Race Chronicles - Thanksgiving

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RACE CHRONICLES:
Mortimer; Bent Over in Bend; Repressed Toons; and Rats in the Corner

November 23, 1999
by Bill Stone

As you know John Mortimer has written several black comedies decrying English social life and politics-Paradise Postponed, Paradise Regained, Dunster-as well as a clever mystery set against a family summer vacation in Tuscany-Summers Lease. However, Mortimer arrives on the Chronicle Pantheon because he gave us the irrepressible Horace Rumpole. What you may not know is that Rumpole of the Bailey was to be a one time character in a play titled the Dock Brief about lawyers who hung out in the criminal courts looking for clients that were too down market for Silk Lawyers. However, as it gave Mortimer-a sometimes lawyer is real life----a chance to tell judges what he really thought the character just wouldn’t die. Indeed, you will recall that when Mortimer tried to retire Horace he just had to bring him back and did so by having his shadow appear in silhouette in a darkened room. His return was no more appreciated by judges than did criminals celebrate the Return of Sherlock Holmes. (For the engineers out there Sherlock Holmes fell to his death but his creator was forced by public demand to bring him back and of course a villain shot his silhouette.)

All you need to know about the law can be learned from Horace Rumpole. Two examples that pertain to the rest of this Chronicle will be presented.

NEVER CONFESS. This is intuitive. It is the essence of self-preservation. Do not make it easy to be punished. A corollary is that people don’t want to know. For those who need an example. Tell your girlfriend that if she goes on a trip and does something she is ashamed of that you don’t want to know about. It’s her guilt. Besides, if she does tell, you will end up having to talk about it and it will be your fault and she will bring it up right before the Florida-Florida State game and you won’t listen and if you say it’s okay she will say its not okay and that you need counseling which will conflict with bike riding and you get the point.

NEVER RAT. This is somewhat counter-intuitive. In the legal profession there are lawyers who specialize in getting their clients to rat out of their friends. Rumpole refers to this as "grassing"as in "snake in the grass." In the USA they are Rat lawyers. You can find a lot of these guys posing as legal experts on television. They have generally not tried anything except a traffic ticket. They are favorites of judges because they always get their clients to confess and thus leave judges time to grow flowers or whatever they do after putting in their hour a day. Ratting works for a while until it gets around that about half the jail population was represented by the same four rat lawyers. By this time the better rats have honed their skills and moved on to represent real scoundrels. We’ll see how that works later.

So, let’s see how Horace informs the racing scene.

BENT OVER IN BEND: Crossing Guard Grows Up.

(You should read this while playing the soundtrack from Deliverance.)

The Cascade Cycling Classic in held in Bend Oregon. It is a Stage Race. One of the categories is CAT III, Masters Eligible. The winner in 1998 was 37 year old master, Max Kash Agro (MKA) from California. MKA took a vacation to defend his title and several of his teammates attended. Several weeks before he had asked the Race Promoter Mr. Coffee if he could go first in the stage l time trial. Behind the scenes some whiney Cat IIIs were complaining about having to race with Category II Masters whom they thought should have to race with Shakes and the automotive teams. MKA and his teammates show up at registration and he is told that he can’t see the start sheets for the time trial and that even if he is allowed to race he will not be permitted to go first. It seems that the start person was a substitute kindergarten aide, Brownie troop leader and low impact aerobics teacher and she explained that MKA should know that all things in life were arranged by alphabet. MKA asks to talk to Mr. Coffee but he out sharing a de-caf with one of the new USA CYCLING Corporate Boring Members and that besides the person in charge is Paul. This young lady called Aaron then tells MKA that he can’t pick up his registration numbers even though he is pre-registered because she is not certain he can race with the IIIs what with his being 37 and all. When he explains that the race expressly permits Masters to race with the IIIs, that he is the defending champion and that he has done the same category for the past three years

She trenchantly suggests that another reading is that only masters who are IIIs are the ones eligible to race with the IIIs and that he is a II and thus not a III and maybe not even a master because all the real masters were at Ft. Smith that weekend. Besides, she continues no lawyer is going to tell her how to read simple words what with her being sufficiently simple enough for both of them. The IIIs in line agree and MKA has to wait for an official Blue shirt to arrive. While agreeing with Aryanna that the specifications are not without clarity he permits MKA to have his number. He also takes MKA’s check for the rest of the team. Little did MKA know that he was soon to encounter the Lord God of the Crossing Guard Slashers.

Dennis has not been sighted since he took a prime in Chicago and packed the season due to lovesickness. However, he still insists on Chronicle time. Dennis describes a particularly irksome group of people as suffering from "Crossing Guard Slash" complex. They desperately want respect but never do anything to garner any. Like most judges they just weren’t good enough to play attorney in court but given a little power they can’t wait to get even. They are also the people who would rat someone out for helping a friend pass Latin. In the spirit of ubiquitous century end awards the Chronicles will now bestow the loathsome "Crossing Slash Award" to Paul the Technical Director.

