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Every Drip Counts or Hooked to Morphine and Sharing Rush's Delusions
l. If
you are crashing Attributed to Roger Young
Anyway, the Self soon had a head full of genius inducing morphine. Now the Self does not have the same problem with God Fearing Junkies as do your basic blotched faced blowhard media scum who try to assuage the fact they couldn't get laid in Amsterdam with spittle laden entreaties on the tragedy of shortened lives. The Self doesn't begrudge them string bands but don't you just suspect it's because they KNOW Courtney Love won't be throwing them any love tantrums. Regardless, the sad truth is that junk makes the Self sick or as mom would have said "you can't even be a good drug addict," and this perhaps is the real problem with the Self's view of everyone's favorite frothing radio announcer. The problem with Rush is that he needs something to make him believe his shtick. After all these years he can't just tell his dunderheads that he was only joking, only making a few bucks, building a few mansions, buying up a couple Bordeaux vineyards, and trying to get underwear models to like him. And junk will do this; it really will and quite well indeed. But, Rush can't leave it there; no he has to tell everyone that the doctors did it to him; that the prosecutors are out to get him; that the drug companies forgot to tell him that boosting melted Oxycontin was bad for him. Rush, buddy, you hired Roy Black, the guy who defended William Kennedy, the Kennedy's you hate. The Self fell down all by himself, took drugs and saw Spanish Castles just like Jimmy Breslin wrote in the 60's. A few days later they were gone and only the broken bones remained. It was fun and then it wasn't. Rush, has delusion and no fun; more the pity.
A really astute gentleman wrote recently pointing out his disappointment that the Chronicles were not about bike racing. He kindly pointed out that a chronicle was a seriatim presentation of events and that pedantic meanderings-and not particularly cleaver ones at that-do not a feuilleton make. Truesport is not paying for race reports; you want riveting race reports read Dulliber's column. In case no one has noticed the Self doesn't know much about bike racing; and besides there is not much self indulgent esteem in reporting about having yet again finished in the tenth non-paying spot in an early season Hooterville circle jerk. But, even the boring must be served and so the spring race installment. There were a bunch of frost bite road races in and around Louisville. The Self went to several. Best as can be recalled Pat O'Donnell won all of them and when he didn't some other Rodent did. The Self finished almost all of them or had a good excuse why not. There was a race in Columbus. A Texas Rodent won the Master Race and Pat O'Donnell the others. He went really fast or at least he went faster than the others. The Rodents took Self and Marsha to dinner at the Texas Road House. It was really swell. There were races in Mooresville and Eagle Creek. The Self was in the hospital in San Diego or he would have no doubt won them all. As it turned out someone else won and probably a Rodent. Everyone who attended any of these races is a true American Hero who balanced the pressures of family, work, lawn maintenance, window cleaning, and spiritual awakening and placed cycling in its proper place. But for that everyone would have won or did win depending on the view. It was all in all a great time to be alive in America.
If
they didn't exist you
Bob Somerby
You will recall that in the mid thirties Winston Churchill was asked to support Stanley Baldwin on the suggestion that Baldwin upon election would take a more aggressive position regarding rearmament. Of course, it was just a ploy and upon election Churchill was left out of the Cabinet.(1) The Self would not be drawn into such a scheme. Besides, there was a basketball game to watch. As it turns out this was a sound decision; and it keeping with the theme only a man deep in the throes of a nod off could find sense in the people in charge of cycling. You could not make them up, no you couldn't. Evan Teske is the current Master 40 plus National Criterium Champion and aside from the rat terrier dogs he brings to the races a real pleasure to be around. He can also jump sideways up a twenty inch curb and ride a wheelie on the head of a skateboarder, all while eating a snow cone. He could as it were knock you down without a trace. So the stage. Evander
is riding in a California Dreamer Race a few weeks back when he
drifts backwards after an aborted prime effort. On the drift he
encounters a McGuire Sister whose prior experience was in elbowing
trees while mountain biking somewhere in the Redwood area. This
Jolly McGuire (2) gently advises Evander to get his lard ass out
of the way. Evander, it is well known, always enjoys a joke at his
expense and suspects that Jolly will really appreciate a parlay
or a touché as it may be. So, as Evander moves past Jolly
he asides that perhaps the Jolly one should perhaps move his slowly
moving considerable rump out of the way and at this point Jolly
sours on the game. The Head Caretaker for the race was a Mr. Tricket or some such. Earlier this season he was the Fed in charge of a race in which Labor's very own National Champion G-Spot was deliberately attacked, crashed and given a "take that Labor" by an out of control lunatic. Though presented with several witnesses, our Mr. Tricket refused to entertain a complaint because he did not personally witness the incident; for Mr. Teske this would prove to be no impediment Evander shaken by the affair drops out of the race. He is not called to the stage or to see the Head Caretaker. He packs up the rat terriers and goes home only to find out that the Molly McGuires have filed a complaint with the Feds and with the local constabulary. In the interest of thematic continuity this is like Rush blaming liberals because he was seduced into drug abuse by our music. Now, in the normal world you would not expect that someone could be charged without evidence. (Just forget for the moment about the Seattle lawyer Ashcroft locked up for two weeks for being a terrorist; it was just an oversight.) But, our USCF Caretakers live in the land of delusion where facts are fluid and truth is what it is, ephemeral and ethereal. But, hey the lawyer got out of jail and surely the Head Feds in Colorado, the "give us a chance to show you we can do better Feds" will punish the guilty and exonerate the clean. And Louisville is going to get the Nationals as promised? MKA enters an Appearance for Evander and requests a public hearing and a copy of the evidence upon which the Feds rely in suggesting that Evander be punished. Evidence, what is evidence. It gets in the way of justice. Where are you living MKA; this is America. As it turns out the evidence is being "developed," but as soon as the Head Feds in Colorado have it they will turn it over to their hand picked judges and then give Evan a telephone hearing what with public hearings being too fraught with the potential for embarrassing facts. And of course Black Bart has now appeared. He you will recall is the attorney your membership dollars paid to defend the USCF's clandestine vote to eliminate messy membership participation in decision making. Of course, the actions he defended on your behalf violated Colorado's laws against secret meetings of non profit organizations. A great fan of public hearings is Black Bart. By the way it is Self's understanding that Black Bart charges by the hour and of course all information must now go to his office. We get to pay him. Several years ago the Self tried to find out how much Mr. Bart was paid to defend the closed meeting fiasco; but was told it was a secret. An embarrassment would be a more appropriate label. Now, the Self has prosecuted a few white collar criminals in his distinctly undistinguished career and things would have been a lot easier but for having to present evidence. However, this annoying requirement did result in the Self learning the difficult task of asking those present at a scene what they saw. Admittedly, the Self had the advantage of working right out of school for an attorney who sent him out to get a statement from a witness to an accident; otherwise, the Self no doubt would have had to spend untold years without exposure to this trick. Thus, the USCF Caretaker's Investigators cannot in good faith be criticized for their oversight.
CODA But
the morphine eased the pain while John
Prine, The Self came home to race at Butler of which more next Chronicle. Thank you to those who wrote and called. It matters and a lot. Bill Stone 1
The President it should be noted has many of the qualities of Mr.
Churchill except perhaps the following: Churchill not only read
but wrote newspaper articles; he earned his own money writing books;
and he participated in two wars in which he experienced the "exhilaration
of a passing bullet." William Manchester, ALONE. |