TIM ARMSTRONG - INTO ACTION
(featuring Skye Sweetnam)

Let’s get moving into action
Let’s get moving into action
If your life’s too slow, no satisfaction
Find something out there, there’s an attraction
If you hesitate now, that’s a subtraction
So, let’s get moving girl into action

We take the 43 bus, we got no plans
The girl in the miniskirt, her name’s Suzanne, right
The one with in high heel boots is Sharon
And Karen is the one with the blonde wig on
And with a bullet, man, we’re going number one
And we don’t need any money to have any fun

Let’s get moving into action
Let’s get moving into action
If your life’s too slow, no satisfaction
Find something out there, there’s an attraction
If you hesitate now, that’s a subtraction
So, let’s get moving girl into action

We take the Trans-Bay Tube on the Richmond line
Leave S.F. at eight, East Bay by nine
We may run out of money tonight never out of time
Harmon street we kick, it going to Adeline
It’s anybody’s guess how late were gonna run
We go all night alright to midnight just begun

Let’s get moving into action
Let’s get moving into action
If your life’s too slow, no satisfaction
Find something out there, there’s an attraction
If you hesitate now, that’s a subtraction
So, let’s get moving girl into action

Well when we showed up on the scene, we tried to warn them
That your days were over and the ship was sunken
Respect to New York, respect to London
But we’re from California and our State is Golden

We’re gonna dig dig dig in deep hold our sacred ground
When the music come playing then you jump up, jump down
If you hook up the speakers, man, we’ll bring the sound
And the music will be heard from miles and miles around
We got songs of redemption, songs of war
We got songs like this that can pack the dance floor

Let’s get moving into action
Let’s get moving into action
If your life’s too slow, no satisfaction
Find something out there, there’s an attraction
If you hesitate now, that’s a subtraction
So, let’s get moving girl into action

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Completed the climb up Emigration Canyon for the second time this season … felt pretty good, although my asthma definitely kicked my butt on the early parts of the climb before my lungs settled down. Had to take it easy the rest of the way of the climb, but managed to make it.

Unfortunately, my ride home ended in a minor tragedy on 27th South near 23rd East, when somehow a piece of bubble gum managed to destroy my rear derailleur … and my discount code for Backcountry.com doesn’t work for the one Record derailleur they have in stock.

They're not supposed to look like this, are they?

Obligatory “at-speed” blurry shot of T-Bird on the finishing climb of Stage 4 of the Tour of Utah.

Tyler Hamilton

Tyler Hamilton, a little closer.

I had to step back after this last shot, afraid of pulling a bonehead move like the guy who knocked down Giuspeppe Guerini on l’Alpe d’Huez several years ago. Funny thing, while the other riders in Tyler’s group followed the curve of the road right towards the finish line, Tyler just kept coming straight at me.

Maybe there was something about me that just screamed “Flahute”, and he was thinking “I’m gonna get that bastard that keeps knocking my team …”

I may have to change at least some of my feelings on the Rock Racing team … while I was wandering around the finish area after the race, the Rock Racing area was completely mobbed by people, and everyone seemed to be handling it with a lot of grace; posing for photos, signing autographs … the whole 9 yards.

Listening to Michael Ball talk to some of the people around, he came across as a lot more humble than he does in print.

And Tyler is still one of the nicest guys in cycling; and he’s certainly a human rider again … although those are some of the ugliest sunglasses I have ever seen. They’re even worse than the Oakleys that George Hincapie wore for the past few years.

T-Bird was in the middle of an interview … kicking back in a lawn chair and relaxing. Right now, he’s sitting in 4th place overall, about 1:07 behind Louder.

More of my photos of the Tour of Utah can be found on Flickr.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time

“If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party,” Dean said Friday in an appearance on NPR’s “Tell Me More” program.

Unreal.

I’m a 42-year-old white man, lifelong Democrat, raised in the South, lived most of my adult life in Northern California, and now live in the Republican bastion of Salt Lake City, Utah.

