Scene October 7, 2020

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| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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CONTENTS OCTOBER 7-13, 2020 • VOL. 52 NO 10

Upfront ............................................ 5 Feature ............................................ 8 Art ...................................................11

Eat .................................................. 13 Music ..............................................16 Savage Love ................................. 18

REWIND: i978 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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Not everything was better in the 1970s, but hair certainly was, as Kenny Loggins showed on the cover of Scene in September 1978.

| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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UPFRONT

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DUNHAM TAVERN MUSEUM MEMBERS WANT OHIO SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON CLEVELAND FOUNDATION LAND DISPUTE

Conceptual rendering of proposed new Cleveland Foundation headquarters on the Dunhan Tavern Museum property at Euclid and E. 66th.

A BRIEF FILED WITH THE OHIO Supreme Court last week argues that lower court decisions in a dispute over the proposed location of the Cleveland Foundation’s new headquarters have sent a clear message: Laws don’t matter in Ohio “for those who are wealthy or powerful enough” to circumvent them.

Both the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas and the state appellate court in Cuyahoga County have ruled against plaintiffs who sued in 2019 to invalidate the sale of greenspace by the Dunham Tavern Museum to the Cleveland Foundation. The state’s high court is the last venue where an appeal may be heard. If it declines to adjudicate the case, the Cleveland Foundation may go forward with the construction of its proposed $25 million building on E. 66th Street between Euclid and Chester Avenues.

The Dunham Tavern Museum is the oldest standing residence in Cleveland. It had recently purchased the land in question, more than two acres adjacent to its structure on Euclid Avenue, following a fundraising campaign between 2012 and 2017. With nearly $700,000 in hand, the museum demolished a vacant industrial property on the site

and planned to convert it to a public park, with enthusiastic support from its membership.

“We demolished the [warehouse], making Dunham green space the largest in Midtown Cleveland,” the Dunham Tavern Museum’s website read shortly after the demolition.

“Your tax-deductible contribution is an investment in Cleveland’s cultural heritage and our community’s thriving green space.”

But shortly after the land was acquired, the 2019 lawsuit alleged, the Cleveland Foundation engaged members of the Dunham Tavern Museum’s board of trustees and privately negotiated a sale.

The terms were ironed out in secret, and many of the museum’s members and donors felt betrayed after they’d contributed money to see the land converted to a park. Twentysix of them signed a letter calling the board’s actions “reprehensible” and vowing to remove the small museum from their estate planning. A few filed suit to invalidate the sale.

Last week’s brief, filed by attorneys Peter Pattakos and Rachel Hazelet on behalf of their clients Christeen Tuttle and other former trustees and members of the museum, summarizes the case and argues why it’s crucial that the state supreme court intervene. Allowing

the lower courts’ decisions to stand would not only set a dangerous precedent for corporate governance in Ohio, the brief asserts, it would undermine public confidence in the judiciary by conferring immunity on a large and politically connected organization that engaged in an unlawful transaction.

“With the release of recent census data giving rise to widespread reports that Cleveland is now the poorest large city in the U.S.—on top of what was already known about the city’s staggering inequality, poverty, and infant mortality rates,” the brief reads, “it would be hard to think of a worse time for Ohio courts to send the message that such an enormously influential and wealthy community foundation [the Cleveland Foundation], the oldest in the nation, is above the law; particularly in a case where the foundation seeks to usurp historic greenspace that was reclaimed by charitable donations intended precisely to preserve the land for the public’s enjoyment.”

Pattakos, (who is representing Scene in a concurrent, unrelated case), told Scene that after the initial suit, the Cleveland Foundation launched a “full-court press” of publicity which built premature excitement for the new location and

its “transformative potential” while simultaneously pretending the lawsuit didn’t exist.

Ward 7 Councilman Basheer Jones, for example, in a comment to Plain Dealer reporter Steve Litt last year, said he was so excited by the Cleveland Foundation’s proposed relocation that he wanted to “yell it from the rooftops.”

“If I don’t achieve anything else, this move with the Cleveland Foundation moving to Ward 7 will be the best accomplishment I could achieve,” he said. “There could be nothing else that’s as great. It almost brings tears to my eyes.”

Cleveland Foundation President and CEO Ronn Richard has called the proposed move a “clear and emphatic statement” that the foundation intends to walk the talk by investing in historically poor, overwhelmingly Black neighborhoods and ushering in auxiliary development while doing so.

But the Dunham Tavern Museum members have been dismayed throughout the process, especially as they’ve watched the parade of plaudits from Cleveland’s political and non-profit elites.

“Why the Cleveland Foundation would act in concert — in concert — with a portion of a board that was | clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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defiling its organization’s purpose and shattering its membership is a mystery,” wrote Dunham Tavern Museum member Thomas Bier in a bitter condemnation of the backroom deal last year. “No end, no matter how grandiose its vision, justifies such means. The foundation’s conduct was wholly out of character.”

Chief among members’ questions is why the exact site that they’d just acquired for another purpose should be the only viable parcel in Midtown in the eyes of an organization with sufficient financial reserves (at least $2.5 billion) to locate anywhere.

DIGIT WIDGET $35 million Unpaid principal mortgage left on the Westin hotel in downtown Cleveland still owed by Otima 777, one of the companies allegedly used by Ukranian oligarchs to launder money. The Cleveland International Fund filed a foreclosure lawsuit on the property last week.

$28 million Amount of previously issued tax breaks a state agency has ordered GM to repay Ohio for broken promises to keep the Lordstown plant operating.

35% Year-over-year increase in domestic violence deaths in Ohio, according to a new state report tallying data from June 2019 to June 2020.

33 months Federal prison sentence for Tamiko Parker, who pled guilty to stealing more than $150,000 from the Collinwood and Nottingham Villages Development Corporation during her time as executive director of the CDC.

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“My clients are not opposed to the Cleveland Foundation building its new headquarters in the Midtown neighborhood, and would welcome such a development,” Pattakos said last year. “It just doesn’t belong on the Dunham Tavern greenspace that community members recently donated $700,000 to restore, consistent with the Museum’s mission and historical character.

There are plenty of alternative sites that would do, and my clients are entitled to answers in court about who Mr. Collins and Mr. Wagner sought to benefit by rushing this transaction through in violation of the Museum’s bylaws.”

Tim Collins and David Wagner are the named defendants in the case. They are museum trustees who work as an attorney and a real estate manager, respectively, and who negotiated the sale with the Cleveland Foundation. Alongside other trustees who voted to approve the sale, they were alleged to have conflicts of interest and so-called “conflicts of responsibility,” which should have rendered the sale void, according to the plaintiffs’ interpretation of Dunham Tavern Museum’s bylaws. When reached by Scene, an attorney for Collins and Wagner said he had no comment, as litigation is pending.

