The hardest thing about the World Series is that it ends. And you find that yes, it is football season. I hate football season. Well, maybe except on those years where one of our way-cool offspring points out that the Super Bowl is gonna be on, and that means we need to make guacamole! Yup. That's the best thing about football-that it frequently goes away in a blur of guacamole.
It used to be, that when I'd unashamedly open my pie hole and express a known truth, that Baseball is the greatest game, some fat football fan would disagree in some typically football dude not-eloquent way. I'd attempt to explain my side, and try to show the lummox the error of his ways. My last ditch attempt-my hail Mary, if you will (another good football thing, other than guac, is that you sometimes get to say hail Mary without being in a church-always a plus!) is to suggest to the sub one hundred fellow that he obtain a copy of Game Six of the 1975 Series, watch it, and then come back and tell me how football is a greater game that baseball. Well, of course you never hear from him again.
Tonight, as it turns out, I have an ace in the hole. For if it were to happen that a dude actually did return to take up the debate, even after seeing the proof of the '75 Series, I now possess the nuclear option in this argument: obtain a copy of Game Six of the 2011 World Series, watch it, and then...well you get the idea. Wow, what a game. The Greatest Game.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Los Angeles to Roubaix
I grew up in West Los Angeles. My first bike was a blue Schwinn Speedster, a single speed. I loved that bike. Riding my bike was like nothing else; a feeling of freedom and expression combined with the ability to go anywhere I wanted to, quickly, and explore. In a minute, I could be a full block away. This was quite a change for a kid my age, barely accustomed to the feeling of exhilaration that came with being two houses away from where I lived.
Suddenly, I had wheels,
something like this.
I have never lost the desire to ride a bike, and to indulge in a little two-wheeled wander. Our neighborhood was perfect for bicycles, and as I got older, I went farther afield-up to UCLA, down Olympic to Santa Monica, east to Rancho Park. I relished the ride to and from school, and I remember riding to school a lot, in elementary, middle, and high school, with each successive school farther from home than the last. Bicycling was and is a simple, beautiful method of personal transport, an admix of fun, practicality, and inventiveness. My friends and I got into BMX when it was truly new, in the early 70's. The Schwinn Sting-Ray had seen to it that every kid could have a template to work out their perfect bike: high rise bars with a crossbar welded on like a real dirt bike, knobby tires, chain guards tossed away. Some guys even drilled their rims and hubs out so motorcycle spokes could be laced-although I give myself credit for having recognized the folly of this. Steel wheels, circa 1971, with an eighty pound rider, just didn't need any beefing up for the task at hand-and the bikes already weighed plenty without 12 guage (or whatever) spokes thrown in.
They always started
out like this!
But the single biggest influence on my understanding and appreciation of the bicycle came after the Sting-Ray phase. I was about fifteen, in high school, and I had grown out of BMX. I had a silver Nishiki (I think it was a Grand Prix?) ten speed, and I went everywhere on it. I began to notice other riders, "real cyclists" is how I thought of them. I became aware of a group of men who, every Sunday morning, gathered for a ride in front of a French restaurant three blocks from my house. These guys were the real deal: cycling shorts, shoes and jerseys, helmets, gorgeous Italian and English bikes with Campagnolo groupsets. These were the guys I wanted to ride with! So I did. I'd show up and mingle with them for a while before the ride, then, as the group rolled out, I'd fall in at the back of the pack. I knew they were a club of some sort, and I hadn't joined their club, but they were good natured about letting the kid tag along-for a while. Not that they ever complained, I just couldn't stay with them for more than a couple of miles-and on the flat of course. The group would head up Westwood Boulevard to Santa Monica and make a right. Like I said, I never was able to pace with them for more than a couple miles, and by the time we hit Century City, well, my group ride was over. They were just getting warmed up; I was breathing hard already and would call it quits, peeling off to finish my ride solo.
