Coming On A Little Strong

The City of Cleveland has gone from being a joke, to sad to disgustingly pathetic. Apparently the City has all the intelligence and dignity of a love struck teenager girl.

A while back, Akron held a "We Love LeBron Day" to heap some more love on hometown hero LeBron James. This was after numerous stunts concocted on individual levels to try and convince The Chosen One to stay.

Now Cleveland has launched a "More Than a Player" campaign to try and get him to stay. This includes the absolutely tactless method of using kids to stage flash mobs to sing songs of praise to LeBron, much the same way that Indians used to sing songs of praise to keep the sun rising and the corn growing. Sadly, these kids/props were being exploited to sing Bonnie Tylers "More Than a Hero" at a shopping mall in Cleveland. full story

Despite the abject stupidity of trying to convince one of the worlds most famous men to stay in one of America's most beleaguered cities by singing some lame songs, what exactly does this mind set say about Cleveland?

It says that life there sucks pretty bad. I haven't done a full statistical analysis of this ad binge but most of the participants seem to black. Apparently electing a black President hasn't raised the bar of expectations in Cleveland the way it seems to have in other places. The citizens of Cleveland seem to be less empowered than they have ever been and that's saying something. They are essentially begging for a sliver of positive affirmation. Just something positive to hang their hats on. Even if LeBron stays, will any of these people actually feel good about it for more than a day? This guy hasn't even won anything. Kobe may have raped a chambermaid but at least he's got one for the thumb.

The saddest part is how completely the people of Cleveland have mistaken this relationship. They seem to think that they are like a family trying to convince the son to go into the family business. Love and community wins out. Not so my friend. LeBron is LeBron, the biggest athletic prize on earth. To use my high school girl analogy, he's the star quarterback. I'm afraid Cleveland thinks it's the hot cheerleader. In reality, Cleveland is the slightly cankly, Wiccan type who dresses in all black and smokes on the corner all day watching the true beauties (New York, Chicago, Miami) get all the attention from said star quarterback. Sad and angry by day, no doubt cutters by night.

And what if he does stay? I suppose all of these people will assume that their displays of adoration will have worked. Why not? Try telling the Indians that their dances were meaningless in the ultimate outcome and they'll show you a sunrise everyday as proof of their righteousness. Simply put, if LeBron stays it will simply be a calculation that he can achieve his stated goals of being the worlds largest brand by playing the hometown hero more easily than he can play the savior in one of those other cities. Instead of wasting time choreographing dance routines to bad 80's songs for a millionaire who doesn't care, why don't you choreograph a little community action to clean up some of that urban blight? Maybe coordinate some studying and job placement so these kids might have a fighting chance at success in life.

Cleveland is a hell hole. Stop wasting time, money and effort on LeBron until you can get all these other things straightened out. Once your kids are all educated, fed and drug/ghetto free, then feel free to put pen to paper and write some ballads for whoever you want. Until then, it's just a sad display by a corroding city that desperately needs a hug.