Japanese Baseball @japanesebaseball - Tumblr Blog

July/August 2010

Eugene by Sherry LeBlanc and Kevin Dehan The Whole Shack Shimmies by Jack Dolgen and Ricky Federico A Woman of Value by Adam Schragin Goodbye Cleveland! by Michael Carriere That's Me, Thanks. by Victoria Grace Elliott The Smart Set by H.L. Mencken Download a PDF of this issue. Read at Issuu or Scribd. Would you like to contribute? Email michael [at] japanesebaseball.us for details.

Sammy

by Mike Wachs

The din of bullshit filled the bar. Planes of late afternoon light leaked across the room from windows up high, obscuring an old matinee on the TV in a corner. He let out a sigh to remind himself he was breathing.

The Eagles scored on an opposite screen. Fuck yeahs, claps, mugs hitting shellacked wood. He closed his eyes.

Someone stumbled into his back and his eyelids peeled open. Gauzy vision returned with dilating pupils. Rosie leaned on the bar, hands as pedestal for the ugly mug she owned. Her mouth twisted, trying to get at a beer nut in some molar. He squinted, trying to X-ray what lay beneath that over-sized t-shirt: mammaries like days-old mylar balloons and a wide, formless stomach which gave no indication of there ever being any enviable hips; her legs plump and dimpled. How long must have it been since this cunt was fucked? Even naked, she kept her dingy tennis shoes and ankle socks.

“Another one, please,” he said, trying to wash away his gross fantasy.

Rosie moved out of frame and then back. She was still wearing just shoes. The beer tasted like brass.

People cursed at the screen.

“Jesus H,” Duck said.

“First game of the season, Duck.”

“Fuck you, Sammy. It’s the second game of the season.”

“Jesus H,” he thought to himself.

The heroes on his TV set were celebrating their bounty and kissing bodiced women. He left to take a piss.

“Sammy, why you always piss in the stall?”

“Because I got a small prick, Richie.”

“Fuck that. I’ve seen your prick.”

“I don’t fucking know then.”

“Hey, come out here.”

“Richie, I’m still pissing.”

“I’ll be out here. Ah, Christ.” Richie had pissed on his shoe.

“What?”

“I fucked Rosie.”

Sammy couldn’t help but be disappointed. They were two shits, but this seemed like a new low.

“You want a congratulations? Because, honestly, that’s fucking disgusting. Not to shit on your shit or anything. Nice work, Rich.”

Richie swung his mouth to one side, arched his eyebrows, and walked out. Sammy finished zipping up and followed.

Richie already had one elbow on the bar and was talking with Rosie. Rosie was fucking Richie. She was still wearing those shoes.

Sammy got back to his beer and wordlessly reprimanded Richie while John Madden pontificated on Dante Culpepper.

“You fucking fuck!” People half-turned away from the game. “Motherfucker!”

“Bobby! Don’t hit the fucking machine you fucking maniac!”

“The ball’s fucking broken, Rosie!”

“The ball’s not fucking broken!”

Bobby sucked at Golden Tee but he had found out about a tournament with fifteen thousand and a set of real clubs as the grand prize and that was that.

Sammy arched his head and wanted to see something a little good. The tin ceiling was tobacco-stained.

Sammy broke out the door because he felt like he was going to puke or pass out or hyperventilate. He doubled over to get his breath back. He spat to get the taste out of his mouth. The brass stayed. The Lite stayed. The Winstons stayed. Everything was blurry. A building, a car, a person.

He walked a block over and took the bus south. The mullato driver had a pencil mustache that woke him up. “How do you do?” He had gloves and impeccable posture.

Sammy dropped his fare silently, headed to the back and grabbed a sideways seat. The bus rumbled along and gave him a hard-on. He looked around to see who could be undressed. A baby mama made eyes straight across the aisle. Her toddler clenched at a braid while the end of a piercing rolled across her glossed lip. Neither of them flinched. Her eyes moved down to his crotch and he practically came. The bus was empty. They fucked standing up, holding on to the metal bars overhead for support. The kid was gone. His gut was gone. The mullato was driving carefree to nowhere, an overwhelming glow in front of the windshield.

The bus hissed to a stop. The kid was there. The gut was there. She stood up and walked out the doors. His dick went limp.

Sammy stayed on for fifteen more minutes and then got out for no reason.

A fat white kid in a puffy jacket jabbered on to his two black friends about the Sixers on the corner. Sammy hated him. They started yelling back. He hated them, too.

Lights started to turn on. Crowds huddled around food trucks. Neon from not-dead-yet electronics stores burnt the retinas of walkers. A dotted arrow pointed to the door of the Liberty Mini Market.

