I am currently sitting in my office eating a Polish Boy from R. Ribs that I got last night as part of their "buy one, get second for 99 cents" Thursday deal. In my office is a bottle of Sriracha which goes on virtually everything I eat - pizza, chicken, vegetables, breakfast sandwiches, salads, yogurt, apples, bananas. I sometimes even squirt it in my mouth to get a taste, I love it so much. A long time ago, after I got my first bottle, I remember eating something - an omelette, perhaps - and thinking, "this could go on any food and improve it."
Until today, that was true.
The most recent bottle was sitting on my desk next to my coffee, and when I reached over to take a sip I saw it. A few fries had fallen out of the Polish Boy and were lying forlornly on the plate. I reached out and, as an experiment, I squirted a bit of Sriracha on them, scooped them up with my fork, and chewed.
Sriracha can go with fries, of course, and with virtually any other potato product - Spanish omelettes, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, microwaved potatoes, potato salad, etc. But when I put these into my mouth, I knew I had made a mistake. The Sriracha was there, and had the same old familiar bite, but instead of improving the taste it somehow clashed in a way it has never clashed with any other food before. My face scrunched up and I immediately separated the now-contaminated fries from the rest of the Polish Boy and ate them quickly, then moved on to the deliciousness that is R. Ribs' sausage/coleslaw/fry/sauce/bun combination.
My mind couldn't process it immediately, but about three minutes later I had the thought: if, as is indisputable, Sriracha can improve anything, and that perfect things cannot be improved, and that Sriracha does not improve a Polish Boy, does it not follow that the Polish Boy is a complete and perfect sandwich? Is that not logic, complete and unbreakable and pure?
I submit to you that it is, and I suggest to you that you find yourself a Polish Boy this weekend, cut two small portions off of it, eat one small portion, eat the other with Sriracha, and then eat the rest of the Polish Boy understanding far more about logic, balance, perfection and indisputable facts than you ever did previously.
Have a lovely weekend, my friend.
Best,
Beau
Friday, July 22, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The Sadness
To be frank, one of the best things about the Cleveland Sandwich Board is the opportunity we have, each and every day, to provide immense and increasingly important aid to people around the world. Occasionally we receive emails from visitors, like the one below, and we respond directly to them, respecting their privacy and maintaining our own integrity. However, this writer asks us to address a subject of such seriousness, a source of such sadness, that we decided to make our response public - for the greater good.
Beau,
We will be in Cleveland next week and wanted to make sure we tried several Polish boys. I saw a comment someone recently made on yelp or chowhound that said Freddie's was closed. Do you know if they are still in business? Any one else you would recommend? Thanks.
Frank
Frank -
Thank you for writing, and for recognizing that we are the single most important sandwich reviewing organization in the general vicinity.
Sadly, Freddie's closed; they appear to be putting in some sort of bar now. For alternatives, I'd suggest the following:
- Battiste & Dupree
- R. Ribs
- Just Like Mom's
- Hot Sauce Williams
- B&M Barbecue
- Seti's
Enjoy your stay, and your food!
Best,
Beau
Beau,
We will be in Cleveland next week and wanted to make sure we tried several Polish boys. I saw a comment someone recently made on yelp or chowhound that said Freddie's was closed. Do you know if they are still in business? Any one else you would recommend? Thanks.
Frank
Frank -
Thank you for writing, and for recognizing that we are the single most important sandwich reviewing organization in the general vicinity.
Sadly, Freddie's closed; they appear to be putting in some sort of bar now. For alternatives, I'd suggest the following:
- Battiste & Dupree
- R. Ribs
- Just Like Mom's
- Hot Sauce Williams
- B&M Barbecue
- Seti's
Enjoy your stay, and your food!
Best,
Beau
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Philadelphia - Pat's, Tony Luke's, Campo's
From Abroad
Where 9th street crosses Wharton and Passyunk Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-468-1546
www.patskingofsteaks.com
39 East Oregon Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19148
(215) 551-5725
www.tonylukes.com
214 Market St
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 923-1000
www.camposdeli.com
by Beau Cadiyo
Bite: two of America's great sandwiches in one of America's great cities. Oh, and Campo's is kind of ok.
It should be obvious to anyone who visits Chicago that a city can thrive despite bitterly cold weather in the winter and rampant and odious corruption year-round; visiting Philadelphia, it’s evident a city can still have a strong heartbeat with widespread poverty and record levels of crime just over the border. Cleveland bears both of these curses, and could thrive, but for how it is planned. What I don’t get is why the city planners don’t follow Jane Jacobs’ lead and actually look to see what in a city will help it succeed.
Unlike Cleveland, Philadelphia has lots of mixed-use buildings and row houses and bars and restaurants. In many ways, it’s like East Fourth, but a whole city of East Fourths, open late and packed together. People want to be on top of each other – not just in the reproductive sense but in the no-man-is-an-island sense. We want to be around other people; we crave it; we are secretly most comfortable when we are crammed together in an apartment and we can hear our neighbors breathing.
So it was no wonder to me that Frank Kojouri wanted to move back to her hometown after law school. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, but she was still the same – just more energetic and adult. She picked us up outside of the 30th Street Station and we zipped around while she showed us sights – alleys, famous punk venues, historical buildings. At one point, I saw a lot that was about eight feet wide and thought, “They could put a house there.” That’s what it’s like.
As she drove, she prepped us: there is a traditional divide between Geno’s and Pat’s for cheesesteaks. Geno’s is all glitz and glamour, Pat’s is where locals actually eat. Verily, they were right across the street from each other, and it was true: Geno’s was covered in fluorescent lights, flashing bulbs and bright colors, and was virtually empty; Pat’s hadn’t been painted since 1978 and was surrounded, the way that a bee hive buzzes with activity, little drones dancing and wiggling and moving. We queued up to the window and Frank ordered; as soon as she said we wanted Cheez Whiz, they were served, and I had to pay. It took less time to get the food and pay than it took you to read that sentence. I’ve never seen service that fast, and it wasn’t a fluke – they turn over huge amounts of food very, very quickly, and it was a miracle that we walked right into an open table, considering how many other patrons were trying to sit down.
