Travelin'

In Toledo, OH the deadly and futuristic game of “Rollerball” is somewhat of the city’s past-time. Started in a pool hall basement in 1986 at the corner of Pickle and Woodville, the sport grew to gain considerable follow-ability in the coming years - in part thanks to Rollerball local legend and star of the 1991 documentary “Who Wants Dick?”, Mister Dick Richard Dongerson (pictured above). Mister Dongerson, who currently owns a chain of Toledo stores called Dongs Of Sevotion which specialize in church organs of varying innuendo, was asked to be interviewed by Travelin’, but despite our best efforts he merely mouth-trumpeted the opening guitar line to “Thunderstruck” by AC-DC. 

Toledo, OH also has the distinction of being the only city in history to be named after its minor league baseball team, the Toledo Mud Hens. You see, by 1908 a young entrepreneur by the name of Jeoffery T. Toledo of Asheville, North Carolina had amassed a small fortune by clear-cutting stands of Beech trees and selling the chips to the Anheuser-Busch company for use in their beechwood aging process which gave Budweiser its distinct flavor. Jeoffery T. Toledo (or “JTT” for short) used his modest fortune to form the Asheville Fightin’ Roosters in 1915. However, as Prohibition began in 1919, Toledo’s beechwood stands were no longer profitable and the stadium fell into such a state of disrepair that the rival The Durham Bulls began to mock the the team and their playing surface, calling them “Toledo’s Mud Hens.”

By the time the Great Depression hit in 1929, the Asheville Fightin’ Roosters were clean out of money. In a valiant effort to keep his players and their families employed, Toledo packed up the entire team and moved them out to the rugged, barren land called “Ohio.” It was here that the team themselves formed a small commune that would later blossom into the shining riverside metropolis known as “Toledo,” named after the team’s Owner-Patriarch. Much of the team’s success is owed to Toledo’s insistence on retaining the Mud Hen moniker, because in the Dust Bowl years of the early 1930’s mud was seen as a sign of prosperity and growth.

Did you know that Toledo is a secret mecca for recording artists? While its flashier Rock and Roll Hall of Fame neighbor to the east gets most of the attention (Cleveland - City of Light), Toledo remains an inviting, yet predatory muse.

The trend started in 1985. Fresh off the success of “No Jacket Required,” Phil Collins was looking to extend the casual atmosphere from his chart-topping hits (but wanting to stay away from the East Coast, where in many cases, much to his multi-platinum chagrin, there were elaborate requirements for jackets). Phil in October of that year attended the ceremonies for the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and he was approached in the parking lot by a disheveled man in a trenchcoat, who made grand promises about a shining city to the west, “Toledo - where the angels sing, and the drums automatically have that gated reverb sound.”

Phil was overjoyed at the reception he initially received in Toledo, being presented with the keys to the city, and feted with marching bands and pie-eating contests in his honor. His first week was a flurry of recorded activity, the highlight of which was a completely unironic take on “Another Day in Paradise.”

However, things soon soured when the Mysterious Trenchcoat Man began appearing across the street from his house in the middle of the night, pointing his finger at the front door, and howling inchoately while a small army of vagrants began massing along the street, armed with bloody bindles. There they would stand, motionless save for their delerium tremens, staring vacantly at Phil Collins’ recording studio/rental home. They would stand there for a good long while as Phil peered through the slats of his kitchen blinds, sweating and shivering, and surely hearing his own drum part from “In the Air Tonight” as the standoff dragged endlessly into the early hours of the night.

As morning came, the hobo army would melt away, and Phil would lock himself into the studio, producing track after track of primal screams over percussion that consisted entirely of reloading and cocking. None of these tracks made it to the final album, but many of their influences can be heard in the horn section of “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven.”

But Seriously, Phil left Toledo under cover of night not long after - and four years later a very dark and introspective album came out, although I don’t remember the name of it. Do You Remember?

Years later, fellow casual-clothes brothers-in-arms Blink 182 would record their own breakout album in Toledo (see Jacket, Take Off Your Pants and).

Toledo, Ohio is one of the few places in the world where a boy can become a man: literally. For a buffalo nickel and firm handshake, Mick Vickmann at Harrison Ford (a used Ford dealership located at the corner of Harrison and DeMoyne) will take you behind the Ford dealership and lift up a tarp which covers a small door. Behind that small door is a foul smelling corridor, it’s acrid fumes penetrating even the very smallest of nasal pores, causing one to wretch and convulse under the dire and eerie smell of the long, narrow corridor. At the end of the corridor lays another door, and behind this door is a small man in a large jacket. He will ask you three questions, and two of them you will answer with lies. Upon answering the third question truthfully you will have to defeat him in a sword fight to the death. Take his yellow key and replenish your mana in the glowing stream of knowledge. After your health is full, a crow will appear and mock you for your bloodline and heritage. Behind him is another door, which you shall open and once through, you shall emerge a man. 

Toledo. 

Yes, you too could live in Toledo, Ohio. The city boasts not only one horse, but two horses (“Apples” and “Jeff”, respectively), taking it completely out of the realm of “one horse town” into the “two horse town” category. For three hours and fourteen minutes on April 12th, 1997, the town was a “three horse town” as Bob Whitmann drove his horse If You Can’t Beat Em Join Em from his farm in Springfield county, Ohio to his brothers stable in Rossford. He stopped on the way at a diner in Toledo and read a very interesting article on actor Edward Norton in George Magazine. For that reason, the third horse was within the town limits for three hours and fourteen minutes: fourteen minutes over the alloted time period allowed for a horse to pass through the city, allowing the city to - for fourteen minutes - become a “three horse town”.

There is a parade held annually in Toldeo to commemorate this day. 

We’re Going To Toledo!