Imagine Being A Browns Fan

 

Wrap your mind around this scenario. You’re a native of Cleveland, minding your own business in the late 90s (no, I’m not going to look up the exact year that the Browns moved, bite me), possibly in a good mood, maybe even eating a hoagie on a park bench taking in a nice sunset out over Lake Erie, when you find out that Art Modell has absconded to Baltimore with your beloved NFL team. You then have to wait a couple years to get another team, while your ex, rebranded as the Ravens, almost immediately started shitting out super bowls when they landed in Baltimore. Ed Reed could have been on your team. Instead you were adding failed QBs to an overcrowded t-shirt.

Fast forward 25 years, not only are the Ravens still good, but now they have one of the best QBs in the NFL and go to the playoffs every year. And your expansion team, still named the Browns (a quick aside: y’all coulda changed the name! You didn’t have to stay named after your in state rival’s fail family. Mike Brown is the human extension of your franchise!), trades a bucket of picks to the Texans (quite the mystery how they got so good so fast) to debase yourself by signing noted sex criminal Deshaun Watson to a hilariously large and rather naive guaranteed contract. Now the reasonable thing to do would be to walk away from your Browns fandom for a couple years. Or……you could root for a sexual predator. Should be an easy choice. And yet, it wasn’t for a lot of Browns fans. Not only did they root for him but some also defended him and a select few even went so far as to make light of why he had to settle over 20 lawsuits against him. All that just to watch him stink it up every game he played for you. It’s telling that when Deshaun got hurt yesterday it made me sad, not because of the injury, because he can fuck off, but because I wanted him to continue playing to essentially guarantee that the Bengals would win. The Browns hitched their wagon to his dying star, and now he is so untradeable because due to him sucking at football, and his contract is so unwieldy that he’s basically marooned your franchise on the loser belt in the trash nebula. Right where the Browns belong.

Burrow's Teeth

 

Joe Burrow had regular teeth in college. He won a national title with perfectly normal teeth. He looked very fucking cool sitting there smoking his cigar in the LSU locker room with those teeth. He was still working with the same set of denticles while his knee got mangled his rookie year in Cincy. 

When he shows up for his second year with the Bengals, he shows up not only with a better, less cowardly knee, but with some big ole fresh dice in his mouth.

Now why did he do that? Did he blame his old obsolete teeth for his knee injury? Maybe. Seems like a fairly logical jump to make considering Ohio’s Motto until their centennial in 1903 was a classic in Midwestern serenity, “Lean in the Tooth? Might as well be Dead.”

What else spurred him towards the decision? Here’s my theory, which has zero holes.

I think Joe visited a witch of the woods when his knee was jacked, and the old crone looked into her orb and began slowly incantating, “The Great Conjunction’s thirst is only slaked through sacrifice and rebirth,” until the tiny murmur became a din echoing around the forest from one swaying tree to the next.

Then he went to New York City and met with some piece of shit ad exec with slicked back hair and a white bathing suit that told him if he wanted to be the next face of Bose Headphones he was gonna need “Dangerous Nights” teeth.

Joe put two and two together. The witch was talking about sacrificing his old teeth on the altar of the Great Conjunction, and be reborn on the banks of the Ohio with beautiful new chompers. It was settled, he went and got new whitewalls and things started clicking. Deep playoff runs. Quarter billion dollar contract. Dominating the runway Kramer-style in a backless black suit at Paris Fashion Week. The teeth play.

On the darker side of the ledger, since Joe’s gotten these new teeth, there have been some troubling, monkey paw-esque developments, which tends to happen when you involve witches. He was forced to take a proof of life photo with Trump. That was, umm, not ideal. Although I’d chalk that one up to his guy Bosa really wanting a photo with the Big Man, and Joe getting stuck at the wrong place and wrong time. There is also the whole Aftab putting a hex on the team debacle that needs a counterweight.

I think Joe knows what needs to be done before September. Roll the bones again. Continue the cycle of sacrifice and rebirth the witch whispered into the cosmos, and change up. This time, go even bigger, get the teeth that Jim Carrey has when he wears The Mask. Those are super bowl winner teeth. Get some teeth big enough that if they bit a horse’s haunches the horse would rear back in anguish but eventually have no choice but to show begrudging respect.

The Aftab Curse

 

The Bengals had already beat the Chiefs heading into the playoffs. They had bounced them out of the playoffs the year before. Ja’Marr Chase had their secondary lashing out at perceived and real threats. The Chiefs as a whole were sitting at home at night stewing over whether the only recently competent Bengals were really the team that had their number. And they were right to be looking in the mirror and ruminating on if it was over for them just as quick as it had started. Heading into their AFC Championship game with the Bengals in late January of 2023, things were a little wobbly for Reid and Mahomes when it came to playing us.

And then, something really fucking stupid happened. Actually ‘happened’ isn’t the right word, since happened sort of makes it sound like the thing just aperated itself out of nowhere. Something really fucking stupid was planned and executed in the least well thought out, most hamfisted fashion, and may have altered the trajectory of the Great Conjunction for at least the last year and change.

As far as I can tell, Aftab and possibly Lis Smith, an infamous democrat consultant rumored to be working for Aftab at the time, decided to cast the Bengals asunder by committing to film a seminal work in their tone-deaf, problematic, and positively juiceless mayor-before-a-big-game “trash talk” video. When I saw that video I knew we were cooked in the AFC Championship Game, and then after the game when Kelce got to rightfully call Aftab a Jabroni, we entered a phase of cookedness that’s usually only reserved for bible characters and the federally indicted. I mean, last year was a farrago of crossed signals. The dynamic trio of Eli, Vonn and Jesse left. Burrow got hurt, played his way back to health and hope, and then got slammed to the ground so hard on his wrist he couldn’t grip a football. Big Irv’s talent got squandered. The defense fell apart. And eventually we missed the playoffs. This year remains cloudy. Hopefully it was only a light 13 month curse that momentarily swerved us off our path to eternal glory. If anything can do it, bringing Vonn home, the flash point of the conjunction, has to help the winds of change turn back in our favor.

Or maybe Aftab dropped us back into the abyss where we found ourselves wandering for decades after we injured Bo Jackson. We’ll find out in a couple months!

