Scene March 10, 2021

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CONTENTS MARCH 10-23, 2021 • VOL. 51 NO 30

Upfront .......................................5 Feature ..................................... 10 Film .......................................... 15

Eat ............................................ 16 Music ........................................20 Savage Love .............................. 22

REWIND: i976 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

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In 1976, Michael Stanely made one of his numerous appearances on the cover of Scene.

The local legend passed away last week at the age of 72.

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“Cleveland Scene Magazine” COVER BY EVAN SULT

UPFRONT CSU WOLSTEIN CENTER TO SERVE AS FEMA MASS VACCINATION SITE THE WHITE HOUSE, ALONG WITH state and local officials, announced Friday that the Cleveland State University Wolstein Center will be among the large venues nationwide serving as mass vaccination sites operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

When it opens on St. Patrick’s Day, it is expected to administer as many as 6,000 vaccine shots per day, the Biden administration said.

The site was recommended

by Ohio officials and selected by FEMA, in part, for its proximity to underserved populations and senior citizens. The new vaccine doses will be in addition to those at other Ohio vaccine distribution centers.

In a press release Friday morning, Gov. Mike DeWine thanked FEMA and said that, with the supply of vaccines increasing, now is the perfect time to launch a mass vaccination site of this kind.

He referred to the Wolstein site as a “long-term clinic” and said it would vaccinate more Ohioans than any other site to date, “particularly those in Ohio’s most vulnerable populations.”

The site will operate seven days per week and will be distributing the Pfizer vaccine to all eligible Ohioans for three weeks. Those who receive shots will then be able to get their second shot in the ensuing weeks. Those with transportation challenges can get free RTA passes or subsidized ride share services to the Wolstein Center by calling 2-1-1.

Mayor Frank Jackson, County Executive Armond Budish and CSU President Harlan Sands all thanked Gov. Mike DeWine and FEMA in prepared statements. Sands called the Wolstein site “mission-central” to CSU. The Feds have deployed 25 personnel to assist Ohio with vaccination efforts statewide.

With the Wolstein Center and other additions, there will be at least 18 FEMA-backed mass vaccination sites around the country. Gov. Mike DeWine said that the Wolstein site would be one of 15 mass vaccination sites in the state of Ohio.

Ohio has now entered phase 1C and phase 2 in its vaccination plan, opening availability for Ohioans over the age of 60, those with qualifying

Photo credit

health issues, and those who work in certain professions such as law enforcement or in funeral homes.

About 940,000 residents are now newly eligible to receive the vaccine.

-Vince Grzegorek

CMHA Cop Shot Black Teen in the Back, Autopsy Kept Secret for Months An autopsy released last week revealed that Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) officer James Griffiths fatally shot 19-yearold Arthur Keith in the back on Nov. 13, 2020 outside the King Kennedy public housing complex in Central.

The autopsy was completed on Dec. 8 but wasn’t released to attorneys representing Keith’s family until last week. For months, requests by attorneys and the media for the autopsy and additional materials were denied. CMHA and the City of Cleveland passed the buck back and forth, refusing to release information beyond the initial police narrative.

They have yet to release bodycam footage.

But the autopsy, completed by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner, corroborates witness statements in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Residents said that Keith, who had been sleeping in a van, was running from the CMHA cop.

The official narrative said that CMHA officers were responding to someone waving a gun and that Keith himself pointed a gun at them before they shot him. They neglected to mention that they shot him in the back.

Keith is former Boys & Girls Club member. An impassioned joint statement from the Boys & Girls Club and the Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance Friday called for additional transparency, accountability and actual solutions to police violence in the wake of Keith’s slaying.

“We need the video from that tragic day,” the statement read.

“We need real leadership. We need to have a real assessment, analysis and subsequent plan of action that brings about the change that has been sought for decades. How long do our communities have to wait?

We cannot do this solely through

grass-roots community efforts and we cannot leave a problem at the feet of our communities that is not their responsibility to solve.”

-Sam Allard

DeWine Implores Ohioans to Keep Wearing Masks, Sets Target for Re-Opening On the one-year anniversary of Ohio’s war with the novel coronaviurs, Gov. Mike DeWine appeared for a statewide press conference and begged Ohioans to continue wearing masks and to get the vaccine as soon as they are able to do so.

Alternating between wartime and distance running analogies, DeWine said that victory was just around the corner. He mourned those who have died this year, and the jobs and businesses that have been lost, but tried to highlight Ohio’s grit and compassion in its handling of the pandemic.

Under advisement from state health officials, DeWine even announced a goal. He said that once the state could sustain 50 cases per | clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

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100,000 people for two weeks, all statewide health orders would be lifted.

The goal was well within reach, according to the governor. As of yesterday, Ohio stood at 179 cases per 100,000, down from 445 per 100,000 one month ago and 731 per 100,000 on Dec. 3.

DeWine characterized the current moment as the home stretch. “These are the last few miles of what has been a grueling marathon,” he said.

And he promised that if Ohioans dig even deeper by continuing to wear masks and getting the vaccine, normalcy will soon be restored. He painted a picture of a spring with proms and graduation ceremonies and a summer with fairs, festivals, and baseball. The more people who get vaccinated, the higher the capacity will be at event venues, he noted.

“Our way back [to normal] is by continuing forward,” he said.

DeWine’s message stands in contrast to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who last week lifted the state’s mask mandate and ordered that capacity limits at all businesses be restored to 100%.

Currently, more than 1.8 million Ohioans have been vaccinated.

DeWine said that 450,000 doses arrived in the state last week, more than any week to date, and that vaccine sites had been set up at 1,200 locations.

“We are now on the offense,” he said, arguing that Ohio’s “most efficient, most effective, and most powerful” weapon was the vaccine.

Masks, in his language, were “battletested tools” that have been shown repeatedly to work.

“I can’t tell you when we’ll be able to declare victory,” he said, “but what we do know is: we’re close.”

-Sam Allard

Young Lefty Stefan Knaack Running for City Council in “Forgotten” Ward 11 At 23 years old, Stefan Knaack is far and away the youngest candidate for Cleveland City Council in 2021.

The recent Cleveland State University alum and diehard Cleveland sports fan has announced his candidacy in Ward 11, a west side ward that includes the eastern sliver of Jefferson, the western sliver of Cudell and the residential streets off of West Boulevard.

“It also has this weird section [North of Madison]” Knaack told Scene in a recent phone interview, “that was pretty much just created to include [former councilwoman] Dona

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Brady’s house.”

Knaack currently works as a delivery driver for Jimmy John’s and said his campaign is about elevating residents living on the margins and “forgotten” communities like Ward 11.

“Like a lot of people, I’m disillusioned with the way politics works in Cleveland,” he said. “There’s very much an ‘in-crowd,’ both in terms of politicians and neighborhoods. Ward 11 is not one of them.”

Knaack is not a lifelong resident of the ward. As the child of divorced parents, he spent his youth in a number of western suburbs and graduated from Brookside High School in Sheffield Lake. He went on to study political science and sociology at CSU, where he was active in a number of left-wing student political organizations and with the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign of 2016. He moved to Ward 11 in 2018 with four roommates, to save money on rent.

“I’m running for council because our government leaves too many people behind,” he said. “People have been abandoned for so long that they aren’t even interested in participating any more. My campaign is about fighting for them.”

Knaack told Scene that he’s also explicitly interested in challenging what he views as “political dynasties” in Cleveland, perpetuated by council’s appointment process.

“Nothing against [current councilman] Brian Mooney, but he’s a continuation of the Dona Brady dynasty that’s been in Ward 11 for decades. What has that got us?” He asked. “Not very much.”

Longtime councilwoman Dona Brady appointed Mooney in early 2020. She was reportedly so intent on preserving his (and by extension, her) control in the ward that when former city council president Martin Sweeney threatened to launch a campaign there, though he lived in Ward 16, Brady and her husband Dan helped orchestrate Sweeney’s election to Cuyahoga County Council last month, replacing the outgoing Dan Brady.