According to Frank, what makes Philly cheesesteaks special in Philadelphia is the bread; it is baked by a local baker, and is uniform throughout the more famous and popular places. The cheeze whiz is standardized, too, so restaurants can’t differentiate much on that critical ingredient. What they CAN differentiate themselves on is the steak; also, each restaurant had a big vat of pickled peppers, and Pat’s also had some dried, smoked ones that made my ears ache when I ate one plain (not recommended). We tore ours apart, literally, so we could share them, and I tried mine plain. Then I did what Frank recommended and put some ketchup on. The difference was incredible: plain, they were good, but a tiny bit dry. With the ketchup, though, there was suddenly a sweet saltiness that complimented everything else well.
At the rate that we paid for our food, or $20 in about ten seconds, they would be making $7,200 per hour at peak times. When we drove out, we passed Geno’s. It was empty despite its lights; esse quam videri.
Frank drove us past some developing areas, past an abandoned cruise ship, past an Ikea and on to Tony Luke’s. Again, Cheesesteak, Cheez Whiz, and pickled peppers, but this time we weren’t hungry and there was a much longer wait. I grabbed a table while the girls ordered, and took the time to look at the other patrons. Many of them were fat. Not curvaceous, not thick, not heavy, not big-boned – they were fat. Fat fat. Cheesesteak fat. They didn’t look like locals; many seemed to be tourists, just like us, ill-clad for the weather and waiting around for the famous food.
I kept waiting, drawing post cards to my family, fending off other patrons trying to sit down, and then waited some more. Finally, Frank was called and the girls brought the food over. If the bread was the same, I wouldn’t have known it; this time it was far more crusty, as if they had scooped out the soft middle, all the better with which to hold the meat. It was greasier, too, which I liked; there wasn’t as much of a need for ketchup, although I did put some on. The meat was more tender, too, although I’m not sure it was worth the drive or the wait.
We had some grinders at Campo’s that don’t bear mention other than that they didn’t include oil on it at first, then got salty when we requested some. Then we walked the streets, dodging people and dogs, passing rooms where famous events occurred and the liberty bell. We played craps on Ben Franklin’s grave and left the dice there; we went into a Quaker meeting house which also hosted Franklin’s freemason meetings and talked to a period actor for an hour. It struck me that the buildings were just buildings; they didn’t have any special qualities, any special wood or floorboards or paint or roofs or windows that differentiated them from other buildings. Instead, they were distinguished by people who did great things in them. They saw things that were wrong, or that could be improved, and they worked to fix them. Nothing more, nothing less.
We’d run around the city that morning – from our hotel around City Hall, then to Chinatown, past the market, then up to the art museum. I thought of my mother. When I first saw Saturday Night Fever, she explained to me the significance at the end: Travolta’s character crosses THE bridge, which to people from New York was some big deal. “People spend their entire lives in four blocks of New York, and they never get out; when he crossed the bridge, it was like. . .woah.”
The first time she saw it, she cried – not the little tears that well up when the old lady suddenly recognizes her husband in The Notebook, or when the young lady decides to tell her parents to sod off, again in The Notebook, or when you think she's going to get married to the rich asshole, again in The Notebook, but giant sobs, the kind that might be even more embarrassing except she was in a theater in New York and everyone was sobbing. I imagined what it must be like to be from Philadelphia, knowing what it meant for Rocky to run from his neighborhood all the way up to the art museum, then to stand at the top and look down at the city and think about conquering it.
Where 9th street crosses Wharton and Passyunk Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-468-1546
www.patskingofsteaks.com
39 East Oregon Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19148
(215) 551-5725
www.tonylukes.com
214 Market St
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 923-1000
www.camposdeli.com
by Beau Cadiyo
Bite: two of America's great sandwiches in one of America's great cities. Oh, and Campo's is kind of ok.
It should be obvious to anyone who visits Chicago that a city can thrive despite bitterly cold weather in the winter and rampant and odious corruption year-round; visiting Philadelphia, it’s evident a city can still have a strong heartbeat with widespread poverty and record levels of crime just over the border. Cleveland bears both of these curses, and could thrive, but for how it is planned. What I don’t get is why the city planners don’t follow Jane Jacobs’ lead and actually look to see what in a city will help it succeed.
Unlike Cleveland, Philadelphia has lots of mixed-use buildings and row houses and bars and restaurants. In many ways, it’s like East Fourth, but a whole city of East Fourths, open late and packed together. People want to be on top of each other – not just in the reproductive sense but in the no-man-is-an-island sense. We want to be around other people; we crave it; we are secretly most comfortable when we are crammed together in an apartment and we can hear our neighbors breathing.
So it was no wonder to me that Frank Kojouri wanted to move back to her hometown after law school. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, but she was still the same – just more energetic and adult. She picked us up outside of the 30th Street Station and we zipped around while she showed us sights – alleys, famous punk venues, historical buildings. At one point, I saw a lot that was about eight feet wide and thought, “They could put a house there.” That’s what it’s like.
As she drove, she prepped us: there is a traditional divide between Geno’s and Pat’s for cheesesteaks. Geno’s is all glitz and glamour, Pat’s is where locals actually eat. Verily, they were right across the street from each other, and it was true: Geno’s was covered in fluorescent lights, flashing bulbs and bright colors, and was virtually empty; Pat’s hadn’t been painted since 1978 and was surrounded, the way that a bee hive buzzes with activity, little drones dancing and wiggling and moving. We queued up to the window and Frank ordered; as soon as she said we wanted Cheez Whiz, they were served, and I had to pay. It took less time to get the food and pay than it took you to read that sentence. I’ve never seen service that fast, and it wasn’t a fluke – they turn over huge amounts of food very, very quickly, and it was a miracle that we walked right into an open table, considering how many other patrons were trying to sit down.