YOLO...or...Be All Pragmatic and Shit

 

On the pod I think I’ve talked about the concept of holding two competing ideas in your head at once even though they contradict each other, well that’s kinda where we are with the duality of the Tee franchise tag situation. We’ve been talking about it for a full year and I still haven’t really decided what the correct course is. I mean, in my heart of hearts I know what I want. But it’s sort of a, ‘god that Big Buford would really hit right now’, versus ‘that juicy, delicious, sauced up affordable cheeseburger is bad for your health!’ Do you want to watch one more year of Tee and Ja’Marr and Burrow making it nigh impossible to stop the offense when it’s fully clicking, or is the rational side of your brain screaming, “TRADE HIM FOR PICKS! WE CAN’T LET HIM WALK FOR NOTHING!” Both sides are right, just depends on what vantage you have of the prism. And honestly, I think fans should be able to be selfish and in the moment by saying I want more Tee on the Bengals, the future be damned, and not have the savvy serious folk intone that you’re a sweet summer child for not trying to flip him for picks. 

Here’s where I’m at: I don’t think it’s particularly enjoyable to only think about cap numbers and the draft and roster construction. Seems like a miserable way to consume sports. I think it’s more fun to not worry about shit as a fan. I don’t give a fuck what the Benagls cap number is, I just want them to be good next year. We can figure out the down the road shit…down the road. Each season is its own story, it has its own narrative arc, and when one season is unfolding, I think people should just enjoy it. So for next season I would like Tee to still be a Bengal because that will make the viewing experience more enjoyable to me, the center of my own universe.

I mean, I kinda omitted the obvious solution to all this, which is that they could have handed Tee a long term contract and figured the rest out later. But…the Mike Brown family and his shifty doppelganger son and meh daughter and Jos A Bank Suit salesman lookin ass son-in-law always cry poor when it comes to ponying up. Kinda an aside but I blame fantasy football for the rise of the fan that would rather be the GM than one of the players. Too many excel-heads out there. Like why ever take Mike Brown’s side when it comes to players getting paid. Why ever say that someone is overpaid? Stop pocket watching. Get your own numbers up. Where was I though, oh yeah, I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s cool if you want Tee for one more year, and it’s also cool if you think you have to trade him for the future posterity of the team. Just don’t talk to me about it though, cause I want more Tee as a Bengal, consequences be damned.

A Who Dey Carol

On the night before the Bengals play the Bills for AFC supremacy, Kitty Katz is sitting in his living room, watching the Princess Diana Bengals video for the 7,000th time, when he gets a call from Giants Tim. They go over their yearly Bengals/Giants Bets. Giants Tim asks if he is going to the Bills game. Kitty informs him that he will never give Mike Brown a penny again, but that he will be watching it at the local watering hole, Second Place, where he will be drinking 50 cent Narragansetts, because Monday night is half priced drafts, and for the hour before Bengals games, Narragansetts are $1, hence the 50 cent drafts. 

Later that night Kitty is then visited by three apparitions, the Ghost of Who Dey Past, the Ghost of Who Dey Present, and the Ghost of Who Dey Yet-To-Be. 

The Ghost of Who Dey Past, Big Daddy Wilkinson shows up to remind Kitty how bad it used to be to be a fan of the Bengals in the 90's, and to not take the current team for granted. He also goes on a long diatribe about how he wasn't a bust, and it wasn't his fault that Mike Brown put such a crappy team around him, muttering about Rod Toast Jones and Rico McDonald, and in a different scenario he would have been a perennial all pro. He eventually wanders away after he loses his train of thought. 

The Ghost of Who Dey Present, Vonn Bell appears and exhorts Pretty Kitty to make sure Erica at 2P plays the fucking song if he wants to see the Bengals beat the Bills. Otherwise something bad might befall Eli Apple during the game. He says that he needs to balance the zen calm with the deranged to travel the path to glory. Vonn ends up getting annoyed and leaves when Paul just wants to talk to him about that 2015 Semifinal Game Ohio State played against Bama where Cardale was smashing folks like the big boulder from Indiana Jones. 

The Ghost of Who Dey Yet-To-Be: Retired Joe Burrow knocks on his door in a full length mink coat and Kangol Bucket Hat. He comes in and talks to P Kitty about what happens to the Bengals after he retired in 2032 after winning two super bowls with the Bengals. The years following his departure were not kind to Bengals fans. They brought Andy Dolphin out of retirement to be the starter. They go 1-16. They get the first pick in the draft and take Eli Manning's son, Strahan Manning. Manning blows, but they start him for four years anyway since the Browns didn't want to eat the guaranteed money they still owed him. The team goes 20-48 in those years. Zac Taylor somehow is still the fucking coach. The Bad Bungles are back and they're never leaving again, so you may need to find something else to do with your life. Retired Burrow suggests clean up his act, stops drinking and smoking, starts working out and maybe even don the little itty bitty kitty cap (yarmulke) and start attending Temple. Retired Joe Burrow is told to fuck off. 

The End

The Bungling Is The Culture

UPDATE FROM THE END OF 2022: SHIT, HE'S KIND OF DOING A GOOD JOB.

I turned on the Bengals preseason game on Friday after the Reds game ended, cause Votto eats first in this household, and Kyle Schurmur was playing QB for us. I look him up to confirm my suspicions that he was related to Pat Schurmur, a mediocre journeyman NFL coach. It's his son, crazy! I then wondered what was the nepotism connection that got Kyle Schurmur onto the roster. Well, my stars, Schurmur hired Anarumo to be on his staff for the Giants in 2018. So as a favor, Anarumo probably lobbied the Bengals to bring Schurmur's son onto the team this year. Because that's how things work in the NFL, and also, American society at large. It's also how white people get to keep failing upward seemingly forever. I then went back further so I could see what the nepo-nnection was between Anarumo and Taylor, and wouldn't you know, Taylor, Anarumo and Mike Sherman were all a part of the Dolphins staff in 2012. That Dolphins staff is how Zac Taylor got his big break into NFL coaching, because his father in law is Mike Sherman, another mediocre journeyman coach, was the OC for the Dolphins that year. So the Bengals have a bunch of bad coaches because they were all buddies from a bad Dolphins staff like 10 years ago. Not because they earned their jobs on merit. Taylor certainly hasn't earned a damn thing considering he was a part of that Tuberville disaster at UC. Anarumo is a career DB's coach that never once was deemed good enough to be a Defensive Coordinator during his career, but now is for us. And look at the results! They're bad! Back to Schurmur though. Instead of givng a legit QB a shot at being on the roster we have a trash failson instead. Those are the kinds of decisions, when layered on top of each other, that keep the Bengals losing in perpetuity. I mean, look at the top, Mike Brown is a failson, moving downward, Zac Taylor is a failson in law. Duke Tobin is a failson (his dad was an NFL lifer). I wonder how he got his job? Real headscratcher there. The Bengals are an organization made up of failsons. Maybe Joe Burrow will save us? Maybe all these failsons will get him hurt again and we'll be bad forever? Can hardly wait to find out!

