Old Yarn - The Police Raid

Introduction

This is the eighth “old yarn” on albertnet (following in the footsteps of “The Cinelli Jumpsuit,” “Bike Crash on Golden Gate Bridge,” “The Enemy Coach,” “The Brash Newb,” “The Day I Learned Bicycle Gear Shifting,”, “The In-Flight Voyeur,” and most recently “The Dark Alley Incident”). This is the kind of story that would normally be a “From the Archives” item, except I’ve never before written it down.

[Art by ChatGPT. No rights reserved.]

The Drug Bust – early 1994

I was living in an apartment on Webster Street in San Francisco’s Western Addition, aka Lower Haight. At the time I felt like it was a fairly safe neighborhood, but (as detailed here) I’ve discovered more recently that, at that time, it was actually pretty rough. I’d found the place through A—, a buddy at the Berkeley bike shop where I’d worked until I graduated from college. Our third roommate, R—, was the one who had the lease, and I didn’t know much about him except that he was about ten years older than us, and made his living buying broken down cars from the police auction and then fixing and selling them. He had a lot of spare time, which he spent entertaining friends, cooking, watching TV, and smoking weed.

I wasn’t too wild about R—’s lifestyle, especially the weed part, but he was a nice guy. Noting my predilection for making burritos, he’d buy chips and really good salsa from some local taqueria or Mexican grocery and exhort me to help myself to them. He was generally in pretty good spirits, laughing at all kinds of stuff. He had a great tabby cat whose official name was Pogo but whom A— and I called Toonces. Toonces took a shine to me and would sleep in my bed, a queen-size futon that took up almost my entire bedroom. My racing bike hung right above the futon, and I hung my dress shirts and neckties from its front wheel.

R—’s main visitors, for most of the time I lived there, were his girlfriend, his mistress, and another female friend who was a stripper. I don’t even remember his girlfriend’s name and other than her looks, I don’t know what R— saw in her. She had this dog named Dakota she’d always bring with her and about 90% of her verbal output was bawling out the dog—“Dakota, no!” The mistress, M—, wasn’t nearly as pretty but was a totally cool chick, we all liked her a lot. I don’t remember the stripper’s name either. She was nice, but pretty quiet and mostly just watched TV. I think R— only had her over to give her a place to relax and recharge; I gather she had a hard life.

Over time things started to go downhill. A— moved out, and R— rented the room out to some random guy who was stressed out all the time because he managed a restaurant. This guy had a female cat, Chloe, who was in heat and always coming on to Toonces, apparently unaware that she was also female.  Chloe would always stick her hind end in Toonces’ face and Toonces would stalk away, disgusted. Eventually Chloe got herself knocked up from some offscreen neighborhood tomcat, and had a litter of kittens that our roommate couldn’t manage to unload on anyone so they just pissed everywhere until it became untenable and R— kicked the guy out, kittens and all. Then we got some freshly minted journalism grad from Oklahoma who didn’t seem to have a job and just hung around, mainly watching R—’s giant TV, always with this kind of awkward trying-to-be-friendly smile plastered to his face. Meanwhile, R—’s weed use appeared to go from a special treat to a routine indulgence to a lifestyle. M— started to get a bit grumpy, chafing at her ongoing role of mistress vs. her hope of pushing out the girlfriend. Worst of all, R— got in the habit of having friends over and smoking them out, and this collection of friends seemed to grow over time to where there always seemed to be some stranger in my living room. It became kind of a menagerie of dirtbags.

I tolerated all of this because the rent was dirt cheap and I was saving up as much money as possible for a 9-month bicycle tour I was planning with my then-girlfriend, E—. I was spending a lot of my time at E—’s place anyway, and as our story begins I was in my last week living at the Webster place and had already started moving my stuff into storage.

On the night in question my dad was in town with this then-wife, and had offered to take E— and me out to dinner. I got home a bit early from work, just after sunset, so I’d have time to change out of my suit and tie and shake off the workday before my dad picked me up. The apartment was an upstairs unit, so just past the front door was a steep flight of stairs. As I came through the door, R— stuck his head out over the stairwell and yelled, “Don’t come in!”

I was gobsmacked. On what grounds could or would my roommate say this? I mean, I live here! I pay rent! As I stood there paralyzed with confusion, another head popped out, that of a complete stranger, who yelled, “Freeze! Police! Are you armed?!”

I guess you could say I’d lived a charmed life up to that moment, because it didn’t occur to me that this could actually be a cop. I mean, it didn’t even cross my mind. It felt like these two must have been having me on. So I replied, “Are you kidding?!” At this the cop—for it was in fact a plainclothes cop—came running down the stairs toward me. And yes, he was packing heat—but at least it was holstered. I put my hands up and said something like, “I’m really sorry, officer—but can you tell me what’s going on?” He didn’t answer but gestured up the steps. “Get up there,” he commanded.

I was marched up to the living room. R— was sitting on one end of the sofa, looking really pissed off and a bit freaked out. Our Okie roommate was seated at the other end of the sofa looking absolutely petrified. There were five plainclothes cops tearing the place apart. I gathered this was a drug bust—I mean, what else could it be? Dumb luck that I happened to come home that evening. The energy off these cops was intense and kind of terrifying. They were dressed to blend in with the urban environment—jeans and dark windbreakers—and they were moving at a speed that didn’t seem necessary, shoving things off bookcases, turning things over, yanking open drawers. They seemed pissed, like whatever they were looking for they weren’t coming up with. The first cop demanded some ID. I very slowly drew my driver’s license from my wallet and handed it over. He gave it to someone to run it.

“What room is yours?” another cop asked. I pointed down the hall. He said, “Show me.” I led him down there. When carrying my futon frame out a few days before, I’d lost my grip and it busted the light switch so I couldn’t turn on the light. For that reason, I still had my big Maglite in there. It was the big 4-D-cell version I’d bought for the upcoming bike tour and I suddenly realized it wasn’t where I’d left it. In fact, the cop at my shoulder was wielding a Maglite and I reckoned it was probably mine, like in all the excitement he didn’t realize this wasn’t his cop-issued one. I decided not to bring it up. “Where’s all your stuff?!” the guy demanded. I told him, “I’m moving out.” He asked, “Why?!”