Knaack recognized the long odds in taking on political forces such as these. Furthermore, he acknowledged his lack of legislative and professional experience — “I mean Mooney’s a lawyer, I’m not,”— but said he would offer a different perspective for residents who are interested in actual representation.

“The job is to be a representative, right?” Knaack said. “Well, I want to represent them. I’m a renter, just like 63 percent of Ward 11, and I’ve had to deal with many of the same

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struggles they have. I know how hard it is to have to decide between paying rent or putting food in your stomach.”

As for specific ward projects, Knaack said he’d like to gather more input from residents. But he knows firsthand that they complain about the condition of roads and the regularity of snow plowing relative to adjacent wards. He also said he’d like to use discretionary funds to establish a ward office that he would use as his home base, and which he said would help promote resident engagement and accessibility.

As with other candidates, the pandemic has complicated traditional campaign activities, but Knaack said he still intends to do direct voter outreach and has a small group of committed volunteers to help knock on doors. He is raising funds through ActBlue.

“City council needs youth and a surge of new ideas in every ward,” he said. “Cleveland deserves better.”

-Sam Allard

Who Is “Dick Knoth” and Why Is He Running for Mayor of Cleveland?

Who is Dick Knoth?

Dick Knoth is a partner at the law firm of Baker-Hostetler. Dick Knoth is a father of three and a former board chairman at a number of prominent local organizations.

Dick Knoth has had, by his own admission, a very good life. And Dick Knoth would now like to run for Mayor of Cleveland.

Dick Knoth sat for a virtual conversation with the City Club of Cleveland’s Dan Moulthrop late last month as part of an ongoing series featuring prospective mayoral candidates. He has not officially declared his candidacy, but is expected to do so in the coming months.

In a Q&A that covered what is now familiar territory, Moulthrop invited Dick Knoth to weigh in on topics that are likely to be central to this year’s campaign: public safety, economic development, social justice, etc.

Dick Knoth billed himself generally as a skilled and experienced private sector leader with the know-how to turn Cleveland around. Plus, all the partners at Baker-Hostetler are expected to be civically engaged, Dick Knoth said.

Running for Mayor was not only the culmination of his personal 38-year career and the least he could do after a life of good fortune; it accorded with the desired public image of his firm.

“I owe it to the city,” Dick Knoth said, when Moulthrop asked why he would seek the ‘toughest job’ in town at this juncture in his life. “We raised an unbelievable family. We’ve been gifted on a lot of fronts. This is not a stepping stone to another position for me. I have a lot to give back.”

Dick Knoth’s beneficent ideas ranged from the sensible, (close Burke Lakefront Airport), to the misguided, (close Burke Lakefront Airport as a top-line antipoverty measure), to the utterly disqualifying, (explore an “Uber model” for public transit). After prodding from Moulthrop, Dick Knoth came around to saying that he supported a $15 minimum wage. His grandest proposal, however, was turning over Hopkins International Airport to a new regional authority and pursuing dramatic upgrades there in order to give visitors a better first impression of the city, a position certain to turn the heads of Chris Quinn and the PD/cleveland.com editorial board. Dick Knoth said he would be the only candidate who dared to make such a change at Hopkins, because it would mean surrendering city control. But he said doing so was in keeping with his prerogative to be innovative.

Like other candidates, Dick Knoth criticized the stagnation and lack of transparency at City Hall. Among other things, he said that if he had been Mayor during the #137shots incident, he would have made immediate top-down changes in the police department. He said he’d be unafraid to make key personnel changes in virtually every city department, if necessary. -Sam Allard

Closed Since 2018, Beloved Dive Venue Pat’s in the Flats Has Now Been Sold It was a bittersweet farewell for Patricia Hanych as she handed over the keys to legendary live music venue, Pat’s in the Flats, last week, just days before her 81st birthday.

Hanych closed up shop and decided to put the building up for sale a couple of years ago due to health reasons. The business had been in her family since her father, William Hanych, purchased it in 1945.

It operated first as Pickles before a name change to Anne’s Lunch in 1951, after Hanych’s mother. Hanych worked there since she was in high school with a brief hiatus when she went to Ohio State University.

In the beginning, the business was a full-service restaurant and bar

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tending to the needs of workers at the local incinerator plant and other area industrial workers. Haynch has many treasured memories over the decades from milestones large and small.

On her 21st birthday, “I was down there and the guys that were working at the sewer department brought me cake and then my aunt and uncle came down at lunch time and brought me another cake and then after work that night, there were some more cakes. So that was a busy day, not to mention all the drinks that were involved in-between all those cakes.”

Not all the memories are happy though.

It was a dark day in January of 1969 when her brother William, named after their father, was shot and killed in one of the three hold-ups at the venue over the years. Her father took her mother to Florida to get her out of her “funk,” as Pat describes it, before her father passed away from a heart attack. Pat thinks the grief of the death of her brother was partly to blame for her father’s demise.

“It made me mad about how this had happened to my family. My mother wanted to sell right away as soon as my dad died,” explains Pat. “I said give me five years, I think I deserve that much. So she said okay.

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for the building, which he closed on for a mere $60,000. Westerburg was born and raised in Cleveland and now lives in Hudson with his wife and kids. He realizes the rich history of the building and is open to investment opportunities or concepts for the property.

“I definitely want to bring this thing back to something that people will enjoy and use in the future for many years to come,” says Westerburg.

-Shawn Mishak We were doing alright, so I said give me another five years.”

Fast forward to 1987 when a local act called Pat’s Hot Knights needed a place to play. Pat allowed them to play there, and before long more bands got wind of the bar being a place for original live music.

Thus began the metamorphosis from Anne’s, simply a blue-collar restaurant and shot-and-beer joint, to one of the most fabled underground music venues in Cleveland history, including hosting the White Stripes for one of their first shows outside of their hometown of Detroit.

Among her favorite local bands over the years, she lists the mid2000s Cleveland power pop-darlings Machine Go Boom, because she said

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she was able to sing along to their songs.

“Pat’s in the Flats was a place I could seek refuge from the boring nightlife and see genuine music played live,” says Michael Baranick, Machine Go Boom’s principal songwriter. “I remember seeing The White Stripes opening a show there when they were still figuring themselves out — the headliner (The Hentchmen) were much better that night. Over the years of playing in bands I was lucky enough to form a bond with Pat. She was always the sweetest person to me and sometimes I wished she was my aunt or something. I’ll always hold that club, and Pat near and dear to my heart.”

New owner Aaron Westerburg says he’s uncertain of the plans

Addressing Faculty, Cleveland State University Leadership Admits It Ignored Process in Hiring Douglas Dykes, Defends Decision Addressing faculty senate members in a virtual meeting last week, Cleveland State University leadership admitted its hiring of Douglas Dykes to a senior VP HR position fell outside of its normal process but defended the decision, saying Dykes was the ideal candidate.

The remarks came after a series of stories by Cleveland.com which revealed that CSU hired Dykes, who at the time was still on probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge related

to the ongoing public corruption investigation into Cuyahoga County, despite other candidates being rated as most-qualified and despite the fact he applied just about a year after the university’s application window had closed. CSU’s former chief of HR had taken Dykes’ former job at the county, adding to the speculation of something untoward at work.

In last week’s meeting, Jeanell Hughes, the university’s Vice President of Administration and Chief of Staff, laid out the timeline of the hire.

It started in Oct. 2018, she said, and the search set out because “there was an opportunity to add some additional skill-sets, to transition HR from a reactive and transactional department to a more strategic and consultative organization.”

DIGIT WIDGET 66 Number of police chases in East Cleveland over the first 62 days of 2021, on pace for a record year.

The woebegone suburb logged 192 total chases in 2020.

1 The Cedar Lee’s ranking, by box office gross, among theaters in the country to open the Russo Brothers’ film Cherry on Feb. 26.

The film, which is reviewed later in this issue, debuts on AppleTV+ Friday.

198,000 Square feet of proposed new Greater Cleveland Food Bank facility on Coit Road between Collinwood and Glenville.

Construction on the massive new structure could begin as early as next month, with plans to open in 2022.

