take me to that place i love...

"oh you're from cleveland? i'm so sorry."

"your last name is so blue collar"

"isn't that where the lake caught on fire?"

you'd think i'd have some kind of inferiority complex by now, but i love this place.

when i was a kid my dad would let me skip school and we'd go to the art museum, or driving along the marginal roads listening to wcsb, and i'd get my fix of 'culture.' my friend's dad would take us to old cemeteries, little italy, and chinatown.

my first year of college was spent in the middle of nowhere, among kids who generally considered canton a metropolis and my love of loud guitars and rust belt architecture was an anomaly. the first time i came home, my friend and i breathed in the air and exulted in the smog from the steel mills in the flats.

i missed things like airplanes flying overhead, and the orthodox church domes on state road, places like arabica, churches where the music was something you could salsa to as everyone's singing the lyrics in spanish and english, going to see shows at places like the beachland ballroom, and record stores that sold actual records rather than the headshop in the small downtown which sold mostly incense and insane clown posse albums.

that was why i transferred to a closer place where i was only a bus ride away.

that was why i moved back here after graduation even though i could have done a whole lot more with my life.

i think you have to be a certain kind of person to like it here.