The Racing Chronicles: Edgy Adventures in a Bush Forsaken Land

Note: The following contains material that is insensitive, insincere, scatological and only tangentially related to cycling. So as not to be Ambrosed by the punctilious everything in the Chronicles has been stolen, and thus elevates the truth that anyone who thinks he is original is an idiot.

When you get to Barstow you are halfway to Hell

Hawkstar

Enmark who is standing over the bed wearing a Slovakian Hockey Jersey and picking his teeth with a Letterman tool wakens self at the ridiculous hour of 10:00 a.m. He dodges the thrown cat and announces that we are at war and the President says it is our duty to take a trip. Tell him that this is wartime and we must conserve. He says wasting petroleum products is good and that he just heard from Bush Lite that Enron would not have failed had people used more energy and kept the prices higher. Damm Green People have caused thousands to lose their savings. "And besides I can't get a room in Vegas for the Shot Show because of the Sukerbowl and you can, can't you?"

Friday night, full plane, two ladies walk down the isle, one small, pretty, with a book in her hand, the other swarthy, stretch jeans, pushing a small grocery cart filled with survival food. Guess who announces Self needs to move over and besides "you do know that they don't have food service on this flight." Two hours into the flight a charming little lady from Muncie has to be restrained because the alcohol service has been terminated due to eight guys spewing malt liquor into the vomit bags. Enmark is laying low being as she was a former Ball State Homecoming Queen now brassiere factory worker to whom Fitz owes money.

Travel note: wear nothing on a plane to Vegas that you ever want to wear again. The transferred cigarette, cinnabun and bourbon captured in the year old airplane filters seeps irreversibly into your clothes.

Check in at Paris and make fast to Hard Rock to obtain Howard Stern's signature. Seems dear old dad has become quite the Stern fan and while he believes Howard is porcine the naked ladies make up for a lot of faults. Finally locate Howard at the Paradise Lounge where he is being for a change made the fool by Lap Ladies and entice one of them to withhold unless he signs a napkin. There is little Self won't do for Dad.

Saturday it is off to the Shot Show, a particularly American soiree in which the NRA, ATA, Militia for a White America, FBI Anti-Terror Squad, Two Six Shooter Packing Texans, Fringe Shirt Ladies, and every manner of bat brain nut chewer coalesce to handle, fondle, caress, oogle, gaggle and generally annoy the adult entertainers hired for the weekend to demonstrate the life saving necessity of owning a small personal protection bazooka. Enmark had extracted a promise of good behavior and generally Self would not have kept his fingers crossed. And besides who would know the effect of asking LaPierre if he thought Pres. Heston would pry his cold liver spotted hand from his musket if one of the adult entertainers hired for the week to solicit funds for the committee to re-elect friends of the NRA would happen to offer a donation.

It had been a few years since Self had been to Italy so was dropped off at the Venetian. They actually have a promo commercial in which a fresh scrubbed Adult Entertainer announces "St. Mark's Square is just like the real one, except it is cleaner." And to think of the money Self wasted. Similar trips were made to Paris, Egypt, Rio, New York, Monte Carlo, and Mandalay Bay; however, being as the country is at war Self skipped Egypt.

Generally a Sunday in Vegas is low heeler day, the exception being Sucker Bowl Weekend when you can't get into a sports book without getting hit by a medallion hanging from the gold rope around the neck of a Rogaine gleaming sun tan magnet telling his granddaughter that laying fourteen was solid as the 1990 Buffalo over New York money line. On this Sunday not even Harvey Keitel could have cleaned up so handsomely as the Vegas books.

Meanwhile Enmark was playing laser gun with our Homeland Defense Forces being as how Johnny Ashcroft had dispatched the crack FBI Anti-Terrorist Division to the Shot Show to protect the President's campaign contributors. Now, anyone who has heard warning shots from a pick up while training in Moorestucky is not about to be put to pale by the sight of a Hoover man in fatigues and black hip hop boots. The crew cut ended up shooting Charlton Heston and Enmark and Self dined on the prize. The FBI guy is now checking computers at a security check in the Laramie airport.

Dropped Enmark at the airport and quicker than you can say Elizabeth Shue was off west on the 15 looking to make it to Barstow before Cheryl Crow could find a trucker.

Every toupee who couldn't get find a pretty girl if dropped into Romania with a handful of green cards takes out his frustration throwing volley balls to the ubiquitous lacquer heads who dominate the airways in Southern California. As Self descended El Toro Canyon Road into a dark San Juan Capistrano the nodding head theme was the California Brown outs were a direct result of the failure to abolish the unconstitutional income tax, the Thirteen Amendment notwithstanding. There is comfort in knowing that even in death Self will have more functioning brain cells.

Arrive at MKA Compound, ten miles from Camp Pendleton, and smack in the middle of the brown out zone, or is it wartime black out zone. Thinking hard. Fatigue is the enemy. Jason Bourne, seek sleep.

"Get up Billy, you are soft. It is six and we have a date with a time trial up and down Palisades. You will not finish but must come along to cheer me last time up. We will eat later in Laguna at fish waffle stand. I was beaten last week. Team Labor Power is in disintegration. Why did you let me make Team too large; we are bloated; I can't eat past closings; I can't Kash last year's laurels. Hawstar is skittish like a sparrow on a frozen limb, all mellow in his new Back Bay double wide; G'Mo is content, sated, clothing himself in Hong Kong Silk; Woody shed the psycho and is happy, working the fitness circuit, smiling; Chris is nursing his kid on soy milk; Patrick insists on selling Colnagos to Bazzillionaires he takes riding to Balboa and won't play with me full time; and I just measured my left leg and it is pi times a googolplex too short; Hoosier always smiling, defending executives in danger of losing their fourth house; and you arrive in the middle of the night and destroy my Sting Collection. And, I had to work last week and missed my Thursday recovery ride."

