Mind your peas and queues.

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All I wanted was a single condom and then I was faced with that.

Mark my words, I’ll never go to that corner store again.

So you know how there’s this thing called YouTube and on it you can find lots of videos of fourteen year old white girls rapping, and people falling off trampolines? Around the time of this post I began thinking about my top thirty nine favorite videos on that particular website, (coming up with forty seemed too stressful) and as the Rolodex® of my brain flipped over, I finally landed once again on the following;

Some might say that Turbonegro is past their prime, and some might be right, but there’s no denying that at some points in their history, as well as the present, they continue to exist as a force to be (w)reckoned with.
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And I would like to include that all are welcome residents of Stevilstan, but you must first learn our National Anthem;

Additionally, one of the iron-clad laws in Stevilstan is ‘Thou Shall Not Pass Out With Your Shoes On’.

I couldn’t help but note that in the following news clip sent to me from The Scoutmaster, no mention of this was made;

A Cautionary Tale;
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I suspect Mr. Watson will soon be looking for new living accommodations, so Arlington residents please keep your eyes peeled for a Craigslist ad which might read something like this;

Clean, young professional seeks like. I’m a considerate and gainfully employed male looking for a home in the Arlington area. I love movies (and own a huge collection which I’m more than happy to share), have no pet allergies, and am always willing to do more than my share of housework.
I also have an affinity for cooking, so if you love great food, I’m your guy!

Please contact me if you think I’d make a good addition to your household.

Oh, and I will probably put you in the hospital if you draw a dick on my face after I’ve passed out.

It’s now completely inappropriate that I should segue from that to this next correspondence from one half of the two headed hydra that is Manuel For Speed, Mr. Daniel Wakefield Pasley, shown here with no dicks on his face;
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He writes;

“Stevil,

Can you help us make this tactical cash infusion operation a success?

Kisses,
DWP”

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So in other words, you have until this coming Monday to get your order in and reserve your place in line in Heaven.

Now to quote Joel McHale, “let’s talk about chicks, man.

If you didn’t read my heartbreaking work of staggering genius regarding women in the cycling world, you should.

It was very good.

Anyway, relating to that discussion, Matt from Rubena tires got in touch with a bit of his own perspective on the matter.

Like it’s author, it’s wordy, but also quite good. Please, if your boss isn’t looking over your shoulder right now, I encourage you to read it;

Hey Stevil,

I have been thinking a lot about the recent flood of conversation concerning women in cycling, racing, the industry, the bike shop, all of that shit. There are a couple of short stories I’m going to rattle off, do with them what you will.

I was talking to a customer who works in a shop called Two Wheeler Dealer in Brea, CA. She’s a she, and along with working the works in the shop she manages to find time to occasionally tear legs in the Pro Women’s peloton. I try to follow her racing exploits because it seems the nice thing to do and I like to name drop. When we started talking about the San Dimas Stage Race I totally name dropped. “Did you see Brianna Walle there?”
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Photo courtesy of Brian Hodes.

She used to race here in Oregon with a team called Ironclad/Yakima Racing;
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Photo courtesy of Catherine Leigh Cooper.

Thus comes the point of this paragraph. I think some attention is warranted for this group. Both men and women are a part of, and excel within, this team. But really it’s the women I find to be extraordinary. When many teams are looking high and low for a few women to fit the bill, this team is damn near bursting at the seams with them;
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All fast, all super nice, all totally awesome. A former teammate of mine and Commonwealth compatriot went over to these folk and I watched her happiness and her results spike.

Brianna is the first, but I bet not the last, pro to come out of this group, and that’s impressive. Many kudos should be extended to these women and also the men who support them, especially Capt. Dave. That guy has put his money and his time and his beer on the line to make this team what it is. Say what you want about his skills as a bassist/doorman, when many men in the industry were signing a piece of paper and posting it to Friend Space, this guy was out there making a difference on the ground.

On a self serving (kind of) note, I have an actual story of female awesomeness related, loosely, to Rubena.

Rubena received an email from a young lady in Nebraska about her upcoming project for an event called DECA. It’s one of those business/marketing/leadership organizations who comb the high schools of America for the next Steve Gates and Bill Jobs. (In my time it was called Junior Achievers, and I’m glad they changed the name, because you can see where that got me).

Her name is Tymber and her project was to bring an entry level mountain bike tire to market and sell it to a panel representing a bike company of her choice. She did research on the google for new tire companies and found Rubena. Needless to say, the folks over at Rubena HQ were pretty shocked to have Tymber find us and want to represent us in her competition. So they asked me for a little help, and as Consigliere, I was obliged to help. I sent her a pair of tires and some flyers and catalogs, answered a couple of questions and felt pretty good about myself. Then I received this;
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Not only did she win her statewide competition, securing a trip to the national event in Anaheim, CA, but she gave way too much credit to Rubena’s involvement and gave said credit on a really real handwritten letter! I couldn’t have been more proud or impressed if I had been the victor myself.