Just The Dumbest Argument

Multiple times over the last couple years I've had something said to me in a "gotcha" sort of way that has always made me shake my head and dismiss the person by telling them to fuck off, and then I'd move along. The sentiment is always a variation of, "You grew up with privilege so you can't talk about inequality or want better things for others." To me it's an aggressively stupid and disingenuous argument. Since I grew up without worrying about rent or bills or meals I'm not allowed to want others to also grow up without those worries? The next step after seeing and getting your arms around your own privilege is then demanding that others also get to have the same opportunities afforded to them. Why the fuck would I want to pull the ladder up after me instead of helping others climb up? I've never been terrorized by cops. And I don't think anyone else should be either (I mean, I don't think we should even really have cops but that's a different conversation). I've never been drowned in debt, and I don't think anyone else should be either. I've never had a medical problem that I couldn't afford. And I don't think anyone else should have to worry about choosing between their medicine or groceries that month. I've never had to flee a war torn country only to get yanked away from the rest of my family and put in a cage at the US Border. And I don't think anyone else should have that happen to them either. I don't understand why people are so spiteful to the less fortunate. Instead of me low key getting called a class traitor or a race traitor for wanting everyone to have a better life, this shit needs to get flipped so the people that are so protective and greedy about their own privilege need to get called out and shamed for being such shitty people that they can only think about helping themselves, everyone else be damned. That kind of person can fuck off. We need to be done with lionizing the massively greedy and start going after them for not sharing in the wealth or helping others, or really doing anything for anyone beside themselves. You can't take it with you. 

Voting Ain't Enough

(AP Photo / Matt Rourke)

As the world crumbles a lot of people might think, “What’s the point of doing anything, we’re already fucked?” That sentiment is depressing, but it’s not crazy. I think the answer lies in the idea that if you think things are fucked, you have to try to unfuck them. They won’t fix themselves. The powers that be won’t fix them without a serious struggle to force their hand. We can't count on just elections and voting. Congress newcomers like AOC are moving the conversation (mostly women of color, hmmm?) towards more substantive action but pinning your hopes solely to congress is a fool’s errand. There are too many old entrenched shitheads in congress that only care about clinging to the status quo to put much faith in them turning course. They ain’t gonna change shit without crushingly massive amounts of pressure from who they're supposed to 'represent'.

I want to live in a world where everything isn’t fucked. And that means we have to break free from capitalism and the police state's death grip. Almost every problem in our society traces back to putting the interests of wealth and power over the interests of the people. The groups that accumulate these vast swaths of wealth and power do not care, nor will they ever care, about anything besides furthering their own interests. They won’t willingly change the structures that work so well for themselves. We have to wrest that control from them. One course of action is to build a movement of people that is impossible to ignore (the other is to burn it all down). That means we have to start small and grow. We have to bring in diverse working class communities. We have to collaborate and develop trust with like-minded organizations. We can’t get bogged down in minutiae. We have to continually push forward and outward so the work and movement can spread to the overlooked, the marginalized, the vulnerable. That is where real power lies hidden. Capitalism divides people. Pits them against each other. Plays the blame game. And they use the police and mainstream media to quell any meaningful dissent. We need to get past that. We need to direct this collective fury in the right direction. It’s the people at the top that need to be brought low. So we need to take away their privilege. Stop letting obscenely wealthy corporations skate on taxes and call their shots on regulatory oversight. Demand the defunding of police departments in conjunction with public oversight on how they conduct themselves.

The CEO’s. The Landlords. The Politicians. The Merchants of Wealth and Power. They are the problem. The sooner we can bring that understanding to the people the sooner we can unfuck what capitalism has created. We don’t have a choice. Voting and electing moderate Democrats only reshuffles the deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s incrementalism that can and will be reversed. They aren’t interested in changing a system that they benefit from. Do you think Schumer and Pelosi and Dem Party leadership are going to do a damn thing to help change underlying causes of inequality and injustice in this country? No, they won’t. They can’t even guarantee people the right to vote, let alone enact change. We need fundamental change, not a bipartisan marketplace of ideas. We need Medicare For All, not 'access' to 'affordable' healthcare. You have to fight fire with fire, not with some half hearted optimism about checks and balances and blue waves. That shit is all window dressing that obfuscates what really needs to be done to unfuck our society. Putting power in the hands of the people, and getting rid of moneyed politicians controlled by wealthy jackals and enforced by their badged goons.  

Long Night's Run

I left work on Friday around noon, Tim’s flight was getting in to Cincy around then and we were meeting at my place. I gassed up the car before getting on 71, and then went inside for a hot dog in case we were on the road for a while before stopping to eat. I grabbed one off the roller and put it in a bun. Once I got to the counter the plain hot dog rolled right out of it’s bun and slowly meandered across the well worn transactional space in front of the cashier, who didn’t make any reaction to the sad escape attempt. I think they were acknowledging the understood agreement that some things are better left not remarked upon. I paid, put the dog back in it’s bun and ate it in a couple bites before I reached the car. The Western Road Trip had officially started.

The first leg of the trip was going to be the second worst one, only trailing the last stretch back to Cincy at the tail end of the trip. It was a long night’s run from Cincy to the Badlands without stopping for anything besides gas and dogs. We had to cover that distance overnight to make sure that our schedule for the rest of the trip held together.

As we were rolling through northern Iowa, starting to go road crazy after 8 hours or so, I came up with a ridiculous, kind of disturbing, and ultimately amazing (my opinion) game show idea, but I have to keep it under my hat for now because I have every intention of producing this game show at some point, and it would be a shame if someone stole it from me because I tossed I laid it out in detail for free right here. Fuck that. Let’s just say, people “die” when they answer incorrectly. Iowa brings the worst out in people. I think the point is that when you’re driving through Iowa at night, with nothing to keep your mind from wandering into dark corners, you may end up conjuring up the greatest idea of your life.

