Scene august 31, 2016

august 31 - September 6, 20 volume 48 issue 9

The ďŹ ring Afric of tw an-A o mi m d-lev e rican a lon el s at R g t i m in th e cul TA, a e org t nd u ral ch aniza asm tion’ s ope ratio B y S am ns Allard

OFF THE RAILS

The ďŹ ring of two mid-level African-Americans at RTA, and a longtime cultural ch asm in the organization’s op erations

By Sam Allard

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!5'534 3%04%-"%2 s 6/,5-% .O 9 Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Publisher Chris Keating Editor Vince Grzegorek Editorial Managing Editor Eric Sandy Music Editor Jeff Niesel Staff Writer Sam Allard Writer-at-large Kyle Swenson Web Editor Bliss Davis Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Contributing Dining Editor Rachel Hunt Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Editor Josh Usmani Intern Tucker Kelly

CONTENTS Upfront

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Uncle Earl is in town

Taking a look at the scope of addiction treatment in Cuyahoga County, the East Cleveland merger, and more

Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Hunter-Davis

Feature

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The firing of two mid-level African-Americans at RTA reveals a longtime cultural chasm in the organization’s operation

Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Layout Editor/Graphic Designer Christine Hahn Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace Business Asst. To The Publisher Angela Lott Sales Assistant/Receptionist Megan Stimac Staff Accountant Kristy Dotson

'ET /UT

Circulation Circulation Director Don Kriss

Dozens of events spanning the next week in Cleveland

Euclid Media Group Chief Executive Offi cer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Offi cers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner Human Resources Director Lisa Beilstein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon Chief Financial Offi cer William Mickey

Art

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Loren Naji will live inside his artwork to shine a light on important causes

Stage

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UPFRONT EAST CLEVELAND MERGER TALKS REMAIN A LAUGHABLE MESS Photo by Doug Brown

AS TALKS TUMBLE ONWARD -years in the making -- Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley has rejected a merger ordinance presented

by East Cleveland City Council. The ordinance included a list of merger conditions so extreme that Kelley rejected the proposal out of hand, gently calling it a “non-starter.”

“I am committed to continue discussing ways toward a possible merger with East Cleveland,” Kelley said, in a statement. “But any movement must be fair and feasible to both cities.”

In its current iteration, the proposed ordinance is not. A council spokesperson confirmed that Kelley will not be presenting the ordinance to city council; and, accordingly, council will not be appointing three of its own representatives to the annexation commission. On Monday, East Cleveland City Council members admitted that the petition language was a “mistake.” Council President Tom Wheeler told outgoing WEWS reporter Homa Bash that they’ve never merged with another city before, so it’ll be a little touch-and-go for a while here.

The merger has, therefore, effectively stalled out. Until East Cleveland presents a more reasonable proposal, or until, improbably, 25 percent of Cleveland voters petition to force Cleveland city council’s hand, discussions won’t be moving forward.

Perhaps East Cleveland’s strategy was akin to open-air-market haggling, kicking off negotiations with ludicrous demands, hoping to arrive somewhere in the middle. If so, Kelley (as vendor) has called their bluff.

What East Cleveland proposed doesn’t even resemble a merger. They’d like to to remain a “semi-autonomous” ward within the city of Cleveland, retaining its name, its red light traffic cameras (which Cleveland voted down in 2014), and its city council, sort of.

The proposal calls for current East Cleveland city council members to keep their salaries while managing a new all-powerful community development corporation, which would have rights to every publicly owned parcel in the ward. They would also like to absorb parts of University Circle, thank you very much!

The list is frankly outrageous. It

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East Cleveland leaders are still hashing out the path toward a merger. requests a one percent annual income tax credit for all East Cleveland residents (or 1.5 percent credit, presumably, if Cleveland were to pass its income tax hike in November), $20 million from the State, via the Cuyahoga County land bank, for home rehab loans, and $10 million as a “merger incentive payment” to cover city debts and capital repairs.

In a further and yet more profound misunderstanding of the word “merger,” the new ward of East Cleveland wants to keep its own municipal court, become its own police and fire district, and outsource maintenance of all ward parks to the Metroparks system (what??).

The ward of East Cleveland also pretty clearly intends to keep Gary Norton in power. Envisioned by the annexation commission is a councilperson to be “elected from an election of standing elected government officials.” Norton, however, claims not to have been behind the merger conditions.

“And if you come up with a list of conditions that people resoundingly laugh at,” said Norton, in a Cleveland. com interview, “they’re really laughing at you… I think the only thing missing was a moat, a drawbridge and a fire-breathing dragon to protect the city of East Cleveland from all harm.”

Mad props to East Cleveland for the melon-sized cojones in submitting the ordinance. But as Kevin Kelley is only too pleased prove, East Cleveland is in no position to be making demands of this magnitude (or any demands at all).

The public will be gathering at

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

5:30 p.m. Aug. 31 at East Cleveland Public Library to hash out further conversation on these points and many more.

AS OPIATE CRISIS WORSENS, ACCESS TO TREATMENT FACILITIES REMAINS STATIC There is one inpatient treatment bed available for every 52 heroin addicts in Cuyahoga County, according to data provided by the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board of Cuyahoga County.

When prescription medications like oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl are factored in, the data point becomes bleaker: one bed for every 207 people abusing opiates in this county.

There are 387 inpatient beds in Cuyahoga County, with 169 funded by the ADAMHS Board. According to a 2014 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration survey, there are between 70,000 and 90,000 Cuyahoga County residents abusing prescription medication. (Included in that number: 20,000 heroin addicts.)

On top of that, there are 63 detox bed available here. Detox is distinguished as a process that sees addicts getting clean in a safe facility, like Rosary Hall at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center. Treatment is a more involved process, one that often includes supervision and counseling.

Outpatient treatment services are available, and the decision to proceed to treatment can be voluntary or courtmandated.

Which path an opiate addict takes to an open bed here in Cuyahoga

County, the first step is often spent idling on a waiting list -- a significant problem amid a public health crisis where one wrong step could cost someone his or her life. It’s a problem that has been brought up by sources in our reporting over the past year (see here and here).

Earlier this year, County Executive Armond Budish said that one goal of his administration is to lift or ease Medicaid reimbursement restrictions that limit the number of treatment beds available in a given facility. (These regulations haven’t been updated in more than 20 years.) Lifting those caps would allow, at the very least, dozens of additional treatment beds to open up here in Cuyahoga County.

Of course, inpatient treatment services remain just one element of the ongoing fight against opiate addiction here.

ADAMHS CEO William Denihan also lauded the work of Project DAWN, which has distributed around 1,500 naloxone kits this year in Cuyahoga County. He reported that more than 160 lives have been saved through that organization.

Still, though, the county is facing is most serious health crisis in decades.

By the end of 2016, it’s likely that the heroin or fentanyl overdose death count will top 500 -- more than double last year’s count.

CMSD TEACHERS WILL NOT STRIKE After a marathon 21-hour bargaining session, members of the Cleveland Teachers Union and the

| clevescene.com m | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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| clevescene.com cllev eves esce cceenee.ccom m | August Auguust Au Augu st 31 31 - September Seept S ept p em embeer 6, embe 6 2016 201 016

UPFRONT Cleveland Metropolitan School District reached a “tentative agreement” at 5 a.m. Tuesday, preventing a teacher strike that was scheduled to have begun Thursday evening.

“We worked hard to avoid any disruption to our students’ education,” said CTU President David Quolke, in a statement released by CMSD. “We were able to bring back a contract that is good for kids and fair for educators - that our members will be proud to ratify. We listened to the concerns of our members and Cleveland parents through conversations and surveys and made sure those issues were at the forefront of our talks.”

CMSD CEO Eric Gordon was pleased too.

“Now, we must work beyond the bargaining table to breathe life into a contract that has, at its heart, what’s best for kids,” he said.

Chief among the sticking points in negotiations were the methods by

THIS WEEK I HEART CLE Terminal Tower Lights Twitter account will be shut down amid K&D’s property acquisition. If you still want gushing messages and photos of downtown, Joe Cimperman remains very active on Twitter.

THROWBACK County’s deputy inspector general blames “political machine” as she’s sanctioned for ethics violations. Armond Budish sends memo saying she’s about eight years too late on that script.

YET AGAIN Iman Shumpert and fiancé Teyana Taylor show up in new, sweaty Kanye West video. If you freeze the video toward the end, you’ll see Shump briefly missing a wide-open three-pointer.

QUALITY OF LIFE There’s nothing like the gambler’s thrill of taking Josh Gordon in the fifth round of your fantasy draft.

which teachers were evaluated. Patrick O’Donnell at the Pee Dee has been all over the strike, and published a rundown of the key issues Monday.

He reported that compensation was no longer as critical as the evaluations themselves. Teacher raises are tied directly to performance evaluations, and the evaluations disproportionately consider standardized test scores.

Teachers wanted locally devised classroom goals to account for poorly performing schools, as well as other factors.

The proposed agreement will now be reviewed by both sides. According to CMSD, if the members of the CTU and school board both ratify the contract, then the new deal will go into effect immediately.

Now everyone can focus on renewing the school levy in November.

ANTUN LEWIS DENIED THIRD TRIAL Antun Lewis, twice convicted of setting Cleveland’s deadliest house fire — killing 33-year-old Medeia Carter and eight children in 2005 — lost his appeal for a third trial; a federal appeals court ruled that his conviction will stand.

Lewis has maintained his innocence.

Most recently, he appealed the second conviction and argued that federal prosecutors essentially plowed through the same case that brought the first conviction — once again “[holding] all the inconsistencies and unanswered questions [as] issues for the jury to decide.” The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t buy that, insisting that prosecutors pursued a more robust case the second time around — one with more witnesses — and that the defense for Lewis didn’t address its own stack of unanswered questions from the first trial (e.g.

Why did Lewis’ van smell like gasoline 10 minutes after the blaze?)

Lewis remains in the midst of his 35-year sentence in federal prison.

“We are gratified that the tireless efforts of the investigators and prosecutors who worked on this case resulted in the killer being sent to prison for several decades,” U.S. Attorney Carole Rendon said in a public statement Aug. 24. “Today’s ruling means the families can rest knowing Antun Lewis will remain in prison for a long time.”

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FEATURE

OFF THE RAILS The firing of two mid-level African-Americans at RTA, and a longtime cultural chasm in the organization’s operations

By Sam Allard FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC, THE Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) is synonymous with the buses and trains that make up the system. If the buses and trains are safe and on time, what else matters? But RTA has been in the news a lot lately.

First, the decision by the board of trustees, enacted earlier this month, to raise fares and cut a small number of routes in order to plug a $7 million budget hole.

Later, the forbidding news about changes to Ohio’s tax laws, which will result in even deeper financial holes and deeper service cuts in the coming years, bad news for a transit authority “on the edge of financial disaster,” according to the Plain Dealer. Finally, the decision

by Mayor Frank Jackson to gather traffic data downtown in order to

determine if the new $50 million Public Square, designed specifically with RTA buses in mind, might be better off without them.

You may have heard the name Joe Calabrese. He’s RTA’s CEO and general manager. He stands atop a workforce of roughly 2,350, many of whom work in operations.

