Beam us aboard with a knife and a fork! Scorpion pizza and Captain Kirk, William Shatner, will be core to the 2014 Calgary Stampede. Captain Kirk’s the parade grand marshal. He’ll lead the cavalcade horde to the scorpion pizzas.

The 2013 “come hell or high water” Stampede rodeo took place just after the flood of the century. It was the 100 year anniversary of the Calgary Stampede in 2012. So what is new for the 2014 “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”?

The tastiest foods ever. We’ll take a bite at those momentarily...

Instantly, the Stampede’s urbanity of collegial community is the result of an explosion. During its 10 day life, it balloons into - daily - 120,000 gawkers and walkers, making it Alberta’s third biggest city.

For those three or four folks who care not a whinny for horses but are loco for pogo, you’re in luck. The sport of extreme pogo – XPOGO – will be making its Calgary premiere, hitting heights and sights that are, geez – slap me a slice of that scorpion pizza why don’t ya - out of this world. Pros will pogo over high bars, across gullies, beside buildings, alongside oceans, off cliffs, into trucks - and that’s just on their way to work – you gotta see these stick-slick super heroes in performances…you’ll ooh and aah...

And if you hear other oohs and aahs, and grunts and moos and oinks and caws - that’s ‘cause kids are aping farm animals. The Stampede “Ag-tivity” brings farm to city.

Parents will gaze, dazed, as their small fry dig the pigs, while simultaneously pointing out the woolen heaps of sheep, cluck to the chickens, while heading for the goats, and go woof-wild watching the stock dogs stalking, while pleading to take all of these pets home. They’ll learn.

Get this: now your school kids can visit the Agrium Western Event Centre any old day of the year to be entertained and learned. Hopefully, more of the former than the latter, if the kids have any say.

And obey this maxim. Howsabout on your visit you check that diet and deep six that exercise regimen into storage and check out the NEW foods: like the long sausage – just under two feet; like Big Bubba’s Bad BBQ Skillets – whatever they are;  like some thick, rich, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, On a Stick!; Like Deep-Fried Cheesies...God, this is rich.

I need more. OK, one more. Can I have a Deep Fried Donut Bacon Cheeseburger?

Is this stuff even legal?

One word of advice. Don’t dine then immediately dash over to try the Eurobungy or Slingshot rides. Wait five minutes. And don’t worry about creeping-waistline obesity either. The calories burnt salivating in anticipation of these goodies will offset the ones you add on. And even if that is a bald face lie, well, what price can you put on having happy taste buds?

Now, about that scorpion pizza. Scorpions can be fried and skewered. What’s the pay to kill these critters? Let’s move on. We've got bigger fish to fry.

Citizens in Toronto did not have a bone to pick but they did wonder what a huge white cowboy hat was doing floating in their harbor. It was boating evidence of Calgarians doing what they do best: promoting, while sporting the iconic cowboy hats, this upcoming Stampede, and all things Albertan, with a:

 what’s #underthehat campaign...

“Mommy, look overhead.  Why’s that man balancing on one hand? Why’s he atop six chairs and one stand piled as high as the sky? Now he’s doing a handstand. Now an L seat. Mommy, is that good luck?”

Mommy: “What the heck!”

It can only mean that the Calgary Stampede 2014 has roped in the fabulous and famous Peking Acrobats.  Catch their act at the ENMAX Corral Show.

Or hunker down and try your own acrobatic act. Try riding a mechanical bull, while swigging beer and munching on BBQ foods. It’s all (fortunately?) possible at the new “Triple B” Stampede hangout.

Did you know that horses don’t inherently like to hang out with cows? That’s what the Stampede animal experts tell us. Yes, horses, quite often, are afraid of cows. They've got to live near cows for a while before they’ll start chasing them!

Speaking of being chased - clean, agricultural, air lovers should know that smokers will be corralled to designated outdoor smoking areas, away from the food areas.

Above it all is Danica Heath. She’s the 2014 Calgary Stampede Queen. To become this Supreme Being – she had to be more than just another pretty face. She had to ride well, speak well and comport herself well to be considered as Calgary Stampede royalty material. Danica has been promoting the Stampede throughout 2014 in places near to heart and home, and in far off places like Berlin, Germany.

