A Pirate Ship With Feet.

Opening day of baseball season. In downtown Cleveland a pirate ship with feet appears marching and lurching about from tavern to bar to dive to gutter. Rube city. Some of us embody adistinct preference to scalp the corporate wahoo mascot wahoo , replacing his grim visage with a non racist image. Cleveland Wonderful Walleyes , or back to the Cleveland Spiders . Even naming the Clevealnd AL baseball team for any form of road kill seems better than suffering the insult of wahoo another season. This corporote brutalized and exploited Native American cartoon insult wahoo and his losing baseball ways , will remain I am afraid.The curse continues.This being said it is time to turn to the question of wins and losses for the wacky 2008 Tribe bunch. Wagers are now happening , and I put my dollars on the Detroit American league club in 2008. Rumor has it that Leyalnd is a bit brighter light bulb than Wedge , and who am I to argue? Detroit team hits the ball hard and doing so trumps the Cleveland home teams much vaunted pitching staff in 2008.Both teams should win in the area of ninety games . Slipsy JR made the book figure even odds that the Cleveland team finishes with a better season record than the sluggo mad Detroit club. I disagree. We bet. JR Slipsy will officiate from the cozy confines of Ciao Vito , a nice restaurant in Portland , Oregon that is not to be missed if you travel that way . Try the razor clams! JR Slipsy is the official scorer from a few thousand miles away due to his superior knowledge of clams and the sort of piscatory streams we swim about in. He sez final about all bets placed with his double trouble brother Slipsy JR in Cleveland , Ohio. I bet JR Slipsy. Slipsy JR does the officiating. Once while walking with Slipsy JR at the produce hall of a local public market.,I hear a burly market porter robust of form and of a dark complexion and once himself a nonpareil athlete. Acclaim in puzzled fashion. " Hey man , uhh? " He speaks aloud , jaw dropping as he notices Slipsy JR. Now as JR Slipsy recognizes this old yard kong plus sized foe from his roundball days in Liberty , Ohio from way back in the day and gives him the old school heads up. " There two of them" , Our dusky porter mumbles to hisself , then articulating his thought aloud while gesturing about with his jumbo paddle sized hands. Pointing out Slipsy JR to his near comotose fellow worker who attempts to lift himself upright while he fumbles himself awake from his near slumbering while standing work technique .{ Many old tome public white wings whiled away a day by mostly using the business end of the broom as some sort of earthly tripod . Then sweeping for ten to fifteen minutes on the hour , when awaken for duty .] " I play basketball with him and the other one who is his twin". sez Jumbo to his broom mate. "There two of him !" , he utters in frank amazement as if glimsing a ghost . While pointing to my one half of a twin basketball schoolboy act my pal JR Slipsy was half of. Respectful of the tournament round ball played over thirty years ago against the elusive Slipsy brothers. His admiration of the basketball prowess of JR Slipsy and Slipsy Jr diminished when his even larger than life City inspector walked on the scene , souring out the action by acting as if he himself was a twentieth Century Simon Legree who left his whip behind his girlfriends door and was pissed off to beat the band. " Back to work". We walk away shaking hands.... In Cleveland it is again the Grovewood Tavern and the Beachland Ballroom that make any pre thaw evening out on the town worth the effort while visiting metro Cleveland's North Collinwood neighborhood. The stunning and dynamic Conya Doss played a sublime set of soulful rhythm and blues in the Beachland Ballroom this very Saturday evening to a polite and admiring fan base . It is great to see true talent like Conya Doss be supported by polite society. The musicians and accompanying singers that served Conya Doss well in genuine inspired symmetry and filled the cozy ballroom confines of the Beachland Ballroom with pure joy. Contemporary Rhythm and Blues the musical ticket on the south shore of Lake Erie this past Saturday evening, Ms. Doss and her crew the R&B ambassadors of the hour... Right up on Lake Erie up near the former Euclid Beach amusement Park a kind and wayfaring stranger with rather long hair and very pointy black leather , at least Nokona quality or equivalent cowboy boots , came a walking about. Poker playing boots . Plenty of room in those high leather pull on tops for whatever ails ya.Now before we follow this well groomed Texas Long Hair around on his Cleveland adventures. A few words about the game of poker. Texas hold em is a very polite and boring game . More poker perhaps than some of the games I favor and have played till past daybreak with degenerate gambling sickness victims of all races , colors , and stripes.Pretty pussy. Four cards , four suits , lowest hand involving holding one card apiece of each suit. Three rounds of no check betting and a rather expeditious result. Perfect poker. Ace , Deuce , Three, Four of all different suits is produces a pat hand. Mammonism of the highest stripe and order then occurs. Today's Omaha and Texas style Hold em games are no match for the inspired low ball five ,six , and seven card stud poker games with betting twists and the ability to improve a hand with a buy on the end side. Declarer play if so desired by the dealer and specified for before hand. Real big piles of green dollar bills folded and shoved into a cowboy boot or tucked into some other dark place... Back to our cowboy boot visitor who turns out to be a visiting artist and musician from Austin , Texas who steps off a jet airplane , rents a car ,and drives along the Lakeshore Boulevard and East 156th street looking for the Beachland Ballroom. His name is Salvador Curley and he Stops to ask some Euclid Beach Park area resident citizens how to find the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern on Waterloo Road and East 156Th Street? The ultimate unanswerable question . Like a pirate ship with feet. Salvador is Standing a mere few blocks north and about a third of a mile in