episode 157: celine dione

So I recently had dinner at a family style restaurant. Our table had many friends, and many folks who I didn't know. I"ll had the extreme pleasure of sitting across the table from a young man who freaked me out just a little.





First, we where talking about development in the area, and he commented, "yeah, I am really excited about all the malls we have going up around here..." I thought he was joking, but then he followed up with, "yeah, I mean I love Chinese food, and each mall has a panda express, so I can totally get my Chinese grub on."





It took every once of my being to not shoot my beer out my nose.





conversation went on, and he asks me, "what kind of music do you like." I answered that I tended to lean towards the alternative side, but was really kind of eclectic, that most recently I have been enjoying TV on the Radio, and Peter, Bjorne, and John."





he continued to add that he was a song writer, and that recently his most favorite artist contacted him, and told him that she wanted to sing one of his songs.





My friend asks him if he was signed by a record label. Which I thought was a stretch, but polite none the less.





The young man continued, " I just couldn't believe it when Celine Dione took the time out of her busy day to call me and tell me she loved my song, and wanted to sing it. I was totally professional on the phone, but as soon as I hung up I was screaming I was so happy!"





as we walked out of the restaurant, my friend quietly says to me, "so which one of his friends do you think called him and pretended to be Celine Dione?"





the entire exchange kinda weirded me out. I wonder if there's a blog called "fatfreakydudewholikescelinedione.com" where he writes about the cyclist with really bad side burns?





yikes.





rock.





respect.


fm

episode 156: everyone loves john

you know someday I think this sign will read "fuck you fatmarc."

not sure if I will celebrate that or realize that as my fate.

good to john. i really like that guy, fast as hell, very strong rider,super nice too. a racer's racer. even if he won't ride with me, I still love the guy. He probably doesn"t want me to slow him down any.

so work has been really busy lately, might say at time they have had me living in the pain cave.

so last week Diane(Monkey) and I went to borders at midnight to get the latest harry potter book. It was pretty much chaos. They let groups into the building in alphabetical order. Diane was letter "D". She hit the door and people were every where. Totally no organization. Luckily, my wife the charming chunky monkey can scrum like a mother fucker, and in no time flat she was at the front of the line. It was pretty damn smooth.

some borders lady tried to move her back to the end of the line, she used the duck, dodge, dive, drool, and die tactics of the Delaware Cyclocross Coalition of Delaware, and we were out of there by 12:30. Have I told you how much my wife rules. You know except where she totally butted in front of our tax lady, and her kids. Yeah, that was a little tough.

anyway, sooner or later I'll decide that I want to ride bikes again, and I'll have a nice little report about some little ride that I've done.

btw, I've been rocking some high life, it is after all the champagne of beer.

respect.

fatmarc

Episode 155: my united states of whatever

sometimes life as a rock star is pretty tough. Take Friday night for instance. Monkey and I went out to a book store, bought a simple book, and were simply mobbed as we tried to exit the store.

this was after midnight too!

Since I am on a little mental break this week, I decided to not ride this saturday morning, kinda like I decided to not ride this entire week. In looking at my training log, I think this is the first Saturday in 2007, that I bagged. So instead, I went down stairs and did a bunch of this:
Yes, those are snowmen on my boxershorts. Later in the day, Diane and I went to DRG, which is a nice place to climb, not our normal haunt, but it was good to switch things up a bit.
We ran into Rotten Rob who was pretty pumped about his day of track racing with (i)Paul.

Afterwards, we grabbed a quick bite to eat, and I showed everyone my pecker:

Sunday, I decided to noodle around with the boys for a little bit, nice and easy, not that I am capable of much more than that right now. Since Meanie Greenie, and the gay UPS truck have earned a well deserved rest, I was riding what I lovingly call, the bastard son.

Unfortunately when riding with these guys, noodling is seldom in the picture. They are freakin' fast.

They were going much faster than I can/want to go. My head was spinning.

Still it was great to ride with these guys, what a great group that I have the privilege to ride with. I am pretty damn lucky. This guy was feeling it today, but was kind enough to roll off the back and hang out with me for a bit.


pretty nice weekend if you ask me.

now I'm off to pick crabs with my family. sweet.

respect

fm

Episode 153: 10 things.

