Any poet worth his enjambments will tell you that there are a million ways to see an ocean. Ask Catullus, Ahkmatova. Ask Hart Crane, Virgina Woolf. They'll tell you that there are a million ways at the very least.
My name’s Ellie and I'm no one's poet, but I have spent twenty-three solid years staring at those briny depths. I've staked my view from neither lighthouse nor turret, but from a sardine can on wheels, a blue Airstream Torpedo, with a big-titted mermaid, and “Cap'n Ellie’s” stenciled right under the lip of the counter.
In all that time, I've kept her parked on the corner of The Bowery and Stillwell, one block up from Iron McNulty's Freak Show & Burlesque and right across from Danny, the paintball maniac – always on the megaphone and always barking SHOOT THE FREAK! outside the El Dorado Arcade all day long to nobody, everybody.
C’MON, SHOOT THE FREAK! SHOOT IT!
CHEAPER THAN A TRIP TO THE SHRINK!
If you’ve come down to ride the Wonder Wheel or Cyclone within the past quarter decade, odds are pretty good you’ve walked by my place. Maybe you even stopped and bought some peanuts or a Post... If it was ten years ago or more, maybe you even heard me bark, as I used to,
COME GET YOUR SMOKES, SNACKS AND PAPERS FROM CAP'N ELLIE!
AND WHO'S CAP'N ELLIE? CAP'N ELLIE'S YOUR FRIEND1
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