Worst to First

While everyone was at Redbug rattling their teeth out of their heads I snuck over to Tom Brown Park to finally give the new trail system the once over. No question about it, TBP is the hottest trail around for 100 miles. Can someone please tell us who the brains were behind the effort? That person needs to be bought a beer.

Other than thatI have so little to say. Having been waylaid (but never way laid) by guest after guest after guest- none of whom ride bikes- I am thinking a man can get by on a much smaller list of friends than the one I am working with right now.

Stay in your damn houses people, this little tavern is closed for the summer.

Juancho

Die Internet Die!

I don't want it to go away forever. I definitely don't want any planes to fall from the sky. I don't want anyone to miss out on critical medical care, but I do want the Internet to stub its massive toe.

Everybody out there is so busy facebooking the youtube that there is no time to rest. For those of us bound to a virtual world for work the day has become 24 hours long. There are no rules of engagement anymore. It's run fast or be left behind.

A brown-out wouldn't be so bad would it? Some peace and quiet? A little forced shrug of the shoulders, pack up your lunch, lock up the office and go home for the day? Everybody forced to sit quietly and participate in that other world, the corporeal one?

Somebody pull the plug for a while-

Juancho

Plan B

Do I use this big check to pay back my retirement account as planned, or do I initiate plan b whereby Juancho fades into the firmament like DB Cooper? I'm not likely to get another chance like this. If ever there was a time to pull the cord this is it.

But where to go? I'm too old for the lam. Once the money is gone I would become a very grumpy camarero at a moldy beach bar in South America.

You might track me down, but I would spit in your coffee.

Juancho

It was late on Friday before I shrugged off the pressures of work and caught on that this was going to be the significant spring weekend around here. While friends were cheersing and laughing I randomly squawked about the pernicious ignorance of the Alabama state legislature and absolutely crucial aspects of instructional diagramming. Somebody should have slapped me, except I do the slapping around here when necessary. Ask anyone.

In the interest of full disclosure, of which the internet now requires nothing less, the weekend went something like this...

ART, BEER, COFFEE, BLOODY MARY, PROSCIUTTO LOAF, BEER, BOCCE, BOCCE, BOCCE, BASKETBALL, BLUEGRASS.

I hope yours can compete with that.

Juancho

The Round Up

The pollen is so thick out there I need a respirator to ride my bike. The choking yellow dust swirls over everything. That's my latest excuse anyway. I returned to the scene of the crash with Flugtag Lorino and while I wheezed he shook his head with dismay and shame. That's my kind of bike ride right there.

Lots of action shaping up for Good Friday and Easter weekend here in BRCville.

The inimitable Kelly Boehmer is showing new work in the 621 Gallery tonight so that is pretty much the place to be. If you can handle bigger than life incarnations of the things that haunt you anyway, then that is the place to be. Her soft sculpture work is neither cute nor cuddly. The viscera and entrails of magical creatures are her brush strokes.

Uncle Vito is coming to town. We used to work together at this shithole and not a finer human being exists. This is the guy that would have made your last dinner party fun. I can't wait to show him around and laugh hysterically at his running commentary concerning our hillbilly town. New Yorkers man, they are different.

Man and Pa Ingalls are hitching up the buckboard and coming to the city. We love to see Ma, but I guess that puts a damper on whatever Pa and Flugtag have going on.

Despite the yellow cloud, the weather is gorgeous and I intend to shut this soul-sucking machine down for the weekend. If you need me, you better pick up the phone.

Juancho

I noticed recently that during periods of deep concentration my left hand curls itself into a claw- poised palm upward as about to throw dice.

As if I didn't have enough to worry about?

Anyway, just an observation. The blog form has become dinosauric to the diet-net menu available on other social network sites. I'm just trying to keep up by increasing the level of minutiae I share on this site. What does it mean? This claw? Have I always done it? Is it a harbinger of my future palsied hands? Can liver spots be far behind?

Now that I recoginize it I take it as positive sign.

When my left hand goes claw? Son, that means Juancho's brain is in the zone.

Elvis got nothing on me-

Juancho

Breakout

A midday ride through the northside green tunnels. Small victories count.

The thing about being a grown-up is you have so many justifications at your disposal to rationalize bad choices. Spending 14 hours a day online is necessary for the BIG IMPORTANT WORK I am doing and if I don't do it, who will? Nobody. That's who will.

If I don't wake up in the middle of the night worrying about it, then who will? Better that I should pace the hall at 3:00 A:M than to let the hall go unpaced.

If I just push on and get this form 242c out the door and finish evaluating the evaluations from the evaluators then things might slow down and I can go for a bike ride.

I would like to ride but I have to caulk, rake, drag, plant, and change the lightbulbs. "You know I want to ride bro', totally, but dang."

All such bullshit. I have said it here myself- everything works better when the bicycle is in the center of everything.

Thanks to Nate for the rally yesterday. Clutch play dude.

Juancho

To the Nub

I think today is going to have be a personal wellness day. There aren't going to be many as pretty as this one and for the time being the hounds are off my scent. I'm thinking I will start with a lollygag and build momentum towards a good wander. Life is hard. I'm exhausted. Health Care Reform. Norovirus. Cats stuck in trees. That irritating Maggie Gyllenhall. It has all been too much for one man to keep track of by hisself.

If less is more than give me less.

Juancho

Call of the Wild

Even the most domesticated lapdog dreams of the hunt. Stretched out on the cool tile floor, belly full of kibble, the neutered hound kicks his leg in pursuit of dreamy game. Those breeds so far genetically removed from their wolf ancestors still hold the seed of the hunter and as they sleep the seed sprouts briefly and they give chase with blood-filled nostrils and bared jowls. I am alpha! They howl. I am predator!

You may see them wake with a snort, the curled lip and furrowed brow give you a nervous jolt from the loyal friend and companion you thought the hound to be. What dreams this killer who sleeps beneath my roof? Will the hunt stay in dreams or will the hound one day chase the prey to wakefulness?

As I watched my friend double back to the expert jump on the Cadillac trail I thought none of these things about lapdogs and wakefulness. I thought how odd it seemed, this impulse. "I just want to take it easy today. I haven't been on my bike in weeks." This he told me not 45 minutes prior as we met along the trail.
Now, from some deep place, the wolf was running. Straight off a cliff.

With great speed he charged the ledge, assuming he would fly safely the ten feet necessary to land in the trough of packed clay, between the oak trees below. I was spellbound, a victory cry poised in my throat as he charged into space, then dropped like a cinder block into the steep slope below.

Moving in the slow-motion surreality of watching a car crash, I was helpless to turn events another direction. The time for intervention had unceremoniously passed. Arms and legs splayed out like a scarecrow, he tumbled down the hill with great violence.

Asleep no more, he hunted.

Juancho

Mull it Over

Get it? Mull it? Hilarious.

It looks like I am getting my wish for abundant sunshine this weekend, at least until Sunday when ironically (and not in the Williamsburg/Brooklyn way but in the literal sense of the word) there will be no sun.

A sunny day does not a mojo make though and so I will have to bring something more myself if fella is ever going to get his groove back. I would just like a couple of days free of worry, free of concern. I want to rock out. Get sunburned. Follow my bliss man. Take a little pedal off the beaten track.

I hope the internet can get along without me.

Juancho