Creeping on Lakewood

So I finally made my way over to Lakewood, the funky near-west suburb, today. Barely.

My friend Mike had to install a light fixture at his friend's soon-to-open dance studio. I had the evening free and took the opportunity to ride along. I met his friend, checked out her cool new digs, then headed across the street for a beer while Mike did his business.

The bar across the street, Mars Bar, wasn't really anything special, just the typical corner bar, nearly empty, with a handful of inebriated regulars arguing over what would be worse for someone to eat, rotten clams or rotten mussels. Seriously. After literally about 10 minutes of this, I wanted to shout at them, "They are both fucking rotten -- who cares which is worse!" Instead, I gulped down my Leffe and left.

As I was waiting for the bartender to run my card, Drunk #2 apparently won the argument, by convincing Drunks #1 and #3 that drinking clam broth would only make you sick, but drinking mussel broth would kill you dead. Seriously.

I got my card back and headed across the street to Beer Engine, famous for its beer selection and burgers (named after the machine that was used in olden days to pump beer from basements to taps). It was cool, a typical fancy beer place. I had a Jever and a Tuscan burger -- neither of which were very good. About the time I was getting my food, Mike walked in. We both ate and drank, harassed the married barmaid, and then headed back to Cleveland. On the way we drove by a huge pile of discarded furniture, including a bunch of painted steel bookshelves. We ganked them and tossed them in the back of Mike's van. Hopefully, with a coat of paint and a good cleaning (in reverse order), they'll look good in the light of day.

Before heading to our respective homes in Ohio City, we stopped at Visible Voice in Tremont. They were having a few experimental musicians playing, two in from Minnesota. Earlier in the day I had checked out the groups' myspace pages and was modestly impressed, but once the evening began it was sorta lame. We browsed for a few minutes, chatted with the cool clerk about the independent bookstore universe in Cleveland, I purchased a copy of Ballad of the Whiskey Robber for a whopping 7 bucks, and split.