Slice
Your Favorite Pizza Weblog Went To Ohio And All You Get Is This Lousy Photo
Cleveland Rocks: A very blurry and very drunk Robert Pollard (top left), of rock band Guided By Voices. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (top right), designed by I.M. Pei, on the shore of Lake Erie. A combination pizzeria–gas station just off I-90 somewhere in Ohio. A wider view of the same gas station (below right).
This reporter went to Ohio on Saturday intent on trying some Cleveland pizza. With a little help from my friends, I had even targeted a preferred parlor. But like travelers on the highway to hell, our wheels merely sped down a westbound strip of interstate paved with the asphalt of good intentions. No, friends, the closest we got to pizza was during a quick refueling stop somewhere in eastern Ohio, at the combination gas station–pizza shop you see in the photos here.
We were headed to Cleveland to see rock band Guided by Voices on its final tour. Robert Pollard, the legendarily drunk ex–school teacher genius behind the band, is calling it quits after two decades; we wanted to see the group on its home turf.
Pollard and GBV were long ago inducted into this reporter's personal rock and roll hall of fame. His fake English singing accent, infamous stage antics, and perfectly crafted songs that somehow draw on the British Invasion, seventies arena rock, and current indie rock all in two minutes or less have made for some of the best shows I've seen. And GBV's recorded material has always sounded like music that might emanate from a car radio you found in a bucket of junk at a Midwestern parts swap on the county fairgrounds.
Unfortunately, we got into town too late and weren't able to try Mama Santa's, in Cleveland's Little Italy district. And the next afternoon, we were too consumed with visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where I searched desperately for some sort of pizza-related detritus. I mean, heck, they had Buddy Holly's grade-school report on Robert Frost, fercryin' out. Why not some greased-stained pizza boxes from Joey Ramone?
In place of true pizza reportage, I'll give you a pizza quote or two from Mr. Pollard. One, from an Onion interview: "Here in the Midwest, you drink beer and you eat pizza." Mr. Pollard commenting on his solo record Kid Marine: "My personal favorite, a weird record, almost a concept album, about the typical Ohio male and what he does—drink, watch television, eat pizza."
Hmm, drinking, watching TV, eating pizza. Sounds great.
Speaking of Ohio, it was nice to finally spend some time in the Buckeye State. The folks were friendly there, and it was comfortingly Midwestern. Like a small slice of home, but farther east.