Tourists: there’s fun watching just how much the local gals and guys get into it, festooned in blue jean outfits, bolo ties, and cowboy hats, not only on weekends but on weekdays too. Employers want their staff to giddyup and dress western, and partake of the many parties taking place. Let’s be charitable and say work productivity is kept to a “unique” pace during the Stampede.

Indeed, the festivities come, with Stampede breakfasts, even before the Stampede starts.

For horse hankerers, there’s a veritable feast of equines to admire. From heavy horse Clydesdales to speedy quarter horses, there’s a horse for every course. Now that thoroughbred California Chrome didn't win the Triple Crown he could, alas, be in the market for a new job. Perhaps he’ll come to the CS under the cover of darkness and find work looking good and snorting woulda coulda shoulda and “what ifs” for all and sundry.

With animals comes worry. The Vancouver Humane Society doesn't like the chuckwagon races or rodeo events. They think it’s all pretty nasty. And, unfortunately, they can be right: three horses died in a CS chuckwagon race a couple of years back. But the VHS can rest easier, and worry about animals eating each other to shreds in the troubled wild - for a yearly safety review found that both of these events are improving in safety stats.

Having perpetual and perennial trouble with each family member wanting to do everything at once? Puzzled, why there’s something for everyone – but that everyone wants to do, or see, or hear, or taste something completely different from the other? That’s the beauty of the Stampede. It brings out the daring doer in all of us.

Truly, there’s no substitute for the Calgary Stampede. It has it all. You may be in a conundrum about what to do next, but the volunteers and officials who help you are far from panjandrums. They’re friendly and helpful, amenable and swell.

So long as they point us to where the – leapin’ lizards, we can’t believe we want 10 more slices of this stuff - scorpion pizzas are at.

And that’s a wrap.

Does anyone care about the 2014 Tour de France? Or do many now deride it, like they deride Lance Armstrong?

Possibly drug chemists and drug users - athletic and non - might get a rush out of the 23-day tour, which begins July 5th. But is the common ruck all a buzz?

If not a buzz, maybe a flutter, knowing there’ll be more than France to gawk at. British towns such as Leeds, Sheffield, and Cambridge will be cycled through first. Let’s hope overly officious British immigration bureaucrats don’t hold up the cyclists before they head to France, like they did in 1974.

Definitely citizens of Masham, Yorkshire are a stir. Council sourpusses ordered their green, yellow, and white knitted jerseys, more than 20,000 worth, strung up as bunting, to be taken down. Safety, you know.

We know we should stand to attention, or at least sit up straight, as the Tour pays homage at Ypres, the Belgian town. That’s where mustard, chlorine and phosgene gas attacks left hundreds of thousands dead in WW1.

We’ll stop texting if we hear that the hot-air spat between Chris Froome and Sir Stanley Wiggins is really over. We’ll give our heads a shake if we find out that Froome has agreed to general manager Sir Dave Brailsford’s possible picking of Wiggins to Team Sky.

We’ll listen to British fans’ raucous reaction should Wiggins not be selected. They ache for a British bicycle bombardment with both leading the British bike troops. (Although with Alberto Contador leaving Froome in his dust in the final stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné with the Tour fast approaching, it may not matter who is on Team Sky for the Brits.)

And if Wiggins is picked, many will weep knowing that Wiggins’ role will be to support Froome. We’ll ponder why Wiggins would agree to this domestique deployment.

Because, if not for a chest infection and inflammation in his left knee he’d have defended his Tour de France win of 2012. He was the first Briton to win it. (Unfortunately, kids Ben and Isabella were bullied at school after their dad won the 2012 race. They were moved to another school.)

Speaking of moving and knees, Wiggins was riding this week in the Tour de Suisse. But he got rammed from behind, crashed, and now his right knee is swollen. And his Tour de France chances have further slimmed.

Back to the bigger picture...

