A funny, profane, polemic perusal of our fair city
Reviewed by Laura Kennelly
I don’t think I can review this book without a beer in my hand, so excuse me… I’ll be right back.
There.
Mike (you don’t mind if I call you Mike do you, Mike?) is the kind of guy that you kinda hope you run into in a Cleveland bar. Irish from Cleveland. Man, this guy has stories and opinions and he shares. He’s packed some funny ones and some finely comic tragic ones in this slim picture book with big print in easy-read type.
Sip. (Don’t mind me, heck, even he’s shown drinking on the cover pix.)
In Polk’s world people are not afraid to love their teams even while they curse their fatal attraction and hang on to a crazy hope that things will get better. He even gives sports a special chapter, “Horrible Events in Cleveland Sports History” (it’s on p. 35; the table of contents is fake so I’m trying to help you out here) where we get pictures and summaries. One of the best of Polk’s homemade [fake? posed? whatever] illustrations in this section shows the “10 Cent Beer Night Riot” back in 1974 (on p. 39). Even way down in Texas, we heard about that one. National news. As he writes, “This tragic sports memory was created not by any one Cleveland athlete or team but by the fans themselves. And that’s what makes it so special.”
Just a minute, gotta drink to that. Sip.
My favorite drawing is on the “West Side vs. East Side” page (p. 18-19). Strikes me as true: West side, drawn on a grid with plainly marked “church” and “bar” and “bowling alley” while East side consists of roads that circle and twirl, with contrasting neighborhoods dubbed “straight ghetto,” “Cleveland Clinic,” “Rich-Ass Neighborhood” and so on.
But really, it’s hard to pick favorite sections — that’s what makes it a great coffee table book even if you don’t have a coffee table (just put on the kitchen counter). Subjects covered include restrooms, gentlemen’s clubs, beers Great Lakes could sell (such as “White Flight Light” and “Fuck [who’s afraid of the F-word? Not Mike and not me] LeBron Extra-Bitter IPA”), local celebrity friends, cute bartenders (but they are all female), drunken slam poets, public art (that FREE stamp again), bumper stickers, and much more. I want the “CLEVELAND: YOU COULD DO WORSE” bumper sticker (p. 22).
A great sample of Polk’s humor can be seen if you search for “Mike Polk Cleveland” on YouTube where you can find classics such as his rants outside Brown’s stadium and the Christmas Ale song.
OK, that’s my review. This book goes with me to Canada so I can quit trying to explain to “those people” why it’s actually fun to live in Cleveland. Gonna just leave it in the living room and let it ride. Nephew Peter, the world’s greatest Browns fan living in Toronto, will love it.
And here’s the truth: Even though I’ve tried to write in a Mike Polkian fashion, I admit it, I can’t. The guy’s really funny — you may just have to trust me on that one.
Damn Right I’m from Cleveland
Your Guide to Makin’ It in America’s 47th Biggest City
by Mike Polk Jr.
Softcover / $14.95 / 128 pages
Gray & Co. Publishers, 2012
Available from Visible Voice Books, Loganberry Books, or Amazon.
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.