Public safety for non-automotive humans? Gahan fails, utterly.

This fellow is a candidate for city council in Cincinnati. Note his words in bold. Can you imagine a New Albanian politician -- any New Albanian politician -- stating the case this forcefully? Alas, I cannot. The needs of drivers in a narrow sense always outweigh the needs of humans from a broader perspective -- and had Jeff Gahan ever understood any of this, would there be a single sharrow painted on a New Albany street, or those idiotic pedestrian crossing lights?

Opinion: Fatalities climb as few changes are made to calm traffic, by Derek Bauman (Cincinnati.com)

The people of Cincinnati are facing a public safety crisis of immense proportions. Since 2013, crashes involving pedestrians are up nearly 50%. Thirty-six pedestrians have been killed in that time.

During 2018, in the city of Cincinnati alone, more than one person a day was struck by a car. As a candidate for Cincinnati City Council in 2017 and crisscrossing our city, I heard a consistent message from residents everywhere. We want safe streets. We want to feel comfortable walking to the neighborhood coffee shop. We want traffic to be calmed. We want road diets. We want drivers to slow down. We want to be able to ride a bike safely. We want more traffic enforcement. We want to feel safe, and our children to be safe, when walking to school.

Despite these pleas for help, not a whole lot changed. It’s been business as usual while the body count continued to climb.

Gang of Five in Cincy: "Citizens expect that when there's a city council meeting, that's when matters should be addressed and actions taken."

It's a "secret" texting and e-mailing scandal in Cincinnati, and since Democrats were the offenders, NA Confidential thrust out to local party chairman Adam "Tricky" Dickey for a comment. 

Well, there you have it: DemoDisneyDixiecrats supporting local independent business instead of far-off corporate calling plans. It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling -- or maybe that's the Mezcal.

Judge: ’Gang of Five’ city council members should resign, by Jennifer Edwards Baker (Cincinnati FOX19)

A Hamilton County judge tore into Cincinnati City Council’s “Gang of Five” Thursday, saying they violated the public trust and should quit.

“You essentially lied to the people of this city,” Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman told them. “The people of the city thought that when you had a city council meeting that, in fact, was the city council meeting. But, in reality, it was a charade. It was smoke and mirrors. It wasn’t the real meeting. The real business was being handled through these emails and texts.

"So, the judge continued, “you really lied to the citizens and the importance of that point is you’ve lost the trust, not only of your other fellow council members, who you really need to apologize to in addition to the citizens of this city you need to apologize to, you lost their trust.”

“But you’ve also lost the trust of the citizens of the city and it takes a long time to get trust back. when you commit an act like this, when you’re essentially lying and being dishonest and conducting business on the side in clear violation of the Sunshine Law, the trust is gone. It is going to take along time to get that trust back. But more important, it’s the institution, it’s the institution of city council. It’s going to take a long time, it hurt that institution. It’s going to take a long time to get that trust back.”

All “Gang of Five” council members were in the courtroom during the brief hearing: P.G. Sittenfeld, Chris Seelbach, Wendell Young, Tamaya Dennard and Greg Landsman.

They did not speak and sat in the courtroom audience. Attorneys for the city and the anti-tax activist who sued for their secret text messages sat at tables before the judge ...

Strong Towns Week: Man buys $15,000 uninhabitable shack to renovate. What could go wrong?

We've all heard about something too big to fail. Welcome to the story of a 700-foot house too small to (be allowed to) succeed.

LESSON LEARNED, by Johnny Sanphillippo (Strong Towns)

A couple years ago, I bought a $15,000 uninhabitable house in Cincinnati, Ohio. The copper had been stripped out and no one had lived there for years. This was on a street where a third of the homes were in similar condition. When I told my friends back home in California, there were a few raised eyebrows. I shrugged. Buying a $1,200,000 one bedroom condo in a trendy coastal city seems far more terrifying to me. The little seven hundred square foot shotgun shack in Ohio was so inexpensive that if it turned out to be the worst financial decision of my life I’d only lose $15,000. It was like buying a used Volkswagen.

Well… Last month I sold the place for slightly more than I paid for it. The resale price covered my initial cost, the real estate agent’s fee, and a year of taxes and insurance. If you squint, I broke even. But if you add in other expenses associated with my attempt to renovate the place, I lost about $3,000. That’s not enough to care about in the big scheme of things, but not great either. Like I said… it was basically a used Volkswagen. So what happened?

