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There's nothing like a trip to your favorite bar to bring you back down to earth. "HEY SEXY!" Someone is grabbing my ass. "WOOOOOOOO!", a familiar voice yelps behind me.

"YOU NEED TO TALK TO LAURA!", said my favorite waitress.

"Why are you yelling? And why do I need to talk to Laura?", I asked.

"She totally loves you. Go talk to her! Where have you been lately?"

I explained to her that the last week or so I've been mulling a change of scenery. She was not pleased.

"WHHAAAAAT? Why the fuck do you want leave here?"

I never said I wanted to leave here. I just thought I might want to be somewhere else. I know it sounds interchangeable, but I don't see it that way. Try explaining that to a waitress, now off duty and getting her drunk on.

"No. Absolutely not. You can't go. You just can't.", she protested, almost sobering up in the process.

"You can't what?" My soccer buddy turns around. I tried to deflect the conversation by talking about Sami Hyypia's wretched own-goal for Liverpool against his beloved Arsenal. He wasn't hearing it.

"Unless you're going to England, bad move. What are they paying you?"

I said I didn't know, but I suspected that it wouldn't be much more than I was making more. But the opportunity...

"Fuck that! You can't go. We need you here. You're not leaving. I'll call your boss if you do and complain!" This coming from a guy with no home phone, and always borrowing someone else's mobile phone.

"So what are you gonna do there?", he asked. More or less the same thing I do here, I explained. Only it would be news/talk and sports. "News? Shit, I don't care about the news. And I can get sports on TV." Yeah, and every song I play is a unique composition you can't hear anywhere else.

I guess I've gotten more humble with age. I'm not really sure where or if I fit in the local celebrity hierarchy, and while these people are by no means my closest friends, I really didn't think they'd react like this. Imagine if I told them I was actually leaving.

Another of my drinking buddies offered his two cents. "Toledo is a shit hole. You'd hate it up there. Cleveland, Detroit, they're all shitholes."

But I liked Cleveland, I said. No matter.

"Even if they gave you more money, we need you here." There was that word again.

I could see where certain bartenders and waitresses need the occasional two-dollar tip now and again. But honestly, I've never thought what I do here as a necessary commodity. It isn't like I'm helping to rebuild Iraq, and all of a sudden, I tell the locals I'm leaving. "But wait, we need you! Our power still goes out every night, there's hardly enough running water and there's looters everywhere! You can't leave!"

More to the point, an ex-co-worker said it straight up. "Man, we'd miss you. It just wouldn't be the same."

It was my dissatisfaction with "the same" that prompted me to look in the first place. But I guess my same and their same are two different worlds.

The off-duty waitress, now more drunk and less loud, is grabbing my ass again. "Whatcha drinking? The same?"

Of course, the same, I said. Why would I want anything else.

I sipped a pint of my usual and looked around the bar. Apart from my small crowd, most of the place was unfamiliar faces.

"Who the hell are all these people?", I asked the bartender.

"Dunno. I thought you'd know."

The closest of my bar buddies announced he was calling it a night. "Don't leave!", he barked.

I misunderstood him. "Why? Are you coming right back?" This was only 2 beers in.

"Don't leave!". He slapped me on the back and walked out.

It took me a couple of sips and a few minutes before I realized that he wasn't coming back to the bar, at least not tonight.

And that I should.

A familiar voice. "Are you leaving?". It was Laura. She was not looking that good tonight.

"After this beer." Now I was just playing dumb, 'cause it was starting to depress me.

"Where's Toledo?" She didn't seem that drunk.

"It's in Ohio."

"No, I know that!" she laughed. "I mean, like what's that like, a bigger number market or something?" I don't talk shop with these people, ever. And now they're using the lingo with me?

I explained that while it was a slightly bigger market, it had more opportunity.

"Well, be that as it may," she had to be drunk to use a phrase like that, "you can't go. We've already decided. So there." She hugged me with one arm and walked off.

I put down my empty pint and dropped a couple of bucks on the bar.

"Who the hell are all these people?", I asked the bartender again.

All he did was shrug.

 

  

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

"A Sandals resort for dickwads"

Papi Chulo

Loud, sexy and drunk

NRJ

Elvis

91

"There's a cliquey town, huh?"

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and last column's list explained!

The soundtrack to Taxi 3 Finally, France has joined the ranks of countries who know how to make killer rap soundtracks for mediocre movies. Produced by Pharrell Williams, the disc is loaded with hits, not the least of which, "Match Nul" by Eloquence et Kayliah, a duet which puts pretty much every Ja Rule duet to shame. C'est fou, c'est formidable!

Anthony Thomas-disease A term coined by a co-worker (and Chicago Bears fan) to explain why 6-2, 230-pound running backs like Antowain Smith of the Patriots can't seem to gain any positive yardage. (Note: he did have a whopping 56 yards against the Jets in Week 3. Wahey!)

Trucker hats They're back in style, I predicted it, and they're here to stay. You knew after the mullet came back that white-trash chic was gonna blow up.