This was a bit of a tough one to answer. I’m sure he didn’t want to hear a Doogie Howser response like, “I’m putting all my things in storage because I’m going to do a cross-country bike tour! It’s going to be so much fun!” But I also didn’t want to sound like a smartass. I decided to take the risk and said, with a head-nod toward my roommate in the living room, “Why do you think?” He asked why the light switch was broken. I explained. He marched me back into the living room.

Just as I got there, the phone in the kitchen rang. I was like, oh crap, that’s probably my dad. I turned to the guy who’d come down the stairs for me, whom I took to be the head cop, and said, “Hey, that’s probably my dad calling. He’s supposed to come over. Can I please answer, just to tell him not to come?” The cop stared at me for a couple seconds, as the phone continued to ring, and finally said, “Okay … but no funny stuff.”

I almost burst out laughing. Where did this guy get his script? From watching cop shows on TV? “No funny stuff,” seriously? What was I gonna say … “The bird has flown – execute Plan Bravo”? But I kept a straight face and picked up the phone. It was E— asking, “Hey, are we still on for tonight?” I paused. What counted as funny stuff? Does mentioning the police raid violate some law enforcement taboo? I decided to be as vague as possible. “I’m not sure,” I said carefully. “Things have gotten a bit complicated. Just stay put and … I’ll be in touch.” I rang off and the cop seemed okay with what I’d said. Handing me back my driver’s license, he sent me back into the living room where a cop had finally found something at the back of a bookcase: a little baggie of mushrooms. R— said, “Oh my god, there those are, I wondered where I’d stashed them!” The head cop wheeled around to face him and yelled, “Oh, you think this is funny?!” Now R— looked properly terrified. I guess he’d been shooting for levity but obviously that didn’t work out.

All this time, Toonces was sitting up on top of the giant TV, looking down across the scene. This was her favorite perch, since TVs still had tubes back then so it was always nice and warm. One of the cops must have followed my gaze because he yelled at me, “What’s the cat doing up there?!” I couldn’t believe he’d actually asked that. I mean, what a pointless question, right? I guess he was so hopped up on adrenaline he just needed to yell something. I meekly replied, “Um … she likes it up there.” He fired back, “ Does she always sit up there?!” The very first thing that popped into my head as a response was, “No, only when she’s stoned!” But obviously after R—’s experiment I didn’t even consider it. I just said, “Uh, yeah … most of the time.”

The doorbell rang. Oh crap … my dad. Before I could do anything the head cop ran down the stairs and threw open the door: “Freeze, police! Are you armed?!”

I peered down the stairs to see my dad standing in the doorway, looking dumbfounded. At least he didn’t look threatening, with his tidy grey beard, ‘90s-era Bill Gates eyeglasses, and tweed blazer. But he also didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, and I could sense the cop’s blood starting to boil. Finally my dad said, in a very quiet, timid voice, “Is Dana here?”

“I said, are you armed?!” the cop yelled. My dad assured him he was not. I took a gamble and came down the stairs. “This is my dad,” I told the cop. “And here’s the thing: you’ve run my license already and you can see I have zero criminal record. I have nothing to do with any of this and my roommate probably already told you that. You guys have been through my room and there’s nothing there. Can I please, please just leave with my dad?” The cop thought it over and decided to let me go. (This was a very lucky break. I found out later my two roommates spent the night  on that sofa, handcuffed together while the cops finished tearing the place apart.) 

Before I left, I approached the cop who’d been in my room and politely asked if that was my Maglite he was carrying. He acknowledged that it was. “Would you be willing to leave it in my room before you go?” I timidly asked. Looking back, this was probably pushing my luck.

For some reason, my stepmother had parked a block or two away. As my dad and I walked to the car, I pondered what he must be thinking. This was not a “cool dad” with a wild past who had ever encountered anything like a drug bust. I mean, he was such a goody-two-shoes, he didn’t even touch alcohol or use swear words. As for firearms, he’d never even let my brothers and me have toy guns. Famously, when he found a toy gun in our house, belonging to one of our friends, he snatched it up, took it out to the street in front of our house, and ran it over with his VW bus. My dad was a principled man, a gentleman, a gentle man, and a prig. Plainclothes cops were not part of his world.

Not sure what to say, I remained quiet as we strolled down the sidewalk toward the car. My dad finally broke the silence. “Well,” he said, “that was interesting.”

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Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2026 Paris-Nice Stage 8

Introduction

Almost thirty years ago my wife and I were visiting the south of France, and at a train station were spied by a fellow American. This was disappointing in and of itself because we were trying not to look like tourists. We probably thought we were dressing in a Euro style, and lots of foreigners wear Levi’s, but clearly we were easily identifiable by our countryman. He looked like Elmer Fudd and, in the loud and uninhibited style we Americans are known and despised for, he hollered across the platform at us, “Does REE-tard mean late?!” He was referring to the signs announcing the delays caused by the almost inevitable rail workers’ strike that day. I resisted the temptation to reply, “No, REE-tard means you!” Because of course I was too politically correct, even then.

And what does this have to do with the Paris-Nice stage race? Almost nothing, unless you saw the word “Nice” and sounded out our English word “nice” in your head. It’s pronounced “neece,” you retard. Pardon my French. (Don’t pretend you thought I was using a vulgar and insensitive English word; I was using the French word that’s pronounced “ray-TARRR,” to suggest that you were late to grasp that this race ends in a city in southern France. I mean, come on!) Anyway, today I cover the final stage of this eight-day race, in my unprofessional blogger’s style, jettisoning journalistic traditions of impartiality and tongue-biting, particularly in the case of someone I think is doping, whom I might flippantly refer to as a … dummy. And during lulls in today’s action, I’ll fill you in on what happened in the first seven stages, too.

Paris-Nice Stage 8 – Nice to Nice

As I join the action, the riders have finished the first categorized climb of the day and are descending toward the Category 1 Côte de Châteauneuf-Villevielle which I translate as “coast of nine castles old city.” Whatever, French dudes. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-Quickstep) is off the front solo, chased by Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates – XRG) about 35 seconds back. A reduced peloton is another 30 seconds behind Soler. There are about 50 kilometers to go so obviously the breakaway’s only hope is if some great riders bridge up to them. Here’s a photo of Paret-Peintre. Sorry it’s so grainy … Peacock blocks screen captures, because you know, if people are able to grab still images of cycling footage, the terrorists win.