What happened was a bureaucratic nightmare. If only the author had been eligible for sewer tap-in waivers; alas, his name is Sanphillippo, not Flaherty Collins.

I hasten to point out that in the year my designer struggled to get multiple unresponsive city bureaucracies to give us the green light on our little shack addition, a 131-unit apartment complex went up three blocks away. All the high mucky mucks were at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the cameras. The new building was “transformational.” It was “catalytic.” It was proof that a progressive developer and enlightened city authorities could work together to turn the neighborhood around.

Lesson learned.

Long read: "How Cincinnati Salvaged the Nation’s Most Dangerous Neighborhood."

The good, the bad and the ugly. But: Brewery District.

How Cincinnati Salvaged the Nation’s Most Dangerous Neighborhood, by Colin Woodard (Politico Magazine)

... It’s a transformation that’s happened in a blink of an eye, turning a neighborhood that in 2009 topped Compton in Los Angeles for the “most dangerous” title into something that looks and feels like Greenwich Village. And it didn’t happen by accident. Virtually everything that’s occurred in Over-the-Rhine—from the placement of the trees in the park to the curation of ground floor businesses—has been meticulously planned and engineered by a single, corporate-funded and decidedly non-governmental entity.

Speck casually advises Cincy: "None require widening a road; it’s simply a matter of restriping them."

Let's live dangerously and reprint the entire article (below).

It's too good to miss, and hits close to the target. As you're reading, think about New Albany, our situation here, and the personages in our town taking stances similar (and different) to these. Note that by campaign's end, Mayor Jeff Gahan finally had something to say in response to the News and Tribune's direct question:

Except that yet again, he said nothing. To the bitter end, evasive gobbledygook. But now we live with it, for the next four years.

Happy Sunday reading!

---

Bike lanes, two-way streets, parallel parking should be part of Cincinnati road overhaul, urban designer says, by Chris Wetterich (Cincinnati Business Courier)

When nationally known urban planner and designer Jeff Speck heard about Cincinnati’s plan to spend $91 million over the next six years to repair and replace the city’s streets and fleet, he saw an opportunity.

Speck, who wrote the book, “Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time," was in town last week to keynote the Cincinnati Preservation Association’s Fall Forum lecture. The association holds the lecture to show it’s not just about saving old, historic buildings but about connecting them to the city’s core, as well.

I had coffee with Speck; Cincinnati’s economic development director, Oscar Bedolla; city economic development official Phillip Denning; Cincinnati Preservation Association executive director Paul Muller and others last week at the Contemporary Arts Center’s café.

Some things Speck noticed: one-way streets throughout downtown and the lack of bike facilities – bike lanes, protected bikeways like the one along Central Parkway and shared use sidewalks wide enough to accommodate both pedestrians and cyclists.

He recommended four things to make Cincinnati more walkable when the city starts to repave its roads. None require widening a road; it’s simply a matter of restriping them, Speck said:

• Make as many lanes no wider than 10 feet
• Convert one-way streets to two-way streets
• Have parallel parking on every curb possible
• Add an array of biking infrastructure

The first two slow down traffic and improve safety for both motorists and pedestrians. The third sets up a barrier between cars and pedestrians and bicyclists. The fourth makes each street complete for those in a car, on foot and on a bicycle.

Two-way streets are a way to spur economic development, Speck said.

“People who have lived through that (the conversion of two-way streets to one-way) in other communities, they all say the same thing: The barber went away and this went away and that went away. And it’s no coincidence,” Speck said. “When you go two-way, they go back.

“Often these great historic neighborhoods in which there is a mix of uses, there are buildings framing the street with friendly faces, which is comfortable and interesting – all they’re missing is the proper street geometry to feel safe.”

Mayor John Cranley remains a staunch opponent of dedicated bicycle lanes on roadways.

“I don’t believe that we should hurt bike riders for the benefit of cars or hurt cars for the benefit of bikes,” Cranley said at a recent Issue 22 forum, describing his views on bike lanes. “We all know it’s safer to have dedicated bike trails and walking trails and hiking trails.”

Speck dismissed the argument that “sharrows,” or marks on roads indicating that bicyclists can use the road, are enough. Mixing bikes and cars together only works when traffic is slow enough, he said.

“Sharrows do not count. It’s invitation to kill yourself, especially on some of the streets I’ve driven on in this town,” Speck said, later explaining that he was driven along Spring Grove Avenue, one of the flattest routes in the city between downtown and Uptown, which has the markings. “There are other streets out there which are six-laners in which the outer lanes have the sharrow markings. And that’s ridiculous.”