Fast forward thirty five years. I'm still riding a bike, still exploring on two wheels and enjoying watching the Tour de France on television every year, and encouraging my kids to ride too. One night, as I surfed cycling and bike sites (that's right-another middle aged guy at home, alone, viewing bike porn) I stumble on a neighborhood race down in West Los Angeles. The race is the very next day and the whole family is otherwise occupied, so I cruise down the next morning to check it out. I'm not there ten minutes when I realize that the sponsor of the race is the very same club that grew out of the group I used to try to keep up with on Sunday mornings. It's Velo Club La Grange http://www.lagrange.org/index.html
and they are one of the biggest and best bicycling clubs in the country. Raymond Fouquet operated La Grange Restaurant back then, and what I had tried to keep up with was their now rather famous Nichols Canyon Ride http://www.lagrange.org/rides_sun.htm , 27 miles of up, down, and all around. Had I known at the time, I probably would not have attempted to ride with them-maybe that Marina ride...But the fact that they were so welcoming, and so ready to talk about their bikes and share what they knew about this odd sport, made such an impression on me, and it's stayed with me all these years.
So...a few weeks ago, I went out and-finally-bought myself a proper road bike:
My Specialized Roubaix
Comp Compact Rival
And I've been riding it ever since! It is really a whole new world, and, yes, I put this off for a long time. Two weeks ago, on a Saturday, I rode 45 miles-up, down, and all around. Last Saturday, 40 miles. I'm clipped in and ready to roll, and I have to thank all those patient guys from so many years ago, who let a kid roll out with them, knowing I wouldn't be there for long, but also knowing the seed they were planting. Who knows, maybe I'll go ride Nichols Canyon one day soon.
Suddenly, I had wheels,
something like this.
I have never lost the desire to ride a bike, and to indulge in a little two-wheeled wander. Our neighborhood was perfect for bicycles, and as I got older, I went farther afield-up to UCLA, down Olympic to Santa Monica, east to Rancho Park. I relished the ride to and from school, and I remember riding to school a lot, in elementary, middle, and high school, with each successive school farther from home than the last. Bicycling was and is a simple, beautiful method of personal transport, an admix of fun, practicality, and inventiveness. My friends and I got into BMX when it was truly new, in the early 70's. The Schwinn Sting-Ray had seen to it that every kid could have a template to work out their perfect bike: high rise bars with a crossbar welded on like a real dirt bike, knobby tires, chain guards tossed away. Some guys even drilled their rims and hubs out so motorcycle spokes could be laced-although I give myself credit for having recognized the folly of this. Steel wheels, circa 1971, with an eighty pound rider, just didn't need any beefing up for the task at hand-and the bikes already weighed plenty without 12 guage (or whatever) spokes thrown in.
They always started
out like this!
But the single biggest influence on my understanding and appreciation of the bicycle came after the Sting-Ray phase. I was about fifteen, in high school, and I had grown out of BMX. I had a silver Nishiki (I think it was a Grand Prix?) ten speed, and I went everywhere on it. I began to notice other riders, "real cyclists" is how I thought of them. I became aware of a group of men who, every Sunday morning, gathered for a ride in front of a French restaurant three blocks from my house. These guys were the real deal: cycling shorts, shoes and jerseys, helmets, gorgeous Italian and English bikes with Campagnolo groupsets. These were the guys I wanted to ride with! So I did. I'd show up and mingle with them for a while before the ride, then, as the group rolled out, I'd fall in at the back of the pack. I knew they were a club of some sort, and I hadn't joined their club, but they were good natured about letting the kid tag along-for a while. Not that they ever complained, I just couldn't stay with them for more than a couple of miles-and on the flat of course. The group would head up Westwood Boulevard to Santa Monica and make a right. Like I said, I never was able to pace with them for more than a couple miles, and by the time we hit Century City, well, my group ride was over. They were just getting warmed up; I was breathing hard already and would call it quits, peeling off to finish my ride solo.