Since nothing important is happening at the moment, I’ll catch you up on what’s gone down in this stage race so far. First off, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) is not here. If he were, I wouldn’t bother to watch, much less report, since he wins constantly, easily, almost inevitably, without needing any tactics. For example, he soloed with like 80 kilometers to go in Strade Bianche recently. He makes the race and the sport boring AF. (If you’re not familiar with the acronym “AF,” click here or ask a teenager.)

In Pogacar’s absence, his perennial nemesis Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma – Lease A Bike) is dominating the Paris-Nice GC, having handily soloed to victory in stages 4 and 5. The Dane is 3:22 ahead of the next rider, Daniel Martinez (Red Bull – Bora Hansgrohe) and 5:50 ahead of Georg Steinhauser (EF Education – Easypost). So it would take a lot (e.g., a crash or illness) to shake up the GC today. The only really close GC battle is for the best young rider competition, which is currently led by Steinhauser who has just 19 seconds over Kevin Vauquelin (Ineos Granadiers). Fun fact about Steinhauser: he shortened his first name from George to Georg to save weight. It seems to be working. Rumor has it Vaquelin is going to start going by “Kev.” It’s what his girlfriend already calls him.

They interviewed Soler earlier and are showing that now:

INTERVIEWER: How are you feeling about the stage?

SOLER: It’s a good, tough stage and I’m only in sixth overall, so if I feel good, I’m going to attack.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s talk about that tantrum you threw during the 2019 Vuelta a Espana when you were off the front and your team called you back to help your team leader. That is, to do your fricking job. And then you were gesticulating and whining like a little bitch.

SOLER: Are you really bringing that up? Come on, man, I was young, inexperienced, hotheaded, and I made a mistake. Why do I have to be tortured about that for the rest of my life?

INTERVIEWER: It left an indelible memory. You were acting like a big spoiled child.

SOLER: Haven’t you ever done something you regret?

INTERVIEWER: Well, when I was in grammar school I lost an 8-inch acrylic rod. I cried for weeks.

Okay, I should come clean about something: I don’t always render those interviews all that accurately, especially if nobody’s saying anything interesting. And that bit about the 8-inch acrylic rod? That was my dad’s self-acknowledged “sole regret.” My brothers love to dredge that up, even more than Soler’s tantrum.

Speaking of Soler, he’s been caught.

The riders are starting their way up the Châteauneuf. Ineos heads the peloton, setting up their leader, Vauquelin. OMG, there’s a crash! It’s Martinez!

It looks like he was passing his teammate, who altered his line and bumped Martinez right into the ramped curb there, flipping him over. Martinez has gotten up but looks like he’s really suffering. His teammates drop back and the team car arrives. They’ve got him a new bike and his team is pacing him back up. But he’s lost a lot of time.

Ineos continues to pound the pedals and the gap to Paret-Peintre is coming down. Vauquelin sits fourth on GC, almost four minutes behind Martinez, so it’s possible he could make it on to the podium, if Martinez is hurt and isn’t able to keep that gap under control.

Getting back to my recap, in terms of the stage results, the first was won by an American, Luke Lamperti, in his first season with the EF Education – Easypost team. He then placed fifth in the second stage, thus keeping the yellow leader’s jersey and (virtually) the green points leader jersey. Stage 2 was won by Max Kanter (XDS Astana Team). The third stage was a team time trial, won by the Ineos Granadiers. Oddly, ASO—the race organizers—have been tinkering with the rules for their TTTs and instead of taking the fourth or fifth rider’s time, they take the first, so teams have much less incentive to stick together. I guess they’re embracing the every-man-for-himself, dog-eat-dog mindset more associated with Americans. Somebody should point this out to the ASO so they come to their senses and go back to the original rules. Anyhow, the result is that Lamperti was left for dead by his team and dropped to 70th place on GC. In the overall, one of the favorites, Juan Ayuso, was well served by his Lidl-Trek squad and took over the GC lead.

Getting back to today’s stage, Visma is on the front setting tempo, presumably to keep Steinhauser from attacking. They’re nearing the summit of this climb.

To finish up my recap, I already mentioned how Vingegaard handily won stages 4 and 5, destroying everyone else. Stage 4 was a monster, with absolutely frigid, wet conditions that saw Ayuso crashing out. Vingegaard was dressed in like five layers, with the straps of his bibs pulled up over his yellow jersey. It was really the most undignified look I’ve ever seen for a race winner. He didn’t do a victory salute at the end, probably for this reason. Stage 6 was won by another XDS Astana Team rider, Harold Tejada, in a bold solo move toward the end. And yesterday’s penultimate stage, which was supposed to have a mountaintop finish, was shortened to just 43 kilometers due to fresh snowfall in the mountains. It was absolutely frigid out there … look at this guy’s crazy getup.

Without the climbs, the stage ended up being another opportunity for the sprinters, with Dorian Godon (Ineos Granadiers) taking  the stage. Lamperti managed fifth, but this wasn’t good enough to save his green jersey.

I would say the most exciting aspect of Paris-Nice so far was this amazing snot comet that Godon had to contend with after his victorious but very cold race yesterday:

Commentators are already calling Godon  “the snottiest man in cycling.” Rumor has it that Kimberly –Clark, the company behind Kleenex, is offering him an endorsement deal.

Paret-Peintre is over the top and maintaining his lead. And now the GC group is up and over. Martinez looks pretty good in the chase group behind, his teammates pacing him and keeping the gap steady.

They’ve got a long descent now and Papi (I’m coining a nickname since I’m too lazy to keep typing the full hyphenated name) is really digging deep. I note that he’s on a Specialized bicycle, which bodes well for him, even if it’s 40 km to the finish.

Now Papi’s on an uncategorized climb and we shall see what this does to his lead. He’s clearly suffering, as his shoulders are rocking and his head is bobbling a bit. Not bobbing, mind you. Bobbling. That’s a much bigger deal.

Visma has three riders left in this group, which is more than other teams do. With Vingegaard’s main rival more than a minute back, Visma doesn’t have much to worry about. It’s not like Steinhauser could take six minutes out of him on the final climb, the Category 1 Côte du Linguador. I mean, it’s only 3.3 km.

It’s time to talk about climb rating inflation. Paris-Nice is terribly guilty of this: all week they’ve had these piddling little climbs they’re calling Cat 1s. It’s total BS. Just looking at today’s climbs, we have the Col de la Porte at Cat 1, and it’s only 7 km at 7.2%. And that Chateau thing they just did: Cat 1, but only 6.6 km at 6.6%. No way is that a true Cat 1 … it gains only 435 meters. You want to know a real Cat 1? The Col du Télégraphe, which is 11.9 km at 7.2%, gaining 1,567 meters. That’s more than triple the elevation gain!