Fuck Your Civility

Civility is bullshit. It’s a way for people with power to insulate themselves from the real world. It’s a game they play where they make up the rules as they go along and you will never ever get a hang of them. Who gives a shit about being civil? How does it help you? Do you think that the real world is a civil place? Do you think corporations putting profits over people is the civil thing to do? Do you think turning public space into private space is civil? Do you think cutting away social safety nets is civil? Do you think racism is civil? Capitalism spits in civility’s face?

It’s all a bullshit way to disqualify people from voicing their fury over what is happening to them. When someone tells you that “unless you’re civil we can’t have this conversation,” you should double down on incivility. People call for civility when they don’t like where a discussion is heading, because they know they’re in the wrong and would like to turn the conversation into a matter of semantics instead of substance. They put their powdered wig on and only will converse with other people that also have powdered wigs among an array of fainting couches. Don’t go and try to get yourself a powdered wig. Fuck powdered wigs.

These delicate people’s bubbles need bursting. Otherwise they’ll never see the effects of their decisions. Fearful people are more responsive to pressure. If someone living in a golden tower on the east side isn’t worried about what might happen to them based on their decisions, if they’re feeling breezy about how things are going, then why would they ever change course. Don’t engage in civility with people that center their whole lives around fucking other people over. They don’t care about civility. It’s a parlor trick created at a country club. It’s a cudgel that they use to silence the masses. Don’t give up your own cudgel of rage just because they say the rules demand it. The rules are bullshit. There is nothing to win abiding them.

Shakedown



A couple years ago FC Cincinnati emerged fully formed onto the local sports scene. FC had a lot of things going for it. Soccer is fun to watch because there are no interminable commercial breaks. They play at Nippert Stadium, which is a beautiful venue to consume sports and beer. And they were immediately competitive in their league because they were willing to spend more on talent than a lot of their minor league counterparts. These things helped them cultivate a sizable and vocal local fan base that attend their matches in droves (average attendance at Nippert last year was a little over 21,000), which in turn attracted the attention of the MLS, the top soccer league in America. Attracting the MLS has been the plan for FC Cincy all along. Much like Minnesota United’s new team, part of their MLS plan has been getting a new stadium subsidized by public money (St. Paul and Minnesota are giving their team upwards of $90 million in public money!). Minnesota is not the only team to get public funding for a private enterprise. The MLS and all professional sports in America have a long history of shaking down cities and regions for extravagant amounts of money (Hello Bengals and Reds).

FC Cincinnati and their MLS designs are owned by a group of Cincinnati aristocrats, most notably, the Lindners, but also David Thompson, Jeff Berding, Scott Farmer, and others. The Lindners and their chums are only about one thing, accumulating wealth. FC Cincy might be partly a passion project for them, although I have my doubts, but it’s still first and foremost a money-making endeavor. When the ownership group gets what they want out of the team, i.e. a new stadium and MLS entry, they’ll have achieved their goal. Once they’ve achieved their goal, which is hoovering up as much money as possible from owning the team (mostly through possessing a shiny new stadium that inflates the franchise value if they ever choose to sell the team), they’ll stop spending on good players, the team will stop being competitive because of lack of talent, fans will lose interest and stop buying tickets, and then the ownership group will falsely claim that owning the team is untenable since they are losing money (because no one goes to the matches anymore because they stopped spending on talent), and will be forced to sell the team (conveniently glossing over that it’ll be worth a lot more in the sale after they have a shiny new stadium and MLS membership than when they started in the minors at Nippert). The city will have another stadium they don’t need. And the taxpayers will be left holding the bag, again. This passage is from an article on deadspin,  

“In 1996, Jeff Berding, now the president and GM of FC Cincinnati, led a campaign for a half-percent sales tax increase to pay for two new stadiums: Great American Ballpark for the Reds and Paul Brown Stadium for the Bengals. Now, it’s largely considered the worst stadium deal in American history. In 2010, Paul Brown Stadium costs took up 16.4 percent of Hamilton County’s general budget. In 2015, the county, per lease terms, had to fork over $7.5 million for a $10 million scoreboard upgrade.”  The Lindners already played this shit with the Reds. They think everyone forgot how dirty they did the city back then by getting a new stadium, not spending enough to make the Reds competitive, and then selling the team for a giant profit.

Back in March, I was heartened to see that the West End rejected the deal Jeff Berding and FC were trying to make to build their stadium in their neighborhood. That deal was then revived after career ladder climber PG Sittenfeld’s support flipped the City Council vote from a no to a yes. Last week the West Side Community Council got strong armed by their backroom dealmaking president, Keith Blake, to ratify a new CBA agreement, one that will "help" the community. Unfortunately the sort of “economic development” that would come along with a stadium is not the kind that will actually raise up the West End. It is the kind that pushes out generations of people that have lived there and should continue to be able to live there in favor of rich people playground bullshit. People in the West End won’t benefit from having a stadium. Stadiums don’t revitalize neighborhoods. They don’t create jobs for the existing community. They’re a boon for corporations and upscale housing developers. They pull the roots out and don’t plant anything to replace it. Jeff Berding is a blight on Cincinnati.

Here is what FC so magnanimously laid out for the West End in the finalized Community Benefits Agreement (in exchange for city funding and a stadium site, as well as not having to pay sales tax on building materials or other property taxes through another crooked deal they are pushing through the Greater Cincinnati Redevelopment Authority (formerly the Port Authority). The West End will receive:

• The team will pay $100,000 annually for 30 years to West End organizations.
• The team will transfer options it holds on West End land to the redevelopment authority to build "affordable mixed-income market-rate housing." 
• Prevailing wages will be paid to stadium construction workers.
• For construction, the team will commit to hiring 25 percent minority-owned businesses, 7 percent women-owned businesses and 30 percent small businesses.
• West End businesses will be preferred for any contract.
• The team will work to give those in low-income areas, including the West End, the first chance at jobs, including those with criminal records.
• The team will consult with the community to provide protections in regards to parking, stadium design, security, beautification and the creation of a complaint process.
• A $20,000 entrepreneurship program at Mortar, a minority-owned business development service based in Over-the-Rhine, will be offered to West End residents. 
• A scholarship program will be established for students at West End Schools.
• A West End Athletic Association will be formed to promote athletics in the neighborhood.