One of the 2019 lawsuit’s arguments was that Collins and Wagner, who work in or adjacent to real estate development, could have reasonably inferred that the construction of the foundation’s headquarters, and the stated plans for additional development, would increase property values in the surrounding area, where they or their clients have investments.

The lower courts dismissed these concerns as “speculative.”

And yet, the speculation was rooted in strong circumstantial evidence, not least the fact that the area in question is located in a federally designated Opportunity Zone. The Cleveland Foundation itself has promoted the idea of new development in the immediate vicinity.

Sure enough, three days after the Supreme Court filing, a collection of “nonprofits and colleges” saw fit to publicize that they had selected a developer to design a new “innovation district” on and around the Dunham Tavern Museum land in dispute. The group, which includes the Cleveland Foundation, JumpStart Inc. and the Midtown community development corporation, “wants to see the district grow over time and include office space, retail and housing.”

| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

“MidTown Cleveland Executive Director Jeff Epstein said the soonest construction would start is in late 2021,” cleveland.com reported. “The building will go up at East 66th Street and Euclid Avenue, at the same intersection the Cleveland Foundation chose as the site of its $25 million new headquarters...

That timetable may be optimistic, Epstein said, as that is contingent on finding the right mix of tenants to fill the building before construction, envisioning a setup where established companies and startups can work together in labs and other research.”

The timetable is evidently not contingent on the outcome of the current lawsuit. There was no mention of the suit, or for that matter of Dunham Tavern Museum, in the coverage of the proposed Innovation District. -Sam Allard

90% of Traffic Citations Issued by University Circle Police Since 2015 Went to Black People Members of the Cleveland Clinic and University Circle Police Departments assisted in various patrol and security details at last week’s presidential debate in Cleveland.

In advance of the event, the national nonprofit news organization ProPublica published a detailed report which put these private police departments — and University Hospitals’ — under the microscope.

Reporter David Armstrong analyzed arrest and citation data, exposing an alarming picture of biased policing in the prosperous “medical zone” surrounding the Cleveland Clinic and into University Circle. He speculated that this might be among the most heavily policed areas in the country.

The University Circle Police Department, with only 21 full-time officers — compared to the Clinic’s 153 — was responsible for the most extreme racial imbalances in their citations, particularly for traffic violations. Of the 1,965 drivers cited

by University Circle police since 2015, Armstrong reported, 1,723 (88%), were Black.

“The most common traffic citation issued by University Circle police is for driving with a suspended or revoked license,” ProPublica reported. “Only 26 of the 813 charged with that offense were white; 774, or 95%, were Black.”

Responding to Armstrong, UCPD Chief James Repicky attributed the data to the demographics of

surrounding communities. His officers don’t specifically target Black people, he said. It’s just that more Black people drive through University Circle’s main corridors, en route to overwhelming Black adjacent neighborhoods or the 90+% Black East Cleveland.

But ProPublica analyzed traffic tickets based on the home ZIP codes of cites drivers and found that Repicky’s demographic claims didn’t explain the vast discrepancies.

For each of the 10 mostcited ZIP codes, the proportion of Black people among the population was lower than the percentage of Black drivers who were given traffic citations by University Circle police. The same was true for eight of the top 10 most-cited ZIP codes issued to drivers by Cleveland Clinic police.

Citations issued to drivers who live outside the Euclid Avenue area also underscore the inequities. For example, 94% of citations issued by University Circle police to residents of a ZIP code in suburban Garfield Heights went to Black drivers.

Yet only 38% of people in that ZIP code are Black; 56% are white. Similarly, University Circle police issued citations to 32 drivers from one ZIP code in Euclid, a city northeast of the hospital area. All of those cited but one were Black drivers, even though the population in the Euclid ZIP code is 54% Black.

Scene sought comment from University Circle Inc. on ProPublica’s reporting and received the following statement from Police Chief James Repicky: “The University Circle Police Department is committed to unbiased policing in all encounters with the public. Racial profiling is not tolerated within our department.

UCPD officers received ongoing racial equity and inclusion, conflict resolution, de-escalation and cultural awareness training to make sure that our community members are treated fairly and fully respected. We are committed to reviewing our policing policies and procedures to ensure that we are producing just outcomes for our community.”

But the data shows that at least since 2015, the outcomes have been anything but just. That’s one reason why a local police abolition group has emerged, calling for the dismantling of RTA’s transit police, among others, to reduce the number of overlapping police jurisdictions and relax the atmosphere of “hyperpolicing” created as a result. -Sam Allard

New Cleveland Bishop Says Abortion Should be :Paramount” Consideration for Catholic Voters In an utterly wishy-washy preelection letter to the region’s 700,000 Catholics, newly installed Cleveland Bishop Edward Malesic invited his flock to prepare their consciences before casting their ballots, and in doing so, to make abortion their top priority.

While he acknowledged that neither President Donald Trump nor Democratic challenger Joe Biden reflected “the complete breadth” of Catholic moral teaching, he said it was Catholics’ “solemn duty” to vote for the candidate who best embodies the ideals of the faith.

Malesic might have made a splash by taking this preface to its logical conclusion and stating the obvious: that President Trump is a moral abomination; that he is surely one of the six or eight most repellant humans alive; that apart from his personal heinousness, he has presided over policies that vastly increase human misery and the likelihood of civilization’s collapse; that he should be disqualified instantly as a legitimate option by any person of faith.

Instead, Malesic trotted out the old abortion card. He hastened to make clear that Catholicism was not a “single-issue” church, and that Catholic social teaching didn’t particularly care for other “intrinsically evil” acts either: things like racism and “subjecting workers and the poor to subhuman conditions.” But all human rights, Malesic clarified, flowed from a fundamental right to life, and with that in mind, Catholics should make abortion their “paramount consideration” when voting for the President.

Well, that’s an endorsement of Donald Trump. And it’s not only repulsive coming from a faith leader, but frankly shocking coming from a Catholic one. Joe Biden, after all, is a practicing Catholic who for decades was an ardent pro-lifer. Biden famously said in 1974 that women “don’t have the sole right to say what should happen to their bodies,” and his record on reproductive justice is dismal, from a left perspective. He adopted a pro-choice position only recently and was still supporting the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding for abortions, in 2019.

Biden’s official pro-choice political stance but pro-life vibe, basically the view that abortions are tragedies and elected leaders should enact policies

that don’t necessarily restrict a woman’s right to choose, but create conditions whereby abortions happen infrequently, is probably the predominant position among Catholics, (a majority of whom believe that abortion should be legal in all/most cases.)