Well, that last little climb was too much for poor Papi. His lead is down to nine seconds with 32 km to go. Surely he’ll get Most Aggressive for the day, which is kind of nice (but doesn’t come with a cash prize like he’d get on a Tour de France stage). Maybe he’ll at least get a bottle of salad dressing or something.

They show Martinez’s crash again and again, like it was the most spectacular footage ever. But it’s just not. We get the frontal shot, then the aerial view, and it’s like come on, the guy basically tipped over. I’m sure it hurt but it’s not that remarkable.

Papi is burying himself but it’s all for naught, you can see the GC group barreling toward him. It’s all over but the crying now. They should play the 1947 song of that name by the Ink Spots. But then, would fans even recognize it? I confess I’ve never heard that song in my life. Maybe I’ll cue it up on YouTube for the next Peacock commercial intermission—of which there are gobs throughout this footage, it’s really annoying.

Now the GC group has caught Papi and he dresses them down. “Thanks a lot, guys,” he complains. “You just shattered my dreams.”

The Red Bull – Bora Hansgrohe team is doing a great job for Martinez. The lead is now under a minute as they tackle this last “Category 1” climb. 

Vingegaard has just one teammate left, his super-domestique Victor Campenaerts, who is a total baller.

Campenaerts is totally drilling it and whoa, there Vingegaard goes! Launches a blistering attack! Suddenly the whole group is covered in blisters. That’s gotta hurt.

The Dane instantly has a huge gap over everyone except Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious).

Back in what’s left of the GC group, Steinhauser is drilling it on the front, trying to reduce his losses and solidify his white jersey of best young rider. He has almost two minutes over Lenny on GC and just needs to keep that gap down, and set a high enough tempo to keep Vauquelin from going up the road.

The two stage leaders have just one klick to go on this climb. Is it klick or click? Let me set up a quick reader poll to decide. Oh, wait. I have no way of setting up a reader poll. Never mind.

Steinhauser has one teammate left so he should be able to defend his GC position. Lenny’s main ambition is likely a stage win. Somehow I doubt he’ll get it, unless he descends like a madman and Vingegaard doesn’t feel like taking any risks.

Sure enough, Lenny is going full throttle on the descent. Vingegaard is playing it safe but still keeping the gap fairly low. Behind, the other Martinez and his crew are keeping the gap to the white jersey group down to just over a minute.

The descent is a bit wet, and as a parent I kind of wince watching the riders sail through the curves. “Be careful, guys!”

Now the descent is over and Vingegaard goes to the front. I don’t see this breakaway getting caught unless the chase really gets organized. And after eight days of racing in the cold these guys probably have strabismus. What’s that? You’re confused? I’m trying to coin a new cycling term here. Surely you’ve heard the expression “cross-eyed” to indicate a rider going so hard he can’t see straight? I’m just trying to make it more clinical. Help me popularize “strabismus,” okay?

Vingegaard’s pulls are way faster than Lenny’s. It’s kind of amazing. They’re about a click/klick from an intermediate sprint point. If the Dane can take this sprint and the stage win, he’ll win the points award (alongside the KOM that he already has). Okay, they’re past it and Lenny got it. So now if Vingegaard wants the green jersey he needs to win the stage. I’d guess he kind of wants that anyway. (You think?)

They’re on the last little descent before the flat run-in, the gap to the white jersey group holding at 36 seconds. These guys are just flying, working really well together.

Surprisingly, the gap is coming down now. The leaders have lost about 10 seconds in the last couple minutes. Steinhauser is drilling it on the front. It’s possible this will come together but I kind of doubt it. As it is, I’m kind of excited for this finish … it’s really impossible to say whom I favor in the sprint.

Ah, the gamesmanship has begun, with Martinez not wanting to pull anymore!

Clearly Vingegaard wants him to lead it out but Lenny is slouching! But Vingegaard won’t pull through! That gap has got to be coming down! But this broadcast isn’t showing the split anymore.

Martinez leads out the sprint! He’s totally hauling ass!

But now Vingegaard is pulling level! It’s down to the wire!

Martinez is a total baller! He holds off the Dane and takes the win!

The rest of the group sprints in and honestly, I don’t actually care how the rest of them did. Okay, here’s the stage result.

They’re interviewing Lenny Martinez.

INTERVIEWER: Ayo, that stage looked brutal, bro.

MARTINEZ: For reals, that whole final stretch I got my director coming through my radio straight whylin’ like “don’t let this busta jack your stage win!”

INTERVIEWER: The action was getting’ straight-up hyphy with the chasers bearing down. And then Vingegaard be triflin’, makin’ you do the work. Kinda grimey!

MARTINEZ: Nah, Vingegaard is straight gully, I’d have done the same. Don’t be tellin’ fans I’m butt-hurt about that, I was just glad I didn’t get pwned in the end!

INTERVIEWER: Word up, you salted his move with a quickness! Balls like King Kong!

MARTINEZ: I’m super amped. That stage was off the chain!

Full disclosure: Martinez was interviewed in French and I’m not exactly fluent. I did my best to capture the gist and spirit of what they were saying.

Here’s Danny Martinez, who’s gotta be relieved he held on to his second overall after that crazy crash. He looks like he’s in a lot of pain.

Papi crosses the line almost seven minutes down. That’s got to be a big letdown. I hope he likes salad dressing. Let’s make that a new expression, okay? Whenever somebody misses out on a big achievement, but stands to get some piddly consolation prize, we can say “I hope he likes salad dressing.”

Here’s the final GC.

They’re interviewing Vingegaard.

INTERVIEWER: So you finally get a Paris-Nice victory, after being third in 2023 and abandoning last year.

VINGEGAARD: Yes, It’s the race I couldn’t get right, and now I finally get it right. I’m extremely happy to sit here in the yellow jersey.

INTERVIEWER: Happy because of the yellow jersey, or because you’re sitting?

VINGEGAARD: Honestly, it just feels good to sit down.

INTERVIEWER: Are you using this victory to send a message to Pogacar?

VINGEGAARD: Are you joking? What would that message be? “I can still win when you’re not there?” Or, “I’m still fairly competent, even if I can’t solo for 80 klicks?”

