Scene March 23, 2022

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March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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CONTENTS MARCH 23-APRIL 5, 2022 • VOL. 52 NO 19

Upfront .......................................7

Eat ............................................ 19

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

Music ........................................ 23

Get Out ..................................... 16

Savage Love .............................. 31

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 Stage Editor Christine Howey Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Creative Services Production Manager Sean Bieri Editorial Layout Evan Sult Graphic Designer Aspen Smit Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace Business

Euclid Media Group Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP Digital Services Stacy Volhein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon www.euclidmediagroup.com National Advertising Voice Media Group 1-800-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

REWIND: 1997 Scene, like just about everyone else in the world, went tubthumping in 1997.

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“Cleveland Scene Magazine” COVER ILLUSTRATION BY CAITLIN CRITES

March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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UPFRONT CHRIS RONAYNE UNCORKS COUNTY EXEC PLATFORM AT CITY CLUB IF YOU THOUGHT THE IDEA OF a 21st Century Great Lakes Expo died with the political career of former Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, think again.

Chris Ronayne, the Democratic frontrunner for County Exec, unveiled his platform last week in a City Club address, and it included a “Freshwater Festival” he said could highlight innovations in water technology and showcase Cleveland’s enviable position on the Great Lakes.

“We have a claim as the Freshwater Capital,” he said. “Let’s leverage our lake for everything from cleaner energy advances to water-dependent industry to shipping and recreation. Let’s bring a freshwater institute to our shores...

We can have fun with this.”

The water economy was only one pillar of Ronayne’s platform, which he has dubbed “Healthy Cuyahoga.”

It is aimed at improving the health of the population and the local economy and, in doing so, restoring confidence in local government.

The vision he articulated was supposed to be all about “thinking big.” In fact, he said not thinking big was “the only thing that has ever held [the region] back.” But beyond the imaginative freshwater stuff, his ideas were largely common-sense enhancements to create a county government that would be “smart, communicative and data informed.”

He said he wanted to improve diversity in the supply chain, for example, including by encouraging the local health care industry to buy more goods and services from local businesses. He said he wanted to restore the office of the county ombudsman and create “justice navigators” who would help residents track down information. He said he wanted to launch special initiatives on housing and mobility. He said he wanted to support civic initiatives devoted to improving the social and physical health of the population.

And he said he wanted to convene organizations and communities to explore shared services countywide.

In the arena of economic development, he said success would be less about “landing the lion” (like an Amazon HQ2), and more about “meeting existing employers and

Photo courtesy City Club of Cleveland

employees where they’re at,” making connections, opening doors, being flexible.

Ronayne discussed at length his record of collaboration and innovation in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. And he spoke directly to county employees, promising that he would be a leader who lifted them up, not tore them down.

“It’s never ‘I’. It’s always ‘we’,” he said. “I say to the workforce of Cuyahoga County, we can do this.

We can leverage Cuyahoga County’s true potential and better future... In the next county government, the sum of the parts will no longer be greater than the whole.”

Though he never mentioned his name, Ronayne’s rhetoric and mien presented as the antidote to Armond Budish. Here was a candidate every bit as charming and gracious as Budish is weird and vindictive.

Ronayne was speaking to a packed house of people, every one of whom he seemed to know on a first-name basis, and he peppered his remarks with off-the-cuff anecdotes and gratitude to individuals with whom he’s worked in the past. Restoring faith in county government, his whole vibe asserted (and the crowd’s warm reception corroborated), was

first about restoring faith in the person in charge.

During the Q&A, Ronayne emphasized his commitment to criminal justice reform and said that, if given the chance, he would present all the information about a new county jail to the public.

(Ronayne said he was just like the public in the respect that he didn’t have enough information.) He said he was in support of repurposing the Global Center for Health Innovation as an extension of the Huntington Convention Center and that the facility was a public asset, especially as the hospitality industry was among the top five industries in the county. “I will do everything but sell that building in a fire sale,” he said.

The Republican in the county executive race, Lee Weingart, announced his political platform months ago, and has noted repeatedly that the other candidates in the race hadn’t bothered to formally identify the issues or themes on which they were running. Ronayne now has plenty of ammunition to defend himself against that charge.

After the spectacular failure of the Bill Mason wing of the Cuyahoga County Democratic party to

manufacture a challenger, Ronayne was always the runaway favorite to succeed Budish. And even though Weingart has been raising money for more than a year, after Tuesday it’s difficult to envision an outcome where the former University Circle Inc. CEO and youth hockey coach isn’t the victor in November.

-Sam Allard

Playhouse Square Reaches Agreement with Union Projectionists Ahead of CIFF46 A resolution over staffing at the Cleveland International Film Festival was tentatively reached at a meeting Saturday morning between Playhouse Square leadership and video projectionists with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 160.

North Shore AFL-CIO Executive Secretary Dan O’Malley told Scene in a weekend text message that “everyone walked away satisfied.”

Though CIFF is contracting with a local company to provide digital video equipment and non-union technicians to operate it, the IATSE contract with Playhouse Square specifies that union projectionists

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UPFRONT must be hired when movies are played at its theaters. Playhouse Square CEO Gina Vernaci argued that because the Film Fest was not technically a Playhouse Square presentation—this was a third party leasing Playhouse Square’s auditoriums—it represented a loophole in the contract.

But after a letter from area legislators and pressure from the North Shore AFL-CIO, who threatened to picket CIFF and call for a boycott, Vernaci agreed to meet with IATSE and find a solution.

John Galinac, Local 160’s President, told Scene Saturday that the agreement would accommodate three IATSE operators for all hours of the festival through its 12-day run. They would be on hand to rotate among the six theaters where movies

DIGIT WIDGET $230 million Value of new Browns Quarterback Deshaun Watson’s five-year fully guaranteed contract, the most money ever guaranteed to a player in NFL history.

$1.035 million Base salary for Watson in year one (2022) of his contract, insulating him from serious financial harm if he is suspended by the NFL and forced to surrender salary.

22 Massage therapists who have accused Watson of sexual misconduct and assault. (A grand jury declined to indict Watson earlier this month, but civil trials are forthcoming.)

will be shown and provide technical assistance as needed.

“This doesn’t modify the existing contract at all,” Galinac said, “this is a special situation, because they’re renting almost all digital equipment where you press a button, and a movie runs for an hour and a half.

But we managed to compromise.”

Galinac said that he almost felt bad for Vernaci during the meeting, but that she simply didn’t have a right to decide the existing contract didn’t apply to the Film Fest. “[Former Playhouse Square Executive Director] Art Falco signed that contract,” Galinac said, “and Gina’s attitude is that Art’s gone, so it’s her call. But that’s not how labor law works. When an entity signs a contract, they have to stand by it.”

Galinac said he was relieved to have ironed out the dispute and was looking forward to getting something in writing, but said that in general, he wished there was more respect from executive leadership for the labor (and financial struggles) of working people, especially the unions that have historically been champions of Playhouse Square and the arts in Cleveland.

“I got nothing against these nonunion technicians,” Galinac said, “but we were one of the original unions out there doing everything we could to save Playhouse Square when it could’ve become parking lots.”

Scene learned Saturday that both Mayor Justin Bibb and Sen. Sherrod Brown were advocating for negotiations behind the scenes Friday as well. Both elected leaders called Vernaci and communicated the importance of the Film Fest to Cleveland and the dignity of workers.

(Galinac told Scene he thought the call from Sen. Brown may have been “the straw that broke the camel’s back” in terms of motivating Vernaci to come to the table.)

Bibb is scheduled to deliver opening night remarks at CIFF March 30, but he was prepared to back out of that engagement if the dispute was not satisfactorily resolved.

City Hall sources told Scene that Bibb did not convey directly his plan to back out of his opening night remarks, hoping to pursue negotiations first. He encouraged Playhouse Square to meet with Local 160 and even offered City Hall as a venue for a meeting Tuesday. Vernaci said that she would meet with the union Saturday morning. -Sam Allard

1,000+ Donations received by the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center in the wake of the Watson signing.

An Exit Interview with Adam the Bull, Who Departs 92.3 The Fan April 1

After more than a decade on Cleveland airwaves, Adam the Bull announced last week that April 1st will be his last show on 92.3 The Fan. We chatted with him about the decision, his time here and what it’s all meant to him.

What’s up next for you?

I just want to take some time off, catch my breath and then move on to the next thing.

Why now?

I just felt like I needed a change and I want to do something different. I may even delve into other things, maybe politics, maybe talking about being a man with weight issues, branching out to other things. Now was the time but nothing specific beyond I thought it would be a better time for the station than in the summer and right before football season. I’m leaving the station on great terms, and I wanted them to be able to have time to find someone. I want them to be in good shape going into football season.