To read Malesic’s letter is to witness a church profoundly out of touch and out of tune. It might have been written about any two candidates in any election year. It’s boilerplate right-to-life stuff that occludes the pervasive, heedless theft of life under Trump. The administration’s Coronavirus response — 200,000 deaths and counting — is the marquee example, but the ongoing caging and torture of immigrants at the U.S. border, the (somehow) escalating militarism abroad, and the 2020 “execution spree,” in which more people have been put to death by the state than in the past 57 years combined, also convey well Trump’s stance on human life.

Furthermore, the church seems unwilling to acknowledge the way Christians have been, and continue to be, instrumentalized in a larger political project. Trump’s nominal opposition to abortion is meaningless as a reflection of personal values. What matters is the con: donning the pro-life mantle to convince single-issue Evangelicals and Catholics to keep voting Republican so the supreme court may be packed with archconservative justices who will promptly overturn Roe V. Wade to appease the sheep and then get on with the real work: dismantling Democracy and formally erecting the authoritarian state guys like Trump and Mitch McConnell prefer.

Outside of that larger context — which is no joke! — Catholics who take their faith seriously should consider the ways that “right to life” messaging has been weaponized, all while Jesus Christ’s own central teachings about the poor have been largely left by the wayside. It was candidate Elizabeth Warren who reminded voters, back in 2019, that reproductive rights were also economic rights, something to which Catholics, at least historically, were committed.

“When someone makes abortion illegal in America,” she told the New York Times last year, “rich women will still get abortions.” -Sam Allard

Sandra Williams, Mulling Cleveland Mayoral Bid, Has Donated FirstEnergy Contributions to Charity

With good reason, City Club of Cleveland CEO Dan Moulthrop opened a conversation with State Senator Sandra Williams last week by asking her to explain her position on the corrupt House Bill 6, the nuclear plant bailout which is alleged to have been the crown jewel of a $60 million racketeering scheme orchestrated

by FirstEnergy and former House Speaker Larry Householder.

Williams, whose City Club appearance was occasioned by her interest in a 2021 Cleveland mayoral run, is the ranking Democrat on the State Public Utilities Committee. She not only voted yes on HB6 but was one of its co-sponsors. She reaffirmed her support Tuesday, saying she backed the bill in order to save Ohio jobs and an Ohio company and to reduce energy costs.

She acknowledged the bill’s deficiencies. She said she tried to ensure that energy efficiency standards would be included in the bill — instead of being rolled back, which they were, making Ohio one of the most retrograde states in the nation in terms of environmental policy — but was ultimately unsuccessful. She said she believes that right now, HB6 should be repealed and replaced.

Moulthrop wanted to know why the repeal was taking so long, (given that it was forged in corruption, and the repeal should be a no-brainer), and Williams said that there were “lots of moving parts.” The state legislature simply isn’t ready to vote. Many of the bill’s supporters, she said, don’t feel that they’ve done anything wrong.

For her part, Williams said that to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, she has donated the campaign contributions she received from FirstEnergy to Northeast Ohio nonprofit organizations. Williams was one of 54 state lawmakers to receive FirstEnergy cash since 2017, and received the most among Democrats in either chamber.

“If people believe that we have pay-to-play in the Ohio legislature, I want to be sure that people know and understand that that was never my intent,” she said.

With respect to her mayoral ambitions, Williams said she was considering a run for one simple reason: “I want to see Cleveland be better.” She said she has been actively consulting with “influencers” in the city, including those who do not live in Cleveland, to help make her decision.

Loosely outlining her policy prerogatives, Williams said she would continue the “great” work of Mayor Frank Jackson in building up downtown, developing the east

side, and attracting businesses and conventions. She said that if she had been in charge for the past decade, she would have devoted more resources to cleaning up brownfields to attract development, crafting career pathways for Cleveland students who don’t attend college and cultivating minority businesses.

In her early conversations, Williams said that the “number one” concern she’s heard is the culture and inefficiency at City Hall itself.

She said she wants to find where the bottlenecks are in various city departments and cut red tape where necessary to ensure that people and businesses are getting the services they need as efficiently as possible.

She said that in her legislative work she has always been “hands on” and vowed to have an “open door policy” with residents. “My only job is to make City Hall work as effectively as it can,” she said, “and make this city the land of opportunity that I know it can be.”

Moulthrop reminded Williams that she is, for now, the only female candidate who has openly considered a mayoral run. Williams said she had no idea why that gender imbalance still persists, and lamented the fact that people still believe the challenging work of leading a big city might not be women’s work.

She wondered if there was even an appetite for female leadership in Cleveland.

“From this point forward, talking about my potential run, I’m going to take a page out of Kamala [Harris’] playbook,” she said. “I just eat ‘no’ for breakfast. I’m no longer going to allow people who don’t think I have the skillset to run this city deter me... Women are leading all across this country, and have been some of the most effective people through Covid-19.” -- Allard

scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene

| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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FEATURE WINTER IS COMING

Federal assistance and a dry, warm summer kept most Cleveland restaurants open through the pandemic. That’s about to change

By Douglas Trattner

Anisa Rrapaj

“I’VE NEVER SEEN A SUMMER like this in Cleveland,” says Doug Katz. “I’m so grateful that we have had this. But I think it’s going to be a true awakening when it gets too cold.”

After enduring six months of awful, terrifying and confounding hardships, the vast majority of Cleveland restaurants still are open.

While we have lost many prominent places, including Spice, Ushabu, Distill Table, XO Prime Steaks, Tastebuds, Zaytoon and Katz’s Fire, the number of independent eateries that have permanently closed has not risen to the fateful levels predicted.

That’s good news, obviously.

But it’s far from a success story.

Restaurants might be open for business, but most are teetering on cliff’s edge. The ones that are

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clinging to life despite once-in-ageneration challenges are doing so in MacGyver-like fashion by knitting together a web of short-term fixes.

Federal assistance like the Paycheck Protection Program provided a vital lifeline. Expanded outdoor dining areas helped to mitigate social-distancing guidelines that cut occupancy by half. Belt-tightening measures have translated to leaner staffs, shorter days and weeks, and limited menus. Those measures are supplemented by revenue generating “pivots” such as setting up makeshift bodegas, selling meal kits and whipping up to-go cocktails.

But the economic assistance has dried up, winter is just around the corner and all the pivots in the world won’t offset the loss of precious holiday business. Many restaurant

| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

owners are terrified about what’s to come, while others who can read the tea leaves are electing to get out while the getting is bad as opposed to miserable.

According to the Ohio Restaurant Association, nearly 80-percent of restaurants statewide have now reopened. But a recent poll conducted by the organization revealed that a majority of owners reported sales that were down at least 50-percent compared to the previous year.