Some streets and roads can remain car-centered and unbikeable, Speck said.

“You don’t need to have bikes everywhere, you just need a way for them to go around the corner and get to their destination,” Speck said.

Speck even mentioned an infamous photo circulated locally on social media in which someone that either was Cranley or had a striking resemblance to him is seen riding a Red Bike on Vine Street’s sidewalk.

“In a proper bike network, there are some places where it’s OK to ride on the sidewalk,” Speck said.

“But if your outlook is the bicyclists should ride on the sidewalk, you will never generate a cycling population. The cities that want to bring millennials … the (bike) facilities are there.”

City Manager Harry Black said Speck’s idea “makes a lot of good sense,” but first will require more money than is allocated to the capital acceleration plan passed by council, a lot of community input and engineering work.

“We’re talking about getting in front of the deterioration curve,” Black said of the current plan. “What he’s talking about would be ‘nice to have’ stuff. We’re talking about stuff that must be done today.”

Black does not agree that it is simply a matter of changing the striping on city streets once they are repaved.

Speck’s plan “presupposes that the street is wide enough to accommodate all that stuff. I think it’s a simplistic viewpoint. Not to mention the impact on surrounding streets. It has to be a part of a larger design and community input process," Black said.

“He’s a planner. He’s paid for ideas. He’s not responsible for getting it built.”

Speck isn’t the first to make such a suggestion. In June, Over-the-Rhine resident and activist Margy Waller wrote a column in the Cincinnati Enquirer suggesting the city use the opportunity of new money being available for roads to implement the city’s bicycle transportation plan and its award-winning Plan Cincinnati.

The bicycle transportation plan outlines the type of network Speck suggests the city build.
“It's easy and very cheap to create the lanes while repairing our roads,” Waller wrote.

Black said he has not yet read the bicycle transportation plan nor is it on his immediate agenda.

“It’s not on my drawing board. My priority right now is to take care of the basics,” Black said. “That’s a discussion for other segments of the city to engage in.”

"A recent transplant’s view of Cincinnati" is relevant to us, too.

If the Gahan administration really comprehended what millennials want, would the flunkies be allowed to use the words "millennial" and "luxury" in the same sentence?

Of course not. It's what you get from the suburbs, looking in, uncomprehending.

How do we foster a culture designed to retain our best and brightest, to support localism in business, and take care of our own by exceeding the lowest conceivable political denominator?

Looking in the mirror.
Asking questions.
Listening.
Making lists.
Involving people.

Then again, I'm hardly a serious commentator, am I?

A recent transplant’s view of Cincinnati, by Fatima Hussein (Cincinnati Enquirer)

 ... I found out last week that a large portion of young people living here, both home bred and transplants, are itching to move to bigger cities throughout the country.

In Cincinnati, the youth exodus phenomenon is a huge issue for business leaders. Leaders such as Mary Stagaman worry that if nothing is done to attract and retain young talent, we can’t expect to have a vibrant economy, and the corporations that have long called Cincinnati home will have less incentive to stay ...

 ... And it doesn’t help that for every study that says Cincinnati is up-and-coming or an affordable place for families, there are others that say Ohio and Kentucky are some of the unhappiest places in the country – or that Cincinnati is one of the most unwelcoming cities on earth.

Of ghost stations and other subterranean public spaces.

On the day of our visit to where the Wall was, and isn't, Diana and I discussed this very phenomenon of ghost stations. I remember them from 1989.

This exhibition, on display at the historical site of the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station, recalls a special chapter in Berlin’s history of division: the closed-down and heavily guarded train stations of the U-Bahn and S-Bahn lines in East Berlin. The stations were only used by trains coming from the West. The exhibition describes underground escape attempts and the border fortifications built to prevent them.

The exhibition in the Nordbahnhof station shows the absurdity of the division on the basis of three U-Bahn and S-Bahn lines that crossed through East Berlin while traveling from one end of West Berlin to the other. Between 1961 and 1989 these lines had a special status within the city’s public transportation system that was otherwise divided. The trains of these lines (today’s subway lines U6 and U8 and the north-south rail of the S-Bahn) no longer stopped at the deserted train stations in East Berlin and could not be used from there. For West Berliner’s, the daily passage beneath East Berlin continued to be a strange experience. The closed-down stations came to be known as “ghost stations” in West Berlin.

