Lesbians

So, this Labor Day week is just about over. I worked my ass off, as usual, but didn’t get a chance to write about it (until now). My darling wife is out of town for the evening, and that’s about as close to freedom as I get. Did I get crazy with my crew? Nah. Did I take advantage of the opportunity to reconnect with old friends I haven’t seen in far too long? Nope. Did I stay home and rest up for what’s sure to be a long Labor Day celebration Saturday? Hell no!

I ended up chaperoning my 37 year-old buddy out to meet up with some of the folks he works with at a bar all-too conveniently near my office. Actually, he’s only interested in one particular person who was there, and needed some moral (or immoral) support.

Of course, he didn’t say two words to the woman (not even the best looking in her group, by the way), though not for lack of my trying. After watching him sulk for about an hour while she ignored him, I invited her to join us for beer (at a different bar — closer to her home) and ice cream (across the street from said bar — damn good ice cream!), and judging from the look she gave me, I might as well have offered to shave her head. She wasn’t interested. She didn’t have to say a word.

“Lesbian,” I told him.

“No way,” he said.

“Seriously,” I said, “she’s not into men.”

“And you can tell that based on that 30-second conversation?”

“Yes,” I told him.

“How?”

I wish I knew. It’s not that I’ve got some gift that no straight woman can resist an invite. It’s not that I spend any time at all “practicing” picking up girls. I don’t and never have. At 33, I’m married and pretty content with the way life has turned out. As such, however, I’m just not impressed or intimidated by women. I feel no pressure to show off or try to “work” them. What I tried to explain to my friend was that he just needs to be himself.

“Ask the girl out for ice cream, for crying out loud!” I implored. “Who doesn’t like ice cream?”

“Easy for you,” he said. “You’re not trying to [get her naked].”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’m not.”

“I just can’t,” he said.

“Then I will.”

So I did. And it turns out that she’s a lesbian. Neither one of us are slobs. We don’t look like serial killers. It’s not like this woman didn’t have her own ride or that our proposed destination was so far out of the way. Or that she was having such a great time where we were and didn’t want to leave. Or that she had someplace else to be, because she didn’t.

“Lesbian,” I repeated. “At least you know now.”

With that, I leave you with two musical selections from my friend and ex-pat Buckeye blogger, Tim, who’s got to be the coolest person you don’t know yet (if you don’t know him yet). Check out his weblog. Or his music page.

“Lesbian”

“Carolina in My Mind (Cheerleaders)”

Happy Labor Day!

Moon over the midway: Romance at county fairs – The Plain Dealer – Cleveland.com

Genius reporting from Andrea Simakis of the PD. Almost as cool as my story about leaving the mill during the carnival. No, really …

Moon over the midway: Romance at county fairs – The Plain Dealer – Cleveland.com

He is as tall as Chewbacca, and his shaggy Wookiee locks hang past his shoulders. He wears a black Misfits T-shirt and an air of ennui. She is an apple-cheeked pep-squader in Keds, her hair pulled tight into a high, rah-rah ponytail. The top of her head just reaches his armpit.

They pass the booth at the Lorain County Fair festooned with two giant ears of corn the size of toddlers, the boy loping, the girl bouncing. How they came together is one of the ineffable mysteries of the county fair universe — that and why all food must be battered and fried and why carnies must always smoke and glower.

There are few better places to watch the awkward, complicated negotiations of newly minted teen unions — the hand that slips too low and is removed, the furious red cheeks of the boy who can’t aim the dart and win the Shrek doll. Or to stare openly at the shameless gropings of long-time couples, their love undaunted by wilting humidity and the smell of grease and cow manure.

The House Next Door: 5 for the Day: Underdog Sports Movies

Alan Sepinwall rates his top 5 “Underdog Sports Movies” over at The House Next Door. Pretty excellent write-up, but not a single mention of Dodgeball – where would we be without The Ocho (ESPN 8)??? Major League does, however, make the list.

The House Next Door: 5 for the Day: Underdog Sports Movies

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to accept that my fake sports heroes aren’t always going to win (and, in a movie like Tin Cup, the miracle win would’ve been pretty lame), but I find myself enjoying the fake sports a lot more than the real thing these days. Maybe it’s because two of the three teams I follow, the NY Giants and Knicks, have made winning ugly into an artform, but it’s nice to be guaranteed a victory in scripted form (even if it’s just a moral one, like in Rocky).

An Inner-City Paradise Torn to Shreds – Regina Brett

From today’s PD, Regina Brett continues to document why my wife and I (and I presume many others in our position) are looking forward to getting the heck out at the first opportunity.

An inner-city paradise torn to shreds – Regina Brett – cleveland.com

Stanka is too scared for me to use her last name. But her work is there for everyone to see.Every day she pulls weeds, plants seeds and waters. Dozens of potted flowers line both sides of her driveway. Across the street where a house was torn down, she created a paradise.