"Billy, this is Ann. Make sure that Rog takes his Ritalin and don't let him stop at Die trick's for anything but a decaf latte-otherwise known as a "WHY BOTHER."

Wednesday, six-o-clock, double mocha with the white chocolate in hand, and Self walks upstairs to find MKA in the flannel pajama bottoms, the sleeveless under shirt with the holes, the fleece bath robe and the fuzzy lined boots. He is sullen, absorbed, and distant; drinking calcium enriched Ruby Red, the coffee mug empty, his smile gone. "Rog, it is Wednesday. Time to meet Patrick, ride to Pendleton, meet the Borg, intersession with the surfers on the bike path; win the sprint through the gate. This is why we are here Rog."

"Billy, you insufferable pudding brain; we are at war. Camp Pendleton is closed, under guard, in high alert; rumor has it Chaney is there, in a bunker, with a defibrillator, in control of the California energy grid and a few dozen small strategic nuclear grenades. Bikes are banned. Bikes are bad. They are not cars. They are not even recreational vehicles. They use no old fauna. We are at War. If we don't use ever-increasing quantities of Halliburton products they win and of course we lost. The gates are closed. Not even Captain Krueger can get in unless he is dropped from a helicopter. Get out. Go see Dennis. Leave me alone and don't you dare turn on the television.

"Dennis, you have a television in the spare bedroom, right? You still only work two hours a day? Good." "Yes, but I'm serious. I am the Assistant Manager of a UCI Trade Team. I get to ride with professionals. We have a sponsor. He is new to cycling. He still thinks it is all clean and fun. We are going to ride with him. You are to be quiet. I have not gotten my free bike yet." "No, I am not paid." "But you pay the riders, right? I mean professionals don't race for free, do they." "Of course we don't pay them, and don't you start making fun of them on Sunday."

"But Dennis, even when you were teaching sorority girls their multiplication tables you were paid. Based on the standard of not being paid the Chronicles would be a professional operation and that is just so not on."

"Let it go Billy. I want that bike."

Sunday. Labrea Tar pits. Halliburton executives are on site and a bill to open the pits for exploration soon to be introduced in Congress. It is wartime. Sacrifices must be made. You want air conditioning?

Labor as per is in the back parking lot. MKA is going full noise. "We have to be Labor. We have to be us and not them. We have to be not weak and not meek. We have to be Alec Baldwin. We are not here to just Span Time with friends. Anyone can have friends-well almost anyone. We are not going to be Scott Norwood, miss the goal and miss the girl and end up working the hot food stand at Ontario Raceway handing out free tonight massage come ons."

"Er, Rog, you going to zip up that skin suit and do you have anymore water bottles."

Master results. Labor second and well second. No Cadillac. No girl. Left to Span Time on the curb watching the unable to scam or scheme pros.

Mercury won the sort of professional race and you can read about it somewhere else. Like the cat that brings down a stack of what nots and emerges unscathed Self was out to unravel the riddle of the non-paid professional and where better to explore than the post race parking lot. So it was with an unusual wariness that Self went looking for the Mercury Euro Van but as luck would have it was able to postpone the main confrontation when came across a Colorado Cyclist putting his bike into the back of a 1974 Pinto.

"Great race today. Too bad you had no teammates. Just training through it, right. You know Grant's a great friend and really wanted to be here but was required to attend a Hegemony mountain bike ride. Grant who? Never mind, it was just an icebreaker. Tell me is it true that Professionals will race for free. Only, if they don't get paid? Well, don't you like get paid up front? Only, if the Team has the money and a lot of times teams don't get money until the sponsors are determined? Is this why you are wearing last year's ugly red shorts that make your butt look big? Go away! Well 7up yours too."

Came across Dennis and noticed that the Shroeder team was made up from former Net Zips and Self already knew they worked all last year for no pay. No story here, so simply told Sponsor Frank he was awesome in the Master Race and moved on looking for a professional who had sometime cashed a pay check.

While looking up for the Green Bus Self bumped into the back of a frayed captain's chair and there in the sun, in the wind, in a parking lot surrounded by 4s on trainers was Johnny Pay You Later giving the debrief. While summoning the rancor Johnny Bill Collectors Don't Bother Me was overheard telling his Professionals:

"Now that was good and normally you would be dividing up the prize money. But, these are not normal times. We are at war and the UCI has frozen our money and well what's more important, you paying the rent on your miserable flat in Fontucky or I getting down with the sponsors at the Laguna St. Regis. Sometimes you have prime the pump.

And by the way _____ doesn't have a place to stay and I need the van so if one of you have an extra sleeping bag or know someone who wants to meet a real Professional…. Besides do you know how many guys would pay me to take your place?

Well, Self for one but then again.

Sitting in the Lounge bar at the Bellagio. The soft lady entertainers' fathers and dates are stuck in the twenty-mile traffic jam where the 15 meets the 215, somewhere between Barstow and the Beach Cities.

"Tell me. Were we not just drinking club soda straight, no fruit, just spanning time watching languid faces push in more chips and ask for hits would you tell me lies about working to help your mom or get your kids back and would you require pagare in andare.

"Yes."

"Good."

"Why."

"Veridical representation of a world view."

"What."

"Pros get paid."

"Okay. Say you going to Barstow."

"No. A place more forlorn."

Ride Fast and Take Chances.

Bill Stone