Cleveland, Ohio....not sure how to label it

I am back. I wanted to go on about Cleveland. I just saw a story that Ricky Martin's autobiography will be published in November. Along with the Justin Beiber memoir, all I can say is "Who the fuck cares?!!!?". Do I give a shit about the 16 years in Justin Beiber's life? What exactly has he done? He will be gone in no time (Beibs better milk it while you can, remember Corey Haim--great Canadian reference). Ricky Martin? I thought you were gay when you had your "Livin' La Vida Loca" hit a good ten years ago. What have you done for us lately, except come out of the closet? Nothing! Autobiography? Who in the world gives a shit?



If you do give a shit about reading about either of the two, fuck off! Get off of my blog, you do not belong here.



Now, that bit of unpleasantness is done, I can begin. I do not recall if I mentioned that Cleveland is a weird sort of city. Back in 1978, I visited Cleveland and we stayed in a downtown hotel, as my uncle had his zipper job (coronary bypass surgery) done at the Cleveland Clinic. I recall arriving at the hotel on the Saturday and finding the hotel to be okay. On the Sunday, there were three separate and unrelated murders on the same street as the hotel. Wonderful city to visit.

Since that time (we were back in the area, suburbs, in 1994 as the Wife's sister, husband and kids were living there as my brother in law worked at a Veterans hospital as a neurologist to attain his green card. Once he got it, he moved, with his family, to Dayton. He wanted to be a big fish in a small pond as opposed to a small fish in a big pond (like Cleveland or Toronto). With the building of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Quicken Loans Arena (formerly the Gund), Progressive Field (formerly Jacob's Field where the Indians play) and Brown's Stadium, the downtown was not quite as dangerous. It was a bit iffy, but we did not feel in any danger.

As we walked the first evening there and all day Friday, I noticed a number of downtown hotels and saw an architecture tour. The downtown architecture was quite interesting as it was created in an earlier day, well before the Cuyohoga River caught fire, and when Cleveland, and all of the Rust Belt from Detroit to Buffalo, was a happening area in the US. That time is done.

All of the cities have tried to create a downtown resurgence with draws (stadii) into the downtown area. Driving through downtown Buffalo on the way to Cleveland was a bit brutal. I do recall my family staying at the Hyatt (right beside the old Aud, and new HSBC arena) in downtown Buffalo, once. Normally, we stayed and we stay in a suburban hotel (shopping and driving friendly), though given the utter crap at Burlington Crap Factory and the other stores we visited, there was not much shopping to be had, so the next journey that way may be a long time coming.

Cleveland is no different. In fact, that first night we wandered towards Progressive Field and ended up in a great little restaurant area near everything. We did have a good Vietnamese meal while sitting outside. The fried calamari that I shared with the Lad was awesome. This restaurant was right across from Lola, the restuarant owned by Food TV Iron Chef and personality, Michael Symon. It was a cool area.

We did hit a dead mall in the city center. It was a refurbished train station, but was seedy. That includes the people milling about inside and outside. We did notice that there was a lot of security and police (on bikes) hovering around. I did not feel unsafe just very aware of our surroundings. I wanted to keep moving as that makes us a more difficult target. The Wife and Lad do not seem to notice, or if they do, do nothing about it. It is left to me to do something and point it out to them.

This usually leads to "I don't want to think that.....". My usual response is "You have that thought partially correct. Stop it with "you don't want to think."" That often gets me in trouble, not for speaking the truth, but because The Wife does not want to hear the truth. So we go into a whole notion of "want" and what that means. Again, do not really care about the conclusions you "want" to draw, just need to know the conclusion and does it fit the facts as observed. Reality versus fantasy type stuff. No problem with the fantasy, but would like to know what will DONE to bring it about.

Anyway, we did get to wander in the heat of the city. It did not seem that busy for a midday on a Friday, but what do I know. Many banks and many homeless, not sure if that really differs from any US city, though.

The Wife says it was seedy in downtown Cleveland. I am not sure of her frame of reference, though. I have seen it far worse. I would not necessarily call it seedy. I have seen it, and the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, I really have no burning desire to see it again.

The biggets upside is that while were away, the Wife's sister and family were in our hometown for a "visit". Again, my addle minded sister in law tried to pressure the Wife to accommodate her and the Wife actually held firm. We did come back on Saturday on the off chance that they would compromise their visit, but of course, that did not happen. We did not see them (I am not complaining and really could care less). The Wife was disappointed that she did not see her neices and nephew, but she had no desire to see her sister or brother in law (I did not care about any of it). Needless to say, the Wife has not called her sister and he sister has not called (I no longer pick up the phone when I see her number, I have nothing to say to her. She serves NO purpose in my life).