I cannot believe that Howard Dean (whom I supported in the 2004 campaign) would stoop to this level. I am offended and ashamed that a member of my Party would utter such a snarky, racially-motivated comment to denigrate our opponents.

It’s the 21st Century! Race should play a very small role (if it should play any role at all) in modern politics.

Another frightening thing is the recent mom-spam I received, entitled “Proud to Be White”, which I won’t dignify by quoting here, but if you really want to read it, just do a Google search for “proud to be white” (in quotes), and you’ll get an ample number of results. This from my mother, who is also a life-long Democrat, and who taught me to be colorblind.

Here was my response:

Perhaps if white people hadn’t treated everyone else in North America like complete shit for the past 400 years, there’d be no need for any of those groups that Mr. White Pride listed in his diatribe.

We don’t need an NAAWP, because white people already control the United States; whites don’t need to be advanced, because we are already “on top”; and anyone who doesn’t see that is a complete and utter idiot.

The NAACP and other similar groups are not about advancing their demographic at the detriment of white people; it’s not about blacks or Hispanics or Asians on top while white people get pushed down the ladder to some sort of second-class status.

White students are not prevented from attending historically black colleges; however, blacks were excluded from attending many universities for many, many years.

It’s about equality.

Think of it this way. Who is more likely to agree with this tripe? Someone who thinks like me? Or someone whose views tend to coincide with those of David Duke and Tom Metzger?

Whose company would you rather keep?

I’m not proud of being white. Sometimes I’m guilty about it. What I am proud of is being an American; an American who can think for himself, and who accepts or rejects people based on their actions and not their skin color.

I don’t know … perhaps similar feelings were what Howard Dean had in mind when he made his rather idiotic comments about the Republican Party, but there’s no reason to put a label on it … it’s just as bad as labeling people of color with any of the various epithets they’ve had to deal with for the past 4 centuries.

Rock Racing & Simple Living riders in an early break.

Garmin-Chipotle pulling the field to chase down the breakaway riders.

Almost 200 photos taken altogether … these were the only two of the actual race worth keeping. I’ve got a lot of work to do on action shots.

Went to the downtown criterium stage 3 of the Tour of Utah this evening. Took shitloads of pictures, and only 2 of the actual race even remotely came out … need to do some tweaking in Photoshop, and will post in the morning.

Went to dinner with Chippo, Melissa, Ryan K. (from Revolution), and a few others at Squatters. Much to my detriment and surprise, I’m terribly out of practice pouring beer from a pitcher. I guess there’s a reason why I generally drink straight from the bottle.

Now home, and after a short digestive period, it’s off to bed, so I can head up to Snowbird tomorrow for Stage 4.

For a dear and beloved friend in San Francisco, who was ordained into the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi on August 10 of this year.

WRITTEN ON THE WALL AT CHANG’S HERMITAGE

1.

It is spring in the mountains.
I come alone seeking you.
The sound of chopping wood echoes
Between the silent peaks.
The streams are still icy.
There is snow on the trail.
At sunset I reach your grove
In the stormy mountain pass.
You want nothing, although at night
You can see the aura of gold
And silver ore all around you.
You have learned to be gentle
As the mountain deer you have tamed.
The way back forgotten, hidden
Away, I become like you,
An empty boat, floating, adrift.

2.

In spring mountains, alone, I set out to find you.
Axe strokes crack—crack and quit. Silence doubles

I pass snow and ice lingering along cold streams,
then, at Stone-Gate in late light, enter these woods.

You harm nothing: deer roam here each morning;
want nothing: auras gold and silver grace nights.

Facing you on a whim in bottomless dark, the way
here lost—I feel it drifting, this whole empty boat.

  — Tu Fu (712 - 770), Chinese Poet of the Tang Dynasty.
  — Translations by Kenneth Rexroth (1) & David Hinton (2).