Scene January 26, 2022

January 26-February 8, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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January 26-February 8, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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| clevescene.com | January 26-February 8, 2022

CONTENTS

JANUARY 26-FEBRUARY 8, 2022 • VOL. 52 NO 15 Upfront .......................................8

Eat ............................................ 23

Feature ..................................... 10

Music ........................................ 27

Get Out ..................................... 19

Savage Love ..............................30

Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Publisher Andrew Zelman Editor Vince Grzegorek Editorial Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Visual Arts Writer Shawn Mishak

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PIEROGI WEEK

FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 6, 2022

PIEROGIWEEKCLEVELAND.COM | #CLEVELANDPIEROGIWEEK

Illustration by John G.

UPFRONT

IN CUYAHOGA COUNTY, ONLY ENDORSED DEMS COULD GET ACCESS TO VOTER DATABASE. NOT ANYMORE. THE OHIO DEMOCRATIC PARTY instituted new rules last week regarding access to its statewide voter database. Hosted on the VoteBuilder platform, the database gives local Democratic parties and candidates access to granular voter information that’s indispensable for canvassing and organizing during campaigns. Nationwide, the VoteBuilder technology is considered the “gold standard” for both voter contact and volunteer management.

In the past, access to this trove of data had been restricted to candidates endorsed by local Democratic parties.

And in Cuyahoga County, this was one of many reasons why securing the Democratic Party endorsement was so crucial.

ODP has now changed its rules.

It has done so, it says, to “ensure quality access, fair cost, accountable use, and a shared commitment to good data practices” across Ohio.

In a memo, ODP Chair Elizabeth Walters described the guidelines moving forward. All county parties would receive access to VoteBuilder for free but would not be allowed to extend their free access to preferred candidates. Any candidate, endorsed

or not, would be allowed access for a fee. Revenue from those fees would then be reinvested into a fund to support activities of county parties.

“By increasing access to VoteBuilder, we are making sure that Democratic candidates across the state have the best technology possible to engage with Ohioans and show them we’re on their side,” said ODP Spokesman Matt Keyes, in a statement provided to Scene. “The policy change will also allow us to invest more in county parties, which will help us meet voters where they are, organize at a grassroots level and compete in every county in Ohio.”

That’s considered vital, as Ohio Democrats have been bulldozed by Republicans in statewide elections in recent years due in part to anemic voter turnout in Cuyahoga County.

“In the wake of the biggest political scandal in Ohio history— the pitiful HB 6 saga—Democrats in 2020 somehow lost seats in the Ohio House,” wrote Ward 16 resident David Brock in a column published in The Land Thursday.

Brock is part of a group calling itself Build Back Cuyahoga that’s enlisting active Democrats to run for

the Cuyahoga County Party Central Committee. With new, diverse blood on that 975-member body, the group is convinced that the county party could finally enact desperately needed reforms.

“Instead of vigorously combating [gerrymandering and misinformation from the GOP] by crafting and defending policy alternatives, CCDP spends much of its time squabbling internally over which member to endorse in primaries,” Brock wrote.

“This is the case with the county executive race, where the party’s executive committee will soon make endorsements...

“Meanwhile, the Democrats have an increasingly unlikely chance for victory in any of the statewide races this year. And the Democrats in Cuyahoga County, from where victory at the state level must emanate, have done far too little in any formal capacity to build a message or GOTV organization, and even less to build up future leaders.”

Brock said that the party’s refusal to share voter data with non-endorsed candidates—in fact, to endorse in Democratic primaries in the first place—was

counterproductive.

“It defies logic,” he told Scene, on the subject of VoteBuilder gatekeeping. “The whole purpose of a political party in a two-party system is to defeat the opposing party in general elections. Thus, you need to be able to speak directly to voters. Furthermore, to increase voter turnout, which must be an overarching goal of the party as well, you have to know where the voters are and you have to go to them directly to make the case.”

Brock said he believed VoteBuilder favoritism was “part and parcel of the larger infighting and inertia” that afflicts the party and has drastically reduced its influence and reputation statewide.

Eighteen-year-old Sam Klein, of Shaker Heights, is a student at Ohio State University and is running for the Central Committee after being recruited by Build Back Cuyahoga.

Klein told Scene that he felt the party was leaving a ton of votes on the table due to a lack of voter engagement.

“Our county party is also pretty corrupt,” Klein said. “Whether it be the purge of executive committee members

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UPFRONT last year or people being shut out of [VoteBuilder] access, or even highranking party officials using their resources to push forward candidates that do what they want.”

Klein said he was running because he wants to help the party more effectively get out the vote, keep people engaged, and be “far more transparent and equitable” in its internal conduct.

“If they keep trying to shut out younger people like me,” he said, “It’s gonna be harder and harder to be successful down the line.”

— Sam Allard

DIGIT WIDGET 50 Number of RTA buses stuck in the snow on the morning of MLK Day before the transit agency decided to suspend service for the remainder of the day.

50% Minimum percentage of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse employees who couldn’t get to work for the Cavs’ MLK Day game against the Brooklyn Nets. For fans who braved the elements, the Cavs offered free tickets to a future game due to long concession lines.

$50 million Amount that the Cleveland Clinic will donate to the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition over the next five years. The City of Cleveland will also allocate $17 million in ARPA funding to dramatically increase the coalition’s impact.

107.3 Local FM radio station that has dispensed with its “JenY” branding and become “Alternative Cleveland,” aligning with its alternative rock programming.

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Students Call for Immediate Removal of John Marshall’s Name from CSU Law School A working group of CSU Law School students calling themselves “Students Against Marshall” sent a formal request last week to the school’s dean, Lee Fisher, and the naming committee he chairs asking that former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s name be immediately removed from the law school.

“Our single objective,” read the letter to the 29-member Naming Committee, “is for the CSU Board of Trustees to remove the name of this slave master who built his wealth through ownership of human beings, from all aspects of the law college prior to the Spring 2022 Commencement, ensuring no other C|M|Law student graduates with the name of a brutal slave owner on their diploma.”

Students had been individually petitioning school leadership to make such a change in recent years, mobilized by the national reckoning with race in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis Police in 2020. Many of the arguments were advanced in guest columns in this publication.

Fisher formed the naming committee at the behest of CSU President Harlan Sands. With representatives from the student body, faculty and alumni, the committee was tasked with making a recommendation to the university’s board of trustees—keep the name or don’t—and then with proposing an alternate name if necessary. Current students say they’ve been frustrated by the lack of the committee’s progress.

“It just wasn’t doing anything,” second-year law student Emily Forsee told Scene in a telephone interview Tuesday. Forsee is one of two “public-facing” members of Students Against Marshall and the letter’s lead author. “The committee was formed in the aftermath of George Floyd, at a time when the CSU website was slapping woke labels on itself, promising to do better. In that context, the fact that we’re commemorating a slaveholder is absurd, and it’s taking way too long for them to see that.”

Forsee said that the Fisher-led committee has been unwilling to commit to a timetable, and that the ad hoc student group Students Against Marshall finally took it upon themselves to force the issue with the university’s board of trustees.

| clevescene.com | January 26-February 8, 2022

“It’s so simple,” Forsee said. “They could call a vote tomorrow and vote to remove the name. Period. All they need is a simple majority.”

The letter demands immediate action. It acknowledges that the renaming discussions have been lengthy and deliberate, but argues that this shouldn’t preclude the board from removing Marshall’s name before a new name is selected.

(The situation is not unlike asking for the immediate removal of Chief Wahoo, even before a new name for the Cleveland MLB franchise was established.)

The letter asks that the naming committee “commit to severing the renaming issue from the removal issue, and commit to submitting a recommendation for removal to the Board of Trustees” in time to appear on the agenda for the board’s next meeting on January 27.

“This has taken so long that we’ve had a whole class of law school colleagues who graduated with a slaveowner’s name on their diplomas,” Forsee said. “There are only two more meetings of the board before Spring Commencement. We sent the letter because we want to make sure that it won’t happen again.”

The letter also follows closely on the heels of an emergency resolution in Cleveland City Council, sponsored

by Glenville Councilman Kevin Conwell, urging the CSU Naming Committee to change the law school’s name as well.

In response to emailed questions from Scene, a university spokesperson confirmed that the naming committee had no timetable for its decision and had nothing further to add beyond the statement below: “The College of Law is working through a process evaluating its name. This is a consequential decision that requires careful study, and a thoughtful, inclusive process that considers different viewpoints from our entire law school and university community. Our process has modeled what we teach our law students – to listen and learn, and to withhold judgment until we have had a chance to evaluate what we have heard.”

— Sam Allard

Warrensville Heights Mayor Brad Sellers Withdraws from County Executive Race Citing the “distraction” of recent reporting on his personal financial history, Warrensville Heights

Mayor Brad Sellers announced that he suspended his campaign for Cuyahoga County Executive less than two weeks after he’d announced his candidacy.

“I entered the race for Cuyahoga County Executive on January 5, 2022,” Sellers said in a brief statement last weekend. “Recent reports have now become a distraction in this race, so today I am announcing I am withdrawing my candidacy for the position of Cuyahoga County Executive.”

Authored by cleveland.com’s Kaitlin Durbin, the stories in question reported that Sellers had certified a 100% tax abatement on his home in Warrensville Heights in 2018. The suburb’s “Good Neighbor” abatement program allowed teachers, law enforcement officials, firefighters, and EMS personnel to receive a full tax abatement for 15 years on their home’s value.