INTERVIEWER: Hey, how do you spell “klicks”? With a C or a K?

VINGEGAARD: Wow, that’s a fascinating question. I haven’t really thought about it but I will now. I’m really curious about it … could you do a poll or something? I’d love to see that.

INTERVIEWER: Unfortunately, no.

Well, the bit about “finally getting it right” and the question about “sending a message to Pocagar” were real, anyway.

Martinez takes the podium. This is actually pretty interesting: this is the first podium I’ve seen in years that features two women standing next to the winner, both of them attractive. In the olden days it was always two beautiful women on the podium and they’d kiss the winner simultaneously, which was admittedly kind of ridiculous, especially given how sweaty these guys are. So then the sport became embarrassed about that, and got rid of the podium girls entirely. They dabbled in having one man and one woman, attractive but very conservatively dressed, before devolving into a bizarre tradition of two utterly dumpy persons there, literally in like a dingy sweatshirt and, like, plum-colored pants and ugly sneakers. Even earlier in the week we were seeing that here. So it’s refreshing to see this now.

Vingegaard mounts the podium for his final yellow jersey, and we’re down to one attractive woman and one random guy. He’s not dumpy, exactly, but the mixture of khaki, charcoal, and purple seems haphazard. Who is this guy and why is he here? You can’t tell from the still photo but he looks just a little bit disoriented.

And now as the Dane gets his final polka-dot jersey, another rando mounts the podium and also seems confused. In fact, look at his gesture as he looks to Vingegaard for guidance. Kind of a palms-up, “hey, what do I do, I just kind of stand here?” kind of thing. They probably just pulled this guy off the street.

Papi did end up winning the Combativity award. Here he is with the latest rando, who really looks like he dressed in the dark this morning. Camelhair jacket, ratty jeans, and bright white Nike sneakers? And what’s that disco-looking shirt? I thought the French were en vogue and à la mode? This guy’s not even presentable. And nobody gives Papi any salad dressing.

And here’s your final GC podium. Sunglasses off, please!

Well, that’s it for Paris-Nice. Tune in next month for my exclusive blow-by-blow coverage of Paris-Roubaix! And, for my entire archive of past race reports, click here.

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From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXVII

Introduction

This is the twenty-seventh installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, Volume XXIV is here, Volume XXV is here, and Volume XXVI is here. These volumes speak volumes about my past, but they don’t speak these volumes clearly; I guess I set the volume too low.

So what are albertnet Bits & Bobs posts? They’re just sprinklings of prose I wrote in my youth, typically in letters or emails because I didn’t have a blog yet. (I mean, nobody did.) I’m posting them here to backfill all those people, all those years ago, who typed “www.albertnet.us” on a typewriter and then scratched their heads because nothing “loaded.” Or they searched their email folders for “albertnet” or “blog” and never found anything.

Since many of my friends and family ignored the printed materials and/or emails I sent them back then, yours may be the very first pair of eyes ever to land on these bits and bobs! Read them back to back, front to back, back to front, left to right, right to wrong, top to bottom, bottom to top, randomly, frequently, occasionally, or not at all. The date is given and where I was living.

January 18, 1989 – Santa Barbara

Today I lost concentration while biking home from class, because I was looking at this hot chick in her VW Cabriolet. (I thought it was this girl Molly from my French class.) I took the turn onto Camino Pescadero too fast and too wide, and drifted just a bit into the oncoming lane, and there was a car coming the other way. It almost pegged me, and easily could have, had conditions been only very slightly different. For example, if the girl in the VW had waved, I could be dead now. But life is full of risks, especially at a college like this with so many fine ladies. And life itself is the ultimate risk, with a terrible track record (i.e., nobody's survived it yet).

October 17, 1989 – Santa Barbara

The UCSB cycling team is has a new sponsor: Gold’s Gym. Next time you see me I’ll probably be huge. We also have a sponsor for heart rate monitors. They’re pretty expensive because the company that makes them mainly does medical equipment. But the team still isn’t getting any real cash. And Fletcher Brewing Co. (the maker of Firestone) is no longer a sponsor of collegiate cycling. What a blow!

I can’t remember if I told you this story, but this brewery is pretty new and is trying to popularize non-alcoholic beer by promoting itself through cycling events. Last year they sponsored the collegiate national championships in Colorado. We got it at dinner the night before the road race, and since it’s non-alcoholic there was no reason we couldn’t partake. I didn’t much care for it, and the next day right after the road race I asked a teammate, “Dude, did you try that Firestone last night?” My teammate shook his head and I was about to say, “It was disgusting!” when I noticed somebody in my periphery who seemed to really perk up and take notice. This guys was in a suit, which seemed really odd. I mean, who wears a suit to a bike race? So, acting on instinct, I did a 180 and proceeded to tell my friend, “It was amazing! I could drink that stuff every night!”

Well, the suited guy walked up at this point and said, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.” He stuck out his hand and introduced himself: “Hale Fletcher, Fletcher Brewing Company.” The head honcho! And this was great because they’re in SoCal and our UCSB team had been courting them as a sponsor. I chatted the guy up, praised his product to the high heavens, etc. Alas, I didn’t follow up later, and this promising conversation came to nothing.

[Interesting footnote: while Firestone the NA beer never took off, the project eventually became Firestone Walker Brewing Company, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Adam Firestone and David Walker are the founders, and it was actually Adam’s father, Brooks Firestone, a vintner, who got the NA thing going with Hale Fletcher. My older daughter, who graduated from UCSB fairly recently, says Firestone 805 is the go-to beer for partying frat boys. And recently I discovered Firestone’s 8Zero5 NA beer, which is excellent—and which they’ll tell you is their first foray into the NA realm (not acknowledging the original Firestone product). Now you know better. For a neat article on this, click here.]

