Being A Non-Prince In Cleveland Never Felt So Good

What the hell.

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.

Cleveland, Your Room Awaits You

Being civic-minded as usual, I cringed a little when I read this story about the San Francisco airport opening a yoga room. Why?! I cried. Why didn't my city, Cleveland, think of this first? Why Oh Why?! I cried. Why didn't I think of this for my city first? Not a yoga room per se for Cleveland's airport, but a room, any kind of a room, that screams Cleveland to the world's travelers as appropriately (within the bounds of family-values propriety) as a yoga room screams Frisco. Now I'm sure every city's airport will follow suit and construct a "signature" room. We could have been the first Cleveland.

Or could we have? Is there a theme room for Cleveland's airport that could succinctly express just what Cleveland is all about? I think there is. Several, at least, being such a diverse, heritage-rich city (Lord knows, based on the last time I was at the airport, there are enough empty gates there to house a bevy of Cleveland-themed rooms). Just off the top of my ever-spinning head, here are some ideas for CLE's own themed-room, offered gratis, as a proud native son.

• A Cholesterol Room: Nothing fancy, just some old couches, a TV with fair reception, a keg of Schmidt's, and plenty of bowls of snack foods, cheesy dips, brats, etc.
• A Take-a-Hubcap/Leave-a-Hubcap Room: A paean to the city's ubiquitous and man-sized potholes.
• A Fire Room: Nothing but a raging fire inside, to celebrate the city's fiery infamy when, within a few years, the city's river caught on fire, as did the mayor's hair.
• A Hater's Room: Maybe not politically correct, but what do we care? A room filled with effigies of all the folks we used to love but learned to hate at a moment's notice--LeBron, Art Modell, Albert Belle et al.--and those we never cared much about in the first place but seem to hate more and more all the time--John Elway, Michael Jordan, anyone from Pittsburgh.
•  A Dennis Kucinich Room: Who knows, maybe Sean Penn and Shirley MacLaine will hang out there.

No, no, I've got it. THE room to sum up Cleveland: Signs throughout the terminal direct you to a room where paradise, redemption, and salvation await you. Just around the corner, down that hall, to the left then jog right. You're almost there. See it up ahead, the room with the door opened on sunlight, soothing breezes, the whiff of fine cuisine and spirits, right in here ... and boom, the door shuts permanently in your face just as you're about to walk in. That's Cleveland. Get to work, CLE.

Succor For The Succor-Seekers

As any scribe should, I have nothing but the utmost respect for the actual people who were, and the entities who are now, Dear Abby and Ann Landers. And while I admire them deeply, I can honestly say I am hardly in their league. That said, among the variety of services I hope this blog provides its readers--including, but not limited to amusement, provocation, enlightenment, wisdom, diversion, etc.--I aspire at times also to gift you all with sound advice pertaining to your mundane lives, and I mean mundane in its literal, non-judgmental sense. With the aid of a little technology, I believe I am able to do so.

You see, behind the scenes here at spitoutyourgum, I am able to see all of the keywords/phrases, all of the search terms, that have led people, eventually, to this blog. Quite a handy tool, I must say. After wading through the most popular search terms--"take me to the best blog ever," "oh, interweb, make me laugh my ass off," "genius,"--I find the more obscure "one-offs": people looking for something very specific, and, it seems, very important to their lives. Sometimes I have to scratch my head and wonder how the combination of search terms led them here (and scratch my head further wondering if anything they might find here could possibly help them in their time of need). My hope always, and isn't it the root hope of all bloggers, is that even if readers don't find exactly what they're looking for, at my blog ultimately they will find succor. My blog truly succors. That's my purest hope.

And so, firm in the belief that there is a succor-seeker Googling every second, on this day of un-labor I will labor to provide succor to the succor-less. I must qualify things a bit before I begin, though: Although I happily play doctor, I am NOT a doctor; any advice given here is purely the fruit of years of sweaty experience and the wisdom therein gained--in other words, it ain't AMA-approved. Wade at your own risk. The following "questions" are the actual, verbatim search terms people have used to find their way to this blog.

Is a shot glass of nyquil deadly?