Mona Jenkins of Mass Action for Black Liberation had this to say about the West End Stadium Deal, “Time and time again, the voices of black residents get ignored for the greed of profits. We saw this happen in Over-the-Rhine, it’s happening in Walnut Hills and this has happened multiple times in the West End. For years, the West End has asked for a grocery store, a laundromat, and other needs of the community and they were ignored. They didn’t ask for a stadium nor were they included in the decision or process. There has been a history of broken promises in the West End and the residents are not falling for it again. This development will cause displacement, it will destroy the rich history and culture of the neighborhood.”

The Lindners push for a stadium and to be bumped up to the MLS is not about civic pride or soccer. It’s about raising the valuation of the team so that the people that own it can become richer. Building them a stadium would be a state and city funded handout to people who have more money than god. Let them fund and build their own goddamn stadium on a floating barge in the river if they want one so bad.  And on that note, Cranley and the city constantly cry poor when needing to fund critical services for the working class of our city. But when it comes to helping out his big money donors he’s got a gazillion dollars squirreled away in a rainy day fund to shower upon them. Fuck Cranley, fuck FC, fuck Berding, and fuck a new publicly funded stadium in the West End.

Desert Days

This is a story about the Desert and history and me trying to gather a lot of my disparate thoughts about it.

Right before the inauguration I decided I wanted to see some of the places that make America special before they potentially get ruined by short sighted money grabbing or our world ending, so I put together a trip with some friends to go see some of the American Southwest and get a feel for why it looms so large in the collective imagination of our country, and specifically myself.

The trip happened a week ago. I met some friends (King, Josh, and Tim) in Las Vegas, we rented a car immediately upon leaving the airport, and drove away from Vegas as quickly as the road could take us. I want to take a quick moment to denigrate Las Vegas since it deserves to get called out for what it truly is, a hellish place designed to remove people from their money as quickly and effectively as possible. Vegas is a blight upon this country. The sinkhole city wasn’t a part of the trip other than being being well placed in terms of an airport and a good reminder of where we needed to get to, the Desert.

The Desert, in my head, is a place full of scarcity and death and decline and struggle. It’s remote and mysterious, things seem to appear and disappear without warning. Its a place left alone in our country because it has very little to give. It is also a place of staggering beauty amidst and amplified by it’s stark surroundings.

The Narrows

The first place we went to was Zion. Driving into the park you’re flanked on all sides by jagged giant tall ass rock formations. I don’t know if they’re technically mountains or not, it didn’t matter to me. It took us a while to get our bearings, as in we took the wrong road through a really really long tunnel that was perfectly hewn out the side of a mountain almost all the way out of the park before finally figuring out where we needed to get to, which was the Narrows. The Narrows is where the Virgin River gets hemmed in by two walls of rock to the point where it is really moving with some force. Once we got to the end of the trail that led along the river you either look at the start of the Narrows and turn back or you get wet. Our intrepid leader because he had previously been to Zion, Tim, already knew what was in store at the end of the trail so he just waded into the river and figured we would have no choice but to follow. He was right, we followed. Trekking upstream in the Narrows was a bit treacherous considering I'm not a particularly balanced person, especially when you tried to move laterally instead of straight, but we all made it across to an embankment where we could stow our cell phones before going further upstream. I was wearing jeans and sneakers for this, which went from worn out costco to dark designer jeans during the second leg of the river fording. I guess I should just be thankful that neither of my shoes got pulled off in the current, since I hadn’t packed any other footwear for trip. The Narrows was the first time that we encountered what would become a reoccurring theme. The National Parks are amazing no matter what or how you experience them, but the large amount of people around isn’t ideal. When you go off the beaten path though, and it gets quiet, and there isn’t anyone else around, you can get a sense of how wonderful and holy these places are.

That night we stayed at a house out in the middle of nowhere on route 89 between Zion and Bryce Canyon, and against my misbegotten worries that we would end up engulfing the entire area in flame, we built a fire in the desert consisting of scrub brush and driftwood. It did not smell like a normal camp fire. It was more of a bitter aroma. I think I still have some of the smoke residue stuck in my sinuses. But it was an experience to be out under the stars in the middle of the desert, no light to be seen except for what my friends had built and what was in the sky.

Bryce Canyon at Sunrise

The next morning we woke up well before dawn to catch sunrise at Bryce Canyon. On paper this was a great plan, in practice it wasn't easy to get teh day started considering we hadn’t extinguished the fire until an hour or two after midnight. Luckily Utah deals mostly in 3.2 Beer so getting up wasn’t nearly as tough as it could have been with normal non-mormonized beer. Sunrise at Bryce Canyon was worth it though. Watching the light change overhead, then on the horizon, then having the sun crest over the ridge line to start bathing the canyon in light and long shadows was incredible to behold. For a non religious person, I guess I could call that sort of thing my church service. Supplication to the rising of the Sun God. Somehow it would turn out to only be an opening act towards what was in store for the next day. After sunrise we walked along the rim to where we would start our descent into the canyon, and mine into madness (sorry, can’t help myself, when else am I ever going to get to write that phrase). The way down was incredibly beautiful, with steep sharp switchbacks and great views of the individuals and groupings of dick rocks (hoodoos). Once at the bottom we took the trail to meet up with the Peekaboo Loop that would end up being the semi-end of me. The Peekaboo Loop was three miles long. I was dead tired and huffing and puffing after the first half mile. I am admittedly not in the greatest shape. I smoke. I'm at optimal weight. I had just inhaled hours worth of odd smelling camp fire the night before. And we were at an elevation of 7,000 feet. I was toast before we even started down into the Canyon. So the Peekaboo consisting of only straight uphill and straight downhill did not agree with my body or mind. I was cursing at my friends, cursing at the rocks, cursing at beauty itself. Every time I thought we were at the summit, I was wrong. Peekaboo Loop was a uniquely horrible hike for me. When my friends asked me after it was over wasn’t I glad I had done it, I repeatedly said FUCK NO. Fuck that loop. After the Peekaboo Loop mercifully ended we walked (me slowly, them at a more industrious pace) back up to the outer rim and out to where we parked. All in all, we hiked 7 miles in Bryce and I very much did not enjoy the middle 3. The middle 3 is where I started to think about a world where everything was flat, there were no inclines anymore. I think I could get elected on that platform if everyone in the USA was subjected to the Peekaboo Loop.