7,500+ Athletes expected to travel to Cleveland for the 2024 International Masters Games (an Olympics-style event for athletes over 30). The Greater Cleveland Sports Commission announced that Cleveland would host the 2024 event at its awards gala last week.make more than 300 times their media employees.

Candidates were slow to apply, and so Hughes sought out opinions from colleagues, seeking candidates both in and out of state. She built her own shortlist, which included Dykes and two others, none of whom had applied. The position closed in Feb. of last year and Hughes was dissatisfied with the pool.

CSU needed “someone who had worked at a senior level and had experience with higher education, or the public sector,” someone who had experience with the Ohio Retirement Plan and telemanagement.

Dykes had those, she said. She reached out to him and the two others, but again none of them applied.

Then Covid hit and the decision was made not to hire for the position in the midst of the early pandemic.

Once, in later summer, CSU decided to go forward, Dykes was again encouraged to submit his application.

“I should have taken the time to repost it and reopen it,” Hughes told the faculty senate. “Instead, I sought to get my shortlist interested, and that’s how it happened. There was no conversation with anyone at the county. I don’t know anyone at the county. But what I do know is that I am pained by the damage of my decision, in my haste to get the right person, into helping HR get to the right place. I made a decision that’s had detrimental effects on the reputation of what you all do. That said, Douglas is the right person, the right partner to achieve our HR vision.”

Cleveland State University president Harlan Sands, who previously addressed the news coverage in a university-wide email and blamed hard application deadlines for the school’s inability to attract talent, again defended the decision, though with less regret than Hughes expressed.

“We believe we hired the person with the right skills,” Sands said. “We never said he was the only qualified candidate, just the right one. There was no quid pro quo with the county.

That kind of conjecture is very troubling to us at Cleveland State.”

Attentive readers will remember this isn’t the first time CSU has dealt with irregular processes for hiring top-level positions. As Scene reported in 2018, the search firm employed

by CSU to find a replacement for then-president Ronald Berkman likely violated its contract terms.

The person hired at the end of that process? Harlan Sands.

-Vince Grzegorek

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(This story is intended for mature audiences. Viewer discretion advised.)

What we do know is that he will soon be appearing on a television near you. Approach with extreme caution.

FORMER LYNDHURST MAYOR JOE CICERO called him a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and “inadequate The Making of an Action Figure as a human being.” Brent Larkin, the dean of Ohio There was a time Josh was political writers, described him as a “bottom feeder” considered the Boy Wonder of Ohio Republicans. He served in of “unsurpassed intellectual dishonesty,” for whom “no the Marines. Married into the gutter is too deep, no shot too cheap.”

Ratner dynasty. Got elected to the Lyndhurst City Council, the Ohio Meet Josh Mandel, a man for our times.

House, the state treasurer’s office.

Ohio’s former state treasurer is among the early He was everything you wanted contenders to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Rob Portman. in a budding conservative star — a prettier Ted Cruz, a Lindsey He bills himself as a “Trump warrior” and “the most action figure. He spoke conservative candidate in the race.” Yet despite years as Graham constantly of “fighting.” There were a career politician, Mandel has always been an elusive TV commercials featuring Josh in Marine fatigues. Unlike other species, “known for his reluctance to voice clear and politicians, who presumably fought specific thoughts on current issues,” as the Plain Dealer for Belgium or Senegal, he was fighting for “America First.” once wrote.

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Yet his battles were mostly those tests of competitive outrage of the Culture Wars. He fought bravely to keep cockfighting from becoming a felony. He spoke heroically of dying for the cause. As in: “Over our dead body will Cincinnati become a sanctuary city.” With few ideas of his own, he preferred to torpedo the ideas of others. And he did so with the tenor of a mean eight-year-old whose parents wondered where it all went wrong. Ohio grew suspicious.

That was evident in 2012, when he challenged U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Josh posed as a working man’s hero.

Brown was the genuine article. It didn’t go well.

He challenged Brown again six years later, only to drop out due to his wife’s unspecified health troubles.

By 2019, Josh left the treasurer’s office to do what politicians do best:

cash in. He quadrupled his income by serving on the boards of bank, insurance, and financial services companies. The hours were few and the pay aplenty. But the boardroom was no place for a man raised on the mean streets of Beachwood, where shopping for a cashmere crewneck meant taking your life in your hands. Josh wanted back in.

Of Boiled Blood & Fighting Men After the Jan. 6 insurrection, the GOP’s corporate wing raised the white flag. The party had gone rabid, a species more exotic by the day.

Portman was in the last throes of dignity. He could stomach no more.

The Republican field to replace him would be standing room only.

Josh came out swinging. He cast himself as the heir to Trump.

“Watching this sham impeachment has made my blood boil and motivated me to run,” he said.

It was quintessential Mandel – the implication of victimhood matched by vague, simmering anger. There was no need for details. For the GOP base, the important thing was to appear furious. And fighting. Josh Mandel: Standing Sentry Against Stuff You Don’t Like.

He jumped headfirst into the fraud of election fraud. Even Josh knew that after 60-some lawsuits, there was zero evidence of a stolen election. So he reframed his case along the lines of They’re Coming to Take Your Guns — as a threat that never actually occurs, but is bound to happen sometime, somewhere, if you just keep saying it will.

“I think over time, we’re going to see studies come out that evidence widespread fraud,” he postured. “You know, what you see with any type of fraud, it usually takes time to investigate it and to dig it out, and it might be months, it might be years, it might be decades.”

Surely Josh knew that these decades of studies had already taken place — even by Trump himself. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that dark forces are arrayed against you, dear voter. Fortunately, Josh will be standing by your side. Ready to fight. With the record to prove it.

The Muslims Are Coming

The year was 2010. Josh decided to claim the job of Ohio Treasurer Kevin Boyce. It’s a largely custodial post without much sex appeal for the viewers at home. Josh needed to spice the race.

Boyce had hired Walaa Waeda, the wife of lobbyist Noure Alo, to serve as his secretary for the princely sum of $37,500 a year. As corruption went, it couldn’t compare to a House

With few ideas of his own, he preferred to torpedo the ideas of others. And he did so with the tenor of a mean eight-year-old whose parents wondered where it all went wrong. speaker taking $60 million from an energy company. But there was a case to be made against hiring a lobbyist’s wife.

Yet Josh saw something far more nefarious: Waeda is a Muslim.

Which naturally meant that Boyce is a Muslim. One that wouldn’t hire Christians.

A TV ad soon aired, with the voiceover claiming that Boyce had given Waeda “a sensitive job in the treasurer’s office, a job Boyce admitted he only made available at their mosque.” It closed with the requisite image of Josh in fatigues.

There was one tiny problem. Boyce is a Methodist. Which makes him not very Muslim. But he is Black. For Josh, that was close enough.

The outcry was immediate. Salon named it one of the “five most antiMuslim ads of the year.” Within a week, Josh had pulled it. Yet to the low-information legions of the GOP base, the point was set: Josh fights for God & Country. Boyce is a goddamned Muslim.

The Ratner Rebellion

By 2012, most believed the GOP’s Gay Demonization Strategy was spent, lest your own kids think you an asshole. But Josh was ahead of his time. Long before Trump, he adhered to the Real Men Don’t Apologize Doctrine, believing it weakness to ever rethink a position.

He continued to do battle with samesex marriage, domestic partner benefits, anti-discrimination laws, and open service in the military.

Josh Mandel: Protecting You From Loving, Long-Term Relationships.

It just so happened that his now ex-wife Ilana’s cousin, Ellen Ratner, was married to Cholene Espinoza, an Air Force Academy grad and only the second woman to fly a U-2 reconnaissance plane. Josh was raining bullets on the family tree.

The Ratners were not pleased.

Eight cousins penned an open letter in the Cleveland Jewish News, expressing their hurt that Josh would

“embrace discrimination against them and other loving couples.”

The text was polite yet searing. They lamented Josh’s “discriminatory stance that violates these core values of our family.”

They hoped that over time, “as you advance in years and wisdom, you will come to embrace the values of inclusiveness and equality.”