You're coughing up a storm, dude, and your nose is a train wreck, your throat is in agony, and your head begs for transplant and sleep is impossible--you better hope and pray NyQuil is deadly, or what's the point? Deadly, that is, not fatal. I find that at the first sign of any of the above symptoms, if I read the warnings carefully and with consideration, and pour as per instructions that red gold liquid into the plastic cup provided and gulp it greedily and chase it with nothing more potent than tepid tap water, within thirty minutes I'm out cold for the next eight hours and wake up feeling like Milton Berle in a gingham dress--natty, to the nines. Key words, "plastic cup provided." Not some Hooters shot glass you overspent for or the dreaded highball or the hoity toity snifter.

Should I wear a bra to bed?

I am creative. I do have an imagination. But I ain't no Joyce, Tolkien, or O.J. Simpson. I could not create or imagine such a question. It is a genuine query that somehow made it to this blog. Just what kind of answer the questioner gleaned from the heretofore contents of this blog, well, I plead the current let's not go there. But in my dedication to be the succorer to the succor-seeker, let me attempt to provide some support here. A former boss of mine was big on asking the "clarifying question." Oh, the clarifying questions that initial question conjures. But let's not be a boob about this. Am I correct in thinking that "to bed" means "going to sleep"? Because one might take to one's, or another's, bed for many reasons--attempting the day's crossword puzzle, eating cheese and crackers, removing the mattress tag, etc. Having never slept in a bra, I can't experientially comment on the pro's and con's of doing so. I just know that the thought brings to mind the word encumbrance and its delightful cousin-word unencumbered. Encumbered sleep offers little succor, from my vantage point. Having seen paintings of healthy-breasted women painted long before the invention of the bra (and doesn't the word brassiere have such richer connotations than the word bra?), I can hazard the guess that sleeping bra-less does no visible damage. That said, speaking from all points of view except a religious one (consult your minister, swami, guru, rabbi, whatever), I believe you should do what feels right for you, regardless of others' views, when it comes to going to sleep, to whatever degree of clad or unclad you feel okay with.

What does it mean when you dream of spit out your gum?

I notice the question is not "...when you dream of spitting out your gum." I also notice that it isn't spitoutyourgum, but still, I have to make the determination that the question pertains not to dreaming of any expectorative action but indeed dreaming of this particular blog. In which case, you obviously care more about this blog than I do, which all I can say is someone should. After due consideration I conclude that dreaming about this blog means one of two things: Either your life is fully unencumbered and you truly are living the dream, or you seem to be mixing something a bit edgy with your nightly NyQuil doses. Whichever, it sure beats dreaming of Mitt Romney, doesn't it?

What does your dreams mean when you can't spit out all of your gum?

On the surface, your question means you need some grammatical help with regard to subject verb agreements. Digging deeper, as a true succorer does, I believe the dream signifies a self-considered deficiency in being able to communicate effectively on your part. This blog takes its name from the Bob Dylan line "your words are not clear/you better spit out your gum." Thus, at its zenith, the wisdom dispensed by this blog is via Bob. You feel able to communicate somewhat--you clearly can spit out some of your gum--but not to the extent that you want to. If you're a woman, I suggest the usual remedies: a weekend at a spa, a month's worth of Dr. Phil TiVoing, joining a drum circle group, ice cream. If you're a man, buck up son, it's your lot in life--spit when and what you can and just chew on the rest, it gets better with age and other people's begrudging tolerance of you. I'm also kind of thinking, and it's merely inchoate musing at best, so take it for what it's worth to you, but maybe your nagging dream has something to do with sleeping in a too-encumbering bra.

Where is Cleveland Ohio?

All right, I can go on only my wise instincts here and deduce that that question, resulting as it did in the eventual arrival at spitoutyourgum (headquarted, coincidentally in Cleveland, Ohio, so I guess the short answer is "right here, relax, you found it"), is not a literal, geographic query, but a more philosophic, existential one. Where is Cleveland, Ohio indeed. It's smack on the faultline/divide of hope and despair. It's not the buckle but the third notch (the one you unhappily shift to after you've eaten seven too many pirogis in one sitting) on the Rust Belt. It's south of nowhere. If the obscure outpost up river Willard stumbles upon in Apocalypse Now is indeed "the asshole of the world," then Cleveland, Ohio is that itchy part on your back you can't reach without a long pencil. It is the place that Hollywood decides Detroit or Milwaukee represents better and is a decent stand-in for Stuttgart, Germany. It is the cluttered box in your basement where obsolete technology winds up. If it's not quite home to, it's the real-life destination for, those who sleep fitfully, encumbered as they are with NyQuil paranoia, mouths of unwanted gum, and bra quandaries, and are just hoping to toss and/or turn into the arms of a competent succorer.

