So I thought I'd take you all on a little walking tour of a traditional West Cleveland neighborhood. I walked to this lovely little corridor that's about 25 blocks down from my house. A lot of interesting people living in "fixer uppers" that no one will ever fix up and fighting the good fight against the encroaching doom of a decaying city.

Come with me, won't you?

While traveling under the bridge below on the way to my destination, I couldn't help but notice this discarded bottle of bleach. I understand most of this refuse. Empty 40 bottles. Used rubbers. White Castle remnants. But I wonder who was bleaching something "on the go", finished, and no longer wished to have the bleach bottle in their car. "Fuck this bleach! It doesn't get stuff white for shit!"

There is a story behind this bottle and I feel certain that it's not a pleasant one.




Below is the neighborhood that I visited. It looks a lot like a scene from "I Am Legend" but with less residents and hope.






Garbage day! Or as we call it in these parts, Free Yard Sale Day! Someone will have skittered out from their house and claimed this table as their own within minutes.





Obama Biden 08'! Still having this up is just a dick move at this point. Rubbing it in. And if there was one Republican living in this neighborhood, they probably would have removed it by now.






Just when you didn't think that a Christmas tree after Christmas could get any more depressing, someone tossed it in this abandoned lot next to a rusty gas can.






How could this George Foreman Grill have wronged it's master so profoundly to deserve this sort of treatment? Did the owner just get out of a bad relationship with a girl who loved to grill, and it simply became too painful to look at? Or is my initial suspicion the answer? Is this a discarded murder weapon?





How are some of these types of garbage cans still around? Shouldn't these be either brimming with puppets on Sesame Street or being emotionlessly pounded in a touring production of "Stomp"?





Whoa, whoa. I might decide to live in your sweet crib, but don't try to tell me how to live my life.





We shall now enter a magical place that I like to call, "The Gallery of Upholstered Furniture on Unenclosed Porches"!

OOOOhhhhhh!




Aaaahhhhh!!!!!!!





Zzzzrrrrrrrr!!!!!!




You know, some people consider fabric-covered furniture on your porch both classless and unsanitary. But to these Holier than thou types I say, don't knock it till you've tried it! And then gotten Hepatitis C from it.

And let's not forget the classic "Removable Mini-van Seat On The Porch" look. Cause just cause the van don't work no more doesn't mean the seat don't.





I sent this picture to Bruce Springsteen and he just wrote an entire album about it within 45 minutes.




This might be the luckiest guy in the world. He's got so many rocking horses, and range ovens that he has to keep some outside on the porch! Plus he's got a sweet-looking guard dog, if the animation does it justice.





This picture is not very clear, but there is a child in it. If you really look, you can see him. I had to take this one surreptitiously, because people tend to frown upon lone strangers walking around their neighborhoods, taking pictures of their toddlers. But I wanted to get a shot of him. The kid was playing alone, probably blissfully unaware of how harsh his environment is, as we tend to accept what we are born into.

I wanted to go over and tell the kid good luck. I wanted to level with him and tell him that his chances of success in life are slim, I suppose depending upon how one defines success. I wanted to tell him that it was going to be a struggle, as he has not been dealt a great hand. But I also wanted to promise him that if he could manage to overcome the basic pitfalls of such an environment, he will be stronger for it in the long run. This struggle will have hardened him, prepared him for real life. He was thrown into the fire in a way that no child of privilege ever is. There are many negatives associated with this. But it also gives him a unique advantage, whether he realizes it now or not. He'll be more prepared to deal with life's challenges than some spoiled little shit who's mommy and daddy have the means to shelter him from the often harsh realities of life. He'll be more well-grounded. He'll appreciate life's good things more and be able to put life's bad things in their proper perspective, having seen what bad things truly are. And then I would tell him that even if nothing else, I guarantee that he will be a far more interesting person for having lived here.





And finally, here is plastic bag that was lying in the sidewalk, half full of what appears to be human hair.





Thanks for joining me.