We cads will contemplate the competitors trying to navigate the stage 5 cobblestones. We’ll calculate the possibility of broken bones, cogitate whether the bikes, made by 19 or so manufacturers, have what it takes, and we'll deliciously deliberate over possible lawsuit snafus.

But despite these discussions above, most of us will ruminate with what’s primary on our plate of debate: Who is using, what’s being used, will they get away with it, and should we get some?

If the Queen and Prince Philip at Buckingham palace glance at the race will they see any “clean” riders whizz by? Will Prince Harry, Prince William, and Kate, at the Tour’s start, in Leeds? Or will all talk of whizz be of competitors peeing into bottles to disprove covert drug use? The latter is what floats critics’ boats, makes their blood boil, and gives them a case of the hashtag harrumphs: #I’mSoPissed!

Has the drug scene affected eyeballs? Are TV audiences down? Depends.

In the USA, since Lance slithered from the scene in 2009, final stage viewership has dropped in quantities greater than foods wolfed down at Las Vegas buffets. But NBC Sports Network did report a 67% increase, thanks to 560,000 viewers, in the 2013 last stage, over the year previous.

And in Europe, relief that Lance’s stench no longer permeated things, possibly accounted for the Eurosport channel’s 17.1 million viewers tuning in to the 2013 race’s beginnings. That, and the 100th year anniversary milestone, had to help push up the numbers.

But do kids, in numbers great or small, still aspire to cycle? Do the parents pressure the kids one way or another?

No matter who pressures who to do what, remember the kid had better have a big heart if he does take the plunge. Did you know that professional cyclists’ hearts are up to 40% bigger than average?

And did you know that the UCI formed the CIRC PDQ because the UCI wasn't minding its ABC’s in dotting its i’s and crossing its t’s?

Yessiree, the International Cycling Union birthed the Cycling Independent Reform Commission to investigate the International Cycling Union because it was asleep at the wheel in missing the atrocious act of Lance Armstrong.

For instance, in May of this year Chris Froome had his knickers in a knot because he, Vincenzo Nibali, and Alberto Contador were training in Tenerife and nobody drug tested them. He’s mad at the UCI about that.

What’s Lance up to this year? His seven Tour de France victories came with “help” and though the wins have been wiped off the map, his arrogance hasn't. In April 2014 he told Outside magazine he still considers himself the victor. In his interview with Oprah he said he wanted to compete again because he was a competitor.

Becoming a debtor may be more like it: he’s being chased for, give or take, $96,965,465.82 in damages.

When Lance isn't being harassed for cash and when he isn't blowing a gasket, seething at the capriciousness of the cruel cycling gods, he’s blowing a tube instead. Here, he shows us how to fix a flat bicycle tire. Even in this video, he’s uniformly unappealing. He doesn't do self-deprecation well.

Froome, given Armstrong’s tainting of the Tour de France, is - despite his protestations at the UCI for not testing him - under suspicion of “taking.” He’s a bit hot under the collar about it. He also, literally, had been running hot, in his preparation for the “biggest bike race”. He won the 2014 Tour of Oman in February. And have you seen his legs? Veins galore.

Froome will be trying to muscle in on a second consecutive win. He’ll block out the tussle between pro-drug takers and anti-drug officials. He’ll pedal, knowing there’s absolutely no assurance that new, peddled, drugs won’t be conjured up to fool the wardens of the sport.

For what it’s worth George Hincapie, top domestique in his day, thinks road cycling has cleaned up its act these past few years.

Even if he’s right, we’ll relish a little criminality-collage villainy. The Tour de France has historically offered a miscreant miscellany of races being “bought”, of objects puncturing tires, of short cuts being used, of bikes being sabotaged...

You know, maybe cycling 3,664 kilometers over 21 days - with only two days off, for that’s on tap this 2014, is a crazy sport if, looking back, cocaine, chloroform, ether, strychnine, opioids, amphetamines, or nitroglycerin have been needed to deaden pain, relieve boredom, or heighten performance.

Maybe the athletes, managers, and sponsors, need to grow up. After all, taking ecstasy so one can neck with strangers is a crazy sport too. But most of us grow up, and out, of that.

