The Midwest

As I do just about every year, I went to Michigan to visit my dad and my step-mom. The town I go to is where I was born and spent 5 years. Parts of my family, including me, were trucked down to the Southwest in 1982 and raised. I suppose I'm technically a Midwesterner, though I hate to admit it.

This town is called St. Joseph (or St. Joe to the residence and those in the know) and is about 45 minutes north of South Bend, Indiana (you know, Notre Dame). It sits on Lake Michigan and is mainly a seasonal town. Lots of people from Chicago own property there - including, legend has it, Al Capone - and boating is a popular past time. Whirlpool has its world HQ there and holds a good deal of sway. It is a "twin city" because the equally sleepy town of Benton Harbor hugs its border. Benton Harbor is sometimes referred to as the wrong side of the tracks because more blacks live there (or as my long-dead Grandfather called them, "coloreds"). The two towns have about 25,000 residents on a good day. Sindbad, the comedian and Ernie Hudson, the actor hail from this area.

So there you have it - the history and make-up of this place.

St. Joe/Benton Harbor is like a lot of little Midwestern towns, I suppose. The people are, with little exception, all slightly bland, slightly over-weight and obsessed with football, cars and sometimes hunting. The whole area feels like it's stuck in a time warp. I went to school at IU, and when I told someone I was planning on moving to Indiana, I was told flatly by a former resident that the whole state was at least 11 years behind the rest of the country. That is not an over exaggeration. Every time I visit, it becomes clearer how slowly they are to move forward, not only in the way that they think, but the way they dress.

Now, I'm hardly a fashion maven. I live in New York City, so I guess I see trends a little sooner than most of the US, if not the world. Still, my closet is full of stuff that I shouldn't wear in the year of our Lord, 2008*. But this doesn't mean I don't know that tapered and carpenter jeans should have been tossed out long ago.

Another regional favorite is the camo/NASCAR/college football team baseball cap with Oakley sunglasses perched on the bill. I thought this reached its peak when I graduated college some 10 years ago. But sadly I was wrong. This is apparently how men show their masculinity, in some strange way. It's best coupled with a mustache or goatee.

Hunting attire, on the whole, is the style of choice for men and women. Anything camouflage works in any situation.

Women have their own set of style issues. I think I pay more attention to what they wear, well, because I'm preoccupied with them. Every person with double-X chromosomes were handed a lifetime supply of Christmas-themed sweaters upon birth. They are usually worn from the moment the first autumn leaf hits the ground. They are typically worn over a white turtle-neck. Though this isn't strictly limited to females, it is almost mandatory for them. Some men do sport this look, but it's slightly less than typical.

The hair, generally speaking, that sits on the Midwestern head is always worth a laugh and sometimes a gasp. Men can't usually fuck this up too badly (save for a mullet or something similar), so I won't go into that detail, so this will be dedicated to the women. And further, only the heads of white women will be examined. Black women have their own issues that I refuse to comment on - in my humble opinion, they should all fro their hair out. Nothing is sexier on a black chick and looks so much better than the best perm job.

Ahem.

There are three typical Midwestern hairstyles for women.

1. The Granny : a colored, blown-out do. Once a women hits 50, the beauty salon gives it to them, whether they asked for it or not.

2. The Mom: a sort of fluffed bob with an explosion of bangs - I heard someone call them 'broccoli bangs' on this last trip. It fits, though I compare them to to those big 4th of July fireworks. Mousse and a blow-dryer necessary in its maintenance.

3. The trendy: cropped short in the back and lest long in the front. Sort of a reverse mullet. The bangs are usually blonde while the rest is a sort of burgundy color. This is the worst of them all and turns the prettiest girl into a troll.

There is so much more I could go into, but I should save those for my next visit. I really need to explore the food and politics of this vast region. check back in a year.

The Midwest gets a ** out of *****. Mostly because it's a cheap place to get drunk.

*I'm still holding onto the idea that Doc Martens are still worn by a lot of cool, up-to-date people

Review: Spilling Beer on Laptops

I have to say, spilling beer on a laptop isn't as fun as I would have expected.

Two nights ago, I was eating dinner in front of my computer (fake buffalo chicken nuggets), playing "Jamble" with a friend on itsyourturn.com when I tipped over a bottle of Beck's beer. A third of it spilled on my laptop's keyboard and I hastily wiped it up with a rag I use to clean oil paint brushes. Then, lacking paper towels, I used toilet paper to soak up the rest -- that seemed more absorbent.

I thought I was fine until the screen went white and then the thing shut down. No smoke poured out of the thing and I heard no pop, so I thought I might be in the clear.

Now, I'm usually one for restrained panic, but I remained oddly calm. I felt like I should be angrier or more upset, but I wasn't. I calmly used my work phone to google "liquid spilled on laptop" for some advice. After ten minutes of waiting for wikianswers to load on my bulky Treo, I was unscrewing the casing in attempt to dry out the thing's innards.

Several hours later, I'm in bed, having given up. The next day, I take it to some place in midtown for a free quote. A few hundred bucks later, I have my files -- mostly music and porn -- but the thing is beyond repair. So I had to order a new laptop. I just made Dell's day.

I give this experience a meaty * out of ***** rating.