According to Frank, what makes Philly cheesesteaks special in Philadelphia is the bread; it is baked by a local baker, and is uniform throughout the more famous and popular places. The cheeze whiz is standardized, too, so restaurants can’t differentiate much on that critical ingredient. What they CAN differentiate themselves on is the steak; also, each restaurant had a big vat of pickled peppers, and Pat’s also had some dried, smoked ones that made my ears ache when I ate one plain (not recommended). We tore ours apart, literally, so we could share them, and I tried mine plain. Then I did what Frank recommended and put some ketchup on. The difference was incredible: plain, they were good, but a tiny bit dry. With the ketchup, though, there was suddenly a sweet saltiness that complimented everything else well.
At the rate that we paid for our food, or $20 in about ten seconds, they would be making $7,200 per hour at peak times. When we drove out, we passed Geno’s. It was empty despite its lights; esse quam videri.
Frank drove us past some developing areas, past an abandoned cruise ship, past an Ikea and on to Tony Luke’s. Again, Cheesesteak, Cheez Whiz, and pickled peppers, but this time we weren’t hungry and there was a much longer wait. I grabbed a table while the girls ordered, and took the time to look at the other patrons. Many of them were fat. Not curvaceous, not thick, not heavy, not big-boned – they were fat. Fat fat. Cheesesteak fat. They didn’t look like locals; many seemed to be tourists, just like us, ill-clad for the weather and waiting around for the famous food.
I kept waiting, drawing post cards to my family, fending off other patrons trying to sit down, and then waited some more. Finally, Frank was called and the girls brought the food over. If the bread was the same, I wouldn’t have known it; this time it was far more crusty, as if they had scooped out the soft middle, all the better with which to hold the meat. It was greasier, too, which I liked; there wasn’t as much of a need for ketchup, although I did put some on. The meat was more tender, too, although I’m not sure it was worth the drive or the wait.
We had some grinders at Campo’s that don’t bear mention other than that they didn’t include oil on it at first, then got salty when we requested some. Then we walked the streets, dodging people and dogs, passing rooms where famous events occurred and the liberty bell. We played craps on Ben Franklin’s grave and left the dice there; we went into a Quaker meeting house which also hosted Franklin’s freemason meetings and talked to a period actor for an hour. It struck me that the buildings were just buildings; they didn’t have any special qualities, any special wood or floorboards or paint or roofs or windows that differentiated them from other buildings. Instead, they were distinguished by people who did great things in them. They saw things that were wrong, or that could be improved, and they worked to fix them. Nothing more, nothing less.
We’d run around the city that morning – from our hotel around City Hall, then to Chinatown, past the market, then up to the art museum. I thought of my mother. When I first saw Saturday Night Fever, she explained to me the significance at the end: Travolta’s character crosses THE bridge, which to people from New York was some big deal. “People spend their entire lives in four blocks of New York, and they never get out; when he crossed the bridge, it was like. . .woah.”
The first time she saw it, she cried – not the little tears that well up when the old lady suddenly recognizes her husband in The Notebook, or when the young lady decides to tell her parents to sod off, again in The Notebook, or when you think she's going to get married to the rich asshole, again in The Notebook, but giant sobs, the kind that might be even more embarrassing except she was in a theater in New York and everyone was sobbing. I imagined what it must be like to be from Philadelphia, knowing what it meant for Rocky to run from his neighborhood all the way up to the art museum, then to stand at the top and look down at the city and think about conquering it.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Ontario Street Cafe
2053 Ontario St
Cleveland, OH 44115
(216) 861-6446
by Beau Cadiyo
The TSA recently revised its methods of patting down children at airports. The practice has lots of critics; after all, how many five-year-olds are going to kick down the door of a cockpit, fire bullets into the heads of the pilots and commandeer the plane for terrorist activity? The answer: very, very few (I've learned recently that anything, really, is possible, and not to underestimate children.)
This video starts out with John Pistole, the head of the TSA, proving that he deserves to spend eternity in a special hell of being molested by TSA agents armed with metal-detecting tridents and rubber gloves slathered in hot sauce. Then Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son and current US Senator from Kentucky, has a nice little monologue where he accuses the TSA chief of "not getting it" and "missing the boat" in targeting TSA searches.
For the most part he's right, but his justifications are absurd. He indicates that the children aren't going to be the terrorists and, of course, he's right. What he somehow misses altogether, and what Pistole corrects him on, is that these children can make effective weapons when deployed by adults. In addition, they are usually traveling with adults, all of whom might be capable of carrying out a terrorist attack as ably as the Saudis of 9/11 and can use the children as mules for everything from weapons to drugs; the adults traveling with those children might be the ones that the TSA actually has their eyes on.
Then he goes on to say, "I think you ought to get rid of the random patdowns. The American public is unhappy with 'em; they're unhappy with the invasiveness of 'em; the internet is full of jokes about the invasiveness of your patdown searches; and we ought to just consider is this what we're willing to do." I guess this goes to the heart of democracy; what is the role of the government? Is it to do what is right or to perform the will of the people? If it was to do the will of the people, some might say that government should stop whatever it is doing and serve ice cream to everyone if the temperature hits 90 degrees. If it is to do what is right, though, then the justification of "people are joking about this on the internet; get rid of it" is ludicrous. I suppose it must be somewhere in between, where politicians perform the will of the people to the extent that they feel it is beneficial.
These things need to be discussed and hashed out every few years by the new generation of leaders, preferably in dingy bars with intimate booths that lend themselves to conversation, random friendly strangers stopping by to contribute to the conversation and, most important of all, good food and cheap drinks to stimulate and lubricate the flow of ideas. The Ontario Street Cafe fits that bill perfectly. When I first walked in it was loud - VERY loud. Beyonce was on the jukebox and all of the ten or fifteen women sitting around the bar or shuffling drinks to patrons was singing and dancing; the men were sitting back laughing. Frank Meuti and I - wide-eyed and somewhat disoriented by the onslaught of visual and auditory information - found a booth in the back corner and sat down; the music was loud, but they had somehow found the volume level that matched Jordan Baker's requirements for parties: it was loud enough that you could have a private conversation.
The Dos Equis lagers we ordered were brought within thirty seconds; the hot corned beef sandwich was brought within three minutes. I am usually not impressed by quality when I am impressed by speed, so it was with some amount of trepidation that I bit into the first half of my sandwich. It was, like Slyman's, packed high; unlike Slyman's, they gave me the choice of various sauces, of which I chose the mayo/horseradish.
