I'm watching and reading all the news about Isaac the next big hurricane. Count on it: Every year just around the time football is revving up, there's a news story showing empty shopping market shelves, cars lined up at gas pumps, people boarding up houses, and always the same middle-aged, tanned, guy-who-stepped-out-of-a-Jimmy-Buffett-song talking about riding the storm out and he survived that big one twelve years ago, and four years ago, and by God and whiskey he's gonna survive this one. And every year as I watch all this in Cleveland, where maybe it gets a little too hot, or maybe a little too cold, or maybe there's too much snow for a couple days, I think, how can those people stand it? How can they live there where every year for two or three months they have to live with the imminent possibility of boarding up, packing up, fleeing, losing it all? Don't they ever consider moving, for the mental health benefits, if nothing else? But for the first time last night--call it wisdom with age, maybe--as I watched and listened to Jimmy Buffett guy, I actually stood--if not walked a mile--in his flip flops for a second or two and thought, does he watch ESPN and read the sports pages, and does he ever consider the fans of Cleveland sports teams (the Indians, who've won maybe five games in the last month, or the Browns, who've won no more than five games in a season for just about a generation, and whose fans--two weeks before this season even starts--are already calling sports talk shows and speculating about who the next coach will be and who should be the number one pick in next year's draft) and think to himself, as he places another big piece of ply board over another window, just like he did last month or last year: God, how can those fans in Cleveland stand it year after year--bungling, no-hope teams filled with cast-offs and suspect prospects and chronically injured never weres? Don't they ever consider moving, for the mental health benefits, if nothing else?
And then I flick from The Weather Channel to E!, turn from the front page to the gossip page, and I consider the naked truth about being a globetrotting, whore mongering prince in this day and age. Time was, and was and was, the naked truth about being a globetrotting, whore mongering prince was, no lie, about as good as it could get. For decades, centuries, millennia, princes have had the run of the world's pleasures. Whatever and whomever they wanted to indulge, plunder, pinch, imbibe, was theirs, usually not even for the asking. Royal privilege. And as for word of any indiscretions getting out and round the kingdom, forget it. The four magical, royal words--Off with his head--sufficed to keep a lid on things, so to speak. But now? Oh Lord, randy Prince Harry must be cursing his fate, and thousands and thousands of lascivious ancestors, that his royal playtime comes not just in the world of fiendish paparazzi and cable TV--his poor mother knew all that--but in a world where everybody carries a camera/video recorder. Should we be shocked that a charming prince is rompingly exercising his birthright's pleasures in his royal birthday suit (sorry, but all the crown jewel jokes have been taken) with naked commoners in history's latest Sin City? Hardly. I mean, come on, for a prince like Harry, those not cognizant of history (royals debauching themselves on a royal level) are condemned not to get any. Given the photos available, we might be shocked only at his modesty. But does the guy get a break? Does the world just shrug its common shoulders and say, princes will be princes? Not in this day and age, Harry. Sorry.
And so, today I'm recalculating my dreams. Out is the one about being the Prince of New Orleans, celebrating another Super Bowl victory in the buff with a dozen or score of my drunkest friends. In is the one where it's less than 85 degrees the next time I have to mow the lawn, the Browns and Indians finish .500, and Prince finally puts out another decent album.
What the hell, Cleveland, you're all right.
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