The bell on a string rang as Sammy sidestepped through the narrow entrance. It smelled like corrugated cardboard and curry. He passed by a yellow cone on the ground and his sole snagged on its haphazard cleanup. While he browsed, he heard background clamor of a family and some movie he would never watch.

He headed to the counter. The Paki-Indian-Whatever continued reading his magazine, one hand resting on top of a dirty polo that didn’t finish covering his stomach.

“Dollar ninety nine,” the man announced in a foreign monotone.

Sammy clutched the Mexican Coke by its neck and struck him across the jaw. The man took it in stride, disoriented but not desperate. He raised his head and spat a tooth and some blood across the counter onto Sammy’s checked wool.

The sounds from the back continued. Sammy flitted his eye between the man and the door. The man was not stalling. He finished unloading the till and reached across the divide. Sammy backhanded his forehead with the bottle as the naugahyde bank pouch came across. The man fell off his perch.

Sammy stuffed the package in the front of his waist, walked out, wrapped his shirt around the bottle and shattered it into the trash can. No one looked at him. He caught a bus back. No one stopped him.

Mike Wachs doesn't know what job he should do. He is taking suggestions. mike.wachs [at] gmail.com

#fiction #mwachs

The Ultimate Challenge: When Good Meets Good (For The First Time)

by Eric Ortmann

Illustrations courtesy of Blake Sims, http://blakesimscomics.blogspot.com/

The Ultimate Warrior versus “The Immortal” Hulk Hogan. Wrestlemania VI. Intercontinental Champion versus World Heavyweight Champion. The heir to the throne versus the throne with no hair. Rope shaking versus shirt ripping. Tassels versus pythons. Facepaint versus a blonde mustache. Good guy versus… Good guy?! This had never happened before. For me. In professional wrestling or in life. I was seven years old. I had only known good versus bad. For example, G.I. Joes were good and Cobra was bad. G.I. Joes battled Cobra. Hulk Hogan, the goodest of guys, might team up with The Ultimate Warrior, also a good guy, to professionally wrestle bad guys, but – BUT! – the two would never face off against each other. Right? Right?! For the entirety of my seven years, this is what I was led to believe. Root for the good guy against the bad guy. I never entertained a thought that good versus good would ever be a possibility, let alone a necessity, let alone a reality. Until it happened. Fucking wrestling. I should’ve seen it coming. Looking back now, the match had been months in the making, if not years, if not decades. Since his debut The Ultimate Warrior had proven to be an unstoppable force. Hulk Hogan, in addition to being the current World Heavyweight Champion, had been christened “immortal,” either because he always won his matches or he was (is) actually immortal (TBD). Therein lay the problem: two forces, one unstoppable, the other immortal. Both good. Hulk Hogan, as stated previously, was the goodest of guys. And I, as a Hulkamaniac, followed his lead: I said my prayers, I took my vitamins, and I believed in the power of Hulkamania to run wild on the Iron Sheiks and the Nikolai Volkoffs of the world (and communism). But then The Ultimate Warrior came along, with his rope shaking and his tassels and his facepaint. He too was a good guy, but he was new. Who was gooder? This was no concern of mine. Then the 1990 Royal Rumble happened. Fucking wrestling. Leading up to this 30 man over-the-top battle royale, Hulk and Warrior – and we as fans – were in a bit of a (sleeper) holding pattern. The Ultimate Warrior was the reigning Intercontinental Champion, Hulk Hogan the World Heavyweight Champion.¹ Each man had lain to rest his most recent respective feud. But there was an ultimate itch in need of some immortal scratching, and the question was when, not if, it would be scratched. Only I didn’t see this coming. Because I was seven. And age-appropriately naïve. Because the Royal Rumble match is every man for himself, Hulk would, in theory, have to fight Warrior should it come down to the two of them. Thankfully, however, this sort of thing never happened. Only in the 1990 Royal Rumble, it did. Long story short, Hulk eliminated Warrior (it was complicated), which set off a chain of events that would culminate in the two facing off in the main event of Wrestlemania VI. Fucking fate. The match was dubbed fittingly, and for obvious reasons, The Ultimate Challenge. Because the Ultimate Warrior’s name had “ultimate” in it and he would be “challenging” Hulk Hogan. Also being challenged, however, was my loyalty, what I knew of the world, and my…Warriorhood? Remember, I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to have to choose. But I was forced to. Fate forced me to choose. And The Ultimate Warrior, with his rope shaking and his tassels and his facepaint… I chose the new guy. Never mind