Personally, and I’m sure others feel the same though I’m not sure how many of us there are out there, I want to say thanks for talking baseball on the radio in Cleveland.

I appreciate that. I love doing it, and I’ll probably continue doing something talking about baseball down the line. There’s just not a lot of people interested in talking about baseball.

The game hasn’t helped itself, but in Cleveland it’s also specifically hard.

I think it’s tough to talk about baseball. Obviously, compared to New York where there’s just more passion for the game, here there’s more passion for football. It’s tricky. You have to find the balance. In football, every game means everything.

Baseball doesn’t work that way, so it’s hard to overreact to a baseball game. It’s also about finding the balance talking about stats that really matter without boring the audience. A lot of people don’t understand analytics, so it’s hard to find the right mix. And a lot of it is the team itself, especially the last year or two. It doesn’t even seem like they’re trying.

When do you think you and Dustin hit your rhythm?

I would say fairly quickly. I would say about a year in. We liked each other right away. Our relationship personally has always been really good, even when we bust each other’s balls on the air. It’s never personal and it’s never serious, and I think that showed. Dustin was learning to do radio in the beginning, and I

was learning to work with a partner, because I had mainly worked solo before I came here. We found that sweet spot about a year in, and it showed in the ratings.

You and Dustin have anything special planned in the last little stretch before you leave?

We just started talking about it a little bit, but I feel weird planning it. I’ve never had this experience, really. When I was in New York I wasn’t full time and I’d go back and fill in after I left. This is going to be very emotional. We’ll probably reminisce. It’ll be very emotional for both of us. He was emotional when I made the announcement on the air, and he already knew, and then I started getting emotional. We’re like brothers; we’re very close. Same thing with Keith our producer. We’ve been like a family. It’s tough to give up. I’m going to miss a lot of things.

You remember the date of your first show?

August 29, 2011. I remember it. I was so fired up for that show, it was crazy.

I remember getting home that night and I could barely stand up I was so exhausted from doing five hours.

Five hours is just a long time.

It is. I’m kind of done with that.

You already have a massive platform to tell everyone how you feel as you leave but for people who won’t have a chance to listen to these shows, what do you want to say?

Whatever I end up doing next, whether I stay in Cleveland or go somewhere else, the city and the people will always hold a special place in my heart. My son was born here. It’s the longest job I’ve had in my life. When I came here I had experience but not this kind of experience. It’s been great. When I made the announcement, the response I got on Twitter and emails and texts, it blew me away. I was really touched. You don’t realize the effect you have. I’m just doing a sports show, but we share our lives and the stupid things we do and personal stuff and you connect with people and they feel like they know you. To get these responses, so many people saying you got me through the pandemic, or you got me through this hard time — obviously there were some really dark times for everyone — the response is really meaningful.

-Vince Grzegorek

scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene

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FEATURE

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Recognizing the year’s

worst

in government transparency By the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock, illustrations by Caitlyn Crites Each year during Sunshine Week (March 13-19), The Foilies

serve up tongue-in-cheek “awards” for government agencies and assorted institutions that stand in the way of access to information.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock combine forces to collect horror stories about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records requests from journalists and transparency advocates across the United States and beyond. Our goal is to identify the most surreal document redactions, the most aggravating copy fees, the most outrageous retaliation attempts, and all the other ridiculeworthy attacks on the public’s right to know.

And every year since 2015, as we’re about to crown these dubious winners, something new comes to light that makes us consider stopping the presses.

As we were writing up this year’s faux awards, news broke that officials from the National Archives and Records Administration had to lug away boxes upon boxes of Trump administration records from Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private resort. At best, it was an inappropriate move; at worst, a potential violation of laws governing the retention of presidential records and the handling of classified materials.

And while Politico had reported that when Trump was still in the White House, he liked to tear up documents, we also just learned from journalist Maggie Haberman’s new book that staff claimed to find toilets clogged up with paper scraps, which were potentially tornup government records. Trump has dismissed the allegations, of course.

This was all too deliciously ironic considering how much Trump had raged about his opponent (and 2016 Foilies winner) Hillary Clinton’s practice of storing State Department communications on a private server.

Is storing potentially classified correspondence on a personal email system any worse than hoarding top

secret documents at a golf club? Is “acid washing” records, as Trump accused Clinton, any less farcical than flushing them down the john?

Ultimately, we decided not to give Trump his seventh Foilie.

Technically he isn’t eligible: his presidential records won’t be subject to FOIA until he’s been out of office for five years (releasing classified records could take years, or decades, if ever).

Instead, we’re sticking with our original 16 winners, from federal agencies to small town police departments to a couple of corporations, who are all shameworthy in their own rights and, at least metaphorically, have no problem tossing government transparency in the crapper.

THE C.R.E.A .M . ( CR A P R ED A CTI ON S EVERY WHER E A R O UN D ME) AWA RD

under asset forfeiture rules, the Twitterverse debated whether you could use FOIA to obtain the super secretive album. Unfortunately, FOIA does not work that way. However, BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold was able to use the law to obtain documents about the album when it was auctioned off through the asset forfeiture process. For example, he got photos of the album, the bill of sale, and the purchase agreement.

But the Marshals redacted the pictures of the CDs, the song titles, and the lyric book citing FOIA’s trade secrets exemption. Worst of all, they also refused to divulge the purchase price – even though we’re talking about public money. And so here we are, bringing da motherfoiaing ruckus.

(The New York Times would later reveal that PleasrDAO, a collective that collects digital NFT art, paid $4 million for the record.)

Wu-Tang’s original terms for selling the album reportedly contained a clause that required the buyer to return all rights in the event that Bill Murray successfully pulled off a heist of the record. We can only daydream about how the Marshals would’ve responded if Dr. Peter Venkman himself refiled Leopold’s request.

U.S. MARSHALS

THE O PER ATI ON SLU G SPEED AWARD

The Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothing to F’ with…unless the F stands for FOIA. Back in 2015, Wu-Tang Clan produced Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, but they only produced one copy and sold it to the highest bidder: pharma-bro Martin Shkreli, who was later convicted of securities fraud.

When the U.S. Marshals seized Shkreli’s copy of the record

U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION The federal government’s lightning fast (by bureaucratic standards) timeline to authorize Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine lived up to its Operation Warp Speed name. But the Food and Drug Administration gave anything but the same treatment to a FOIA request seeking data about

that authorization process.

Fifty-five years — that’s how long the FDA, responding to a lawsuit by doctors and health scientists, said it would take to process and release the data it used to authorize the vaccine.

And yet, the FDA needed only months to review the data the first time and confirm that the vaccine was safe for the public.

The estimate was all the more galling because the requesters want to use the documents to help persuade skeptics that the vaccine is safe and effective, a time-sensitive goal as we head into the third year of the pandemic.

Thankfully, the court hearing the FOIA suit nixed the FDA’s snail’s pace plan to review just 500 pages of documents a month. In February, the court ordered the FDA to review 10,000 pages for the next few months and ultimately between 50,000-80,000 through the rest of the year.

THE RE TURN T O S ENDER AWARD

VIRGINIA DEL. PAUL KRIZEK There are lawmakers who find problems in transparency laws and advocate for improving the public’s right to know. Then there’s Virginia lawmaker Paul Krizek.

Krizek introduced a bill earlier this year that would require all public records requests to be sent via certified mail, saying that he “saw a problem that needed fixing,” according to the Richmond TimesDispatch.

The supposed problem? A records request emailed to Krizek got caught in his spam filter, and he was nervous that he missed the response deadline. That never happened; the requester sent another email that

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Krizek saw and he responded in time.

Anyone else might view that as a public records (and technology) success story: the ability to email requests and quickly follow up on them proves that the law works.

Not Krizek. He decided that his personal spam filter hiccup should require every requester in Virginia to venture to a post office and pay at least $3.75 to make their request.

Transparency advocates quickly panned the bill, and a legislative committee voted in late January to strike it from the docket. Hopefully the bill stays dead and Krizek starts working on legislation that will actually help requesters in Virginia.

THE F UTI LE SECR ECY AWA RD

CONCORD POLICE DEPARTMENT When reporters from the Concord Monitor in 2019 noticed a vague $5,100 line item in the Concord Police Department’s proposed budget for “covert secret communications,” they did what any good watchdog would do – they started asking questions. What was the technology?

Who was the vendor? And they filed public records requests under New

communications.