Upon arriving the next morning for the time trial MKA is advised that he has been removed from the race because of his disruptive and abusive behavior at Registration. No one to this date has been able to detail exactly what he did wrong; however, it has been admitted that he did not curse or slow down registration or raise his voice. You can tell that the Pucks could never enter this race. So why was he dispatched? It will all become clear. Coffee Stains tells MKA he must talk to Technical Director Paul. The Lord God of Slashes arrives on the scene resplendent in high top boots, crinkled shorts, greasy gimme cap and Official Stained Blue Shirt and spits at MKA through his cracked and zinc covered lips that MKA isn’t going to race and none of his lawyer tricks are going to work and that he better not try to get his thug dad involved. The thug is a college professor who has serious lung disease. (Had MKA called, Dad probably could have been shipped out what with him having just completed another round of therapy and being able to walk for a minute at a time.) Why this rebuke? It turns out that Aryanna is none other than Wife of Lord God Paul and it appears that Paul is even less the master of his own house than yours truly-though one expects Darling Wife is not a sobriquet used at Slasher’s house. Anyway, Coffee Mug decries it’s out of his control because the Slasher God has threatened to shut down the Cat III race, the Pro Race and the Big Wheel events if MKA is permitted to ride. Aryanna would, it seems, agree that the women could race provided all the prize money was put into their race.

Now, you would expect some USA CYCLING power wog to be present to point out to Coffee No Beans that it is perhaps a conflict of interest for an official to make a judgment where his wife is the principal witness. A delusion indeed.

The Blue Shirts did permit MKA to leave without having any limbs sacrificed at the altar of the Slasher. His brother was not given this consideration.

During the Criterium, MKA’s brother hits a barrier that had been placed in the path of the riders and had not been removed before the race by that paragon of race safety, Paul. Then when the ambulance goes on the course Paul pulls on his best Purple Slash-no doubt freshly laundered by Aryanna -and brings the EMTs to a stop telling them he is in charge and not to go anywhere without his permission. Now, EMTs don’t have to listen to such nonsense and they leave Paul mumbling "but, but I’m in charge here…." Finally, exhibiting the form that will no doubt put him in line to head the Olympic Trials Paul turns to MKA’s brother and says "if I had not had to spend so much time dealing with MKA I could have been out making sure the course was safe." To date MKA has never received an apology. Predictions:

Paul always had to play right field.

Paul will soon be John Tarbert’s aid.

Paul will still not get oral sex.

Yours truly will get such an offer from Jennifer Lopez before Coffee Stains admits his complicity in this shame.

Now, this Bent Over saga merits a second award. The coveted NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED AWARD goes to Coffee-not allowed caffeine. Prior to the race Coffee Stains was having trouble getting Bend to agree to shut down the streets. So, he accepted MKA’s offer to write a letter explaining how the race helped the local economy. MKA gladly agreed. You want more. Coffee Stains was hurt in an accident. He apparently hired a hack lawyer. Not happy he solicited advice from MKA on how to settle the case. MKA helped free of charge. Oh well.

WHEN SPEECH ISN’T FREE: Toons O’Grady and Black Bart

Everyone knows that Patrick O’Grady is the only reason to buy Velonews. Chronicle readers are familiar with the case of Larry Flint v. Jerry Falwell in which our humorless United States Supreme Court agreed that satire was not fact and and everyone knows it and thus you can’t be slandered, libeled or defamed by satire. Cartoonists are satirists. Even Republican cartoonists are satirists-they are not funny but that is not the test. USA CYCLING disagrees.

Toons had been using a take off of the USA CYCLING LOGO that he labeled USA RE-CYCLING. The Head Blue Shirts are upset that Toons is making fun of them. It seems the Blue Shirts believe without any basis that their Trademark has some value that it claims is being disparaged. Only Silk lawyers and graduated Rat Lawyers are permitted by lawyer trade rules to use big words like disparage and secondary meaning and transactional infringement. Anyway, the Blue Shirts have their Silk or graduated Rat Lawyer, Black Bart, write to Toons and threaten him with litigation unless he ceases and desists using his disparaging USA RECYCLING LOGO. The Blue Shirts it seems don’t hold with the notion that stealing a bad reputation makes them no less poor. Regardless, Toons advised that his net worth consists of three used cyclo-cross bikes, two empty kegs of Sterling Lager, royalties of twelve dollars for his latest collection of Toons, and four old hemostats that he now uses to close cycling wounds. Toons figures that the Blue Shirts will be only too happy to spend all the members dues in attorneys fees to protect its reputation as being infinitely stupid and he figures he can afford only about the caption of a brief. Discretion is indeed sometimes valorous.

Toons has now conducted a poll on his website and the new USA CYCLING satirical logo is of the fascist fashion. You should check it out at ris.net/~velodog.