that when he did speak the words made no sense. I wasn’t listening. Again, I was seven, and I was over-stimulated, visually. A typical Warrior match – run to the ring, shake the ropes, clothesline, shake the ropes, overhead press-slam, splash, 3 count, shake the ropes – lasted maybe 30 seconds. I didn’t have time to question whether or not it was the greatest thing ever. Nor did I need to. Because it was the greatest thing ever. Plus, you can’t root for both guys in a match. Rooting for a particular wrestler means rooting against the wrestler that’s trying to beat up the wrestler that you’re rooting for. If you don’t choose one wrestler to root for, you’d end up rooting for and rooting against at the same time. Which I guess is possible, but would be like rooting for a good match or a good game. Which is “stupid” to me now, and was “gay” to me as a seven year old. So, I pledged my allegiance to The Ultimate Warrior, and would be rooting for him against the Hulkster at Wrestlemania VI. That’s right: for The Ultimate Warrior, against Hulk Hogan. Against Hulk Hogan. Against Hulk Hogan?! Don’t boo me. I still liked the Hulkster. I still rooted for him in his matches. And when he found himself locked in a sleeper hold or a bear hug and it looked like he – and all of Hulkamania – was finished but then his arm didn’t drop and he shook his head ‘no’ and he called upon his legions of Hulkamaniacs for the strength to break out of said hold/hug, I answered the call. I picked up the proverbial phone and said, “Do it, Hulk. Bust out of it, body-slam him, shoot him into the ropes, give him the big boot, and finish him off with your…leg drop!”² Only then I hung up, whereas I once would’ve stayed on the line a bit longer – to satisfy my “Hulk boner.” Because I had made my choice. I was a Warrior! Mostly. As I listened to and watched the match live via scrambled television,³ I found myself observing more than rooting. Was I a Warrior? Maybe, but I was also nervous and tense. Who would emerge victorious? Hulk? Or Warrior? I didn’t care. They were both good guys. I just needed for it to be over. I could no longer watch. Literally, because of the scrambled television, the match was hard to watch. So I listened. The momentum swung back and forth. Near-fall followed near-fall. It grew exhausting, and a bit ridiculous. Would it end already? Finally, Hulk gave Warrior the big boot. This was the beginning of the end, always. Warrior was down, and Hulk hit the ropes for his…leg drop! But Warrior rolled out of the way. Where Hogan thought there’d be W-a-r-r-i-o-r, there was only a-i-r. Hulk landed on his backside. Warrior jumped up. He hit the ropes. Splash! He covered Hulk. One…two…three. That quickly, it was over. “The winner of this match, and NNNEEEEWWW World Wrestling Federation Champion, The UUUULTIMATE WWWARRIORRRRRRRRR!!!” The Warrior celebrated, by shaking the ropes, posing on the turnbuckles, and shaking the ropes. The fans cheered, as fans are conditioned to do. Hogan, not used to losing, shook his sweaty bald head in disbelief. He then gathered himself, and in a strong display of sportsmanship befitting his character, stepped in to hand over his lost title to the new champ. They hugged. But for me, something didn’t feel right, despite the hug. Here were my two heroes telling me everything was okay. They were both good guys. They had battled for a full half hour (an eternity in professional wrestling). They had given it their all. This time, Warrior came out on top. Came. On top. Hogan handed over the belt. They hugged! But where was my hug? And who was this be-tasseled flash in the pan that I had been rooting for? That I had rooted against the Hulk Hogan for? The Hulk Hogan that had been christened and subsequently referred to as “immortal” for a reason. Yes, The Ultimate Warrior had won this battle, but Hulk Hogan and Hulkamania would be around forever (see “immortal”). Could I really be so easily influenced? By rope shaking and facepaint? And tassels? Yes! Of course. I was only seven. Nonetheless, in that moment I realized four things. One, I made the wrong choice. Even though he won, The Ultimate Warrior was not the man of substance that the Hulkster was. Hulk had character, staying power. Two, good guy versus good guy is bullshit. I know it has to happen sometimes because of titles and Royal Rumbles and fate, but c’mon – can’t we all be friends and fight bad guys together? Three, if things are “stupid,” I shouldn’t refer to them as “gay.” Because it’s prejudiced, and mean. Four, life’s not always fair. Some parents have to pay for cable, and others already have it hooked up for them when they move in. In summation, my advice to the young wrestling diehards of today is this: root for the bad guys. Always. Bad guys never face off against other bad guys, which means you’ll never have to choose. I’m not sure why it works out this way, it just does. Fate, I suppose. Also, sorry Hulk. I fucked up.