But who knew that Cincinnati has a 90-year-old unused subway?

The weird afterlife of the world's subterranean 'ghost stations', by Drew Reed (Guardian)

In 1920, construction began on what was to become an important new transportation system for Cincinnati, Ohio. Local voters had given near-unanimous support to a $6m (£3.7m) municipal bond, and despite wartime restrictions and shortages, the project began. Little did the city’s officials know that the system they were building would never carry a single passenger.

Five years later, the money had run out, the federal government refused to help and construction was halted. Today, there is an entire six-mile subway system abandoned underneath the Cincinnati streets.

Though Cincinnati’s empty subway is an extreme example, it’s part of a global phenomenon that’s actually quite common. Underground travel has become a familiar routine for millions of urban dwellers, but most commuters are unaware that lurking on the other side of the walls are the remains of abandoned stations, slowly deteriorating. Known as “ghost stations”, they are silent but powerful reminders of forgotten history.

A theory of river towns, civic assets and underperformance.

It's remarkable how at various points in their lives, New Albanians glance around them and remark, "well, we're just a dirty ol' river town, and things will never change here."

Seems Aaron Renn has heard it, too. Bluegill recommended this essay, and it's a stimulating read. It may actually be less of "it's in the water" than bad habits learned during two hundred years of practice.

On the Riverfront, by Aaron Renn (Urbanophile)

Thursday I took a look at my “Cincinnati conundrum,” namely how it’s possible for a city that has the greatest collection of civic assets of any city its size in America to underperform demographically and economically. In that piece I called out the sprawl angle. But today I want to take a different look at it by panning back the lens to see Cincinnati as simply one example of the river city.

There are four major cities laid out on an east-west corridor along the Ohio River: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis (which is not on the Ohio River, but close enough. I’ll leave Memphis and New Orleans out of it for now). All of these are richly endowed with civic assets like Cincinnati is, having far more than their fair share of great things, yet they’ve all been stagnant to slow growing for decades.

Cincy will have its street car, after all. Well, maybe.

On December 16, we took a peek.

Politicians, streetcars and money in Cincinnati.

A streetcar system is coming back to Cincinnati, except maybe it isn't, even though construction has started. There was an election, the political hand was rejigged, and now it's all muddy. Very, very muddy.

Maybe it's a bit less muddy now.

Cincinnati Will Complete Its Streetcar, by Angie Schmitt (DCStreetblog)

 ... The area’s regional transit agency, SORTA, has agreed to assume responsibility for operating the four-mile starter loop. It will be the first time Cincinnati has had rail transit in more than 60 years. The project was hard-fought right until the bitter end. The Federal Transit Administration has indicated it would pull $45 million in funding for the project at midnight tonight unless the city agreed to resume construction.

Politicians, streetcars and money in Cincinnati.

A streetcar system is coming back to Cincinnati, except maybe it isn't, even though construction has started. There was an election, the political hand was rejigged, and now it's all muddy. Very, very muddy.

I won't pretend to try grasping the political undercurrents.  However, there are lessons to be learned from all of this. For a description of the project, Cincy Streetcar Blog is a good place to start. To update the situation: It's do or die week for Cincinnati's streetcar.

Digging deeper:

EDITORIAL: Localizing Operating Costs for Streetcar Sets Dangerous Precedent, by Randy A. Simes (Urban Cincy)

 On Thursday morning Mayor John Cranley (D) called a press conference for a “major” announcement. He was joined by leadership of labor unions representing city workers, along with Councilman Kevin Flynn (C).

So what was the big news? Well, Mayor Cranley had announced that he would be willing to continue the Cincinnati Streetcar project that has already received direct voter approval twice, support of City Council, appropriated funds for its entire project cost, and began construction, if streetcar supporters could come up with a private funding commitment that would cover all operating costs for the first phase of the system over the next 30 years.

Oh yeah, and he asked that those boosters kindly secure that $60-80 million commitment in one week’s time.

Peeling back the layers, it seems there's a back story, with the streetcar project just one aspect of the debate with respect to economic development, revitalization and gentrification.

Streetcar debacle hurts our reputation, by Chris Ostoich, founder and CEO of BlackbookHR.

I must say that this is the first time I have ever considered walking away from Cincinnati. One of the things being largely ignored here, or at least largely unspoken, is the fact that this debacle is affecting our reputation in the talent ecosystem.