Worse, 79-percent of them do not expect to break even in 2020. And worse still, more than half stated that if things do not improve, they will be forced to permanently close within nine months. Which ones ultimately survive will depend on a host of factors that include location, size of dining room, style of service,

demographics of clientele, reputation within the dining community, and whether the property is leased or owned.

If the closure of Fire exposed anything, it is just how slim profit margins are – and how tenuous daily survival can be – for a fullservice restaurant. Katz says that his decision to permanently shutter his 20-year-old bistro was unavoidable given the financial realities. In the best of times, when Fire enjoyed robust food and alcohol sales indoors and out throughout the week, month and year, the net return was between four and six percent annually.

“If you look at the profit level, and look at where you’re at with cutting seats, you’re really in trouble,” he explains. “The costs in a normal time are so expensive that it’s really all

smoke and mirrors when it comes to the bottom line. And then something like this happens. Even at 90 percent it doesn’t work. We realized that we had to make some serious decisions.”

In an ordinary world, being hailed as a restaurant with the toughest reservations to obtain is quite the accolade. In Umami’s case, that honor was earned thanks to great food and service, sure, but also the restaurant’s almost comically diminutive proportions. In the age of social distancing, an intimate 30-seat dining room is wholly unworkable.

“We were just too small,” says partner Mike Mendlovic on the closure of that beloved Chagrin Falls bistro. “From one side to the other is barely six feet, so that was the biggest issue for us. It wasn’t worth it to us to stay open and pay all those bills as small as we are.”

Despite closing in June, the restaurant recently reopened as a carry-out only restaurant (with dinein service one night per week) as a way to stay alive and relevant until something changes, according to Mendlovic.

“This is a short-term, not a longterm, solution,” he says. “We don’t want Umami to disappear. We do want to come back as a full-fledged restaurant.”

On the other end of that spectrum is Dan Deagan. As a partner in four very different types of establishments, he is able to reduce his risk, spread his losses and ride this crisis out like a well-diversified investor. His portfolio includes Dive Bar, Humble Wine Bar, Deagan’s Kitchen and Lakewood Truck Park, each possessing certain strengths and weaknesses that help offset each other.

“Having very different types of places seems to be helping,” he explains. “I can sort of hedge my bet.

It has to be terrifying for the people who have one place.”

Lacking a patio, Deagan’s Kitchen typically is slow in summer. To counter that, Deagan built the Truck Park, which has 8,000 square feet of open-air space, an absolute boon given this summer’s weather.

Deagan’s has a spacious dining room that is more conducive to social distancing than Humble, which loses a significant chunk of its revenuegenerating seats. And then there’s the matter of the 10 p.m. curfew on alcohol sales.

“The curfew doesn’t affect Deagan’s, Humble or Truck Park too much because by 10 o’clock we’re pretty much done anyway,” the owner explains. “But nobody goes to Dive Bar until midnight, so Dive Bar might as well not even be open at

this point.”

If a restaurant does have a reasonable amount of dining room space to play with, the million-dollar question remains: Will customers be at ease dining indoors when Cleveland patios are buried beneath a fresh dusting of snow?

“I think most people at this point are comfortable dining outside,” says Matthew Stipe, owner of Banter.

“And you’ll always have that group of people who will go out and dine no matter what. It’s that percentage of people who might be willing to sit on a patio but maybe not dine in when most of the scientific data, even though the CDC took a lot of it down, points to these aerosols that are rampant in restaurants.”

Stipe concluded that his clientele largely did not consist of the people who ignored all threats to personal safety, but rather the other twothirds that are more cautious.

Because of that, he decided to close the west-side location of Banter this month (Banter Van Aken District remains) rather than suffer what likely would be a long, slow demise.

“We’ve done fine on the west side these last five years, but the best we could hope for was kind of breaking even and it didn’t make sense to wish on a star that that’s the best that can happen when more than likely the opposite – or much worse – would end up happening,” he explains.

Jeff Fisher, who operates Salted Dough in Broadview Heights, has the same fears that Stipe does, but he’s using every tool at his disposal to hold back the floodwaters. When he lost more than half his seats indoors to distancing, he expanded his patio into the parking lot to recoup them. But with winter looming, he’s going to have to fight even harder to preserve that income.

“Because we are out in the suburbs, we don’t have the younger crowd that is a little more carefree,” Fisher explains. “We have a little bit of an older clientele who are much more socially aware. Some won’t eat at the restaurant unless they are eating outside.”

So what’s an operator to do?

For Fisher, that means raising a tent, slapping on side walls, firing up the propane heaters, installing ventilation, hiring third-party disinfection services and praying that people continue to visit, eat and spend. Of course, given the cost of all those measures, his nut just got a whole lot meatier.

“As long as we can keep up the numbers that we’ve been doing, we can break even or do a little beyond,” he says. “We go into survival mode.”

Survival to Chris Lieb means

cutting costs, increasing safety measures and cashing in on the goodwill that he and his partners have banked at Butcher and the Brewer during their six years on E. Fourth Street. After sitting on the sidelines for six months, the restaurant recently reopened, but in limited fashion: everything has been scaled back, including the staff, the menu and the days and hours of operation.

“The reality of it is, we can’t go full bore; there’s just not enough business to support it,” he explains.

“We scaled it all back so that we can try to function in this atmosphere – and still do it very well – but not to the degree we’re used to.”

Lieb adds that downtown restaurants are hit especially hard given the lack of sporting events, concerts, theater, conventions and daily commuters. The goal, he says, is to be that reason to visit.

“There are things that are out of our control,” he explains. “The things that are in our control that will separate us will be the quality of our product, our service, our atmosphere… all the things that we’ve always done well. If people think of you as an average place to go – especially now with the reduced amount of places to go – you’re going to see a clear distinction. I think the places that continue to do that have a chance.”

Ask an operator what the most challenging aspect of this seemingly never-ending nightmare is and more than the likely the answer will be the uncertainty of it all. For owners like Katz and Stipe, both of whom were approaching lease renegotiations, the path presented itself with unvarnished clarity. For everybody else, life is a daily roller coaster of ambiguity and anxiety.

“We haven’t made any decisions because you can’t make any decisions until you know what’s going to happen,” says Michael Symon, who has restaurants downtown and in suburban Cleveland. “Will there be more PPP. Is there going to be a vaccine in a month, six months, one year. Will people take it when it comes out or be afraid. You just try and make good decisions every day, but it’s a moving target. Sometimes you do something that works and then you try the exact same thing again but it doesn’t work. In a business that is always a little bit fickle, now it’s so unpredictable.”

