There's nothing like taking Friday off to go ride with friends. Going to get with KenBob and MrSmith on the cross bikes, and knock out a little base mileage. That'll be up the C&O Trail to White's Ferry, over to Leesburg and back via W&OD. It's the Loop of Lusty Libations, but probably at slightly higher speed and lower blood alcohol content. You may wonder why I'm not talking about riding today despite what the schedule sez... see, I was so frickin' shattered from yesterday's expedition, and there was all that thunder and rain today, and work and shit... so I moved my day off to Friday and I guess I'm going long 4 days runnin'.
Woooooooooot!
As Coach Thompson states daily, I'm outta here.
Meanwhile, while I'm outta town, remember: You got a friend in Jimbo!
As long as you're rockin' some tongue-in-cheek country, I might as well introduce you to the patently offensive Kinky Friedman, with a song he originally did with his first band, the Texas Jewboys. For what it's worth, there's going to be one of you who gets highly offended by this song. I'd advise you to consider the possibility, for a second, that Kinky is actually making fun of bigots here. Y'know, before you hit the 'send' button.
While we're on the subject of Kinky Friedman, you don't know Kinky until you've heard Asshole From El Paso.
That's a response to this Merle Haggard song, BTW:
Merle Haggard, though conservative in outlook, was an actual outlaw, having been a small time criminal, bouncing in and out of jail and eventually sentenced to hard time for armed robbery, though pardoned later, post-release, by Governor Ron Reagan. This is in contrast to Johnny Cash, who portrayed himself as an outlaw and who had some drug and domestic problems, but whose prison time was limited, basically, to overnight trips for drunk and disorderly and similar minor offenses. Okie From Muskogee was in response to stuff like this:
That's not the only good right/left counterpunching that went on at the time. For instance, Neil Young went and launched this broadside at the South.
Southern Man was harshly critical of those in the South who fought against desegregation, and rightly so. It rang as an overly harsh criticism to the Van Zandts, who pointed out to Neil Young that it wasn't as morally simple as he made it out in his song, and he was wrong to paint everybody with the same brush. Their rejoinder is one of the all time great Southern rock anthems, and although it wasn't exactly the hate-fest between Young and the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the dialogue was, well, forcefully understood by each group's core fans, including in all likelihood a lot of people who liked both and thought, WTF?
Guess after waxing serious, it's my job to make you smile for a minute. SCOTS Liquored Up and Lacquered Down oughtta do the trick.
Might as well end as we started, with a bit of the Rev. Horton Heat.
Have a good weekend all y'all. Ride strong.
5 comments:
The Young/Van Zant fued was all a myth. See the cover of Skynyrd's "Street Survivors" LP on which Van Zant is wearing a "Tonight's the Night" shirt.
Also, Skynyrd supported Jimmy Carter in '76. Granted, Carter is a southern man, but certainly not the kind depicted in Young's song.
I think Sweet Home Alabama was misunderstood as praising the South. In fact, I think it criticizes it in the same way that Southern Man does. Born in the USA-style.
Let's hear it for Country Joe and the Fish! Give me an F...
(Unrelated) Jim, what is your cyclocross setup? I had a steel road conversion (1x7)last year, but want to make a jump to cyclocross frame this year for the ability to run bigger tires/cantis. I want to make this bike versatile, maybe for touring/training also. Any thoughts on an inexpensive frame? I'm thinking of running SRAM Apex. Thoughts? Comments? Obserevations? Thanks!
Primary thought: you can run a POS bike in cross and do really well. I built a Redline Conquest Team up into a pretty stout wagon. FSA cross cranks, Ultegra 9 shifters & drivetrain, Thomson stem & seatpost, Kore handlebars (for the 46 width, I'm a big boy) and TRP cantilevers (the standard ones that run about $50 per wheel. Any reasonably stout wheels will do, run Fango clinchers for all-weather tires and get a set of Michelin Mud 2 tires for real mud conditions. If you decide you love cross then go tubular. If you've got one set Fango tubulars are the best way to go, if you've got dry & rain tubulars... well, now it's a religious discussion. Anyhow, that's a pretty top flight rig for low bucks. I'm a big fan of the Redlines. The Conquest Pro is a pretty inexpensive frame and makes a good race bike; the Conquest Team is a great frame and makes a decent 'comfort' roadbike since it has a very nice Scandium frame.
There's a lot of ways you could go. Competitive Cyclist is selling Ridley Crossbows for about $500 and that's a nice price for a top caliber entry/mid level frame.
You can get the whole bike if you want, but I wanted a particular spec so built it up myself and got a $3k bike put together - one that I think works better than the stock $2700 bike - for about $1700 total investment by the time I was done thanks to club discounts and careful shopping.
As for that gruppo - don't know a damn thing about it so I'd hesitate to recommend it to you. A lot of people like SRAM, I don't particularly like it finding the shifting clunky compared to Shimano 10 speed. The one upgrade I'm considering is changing to Ultegra 10, though I might give SRAM a shot on a longer term basis (mmmmmph) if I can get a really good deal on a Force gruppo.
I guess this is a roundabout way of saying it probably doesn't matter all that much what way you go with equipment; most of the mid range and higher stuff is perfectly fine. The engine, however... well, that usually needs some work.
I think the closest you can get to pulling apart Southern Man and Alabama, without being an expert on reconstruction, Walker Percy, William Faulkner, and Little Rock is Ronnie and Neil by The Drive By Truckers. The link looks like a cell phone video, so do yourself a favor, and buy the mp3.
The Southern Man/Alabama thing is endlessly fascinating to me. It's a real Rorsach test.
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