The Existential Capital Of The World (Chokeland [nee Cleveland] Deserves A Non-Victory Parade)

If we've all been witnesses, isn't it time for a universal Witness Protection Program?

I must admit, for several hours after the Cavaliers' totally disheartening, mega-choking defeat at the hands of the Boston Celtics Thursday night, that was my thinking: change the name of the city to Chokeland, give all fans a new identity and ship them in secret to parts unknown to attempt living a new life. For the first time in my life I faced, starkly, with no more delusions clouding my eyes, the very real possibility that Cleveland's last victory parade, for the 1964 Cleveland Browns, when I wasn't even two years old, would be the only such parade I would live to enjoy (I recall being so happy at that moment of victory in '64 I promptly chugged my bottle, bellowed "Goo goo gaa gaa," and crapped in my pants).

But then the sun came up Friday. Just out of habit, I muttered as a I squinted; you can't expect the entire cycle of life to just shut down automatically so fast; give it another day or two. But then I saw a sight that immediately should have confirmed what I had assumed was impossible: life will go on. For walking across an empty, seagull-swooping parking lot, fresh off the 8:07 bus, was my boss, Joe, the most diehard, dedicated, optimistic Cleveland sports fan I know (the man owns a Tim Couch jersey, beat that). Joe (who was born several years after 1964) trudged up to the front door, snapping out his I-Pod ear things as usual, dug out his keys, grunted a good morning, and the workday commenced, like any other day. How unusual, I thought to myself, and kind of rejuvenating.

As you can guess, the sun has continued to rise in Cleveland all weekend, my car's still getting sucked into pot holes no matter all the road-repair orange barrels I serpentine through, people are still dressing to extremes in this fickle Cleveland spring (one guy in shorts and a tank top, another in a zipped up winter coat), and just yesterday I heard two guys, like cockroaches fighting over the last crumb after the world's been destroyed, arguing about the make-up of the Cleveland Indians pitching staff (the Cleveland Indians? weren't they this year supposed to be only a blip of interest to us for a homestand, at most, between the Cavs victory parade and the Browns starting training camp?).

So, against most people's expectations and hopes, life goes on in Cleveland. And the more I think of it, that's the point, the whole point, the only point of Cleveland. Life goes on. It exists, simply but profoundly. No extreme natural disasters to ruin us, no extreme civic ecstasies like world championships to excite us. We simply take the next jolt from the next pot hole and drive on to the next closed lane sign (we do road repair great in this town, just not road construction, or really any other kind of construction; the labor of mere existence pretty much precludes creation).

And so I think it's high time we recognize the fact of our "mere existence" status here in Cleveland. Recognize it, embrace it, as much as one can embrace such a neutral abstract concept, and dare I say it, begin to capitalize on it. I propose that Cleveland market itself as the Existential Capital of the World. Change the names of our main downtown thoroughfares from the optimistic, capitalism-embracing Euclid, Prospect, and Carnegie to Nietzsche, de Beauvoir, and Camus avenues. Change Quicken Loans Arena (the Q) to Kiekegaard Arena (the K), Browns Stadium to Sartre Stadium, Progressive Field to Heidegger Park. Instead of trying to seduce big businesses and conventions to come to town with sweetheart tax and hotel deals, let's lure all the gloomy coffeehouse denizens of the world to Cleveland with the promise of our gray skies. Our new marketing slogan can be something like, "Let's face it, life is a miserable existence; give in and spend yours in life's most miserable city." Or, "We have the world's best hospitals--come to Cleveland and prolong your meaningless existence in good hands." Or "You know it's all pointless--come to Cleveland where no community-unifying, temporarily-transcending sports team world championship will delude you into thinking otherwise."