Sellers argued that as Mayor of Warrensville Heights, he was also the city’s safety director and therefore a “law enforcement official,” eligible for the full abatement.

Other residents are entitled to 75% abatement on newly constructed homes.

The fact that Sellers applied for and certified his own abatement was questionable, Durbin reported, but also improper because of his outstanding tax delinquency. Sellers owed more than $13,000 in back taxes to the County at the time Warrensville Heights City Council nevertheless approved Sellers’ abatement, and the mayor’s annual tax liability fell from more than $5,000 to less than $800. Sellers still defaulted, Durbin reported, which the mayor attributed to an ongoing misunderstanding.

Though Sellers has now repaid his back taxes and said he has thrown up his hands on previously disputed taxes, the cyclone of reporting by Durbin and others on his “troubled finances” was enough to make him reconsider his bid for the top position in Cuyahoga County.

His departure means that former University Circle Inc. CEO Chris Ronayne now has a much clearer path to a Democratic Party endorsement this week. Shirley Smith, the former state legislator and perennial candidate, will be running for the seat too, though as of late last week she had not formally launched her campaign.

Former County Commissioner Lee Weingart, of Shaker Heights, is running for the seat on the Republican side.

— Sam Allard

Mark Souther, the Cleveland State University professor and historian who you might know from his essential book “Believing in Cleveland,” recently launched a new project aimed at exploring and adding to the historical record of Black life in Cleveland from the 1930s to 1960s.

Green Book Cleveland, a mapbased historical site filled with hundreds of entries, includes the bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, barber shops, clubs, theaters and other entertainment spots that were included in one of the Green Books, published for 30 years during the Jim Crow era as guides to where African-Americans could enjoy courteous service and a safe, friendly environment in their travels.

But the project goes further, adding places that weren’t included in the guides, and parks and natural spots where African-Americans enjoyed recreation during those decades.

Scene spoke with Souther about the project. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

SCENE: Where did the idea to do this come from?

MARK SOUTHER: The idea is something I’ve thought about in various forms over the period of years. It comes out of several areas of my work as an historian. One: I spent a number of years earlier in my career looking at urban tourism, including in New Orleans.

When Green Book Guides for Black travelers began to get new attention, I wanted to know more, as someone who was interested in tourism.

Second, for the past 15 years I’ve been working with students and community organizations on space-based story platforms. I’ve been doing that for eleven years with Cleveland Historical. The Cleveland Green Book project is a more thematically focused extension — the idea of using a map-based website to shine new light on places whose histories aren’t that well understood, and in some cases hidden or forgotten.

And third, there’s a piece of it that goes beyond documenting the sites that appeared in the Green

The State restaurant, which appeared in multiple versions of the Green Book.

Book Guides. I was interested in going beyond that and going to leisure and entertainment beyond the city itself, places that didn’t make it in the Green Book, places that African-Americans went for leisure activities. That kind of squares with researching and teaching in more of a metropolitan focus rather than the city and its near cities: How do we think about a metro region?

SCENE: Many of the parks, beaches and other natural places included on the site either don’t exist anymore or have different histories than most might know.

MS: Edgewater, for instance, was generally not a welcoming place. It’s included on there because we found evidence Black groups occasionally did, in earlier years, gather there, but it was not a choice place. Euclid Beach, if you look at the story on that, there’s the well-known 1946 Euclid Beach Park riot, and there had been efforts to exclude Blacks as a whole from certain parts of the park going back to the early 20th century. It was not a friendly and welcoming place, but we chose to include it because it helps tell the story of the struggle to overcome exclusion.

On-Erie Beach, on the other hand, was a place that was carved out as a separate place, and actually envisioned by a Kentucky woman who had migrated up to Oberlin.

She envisioned it as what she called a Black utopia, a leisure resort for African-Americans. It would cross

regions. It would invite speakers, like Chautauqua. It would have a religious component, but it was mainly recreational. It would have a cottage community and a beach.

Access to water and beaches has historically been one of the most fraught aspects of racial struggle in the country.

SCENE: How much of what is on the site now appeared in the Green Books at some time and how many are additions by you and your students?

MS: There are about 240 sites right now. Of those, about 100 were in the Green Book, either in Cleveland or Lorain or Akron, and a few other cities. The other 140 were never in the Green Book, but the Green Book is very idiosyncratic. Some places that were very, very popular in the Black community in Cleveland for many years may only appear in one or two years of the Green Book, for reasons I don’t necessarily understand. Some places come and go, some places stayed for 30 years, some places were only in there for one year, but you can read about them in the Call & Post and find lots of evidence they were very popular and attracted not only locals but people from other cities and even celebrities.

SCENE: Midtown had a great documentary recently on the history of Leo’s Casino, and while there weren’t interviews with any famous musicians, there were tons

MS: That’s precisely what needs to happen here. I would like people who find out about this project to reach out. I hope that people will share stories, if they have them, from their family or themselves, that give a feeling for the lived experience rather than basic facts.

I’m interested in oral history interviews and would like to get people recorded so that stories can be preserved and added to the project.

I could also see the project being used in schools. Place-based history is an incredible way to learn social studies — using local examples to learn about national events or trends of importance.

SCENE: Is there other ways the project can come alive outside of the virtual component?

MS: Public art is another aspect.

People have done public art around the Green Book. And as for historical markers, there’s a real shortage of historical markers of Black history.

There’s been some great work in the last few years by the Cleveland Restoration Society and others in funding and supporting historical markers of Black Civil Rights importance. But getting the public involved in general is important.

I want to hear, ‘That’s not how I remember it,” or, “You’re missing something.”

SCENE: A lot of work.

MS: It’s a student project, and they deserve so much credit. They’re learning, maybe for the first time, about putting together a narrative based on what sources suggest and seeing the gaps. It humbles you. You realize how little made its way into print. If we’re talking about the West Side Market or Lake View or the Terminal Tower, you have reams of photos and stories.

For more information and to explore for yourself, visit GreenBookCleveland.org.

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Courtesy Call and Post

from people who lived in Cleveland and went there over the years.

Hearing about their experiences was so valuable to add to the story most people might get reading about Leo’s.

Cleveland Green Book Project is Mapping Black Entertainment in Northeast Ohio from 1930s to 1960s

FEATURE

Illustration by John Kerschbaum

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| clevescene.com | January 26-February 8, 2022

The Property Dealers Holton-Wise, a flood of covert LLCs and out-of-state investors have radically changed the local housing market. Is there anything Cleveland can do to fight back?

By Mark Oprea LAST SUMMER, IN THE MIDST of his mayoral campaign, Justin Bibb walked up the front stairs of a dilapidated house in Detroit Shoreway to a podium. Behind him stood Jay Westbrook and Bob Render, two housing policy advocates, and a party of volunteers in white shirts reading “BIBB!” Nearby there were two other shirts, one emblazoned “SLUMLORD” and the other stamped “I ♥ EVICTIONS.” “We are here today on the footsteps of 7911 Eve Ave., one of the homes managed by Holton-Wise Property Group,” Bibb said. “HoltonWise has used redlining maps to help investors continue to exploit these communities. It is frustrating, and it sickens me to the core. For years, Holton-Wise has run rampant in our city, buying up properties from Glenville to Cudell. And nothing, not a darn thing, has been done to stop them.”

With a handful of cheers from supporters, Bibb ended his speech with a warning call to bad actors. “I stand with residents to say that it’s time to evict Holton-Wise from our city,” he said. “As the next mayor, under my watch, I’m going to fight back against real estate buildings who operated with impunity for far too long.” That, he said, would include holding property managers accountable on “day one,” partnering with HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge on Fair Housing Law enforcement, going after those who don’t register their rental units, and working with city council to pass pay-to-stay legislation.

Less than 48 hours later, James Wise, the co-founder of Holton-Wise, had already made a video response to Bibb on the company’s YouTube channel. He labeled Bibb a “socialist asshole,” and framed the candidate’s

support of Issue 24 — which gave civilians more oversight of police — as an “anti-cop, pro-crime, -socialist, -communist agenda.”

Holton-Wise had only owned 7911 Eve for 45 days, he said; it’s not the party to blame for its deterioration.

“We’ve done millions and millions of dollars of home renovations, in and around Cleveland neighborhood[s],” Wise said. “But this man says we are the ones destroying the neighborhood. How is that so? We’re out there … actually fixing 111-year homes.”

His response went on.

“Is it just my language that offends you, bro?” Wise asked. “Is it just because I don’t show up to work in a fancy suit every day? Because I don’t wear a tie every day? Hell, I don’t even wear a shirt every day when I’m at work. Is it because I don’t have your pedigree ... because I grew up in Old Brooklyn and went to Tri-C and stopped after a two-year degree, and I just happen to work fucking hard for my money? Is that what bothers you about me?”

The question of whether it’s simply the offensive language and brash behavior of Holton-Wise that has rankled some Clevelanders, or whether Holton-Wise has earned a reputation of exploiting underserved communities and deteriorating neighborhoods is one that those involved in the local real estate and rental market have asked themselves and others for a while now. Bibb’s campaign move just put the question into the public sphere.

AFTER RENTING A HOME IN Tremont for the past decade, Anna Rose and her husband Chris Sethman felt it was high time to buy a house. Rose, a population health specialist who grew up in

Old Brooklyn, was leaning toward moving back to her childhood neighborhood.

