Toledo! the Mutherfucking one in Ohio

I'm a fucking city. Read the brochure. *Please reread that imitating Doug Henning, Richard Simmons, or Gdub for comedic effect.Facts about ToledoToledo is home to Dana Corporation (yes it’s named after it’s androgynous founder and alleged deviant social-lite® who liked to be called Dan-Hay at parties and to don risqué stained-glass lamp shades featuring various saintly characters in rare behind the scenes footage). Dana is currently in bankruptcy for accounting methods that would make Enron executives jealous (only because they haven’t faced criminal charges, class action law suits, and still walked away with millions). Dana expects to emerge leaving its gullibly obedient employees jobs completely unsafe and pension-free under it’s new motto “Free markets are great to those that own them.”Jamie Farr used to be on a TV show playing a cross dressing soldier who wanted out of the army (also the basis for a Village People person). Now he’s an annual golf tournament just outside the city limits. The more things change (insert end of cliché here).The Toledo Airport located conveniently 3 towns away in what Toledo’s high school educated elite refer to as “Swantucky” (Ya see, they combined Swanton and Kentucky in a clever-like fashion). It was voted the best place to emergency land cause in peak hours you can have the whole airport to yourself. LAX was thinking of moving next to Toledo airport after they studied how to keep airline traffic down here some years ago.Toledo is one of the few cities to have secret elections (2nd Tuesday in November FYI) to determine which local officials will carry on their industry standard “maintain the status quo” campaign. In fact, Toledo has had negative voter turnouts in recent decades. “Anybody But (insert “lump of grey goo’s name here”) campaigns have far outnumbered those promoting a would-be official. It’s all proof positive that democracy works, even when it doesn’t.Toledo is home to the world famous Mudhens (until recently from the sub-herb of Maumee). Although known as the “Sludgehens” (adjusted for heightened industrial pollution to third world levels in some areas) by some cynical asshole also known as the present author, they have managed some success recently, despite minor league steroid testing being more strict than the lowly majors. When the voters disapproved a new stadium, the Treasurer (since run out of town by scandal) sidestepped the democratic process and issued bonds for the state of the art “Yet Another of Your Standard Piece of Shit Bank Named Field” or 5/3 for short. Half-Assed Bank reportedly “doesn’t do naming rights.”Seeing a beautiful field built with public funds for professional adult out-of-town baseball players to play, local youth asked for decent parks and recreational areas. Never to back down from it’s chief duties (annoying it’s citizens), Toledo City Council took up a collection for lunch and garnered $16.83 for fresh new broken glass, dirty needles, broken lights, and cut the parks operations and maintenance budget to assure the children would (say quote here) “would learn to watch who they’re fucking with.” Case closed. Our councilmen hate voters, non-voters, and ineligible voters equally. They’re progressively egalitarian in that regard.Toledo had an NFL football team from 1922 (the first year the NFL name came into existence) to 1923 called the Maroons. One need only consult a dictionary to see how much of a sense of humor they had. Definitions of maroon include: to intentionally abandon with little hope of rescue or escape and a fugitive black slave or its descendants. Yep, Toledo was in the NFL when it was cool having an outlaw edge to it. Now it’s overrun with fantasyland football dorks and shameless merchandising that makes George Lucas grimace.Katie Holmes was allegedly born and raised a nice young unmolested Catholic girl, but the Church of Scientology has since rebuffed those claims and has threatened suit against anyone who claims otherwise. L. Ron Hubbard couldn’t write a religious text or sci-fi novel to save his life, but his legal briefings (even posthumously by other people) have a cult-like following.Toledo, seeing a workfare program to milk decided to unnecessarily build a modern bridge along one of its major highways. Not only does it span from one suburb halfway to the state line, because a 3 mile bridge seems necessary to span a 1200 foot river, it completely bypasses the city. Toledo will spend millions of dollars and some lives to make sure people pass on by safely and without any unsightliness to be had. Nothing says economic development like using local resources and labor now to build an overpass over local resources and labor later. Golf clapJuly 4th, 1919 Toledo had arguably the best boxing match ever between arguably the greatest boxer ever, Jack Dempsey and an opponent 6 inches taller and 50 lbs. heavier. The smaller Dempsey Picasso’d the canvas red winning in 3 rounds. Although if you ask locals, they usually name the fight between its mayor and a Mexican restaurant owner and the resulting legal pillow-bite fight as the best this town has seen. Toledo’s economy can’t be beat, if by can’t be beat you mean has been beaten. With an economy that toggles between recession and depression with an occasional recovery thrown in there for to keep the masses from rioting (outside their own neighborhoods), Toledo is know as “The Rust