Let’s just hope this year’s Tour doesn't fall flat.

Capoeira is not yoga on steroids. The Brazilian martial art is a dynamite, deathly, dance of the dynamic. Toss in sensual and you’ve got yourself a “Game” at its best. Competitors kick as fast as eyelashes blink. They twist and turn, the stomach churns: you say “there’s no way I could do that, or that, or THAT without retching.”

But it’s fetching and you wonder. What if I could? Should I try this? Well, kids over 10, and adventurous adults, are taking capoeira lessons in Canada, the USA, and Europe the Philippines, Israel, and Africa. Even in Brazil! It’s popular.

Speaking of popularity, remember Ocean’s Twelve with the jewel thief, François Toulour? Vincent Cassel was the actor. How’s this for a coincidence? Cassel read the script for Ocean’s Twelve while in Brazil. His capoeira caper, to avoid museum security beams, stole the show (and the fake Fabergé egg) with graceful moves and exacting precision.

Call his heroics the sport of the laser dance. Betcha most of us, entranced, hadn’t a clue that it was capoeira. But we were mesmerized at the orchestra of instrumental feints, ducks, flips, and poses all coming from this one man band.

Cassel had done capoeira in his younger years. Perhaps that is the best time to start this art. Apparently he was unavailable to work the next day after the stealing scene. At least he was available to live. A lot of the instructional capoeira videos state, basically and forthrightly, if you do the stuff wrong, you’ll be dead.

Not all capoeira is in a fearsome format. It can be an exhibition of exercise excellence accompanied, and this makes capoeira unique as a martial art, by music.  The performers feed off each other, and the music’s lyrics and rhythms, in a startling succession of synchronized: upright, upside down, side to side, kicking, and balancing - moves and motions.

And the musical beat of capoeira is based on the berimbau, which is a flexed stick of Brazilian hardwood strung with an automobile tire wire, and anchored by a reel (calabash gourd) that looks like a huge tumor you’d want removed, like now. It’s a percussion instrument that resembles a fishing rod.

Take the above, throw in a stone and a rattle (caxixí) and you've a sound of the maraca and the twang of a ukulele, at least to these ears. The songs that accompany this instrument (and drum, tambourine, and sometimes a double-bell) can be about anything: a person, a capoeira story, some historical event.

Think of capoeira as a really funky way to do off kilter cartwheels (aú’s), cartwheels on your head (Aú de Cabeca’s), bends, squats, you name it. The gut of the Capoeirista, upon which all other moves feed off, is the Ginga. With one leg going back, with the same-side arm coming forward as a blocker - below the eyes - so you can see your opponent, the switch is then to the other leg going back and the other arm in front, and my quads are quivering...

And if you get a kick out of the Ginga, you can get a kick out of it, literally. And quickly with the Esquiva Baixa. Again, generally, the athletes’ moves are intricately intertwined with the musical muse. The athletes turn their backsides to each other. Sometimes they’ll deign to stand upright and do dance steps in tandem. Then off they go again into their mysterious, magical road show, a road show which is done outside in cities, especially in Brazil’s northeastern region, in the state of Bahia, in seemingly impromptu sessions before bystanders.

Before participants can move up the capoeira food chain they must show improvements in movement and knowledge in the once-a-year batizado (baptism). Some of the children capoeiristas look like masters.

If those kids are successful, they are rewarded with a corda, a colored belt. Different capoeira groups use different colored cordas and grading systems. Standardization is not the rule of thumb, which makes some sense as capoeira is a flow, not a rigid stop-and-start, fitness form.

In a capoeira Angola, for example, singing flows with the participants and the sounds thwack you, thumping the chest before piercing the heart and settling in the soul. The vocals are not in perfect Beach Boys harmony. The sound is not commercial jingle. In fact, the melodies seem to be a mingling of tweaks and twangs in discordancy, yet with all tingling, and touching.