Between Brianna Walle, Capt. Dave, and the ladies on the Ironclad Racing women’s crew and Tymber winning competitions by learning about and owning bikecycle related products, my spirits have been lifted in regards to the future of women in the sport/industry I love.

Sorry for the essay, but thanks for reading it.

Word.

All of that is right on the money. Matt’s insight made me feel good. Then the more I reflected on it, the better I felt. As a matter of fact, I was feeling so good, I thought I was going to burst.

Then I read this;
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-and I felt horrible again.

While I am all for Obama’s take on equal rights, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as personally sold down the river by any act of my government as I do this. Everyone has their own ax to grind, and a particular bee that gets trapped in their bonnet, and I suppose Monsanto’s consistent despicable actions is mine. I don’t trust them, and I don’t like them, and I especially don’t appreciate my government getting so deeply into bed with them.

This isn’t to say I am at all surprised by any of this, but I am hugely disappointed by it. Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. By this account I’m overreacting, but by all the others I’ve read, my initial response is to riot in the streets.

Anyway, while you are minding your queues and peas, you might want to pay attention to the other foods you eat from here on out as well, because at this rate, you’re better off simply raising it yourself.
newlittleskull

Spread this like it's sick

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9 Responses to “Mind your peas and queues.”

  1. Chris March 28, 2013 at 6:58 am #

    you’re not overreacting on the Monsanto thing. fuck the administration, they were previously just an obstacle in the way of civil rights, and now they are not. that’s their entire contribution to the effort.

    also, those MoS shirts are going to look so good with my standard-racehipster-issue oakley frogskins, the ones with the iridium lenses. not even joking

  2. Johnny Doe March 28, 2013 at 8:20 am #

    Anotehr one for women kicking ass in the cycling whirled: http://bigthink.com/design-for-good/yes-for-real-its-an-invisible-bicycle-helmet-and-it-is-awesome
    Seeing women engineering things just makes me stoked.

    • Stevil March 28, 2013 at 8:27 am #

      Just the same, I’d rather wear a helmet than a scarf.

  3. Virgil_MF_Rufus March 28, 2013 at 8:22 am #

    Stevil and Matt from Rubena,

    that young lady who works at 2 Wheeler Dealer is like you said, a badass. I have watched her race since she first started. Her first Cross race she went out and pretty much had the race in the bag. She had an unfortunate flat on a section of the course we couldn’t get to to change her tire so she rode off camber turns on a flat front wheel. She fell a couple of times until she got to the pit where we changed out her wheel and sent her on her way. She charged so freaking hard and made it all the way back to 3rd. She then won almost every race she could enter after that. So amazing to watch her ride. She also has four sets of the coveted Wolfpack Dog Tags. Baller.

  4. nate March 28, 2013 at 11:56 am #

    A buddy of mine used to wear Ironclad work gloves to ride bikes and snowboards in, as well as do his carpentry. Funny, I guess he was on to something. The NPR blog post was one that I found right after all the postings started popping up. What a dirty, underhanded, backdoor pansy-ass way to go about it, putting some language into a bill anonymously to achieve your agenda. That language is illegit, IMO, and I don’t necessarily blame Obama for signing it; he signed the bill for its intended purpose, as a spending bill. I blame the gutless corporate rep congressman who put the language in there to begin with.

    • Stevil March 28, 2013 at 12:00 pm #

      I’ve run Ironclad exclusively for years because they’re awesome and because Captain Dave keeps me well stocked.
      Also, +1 on everything else you said.

  5. spokejunky March 28, 2013 at 3:28 pm #

    That is some serious B.S. when you can ‘anonymously’ slip a provision into a legal document. I’d love to be the guy writing that crap up and slide in the duck penis enlargement rider.

  6. Tman March 29, 2013 at 8:04 am #

    Tymber rocks! She will go places, unlike some folks who won a trip to the National DECA competition in SLC in 1988 which spiraled into a skinhead on a Triumph buying two cases of shitty beer outside of a Das Damen show for a handfull of bored teenagers to swill. Theoretically of course.

  7. JP April 2, 2013 at 6:33 am #

    The Ironclad ladies are indeed pretty rad. There’s actually a big push to get more women racing here in Portland, OR, and some women from local women-heavy teams have banded together to put on clinics, workshops, and other fun times under the banner of Let’s Race Bikes (www.letsracebikes.com). Having just moved here from the Bay Area and wanting to try my hand at road racing, the LRB ladies hooked me up, and I ended up joining team West Coast Women’s Cycling, which I’m super stoked on. The push to get more women racing appears to be successful so far – on March 24, the inaugural Gorge Roubaix race, a 37/74 mile race on paved and gravel roads, was held: 40 women raced. 40 women finished.