Bill Watterson: Ohio's own J.D. Salinger

Remember Calvin & Hobbes? A lot of people must, as the Calvin & Hobbes collections (the only officially licensed merchandize you can still buy - sorry Ford/Chevy truck decals) are consistently somewhere on the New York Times best-seller list.

The man behind Calvin & Hobbes is Bill Watterson who, as his comic unequivicolly proves, is a genius. Who else could single-handedly write and draw a comic so original, beautiful, thought provoking, and oh yeah, funny? No one. Duh, that's why he's a genius.

Not only that, no one else in popular culture history has been able to play the game, break all the rules, and quit at the height of their fame all while flat out refusing to sell out (the only possible exception being The KLF). While Peanuts characters hawk everything from life insurance to amusement parks, and Garfield can be found everywhere from stuffed dolls to boxer shorts, Watterson's characters can only be found in one place: his comics.

On top of all these wonderful things, Bill Waterson is also apparently a lifetime Ohioan. He grew up and still lives in Chagrin Falls, a suburb of Cleveland, and even attended Kenyon College. Who knew? He's also reclusive, so if you Chagrin Falls people run into him, don't say anything. Just smile and remember how awesome he is (and Ohio by association).

GOP = Getting Ohioans Pissed

Ah, sweet, delicious schadenfreude.

Ohio Reaches New Low: Trashiness Causes Highway Accident

Yesterday, a car driving down interstate 75 in Toledo swerved, flipped several times, and then landed in an embankment. The two men inside the car fortunately walked away with only a few broken bones, but they could have just as easily been killed.

At first, I'm sure police were confused by the accident, as the object the driver had swerved to avoid wouldn't have been immediately obvious. Only after several interviews would the truth have been revealed: the driver had swerved to avoid a flying bra.

The undergarment in question had formerly been attached to the antenna of a car driving in front of them piloted by 17 year old Tabitha Adams.

I can only gather that the two men were engaged in a heated discussion involving a lot of hand gestures. One of these hand motions must have been mistaken by Tabitha's passenger Emily Davis for a well known red neck mating call, the infamous "show me your tits" gesture. This was all the encouragement young Emily needed, for so eager was she to expose herself, she removed her bra without any further provocation. With the car still in motion, Emily then attempted to attach the bra to the car's antenna, which resulted in the bra flying through the air, causing the unsuspecting car behind them to swerve, thus leading to the aforementioned accident.

Emily Davis was charged with littering, as of course there are no laws in Ohio prohibiting excessive bad taste.

I'm proud to say the two bright young women who perpetrated this brilliant act of terrorism are from Bowling Green, Ohio (not Kentucky), where I attended college. Bowling Green's principle exports are corn, more corn, sexually transmitted diseases, and apparently white trash teenagers that like to expose their breasts to unsuspecting motorists.

And my degree grows more valuable by the day.

Hamilton, Ohio

One more thing that's great about Ohio: Hamilton, the only US town to add a "!" to their name, as they did in 1986.

Wow... Hamilton! is such a good town name. It's not just a great city, it's a complete sentence!

Hamilton!

I imagine the late 80s must have been halcion days for the people of Hamilton! Can you imagine how stoked you'd be all day long if you lived in a city with a friggin "!" in the name? It'd be like smoking crack while being repeated punched in the nuts! What a concept!

The name did have some haters though. The US Board of Geographic Names didn't take too kindly to the name change and rejected it. Don't hate the player, US Board of Geographic Names, hate the game.

Unfortunately, the "!" was like a party, and parties weren't meant to last. City council removed the "!" in 1991, claiming it didn't look right on Hamilton's bicentennial seal, which the mayor designed. Too bad mister fancy pants mayor could embrace his own city's identity. Goddamn Benedict Arnold.

So now, 15 years later, we look back and remember fondly, Hamilton!

Special thanks to the lovely Vicky Carr for bringing this to my attention.

Don't fuck with Cleveland!

Ohio Poll: Citizens Aware of the Blatantly Obvious

I enjoy this article a lot. It says that Ohioans, by and large, think Ohio's economy sucks, and have faith that the current government has done everything it can to help stuff Ohio's big fat dead ass further and further down the toilet. I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.

On the one hand, Ohioans realizing that their state has a craptastic economy is like Anna Nicole Smith just now realizing her son has a drug problem. On the other hand, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem - and holy shit, do we have a problem.

Cleveland recently beat out New Orleans and Detroit to be ranked #1 in poverty! Awesome! Meanwhile, Dayton (#88), Cleveland (#94), Toledo (#97), and Youngstown/Warren (#98) rounded out the bottom of the "Worst Places to Get a Job" list.

So where's our state government while all this is happening? Oh that's right, doing nothing in Columbus, which strangely enough is the only city in all the Midwest that's actually growing. Coincidence? There's a statehouse on the corner of Broad and High filled with guys that hope you said "yes".