Another factor that can tip the scales of survival is whether or not the restaurant owner rents or owns the property. While many tenants we spoke to were quick to compliment their landlords for “working with

them” on rent payments, not a single one mentioned any type of monetary forgiveness. The best most could hope for is a modified payment schedule.

When Bonnie Flinner decided to open a business 15 years ago, she was dead set on property ownership. She purchased a chestnut of a building in Tremont, opened Prosperity Social Club and knew that she had made the kind of investment that would help pave the way to a happy retirement.

“That has probably been my saving grace,” she says with respect to the current situation. “For people who have to pay rent and who don’t have a landlord that’s working with them, that’s going to be a nail in their coffin for sure.”

But it’s not all good news for property owners like Flinner, who might have been eager to cash in their chips and ride off to the next chapter of their lives.

“I have thought about a transition, but a lot of businesses are now so devalued without the sales that they have established over the years and years of being in business,” she explains. “You don’t want to flush that all down the toilet to a bottom feeder during the pandemic.”

Now imagine how hard that decision-making process becomes when your restaurant is approaching 100 years old and happens to be sitting on prime real estate. That’s the sort of weight that saddles Bernie Sokolowski, who along with partners operates Sokolowski’s University Inn in Tremont. That iconic Cleveland restaurant, opened in 1923 and the recipient of a James Beard “American Classics” Award, has yet to reopen.

“We’re still evaluating everything,” admits Sokolowski.

“The way it’s set up right now with the distancing and everything else, it wouldn’t be feasible for us to open up. We do a volume business and it just wouldn’t work.”

Like every other restaurant owner, Sokolowski is struggling to make a clear-headed decision in the foggiest of times. But the heartbreaking truth of the matter is this: You might already have enjoyed your last meal at Sokolowski’s.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, I really don’t,” he says. “We’ve been lucky, we’ve been blessed. I grew up in that house. I grew up upstairs. That place was my living room down there where I would watch TV as a kid. I shake my head sometimes thinking about some of the people. Not so much celebrities as regular Clevelanders.

Beautiful people. Kind people.”

The independent restaurant | clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

9

industry employs more than 11 million people. When restaurants – independent or otherwise – close, it affects not only the owners and staff, but also a litany of supporting businesses like produce, meat, seafood, beer and wine distributors.

But also the bakeries, florists, equipment repair folks and cleaning companies.

“I don’t think the general public realizes the trickle-down effect,” states Flinner. “The normal person might think that restaurants are struggling, but it’s more than just the staff, it’s the purveyors, it’s the farmers, it’s the linen company, it’s the soap guy… it’s everybody.”

So far, we’ve been spared the grim carnage that has been prophesied for so many months, but only a fool thinks the worst is behind us. Social

challenges. There’s obviously going to be some big changes to the industry. Unfortunately there’s going to be some more closings.

But there is going to be some big operators looking for new spaces. I’m optimistic about the future.”

Some of the industry shifts that Taylor references, such as fast-casual and quick-serve restaurants, have been on the upswing for years. Others, like the birth of ghost kitchens, are just beginning to heat up. Both categories are better suited to weather the pandemic than full-service eateries for a number of reasons.

“Fast-casual is perfect for this time because of the way it’s set up,” explains Victor Searcy of Sauce the City. “We’re in between fast food and dining in, so you’re still getting that quality of ingredients but you have

So far, we’ve been spared the grim carnage that has been prophesied for so many months, but only a fool thinks the worst is behind us.

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distancing guidelines or not, an estimated 30-percent of diners do not feel comfortable eating indoors.

Those fears will increase as cold and flu season picks up. Additional federal aid packages might help, but given the current legislative climate, it likely would be too little and too late for many. Short of a silver bullet like a miracle vaccine, operators have little reason to feel optimistic.

“I think there’s going to be sort of a culling of the herd when it comes to restaurants in this town pretty soon, and not necessarily just restaurants that were struggling already,” predicts Stipe. “It’s the people who make the difficult but intelligent decision that perhaps it’s time to throw in the towel or move onto something else. Obviously, I wish it wasn’t the case, but I think it’s going to get scary again through the end of the year.”

If there is a silver lining, it’s that Cleveland could be in a worse position. Stephen Taylor, who leads the Restaurant Practice Group of the local CBRE office, sees glimmers of hope and even reasons to be positive.

“I think Ohio has bounced back,” he says. “It’s definitely one of the stronger states. Those markets which are very heavily focused on corporate traffic, convention business and tourism like New York, New Orleans, Vegas, Orlando… that will take a lot longer to turn around. Restaurants in New York City or Chicago with very small footprints are going to have

the choice to sit and eat or go out.

There is no pressure to dine in.”

In fact, volume-based businesses like Searcy’s depend on speedy turnover, where people get in, get their food, and get out. While check averages are significantly lower than those of full-service restaurants, operators serve more customers while spending considerably less to do so.

“We don’t have the overhead costs of a full-service staff,” Searcy adds.

“We basically just have our cooking staff and register people and that’s it.”

Chimi, a virtual eatery in Cleveland Heights, takes the concept a step further. Diners never even step foot inside the door, relying instead on pickup and delivery to secure their meal. Doug Katz opened the South American concept in a catering kitchen that was idled by the lack of event business. The lean operation lacks the lofty rent, bloated payrolls and day-to-day costs of a conventional full-service restaurant.

“The minute you open a brick-andmortar restaurant, your costs just skyrocket,” explains Katz.

The concept, which opened during the pandemic, has been so successful that the chef will open a second ghost restaurant out of the same commissary sometime this month.

Expect other operators to follow suit as we enter a winter of new adjustments to another new normal.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

ART COMING TOGETHER

Maelstrom Collaborative Arts stays flexible and creative with “The Wandering: A Story in Time and Space”

MAELSTROM COLLABORATIVE Arts kicks off “The Wandering: A Story in Time and Space” on Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 5:30 p.m.

The event, which is a collaboration between 32 artists, dancers, painters, writers, musicians and performers, tells the story of a group of strangers brought together under mysterious circumstances and comes on the heels of the The ACTIVATE Storefront Window Residency, which is part of a six-week residency program showcasing physicallydistant, socially-relevant work in the Detroit-Shoreway and Cleveland communities.

“The show tells the story of a group of people brought together by a catastrophic accident,” says Jeremy Paul, Executive Artistic Director of Maelstrom Collaborative Arts. “In the aftermath, these strangers begin sharing the same dream each night and gradually begin to shape and change it, creating an alternate reality in dreaming that allows them to process what happened and find new ways to connect with each other.

The event space is structured so that the audience physically explores the ways in which this dreamscape began, grew, and eventually ended, with each artist creating a ‘dream shrine’ that represents a different phase of evolution for this dream.”

