Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Los Angeles Lakers: Behind the Box Score
January 16, 2015Mel Kiper’s first mock has the Browns addressing both lines
January 16, 2015Happy Friday indeed. I am nearly caught up from the lack of sleep on Tuesday. How about you?
20 years since the last Cleveland Browns home playoff game…
I’m going to go ahead and risk sounding like a broken record. It’s never stopped me before, so why would it now? Something that’s hit me over the past few weeks is just how finite it can be on a yearly basis to be a Browns fan. Every NFL team has a finite season, of course, but after so many years without playoffs – most without any need to even consider it – it feels like the NFL playoffs are a completely separate thing from the Browns. Consider that the last Cleveland Browns home playoff game was January 1, 1995 as the Browns beat the Pats 20-13. I don’t even remember that game after looking up the box score. I’m sure I watched it, but my memory of it is nil. This isn’t me having a pity party or reveling in misery, but just a factual realization that the only time we think about the weather is trying to figure out if we should attend that last meaningless home game in order to freeze our toes off.
Over the past few weeks there have been home field conversations about domes and dome teams, Wisconsin weather and the thin air in Denver. Those conversations used to mean something to Browns fans too, but because this team has been so inept over the years, it isn’t even something I think about anymore.
It’s going to be really weird when we do finally get a chance to think about it again. It will feel like riding a bike for the first time in a decade. It’ll feel like putting on a pair of rollerskates in your 30’s having not done so since that girl you went to school with had a party for her thirteenth birthday. It’s just another factor that will be so fun, exciting and strangely new for Browns fans when we finally get a playoff game or maybe even a home playoff game.
The old man in the mosh pit…
The last time I saw Cloud Nothings I was with WFNY’s own Andrew at Mahall’s in Lakewood Ohio. I was about two months off of major neck surgery and when the pit broke out, I fled to the side because I feared for my health and safety. What rational person wouldn’t do that? On Wednesday night I was back in front of Cloud Nothings, this time at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights and this old man with his two surgically repaired knees and an artificial disc in his neck had no place to go.
It was a decidedly younger crowd at the Grog Shop. Maybe it’s the proximity to Case and John Carroll, or maybe it’s the number of older punk rockers who live in Lakewood, but there were a lot of underage kids at this show. Even the ones who were slinging back oversized cans of PBR looked like babies to me. Regardless, in the friendly confines of the Grog Shop when the Cloud Nothings were playing, the only chance to stand still would have been to be so far away that I wouldn’t have enjoyed the show.
I had largely forgotten the mass of humanity that happens in a mosh pit. Back in my prime of seeing bands that caused pits to form there was no smoking ban and that was the prevailing smell at every rock concert. I remember wanting to burn many sets of clothes after shows. You didn’t even want to put them in a hamper with other dirty clothes because you didn’t want your entire hamper to smell like the inside of an ash tray. But now that people can’t hide under the shroud of smoke, you smell the sweat.
It smelled like men in heat by the second song. There were 250 pound men in horned-rim glasses pogo-ing as the crowd drifted from side-to-side and front-to-back. Every once in a while a particularly ripe guy would scrape by and it smelled like some kind of garlic-infused bologna. That aside, it was glorious.
The band killed it for about an hour. They played all the songs you wanted to hear them play. They even played “No Future / No Past” which was about the only one that I didn’t hear them play in Lakewood that they didn’t get to. It was great. I loved it all. Even the mosh pit. I’m happy that I can still get out there and partake in the music even if I am one of the oldest people in the room.
Weird product review: Dubs ear plugs
I’ve been wearing earplugs since I was about 16 years old. It was an Acid Bath show at Peabody’s Down Under – when it was still in the East Bank of the Flats – when I decided I no longer wanted to go without. My ears rang for three days after that show and even as a teenager who engaged in all kinds of risky behavior, that seemed like a bad thing. I’ve gone through all kinds of different ear plugs over the years from the kinds that get worn in machine shops to the little silicone putty that you can buy in drug stores. I’ve bought lots of different kinds and never been happy until the past couple years as technology has improved. The latest pair are called Dubs and they’re awesome.