If we want to be considered one of the next great American cities, we need every advantage to recruit and retain the brightest people. Bright people want to build things. Bright people want to be part of a renaissance. Bright people know that they are part of building something – whether that is their career, their company or their community. Scholarly research shows that happiness at work and in life depends greatly on feeling a sense of agency. This feeling of agency and the Streetcar was strongly evidenced by the reaction received yesterday at City Hall.

Calling this project quits will, I promise you all, have lasting effect on our ability to have a real conversation with companies and/or employees about choosing Cincinnati.

But what if the new political order was built, in part, with the cooperation of those feeling left out of the equation?

GUEST EDITORIAL: Get Over It, Then Get Ready, by Don Mooney (Urban Cincy)

 ... (Mayor) Cranley is hardly the first candidate to win an election by whipping up resentment in the “neighborhoods” about spending on development “downtown”. He won’t be the last. Many politicians have built entire political careers in this town on being against stuff ...

 ... Advocates of the streetcar – and I’ve been one of them – have allowed their pet project to be painted by COAST and Chris Smitherman as a wasteful contraption designed for Chablis sipping metrosexuals, who think they are too good for the bus or the family mini-van. Can’t these precious young professionals read their iPads on the number 24, or get stuck behind a truck on the viaduct like the rest of us? Don’t take it personally. It’s just politics.

We have not sold the incredible progress downtown and in OTR, despite the great recession, as a model for other neighborhoods with their own aspirations for cool restaurants, modern transportation and rising property values. So in Price Hill and Mt. Washington, your rising neighborhood is seen as a threat to theirs, not as a sign of good things to come to our city.

Those of you with skills and no kids to tie you down can’t be blamed for bailing out now. With Cranley in the Mayor’s office and a hostile Council majority, the streetcar is on life support, and the air soon may start coming out of the downtown/OTR balloon. No doubt there are bright folks at 3CDC, dunnhumby and all those hip new branding firms with OTR addresses already tuning up their resumes.

Much to think about, isn't there?

Paging Bob Caesar ...

Nah, never mind.

City leaders partner with Walnut Hills to advance two-way street conversions

BY JOHN YUNG ― JULY 16, 2012

The negative impacts of one-way streets through urban neighborhoods have been long documented, and cities across the country are beginning to convert these stretches of roadway back to two-way traffic. Thus far there have been encouraging results.


“The street design should help make the Walnut Hills business district a destination again, instead of serving as a raceway through the neighborhood,” said Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls (C) in 2010 after introducing a motion to move forward with additional study work.

"Complete Streets" in New Albany?

Once you grasp that cars are here to serve people, and not the other way around, it's a lot easier to understand how ideas like these can happen right here. After, Cincinnati isn't exactly far-off Amsterdam. I've underlined the passage below that we all might remember, just in case Kerry Stemler's and Ed Clere's tolls ever actually begins, because New Albany will be in danger of becoming Speed Thru City.  

Cincinnati moves forward with city-wide Complete Streets initiative, by John Yung (Urban Cincy blog)

... Complete Streets are regulations that allow streets to be redesigned to focus on shared use with bicycles and mass transit as well as better conditions for pedestrians. The problem in Cincinnati, and throughout much of the United States, is that people drive past what used to be viable places. The initiative, in theory, would improve conditions for many of the city’s struggling neighborhoods by reorienting them towards the users for which they were originally designed.

“We need to ensure that our neighborhood business districts are destinations and not just raceways through town for commuters,” Vice Mayor Qualls explained in a recent press release.

The standards aim to improve walkability and slow traffic in business districts. This can be done by adding on-street parking, converting one-way roads to two-way traffic, and providing connections through smaller block sizes.

“Residential is a great use for older buildings as opposed to office uses”.

Doesn't this idea apply to the Elsby Building?

Downtown Cincinnati poised for surge of residential conversions, by Randy Simes (UrbanCincy)

Developers are in the process of transforming the 85-year-old Federal Reserve Tower at Fourth and Race into 88 apartments after serving as an office structure for its entire life. The process is one being undertaken in old cities all across the United States – transforming old office buildings into unique residences.

"The Whipping Man" comes highly recommended.

While in Cincinnati last Friday evening, we attended The Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati's production of "The Whipping Man," and it was amazing. The play is an end-of-Civil War story with significant historical and cultural twists, and if you have a chance to witness a performance, I recommend you seek it out. We spent two hours watching the play and two more discussing it.

Rationality from elsewhere: Bicycling, public transport and form-based codes.