Maelstrom Collaborative Arts (MCA), which aims to serve the growth of innovative artists at the borders of diverse genres, disciplines and media, was forced to cancel the majority of its 2020 season due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

They needed to find alternative ways to connect with their audiences in a way that was safe and socially conscious with regard to physical interaction, while concocting a platform for their artists to express themselves.

“With traditional performance off the table, we have been working towards other ways to safely engage audiences and artists while also using our experience with creating immersive theater and environmental storytelling,” says Paul. “This show is a cross between ‘Inferno,’ an explorable, multimedia adaptation of

Photo by Kaitlin K. Walsh

By Shawn Mishak

Dante’s Inferno that we created last fall, and ‘The Last Day,’ a pseudoescape room we developed in 2016.”

As exhibition spaces continue to challenge themselves as to how to stay relevant and connected to their participants with the help of ACTIVATE, MCA, sticking true to its mission, perseveres and innovates in face of a challenging time for the Arts across the world.

“The ACTIVATE Storefront Window Residency was a way to experiment with innovative methods for making and presenting live art in a COVID-safe way, says Paul. “It also created a sense of shared-space, with audience members and passersby standing on the corner of 54th and Detroit witnessing something unusual, out-of-the-ordinary—- and then being able to talk about it, both with each other and the artists present. Watching the sunset against the window panes while music played, or an installation shone brightly from behind the glass was a magical moment for a summer that was fraught with so much discord.”

MCA is capturing the national moment to try and gain an audience for the many who feel voiceless or undermined. There is strength in diversity of ideas and approaches, and particularly in the field of the arts, and “The Wondering” is a great

example.

MCA challenges the Arts community in Cleveland to consider hurdles certain artists face in Cleveland.

From their website: “We believe that there are real, systemic barriers to equitable engagement in the arts that must be dismantled and that equal access regardless of race, sexuality, gender identity or culture is essential to a vibrant Cleveland arts community. We believe that equity is an active process that requires individual and systematic work every day to achieve it, and that it is the only way we accomplish our mission and vision.”

I asked Paul to elaborate on what challenges artists face here in a Cleveland.

“Cleveland is a deeply segregated city in both the traditional racial and classist sense of the word, as well as in the way resource scarcity and inequality create artistic silos by discipline, geography, and community. These divisions help to propagate the existing systems of gatekeeping that have overwhelmingly favored white, straight, cis men.”

MCA calls us to task to stay open minded and to relish in our differences. It also reminds us why multiculturalism ultimately makes

for a more buoyant society.

Another intriguing project MCA is working on is “The MCA Pen Pal Letter Exchange,” where they asked people to write anonymous letters to unknown friends with the greeting, “Dear [Blank].”

They received about 50 letters back and some exchanges have been ongoing.

“MCA Pen Pals was really popular and we did it 3 times; people ended up writing, drawing, painting, and crafting some pretty amazing stuff- one person sent a home-made face mask, and another person sent a hand-crafted fortune teller!

It was both playful and incredibly meaningful during a scary and quite uncertain time.”

The Wandering is limited to only one audience member at a time (or two if they are from the same household), who will be required to wear a mask during the experience.

All art will be installations or otherwise made remotely, but there will be live elements and environmental changes as the audience moves through the space and experiences the story. Tickets for this event begin at $25 per person.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

EAT JUST WHEN WE MEATED IT MOST

Proof opened despite the hurdles of the pandemic and brought killer barbecue to Tremont

MIKE GRIFFIN ALREADY HAD done so much work to prepare for the opening of Proof, his barbecue restaurant in Tremont, but one final hurdle remained. Despite the fact that it was the dead of winter, the owner was scrambling to complete a spacious patio and bar.

A concrete pad was poured, a tall, sturdy fence erected and natural gas lines snaked to accommodate future outdoor heat sources. And finish it he did, just in time for opening day. But then the pandemic landed, slamming the brakes on a restaurant project literally years in the making.

“It sucked the life right out of us,” Griffin confessed.

But here we are, all these months later, and the scene is one of carefree enjoyment. The restaurant ultimately made its debut in May, and tonight that 100-seat patio (now 50 seats thanks to distancing) is at capacity, a queue of hopeful diners waits for open tables and the owner finally is able to utter a sigh of relief.

“Thank god for this patio,” he says. “Without it, I don’t know what we would do.”

The pandemic was just another in a long line of trials that Proof has endured since it first was conceived some four years back.

The restaurant is situated in the lower level of the tree-story building that is home to Visible Voice Books and Crust Pizza, which Griffin also owns. In normal times, Proof would be described as clubby, intimate and stylish, with room for about 55 guests in a brick-lined basement space with windows that look out and up to the sidewalk.

Now, thanks to social distancing, more than half of those precious seats are gone.

It’s noteworthy to point out that Tremont, in spite of being regarded as one of the city’s brightest culinary corners, has lacked a barbecue joint. That was one of the motivating factors behind Griffin’s decision to pursue the niche. He had help crafting and perfecting the recipes from consulting chef Pete Joyce, who sadly passed away last month. In the wake of his

Photo courtesy PROOF

By Douglas Trattner

untimely departure, his fabulous food remains.

A sturdy Southern Pride smoker planted on the rear patio turns out meats like brisket, pulled pork, pork belly and chicken, all slowsmoked over fruit wood. In true smokehouse fashion, those items

tender meat are piled onto a bed of thin, salty tortilla chips and capped with queso, salsa verde, fried onions and shaved scallions.

When you start with meats like 14-hour smoked brisket ($14), juicy smoked chicken ($12) and that delicious pulled pork ($12), you end

PROOF 2258 PROFESSOR AVE., CLEVELAND 216-583-0551 PROOFCLEVELAND.COM

are sold by the pound and halfpound and paired with pickles, onions, cornbread and a choice of sides. But those foods also arrive in the form of nachos, steamed buns, tacos and sandwiches.

Even buried as it was beneath a layer of melted smoked cheddar, the smoked pork in the pulled pork nachos ($9) displayed ebony bits of crusty bark. This is no crockpot braised pork – you know the type: saucy, soft and smoke-free – but instead meaty, faintly sweet, aromatic and complex. That smoked pork shoulder is great on its own and, I’m guessing, in a sandwich, but its true calling might be in nacho form. Threads and chunks of

up with killer tacos. Large portions of those flavorful meats are folded into tortillas along with cheese, salsa, slaw and meat-appropriate sauces. They come three to an order.

Proof offers an impressive selection of sauces – I counted seven – to pair with the smoked meats. They range from a thick, smoky and sweet KC-style to a classic Carolina elixir that is thin, bright and tangy. There’s also a chunky cherry and bourbon flavored sauce, Latin-spiced roja and blistering house hot sauce.

