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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The Mauling of America

As my wise friend Kim told me, the whole enchilada will not fall apart. -- So be it.

Crude oil futures are going to reach $100.00 per barrel sooner in 2008 than later. Our not- so-tidy dirty little wars will continue to escalate, now compounded with the tragic news from Pakistan. Bhutto's death marks the beginning of a new chapter in International affairs with our collective posteriors hanging out to catch the flack and fallout.

The United States of America faces perhaps the grimmest visage of an election year since 1960, when at least the scoundrel Nixon was defeated by the New England political machinery of the old bootlegger Kennedy.

The choice at the polls always a lesser of two evils.

Nineteen sixty or two thousand and eight . Business as usual in America!

Jesse Marvin "Big Daddy" Unruh, California Democrat insider politician until his death in 1987, said this about lobbyists "If you can't take their money, drink their liquor , and fuck their women, and then come in the next day and vote against them you don't belong here."

Jesse was also quoted as saying "Money is the mother's milk of politics."

It is truly sad that change comes so slow in such a large and free country as the USA.

A mild recession is predicted for the USA in the year 2008 by educated bipeds a lot smarter than me. I believe them, and then some too.

I grew up around twentieth century depression era survivors, and at least then families were extended, and you knew the butcher, baker, and grocers at the end of your street by their first names.

Not quite the same set of faces will great you at your local big-box corporate store if you are a little short on funds and desire to order your victuals on the cuff for a week.

Today's sources of credit are the loan shark industry that poses as "payday loan enterprises", complete with enough double digit interest to choke a cow, and terms that you might better work out with a swarthy man on the docks in a sharkskin suit, who spells out his terms very clear and concise, complete with penalties of a permanent nature for failure to make good on your loan.

The banking industry in the USA has the largest lobby gang on K street in Washington, D.C. This banking industry is coming off record years of profits, and has managed to use it's collective k street influences to affect a more stringent set of bankruptcy legislation that penalizes the very customers that the bank's strung out on cheap teaser credit card loans, and home mortgage loans that resulted in the bank's record profits, and the client's fiscal downfall. B

usiness as usual from the out of control banking industry! Profit by hook or by crook. -- Or is it hook 'em, then crook 'em?

The banking industry has taken Jesse Unruh's "Mother's milk" practice to it's unfortunate contemporary conclusion.

These same banks ,via their hired lobbyists on k street, will soon be crying to our elected officials in Washington, D.C. for some major fiscal relief from their less than prudent business practices. Time has arrived to shut the door in their faces, and as the drug jingo goes "just say no."

Tell your congressman, senator, or write a letter to the next President of the USA to that effect. Tell the banks no, when it comes to them asking for yet another hand out, and bail out form their unsound practices.

Thirty years as a small business owner has taught me well to live within my means, and to resist the notion of borrowing money against the future. I did borrow a thousand dollars in 1976 when first going into the book business from a depression era Uncle.

Paid the unc' back in thirty days with interest, and have managed to never borrow another dime. Simple lesson. Better to live without in the present, than to jeopardize fiscal solvency in that uncertain future.

Spent a great day today in the great American wilds of suburbia. My wife and I suspended belief in reality for a day, taking in a matinee movie, spending a Christmas gift card apiece on practical shoes, J.C. Penney Company and Macy's Department Store, and even splurged on a three dollar set of photographs from an arcade machine.

As best as we could, we two tourists from the big little city/town of Cleveland , Ohio, did our level best to act as consumers for a day in shopping mall America.

All these mall retail stores seem to have a great corporate air about them. Corporate performance is based upon profit and growth. These corporate operators are big borrowers, and I wonder how they will stand up to the rough fiscal times ahead in 2008?

These same corporation-types are deep in red ink as a way of existence, and keep going back to the well to borrow against the future.

Having already emptied out the mom and pop entrepreneurial retailers once set up on main street USA , their quest for market dominance and worldwide profits might just skid back in 2008 a fair bit , and have their reins yanked back as well.

Stay tuned more to come in election year America 2008.

The various small market media concerns in Cleveland, Ohio would have you believe that a second place in professional sports in the year 2007 is something to brag about.

Not in my book.

Eric Wedge positively choked to finish out the 2007 Cleveland American League season. The Cavaliers 2007 Championship series team is acknowledged as one of the weakest on record to make the show.

The Cleveland Browns await their certain postseason fate. And even if they are able to attain playoff status will be knocked off early.

As for the true City of professional winners in 2007, seems that Boston and New England teams rule the roost.

Pats are undefeated despite the slippery antics of their pajama wearing weirdo head coach. Boston Red Sox capture another World Series flag. And The Celts so far in the 2007-2008 season have lost but three games, and are rather amazing.

So listen up you local lager louts, get used to Cleveland loosing in sports!

It has been a long time since the Browns of 1964, and you can bet the Indians will not see post season play in 2008, The Cavs need to spend some money for a playmate for LeBron or he will be gone soon. And as for the Browns/Oranges, or whatever they call themselves these days brighter days are ahead. Not for some years mind you, and a super bowl seems a fur stretch for the foreseeable future.

