Diver: Joey from Velorution Cycles
Interesting facts: Some day Joey will hotwire a giant bro-dozer pickup and send it plummeting off the Bridge to Nowhere, Hayduke style. Not soon ... but some day.

Dear Diver,
I’m your typical spoiled, stupid bonehead, and I love to get wasted and act out because I can’t hold my liquor. Late at night when I’m hammered, I love to be loud as I am coming home from the bars, waking up people who have to work for a living. Sometimes, I’ll smash car windows for no reason or rip plants out of gardens or steal bikes off porches or, on occasion, I’ll go totally Hulk and stand in the street yelling like a wild berserker warrior baby who puts the rent on Daddy’s Visa. So my question is … why am I so awesome?
– Berserker
Dear Berserker,
It’s not your fault. You’re just a product of your parents’ wrongheaded approach, making you feel “special” while never letting you know that you were “special-ed.” In this era of gold stars for everyone, you never realized you were just another American kid doing 4th-grade math in high school. Fort Leisure hasn’t helped you much, because you have no idea how you stack up to college students at other stateside learning institutions, much less all those Chinese and Indian PhD’s on the other side of the globe, clamoring for your future job. You’ll graduate on the six-, maybe seven-year plan, hang out in Durango for one last summer, and then your Dad will finally shut down your credit, figuring at 25, you are old enough to “take care of yourself.” Unable to find work because you don’t really care to, you’ll come stumbling belligerently home in a sorry state of mind and wake me up, along with all my neighbors. The truth is, you’re only awesome in your own mind. So I’m sorry. You can’t help it. But the lead from my BB gun is going to hurt all the same.
– Sympathetic Sharpshooter

Dear Diver,
I just moved to Durango and I’ve noticed everyone seems to have a bike. Do I have to get one too? If so, any tips on bike choice and/or how to avoid the dreaded helmet hair would be appreciated.
– No-wheeled Wonder
Dear No-wheeled,
Having no bike in Durango can throw you into a weird social under-class, kind of like not having a Subaru, or not liking dogs or beer, or not having an MMJ card because you’re 25 and you have  “chronic back pain” (and for the record, I have neither a card, nor faux back pain, nor the desire for an altered state of consciousness, so I guess I’m in that under-class). It pretty much sucks to have no bike in such a bikeable town ... how else can you ride 17-abreast on CR250? I’d recommend getting yourself saddled up on the lightest, twitchiest, plastic/carbon bicycle you can buy (you may need a huge credit line). Be sure to pick up some neon lycra that only a skinny European road racer should feel comfortable in; if you have muffin top, you know you’re looking good! Stick with the Euro style for headwear – hair gel should alleviate the dreaded helmet hair, although it may rack up big medical bills at some point (in the meantime, you’ll look awesome). Look up photos of Mario Cipollini, because this is what you’re striving for. He embodies perfection, which you can aspire to while riding to Bread via the River Trail, weaving in and out of walkers, tucked on your aero bars at 8mph. One final tip – don’t wave at ANYONE, no matter how friendly. On the other hand, you can get a basic bike, wear jeans and have fun. You’ll miss the hair gel though.
To summarize: Yes, you have to get a bike. Your only decision is where to get it ... lucky for you, I happen to know a guy.
– See you soon, The Guy

Dear Diver,
It is only May and I am already sick of watering/mowing my grass. Does the Diver have any interesting, low-maintenance, easy, do-it-yourself landscape ideas? And please, no lava rock.
– Lawn Boy
Dear Lawn Gnome,
You need to follow this three-step process: 1. Do a rain dance and make the monsoons start early, just like everything else has this year. 2. Once the rains begin, let your lawn go – completely. Let that Kentucky Bluegrass reach for the sky. You’ll know it’s time for the third step when you let pets or small children out and lose them. Bonus points if you can’t find your spouse. 3. The coup de grace is to get a herd of goats, preferably French Alpine, but Nubians will do. Let them loose and you’ll have a whole group of automatic mowing/ fertilizing machines, leaving you time to beat the undergrowth for your pets and family. If you prefer they stay lost for a bit, go for a bike ride with (soon-to-be) Two-Wheeled – the goats will eventually free your loved ones from their leafy chains.
– Have a tall fence, The Diver

 

Seek help from the master of the In-Sinkerator. The diver has the solutions to life’s little messes. Send your problems to, “Ask the Diver:"
- 1309 E. Third Ave., Room 25 Durango, CO, 81301
- fax (970) 259-0488
- telegraph@durangotelegraph.com