Ride, R.V., ride

You can just picture our man R.V. Scheide atop his BMW R1150GS, early morning, sun dancing off the dewy roadway, just him and the Jackson Highway, no deadlines on the horizon for miles. He’s embedded in farm country, and passing a particular ranch he notices out of the corner of his faceguard a bunch of tiny houses dotting a pasture. “Hmm?” he shrugs to himself, careful not to take his gloves off the handlebars lest he become pavement putty. “What the hell are those?”

This occurs several times along that stretch of highway until R.V. finally breaks the cycle (sorry), his curiosity having gotten the better of him. Or maybe he just needs a potty break. He pulls his bike up to the main ranch house, knocks on the door and is eventually greeted by … this week’s cover boy!

Now, this week’s cover boy would not be this week’s cover boy were it not for his story’s convenient news hook. It turns out those tiny houses dotting the pasture house American game chickens, cousins of the cluckers recently collected and off’d following the Fourth of July bust of a local cockfighting ring. R.V. had no idea that’s what he was getting into that fateful day.

Speaking of fateful days, I totally choked with last week’s Editor’s Note. I was going to tell you how our splashy introduction for ¡Ask a Mexican! as originally conceived would involve a readers poll where you’d decide yea or nay to us running the controversial column and its ironic (and, dare I say, iconic?) logo, which I’ve heard nothing but splendid things about, if by “splendid” you mean “Why in the hell did SN&R run a racist cartoon.” Anyway, if you’d voted sì on the poll, muy bueno. But if you’d ruled no way Jose, I would have rendered an executive decision stating that since Mexicans don’t read us, you all would have been disqualified and the column stays. As this was the plan before polling even began, someone into “honesty” talked me out of it. Damn newspaper ethics.

¡Ask a Mexican! now resides on the very last page before the back cover—or page two for those of you who read back to front. You know who you are. Pervs.