Well fuck me, it's that time of year again:
Sure, yes, it's fender time, but it's also Christian Hanukkah, followed by the Roman New Year, which means I'm signing off of this blog until Thursday, January the 2nd, in the year Twenty-Hundred and Fourteen, at which point I will resume regular updates.
Unless I decide to re-imagine this whole enterprise as a foodie blog called "Bite It, You Scum"--which, of course, was also the title of GG Allin's* one and only book. (Actually, the full title was "Bite It, You Scum: The Complete Compendium of Coprophage Cookery.)
*[Sorry, I should have mentioned that link isn't safe for work, assuming naked men making doody and eating it while shouting obscenities and assaulting audience members is frowned upon in your office environment. Then again, if you clicked on a link called "GG Allin" and expected it to be safe for work then you're kind of an idiot.]
It could happen.
In the meantime, inasmuch as it's the end of the year (at least according to the calendar which has been foisted upon us by our oppressors, I prefer to follow an ancient system of measuring time based on the menstrual cycles of your local priestess), I've taken some time to reflect. (Well, I've taken about ten minutes, or approximately a 4,000th of a priestess's menstrual cycle.) In particular, I flipped back in this blog to about a year ago in order to see how far we've come during that time. So let's take a look, in a little holiday-themed segment I like to call:
"Same As It Ever Was"
(Hey, that's my line, you dick.)
Take bike tech, for instance. At around this time last year, a muddy race revealed that disc brakes suck for cyclocross:
Whereas, a few days ago, a cold race revealed that disc brakes suck for cyclocross:
That's a year of trying to push disc brakes on a sport that involves riding around on a closed course for an hour. Maybe after this they'll start pushing discs for track racing too.
And what about New York City area drivers? Well, about a year ago one crashed into a Dunkin' Donuts:
(Oopsie.)
Oh, that was the second time that particular Dunkin' Donuts got hit by a driver in six months.
Then, six months after that, another car crashed into another Dunkin' Donuts:
The cabbie lost consciousness while traveling southbound on Prospect Avenue near Westchester Avenue at around 12:45 p.m. and almost struck a 17-year old mom and her 8-month old baby after he hit another car and jumped the curb crashing into a Dunkin Donuts on Prospect Avenue, cops and witnesses said.
Then a month after that another car crashed into another Dunkin' Donuts:
(Wow, good thing they were kosher.)
One person was seriously hurt and four others suffered minor injuries when a car crashed into a Long Island Dunkin Donuts on Thursday afternoon.
It happened about 3:30 p.m. at the location on E. Sunrise Highway in Valley Stream.
Then, a month after that, another car crashed into another Dunkin' Donuts:
As many as eight people were injured, three critically, after a sports utility vehicle smashed into a Jersey City Dunkin’ Donuts yesterday.
And so on and so forth, frankly I got tired of looking.
Anyway, here we are a year later and the streets are still plagued...by Dunkin' Donuts:
Well, in defense of the drivers, those Dunkin' Donuts franchises do sort of come out of nowhere. And what is it with these arrogant people who shop at Dunkin' Donuts without wearing helments anyway?
They deserve whatever happens to them.
Moving on to Portland, at the beginning of 2013 Portlanders were losing their shit because it was "cold, to the extent they were writing poetry about it:
January —
The darkest time of the year
the rainiest month
the post-holiday sluggishness —
a bike commuter’s biggest challenge
Festive Christmas light brightened my December commutes
now gone
Leaves, vanished from the trees
dissolved into lingering dark mush on the road
Bitter darkness surrounds me
Blindly, I bang into multiplying potholes
Now it's almost a year later, and guess what?
Perhaps one day Portlanders will come to terms with the fact that winter brings cold and ice with the same inevitability of a car smashing into a Dunkin' Donuts.
Of course, my own life has been similarly stagnant. For example, around this time last year I was coveting a folding bike:
(Why not just ride the bikes?)
Well, since then I actually did get a folding bike, but I haven't used it in months.
So there you go.
Lastly, it's been almost a year now since Lance Armstrong went on Oprah:
(When I say he "went on Oprah" I mean he was interviewed by her, not that he pulled a "GG Allin" on her.)
And now here we are in a new age of openness, transparency, and cleanliness in professional cycling.
Yeah, obviously that's a joke, Team Sky is totally on drugs, and riders are still blaming meat:
“I can advise that during the period 8th-17th October, before arriving in Japan, I was present in China for the WorldTour race, Tour of Beijing. I understand that it has been acknowledged by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as well as other anti-doping bodies, that food contaminated with Clenbuterol is a serious problem in China.”
Same as it ever was indeed.
And with that, I wish you, your families, your bicycles, your pets, and even those single unmatched socks in the back of your underwear drawer a nauseatingly joyous holiday season. Thank you for reading. I also thank the generous sponsors who have been duped into placing ads in the right-hand margin of this blog, and I hope you will patronize them with your holiday bounty if you are in the market for any of the wares that they offer.
See you again on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2014.
I love you,
--Wildcat Rock Machine
