58 laps down, ? to go. …

Once again The Associated Press has failed to mention my birthday in “Today In History,” though they have taken the time to mention hacks like Anthony Lewis (85), Michael York (70) and Quentin Tarantino (49). Between these gomers and the Pulitzer people I’m starting to get seriously pissed off.

Other noxious lowlights of the day, for those of you disinclined to click links:

• Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted what we now call Florida, and don’t we wish he hadn’t?

• Milton Berle died of colon cancer in Los Angeles.

• Marlon Brando declined the Oscar for best actor, awarded for his role as Don Vito Corleone in “The Godfather.”

• And March Madness was born in 1939, just days after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. A coincidence? I think not.

The State of Disunion

"Sorry, Callista, but you're gonna have to share me with the American people."

Well, here we go again. Time for the annual call-and-response comedy that pits Repug against Donk and man against booze.

I thought about a drinking game that involved taking a snort every time Weepy John Boehner pulls a frowny face, rolls his eyes or nods off from martini and/or tanning-bed poisoning, but I don’t think my liver could take the pounding. I’d be drunk-dialing Callista Gingrich 15 minutes into the speech: “C’mon, all I wanna know is what’s he make ya wear? Hah? Does he make ya dress up like Michelle Obama and then chase ya ’round the water bed with a riding crop, callin’ ya uppity? You can trust me, I’m a media elite.”

SOTU addresses drive me to drink far too easily already. Especially when the Congress pulls some monkey-spank bullshit like encouraging “bipartisan seating.” That’s about as far as bipartisanship extends with this lot: “I’ll sit with you, but I won’t put out.” Right. Saving themselves for Wall Street.

Me, I like watching the Repugs squat like dyspeptic toads as the prez delivers applause lines and the Donks rise theatrically to their lightly loafered feet, smacking their limp wrists together in a mimicry of human applause. And I pay taxes at a higher rate than either Newt or Mittens, so I should get what I want.

More after the jabberwocky.

The torture never stops

Happy First Day of Zappadan!

Dear Mayor Bloomberg: Occupy Hell

Comrade Buddy strikes a Socialist Realism pose while defending Occupy Caramillo Street against The Man.

The 21st century with its instant access to evil tidings can be hard on a news junkie. Real-time updates about the billionaire Mayor of Wall Street sending cops out to slug city councilmen and jug reporters whenever they’re not otherwise occupied fixing tickets or kicking the shit out of the citizenry are guaranteed to raise the blood pressure and trigger the deadly head-desk effect (thud, ow, thud, ow, thud, ow).

Occupy Wall Street’s muddled message doesn’t resonate with everyone (though OWS does poll surprisingly well). But even those who dislike the movement should agree that the government has no business manhandling the media as they struggle to figure out and explain to the curious folks Occupying their couches just what class of something is happening here (what it is ain’t exactly clear).

Since when do U.S. cops get to arrest journalists, ignore court orders and in general behave like SA brownshirts? Who thinks the militarized police attacks on protests in NYC, Oakland and Chapel Hills were smart strategically, tactically or financially? Since when does repression quell expression?

Jesus. I finally had to leave the office to Occupy Palmer Park for an hour, me and the Voodoo Nakisi. Neither of us got beat up, arrested or even had our First Amendment rights violated.

¡Viva la huelga!

Tour de Emergency Room

Say what you will about this year’s Tour, it has rarely been dull, if your idea of excitement is watching people fall off for no good reason — clipping spectators, taking headers into ditches, surfing guardrails, you name it.

Poor old Chris Horner came home from the war with a party in his head today after getting caught up in a massive crash with about 25km to go. He rolled in DFL with a carillon playing in his head, and the video was not pretty to watch. As they were prepping him for a hospital visit he was asking if he had finished. Yow.

If Horner starts tomorrow he is either insane, tougher than whang leather or some combination thereof. Meanwhile, RadioShack is down to one functional GC hopeful, Andreas Klöden, sitting fifth at 10 seconds. And VeloNews’ John Wilcockson opines that all the North Americans are fucked, demoted to getting into breaks and chasing stage wins.

Ah, well. So it goes. I don’t have a horse in this race, though I confess to a soft spot for Horner, who seems to enjoy his work so much. Cadel Evans is still second, the soporific Schlecks are both in the top 10, as is teammate Jakob Fuglsang, and Ivan Basso and Super Spaniard are lurking within a minute or two, which is nothing in the mountains. Hell, Horner lost time in double digits on a flat stage.

So, yeah. The nonsense should abate a bit once everyone gets an idea of who the real players are, and the first hint of that comes this weekend, with Saturday’s stage to Super-Besse and Sunday’s slog to St. Flour, where many a pretender will find himself done and dusted.

I’m hoping for a weirdo to pop out of the box. But you know what they say about that — hope in one hand and shit in the other, then see which one fills up faster.

Thor hammers and Tyler nails it

Thor packs a big hammer, and today he used it to drive Garmin-Cervélo teammate Tyler Farrar to his first Tour de France stage win, the second consecutive victory for the Argyle Armada in this year’s edition.

Getting a leadout from the reigning world road champion — who also happens to be wearing the yellow jersey — is a rare honor indeed, and Farrar was well aware of it.

“When you have the world champion and yellow jersey leading you out, you better do a good sprint,” he said. And he did, dedicating the win to his friend Wouter Weylandt, who died in a horrific crash at this year Giro d’Italia. Chapeau to Farrar, Hushovd and Julian Dean for putting on a very classy act.