Josh knew better. You don’t make Fox & Friends by being nice to your family. And within the Republican base, hating thy neighbor is seen as an act of truth and bravery. Instead of backing off, he doubled down.

Josh Fights White Genocide

Of all the great Culture Wars, nothing quite matches White Genocide. It’s the theory that, after 2,000 years of undefeated world dominance, the white man is somehow beaten and besieged. In 2017, the Anti-Defamation League produced a guide to 36 purveyors of such thought. Among them were Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich.

Posobiec peddles logic-free tales of villainy, such as the one that has Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring from a Washington, D.C. pizza shop.

Cernovich hews closer to a conservative talk radio format. He believes that date rape is liberal fiction, that Black women should be “slut-shamed” to keep them from getting AIDS, that “diversity” is “code for white genocide.”

It might all be dismissed as the bleating of small, cognitively challenged men. But such talk had a way of spurring other small men to battle. One believer of “Pizzagate” stormed the shop, firing an assault rifle. Others would be known for a more impressive conquest: Storming the U.S. Capitol.

To Josh, they’re simply known as “my base.” He assumed his fighting stance, accusing the ADL of becoming “a partisan witchhunt group targeting people for political beliefs,” he tweeted. “I stand with @Cernovich & @JackPosobiec.”

By then, the Trump years were in full roar. The smart pol knew that if you wanted to rise in this man’s party, your choice was to go full nutjob or be left behind. There was little doubt where Josh would head.

Friend of the Swamp

Ben Suarez can be best described as a Swamp Creature: Ohio Edition. He was the head of Suarez Corporate Industries in North Canton, a directmarketing firm that peddled vitamins, supplements, and weight-loss pills of questionable value – at least in the eyes of certain district attorneys.

The year was 2011, and 10 California prosecutors were investigating Suarez for deceptive advertising, unfair competition, and violating a court injunction. So he turned to a friend of the swamp, Josh Mandel.

The company wanted Josh to write his fellow state treasurer in California, threatening to sue if the probe wasn’t killed. Josh was given a letter, which he simply copied and pasted onto official stationery.

As strongarm tactics go, it was a rather toothless play. Ohio had no basis to sue. And treasurers have no say over prosecutors anyway. Yet the company was clearly grateful. Within days, its employees were pumping cash into Josh’s campaign fund.

Weirdly enough, this looked suspicious. Instead of killing the inquiry out west, the plot would only produce a second investigation in Ohio.

It ended with sad trombones.

Suarez paid $1.8 million to settle in California. And though he escaped a campaign finance conviction back home, he spent a year in prison for jury tampering.

Josh was never charged. Under gentleman’s rules of bribery, politicians are rarely indicted for selling their office. His image may have been sullied. Josh Mandel: Fighting for Miracle Weight-Loss Supplements! But by then, the GOP had dumped its mission of “traditional family values.” It was now on a strict diet of red meat — and didn’t much care where it came from. Josh was a supplier always in stock.

Job Killers & Dead Bodies

Take abortion, conservatism’s benchmark issue. Josh’s position can be distilled as “Put your uterus concerns aside, ladies. I’ll handle it from here.”

He once pledged to back a ban on abortions even when a mother’s life is threatened. He would later backpedal, but cases of rape and incest remained off the table. Gushed the National Right to Life News: “If | clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

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“There’s no science or math that shows that it’s been helpful,” says Josh, ignoring all the science and math that says it’s helpful. “We need to stop the mask mandates immediately. And I will stop wearing a mask.” you are a Mandel follower, you see an indefatigable worker with charm to spare who has the wind at his back.”

Though Obamacare tempered costs, gave coverage to millions, and kept the sick from being cursed by preexisting conditions, Josh assailed it nonetheless, with no alternative of his own. He ominously described it as a “job killer,” his go-to denunciation.

His preference was to leave such matters to the private sector, which had given us the highest medical costs on the planet. But a strong man never rethinks his position.

The same was true of climate change. He claimed the research was “riddled with fraud.” Vowed to fight clean-air standards “over our dead bodies.” Condemned the “radical special interest groups . . . killing energy jobs and manufacturing jobs in Ohio.”

When pressed for details, he pleaded ignorance. “I’ve never claimed to be a scientist, and I never will.” Yet it did grant him license to overrule actual scientists.

During one speech to coal miners in Beallsville, he railed, dipping into a fake Southern accent found nowhere in the friendly confines of Beachwood, against the “War on Coal,” neglecting to note that its main foe was cheaper, cleaner natural gas. He again turned to the dead body theme. “For any of these folks trying to get between us and affordable, reliable, dependable energy, we have four words for them: Over! Our! Dead! Bodies!”

How he’ll save the miners is anyone’s guess. Josh doesn’t traffic in details. What’s important is that he’s Josh Mandel: Defender of the Working Man. Over his dead body, which received a J.D. from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law and which earned $397,000 in 2020, will the “country club Republican set” and the “Harvard elite look down on the people of Ohio.”

Squishy Judases

For the next 20 months, the most dangerous place in Ohio will be between Josh and a TV camera. He’ll be a scatter gun of made-for-cable soundbites with ammo to spare. Many will be trained on his own party.

Anyone can rail against the “radical leftist agenda.” The true artists have moved to outing the Judases of the GOP. “I’m going to take on squishy Republicans just as much as I’ll take on liberal Democrats,” he declared in announcing his candidacy. “I’m going to Washington to pulverize the uniparty. And the uniparty in my mind is that cabal of Democrats and Republicans who sound the same, stand for nothing, and are more interested in going to cocktail parties than they are in defending the Constitution.”

Josh, by contrast, will be standing tall for “freedom” and halting the “assault on American values.”

He has yet to say what will happen when the pulverizing is complete. There’s no plan for, say, a fairer economy. No ideas to help us emerge from a deadly pandemic. In fact, Josh is perfectly happy to accept more death. His latest attacks target “squishy establishment” Gov. Mike DeWine and the “tyranny” of mask mandates.

“There’s no science or math that shows that it’s been helpful,” says Josh, ignoring all the science and math that says it’s helpful. “We need to stop the mask mandates immediately. And I will stop wearing a mask.”

It’s the kind of bold leadership voters can expect from Mandel. A willingness to sacrifice his soul and your life, all for a higher purpose: The advancement of Josh.

scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene

| clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

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FILM

Photo courtesy AppleTV+

BRUISED AND ROTTEN

Russo Brothers’ “Cherry” is very bad, but enjoy the shots of Cleveland

By Sam Allard IN THE 2018 NOVEL CHERRY, A critically acclaimed bestselling debut

by Nico Walker, the protagonist is a drug-addicted bank-robber. The fact that he is also the book’s narrator doesn’t preclude his portrayal as a really shitty guy: a skeezy, suburban Cleveland deadbeat. Misogynistic. Selfdestructive. Stupid to an almost pious degree. Bad news all the way.

What made the book so compelling, in spite of its main character, was its hard-scrabble prose. Cherry was written by a non-traditional author, and its language was pared down to an almost Raymond Carver-esque brusqueness. Plus, there was the thrill of knowing that everything described was more or less real. Walker wrote the manuscript from prison, after all, where he was serving time for robbing banks to pay for his heroin habit, which he’d developed after Oxys no longer cut the mustard as treatment for his Iraq-induced PTSD. Walker’s was a tragic, and tragically conventional, trajectory, rendered in the book without glamor or selfconsciousness.

In the film, which opened at the Cedar Lee for an exclusive two-week run before it opens on the streaming platform AppleTV+, the nameless shithead is played by Marvel’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, Tom Holland. It’s no secret that Holland wants to be taken seriously as an A-lister and is using Cherry as a vehicle to showcase his dramatic

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range. And while Holland has moments of emotive depth in the film, the abiding impression is that of inauthenticity, an impression that unfortunately pervades just about every aspect of the film. You don’t get the sense that you’re watching a cohesive story with real characters.

You get the sense that you’re watching a Tom Holland highlight reel.

Here’s Tom Holland as a nebbish collegian, crushing on the cute girl in his John Carroll English class.

