(On location- from the Blackberry- expect spelling and grammar errors)
This brisk May Saturday morning finds me sitting in a makeshift classroom on Lorain Road in West Park, taking one of my last steps towards reclaiming the privelege of being a licensed driver in the great state of Ohio.
Before class begins, for which I was of course unfashionably early, I stood outside and watched the cavalcade of suspendees enter the storefront. John Edwards, when he wasn't banging that frumpy TV lady who was still way less frumpy than his super-frumpified wife, often spoke of "two Americas," and I think he was speaking of class division, the rich and the poor, that stuff. I'd like to revise this notion of two Americas, and since I'm not banging anybody and instead am thinking very deeply right now, I believe there is retarded America and other people. And I don't mean this as a dig at the fine people afflicted with mental retardation. I'm speaking of the retards that got DUI's and find themselves in this class.
Alas, that includes me.
The first woman enters the classroom on her cell phone, speaking to (presumably) her boyfriend, or (possibly) her pimp. "Hey stupid ass how coulds yous let me drives to this motherfucker. Yous was sposed to wakes da fuck up." I would say that she was somewhat attractive, if not for the fact that she was not attractive at all, and had a tattoo of a rose on her neck.
After registering, I am greeted by the grizzled veteran of suspended license driving class, and it's already clear he has more war stories than Oliver Stone. His license has been suspended for 17 years. He tells everyone that enters the room that his license has been suspended for 17 years. In case you were wondering, this bad ass former marine with a musclebound son has been driving on a suspended license for 17 years. His name is John, but it might as well be Suspension. It seems as if he's found his niche in life, as that of the guy who tells stories about his license being suspended for 17 years. I feel like he'll be akin Brooks from the Shawshank Redemption when he got out of the pokey. Life is too crazy on the other side, john, just stay suspended brother, you're home. "Either get on with driving, or get on with suspendeding."
Fast forward several minutes and I think the class is fully assembled. Lots of visable tattoos. Ooh, there's a well-crafted pencil beard. Hey, nice blue nail polish. Well what do we have here, it's an actual decent looking woman that my GEDar indicates most likely graduated from high school. Sit next to me, tootsie. She sits one over, one up. Close enough.
20 people are taking this class. At $60 a pop, that's a cool $1200. I estimate $1000 a month to rent this storefront, $500 in utilities and maintenence, and $500 grease money to the state of Ohio so they can mutually maintain this racket. That's $2800 left to pay $300 a day perhaps to the instructor. There's still $1600 left over. I like this business model, I may be opening Haganational's Remedial and Retarded! Professional Driving School soon.
Organ donation video time. If Johnny Suspended man was worth a shit, he'd be recycling the Henny Youngman line, "take my wife, please," right now. He's letting me down. C'mon, children of the Greatest Generation. I know Tom Brokaw would have come through there.
Now this video exercise has me thinking, what organ would they take from me? I feel as though I'm like the Pondorosa steak that's in the picture when you walk in the door. I look pretty good on the outside, but you can be fairly certain there's a lot of crap that's gross on the inside.
OK, Matt, keep writing this blog and refrain from staring at the one educated looking lady to your right, one seet up. She's taken off her sweater, revealing a large back tattoo. I will not change my initial diagnosis, this woman has a minimum of a high school diploma, can hold court on politics and sports, has a fine sense of humor, and will be a fantastic mother to our children... Here's my first organ donation baby, I give you my heart... Fuck, it's only 10am and I am going crazy already.
The attention span, collectively, of our group is very poor. I would hate to be a teacher in any class that has such sub-human vermin. Of the roughly 200 questions asked of the instructor lady, two of them sounded smart. These questions were asked by immigrant natives of Syria and Kenya. The other 18 of us from the US of A aren't bringing much shine and floss to this great land of ours with, "so you mean if I don't take the test, I won't get my license?" Is that a question or a confirmation that you are a complete idiot?
And just when my faith in the general population seems irretrievably shaken, cutie with the back tatty quotes "The Breakfast Club," and in context! She is my ice cube in the hottest recesses of hell.
Break time is approaching. I wouldn't let most of us drive either. Despite feeling terrible about driving on work priveleges for a year, I'm begrudgingly willing to admit that they've probably got it right for most of us. The BMV should be renamed Beauracratic Automotive Darwinism, the BAD.
