head out anyway. Shortly thereafter a wind came up, the blue sky disappeared, the temperature dropped 15 degrees, and a light rain set in. When we finally reached the end of the road and our halfway point, we went into the only shelter, an outdoor privy, and stood there for a while to warm up a bit.

The rain finally quit and we returned to the bikes to finish the trip. But, oh what a ride this few miles of highway provides! It’s a narrow two-lane road that twists its way along, with the lip of the dramatic Black Canyon of the Gunnison River just a few yards away much of the time.

Well worth a bit of damp and shiver.

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Ridin’ the Storm Out, by REO Speedwagon

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