5 things I love:

* Snuggling with Diane on the couch and watching the greatest TV show in the world: Rob and Big or perhaps Monk.
* Using the right strategery in a cross race, and winning your group.
* The feeling of accomplishment and relief you get when you finish your last lap in an endurance race.
* Working bouldering problems with big heel hooks. Heel hooking is awesome.
* Led Zep Box Set.

5 things I don’t love:

* Gaining a ½ pound a day when taking a break from the bike. Qualifying for Clydesdale in 2 weeks.
* When there is a marathon of the worst show in the world: My super sweet sixteen
* Cheaters and Liars or Liars and Cheaters
* Slipping off a hold and ripping the skin off your fingers
* Paved trails.

talk amongst yourselves.

stay in school. fight off zombies.

respect.

fm

episode 153: I'm not the kind that needs you to tell me about the birds and the bees.

So a chicken and an egg are getting it on. It's good stuff too. Totally hot, both are totally into it.
They, the chicken and the egg, have been going it for a little while and things are really getting tense. Just then, the chicken lets out a loud, orgasmic yell, "whoa!!!! that was great!" The chicken rolls off of the top of the egg. Closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

The egg, feeling a little put out, comments in frustration, "well, at least that settles that age old question."


stay in school.

zombies are bad.

respect
fm.

episode 152: a nice weekend.

Whoonu is a game by the makers of cranium. The basic gist of the game is to take a series of cards which have activities or items on them. A group of people hand a card with said activity or item written on them, to one person. The person then ranks the items or said activities 1-5 or how many players you have in the game. The person "who knows" the most about people playing the game wins, or who ever choose the activity that was closed to the person's favorite gets the most points. Confused? think that's sounds kinda lame?

yeah it was. that was until Rotten Rob, Chunky Monkey, Breyla-lal, Der Jan, Zayne Bronze (formerly wes t. conqueror ) and yours truly( fatmarc w/ lefty and kevin) are unleashed upon it. After some basic modifications to the activity/item cards, the game has an entirely new meaning, is all of a sudden goes from lame, to funny as hell.

Examples of modifications:

petting zoo to heavy petting zoo

keeping a journal to keeping a sex journal

state fairs to sleeping with state fair carneys

Olympics to getting gold at the special Olympics

Frisbee to Frisbee golf

toast to getting toasted

rain to purple rain

sharks to trouser sharks

getting dressed up to getting dressed up in drag

rodeos to dirty Sanchez rodeos

t-shirts to Frank Zappa Kappa T-shirts

and of course my personal favorite:

sushi to "pink" sushi

juvenile? perhaps, but it was still pretty damn funny.

The weekend was a damn pretty good one. Saturday had Zayne Bronze and I competed in the Delaware State TT championship two man division. Against some pretty tough competition we had a damn pretty nice ride. We finished 12 miles in 25:15, good enough for 4th place. For those counting at home that's an average of 28 mph. That folks was Eddie Merckx style. (no aero equipment). Although I suggested that Zayne pull the entire time, and I sit on his wheel, but we actually ended up rotating through pretty damn consistently. That worked out well. Blair Blair and DDdub took the "w" even after both racing the individual TT. Sick fast guys. Following the TT, Blair swam here:

yeah, he might be growing gills soon.

30 seconds a head of us were Ed and Rolf from guys, 15 seconds ahead of us were the burrito boys, der Jan and Jay Z.

Rotten Rob took second in the de class on his "ghetto prom " fixed gear.

I'm really not sure that bike is even legal.

Fitzy, my Spot Brand- Twin Six brother rocked it too.

Following the TT a number of us headed down to the Tap Room in Chesapeake City for some fine crab destruction. The beer was cold and the crabs hot, as we enjoyed a great time with DDub, der Jan, Jay Z, Monkey, Zayne Bronze and I. (fatmarc w. lefty and kevin)

Sunday:

Fairhill, the race that I have labeled my personal Paris Roubiax, my own personal curse, the race where I traditionally just shit the bed, and crash and burn. So much so Todd let me know on Tuesday that I wouldn't be a factor and something would go wrong for sure. We all laughed.