Fast forward thirty five years. I'm still riding a bike, still exploring on two wheels and enjoying watching the Tour de France on television every year, and encouraging my kids to ride too. One night, as I surfed cycling and bike sites (that's right-another middle aged guy at home, alone, viewing bike porn) I stumble on a neighborhood race down in West Los Angeles. The race is the very next day and the whole family is otherwise occupied, so I cruise down the next morning to check it out. I'm not there ten minutes when I realize that the sponsor of the race is the very same club that grew out of the group I used to try to keep up with on Sunday mornings. It's Velo Club La Grange http://www.lagrange.org/index.html
and they are one of the biggest and best bicycling clubs in the country. Raymond Fouquet operated La Grange Restaurant back then, and what I had tried to keep up with was their now rather famous Nichols Canyon Ride http://www.lagrange.org/rides_sun.htm , 27 miles of up, down, and all around. Had I known at the time, I probably would not have attempted to ride with them-maybe that Marina ride...But the fact that they were so welcoming, and so ready to talk about their bikes and share what they knew about this odd sport, made such an impression on me, and it's stayed with me all these years.
So...a few weeks ago, I went out and-finally-bought myself a proper road bike:
My Specialized Roubaix
Comp Compact Rival
And I've been riding it ever since! It is really a whole new world, and, yes, I put this off for a long time. Two weeks ago, on a Saturday, I rode 45 miles-up, down, and all around. Last Saturday, 40 miles. I'm clipped in and ready to roll, and I have to thank all those patient guys from so many years ago, who let a kid roll out with them, knowing I wouldn't be there for long, but also knowing the seed they were planting. Who knows, maybe I'll go ride Nichols Canyon one day soon.
Thanks
Velo Club La Grange!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Academy Odds
Sunday night, as we have done for the past couple of years, we went to a friends' home to take in the Academy Awards show, check out our potluck with others, and compete for the "Oscar"-a squishy Sesame Street Oscar in an equally squishy garbage can, the word "Scram" emblazoned across the front.
As the big night has drawn near, I've been keenly aware of my need to brush up on my current movie knowledge, and to understand the pulse of where things were headed in the awards world. I recall thinking, two months prior, that I was really going to get into it, really study reviews and the industry scuttlebutt. Well, alas, here I found myself, Saturday night, with nothing. I hadn't taken the time, I did not read the Times' reviews for the last two months, did not even go to see a lot of the films that were up for big honors. What did I do? I did what any resourceful person would have done: I asked myself, "Who really cares about who wins"?? The answer, of course, is Vegas! Vegas cares about this stuff more that most because Vegas is making money at it, good news or bad news-there's a Vegas line that you too can get in on. So...letting my fingers do the walking, I tootled on over to bookmaker.com and had a look-see. It worked pretty well. Following the odds posted there, Sunday night I won 19 out of 24 awards categories (there were 2 or 3 that did not have odds; I went to the Times' for guidance there, nodding to A.O.Scott's view over Manohla Dargis for those) 6 ahead of the nearest "legitimate" competitor. When "The Social Network" won for best original score there was a collective groan with everyone-except me-wondering how that could be, "it was a horrible, annoying score" they said. I just smiled, knowing that, for whatever reason, the odds were overwhelmingly in favor of exactly that. I couldn't do it, though, I bowed out of the contest, explaining to all how I did it-it was hilarious. The good fellow who won had truly done it (13 of 24) with his recollections and his passion for film. Even funnier, our ever talented son declined the award immediately after I had, citing first how he just didn't want it, too squishy, I think, but also the fact that he had done a very similar thing, although on his Blackberry, the moment he got to the party. At least I had the benefit the night before of some undisturbed free time to study those odds, and a real, full sized computer.
Las Vegas and gambling has never been of interest to me, and it still is not, but I was struck at how accurate the answers were. Perhaps next year I'll start studying a couple of months before the big night.