If there is any sauce that should be consumed with a corned beef sandwich, this is the sauce. It was creamy and moist and spicy, adding to what was already incredibly tender corned beef that I suspected one might be able to gum to edibility. The bread was standard white bread; some Swiss cheese was melted perfectly on top. I forced Frank to eat some, at which he took half of the other half, devouring it in between observations on developments in Cleveland he either was a wholehearted supporter of or was deeply skeptical about. We were approached, at various times, by people who were very sorry to interrupt our conversation but wanted our opinions on something; rather than get annoyed, the fact that we were fish out of water made us open and accepting, which made them the same way. Then, we went back to discussing the role of creativity in economic development, intelligent city planning versus unintelligent city planning, the Medical Mart and the Cuyahoga County Democrats. A few Dos Equis bottles later, we got up from the table and headed out the door. Frank pointed out the price chart on the wall: $3.25 for top shelf drinks, and much less for well. I scanned the shelves; Dewar's, Black Velvet and Jack all had representative bottles, and I made a mental note that I'd be getting those next time instead of the flash $3 bottles.
The key statement that Senator Paul makes toward the end of his monologue is that "no one's thinking." With the TSA and the state of government in our city, county, state and nation, he hits the hammer right on the head; with the future of our democracy, though, I think there's a younger class rising up who will prove him wrong.
Cleveland, OH 44115
(216) 861-6446
by Beau Cadiyo
The TSA recently revised its methods of patting down children at airports. The practice has lots of critics; after all, how many five-year-olds are going to kick down the door of a cockpit, fire bullets into the heads of the pilots and commandeer the plane for terrorist activity? The answer: very, very few (I've learned recently that anything, really, is possible, and not to underestimate children.)
This video starts out with John Pistole, the head of the TSA, proving that he deserves to spend eternity in a special hell of being molested by TSA agents armed with metal-detecting tridents and rubber gloves slathered in hot sauce. Then Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son and current US Senator from Kentucky, has a nice little monologue where he accuses the TSA chief of "not getting it" and "missing the boat" in targeting TSA searches.
For the most part he's right, but his justifications are absurd. He indicates that the children aren't going to be the terrorists and, of course, he's right. What he somehow misses altogether, and what Pistole corrects him on, is that these children can make effective weapons when deployed by adults. In addition, they are usually traveling with adults, all of whom might be capable of carrying out a terrorist attack as ably as the Saudis of 9/11 and can use the children as mules for everything from weapons to drugs; the adults traveling with those children might be the ones that the TSA actually has their eyes on.
Then he goes on to say, "I think you ought to get rid of the random patdowns. The American public is unhappy with 'em; they're unhappy with the invasiveness of 'em; the internet is full of jokes about the invasiveness of your patdown searches; and we ought to just consider is this what we're willing to do." I guess this goes to the heart of democracy; what is the role of the government? Is it to do what is right or to perform the will of the people? If it was to do the will of the people, some might say that government should stop whatever it is doing and serve ice cream to everyone if the temperature hits 90 degrees. If it is to do what is right, though, then the justification of "people are joking about this on the internet; get rid of it" is ludicrous. I suppose it must be somewhere in between, where politicians perform the will of the people to the extent that they feel it is beneficial.
These things need to be discussed and hashed out every few years by the new generation of leaders, preferably in dingy bars with intimate booths that lend themselves to conversation, random friendly strangers stopping by to contribute to the conversation and, most important of all, good food and cheap drinks to stimulate and lubricate the flow of ideas. The Ontario Street Cafe fits that bill perfectly. When I first walked in it was loud - VERY loud. Beyonce was on the jukebox and all of the ten or fifteen women sitting around the bar or shuffling drinks to patrons was singing and dancing; the men were sitting back laughing. Frank Meuti and I - wide-eyed and somewhat disoriented by the onslaught of visual and auditory information - found a booth in the back corner and sat down; the music was loud, but they had somehow found the volume level that matched Jordan Baker's requirements for parties: it was loud enough that you could have a private conversation.
The Dos Equis lagers we ordered were brought within thirty seconds; the hot corned beef sandwich was brought within three minutes. I am usually not impressed by quality when I am impressed by speed, so it was with some amount of trepidation that I bit into the first half of my sandwich. It was, like Slyman's, packed high; unlike Slyman's, they gave me the choice of various sauces, of which I chose the mayo/horseradish.
If there is any sauce that should be consumed with a corned beef sandwich, this is the sauce. It was creamy and moist and spicy, adding to what was already incredibly tender corned beef that I suspected one might be able to gum to edibility. The bread was standard white bread; some Swiss cheese was melted perfectly on top. I forced Frank to eat some, at which he took half of the other half, devouring it in between observations on developments in Cleveland he either was a wholehearted supporter of or was deeply skeptical about. We were approached, at various times, by people who were very sorry to interrupt our conversation but wanted our opinions on something; rather than get annoyed, the fact that we were fish out of water made us open and accepting, which made them the same way. Then, we went back to discussing the role of creativity in economic development, intelligent city planning versus unintelligent city planning, the Medical Mart and the Cuyahoga County Democrats. A few Dos Equis bottles later, we got up from the table and headed out the door. Frank pointed out the price chart on the wall: $3.25 for top shelf drinks, and much less for well. I scanned the shelves; Dewar's, Black Velvet and Jack all had representative bottles, and I made a mental note that I'd be getting those next time instead of the flash $3 bottles.
The key statement that Senator Paul makes toward the end of his monologue is that "no one's thinking." With the TSA and the state of government in our city, county, state and nation, he hits the hammer right on the head; with the future of our democracy, though, I think there's a younger class rising up who will prove him wrong.
Searching
Sometimes we get interesting search alerts via Feedjit. I just noticed this one:
18:07:44
Birmingham, Alabama arrived from google.com on "The Cleveland Sandwich Board" by searching for: sex "j steward johnson".
Birmingham, Alabama - I am not sure what you're looking for, but I sincerely hope you find it.