¹ -- For those of you unfamiliar with the championship hierarchy of the World Wrestling Federation in 1990, here it is: the Intercontinental Championship was the stepping stone to the World Heavyweight Championship; winning it signaled you were ready for bigger challenges, more skilled – and girthier – opponents. In other words, the Intercontinental Championship wasn’t so much the top of the mountain as it was the top of a mountain, from which you could see the mountain that everyone – wrestlers, wrestling fans – truly cared about: the World Heavyweight Championship. ² -- By appearance, the least devastating finisher of all time. Arguably the greatest and best-known pro wrestler ever ended his matches with a leg drop, which looks exactly like how it sounds. In its defense, it was executed by a man with vitamin-enhanced thighs, who did run and jump before dropping his leg onto his opponent’s face. It would hurt me (see “lanky”). But Andre the Giant? Dino Bravo? Big John Studd? ³ -- My parents didn’t tell the cable company that our cable was still connected when we moved into our house. Which meant that, technically, we weren’t “stealing” cable, but it did mean that technically, we couldn’t call to order pay-per view events; hence, me being forced to listen and watch wrestling pay-per-views via scrambled television. Years later, I discovered that wrestling pay-per-views weren’t the only thing available on scrambled television. Without the audio, it may have been hard to distinguish between wrestling and the other thing…which was pornography.

Eric Ortmann, a Cancer, was young for his grade and thus too small to overcome his lack of skill in sports. Though smart-ish, he wasn’t particularly artsy-ish, or…interested in things, like hobbies. So he watched wrestling. eric.ortmann [at] gmail.com

#wrestling #wwf #ultimate warrior #hulk hogan #childhood #evil

Save That Jump

By Carlos Porras

I could jump, but that would be too messy, I think. I think, Maybe I’ll just walk to work instead.

So I put on my shoes and grab a Tejava tea and head out the door. It’s like a hundred and forty-five degrees today and I’m wearing jeans and my favorite old loafers. The pavement is probably close to two hundred degrees and it was a good idea not to jump because what if I would have somehow survived the fall and been paralyzed and just had to lay there on the ground frying like a piece of ugly bacon.

So I head north up 10th street and finish my tea and see the attractive girl who I’ve been seeing around the neighborhood lately at a fruit stand and she seems to be deciding between an apple or a peach and I think to myself that she should buy the peach. I think that maybe I should talk to her because she is pretty and she is buying fresh produce and she is wearing a floral print dress but then I decide that it is bad weather to embarrass myself in so I keep walking.

On the corner of 10th and 8th I see a homeless man holding a sign that says, “Help terrorist have kidnapped my wife, only need 1 dollar to meet ransom demands” and I hold in a smile because I feel like if I smile the homeless man will think that he brought some entertainment into my life and that I should pay him a dollar because obviously who would expect free entertainment in 2011.

A block later I pass a man in a baseball cap who is shining shoes and he yells at me when I walk by that I need a shoe shine and I tell him no thanks and then he says it is unprofessional to walk around with shoes that look like crap and I agree with him but I do not care so I do not stop. I pass a building that says 1021 in front and I know that I only have to suffer 3 more blocks in this heat until I get to work and that I should have talked to the girl buying fruit but I know that I would have embarrassed myself and then would have thought about jumping out of my apartment window all night long so I decide that I made the right decision and keep walking up the burning sidewalk.

At 10th and 10th I think that I need something else to drink and think that I should have brought two Tejava’s with me and that I am an idiot and that I will have to waste a few minutes by going into a market to buy a cold bottle of water because I figure that water is the best thing to drink in this kind of heat. I grab a bottle of the cheapest refrigerated water and head to the line that is being worked by the lone cashier and think “shit” when I see that there are five customers in front of me and that the lady at the front of the line is elderly and she is having a problem paying for her cat food and she says she’ll try to write a check and I start to get nervous because I know that work is soon starting and that I cannot be late again or I will be fired and then I will probably sit in my apartment every night for a month contemplating whether or not I should jump out of the window.

It seems like an hour but is probably more like 5-7 minutes by the time the lady figures out that she can’t write a check because it will bounce and the cashier calls the credit card company and she does her transaction over the phone and I get to the front of the line to pay for my water and I head out the door and rush to work. Now I am in a hurry so the people on my path no longer have descriptions, they are now just figures in light colored clothing because it is summer and it is one hundred and forty-five degrees out. I think that I should take out my cell phone and check the time but then I think that this will not make me get to work any faster and the time could possibly make me more stressed out so I decide to keep my phone in my pocket and keep walking.

At the red light at 10th and 11th I uncap my water bottle and drink some cold water and I momentarily forget my worries because the water taste great but then I remember that I still have a block to go and not much time and that if I am late to work jumping out of my apartment window might be in my future so then I am again worried. I rush walk the last block and think that I am an idiot because I did not need to stop for a bottle of water because I probably wasn’t even close to dehydration and I could have gotten as much water as I wanted once I got to work.