As the big night has drawn near, I've been keenly aware of my need to brush up on my current movie knowledge, and to understand the pulse of where things were headed in the awards world. I recall thinking, two months prior, that I was really going to get into it, really study reviews and the industry scuttlebutt. Well, alas, here I found myself, Saturday night, with nothing. I hadn't taken the time, I did not read the Times' reviews for the last two months, did not even go to see a lot of the films that were up for big honors. What did I do? I did what any resourceful person would have done: I asked myself, "Who really cares about who wins"?? The answer, of course, is Vegas! Vegas cares about this stuff more that most because Vegas is making money at it, good news or bad news-there's a Vegas line that you too can get in on. So...letting my fingers do the walking, I tootled on over to bookmaker.com and had a look-see. It worked pretty well. Following the odds posted there, Sunday night I won 19 out of 24 awards categories (there were 2 or 3 that did not have odds; I went to the Times' for guidance there, nodding to A.O.Scott's view over Manohla Dargis for those) 6 ahead of the nearest "legitimate" competitor. When "The Social Network" won for best original score there was a collective groan with everyone-except me-wondering how that could be, "it was a horrible, annoying score" they said. I just smiled, knowing that, for whatever reason, the odds were overwhelmingly in favor of exactly that. I couldn't do it, though, I bowed out of the contest, explaining to all how I did it-it was hilarious. The good fellow who won had truly done it (13 of 24) with his recollections and his passion for film. Even funnier, our ever talented son declined the award immediately after I had, citing first how he just didn't want it, too squishy, I think, but also the fact that he had done a very similar thing, although on his Blackberry, the moment he got to the party. At least I had the benefit the night before of some undisturbed free time to study those odds, and a real, full sized computer.
Las Vegas and gambling has never been of interest to me, and it still is not, but I was struck at how accurate the answers were. Perhaps next year I'll start studying a couple of months before the big night.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Biker Trash
I know what you're thinking, a new post two days in a row-he's damn near prolific! It isn't that, it's just that something really bugged me, so here goes:
I covered about 40 miles today, long for me. As I tooled down from the hills where we live to the coast where we don't, it warmed up, just a tease I see now, as I wound up riding home in the rain, knowing I was going back to them hills, and the temperature dropped this time. It was a great day though, a good ride indeed.
What struck me (everything strikes me, you know) as I rode was all of the trash strewn about on our lovely formerly a rail line bike path. It had roadie written all over it, unfortunately: lots of those stupid-I can't believe people consume that stuff-gel squeeze carb things, squished on the asphalt like banana slugs. But the item of equipment that iced it for me was the inner tube. The inner tube was hanging from a sapling about 10 feet off the path, obviously tossed aside by a roadie who felt "hey, I've been inconvenienced by this flat tire" and that they just had to get back in the race...the one in their mind, that is. It was clearly a road bike size, no doubt about it being off of a Target mountain bike, I really don't think I would have minded it as much if it was from a civilian, but no, it was from "one of us". Did they think that the local group who sponsors that section of the path would be by soon on their regular morning cleanup and cart it off, just grateful to feel like a volunteer at a real race, helping out Levi by giving him a shove to get going again after a mechanical?
Folks, in these times of bike lane wars in NYC, people riding naked through the streets of Portland, and a general us against them mentality that pervades the dialog as the country comes to grips with a lot more cyclists on the road, please, please, please, clean up your shit. Don't give the motorheads anything they can use against us, you know what I mean?
After I got to the coast, a little more than halfway into my ride, I passed a "Bike Lane" sign that had been vandalized-but not in the usual destroy mangle rip rend style. Very neatly, someone had taken a can of black spray paint and made one clean horizontal line each through the bicyclist logo, and also the words "bike lane" below it. It looked so deliberate that it succeeded in communicating something very clearly to me: this person has animosity towards cyclists. Please, keep it clean, let's not give them a reason.