They drive the buses, they fi x the buses, they order the parts. Several current and former employees came to Scene to talk about very real problems at RTA. Though RTA maintains a clean public face, it is allegedly awash in the same problems that have affl icted this region’s governmental agencies for decades: racism, patronage, incompetence. Many of these issues suggest not only a flippancy with company policies, but a fl ippancy with taxpayer dollars.

THE MAFIA Bryan McIntosh was notified on September 15, 2015, that he’d been fired from RTA. Technically, he’d been placed on “crisis suspension, pending termination,” but all that meant was there’d be a hearing the following week to make things official.

By mid-September, the 30-year-old McIntosh had been working at RTA for more than a year and needed no further evidence that his relationship with superiors at the Central Bus Maintenance Facility (CBM) had drifted beyond rescue or repair. This wasn’t even the first time he’d been fired in the past six months.

McIntosh was a quality assurance specialist, working at the expansive CBM on Woodland and Woodhill, RTA’s operational nerve center, if not its headquarters. There, McIntosh was assigned to liaise with Hayden

Garage, RTA’s bus garage in East Cleveland, and with Paratransit, the service for riders with disabilities.

Like the other employees who worked “upstairs” at CBM, McIntosh’s job was administrative. He did a lot of paperwork and made a lot of phone calls: reconciling order discrepancies, ensuring the successful delivery of parts shipments and, in his words, “inspect[ing] and solv[ing] issues pertaining to all things dealing with operations.”

But from McIntosh’s vantage, the office environment at CBM was strained, adversarial, cliquey to a fault. And acceptance and success were particularly elusive for a guy like him, one of the few black faces in the cubicles. He didn’t know it when he got hired, but he’d entered a pernicious sphere controlled by what is known, among RTA’s operations

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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FEATURE

Photo by Sam Allard

Joe Calabrese talking to the cameras.

rank and file, as the CBM Mafia.

(Note: ‘CBM Mafia’ is a nickname, and doesn’t in this instance connote organized criminal activity.)

If you ask current employees or those who’ve recently parted ways with RTA, the CBM Mafia goes all the way up the operations chain of command. Not all the way up to CEO and general manager Joe Calabrese, perhaps; but Calabrese, who makes $270,000 per year, is regarded by employees as the agency’s figurehead, a politician more than a manager, “the ribbon-cutting” and “handshake” guy who one former employee hastened to add was “actually pretty nice.” With his contract up in 2020, the perception of Calabrese is that of a man clutching his boogie board as he rides the wave of his career to shore. He’s brooking the indignities of a budget collapsing beneath his feet by seeking Band-Aids — to use the popular policy metaphor — and reflecting on the bright spots of his 16-and-a-half years in RTA’s top position. He’s certainly not making a stink about the city’s campaign to remove buses from Public Square.

“Really, the Mayor just wants to do the right thing,” said Calabrese, on that topic, in a recent interview with Scene.

But the CBM Mafia does reportedly go all the way up to RTA’s No. 2 man,

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Michael York, the deputy general manager of operations. Like almost all of RTA’s upper management, York neither lives in Cleveland nor takes public transit to work (though all RTA employees get to ride for free).

York drives 35 miles from his home in Stow up to RTA headquarters on West Sixth, and he enjoys the second-largest salary ($187,280) in the organization. York is part of the executive management team, a cabinet of divisional directors who all report directly to Calabrese. And though Calabrese told Scene that York is not officially the No. 2 — “There is me. There is no ‘Assistant Me,’” he said — operations is nonetheless RTA’s biggest division, and for better or worse employees view York as RTA’s second-in-command.

At CBM, York has purportedly been grooming Ronald Baron, the director of fleet management, to take over as DGM of operations. York is thought to be on his way out, after all. The rumor was that York had intended to retire in 2015, but when Cleveland was selected as the host city for the RNC, he decided he’d stay on to oversee operations during the convention. Calabrese disputed this.

“All Mike York has told me is that when he decides to leave, he will give me adequate notice so that we can have a smooth transition period,” he

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

said. “I have no knowledge if that’s this year, next year or in five years.”

But the speculation is that York’s hot to trot, and when he leaves, RTA will have a critical hole to fill.

“Operations covers everything,” Bryan McIntosh told Scene in one of more than 10 interviews with him conducted for this story. “Bus routes, drivers, mechanics, materials, rails, BRT. You get a new operations GM, it’s like getting a new King. It’s a changing of the guard.”

And York is presumed to want to coronate a successor in his own image. Ron Baron’s his protege, formerly a logistics guy with L’Oreal, but a CBM Mafia capo since he was hired in September 2005.

Baron’s not the only presumed candidate for York’s job, though.

Per RTA policy, the position will be publicly posted and all applicants will be ranked. The top three candidates will be interviewed (in theory), and their responses will be rated numerically by a panel of current employees. Calabrese put the odds that the position would be filled internally at 50-50. Another former employee who spent 20 years at CBM agreed.

“It’s a coin flip,” he said.

But others say it’s all but certain RTA will make an internal hire.

Calabrese himself said that RTA, “like

most good companies,” encourages and promotes the upward mobility of its employees. And if Ron Baron’s in one corner, Floun’say Caver’s in the other.

Dr. Floun’say Caver is the district director of Hayden Garage. (Note: The city of Cleveland’s historical segregation — West = White, East = Black — is dramatized in the personnel of RTA’s two bus garages: Triskett is white, Hayden is black).

McIntosh calls Dr. Caver “RTA’s Obama.” He’s a rising star among Cleveland’s black political class: Ph.D.credentialed; member of Leadership Cleveland’s 2017 bumper crop; and, for good measure, an Alpha Phi Alpha, the same fraternity as RTA board chairman George Dixon.

Caver’s not going anywhere, but the question for the CBM Mafia is just how fast he’ll rise.

At stake is the very culture of the Regional Transit Authority.

Employees, already hip to the entrenched old-boys-club mentality of RTA upper management, fear that if Baron gets the job, he’ll operate with what they described as York’s political-patronage style.

When contacted by Scene, Floun’say Caver forwarded all on- and off-record questions to Linda Krecic, RTA’s media relations manager, and to Michael York.

| clevescene.com m | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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FEATURE Page 2, Sec. 100.05, of RTAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most recent employee manual decrees that all media requests be directed to the ofďŹ ce of media relations, which isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t unusual, but it means that current employees who spoke with Scene did so anonymously, and even then with fear of retribution. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sitting here praying to god that some of these things wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make it obvious whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s saying what, or that my name wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pop up,â&#x20AC;? said one current employee familiar with RTAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personnel across all districts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People are scared and fed up, but they would never say a word.â&#x20AC;?

The race for Yorkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job is still just theoretical, though it may be having tangible effects on the organization â&#x20AC;&#x201D; see The Saga of #3318, below â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but for now, Baron is much more concerned about Bryan McIntosh.

McIntoshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lawsuit against RTA is currently alive in federal court, and Baron wants it dead. Rumor has it RTA is trying to get the suit settled without a trial. No surprise there: Though Baron wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t McIntoshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s direct supervisor, he coordinated the termination. Publicity of the

case could damage Baronâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eventual candidacy for Yorkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job, especially because part of the lawsuit â&#x20AC;&#x201D; two of the seven total counts â&#x20AC;&#x201D; alleges racial discrimination. And even though thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s currently almost zero African-American representation in CBM management, Baron likely wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t withstand a court cosignature on existing perceptions of bigotry. And he certainly wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stand a chance against Dr. Caver, given that the operations DGM oversees a workforce of drivers and service workers who are predominantly black.

The ďŹ ring of McIntosh, along with other alleged HR practices at CBM, are all the more signiďŹ cant now, given RTAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grim ďŹ nancial outlook.

One might argue that, at least with respect to Bryan McIntosh, Ron Baron should have seen the thorny situation on the horizon. But on the other hand, why would he?

The ďŹ ring exempliďŹ ed, rather than departed from, recent HR practices at CBM. The MaďŹ a just never expected McIntosh to put up a ďŹ ght.

BAD BRAKES Bryan McIntosh was initially hired by RTA in August 2014. And

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he wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ďŹ red for the ďŹ rst time until the following May, shortly after heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d ďŹ led a discrimination complaint with the ofďŹ ce of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO). â&#x20AC;&#x153;Since I started working here at RTA,â&#x20AC;? McIntosh wrote in a letter to an EEO rep dated April 20, 2015, â&#x20AC;&#x153;my experience hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been the best one.â&#x20AC;?

McIntosh had beneďŹ tted from connections with black political families locally, but before his gig at RTA heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d done well enough on his own. He was a Wright State alum; an Air Force reservist; one of the original founders of Social Society Cleveland, the local networking organization for young professionals.

And he viewed RTA, like a lot of young ambitious black Clevelanders do, as a pathway to power, not just a steady job but a foot in the door. Plus, it was good money. With McIntoshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s college degree, military background and recent sewer district experience, he qualiďŹ ed for the Grade-25 position (G25), one that paid $45,000 to $55,000 per year.

You may have seen McIntoshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name in the news. Shortly before he was hired, he had been violently assaulted outside the Vada Nightclub on St. Clair by Kevin Conwell Jr., the son of Cleveland city councilman

Kevin Conwell and county councilwoman Yvonne Conwell.

Around 3 a.m. on July 5, Conwell Jr. skidded into the Vada parking lot, headlights aďŹ re, and sprang at McIntosh with a hammer. (Girl problems.)

So McIntosh arrived at work with a scar on his forehead â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a wee United Kingdom above his right eyebrow â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and a target on his back. But even without the external factors, his work experience wouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been a challenge.

According to the EEO account, in his ďŹ rst month on the job, co-workers referred to him pejoratively as an â&#x20AC;&#x153;afďŹ rmative action hire.â&#x20AC;? He began to see his supervisor, Frank Campbell, spying on him through ďŹ le cabinets and windows, a practice he mightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve interpreted as comedic if it werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t so â&#x20AC;&#x153;creepy, uncomfortable as well as embarrassing.â&#x20AC;? McIntosh wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sure why, but the spying continued.

He notiďŹ ed CBM upper management â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dan Dietrich, the manager of ďŹ&#x201A;eet planning and engineering, and Ron Baron â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of his discomfort, but nothing was done.

Campbell, meanwhile, habitually wrote up McIntosh for minor infractions: arriving late to work, for instance, even though McIntoshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s contract permitted ďŹ&#x201A;exible hours.

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The notorius CBM

Moreover, Campbell would reportedly go weeks without communicating with McIntosh. Still, McIntosh completed RTA’s standard six-month probationary period and was alarmed that even afterward, Campbell’s behavior persisted. He complained to upper management on several occasions.

“But their response was that Frank [was] a weird person and you have to play the game to get on his good side,” he wrote.

The straw that broke the camel’s back, in the EEO account, was a business trip to San Francisco during which Campbell made several disparaging remarks about the Quran and Muslims. McIntosh, though not particularly devout, was a practicing Muslim at the time and took offense. “[Campbell] has a paranoia about them taking over the country and how the Quran will be in every hotel and school building,” he wrote. “I became even more deeply concerned about who I was working for … .

“At this time, I no longer believe my relationship with Frank Campbell can be fixed or mediated. I am formally requesting a transfer to a different work location, or [that] RTA re-evaluate Frank Campbell’s qualifications to see if he still qualifies to be in a position of his status.”

On May 7, 2015, RTA’s EEO office notified CBM management of the investigation into Campbell.