I have been training pretty exclusively on the ole gay ups truck, and in fact cleaned her up expecting to race her at fairhill, but when I went into the garage this morning and she had a flat, I just grabbed meanie greenie and rolled over to the race with Zayne Bronze.

At the end of the day, I got 10th. Not the greatest, but the suck knob was out of control either.

I had fun, I rode pretty well. I made my check points 7 minutes ahead of schedule and finished the race 6 minutes faster than I expected. I had fun, and aside from burping my rear tire early, and having to ride on much less pressure than i would have liked, well- f it, I did my best, the result isn't that great but screw it, it's been that kinda a year.

In fact, it's my third best ride at fairhill ever. I left everything I had on the course , I'll take it going away and walk away with a smile.

props to Todd (el presidente) who crushed and ended up on the podium with a 3rd place ride.

Guess he was right on Tuesday, glad I stayed the hell out of his way.

All in all a really good weekend, don't have much to complain about at all. My spring season is now over, as I have some personal stuff to tend to and by the time I get clear of that, I'll be thinking about that other silly racing.

stay in school.

hide from zombies.

respect.

fm

episode 151: "careless in our summer clothes, splashing around in the muck and the mire...."

they're back:


Lefty....














and of course Kevin,















my beloved sideburns have been blossoming in the summer heat....

Diane doesn't have too much love for Kevin, he's a trouble maker, but Lefty, lefty is a sweetheart.

Stupid things I did this week:

1. Sunday Fairhill. Very large group . Todd (el presidente) looks at me and says, " this will be a hard group to keep together." I cockily say, " don't even try, keep things moving, keep it crisp, keep it rolling" Todd (el presidente) , starts to salivate, and wipes the juices from his mouth on his arm, and attacks out of the parking lot. Me, I drop my chain on the first down hill, and find myself chasing through "skip a trail" to try and get back to that lead group cruising along and not waiting for me because of course, I instructed Todd (el presidente) to not wait for anyone....

2. Stupid move #2. Last 20 minutes of the ride. Peaches and E-town surge past Todd, and attack pretty strongly. Strong enough to cause me to V-urp my Gu. We cruised through Gallagher with Spanky and Benny in tow. I think we missed the last climb too. I suffered my ass off, totally on the edge. With almost 2:30 in the bank, what was I thinking. I am a dumb ass.

3. At the climbing gym with Buddy, Rachel and Diane. We only boulder, never done any top roping. "hey, guys we should take belay lessons and do some top roping!" Yeah, I totally forgot how much I am scared of heights, and once we got past what I had gotten comfortable as the bouldering height, my ass puckered up tighter than fort knox. Vertigo. yeah that's a beautiful thing... belay tests next week.

4. I'll let the pictures tell the story:

sporty white shoe covers:














long sleeve skin suit



















nice little bolt on tt bars















yup, I've signed up for the de state championship time trail, I'll be riding in the two man competition with Wes T. Conqueror as my teammate. I was gonna call our team: Fatmarc eats chocolate. And hell neither of us are even Delaware residents...

Tuesday Night was Tuesday Night Titans. Group was El Presidente, Once a week Paul, Buddy the Leg Breaker, Peaches and myself. Rotten Rob punked out on the ride. I guess he's scared of thunder showers or something. Either that or he decided to take it easy on the old men, and not kick our asses all over Middle run or White Clay, or whatever park we were in, I have to be honest I can't tell them apart anymore. Luckily, vanilla is my favorite flavor of ice cream. I mean who likes roots or rocks or logs in their trails. The pace was brisk, but still conversational.

About an hour in I pierced my tire and Stan's gu started pissing all over the place. I thought I pretty much ruined the tire. The night was over for me, I sent the boys on their way, and went home. At the house, I loaded up the tire with more Stan's GU, and the tire held for a few minutes. Then as Diane(monkey) and I were talking, the tire let go, and started shooting Stan's Gu across the drive way. Ron Jeremy would be proud. It was pretty funny.

Being a glutton for punishment, I loaded up more Stan's GU (man, Stan must be a busy guy to have this much gu) into the tire, pumped it up, and as of this morning, it was still holding. Hells yeah, I think I got it. Either that or I see a fatal flaw forming, or better yet stupid thing number 5.