Belt Tiger.” The Tiger it references is not the economic dynamo in standard econospeak lingo. It is the Brady Bunch’s dog who was killed early in the first season and its “problematic replacement.”Toledo’s highest point is its landfill in North Toledo welcoming Ohioans back from Michigan and welcoming Michiganders back to south Detroit. Its lowest point are the flood insurers who seem to come up 6 feet under or MIA when the rain gets over 2 inches, leaving neighborhoods under sea level without all the cool aquatic life and whatnot. Flood insurance only covers short-inseam pants, not damage due to flood waters.Toledo’s zoo is free for citizens on Monday morning. The rest of the time it’s back in the red from your standard financial mismanagement and abuse of power citizens have not only come to expect, they demand it. Regressive unaccountability works for its sole daily newspaper, so if “it ain’t broke yet, don’t fix it ever.” The Chinese symbol for this saying is etched in gold in International Park. Kidding, it’s in fool’s gold.The city was named Toledo “because it 'is easy to pronounce, is pleasant in sound, and there is no other city of that name on the American continent." Not as commonly and historically referenced as a telegraph sent to Robert E. Lee from Jefferson Davis, “To Lee, D’oh!”, during the Civil War. This is historically inaccurate. Although, Toledo mistakenly seceded from the union and declared martial law in 1943 when the Stranahan family sent in the wrong War Profiteering Form to the IRS, it quickly rejoined, declared Muddie its official mascot scofflaw and everything quickly went back to normal. This is historically accurate*.Toledo is home of the world famous Jeep used to fight those kooky anal Germans in WWII (a precursor to the World Wide Web). Now it is owned by those same kooky anal Germans or at least their heirs. “The old Jeeps were rugged, manly. You would smell like gasoline and your passengers would vomit after a casual Sunday drive. The new Jeeps are glorified station wagons and minivans. I’m not gonna say they’re chick cars, but the floral tampon dispenser might be a give away.” – Al, curator of Al’s Garage and Pharmaceutical Pawn Shop, South Toledo. Jeeps were instrumental in winning the War to End All Wars and tying or coming in a close second in all wars since. The half torn down factory Jeep Parkway plant in central Toledo was originally called the Pope Motor Car Company way before the Catholics started to lighten up and enjoy the parrrrr-tay(sic).**One of the most important Real Estate Battles in the US was fought around Toledo. The Battle for Fallen Timbers pitted Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket known for his love of Armani bee handling suits and hockey in Columbus against Mad Anthony Wayne, who wasn’t really mad he just PMS-ing and needed to sleep it off according to his marriage counselor. The US and Ohioans won thanks to the British leaving their Indian allies out to dry.***The 80-90/ I-75 intersection is known as “The Crossroads of America” which seemingly makes the area of 1 million residents a giant rest stop on the way to somewhere else. It explains Perrysburg’s city motto as “a great place to stretch, pee, and leave.” In 1999, former hip hop community leaders petitioned cartographers to take Toledo “off the map.” They were told to get lost.The Toledo War was fought between Ohio and Michigan over a strip of land from Indiana to Lake Erie. The casualties included two horses, two pigs, and a handful of chickens all Ohioans, plus a Michigan sheriff. Pretty much a tie but since the present author is commissioned by moneys laundered in the heart of it all, Ohio was the clear-cut landslide winner. Ohio won the land and Michigan was awarded the Upper Peninsula for losing. Spare Peninsula or Lost Peninsula was also thrown in to sweeten the deal and provide a buffer zone for Toledo in case of a hurricane got lost through Lake Erie. ‘Tis the prophylactic that keeps Point Place the best place any place for an excessively numbered street place.****The alleged existence of the Side Cut Canal Lock Monster was put to rest when Scientists armed with a tweezers and some C-2, blew one of the remaining locks up where they found a Ford engine allegedly commissioned by Henry Ford himself that ran on water and sunlight. The Ford company later denied it claiming that such part would never pass Ford’s strict standards for planned obsolescence and unreliability aka ISO USA#1 (the one where one simply waves an American flag and say “jobs” ad naseum while the books are being cooked to the demands of wall street and the boards national self-interest).Toledo has an enormous amount of church’s making God the biggest real estate holder in the area and second in the US behind Ted Turner, an atheist and close friend of God. Although most is in blind trusts, some of its property manager’s/sales priests have been known to cavort around pantsless to drum up tithing revenues plus tax, title, tip, and an unnecessary adjustment for inflation. Faith based self fulfilling non-prophecy is still profitably archaic, as educational and medical professionals reluctantly agree. In response to all the “look at me too” boring stories of child molestation by since grown up church enthusiasts, local area church leaders declared a moratorium on the all swimsuit issues of their publications and a removal of all “Christ-based” lingerie, “marital