I finally reach my building and go inside through the revolving door and show the security guard my badge and walk quickly to the elevator which is closing. The one person inside sees that I am in a rush so they do a nice thing and hold the door for me and I get in and I say thank you. The door closes on us and I push my button for the 10th floor and I see that the other rider has already pushed the button for the 14th floor and then I see that the person is a girl in a floral print dress. I look at her and she smiles a kind smile and says I like your shoes and I smile back at her and say I like your peach, she gently laughs and then sticks her hand out and says Lily, I take her hand in mind, squeeze it, shake it, smile and say Tom.

Carlos Porras, born 1985 in Phoenix, AZ, is a self described foodie who likes to ride bicycles and listen to loud pop music. cfnp1985[at]gmail.com

The Brazos Still Runs Muddy

by Peter Lewis

History is a fickle bitch. Which means, of course, that life on a whole is a fickle bitch. One must only take a cursory glance at history books or the pages of a newspaper to see the ironic tragedies that not only litter our past, but continue to occur on a daily basis.

Nowhere is this inconstancy of fate felt more than in organized communities. From the glories of Timbuktu to the windswept wonders of Tombstone, every community is shaped by forces beyond the control of those who purport to be in charge.

Washington-on-the-Brazos is one such erstwhile epicenter, located just below the confluence of the Brazos and Navasota rivers in the southeastern reaches of Texas. The early settlers of Washington, perhaps besotted with the possibilities of the grandeur to come for their community, began referring to the town with the added fluvial designation to dissuade any potential confusion there might be with that other Washington out east.

Soon after its founding, Washington had the honor of hosting the Convention of 1836. Though just a small settlement on the Brazos, it was here that the founders of what would become the Republic of Texas authored and signed a Declaration of Independence from Mexico. However, Washington's status as the capital city was short-lived (a fate it would soon share with Galveston, Columbia, Velasco, and Harrisburg, each having been the capital of Texas at one point in the early years of revolution and independence). An interim government was hastily elected before the members of the Convention, as well as the people of Washington, had to flee the area as the Mexican Army approached.

In the years after the war when Waterloo—the community that would become Austin—was named the official location of the Texas capital, Washington's fate as a prosperous community seemed set. It had the cache of being the birthplace of Texas, a thriving cotton-based economy, and the advantageous situation on the Brazos River.

They certainly had a good run for awhile. The agricultural industry along the Brazos River boomed throughout the years of the Republic and nascent statehood. In addition to the booming economy, the Washington ferry, operating at a low point in the Brazos River, was a preferred route for early settlers.

Perhaps tellingly, however, the community's prosperity was tied almost exclusively to these two related factors. As such, the long-term success of Washington as an incorporated community was stunted, not only by losing the battle to become the capital, but by the construction of bridges along the Brazos that minimized the importance of its ferry crossing and the implosion of the agricultural economy in the years following the war between the states.

Despite these various factors, one can't help but imagine what a modern Texas would be like had a little frontier community that birthed a nation retained its status as capital.

And though one might find Washington's fate to be unfortunate given the historical possibility for this community, the factors that lead to history bypassing Washington were beyond the control of its founders. Which is why it is perhaps prudent to consider the origins of its founding. Presumably, the site was chosen with nothing in mind beyond the inherent possibilities of its location. That is, it offered these early settlers a safe place to live and, if perchance their God smiled upon them, even thrive. In this light, one must consider the unincorporated community of Washington-on-the-Brazos a success. While what glory it retained has long since faded in the eye of a modern viewer, it is still a viable community for those who call it home. That is really all you can ask of a place.

Peter Lewis lives in Austin. He doesn't own an instrument or a dog. jplewis21[at]gmail.com

#washington-on-the-brazos #texas #history

Leaving Dillon

by Jordan Crittenden, Ricky Federico and Mike Wachs

Download "Leaving Dillon"

56 minutes and 44 seconds of three grown men talking about the season—and series—finale of Friday Night Lights.

The photo below, from the last day of shooting, has been stalked and used without permission from a crew member's Facebook account. This show has a strong effect on people

Jordan Crittenden is an opinionated chef from Scottsdale, AZ, a happy husband and a proud father. jordan.crittenden[at]gmail.com

Ricky Federico is a graduate of Northeastern University. He commutes between his home in Chicago, and Dillion Texas. rickyfederico[at]yahoo.com

#friday night lights #fnl #nbc #tv #podcasts #finale #tami taylors hair

As Nasty As They Wanna Be

by Christie Young

The same year that the UK would pass the Obscene Publications Act, Italian musician Sergio Messina was born. The law would go on to give Justices of the Peace the power to issue warrants and seize what they deemed obscene libel, and the man would go on to coin the phrase realcore, aka freely distributed digital amateur pornography.