Hundreds of agencies nationwide have in fact included the company’s name in their public spending ledgers, according to the procurement research tool GovSpend. The City of Seattle even issued a public privacy impact assessment regarding its police department’s use of the technology, which noted that “Without appropriate safeguards, this raises significant privacy concerns.” Armed with this new information, the Monitor called Concord Police Chief Brad Osgood to confirm what we learned. He doubleddown: “I’m not going to tell you

THE H IG HEST F E E EST IMATE AWARD

PASCO COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

THES E 10-D AY DE ADLINES GO T O 11 AWA RD

ASSORTED MASSACHUSETTS AGENCIES Most records requesters know that despite nearly every transparency law imposing response deadlines, they often are violated more than they are met. Yet Massachusetts officials’ time-warping violations of the state’s 10-business-day deadline take this public records’ reality to absurd new levels.

DigBoston’s Maya Shaffer detailed how officials are giving themselves at least one extra business day to respond to requests while still claiming to meet the law’s deadline.

In a mind-numbing exchange, an official said that the agency considers any request sent after 5 p.m. to have technically been received on the next business day.

And because the law doesn’t require agencies to respond until 10 business days after they’ve received the request, this has in effect given the agency two extra days to respond. So if a request is sent after 5 p.m. on a Monday, the agency counts Tuesday as the day it received the request, meaning the 10-day clock doesn’t start until Wednesday.

The theory is reminiscent of the This Is Spinal Tap scene in which guitarist Nigel Tufnel shows off the band’s “special” amplifiers that go “one louder” to 11, rather than maxing out at 10 like every other amp. When asked why Spinal Tap doesn’t just make the level 10 on its amps louder, Tufnel stares blankly before repeating: “these go to eleven.”

Although the absurdity of Tufnel’s response is comedic gold, Massachusetts officials’ attempt to make their 10-day deadline go to 11 is contemptuous, and also likely violates laws of the state and those of space and time.

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fretted over former Department of Justice Attorney Quinan J. Shea and former Washington Post reporter Scott Armstrong’s leading roles at the Archive, as both were major transparency advocates.

Of course, these records that Cato got through its own FOIA request were themselves heavily redacted. And this comes after the FBI withheld information about these records from the Archive when it requested them back in 2006.

Which makes you wonder: how do we watchdog the spy who is secretly spying on the watchdog?

Hampshire’s Right to Know Law. In response, CPD provided a license agreement and a privacy policy, but the documents were so redacted, the reporters still couldn’t tell what the tech was and what company was receiving tax dollars for it. Police claimed releasing the information would put investigations and people’s lives at risk. With the help of the ACLU of New Hampshire, the Monitor sued but Concord fought it for two years all the way to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. The police were allowed to brief the trial court behind closed doors, without the ACLU lawyers present, and ultimately the state supreme court ruled most of the information would remain secret.

But when The Monitor reached out to EFF for comment, EFF took another look at the redacted documents. In under three minutes, our researchers were able to use a simple Google search to match the redacted privacy policy to Callyo, a Motorola Solutions product that facilitates confidential phone

| clevescene.com | March 23-April 5, 2022

whether that’s the product.”

THE SP Y IN G ON R EQUESTOR S AWARD

FBI If government surveillance of ordinary people is chilling, spying on the public watchdogs of that very same surveillance is downright hostile. Between 1989 and at least 2004, the FBI kept regular tabs on the National Security Archive, a domestic nonprofit organization that investigates and archives information on, you guessed it, national security operations. The Cato Institute obtained records showing that the FBI used electronic and physical surveillance, possibly including wiretaps and “mail covers,” meaning the U.S. Postal Service recorded the information on the outside of envelopes sent to or from the Archive.

In a secret 1989 cable, then-FBI Director William Sessions specifically called out the Archive’s “tenacity” in using FOIA. Sessions specifically

In September 2020, the Tampa Bay Times revealed in a multi-part series that the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office was using a program called “Intelligence-led Policing” (ILP). This program took into consideration a bunch of data gathered from various local government agencies, including school records, to determine if a person was likely to commit a crime in the future — and then deputies would randomly drop by their house regularly to harass them.

Out of suspicion that the sheriff’s office might be leasing the formula for this program to other departments, EFF filed a public records request asking for any contact mentioning the ILP program in emails specifically sent to and from other police departments.

The sheriff responded with an unexpectedly high-cost estimate for producing the records. Claiming there was no way at all to clarify or narrow the broad request, they projected that it would take 82,738 hours to review the 4,964,278 responsive emails — generating a cost of $1.158 million for the public records requester, the equivalent of a 3,000-square seaside home with its own private dock in New Port Richey.

THE RIP VAN W INK LE AWARD

FBI Last year, Bruce Alpert received records from a 12-year-old FOIA request he filed as a reporter for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

Back when he filed the request, the corruption case of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, was still hot — despite the $90,000 in cash found in Jefferson’s cold freezer.

In 2009, Alpert requested documents from the FBI on

the sensational investigation of Jefferson, which began in 2005.

In the summer of that year, FBI agents searched Jefferson’s Washington home and, according to a story published at the time, discovered foil-wrapped stacks of cash “between boxes of Boca burgers and Pillsbury pie crust in his Capitol Hill townhouse.” Jefferson was indicted on 16 federal counts, including bribery, racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering, leading back to a multimillion-dollar telecommunications deal with highranking officials in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon.

By the time Alpert got the 83 pages he requested on the FBI’s investigation into Jefferson, Alpert himself was retired and Jefferson had been released from prison. Still, the documents did reveal a new fact about the day of the freezer raid: another raid was planned for that same day, but at Jefferson’s congressional office. This raid was called off after an FBI official, unnamed in the documents, warned that while the raid was technically constitutional, it could have “dire” consequences if it appeared to threaten the independence of Congress.

In a staff editorial about the extreme delay, The Advocate (which acquired the Times-Picayune in 2019) quoted Anna Diakun, a staff attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University: “The Freedom of Information Act is broken.” We suppose it’s better late than never, but never late is even better.

THE F O I A GAS L I G HTER OF THE Y EAR AWA RD

first response to Gallo’s request was that Magee was under investigation and the office couldn’t fulfill the request until that investigation had concluded. A month later, Gallo called the office to ask for Magee and was patched through to his secretary, who said that Magee had just stepped out for lunch but would be back shortly.

Knowing that Magee was back in the office and the investigation likely concluded, Gallo started pushing harder for the records. Then, late on a Friday when Gallo was on deadline for another story, she received an email from the AG’s office about a lawsuit naming her as the defendant.

A month later, a Baton Rouge judge ruled in favor of Gallo, and ordered Landry to release the

hesitant that it redacted information that had already been made public.

After a local paper, the North Coast Journal, filed a request with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office under the 2018 law, the sheriff took two full years to provide the requested records.

Why the long delay? One possible reason: the agency went to the trouble of redacting information from old press releases — releases that, by definition, were already public.

For example, the sheriff’s office redacted the name of a suspect who allegedly shot a sheriff’s deputy and was arrested for attempting to kill a police officer in May 2014 — including blacking out the name from a press release the agency had

records on Magee. Shortly after Gallo received those documents, another former employee of the AG’s office filed a complaint against Magee, resulting in his resignation.

already released that included the suspect’s name. And it’s not like the press had accidentally missed the name the first time: reporter Thadeus Greenson had published the release in the North Coast Journal right after it came out.

That isn’t Greenson’s only example of law enforcement redacting already public information: in response to another public records request, the Eureka Police Department included a series of news clippings, including one of Greenson’s own articles, again with names redacted.

LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF LANDRY

THE RED A CTIN G IN FOR MATI ON TH AT ’S A LR EA D Y P U B LI C AWA RD

In another case involving the TimesPicayune, the FOIA gaslighter of the year award goes to Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry for suing reporter Andrea Gallo after she requested documents related to the investigation into (and seeming lack of action on) sexual harrasment complaints in Landry’s office.

A few days later, following public criticism, Landry then tweeted that the lawsuit was not actually a lawsuit against Gallo per se, but legal action “simply asking the Court to check our decision” on rejecting her records request.

Gallo filed the original request for complaints against Pat Magee, a top aide to Landry, after hearing rumblings that Magee had been placed on administrative leave. The

HUMBOLDT-AREA LAW ENFORCEMENT Across the country, police departments are notorious for withholding information from the public. Some agencies take months to release body camera footage after a shooting death or might withhold databases of officer misconduct.

California’s state legislature pushed back against this trend in 2018, with a new law that specifically puts officer use-of-force incidents and other acts of dishonesty under the purview of the California Public Records Act. But even after this law was passed, one northern California sheriff was hesitant to release information to journalists — so

THE CLEA R BULLY AWA RD

CLEARVIEW AI Clearview AI is the “company that might end privacy as we know,” claimed The New York Times’s front page when it publicly exposed the small company in January 2020.

Clearview had built a face recognition app on a database of more than three billion personal images, and the tech startup had quietly found customers in police

departments around the country.

Soon after the initial reports, the legality of Clearview’s app and its collection of images was taken to court. (EFF has filed friend-of-thecourt briefs in support of those privacy lawsuits.)