The very next day, McIntosh was placed on crisis suspension, pending termination — effectively fired —

and a hearing was scheduled, per protocol. But at the hearing, the limp charges against McIntosh, that he had “turned in forms late,” proved to be untrue, and McIntosh was reinstated. He promptly amended his EEO complaint to include a retaliation claim.

The next few months were the most tense and frustrating of McIntosh’s professional career. The silence from his superiors at CBM felt strategic, he said. He described feeling ignored and excluded from everything. And it wasn’t just a feeling. Among other things, he’d been removed from the departmental trips to California, where the quality assurance team was sent to inspect buses before a major purchase. RTA sent the department’s other three quality assurance specialists, but not McIntosh.

A mediation was required. And so on August 31, the EEO office informed both McIntosh and CBM management that theirs had been scheduled for September 9. No dice, said McIntosh. He was an Air Force reservist and would be away that week on military orders. No problem, the EEO office replied. The mediation was rescheduled for September 15.

At some point between Sep. 8 and Sep. 11, while McIntosh was gone, Ron Baron asked the EEO office to postpone the meeting yet again, suggesting that mediation might no longer be necessary. EEO, taking the suggestion in good faith, postponed the mediation to a later date: “TBA.” Meanwhile, on Sept. 9, Frank Campbell allegedly discovered

defective brake pads, pads which allegedly came from a box that Bryan McIntosh had okayed on August 31.

McIntosh, who was out of the ofďŹ ce, was unable to verify the credibility of the claim, but when he returned to work he was notiďŹ ed ďŹ rst, on Sept.

14, that the EEO mediation had been canceled and second, on Sept. 15, that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been ďŹ red for okaying defective parts.

At the termination hearing the following week, McIntosh showed up with a lawyer and demanded evidence proving that the parts were defective: Could RTA produce the parts themselves? Were there photos? Was there anything beyond McIntoshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own inspection form and the word of Baron, Campbell and Dietrich that the pads were somehow less than adequate?

There was not, and yet word came down two weeks later: McIntosh had been ofďŹ cially terminated.

McIntosh managed to secure a year of beneďŹ ts when the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services determined that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been ďŹ red without just cause. RTA appealed that decision, but the Unemployment Compensation Review Commission sided with McIntosh, especially since, as hearing ofďŹ cer Jared Wade noted in his report,

RTA had abandoned the brake-pads narrative.

And with good reason.

As a quality assurance specialist, McIntosh was intimately familiar with RTA protocol as it pertained to defective parts. When you got bad parts, you shipped them back to get replacements. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Quality assurance has to return the parts,â&#x20AC;? McIntosh told Scene. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s policy.â&#x20AC;?

So he got the order number of the alleged defective brake pads and contacted AxleTech International, the supplier, to inquire about the order. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She got a little panicked on the phone,â&#x20AC;? McIntosh smiled as he recalled the conversation with the AxleTech rep. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But no, man, nothing was ever returned.â&#x20AC;?

ANOTHER ONE BITES DUST Shortly after Bryan McIntosh was ďŹ red for the ďŹ rst time, another black employee at CBM was unceremoniously shown the door.

His name was Wayne Simmons, and he was a material planner. He was ďŹ red on May 28, 2015, for poor performance, having been advised through his tenure, and indeed at the end of it, that he wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t â&#x20AC;&#x153;innovative enough.â&#x20AC;?

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Simmons had been hired in 2012, though he almost wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. The material planner position was a G26 and required a college degree. RTA claimed on Tuesday that the position does not now, nor did it ever require a college degree, but Simmons said RTA wanted to verify that he was a college graduate.

Simmons had graduated from the University of Phoenix in January 2011, but due to ďŹ&#x201A;aws in the online universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;processing,â&#x20AC;? heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d never received a physical diploma. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was told that my transcript wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t good enough,â&#x20AC;? Simmons told Scene, describing the hiring process. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They said they needed the actual diploma.â&#x20AC;?

Simmons managed to get the dean of Phoenix to send a signed letter to RTA, certifying that Simmons was a graduate and that the lack of a diploma was merely an administrative hiccup on their end. But to Simmonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; surprise, the letter didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pass muster.

Only after heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d received the diploma in the mail and sent it to RTA was he offered the position. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I got a call the day after,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how I knew they were so particular about needing that college degree.â&#x20AC;?

Much like McIntosh, Simmonsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experience at CBM began on a sour

note, and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t much improve. He said that on his ďŹ rst day, he was told that his boss, inventory planner Dave Vegh, hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wanted to hire him at all. Vegh was an adjunct at Cleveland State University and had been eyeing one of his former students for the position, Simmons heard. But RTAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hiring panel had ruled that Simmons was the more qualiďŹ ed candidate.

(Note: The running joke and Catch-22 at CBM is that if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying to get a job there and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not a friend or family member of the CBM MaďŹ a, well, then youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d better be a diversity hire. But if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a diversity hire, once you arrive, all you can do is bide your time until they ďŹ nd a way to get rid of you.

Darryl Key left RTA several years ago, but worked there for 27 years and called CBMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s atmosphere â&#x20AC;&#x153;unbelievableâ&#x20AC;? in this respect. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s some people of color who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pull their weight,â&#x20AC;? Key said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not going to make excuses for them. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve gotta do your job.

But there are just as many whites not pulling their weight, and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not getting wrote up.â&#x20AC;?)

Simmons was assigned to the rail district for his ďŹ rst eight months, which meant he worked out of CBM, but was tasked with making orders and tracking down missing parts

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RTA board chairman George Dixon III

appeal to for help or support. He was never given an official orientation and said that when requests for training were denied, he frequently ventured downstairs to the warehouse and mechanics’ shop to learn basic information about the job.

Another material planner at the time, Michelle Berry, refused when Simmons asked her for guidance, Simmons said. His interpretation was that Berry resented the fact that they were both G26s, making comparable salaries, when she had so much more experience.

The only thing Simmons did get plenty of, he said, were reprimands for mistakes.

“It was like my mistakes would be plastered all over a billboard,” he said.

“I had my share of mess ups, but I kept thinking, ‘What’s the standard?

Perfect?’ They would pick me out of a lineup every time.”

Not without a keen sense of irony did Simmons note that a central aspect of his position was correcting others’ mistakes. But others would seldom get blamed for losing parts or shipping them to the wrong place; he’d get blamed for not finding them fast enough.

If it wasn’t clear from the biannual evaluations that Simmons was unwelcome at CBM, an internal audit conducted in April 2014 left nothing to the imagination. Simmons said he was described as the “laziest

employee at RTA” and that facts were misrepresented (or fabricated outright) to characterize him as a scourge on the authority. He said it was written, for instance, that he routinely drove his personal vehicle through the rail district at East 55th and Broadway as a shortcut to work.

“But I took the bus to work,” Simmons said. “I didn’t even own a vehicle at the time. And Dave Vegh knew that. He saw me getting off the bus almost every single morning. I stayed in South Euclid, and my wife would sometimes drop me off, but why would we triple our trip going down to East 55th and Broadway?”

(Scene tried to obtain the audit in question via a public records request, but RTA claimed that now such audit existed.)

Dave Vegh soon retired and Michelle Berry was promoted, which meant Simmons’ days were numbered.

He said that despite the challenges of his job, he’d managed to achieve a few notable successes: He established a spreadsheet with a warehouse supervisor to streamline the needs of the inventory department and said it was the first time such a document existed. This greatly enhanced the efficiency of the warehouse. When Simmons was transferred from rail to core parts, he said he’d cultivated positive relationships with vendors and even managed to get refunds on old parts that vendors “had no business taking back.”

But with Berry in charge, he could see the writing on the wall.

“With her, my performance was just never up to par,” he said. He heard from coworkers that Berry was trying to push him out, and had even started training other material planners while Simmons still had the job.

In a last-ditch effort to try something innovative, Simmons suggested that he move downstairs, from his cubicle to the warehouse.

“This way, if there was a question about a part, I wouldn’t be a phone call away, I’d be a couple hundred feet away,” Simmons said. “I could get my hands on parts as they arrived.”

But Michelle Berry said no. And after three years and 14 days of struggle at CBM, Wayne Simmons was booted from RTA. “I don’t have to make any of this up,” Simmons said. “They blackballed me and pushed me out, and never even trained me.”

Asked, then, if he attempted to appeal his dismissal, Simmons said he didn’t bother.

“I threw up my hands,” he said.

“Even if I had appealed it and they said, ‘Okay, Mr. Simmons, you can have your job back,’ why would I want

to go back and work for her? Why would I want to work for RTA?” What bothered Simmons most of all was the manner in which his position was filled after he’d left.

Lauren Bobich, one of Michelle Berry’s acolytes and personal trainees, was promptly hired for the job. She’d been a G22 inventory specialist, making $12.50 per hour, and was suddenly in Simmons’ post, a G26, taking home a salary in the upper-50s.

Why this was especially irksome to Simmons: Bobich didn’t have a college degree.

“All those hoops they made me jump through to prove I had my bachelor’s?” Simmons said.

“Lauren Bobich didn’t even have her Associate’s.”

RTA told Scene on Tuesday that Bobich does have her Associates, but that claim is vigorously refuted by current and former employees.

THE DOG AND PONY SHOW According to current employees and one recently fired employee from RTA’s HR department, filling positions with desired candidates like Lauren Bobich, qualifications notwithstanding, has become habitual at CBM. “It’s nothing but a dog and pony show,” said one current employee.

To cover their tracks, RTA allegedly changes job postings (sometimes after the fact), tailoring requirements precisely to candidates they intend to hire. (Several instances were brought to Scene’s attention. We’ll refrain from printing specific names and positions until RTA provides documentation responding to the allegations.)

Employees say that job-posting edits are chiefly legal precautions.

HR can, if challenged, dig up hiring paperwork and prove that a chosen candidate met required criteria, thereby preventing lawsuits.

Even Joe Calabrese, though he refused to comment on specific cases, admitted that job postings could be changed. He suggested that doing so was standard operating procedure.

“For any job that’s open,” he said, “the job is posted, and the job description is looked at to see if it needs to be modified.”

Still, tailored specifications might not mean that a desired candidate is the most qualified candidate. Hiring less qualified people (and in more than one instance, according to internal sources, the least qualified person) requires more direct pressure.

At CBM, employees familiar with the process allege, management has tapped a recurring roster of panelists for the hiring process.

Panelists are then instructed how to rank applicants. (Again, we’ll refrain from printing specific allegations because RTA has not yet provided requested documents. Nearly three months have intervened since Scene’s first requests seeking job postings, resumes and hiring documents. RTA has maintained that the documents are prepared, but that their legal department has been overtaxed with other requests and has fallen behind on document examination and information redaction.)

Joe Calabrese, then, was asked to address the allegations, but he said he had no knowledge of the individual cases.

“There’s no way,” he said. “We have 2,350 employees. I have no knowledge of that so I’m not going to speak to it. All I will tell you is that we have procedures and we do our best in every case to follow those procedures to the best of our ability.”

One former employee who spent 20 years at CBM said that, contrary to these allegations, he didn’t see abuses in the hiring panel process when he was there. He sat on panels many times, he said, and found hiring to be “fair and efficient.”

Linda Krecic told Scene by phone that “95 percent of what RTA does is very straightforward.”