By the time they started looking, in January of 2021, Rose and Sethman, both in their thirties, were overcome with usual first-time buyer anxiety. Both anticipated rising costs given recent trends, but neither thought the playbook of yesteryear — pre-approval, home tours, etc.

— would be replaced by a rat race: Offers to skip inspections. Fifteenminute showings. $195,000 homes going for $230,000. Shady incentives like Peloton subscriptions. Rose discovered, as many have during the last year, that buyers who got the homes were paying the same day, with cash.

“It’s like throwing meat to hungry dogs,” Rose said. “It was crazy, it was really stressful. Seven or eight offers down the road, you think, ‘Is this how it’s going to be?’”

What Rose and Sethman experienced seems to be the norm in today’s seller’s market, where single and multi-family properties are sold on cash, no-contingency offers, often to buyers who haven’t even stepped foot inside them. There are lingering similarities to the foreclosure crisis of the late aughts that have stirred up concern among Cleveland’s housing intelligentsia.

And most of that talk, whether overheard at a Zoom conference or the boardroom of a community development corporation, often touches on the following: that a growing percentage of those cash buyers of Cleveland homes are limited liability companies or housing investors with out-of-state Zip codes, mostly from California and New York. Rather than big banks on Wall Street, local housing experts say, it’s a 50-year-old empty

nester in Las Vegas starting her portfolio with a $60,000, two-family home, then, if things go well, making a sizable profit from three years of rental income. Recent data from the ClevelandDepartment of Building & Housing shows that, in 2020, these investors — local and out-of-state — accounted for a little more than 21 percent of purchases in Cuyahoga County. And on the east side of Cleveland, more than one out of three purchases last year were made by a business.

“Back in 2008, 2012, even later, so many of those transactions were vacant property,” Frank Ford, senior policy adviser at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy who has been studying the effects of these investors for the past decade, said. Today, “there are fewer vacant and abandoned properties. But the general business model is still the same: buy properties, put in as little as I can, and hope that I don’t get caught by housing inspectors.”

A grandfatherly figure in the Cleveland housing specialist world, Ford is, like many others in his circle of influence, constantly wrestling with the question: To what extent is having a huge chunk of Cleveland homes owned by gung-ho investors in California, France or Israel good for our city? And to what extent is it bad? From 2008 to 2013, when Cleveland had 16,000 vacant homes, Ford and six other academics investigated this phenomenon, analyzing transactions among over 200 investors. What Ford found alarmed him: homes sold sight unseen (often on eBay) to click-happy buyers outside Ohio were more likely to lead to some sort of structural decay than those purchased by a public entity. “The problem of properties being flipped with little

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or no improvements, leaving them in a continual distressed state, is not limited to out-of-state investors,” Ford wrote. Although, “we did find that non-beneficial outcomes were more frequent with out-of-state investors.”

Now, Cleveland might have 56% fewer vacants and Deutsche Bank only owns 13 homes, not 600. But today’s market has attracted wealthy investors with $70,000 or $90,000 or loads more in cash who — through brokerages or their own LLC — can buy single-family or multi-unit homes to test out a landlord lifestyle.

The biggest problem, as far as the brains at Building & Housing are concerned, is that no one knows for sure how many LLCs there actually are. And for those that are in city records, their titles are purposefully vague, either lazily named after their street name or a series of randomized characters: “Memphis4 LLC,” “XYZ LLC,” “XYZ2 LLC.” Zach Germaniuk, co-chair of the investor working group at the Vacant and Abandoned Property Action Council (VAPAC), said that one of the reasons for such covert behavior is to purposefully skirt around outdated housing code (specifically Chapter 365) that does not mention “limited liability company” directly. As for identifying them, “it’s incredibly labor intensive,” Germaniuk said. “You’d have to do a thousand due diligence investigations. Unraveling just one company’s true location could take over an hour. A billable hour!”

Timothy Kobie, a business process analyst at Building & Housing, said that although not all LLC or business buyers are inherently bad — most are good, he says — this changes when code violations are brought to light, when concave roofs need to be redone or HVAC replaced.

Subpoenaing an Angeleno investor with a bungalow 2,300 miles away in Old Brooklyn to housing court on Lakeside Avenue, he said, is emblematic of the key frustration.

Even more difficult when, as his data suggests, only around one out of five LLCs are even registering their rentals.

“What they tell us at the city is, ‘All I do is receive the mail.’ And that gets them away with any type of responsibility to repair the property,” Kobie said at the 32nd Ohio Fair Lending and Vital Communities Conference in November. “And it gets lost in transaction — ‘This is more than I signed up for!’” He explained: “The worst type of properties end up cycling to the least prepared investor.”

They “cause holes in our

communities.” Well-funded LLCs can easily outbid people like Rose. They don’t flinch at “market conditions.”

“The We Buy Your House For Cash folks are being very aggressive at grappling homes” before being listed, Sally Martin, the director of South Euclid’s housing department, said.

“Business buyers are well-funded, they’re just going to keep coming in,” added Jason Powers, director of the Middle Neighborhood Initiative.

Echoing Kobie’s sentiment, Powers questions the overall, lasting impact on the neighborhoods they are buying in. “What long term values are (associated) with these business buyers?” he asked. “What is their ceiling?”

“I’m expecting some type of hate from the liberal fucks out there, like, ‘What the hell, Holton-Wise! You guys are horrible! How could you throw a family out? It’s snowing, blah blah blah.” The tenant, Wise tells us, stopped paying rent in October. The owner, an engineer in North Carolina, contacted HoltonWise in December. Wise took over the property in January. An eviction notice was filed in February.

Locks were changed. Doors were barricaded. A type of Jackass-like anticipation overwhelms the video, as Wise’s fury peaks: the eviction, for him, appears both a thrill and a source of personal justice.

“He’s not a multimillionaire,” Wise explains, referring to the landlord.

Holton-Wise merchandise on display at the Bibb campaign event.

Others see a more complex situation.

“So the narrative is kind of like, well, ‘Geez, Holton-Wise and these bulk buyers are bad — if we could just stop them, everything would be okay,’” Michael McBride, real estate development adviser at Burten, Bell, Carr and former manager at the Department of Building & Housing told Scene. “And I don’t think so.

Probably if we just ‘stop’ them, there’d be more houses to tear down.”

“NOBODY LOVES WHAT WE’RE doing today,” says James Wise, the then 31-year-old co-founder of the Holton-Wise Property Group, in an April 2018 video on the company’s YouTube channel. In front of him, outside in the Cleveland cold, is partner John Holton and his crew, clad with logoed hoodies. Wise is filming a tenant on the east side of Cleveland getting evicted.

Observing the crew lug tables and mattresses out on the lawn, Wise squawks to his apparent enemies:

Photo by Sam Allard.

“He’s just a regular joe, like you, like anybody else out there.” The tenant has given a writ of restitution — a notice to vacate — twelve days ago.

He adds, “And they chose to steal from this man.”

The YouTube video in question, featured in the “Tenants From Hell” series, is one of Wise’s channel’s most popular (with 1,265,607 views as of January), and one that’s come to represent his brand of real estate management, one that is part wrestling heel and part vlogger bro.

While a vast majority of bulk-home buyers and property managers tend to keep out of the public eye, Wise, with his profanity-laden newsletters, controversial merchandise (“RENT’S DUE,” reads a popular sweater) and ranty industry tell-alls, has done the exact opposite. And it’s earned a bad reputation among serious housing wonks and suit-wearing realtors.

“There are some LLCs that hold quite a few properties, but they’re not as visible as Holton-Wise,” Robert Fischer, the co-director of the Center

on Urban Poverty and Community Development, said. “He likes being a lighting rod. He’s embraced it for sure.”

But why Holton-Wise matters in the scope of the industry isn’t due, experts say, to his politics or thoughts on “socialists.” According to data obtained from Case Western Reserve University in October, Holton-Wise either managed, brokered or owned at least 172 registered properties (with 374 units) in the city of Cleveland. (Its website says that “Holton-Wise manages a portfolio valued above $65 Million consisting of over 1,000 individual rental units.”) Out of these 172, about 100 — more than half — are owned by investors based outside of Ohio, with a majority in California, New York, Colorado and Arizona.

(Wise declined a request to be interviewed for this story. “If your readers have an actual interest in learning about this topic,” Wise wrote in an email, “and not just more of typical progressive propaganda …, they should tune into HoltonWiseTV.”) Before Wise became the loudmouthed, filterless guide for the newbie investor stock, he was a bespectacled student at Parma High School. At 18, unsure of any career prospects, he took a job as a gas station attendant. In 2007, he dropped out of Cuyahoga Community College to manage a Radio Shack, and later worked for an invisible fence company. In 2008, in the midst of the largest real estate crash in American history, Wise opted to take up investing. His mother urged him to buy a home.

With two housing credits — $8,000 from Obama and $8,000 from Parma — and $2,550 down, Wise bought his first property, which he’d rent out to his brother-in-law. “I always wanted to be a landlord,” he told the podcast Land Academy. “You buy a house using someone else’s money, and then somebody else pays off your loan. As soon as I heard that I’m, like, sold.”

In October of 2013, after hiring Holton to do repairs on a duplex he had bought, the two formed a real estate company. Wise had just been licensed after graduating from Hondros College in Independence.