Clearview’s existence was initially revealed via public records requests filed by Open the Government and MuckRock. In September 2021, as it faced still-ongoing litigation in Illinois, Clearview made an unusual and worrying move against transparency and journalism: it served subpoenas on OTG, its researcher Freddy Martinez, and Chicago-based Lucy Parsons Labs (none of which are involved in the lawsuit).

The subpoenas requested internal communications with journalists about Clearview and its leaders and any information that had been discovered via records requests about the company.

Government accountability advocates saw it as retaliation against the researchers and journalists who exposed Clearview.

The subpoena also was a chilling threat to journalists and others looking to lawfully use public records to learn about public partnerships with private entities.

What’s more, in this situation, all that had been uncovered had already been made public online more than a year earlier.

Fortunately, following reporting

by Politico, Clearview, citing “further reflection about the scope of the subpoenas” and a “strong view of freedom of the press,” decided to withdraw the subpoenas. We guess you could say the face recognition company recognized their error and did an about face.

#W NT DW PRE A ( THE W H AT NOT T O D O W ITH PUBL I C REC ORDS E VER AWARD)

ANCHORAGE POLICE DEPARTMENT “What Not to Do Wednesday,” a social media series from the Anchorage Police Department, had been an attempt to provide lighthearted lessons for avoiding arrest. The weekly shaming session regularly featured seemingly real situations requiring a police response. Last February, though, the agency became its own cautionary tale when one particularly controversial post prompted community criticism and records requests, which APD declined to fulfill.

As described in a pre-Valentine’s

March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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| clevescene.com | March 23-April 5, 2022

Day #WNTDW post, officers responded to a call about a physical altercation between two “lovebirds.”

The post claimed APD officers told the two to “be nice” and go on their way, but instead the situation escalated: “we ended up in one big pile on the ground,” and one person was ultimately arrested and charged.

Some in the public found the post dismissive toward what could have been a domestic violence event — particularly notable because thenPolice Chief Justin Doll had pointed to domestic violence as a contributor to the current homicide rates, which had otherwise been declining.

Alaska’s KTUU soon requested the name of the referenced arrested individual and was denied. APD claimed that it does not release additional information related to “What Not To Do Wednesday” posts.

A subsequent request was met with a $6400 fee.

FWIW, materials related to WNTDW is not a valid exemption under Alaska’s public records law.

By the end of February 2021, the APD decided to do away with the series.

“I think if you have an engagement strategy that ultimately creates more concern than it does benefit, then it’s no longer useful,” Chief Doll later said. It’s not clear if APD is also applying this logic to its records process.

W H O S E C AR IS IT ANY WAY ? AWARD

WAYMO Are those new self-driving cars you see on the road safe? Do you and your fellow pedestrians and drivers have the right to know about their previous accidents and how they handle tight turns and steep hills on the road?

Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet Inc. and operator of an autonomous taxi fleet in San Francisco, answers, respectively: none of your business, and no! A California trial court ruled in late February that Waymo gets to keep this information secret.

Waymo sued the California Department of Motor Vehicles to stop it from releasing unredacted records requested by an anonymous person under the California Public Records Act. The records include Waymo’s

application to put its self-driving cars on the road and answers to the DMV’s follow-up questions. The DMV outsourced the redactions to Waymo, and claiming that it needed to protect its trade secrets, Waymo sent the records back with black bars over most of its answers, and even many of the DMV’s questions.

Waymo doesn’t want the public to know which streets its cars operate on, how the cars safely park when picking up and dropping off passengers, and when the cars require trained human drivers to intervene. Waymo even redacted which of its two models — a Jaguar and a Chrysler — will be deployed on California streets … even though someone on those streets can see that for themselves.

THE TR AN SP A R EN CY PEN A LT Y FLA G AWA RD

BIG 10 CONFERENCE In the face of increasing public interest, administrators at the Big 10 sporting universities tried to take a page out of the ol’ college playbook last year and run some serious interference on the public records process.

In an apparent attempt to “hide the ball” (that is, their records on when football would be coming back), university leaders suggested to one another that they communicate via a portal used across universities.

Reporters and fans saw the move as an attempt to avoid the prying eyes of avid football fans and others who wanted to know more about what to expect on the field and in the classroom.

“I would be delighted to share information, but perhaps we can do this through the Big 10 portal, which will assure confidentiality?” Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank shared via email.

“Just FYI — I am working with Big Ten staff to move the conversation to secure Boardvantage web site we use for league materials,” Mark Schlissel, then-President of the University of Michigan, wrote his colleagues. “Will advise.”

Of course, the emails discussing the attempted circumvention became public via a records request.

Officials’ attempt to disguise their secrecy play was even worse than a

quarterback forgetting to pretend to hand off the ball in a play-action pass.

University administrators claimed that the use of the private portal was for ease of communication rather than concerns over public scrutiny.

We’re still calling a penalty, however.

D O AS I S AY , N OT AS I D O AWARD

TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN PAXTON Texas law requires a unique detour to deny or redact responsive records, directing agencies to go through the Attorney General for permission to leave anything out. It’s bad news for transparency if that office circumvents proper protocol when handling its own records requests; it’s even worse if those records involve a government official — current Texas AG Ken Paxton — and activities targeted at overthrowing the democratic process.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Paxton (who is currently up for reelection, facing multiple charges for securities fraud, and was reportedly the subject of a 2020 FBI investigation) and his wife were in Washington, D.C. to speak at a rally in support of former President Donald Trump, which was followed by the infamous invasion of the Capitol by Trump supporters.

Curious about Paxton’s part in that historic event, a coalition of Texas newspapers submitted a request under the state’s public records law for the text messages and emails Paxton sent that day in D.C. Paxton’s office declined to release the records. It may not have even looked for them. The newspapers found that the AG doesn’t seem to have its own policy for searching for responsive documents on personal devices, which would certainly be subject to public records law, even if the device is privately-owned.

The Travis County District Attorney subsequently determined that Paxton’s office had indeed violated the Texas open records law. Paxton maintains that no wrongdoing occurred and, as of late February, hadn’t responded to a letter sent by the DA threatening a lawsuit if the situation is remedied ASAP. “When the public official responsible for enforcing public

records laws violates those laws himself,” Bill Aleshire, an Austin lawyer, told the Austin AmericanStatesman, “it puts a dagger in the heart of transparency at every level in Texas.”

THE RE ME DIAL E DU C AT ION AWARD

FAIRFAX COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS Once a FOIA is released, the First Amendment generally grants broad leeway to the requester to do what they will with the materials. It’s the agency’s job to properly review, redact, and release records in a timely manner. But after Callie Oettinger and Debra Tisler dug into a series of student privacy breaches

by Fairfax County Public Schools, the school decided the quickest way to fix the problem was to hide the evidence. Last September, the pair received a series of letters from the school system and a high-priced law firm demanding the removal of the documents from the web and they return or destroy the documents.

The impulse to try to silence the messenger is a common one: A few years ago Foilies partner MuckRock was on the receiving end of a similar demand in Seattle. While the tactics don’t pass constitutional muster, they work well enough to create headaches and uncertainty for requesters that often find themselves thrust into a legal battle they weren’t looking to fight. In fact, in this case, after the duo showed up for the initial hearing, a judge ordered a temporary restraining order barring the further publication of documents. This was despite the fact that they had actually removed all the personally identifiable data from the versions of the documents they posted.

Fortunately, soon after the prior restraint, the requesters received pro bono legal assistance from Timothy Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute and Ketan Bhirud of Troutman Pepper. In November — after two months of legal wrangling, negative press, and legal bills for the school — the court found the school’s arguments “simply not relevant” and “almost frivolous,” as the Goldwater Institute noted.

scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene

The Foilies were compiled by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (Director of Investigations Dave Maass, Senior Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey, Frank Stanton Fellow Mukund Rathi, Investigative Researcher Beryl Lipton, Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia) and MuckRock (Co-Founder Michael Morisy, Senior Reporting Fellows Betsy Ladyzhets and Dillon Bergin, and Investigations Editor Derek Kravitz), with further review and editing by Shawn Musgrave. Illustrations are by EFF Designer Caitlyn Crites. The Foilies are published in partnership with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia.

For more transparency trials and tribulations, check out The Foilies archives at https://www.eff.org/issues/foilies.

March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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GET OUT

Everything to do in Cleveland for the next two weeks

Circle Jerks come to House of Blues. See: Wednesday, March 30.

WED 03/23 Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles This Beatles tribute act plays tune from Abbey Road and The Rooftop Concert Live in celebrating the Fab Four. Tonight’s concert begins at 8 at the State Theatre. Consult the Playhouse Square website for more info.