I covered about 40 miles today, long for me. As I tooled down from the hills where we live to the coast where we don't, it warmed up, just a tease I see now, as I wound up riding home in the rain, knowing I was going back to them hills, and the temperature dropped this time. It was a great day though, a good ride indeed.
What struck me (everything strikes me, you know) as I rode was all of the trash strewn about on our lovely formerly a rail line bike path. It had roadie written all over it, unfortunately: lots of those stupid-I can't believe people consume that stuff-gel squeeze carb things, squished on the asphalt like banana slugs. But the item of equipment that iced it for me was the inner tube. The inner tube was hanging from a sapling about 10 feet off the path, obviously tossed aside by a roadie who felt "hey, I've been inconvenienced by this flat tire" and that they just had to get back in the race...the one in their mind, that is. It was clearly a road bike size, no doubt about it being off of a Target mountain bike, I really don't think I would have minded it as much if it was from a civilian, but no, it was from "one of us". Did they think that the local group who sponsors that section of the path would be by soon on their regular morning cleanup and cart it off, just grateful to feel like a volunteer at a real race, helping out Levi by giving him a shove to get going again after a mechanical?
Folks, in these times of bike lane wars in NYC, people riding naked through the streets of Portland, and a general us against them mentality that pervades the dialog as the country comes to grips with a lot more cyclists on the road, please, please, please, clean up your shit. Don't give the motorheads anything they can use against us, you know what I mean?
After I got to the coast, a little more than halfway into my ride, I passed a "Bike Lane" sign that had been vandalized-but not in the usual destroy mangle rip rend style. Very neatly, someone had taken a can of black spray paint and made one clean horizontal line each through the bicyclist logo, and also the words "bike lane" below it. It looked so deliberate that it succeeded in communicating something very clearly to me: this person has animosity towards cyclists. Please, keep it clean, let's not give them a reason.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
And He's Up Again...
Okay, got it. Okaaay-got it-I hear you! I know it's been tough, and quite a while since my last post. A long haul. Well, fine for you, then, but what about me? You see, I'm the one who notices everything-everything, I'm the one with the overly-active imagination. If you think this is easy, walk in my shoes. There's been a whole heckuva lot goin on in this world the last couple of months and I, for one, quite possibly the only one, haven't missed a thing; it is what makes it tough to keep up with my demanding and information hungry readers. In the meantime, I'm walking like an Egyptian.
So, let's "cover the cats", starting with.....
The Kings Speech
I loved this film. Colin Firth is an actor who is comfortable just seemingly playing himself. I don't mean he stammers offscreen (?) but he's just naturally...natural. Did you see him in "A Single Man"? Yeah, I thought not, but he could be George VI playing the single man the way he projects a "realness", a human accessibility that tells you he's a regular guy. The King's Speech could have been about Lionel Logue, the speech therapist who quite forces a friendship with the then Duke. Logue's personality and facial expression drive the film; Firth is nearly the "supporting" actor to Geoffrey Rush's Logue. A fascinating look at the world of the 30's and 40's, one that will be a pleasure to view again.
Cutting For Stone
Abraham Verghese is, according to my Wiki-pals, the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School. Wow, and he also earned an MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop. As titles go, that Stanford thing is large, huh? He's been a busy boy!
Cutting for Stone is a beautifully written story of twin boys, born in Ethiopia, whose mother, a nun, dies after giving birth. The other half of the illicit joining is the surgeon who freezes up in trying to save the mother and the twins at birth, and sort out his own mind in a time of chaos. The chaos continues for the boys long after birth, as the Government in Ethiopia falls in a coup in the 50's.
I tend to listen to Audiobooks-thank you Audible!-and the narration of the Audiobook is spot-on, highly recommended.