Come on Cleveland, let's embrace the crude truth that there's really nothing to embrace except the fact that we exist, merely, like all those abandoned buildings in the "midtown corridor," and make some hay while the sun continues to shine on our potholes. Regardless of whether or not Cleveland Rocks, or ever really did or ever really will, Cleveland Is, and that's all that matters. Now somebody design a Statue of Existence, somebody chisel the words "Give us your whatever" on it, let's knock down that truth-defyingly named Terminal Tower (nothing is terminal in Cleveland; it goes on forever) and put the statue there, and let's throw a parade to celebrate the fact that we have nothing to celebrate except that fact that we're here.

Nobody loves a parade less than I do, but I say we round up all those millionaire athletes we've practically sold our souls to in the past in the (delusional) hope that they would deliver us a championship to distract us from our mere existence lives for a week or two, only to see them choke and fail, and make them, those millionaire athletes who choked away all our hopes, foot the bill for the greatest non-victory parade in the annals of the world. I'm talking the hallowed Dawgs of the late 1980s Browns who allowed the Drive and Fumbled away our hearts. I'm talking the 1997 (and throw in Sabathia from 2007) Indians who couldn't score enough runs in Game 7 so none of us had to endure Jose Mesa attempting a one-run save. And I'm talking LeBron, Shaq, Delonte, etc.--yeah, we witnessed you guys, now fork over some cash for confetti, port-a-johns, riot police (maybe Denver and Miami and Boston can kick in a few junkers from their impound lots for us to ceremonially trash and burn) and noisemakers so we can have our long-deserved parade already.

We exist...still...despite, dammit! Now throw us a parade.

Pere Ubu-Life Stinks

This Is Misery?

I've been thinking more about the Forbes magazine people putting Cleveland at the top of their list for most miserable U.S. cities. My initial gut reaction is to say that after years of hawking magazines, I haven't seen a whole lot of people buying Forbes, and those who do seem to me to be about the most miserable lot this side of those who buy All About Beer magazine (let's face it, if you have to read about beer, you're missing the point by a mile). My next thought is good, let outsiders think Cleveland is so miserable. That way they stay away and leave all of us here with enough elbow room to enjoy all the great things about the place.

Turns out the "misery index" these Forbes nabobs used included such trite, been-there-done-that items as crime, government corruption, housing foreclosures, unemployment, etc. Significant issues, sure, but hardly the be all and end all of daily life in the used-to-be-quite-big-but-dwindling-yearly city of Cleveland. So I started compiling my own anti-misery index, a list of various amenities that make living quite nice and serve as quite a powerful antidote, especially when considered en masse, to any perceived misery lurking in the environs.
A small but significant sampling of my anti-misery list (a list I'm sure any sentient person would agree is pretty universal and one in which Cleveland scores pretty high across the board, I might add) should go a long way to convincing the Cleveland put-downers they wouldn't know a knackwurst from a bratwurst if one or the other gave them gas for a week. See how many of the questions posed below your city can honestly answer a resounding YES to, as Cleveland easily does each and every one.

• Can you find five bars within a ten minute drive where they serve Guinness on tap and know how to pour one?
• Does a good percentage of the population know what a pierogi is?
• Can you get a good pierogi within a fifteen minute drive?
• Within ten minutes can you drive your landlord to the emergency room at dawn on a Sunday and be welcomed by the staff of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the greatest hospitals in the world, as I did this morning?
• Does your community have its own year-round collective catharsis entity (aka Cleveland professional sports teams) that acts as universal scapegoat, whipping boy, and repository for everyone's private miseries?
• Can you get anywhere worth getting to in your metropolitan area within thirty minutes, regardless of the time of day or night?
• Are you basically free from any catastrophic natural disaster, other than a measly blizzard every once in a while (okay, including April, but what's a baseball home opener without snowballs to throw at the opposing bullpen?)?
• Do the vast majority of your licensed drivers actually know how to drive in snow?
• Does your city's collective inferiority complex help to lessen your own individual one (I mean, how many New Yorkers or Parisians probably beat themselves up all the time, thinking, "I'm not worthy of my city"? That doesn't happen in Cleveland.)?

Michael Stanley Band-This Town

Location, Location, Location

According to Forbes, Cleveland is the most miserable U.S. city.

We're No. 1! We're No. 1! We're No. 1!

And, well, the Beatitudes kick ass.

Pere Ubu-Misery Goats