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

THU 03/24 Mojo Brookzz Comedian Dyon “Mojo” Brooks brings his Toxic But Funny Comedy Tour to the Improv tonight at 7.

Brooks can brag that he’s made some 900 video skits, several of which have garnered more than one million views. Check the Improv website for more info.

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

FRI

03/25

Straight No Chaser: Back in the High Life Tour The male a cappella group Straight

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No Chaser had such success with their 2013 release Under the Influence, an album that features cameos by the likes of Jason Mraz, Rob Thomas, Phil Collins and Dolly Parton, the band is still touring behind the release. Expect to hear songs from it today alongside tunes from the band’s extensive back catalog as it comes to town on its Back in the High Life Tour. The show begins at 8 tonight at MGM Northfield Park — Center Stage.

Consult the venue’s website for more info.

10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, mgmnorthfieldpark. mgmresorts.com/en.html.

SAT 03/26 Tri-C High School Rock Off All genres of high school bands and musicians will be represented at this annual event that returns after taking a year off due to the pandemic. Some 30 bands will compete to see who’s the “best in the land.” The Final Eam takes place tonight at 6 at the Rock Hall.

1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-5158444, rockhall.com.

| clevescene.com | March 23-April 5, 2022

Atiba Jefferson

SUN 03/27 Tri-C Classical Piano Series As part of the Tri-C Classical Piano Series, pianist Bryan Wallick gives a free performance today at 2 p.m. in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium. Wallick is one of the great American virtuoso pianists of his generation. A Gold medalist of the 1997 Vladimir Horowitz International Piano Competition in Kiev, he has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Africa. Wallick’s performance is the first of two Classical Piano Series presentations in Tri-C’s 2021-2022 Performing Arts season. The series is celebrating its 15th year of “introducing emerging and established pianists from all over the world to the Greater Cleveland community.”

11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

MON 03/28 Vegan Monday Each Monday, the Winchester chef puts together a special vegan menu featuring items such as comfort burgers, Philly burgers and peach

cobbler. The kitchen opens up at 4 p.m. and stays open until midnight.

Check the website for more info.

12112 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-600-5338, facebook.com/ TheWinchesterMusicTavern.

TUE

03/29

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.

GET OUT WED 03/30 Circle Jerks Originally slated to take place in 2020 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Circle Jerks’ debut album Group Sex, this tour that brings the iconic punk band to House of Blues tonight has been rebooked twice because of COVID. The group has now just reissued its sophomore effort, Wild in the Streets, too, making this tour a celebration of both albums. The show starts at 7. Check the venue website for more info.

308 Euclid Ave., 216-523-2583, houseofblues.com.

THU 03/31 CIFF46 Opening Night CIFF46 will kick off its in-person return and 11-day run at its new home at Playhouse Square with a screening of Peace by Chocolate, a film about a Syrian refugee trying to settle in a Canadian town. Director Jonathan Keijser is scheduled to be in attendance. Tickets to Opening Night at Playhouse Square are $100 per person ($80 for CIFF members).

The evening includes the 7 p.m. screening of the film in the Connor Palace, as well as a post-film dessert reception with a cash bar.

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

FRI

04/01

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 Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.

SAT 04/02 Moon Hooch Last fall, locally based Greyt Culture began exploring the possibility of having large-scale outdoor concerts at Saucy Brew Works Vibe Garden, an urban beer garden located across the street from Saucy’s main brewery in Hingetown. The folks there decided to go forward with their plans, and New York-based jazz-electronic-dance, saxophone-driven trio Moon Hooch will represent the first concert at the venue. The show begins at 5 p.m. today. Check the website for ticket prices and more info.

2807 Church Avenue, 216-666-2568, thatsgreyt.com/vibegarden.

SUN 04/03 Cousin Stizz Cousin Stizz, one of Boston’s most well-known rappers, released his latest effort, Just for You, earlier this month It marks Cousin Stizz’s first independent full-length release since his 2015 project Suffolk County and follows his two-year hiatus beginning after his 2019 release Trying to Find My Next Thrill.

Tonight’s concert begins at 8 at the Grog Shop. Check the club’s website for more info.

2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.

MON 04/04 Knotfest Roadshow Slipknot headlines this multi-band metal bill. The concert begins at 6:30 tonight at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Consult the arena’s website for ticket prices and more info.

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

TUE

04/05

Lyrical Rhythms Open Mic and Chill This long-running open mic night at the B-Side Lounge allows some of the city’s best rappers and poets to strut their stuff. The event begins at 8 with a comedy session dubbed 2 Drinks & a Joke with host Ant Morrow. The open mic performances begin at 10 p.m. Tickets cost $5 in advance, $10 at the door., $5.

2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge.com.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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EAT

Photo by Nicole Steffen

GREATEST HITS

At Jojo’s Bar in Chagrin Falls, Italian trattoria meets classic American chophouse

By Douglas Trattner “NOW THIS IS A BREAD BASKET,” a tablemate declared.

In the age of dwindling amenities, Jojo’s Bar welcomes guests with a linen napkin-lined silver bowl overflowing with a cornucopia of fresh-baked treats. Tucked within are poofy seeded rolls, slices of artisan bread and shards of thin, crispy lavash. On the side are ramekins filled with soft salt-capped butter.

“That’s how you kick off a meal,” another guest replied.

The amount of restaurant tinkering that has occurred in downtown Chagrin Falls over the past few years has been nearly impossible to keep up with. At the intersection of West and River streets alone, diners followed along as Jekyll’s Kitchen gave way to 17 River Grille and Gamekeeper’s Tavern transitioned to Bull and Bird, before being completely reimagined as Jojo’s Bar. Those transformations are proof that Rick Doody will not rest until he achieves his desired level of success, even if at great personal expense.

With Jojo’s Bar, Chagrin Falls finally gets the restaurant it deserves and Doody can take that well-earned vacation. Diners lucky enough to secure a reservation – or to snag a coveted walk-in-only table in the bar – are treated to an impeccably remodeled interior, attentive but

elevated Italian trattoria with the flair of a classic American chophouse.

Ask your waiter to recommend an appetizer and he or she likely will nudge you in the direction of the Aqua Pazza ($19), plump prawns poached and served in a chunky, garlicy sauce that happens to go

JOJO’S BAR 87 WEST ST., CHAGRIN FALLS 440-528-3180 JOJOSBAR.COM

unhurried service, and food that greatly exceeds expectations.

For his latest opus, Doody appears to have plucked all the best nuggets from his portfolio of restaurants, which includes 17 River Grille, Cedar Creek Grille and Bar Italia. Those pearls are polished for a more critical audience and presented with New York swagger in a drama-filled space.

Rather than go one route or the other, the serial restaurateur opted to marry the timeless appeal of an

great with all that bread. Order the stuffed peppers ($15) and your server will take the time to remove the stem ends, spoon the zesty pipes onto plates and divvy up the cheese-showered marinara. At Jojo’s, salads like the delicately dressed bibb ($11) are served on cold plates and softball-size wagyu meatballs ($16) on warm plates. That spoontender meatball arrives in a sunny marinara sauce and is capped with fresh ricotta.

Thanks to the menu’s dual personality, diners can go the luxe pasta route or down the prime steak path. In the noodle department, there is the beloved rigatoni in spicy vodka cream sauce, beachy spaghetti with clams and a beefy bucatini Bolognese ($23), which flirts with perfection. In terms of chophouse fare, the menu offers enough cuts and sizes to appeal to all tastes and appetites. Selections range from a 22-ounce bone-in ribeye down to a petite 6-ounce filet. The prime strip ($57) arrives blissfully blasted on the outside and to-the-degree medium-rare within. Steaks come with crispy onion straws, but sides and sauces like luscious au gratin potatoes ($12), silky creamed spinach ($12) and peppery horseradish sauce ($6) are extra. In terms of fish, the kitchen prepares a meaty and sweet bronzino ($28) that is served butterflied and boneless and drizzled with a lemon butter and caper sauce.

The most remarkable feature about Jojo’s Bar might be its affordability. This is a casual eatery disguised as a fine-dining, whitetablecloth restaurant. Apart from the steak tariffs, which are astronomical everywhere, prices are in line with every restaurant on the block. Even the drinks list, a bastion of lawless profit margins, is populated with well-priced gems. Classic cocktails like martinis, mules and negronis hover in the $11-$12 range. We enjoyed our 34-dollar bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo so much, we ordered a second.

Once again, Doody has partnered with designer (and wife) Wendy Berry to create a cohesive interior dripping with good taste.

Throughout the richly appointed space are artistic – and apt, given the territory – equine elements.

The snug saloon of Bull & Bird, and Gamekeeper’s before that, has been expanded out and down into what had been an all-seasons patio to create a lively and spacious barroom with plenty of new seating. A façade of glass offers views into and out of Chagrin Falls buzziest new bistro.

