Gone Fishin'

NOTE: This is not Jermaine and Shaquita Loquacious

As you all probably know at this point, I am from (and currently live in) Cincinnati, Ohio.

Cincinnati is a notoriously backward, boring, out-of-touch town where our trends of today were everyone elses trends of last year. Where the streets of downtown basically close at 8 at night. Where there are race riots and hooker seeking mayors, and all sorts of quietly embarrassing things that I prefer not to talk about.

Cincinnati has nice things, too. It has really nice parks. It's got a really pretty skyline. It's got Skyline. It's got the oldest love of my life, the Cincinnati Reds (The FIRST PLACE CINCINNATI REDS!!!).

... as someone who has lived here my whole life, I've kinda run out of things to do after 8 pm. I've been to the restaurants. I've been to the movies and the Levee, and The Reds don't play every night. You can only go to the park so many times, and not legally after dark anyway.

And thus I found myself, along with the Tofu Muchacha and our friends Jermaine and Shaquita Loquacious (they're a married couple), looking for something to do on this past Saturday evening. We'd planned on going to see the Reds, but the game was sold out. I mean... That has happened to me exactly never times before, so I was pretty bummed. Then I remembered an idea I'd had only one week before.

Over the past 2 or 3 years (or so) something strange has happened. Cincinnati is slowly getting hipper, and with that slight hipper-ness a new nightlife has sprung forth. There are probably 10 clubs downtown that are chock-full of hipsters and graduated fratboys and skanks and all kinds of such things....

Well, last week after checking out the AWESOME production of Big River at The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center (directed by The Beefy Padre and The Tofu Madrastra), the TM and I went to this new sushi place downtown (OPEN LATE!). On our way to the restaurant we encountered quite a few.. ehm... classily dressed young ladies traveling in packs toward one of or, maybe all of, the new clubs. The TM commented to me how she just absolutely loves to watch them, and how she could watch them all day.

Fast forward to a week later, and me telling Shaquita and Jermaine to come over to the house and bring their lawn chairs. Whhhhaaaaat?

That's right. We went downtown, set up chairs, and watched the night parade. And it was fucking AWESOME.

At first I was just saying we were going to go down and watch the hoes, and yes... there were hoes, but there was oh-so-much-more.

Some of the awesome things we encountered...

- A very sweaty dude who saw us sitting there enjoying the night breeze and just plopped right down next to us, as though we were doing the normalest of normal things. Then he told us about how tired his legs were. He sat there for a minute, and then as quickly as he arrived, he disappeared into the night.

- A homeless (this was not immediately clear) man, claiming both that it was his birthday and that he had throat cancer. Both of these may have been true. What was definitely true was that he regaled us with a very lengthy poem about the colors we were wearing, occasionally incorporating our names (or at least the ones we gave them). This poem went on for a solid 3 or 4 minutes, at which time he held out his hand. I assumed he wanted a high five. I was wrong. That long-ass poem cost me 81 cents. You know what.. it was worth it since it was his birthday and he'll be dead soon from the throat cancer. He was a highlight.

- A woman from Switzerland who took our picture.

- A police officer on a bicycle, who we'd seen a few times across the street, and who we assumed would make us vacate our spots when he finally made his way over to us.. Quite the contrary! He was all "Watching the people, huh? Can't say I blame you. Great night for it!" That was awesome.

- A whole lot of Chicago Cubs fans who, apparently high from a rare win over my Reds, were in great spirits. They were far more curious about what we were doing than any Reds fans. Most of whom took some note of us, and continued on their no-so-merry way.

- Some really, really fucking drunk people getting out of a white school-type bus with tinted windows. Now... this white school bus reminded me of those buses you see going to and from the prisons in movies. Either way... they were all W.A.S.T.E.D. Like ferreal. Two of the dudes were suggestively eyeing the TM and Shaquita. Then they made their way across our paths and right into a stretch SUV. Not their stretch SUV, of couse, so there was a minor scuffle between them and the stretch limo driver, who was pretty bent out of shape about the whole thing. Then the drunk dudes pretended to jerk each other off... yeah... I dunno. I guess there's something to that whole latent homosexuality in American fratboy theory that is so popular.

- Then of course, were the hoes. There was no end to crazy-ass shoes and RIDICULOUSLY short skirts. And seriously.. crazy short. Like the shortest skirts anybody's ever seen. I'm not saying they all should have been wearing something more... more, but most of them should definitely not have been displaying that much of whatever they were displaying. Really, they are a whole post all on their own. What leads them to forget that, because they are women, and men are retards, that they could wear jeans and sweatpants and still get laid, if they so chose? I firmly believe that it actually has nothing to do with luring we dumbass mens, and everything with showing off to the other women. Aaaaanyway...

At some point during the hour or so we were down there, minding our own business, I decided we were actually being MORE aggressive than any one of the drunks, vagrants, idiots, and hoes that came up and talked to us, because we were openly watching them. Everyone watches everyone all the time, but it's all sideways glances and through sunglasses and quick peeks. We sat there. Watching people walk by. Listening to the snippets of their conversations. Occasionally poking our ways into their conversations when they'd glance at us sideways and point and whisper about how we're doing what they've all wanted to do.

I can honestly say it was one of the most interesting, enjoyable nights I've ever had in Cincinnati. I can't wait to do it again.

So, Jermaine and I were sitting there, enjoying the breeze, and he said something about how what we were watching was like an ocean reef. Where all the people were different kinds of fish, and different parts of the sociological food chain, which is kind of beautiful and true in a way... Every person has their spot in the eco-system of the world, much like each clown fish and shark have their own places on the reef.

We went Fishing.