You know usually you pump and then get gu, not add gu then pump. Was that too far? Did I step over the line?

BTW a crack swat trail team was immediatly sent out to the park to remove what ever caused my flat. There must have been some deviation in the trail. Thank god it will be smooth by next week.

The plot for the weekend thickens...

practice your zombie combat here.
stay in school.

respect.
fm

Episode 150: my job as assistant cheerleading coach takes up a lot of time.


Saturday morning, Diane (monkey) and I rush out for a nice mountain bike ride with Buddy the keg breaker, Rotten Rob, and leavin' on a jet plane John. I get the the park and then realize I forgot my shoes. I hate when I do stupid shit like this. So I start heading up the road to go get my shoes and meet my ride on the other side of town, when I see this guy with huge arms climbing up the hill. I think to myself, "shit, that guy might have better luck pedalling with his arms, he's freakin' huge, he must work out or something..."

I carefully drive pass him, rushing to get home to get my shoes. Then I see a fellow coming back down the hill towards me in a rocky mountain chocolate kit. That's right folks it was these guys:

The Real Joey Thompson and older brother Justin. Back in the day Justin used to be pretty good at pushing the pedals too. Now he looks more like this, just a little less green. "you know the bitches like the cuts." I heard that somewhere. Luckily my lady likes the truffle shuffle better.

I am really proud to know all of the Thompson boys, and seeing these guys getting you know all grown up, makes me feel really old. Really old.

Saturday night Diane, Rachel, Buddy and I rolled up to West Chester for the twilight crit where we saw Fitzy, Etown, Surly Bob and his wife Jen. We saw lots of other people we knew including some of these guys, and these guys. Hell we saw a ton of people, this guy told me that he had been enjoying some much needed time off, and a couple of cold ones. I can get behind that for sure.

Cheering for Beth, my C3 cross teammate in the women's race was fun, and of course for The Real Joey Thompson, Dan (ddub) and Blair Blair in the pro men's race was sweet. This was the third year I have gone to spectate this race, last night looked like the hardest yet. Big props to all the folks listed above, and to everyone who put on a great show for my fat slow ass. It was a really good time.

while at the race I had an ice cream cone, it was moose tracks, and the girl at the place never gave me an option for anything but a waffle cone. A number of folks saw me eating a waffle cone, and gave me the stink eye. Seriously folks, the girl at the window never gave me a choice, and for the record, despite being one of the better waffle cones I have had, it still failed to compare to a good old sugar cone.

Got out to Fairhill today, killer group, really kicked my ass, I stacked it once really good too. That one might leave a mark in the morning, finished the loop in a solid 2:47, much drier today.

Zombie patrols seem to be going well. I will admit despite being in the pain cave all day today, I really had fun. The clear effort of the promoters to remove zombies, and to cover as much ground as possible in the race is really appreciated. It should be a good time next week.

stay in school.

respect.

fm

episode 149: waffle cone

under the blanket...

Generally speaking, I feel that the waffle cone is a huge rip off. I mean you pay something like an extra dollar or a dollar and a half for a stale old cone that really doesn't taste that good. I remember when I first saw the waffle cone, how excited I was, that maybe it would taste, I don't know, like a waffle. With that premise, I was giddy at the thought of having a little Belgium waffle in my hand, with some sweet, sweet ice cream. Oh, how wrong I was.

Last week we stopped down the ole cold stone creamery, the girl offered me a waffle bowl. I scoffed at her and said, "come on now, you know that the waffle bowl is a total scam." She smiled at me and nodded, acknowledging my clear command of the situation. Now the pretzel cone. I have to admit, is somewhat intriguing to me, now I believe that it's a scam too, and as such haven't tried one, but still the sweet and salty together could be magical. Any advise on the pretzel cone?

under the recliner...

E-town and I rode the Fairhill course yesterday. Randall and company have out done themselves. The loop is very challenging, and hits most of the well know sections of single track in the park. I'll admit, with the number of times Randall sends us ripping down the a hill, only to make a 180 degree turn and climb back up, I think he was trying to make the course hard, not fun and flowing. There was a time we did the same thing as we had some folks at Granogue over the years that wanted the course to be harder, not funner. That was kind of a bad idea. All we talk about now is "does the course flow" .