When the weather breaks, some of the pressure on the dining room should be eased with the opening of the patio. The beloved neighborhood hangout has been reshaped into a multi-level space with its own alfresco kitchen, bar and menu.

Good luck snagging one of those seats on a glorious summer evening.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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EAT

Photo by Douglas Trattner

BITES

Karen Small’s Juneberry Table to open in early April

By Douglas Trattner JUST AS KAREN SMALL WAS saying goodbye to the Flying Fig, she was preparing to open Juneberry Table, her long-stalled diner project in Ohio City. In fact, notes the chef, the former was a prerequisite for the latter given that she is relying on many of the same employees to accomplish the goal.

With permits in hand, including a liquor license, Small can focus on the last bit of recipe testing, stocking the bar and putting the finishing touches on the space. The project that began back in 2019 finally will come to fruition in early April.

“We’re excited to get going,” Small says. “We’re excited to open up.”

Small snatched up the space at 3900 Lorain Ave. soon after Jack Flaps closed its doors after five years. Much of the work done to make over the space was completed three years ago, but the project hit a wall in 2020. Now, with the dining landscape looking more optimistic than it has in two years, Small – a self-described “morning person” – says the time is right to debut her contemporary urban diner.

“I think it was a good idea back then and it think it’s maybe even a better idea now,” she says. “I think this whole neighborhood has gotten pretty vibrant and this corridor is better than when I first took the space over.”

Small points to the myriad residential buildings that seem to pop up in and around Ohio City with remarkable speed and frequency. To Small, each and every one of those

20

new apartments signifies potential customers.

“I think breakfast, especially with people not working in the office, presents a whole new set of people who can come out, who can eat, who can drink coffee, drink juice, who can eat eggs on toast,” she says.

“And they will, I think.”

Juneberry will feature an all-day breakfast and lunch menu largely inspired by the chef’s decade spent living outside of Athens, Ohio.

Whether diners are aware of it or not, many of her popular brunch dishes have roots in Appalachia, fueled as they are by greens, grains, beans, cured meats and preserves.

There will be some carryover from the Fig brunch – the biscuits and gravy and corn and andouille cakes might make the cut – but Small says that diners should not expect a carbon copy.

“I don’t want to just repeat what we did there,” she says. “I don’t think that’s a good message. I think it needs to be fresher and also carryout friendly.”

Small reworked the cozy 30-seat diner in ways that make it lighter, brighter and more comfortable. She expanded the bar, added banquettes, built a booth, installed a window counter and added attractive light and decorative fixtures.

“We totally changed the layout,” she adds. “We made it really breakfast-y looking, and real bright.”

To start, Juneberry will be open 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday to Monday.

Small says that she will put her

| clevescene.com | March 23-April 5, 2022

liquor license to good use by adding the occasional “supper service,” perhaps on Monday nights.

Pulpo Beer Co. to Open Taproom and Restaurant at Crocker Park in Westlake In 2020, Juan Vergara and his team took over the former Brim Kitchen and Brewery space in Willoughby, where they created a unique dual-concept eatery with a first-floor Hola Tacos and a secondlevel Barroco Arepa Bar. Not long after, he partnered with some family members to launch Pulpo Beer Co., Ohio’s first Latin-owned brewery, in the same 10,000-square-foot building.

Now, Vergara and those partners are expanding the Pulpo brand with a new taproom and restaurant in Westlake. He recently signed a deal to take over the former B Spot space at Crocker Park, where the Willoughby-based brewery will be able to carve out its own niche separate and apart from Barroco and Hola.

“It’s cool because of both of those already known concepts, but Pulpo doesn’t have its own food,” Vergara explains. “We want to open a taproom to get our beer out to more folks that might not be willing to go all the way out to Willoughby, but also to take the opportunity to give Pulpo its own image and identity and food.”

Vergara says that the

4,000-square-foot space will be completely reimagined in ways only Vergara can produce.

“Designing the space and how the atmosphere is going to be is definitely one of my favorite parts of opening a new location or business,” he says.

While the menu is still in early days, Vergara promises that it will not be a copy of either Barroco or Hola Tacos, adding that it will be unique and delicious.

Vergara, who also owns the Barroco restaurant at Crocker Park, says that the long-vacant space “has been winking” at him for a long time. He loves the location and finally decided to grab the opportunity.

“We are stoked with the success we have had so far in our Barroco location at Crocker Park in the past four years and couldn’t be happier to add yet another of our concepts to this beautiful and busy shopping district,” he says.

Look for Pulpo to open this summer.

New Food Hall Coming to Asiatown Over the last seven years, Sheng Long Yu has made a huge impression on the Cleveland dining scene. During that relatively short span, the longtime owner of Shinto Japanese Steakhouse in Strongsville has opened Kenko Sushi in University Circle and Kent, Dagu Rice Noodle in Asiatown, Ipoke near the Cleveland Clinic, Hell’s Fried Chicken in University Circle and a second Shinto location in Westlake.

For his next big move, Yu hopes to help propel Cleveland’s Asiatown neighborhood into the modern era.

He and his business partners have purchased the former National Tire & Battery property at E. 30th and Payne and plan to convert it to a lively Asian food hall serving the most popular street foods from Japan, China and Taiwan.

“A lot of Asiatown restaurants are pretty much outdated,” Yu explains. “There are a lot of great restaurants and flavors out there, but the problem is there’s nothing very modern and new. We’re trying to bring something new, exciting and more modernized. Compared to cities like Chicago, New York or L.A., our Chinatown needs a lot of work to get it up to speed.”

Yu says that the name YYTime translates to “friends getting together,” and creating a social, family-friendly environment with exciting food is the main goal.

“What I want to create is a place with a fun atmosphere where friends can hang out and have a good time,” he says. “Right now in Cleveland there is no Asian restaurant able to create this type of atmosphere.”

Yu describes the concept as “a food hall with a touch of service.”

Diners will walk in, grab seats and order foods from various kitchens using their phones. The food will be delivered to the table by a server or a robot, a method already in use at Shinto Westlake. Diners can look forward to appealing Asian street foods like bao, dumplings, izakayastyle BBQ skewers and bubble tea. Yu also will be relocating his popular Dagu Rice Noodle from down the block to the new restaurant.

“We are bringing all the newest street-food trends from China, Taiwan and Japan,” Yu notes.

“We want to be on the forefront of whatever trends are popular.”

The kitchen will be set up in a way that makes it easy to swap concepts and food items in and out based on shifting trends. There will be a large back kitchen for prep joined by a small number of frontfacing food stalls. The plans call for an occupancy somewhere between 85 and 100.

Given the fact that Yu and his team will be converting a former tire and battery garage to a contemporary food hall, the process is expected to be lengthy. The goal is to open before the end of the year.

Ohio City BBQ Gives Up Fight Against ‘Goliath’ City Barbecue in Trademark Battle, Will Rename as Real SmoQued BBQ The long, contentious battle between City Barbecue and Ohio City BBQ is coming to an end. What began back in 2017, when the Columbus-based restaurant chain filed suit against the one-off rib shop in Cleveland for trademark infringement, is ending with appeasement.

“Just like anything in life, you have to put things behind you,” says the Ohio City restaurant owner Nav Singh. “I thought it was very unfair – a David versus Goliath thing – but sometimes you just have to put your sword down and just move on.”

With a battalion of high-priced attorneys and a never-ending landslide of legal documents against him, Singh, who was representing himself, decided to accept his fate.

He took the judge’s advice to face reality and move on.

“They basically paperworked me to death,” he says.

Despite the fact that Singh

owned the trademark to “Ohio City BBQ,” and the fact that his restaurant opened two years before City Barbecue entered the Cleveland market, the owner has agreed to change the name of his restaurant.

That move alone will cost him considerable time, money and, likely, business in the form of customer confusion. On his to-do list is registering the new name, making changes to his business listings on Google, Tripadvisor and Yelp, converting all of his social media accounts and third-party delivery service affiliations and buying a new sign.

“I’m just one man,” he says.

Going forward, the former Ohio City BBQ will go by the name of Real SmoQued BBQ.

The Wailers

with Carlos Jones

Thurs. March 24

Dirty Dozen Brass Band Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas Sat. March 26

Blood Brothers Mike Zito & Albert Castiglia Wed. March 30

The English Beat Wed. April 6

Beausoleil Avec Michael Doucet Fri. April 8

Pizzeria DiLauro in Bainbridge to Open Next-Door Lounge When Pizzeria DiLauro (17800 Chillicothe Rd., 440-384-3947) opened last year in Bainbridge, owner Tiffany DiLauro fully intended to keep her next-door day spa up and running. But the pizza shop business took off so quickly that it required both her handson involvement and some of her spa’s square footage. Tiffany and husband Adam cut a whole into the rear of the space to use for storage, leaving the front of the former spa unused.