Best,
Beau
18:07:44
Birmingham, Alabama arrived from google.com on "The Cleveland Sandwich Board" by searching for: sex "j steward johnson".
Birmingham, Alabama - I am not sure what you're looking for, but I sincerely hope you find it.
Best,
Beau
Deagan's Kitchen & Bar
14810 Detroit Ave
Lakewood, OH 44107
(216) 767-5775
www.deagans.com
by Beau Cadiyo
Des Ayuno brought up a good point in her criticism of Just Like Mom's: why is Florida only proposing to test welfare recipients for drugs and not other recipients of government largesse - bankers, say, or farmers, or anyone whose lifestyle has been partially or wholly subsidized by taxpayers - i.e., politicians themselves? The logic follows the same patterns as it would for welfare recipients:
Bankers
1) Drug use is illegal.
2) Because it is illegal, people should not be using drugs.
3) Unlike many illegal activities, drug use leaves some of its evidence in a person’s body, meaning that we can test for past crimes by testing the person’s body.
4) Drugs cost money.
5) Bailout money was money given to banks approaching bankruptcy so that they could afford to stay open, not only supporting the economy but also providing necessities to millions of Americans.
6) If bankers people did not have the bailouts, they would not be able to afford food.
7) If banks had money, they would not need bailouts.
8) If banks had money, they should spend it supporting the economy and the government which saved them and not on salaries which would go to drugs (an illegal luxury).
9) If banks had money, then the bailouts freed up money for them to spend on drugs.
10) If banks had money, spending it on drugs means that they are not spending it on the economy/government, so that’s money they should be spending on the economy/government and the government is supplementing the bankers' drug use/illegal activity.
11) The government should not supplement illegal activity – here or abroad.
12) Thus, to the extent possible, the government should be doing everything in its power to avoid supplementing activity that violates its own laws.
Farmers
1) Drug use is illegal.
2) Because it is illegal, people should not be using drugs.
3) Unlike many illegal activities, drug use leaves some of its evidence in a person’s body, meaning that we can test for past crimes by testing the person’s body.
4) Drugs cost money.
5) Farm subsidy money is money that is given to farmers people so that they can afford to run their farms "profitably."
6) If farmers did not have subsidies, they would not be able to afford food or other necessities.
7) If farmers had money, they would not need subsidies.
8) If farmers had money, they should spend it on food and other necessities and not on drugs (an illegal luxury).
9) If farmers had money, then subsidies free up money for them to spend on drugs.
10) If farmers had money, spending it on drugs means that they are not spending it on necessities, so that’s money they should be spending on food and the government is supplementing their drug use/illegal activity.
11) The government should not supplement illegal activity – here or abroad.
12) Thus, to the extent possible, the government should be doing everything in its power to avoid supplementing activity that violates its own laws.
Politicians
1) Drug use is illegal.
2) Because it is illegal, people should not be using drugs.
3) Unlike many illegal activities, drug use leaves some of its evidence in a person’s body, meaning that we can test for past crimes by testing the person’s body.
4) Drugs cost money.
5) Political salaries are moneys given to politicians so that they can afford food.
6) If politicians did not have salaries, they might not be able to afford food.
7) If politicians had money, they would not need salaries.
8) If politicians had money, they should spend it on necessities and not on drugs (an illegal luxury).
9) If politicians had money, then salaries free up money for them to spend on drugs.
10) If politicians have money, spending it on drugs means that they are not spending it on necessities or their public service, so it is money they should be spending on necessities and the government is supplementing their drug use/illegal activity.
11) The government should not supplement illegal activity – here or abroad.
12) Thus, to the extent possible, the government should be doing everything in its power to avoid supplementing activity that violates its own laws.
Indeed, if anyone should be tested for drugs it should be politicians, who propose to set the laws of the land that the rest of us are supposed to follow. The voters of Florida should be amending the statutes so that politicians are held to higher standards than anyone else as regards drug use and policy and obeying the laws.
Having said that, if I was a politician, farmer or banker, I would take my government funds and go to Deagan's. We had a table for ten on Sunday afternoon and hit their brunch menu; three of us ordered burgers and the rest ordered a variety of breakfasty or healthy items. Frank Todoroff got the chicken salad plate, an amalgam of chicken salad (light on the mayo and heavy on flavor), fruit (berries, grapes and melon slices) and crackers (the wheat kind). My Ohio Beef Burger was barely overcooked and thoroughly juicy; the bacon maintained an incredible level of crispiness throughout, and the fries, while warm and soggy rather than hot and crisp, were ok with the ketchup served in a little tin cup. Babies were held aloft around many of the tables; one little kid had learned to flip his shirt up in order to get beaded necklaces, and he tried to get the others at his table to join in. We sucked down mimosas and coffees and food and left full and content for Sunday evening shenanigans. All in all, it wasn't the best burger in Cleveland - as some amateurs have alleged - but it was reasonably good, and came with a great atmosphere. Bravo, Deagan's - you deserve our welfare, bailout, subsidy and salary cash more than most of the actual recipients.
Lakewood, OH 44107
(216) 767-5775
www.deagans.com
by Beau Cadiyo
Des Ayuno brought up a good point in her criticism of Just Like Mom's: why is Florida only proposing to test welfare recipients for drugs and not other recipients of government largesse - bankers, say, or farmers, or anyone whose lifestyle has been partially or wholly subsidized by taxpayers - i.e., politicians themselves? The logic follows the same patterns as it would for welfare recipients:
Bankers
1) Drug use is illegal.
2) Because it is illegal, people should not be using drugs.
3) Unlike many illegal activities, drug use leaves some of its evidence in a person’s body, meaning that we can test for past crimes by testing the person’s body.
4) Drugs cost money.
5) Bailout money was money given to banks approaching bankruptcy so that they could afford to stay open, not only supporting the economy but also providing necessities to millions of Americans.
6) If bankers people did not have the bailouts, they would not be able to afford food.
7) If banks had money, they would not need bailouts.
8) If banks had money, they should spend it supporting the economy and the government which saved them and not on salaries which would go to drugs (an illegal luxury).
9) If banks had money, then the bailouts freed up money for them to spend on drugs.