Anyway the course was close to 30 miles, and E-town and I did it in around 2:50. I love fairhill, nothing brings a smile to my face like southpark and kenny's revenge, that twilight zone section (I think some call it the jersey turnpike) is divine. Randall has done an excellent job of looping in just about every trail, and his anti-zombie work has been top notch. I did see a suspicious hole, where I'm guessing he had buried some zombie corpses.

amongst the cd's

Layla is pretty scared of thunder, and fireworks. The usuall Friday night fireworks we get here in Cecil County set her into a tizzy. The fourth of July is her personal hell. I swear the dude in the neighborhood below me is setting of weapons of mass destruction, Layla is trying to hide anywhere she can, just trying to find some cover. poor girl.

behind the end table...

stay in school. remember zombies can't go as fast as you, but they never tire.

respect.

fm

episode 148: the good and the zombie gut

The Good.

Friday night was great. The night time trial at the Marysville Stage Race is my favorite mountain bike event. The course is fast, tight, technical and very fun. And finally, this year, I dug deep into the pain cave, and I felt like myself. Very frankly this was my best mountain bike race effort this year. I knew it the entire ride, I was flowing, through the tight stuff I could feel my handle bars clipping the tress, but I crashed right through, like a skier through gates. I caught my :30 man, I caught my 1:00 man, and I got right on the wheel of my 2:00 minute man, but down the final hill, he stepped on the big ring, and I chased him across the line.

the Torres Family.

I didn't care about my result, I didn't care about the time, I felt freakin' good. I hugged monkey, I was super stoked. In the end out of 43 elite men, experts19-44, and single speeders, I was 16th with a time of 21:26. Yeah, I can live with that...

padawon learner had a dominate weekend. Upgrade coming soon.

A quick shower and a change, followed by an exchange with a fast expert woman, (names left out to protect the innocent) who saw me making a quick towel off and then suit up, she chimed in "I saw fatmarc naked. You not that fat. May be you need a new nick name!" This could make my list of best days ever! If she said I should be "longmarc" then I would have known I was dreaming for sure.

bre la-la 2nd in the marathon.

who knew the fonz was gonna show?

The Zombie Gut

Although Kuhn did a great job with the course, and I saw no real evidence of any zombie infestation on the course, I was also certain there was something undead in my stomach. Shortly after the TT, I started getting weird stomach pains, which lead to multiple trips to the portolet during the night.

monkey's start. she rode well today, I was proud of her.

The next morning, the old Hershey Squirts continued. I tried to think of where a Zombie might had gotten a little bite of me. Perhaps I was reanimating? Maybe along the river? No, I could find no teeth makes, I felt confident I wasn't becoming undead, but still, I felt bad.

All morning I was cold, had chills, and had more trips to the PortoLet than I wanted. Frankly, I could give a rating of each of the portojohns up in the upper camping area, but that might be over the line.

So basically, I decided to bag the cross country. And I felt good about that decision.

Then Justin talked me into kitting up. "Once you kit up and get going you'll feel fine." Sounded good to me, and after riding so well the night before, how could I go wrong?

I lined up with the other 11 expert single speeders and we were off. I went into the woods last, and quickly moved up a spot. Through the twistys we were all staying together nicely, it was actually very fun. I thought to myself, "maybe Justin was right", up the first little climb, I stood on it and passed 5 people, from last to mid pack in one move, that was pretty good.

Then I got that feeling. You know that feeling. The wave of heat that comes, just before an explosion. Where the first thought is, how fast can I make it to a toilet. "it will pass, it will pass" I told myself. I started up the next quick climb, and felt like an explosion was imminent my Henry's shorts. I jumped off the bike. My fellow single speeders flew by me.

I avoided pooping myself, and cautiously started riding again, the single track was fun, and I was carving it pretty well. But I wasn't having a ton of fun, all along I had the fear of the undead filling my shorts with brown nastiness. When I reached our camp site, I pulled the plug and parked the bike. Today, would not be my day.

Oh, well, the weekend was fun, Kuhn puts on a great show, and it was a good time hanging with the monkey. Diane and I rolled up in the toaster, and as neither of us sniffed the podium, we were more than okay with getting out a little early, and getting home to these guys:

respect.

fm