Browns fans, I often think, are gluttons for punishment. But this video, shot by Cleveland’s own Matthew Hashiguchi, explains it pretty well.

Browns Bus: Cleveland Heights Chapter from Matthew Hashiguchi on Vimeo.
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We often talk about cities being rebuilt on the cheap. Like casinos and convention centers and urban strip malls becoming catchalls to the reasons our societies are crumbled. What’s less talked about is how we build our humans on the cheap. “Football as a way out” is an example of this.
From eHow, in article entitled “How to Escape from The Ghettos and Poverty”, Instruction 4 states:
If you have a talent or gift, use it to your advantage. If you can sing really well or if you are a star football …

Cleveland is half its population since the epitome of itself as a winner.

The year was 1948. The Indians had won the crown with a player-manager, and with Satchel Paige: the first black pitcher to appear in a World Series. A model team then, for a model city. In fact it’s said a town’s teams can mirror in play the state of its locale’s mindset—like a kid rounding third through the awareness that his dad won’t scream if he’s out. And so the bounty of life symbolized back then was tremendous—the city like the belly of a suckling, honest-to-god infant; and like the puffed chest of an honest-to-god hard-ass. A city, then, with lights and people and bridges impressive in their capacity to let order pass across the fullness of their steel frames.

Things change, though.

This is seriously the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

The Bridge is a video about a movement started by DeKorda Jackson and his efforts for the push of getting a public skate-park built in the city of Youngstown, Ohio.

The video was produced by Stuck in Ohio, a Northeast Ohio creative studio.

Skateparks are a great way for cities to demonstrate their youth friendliness and also boost their hip factor. Plus it’s better to get kids off the street where they could get killed by a car. This is what you call a win, win. A no brainer. I hope this effort is successful.

Video after the jump …

It’s “the most important decision in history” and “the reasons why spew forth by the hour on ESPN’s LeBron Tracker, Deadspin and Esquire’s LeBron Watch, The Plain Dealer’s daily LeBron Rumors section, and the neighbor guy cutting his grass.”

But Scene magazine writer Vince Grzegorek says enough.

In an article titled “Let Him Go,” Grzegorek argues the groveling and the speculation and the posturing is hurting Cleveland’s image. Maybe more than “The King” ever helped it.

“LeBron in Cleveland validates our place on the map; LeBron anywhere else wipes us out,” he writes, “It’s sad, but no more so than our false belief that the guy ever loved us in the first place.”

To which he adds, hilariously, “even if LeBron departs, we’re stuck with ourselves.”

Read Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy’s ode to Cleveland here.
-KG

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Cleveland has been named the host of the Gay Games in 2014.

Boston, Cleveland and Washington D.C. were competing for the chance to host the games, which are expected to bring $60 million in investment.
The announcement was named today in Colonge, Germany.
From On Top Magazine:
Cleveland’s 2014 Gay Games IX Sports & Cultural Festival will take place August 9 – 16, 2014 and feature 30 sporting events, including a gay rodeo.
Cleveland’s bid for the event was assisted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which threw a bid party. The bid’s …

According to this column on thesweetscience.com, a boxing web site, one of Youngstown’s most well known natives, boxer Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik, has had a disappointing downturn in his once-promising career.
I know nothing about boxing, but according to this piece, it doesn’t look good.

“How does someone go from being one of boxing’s most celebrated fighters to a forgotten man in less than a year?” the web site asks. “Ask Kelly Pavlik. He should have more than a few pointers for how to run a career into the ground.” Ouch!
For some …

  Last night was a rough one for fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who took a thorough drubbing from the Orlando Magic to end their championship hopes. Cleveland, in case you weren’t aware, entered the tournament with the best record in the league, the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player and Best Coach. The team won the first eight games of the playoffs by more than 10 points each.
  It was hard to tell last night, however, as they fell to a sharp-shooting Magic 103-90 in a one-sided match.
  For Cleveland fans, this kind of disappointment …