http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/ Dude, Where's My Fanbase? - Testimony from a 'baseball town' Most locals consider Cincinnati to be a “baseball town.” Everyone hears family members and coworkers go on about just how great the Big Red Machine was or how exciting 1990 was when the Reds went wire-to-wire in first place and swept the Oakland A’s to win the World Series. Though it’s still relatively early, this year’s Reds are an exciting team that shows signs of being able to contend for a playoff spot.]]> Hopefully this isn't goodbye. But with the way things are in this economy and in this world today, I'm being forced to take a break from this column. We hope it can come back in the fall. Meanwhile, I'll be putting my reporter’s hat back on and writing in the news section.]]> Though I’ve technically never been homeless, I realize that like so many people I’m really just a paycheck or two or a major illness or some unforeseen catastrophe from being in some serious financial ut-oh. Giving up sometimes seems like a great idea. Or getting a simpler job.]]> I’m Joe Wessels, HSD. Yeah, that’s right, I have a high school diploma. I earned it in 1992 from Colerain High School. After graduation, I spent a fall cutting grass and shoveling frozen dirt from one pile to another at Maketewah Country Club.]]> The experiment is over. I’m not a suburban guy. It doesn’t totally surprise me. I grew up in the suburbs, but my heart is in the concrete and noise and combustible nature of an inner city — namely Cincinnati. ]]> Let’s stop being a town of shoulda, woulda, coulda. With Cincinnati City Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz’s announcement May 19 that she no longer supports the city’s streetcar initiative, she joins Republican colleague Chris Monzel, who never liked the idea from the beginning. And that stinks. ]]> I had an outside chance of wandering into a two-headed deer-cow hybrid that could fly. But I ventured onto the Fernald Preserve anyway. When I was growing up out in northwest Hamilton County, Fernald was like our own private Area 51 far away from Roswell, N.M. Now the former Fernald Uranium Processing Plant has gone from Super Fund cleanup site to a nature preserve complete with a refreshingly balanced and frank museum inside a $3 million visitors center. ]]> Hopefully this isn't goodbye. But with the way things are in this economy and in this world today, I'm being forced to take a break from this column. We hope it can come back in the fall. Meanwhile, I'll be putting my reporter’s hat back on and writing in the news section.]]> If Greater Cincinnati is a conservative region filled with tight-ass people, the Cincy Fringe Festival is a laxative. It loosens us up, gets things moving a little better and smoother. Maybe the Fringe Festival is fiber in our otherwise meat-and-potatoes cultural diet. The annual event helps balance out the rest of our stodgy, by-the-book year.]]> Those of us who received frantic text messages reading the likes of "MJ died today … FUCK!" were surprised and relieved to find out later that basketball legend Michael Jordan was, in fact, alive and well. The news wasn't so great for Pop icon Michael Jackson, who died suddenly at his Los Angeles home at age 50 and received hours of TV news tributes, tweets and descriptions of his "troubled" life in his honor.]]> Are you tired of paying service fees to print out a concert ticket on your own computer? Do you think it's unfair when the ATM and your bank charge you for taking money out of the wrong machine? Have you ever let someone kick you in the nuts for no reason?]]> Those of us who received frantic text messages reading the likes of "MJ died today … FUCK!" were surprised and relieved to find out later that basketball legend Michael Jordan was, in fact, alive and well. The news wasn't so great for Pop icon Michael Jackson, who died suddenly at his Los Angeles home at age 50 and received hours of TV news tributes, tweets and descriptions of his "troubled" life in his honor.]]> Maybe the Bengals still have a pulse, which means they're not quite as desperate as those no-good outfits from the 1990s - but they're still 0-3, they're still going to have their hands full with the Cleveland Browns Sunday, their quarterback still is no better protected than David Klingler and the season still is a long way from hopeful. ]]>