After we left Bryce I had called the Air BnB owner from the previous night to tell them that we wouldn’t be able to return an errant key that one of my friends had in his back pocket when we left. I lied that we were already on our way to Monument Valley and would mail it to them. Well it turns out we were going right past where we had stayed and we were all starving so not only were we going to drop off the key but we were also going to pick up some eggs and bacon and make breakfast at the place that I minutes earlier had told the owners that we weren’t anywhere near and getting farther every second. Luckily my Larry David caught in a lie awkward moment didn’t happen where we encountered the people at the place and had to compound the lie with more lies. I was definitely grouchy from the hike that morning and a little bit delirious from hunger to even think up that scenario. The whole thing went fine. We just went there, made breakfast, and dropped off the key in peace. And I sent them a message saying I was a dumbass and hadn’t had a clue where we were when I called saying we couldn't drop off the key.

Once we finished breakfast we got in our minivan and drove south out of Utah, into Arizona and past the suspiciously blue waters of Lake Powell, then on to Monument Valley. I think my dream vision of the West is Monument Valley. It’s beautiful. It’s vast. It’s barren. It’s a postcard from a bygone movie about people using guns for good or evil or something in the middle. It is a large part of America's self made culture. It is our idealized, whitewashed past. In reality it stands for something a whole lot darker and and more bloody and more illuminating about what America always has been. Monument Valley is Navajo Land. To enter you pay the Navajo Nation. The US gave this land to them after taking everything else. They didn’t give it to them because it was beautiful and iconic. They gave it to them because it served no purpose for the USA. It is a desert with surreally giant pretty isolated red rocks. The Navajo can’t make a living off of it besides charging people to drive through it. They can’t farm it in any large scale. They can’t turn it green. It was a throwaway. This is what made a lot of America. Killing and stealing from tribes and then giving them something in return that didn’t benefit the tribe. And it wouldn’t surprise me if America took it back at some point. That’s how we roll.

Night Hike/Nap

Once we arrived at our cabin overlooking the Mittens in M.V. We unpacked and sat on our deck and drank until the sun went down. It was incredibly pretty. I got pretty damn drunk. At some point in the night my friends very rudely woke me up (ineffective drunk punches were thrown over me not wanting to go) from my bottom bunk bed and made me go on a night hike with them. I ended up spending most of the time finding comfortable bushes to take impromptu naps in. My friends ended up making it a good way up onto the Left Mitten. I was woken up the next morning right at sunrise, and it was the most glorious piece of nature I have ever seen. The clouds were red, the horizon was on fire, and the giant rocks were still dark silhouettes in the foreground. It was a magical moment for me. I will never forget it.

Monument Valley at Dawn

We packed up after sunrise and drove further south towards and then past Flagstaff to get to Sedona. I had been to Sedona as a little kid and have vividly happy memories of playing in a natural waterpark/creek, so we decided to go find it again. Recapturing a piece of your childhood is always a dangerous game, because if it doesn’t live up to your memories, then that memory is somewhat broken by your newer experience. That didn’t happen this time. Slide Rock was awesome, again. The first thing I did in the water was do a cartoonishly exaggerated slip and fall on the slick mossy rocks. As a kid my lower center of gravity and lesser size and weight made foibles on the smooth ice-like rocks less hazardous. Now I was just going down hard and fast repeatedly. The people seeing it probably either thoroughly enjoyed me repeatedly going feet up back down or were mortified that they were going to witness a horrific injury as I tried to cross the creek. On the other side there was a 10 foot cliff into a deeper pool that was excellent to jump off of and then sort of walrus your way back onto dry land off of the slippery sides of the pool. At some point I resorted to sliding butt first and crab sliding across the creek instead of trying to walk across it. I was not putting pride on a pedestal at Slide Rock. Tim eventually found a 40 foot jump that he devil-may-cared off of. I wanted no part of that. Partly because I couldn’t see where I was landing from the top, partly cause I was worn out, and partly because I had done a similar jump at this hillbilly gravel pit in Indiana and it fucked up my eardrums and jaw real good upon impact.

After we finished frolicking in the creek we slowly found Josh, who had been hammocking in a nearby copse of trees and then mounted up in the minivan and made our way north to our AirBnB in Flagstaff. That night I beat all comers in a 1981 version of Trivial Pursuit. As the current Trivial Pursuit Champion, I would like to say that my opponents didn’t have a damn chance (the game took several hours because the 1981 version includes a whole bunch of bullshit questions. I had endurance more than some overpowering knowledge). I was like Lebron in the Eastern Conference.

The Granddaddy of Them All

Flagstaff was our last night of the Desert trip. We woke up a little after sunrise, packed up, and drove to the Granddaddy of Them All, the Big Bopper, the Realest There Ever Was, the Grand Canyon. When we got there we immediately went to the closest overlook to see it. It didn’t disappoint. After 15 minutes or so my friends grew weary of the crowds, and decided to find somewhere else along the rim to take in the majesty. We got back in the car and drove along the Desert View Road to a little parking lot that was close to the offshoot to Yaki Point. Instead of taking the road, my intrepid traveler friends decided it was best to walk directly through the forest to get to the rim of the canyon. It took longer than I would have liked, but it was definitely unlike any forest I had ever been in. It was quiet, there were a lot of downed trees, and the vegetation was piney, sparse and brittle. We encountered a lady Elk at one point, which I could not have backed away from and circled around faster. Once we got to the rim there were no people there, probably because we were not on a trail, or even close to it, we were on the edge of the goddamn world. I honestly have never felt smaller than when staring over the cliff side at the hills and ravines and smaller canyons so so so far below. It could have been on a different planet it seemed so remote. It gave me vertigo and heart palpitations just to look out at the immense openness. The Grand Canyon is the most alien thing I have ever seen in my life. It was literally the inverse of a giant mountain. I can't shake the feeling that the Grand Canyon isn’t an impartial slab of nature, but a magnetic force that can bend objects and people to it’s will. It can talk to you. Tell you to do things you don’t want to do. It scared the shit out of me, which in a way is showing it the respect it deserves.

