Here's Ya Pizza, I Got Ya Pizza Right Here

Wednesday afternoon in Cleveland:

Heading back towards the bed and breakfast, we began to feel the call of the pizza. We had been told of a place called Valentino's which supposedly has the best pizza in town, but when we got there it appeared to be a tiny take-out place with some outdoor seating, not the air-conditioned pig-out refuge we had in mind. We decided to head back to Mama Santa's for pizza. It was tasty enough, especially with the sausage and mushrooms. The slow service, given the almost empty mid-afternoon state of the place, was a plus for a change as we got to sit in the AC and talk while our feet rested up from the zooathon.

We went back to the B&B and hung for a while until 6:00 when we fell into our next really good time. There is a concert series in University Heights called WOW, Wade Oval Wednesday. This evening's band was a group called The Speedbumps, an indie rock band ("indie rock" meaning they're an unsigned band working their gigi off trying to get noticed, booked and, yes, signed). The lineup is unique: guitar/lead vocals (also the writer), acoustic double bass, drums, keys and cello. The material was the usual introspective, melancholy, journey of self-discovery crap for the most part, but well played and nicely melodic. We bought the CDs -- hey, the show was free -- and it's not exactly the kind of stuff you'd play at a party, or the gym. Still, that's my new model as a music consumer, putting the cash in the hand of the guy who made the record. Some of the songs are really good, and some of the others are growing on me.

It was a flawless summer evening, warm but not oppressive, with local restaurants and even a bar, The Euclid Tavern, selling food and beverages including sushi (which I ate for the first time in Cleveland at the end of May), barbecue chicken that rocked Joreen's world courtesy of a lovely African-American woman named Ruby, and a nice cold beverage -- very civilized.

All full of ourselves (and good grub) at this point, we decided to go back to The Savannah to catch a dance band called Entourage. This was a bit of a mistake, in that they were kind of like going to see Just Friends on a real off night. I suspect at least two of the players were stand-ins, given the way they had to talk about beginnings and endings of every song. The lead chick singer -- er, excuse me, Joreen -- female vocalist was pretty talented and the overall sound was good, but the way the guitar player stomped on his overdrive during the solo on "Long Train Running" reminded me of me, and not in a good way. It was educational, but not as much fun as the oldies band.

The worst part was the tantalizingly cool T-shirt worn by the waitresses. Savannah's has live music almost every night, despite the funky economy. It makes me nuts that there's no place like that around here, but one consequence of having all those local bands booked is that one of the waitresses made a shirt that says on the back, Mustang Sally -- in a red circle with a line through it! They were out of them. I would have tried to buy the one off her back, but she had customized it with some pinking shears and I don't have the figure to pull that off. I'm going to pester these people until they finally sell me one, though. That is so frickin' cool.

Next entry: the art museum, another trip to Mama Santa's, an upscale mall, and the hippest grilled cheese sandwich in the world.