“I have a background in food and beverage, so we were like, ‘Why don’t we put in a bar?’” Tiffany explains.

Since that decision was made, management has been working to convert the next-door space into the Lounge at Pizzeria DiLauro. The cozy saloon features a 10-person bar and three 6-person tables. Guests will be able to order anything from the pizzeria menu and choose from 20 different beers, wines on tap and specialty cocktails. Likewise, diners next door at the pizzeria (and on the patio) can order beverages from the lounge as well. The Lounge will also come in handy as a waiting room for people picking up pizzas to go.

“It’s an approachable bar that’s cozy, not trendy,” says Tiffany. “We’re trying to bring the same vibe that we have in the pizzeria into the lounge.

We’ve always wanted to build the pizzeria that we would enjoy eating at, so we decided to build the bar that we would enjoy drinking at.”

Look for the Lounge to open the first week of April.

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Fri. March 25 Rocky Horror Picture Show March Madness Tue. April 12 Progject Sat. April 15 Hell Van Sun. April 16 Donnie Iris & the Cruisers Wed. April 27 Aimee Mann Wed. May 11 Shawn Colvin Sat. May 14 Marc Cohn Wed. May 18 Al Stewart Thur. May 19 Bodeans Wed. June 8 The Music of Cream Tue. June 28 The Zombies NEW DATE! Fri. July 28 Keillor and Company

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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| clevescene.com | March 23-April 5, 2022

MUSIC KEEPING BUSY

Bright Eyes brings tour in support of a 2020 album and a reissue campaign to the Agora

By Jeff Niesel BRIGHT EYES COMPOSER/ arranger/multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Wolcott admits the last two years have been “pretty wild.” An extremely prolific musician, Wolcott did not sit by idly after touring came to a halt. Rather, he turned his focus to The Stand soundtrack he recorded with fellow Bright Eyes member Mike Mogis. He also worked on an ambitious Bright Eyes reissue campaign that involved (and continued to involve) the production of nine companion EPs for which the group recruited guests Waxahatchee, Phoebe Bridgers, M. Ward and Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond).

“Mike [Mogis] and I have been really busy,” says Wolcott via phone from Omaha where Bright Eyes had just started rehearsals for the tour that brings it to the Agora on Saturday, April 2. “That was nine hours of music. That certainly kept us busy that year. Luckily, I’ve been able to work on a lot of music remotely.

Last year, we were lucky enough to do a short run on the East Coast. That was really fun. It was a way to dip our toes back into the world of touring and now we’re hitting the ground running for sure. I’ve just continued to make music and record music, and we eased into the Bright Eyes EP project and are recording a lot of the material. We started it about a year ago. It’s been really fun and really cool. The first couple of EPs date back to when [singer] Conor [Oberst] was just a teenager, recording on a fourtrack in his basement.”

Wolcott says the group has taken a “very modern perspective” to recording older Bright Eyes tunes that date back to the late ’90s.

“We think of it as turning the whole thing upside down,” says Wolcott, who officially joined the group in 2006. “It’s like if the material were written now, how would we approach the arrangement

Bright Eyes.

Shawn Brackbill

and recording. It’s an interesting process. As we get into the later material, it’s definitely fun to again turn it upside down and approach in a completely new and different way. We’ve announced the release of the first three and it’s no secret that we’ll be doing nine of these.

We just finished three more, which does include a lot of things I did work on with the band back in the day. We have taken totally different approaches with each one.”

A talented multi-instrumentalist, Wolcott first learned violin when he

studio and started working on the early Lullaby for the Working Class records. Those experiences were amazing. It was about the time I met Conor. I remember him opening for a Lullaby show around that time. It was cool and fertile scene and had a lot of crossover with the Omaha bands.”

Back in 2006, Bright Eyes evolved from being a Oberst project to being a band with Mogis and Wolcott as members. Wolcott says the shift “didn’t affect how we approached anything because we had consistently been a part of the

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was 5. He then moved to piano and started taking Suzuki piano lessons a year or two after learning violin.

He added trumpet to the mix when he was in fifth grade. After his family moved to Lincoln, NE, the city’s indie rock music scene drew him in.

“I was coming from a classical and jazz background,” he says. “I got really into jazz when I was a kid. I got pretty deep into that stuff. By the time I was in high school, I also just really liked the idea of playing rock music too. I was lucky enough to meet some people including Mike [Mogis] when I was in high school and start recording and being in bands around that time. Lincoln is a small college town but remarkably there were a lot of opportunities to play music and record. I’m really thankful for that.

I think I was in tenth grade when I was first started going to Mike’s

live show and making the records and all that stuff.”

To build anticipation for the upcoming reissues, the band has released the tune “Falling Out of Love at This Volume,” a beautiful ballad that makes good use of retrosounding synths.

“That was one of the few that had been a staple in the live show for a while,” says Wolcott when asked about the track. “It was almost a pretty straightforward of documenting how we had been playing it live.”

A new version of “Contrast and Compare” features vocals courtesy of Waxahatachee. It also includes some subtle pedal steel courtesy of Mogis.

“We were lucky to have Katie [Crutchfield] from Waxahatchee sing on that,” says Wolcott. “We wanted to make it different and interesting.

Rather than be guitar-based, we recorded the piano first. We wanted to involve people from the current scene and people we like and admire.

Mike has got a great touch on the pedal steel for that tune.”

Wolcott describes “Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh,” a track that features Phoebe Bridgers, as a “deliberate attempt to do the song differently.”

“One of the ways we did that or achieved that goal was we had our friend Clark Baechle program the drum beat for it,” he says. “It has a more electronic element, and that was fun.”

Wolcott says the band was still tweaking a possible set list for the upcoming tour; he wasn’t sure if any of the companion EP tunes would make an appearance.

“To be completely honest, we are thinking of bringing some of [the companion EP tunes] in to the upcoming shows, but we’re still focusing on [2020’s] Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was, even though we were out for a couple of weeks last summer supporting.

We haven’t been able to play a lot of that material. We’re really excited about doing that. We’re still figuring out how much of the EP stuff we will incorporate into the set. We are also duly focused on playing the material from the last album and adding songs from that record that we didn’t play last summer. The new record is tricky. There is a lot to sort out and we have our hands full. That’s why we’re in rehearsals right now.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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MUSIC WORKING FOR THE BLUE WEEKEND

Wolf Alice comes to Beachland Ballroom on tour in support of sonically diverse new album

By Halle Weber ELLIE ROWSELL, LEAD SINGER of British alternative rock band Wolf Alice, says that performing in front of audiences again has been invigorating.

“There is a real kind of air of jubilance at the shows at the moment because everyone, I think, is so grateful to have live music back — band, crew and audience alike,” says Rowsell via phone. Wolf Alice performs at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30, at the Beachland Ballroom. “You kind of have a renewed sense of gratitude to be able to do it, after having had it taken away for so long.”

Wolf Alice is touring in support of its third full-length studio album, Blue Weekend, which was released last year.

Rowsell is excited to play fanfavorites like “Don’t Delete the Kisses,” which is nearing 50 million streams on Spotify, on the band’s upcoming U.S. tour. That track in particular is close to Rowsell’s heart because it’s one of the few true love songs she’s written.

“It’s weird writing love songs. I often feel like I only have one chance at writing it,” says Rowsell. “It’s a big deal to write a love song, you know, because you don’t want to write hundreds, just as you wouldn’t really want to tell every person you met that you were in love with them.”

The timing had to be right for Rowsell to open up. When the time came, she dove deep with “Don’t Delete the Kisses.”

“I’ve always been a bit like, you know, embarrassed about talking about love and things like that, and I guess that song kind of is about that — like not being afraid to kind of open your heart,” says Rowsell.

“There’re only so many words, really.

But I think I was ready at that point, for whatever reason.”

On Blue Weekend, Rowsell says the band wrote more freely than ever before. Seeing the songs come to life on the road has been incredibly rewarding.

“I think one that has surprised me has been our song ‘Delicious Things,’” says Rowsell. “It’s quite a long song, and it’s quite slow. I wasn’t very sure if the content of the

Wolf Alice.

Jordan Hemingway

lyrics and stuff were understandable to people. But that has been one of the ones which seems to have connected the most.”

The track time travels back to the few months that Wolf Alice spent in Los Angeles recording its second album. Rowsell wrote the demo of “Delicious Things” after a conversation with her brother during which he told her she used to be “way more funny” in her songwriting. Rowsell had never thought about her work like that

loud. And other songs, you know, if they’ve got pop sensibilities, they connect too, and this is neither of those, so it was really encouraging.”