Grand Canyon Elk - Photo by Joshy Baby

That was the end of our trip. Later that night we flew back out of Vegas. It was a bumpy flight, and when I was going in and out of sleep the turbulence would keep waking me up, but right before I woke up I would have the briefest vision of me falling towards the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Like I said, the place has an unseen power. I was also severely sleep deprived from late nights and waking up for sunrises every day so that probably played a part in my brain tripping out.

This trip made me think about how the history of our country and these towering figures in our landscape mean different things to different people. When I look at Monument Valley, I see the West. When the Navajo look at Monument Valley, they see their home, but one only begrudgingly and callously given to them when it was of no use to Whites. When Native Americans look at Bryce Canyon, they see their ancestor's spirits living on in each of the hoodoo sentinels. When I look at it, I only remember the horror of the Peekaboo Loop. Okay, I also remember how unique it was to everything else I have ever seen. But that could be said for most of the West. Way back when, we took this country by hook and by crook from the Native Tribes. It would be a very late start, but a start nonetheless, to respect it the way they do and protect it at all costs. It is the best thing we have in this country and I'm worried that jackals would rather blow it to bits over money than to preserve one of the last truly great things we have here in America.

Magnifying Ants

Trump’s budget seems to have been created by a malicious sentient money counting machine that was left out in the elements for a decade and now is taking it out on everyone. It lacks the slightest shred of empathy for people that are desperately in need of the social safety net. What is the purpose of cutting Meals on Wheels, or after school programs that provide meals for kids? Like, why the fuck is that a targeted cut, besides that fact that the people getting left in the ditch are people that Trump and his nest of squawking spite-filled shitbirds don’t consider to be equals that deserve any help. What’s wildly unfunny about this whole situation is TRUMP AND RICH MOTHERFUCKERS LIKE HIM GET THE MOST HELP FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND THEY DON’T RECOGNIZE IT. Or if they do recognize it and can do the mental gymnastics to think everything is on the up and up well then I think they are a deserving candidate to have a sinkhole swallow them.

I guess I see what they’re trying to do, which is make a big show about getting rid of the waste in federal spending, but all of these cuts are nothing in the grand scheme. They just make for a good talking point, where they can say "we slashed", well you really didn’t considering the defense budget is like the whole pie chart and you expanded it.

Let’s see, among other cuts is funding for the NYPD, which kind of was Trump’s base. At least police officers in general were big supporters of Trump before he decided he didn’t need them anymore. That one makes no sense to me. Every decision these man babies have made goes counter to logic. But then again, logic is not something they deal in. Maybe they want crime to actually rise as opposed to them lying through their teeth about it rising. Then they can use that actual crime wave as the impetus for more draconian bullshit. 

Why get rid of PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts? SESAME STREET IS AN AMERICAN INSTITUTION. Did Oscar the Grouch big time Trump at a meet and greet or something? LegalAid, Homes for Vets, EPA funding, all of these things are insubstantial parts of government spending and yet they are the ones to get the axe because we are being run by an even more aggressive strain of tactless moronic bozos than usual.

Public education funding in Puerto Rico is being cut by 53%. That is criminal. Everything these people do is criminal, but this is just cold. This cut, among all the things, is a good example of why America as an ideal of democracy is a mirage. We colonized Puerto Rico. We said they were a part of the US, but we never granted them statehood because then they would have equal rights, which is not something the powers that be were interested in. And now their foundation is being laid to waste because America decided the education and well being of Puerto Rican children was not important to American interests. That is some rotten shit.

Live and Let Live

Since mid November, I have been at accomodating a simmering rage that hovers just beneath the surface. Sometimes I wonder why I'm in a bad mood and then I remember, oh right, that whole thing is not going away. I try to understand how things can play out the way they have, and all I can come up with is that the world doesn't give a shit about what anyone thinks is right or wrong. If there is a god, it doesn't care. This is probably all very amusing to it. I mean, if you're god why not just sit back and laugh at the dark cosmic joke that is unfolding right now.

White People in America are playing that old 90's R&B standard on loop, "I want it all, or nothing at all." And if they can't have it all, then they might as well drag everyone else to hell with them. WHICH IS INSANE. I know it's a power and control thing but god damn, why do people always want to project their own values onto other people? Particularly people that they don't know and aren't affected by in any way. Why does Betsy Devos feel the need to spread her malicious evangelism to every public school instead of just the ones that her family attends? Can't people be satisfied with living their life the way they want to and letting other people make their own decisions? Why is that such a foreign concept to certain segments of our society?

Hate is such a powerful motivator and I wish it would be directed towards the people that deserve it. Why hate immigrants when the people that actually have taken your jobs are the CEO's that value profit over people? Or if you hate immigrants because they scare you and you think they're up to no good, maybe consider how scared they probably are to be in America, where they have been portrayed as devils only because their set of religions, that are all basically the same as christianity, go by a different name. Why hate the poor for needing assistance when they are born into a system designed to keep them poor? Instead why not hate the people in power that have stacked the deck against poor people from advancing upward?

America seems to be cruising towards a comeuppance of our own making. What makes me angry is that a lot of people at the bottom have had no choice in the matter, but nonetheless will suffer the most.

Shift Back

It’s hard to put it in words, because the change taking place for decades in America has been imperceptible in a day to day sense, but what that change has amounted to is everything shifting to the right. The quickest, broadest explanation to me is that Republicans have been a lot more stubborn and strong-willed about what they want to see happen in America, so they have slowly dragged the conversation and accepted beliefs about what is normal and just out of the center and firmly into the right. Bill, Obama, Hillary, they all were more centrist than leftist in politics and practice. The last president to be a true leftist might have been Jimmy Carter or LBJ. What I’m trying to say is that Democrats have lost a lot of ground in this game of tug o war, and I would kindly ask them to pull it back. When you look at a lot of what Hillary campaigned on, the only truly liberal positions she held were cultural ones, and not even all of her cultural ones were that far left. If you look at how she felt about war or the economy or trade all of her positions could actually be considered pretty close to what Republicans used to espouse not that long ago. Democrats occupy the vacated space that Republicans left when they decided to fully embrace the evangelism of extremely far right insane rich people.