In 2015, Holton-Wise became a brokerage firm. He hired 25 agents to work out of office space on Brookpark Road and managed roughly 300 units. It’s then Wise seemed to formulate Holton-Wise’s mission focus of being “geared to the investor.”

“Our typical client is going to be out-of-state,” he said in 2015.

“I’m talking high net-worth people,

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mostly from a wealthy Zip code: ‘Wow! That’s pretty cheap! I couldn’t even get a parking lot for that over here.’ That’s what we do.” When Hondros interviewed their alum in February of the following year, Wise appeared to gloat about his speedy progress. “I’m 28 years old, and a broker/owner of the largest real estate brokerage on the west side of Cleveland,” he said.

“I would say that’s a pretty great accomplishment.”

By 2018, Wise was known to claim himself, as multiple online profiles declare, “the number one realtor in the world when it comes to selling multifamily and commercial property in Cuyahoga County.”

While acting or not, Wise portrayed himself on HoltonWiseTV as a noB.S. leader devoid of any emotionality or empathy for the struggling tenant. The result is, whether in his “Tenants From Hell ‘’ segment or “Ask James Wise” segment, a visual parade of what Wise perceives to be humanity’s worst –defiled toilet seats, hoarder-devastated kitchens, abandoned dead cats melted into the basement floor. It’s all there, replete with bikini-clad assistants and John Cena tropes in Holton-Wise’s studio space.

“With anything in this business, I want to show you the true realities of it,” Wise said in “Real Estate Agent Selling his Sex Motel for $1 Million.”

He and Holton had caught flak about owning the Oak Park Motel on Pearl Road — it had apparently been a prostitution den before they acquired it — and created a YouTube rebuttal-slash-ad to sell the property and clear their name. Cars, Wise said, had burned in the parking lot. Drug users had passed out on the stairwell. But yet, Wise said, Oak Park could be reconditioned as “affordable housing.” He reminded interested investors of Holton-Wise’s ongoing policy: no loans, cash only.

“It’s got to be one million dollars in a bank account with your name on it,” Wise said. “Not a hard money loan. Not a private loan. It’s got to be money in your bank account or I don’t want to talk to you.”

Wise’s give-no-fucks attitude, it seems, led quickly to a polarized split as his channel and company grew. In some 331 business reviews on Google, high-star ratings come from home resellers or sated investors in California or Nevada and the others come from Cleveland tenants.

“I have been working with James and his team for a year. I have had a great experience buying and managing properties,” wrote Oren Root, an investor from San

random visits from the past owner’s uncle. He mentions his grading scale, recommends investors take in Section 8 tenants for a profit. (“Where,” he says in a newsletter, “I make most of my money.”) Though it’s “dangerous” to view the property, Wise will show it to you with a cash offer. The video’s title is “Investing in the Ghetto.”

Justin Bibb speaking at the campaign event where he promised to “evict” Holton-Wise.

Photo by Sam Allard

Francisco. “The process is very streamlined and easy to follow.

Personally I think the YouTube videos are a nice touch.”

“Worst living/maintenance/ landlord situation I have been involved with in 15 years,” wrote Brian M. “I find it fitting that they are on YouTube giving advice, but can’t manage a small group of rental properties in Cleveland.”

“Everything is through a damn voicemail and texts,” wrote Amara Gooch in a now deleted post. “And no one get back to you.”

When contacted by Scene, Gooch, a stay-at-home mom who rented a Holton-Wise property for two years, said that she was at first taken aback by the lack of preparatory maintenance. “When I first moved in, none of the appliances were working,” she said. “Freezer didn’t work, the stove didn’t work, there were oil stains on the walls.”

Only months of constant text communication, Gooch said, seemed to jolt her property manager into speedier replies and repairs. Then, she said, “they were a little more organized.”

In 2016, Wise posted on the real estate investor hub BiggerPockets, glorifying his knowledge of investing in Cleveland. In his “Ultimate Guide to Grading Cleveland Neighborhoods,” Wise touted the city’s low-cost, high-rental market. Every neighborhood got a letter grade tied to the home’s worth in a purely capitalistic lens. “A” homes, $150,000 and up, were “too expensive to make any sense for a rental.” “B” homes included “some blue collar & some college educated.”

“C”’s had “rents capped at $1,000.”

“D”’s was where crime was “a lot more common.” And “F”’s, homes located in the Black-majority east inner ring, were in a “warzone,” the “Wild West” where “empty houses

get stripped of all valuables & sell for almost nothing.”

The reaction was abrupt. Fair housing advocates claimed Wise’s map was clear “redlining,” a practice outlawed by the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Local realtors freaked; many could not believe that, as one told me, Wise could be so “horrible.” David Sharkey, a realtor with Progressive Urban Real Estate, told me he felt “outraged” when a colleague showed him the map. “I was, like, flipping out. It goes against everything a realtor is supposed to stand for,” he said. As far as being a clear imitation of the outlawed map from the thirties, Sharkey was unsure.

“There are a lot of things (in real estate) that suggest that you should do this, you shouldn’t do that. But actually pinning it down to, like, is this illegal? I think that’s actually questionable, unfortunately.”

In Wise’s view, it was merely a cheat sheet for his future clientele, specifically those unaware of where to start investing. “This is an educational document created based solely upon risk factors determined by income, criminal activity, and property damage,” he told Bloomberg in 2018. It was not racist, he added, but a way, maybe the way to prop up the portfolios for “monetary gain.” “These are people who are simply looking to obtain a return on investment,” Wise went on. “I have no comment on the racial make-up of these neighborhoods.”

To many, Wise’s online behavior has only gotten worse.

On August 27, 2020, Wise posted a video on HoltonWiseTV for a listing in Glenville. Around him in the studio are cutouts of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as he introduces a dim-lit two-story in this “F-class neighborhood” for a selling price of $14,900. There could be a feral cat running amok, he warned, or

FOUR MILES SOUTH OF WHERE Bibb promised to “evict” Holton-Wise is Old Brooklyn, which is both the old neighborhood home to James Wise himself and one of his largest areas of investment. For 10 years, it was the home of Jayme Lucas-Bauer. Today, she’s the neighborhood development project manager for Old Brooklyn’s CDC, and spends the bulk of her time hunting down vacant properties to rehab. When discussing perceived injustices in the housing market, Lucas-Bauer speaks in a machine gun fury verging on social activist parlance. “I don’t have a problem with landlords,” she said. “I have a problem with irresponsible landlords.”

For as long as Lucas-Bauer’s been active, she’s attempted to paint herself as a rogue LLC’s worst nightmare. On October 21, 2020, she gave a talk at the Ohio Fair Lending Coaltion’s Brown Bag Forum calling real estate management and brokerages the “most aggressive players” in Cleveland’s inner west side market. She generally criticized bulk buyers — firms that buy homes in bulk — for being “hard to track down” or appealing to “incompetent investors,” but singled out HoltonWise specifically as persona non grata. In 2020, she found, there were 177 properties with its name associated in some way in Old Brooklyn, a 53-percent jump from 2019. Thirty-five of these had housing or health violations. Fifty of these were turned in for lack of rental registration. (In October, Lucas-Bauer counted 206 properties in Old Brooklyn in the Holton-Wise umbrella. In contrast, according to records from October, there was only one registered Holton-Wise property on the inner east side, three if you include Slavic Village.)

Starting in 2015, Lucas-Bauer noticed a change in how quickly homes were being transferred between LLC buyers. Those that previously had two or three decades of ownership were now being flipped and sold often in the same year. It used to be, you could buy that house on Muriel from a family whose mom and dad just died for $60,000, $70,000 — and be structurally solid,” Lucas-Bauer said. “You just need to fix up the kitchen while you’re living there and replace the flooring. But

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structurally, it was fine. And now those houses are completely removed from the market. They are just sucked up immediately the day that they’re listed.”

To demonstrate her grievances, Lucas-Bauer took me on a tour of several streets close to the main thoroughfare in Old Brooklyn. On foot, we set off west on Stanford, passing 80 to 100-year-old homes in various conditions. “That one used to go for $80,000,” Lucas-Bauer said of one on Stanford. “Now, it’s $125,000.”

On Memphis Avenue, Lucas-Bauer pointed out various rentals that are either associated with Holton-Wise or with another LLC of some sort.

The complaints overwhelm her: This one’s stairs are caving in, this one needs a paint job. We stop at one on Memphis, which has a Holton-Wise sign pasted next to the door: It’s sold, awaiting a tenant. For a moment, Lucas-Bauer seems baffled that it’s occupied. “He’s talking the right talk,” she said. “We’ll see what he can change, though.”

IT WAS A YEAR OR SO BEFORE the pandemic when Oren Root and his wife Anatasia bought their first investment home. Root himself was in his early forties and, as a tech worker living in costly San Francisco, felt pressed to start building an outside revenue stream.

In 2018, a fixer-upper in New Jersey caught their eye. It was $60,000, and Root had only toured it via Google Street View. But a three-year investment, Root thought, would inch him closer to a safe retirement. (“Are you ready to retire and live off your rentals?” reads another one of Wise’s newsletters.)

“You’ve never done this before, it looks very scary,” Root said in a phone interview. “We came into this pretty late, started from nothing. I feel like compared to a lot of investors we’re looking at? Baby steps.”

In 2020, Anastasia was browsing BiggerPockets when she came across a post by Wise. It led the two to his YouTube channel, then eventually to a listing in early 2020 for $78,000.