The rest of the album came about when the band continued to release inhibitions to access its purest art form. The result is a sonically diverse album featuring everything from trippy dream pop and blaring modern indie rock to stripped-down acoustic and piano moments.

“I think I can hear a sense of feeling more confident and

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before, but it pushed her to break out of her comfort zone and lean into a tone full of dark humor.

In production, the band added in vintage-sounding guitars to transport listeners into a dreamy Hollywood haze.

“I wouldn’t call it a pop song,” says Rowsell. “And it’s not like a rock song in that way sometimes heavy and loud things connect just purely because they’re heavy and

therefore more brave in this album, not necessarily to push the boundaries, but to almost not push the boundaries. I think sometimes, when you’re really like an alternative artist, you feel like you need to create something that’s never been created before.

But actually, it’s kind of a lot more scary to be like, ‘I’m gonna write what I consider to be a very simple pop song.’ says Rowsell. “We really

wrote this for ourselves, I think, basically not really caring about what other people may have wanted from us or whatever. And I think that paid off, and I think that is an evolution in the songwriting process for us.”

The four-piece has come a long way since Rowsell and guitarist Jeff Oddie formed Wolf Alice as an acoustic duo in 2010. Last year, the band headlined its first festival, Latitude Festival in Suffolk, England. Being asked to headline Latitude was a career highlight for Rowsell.

“I don’t think I felt ready, really, but it’s nice to know that other people have faith in you,” says Rowsell. “It really boosted my confidence.”

But the 29-year-old admittedly still has a lot to learn, so she can’t wait for all the firsts still to come.

“I think you only feel ready after the event that you’re not ready for,” says Rowsell. “You’re always learning, aren’t you? So, you don’t learn until you do it, whether you do it right or wrong.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

March 23-April 5, 2022 | clevescene.com |

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SAVAGE LOVE QUICKIES

By Dan Savage Hey Dan: My boyfriend and I have not had sex for more than two years. When I first asked him about it, he hemmed and hawed. When I pressed him, he said he doesn’t have any interest. I felt like he was not telling me the whole truth. When I suggested he tell his doctor, my boyfriend said he could not do that because his doctor is an old family friend. He won’t go to another doctor.

I don’t know what to do. Staying in a long-term relationship without sex does not appeal to me. But I love him, so leaving him is not an option.

On all other levels we have a great relationship. But I miss his cock and I miss intimacy. I have tried many things, but I am sick and tired of being refused. He will remove my hand from his cock if I touch it, and he does not seem to ever get hard anymore. I used to think that it was my fault but no longer accept the blame. What can I do?

Unhappy Not Having Any Penetration Play In Literally Years If you’re going to rule out leaving, UNHAPPILY, your options are staying and enduring a sexless existence or staying and having sex with other people. If you don’t wanna be accused of cheating, you’ll have to ask your boyfriend’s permission to seek sex elsewhere. If you don’t wanna ask his permission or you ask and don’t get it, well, then you’ll either have to endure a sexless existence or discreetly fuck other people when you have the chance. (I hesitate to describe that as cheating in a case like yours, UNHAPPILY, since you wouldn’t be cheating your boyfriend out of anything he seems to want.)

Hey Dan: I’m a 65-year-old gay man and over the past few years, I’ve completely lost interest in having sex with other men. Coincidentally, pleasure from the prostate has gone to a whole new level. I am now having the most intense and powerful prostateinduced orgasms one could ask for — like joining the universe intense. Do I need to see a therapist?

My Orgasms Are Now Sensational Only if you’re unhappy, MOANS, and you don’t sound unhappy to me.

(And if you were, you might be better

off seeing a sex worker.)

Bush Lover In Maryland

Hey Dan: I broke up with my boyfriend about one month ago after almost a year together. I’m 22 and he’s 20, and we met at work.

A month after we started dating, his mom died. He is a jealous and controlling person, whereas I’m a very friendly and outgoing person, and he didn’t like it that I had friends. He was constantly worried I was cheating on him, and I would reassure him as best I could. I tried to be understanding because, again, his mom had just died. But nothing helped. A month ago, he starts yelling that he now knows for sure I had cheated on him at least three times, even if he doesn’t have any proof. (I never cheated on him.) So, I broke it off. But he continues to send me dozens of abusive text messages every day. At the same time, he makes excuses to see me. Two weeks ago, he came over to get his phone charger, which was not here. Today, he came demanding a sweatshirt, which I do not have. Between these surprise visits he sends text messages saying he would be happy if something terrible happened to me.

What should I do? Blocking him isn’t an option, as we continue to work together, and must communicate for work-related reasons.

Pushy Ex Abusing Confused Ex

Are you suggesting you can’t tell the difference between a 30-year-old man who shaved his pubes and a pre-pubescent 11-year-old boy who doesn’t have any pubes to shave?

Because if you can’t, BLIM, you shouldn’t be having sex with anyone.

Okay, wherever you are right now, BLIM, I’m sure you’re saying, “Of course I can tell the difference!”

To which I would respond, if it’s unfair for me to suggest you can’t tell the difference between a 30-year-old man and an 11-year-old boy unless there are pubes present, it’s unfair for you to suggest that adult men who shave their pubes are trying to pass themselves off as pre-pubescent boys. (And why would they do that? To attract pedophiles who can’t tell the difference?) You can make your preference for hairy adult crotches clear to potential sex partners without impugning the motives or tastes of people who prefer to keep their adult crotches shaved or trimmed.

P.S. I get a lotta unsolicited dick pics in my line of work — not complaining, just saying — and half the dicks I see in any given week have pubes. So, there are plenty of naturally hairy guys out there for you to choose from, BLIM.

Get him fired, PEACE. Show his text messages to your boss or to HR, and demand they do something about the hostile work environment he’s created for you, i.e., tell your bosses you expect them to fire him. If your employer won’t fire your ex, PEACE, talk to a lawyer about suing your employer and, if you must, seek employment elsewhere. I’m sorry this is being done to you, PEACE, and in the future… a controlling, possessive piece of shit who “constantly worries” you’re cheating on him needs to be dumped immediately. Because those sorts of “worries” always — always — become angry and sometimes violent accusations in the end.

Hey Dan: I’ve been hooking up with someone for a while. It’s been okay, but not great, and I don’t want to do it anymore. She’s perfectly good people, very friendly, but we’re only fuck buddies and I’m not enjoying fucking that much. How can I end this nicely?

A person can say, “Hey, it’s not you, it’s me,” when breaking up with a romantic partner. Somehow saying, “Hey, I don’t want to do this anymore” to someone you’re just boning seems almost cruel, like I’m saying, “Hey, you suck in bed.” Do I need to make up a white lie? I’m in an ENM marriage, so I could say, “My partner wants to close things up for now,” but I kind of hate lying.

This Is The End

Hey Dan: Why do adult men want to look like pre-pubescent boys by cutting away their pubic hair? Hair is masculine and should be allowed to thrive in its natural habitat.

Trust your instinct and lie — and that’s what “it’s not you, it’s me,” is, right? It’s a lie, TITE, and everyone knows it’s a lie; the person who says it during a breakup knows it’s a lie,

the person who hears it during a breakup knows it’s a lie. But it’s a lie most of us are comfortable being told. Because when someone says, “It’s not you, it’s me,” what they’re saying to us is, “Look, I know this sucks and it hurts and I’m sorry and I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to and if it takes even a little bit of the hurt away for me to blame myself when we both know I don’t blame myself and that I want out of this relationship because you’re not who or what I want… I’m willing to do that.”

So, while you can’t avail yourself of the face-saving, ego-sparing, offthe-shelf “It’s not you, it’s me” lie, you can and should avail yourself of the lie you were workshopping there at the end of your question: “My partner wants to close things up for now.”

Hey Dan: I’m a 29-year-old queer boy with a language question for you. I LOVE seeing other people piss.

Pissing at a urinal, pissing their pants, pissing in the tub, pissing on me. However, when I say to people, “I have a pee fetish,” invariably the response I get is, “I don’t want you to pee on me.” I don’t want to pee on them! That literally does nothing for me! I’m only interested in other people pissing on or near me! No judgment on people who vibe with that, as my fetish relies on those wonderful people. But I’m just not turned on by my own piss.

So, my question is, can you think of separate words or labels to better distinguish between people who like to pee on, people who like to be peed on, and people who like both?

Pee Is Super Sexy Top/bottom/vers works for anal, it works for fisting, it works for BDSM, and it works for piss, too. And if telling someone you’re exclusively a piss bottom doesn’t do the trick, hand them a laminated printout of your question and my response.

And if a guy still doesn’t get it after reading this, PISS, he’s probably not smart enough to find his dick and point it at you.

questions@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage www.savage.love

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