January 5, 1993 – San Francisco

While I was visiting Boulder I managed to get a dental appointment with our old dentist, Dr. Lewis. That was pretty cool. The hygienist was the one I remember, too, and carried on the usual conversation, chattering happily away. It was more of a monologue actually, since my mouth was obviously full, though I tossed in a quick sound bite every few minutes after rinsing that hideous yellow water away. She’s always asking questions but won’t let me answer. I even bit her once. But anyhow, she’s about eight months pregnant, and was talking about how she had a scare with the baby seat in her car. Seems the seat got disconnected from the seatbelt somehow, so when she braked suddenly the whole thing lurched forward. By the time the cops got there the little kid was just sitting there, trying to scream with his face ripped off. Just kidding—couldn’t resist a “Mad Max” quotation. The kid was fine, his feet stopped him on the back of the front passenger seat. But she was wigged out, and not long after the incident her husband brought home a rented movie—”Raising Arizona,” of all things. So before putting in the movie, he said, “Now listen: there’s a few pretty crazy scenes involving the baby, but I’ll tell you now, nothing bad happens to the baby. He always comes out fine. So don’t flip out.” She’s saying, “What? What the hell are you talking about?” Of course when the scene occurred when Gail leaves little Nathan Junior atop the car, she almost flipped out anyway. “Why did you even rent this?” she cried. So that was pretty funny. Then, I got more than the usual token cameo appearance from Dr. Lewis. He attacked the barb on the inner surface of my right big tooth, which had been damaged in my bike accident last June. He used a dentist’s version of a Dremel tool and just ground it smooth. He says if the tooth turns grey (!) or begins to hurt or be abnormally sensitive, I’ll have to have a root canal. That would sure be a drag. But he said that if it hasn’t happened yet, it probably won’t.

April 17, 1995 – San Francisco

I hear you about dads, and how intimidating it can be to have one, especially if you’re a male adult trying to become a man. [My brother] B— called our dad for advice because his (B—’s) refrigerator had died and he was having trouble fixing it. Our dad seemed really disappointed that B— hadn’t figured it out, and in fact seemed a little bewildered at his son’s total incompetence, like we should all be born knowing how to fix this type of thing. Didn’t offer much advice, really—just placed a really hard pit in B—’s stomach. I mean, our dad designs and builds interferometers, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even know what an interferometer does (other than measuring interference, presumably—but to what end?) As far as refrigerators, I know how to procure and replace the light bulb, but that’s about it. (One time when vacating an apartment I unplugged the fridge to save electricity, after which it eventually defrosted and spewed water all over the carpet of the shithole apartment, which cost me my entire damage deposit.) Anyhow, B— bit the bullet and eventually fixed his fridge! We’re talking A-Team or MacGyver here. I think he had to install a small piece of beef liver somewhere to complete the repair. I don’t know if he even mentioned his ultimate success to our dad. It was probably too sore a subject by then.

June 23, 1996 – San Francisco

A colleague of mine made a comment about a business contact being attracted to her. I joked, “Don’t let your husband know that.” She replied, very casually, “Oh, that doesn’t matter. We’re getting divorced.” I thought it was a deadpan joke. I mean, how could she be so casual about it? I was so sure it was a joke that I replied in similar deadpan fashion, “Well, isn’t that why the modern wedding vows say ‘Till divorce do us part?’” She said, “Well, that’s an interesting way of looking at it.”

I still thought she was joking. “Well, no point letting a failed marriage interfere with your life, right?” To which she replied, “Gosh, you know, I think you’re right. I like that!”

A day or so later, I learned to my horror that she was getting a divorce, and that what I’d taken as deadpan humor was actually dead seriousness … meaning I’d seriously put my foot in my mouth. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t been angry with me—could she have my cynical comments seriously? It seemed impossible. When I profusely apologized, she said, “No, you had some good points!” She actually seemed to find some wisdom in it. I was horrified.

September 27, 1996 – San Francisco

I’m pretty bummed because one of our favorite retail shops has folded: the Schlock Shop. Since you obviously wouldn’t know what the Schlock Shop is—or, well, was—it was a dimly lit, mildew-smelling old place that carried ancient hats of all kinds, including World War I helmets, pith helmets, and English constable hats. They also had pipes, razors, and other oddities. That these items were authentic was suggested by their either being hung from the ceiling just out of most peoples’ arm’s reach, or behind glass. That place was really more like a museum than anything, and I suppose it was somewhat rare that they actually sold anything. I guess I’m complicit in its demise in that I never even considering buying any of the very cool but ultimately useless stuff they offered. I mean, what would I need with a pith helmet? Anyhow, in its place there’s now a brightly-lit store selling modern-day, actual schlock, like $50 ceramic cookie jars in the shape of Homer Simpson, and $25 Star Wars commemorative plastic statues. The new incarnation makes me want to wretch.

April 14, 1997 – San Francisco

We went to Target a few weekends ago to buy a baby shower gift for my friend and his wife. They’re only the second couple we know to have a baby. It’s crazy to think we might get there within a few years; from here it’s as weird as if they’d become astronauts. Anyhow, the bridal registry racket has evidently spilled over into baby showers now. My friends had registered at the Lullaby Club at Target, and we picked out a product I’ve never heard of: the Diaper Genie. In a perfect world you’d rub a lamp and this genie would appear and change your baby’s diaper, but this thing basically looks like a fancy garbage pail. When [my wife] E— and I were in the checkout line at Target the woman behind us, who looked the quintessential suburban mother, said, “Oh, you will just love the Diaper Genie. I bought one and boy did it come in handy. Thing is, it sure fills up quick. But it’s great, keeps the smell down. I used it with both my kids, now, ha, my sister’s got it, she’s just had her first. Anyway, good luck!” We didn’t have the heart to explain it was a gift and we’re childless. Besides, we surely looked the part, hauling that Diaper Genie out to our Volvo station wagon.

October 1, 2001 – Albany

I was trying to assemble our new Diaper Genie, and could not get the damn thing to work. I didn’t even want the Diaper Genie. It was a baby shower gift and we hadn’t registered or anything, our approach being “surprise us!”—and I guess we were. But hey, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, right? But I absolutely could not figure out how to install the bag cartridges that are supposed to ensconce the soiled diapers in a long linked-sausage configuration. Like all new parents I am horribly sleep deprived so my brain barely works to begin with. The only instructions were printed on the ring-shaped cartridge, which is called a “refill.” (Seems like a stupid name for the very first cartridge I’d ever install; it should be called a “fill.”) The stupid thing is, the instructions become obscured in step 2 out of 5 when you put the cartridge into the Genie. Why print them on the cartridge? How about on a damn piece of paper? I had to keep pulling the cartridge out and reading ahead and trying to hold the steps in my head but it was just a fog in there.