He showed Wise his proof-of-funds and months later had his name on the Cleveland rental registry.

Yet, because the home lacked a suitable kitchen and baths, Root said he chose to put $15,000 into improvements. Because he’s 2,300 miles away, Root hired Wise. “If I were living there, I’d get a general contractor, make this a nice little project, and do it myself,” Root said. “But the option of doing this remotely — it’s easier to do that when you have someone to do property maintenance.”

Like most, if not all, of the 100 out-of-state owners of Holton-Wise properties in the rental registry, Root opted to have his rental managed by Wise’s firm. Although it’s unclear how many properties in Cleveland Wise’s team manages, it’s likely the number is in the couple hundreds. But what is clear, at least according to Cleveland housing code, is that the owners are, at the end of the day, the ones responsible if the property is in Cleveland. As Timothy Kobie at Building & Housing said: If I’m an owner of a home, and my lawn or roof isn’t up to code? Then, I’m the one held responsible for those repairs, even if I’m based overseas in England or Israel.

“You have to get a person in court,” said Sally Martin. “You have to perfect service. If you don’t, you don’t have a case.”

As the head of the city of South Euclid’s housing department for the past 13 years, Martin, in the spirit of Lucas-Bauer in Old Brooklyn, has watched her town change due to bulk buyers of homes. “My job, in its essence,” she said, “is to maintain the value of the housing stock.”

By 2017, five years after the end of the housing crisis, 30 percent of South Euclid homes were now rentals, with just over half of those properties owned by someone outside Ohio. Homeowners on Liberty or Verona Roads who used to take pride in routine upkeep — plant flowers, keep the lawn cut — were replaced by transients. “The further they are from the property,” Stephen Karr, South Euclid’s housing coordinator, said, “the less they’re involved, the less they see, or maintain the property.”

Five of these were brokered to investors by Holton-Wise. In March 2018, a property being managed

by Wise was late to pay a combined $300 registration and late fee, which Martin said the city is “serious about enforcing.” But because this is South Euclid, the subpoena to housing court was not mailed to the owner’s home out-of-state. It was mailed to Holton-Wise. Unlike Cleveland, South Euclid — along with a spate of other Northeast Ohio suburbs — has what’s called a Local Agents in Charge clause in its housing code. This means that, according to Martin, if an investor-owner is outof-state, then he or she must have a local representative nearby and ready to be held accountable for any code violations. “So if you don’t pay your rental registration, you’ll get pulled into court,” Martin said. “Or we’ll post your house with a placard that notifies your tenant that, ‘This is out of compliance.’”

Jayme Lucas-Bauer.

Photo by Mark Oprea

According to both Martin and Karr, the agents clause has proven effective. Currently, Karr said, Holton-Wise has just two properties in South Euclid, one which is under local ownership. “Once they see that they can be held responsible for things,” Karr added, “they learn.”

FIVE MONTHS AFTER SCOUTING for a home for her and her husband, Anna Rose gave up on Old Brooklyn.

She and Sethman had made seven offers on sixteen houses, and had watched as several went for $6,000 or $12,000 over asking. The process reached its emotional zenith when Rose had her heart broken on a brick bungalow in South Hills: “You walk in, you have 15 minutes, you can’t fall in love,” Rose said. “It was one of the houses that I walked in and just felt like home.” Days later it was sold to a cash buyer. In January, their agent at Howard Hanna found a Tudor style in Kamm’s Corners, and Rose and Sethman jumped on the offer. They won. “It was still $12,000 over asking.”

A month into Bibb’s time as mayor, it’s unclear what his plan of action is for bad actors in Cleveland’s housing market. (Members of his transition team didn’t respond to requests for an interview for this story after the November election, and members of his administration haven’t responded to requests for comment for this story since he took office.)

Going off his July speech lambasting Holton-Wise, it’s possible Bibb could follow through with a number of tactics he espoused. He could help promote Pay To Stay legislation — recently adopted in Cleveland Heights and Lakewood — that would extend an eviction notice past the three-day standard.

He could implement a necessary Point of Sale inspection. Like in South Euclid, he could work to

amend Cleveland’s rental registration ordinance to ensure local agents are held accountable for out-of-state negligence. And, as far as accusations of “redlining” go, it’s possible that Bibb’s administration could indeed pursue civil rights violation under the Fair Housing Act, specifically under the Act’s section 109, which prohibits “making, printing and publishing of advertisements that indicate a preference, limitation or discrimination because” of race or color.

The coalition of wonks over at VAPAC believe that the Bibb administration could implement a series of changes to at least soften the blow felt from bad actors and irresponsible investors. Germaniuk himself recommends updating Cleveland housing ordinances to include clear language on who’s responsible for dealing with code violations, regardless of company structure. It’s all a part of a white paper Germaniuk, Ford and others will be publishing this spring. And with Martin appointed the new Director of Building & Housing, it’s possible that her assertiveness in South Euclid could very well be transported to Cleveland.

“What we’re attempting to really go after is a subset of investors, owners and managers who are abusing the corporate form,” Germaniuk said. “There are plenty of business people out there that are just operating rental property, and are operating within the law. And frankly? We need that investment.”

As to why Holton-Wise has only two registered rental properties in Slavic Village? Germaniuk laughed.

“Well, according to their statements,” he said, “our neighborhood’s a warzone.”

scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene

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GET OUT

Everything to do in Cleveland for the next two weeks

WED 01/26 Casablanca 80th Anniversary Presented By TCM Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies and Warner Bros. bring Casablanca back to select cinemas today for a special screening that includes exclusive insights from TCM. Academy Award winners Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman star in one of the most enduring romances in movie history.

Check the website for show times and locations. fathomevents.com.

THU 01/27 The Simon & Garfunkel Story A tribute to the folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, the touring theater show The Simon & Garfunkel Story comes to the State Theatre tonight. The immersive concert-style performance chronicles the duo’s rise, culminating with their famous Concert in Central Park reunion in 1981. Using state-of-the-art video projection, photos and original film footage, the show features a full live band performing hits such as “Mrs. Robinson,” “Cecilia,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Homeward Bound.” Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at Connor Palace.

Consult the Playhouse Square website for more info.

1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

FRI

01/28

Ali Siddiq “Prison is an odd place because you don’t know the rules,” jokes comedian Ali Sadiiq as he relays the story of how he found himself caught up in a riot one day. The funny bit, which Siddiq presents as a narrative, shows just how well the comic can bring a story to life, as he imitates others and recreates conversations he’s had. He performs tonight at 7:30 and 10 and tomorrow night at 6:30 and 9 at the Improv.

1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com.

SAT

01/29

David A. Arnold Comic and TV producer David A.

Dillon Francis and Yung Gravy come to the Masonic Auditorium. See: Tuesday, Feb. 1.

Arnold explores things like family, parenthood and his road to sobriety in these concerts that’ll be taped for Netflix. Performances take place at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the Hanna Theatre.

Tickets cost $49.50. Check the Playhouse Square website for more info.

2067 East 14th St., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

SUN 01/30 Jokes on You Inspired by crowd work clinicians like Dave Attell, Ian Bagg, and Big Jay Oakerson, Jokes on You makes the audience the center of the show by “pushing comics to avoid prepared material or written jokes and instead focus on organic interaction with the audience,” as it’s put in a press release about this event, which takes place tonight at

7 at Hilarities. John Bruton and Bill Squire host the event.

2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

MON 01/31 Cavaliers vs. New Orleans Pelicans When these two teams played toward the end of last year in New Orleans, the Pelicans won an incredibly close contest. The two teams face each other again at 7 tonight at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Check the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse website for ticket prices and more info.

1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.

TUE

02/01

Dillon Francis & Yung Gravy: Sugar, Spice and Everything Ice Tour Dillon Francis, a hugely popular electronic music and record

Courtesy of Republic Records

producer, teams up with rapper Yung Gravy for this special tour that swings into town for an 8 p.m. show at Masonic Cleveland. Tickets start at $39.50. Check the Masonic website for more info.

3615 Euclid Ave., 216-881-6350, masoniccleveland.com.

WED 02/02 Shitshow Karaoke Local rapper/promoter Dirty Jones and Scene’s own Manny Wallace host Shit Show Karaoke, a weekly event at the B-Side Liquor Lounge wherein patrons choose from “an unlimited selection of jams from hip-hop to hard rock,” and are encouraged to “be as bad as you want.” Fueled by drink and shot specials, it all goes down tonight at 10 p.m. Admission is free.

2785 Euclid Heights Blvd.,

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GET OUT Cleveland Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge.com.

THU 02/03 Cleveland Stories Dinner Party Cleveland Stories Dinner Party is a weekly series that pairs fine food with storytelling. Through it, the folks at Music Box Supper Club hope to raise awareness of the mission of the Western Reserve Historical Society’s Cleveland History Center.

The goal of the Cleveland Stories Dinner Party is to “bring to life some of the fun, interesting stories about Cleveland’s past — from sports, to rock ‘n’ roll, to Millionaires’ Row,” as it’s put in a press release. Admission is free, with no cover charge, although a prix fixe dinner, designed to complement the night’s theme, is $20. Doors open at 5 p.m., dinner is served at 6, and the storytelling starts at 7.

1148 Main Ave., 216-242-1250, musicboxcle.com.

FRI

02/04

GlamGore GlamGore is Cleveland’s newest monthly addition to LGBTQ nightlife. Each month, GlamGore features a variety of performance artists under one roof, ranging from beauty queens to drag monsters.