We know, however, capoeira is no soft touch. Watching a capoeira fighter knockout a kick boxer in less than 30 seconds, with a flurry of kicks coming out of the wild blue yonder, is an eye opener, and speaks to its ferocity, its bellicosity. And no wonder these sculpted athletes walk with a spring in their step. In the course of a capoeira dance ritual they’ll easily do two and one foot air flips, somersaults, or Folha Secas “Kick the Moons.”

Call it a shower of power. The thing is if you weren't familiar with this fighting style, you’d never know where the next kick is coming from. Even when a capoeira fighter is down, a kick can shoot up. And if that isn't amazing enough what is totally awesome is how participants arch their backs to degrees unseen.

That math of dangling angles has not been invented yet - but it has. It’s like the combatants are flauntingly flirting with the limits of physical flexibility. Basically, ultimately, capoeira works the whole body. And brain. It’s the complete workout but because the moves involve so much that is not linear, nor lateral, or vertical you have to be careful to keep your enthusiasm and excitement in check and not go swanning off into capoeira sight unseen. Be aware of the potential to wreck yourself. Otherwise you’ll be seen as a racked up mess stacked in the emergency ward.

With real capoeira fighting, remember it’s just not the opponent’s feet and legs, the latter either singularly or collectively in the Armada Dupla, you have to worry about. Watch for punches and grappling that might tie you in knots. And don’t get flummoxed watching the one hand spinning moves either. (To get that hand-twist motion down pat - use the heel of your palm as the contact point - with your fingers and thumb slightly off the ground so they don’t muck up the works.)

Right, got it.

Get this too. The art of capoeira and its history goes deep, and stems from slave days in Brazil, when West African slaves learned this on the fly, but showed it as dance, so Portuguese slave masters wouldn't know it was really being developed as an art of defense. Nowadays, many not only practice capoeira, they live it. It’s an essential, integral part of who they are and, not shockingly, capoeira has some original connection to the Brazilian-African religion, Candomblé, and Catholicism.

But now, and forevermore, it is linked to a life of spirituality and vitality. 

If you must get old, but don't want to age, head to Palm Springs and Palm Desert, California. Here you can be fit and flexible - even without plastic surgery. Sensible.

What the heck do you say about a place and lifestyle that’s got everything? Movie stars live there. But don’t hold that against this oasis. For one’s mental and physical fitness, this is heaven. The desert is caressed by snow-capped craggy mountains and the Coachella Valley floor is rampant with flowers, and rife with male golfers wearing the oddest colored slacks.

Outside of heinous sartorial sins of hues, major crime can happen. A few years ago I was staying at a gated community where tennis rules the waves. They had a weight/cardio/stretching room where fitness buffs who wanted to tone for singles or doubles could do so. A rocker-crunch-sit-up thingy went missing. For the 104% of us who hated doing sit-ups and crunches...well, we were absolutely and abdominally grateful.

And thankfully, the weather is sublime when not splendid. Sure, there isn't the idyllic and restful sound of the ocean waves to waft one to sleep but the heat is dry, the sun is omnipresent - with over 350 days yearly -  and the sound of zephyrs, or silence, only broken by the reassuring whirring of hummingbird wings, is a more than an adequate substitute. You can hear yourself think.

Even the animal life is classier and cuter there. Take the bunny rabbit. In Alberta, Canada, for example, the bunny rabbit is always changing colors. It ages, turns completely white in the winter, due to the merciless, bitterly cold “snaps” that can last a year and a half. This coloring alteration freaks out the citizenry, yes, but not as much as does the size of these varmints. They are longer than a coyote and can seemingly, not so cleverly, bound in front of your car from a football field away. Especially in the dark of winter when you’re still trying to wake up whilst driving to work.

But in southern California, if you are just getting up, not to work, but to play, and you go outside your condo unit in the morning for a wake up stretch at six when the temperature is the invariably temperate 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) range and you quietly bend down to touch and count your toes, and peer in the neatly, daily, trimmed bushes - you can see it. The cuddliest, cutest bunny in the world. The desert cottontail rabbit. Compared to the Jack rabbit, the ones I've seen look so small you could put ‘em in your pocket.