Sinatra Subject of a public television special which I gladly appeared on doing pledge breaks for my local PBS TV station. The show was 10 times better than my breaks, that I can assure you. Will post pictures later.

The old man across the way Is a motherfuckin' P-I-M-P. Not only is he cool as hell, but he likes to verbally abuse the hippies across the street. "Wear a bra, you sow!" is just one example of his razor-sharp barbs. "Shower, for the love of God!" is another.

Spooks Is what the British call the "new" A&E series MI-5. Manages to out-spook CSI, even if it is 10 minutes shorter each week than the UK version. Although I can't prove it, I think Rev. Sharpton had something to do with the name change.

"Enjoy every sandwich" Sound advice from the late, great Warren Zevon, as told to friend and biggest fan David Letterman. "Mohammed's Radio" will never sound the same. RIP, Warren.

 


 

  

 

 

 
 

A 15-year old California girl wants to start up a Caucasian Club at her high school, much in the same spirit as the Black Student Union. The local NAACP chapter is naturally screaming racism. Hispanic and Asian groups have also voiced opposition. The student, Lisa McClelland, says she and her friends feel slighted (or is that slanted) by other ethnic clubs, and says that because the Caucasian Club admits all races, it's not racist. In fact, the club's aim is to, in her words, "solve the issues of racial disparity". Well, for starters, if you want to solve one issue, change the name of your little club. Seeings how you do admit anyone regardless of race, it really isn't a "caucasian" club, is it?

On the other hand, Lisa may be on to something here. Are white kids prepared to participate in a truly multi-ethnic society? Do they need to unify as a race and undergo self-orientation? Worked for some other students, young Lisa points out, and rightfully so. Why couldn't it work positively for white kids? That's fair reasoning, isn't it? In her 15 years, she has seen examples where race and culture and identity have been made to matter. She's not blessed with the perspective of history. She doesn't know where she fits.

And the problem is not black and white, literally. We're talking about California, where the proposed recall election ballot will be printed in seven different languages. Last I checked, white people were on the verge of becoming a minority in California. If trends continue, two-thirds of Californians will be non-white by 2040. A similar albeit slower trend is expected in the rest of the country. Previous generations haven't exactly "dealt", and they were still in charge. What is there to suggest that Lisa McClelland and her dwindling band of white well-intentioned friends can?

And it's not limited to the halls of Anytown High: Rush Limbaugh can't seem to understand, as he characterizes it, the "social concern" for the NFL or the media to want to champion black quarterbacks like Donovan McNabb. Whether the League or the media actually does this is up to debate. But if paranoid white people actually believe this, do we as a society have an obligation to bring them up to speed? Or do we let them melt in their own ignorance and intolerance in the name of "payback"? (Or in Rush's case, allow him to get addicted to oxycontin and laugh it off because he's an ignorant cracker?). Most people know racism when they see it and hear it, just like most people know when their car needs service. But not of all us are mechanics. Pat yourself on the back all you want if it makes you feel better. But how do you fix it?

It's very easy to sit here and criticize Rush and Lisa McClelland and others for not being as enlightened as the rest of us. The truth is, I'm probably not as enlightened as I think I am or as I should be. The world I've seen is limited to the socioeconomic hotbeds of Iowa and southern Illinois. I'm foolish to think that I've seen and experienced enough of the world to truly feel comfortable about it, and for the rest of the world to be comfortable about me. And argue with me all you want on this point, but the internet doesn't count. Until a firewall or a filter can protect people from suicide bombers, I have no idea what it's like to live in Jerusalem. Never confuse being well-read with being well-traveled. But that's another column. The best I can do is be a product of my own environment, which, while it does provide a fair amount of diversity, it's not California, and it's not the world.

Funny that a few weeks ago, that world was obsessed, on every cable channel, on the front of every tabloid, all over the radio and all across the net, over the mysterious relationship status of a white Irish kid from Boston and a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx. Mind you, hundreds of millions of dollars richer than most people fitting those respective racial profiles, but still. The "Bennifer" phenomenon is a passive example of racial and cultural harmony, and bank accounts aside, probably more representative of what most real relationships will look like in 20 years. Unless I'm not up on my far-right wing entertainment media (if there's such a thing), how did that slip under the radar? Truth is, it didn't. Most people don't view Jen and Ben as a ethnically mixed relationship as much as they see two rich hacks in love (Though I've yet to talk to my father about "that guy from that movie and the Mexican with the big ass").

The reason we hate on them has nothing to do with race. And the reason most Eagle fans boo Donovan McNabb (or better yet, Kordell Stewart) is because he's the QB of a lousy football team, and that gig carries with it a heavy dose of accountability.

But how much longer should we mock a Lisa McClelland or a Rush Limbaugh for simply not getting it? Our conscience will allow most of us to let Rush take his racism, perceived or otherwise, to his grave. But in the case of Lisa McClelland, who shouldn't be expected to know better, that's a copout.