Here he is in basic training (!), having enlisted after getting dumped. Here he is amid the dust and dirt of Iraq, yanking his pud in a porta-John and then stuttering in disbelief after a Humvee full of his pals gets charred to a crisp when an IED explodes. Here he is throughout the film’s grim final hour, pooping his pants, projectile vomiting all over the place, shooting up in the parking lot of the emergency room where his girlfriend Emily (Ciara Bravo) is being resuscitated after an overdose, stabbing his leg repeatedly with a syringe. He might as well be howling into the night, I AM AN ACTOR! Through it all, though, Tom Holland remains an eminently likeable teenage dude. Unlike the heroinaddicted son in 2018’s Beautiful Boy, (portrayed with remarkable texture and grace by Timothee Chalamet, despite the film’s weaknesses), you’re always on Tom Holland’s side. Never mind the fact

| clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

that he’s often giggly and serene when high on drugs. Or that he’s chatty and flirty with the female bank tellers whom he robs. Or, indeed, that he’s kind and considerate to his friends, his girlfriend and the poor Iraqis.

The bigger point is that he is in every sense the victim: both of an unjust war and of an epidemic perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry. He is the good guy, who even tries gallantly to prevent Emily from going down the addiction wormhole with him. (This is all Tom Holland, in other words, not the nameless protagonist modeled after Nico Walker, who neither asks for nor merits much sympathy.)

Directed by Cleveland natives and Avengers alums Joe and Anthony Russo, the film was adapted for the screen by Jessica Goldberg and the Russos’ sister, Angela Russo-Otstot.

It’s a fat two-and-a-half hours long, not a single minute of which breezes by, and it largely follows the contours of the novel.

As such, Cherry often feels like a series of distinct, sometimes incompatible, movies: a campus romance; a violent modern war epic; a gritty chronicle of life on hard drugs, a la Trainspotting; and then, almost as an afterthought, the bank-robbing stuff.

The internal chapters are marked by bright red title cards and punctuated by dramatic changes in visual style. The whole thing is extravagantly stylized. The Russos

have brought their technical knowhow and mammoth studio resources to bear on, for example, drone shots that capture the streets of Cleveland, wacky color palettes and picture saturations that approximate the sensation of various drugs, blood effects and unlimited ammo that vivify the horrors of war. Furthermore, they constantly seem to be playing around, toying with camera angles, aspect ratios, sound effects and narrative gimmicks. Tom Holland bounces between breaking the fourth wall and offering Nickelodeon-style voiceover, for example. During the boot camp sequence — the novel’s most acerbic section, for what it’s worth — there’s actually a POV shot of a rectal exam, from inside Tom Holland’s butthole.

Rarely has there been such pronounced disjunctions between form and content. It’s like the Russos mashed up their favorite moments from The Hurt Locker, Goodfellas and Requiem for a Dream, imposed them on a messy script, and expected the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts. These stylistic choices might have been distracting in other narrative contexts, but they’re especially jarring when the source material would seem to lend itself to a more muted, low-budget look. This is a movie about drug use in Cleveland, when all is said and done.

Need we specify that it is an unpleasant ride? More than anything, Cherry suggests that the Russos’ talent for action spectacle — which is undeniable — might be more effectively deployed within the narrative armature of existing TV shows or blockbuster franchises.

Cleveland audiences will be delighted, in any case, to recognize the local landmarks captured throughout. Important scenes were shot in Cleveland Heights, Little Italy and Detroit-Shoreway. And there is something genuinely touching about the Russos’ affection for Cleveland and their desire to bring big productions home. One suspects, in fact, that they were lured to Cherry as a project chiefly, if not entirely, because it was set in their hometown.

One can only speculate what else drew them to this difficult project. But for the directors who were responsible for some of Community’s most fun episodes, not to mention the enormously enjoyable Avengers finales, it’s difficult to conceive of a more antithetical follow-up.

sallard@clevescene.com t@scenesallard

| clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

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EAT BUILT TO LAST

Avo Modern Mexican more than rises to the occasion in Ohio City

IN FOUR SHORT YEARS, GABRIEL Zeller and Julie Mesenburg have gone from operating a single taco bar in Sandusky to overseeing a multi-concept portfolio of popular eateries that spans counties. The husband-and-wife team’s handson approach has propelled a rapid expansion eastward with stops in Amherst, Rocky River and Ohio City. Next up for the hungry couple: the heart of downtown Cleveland in the former Greenhouse Tavern spot.

As recently as five years ago, Zeller and Mesenburg were working for other employers. But quick success with Barra in Sandusky, which they opened in 2017, lead to Barra number two in Amherst.

When a prime property became available in Rocky River, the former Sweet Melissa space, the couple jumped on it and soon opened Char Whiskey Bar. Sparkling turnkey properties on W. 25th Street in Ohio City don’t pop up every day, so when the duo walked through the recently vacated Bakersfield Tacos spot, they knew what they had to do.

While the opportunity to flip Bakersfield to Avo Modern Mexican, Zeller and Mesenburg’s latest concept, might have been fortuitous, the owners’ ability to take on the project was no accident. From the start, they have immersed themselves in the work, determined to put out a consistently high-quality product in an attractive setting with warm, genuine service. It’s not rocket science, yet so many fail to reliably deliver.

With each new concept, Zeller and Mesenburg appear to elevate their game. Whereas Barra is a casual taco- and tequila-fueled restaurant, Avo is more of a finer-dining style modern Mexican bistro. There are tacos, sure, but they’re just one item tucked into a broad, diverse and appealing menu. I stumbled upon one of my favorite new appetizers here, simply titled arepas ($12).

Each tidy little stack is supported by a thick, crispy arepa. Those cornscented cakes are topped with tender braised beef barbacoa, which is drizzled with creamy avocado sauce.

Shredded cabbage and sliced radish

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Photo by Mette Blumensaadt

By Douglas Trattner

provide textural appeal.

With a name like Avo you would expect exceptional guacamole.

Here, the kitchen takes a minimal approach, letting the taste of ripe avocado do the heavy lifting – at least in the case of the base model.

This “Casa” ($8) version is topped with a fresh, rustic pico de gallo and served with plenty of chips. I

barbacoa, chorizo, shredded chicken, grilled or fried shrimp and fried avocado. All are tricked out with pico, cabbage slaw, chipotle-garlic aioli and queso fresco. Sandwich fans will appreciate a trio of twofisted tortas starring meats like chorizo, carnitas and shredded chicken.

Avo’s “modern Mexican” label

AVO MODERN MEXICAN 2058 W. 25TH ST., CLEVELAND 216-331-6961 WWW.AVO-OHIOCITY.COM

tend to prefer a thinner chip – these are crunch-ee – but they are fresh, grease-free and lightly salted.

Other chip-friendly snacks include a half-dozen other guacs, a variety of salsas and bubbling crocks of melty queso. Consider starting with a bowl of pozole ($7), a citrusy broth studded with tender shredded pork, plump kernels of hominy and thinsliced radish.

Avo is not a “taco bar,” but Avo does sell amazing tacos. These start with warm, plush corn tortillas that are made fresh on site. They come three to an order ($13), with customers free to mix and match fillings from a list that includes

| clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

is reflected in larger plates like an espresso and chile-rubbed filet mignon, grilled shrimp bathed in a spicy cream sauce atop corn cakes, and a grilled flank steak with crispy potatoes. But other dishes come closer to classics, like a juicy roasted half-chicken ($23) smothered in chocolate-colored mole. That seductive sauce boasts an earthy sweetness and subtle heat. A Tex-Mex inspired burrito Colorado ($17) is overstuffed with grilled flank steak and Spanish rice and appropriately drenched in a mix of melted cheeses.

Avo, like its sister establishments, takes pride in its cocktail program.

The house margarita ($11) sidesteps

the uber-tart, uber-sweet pitfalls of the ilk in favor of a well-balanced – but plenty potent – blended cocktail.

While kissing a beehive is never recommended, ordering a Kissing the Beehive ($10) at Avo is. This beguiling elixir weaves mescal, honey, grapefruit and habanero syrup into pure magic. Cocktails all arrive with flavor-appropriate rim salts and garnishes.