One of few all-inclusive and all ages productions that incorporates themed performances to elevate artists and audiences alike, GlamGore features well-rounded drag entertainers of all shapes, sizes and styles from all over the country. Tonight’s event starts at 9 at the Grog Shop. Tickets cost $12 in advance, $15 at the door. VIP tickets which include a photo opportunity, a meet-and-greet prior to the show and seating, cost $20.

2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.

SAT 02/05 Shen Yun 2022 The visually dazzling Shen Yun is a truly unique performance troupe that brings to life 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through classical Chinese, folk and story-based dance. Shen Yun was founded in 2006 to revive ancient Chinese culture, which had been

nearly destroyed by the Chinese communist government. Now with four companies, Shen Yun has given more than 400 performances in over 100 cities around the world.

(Ironically, the dance troupe has yet to perform in China or Hong Kong.)

Expect beautiful, vibrant costumes and exotic music you won’t hear anywhere else. Performances take place at 2 and 7 p.m. today and at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the State Theatre.

Consult the Playhouse Square website for more info.

1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

SUN 02/06 Cavaliers vs. Indiana Pacers Even with power forward Domantas Sabonis excelling, the Pacers have struggled to get wins this season and will likely start making trades as the trade deadline approaches, so you can expect the Cavs to get the win today when the Pacers come to town for a game at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Tip-off is at 6 p.m. Consult the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse for more info.

1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.

MON 02/07 Movie Mondays Every Monday, Cleveland Cinemas hosts $5 Movie Mondays, where film fans can catch up on the latest Hollywood flicks for significantly reduced prices. Bring your friends and family and make Movie Mondays a weekly tradition — many theaters even offer discounted concession stand items. Participating theaters include Apollo Theatre, Cedar Lee Theatre and Chagrin Cinemas. Additional charges apply for 3-D movies. clevelandcinemas.com.

TUE

02/08

Jesus Christ Superstar A classic musical that comes to us courtesy of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar features classic Broadway belters such as “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and the glorious title track. A touring production of the hit comes to Connor Palace tonight at 7:30.

Check the Playhouse Square website for more info.

1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene January 26-February 8, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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EAT DRUM(ETTE) MAJORS

Boss Chickn Beer nails the chicken and beer, plus the veg options to boot

BOSS CHICKN BEER HAS BEEN open in Berea for four years, but it was only recently that I had my first experience with the company. What’s the point of driving 20 miles to pick up an order of chicken wings, breaded chicken tenders or fried chicken sandwiches when I literally can walk to any number of places to secure the same? It was only after owners Heather Doeberling and Emily Moes opened a second location in Bay Village, while simultaneously announcing plans for a third store in Seven Hills, that I began to reconsider my position.

I became a believer just moments into my visit to the Bay Village location. Unlike practically every other fast-casual chicken joint around, where everything takes place behind the kitchen door, Boss Chickn Beer operates like an oldschool diner. The bulk of the cooking takes place out in the open, right behind the long counter. The same people who fetch the beers take your order and cook the food. Not only does this approach streamline the operation and eliminate miscommunication between server and cook, it makes for a lively publike atmosphere.

For beer lovers, the selection here is worth the trip alone. A quick scan of the offerings revealed an all-Ohio list that intentionally sidesteps the ubiquitous flagships common elsewhere. On offer were beers from Phoenix Brewing in Mansfield, MadCap in Kent, Missing Mountain in Cuyahoga Falls, Twin Oast in Port Clinton and Modern Methods in Warren. Pints generally are priced between $5 and $7.

“Why would we carry the same beer that you can get at any grocery store,” staffer Will Ruiz said.

While we we’re enjoying our first round of beers we spotted the cooks hand-dipping and frying onion rings ($7) to order. Apparently, it’s a Thursday-only special and, well, wouldn’t you know. Golden brown, shatteringly crisp, with an almost tempura-like crust, these rings soared to the top of my list. They come with a tangy Carolina-style mustard sauce for dipping.

Since it was our first time, Ruiz

Photo by Douglas Trattner

By Douglas Trattner

suggested that we start with the wing and tender combo ($28), which includes a pound of wings, three tenders, two sides and three sauces.

In addition to making our order, and those of the other guests in the room, the lean crew was juggling incoming phone calls and outgoing pick-up orders like seasoned pros, all while cracking jokes and keeping

to a spicy jalapeno-studded Buffalo.

“A lot of people want to do wings the easy way: take them out of the box, throw them into the fryer and let the sauce be the star of the show,” Doeberling explains. “We don’t sauce our wings. For us, the chicken is the star and the sauce is just a bonus.”

Boss’ beefy tenders are crunchy, flavorful and undeniably tender.

BOSS CHICKN BEER BOSSCHICKNBEER.COM

beer glasses full.

There are plenty of ways a wing can go wrong, from the bird to the prep to cook to the sauce. It only takes a second to see that Boss does it different and does it right. Before hitting the fryer, the cage-free, Ohioraised poultry is brined, baked and chilled. After a quick swim in the fat, they arrive hot, uber-crisp and mahogany colored. The drums and flats are meaty and without sauce.

We eagerly drag them through sauces that range from dilly ranch

They come with a craggily crust that grabs and holds sauces like a champ.

Enjoy them straight up or tucked into soft, slick pretzel buns as part of a half-dozen sandwiches. We loved the mile-high Cleveland Hot Chick ($13), which consisted of a pair of tenders topped with jalapeno pickles, slaw and hot sauce.

When it comes to sides, diners can choose from hand-cut fries, mac and cheese, flash-fried Brussels sprouts, three-bean chili and veggie slaw.

As the pandemic raged on during

the past two years, and as chicken supply-chain problems became more of an issue, Doeberling and Moes beefed up the vegan side of the menu. Items like vegan wings, tenders and veggies are cooked in dedicated deep fryers. What’s more, everything that goes into those fryers, including the breaded chicken tenders, is gluten-free.

“I think a lot of people who want to eat in a certain way, either for allergy, dietary or personal reasons, don’t necessarily trust – and I kind of don’t blame them,” adds Doeberling.

“Having the open kitchen is superimportant because we can tell people, ‘Come in and see what we’re doing.’”

Check them out for yourself at the original location in Berea (120 Front St., 440-532-7660), the snug year-old spot in Bay Village (27321 Wolf Rd., 440-455-9686) or the newest location in Seven Hills (7305 Broadview Rd.), which opened last week.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

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is the culmination of a long, hard, but successful career in food.

“We started with Tres Potrillos in Montrose and started branching out,” he explains. “It’s sad to say but when Covid happened, lots of restaurants went out of business. That’s a reason why, in 2021, we actually opened six restaurants. It was terrible for the people who were in business for so long and had to close the doors because of the pandemic, but you have to jump on the opportunities that come to you because if you don’t do it someone else will. To get downtown right now, especially being on East 4th, it’s huge for us. It’s a big deal.”

EAT

BITES

Photo courtesy Blue Agave

Blue Agave, from owner of Blue Habanero, to open in former Zocalo space on East 4th

By Douglas Trattner LAST YEAR, MRN HOSPITALITY closed Zocalo restaurant on East 4th Street after 14 years. The owners said that they decided to shift their attention and resources over to Corner Alley, which was faring better in the midst of the pandemic.

“This wasn’t our core business and we didn’t do a very good job with this restaurant, so we made the decision to see if we could find someone who could do it better,” explains Ari Maron of MRN. “Our goal is always to do what’s best for the street.”

Maron says that after another great experience at Blue Habanero in Detroit Shoreway, he reached out to owner Alex Martinez.

“What we do on East 4th Street is try to collect the best operators in the city and put them all on one street so it becomes a destination,” adds Maron. “These guys are the best; everything from the design and construction to the operation.”

Chances are good that if you enjoy Mexican food, you have eaten at one of Martinez and partner Arturo Mendez Martinez’s restaurants. Overall, the team operates 16 different restaurants throughout Northeast Ohio, broken up into concepts named Tres Potrillos, Jalapenos, El Palenque, Fiesta Habaneros, Tito’s Mexican Grill, Tacologist and Blue Habanero.

But Martinez says the new East 4th Street restaurant, which will be called Blue Agave, will be the company’s flagship.

“It will be more like Blue Habanero and Tacologist,” says

Martinez. “More trendy, stepping out of the traditional Mexican like fajitas with rice and beans, enchiladas and stuff like that.”

Like Blue Habanero and Tacologist, Blue Agave will feature a lengthy roster of creative “street tacos.” Those core items will be bolstered by starters like queso, guacamole, taquitos and cheesestuffed, bacon-wrapped jalapenos.

For diners in search of heartier mains, a concise selection of house specialties includes items like chicken in spicy cream sauce, grilled mixed seafood, carne asada and a queso-smothered giant burrito.

Martinez says that a lower-level exhibition kitchen, where employees once pressed and cooked corn tortillas, will be resurrected.

Zocalo boasted a sizeable bar that connects to a roomy front patio.

Martinez plans to make good use of that real estate by upgrading the cocktail program with top-flight tequilas.

Work already has begun to update the 4,500-square-foot, two-level restaurant.

“The bones were beautiful, but we want it to be more trendy and modern,” says Martinez.

There are new tile floors up and down, new tile going up and a new paint job and color scheme being applied. The goal is to open in early April.