Video 2: "the backseat is the safest place in the car." That is kind of awesome, because I've had a recurring dream that I've had to drive Dave Gifford's old Cadillac from the "bitch" position (center-rear) behind the bench seat. I wonder if my Toyota dealership can retrofit America's car, the Camry, so that I can drive it from the rear... Hey you, magna cum back tatty beauty, I'd like to drive you from the rear... My devolution continues.
If I'm doing crystal meth and giving handjobs for $10 when this class is over I will not be happy with myself nor the BMV-BAD.
Well, it's only like 11:05 eastern, and while I'm sure the next six hours will be action packed and filled with informative lessons re: life, love, and defensive driving, it is time for me to bid you adieu.
The two most glaring morals of the story are apparent, however. Number one, don't drink and drive. Number two, baby doll with tat-back is a lovely woman and we'll soon be honeymooning in a Swine Flu-less region of the tropics. Just when life puts on the brakes, the muscle car of Americana redeems itself in such fine fashion!
Goodbye license suspension, hello white-trash love!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Frank Lewis, Tell Me How My Ass Tastes
I know I haven't written a blog in quite some time. The events of the last few days have given me a few blog ideas. The Celtics-Bulls playoff series has turned into perhaps the best ever played, as it heads to game seven after the sixth edition went three overtimes. It's been some sick shit, and has reminded everyone that the NBA, despite whatever malady ails it at the time, is still freaking awesome.
But that's not why I've decided to write today.
Since the 2002 election, I've stayed away from politics. I still pay attention, I watch the news (and not just MSNBC), read newspapers online that I don't pay for (unless I start attending the advertised University of Phoenix online, I don't think I'm paying for my New York Times "subscription"), and I debate my conservative friends whenever I get a chance. Healthy. I also vote. I'm just not waving any flags or going door-to-door these days.
The gubernatorial election of 2002 changed my take on the whole process. Driving around my uncle, I knew he was gonna lose. He knew he was gonna lose. In March. But he fought on with guts and true character. He drank his Diet Cokes, and we enjoyed cheeseburgers from Athens to Zanesville, and sat through depressing Jefferson Day Dinners from Ashtabula to Cincy. It always amazed me, as a 23-year old relying on Red Bull to drive the candidate and our posse (usually three deep, but sometimes just the two of us) how he could, at 56 years old, stay so on point. He was delivering a liberal stump speech five or six or eight times a day, something right out of the 2008 campaign playbook, but unfortunately it was six years early.
But that said it all. He was not compromising his core principles. At a union hall, when he drank a Bud (and he doesn't drink beer), the fired up and increasingly intoxicated attendees literally started passing around a hat, throwing cash into it. Now, keep in mind, Bob Taft had about an AIG bailout's worth of cash for his campaign, while my uncle had enough to pay for our next tank of gas and ten yard signs. I saw this as a potential bonanza, and even entertained the idea of purchasing a few Red Bulls with it (I was on a very modest campaign stipend, and three bulls a day was taking about 10% of my net worth).
"Matt, find an envelope, put the cash in it, and give it back to (I forget the name, our union contact and friend of the campaign.)" DAMN, Tim, let's compromise here, dooood, it's like three hundred bucks. PlayStation game. Christie's Cabaret. C'mon unkskie...
Not a chance.
Enter The Other Paper. The "alternative" (note- I may or may not tense shift, but I will certainly tenor shift, right now) newspaper in Columbus did a hatchet job on Tim, messing up quotes, using quotes out of context, and basically butchering him up. I'm thinking, what motivation would an "alternative" newspaper have for thrashing the liberal alternative to Bob Taft, a buttoned up R right out of central GOP casting.
But it made me realize something. For the most part, these "alternative" papers aren't that alternative at all. I travel all the time for work, and they all look the same. Like almost exactly. They're owned by the same corporations. They employ the same type of writer/reporter/editor, this is now clear to me. An "alt" reporter operates with a press pass, giving the illusion that they actually respect principles of journalism. But when they write, they are (collectively) so traumatized by their 1) rejections from real papers- the ones with real editors- the ones that at least pay lip service to the value of objectivity, and their 2) inability to gain any traction with their words, because nobody buys (they're almost always free anyway) or picks up an "alt" for the articles. "Alts" make money from ads, and are getting hammered by Craigslist, and have literally only hookers and phone-sex advertisements to thank for their survival. People picking up alts are either looking for a band or a bar, or looking for Eliot Spitzer's girl.