These days, restaurant owners need to be able to please both customers eager to dine out safely and those who still are more comfortable eating at home. Avo nails the indoor safety protocols, while offering a seamless online order and payment system. A contactless curbside handover took place at precisely the scheduled time.

Bakersfield already was an attractive space, but Avo managed to improve it. The bartop has been refinished with a slick, smooth epoxy, hickory flooring was laid throughout, comfy new furniture replaced the old, and a fresh layer of avocado-green paint is the cherry on top. Any day now, those garage doors will rise to meet the sunny side patio.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

| clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

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MARCH 29-APRIL 4, 2021 | CLEVELANDMACNCHEESEWEEK.COM | clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

EAT BITES

Former Greenhouse Tavern Spot claimed by owners of Avo Mod Mex and Char for new concept

By Douglas Trattner WHEN IT COMES TO HIGHprofile restaurant properties, few are more tantalizing than the former Greenhouse Tavern. That restaurant on E. Fourth Street famously – and abruptly – closed its doors in February 2020, one month before the pandemic forced all other restaurants to do the same.

As of a few weeks ago, that property officially became unavailable. Now we know who claimed it: Gabriel Zeller and Julie Mesenburg, the husband-and-wife team behind Barra Tacos, Char Whisky Bar, Avo Modern Mexican and Lago at Lakeside, a seasonal operation in Marblehead. (The couple recently sold their ownership stake in Barra to a partner.)

It’s a remarkable journey for a pair of industry veterans who opened their first spot, Barra in Sandusky, just four years ago. When they were presented with the chance to take over such an iconic space, they knew it was too good to pass up.

“How many opportunities do you get to be on East Fourth Street,” Zeller asks rhetorically. “Probably one. If we say no now, will we ever get another opportunity to be there.

It’s not like those guys move out all the time.”

Zeller and Mesenburg have their work cut out for them. The construction crews have yet to begin work on the project, which is expected to stretch through spring and summer and into fall. When it does finally greet its first guests, it will do so as Indie.

“It’s a big space to renovate,” says Zeller. “It’s going to be a massive undertaking and I think four to five months is a reasonable amount of time.”

The punch list is long and growing. Zeller said that plans include resurfacing the bartop, completely rebuilding the backbar, reinventing the entire seating arrangement, repainting every (28-foot) wall and bringing in new furniture. The goal, he adds, is to make the restaurant unrecognizable to previous diners.

“We’re going from a rustic

farmhouse look to more modern and clean,” he explains. “When you walk into Indie, I don’t want people to think it looks like the Greenhouse Tavern. I want people to ask what was here before.”

Subtle nods to independent music have always reverberated through Zeller and Mesenburg’s restaurants, but none more than Indie.

“The concept came from us going to concerts together for the last 17 years,” Zeller shares. “We’ve collected concert posters of shows that we’ve attended. I’m having all of those framed and that will be the art. So it will have a nice music atmosphere.”

That theme will transfer to the curated music played throughout the space, the occasional live music to be performed inside and out, and the lengthy list of signature cocktails.

Zeller says it’s still too early to nail down a menu, but he describes Indie as a seasonal “New American” eatery offering small plates, sharables platters and signature plates. His chef will be Steve Clarkson, who has worked his way through Avo, Char and Barra.

For Zeller, who says that he was managing other people’s restaurants as recently five years ago, the experience is almost too much to believe.

“It’s somewhat shocking, but extremely exciting at the same time,” he says. “Greenhouse was an iconic place in Cleveland for 10 years. I’m excited to go into that space and be on East Fourth.”

(According to Zeller, this deal is contingent on financing.)

Crop Bistro In Ohio City Is Closed Crop Bistro in Ohio City has been closed since January, explains owner Marcelo Fadul, who took ownership of the grand space four years prior.

Fadul says that the struggle to stay afloat in such a large space during the pandemic eventually proved too burdensome.

“We were doing very well,” Fadul says. “I bought [my partner] Tony George out.”

Fadul says that given the current state of indoor dining and fine dining, the historic bank building will be a hard sell to future tenants – at least at current prices.

“The rent is very expensive,” Fadul says. “If somebody else gets the place, god bless and good luck because it’s too much. The place is gigantic. The gas bill alone is $6,000, $8,000, sometimes $9,000.”

Fadul says that daily operating costs hover at $1,000 when you add up rent, utilities and other expenses.

Those soaring 35-foot ceilings are indeed an architectural marvel, but the voluminous space is murder to heat and cool. And given the unique physical qualities of the 100-yearold building, it would be nearly impossible to divide it into smaller, more tenable parcels.

Iconic Velvet Tango Room Has Been Sold, New Owner Promises to Preserve Legacy The Velvet Tango Room has been sold. While rumors of the sale have been floating about town for weeks, the company that purchased it from founder Paulius Nasvytis has finally come out on record.

That company is Sly Restaurant Group, the company that took the iconic Cleveland deli Slyman’s and expanded the concept to include multiple Slyman’s Taverns locations.

“We bought it and are planning on changing nothing, so everything will stay the same – the same cocktails, the same staff, same décor, same everything,” says Rebecca Riemer, marketing coordinator with that company. “It’s always done so well.”

Work already has begun on minor interior cosmetic upgrades, but nothing major, she adds.

The Duck Island lounge had been on the market for as high as $2.75 million. The sale price, while not disclosed, was well below that number according to those familiar with it. During the period of time that VTR has been on the market, the owner was approached by many

suitors, but few met his objectives.

“I wasn’t going to sell just so the building could get knocked down for condos or townhouses,” Nasvytis explains, adding that he’s thrilled his legacy will continue relatively unchanged.

It’s not hyperbole to say that Nasvytis was ahead of his time when he debuted the exclusive cocktail lounge nearly 25 years ago. He set and maintained a bar for quality that didn’t exist locally or, barely, nationally when he quietly opened the doors. From the mysterious “back room” to the live music and long-stemmed roses, there was always plenty of glamour to go along with the drinks.

But it was the quest for perfection that set VTR apart from the other watering holes. While most people were draining Zimas, Cosmos and White Russians, Nasvytis nudged his clientele to aim higher, thus helping to usher in the golden age of cocktails that soon followed.

Since opening in 1996, the neighborhood around the Velvet Tango Room has seen seismic shifts, causing the ground beneath its foundation to soar in value.

“The neighborhood was really, really rough,” Nasvytis told me a few years ago. “It was like the no man’s land between the few sparkles that Ohio City had back then and Tremont, which was still in the infancy of its transformation.”

Nasvytis is coming off a difficult year financially, he admitted, being closed since March.

“I’ve been paying everything out of pocket for the last year,” he adds.

“I was kind of on the ropes. What a weight off my back. I’m happy that it happened, but it’s still weird.”

New owner Ron Leonhardt has been a patron and fan of Velvet Tango Room for years, says Reimer.

“It’s an iconic Cleveland-based operation and that’s kind of what he does,” Riemer says. “He saw the opportunity and jumped on it.”

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

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MUSIC MICHAEL STANLEY WAS CLEVELAND’S TROUBADOUR Courtesy Cleveland Memory Project

By Annie Zaleski

ASK 50 CLEVELANDERS THEIR favorite Michael Stanley song and chances are you’ll get 50 different answers.

There are the tunes considered his classics: the early solo signature “Rosewood Bitters,” the Heartland staples “Lover” and “He Can’t Love You,” and the You Can’t Fight Fashion top 40 hit “My Town.” Many might just take the easy way out and name every song on the legendary 1977 live album Stagepass, an LP led by the astonishingly complex “Midwest Midnight.” But Clevelanders dig deep with Stanley’s catalog, so the answer might be a Michael Stanley Band album track or a solo cut he released during the last decade.

Stanley, who died March 5 at the age of 72 after a seven-month battle with lung cancer, boasted enviable catalog depth. Although widely considered heartland rock—a gritty rock ‘n’ roll blueprint shared by acts such as Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp— he possessed range: power pop, blues, folk, AOR, soul-influenced

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rock. Unsurprisingly, in a 2013 Scene interview, he cited the James Gang and Raspberries as local favorites.