10) If banks had money, spending it on drugs means that they are not spending it on the economy/government, so that’s money they should be spending on the economy/government and the government is supplementing the bankers' drug use/illegal activity.
11) The government should not supplement illegal activity – here or abroad.
12) Thus, to the extent possible, the government should be doing everything in its power to avoid supplementing activity that violates its own laws.
Farmers
1) Drug use is illegal.
2) Because it is illegal, people should not be using drugs.
3) Unlike many illegal activities, drug use leaves some of its evidence in a person’s body, meaning that we can test for past crimes by testing the person’s body.
4) Drugs cost money.
5) Farm subsidy money is money that is given to farmers people so that they can afford to run their farms "profitably."
6) If farmers did not have subsidies, they would not be able to afford food or other necessities.
7) If farmers had money, they would not need subsidies.
8) If farmers had money, they should spend it on food and other necessities and not on drugs (an illegal luxury).
9) If farmers had money, then subsidies free up money for them to spend on drugs.
10) If farmers had money, spending it on drugs means that they are not spending it on necessities, so that’s money they should be spending on food and the government is supplementing their drug use/illegal activity.
11) The government should not supplement illegal activity – here or abroad.
12) Thus, to the extent possible, the government should be doing everything in its power to avoid supplementing activity that violates its own laws.
Politicians
1) Drug use is illegal.
2) Because it is illegal, people should not be using drugs.
3) Unlike many illegal activities, drug use leaves some of its evidence in a person’s body, meaning that we can test for past crimes by testing the person’s body.
4) Drugs cost money.
5) Political salaries are moneys given to politicians so that they can afford food.
6) If politicians did not have salaries, they might not be able to afford food.
7) If politicians had money, they would not need salaries.
8) If politicians had money, they should spend it on necessities and not on drugs (an illegal luxury).
9) If politicians had money, then salaries free up money for them to spend on drugs.
10) If politicians have money, spending it on drugs means that they are not spending it on necessities or their public service, so it is money they should be spending on necessities and the government is supplementing their drug use/illegal activity.
11) The government should not supplement illegal activity – here or abroad.
12) Thus, to the extent possible, the government should be doing everything in its power to avoid supplementing activity that violates its own laws.
Indeed, if anyone should be tested for drugs it should be politicians, who propose to set the laws of the land that the rest of us are supposed to follow. The voters of Florida should be amending the statutes so that politicians are held to higher standards than anyone else as regards drug use and policy and obeying the laws.
Having said that, if I was a politician, farmer or banker, I would take my government funds and go to Deagan's. We had a table for ten on Sunday afternoon and hit their brunch menu; three of us ordered burgers and the rest ordered a variety of breakfasty or healthy items. Frank Todoroff got the chicken salad plate, an amalgam of chicken salad (light on the mayo and heavy on flavor), fruit (berries, grapes and melon slices) and crackers (the wheat kind). My Ohio Beef Burger was barely overcooked and thoroughly juicy; the bacon maintained an incredible level of crispiness throughout, and the fries, while warm and soggy rather than hot and crisp, were ok with the ketchup served in a little tin cup. Babies were held aloft around many of the tables; one little kid had learned to flip his shirt up in order to get beaded necklaces, and he tried to get the others at his table to join in. We sucked down mimosas and coffees and food and left full and content for Sunday evening shenanigans. All in all, it wasn't the best burger in Cleveland - as some amateurs have alleged - but it was reasonably good, and came with a great atmosphere. Bravo, Deagan's - you deserve our welfare, bailout, subsidy and salary cash more than most of the actual recipients.
5 Star Subs
27575 Euclid Ave
Euclid, OH 44132
(216) 732-7750
by Kingtycoon Methuslah
So yesterday I didn't want to wake up. Man I didn't. I came to just up on five and discovered that my head and shoulders had found the sweet spot in the bed after probably all night of searching and they did not want to surrender. I did though because I'm fairly responsible, eventually. This did mean though that I missed out on having enough coffee. Having enough coffee is a real concern for me in the mornings because I'm out too early to stop and get some anyplace and on the two hours of bus I take every morning - there's not a lot of useful stops anyway - so it's on me to be properly supplied for my odyssey.
Which got me to seriously thinking. What if I was my grandfather? There's a story in our family. Long ago, when the British still ruled Egypt my Great Grandfather Methuselah would go to the city to work on the docks for ten piasters a day. Then when my grandfather was big enough - like ten? He came too. He unloaded a boat for his ten piasters and then went and bought fruit with it - the next day he sold the fruit to all the longshoremen and came away with twenty piasters and on and on. In this story I guess it's important to remember that the piaster is some fraction of a penny.
But I was standing around at the stop on 276th and Tungsten thinking about it - I could, when I get a paycheck - I could just go and buy a jug of coffee... I could buy a carton of self-made cigarettes and box them up - I could take donuts - I could merchant it up - be a merchant - maybe after a while work my way up to getting a food truck - like the roach-coach... Go from bus stop to bus stop in the early hours? I was thinking and imagining this. And counting up the people at each stop. Could I get a dollar out of each? Average a dollar? How much money do they have anyway? Taking the bus? Is this a sensible business?
I finally figured it's probably not as much as I make doing my data entry job. I don't know - maybe I'll still buy a jug of coffee one morning and some cups - give it a shot. It's not like I can't just drink all the excess.
On the second leg of my three legged trip I just read my book about the Crimean War - which is very, very good. It was an alright trip I guess? The driver looks at me with some kind of wary suspicion - she wanted everyone to fill out a survey about her the day before but I declined because I'd never ridden with her before - so who knows what I think - I believe she lost her competition about this survey because she seems ill - well not ill - because she's plenty friendly - but I guess indifferently disposed toward those of us who thwarted her efforts.
On the one hand I'm not protestant enough to respect people who value their work performance. Mainly because - you're still working for someone else - for crumbs from the big table. On the other hand - I can see that there's a lot of functioning that happens in the world based on that dynamic so I guess I value it, as a consumer. Could I keep the coffee warm enough? Would people care if I mentioned in passing about General Raglan's performance at the battle of the Alma? Could I, would I sell people the donuts?