For Martinez and his partner, who came to the States in 2001 and opened their first restaurant in 2006, the new restaurant in the heart of Downtown

COhatch Partners with North High Brewing to Open Co-Work and Pub Space in Beachwood As in Ohio City, as well as locations in Columbus, Cincinnati and Springfield, COhatch is teaming up with North High Brewing to open a unique co-working space in Beachwood. The 30,000-squarefoot footprint, formerly home to Maggiano’s Little Italy at Beachwood Place, will combine the coworking structures of COhatch with the food and beverage offerings from North High Brewing.

“Cohatch changed the way people gather to give them opportunities to work outside of their homes,” explains Matt Barnes, Director of Marketing for North High. “But also to create a place where synergies can take place and North High is kind of a support to that. It gives people another opportunity to connect.”

When North High Brewing opens in early March, it will offer a similar lineup of food and beverage to the Ohio City shop, says Barnes. That menu offers snacks and starters like fried pickle chips, Bavarian pretzels, house-made pork rinds, deviled eggs and loaded fries. Those starters join a roster of salads, tacos, sandwiches, burgers and flatbreads.

To drink, there will be a selection of beers (imported from the Columbus brewery), wine and cocktails.

New at the Beachwood facility will be a handful of “ghost kitchens,” all operated under the North High Kitchen and Bar banner, that will increase the number of food options for pick-up and delivery customers.

Barnes says that the bond between COhatch and North High Brewing was forged over a taste for great beer.

“The relationship came about because of [COhatch CEO] Matt Davis’ love for our beer,” Barnes reports.

“We have one of the top-three most senior brewers in the state in Jason McKibben. They love North High

and they wanted to help us grow and grow alongside them. It’s a great partnership; it fits like hand in glove.”

Original Steaks & Hoagies to Open Shop in Parma This Spring Since purchasing Original Steaks & Hoagies from founder Bill “Billy from Philly” Fromholzer in 2017, Jeff Wiseman has been on a mission to expand the brand throughout the region.

For the first seven years of the company’s existence, Twinsburg was the only place a steak lover could sink his or her teeth into an authentic Philly cheesesteak. Then, seemingly overnight, Original Steaks & Hoagies shops began opening in places like Fairlawn, Canton, Lorain and Medina, not to mention an ever-expanding fleet of food trucks.

The next pin on the map will land in Parma, specifically the Tri-City Shopping Center at the intersection of Broadview and W. Sprague.

Wiseman attributes the success of Original Steaks to – no surprise – the quality of the sandwiches.

“A true original Philly starts with two main things,” he says.

“Obviously the meat; you have to have the hand-shaved ribeye. And the bun; you have to use Amoroso rolls. Nobody around carries the rolls, but we are adamant about using the Amoroso roll because that gives you the authentic sandwich.”

That ribeye gets chip-chopped on a hot griddle along with onions.

Cheese – Whiz or provolone – is added before the whole blessed affair is transferred into a roll from Amoroso Bakery.

Under Wiseman, the menu at Original Steaks has grown from just a handful of cheesesteaks and hoagies to more than two dozen sandwiches starring steak, chicken and deli meats. There is even a vegetarian version of the classic made with cauliflower. In modern fast-casual fashion, those items can now be ordered on a roll, in a wrap or as part of a bowl. Fresh-cut fries are now joined by house-made tater tots stuffed with Cheez Whiz.

The dining experience has matured as well. Compared to the original 1,100-square-foot Twinsburg shop, the newer locations are bigger, more comfortable and more efficiently laid out. Draft and bottled beer are both available.

Look for the new shop to open this spring.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

January 26-February 8, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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MUSIC A LISTENING PARTY ON STEROIDS Music Box Supper Club to debut new immersive sound series

By Jeff Niesel FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW, Music Box Supper Club has hosted a storyteller series. At one program, Music Box owner Mike Miller heard about locally based tech guru Frank Foti’s new approach to immersive sound.

Miller immediately thought of a new program he could put together that would feature Foti’s state-of-theart sound system. The Immersive Sound Listening Party, a new monthly event the club will host, kicks off on Friday, Feb. 4.

“I invited Frank to come and give us a demonstration, and it knocked my socks off,” said Miller earlier this month as Music Box Supper Club held an invite-only event to preview its upcoming Immersive Sound Listening Party Series by blasting classic tracks from Steely Dan, Bad Company and Led Zeppelin for a roomful of reporters and rock ‘n’ roll aficionados. “We originally just talked about doing a storyteller night, but one of the most important aspects of this is that it’s like an album listening party. You probably went to one in your teens. You probably went to someone’s house or to a bar to listen to the new album.

It was a great experience to listen to it together. When I heard this technology, I got really excited and envisioned combining the ideas of music experts who would choose which albums we could listen to in an immersive sound environment and then explain why it’s worthy to a crowd. It’s an old idea but built around cutting edge technology.”

Miller described the Music Box, which features a natural “box” in front of the stage, as “one of the perfect spaces in the city” in terms of its sound.

“It’s uniform and has built-in insulation,” he said, adding that the Music Box has installed additional speakers and amps for the special series.

Foti spent time at WMMS as a studio engineer but left the oncegreat radio station and went on to build Telos Alliance, a company that produces sound processing equipment.

“He has invented something so amazing to me in terms of surround

“My coworkers all said it sounded great, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a business bias going on.”

Frank Foti demonstrates his surround sound system.

Jeff Niesel

IMMERSIVE SOUND LISTENING PARTY – STEELY DAN’S AJA FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 7:30 P.M. MUSIC BOX SUPPER CLUB, 1148 MAIN AVE., 216-242-1250.

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sound,” said Miller as he introduced Foti.

Foti explained that he and his late business partner Steve Church were trying to improve HD radio for FM in the late ’90s when they started experimenting with surround sound technology. They thought their technology might work well for cars, which are well-suited to surround sound.

“The format just didn’t work so well,” Foti explained at the preview event. “But we still wanted to take stereo and turn it into surround

sound. People have attempted it, but they all suck. I pondered this idea for a good 10 or 15 years and then the proverbial light bulb went off — my brain works slowly, like it’s on vacuum tubes and not microchips.

I was working day and night and then realized how it could work. I was so excited that I sat in my office until 4 the next morning [listening to various songs in surround sound].

My coworkers all said it sounded great, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a business bias going on.”

For the ultimate test, Foti and

Gary Katz, who had produced several Steely Dan albums, went to London to a “baby recording studio” named Abbey Road. Katz had lined up the opportunity to meet producer extraordinaire Hugh Padgham. At dinner with Padgham the night before, the producer told Foti, “I have to be honest with you. I’ve heard a lot of these things and they all sound like shit.”

Undeterred, Foti and Padgham went to the studio the next day and listened to a few tracks.

Padgham was blown away.

“We sat there for four hours,” says Foti. “We played Steely Dan and the Who and classical music and all kinds of stuff. It’s the first [surround sound processor] that’s truly natural.

We preserve the produced content in the way that the artist and producer intended it. If they could have done an immersive recording back then, this is how they would have done it.”

The first program in the series will feature a “listening party” for Steely Dan’s Aja, which hasn’t yet been remastered for surround sound even though Foti’s company has been working on a new mix for commercial release. Katz will talk about the album via a live feed, and the album will be played in its entirety in 5.1 surround sound.

“This is a little bit out of the box,” Miller said at the press conference.

“We try to do different things at the Music Box, and this is a really unbelievable way to hear some of your favorite albums. [For upcoming programs,] I’m going to go around town and ask people to choose the albums that are special to them and talk about why the album is special and worthy of this experience.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

January 26-February 8, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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MUSIC A LITTLE ‘CLEVELAND PRIDE’

Greensky Bluegrass bassist Mike Devol discusses his Northeast Ohio roots

By Jeff Niesel WHEN GREENSKY BLUEGRASS last came to town to play the Agora at the start of 2020, it had just wrapped up one of its best years ever. Early in 2019, it released the studio album, All for Money, and on a tour in support of the disc, it played three shows at the famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. That year also saw the second year of the band’s summer festival, Camp Greensky. Acts such as Del & Dawg (Del McCoury and David Grisman), Stephen Marley, Billy Strings, Hiss Golden Messenger and Circles Around the Sun performed at the event.

The pandemic brought activity to a screeching halt, but this year, the band hopes to return to the road in grand fashion.

A lengthy winter tour brings it back to the Agora on Thursday, Feb. 3.

“That January 2020 tour is still our last big tour,” says bassist Mike Devol via phone from his Santa Cruz home. “We’ve been busy playing festivals and doing this and that.

We were really in the zone on that tour. I’m from Akron and grew up in Manchester, a little school district just south of Akron. I did a fair amount of hanging out in Cleveland too and played cello in the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. I played at Severance Hall a bunch of times, and I got a little Cleveland pride.”

The group continued that 2020 tour until COVID essentially shut the music industry down.

“We had just played a gig in Tucson or Phoenix in March of 2020, and I flew from there to a family ski vacation in Park City, Utah,” says Devol. “We were watching the COVID thing crash down. We had Florida dates coming up. It wasn’t the biggest deal to cancel that Florida tour, but then it was one thing after another after another. We were going to play in Australia in April of 2020.

I had this whole vacation planned. I had a bunch of shit planned, and the universe was like, ‘No.’ It was a total shutdown for 15 months. In the end, the band could continue, and I feel very fortunate about that. We were in a position where we could survive.”