“Sure, we make mistakes,” Krecic said, speaking in general terms, “but things here are not as colorful as you think they are.”

Scene has no reason to suspect that Krecic and the communications team gave anything less than a sincere effort to address our unwieldy batches of questions and records requests, but Krecic insisted throughout that the information Scene had come by was little more than gossip and vengeful untruths from “disgruntled employees bending [our] ear.”

Meanwhile, Darryl Key, whose final eight years at RTA were spent at Hayden Garage, said favoritism and nepotism were so common at CBM that he was no longer even scandalized by it: “That’s just one of the things they do. It’s politics,” he said. “It’s all over the place.”

With respect to McIntosh’s situation, Key said he saw a cultural dynamic beyond race at play.

“He’s part of this new young millennial generation,” Key said.

“And these millennials, they don’t understand. When you deal with people from an older machine, there are tricks and games they play. And I’ll be honest with you, when you’re a man of color, there are things you’ve got to work differently than other folks, especially when they start

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

21

Photo by Sam Allard

FEATURE

Protesters gather outside of RTA headquarters.

attacking you. You’ve gotta cross your Ts and dot your Is. Back in my day, we were more of a captive audience. We learned how to fight and maneuver around it. But they’re still playing all kinds of games.”

THE SAGA OF #3318 Whether or not there are games afoot at CBM, ineffective employees within RTA operations can cost the authority serious money. Take, for instance, the case of Bus #3318, about which there seems to be not one solid attributable fact.

For background, the #3318 is a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) bus purchased through a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) grant and delivered to RTA in the spring of 2015. Its stripped carcass is thought to be idling — or more like decomposing — at Hayden Garage, where vandalic ne’er-do-wells throw rocks and worse at the buses parked there too long.

Though not confirmed by RTA — RTA answered no questions and confirmed nothing related to #3318 before our interview with Calabrese, professing to be “stumped” by our line of inquiry — the #3318 is presumed to have been among the first of 60 40-foot-long, Gillig-brand buses purchased at a cost of $28.9 million as part of the grant (reported by the Natural Gas Vehicle organ NGV

22

Today). That’s just less than $482,000 a pop.

Some time in the late autumn of 2015, shortly after the most recent hires at CBM described above, the #3318 was alleged by current employees to have been stripped for parts to repair other CNG buses at Hayden Garage. Stripping a bus for parts is a last resort under ordinary circumstances, but doing so to a brandnew bus is bewildering, especially because (via a Hayden source) it complicates the warranties.

“These buses are still under warranty,” said the employee. “But because these parts that we’re trying to turn in for warranty don’t match the serial number, RTA is forced to purchase those parts instead of getting a warranty part.”

The situation at Hayden was described to Scene as dire — hence our unsuccessful efforts to contact Dr. Caver. Among other things, it is RTA’s largest garage but has the smallest stockroom, and parts have regularly been arriving late. Exacerbating issues caused by delays, hazarded one employee, might be inexperienced mechanics. Under pressure to repair buses to meet expected pull-out times, mechanics may have removed parts from the #3318 experimentally trying to diagnose issues and fix other buses.

Competing theories about the #3318’s dismantling have circulated among RTA employees. One blames

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

new CBM employees for incompetence, one blames a particular employee who might have an interest in making another particular employee appear less equipped for leadership; but RTA wouldn’t entertain any of them.

They wouldn’t even confirm that the bus was no longer in service. Joe Calabrese, the moment we uttered “3318” in our interview, professed to have no knowledge.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What I’ve heard ... I’ll tell you what I’ve heard.

I’ve heard that there was a CNG bus, one of the newer buses, whose windows got broken by vandals and the windows were or are on backorder and while that bus was out of service because we couldn’t put the bus in service without windows, another part or parts were needed to keep other similar buses in service, serving the public. And although we don’t like to do that, if you have to take a part off of one bus that is down for other maintenance reasons and put it in another bus, to serve the public, as opposed to having two buses not serving the public, that’s something we would do. Other than that, I have no comment.

“Matter of fact, I talked to the salesman, the representative from the company,” Calabrese continued, unprompted. “And I said, ‘I know we’ve got some windows on backorder, how’s that coming?’ And he said, ‘Windows are a long lead-time item.’ And I had

that conversation with one of our sales guys last week because I heard the bus was down for windows that were broken by vandals.”

It’s certainly possible that Calabrese talked with a sales guy last week — Scene has been inquiring repeatedly about this issue — but our sources said the #3318 was stripped months ago, possibly in late 2015. If the stripping happened after windows were broken by vandals, as Calabrese said he’s heard, new windows would be a very long lead-time item indeed.

Scene tried to clarify: Additional parts from #3318 were used to repair other buses, to maximize the number of — “I don’t know if other parts or a part,” said Calabrese. “I’m not sure.

Again, if you have two cars that are exactly the same in your garage and one is down because it needs brakes and the other car that’s working needs windshield wipers, would you take the windshield wipers off the car that’s broken for brakes to put it on the other car so you can drive it safely in the rain? The answer is probably yes. And that’s the type of thing that happened.”

After weeks of proclaiming no knowledge about the status of the #3318 RTA spokeswoman Linda Krecic relayed on Tuesday afternoon that the bus would be “back on the street Thursday.”

THE BUDGET “Now for the bad news,” said commuter Marco Fikaris on March 21, at the first of RTA’s 16 public meetings on proposed fare hikes and service cuts. “I haven’t heard anything from anybody here about administrative cuts. I mean, I’m assuming you looked at this.”

The capacity crowd chuckled. The public comments until that moment had been somber and direct. Prominent among them were stories of physical struggle and financial strife, pleas to maintain routes on the chopping block, and assurances that the 25-cent, oneway fare increase would be devastating for low-income, transit-dependent riders.

Several Paratransit riders hobbled painstakingly to the microphone to make their comments with the aid of walker or personal assistant. Their labored treks across the RTA board room on the first floor of the main office, in full view of the public and the suited execs, invited visions of other riders and the longer walks — half or three-quarters of a mile — that they might now have to endure on their way to the nearest bus stop.

On June 7, of course, RTA’s board of trustees voted 8-1 in favor of fare increases and service cuts in order to fill a $7 million budget hole. In late May, Cuyahoga County Council joined the discussion and urged the RTA to exhaust all possible options before casting a final vote.

But what options, RTA might have wondered, were there left to exhaust?

It was the proverbial 11th hour, far too late to meaningfully consider alternate funding sources.

Calabrese’s favorite punching bag, during these months of handwringing, was the state of Ohio.

In public meetings, he often presented a graphic showing the negligible contributions from Columbus. In 2015, Ohio contributed a mere $7.3 million for public transit statewide (63 cents per capita), among the lowest in the nation and a drastic decrease from its contribution of $43 million in 2002.

And it’s true that this is lamentable.

Infuriating, even. But when Calabrese explained the situation to Cleveland City Council’s transportation committee, Ward 2 councilman Zack Reed rolled his eyes and essentially told Calabrese to get real. It’s not like the diehard Republican state legislature is suddenly going to about-face on public transit and flood Cuyahoga County with dollars. Reed told Calabrese that the region was going to have to be serious about raising funds on its own.

Sixty percent of RTA’s operating

budget comes from a one-percent county sales tax, and that tax is no longer generating the same revenue that it did back in the 1970s and ’80s.

Population loss and the great recession has dampened the region’s commercial vibrancy and crippled its spending power. When the state stops collecting tax on Medicaid-managed care services next year, RTA will find itself in an even deeper financial hole, one that could result in a 7- to 10-percent service reduction and around 170 layoffs.

In short, money is and will continue to be extremely tight, and it’s the region’s overtaxed transit riders who find themselves having to foot an increased percentage of the bill.

They’re frustrated by the recent fare hike and terrified by the prospect of the additional hike in 2018. There’s an expectation that if they’re being called upon to pay an increased share, the Transit Authority itself must have done everything in its power to optimize operations, tighten belts, and prevent this additional burden on riders.

But the board would prefer to point fingers at the state of Ohio, move the ball to someone else’s court, tell voters that the state of transit is in their hands. If only they’d write passionate letters to their representatives; if only they’d get out there on election day and put legislators who care about public transit in office ... .

Meanwhile, the board itself wouldn’t even agree to a sunset clause on increased fares. Newburgh Heights mayor Trevor Elkins, the newest board member and lone nay vote, proposed one. His thinking was that when RTA found a longterm sustainable funding source, the fare hikes should be discontinued. He told Scene it put the onus on the board, where it ought to be, to find a solution. But his suggestion was dismissed out of hand. Board member Georgine Welo called the clause irresponsible, though she didn’t elaborate.

Meanwhile, transit riders need assurances that RTA has examined its own spending. Marco Fikaris was voicing that message on March 21. He spoke with a heavy accent and poked at RTA leaders with a refreshing wit, given the gloomy circumstances.

“You must have looked at this and looked at that,” Fikaris said, “at the salaries and everything else, before making these cuts in service and routes. But could someone please address that? It doesn’t have to be publicly. You could email me. But I’d like that information.”

So would we all, Mr. Fikaris. So would we all.

sallard@clevescene.com t@SceneSallard

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

everything you should do this week

GET OUT WED

8/31

FOOD

Walnut Wednesday You still have a few more weeks to catch Walnut Wednesday, one of summer’s great traditions. Today (and every Wednesday through Sept. 28) from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Perk Plaza at Chester Commons — at East 12th and Walnut Streets — food trucks gather to serve up lunch to area residents and employees. Follow the Downtown Cleveland Alliance on Facebook for weekly updates on vendors, entertainment offerings and more.

Admission is free, but the food will cost you. (Niesel) downtowncleveland.com.

FILM

Hieronymus Bosch, Touched by the Devil Pieter van Huystee’s 2016 documentary, Hieronymous Bosch, Touched by the Devil, follows the organizers at a Holland museum as they prepare to put on an exhibit featuring 25 panels by the famous medieval painter. The movie screens tonight at 7 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tickets are $10, $8 for CMA members, seniors and students. (Jeff Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

BEER

Hoppin’ Frog Hoppy Hour Much like the Fat Head’s tasting room in Middleburg Heights, the Hoppin’ Frog Tasting Room in Akron is in a non-descript strip of storage facilities and warehouses.

But step inside and you’ll find a cozy tasting room with a huge array of the brewery’s wonderful libations. The place features “hoppy hour” every weekday from 3 to 7 p.m. Tonight, the brewers visit the tasting room from 5 to 7 p.m. While they don’t fill growlers, you can drink bottles on site or take ’em to go. The place also offers a Hoppin’ Frog “Rare & Vintage” list as well as a guest bottle list. And you can order from a limited food menu too.

(Niesel) 1680-F Waterloo Rd., Akron, 234-525-3764, hoppinfrog.com/ tasting-room.

BASEBALL

Indians vs. Minnesota Twins Earlier this month, the playoff-bound Cleveland Indians ran into a bit of trouble in the form of the last-place Minnesota Twins. The Twins teed off on Tribe pitchers in the first three games of a four-game series. They only lost the last game of the series.

Given that it’s the time of the season when every game matters, the Tribe needs to fare better against the lowly Twins this time around. The two teams conclude a three-game series tonight at 7:10 at Progressive Field.

Tickets start at $13. (Niesel) 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, clevelandindians.com.

