Wednesday, December 13, 2006

It's been a bad week for understanding Cleveland

At least when the New York Times gets stuff wrong about my hometown, they don't think Cleveland's below the Mason-Dixon line.

I just saw a commercial for a compilation album called "Goin' South." It's filled with appropriately Southern favorites, like "Sweet Home Alabama" (the copyright to which I thought was owned by Yum! Brands, presenters of the Kentucky Derby and colon-wringing diahrrea) and hits by Molly Hatchet and The Band.

It also includes "Rocky Mountain Way" by Joe Walsh.

Now, the Rocky Mountains aren't really anywhere near the South. So maybe Joe Walsh is Southern. I mean, he did have a song called "Mississippi Queen," right? Sorry. Joe Walsh is from that noted Dixie town of Cleveland (Virgil, quick, come see! There goes Ulysses S. Grant!).

The only way that song makes sense in "southern" context is if this compendium of classic rock was thrown hastily together by Canadians crocked on Sortilège and dreams of Quebecois secession. Or maybe it was done by the geographically challenged Urban Meyer, who apparently didn't take advantage of Ohio State's many "Your Ass From A Hole in the Ground: Comparative Studies" electives when he was getting his master's there.

You know, Freedom Rock would never have pulled this shit.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What the hell are you talking about? And why are you nursing grievances over the geographic knowledge of people who assemble record compilations?

Anonymous said...

Your headline also raises the question: When is there a good week for understanding Cleveland?

Anonymous said...

Well, Cleveland Awareness Week, of course. I mean, that's just too easy.

Anonymous said...

That was cool during the Civil War when Sherman marched thru and burned Cleveland, and then the river caught fire and then R.E.M. wrote a song about. I love the South.

Anonymous said...

is this Freedom Rock?

TURN IT UP!