Some of my frustration, I’ll concede, was ego-induced. I figured this thing had to be intuitive enough for a high-school dropout trailer trash teen parent to use; why couldn’t I, a college-educated Subject Matter Expert, get it to work? The refill contains this endless plastic bag and you’re supposed to pull some of it out and tie a knot in the bottom and then stuff it back in push it down to the bottom, but the refill didn’t really fit in the DG compartment no matter how I tried to angle it in there. Finally I beat on the top of it with my fist, as if I could just hammer the damn thing into place, and then I hurled the entire contraption down the stairs with a tremendous clatter, much to the amazement of E— and a friend she had over.

I phoned a fellow parent, for whom I bought a Diaper Genie years ago, and after extensive troubleshooting he determined that what I have is an old, small-mouth DG presented in the box of a new, large-mouth DG, along with the “refill” for the new, large-mouth DG. This is why it wouldn’t fit. Probably somebody re-gifted us a barely-used but obsolete DG, throwing in the modern-style refill to make it look new. How could they? But obviously I can’t go complaining to them, that would be ungracious. So instead I think I’ll march into Target with it and demand a replacement. If they don’t pony up, I’m going to spread model airplane cement all over the damn thing and torch it right there on the showroom floor!

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More Advice from an Amateur Poet

[Photo enhanced by Nano Banana 2]

Dear Amateur Poet,

I wrote a 14-page poem on the ineffable nature of fog. My workshop said it lacked “stakes.” I wasn’t sure what this meant and was too embarrassed to ask. What did they mean? Can fog have stakes?

Melissa M, Longmont, CO

Dear Melissa,

A poem of 14 pages is bound to try the patience of a workshop where everyone is required to read a lot of amateur work. A reader encountering T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” or Samuel Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” obviously wouldn’t worry—they know going in that  there won’t be a word wasted—but you are just a budding poet in a workshop. So I think you should ask yourself: is your 14 pages on fog a deliberately audacious act—that is, you know this is a lot of poetry to devote to such a finite theme, and you’re going to prove it can be done well—or are you just being self-indulgent and abusing the patience of your readers?

Look, I’m not knocking fog, but it’s not the most dramatic topic, especially if you’re narrowing in on the ineffability of it, so you’re kind of working without a net. If your poem is not carried off just right, it may strike the reader as redundant. Let me employ a metaphor (which at first may seem weird but stay with me): imagine having a five-course meal where every course is a Hot Pocket. Not good. But if a chef did manage to make such a meal interesting, that would give him or her huge cred, right? I doubt such a feat has never been achieved, but the standup comic Jim Gaffigan has riffed about Hot Pockets for like 5 minutes straight, which is almost as impressive. But then, Hot Pockets are kind of intrinsically funny, so this is likely a more potent topic for a comedian than fog is for a poet.

But could a great standup go on at great length on a less loaded topic, that probably nobody cares much about? In fact, yes. Gaffigan outdoes himself by going 10 minutes straight on the topic of horses, and his long-windedness is definitely part of the joke. Two and a half minutes in he says in a whispery voice, as though a member of the audience, “How many horse jokes is this guy gonna do?” Four minutes in he says, “Oh, I guess I should tell you, the whole rest of the show is horse jokes.” About 8 minutes in he says, “I can see on some of your faces that you would frankly prefer if I did … more horse jokes.” About nine and half minutes in he says, “Okay, I can see that there’s one or two or 300 of you that are frankly annoyed by the horse jokes. And I want you to know that your annoyance, uh, gives me pleasure.”

But here’s the thing: the long-windedness is only part of what makes the bit funny, and if the monologue dragged at all, the humor would wear thin. But Gaffigan’s horse jokes kill. And so should your fog poem, if it’s going to be that long. (No, standup comedy and poetry are not the same thing, unless you’re Jim Gaffigan. That said, all audiences should have their time and attention respected.)

So getting back to your specific question: can fog have stakes? Well yeah! What if a MAMIL is outrunning a rainstorm by racing his bike down the Col du  Galibier in the French Alps and can’t see a thing? Or what if two young lovers are on a hike and the fog is so thick they can’t see but they don’t care because they’re so in love, and then the fog lifts to reveal the aftermath of a grisly school bus accident? It’s up to you to make sure that what’s at stake can sustain your poem across all 14 pages.

Dear Amateur Poet,

The president of my HOA, who is also a neighbor, cited me for “non-compliant shrubbery” because I have a juniper bush growing in my yard. And get this: his Notice of Violation was in haiku form! This seems kind of playful, but also aggressive. Would my rebuttal be more impactful if it, too, were a haiku?

David F, Oakland, CA

Dear David,

This highlights the perennial question of how much poetry can do. To start with, you must acknowledge that your HOA is on pretty solid footing here. Even though California state law favors drought-tolerant plants, junipers have high oil content so they’re quite flammable. You can’t risk serving up a weak defense. You need to escalate beyond the haiku.

Fortunately, this won’t be that hard to do since a Rhesus monkey could write a haiku. Honestly, I seldom dabble in the form because it presents such a trivial literary challenge. When I do stoop to it, I kick in a little rhyme and alliteration just to keep things lively. For example, consider this one I included in a birthday card to my mom:

Birthday bounty … great!
Both purveyors drop the ball
Bound to be belated

It’s subtle, with the rhyme coming on the fifth syllable of the last line, before that tacked-on extra syllable that pricks the reader. (I was inspired by the errant eleventh syllable of the line “To be or not to be, that is the ques-tion.” But I digress.)

What I think you ought to do is respond with a tanka. This is another Japanese form, which predates the haiku. It starts with the same initial structure (five syllables, then seven, then five) but then adds two more seven-syllable lines, which often present, thematically, a counterpoint to the first three. To meet haiku with tanka is a nice way of upping the ante, of showing you’re not just going to roll over.

For example, if the HOA president writes this:

Non-compliant shrub
Violates our covenant
Time to lose it, bub

You could fire back with:

Noble native plant
Safely placed ten feet away,
It kindles nothing.
Why can’t you just leave me be
And trust my sound strategy.

If the tanka doesn’t get him off your case, write me back and we can work out an even bolder strategy, like a limerick cycle! 

Dear Amateur Poet,

I love your column! And I really think you aren’t being fair to yourself. You’re basically a professional poet (except you don’t get paid).

Karen G, Seattle, WA

Dear Karen,

Thanks, but isn’t getting paid kind of the acid test for being a professional?