Speaking of wildlife, for those snowbirds from Canada that fly down every year to their winter lodgings (and it should be noted - down there in paradise Canadians and Americans get along better with each other than they do with 100% of their own) WestJet airlines is the preferred choice of travel. Unlike the Air Canada staff that is ordained to be indifferent at all times and rude when the chips are really down, the WestJet staff is friendly and helpful. As an added bonus they won’t drop your luggage like a B-52 bomber drops its load. It’s almost like the WestJet crews like their jobs

Where were we?

Pshaw you say. Who wants to relax, or exercise, with a whole bunch of old fogie fuddy-duddy fussbudgets? These men and women in their golden years aren't relegated to playing finger hockey on TV tray tables with their pills, nor are they blowing gaskets trying to play shuffleboard, moving at the speed of evolution. And obesity is practically non-existent. (And I've yet to run into a fathead either.)

Let me tell you, these folks in their seventies and eighties can wipe the floor with your remains should you try to tangle with them in any sport. Like tennis. Or picklebalI for that matter. A mere man in my late fifties, I keep my distance from the courts. I’ll walk loops within the community, aspiring to be as fit and vigorous as these men and women are, when I grow up. And when you compare their level of fitness in strength and stamina to kids in Canada and the States, there’s no comparison. Sure, the kids can take them in computer games and in texting speed but the older folks can speak, comprehend, and communicate - using real sentences and everything.

BTW 2B@ the Palm Springs airport, is, if not fantastic, more than pleasant. (Spend just 10 minutes outside, with no sun screen on, and have your body make Vitamin D while you admire the scenery.)

And the shopping...everybody talks about Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, but have you seen the shops, and art galleries, and restaurants along El Paseo Drive in Palm Desert?  If you are tired of window shopping, or people watching, or just watching yourself have a grand time, they have folks driving what look to be motorized golf courts - courtesy carts - to take you from A to B. How pluterperfect is that?

So life, with its tennis, and swimming, and walking and hiking, and golf, is a big-ten-four-pork-pie-A-OK-all-systems-go, way to live, way to be. Even the world renowned and adored Road Runner can get California laid back when it so chooses. It can also dash like the dickens but not because it has errands to run, or people to see, or things to do, but because, like our much maligned chicken of jokes (and chicken on our tables), it just wants to get to the other side of the road. For no ostensible purpose.

But if you must have purpose, and you wish to get some perspective on the whole Palm Springs area, you can do no better than take a ride up the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. Don’t worry, you workout fans, there are other rocky mounts - 1,900+ kilometers worth - where seniors, the middle aged, and even young adults, can clamber up. And sure, you’ll hear the occasional rattle snake, but they’re polite. They’ll stay away from you if you don’t pester them with a stick. Everybody respects everybody’s personal or reptilian space. Perhaps the best space is occupied by the Desert Lavender plant, when used in tea, for example, it aids in cellular protection and regenerative healing: wonderful for us non-vegetative types.

Indeed the environs and environment are healthily clean and pristine, prim and proper. But even if a person were a bit rough around the edges, you’d never know it. They’re tasteful. And chock full of tact. In fact, though this isn't my line, here’s how you could be told to take a hike: “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.” Or as somebody or other once asserted, and I paraphrase here, “Wisdom is divided into two parts: (a) having a great deal to say, and (b) not saying it.”

We haven’t said it all about rejuvenating one’s body and soul in Palm Springs and Palm Desert, not by a long shot. But the short stroke of the gist

 is this:

Go.

Could the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown be won by Some Dumb Ass Partners with California Chrome? For a measly $10,500? Say what? Chrome in strategic, super style, won the 2014 Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.  And to think that the DAP, the self-named Dumb Ass Partners co-ownership team of the Martin and Coburn families, blew $10,500 to get this far.  That was the investment that birthed the chestnut-colored colt. Of course they could have been smart and spent tens of thousands to spawn a foal, like the experts regularly do, but they weren’t thinking. And if the three-year old wins at Belmont, it could very well bring a new dawn to the somewhat dilapidated “Sport of Kings.” 

 You gotta love the chase. Or do you? The racing-chattering classes didn’t. READ MORE