Barbecue purists should opt for the build-your-own platters ($16), which combine the meats of

one’s choosing with various sides, sauces and garnishes. Proof is making some of the best smoked pork belly around, a process that renders much of the fat, leaving succulent slabs of sweet belly meat. The brisket is well-seasoned, appropriately beefy, melt-in-yourmouth tender and pleasantly (but not aggressively) smoky. The meats are joined by pickles, onions and choice of two sides from options such as cornbread, mac and cheese, baked beans and slaw.

Barbecue and bourbon go handin-hand and Proof will satisfy whiskey enthusiasts who prefer theirs neat or in cocktails. Drinks run $8 and include a balanced New Fashioned starring Four Roses and a Kentucky Mule that gets its kick from George Dickel rye.

In terms of foods to order for pick-up and delivery, few items travel as well as barbecue. A general rule of thumb states that the longer it takes to cook something, the longer it will hold up in transit. Slow-smoked ‘cue, I’m looking at you.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

Photo by Doug Trattner

EAT BITES

Brandon Chrostowski scoops up Fire spot in Shaker Square for Edwins Too

By Douglas Trattner EDWINS PRESIDENT AND Founder Brandon Chrostowski says that Cleveland diners “want to get out, are trying to get out, and they want a high-end experience. This is what we’ll be providing.”

To that end, he will open a new fine dining venture in the longtime home of Fire at Shaker Square. When Edwins Too (13220 Shaker Sq.) opens this November, it will be a high-end, fine-dining, prix-fixe establishment operated, as always, by students and graduates of EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute, where formerly incarcerated adults acquire culinary and hospitality skills.

For a six-month engagement (to begin with), the restaurant will offer three-, five- and seven-course prix fixe menus built around haute cuisine. Beverage pairings will be available as well. The kitchen will host a monthly chef-in-residence, who will work with the Edwins team to craft menus.

“There will be some big names,” he promises.

But this move is almost more about the “why” than the “what,” stresses Chrostowski.

“It’s going to be great for Cleveland, this fine-dining restaurant with a prix fixe menu; the city deserves that,” he says. “But our students deserve that even more.

I’ve got 50 students lined up and in a month or two we’re only going to have half the capacity when it’s too cold for the patio. I’ve got to make sure that I’m creating enough space to facilitate these classes. There are more people than before that want to sign up for these classes.”

Edwins Too will be open Fridays through Sunday, with two dinner seatings per night on Friday and Saturday, plus Saturday and Sunday brunch and Sunday dinner service.

Opportunities for weekday private dining also exist.

“We realize, all across the country, and especially right here in Cleveland, our friends and families are faced with adversity,” Chrostowski says. “In these less than ideal times, however, we’re here, and we are doubling down on

the EDWINS mission. This is our solution and our greater calling right now.”

Banter to Close Gordon Square Location on October 11 with Promise to Return in New Spot Matthew Stipe has announced that Banter (7320 Detroit Ave., 216801-0305) will close its west-side location after five years on October 11. Many factors, the owner says, went into this decision, not the least of which was the looming winter season in the shadow of the pandemic. But the closure is temporary, he adds, with sights set on a new location in the same neighborhood early next year.

“We’ve done fine on the west side these last five years, but the best we could hope for was kind of breaking even and it didn’t make sense to wish on a star that that’s the best that can happen when, more than likely, the opposite or much worse would end up happening,” he explains.

While he is certainly sad about shuttering his much-adored sausage and poutine bar, Stipe says that the closure allows him to exit in the best possible way, leaving Banter better equipped to come back better than ever.

“We’re kind of in a unique situation,” he reports. “Our lease was up and we were on month-tomonth. We got to the point where we were in a good financial position and we don’t have to try and force our way through Covid; we could take a step back and see what this winter really has. I think there’s still a lot of uncertainty ahead. It’s something where we can take our time and reevaluate after the first of the year.”

Banter’s current Gordon Square shop is a challenge right now given its unique layout. Down the road, notes Stipe, customers can expect to see a slightly different design.

“A ton of factors went into this decision, but the fact that we were sort of maxed out on what we could do out of that space came into play,”

he says. “I think when our west-side location is reborn, I think it will be reimagined just a little bit.”

The goal, he says, is to remain in Gordon Square.

Banter at Van Aken District is doing great, he reports.

Bar Oni Now Open in Tremont On August 25, chef-owner Matthew Spinner closed Ushabu, his fine-dining Japanese bistro in Tremont. On October 1, he and chef Dave Kocab opened Bar Oni (2173 Professor Ave., 216-713-1741), an izakaya – aka Japanese sports pub – in the same space.

“We had a real challenge to take a beautiful fine-dining Japanese space and turn it into a beautiful Japanese bar,” explains Spinner, who says that the finishing touches are just now being applied.

The overarching objective was to transition the property from an exclusive fine-dining establishment with long dinners and lofty check averages to a fun, casual and affordable pub experience that showcases a different side of Japanese culture, adds Spinner.

“This is part of the culture that you may not have seen before,” he says. “It’s fun and drunken and loud and bawdy and it’s a blast and we’re watching baseball with our friends.

That’s not strictly an American thing; that is absolutely a Japanese tradition as well.”

Guests will see the same footprint, with high-backed booths on one side and the bar on the other,

but the room has been painted black with pops of bright orange. The galvanized aluminum bartop has been replaced with warm maple wood, as have the tabletops. Behind the bar hang three new screens for sports. A new draft system will deliver beer, cider and cocktails on tap.

The kitchen has been remodeled to accommodate this new concept and food menu. Front and center is the imported yakitori grill that will turn out skewers of grilled and glazed chicken thigh, breast, tenderloin, wing, liver, heart and meatballs. Those classic yakitori items will be joined by grilled or tempura-fried vegetables like eggplant, shishito peppers, oyster mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.

Slightly more expensive specialty skewers range from tuna-stuffed peppers and jumbo shrimp to pork collar and top-quality Wagyu.

Those items will be joined by one daily feature like fried pork katsu or tempura fish.

“We’ll be open from Wednesday to Sunday and each day will have an assigned plate,” says Spinner.

“One of the things we became well known for at Ushabu was a complete lack of consistency – not in terms of quality and service, I hope – but with respect to certain dishes. One of the things that we’re striving to change that Ushabu regulars will notice is we’re shooting for straight up-and-down consistency.”

