Moving pictures: A singletrack stream of consciousness

So, I don't watch much TV, and I'm told it's because I might be too young.

The one exception to my non-TV watching is fast approaching, and that of course is reruns of House the Tour De France. In fact, I went through the trouble of getting digital cable about ten years ago, when OLN was available thataway, and when the network had live coverage of all three grand tours, along with most of the spring classics. Ah me, those were the days. Now I don't even turn my TV on until the fiorst week of July -- and this year I come to find out that my cable box is fried from all that non-watching. (All in all, Versus coverage of cycling has made me think more than once I should just cancel the cable and spend that $60 per month on a better brand of liquor, or one of those wicked cool eccentric singlespeed hubs.)

So the Cable Guy is coming this morning to hook me up, and we'll see if Time Warner/Comcast/Inept Multinational is finally up to speed with the whole TiVo + VCR player + cable box + ancient 14-inch CRT television, the consumer-electronics version of a fastback shifter on a Tarmac.



Coincidentally, I watched yesterday's EuroCup final at a friend's house, on a similarly ancient rig, where I experienced the ultimate decadence: We watched outside on his deck, sipping sangria for the Spanish, beer for the Germans, and (oddly) shots of vodka for the Russians, who were no where to be seen, and had nothing to do with anything.

So but! The point of this winding singletrack of thought was simply that the whole TDF is now a bit like EuroCup or the Superbowl, and is a huge and kinda embarrassing media circus with a massive, uh, carbon footprint (I hesitate to use the word, because... well, because... watch this:

)

And in an unnerving personal juxtaposition, I rode the old Nishiki down to the shop on Saturday and checked out FRAME X FRAME, the Bike Film Festival's advance show of still photographs, featuring a half dozen awesome local photographers and cycling personalities. My favorite shots were huge tableaux (tableauxseses?) of events like Homie Fall Fest that somehow capture the individual joy one feels on a bike, and the shared experience of digging bikes together with like-minded freaks and weirdos, and old ne'erdowells who only have a few more years before we make good on that long and inevitable appointment with the boob-tube and the portable oxygen tank. Plus I learned that young Meghan Kilkelly is on her way back to Texas, and that's a loss for all of us, but certainly a gain for her -- and Dallas, well it can't be as bad as Houston, and it's good to keep all of these things in proper perspective, knowing that Houston is absolutely the deepest circle of cycling hell in my humble view of course.