Leg three - the kids everyone knows by name don't ride today which means - silence - relatively anyhow. Sometimes there's singing. Nobody remembers any part of "Three Blind Mice" besides those three words - so those three words are chanted forever in a way that loses its endearment quickly. So in silence. I have a good idea and am writing and scribbling, fast as I can, racing the bus to get it all down, or most of it - I'm writing a book you know - on the bus - it's alright - 10,000 words in week #1 - which is an alright pace.
Work is... work. I like it fine - there are many malingerers, malcontents and I'd say - Malefactors. Really this is a job I could do from home - I could do it as a contractor - say. In week #1 I've knocked out a thousand records - the old man who sits dexter is up to 200, the young man who sits sinister is up to 400. We all started on the same day. I'm thinking - I don't have to be here to do this - I should do it at home, heck, I should get another job and just do this on the side - at night when I'm bored anyway and just watch old tv shows - that's how it should be. They could make a deal with me to do a certain amount in exchange for a certain amount that's how it should be.
Talking to the man in charge afterward while waiting on my bus he says that in the spring that was sort of how it was - but that these complaining malefactors - they'd abused the system to the point that exists now - where breaktimes are enforced with draconian alacrity, and clocking in and out and mandatory hours of operation are strictly enforced. That's the way of things you know. This is the pattern of complaint: "We aren't treated in the way that we want to be treated humbug!" And to me... Waiting on the bus I decide that this is the x-y axis. You have dignity and you have comfort - you sacrifice one to have the other. I ride the bus because I think asking for rides and looking for assistance is undermining of dignity. I think getting in a car and paying all kinds of money and having that kind of responsibility etc... is a big trade up in exchange for comfort that comes at the expense of having some dignity and self determination. "Man, I gotta sell my blood, my car payment is due." That kind of thing. So I have no expectation of comfort at work and certainly don't complain about being asked to take out the trash because... Because it's just pathetic and shitty to complain about that - while it's virtuous and correct to do what is needed without comment.
Complaining - fie.
Going home I get to a neat stretch of the war in the Crimea and am engrossed. On leg #1 Wayne comes on the bus.
The day before I'd made his acquaintance - a nice enough guy - Wayne. He's a displaced person, crippled by a life of hard work and recent family deaths. He tells me stories about the people at the hobo jungle at 185th - naming names and gossiping lightly and good naturedly about who's a grouch and who's friendly. Mentions how the fishing is good but hard in the runoff stream.
This boy gets dropped off at the stop while we're sitting around and I'm sharing my cigarettes. He's one of the... I dunno - aggressively hillbilly-gay boys that you see a lot around the area? Very WT and super aggressive with the staring and gross attempts to flirt. "You're really tall!" He shouts at me from across the parking lot. Approaches and insinuates himself into me and Wayne's conversation. "I sure am." I reply.
True story - I hate flirting and really don't like it when a dude gets the predatory smile on me. Anyhow kid wants to now dominate the conversation and starts going on about how he's a karate badass and then calls attention to a big scar on his eye - "My ex did this to me."
Wayne is supportive. "Well why'd that happen buddy?"
"He was drunk."
Wayne: "He?!"
Boy: "Is that a problem?"
Wayne: "Looks like it was for you." Which raises a laugh - because it's a nice day and smiles all around.
Bus is caught and on to the penultimate stop. Waiting at Tungsten and 276th again. It's a long dull wait, and people there - they're all grouches - we all say to each other: "RTA runs when she wants to." - Except I say "... runs when he wants to..." Because I think buses are boys.
But tired and hungry I run to the sandwich shop on the block and the Palestinian(?) guy there sells me a sandwich with a long sales-pitch. "Hey bro - it's better than Subway - you get a lettuce and tomato sandwich at Subway bro - I got the real thing - one pound of meat on each one. I know. I used to work there. You tell your friends bro, you come back every day okay. Hey bro - I take food stamps for these sandwiches - you remember - hey! Hey, Schaadi! Get him a menu. You don't forget right bro?"
I realize - you understand - that this is what my grandfather would do. He would figure out this sandwich shop.
So I get a sandwich and finally get up on the 28 and head back home- past the apocalyptic windmill at Lincoln Electric - there's always gossip about it - is it really the biggest one in the country? For all I know - I only know what I overhear on the bus. I have an all day pass but don't want to go anywhere else so I hand it over to a kid who wants one - the first person to look up when I offer it. I have a pang - I mean, is it virtuous to give it away? Isn't the RTA in some kind of trouble- should I make everyone pay their share? Or is it benevolent to share what I have? Realizing that my grandfather would have sold it and not given it away.
I go home and eat what turns out to be a great sandwich - a pound of roast beef - which was the ration of beef given the British at Balaclava it so happens. A pound of beef each - the better to fight the Russian heretics.
So these things happened.
Euclid, OH 44132
(216) 732-7750
by Kingtycoon Methuslah
So yesterday I didn't want to wake up. Man I didn't. I came to just up on five and discovered that my head and shoulders had found the sweet spot in the bed after probably all night of searching and they did not want to surrender. I did though because I'm fairly responsible, eventually. This did mean though that I missed out on having enough coffee. Having enough coffee is a real concern for me in the mornings because I'm out too early to stop and get some anyplace and on the two hours of bus I take every morning - there's not a lot of useful stops anyway - so it's on me to be properly supplied for my odyssey.
Which got me to seriously thinking. What if I was my grandfather? There's a story in our family. Long ago, when the British still ruled Egypt my Great Grandfather Methuselah would go to the city to work on the docks for ten piasters a day. Then when my grandfather was big enough - like ten? He came too. He unloaded a boat for his ten piasters and then went and bought fruit with it - the next day he sold the fruit to all the longshoremen and came away with twenty piasters and on and on. In this story I guess it's important to remember that the piaster is some fraction of a penny.