Until the kids, black and white, tore through it.

Stanka lives near Clark Avenue on Cleveland’s West Side. She wipes the sweat from her wrinkles with a crocheted hankie. Across the street, birds flutter, crickets chirp, butterflies frolic, but all she can see are the dead.

NFL Season Preview: Cleveland Browns – Deadspin

Monday Morning Punter’s Cleveland Browns season preview from Deadspin. Not all that much actual football talk here, but it’s funny as Hell.

NFL Season Preview: Cleveland Browns – Deadspin

This whole Bengals-Browns thing got started in 1962. Browns owner Art Modell, perhaps in a microcosmic precursor to buttfucking an entire city, canned Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown, the culmination of a bitter power struggle, perhaps fueled by forbidden gay lust that both men felt toward one another. The proud head coach packed up his shit, sold his stake in the team, and, like so many people who visit Cleveland, got the fuck out of town.

Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band Fall Tour Itinerary

Might be a good year to tour with The Boss.

Bruce Springsteen News: brucespringsteen.net

YouTube – The New Pornographers – My Rights Versus Yours

YouTube – The New Pornographers – My Rights Versus Yours

The House Next Door: A sunbeam in the abyss

A follow up to yesterday’s celebrity gossip bit, only this one is much better done:

The House Next Door: A sunbeam in the abyss

As for the talk of warning signs, yes, Wilson co-wrote Tenenbaums, which contains a scene where ex-tennis pro Richie Tenenbaum (played by Owen’s brother Luke) slashes his wrists over a woman, and yes, Wilson (and Anderson) could not have written it persuasively unless they had experienced despair. But what person hasn’t experienced despair? All that scene tells me is that Wilson is a funny, honest writer who has had dark thoughts and isn’t afraid to write them down. That scene is not his Rosebud, any more than the Elliott Smith song that serves as its soundtrack, “Needle in the Hay,” foretold Smith’s death by his own hand. Smith wrote a lot of songs that sound in retrospect like obvious cries for help, but Neil Young and Lou Reed wrote dozens more, and they’re both in their sixties and still prolific.

Parties Over

I used to dread Labor Day — the symbolic end of summer, the beginning of chilly nights and anything to do with the idea of raking leaves and going back to school.

Half-shirt and miniskirt season in Northeast Ohio ends this weekend, and that’s OK with me this time around.

I’m tired of summer. I’m tired of insects at backyard barbecues, hot and sticky street fairs, crying kids at The Jake, pulling weeds out of my garden and sitting in construction traffic on I-480 twice every goddamn day.

I want my life back.

I had about 35 of my wife’s friends over for a cookout on Saturday (yeah, I grilled about 30 burgers and another 30-some hot-dogs and sausages in between beers), and we went to a picnic with my work family Sunday. Tonight, we spent the evening at the Aeros’ game in Akron with her work family. Every weekend all summer’s been like this.

Complicating matters has been my travel schedule. I’ve been gone more than home since May. Every weekend is somebody’s birthday, graduation or retirement party. Is it too much to ask for a weekend off?

We don’t even have kids … How the Hell do regular people do it? I dunno.

All I know is that it’s almost over and I’m relieved — really relieved. And hey, let’s face it, autumn isn’t too bad around here.

In an area of the country that’s been historically, economically and socially linked to the Steel Industry, what better season is there than when the colors of nature match the colors of a blast furnace, glowing all orange, yellow and red?

Looking forward past Labor Day, in my rust-tinged daydream, I can’t help remember being 23 years old ten years ago working summer help double shifts with my dad into late September and early October. I remember watching the Indians play in the World Series at the end of one afternoon turn on a tiny television one of the foremen brought into the break shanty.

And I remember the brisk air that stung our lungs with the smell of burning leaves on the way out of the mill to our parked cars. The best, though, was the night there was a carnival of some sort at the park across the street from our plant, and the chemical smells of the mill were replaced that night with the delirium-inducing scents of cotton candy and fried dough dusted with cinnamon and sugar.

It’s hard to imagine getting back to that place, except in these late summer ruminations.

Gossip Roundup: Sometimes A Butterscotch Pony Gets Depressed – Gawker

Because this is a new weblog, I feel the urge to explain that celebrity gossip is not something you’ll see from me very often or at all, even, except for the rare occasions that Gawker gives it a title that plays on the title of yet another awesome Silver Jews song …

Gossip Roundup: Sometimes A Butterscotch Pony Gets Depressed – Gawker
Owen Wilson was mysteriously hospitalized yesterday and, while no respectable news organization has reported this yet, he’s rumored to have slit his wrists and taken pills. Owen, honey. Well. It is a bummer that Kate Hudson is dating Dax Shepard.