Characterized as having a “documentary style,” realcore evolved from the combination of Internet access and cheap digital cameras. Nearly 50 years later and thanks to HTML for Dummies, a rich kid from New York would drop out of high school, move to Japan for a few months, and develop what would become one of the biggest open forums for tits and dicks in the world.

With about 1.5 billion Tumblr page views a month, nearly 60,000,000 of those views are pornographic. Alt porn, gay porn, dirty rotten porn, LOLporn—it's real. Real real. Tumblr creator David Karp puts it this way:

Ten years ago there simply wasn’t an option to find like-minded individuals so easily, but now if someone somehow gets to your blog they can decide that you’re like-minded and might want to get a drink with you next time they’re in New York...Or whatever.

If we’re talking about being like-minded, the fact that 69, Flesh World, and Bend Me Over are some of the most popular Tumblrs in the US seems to suggest that the one thing everyone can agree on is getting off. And if as Karp puts it, Tumblr is targeting “an adult who wants to express themselves online,” a bevy of adults find themselves best expressed with their dicks in exhaust pipes and panty-less in public. Or whatever.

Tumblr rarely sacrifices quantity of porn for the sake of quality, which is maybe the most championed aspect of it—the more hentai Tumblrs there are, the less of a perv you are for following Doujin Central. There are no biases here, no age prejudices nor freak flags. Safe-search off, Tumblr is a safe place for the mild to the masturbatory.

Maybe it was the entrepreneurial spirit of the late 90s that fueled the pay-for-porn movement, but the notion of paying to look at pussy couldn't be more obsolete. That is to say, this isn't professional pussy (or dick)--while you get the occasional Sport's Illustrated spreads, 99% of the porn consists of amateur photos of everyday people. It's a guy getting road head while he takes a picture with his Palm Pre; it's a topless crust punk self-portrait; it's a faceless man losing it on another man's face. It's where masturbation and the middle class meet.

And while this amateur "realcore" easily dates back to the dawn of Angel Fire and GeoCities, it's the recent uninhibited fervency by which it's been embraced that's distinguished it from the Girls Gone Wild of yore. Spend some time online and you'll note two things: you rarely see the same photo/person twice, and you will never run out of new Tumblrs to visit; the number of exhibitionists has nearly caught up to the number of voyeurs. This time around, it's embraced from both ends.

It's a stretch to say that everyone's doing it, but if you troll long enough chances are you might run into someone you recognize—which begs the question of how and when so many people became comfortable getting freaky in public. Maybe it's the description on sites like Snusk--swingers, public nudity, group sex, threesomes, foursomes, girlfriend/boyfriend, tits, ass, and funny, sweet, and horny naked people—that has dialed up the inclusivity card. The point is you don't have to be a Suicide Girl or have an amputee fetish or prefer fingers in butts to fit in, you just have to be down with good personalities. Or whatever. SOME FAVORITE TUMBLR FINDS: 1. Sold on the title; this isn't exactly porn, but it's good 2. I don't get it

3. This one is actually pretty cool 4. So many of these

5. This one was slightly funny Christie Young lives in Brooklyn and spends her time drawing and taking photographs. She's interested in the occult, poetry, and baking pie. Read more of her writing at woofbuzz.wordpress.com, and in the forthcoming zine Pie Times.

#criticism #essay #internet #porn #tumblr #christie young

#gaytalese

#influence

The Smart Set

by H.L. Mencken

Originally from How to Sell Manuscripts (1920).

H.L. Mencken was a Baltimore based writer, editor, and contentious spirit. He died in 1956.

Eugene The Whole Shack Shimmies A Woman of Value Goodbye Cleveland! That's Me, Thanks. The Smart Set Download a PDF of this issue. Read at Issuu or Scribd. Would you like to contribute? Email michael [at] japanesebaseball.us for details.

#hlmencken #thesmartset #0710

That's Me, Thanks.

by Victoria Grace Elliott

Victoria Grace Elliott is some girl, usually found on the University of Texas campus. Also she gets paid to draw comics for the Daily Texan. There's some other stuff, but that's about it. victoriagelliott [at] gmail.com

#cartoon #vgelliot #drawing

Goodbye Cleveland!

by Michael Carriere

As both a basketball fan and an urban historian, I found myself fascinated by the now ex-Cavalier Lebron James’ public humiliation of his former team and city. It is clear that James did not handle his exit from Cleveland with anything resembling the grace and poise he displays on the basketball court. Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavaliers, also put his worst foot forward, as seen in the bizarre, hateful press release he issued immediately after witnessing James’ ESPN special/spectacle (one must admire Gilbert’s situational understanding of “loyalty”: did Gilbert feel any sense of loyalty to the 250 individuals that his company, Quicken Loans, let go in June 2008?). And then there are the ever-suffering Cleveland sports fans, let down once again by those they raised to near-royal status. The unthinkable has happened: the king has left his subjects in the lurch.