distance from the Beachland Ballroom asking this simple question.A young man walking across this same said parking lot and surely a native of Cleveland's poverty plywood culture upon observing our querulous and amply coiffed Lone Star visitors was heard to exclaim. " See that fuggin' freaky guy , him got long hair just like a GURL!" An anonymous and unsolicited comment on the length of hair of our visitor who while unknown to the confused parking lot citizenry is a visual artist of no small repute and a well travelled street smart human ta boots .Merely asking native Clevelanders a rather simple question concerning directions to the location of a near bye local nightclub of some National recognition. Response? A Full potty mouthed jabbering from the cozy parking lot of a chain drugstore at the intersection of East 156Th and The Boulevard on a rather ordinary early spring Friday evening in late March. Hair like a girl? Man it appears that everybody around these parts is naturally cranky and a little pent up from the winter chilling weather. The natives are restless , and a bit perturbed so to speak . Our erudite Texan mutters to hisself. " Even the locals around these parts are hicks".Seems nobody nose nuttin' , bout' nuttin' round dese parts. A Green Darby gangster hangover. Contemporary culture prefers caution and the dummy up attitude extended to all strangers at all times lest perhaps unpleasantness might be exchanged seems local custom.At least Sal Curley made it outside the downtown Cleveland confines to at least experience the local Cleveland citizens phantasmagorical salutations . As for the very drugstore parking lot Mister Curley was standing in , like many other parking lots in this town full of them. This lot has a few stories ..One sunny summer's day forty years ago the Beach Boy's played to a large crowd in this very sad drugstore parking lot of today at the corner of East156Th and Lakeshore Boulevard. While running for President successfully against scoundrel nixon in 1960 , J.F.K. delivered a speech at these very same old hallowed Euclid Beach Picnic grounds with the help of the local Irish Democratic gang. This very parking lot was a picnic grounds accessible since the nineteenth century to Cleveland dwellers in need to take an air and enjoy the summer comforts of being in the proximity of Lake Erie . Or venturing to the nearby Lake Erie waters to catch walleye , or perch . I would not be surprised that the original Native Indian settlers. Not the hatchet faced mascot bunch I bet against this year, had a fondness and use for this picnic grounds. So as fate has it I am walkin out this very drug store the actual moment that Salvador is walkin in. I thinks to myself , " Yep , Mister and Missus Cheeze got a brand new tenant for the old poster artist Ant Hicks place back on Dogfish Row just around the corner from the drug store on a narrow street of tiny homes that is located just across from the real time drug store and former Euclid Beach Picnic grounds. My olfactory memory banks conjur up youthful images of an ambrosial plume of meaty smoke rising over this same very picnic lot as tobacco smoking , World War One and Two veterans cooked ethnic sausages , whole kids , or gigantic slabs of beef and pork ribs over wood fired pits , dabbing away at the carne with hand held mops moistened with vinegars infused with spice. Now this poor long haired traveler to Cleveland Mister Curley shows up as a guest at the Cheeze's lakefront home an hour or so later. An invited guest to the Cheeze's lakefront digs , and a survivor of a cultural affront for the crime of asking directions in a parking lot. Congratulations fellow earthling from Austin, Texas. The fabled south shore of Lake Erie Flying saucer underwater docking ports are located a few hundred yards out into Lake Erie. Welcome to Cleveland, Ohio! Viewing flying saucers up here along the Lake , is preferable to talking to the natives. A rather ammusing sort of sporting event is attempting to identify what planet a fellow human might be from while walking around Cleveand these days. [An aside for those visitors from a more civilized place who wear their hair long or perhaps dress in a more catchy and colorful style not favored by the midwest ,low dude, or wily rube style and form of haberdashery .] Let it be known that long hair and cowboy boots are better suited for televised cornball western movies , Coventry Road hip eye hangovers , or better yet the wilds south of town known as Brunswick , Ohio or Brunswick ,Kentucky , take your pick. In any event cowboy boots and long hair are not regular dress in a urban parking lot on Cleveland's east side .I remember that in nineteen sixties Cleveland long haired freaks were sometimes hassled by North Collinwood natives at this very amusement park site. Greasers and racks were the vouge here for so very many years. Then the greaser offsprings go on to listen to the likes of southside johnny and his juke band.Go figure? Do not ask directions around these here parts after dark either. It was near nine p.m. and closing time when I walked into the drugstore , and allready us local people all ready to bunker down in our cribs for the evening. . Our visitor Mister Curley and his lovely wife Mindy are considering relocating somewhere else in the world , and came here to Cleveland to look around. Due to the efforts of Mister and Misses Cheese the Curley's had a great dinner at the Grovewood Tavern and listened to great music at the Beachland Ballroom.Civilization personified on Cleveland's east side. The Curley family bonds with us Clevelanders and would be a great addition to our lakefront scene or any happening in the event they should decide to return here. Salvador and Mindy are great and kind people and the very humans that a city like Cleveland should work hard to attract as citizens. As for the pirate ship with feet. They were spared the downtown tribe version and instead caught the Boulevard version before fling away on a big bird through the flying saucer laden clouds above Cleveland back to sunny Texas.We will be staying in touch with the Curley's however , who are as warm and genuine folk.

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