toys”, and “messy clean-up kits” in a leaked internal memo now referred to as the “cover your ass when you’re getting ass” order or “CYAWYGA” for short, which allegedly inspired the softball controversy about a code by some Italian guy.Davis-Besse is a nuclear power plant on the outskirts of town (and then some) named after some energy exec’s (yawn). Naïve children think it is a cloud maker. Naïve adults think it is a safe efficient energy producer, unaware that 2 of the top 5 most dangerous nuclear incidents in the US since 1979 happened there. The latter incident is approaching $700 million in repairs, fines, and criminal charges…all to quietly be paid for when Toledoans leave the lights on. “D’oh!” was the FirstEnergy’s official response.Toledo is home to “One of America’s Great Newspapers,” great meaning aristocratic. It is a hand-me down newspaper currently operated by an ivy-league (ivy is poisonous to humans and valuable in covering unsightly walls FYI, that’s why it’s held in high regard) educated heiress. Despite his massive inheritance, enviable privilege, and cries for a “worldly” mate, he is surprisingly down-to-earth and well loved by his endearing readership. The paper is currently in a fight with it’s labor union waging a very public fight including commercials with concerned actors and running a doctored picture of a worker slacking off. Running a virtual monopoly in a recession proof business is what every businessman dreams of, but apparently even the paper’s management can’t handle it. Pushing autopilot requires integrity…oops, dexterity.The Toledo Museum of Art is an impressive complex in the city. It inadvertently gave rise to the big box phenomenon on throughout the town. It was developed in part by Edward Drummond Libbey, the glass company heir who charmed/blackmaled the city into giving him a site, land for workers’ homes, and $2million plus in today’s dollars to move his company from New England. In between great works of art there are trinkets, souvenirs, and the personal clutter of those looking to clean their house/get a tax break/do guerilla marketing/ give back to the public.The source of many a fat joke, Toledo Scale came about in 1901 using a more accurate pendulum and counterweights over conventional and less reliable springs. The company continually thrived and was owned by Exxon and Reliant Energy at times. It hasn’t had a Toledo operation since 1984 and has since combined with a Swiss scale company. Scales are seemingly innocuous until you go shopping for some eats, illegal drugs, or a second wife, then they are indispensable. Toledo Scale once developed a scale of justice that measured the precision of a bribe or a kickback, but was suppressed by the reigning political parties for reasons of national security and perceived integrity.The Toledo Riot of 2005 involved neo-Nazis and a diverse crowd from impoverished neighborhoods. 120+ people arrested, property damage, fires…just a normal weekend in an area affectionately referred to as “the ghetto.” Just who would authorize a Nazi parade through the neighborhoods of Polish and African American peoples? Obviously, someone looking to authorize a riot. That’s Toledo Pride for you, based on the Seven Deadly Sins.Seat is a Spanish car company that makes a model called the Toledo. Since it’s owned by Volkswagen, maker of a lot of chick cars, it’s assumed they’re referring to the one in Spain. AMD makes a processor called the Toledo. It is so advanced it’s not stuck running Microsoft’s mediocrity; therefore it’s assumed the American Toledo. USA #1, except when the glaring instances it’s not.In 1884, Toledo had the first black Major League Baseball Player, Moses “Fleetwood” Walker. 62 years later Jackie Robinson would be signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers when owners realized the upstart Negro Leagues had cheap exciting talented athletes that could pose a threat to Major League Baseball’s prominence and more importantly owners’ bottom lines. MLB ended up cherry-picking over 150 players, killing the Negro Leagues in the process. 1946 marked the year where financially minded management overcame bigotry. Toledo winces when MLB pats itself on the back.*According to present author’s alcoholic uncle “Woodie.” **The present author was razed Catholic until the recent scandals, the ones involving Joan Osborne’s “What if God was One of Us?” actually being penned by Ozzy (not Harriet) Osborne. The present author has retained such idiosyncracies as saying “body of Christ” when making homemade croutons, eating such things as Speedway hot dogs with Tony Packo’s Sauce, and drinking wine the way God wanted, straight from the box with price tag clearly visible to insecure jealous onlookers. *** The flip side was that in winning the residents actually lost. An Indian presence would have meant legalized gambling which means Vegas-esque annoying self-aggrandizing, non-entertaining entertainment, clueless tourists, cheesy weddings….but we still have a saying around here: If a tree falls in Ohio, it stays in Ohio cause Ohio’s pretty big, you know, for a state and all. Hey, how ‘bout ‘dem Bucks? **** Some Point Placers would have you believe 326th Street is the highest numbered street in the US. Nope, just the highest numbered street where they used dynamite at the end of it where it runs into the lake. This was back when dynamite was considered natural and environmentally-friendly.