By hook or by crook (by the way, y'all better obstruct the shit out every Trump Supreme Court Nominee) I would like to see Democrats shift back to where they used to ideologically reside. Get back to being pro-labor. Unions are a key component of wealth distribution and critical to the survival of the middle class. Get back to fighting the de-regulation of industry, banks, whomever. Corporations need to be held accountable for their practices. I'm still pissed that Obama didn't prosecute a single banker for the economic collapse 10 years ago. Make environmentalism a hill you're willing to die on, not something that you allude to in speeches but then never actually get around to with legislation. If you aid and abet Republicans in their plans to steal America's public lands and sell it off for short term gains in the energy field, you deserve to get trampled by a herd of bison. Then again, I guess that threat will ring hollow soon enough when their is no more protection of Endangered Species. Get back to being the party of the people, not just giving it lip service. Being in bed with Big Pharma and Wall Street is not how you stick up for the little man. The people who want to believe in Democrats and vote for Democrats have been given too little to show that you actually care. This morally repugnant Trump bullshit is your chance to flex some backbone and reset what the Democrats' priorities will be going forward. Because if y’all don’t and decide to go along with this whole cop out garbage, “what’s the point of obstructing, this is how it’s always been, I don’t want to fight them because it takes more effort and sacrifice" the people that have supported you will definitely abandon your path of least resistance sham excuses and find someone else that is willing to step the fuck up and way to the left.

Sinkhole

For whatever reason, Democrats think that they are still playing a game with rules. That there is still going to be a give and take involved. I’m not sure why. The game ended when Obama took office. Trump and his Gang are not playing around. They have no intention of throwing the Dems a bone or making concessions. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but they are going to push through whoever and whatever they please irregardless of what it looks like to the rest of America and the world. They obviously don’t care. They’re just out here stealing $500 bills out of the monopoly bank willy nilly with no repercussions or push back while Dems are the thimble sitting on GO waiting for a dice roll that is never ever going to happen. Republicans have been waiting for this moment for a long time. They want to break their opposition early and irrevocably. Everything they’ve done so far has been to consolidate their power and control. They don’t plan on giving any of that power and control back. It's going to have to be wrested from them by overwhelming force. They're getting rid of freedom of the press by dropping felonies on journalists covering protests. They're getting rid of peaceful protests by letting police departments sue protesters for the OT hours officers have to work during the demonstrations. They are going to turn America's most prized possession, our majestic public land, into future oil drilling projects and eventual environmental disaster sites. The EPA now has a gag order on talking about climate change or abominable situations like the Flint Water Crisis. I don't even want to start with how fucking dumb and delusional it is to try and build a fucking concrete 30 foot high border wall.

They are turning America into a giant ATM for them and their buddies, an ATM that withdraws directly from America's bank account, while keeping the rest of the country under an authoritarian thumb lest they voice their displeasure of getting robbed blind. Every executive order so far has been horrifying but unsurprising because either Trump or one of his clownishly evil cronies has already said they were going to do this shit. We have brought full blown fascism into America's house. Fascism doesn't just leave on it's own. You have to remove it forcibly and then burn the couch cushions that it sat on. Dems right now think that when they say, “Okay, party is over, it’s been real, see you soon,” that the night ends and these fuckers are going to go on their way. Trump’s Fascism is going to hear that signal to depart, proceed to kick their feet up on the couch, dig their heels in and say, ”Fuck your couch! This is my couch now. And my house. You're actually trespassing right now, cops are on the way. I'm pressing full charges.” They aren’t going to play nice. So don’t play nice with them. We just got 8 years of insane obstructionism from Republicans in Congress. Dems didn't make it a week before caving to Trump’s bullshit. It’s going to be a long grim nightmare for the foreseeable future if the current dynamic between the two parties stays the same because the Dems don’t seem to understand what is happening and is going to keep happening until they stop allowing themselves to be duped and bullied. And if these Dems don’t toughen up then they need to be ousted to get people in there that aren’t scared of fighting fire with fire. And if it comes down to it, as Petey Pablo said, "Fuck the Law, they can't arrest us all."

They Know The Way (Into the Abyss)

UPDATE FROM 2/7/17: DeVos got confirmed today. Fucking shameful.

Charter schools are a union busting con job that if given the opportunity will permanently topple an already dizzily teetering American education system. Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, has been working tirelessly for decades to push her agenda of charter and private and religious schools being the way forward. Unfortunately that way forward doesn’t do anything to help better the vast majority of students in America.

Charter schools aren’t the solution they’ve been claimed to be. They aren’t better than public schools in measurable statistics or accountability, if they're held to any accountability at all. Charters don’t improve reading rates or math aptitude. They don’t have better teachers (some charters don't even have to hire certified teachers), or better curriculum, or some magic potion that all of the sudden cures our country of the malaise afflicting our nation’s classrooms. What charters do is drain government funding away from already perilously cash strapped public schools in working class and poor neighborhoods. They don’t improve anything besides the bank accounts of the stockholders that have invested in the privatization of our country’s education system. They weaken the teacher’s union, which slowly knocks another leg out from under the working class's ability to fight back against the dynastic wealth that is being built by the greedy few in this country.

America’s future is being mortgaged, and the lien is going to be on the parents and kids that can least afford it. Free public education is the backbone of our society, not an entity that is judged solely through a lense of profits and losses. It is the most important thing our country can do to ensure that the America we want to believe in is still around in 50 years, and that the people that are still around have the knowledge and skills to move our society forward.

Every kid in our country should be able to get a solid education near where they live. Not across town because the school in their neighborhood has been closed after it's funding went to some charter school that has no accountability to provide a quality education to their students. A lot of children are being left behind on purpose, and that will only worsen exponentially as charter schools become the last option left in town.

Instead of declaring that the public education system is irrevocably broken, and unregulated, unaccountable charter schools are the future, we reinvest. Pour money into the system. Pay teachers and support staff more. Fix and upgrade buildings and classroom technology. Offer more after school programs. Our federal government has plenty of money, it just likes giving it to people and companies that's sole driving force in life is to acquire the kind of money where you could conceivably blow up the moon. Maybe give out a few less gazillion dollar defense contracts to the friends of people in the defense department that also just so coincidentally happen to sit on the board of Missile&SubmarineEmporium.