Lance's Mug
I was checking out Lance's Mug today at the local hot beverage store. It was a perfect shape: sleek, pure white, comfortable handle, generous size, a perfect half inch wide golden-yellow Livestrong band around the base, twelve bucks but at least some of it goes for a great cause. Then I imagined Lance's Mug at my garage sale. A year, two tears have gone by, the whole epo-dopo-Clen "The Clear" Kadiddlehopper thing did not go well. Lance has to plead the Michael Milken/Sherman McCoy evil wrongdoer plea and suddenly Lance is walking along an Austin freeway spearing Livestrong bracelets and other trash that was once cool and unimpeachable-like those damn bottles with the cap at each end so you can clean 'em easier, what's that all about?
I really hope, for Lance's sake, that this thing turns around for him but it does not look to be headed in a good direction. This hotshot investigator Jeff Novitzky is swinging a big bat, and I've wondered if maybe he was related to Dallas Mav Dirk Nowitzky, but I think it's spelled differently. If he was, well just give it up, Lance, because Dirk's bro will beat you-but he's not-so we're good, right? In the interest of pro cycling, we better hope Lance is extra clean; it sure doesn't feel like it will be good, though. Here comes the TDF, and Lance is about to go down as the backdrop story for three weeks...I hate to think it, and I really hate to type it, let's hope for the best.
Baseball?
It's not time yet-relax.
So, let's "cover the cats", starting with.....
The Kings Speech
I loved this film. Colin Firth is an actor who is comfortable just seemingly playing himself. I don't mean he stammers offscreen (?) but he's just naturally...natural. Did you see him in "A Single Man"? Yeah, I thought not, but he could be George VI playing the single man the way he projects a "realness", a human accessibility that tells you he's a regular guy. The King's Speech could have been about Lionel Logue, the speech therapist who quite forces a friendship with the then Duke. Logue's personality and facial expression drive the film; Firth is nearly the "supporting" actor to Geoffrey Rush's Logue. A fascinating look at the world of the 30's and 40's, one that will be a pleasure to view again.
Cutting For Stone
Abraham Verghese is, according to my Wiki-pals, the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School. Wow, and he also earned an MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop. As titles go, that Stanford thing is large, huh? He's been a busy boy!
Cutting for Stone is a beautifully written story of twin boys, born in Ethiopia, whose mother, a nun, dies after giving birth. The other half of the illicit joining is the surgeon who freezes up in trying to save the mother and the twins at birth, and sort out his own mind in a time of chaos. The chaos continues for the boys long after birth, as the Government in Ethiopia falls in a coup in the 50's.
I tend to listen to Audiobooks-thank you Audible!-and the narration of the Audiobook is spot-on, highly recommended.
Lance's Mug
I was checking out Lance's Mug today at the local hot beverage store. It was a perfect shape: sleek, pure white, comfortable handle, generous size, a perfect half inch wide golden-yellow Livestrong band around the base, twelve bucks but at least some of it goes for a great cause. Then I imagined Lance's Mug at my garage sale. A year, two tears have gone by, the whole epo-dopo-Clen "The Clear" Kadiddlehopper thing did not go well. Lance has to plead the Michael Milken/Sherman McCoy evil wrongdoer plea and suddenly Lance is walking along an Austin freeway spearing Livestrong bracelets and other trash that was once cool and unimpeachable-like those damn bottles with the cap at each end so you can clean 'em easier, what's that all about?
I really hope, for Lance's sake, that this thing turns around for him but it does not look to be headed in a good direction. This hotshot investigator Jeff Novitzky is swinging a big bat, and I've wondered if maybe he was related to Dallas Mav Dirk Nowitzky, but I think it's spelled differently. If he was, well just give it up, Lance, because Dirk's bro will beat you-but he's not-so we're good, right? In the interest of pro cycling, we better hope Lance is extra clean; it sure doesn't feel like it will be good, though. Here comes the TDF, and Lance is about to go down as the backdrop story for three weeks...I hate to think it, and I really hate to type it, let's hope for the best.