So they are a defeated group, and I get that.
Enter Frank Lewis and Dan Harkins, two "leading" contributor-editor-reporter dudes at the Cleveland Scene. Leading the Scene, I feel, at this point, has about as much responsibility and importance as leading an overmatched softball team in Euclid in 2003. (Still Coach Nate, you did a great job.)
They both went hard after my uncle on the Med Mart deal. That, truly, is fine. I'm totally OK with that. If these weeklies did have a purpose, that would be it. Challenge the political leadership in a smart, objective, and measured fashion- and if they have to use humor to catch a few more readers, so be it.
Unfortunately, both forgot about the smart, measured, and objective part. They tried humor, but I don't know how funny shaping a winding metaphor of an article around my uncle's health problems are. I certainly know that offering a dig about marrying up twice is nothing less than vitriolic. Judge for yourself- this is the Dan Harkins article. http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/how-we-got-screwed/Content?oid=1565381
Frank Lewis, well he made it his duty to go to name-calling (which I reciprocated, no doubt, in my emails to him) and to call Tim a criminal. This, I still feel, is libelous. Puss Lewis claims it's not, and IMMEDIATELY published some of the more incidieary passages of the emails I sent to him. He, of course, never published his condescending blasts to me via email about my misuse of words or my failure to understand what libel means. That wouldn't fit in with his mode de vie, which is to lampoon Tim Hagan for failing to give him an interview, even if it means being a complete and total puss-ball. Here's the select passages that he choose to publish and editorialize on in his Scene Blog forum. If he meant to throw me under a bus, it would work better if the bus was in motion, as it is very clear that NOBODY reads his shit. But here is his excerpted and editorialized take on our correspondence;
http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2009/04/29/fan-mail-from-hagan-not-that-hagan-updated
So I call you out, Mr. Frank Lewis. You have a much larger forum to go rogue than I do, even if it's a tree falling in the woods when no one is around kind of large forum. You fancy yourself as a hockey player, I have deduced. You are quick to call someone an arrogant prick, you are quick to pick and choose which portions of our email correspondence to publish (like the cowardly hack you are). And yes, I really would like to kick your ass. That's illegal though. So, I offer you this challenge; Let's have a charity boxing match, proceeds go to the winner's favorite charity. Mine will go to the county's general fund. Yours will probably go to the Scene's creditors, as I'm guessing you'll be looking for work soon. Maybe this publicity will stave off the Chapter 11 reaper for a week or two, huh?
I will close with a direct quote from Mike Tyson, but instead of the earstwhile British champ, let's sub the name "Frank" for "Lennox," and here we are: “Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!"
But that's not why I've decided to write today.
Since the 2002 election, I've stayed away from politics. I still pay attention, I watch the news (and not just MSNBC), read newspapers online that I don't pay for (unless I start attending the advertised University of Phoenix online, I don't think I'm paying for my New York Times "subscription"), and I debate my conservative friends whenever I get a chance. Healthy. I also vote. I'm just not waving any flags or going door-to-door these days.
The gubernatorial election of 2002 changed my take on the whole process. Driving around my uncle, I knew he was gonna lose. He knew he was gonna lose. In March. But he fought on with guts and true character. He drank his Diet Cokes, and we enjoyed cheeseburgers from Athens to Zanesville, and sat through depressing Jefferson Day Dinners from Ashtabula to Cincy. It always amazed me, as a 23-year old relying on Red Bull to drive the candidate and our posse (usually three deep, but sometimes just the two of us) how he could, at 56 years old, stay so on point. He was delivering a liberal stump speech five or six or eight times a day, something right out of the 2008 campaign playbook, but unfortunately it was six years early.
But that said it all. He was not compromising his core principles. At a union hall, when he drank a Bud (and he doesn't drink beer), the fired up and increasingly intoxicated attendees literally started passing around a hat, throwing cash into it. Now, keep in mind, Bob Taft had about an AIG bailout's worth of cash for his campaign, while my uncle had enough to pay for our next tank of gas and ten yard signs. I saw this as a potential bonanza, and even entertained the idea of purchasing a few Red Bulls with it (I was on a very modest campaign stipend, and three bulls a day was taking about 10% of my net worth).