But during a career that stretched well over a half-century, the musician born Michael Stanley Gee also prioritized lyrical depth: first loves and first heartbreak, wrestling with ambition and struggling with unrealized dreams, jumping into relationships that may or may not pan out, and the difficult of facing mortality. He wrote these songs through a Midwest lens, meaning he eschewed clichés and easy answers, and instead offered unvarnished truths steeped in resiliency and pragmatism.

Such incisiveness made him a perceptive—and empathetic—lyricist.

“The thing about Michael—he saw us,” says Cleveland native Holly Gleason, an award-winning journalist and the author of Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives. “He lived it. He understood why a line like, ‘The boys are out on Mayfield / Everybody dressed to

| clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

kill,’ was every kid on the east side, driving back and forth trying to impress a girl.

“He understood why a line like, ‘Thank God for the man who put the white lines on the highway’ happens at that crisis point in a relationship—and you’re on the turnpike, because it’s the only way to get there, and you can barely see for crying, and then you’re in that lake effect snow.

“So when you heard him, you were seen—and you knew you were seen,” she adds. “And, just as importantly, you were felt. That matters.”

The feeling generated intense loyalty and, at the height of Michael Stanley Band’s popularity in the ‘70s and ‘80s, jaw-dropping local support.

The band sold out two shows at the Richfield Coliseum around the 1981-82 New Year’s Eve holiday, and then drew more than 74,000 during a sold-out four-night run of shows at Blossom Music Center in August 1982.

Outside of Cleveland, Michael Stanley Band were also massively

popular in St. Louis—the group opened for acts such as Heart, Kansas and the Allman Brothers there—and hobnobbed with big music industry names: The band worked with producers Bob Clearmountain, Don Gehman, Eddie Kramer and Mutt Lange, and once had a memorable gig with a then-unknown AC/DC and the Dictators in 1977. They also inked a series of major label record deals, which led to national exposure. The video for “He Can’t Love You” was aired twice on MTV’s first day in 1981, while the success of 1983’s “My Town” led to an appearance on American Bandstand and Solid Gold.

The Michael Stanley Band broke up in 1987—after a 12-night run at the Front Row Theater—but Stanley stayed in the public eye. He became a familiar local TV icon thanks to a stint as co-host of PM Magazine, and continued to play music. As a solo artist, his songwriting themes expanded and matured—like 2005’s “Home Tonight,” a simple but wrenching song about confronting mortality head-on, or 2008’s “Just

Another Night In America,” about struggling to find a silver lining even when life feels uncertain.

“He had — especially with the solo albums this century — some really profound songwriting,” Gleason says. “’Romeo is Bleeding,’ ‘The Ground,’ ‘Fait Accompli.’ And for somebody to care that much about their songwriting, it says a very great deal about their passion for how words and music collide.

And that’s why he did it. That’s why he kept making records all the way throughout his life.”

James Gang drummer Jimmy Fox crossed paths with Stanley in many different capacities: as musicians, during the course of business—Fox worked for the Belkins’ management arm, who oversaw Stanley’s career— and as friends. During the prolific last decade especially, Fox says Stanley would always pass him any new albums, which would lead to a discussion about the music.

“In the conversations we had about it, it impressed me that he was writing almost because he had to,” Fox says. “It was important enough in his life to get these things out.

There was no thought towards success, other than the fact that everyone hopes for it.

“You know, certain artists, they make an album or two that doesn’t succeed, and they’re done. That’s it; they’re not going to do that anymore.

That never ever could have happened with Michael. Because Michael never stopped writing—and he never stopped having something to say.”

Stanley started his career in the 1960s, part of the area’s thriving teen garage and rock ‘n’ roll band scene. While a student at Rocky River High School, he was lead singer of the Scepters and later eventually joined popular British Invasion-inspired local band the Tree Stumps. The latter evolved into the band Silk, which landed a deal with ABC Records and debuted with 1969’s psychedelic-rock influencedSmooth As Raw Silk. (In fact, the band’s labelmates included the James Gang, who released their 1969 debut, Yer’ Album, around the same time.)

That LP marked Stanley’s first collaboration with producer Bill Szymczyk, who would later also work with Eagles, B.B. King and others. The pair’s partnership endured for more than a halfcentury; as Fox puts it, “He was going to make that record, Bill was going to mix it. That was that. That was death and taxes stuff.” In recent years, Stanley was extremely prolific, which Szymczyk recalled fondly.

“About every minimum 18

months—most likely, 12, 13, 14— he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready,’” he told Scene’s Matt Wardlaw in 2015. “So I take all my gear, all my cool gear out of my studio here in North Carolina, load it in the car, drive up there and plug it into all his stuff.

And between the two of us, we create pretty good racket.”

Szymczyk also helmed Stanley’s first two solo albums, 1973’s Friends & Legends and a self-titled effort.

Today, both feel ripe for rediscovery and the kind of lavish reissues given other underappreciated ‘70s rock LPs. The backing band on Friends & Legends was Joe Walsh’s Barnstorm;

reason why people gravitated toward his music. “As a music director, I can tell you that our listeners really related to his lyrics. That’s why ‘Let’s Get the Show on the Road’ resonated with our audience, and we got endless requests for it.” Adds Fox: “You know, Michael in the end, was a troubadour. He really was. He sang his stories.”

Stanley emphasized this aspect of his musical life in recent years.

In addition to annual holiday shows with Donnie Iris & the Cruisers, he frequently performed songwritingfocused shows at the Music Box Supper Club. He fronted a band,

Cover of 1986 issue of Scene

other guests included Dan Fogelberg, Richie Furay and saxophonist David Sanborn. Stanley’s self-titled LP, meanwhile, started with “Rosewood Bitters,” which featured Walsh on guitar and Todd Rundgren on clavinet. (Walsh later covered “Rosewood Bitters” himself on 1985’s The Confessor.)

At a 2000 show, Stanley expressed gratitude to Walsh appearing on these records, “because nobody knew who the hell I was, but they said ,’Oh, Joe Walsh is on it, I think might check this out and listen to it.’” Locally, however, Stanley was already on his way to stardom.

“Michael was one of the good guys, and I loved watching him perform,” says Donna Halper, an associate professor of Communication and Media Studies at Lesley University who was a music director at WMMS in the early 1970s. “You might think the WMMS audience back then wanted only hard rock, but that wasn’t always true. There were certain singersongwriters who were very popular, and Michael Stanley was one of them.”

Like Gleason, Halper points to Stanley’s songwriting as one major

Michael Stanley and the Resonators, and also had a popular cover band, the Midlife Chryslers.

Off the stage, however, Stanley was also a steady pop culture presence. As a velvet-voiced DJ on WNCX, programming an eclectic mix of classic rock, he was the evening commute companion for thousands of Clevelanders across the years. Later, he parlayed his TV work into nods at comedy: He threw a perfectly timed punchline in a Wayne’s World-themed Big Chuck & Lil John Show sketch, and appeared onThe Drew Carey Show in a bit that also featured Joey Ramone, Slash, and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

Over the years, Stanley was also known for supporting local cultural institutions and endeavors. He had a close relationship with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame—among other things, he was interviewed there in 2015—and in late 2020 teamed up with the Cleveland Youth Orchestra for a version of his “Another New Year’s Eve”that doubled as a fundraiser. He appeared with Benjamin Orr and other local music icons on a 1980s charity single, “The Eyes of the Children,” and recorded “Here We Go Again,” the

official anthem of the Cleveland Browns’ 1998 return.

At his alma mater, Rocky River High School, his photo was displayed proudly in the school’s Hall of Fame, alongside fellow famous alums such as the MTV VJ Nina Blackwood. Stanley was a member of the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, won eleven local Emmy awards and received the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.

Stanley’s songs also continued to resonate. During a 2017 appearance at what’s now the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, country star Eric Church and his band did a smoking version of “My Town” that captured the urgency and hometown pride of the original. Two years later, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo did an in-concert jam to the James Gang’s “Funk #49” and “My Town” while in Cleveland.