COMEDY

John Morgan Also known as the Ragin’ Cajun,

THUR

9/01

FOOTBALL

Third Strike Wingwalking will be at the Cleveland National Air Show.

See: Saturday.

comedian John Morgan adopts a redneck persona for his standup routines. The fast-talking comedian uses plenty of jargon and slang as he talks about things like the trials and tribulations of getting older. “I ain’t one of those men who like to brag about things they ain’t doin’ no more,” he jokes, explaining why he no longer brags about his sexual prowess. While not quite as big of a redneck as, say, Jeff Foxworthy, the Ragin’ Cajun comes close. He’s also able to do a number of vocal impersonations that make for a lively standup show. He performs tonight at 7:30 at the Improv and performances continue through Saturday. Tickets are $17 to $20.

(Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com.

FOOD

Pig + Whiskey Wednesdays Mark the unofficial end of NEO’s patio season tonight with chef Ben Bebenroth over at Spice Kitchen.

This is the summer’s final Pig + Whiskey Wednesday, when Bebenroth and his chef Josh Woo fire up the smoker and cook up

a mess of barbecue. The items vary based on whim and weather.

There’s always a seasonal whiskey cocktail or two to wash it all down.

The event runs from 5 to 10 p.m.

No reservations are required.

(Douglas Trattner) 5800 Detroit Ave., 216-961-9637, spicekitchenandbar.com.

MUSIC

Wade Oval Wednesdays The year’s fi nal Wade Oval Wednesday takes place tonight from 6 to 9 p.m. at Wade Oval in University Circle. The popular gettogether provides the opportunity to catch a free concert, check out local food vendors, visit the beer and wine tent, shop the farmers’ market, and enjoy free kid activities — all laid out on the Wade Oval lawn adjacent to Cleveland Botanical Garden, the Cleveland Art Museum, and the Cleveland Natural History Museum. Tonight, the local alt-country act Brent Kirby and his Luck performs. A screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens follows the music. Bring your lawn chairs! (Niesel) universitycircle.org.

Browns vs. Chicago Bears Two teams in the process of rebuilding from crappy seasons face off today in a preseason game at First Energy Stadium as the Cleveland Browns take on the Chicago Bears. The Browns rebooted the team this year by adding quarterback Robert Griffi n III and hiring coach Hugh Jackson.

And the Bears hope to rebound from a 6-10 season that was marred by injuries. Kickoff is at 8 p.m. and tickets start at $33. (Niesel) 100 Alfred Lerner Way, 440-891-5000, clevelandbrowns.com.

ART

CIA Faculty Exhibition As fall classes begin, the Cleveland Institute of Art opens its galleries with two new exhibitions dedicated to its faculty and technical specialists. CIA’s Reinberger Gallery hosts the 2016 Faculty Exhibition, showcasing new work by the school’s talented, skilled instructors. Simultaneously, CIA’s Ann and Norman Roulet Student and Alumni Gallery presents the Technical Specialists Exhibition.

Both exhibitions open with a reception from 6:30 to 8:30 tonight and remain on view through Oct. 9. Both galleries are on the first floor of the Cleveland Institute of Art’s unified campus in University Circle’s Uptown district, just east of MOCA Cleveland on Euclid Avenue.

It’s free. (Josh Usmani) 11141 East Blvd., 216-421-7000, cia.edu/events.

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

25

GET OUT

FESTIVAL

ART

A Collection of Exhibitions As students return to classes at Cleveland State University, the galleries at CSU showcase a collection of exhibitions curated

by Samantha Baskind, professor of art history and editor of the Pennsylvania State University’s book series Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination. CSU’s North Gallery hosts Archie Rand: Sixty Paintings from the Bible. The Center Gallery houses Archie Rand: The Book of Judith, and the Media Room screens the documentary Archie Rand: The Painted Shul.

Meanwhile, the South Gallery features Leslie A. Golomb and Barbara Broff Goldman’s To Speak Her Heart. Stop by the gallery at 4 p.m. today for a talk with Archie Rand and stay for a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. All exhibitions are on view through Saturday, Oct. 8.

Admission is free. (Usmani) 1307 Euclid Ave., 216-687-2103, csuohio.edu/artgallery.

COMEDY

Finesse Mitchell Last year, comedian Finesse Mitchell picked up three major network pilots and a Comedy Central special. A strong-willed Southerner, the Atlanta-born comedian’s routine deals with scaring off his sister’s boyfriends and adjusting to the Hollyweird culture of L.A. The Saturday Night Live alum performs tonight at 8 at Hilarities, where he has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets are $23 to $28. (Brittany Rees) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

FRI

9/02

Cleveland Oktoberfest It’s a tradition in these parts to celebrate Oktoberfest over the Labor Day weekend. The annual event, which takes place at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds, features German food, beer and music over the course of the long weekend.

LivE mUsiC All suMmeR lOng! C O N C E R T

#SonicSesh

SEPT 14

OCT 4

SEPT 25

LowEr DenS

with

Pleasure Leftists TICKETS: $ 5.50

FITNESS

26

S E R I E S

7 pm Doors • 8 pm Show

(including fees)

Cardio Hoop Dance It’s like Zumba, but better. That’s the tagline advertising Cardio Hoop Dance, a lunchtime hula hoop workout that takes place at 11 a.m. on Fridays through Sept. 16 at the U.S. Bank Plaza. If you don’t own a hoop, it’s no big deal. The event’s organizers will have a few on hand you can use free of charge. New hoopers should arrive early to receive lessons. The event is free.

(Niesel) East 14th Street and Euclid Ave., 216-771-4444, playhousesquare.org.

you back $25. (Purchase tickets at the gate or online, where certain discounts apply.) Today’s hours are 4 p.m. to midnight, and the event runs through Monday. See the full schedule on the website. (Niesel) 164 Eastland Rd., Berea, 440-243-0090, clevelandoktoberfest.com.

FILM

Diary of a Chamber Maid The star and director of 2012’s Farewell, My Queen team up for Diary of a Chamber Maid, the third film version of Octave Mirbeau’s novel about a young servant girl working for a wealthy French couple. Set in the early 20th century, the fi lm came out last year to wide acclaim. It makes its Cleveland premiere tonight at 7 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where it screens again at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $9, or $7 for CMA members, students and seniors. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

BASEBALL

with

Lucy Dacus

with

Jakubi

On sale now at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame box office, or online at rockhall.com

1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44114 At the Sausage Autobahn, you can chow down on pierogi, cabbage, noodles and potato pancakes. A variety of musical acts will perform too. Stone Pony will pay tribute to Springsteen, E5C4P3 will perform the music of Journey, and the Spazmatics will deliver an ’80s tribute. Several microbreweries will compete in the Micro-Brew Competition. Admission is $12 for adults; children 12 and under are free. A four-day pass will set

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

Buffalo State College. Tousley will exhibit her collages and “toys,” both of which thoughtfully repurpose seemingly random objects. Lisa Kenion earned her MFA from Kent State University.

Kenion’s more well-known bronze work will be complemented by new, two-dimensional drawings and paintings. Kenion’s work explores ancient cultures and their interest in nature and the divine feminine.

Concepts, Toys and Collage: New Works by Mindy Tousley and Lisa Kenion opens with a reception from 6 to 8:30 tonight. Admission is free. (Usmani) 1370 West Ninth St., 216-471-8882, harrisstantongallery.com.

Indians vs. Miami Marlins A team featuring a slew of young, unheralded players, the Miami Marlins have hung onto the playoff race in the National League and could potentially still grab a wildcard spot. So they’ll have plenty to play for when they come to Progressive Field tonight for the first game in a three-game series.

It’s also Dollar Dog Night and there will be fireworks after the game.

First pitch is at 7:10. Tickets start at $13. (Niesel) 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, clevelandindians.com.

ART

FESTIVAL

New Works by Mindy Tousley and Lisa Kenion The latest exhibition at Harris Stanton’s Cleveland gallery pairs two longtime peers and friends, both of whom will showcase new and rarely seen work, as well as their more traditional work. Mindy Tousley is the executive director of the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve. She studied design with a concentration in ceramics at

Kamm’s Corners Greek Festival For the past several years, the George Varouh Cretan Club of Cleveland has played host to the Kamm’s Corners Greek Festival.

This year’s installment kicks off today at 11 a.m. It features Greek food and pastries as well as a full dinner menu that includes lamb shank, lamb roasted on the spit, Greek roasted chicken dinners and more. There will be dance

performances and live music as well. Seating is provided both inside and out. Greek beer and wine will be served. Admission is free. The event continues through Monday. (Niesel) 3853 West 168th St., 216-941-4455, kammscorners.com.

MUSIC

Rock Hall 21st Birthday Since opening nearly 21 years ago, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has welcomed 10 million visitors and driven an estimated $2 billion into the local economy. To celebrate its 21st birthday, the Rock Hall will host a series of events. First, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the fourth annual Believe in CLE yoga party today at 6:30 p.m. The free event includes a 60-minute Vinyasa yoga practice followed by party featuring Fresh DJ Cosimo Maximo. There will also be drinks, appetizers and dancing in the Rock Hallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new beer garden. Then, from 3 to 7 p.m. tomorrow, the Rock Hall will throw a â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90s-style birthday party. The band Old Skool will provide the tunes, and there will be food trucks and games. Guests can also buy Magic Hat Brewing Company beers in the Rock Hallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new beer garden on the plaza.

There will also be a â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90s rap battle and dance contest. The â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90s rock comedy Wayneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s World will screen in Foster Theater where seating is available on a ďŹ rst-come, ďŹ rst-serve basis. The events on the plaza are free; admission to the Rock Hall is $10. (Niesel) 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-515-8444, rockhall.com.

ART

Walk All Over Waterloo With summer winding down, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a perfect evening to Walk All Over Waterloo. Septemberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rst Friday event includes several new exhibitions throughout the neighborhood. Waterloo Arts debuts Without Commercial Interruption, featuring the provocative work of Cleveland-born artists Donald Black Jr., Amber N. Ford and Martinez E-B. The Maria Neil Art Project presents Cleveland photographer Eric Rippertâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Full of Promise in both its main gallery and Native Cleveland Annex space.

Praxis Fiber Workshop debuts Divergence, an installation of organic, sculptural forms by Susan McClelland and Clare Murray Adams. Following the reception from 5 to 7 p.m., the Oblivion Project will perform at 8 p.m. inside Praxis. Loren Najiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Satellite Gallery presents a collection of

installations curated by Alenka Banco, executive director of the Cleveland Arts Prize. Article Gallery debuts Alt Pop, a special solo show of more than 15 new, never-before-seen paintings by Rachel Latina, whose studio is just behind the gallery. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plenty more to see throughout the district from 5 to 10 tonight. (Usmani) waterlooarts.org.