Toons then draws an absolutely wonderful cartoon depicting the Feds shoveling membership and corporate money into a burn barrel with the caption that they need more money to attack critics and outlaw sanctioning organizations. Don’t know if Velonews is now afraid of Black Bart and the Blue Shirts but for some reason it refused to print the Cartoon. Perhaps they simply have been sitting on a bad seat and as soon as they get finished printing a few thousand more articles on cut out seats and penis damage they can get back to racing news. The cartoon is on Toons’ website.

Be sure to buy Toons’ new book.

WHEN SPEECH CAN’T EVEN BE BOUGHT:

Corporations that give money to an organization quite politically want a say in how their loot is spent. This at least is one of the reasons given by USA CYCLING to support the decision to amend the by-laws to put corporate contributors in control or partially in control. Of course, it was also a good opportunity to take away the voting rights of the membership. It is gainsay that the membership never its exercised voting rights, and given that most cyclists tend to believe that they are in good hands with insurance executives at the controls the franchise could no doubt have been taken away without protest had the disembowelment been undertaken in the normal course of business. However, the dunderheads in charge don’t seem capable of passing up an opportunity to mount pernicious sub rosa attacks when honestly and openness will accomplish the same result.

Les Earnest was a trustee of USA CYCLING or USCF or NORBA or NOW and he is apparently the only person who has ever read the by-laws and who understands the relationship of the acronyms. He is also a professor and that explains why he had time to read the by-laws, why he thinks its important to anyone and why he also as an affinity for Roget’s Rules of Order. He determines that perhaps the membership should be let in on the ruse and he asks John Tarbert about buying an advertisement in the official glossy publication of USA CYCLING for which the members pay. A slight digression is required.

In the fine tradition of wasting court time Mr. Perhaps Too Earnest files suit claiming that the organization is not being run by nice people. USA CYCLING won’t concede the point and thus ponderous depositions are taken and for some reason partial transcripts of these mind-numbing exercises in posturing appear on the Chronicle email. Like a fool who can’t keep from opening a virus they have to be read. A summary is that Lisa doesn’t know what is in the by-laws or the corporate articles or the articles of confederation must less the Constitution of the United States. Here was a chance for a lawyer to find out where she buys her clothes, her bra size and fetishes and he wastes it. However, there was one thing Earnestly Important established from the testimony of water carrier John Tarbert. USA CYCLING refused to permit Mr. Earnest to purchase space to print his message because the Official Glossy Membership Newspaper was not going to be used to express opinions not held by the Head Blue Shirts and that might cast them in less than soft light.

So, let’s take stock. Toons makes fun of them and Black Bart threatens to sue. A Trustee tries to express his opinion in the Official Glossy Journal of Cycling and even offers to pay and is told "your money is no good at this paper." Then they claim that it’s a shame to have had to spend membership money on lawyers. For their shameless audacity they win the Century’s End Citizen Kane "IT ISN’T NEWS IF IT ISN’T IN THE CHRONICLE" Award for manipulation of the facts.

(Even though Mr. Earnest’s suit was a no hoper and most ill advised he did try to stand up to the bullies and he did spend his own money. There is a fund to help pay the legal fees and the Chronicles will contribute. The address is on Toon’s Web Page or email the Chronicles and we’ll send it to you.).

RATS IN THE DARK

Dave Mercer is a friend. He was winning bicycle races before most late to the dance masters such as yours truly ever heard of toe clips. The Chronicles have made no secret that when Dave races Mercer Rules are in effect. However, it is one thing to confront a person and another to sneak around behind his back and denigrate. The Chronicles have learned that several real stand up guys have tried to cause him trouble with the blue shirts on the claim that they won’t race anymore. Good. Go play golf or do duathalons or go to yard sales. You will probably also want to avoid looking at yourselves in the mirror.

What with no racing have been watching the leaf wars. The entire neighborhood is amuck with men carrying leave vacs like they are WWWII flame-throwers. In a break from doing battle with the men over who get the grass cleaner Darling Wife read about Bend. She suggested that we take up a collection and buy Shake and Whitlock reduced airfares. Upon arrival Shake will insist upon being meet at the airport by Mavic Tech Support so that the new Marin look- a- like but not really- like can be assembled on the way to the Prologue. Shake will then insist that his Spinaci Tri Bars are legal and show a fax from Tarbert and then will point out that his Sony Walkman is legal because he has adhesive tape over one ear and of course will ask the race to wait while he gets his power hub recharged. In the meantime Whitlock will present his Polish Cat III License to Aaron. By the time its over Aaron will be home reading Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and Paul will be on the phone asking MKA to come get Grant.

To complete the story. Rumpole’s wife is not affectionately known as She Who Must Be Obeyed. She is not to be confused with Darling Wife who doesn’t have to give orders.

Don’t ride in the woods during shotgun season.

Bill Stone