When it comes to photographing scantily clad dolls, no one does it better than SGS Director of Communications, Griselda Diamonte. She has the discriminating eye of a gay man, and the wardrobe tastes of a drag queen. Today, she pays tribute to her one of her favorite playboy covers.

Special thanks to Dale Caruso for his materials handling expertise on this photo shoot. 

This incident took place on Lorain after the setting of the sun. Two passers-by inquired about the condition of the horse. The horse, unwilling to explain his awkward positioning just sat there with skeptical eyes. The bird laughed at our monogrammed shirts and politely asked if we would “please step aside”. Apparently we were obstructing their view.

The benefit of public spaces is that virtually any group, regardless of mission, can freely impose their views and musical taste on unsuspecting bystanders. Today in Public Square was one such event that provided a pleasurable infotainment for lunching Clevelanders.

Cleveland’s 59th Annual Observance of National Day of Prayer offered restrained music, prayer, and Divinely inspired preaching for roughly 4 hours in our city’s center. Throughout the morning worship teams directed laser-like praise at our nation’s military, justice system, misguided teenagers, and the State of Israel.

The majority of the participants were 40+ year old females and the occasional pastoral man in an ill-fitting suit. Vamping throughout was a disciplined 4 piece band with 3 backup singers who sizzled with the Spirit like Sunday bacon.

SGS had the pleasure of meeting Pastor Michael Bartolone who actively promotes the worship of a “living God.” Although this message is foreign to us we thanked him for his performance and donated five dollars to his cause.

SGS is thankful that the Creator provides us with such experiential delicacies for without them lunchtime in Cleveland would be limited to fried foods and empty bus stops.

Every Cleveland St. Patrick’s day parade is a feast for the eyes. SGS loves to see downtown Cleveland bursting with excitement at least once a year. The parade is interesting to watch but the really interesting stories are on the side streets, in the alley behind Moriarty’s Pub, and in the time honored tradition of kids meeting up with their friends to celebrate being young.

Collected above our just a few of the great people we met along the day on this March 17, 2010 parade.

Cleveland SGS has mixed feelings about state run lotteries however there is much to enjoy about the culture that surrounds them. Where there is a lottery terminal you are sure to find interesting conversations about numbers.

There are good and bad numbers, numbers that just came out and unlikely to come again, birth dates, death dates, and number combinations that are connected to historic events. It is in these discussions that numbers become personalized and take on human attributes; people speak ill of them and sometimes sing their praise as if they are  friends from way back.

If you haven’t played the numbers you owe it to yourself to take part in the experience. Give yourself three months, settle on your combinations after great deliberation, and be sure to allot funds for random wild-card picks. Often you will be behind a person in the lottery line and they will call out a three or four digit combination that rings a bell inside of you. Play it straight and box it, you never know when the luck of numbers will shine upon you.

There is little to say about the image above other than it features four hard working Cuyahoga County law enforcement officers enjoying a hearty meal at the Bo Loong Restaurant. What happened next reaffirmed our faith in the artistic abilities of Cleveland area law enforcement.

As the last set of karaoke was winding down, Officer Clarkson (pictured right) performed a beautiful rendition of YT’s Lemonade in perfect Ji Lu Mandarin while Officers Sanchez, Borkowski, and Hopcraft backed him up with the meanest Midwest jerkin’ we have ever seen!  It just goes to show that you can’t judge a deputy by his utility belt.

YT - Lemonade

ClevelandSGS came across this photo from an October 30, 1965 Cleveland Press story.  Here at the Den of the Golden Cobras we are often in disagreement about various actors and films. A few things we agree on are that in Rhinestone, Sylvester Stallone never got the respect he deserved; that the Hyman Roth scene in Godfather II is the greatest moment ever committed to celluloid, and that Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross blows everyone off the screen. And nothing goes better with the memory of Jack Lemmon than Sweat.X’s “I’m That Alley” off the Saviour & Messiah EP. We are sure Jack would approve.

The photo above is from a press junket Lemmon did while filming The Fortune Cookie.  This film is an early teaming of Matthau and Lemon, and was filmed at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

SGS took a ride over to West 83rd to survey the explosion from this week. While there we were surprised to find that we never snapped a pic of the wonderful sign above.  After researching the business we found that Arch “Archie” Poole, who past away in 2002, was the founder of this Madison Ave. business. In Poole’s obituary, we learned that Archie Poole was a guest on the television show What’s My Line on March 30, 1957.

Crossing our fingers we searched for Poole’s appearance on What’s My line and found it. God Bless the Game Show Network. Besides the segment being funny it is pretty racy for late 1950s television. The best part is watching host John Daly walk offstage after busting up. Hope you enjoy the clip as much as we did.

Good Night and a Good Tomorrow.

Amateur boxing is unique in that it embraces the full range of human emotions. In the tensest of situations time has a tendency to slow down; as young fighters compete, families watch as they mature through the cycle of life. This is the boxing experience that few get to see, an experience always heard about secondhand. It sounds unreal as if nothing is so honest and intimate in this age of fantasy. Nothing could be further from the truth … this is boxing in your city, catch it while you can.

The boxing event featured in the above video was put on by Halcyon Charities and Old School Boxing at the Halcyon Masonic Temple, 2831 Franklin Blvd., Cleveland, Ohio.

Click here to view footage from last year’s event.