SAT

9/03

FAMILY FUN

Cleveland National Air Show A Labor Day tradition, the Cleveland Air Show returns to Burke Lakefront Airport today through Monday. The Blue Angels will give a one-hour choreographed presentation that includes â&#x20AC;&#x153;graceful aerobaticsâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;fast-paced, highperformance maneuvers.â&#x20AC;? The demonstration also includes the Blue Angels C-130 Hercules (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fat Albertâ&#x20AC;?). Before the performance, Air Show attendees will witness the highly choreographed â&#x20AC;&#x153;walk downâ&#x20AC;? preďŹ&#x201A;ight routine as the Blue Angelsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pilots climb into their F/A-18 Hornets, start them up and head out for take-off. The 2016 Air Show will be the ďŹ rst time for Clevelanders to see a full Air Force F-22 Raptor demonstration. The original Batcoper and Batmobile will also be on hand. Making its Cleveland debut, the Batcopter will take to the sky, and the Batmobile will cruise the taxiway and show off its patented turbine afterburner. Attendees can also meet the TV, movie and air show pilot, Capt.

Eugene A. Nock, A.T.P. Gates open at 9 a.m. each day. Tickets are $21 in advance, $23 at the door. The website has details. (Niesel) 2301 North Marginal Rd., clevelandairshow.com.

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Larchmere Sidewalk Sale The Larchmere district starts at East 120th Street and extends east to North Moreland. It features a range of cool shops and restaurants. Twice a year, the neighborhood hosts a sidewalk sale. Today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., you can shop for â&#x20AC;&#x153;bargain priced merchandiseâ&#x20AC;? during the bi-annual street-wide sale. There will be art and photography, antiques and mid-century, books new and old, crafts and classes, handmade rugs, jewelry and more. The local restaurants will participate as well with dessert specials. (Niesel) larchmere.com.

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| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

29

GET OUT FILM

Monty Python and the Holy Grail John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and Terry Jones star in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the British comedy troupe’s parody of the legend of King Arthur and his knights’ quest for the Holy Grail.

The cult classic shows tonight at 9:30 and midnight, and tomorrow night at 7 at the Cedar Lee Theatre.

Tickets are $6. (Niesel) 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5411, clevelandcinemas.com.

With

Full Band

FESTIVAL

TanZ SummerFest TanZ SummerFest, an outdoor music festival that takes place today from 1 to 11:30 p.m. on West Sixth Street in the Warehouse District, promises to send summer out with a bang. Along with Grammy-winning headliner Afrojack and Grammy-winning support artist Cedric Gervais, the lineup includes Apster, LondonBridge and local talent DJ EV, Corrupt and Derek Armstrong.

General admission passes start at $30 and VIP packages start at $100. (Niesel) tanzsummerfest.com.

SUN

9/04

MUSIC

Movie Night: Raiders of the Lost Ark One of the greatest adventure flicks of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark introduced the world to Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), a badass archaeologist set on recovering the Ark of the Covenant and keeping it out of the hands of the Nazis.

Tonight and tomorrow night at 8:30 at Blossom, the Cleveland Orchestra performs the score of the film while the movie shows on a big screen. Tickets start at $15. (Niesel) 1145 West Steels Corners Rd., Cuyahoga Falls, 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.

FITNESS

7th Day Sweat The “seventh day” tends to be a day of rest for many folks. But not for the party hearty people who run B-Side Liquor Lounge, the popular dance club beneath the Grog Shop. Dubbed 7th Day Sweat, their weekly Sunday night soiree features DJ White Rims spinning “today’s hottest dance hits,” so you can “sweat it out” every Sunday.

Admission is free; 21 or older. It all starts at 7 p.m. (Niesel) 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge.com.

MARKET

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The Peninsula Flea Take a drive through the Cuyahoga Valley today and visit the summer’s final Peninsula Flea. According to the press release, you’ll fi nd “an upscale flea market, featuring handmade, repurposed and vintage high quality items from dedicated artists, crafts people and collectors.” From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the vendors are on the lawn next to the big red barn at Heritage Farms.

(Niesel) 6050 Riverview Rd., Peninsula, 330-657-2788, explorepeninsula.com.

FILM

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 1 8PM Tickets Available At TicketFly.com

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THE GOODYEAR THEATER 1201 East Market Street, Akron GoodyearTheater.com | EastendAkron.com © W [ { w E[w [ z f z y ©

30

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

Charge-By-Phone:

877.4.FLY.TIX (877.435.9849)

Rocky Horror Picture Show Because it’s the first Saturday of the month, the Cedar Lee Theatre will host a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the 1975 film that still draws an exuberant, costumed crowd that likes to throw rice and dry toast and sing along to the songs in the movie. Tickets are $9.50. (Niesel) 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5411, clevelandcinemas.com.

COMEDY

Cleveland Improv Jam The Angry Ladies of Improv has hosted the Cleveland Improv Jam for four years now. A few years back, Scene described the show as “fierce, formidable and very funny.” The women have some serious experience too. Katie White-Sonby is an actress who’s performed at Clague Playhouse, Karamu and Kennedy’s Cabaret.

Marjorie Preston is an alumna of Something Dada and Rockwell 9 improvisational comedy troupes.

Dionne Atchison is a theater artist with Cleveland Public Theatre, and Brenna “MC” Connor is an actress and improviser. The event begins at 5 p.m. at Coffee Phix with a short-form set of improv games; a long-form improv set follows.

Arrive early if you want to sign up and perform. Admission is free.

(Niesel) 4485 Mayfield Rd., South Euclid, 216-381-5706, coffeephixcafe.com.

PATIO

Tropical Sundays A weekly summer celebration, Now

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

31

GET OUT That’s Class’s Tropical Sundays features cornhole and basketball in the club’s back parking lot and exclusive Tropical Sunday cocktails including Pimms, Paulito’s Puerto Rican Punch, Mi’Monsters, Cucumber Bloody Marys and Bloody Tooth. The club promises “many more surprises and activities” too. The event starts at 3 today. Admission is free.

(Niesel) 11213 Detroit Ave., 216-221-8576, nowthatsclass.net.

Every Sunday

startinG th

June 19 -September Brunch 10am-3pm Tito’s Handmade Vodka

is on the hunt for Cleveland’s Cutest Dog. Bring your dog to Sunday Brunch for a photo op!

Supporting local Animal Charities each month.

Press Wine Bar

2221 Professor Ave | Cleveland Ohio 44113

216-566-9463

MON

9/05

BASEBALL

Indians vs. Houston Astros The Indians take on another potential playoff opponent today as they face off against the Houston Astros in the first of a fourgame series. The Astros made the playoffs last year and remain in the running for a wildcard spot.

The game begins at 7:10 p.m., and tickets start at $13. (Niesel) 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, clevelandindians.com.

FILM

Movie Mondays Every Monday, Cleveland Cinemas hosts $6 Movie Mondays, where film fans can catch up on the latest Hollywood fl icks for significantly reduced prices.

Bring your friends and family and make Movie Mondays a weekly tradition — many theaters even offer discounted concession stand items. Participating theaters include Apollo Theatre, Capitol Theatre, Cedar Lee Theatre, Chagrin Cinemas, Shaker Square Cinemas and Tower City Cinemas.

Unfortunately, additional charges apply for 3D movies. (Alaina Nutile) clevelandcinemas.com.

sponsored by

FOOD

Saturday, September 10, 2016 For more information, or to purchase tickets: WineandCraftBeerFestival.com Brought to you by:

Business Alliance

32

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

Vegan Mondays If you’re vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, or just plain interested in trying something new, head over to Townhall in Ohio City this evening from 5 to 10 p.m. for Vegan Night.

Work your way through the delicious and healthy vegan menu, featuring hits like Veggie Vegan Flatbread (think fresh tomatoes, chiles, mushrooms and vegan cheese), Tofu Etouffee (blackened tofu, onions, tomatoes and brown rice) or many of the regular menu

items made vegan. If you’re still feeling skeptical, know this: Monday night is also Craft Beer Night and all 36 crafts are only $3 from 6 p.m. to close. Cheers!

(Nutile) 1909 West 25th St., 216-344-9400, townhallohiocity.com.

TUE

9/06

MUSIC

Classical Revolution Cleveland Classical Revolution Cleveland helps tear down the walls between classical music and the common man and once again brings great chamber music to the people.

Showcasing a variety of performers in bars, cafes and the like, it’s actually not that different from how people used to listen to chamber music. The third Tuesday of every month — tonight included — CRC brings its wide array of chamber music to Happy Dog. Performers like the Trepanning Trio, Anime Duo, students of Cleveland Institute of Music and even Cleveland Orchestra members grace the stage in these exciting concerts. Full of immensely talented performers, CRC re-instills the relevancy of this vibrant art form. Tonight’s free, all-ages performance starts at 8.

(Patrick Stoops) 11625 Euclid Ave., 216-231-5400, happydogcleveland.com.

ART

The New Now Although the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve is dedicated to preserving the past, its latest satellite exhibition, at Tri-C’s Gallery East (on the Eastern Campus in Highland Hills), showcases The New Now. Open to two- and three-dimensional artists from a dozen surrounding counties, the exhibition showcases 55 artists and the eclectic variety of contemporary artwork being produced throughout the region.

Michael J. Beam, curator of exhibitions and collections at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University, juried the exhibit.

Awards will be presented during the opening reception from 6 to 8:30 tonight. The exhibition remains on view through Oct. 6.

Admission is free. (Usmani) 4250 Richmond Rd., Highland Hills., 216-721-9020, artistsarchives.org.

Find more events @clevescene.com @clevelandscene

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ART ROUND ROOM Loren Naji will live inside his artwork to shine a light on important causes

By Josh Usmani IN AN EFFORT TO RAISE awareness of homelessness, vacancy and the environment, local artist and infamous gallery owner Loren Naji will spend the next several weeks living inside a large wooden sphere — 8 feet in diameter, weighing 1,000 lbs. — that he built out of reclaimed materials from demolished homes throughout Northeast Ohio, Detroit and Grand Rapids. Following a Sept.

9 bon voyage party at Tremont’s Prosperity Social Club, Naji will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (mocadetroit.org) and then on to Grand Rapids for the eighth annual ArtPrize (artprize.org), where more than 400,000 attendees will visit 170 venues and vote to award more than half a million dollars in prizes.

Earlier this year, Naji began the project by collecting abandoned materials from foreclosed and demolished homes. Building the sphere’s skeleton out of plywood, Naji reinforced the foundation with 2-by-4s.

Instead of installing these supports at regular, measured distances, Naji chose to place them intuitively wherever they seemed most needed.

The result resembled a globe with evenly spaced longitude lines but uneven latitude lines, creating 192 irregular quadrilaterals. Naji carefully cut panels for each section, using nearly 200 hand-traced templates.

Each section is decorated with reclaimed materials from demolished homes that would otherwise end up in landfills. Naji carefully arranged fragments of these found materials on each board to create unique, painterly compositions, each with colors and shapes that relate to its neighboring sections. Naji drew inspiration from aerial perspectives of Earth — and more specifically, our society’s imprint on it.

“This spherical sculpture alludes to our houses and living spaces, including the Earth itself. It is organized in graphic-like panels, much like the earth’s surface, covered with rectangular yards, houses, shopping centers, farms, roads and cities,” he says. “I covered my sculpture’s surface with repurposed parts of abandoned homes, deteriorated furniture and garbage, crafted items that were once valuable.”

Naji also installed “windows,” a

36

“mail slot” (made from the faceplate of an old VCR), and a doorbell on the outer structure. The inside of the piece, named “Emoh” (that’s “home,” backwards) includes photos of Naji’s family, a custom-shaped twin size mattress, a light, cell phone charger and even drums for Naji to practice his percussion lessons.

The project’s title, “Emoh,” represents our society’s backwardness.

