Geezer with a Grudge: connecticut yankee in king arthur's court

Oct 9, 2011

Murderball or Football

This one's for you, Pat.

A while back, a friend commented that I was unable to appreciate the skill exhibited by a cop wallowing around a gymkhana course on his hippo-Harley. He said something about me being unable to appreciate the skill required to make this bloated tractor of a motorcycle maneuver almost as well as a motorcycle.

Pat, you're right and you're wrong. I do appreciate the cop's skill, for what it is. However, I'd rather see a great rider on a great motorcycle, because that is actually interesting. Who knows if the cops can actually ride well? Yeah, they're great considering their handicap, but why intentionally reach for a handicap?

I got another reminder of my preference for all around competence over being pretty good at a boring skill today when a local television station ran the 1931 "A Connecticut Yankee" with Will Rogers. I wish I could find a link to the jousting scene in this great movie. The king's man is on a draft horse, all duded up in armor and fringe, while Rogers is on a cutting horse, in working cowboy clothes, with a lariat for a "weapon."

Not only do Rogers and his cutting horse kick the cruiser . . . whoops!

Not only do Rogers and his cutting horse kick the knight's ass, the mobile pair are a lot more fun to watch. I wish I could find a link to the jousting scene. [Will Rogers rocks!]

It's Sunday afternoon as I write this and the whole argument reminded me of sports of all types. Yeah, it's really impressive that the guys who play Murderball are as good as they are at their sport. But what are the chances that Murderball will be on prime-time television Monday night or Sunday afternoon? What do you want to watch, guys in wheelchairs or guys who can throw a football 90 yards, run 100 yards in 9 seconds, knock other 250 pound monsters flat on their asses, or move like a ballerina hooked up to a freight train engine? Last I heard, the Special Olympics didn't get any television coverage, let alone major station attention. I must not be the only one out here more interested in the "best of the best" rather than "pretty good in mediocre conditions." Harsh words, but someone needed to say them and it might as well be me.

The Geezer Story

I stumbled upon this column name (Geezer with a Grudge) almost 20 years ago, in 1999. The first Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly editor I worked with, in late 1999, complained that the magazine was getting no mail and the editors wanted to know if any readers were still out there. I fired off a sarcastic note, as a joke, intended to provide a little humor and some feedback. He published it as an article and later called me to say he'd received more mail on that letter than he'd received in the past year! I followed that with an offer to write a monthly column attempting to piss off a particular section of the magazine's readership to see if that tactic would generate some mail.

It did, probably more regularly than the magazine wanted at times, and I wrote a monthly column for MMM until the magazine died in 2018.

I plan to post an occasional old Geezer article into the blog, followed by short comments about the current status of my perspective on our activity/sport/vehicle of choice.