Hobo Sandwich Fight

Like most of my rants that will be featured on here, they have the tendency to be a long time coming. What will follow has been on the burner for quite some time. I should also say that I have many burners, so many so in fact that French Bistro kitchens are shamed by how many stoves I have going... Though what’s interesting to point out about THIS particular rant is that I know that I am not alone in my disgust. This has been a plague upon our culture that evolves and mutates from decade to decade. I am speaking of course of the repulsive, lurking beast that is... Tween Pop stars.

Now before I launch into this, I think I should again point out that my hatred of these people, trends, etc, is NOT an original one. MANY have had reason to abhor the pop princes and princesses of their generation. This little bit is simply going to have my dash of flavor and panache.

So without further ado... put.me.in.charge.of. TWEEEEEEEEEEEENS!

Now I don’t really care about the Oscars. I love movies and I love the process of film making, but as far as how the award of said accomplishments go, It all seems a bit biased and just one big additional stroke job for already overblown egos. Anyways, having watched part of the Oscars several weeks ago, I could not help but notice that many tween ‘celebrities’ were in attendance. While the Oscars are not a sacred event to me, I will honor however that those on the red carpet should be celebrities — as in movie stars and actors working in ‘legitimate’ film. Tween stars have no business even showing their Clearisiled faces at these events... They did nothing to achieve spotlight and recognition at an event like this, whereas the other actors have done next to nothing to be there. No matter, the Zach Efrons(?) and the Vanessa Hudgens(?) have done nothing but be young and on camera. A major achievement in anyone’s book, no doubt. What becomes a very creepy reality is that these kids, because really that IS what they are, these kids are already plugged into the grinding sex-machine that is our entertainment industry.

By this I mean, you have 14 year old “actresses” with weight disorders, doing power cleanses on their eyeballs to keep the puffiness on their crows feet down, which was a product of that all night bender they had with Lindsay Lohan. And, as a general pop culture, we embrace them, as sex symbols no less. The direct bi-product of that is the influence upon their audience — which is even younger than they are. We have a nation of little girls, Im talking 8, 9 and 10, buying Hannah Montana Halloween costumes... DO YOU HEAR WHAT IM SAYING? A Hannah Montana Halloween costume... Which I should explain consists of glittered belly-shirt and hot pants, THAT’S IT. Essentially youre dressing your kid to look like a slut, a not talented-hack of a slut. Venomous sure, but the people who hock this crap know better. They know who their market is... And its just getting younger and younger. Teenagers have sex, that’s ubiquitous. Typically that’s in the upwards of 16,17, 18... Its not exactly right, but let us not be so naïve. However, these people in question, fall far below the line. They are targeting younger and younger kids, making a lifestyle of excess, ease and success without consequence or actual achievement, seem realistic. Let a kid be a kid for a few minutes... Fischer-Price makes toys for toddlers and young children, I don’t need a starter line of iCarly thongs for the PRE- grade 5 market.

But back to the real issue — these talentless tweens. And the first up, Miley Cyrus. Who like the Jessica and Ashley Simpson before her, is pimped by her father for fame, money, and a ludicrously sad reach for second-chance fame. I am speaking of course of her douche of a dad, Billy Ray. With his flat ironed, metro-calico look, that honestly makes me want get in a car accident rather than see him on a tabloid. It’s not enough he was terrible THEN, but he made some awful half-assed comeback via his DAUGHTER, on a show where, he is also STILL a rockstar... And speaking of her, let me continue. Miley Cyrus... This girl is terrifying. She looks as though someone tied a string on the inside of her skull, and when her face was put on it, they pulled the string super tight, so as to make her features pucker and bloat crowding around “America’s favorite button nose.” As if it wasn’t enough to look like an escapee from the island of Dr. Moreau’s Red Light district, she has to act and sing. I use those terms very liberally. Mainly because her voice sounds as if her vocal chords were replaced with those of a person who spent their life gargling hot sand and glue. Linda Blair didn’t make people this uneasy when she spoke in the Excorcist.

(to be continued)

Picking a Fight with Mother Nature

While I am sure more often than not I expose myself as being something of a fool, one usually misinformed. Yet it is still within the grand spirit of this blog for me to press on with a rant, this one rather timely. The time has come Cleveland, for me to address the weather here... and without further ado...

PUT ME IN CHARGE OF THE WEATHER IN CLEVELAND!!! (three exclamations)

This is an open call to the fierce deity of the wild, better known as Mother Nature. Who, for some reason, chooses annually to let fly with her most vicious of concoctions upon us, otherwise known as the Clevo-Winter. I need not regale you (Clevelander readers) with just how awful the manic depressive states of weather are, which include torrential snow and slush, lethal ice, interspersed pockets of 50 degrees, countered with temperatures so frigid, the frost on the inside of your wind shield spells out "Not a Chance Asshole" and more icicles than you could shake a frost-bitten stump at — all in one day.

People who fear the Apocalypse aren't concerned with weather shifts as an indicator because if they did, the 'end' would technically becoming twice a day in Cleveland. But yeah... you don't need me to tell you about that because you already know... so let's move on.

So with all disregard to science and logical explanation, which could in fact offer a sensible answer or reason to my gripe, I have to wonder just what the hell is going on here... I ask this because as any Clevelander can attest, we do in fact have more erratic weather than if a schizophrenic himself was conducting it. Matter of fact, Im pretty sure that visitors here have been known to endure weeks of paranoid fits and weight loss as a result of acclimating to our environmental surroundings. By contrast, people who have lived here their entire lives are too steeped in crazy from the weather that no one really notices. It's a level playing field of climate-induced mania with those that seem crazy just going above and beyond what equates us... I digress, and my apologies, this is not a blog about being crazy (...) This rant concerns Cleveland weather.

Aside from the fact that our weather has the reliability of an ill-tempered alzheimer's victim, my issue lies with its duration. Old Man winter is released from his time out by Mother Nature — which let's examine that for a second... Mother Nature. Mother to all, partnered with Father Earth? Presumably? So... they had a child? A crusty old man-child, a la Benjamin Button, known as Old Man Winter? This is my guess. BUT then that begs the question where is Baby Jane Spring? Sue-Svelt Summer? Finneus Fall? And the other seasonal figure heads I just bullshit my way through... Wheres that leave Jack Frost? Is he infact the horrible, inbred creature of Old Man Winter and Finneus Fall??? Who wrote this crap? It surely wasn't me.

ANYWAYS, apparently Mother Nature And Father Earth have about 4 really "challenged" kids, Old Man winter being the most cantankerous of them all, and evidently the most spoiled here in Cleveland. We see so much of him. He gets let out of his cage or child harness sometime in October. Now see, he's old, so it takes him a moment or two get truly riled up and going. At this point it's November and all the tantrum fury of his blustery, man-child wrath is laid upon us. And since he has the fervor of a delinquent youth in his old man veins, Old Man Winter cavorts wildly well into almost May. It is then, and only then, that again in old man fashion, for no apparent reason he quits the cold and falls asleep. Now the other three siblings get a shot to play. Basically they squabble over the remaining months of May — September. Which of course is plenty of time to span out the seasons of Spring Summer and Fall.

However, between the months of November and April, we lock down and play host to this lumbering bag of insanity Old Man winter opens on us... Much in the same way people carve pumpkins to ward off evil spirits, Clevelanders put out orange construction barrels before winter to ward him off... It is known throughout Clevelander lore that we have two seasons here, Orange Barrel and Winter.