Nurse the Hate: Hate Cleveland

As the Cavaliers sputtered to the end to their 2006-07 NBA season, the local media is once again running pieces focused on how fortunate we were to enjoy coming in second...again. Smiling anchor heads with their shallow chit chat about how great this was for the city. "He He He, We'll get 'em next year! It was just great for them to be there." Fuck off. This is truly the City of Losers. You can smell the stench of it the second you hit the soil here. They should have a sign at the airport: Welcome to Cleveland, City of Failure. No one is more at home with the role of second best than the people of Northeast Ohio. Serve up a shit sandwich to the people here, and they'll thank you and cheerfully chew it down.

Two years ago I went to see the Indians play a must win game vs. the White Sox. The Tribe wins, they're in the playoffs. They lose, and the season is over. The White Sox, assured of a playoff spot, start a bunch of bench players and AAA call ups. The Indians lose (of course), and when the game ends, they have fireworks. Fireworks! Yeah!!! We lose again!!! The people should have rioted and crucified Slider on the Pepsi Home Run Porch. What did they do? Gleefully watch the fireworks.

This goes way beyond sports. It's in the character of the people. A complete lack of killer instinct drags this region down like an anchor. Downtown Cleveland is a crumbling grey shell of distant glories. Everything downtown is fucked up in some way. Instead of developing the only land people want (the lakefront), city decision makers decide to work on the Euclid Corridor Project. For those of you unfamiliar with this project, it's basically widening a road and making bus stops in between two destinations no one wants (or needs) to travel. Good news, the mentally ill will have nice new bus stops to panhandle. The real question is how many people will ride the transportation from near bankrupt Case Western University to the "New Calcutta" of Public Square. Here's an answer...Almost none. Why would anyone want to travel in the shit hole between Public Square and University Circle? Unless you are going to the Clinic, there's NO REASON to be there. And if you're going to the Clinic, you're going in an ambulance or your car from the suburbs. Way to really "go for it" Cleveland!

I'll enjoy the three nice months of weather here, and then begin to daydream of my escape from this cursed place. Unless, of course, the Tribe makes a run at it this year...It might actually happen this year. Right?