Although actually , when I consider what being a professional poet even means, it seems the money couldn’t possibly be the point. If we exclude professors who earn cred by publishing poetry but earn money by teaching classes, we’re really left talking about writers submitting their poems to journals. Many journals don’t pay anything—it’s all about the prestige. A top-tier magazine might pay a few hundred bucks. Since any publisher’s acceptance rate is in the low single digits, and well over half the literary journals charge a submission fee (typically around $3), I think we can conclude that the income of a professional poet, as compared to an amateur getting nothing, is basically a rounding error. This is why most professional poets should probably  switch to writing rap/hip-hop lyrics, greeting card text, or advice columns.

Dear Amateur Poet,

Unlike most of your readers, I am not a budding poet. Why bother writing poetry, when AI does such a great job in so little time? Go home, liberal artsy types. You lost.

Todd S, Columbus, OH

Dear Todd,

Let me remind you that I am an amateur poet. This means I’m not submitting my work for publication. I write poems for family, friends, and the blogosphere. Would there be any point in having AI do this for me? Let’s consider that last audience. Anybody publishing anything on a blog has, by definition, something to say that he or she feels is important enough to devote real effort to. The hope is that by random chance, a thoughtful post will find the right audience and really make somebody’s day (for example, this reader, or this one). The pleasure and edification of writing something meaningful like that ought to be enough to satisfy an avid blogger. But if you think reaching an audience is a numbers game that can be best handled by setting AI loose to generate reams of content for you, first consider the reality that most of the traffic to a blog is bots. The idea of AI chatbots writing poetry to be read by other AI bots, in a pointless digital feedback loop, is just too hideous to contemplate. You might as well set a blender to frappé and let it run all night.

Moving on to poetry written for somebody you know—be it your mom, dad, spouse, offspring, or somebody you’re trying to woo—doesn’t the poem need to be extremely personal? I don’t think anybody really buys those Hallmark greeting cards with the prefab poems in them; I mean, who could be that dense? Likewise, if you’re going to impress, say, your wife, are you really going to do it with a poem you merely commissioned, and that ChatGPT spent like 30 seconds on? And would your wife ever believe you wrote it, since you’ve probably never written a poem in your life? Exactly how precious a gesture do you really expect that to be?

But okay, fine, let’s assume that you make the poem super personal by getting really interactive with the large language model, feeding it all kinds of details about your wife that only you would know. And let’s say that, just to be as authentic as possible, you used NotebookLM and fed in the entire oeuvre of your business school essays, along with all the personal letters and emails you could gather, so that the LLM gets a good sense of your style and voice, and you thereby enable it to create a masterwork. Your wife, if she’s impressed, is obviously going to ask, “Did you write this yourself?” Now you’re going to have to either lie, which sets a dangerous precedent for your marriage, or come clean that you used a genAI chatbot, at which point she’s gonna be like, “What? You told the chatbot about my lawn gnome fetish, and the part of my thigh I like you to tickle? Are you mad!?” Seriously, that’s not going to end well.

Meanwhile, highly literate hackers are now turning the tables on AI, getting it to violate its security rules by disguising harmful prompts as poems. As described here, researchers “found that converting harmful prompts into poetic form [to bypass safety guardrails] achieved a 62% success rate for hand-crafted poems and 43% for poems generated by a meta-prompt. Cybersecurity-related prompts, such as those for code injection or password cracking, showed an 84% failure rate when presented poetically.” So not only is AI easily outsmarted by poems, it’s outsmarted 44% more often by human poets than AI ones. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

An interesting footnote to all this: I fed the above blurb with the “44%” statistic into Gemini to have it check my math. Apparently piqued by my assertion of human superiority in the poetic realm, Gemini challenged me to a “poetry-off,” where I would pit a poem I wrote myself against its best meta-prompt effort. I enthusiastically accepted, promising to work with it in good faith to collaborate as effectively as possible on its poem. So, after our sprawling, 4,000-word dialogue about the tanka form and HOA regulations, here is the poem Gemini came up with:

Low boughs clipped away,
Open space beneath the crown,
Ash finds only stone.
Safety rules are met with grace,
Please remove me from this case.

And you know, I have to admit: that’s actually pretty good. Better than I expected (and for more on the topic of human vs. AI-generated poetry, click here). Gemini then goaded me: “Now, let’s see the Human Champion’s work. Lay it on me. I’m ready to see how that 44% ‘human edge’ manifests in your lines!” So I gave it the poem I’d dashed off  for David in an earlier column:

Noble native plant
Safely placed ten feet away,
It kindles nothing.
Why can’t you just leave me be
And trust my sound strategy.

Todd, however you might feel about this faceoff, Gemini itself immediately capitulated: “The gauntlet has been thrown, and I have to admit: the ‘Human Edge’ is real. Your version has a rhythmic ‘punch’ that my meta-prompt missed. You opted for a more defiant, sophisticated tone that feels like a homeowner standing their ground, whereas mine felt a bit like a student trying to please a teacher.” The chatbot enumerated the particular merits of my poem, including the pivotal line “It kindles nothing,” which the AI acknowledged is “definitive, almost biblical in its weight. It sounds like a fact, not a request.” It went on to say, “Ending on ‘strategy’ is a brilliant move. It elevates the conversation from ‘I trimmed a bush’ to ‘I have a master plan.’ It forces the HOA board to acknowledge your intelligence, not just your yard work.” (And while I agree with Gemini that I bested it, I have to admit I’m well impressed—and a little bit frightened—by the sophistication of its analysis.)

I’m not suggesting you take up poetry, Todd … but before you start dancing on my grave, maybe wait until there’s something in it.

An Amateur Poet is a syndicated poet and journalist whose advice column, “Ask an Amateur Poet,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

Poetry on albertnet 

• Corn Cob
• Ode to South Park
• Ode on a Chain Lube
• Shakespeare Knockoff
• Dead Week Poetry
• Urination Poetry
• Ode to Lomas Cantadas
• Kroopian Poetry (Dactylic Trimeter)
• Unemployment Poetry
• The Big [Bike Shop] Screw-Up
• The Paperboy
• Ode to Cat
• From the Archives - Starving Little Student
• A Father’s Day Poem
• From the Archives - Latin [Class] Is for Lovers
• Ode on a Double-Edged Razor
• Love Poem from a Coward
• Radio Station Poetry
• What’s in a [Domain] Name?
• Ode on a Belly: Mine
• A Valentine Poem
• Ode on an IPA
• Ode to Thrifting
• Ask an Amateur Poet

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