Baseball?
It's not time yet-relax.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Cyclocross puzzle
Sunday, as I was huffing into mile 12 or so of my "really somewhat epic" 18 mile round trip ride, just coming up the hill near the lake, I hear the tinny voice through the megaphone: "...elite men coming up next!" A little further and I see cars with bike racks, flags, and pop up canopies-there's one that says Shimano, is it a fishing tournament? No! It's my first sighting of a "Cross." No, not that; I mean, public property and everything, but it's a race, not a...cross. It's a bunch of guys who look like roadies riding really swell looking bikes-al carbon frames and everything-and I must say, somewhat slowly, around a dirt track meandering along a section of open space within the confines of the lake property, the trail marked by thin wooden stakes with bits of surveyors tape knotted on at the top. Unless I'm wrong, like if the surveyors tape is to frighten birds away, this is what they refer to as a Cyclocross Race. But it doesn't look like much of a race, I mean, they're riding so slow, why is that?
When I was 12-13-14 years of age, all of my friends and I would ride-and I mean ride-everywhere, as fast as our legs would take us. Dirt tracks, sidewalks, homemade jumps, small hills, big hills, we'd ride from the flatlands in town up into Bel Air-and I mean up-down Mulholland Drive and back down Roscomare or Beverly Glen or Sepulveda. We covered a lot of ground in a day, we worked hard at it.
So when, a few decades later, as I'm just trying to keep the E in epic, and I come across these dudes chugging along like Shetland ponies tethered one to another at the carnival, well, it's just not very impressive. Will somebody please tell me what I'm missing? I have respect for anything bicycling that anybody wants to do, don't get me wrong. I just don't get it. Beefing up an otherwise fine road bike-and rider-tossing some mtb stop you now rocks and all brakes on it, along with some knobbies and call it ..what? Slow riding on a road bike in the dirt? Wouldn't you just use a real mountain bike for that? Wouldn't it be faster?
When I was 12-13-14 years of age, all of my friends and I would ride-and I mean ride-everywhere, as fast as our legs would take us. Dirt tracks, sidewalks, homemade jumps, small hills, big hills, we'd ride from the flatlands in town up into Bel Air-and I mean up-down Mulholland Drive and back down Roscomare or Beverly Glen or Sepulveda. We covered a lot of ground in a day, we worked hard at it.
So when, a few decades later, as I'm just trying to keep the E in epic, and I come across these dudes chugging along like Shetland ponies tethered one to another at the carnival, well, it's just not very impressive. Will somebody please tell me what I'm missing? I have respect for anything bicycling that anybody wants to do, don't get me wrong. I just don't get it. Beefing up an otherwise fine road bike-and rider-tossing some mtb stop you now rocks and all brakes on it, along with some knobbies and call it ..what? Slow riding on a road bike in the dirt? Wouldn't you just use a real mountain bike for that? Wouldn't it be faster?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Keith Richards; Living Life
Keith Richards' memoir "Life" was published recently, and despite a sense of "here we go again, another dip in the Look at Me, I'm a Celebrity" pool, I took a look. It turns out that that what Richards has crafted, along with his writer pal James Fox, is a life story so compelling and readable, so loaded with swagger and sureness of place, I was really quite surprised. It turns out that Keith is not just another too big for his britches star type, and he's not one to miss the nuance and texture of day to day life. His memory is-apparently-very good, and the stories he relates, and the sensitivity he shows to the times and to the individual players, is remarkable given our (my?) natural tendency to dismiss those with massive notoriety. He goes deep here, like someone trying to set a few things straight. A great read, and the audiobook is read partly by Johnny Depp, and part by a Brit whose name is name is Joe Hurley, Keith himself reads a bit, too. Very worthwhile, whether you have a strong interest in the Rolling Stones, or were just alive and recall the time a little, it's great stuff.
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