But I was standing around at the stop on 276th and Tungsten thinking about it - I could, when I get a paycheck - I could just go and buy a jug of coffee... I could buy a carton of self-made cigarettes and box them up - I could take donuts - I could merchant it up - be a merchant - maybe after a while work my way up to getting a food truck - like the roach-coach... Go from bus stop to bus stop in the early hours? I was thinking and imagining this. And counting up the people at each stop. Could I get a dollar out of each? Average a dollar? How much money do they have anyway? Taking the bus? Is this a sensible business?
I finally figured it's probably not as much as I make doing my data entry job. I don't know - maybe I'll still buy a jug of coffee one morning and some cups - give it a shot. It's not like I can't just drink all the excess.
On the second leg of my three legged trip I just read my book about the Crimean War - which is very, very good. It was an alright trip I guess? The driver looks at me with some kind of wary suspicion - she wanted everyone to fill out a survey about her the day before but I declined because I'd never ridden with her before - so who knows what I think - I believe she lost her competition about this survey because she seems ill - well not ill - because she's plenty friendly - but I guess indifferently disposed toward those of us who thwarted her efforts.
On the one hand I'm not protestant enough to respect people who value their work performance. Mainly because - you're still working for someone else - for crumbs from the big table. On the other hand - I can see that there's a lot of functioning that happens in the world based on that dynamic so I guess I value it, as a consumer. Could I keep the coffee warm enough? Would people care if I mentioned in passing about General Raglan's performance at the battle of the Alma? Could I, would I sell people the donuts?
Leg three - the kids everyone knows by name don't ride today which means - silence - relatively anyhow. Sometimes there's singing. Nobody remembers any part of "Three Blind Mice" besides those three words - so those three words are chanted forever in a way that loses its endearment quickly. So in silence. I have a good idea and am writing and scribbling, fast as I can, racing the bus to get it all down, or most of it - I'm writing a book you know - on the bus - it's alright - 10,000 words in week #1 - which is an alright pace.
Work is... work. I like it fine - there are many malingerers, malcontents and I'd say - Malefactors. Really this is a job I could do from home - I could do it as a contractor - say. In week #1 I've knocked out a thousand records - the old man who sits dexter is up to 200, the young man who sits sinister is up to 400. We all started on the same day. I'm thinking - I don't have to be here to do this - I should do it at home, heck, I should get another job and just do this on the side - at night when I'm bored anyway and just watch old tv shows - that's how it should be. They could make a deal with me to do a certain amount in exchange for a certain amount that's how it should be.
Talking to the man in charge afterward while waiting on my bus he says that in the spring that was sort of how it was - but that these complaining malefactors - they'd abused the system to the point that exists now - where breaktimes are enforced with draconian alacrity, and clocking in and out and mandatory hours of operation are strictly enforced. That's the way of things you know. This is the pattern of complaint: "We aren't treated in the way that we want to be treated humbug!" And to me... Waiting on the bus I decide that this is the x-y axis. You have dignity and you have comfort - you sacrifice one to have the other. I ride the bus because I think asking for rides and looking for assistance is undermining of dignity. I think getting in a car and paying all kinds of money and having that kind of responsibility etc... is a big trade up in exchange for comfort that comes at the expense of having some dignity and self determination. "Man, I gotta sell my blood, my car payment is due." That kind of thing. So I have no expectation of comfort at work and certainly don't complain about being asked to take out the trash because... Because it's just pathetic and shitty to complain about that - while it's virtuous and correct to do what is needed without comment.
Complaining - fie.
Going home I get to a neat stretch of the war in the Crimea and am engrossed. On leg #1 Wayne comes on the bus.
The day before I'd made his acquaintance - a nice enough guy - Wayne. He's a displaced person, crippled by a life of hard work and recent family deaths. He tells me stories about the people at the hobo jungle at 185th - naming names and gossiping lightly and good naturedly about who's a grouch and who's friendly. Mentions how the fishing is good but hard in the runoff stream.
This boy gets dropped off at the stop while we're sitting around and I'm sharing my cigarettes. He's one of the... I dunno - aggressively hillbilly-gay boys that you see a lot around the area? Very WT and super aggressive with the staring and gross attempts to flirt. "You're really tall!" He shouts at me from across the parking lot. Approaches and insinuates himself into me and Wayne's conversation. "I sure am." I reply.
True story - I hate flirting and really don't like it when a dude gets the predatory smile on me. Anyhow kid wants to now dominate the conversation and starts going on about how he's a karate badass and then calls attention to a big scar on his eye - "My ex did this to me."
Wayne is supportive. "Well why'd that happen buddy?"
"He was drunk."
Wayne: "He?!"
Boy: "Is that a problem?"
Wayne: "Looks like it was for you." Which raises a laugh - because it's a nice day and smiles all around.
Bus is caught and on to the penultimate stop. Waiting at Tungsten and 276th again. It's a long dull wait, and people there - they're all grouches - we all say to each other: "RTA runs when she wants to." - Except I say "... runs when he wants to..." Because I think buses are boys.
But tired and hungry I run to the sandwich shop on the block and the Palestinian(?) guy there sells me a sandwich with a long sales-pitch. "Hey bro - it's better than Subway - you get a lettuce and tomato sandwich at Subway bro - I got the real thing - one pound of meat on each one. I know. I used to work there. You tell your friends bro, you come back every day okay. Hey bro - I take food stamps for these sandwiches - you remember - hey! Hey, Schaadi! Get him a menu. You don't forget right bro?"
I realize - you understand - that this is what my grandfather would do. He would figure out this sandwich shop.
So I get a sandwich and finally get up on the 28 and head back home- past the apocalyptic windmill at Lincoln Electric - there's always gossip about it - is it really the biggest one in the country? For all I know - I only know what I overhear on the bus. I have an all day pass but don't want to go anywhere else so I hand it over to a kid who wants one - the first person to look up when I offer it. I have a pang - I mean, is it virtuous to give it away? Isn't the RTA in some kind of trouble- should I make everyone pay their share? Or is it benevolent to share what I have? Realizing that my grandfather would have sold it and not given it away.
I go home and eat what turns out to be a great sandwich - a pound of roast beef - which was the ration of beef given the British at Balaclava it so happens. A pound of beef each - the better to fight the Russian heretics.
So these things happened.
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