Now if we could only get a pro-Hockey franchise, perhaps we would stand a chance...

Book Selling Time!

While coming of age during the Vietnam War era one of the scariest moments in my young life was the realization that the scoundrel Nixon was out to kill me and my young friends. Throwing young men into the meat grinder of a war that was Vietnam did not seem to bother scoundrel Nixon very much at all.

He blathered away propaganda on the radio and television while bombing Hanoi, and crossing into Cambodia.

I will not kid you folks. I was scared shitless of scoundrel Nixon!

While under the influence of a rather strong psychedelic substance I once watched his televised face change into a purplish devil like apparition, and ran from the room clutching my head.

Bummer Nixon!

Now I can only offer to sell this book of his memoirs signed by him as a possible catharsis for my still reoccurring bad Nixon flashbacks.

Please help me purge this old demon from my mind. Help! If interested please purchase SIX CRISES, which is inscribed and signed by scoundrel Nixon himself on the book's free front end paper.

Promise to throw in a free copy of comedian rush Limbaugh's SEE I TOLD YOU SO, low humor book as well -- though hurry, I am tempted on a daily basis to toss Rush out into the traffic on east ninth street, and do not know if I can resist this cheap thrill much longer.

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Seasonal tonic

Penultimate November fades , and a short list of seasonal rules appear. 1] Ignore all major media . 2] Do not enter any shopping malls. 3] Thrift stores and house sales suffice 4] Take great care in observing all forms of wheeled transportation due to the sordid tendencies of seasonal inebriation. 5] Long holiday weekends and family projects often seem a task for those not used to them , so beware the angry sports displaced American male who is finally completing a household project put off since spring 6]In laws? Enough said. 7] Office parties seem the greatest of misnomers 8] Consider a short out of town vacation 9] Make like your house animal and curl up in a warm corner 10] Fall in the catnip and doze off until January 3rd.................... Books concerning libations are pretty fair sellers this year. Could be the war or the economy or a combination of the two/ Drink up America. The nixon years are here again , and the cheese is getting stale on k street. Time to clean out the cat box , and send out for another pizza. Yeah , suppose that all the air travel we have been up to is a bit of a drag on the ecology. All that pretty contrail purple skies. Near twenty percent of our atmosphere. Time for replacing with lighter than air transport. Moratorium on commercial air traffic is the only real cure . Subversive? Not really , more or less Gaia positive logical thought. Potable water is scarce. Population shift back to the Great Lakes are only a matter of time , or another region's lack of water. So drink up America ! It is later than any of us would like to imagine! As a youth on the south shore of Lake Erie right past the flying turns and Bratenahl curves the ICBM missiles at the NIKE SITE , posed with full priapic regalia , next to the Gordon Park rock crudely spray painted " Help Me I'm Dying" , a cryptic ecological cry for the city of Cleveland today . In the distance past the ICBM missile the entirety of skyline Cleveland's Terminal Tower loomed only a few miles to the west , returning the salute. His cowboy mind was a washing the blood off the hotel room walls last evening, laughing aloud counting demons on both hands. So have another drink America! Let off some steam. Sure , size means something. All those mini penile unit Spurt Uncouth Vulgarities that the hicks go for. Proves the old adage that the smaller the penis the larger the truck. Opposite applies for the fairer gender. Honk , honk. Get that parking space! ...............Book Selling Time! In keeping with the spirit of the amped up and over imbibed clucked up freaks who start to jabber away in some foreign language when greased way up to the gills on sauce , we offer. O'DELLS BOOK OF COCKTAILS AND FANCY DRINKS IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE. Published in Yokohama , Japan in 1932 , a very scarce and desirable volume . Perhaps if the diplomatic cores of both Japan and the United States of America would have paid a little more attention to these drink recipes we could have skipped the mess at Pearl Harbor..... Hate to bring up a sorry subject but here goes. Due to that old scoundrel nixon and his China expedition we are repeating today a few economic and strategic mistakes that our political elders erred on in the pre world war two 1930's.We are shipping our scrap metal today to China in the year 2007. We shipped a lot of our scrap metal to Japan prior to WW Two . Poet e.e. cumming's said it best , referring to the Japanese receiving our scrap metal; " We shipped them the second avenue el , they sent it back to us at a higher velocity".Touche! Banzai! We are shipping the Chinese our scrap today and they are sending us back cheap plastic toys laced with lead paint , tacky dollar store items , and poisonous foodstuffs. Thank you very much k street and the entire political circus that conspires to bring us daily the bought ,told, and sold circus known as contemporary America. An ugly political climate , and no fun with the European and Middle Eastern nuclear mobsters wheeling and dealing to any rogue nation wishing to take a swipe at the good old USA. Yeah man! Drink up America! Dig a hole in the sand and stick your cranial orb between your legs and kiss your...... Hey , have a drink for me, I prefer sarsaparilla. Actually the Philly Red Birch Beer manufactured by the Boylan Soda Bottling Company is my favorite carbonated beverage. Check some out!

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