Both metaphorically and literally, Naji gathers the debris of fractured lives and reassembles it into something useful, uplifting and permanent.

You can check it out for yourself

St. Augustine’s Hunger Center on West 14th Street.

“We’re honored that Loren wants to ‘unveil’ his work at Prosperity Social Club,” says owner Bonnie Flinner. “We invite everyone to come down and get a 360-degree view of his multi-layered passion project.”

Naji will stop in Detroit the following day, Sept. 10, for a meetand-greet at MOCAD from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. before heading to Grand Rapids for ArtPrize that evening.

ArtPrize begins with a preview week, Sept. 14 to Sept. 20. The first round of public voting takes place

‘EMOH’ BON VOYAGE PARTY 6 to 9 p.m., Friday, Sept. 9, at Prosperity Social Club, 1109 Starkweather Ave., 216-937-1938, prosperitysocialclub.com

at Prosperity Social Club on Sept. 9 from 6 to 9 p.m., during the Walkabout Tremont event. Naji will be on hand to explain his project to guests, who will get a first look before Naji heads to Michigan later that night. In celebration of his journey’s kickoff, Prosperity will be mixing up a special Bon Voyage “Emoh” Cocktail, with round ice balls, for $9. Five percent of the proceeds from all food and drink sales that evening will be donated to

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

from Sept. 21 to Oct. 1; voting for the final 20 will be from Oct 2 to 6.

Naji will be living inside his sphere, outside of Kilwin’s Chocolates and Ice Cream (146 Monroe Center St., NW), every night throughout his time in Grand Rapids. During his stay, Naji plans to collect letters and objects that represent visitors’ concepts of “home.”

“My self-imposed temporary housing will make a powerful

statement and draw attention to homelessness, vacancy issues and our backwards system that needs revision,” Naji says. “I will play recorded audio from inside the sculpture, producing sounds of daily family activities, cooking dinner, babies crying, etc., along with the sounds of houses being demolished and snippets of newscasts covering vacancy and environmental issues.

“This sculpture will also function as a time capsule, touring various cities, where community members will place items and letters in the mailbox,” Naji explains. “These contributed items once held value, but are no longer of use and would typically end up in landfills. This sculpture/time capsule will be opened 10 years later on Earth Day in Grand Rapids.”

If you’re in or traveling to Grand Rapids for ArtPrize, you can vote for Naji using the code 62624 (Time Based Category), and if you’re heading to Prosperity next Friday, be sure to bring a letter or item to contribute to the time capsule.

jusmani@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

STAGE CLOWNING AROUND Selfies at the Clown Motel confounds at Convergence-Continuum

By Roy Berko CHRISTOPHER JOHNSTON is the coordinator of the Playwrights Gym at Dobama, co-founder of the Dark Room, a new works development workshop at CPT, and the Rauschenberg New Play Reading Series for Convergence-Continuum. His script, Selfies at the Clown Motel, is presently being staged at con-con.

Arthur Miller’s plays explored the question, “Is this the best way to live?” Tennessee Williams, often using his own life, used his mother and sister as the basis for his scripts — women who found

that challenged his characters.

It is not apparent what Christopher Johnston uses as the fulcrum for his plays. He states in Selfies’ program notes that it is a “rendezvous of two lost and lonely souls.”

So? The play opens with a man and woman having sex. Each apparently reaches satisfaction, there is a scream, and it becomes apparent that the male has died, with no apparent followup or further reference to the event.

We become aware that the

SELFIES AT THE CLOWN MOTEL THROUGH SEPT. 17 AT THE LIMINIS, 2438 SCRANTON RD., 216-687-0074 CONVERGENCE-CONTINUUM.ORG

themselves in societies they didn’t understand and whose inhabitants didn’t understand them. William Inge looked at the darkness in life, those events in the hidden corners Photos courtesy of Convergance-Continuum

woman’s family owns the Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada. She is a wire-walking clown having an affair with a motorcycle-riding married man who has abandoned

his family; she has a mother (Agnes) and brother (Skar) who are psychotic; she probably had an affair with her brother (well, he’s not exactly her brother), had an abortion, and her older “lover”

comes and goes. There are scenes of male nudity, S & M, expelling of gas, discussions of casual sex, orgasms and so on.

(There actually is a Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, by the way.

It is a small place noted for its exceptionally large collection of clown art.)

Selfies is a convoluted tale of perversion and dysfunction, with little obvious purpose.

The show’s saving grace is the two outstanding performances by the athletic, beautiful Leah Smith (Chloe) as the clown, and John Busser (Rob) as her older lover. Both nicely texture their characterizations and create a duo of frustrated, rudderless people.

The use of clowns to reset scenes is clever, but overdone. How many times can the circus performers arrange and rearrange the bedspread and pillows before the effect becomes worn out?

In summary, Selfies at the Clown Motel is a difficult play to sit through. Its lack of focus and purpose, even with several outstanding performances, leaves little to recommend it.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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INVITES YOU AND A GUEST TO SEE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 7:00 P.M. PLEASE VISIT WWW.LIONSGATESCREENINGS.COM AND ENTER THE CODE BLAIRSCENE97 TO DOWNLOAD YOUR COMPLIMENTARY PASSES! THIS FILM HAS BEEN RATED R FOR LANGUAGE, TERROR AND SOME DISTURBING IMAGES.

Please note: Passes are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first served basis while supplies last. No phone calls, please. Limit one pass per person. Each pass admits two. Seating is not guaranteed. Arrive early. Theater is not responsible for overbooking. This screening will be monitored for unauthorized recording. By attending, you agree not to bring any audio or video recording device into the theater (audio recording devices for credentialed press excepted) and consent to a physical search of your belongings and person. Any attempted use of recording devices will result in immediate removal from the theater, forfeiture, and may subject you to criminal and civil liability. Please allow additional time for heightened security. You can assist us by leaving all nonessential bags at home or in your vehicle.

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MOVIES TWO BRIGHT LIGHTS BETWEEN OCEANS Fassbender, Vikander shine in tortured love story

By Sam Allard THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, a plaintive coo of a film based on a novel of the same name, opens Friday at area theaters. It stars Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, and that’s all you need to know.

Recall, if you can, the politicalintrigue thriller The Ides of March.

Before it came out in 2011, the greatest excitement was not over Ryan Gosling or George Clooney, the film’s leading men, but over the actors playing the opposing strategists: Paul Giamatti and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. At the time, Giamatti and Hoffman were regarded as two of Hollywood’s finest actors — in the olden days, they would have been called character actors — and watching them square off was destined to be akin to watching chess masters or heavyweights (and it was). Similar deal here, except that Fassbender and Vikander are the beating heart and mournful soul of the film.

Tom Sherbourne (Fassbender) is assigned, in the somber aftermath of World War I, to tend a lighthouse off the western coast of Australia. The exact location remains unmentioned (and unclear) in the film, and may leave you curious enough to look it up afterwards, but its remoteness and isolation are what’s important.

Sherbourne is a gloomy, taciturn chap, hardened by the war’s atrocities, and he’s expecting to find comfort in the solitude of his

post. But in the nearest port town, Sherbourne meets the ebullient Isabel (Vikander) and finds comfort in this woman who manages to soften him.

The film’s dramatic arc concerns Isabel’s infertility. Not one but two grisly miscarriages are depicted on screen, and both are tough to watch.

In the first, Isabel is alone in the island cottage while Tom’s up in the lighthouse. A violent storm descends (a mirror of her mood, indeed).

Calling for her husband, Isabel climbs the precarious wooden steps to the lighthouse — a full-body effort — and bangs on the iron door. But in the foul weather, Tom never hears her. It’s an incredible moment.

One windswept afternoon, a rowboat drifts ashore. A live baby girl is inside, along with (presumably) her dead father.

Against Tom’s better judgement, Tom and Isabel decide not to report the incident in the lighthouse log and to raise the infant as their own. But when, some years later, they learn the truth of their daughter’s identity, they must decide how to proceed and who will face the costs. It should go without saying that the legal ramifications pale in comparison to the moral ones.

The story and its tragedies are, in the end, mellower than might be expected. Though the sadness is often extreme, it never feels glamorized or overwrought.

And that’s primarily a function

of Fassbender and Vikander, each huge, versatile, individual talents who have found someone their own size with whom to tussle onscreen.

Vikander is, of course, fresh off an Academy Award for her marvelous turn in The Danish Girl, and will also play Lara Croft in a rebooted Tomb Raider in 2018. Fassbender, who reprised his role as Magneto in this summer’s forgettable X-Men: Apocalypse, should still be riding high on his exquisite title-character work in Steve Jobs. As Isabel and Tom, they reaffirm their status as master craftsmen. Their brisk, giddy courtship; their tender and tense moments on the island; their conflicted parenting — it’s all frankly beautiful to behold.

The Light Between Oceans is directed by Derek Cianfrance, whose

searing 2010 debut Blue Valentine was undercut by his ambitious, messy second effort The Place Beyond the Pines. Here, he returns to form in what might be his sweet spot: tortured love stories. And his ambitions have by no means waned: At two hours and 12 minutes, the film spans many years and has, after some easy armchair diagnostics, the exact pacing and period-piece production of a late-season awards contender. My sense is that this one won’t be thunderously praised by critics, and it certainly won’t wow at the box-office, but rest assured that it’s an accomplished drama with deep wells of emotion in store.

sallard@clevescene.com t@SceneSallard

SPOTLIGHT: THE 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX ANOTHER FILM ADAPTATION OF A NOVEL will hit select theaters — Tower City, Crocker Park, Richmond Town Square — on Friday, though one suspects it’ll spend the duration of a short run in search of an audience. The 9th Life of Louis Drax, directed by French horror guru Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes) pits a pediatric coma psychologist (50 Shades of Gray’s Jamie Dornan) against the comatose mind of a 9-year-old who, via voiceover, tells us that he’s had a complicated history with accidents.

To its credit, the script (penned by Max Minghella) deals competently with a convolved narrative structure: There’s an inciting event, where Louis falls from a cliff and nearly dies; there are flashbacks to Louis’ sessions with a

jolly therapist (Oliver Platt, in the film’s best performance); there’s the unfolding mystery of Drax family violence and increasing uncertainty about Louis’ parents (Aaron Paul and Sarah Gadon). Topping it all off, there are flights of fancy deep within Louis’ mind where, among other things, his unconsciousness is haunted by a grotesque bipedal sea creature that scans like an early draft of a Guillermo del Toro monster.

Dealt with much less competently are the film’s look and feel. You may be drawn in by the story’s quirk and pace — it moves well — and yet, Louis Drax has the aura of a primetime medical drama, a comparison that turns out to be pretty evocative given that Jamie Dornan’s acting chops could use some honing on network TV. Much of the action transpires in a lodge-

like pediatric coma ward where Dr. Pascal and Mrs. Natalie Drax begin to hit it off, to the professional consternation’s of Pascal’s medical colleagues. In the ward’s adjacent garden, the sun is somehow always too sunny. In Louis’ mind, the dreams are weirdly too … dreamy.