"Matt, find an envelope, put the cash in it, and give it back to (I forget the name, our union contact and friend of the campaign.)" DAMN, Tim, let's compromise here, dooood, it's like three hundred bucks. PlayStation game. Christie's Cabaret. C'mon unkskie...
Not a chance.
Enter The Other Paper. The "alternative" (note- I may or may not tense shift, but I will certainly tenor shift, right now) newspaper in Columbus did a hatchet job on Tim, messing up quotes, using quotes out of context, and basically butchering him up. I'm thinking, what motivation would an "alternative" newspaper have for thrashing the liberal alternative to Bob Taft, a buttoned up R right out of central GOP casting.
But it made me realize something. For the most part, these "alternative" papers aren't that alternative at all. I travel all the time for work, and they all look the same. Like almost exactly. They're owned by the same corporations. They employ the same type of writer/reporter/editor, this is now clear to me. An "alt" reporter operates with a press pass, giving the illusion that they actually respect principles of journalism. But when they write, they are (collectively) so traumatized by their 1) rejections from real papers- the ones with real editors- the ones that at least pay lip service to the value of objectivity, and their 2) inability to gain any traction with their words, because nobody buys (they're almost always free anyway) or picks up an "alt" for the articles. "Alts" make money from ads, and are getting hammered by Craigslist, and have literally only hookers and phone-sex advertisements to thank for their survival. People picking up alts are either looking for a band or a bar, or looking for Eliot Spitzer's girl.
So they are a defeated group, and I get that.
Enter Frank Lewis and Dan Harkins, two "leading" contributor-editor-reporter dudes at the Cleveland Scene. Leading the Scene, I feel, at this point, has about as much responsibility and importance as leading an overmatched softball team in Euclid in 2003. (Still Coach Nate, you did a great job.)
They both went hard after my uncle on the Med Mart deal. That, truly, is fine. I'm totally OK with that. If these weeklies did have a purpose, that would be it. Challenge the political leadership in a smart, objective, and measured fashion- and if they have to use humor to catch a few more readers, so be it.
Unfortunately, both forgot about the smart, measured, and objective part. They tried humor, but I don't know how funny shaping a winding metaphor of an article around my uncle's health problems are. I certainly know that offering a dig about marrying up twice is nothing less than vitriolic. Judge for yourself- this is the Dan Harkins article. http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/how-we-got-screwed/Content?oid=1565381
Frank Lewis, well he made it his duty to go to name-calling (which I reciprocated, no doubt, in my emails to him) and to call Tim a criminal. This, I still feel, is libelous. Puss Lewis claims it's not, and IMMEDIATELY published some of the more incidieary passages of the emails I sent to him. He, of course, never published his condescending blasts to me via email about my misuse of words or my failure to understand what libel means. That wouldn't fit in with his mode de vie, which is to lampoon Tim Hagan for failing to give him an interview, even if it means being a complete and total puss-ball. Here's the select passages that he choose to publish and editorialize on in his Scene Blog forum. If he meant to throw me under a bus, it would work better if the bus was in motion, as it is very clear that NOBODY reads his shit. But here is his excerpted and editorialized take on our correspondence;
http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2009/04/29/fan-mail-from-hagan-not-that-hagan-updated
So I call you out, Mr. Frank Lewis. You have a much larger forum to go rogue than I do, even if it's a tree falling in the woods when no one is around kind of large forum. You fancy yourself as a hockey player, I have deduced. You are quick to call someone an arrogant prick, you are quick to pick and choose which portions of our email correspondence to publish (like the cowardly hack you are). And yes, I really would like to kick your ass. That's illegal though. So, I offer you this challenge; Let's have a charity boxing match, proceeds go to the winner's favorite charity. Mine will go to the county's general fund. Yours will probably go to the Scene's creditors, as I'm guessing you'll be looking for work soon. Maybe this publicity will stave off the Chapter 11 reaper for a week or two, huh?
I will close with a direct quote from Mike Tyson, but instead of the earstwhile British champ, let's sub the name "Frank" for "Lennox," and here we are: “Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!"
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