Many commentators were struck by the immediate reaction to the news among Cavs fans. At least one such individual burned his Lebron James’s “23” jersey in the street, while others took to throwing rocks at the James’ billboard outside of the Quicken Loans Arena. Yes, it’s sad that James is moving on to sun-soaked Miami, but did this occurrence really warrant such extreme responses? After all, as my father used to tell me after a particularly rough night at the foul line, it’s only a game.

Yet in the context of a Rust Belt city like Cleveland, James’s decision to jump ship to Miami must be understood within the broader history of the city. The way that Cavs fans began to talk about James’s betrayal sounded a whole lot like the language once used to address the disloyalty of firms who left the city during the peak of deindustrialization. In many ways, James’ choice to leave Cleveland is but another stop on the longer narrative of abandonment in Cleveland, another reminder that anything deemed productive and of great value will inevitably leave the city. But the James episode is also a cautionary tale of the shortcomings of post-industrial development. In the rush to use sports figures and sporting arenas as engines of economic growth, city developers and their allies often repeated the mistakes of the past. Such a development strategy turned James into nothing more than a commodity, and commodities, as deindustrialization once taught us, care little about place—and even less about loyalty.

Things didn’t always look this bad for Cleveland. By the turn of the last century the city housed the third largest amount of corporate headquarters in the nation, behind only New York and Chicago. At the same time, industrial firms such as U.S. Steel, the Leece-Neville Company (manufacturer of electrical products), the Carling Brewing Company, the Coit Road Fisher Body Division of General Motors, and National Screw provided jobs for countless residents of Cleveland. And people flocked to the city: by 1950, Cleveland’s population stood at 914,808.

Yet the forces unleashed by economic globalization hit Cleveland hard. By the late 1960s/early 1970s plant closings had become commonplace, with firms like the Carlin Brewing Company shuttering their doors forever. By the 1980s, the situation had gone from bad to worse. U.S. Steel closed its last Cleveland plant in 1984, while the Coit Road General Motors facility had closed shop in 1983—a decision that led to the loss of over seventeen hundred jobs. By the late 1980s, Cleveland was but a shell of its former self, as (predominantly white) people fled the city in large numbers. By 1990, the city’s population stood at just 505,616. Those that remained in the city expressed disbelief in the fact that so many people—and, more importantly, companies—could simply pack up and leave the city. The narrative of abandonment had come to define Cleveland.

It was this story that the world of sports was meant to directly address. Throughout the 1990s, city after city recast sports teams as engines of economic growth. Central to this strategy was the belief that public/private partnerships to build new, downtown arenas would revive dying cities. Cities such as Baltimore (Camden Yards, 1992), Denver (Coors Field, 1995), and Detroit (Comerica Park, 2000) all believed that new stadiums would attract both people and capital back to the downtown area. Not surprisingly, Cleveland got into the act as well, opening up Gund Arena (now Quicken Loans Arena) in 1994, as part of the city’s broader Gateway Project redevelopment plan. Such state-of-the–art facilities, in addition to appealing to city-wary suburbanites, were also meant to attract top athletic talent, talent like Lebron James.

Such a development strategy proved remarkably lucrative for athletes like James, but it didn’t seem to do a whole lot for the rest of the citizens of Cleveland. In 2004, as James was finishing up his first season as a Cavalier, it was announced that Cleveland had the highest rate of poverty in the nation. After James’ second season, statistics were released that found that Cleveland had lost 24 percent of its manufacturing jobs in the first five years of the twenty-first century. Like jobs, people also continued to flee Cleveland: new census estimates show that Cleveland had the largest numerical decline in residents during 2009, dropping 2,658, or close to one percent of the population (by comparison, Detroit, often held up as the poster child for abandonment, lost 1,713 residents during the same period). And in May 2010, as Cleveland residents pleaded with James to stay, the city’s unemployment rate hovered around ten percent.

All of this is not to blame one athlete for the sorry state of a major metropolitan area. Instead, the example of Lebron James shows us that it may be time to rethink how we revive American cities, as the strategy of growing economies through sporting arenas has proven ineffective. Don’t believe me? Look past Cleveland and focus on Baltimore, where during the opening week of the 2010 baseball season the Orioles drew the smallest crowd in the history of their stadium – 9,129 fans. The diminishing amount of fans may have something to do with the fact that people, as in Cleveland, continue to flee the city. In March 2010 it was announced that the city has lost about three percent of its residents since 2000. To re-grow interest in his team, Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos has publicly declared that what the city needs is a new arena—funded in part by taxpayer dollars—to replace what he has called “antiquated” Camden Yards, a stadium that is not yet twenty years old.