After reading Louisville's toll-happy new mayor officiously gurgle (to a dietitian, no less) yet again about the grandeur of oligarchy enfluffment via the ORBP, it's instructive to survey the scene in nearby cities. Following are three such bits of inspiration.

Cincinnati submits $56.8M TIGER III application to fund modern streetcar extension, by Randy A. Simes (UrbanCincy)

Local governments across the United States are in the process of competing for $527 million worth of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) III funds. The deadline for applications was October 31, and the City of Cincinnati once again has applied for funds.

Cincinnati’s TIGER III application requests $56.8 million for phase one of the Cincinnati Streetcar. City officials say that the money will go to immediately restore the project’s segments that were eliminated following Governor Kasish’s (R) controversial reallocation of $52 million in early 2011.

Apart from streetcars in Cincinnati, there are bicycles in Indianapolis -- and even in New Albany, as the increasingly irrelevant King Larry can attest. It is sadly ironic that even as other burgs speak of expanding bike lanes and biking in general, dullards from the outer reaches of Floyd County would prefer their disappearance, if reattaching another lane of traffic to Spring Street somehow might reduce their commute times during the bridge outage -- as though New Albany exists only for their pass-through pleasure. Pfui to all that.

Measured Progress: Bike Lanes on Broad Ripple Ave, by Curt Ailes (Urban Indy)

Last week, guide lines went down on Broad Ripple Ave between the village and Keystone Avenue. I knew that the thermostriped permanent ones would not be far behind. Well, the new lines are down and my initial expectations for what the corridor would look like have been exceeded.

We've previously referenced form-based codes here.

Meridian Kessler Moving Forward with Form-Based Codes, by Kevin Kastner (Urban Indy)

My neighborhood, Meridian Kessler, has been doing some behind-the-scenes maneuvering to promote the implementation of Form-Based zoning codes in the neighborhood. Form-based codes are the logical antidote to the current use-based zoning that is in place in much of the United States. Urban Indy will be highly supportive of the Meridian Kessler Neighborhood Association’s push for this important and much-needed change.

Up with people, upriver.

While Louisville metro dullards contemplate suicide by concrete, Cincinnati is choosing life on its riverfront. Debt free.



Envy Cincinnati's already under construction riverfront park more here. Thanks to J for the link.

Night of the living plastic bottled swill Hell … but a good time for the discerning.

Imagine that you’ve paid the very reasonable price of $80 for a chartered bus seat, a ticket in the right field stands to watch the Chicago Cubs vs. the homestanding Cincinnati Reds, a pre-game picnic meal of barbecue and the fixings, and all the craft draft beer you can drink before and after the game.

Imagine that the three craft beers on tap on the bus are BBC APA (Main & Clay), Browning’s She-Devil IPA, and Browning’s Helles, the latter a German-style golden lager perfectly familiar to any person who has ever suckled an ice-cold Bud Light.

Imagine that such an unprecedented deal isn’t quite good enough for you, so you ignore the craft beer you’ve already paid for, pack a cooler with canned and bottled swill, throw back a dozen or more overpriced “waters,” as Sergio would call them, during the ballgame, and at a moment of supreme self-revelation during the journey home, begin belting out an off-key version of the best-forgotten, hoary seventies paean to piddling Parrotland, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” – all the while believing that in your choice of beer, music and life, you’re being somehow clever and the life of the party.

I can’t imagine it, although I experienced it on Saturday.

However, it is my pleasure to report that entirely apart from redneck contingents originating in my (sighhh) home town of New Albany, there is good beer to be found at the Hofbrauhaus Newport, and even at Great American Ball Park itself. Within 100 yards of our seats at the home field of the Reds, I found Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale, BarrelHouse Red Legg and an unidentified Flying Dog, along with a Red Hook IPA -- all ridiculously priced at $7.25 per plastic cup, but at least bearing tangible sign of hops and hope.

Meanwhile, mainstream America supped predictably at the altar of mainstream plastic bottles as the Reds bowed unconvincingly to the Cubs by an 8-1 score before a sellout “home” crowd of 42,500, of whom at least six of ten were Cubs, not Reds, supporters.

That’s surreal, but not as surreal as the bizarro-world spectacle of swill-hounds eschewing all-inclusive craft beer for the nadir of American brewing. Might I have been able to assist by providing salt, limes and other irrelevancies?

Verily, I should be used to it by now, but there are times when New Albany can really get to a guy ... and follow him back and forth during an otherwise marvelous break.