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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MUSIC C-NOTES

Local singersongwriter Doug McKean releases new album recorded in quarantine

By Jeff Niesel

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| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

LAST WEEK, FORMER GC5/ Magpies bassist Doug McKean, who also currently plays multiple instruments in the Ohio City Singers and fronts the Pogues cover band the Boys from the County Hell, has digitally released his fifth fulllength album, The Second Golden Age of Piracy. It can be found on both Bandcamp and Spotify.

McKean had intended to record with a band, but the pandemic altered those plans, and he commenced working on the album in isolation during the shutdown that took place in March.

“Late last year, I started putting the wheels in motion and started putting a band together with five or six people,” says McKean in a recent phone interview. “The band was going to make this record. I daydreamed about playing this stuff live in the studio and tracking the record that way. That idea got trashed early this year.”

But because the songs speak to the current state of affairs, McKean was determined to release the album this year.

“The songs seemed relevant this year, and it seemed good to get them out now,” he says. “Whatever goals I had about getting making a record with the band would wait, but that didn’t mean the record would have to wait. A lot of the songs were written last year. I bought a multitrack recorder in the summer of 2019, and it’s the first time I’ve owned one of those since I was a kid. I started having a good time with it. I had these scraps of songs, but I didn’t have a lot of complete songs written.

I had 100 little piano riffs. I had melodies and started working them up on the multi-track recorder. It was a different process than playing them on a guitar.”

As a result, the songs such as the jittery opening number “Cowboy Show” have a retro art-rock feel to them and hearken back to Brit acts such as XTC, David Bowie and Elvis Costello.

“Elvis [Costello] is always a bit of a North Star for me,” says McKean. “He writes great lyrics and great tunes.

Those are the two things I’m always aiming to do. I think there’s a touch of an art-rock thing on the record. I was listening to XTC and the art-rock era of Bowie. Those are the things that are touchstones for what I was doing.”

McKean sang, played all the instruments and recorded the songs in his basement; he then sent them to Don Dixon (REM, Marshall Crenshaw, Smithereens) to mix.

The album embraces quite a few different genres as the funky “Kintpuash” features clavinet and saxophone riffs and old school synths give “Howlin” a discoinspired rhythm.

When it’s safe to do so, McKean hopes to play a release party of some sort.

“I definitely still want to get a band together,” he says. “I’m clearing out the underbrush, and hopefully, if things go back to normal, which is not a great assumption but the only thing you can really plan for, I want to get out with a band. I have talked to people about doing it before this hit. I want it to be a big band with guitar and keyboards and someone who can float. I talked to [local musician] Tom [Prebish] about doing it, and we can sing together well. I want to be able to put on a real show.”

Brite Winter to Pivot to Virtual Format in 2021 The organizers of Brite Winter, the annual outdoor music and arts festival that takes place on the West Bank of the Flats in February, have announced they’ll pivot to a scaleddown, mostly virtual format for 2021.

“As you are aware, arts organizations around the globe have had to cancel, postpone, or modify their regular events due to public health concerns around Covid-19,” reads a press release. “Brite Winter is no different. While we will not be hosting our typical one-day bash in February, we will still have a winter full of art, music, and connection. It will be different, but we are looking forward to the opportunity to continue to bring joy to our Cleveland community in a new and different way. Look for music and visual arts programming in virtual and small outdoor settings in January, February, and March.”

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

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SAVAGE LOVE QUICKIES

by Dan Savage Hey, Dan: I was dumped in August by a guy I was seeing for ten months.

He told me that he wants to work on himself and “needs to be selfish” right now. Since then, we have spoken every day, shared numerous dinners and gone on hikes. Our friendship is killing me. With him I hold it together.

Away from him I cry all the time. I’ve started seeing a therapist and I’m on medication. I’m trying to be mature about the breakup and match his level of “coolness” but it’s destroying me.

My friends tell me that I should stay away from him, allow some time to pass and reassess. But the thought of losing him is almost as bad as the thought of keeping him in my life.

Simply Heartbroken And Talking To Ex Really Extending Depression P.S. I should also mention that I ended a ten-year relationship for the opportunity to date him.

for almost five years and everything is amazing except that he sees his ex-girlfriend when I’m not around. He says she wants to meet me but he never wants to meet up with her when I’m with him. Their “dates” are becoming more frequent. She’s a single mom and he has expressed to me that he wants to be in her son’s life. My feelings of discomfort are escalating and I’m having trouble believing him when he says he wants me to meet her.

When I bring this up, he gets angry and says I’m being too emotional. Am I being a crazy jealous girlfriend? I need some help. I want to be a better person.

Should I reach out to his ex-girlfriend directly since my boyfriend refuses to make it happen? Or do I bail on the relationship? I feel that uncomfortable.

Ex-Girlfriend Looms Over Everything

“Hey, Dan, what I’m doing is making me miserable — should I stop?”

Yes, SHATTERED, you should stop.

Your friends are giving you excellent advice: Stay away from this guy for at least a year — don’t talk on the phone (with him), don’t share meals (with him), don’t go on hikes (with him) — and then see how you feel after you’ve talked, shared meals and gone on hikes with other people. It’s always nice when exes are friends, but it’s not an easy pivot and it can’t be executed instantly. And transition to friendship is always much harder for the person who was dumped — because of course it is — and it’s even harder when a selfish dumper accepts or demands the kind of attention and emotional support from the dumpee that the dumper is no longer entitled to.

P.S. If you ended a ten-year relationship to date someone — if you ended it for a romantic prospect, not a romantic certainty (and there’s no such thing as a romantic certainty) — then that ten-year relationship needed to end. If your ex-boyfriend implored you to end that ten-year relationship and ten months later dumped you to “work on himself” and then did everything in his power to keep you all to himself even after dumping you, then that “friendship” needs to end too. At least for the time being.

Hey, Dan: My name is a variation on “John Smith.” I met a woman and she liked me but then she did a cheapo background check on me and found a “John Smith” who had committed felonies — including assaulting a high school principal — and ended things with me. I am not that John Smith and I am innocent of these crimes! She had every reason to trust me: We met at my house and she viewed the premises without incident. What do I do?

Not That Guy

Hey, Dan: I’ve been with my boyfriend

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| clevescene.com | October 7-13, 2020

Bail.

You had this woman over to your place, and she “viewed the premises” without incident. Okay … so you didn’t rape or kill her when she dropped in and that speaks well absolute bare fucking minimum of your character.

But it doesn’t obligate her to keep seeing you. If you can prove you’re not John Smith, high school principal assaulter, and she doesn’t care, NTG, then there’s some other reason she doesn’t want to see you again. (Was there a MAGA hat on the premises?)

But whatever her real reason is/real reasons are, you’ve been given a “no.”

And like everyone else, NTG, you have to take “no” for an answer even when it feels unfair or arbitrary.

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

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