These things let sound through. You can still hear a wide range of audio from bass to treble, just without the harmful levels. In the past, wearing earplugs meant muffling the good stuff. Vocals were sometimes inaudible and guitar solos sounded like they were on the other side of a wall. Now, with products like these, rather than blocking all sounds, it’s mostly just the harmful stuff that’s filtered out so you can hear all that you want to hear without sacrificing your own safety and future hearing.
The DUBS use Dynamic Attenuation, an intricate mechanical process that filters sound. While traditional earplugs distort and muffle, our engineers developed a proprietary combination of high and low pass filters that allow the DUBS to reduce volume while preserving the proper balance and clarity of the audio you hear.
Lastly, these are the most solid earplugs I’ve ever owned. My favorite before these were the “Earasers” and they’re still a good option, but they were also smaller, and flimsier. The Dubs feel solid and the fit is comfortable for anyone who has ever used earbuds to listen to music.
Your weekly moment of soccer zen…
Oh the first touch on that cross…
That’s it for me this week, guys. Thanks so much for reading and enjoy those playoff games.
11 Comments
Nice, I’ve been using a pair of etymotic ear plugs for the past couple years, but those dubs sound even better. I’ll have to check them out. The Cloud Nothings show in Chapel Hill (NC) sounds like it was much more like the Lakewood version. There were kids, as Chapel Hill is a college town, but it was mostly a north of 30 crowd and a good chunk were north of 40. Fortunately the Cats Cradle in Chapel Hill has a tiered layout that allows the kids their mosh pit and the rest of us a place to stand, or even sit! and watch the show.
that playoff game is what convinced SI that we were the team to beat the next season. dangit.
I don’t remember much of the game, just the storylines. Belichick defeating his mentor (Parcells). Testeverde finally stepping out from the long cast shadow of Kosar. Leroy Hoard stepping out of the Kevin Mack shadow and not allowing Earnest Byner’s comeback to shadow him. And, the defense, oh, the defense that shut down the great Patriots receiving TE (Coates) and laughed at teams that attempted to run on them.
http://blacksportsonline.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/9508837-large.jpg
The last proper mosh pit I ventured into was Death Angel, many, MANY moons ago. lol
1. Playoff football makes the holidays even better than they already are, and an extended playoff run helps keep the post-holiday blues away. (The post-playoff-loss blues, however, are another matter.)
2. That is a terrific goal. I watched it about 15 times.
My father took me and a friend of mine to that last home playoff game. I was 11 at the time, and it was the greatest thing ever. The game itself was completely forgettable and wasn’t as close as the score shows. I remember Drew Bledsoe being a big deal and the Browns shutting him down (looks like he was 21-50 with 3 picks). The Browns’ D carried the day and the O did enough for that to be good enough. But what an awesome time.
I remember that game. I was still in college and was trying to sell some extra tickets on W 3rd. It wasn’t looking too good until Cleveland vice showed up and chased all the scalpers away. Ended up getting nearly face value for those tickets just as the game was starting.
Distinctively remember the feeling from the playoff games in the ’80s: the entire town abuzz, the sense that this was finally our time, that the team was on the rise, being unable to sleep well the night before games.
I didn’t feel that way in ’94. Belichik’s team and the town were just getting to know to each other, still sizing each other up. Peeps were still plenty ticked after the Bernie whacking. I’ll be curious to see what comparative level of excitement I have, and what the town has, when it’s this team’s turn.
Twenty years how sad. I’m watching all of these coaching vacancies get filled one after another while the Browns sit w/o an OC and QB coach for the petulant, no clue, party boy Johnny Drama. I feel sorry for Mike Pettine.
Judging by what continues to go on with this organization I don’t think you’ll have to worry anytime soon about excitement. By then we’ll all be back in diapers and need pills to have a good time. Great job Jimmy Haslam, great job!
Okay, now you’re just searching for reasons to be negative.
Even if I had to search I wouldn’t have to go far!