And chapeau to the farmers who rigged up that nifty “bicycle,” too. That actually made me smile, something I rarely do during Le Tour.

New toys

The Soma Saga, which at present is unencumbered with fenders, racks and bags.

New technology has come to the DogHaus. The fine folks at Soma Fabrications/Merry Sales Co. have sent me a Soma Saga touring frameset to review for Adventure Cyclist, and Herself has handed me down the iPad 2 I bought her for our anniversary just last month. Her boss is a convert and ordered up iPads for the staff. My bosses order up periodic floggings and forget to file my invoices with the bean-counters. So it goes.

The Saga sports a mix of old stuff from the garage, new stuff that Soma/Merry Sales sent along with the frameset, and some fresh bits to fill in the gaps from Old Town Bike Shop, which assembles the bikes I review for Adventure Cyclist because the Irish cannot be trusted with tools.

Thus it has a beefy 36-spoke touring wheelset from Rivendell (LX hubs, Velocity Synergy rims, Vittoria Randonneur Cross tires, all stripped from my Soma Double Cross); Alpina 2 cranks (48/33/24); a Deore rear derailleur and Ultegra front, controlled by Dia-Compe/Rivendell friction bar-cons, connected with a Dura-Ace chain and driven with Shimano A520 SPD touring pedals; IRD Cafam cantis and Soma aero levers (plus Cane Creek Crosstop levers); Nitto B135 Grand Randonneur bars wrapped in Soma Thick ‘n’ Zesty tape, Origin8 stem and IRD Techno-glide headset; and finally a Ritchey WCS seat post topped with a Selle Italia Flite saddle.

Damn, this is some good Kool-Aid. Y'all want some? OK, first you got to show me a black turtleneck.

I have about 65 miles on it so far, and I could tell you about it, but then the editor of Adventure Cyclist would have to kill us all. I will note in passing, however, that it’s interesting to go back to friction bar-cons after all these years.

And the iPad? No friction bar-cons here, my friends. Strictly disco. It does things you haven’t dreamed of, and without my prompting, too. I’ve loaded apps for word processing and photo editing and may take it and the Saga out for an extended test drive, see if I can generate a little paying copy before the Tour gets me by the plums with a downhill pull.

So if the website looks like it was composed in Cretan Linear B sometime in the near future, well, you’ll know whom to blame: Steve Fuckin’ Jobs. He’s The Man. I just work here.

Me, myself and I

Herself hopped back in the hamster wheel today, leaving Your Humble Narrator more or less at large, so I designated today Me, Myself and I Day.

The first rule of MM&I Day is: Do no work. So I didn’t. I spent the morning hiking and the afternoon biking, and if you overlook the 25-to-50-mph winds it was all pretty damn’ fine.

I ran across a few mountain bikers during the two-wheeled leg and they roundly congratulated me for being stupid enough to ride 700c wheels on single-track. Happily, they didn’t see how badly I was doing it. I managed to clean a couple simple bits just as they spotted me. Then I waited for them to roll off before I got back to spazzing out.

Once I tired of failing to impress myself with my mad skillz I rolled home to check on our baby war, which has many fathers but no daddy. The Euros’ are pissing all over each others’ shoes, the Arab League seems to think that creating a no-fly zone means politely asking Gadaffy to park his air force, and the prez sez that once we’ve popped off a few thousand half-million-smacker cruise missiles we’ll just step the fuck off and let someone else do the heavy lifting. The Republicans, natch, are calling him a pansy.

Like watching the sun rise in the east, that is. Obama couldn’t make that lot happy if he promised them free blowjobs and beer for eternity. “Mind the teeth, and we’d like a hoppier IPA!” Jesus wept. But at least they’ve shut the fuck up about the deficit for a nanosecond. Jillions for bombs, but not one rusty penny for butter. If the lottery were as predictable I’d be able to buy Washington, D.C., and evict all these pompous peckerheads.

Aloha

The view from the Sheraton, where we most assuredly did not stay. We got a nice shiatsu massage there, though, thanks to one of Herself's co-workers.

Boy, can we pick a vacation time and place or what? Herself and I celebrated her birthday this past week by jetting across the water to the Big Island just in time for Kilauea to erupt, the tsunami to strike and Hawaii to achieve the dubious honor of becoming the first state to see its gas prices top $4 per gallon, according to The Los Angeles Times. (Yeah, we had a rental car, a robin’s-egg-blue Mustang that was not exactly a fuel-sipper, and we were buying go-juice in the four-and-a-quarter range.)

Aside from that, the trip barely registered on the Suck-O-Meter®. Deep blue water, beaches in your choice of black, white or green sand, and good eats — what’s to bitch about?

Besides the friggin’ chickens, that is. Sonsabitches never button their beaks. Sunrise to sunset and all points in between it’s “Err err err err ERRRR!” Repeat until the vacationing haoles go batshit.

More words and pictures later, if I can remember where I packed my head. We’ve been up for about 30 hours straight, flying from the Big Island to San Francisco to Denver to Bibleburg. Don’t even ask where that left the needle on the Suck-O-Meter®, especially the final 15-minute leg.

But for a change the Vomit Comet was dialed down to minimal fear factor, so even that wasn’t as bad as I’ve seen it. We don’t call it the Vomit Comet for nothin’, Bubba.

• Late update: Happy trails to Owsley Stanley, who died Sunday at age 76. I never sampled his five-star product, but word on the street was that it made the shit we were eating in the late Sixties/early Seventies look like a short dog of Thunderbird in a crumpled paper bag parked next to a dusty bottle of Chateau d’Yquem 1929.