The band intended to work on a new album in the fall of 2020, but

Greensky Bluegrass (Mike Devol, center) was able to write new music when the pandemic forced them off the road.

when tour dates were cancelled, the group immediately shifted its focus to writing songs and started sharing demos with one another on a Google drive. In the end, it came up with 20 tunes that would wind up as contenders for a new album.

In August of 2020, the band spent a week in Colorado at a rental house in Winter Park. And then, in September of 2020, it started

five hours. This album is different because we weren’t physically together for long amounts of time during its development, but it’s still very Greensky to me.”

The resulting album, Stress Dreams, comes out later this month.

Led by the uplifting, mandolindriven single “Grow Together,” it features 13 new tunes.

“Paul Hoffman, our mandolin

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recording in Guilford, VT and in Asheville, NC with frequent collaborator “and old friend” Dominic John Davis as producer, and “wizard engineer” Glenn Brown mixing.

“It was incredible,” says Devol of the studio sessions. “We hadn’t seen each other all year, and my only music playing was that intense week in July. It was hard not to feel out of shape. It’s one thing to write songs at a casual place or play my bass by myself. There’s no way to really prepare for what it’s like to play in the band with that kind of energy for

player, wrote [‘Grow Together’], and it’s about his love for his partner and his daughter, but I think it’s about the band too,” says Devol. “It’s a positive song, and I get emotional playing it, especially knowing about Paul’s journey as a father.

When I play that song, that’s a lot of where my heart is. Paul is my best friend, and we’ve only become closer through our parenting bonds.”

The album’s title track, a song by Devol, who has songwriting credits on the album for the first time, finds the band venturing into moodier

Big Hassle Media

musical territory.

“Everybody just loved the song,” says Devol when asked how it became the title track. “I think content-wise, the guys felt connected to it. It’s become a COVID anthem.

There’s this great arc to the song, and it tells a story that we all got into. That was a favorite tune among the new stuff and marks a new sound for the band. It was a favorite among the band and began to take a center stage role in what the album was becoming.”

Returning to the road will be a significant moment for the group, and Devol says he couldn’t be more excited to have new songs to share with fans.

“Greensky is really a live band,” he says. “It’s heavily based on what we do live. We have a big production sound and an awesome light show.

It’s an adventure. On tour, we play four or five nights a week, and you get into this compounding thing where you build on what happened the night before. Going out and doing that again will be exciting.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

January 26-February 8, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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SAVAGE LOVE ROOTING AROUND

By Dan Savage Hey Dan: I’m a heterosexual cisgender male who loves prostate stimulation. I discovered it later in life, but it’s been a staple for the last fifteen years. I’m worried I’m pushing the envelope too much and need your advice. Lately, the last six months or so, I will have an orgasm that’s so intense I have pain just to the right of the base of my penis & balls immediately afterwards.

If I push a finger in toward the center of my body, it’s tender. It goes away after a few minutes, but sometimes my right ball remains sensitive. I’ve even taken an ibuprofen to lessen the pain and I’ve had a prostate exam when it’s happening and I do selfexams of my testicles regularly, and I’ve noticed no changes. Usually my next orgasm is normal, and there’s no pain or sensitivity afterwards. As I said, though, it happens after intense sessions with a lot of prostate stimulation.

While I’ve been practicing butt stuff for a long time, I feel as I’ve only perfected it in the last year or so. I should also state that my sessions last up to two hours, and I’m erect during most of that time. I obviously don’t want to hurt myself, and I don’t think I am, but it’s a concern. It’s very hard to stop something that feels so incredibly good. I’m a little uncomfortable talking with my urologist because he treats me like a long-lost uncle. At our first visit, I told him very directly that my father had prostate cancer and I really wanted him to take his time with the exam and to really make sure all is well with my prostate. I added that the last exam I got from my primary care physician didn’t last long enough to feel very accurate and encouraged my urologist to take as much time as he wanted up there. He did not.

Hoping you can help me out.

Pain Around Balls Concerning “I’ve never had a patient specifically say they wanted me to ‘take my time’ with a prostate exam,” said Dr. Ashley Winter, a board-certified urologist in Portland, Oregon. “But on numerous occasions, I’ve had a patient say, ‘Wow, that was way more detailed of a prostate exam than my primary care doctor did.’ And generally, that comment is meant as a ‘thank you,’ as in, ‘thank you for being detail-oriented.’”

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To be perfectly honest, PABC, I shared your letter with Dr. Winter because I suspected the request you made — take your time up there, doc — might’ve been the reason your doctor rushed through that prostate exam. Dr. Winter assures me that was unlikely.

“I understand when someone wants their doctor to do a thorough exam,” said Dr. Winter. “A detailed exam shows the clinician is actually intent on collecting information about their body apart from lab tests and imaging studies. The patient feels ‘seen.’ Or touched. You get my point.”

But just as a prostate exam that ends quickly isn’t evidence a doctor is worried a patient might be perving, an exam that ends quickly also isn’t evidence a doctor isn’t being thorough.

“Some patients have a very ‘high-riding prostate,’ for example, and that’s difficult to feel except for the apex, or the tip, of the prostate,” said Dr. Winter. “And I have long fingers! In those cases, I will probably do a quick in-and-out because taking longer would just involve me massaging the anus with no specific information being gathered.”

There’s nothing wrong with massaging an anus for the sake of massaging an anus, of course, but no one needs to go to med school and/or to the doctor for that. But while I had her on the phone, I asked Dr. Winter again if some people do go to the doctor for that.

“In extremely rare instances patients are manipulative or fetishize their exams, but this is extremely uncommon,” said Dr. Winter. “And while I can’t rule out the possibility that the urologist who saw PABC was ‘weirded out’ by his comments, it seems more likely that PABC is projecting that on to his doctor.

There is so much shame around ‘butt stuff,’ so I can easily see how this happens.” (It’s also possible that I’m the one doing the projecting here, as I was the one who raised the issue.)

That said, while intentional perving is rare, some people do get aroused during exams.

“Unintended genital responses — whether erection, or prostatic secretion during a rectal exam —

| clevescene.com | January 26-February 8, 2022

are normal and occur on occasion,” said Dr. Winter. “It is the role of any self-respecting sex-positive clinician to acknowledge that these things are normal and move on. But it’s super uncommon and when it happens, the patient is usually stressed out and very apologetic about it.”

As for your problem — sensitivity around the base of your penis after one of your extended butt-play JO sessions — Dr. Winter thinks you might need a different sort of exam altogether.

“It sounds like what he’s having is a pelvic floor muscle spasm,” said Dr. Winter. “People tense and contract muscles in their pelvis — muscles at the base of penis — during periods of prolonged stimulation. He’s not doing anything wrong, and he doesn’t have to stop. But he might want to take a warm bath after.

And if it’s too uncomfortable or gets worse, he should ask to be referred for a pelvic floor exam and possible pelvic-floor physical therapy.”

Follow Dr. Ashley Winter on Twitter @AshleyGWinter.

Hey Dan: There’s a long-running controversy among the Adult Baby/ Diaper Lover (ABDL) community about the long-term impacts of continuously wearing and using diapers. Some argue that adult babies may or may not become a bedwetter and/or incontinent from continual diaper use. The ABDLs who claim to have been successfully “un-potty trained” are loudly decried as liars by other members of their community. Naturally, there aren’t a lot of medical studies on this (there aren’t any), and I’m not going to ask my family doctor. Can you figure this out?

In Nappies Cancels Out Nocturia Nope.

Hey Dan: I’m a 74-year-old straight male. I don’t have a problem for you.

Instead, I am writing to share an idea with you with potential benefit to society. But, unlike you, I don’t have the means to spread the news. Based on the success of your “It Gets Better” Project, you seem like the perfect person to publicize it. My idea and my proposal to you is this: International Come-Out-of-the-Closet Day. It would include coming out about

your sexual orientation but not be limited to sexual orientation. It would include all long-suppressed “secrets,” including affairs, crushes, no longer being in love with your spouse, or anything else a person might have kept hidden. I even have a suggestion for when to celebrate International Come-Out-of-the-Closet Day: March 4.

The slogan would be “March Forth on March Fourth!” What do you think?

Movement About Really Changing Hearts We already have a National Coming Out Day (NCOD), MARCH, when closeted queer people everywhere are encouraged — if they can do so safely — to come out to their families, friends, neighbors, and coworkers.

NCOD is not a new thing; it’s taken place on October 11 every year since 1988. And while I appreciate the spirit of your proposal — let’s all get those long-suppressed secrets off our chests — I’m not sure you’ve thoroughly thought this one through.

If one day a year we blurt out our secrets — affairs and crushes and secret second families included — the result would probably look less like National Coming Out Day and more like The Purge. And since most people regard breaking up on an annual holiday as a needless and avoidable cruelty, people who confess to affairs or no longer being in love on International Come-Outof-the-Closet Day will not be seen as courageous truth-tellers, MARCH, but as inconsiderate assholes. It’s fine to dump someone, people fall out of love, people have affairs. But no one thinks it’s okay to dump someone — or to share a secret that forces someone to dump you — on Thanksgiving or Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Because then the person whose heart you stomped on winds up being reminded every year when that holiday inevitably rolls around. So, for the same reason it wouldn’t be okay to blurt out terrible secrets on the holidays we already have, it wouldn’t be okay to blurt them out on a day dedicated to blurting out terrible secrets.

mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage www.savagelovecast.com

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