Ciao!

Mountain Dew made with Real Sugar and sadly, it is better for you!

I am back. I am back from a family journey to Cleveland, Ohio and the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame was pretty cool, but very American and Dinosaur music centric. There was not much there of 80s and 90s bands and not much of other earlier English bands. There was Rolling Stones and Beatles exhibits and a bit of the Who but no Kinks stuff. It was kind of a taste of things that made me realize how vast the, or my, world of music actually is.

I did like the display of Joy Division/New Order stuff that included the hand written lyrics to "Blue Monday" (a personal favorite 80s song--1984 by New Order) and some of the other hand written song lyrics including Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good to Me".

That is the set up. We hit a grocery store in Niagara Falls, NY. At the Tops, I saw a special bottle of Mountain Dew. In fact, it had the same graphics for Dew that I recall from the late 60s and early 70s. The most amazing thing was (a) Mountain Dew was mentioned on last night's episode of Mad Men and (b) this limited type of Mountain Dew was made with "REAL SUGAR", like it and all sodas used to be made. It was not made from high fructose corn syrup but real sugar. That is a throwback.

It made me realize that in our race to progress, they, PepsiCo and other soft drink makers, talking about you, too Coca-Cola Company, took something that was crap for you and made it even WORSE. It has been shown that fructose is worse, or is that better, at creating obese and diabetic users than sucrose. As the fructose (high fructose corn syrup) is cheaper to use than sucrose (sugar) the companies started to substitute the cheaper, and more toxic, sweetener for the other.

It is scary that using sugar is now retro. It has me really thinking about capitalism and consumerism in our society. I am a capitalist, yet find the consolidation of goods into multinational marketing companies (that is pretty much what P&G is since they have outsourced the manufacturing of their labelled goods, eg. Crest, Scope, et al.) an attempt to capture economies of scale. They do that very well, and it makes sense. Then the quality falls to shit.

If we go back to a simpler time, such as the 60s or 70s, many companies were more regionally focused. They did have a stake in the communities that they serviced, too. Their employees lived in the regions in which they sold their products and there was a sense of pride. In fact, I recall many delis of that day and they made their own smoked meats, etc. I do not recall any large outbreaks of tainted food. These smaller merchants had a reputation to uphold, so quality, though more variable, was by and large, better. Today, with factory farming and corporately made deli meats, we get large scale Listeria outbreaks and death.

Things may be cheaper in terms of actual costs and that has coincided with a drop in quality (taste and nutrition in terms of foodstuffs). Have we really progressed? I am starting to wonder. Then again, I come from an entrepreneurial family, so I am biased against large corporate interests. Or maybe, that is the anarchist in my talking. Then again, I think and am not afraid to do so. My eyes are wide open, so I am not a sheep and I will, I cannot help it, point out that the Emporer is not wearing any clothes.

Seeing Mountain Dew with a retro label and pointing out that this batch was made with REAL SUGAR, made me think about it. I do not think we are better off like this. I have no issue with life's creature comforts but sucking back soft drinks with high fructose corn syrup while sitting plastered to the big screen television (or gaming system of your choice) while my blood sugar rises faster than my waist size is not the way to go. It has become apparent that the multinational food companies are taking a page out of the tobacco companies' books. They are making products that if used correctly shorten the life of the consumer and thus are killing off their own consumers instead of keeping them alive and consuming for as long as possible.

Is that sustainable?

Just a thought, ciao!

I did come back

I am back. I told y'all that I would be back in less than a month. I kept up my end of the bargain, how about you?

Sort of let the summer writing lie fallow and felt that I should pick things up while I feel that I can. I have let too much go by without commenting.

I was coming into work earlier in July. It has been rather warm around these parts this summer. It is so unlike last summer. There has not been much rain, or an inordinate amount of rain, and we have seen some very hot and humid days and nights. I can recall the Wife and I being outside, on our deck, after dark and noticing that the air was not moving. Thick and not moving air does not make for easy sleeping without air conditioning. We have the A/C and that thankfully, has not been a problem (unlike 2007). Of course, by about this time in 2007, we really did not need the air conditioner.