In March 2020, Stanley and the Resonators did a show dubbed ‘Stagepass Revisited’ at the Akron Civic, which ended up being the band’s final gig before the pandemic shut things down. Video from that show, however, shows an ecstatic audience.

“The Springsteen comparisons are old and tired, but he did have one thing in common with Springsteen and that was the ability to relate to the crowd,” Fox says. “I think Michael was well-known for that, actually. He was just fun to see.

He had a great time on stage and he let it show. He totally, totally brought the audience in. That’s what you want to do, ultimately, as a performer: You want to give the audience something to relate to.

Something that they can listen to and go, yeah, right, I get that.”

Still, it can be difficult to explain to people outside of Cleveland why Stanley connected so deeply with local audiences—and maintained this connection for so long. The bond he had with fans was special; and there was something intangible built into his music that felt synonymous with Cleveland itself. Seeing Stanley live only cemented this fact.

“Within three songs, Michael would have had this Cocoon effect on them,” Gleason says. “Suddenly, they were all 15, 23, 27, the height of their prime, the height of who they were, when he was king. And it happened time and time again. It happened at the House of Blues. It happened at Nautica. It happened at Tangier, two weekends a year, every year.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

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SAVAGE LOVE CUTTING REMARKS

By Dan Savage Hey, Dan: I’m having a problem advising a friend. She’s been through a divorce and now the breaking off of an engagement. To put it simply, both relationships ended because she was cheated on and she has a zerotolerance policy around infidelity.

To complicate matters, in each relationship we — her friends — have witnessed her being very cutting to the point of being downright insulting to her former partners. She has a tendency to tease her partners about their deepest insecurities in public and to express her extreme disdain for their family members openly. I had a chance to speak to each of her former partners after the breakup and they expressed to me that they felt emasculated by her and that their self-esteem was shot and they had essentially “had enough.”

However, neither have given her this feedback directly.

My friends and I have hinted to her about this pattern in the hopes of helping her see what her role might be in these breakups.

But she takes extreme offense to any criticism and insists she’s the victim. I’m sympathetic to her plight but her unwillingness to accept any responsibility makes it difficult to offer her any useful advice. I’ve been there for her, calling her daily, and stopping by when I could in a COVID-safe way.

But every conversation turns into a three-hour-long rehashing of these relationships with all blame assigned to her exes. I’ve let a few weeks go by without reaching out because I don’t want to have another one of these conversations. I’m curious what you would do here. Our entire friend group is now debating whether we should share our actual opinions with her at the risk her being angry with us. The other option is to leave it alone and hope she comes to her own conclusions. I wish her exes had the courage to tell her their true feelings.

No Brainpower For Clever Signoff Your friend must be one scary asshole — I mean, that would explain why her former romantic partners won’t tell her she’s an asshole and why her friends won’t tell her that her assholery has consequences. Like getting dumped. And while her exes should’ve broken up with her before cheating on her, NBFCS, it sounds

22

like both opted to slam their hands down on the self-destruct button instead. And who can blame them?

Maybe thought cheating would help them masc back up after enduring your friend’s emasculating abuse — and that would be pretty fucked up if they thought that — or maybe they wanted to punish your asshole friend by engineering breakups every bit as painful for her as these relationships had been for them.

But why they cheated isn’t the question. You’re wondering what, if anything, you should say to your friend about this pattern, i.e. that she’s an asshole who emotionally abuses her romantic partners and it makes you and the rest of her friends uncomfortable.

If you want your friend to know she’s an asshole and needs help, NBFCS, you’re going to have to say something. Assholes rarely have epiphanies. If you can’t bring yourself to say what you need to say to her asshole face, put it in a letter, ask your mutual friends to cosign, and email it to her. You might never hear from her again, NBFCS, but would that really be so terrible? Do you wanna be friends with someone who expects you to sit there silently while she verbally abuses her romantic partners and then expects you to sit and listen while she complains about her exes for hours? We both know the answer to that question, NBFCS, and it’s fuck no. You’ve already started to cut this woman out of your life because her good qualities, whatever they might be, don’t compensate for her assholery. You’ve got nothing to lose by leveling with this woman except for her company, which you do not enjoy. You can’t condemn her exes for not having the courage to share their true feelings with her if you don’t have the courage to do the same.

Hey, Dan: How do I know if a guy is a player or if he has feelings for me? This guy goes to my university and we had our eyes on each other for more than year. I made a move and sent him a friend request on FB and we started spending a lot time with each other. The problem is, I am constantly finding him with other girls. He got to know my female friends and started talking them up too and he says the same things to them that he says to me. This made

| clevescene.com | March 10-23, 2021

me really upset and I told him I wanted some space and asked him to stop contacting me but I couldn’t tell him the real reason. Instead I told him he was suffocating me with his attention (partly true) but he kept reaching out to tell me how much he misses me. He even told me he has feelings for me but he isn’t sure what they are and so can’t put a label on them and says I’m special to him and he gets insanely jealous whenever he sees me with other guys. Feel free to ask about for more details about our story if you’re interested.

Parsing Love And Yearning

a little gross, and a huge turn-off. I think maybe this was the first time I’d seen breastfeeding in person? Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was my boyfriend’s sister?

I don’t know! I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, seeing nipples in a different light has left me repulsed by the idea of using mine in a sexual way. If I’m close to orgasm, I can stand a little bit of nipple attention but nowhere near the amount I used to like. I want to enjoy nipple play again, Dan! Any advice for getting my nipples back? It’s been months!

Breasts Out Of Business Suddenly

No more details. Please. While I’m sure every last detail is fascinating, PLAY, what you need to do here is obvious — it’s so obvious you’ve already tried to do it.

Zooming out for a second: “He’s a player,” is just another way of saying, “He’s a liar.” A player is a guy who tells someone what he thinks she wants to hear (“you’re so special to me”) to get into her pants. If a little play is all a person wants — if some sexual attention and whole bunch of compliments you know to be bullshit are what you want — then it doesn’t matter if the guy is a player. His lies can go in one ear and out the other at the same time his dick goes in and out of you. But if you want something serious with this guy and you know you’re being played, that’s going to be painful.

So, PLAY, do that thing again, that thing you already did, but stick to it this time. Tell this guy to stop contacting you, unfollow him on FB, and block his number and encourage your friends to do the same.

P.S. I don’t mean any offense whatsoever to those who breastfeed.

It’s not the breastfeeding that I find squicky. It’s the idea of using my own breasts in a sexual way that has me suddenly feeling all conflicted and weirded out.

Hey, Dan: Heterosexual, 30-something, female here. For all of my sexual life, until recently, I really enjoyed having my nipples played with by my partners — during sex, as part of foreplay, fingers, clamps, lips, tongue, just about anything touching of my nipples was a turnon and an orgasm-enhancer. But something changed after witnessing my boyfriend’s sister breastfeeding her child. Something about seeing nipples being used for, well, what they’re meant to be used for, has really squicked me out. Now, when my boyfriend touches my nipples in the slightest way, I find it irritating,

I don’t wanna ruin dick for you, BOOBS, but you do know men don’t just ejaculate out of those things, right? Dicks serve more than one purpose. Dicks and nipples both have specific non-sexual purposes (peeing and breastfeeding) as well as specific sexual functions (ejaculating and, um, erogenous zoning). There are a lot of sensitive nerve endings and erectile tissues in and around our nipples, both the male and female varieties, and our nipples — like our assholes and our throats — don’t just have a sexual use, they have a sexual purpose. Considering that we have more sex than we do children, BOOBS, you could argue that their sexual use is their highest and best use. Which means you aren’t misusing your nipples when you derive pleasure from having them licked, sucked, clamped, etc., BOOBS, you are enjoying your nipples just as nature — natural selection and spontaneous mutation — intended them to be enjoyed.

And if thinking about breastfeeding squicks you out, don’t think about it — just like you don’t think about piss when you suck your boyfriend’s dick and I don’t think about shit when I eat my boyfriend’s ass.

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

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