In light of such pronouncements, the time has come to realize that the health of a city relies on more than just a young man who can dunk a basketball, or a team that has a shot to reach the playoffs. Look beyond the loss of James in Cleveland and one can see such groups as the Civic Innovation Lab, a group that provides both start-up funding and volunteer assistance for individuals trying to start businesses in the city. One recently funded endeavor transformed an abandoned city mall into the “Gardens Under Glass” project, a self-described urban eco-village that features carts of vegetables and fruits grown on site, under the mall’s arching glass domes. The group has also funded companies developing “green” energy sources and new curriculum models for Cleveland’s struggling public school system.

Given the city’s history, it makes sense for Cleveland residents to place James’ decision within the broader narrative of abandonment—and to grieve for such a loss. Yet in their grief one hopes that those in Cleveland, indeed those across the country, come to realize that their cities remain remarkably resilient—and to rethink what it means to truly develop such regions. Athletes, like firms, will leave. Instead, focus development on those who are most invested in the health of their cities: city residents themselves.

- - -

This article originally appeared online at History News Network (hnn.us).

Photo from Flickr user jimharper

Michael H. Carriere is an assistant professor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, where he teaches courses on American history, public policy, political science, and urban design. carriere [at] msoe.edu

#mcarriere #lebron #lebronjames #cleveland #nba #cavaliers #dangilbert

The Whole Shack Shimmies

by Jack Dolgen and Ricky Federico

“Love Shack” by the Georgian pop band The B-52s is a landmark achievement as a song, video, and cultural touchstone. You are encouraged to watch the video before and after Jack Dolgen and Ricky Federico analyze it piece by piece over the course of 38 minutes.

The Whole Shack Shimmies, part 1

The Whole Shack Shimmies, part 2

Photo from Flickr user HMK

Jack Dolgen is a writer, musician, and avid eater. jack [at] jackdolgen.com

Ricky Federico is a graduate of Northeastern University. He currently lives in a funky ol' shack, where the tin roof is rusted. rickyfederico [at] yahoo.com

#jdolgen #rfederico #b52s #theb-52s #loveshack #popculture #mp3 #analysis

Eugene

by Sherry Leblanc Illustration by Kevin Dehan

The windshield magnified the sun as I baked in the passenger seat of our mobile food pantry on the day I met Eugene. Angel, the driver, pushed the air brake and I glanced at the reflection of my forearm in the truck’s rearview mirror. It was the color of rotisserie chicken. The heat was already tearing at my patience and the day had just begun.

As I climbed from my seat onto the pavement, I was greeted by a group of volunteers standing in a semi-circle around me. My friend Charles, who helped gather everyone, pushed a young man into the middle of the circle. “Sherry, this is Eugene. He’s a volunteer firefighter!” I’ve known Charles for years and it’s a rarity for the eighty-five year old to muster up such enthusiasm. I took a good look at Eugene who smiled at me, revealing mossy teeth. Thick film hung in slow motion between his lips. His skin resembled freshly rolled dough dipped in warm water. The bottom of his stomach peeked from the hem of his shirt and was covered in curly, dark hair. His navy-blue baseball cap was pouring sweat from the edges. He was freckled and moist. I ignored Charles’ introduction and began working with the group.

Eugene stayed glued to my side as we set up tables, unloaded the food and organized grocery sacks. Everywhere he followed, I attempted to provide a new distraction. “Eugene, would you mind putting five onions, six apples and six ears of corn in a bag?” “Eugene, could you help Ms. Anita carry her food?” “Eugene, Charles needs your help with the spaghetti”. He stayed silent and worked diligently. When I moved to a new task, he followed. It was hectic and hot as we worked to move the families out of the dangerous sun.

As I began unfolding a table, he bent down behind me and said in a husky half-whisper, “Do you know what it’s like to be 27 and not know the touch of a woman?” I handed him the table and smiled, avoiding eye contact. He repeated himself with more intensity.

“Do you know what it’s like to be 27 and never know the touch of a woman?” I began unfolding the next table as he bent down and whispered, “It’s not a good thing”. I paused while my mind raced, searching for the right answer.

This was the first day I met Eugene and the first of many quotable quotes including:

“Is your husband a firefighter?”

“I always keep a gun and a bomb by my bed, don’t you?”

“You look like the type who wouldn’t take money for sex.”

Sherry LeBlanc feeds hungry people and plays in a band called Shred Shop. She lives in Austin, Texas and knows that you secretly love Dave Matthews Band. You can't hide from the truth. sherry.leblanc [at] gmail.com

Kevin Dehan drew the picture. kevin.dehan [at] gmail.com

#sleblanc #kdehan #story #drawing #cartoon #homeless

#biblioctopus

#dickcavett #mwachs

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