So there I was going into the office. I am at a stop light and notice a woman in a tank top, a blue tank top, and shorts. Normally, it being summer time, I love seeing the ladies in various states of undress. Sadly, from a purely asthetic standpoint, this woman was rather, er, curvy?, no, lumpy?, possibly, foldy. I know that "foldy" is not a word but this woman had MANY folds of skin. That was not the worst part. She was not wearing a bra, obviously, and her tits were hanging down to the folds that should have been her stomach. Then, again, her stomach folds my have dropped to her knees. Gravity is really unforgiving on the excessively overweight.

Then again, it has been so hot and muggy that my testicles are hanging lower than ever. I have to be careful when I wear boxer shorts. I could be walking around and then my nuts fall out the side of my boxers and shorts and hang by my ankles. I was walking and kicked myself in the nuts with the heel of my sandles. It was just a clip, but it hurt nonetheless.

Oh, these dog days of summer with their trials and tribulations. Bad eye candy as I drive and my nuts getting in the way of a simple walk, these are a few of my favourite summer activities. Ciao!

Lamentations for the passing of my aunt, a great aunt

I am back. Almost a month between postings, how bad is that? Pretty damn bad, I would say. My most sincere apologies. I have kept you coming back for nothing for all that time. How thoughtless of me. Did any of you call or write to see that I had not dropped dead? For the record, I have not. I am very much alive and kicking.

The funny thing, if this is funny, is that no sooner did I post that Monday in July, when I got word, on the Wednesday, that my aunt, my father's sister (not the one who died in 2006), had died. She was ill and in palliative care, so the end was coming soon, but I did not think it was to be that soon. She is and will continue to be dearly missed.

My aunt was a beautiful person. She had a tough life, in a relative sense, and did not deserve that. Her life and that of MIL coincided. Both were the smartest of their siblings (though my father and other aunt ended up with multiple university degrees) who for family reasons ended up in Commerce high schools and becoming bookkeepers. They were born about 5 months apart (MIL in September of '32 and my aunt in March of '33) and both were two of the nicest people you could ever meet. Also, you could find yourself listening to both on the telephone for a good half hour before the point they were trying to make became clear.

I had visited my aunt in palliative care in late May after she had gotten into the facility. It was more a matter of her being unsteady at home and this became a "safe" place for her. I did not think that her death was to be anytime soon, just sooner than it would be for somebody my age. That is usually the case. In any event, I stopped by my mother's on the Saturday (10th) and was told that my aunt had deteriorated. Again, I did not think it would be that soon or quick.

It was. I got the call from my mother as I headed up from the shower that Wednesday morning. I did not think it really affected me until I had to go to a client's house that afternoon and almost had about 3 car accidents. It was at that point that I knew I should carefully go home and collect myself. The funeral was all fun and excitement in tremendous heat and humidity.

It was nice to see my cousins, though, the circumstances were less than ideal. I was disappointed that she did not, could not, make it to the Lad's bar mitzvah. It was another a reason why I was not about to go pick the Lad up at camp to take him to the funeral.

It now leaves my uncle alone. I am not sure what he is going to do. It is okay in some sense. I mean the guy never had time for me, throughout my life, so I can return that favor. My cousin, not his son, said the same thing to me about my uncle.

It made me realize that growing up I had 4 uncles. Two of whom I related to and rather liked. My unlce Dave, who died in 1980 and was like a surrogate father to my father, was awesome. He was cool in a strange way and apparently had a rather filthy mouth (I never saw/heard it that way). He was probably the first adult that I can think of who did not talk down to me. He did not treat me like an equal (I was not, I was a child and he an adult, but he did not talk down to me and in fact, taught me, directly and through my father, how to treat people, all people, with respect and dignity). He also owned numerous Jaguars. Of course, they were apparently co-owned with his mechanic and they shared custody, or so it seemed.

My mother's brother, uncle Paul, who lives in BC, was closest in age to me. He was always a lot of fun. He may caused me some brain damage (smacking my head into a plaster overhang in our house while on his shoulders, but so what is a few lost IQ points between an uncle and his nephew). He is always a source of entertainment and story telling. He even has built a relationship with the Lad and my neice and nephews. Now, that he is a grandfather, who knows what new silliness may take root.

The other two uncles, my mother's brother in law and father's brother in law, were just there. Ignored by one, talked down to by the other, the lack of a relationship is their own loss. I am pretty fun people and they missed it.

Well, that is all for now. I hope to come back much sooner as I did have things to say about things seen. Ciao!