In a place so bereft of resources, how does a forsaken place like Cleveland, Ohio cope with the staggering conceit that her citizens' needs are--and will forever remain--unending?
You can't squeeze jobs, infrastructure or capital gains from an indigent turnip (not with Lebron James exiled down in Miami, anyways).
Be it satisfaction or respect, candy or just for her to want you too, it's not unfair, it's simply an economic imperative:
No, you really can't always get what you want.
As such, it implies that not all of society's multitudinous jollies can be fluffed simultaneously.
To wit, trade-offs are made of one various against another sundry (i.e. the "opportunity cost" of reading this post is not watching the slideshow below).
Be it incense or peppermints, lipstick or bruises, it's another one of those fiscal S→F/~S→~F
But forget about money for a moment.
What about aesthetic scarcity?
In a city that even at its Eisenhower peak never reached the million man mark, there's no Keynesian reason why so many great bands--so many uniquely great bands--were birthed in de Tocqueville's Forest City.
As native nihilists Cloud Nothings recently reminded us: RFTT, Ubu, Styrenes, Electric Eels, Easter Monkeys, Prisonshake, Emeralds...Mikey "Trent" Reznor and Krayzie/Layzie Bone.
If ever the Marxist ideal of reciprocal altruism worked, in the grizzled heart of rock 'n roll at least, it'd be in Cleveland--a true "gift economy" from the Western Reserve.
Nevertheless, "stength is the outcome of need," a man from Kent once wrote.
And for my bourgeois dollar, 'tis nothing stronger than a tank.
Enter then poet-cum-frontman Matthew Wascovich and his first proper band, the scuzzily art-damaged Scarcity of Tanks.
Appropriately enough, iPhone shots of their live free-for-alls have been hard to come by.
And as for the recordings--2009's stellar No Endowments, the criminally overlooked Bleed Now--they too are becoming scarce as Wascovich's scuttled his Total Life Society imprint.
So act now, while you still can. Quantities are severely limited. Call or write today!
