Fall is coming, I assure you. With fall comes college football; and with college football comes happiness. Oh, and for me, college football also comes with beer and Barbour coats. Those are all beautiful things — especially when combined.
It is during this time every year that I am again inspired by the great Ohioian Woody Hayes to stay humble.
In my mind, the guys from Columbus, O. based Homage do tee shirts better than anyone. The physical shirts are super nice (not to mention made in America), plus the designs are old school classic and insidery. Homage has succeeded in elevating the often sad graphic tee to higher levels. My appreciation for the company and their shirts is of course heightened by our shared allegiance to the Buckeye state. The thing is, I’m not really a tee shirt guy, but I keep finding myself going back for more. This morning I picked up this wine & gold “Cleveland is the City” number to rep my city through the NBA playoffs. More cities after the jump.
When I was about 15 years-old a family friend gave me $25 of LTV Steel stock. It was of nominal value, but it was an amazing gift — the memory of which has remained with me in to this day. It was especially poignant the day LTV filed for Chapter 11 and closed the last remaining steel mill in Cleveland. That was a disappointing time for me. While LTV was shuttering, the local newspaper — the Cleveland Plain Dealer — ran a series of articles called The Quiet Crisis, about the deflating Northeast Ohio economy and the eroding industrial tax base. It is tough to see things like that happen to any town, especially a town you grew up loving and defending.
I found these beautiful black and white photos from the Library of Congress (via the Detroit Publishing Company archive) and was listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Youngstown and it took me back to the glory days of American industry. Or at least the American industrial 1970s (think Deer Hunter) or when I was a kid in Cleveland in the 1980s. Most of these photos are from Western Pennsylvania — places like Homestead and Braddock — and some are from Cleveland, but the spirit is from Bruce and Youngstown, Steel Town.
Download Youngstown
Drummer is the side project of The Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney and four other drummers from Ohio bands. Seeing how The Black Keys are my most favorite living band and all of these guys are from my middlewest motherland, not writing about them was not an option. If you were wondering who plays drums in drummer? It is not Mr. Carney (he’s on bass), the kit is manned by Greg Boyd of Cincinnati’s Ghostman and Sandman.