This might have been director Aja’s attempt at lighter fare. It’s a twisted take on a family thriller, sure, but measurably less horrific than his bloody efforts in the early ’00s. And yet, Louis Drax is rated R. A couple of disturbing images and a handful of non-essential F-bombs could have been easily extracted to preserve a PG-13 rating. As it stands, it’s a thriller without many thrills, a decent mystery masquerading as a child-centered fanciful drama that, with all due respect, you aren’t likely to fancy. —Sam Allard | clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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EAT ALL FIRED UP The voice of barbecue across America broadcasts live from Northeast Ohio THE IRONY OF THE SITUATION hangs over the studio like a puff of wood smoke. One of the country’s most popular hosts of an on-air barbeque show broadcasts from a city that up until now has provided him with almost zero content.

But the previous dearth of quality Cleveland barbecue hasn’t slowed Greg Rempe down one bit as he glided through 10 years as the amped-up host of the weekly BBQ Central Show.

“This is not a local show,” Rempe says from his Wickliffe kitchen, glass of barrel-strength bourbon in hand. “I want to make the show as broad as possible. I’m the host of a weekly show; I need something that changes all the time.”

Barbecue might be the hottest thing since sliced white bread right now, but when Rempe first launched his barbeque-themed program, first as a podcast and later as an internetbased show, the landscape looked completely different. Most of the online chatter was limited to crude message boards and poorly designed web pages. But the lawless state of affairs back then also gave Rempe an opportunity: If he wanted a guest for his show, all he had to do was ask.

“Who the fuck were they when I started?” Rempe says. “You got to know these guys because you went to a book signing, a competition or contacted them online as the internet became more pervasive.”

One of those early connections was with celebrity cookbook author Steven Raichlen, who has been a longstanding monthly guest of the show. Other regular spots are reserved for Meathead Goldwyn, Ray Lampe, aka Dr. BBQ, and Max Good, all trailblazers of the grilling and smoking community.

Producing a weekly two-hour program about barbecue sounds daunting. I mean, how much can one possibly say about brisket and ribs? But much of the show’s appeal lies in the wide-ranging nature of the subject matter. In addition to name-brand guests discussing the finer points of technique, style and regional variations, the BBQ Central Show covers consumer equipment like grills, smokers and pits, as

Photo by Emanuel Wallace

By Douglas Trattner

well as the wide array of cooking accessories like thermometers, temperature-control devices, meat injectors, spices, rubs and sauces.

“There was a distinct period of time where the show might only have been considered geared toward the competition cook,” Rempe says. “I don’t compete, I don’t consider myself an expert cook, but I love to talk to people about why they’re doing it, how they’re doing it, and what’s changing and evolving in the scene.”

The fruits of Rempe’s labor are quickly apparent to those who visit his suburban home. Out on the back patio is a showroom of gear that includes a Grilla pellet cooker, Green Mountain Grill pellet cooker,

“I didn’t get into this to make any money or get anything for free, I just wanted to serve a niche,” Rempe says of the plunder. “But people want to send me stuff.”

Rempe’s compact basement studio is jammed with equipment like computer monitors, pre-amps, mixers, dynamics processor, microphones, headsets and miles of cable. The slickly produced show, viewable live and after the fact, makes use of a green screen that simulates a rustic wood backdrop onscreen. Rempe takes frequent breaks from interviews to perform “live reads,” scripted endorsements of sponsor products. Those combined with other spots and banner ads

WWW.THEBBQCENTRALSHOW.COM

Lang off-set stick burner, Pit Barrel Cooker, Weber Genesis Gas Grill and a pair of Weber Smokey Mountains, all sent for the host to review and, hopefully, endorse on the show.

Inside, entire shelves are filled with sauces, rubs and marinades.

generate tens of thousands of dollars in annual revenue for Rempe, whose day job is as a Peterbilt Truck salesman.

The recent boom of barbecue joints, both locally and nationally, is great news to Rempe, who says

he finally has reason to eat out in Cleveland. On the night that I sit in as a guest of the show, I’m joined later in the program by Shane Vidovic of Proper Pig Smokehouse.

So far, Michael Symon remains the host’s white whale when it comes to guests.

“Rarely do I go out for barbecue,” Rempe says. “When you become good at it, you’re not going in search of ribs at Applebee’s or Damon’s. Mabel’s and Proper Pig were the first local barbecue places that really seemed to be doing it right. I like both places and I’m happy that they’re here.”

Rempe hopes that those two joints will soon be followed by others because, despite assumptions to the contrary, we have barely scratched the surface. As of now, demand greatly outpaces supply.

“If they’re good, we could use 10 to 15 more barbecue joints in the Cleveland area,” Rempe says.

And if and when they do come, Rempe will gladly invite them all onto the really big show.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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EAT PLAYING THE LONG GAME Gamekeeper’s celebrates its 40th anniversary

By Rachel Hunt TOM LUTZ HAS BEEN THE proprietor of Gamekeeper’s Taverne (87 West St., 440-247-7744, gamekeepers. com) in Chagrin Falls since the restaurant opened on September 4, 1976. In advance of his restaurant’s 40th anniversary, Lutz rightfully should be focusing on his past successes. Instead, he’s concentrating on the future.

“We started with just myself, my partner Eric Heatwole, and one waitress,” Lutz explains. “So much of what I see in various publications is about new restaurants, but we’re doing a lot of those new things too. We’ve had to do that to stay current. We’re looking forward, so it’s nice sometimes to take a look back.”

The cottages that now house Gamekeeper’s were built in 1861 and bought by Life Savers candy creator Arthur Crane (the candies are stashed in bowls around the restaurant as an homage). Crane added a large

expansion to the buildings and in 1927 opened Crane’s Canary Cottage, a restaurant that served Cleveland’s luminaries of the day, including John D. Rockefeller.

Today, Gamekeeper’s still embraces a rustic cottage atmosphere.

Meandering dining rooms with unique themes retain a 1920s bourgeois air, while the modern decor keeps the restaurant from feeling stuck in time. The addition of an updated patio and courtyard has increased the attractiveness and utility of the space tenfold.

“It’s sort of like a classic sports car,” Lutz says. “You have to maintain it and update it occasionally. We’ve always had the attitude that the restaurant is casually sophisticated. It needs to be sophisticated, but without the pretentiousness.”

Take a look at the menu and you might recognize a few favorites from the past such as the pear and goat

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cheese salad, penne pasta, and cedarplanked salmon. “We keep looking ahead, but that’s one of the tensions we have here; people have come for 40 years to order the angel hair pasta.”

Michael Slater, five months into his executive chef position, has added a renewed focus on one the restaurant’s core tenets: game. “We’re going to try and get more game involved,” he says.

“I think that’s a big niche we can carve out that not a lot of other locations do. We’ve got tons of booklets on emu, bison and boar, all of the different things that we want to be able to bring on. I’m looking at some pheasant and ostrich, the items that provide something that makes our restaurant a destination.”

“What’s interesting about game is it has been one of our themes, obviously, but it’s also free-range, so to speak, healthy, high in protein, low in fat, and it’s fresh,” notes Lutz. “The public has become much more educated. People

are eating less, and the portions that they want to eat have changed over the years. They are really into what they’re eating and want to know what’s going into their bodies. That’s really important to us, because our bottom line is that we use quality products.”

The cards seem to be in Gamekeeper’s favor as they continue to reach new generations of consumers.

The restaurant probably won’t celebrate anything officially on its birthday, other than marking it as a day to remember. But they’ll be hosting a food and beer tasting with Platform Beer on September 28 and celebrating each Saturday in October with a clambake, a tradition that they’ve kept up as they continue to create new partnerships and foster old friendships in the community.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

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EAT NOW OPEN The Fix Bistro in Cleveland Heights opens its doors

By Douglas Trattner JOEY’S BISTRO CLOSED ITS doors in April after a little more than two years in business. As of last week, the old Jimmy O’Neill’s Tavern spot in Cleveland Heights is officially the Fix Bistro (2195 Lee Rd., 216 3838130). The restaurant is an offshoot of the popular sandwich shop down the road called Black Box Fix, which chef Eric Rogers opened in the spring of 2015.

The Fix Bistro, says the chef, will be more along the lines of his first restaurant, Nevaeh Cuisine, which was in South Euclid. That concept had more of a focus on Creole-style entrees and live entertainment than sandwiches. Originally, the chef had planned to keep the sandwich shop up and running, but later decided to incorporate that menu into the new spot and rebrand the old space.

The bistro menu features starters like Creole soul rolls stuffed with smoked turkey and andouille, veggie egg rolls filled with curried rice, deep-fried shrimp in a spicy sauce, and a sampler platter containing sliders, soul rolls and Parmesan fries.

Most of the popular sandwiches served down the road at Black Box have made the move, including the OMG Philly made with grilled chicken, sauteed mushrooms, onions peppers, and Creole shrimp, the LBJ with beef filet, grilled shrimp and mushrooms, onions and peppers, and the Mr. Martin, a sandwich filled with buttermilk fried chicken, barbecue sauce and slaw.

In the entree department are dishes like buttermilk fried chicken served with collard greens and smoked gouda mashers, grilled salmon served atop jambalaya and topped with Creole cream sauce, and penne pasta in a Romano Alfredo sauce with chicken and andouille.

Since receiving the keys to the space, Rogers and business partner Larese Purnell have gutted and reworked much of the square footage.

The casual 65-seat eatery has been brightened up and stripped down.

“Everything you see is new, clean, fresh and modern,” Rogers says.

“People are going to very much enjoy this space. It’s definitely a nice date-night spot and family friendly atmosphere.”

On weekends, live jazz, blues, or

spoken word events will take place in the dining room.

While Rogers originally planned to keep Black Box Fix as a sandwich shop, his plans evolved, he says. Now that space, which closed in July, will

become the Sweet Fix Bakery (2307 Lee Rd.).

The Southern-style dessert shop will sell classic items like sweet potato pie, pecan pie, pound cakes and peach cobblers, all available a la

mode, as well as modern concepts like cake pops, brownies on a stick, and red velvet cookies with custom toppings.

Look for Sweet Fix to open in October.

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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CLEVELAND IS FIRST U.S. MARKET FOR RESO, LATEST CHALLENGER TO OPENTABLE During the three years since he opened Cork & Cleaver, chef and owner Brian Okin has managed reservations the old-fashioned way: by answering phone calls and emails from customers and jotting the information down in “the book.” But a few months ago he began using Reso, a new online reservation management system that just entered the Cleveland market. In fact, Okin was the company’s first American account.

“Within a month, more than 50 percent of my reservations were coming in through my website,” Okin says, referring to the Reso widget that lives on his restaurant website. “It has all the same functions as OpenTable, like managing your dining room and communicating with customers, but they only charge a flat monthly fee.”

Okin might not have used OpenTable at Cork & Cleaver or his newer restaurant, Graffiti, but he did use the reservation system at his previous restaurant, Verve. As was the case with many restaurant owners, it was a one-sided relationship that left a pretty sour taste in his mouth.

“It was terrible,” are his exact words.

For almost 20 years, OpenTable has been the de facto tool for making online restaurant reservations. Each month, 19 million diners reserve spots at one of 37,000 restaurants around the globe. That reach and brand awareness lands small, medium and large restaurants in front of countless potential new customers. But it does so at a hefty price.

“People don’t understand the fees that are associated with the system,” explains Doug Katz, who recently swapped Fire Food and Drink’s OpenTable system for Reso after learning about it. “The fees are really astronomical for the value they currently are giving you.”

Katz says that he was paying up to $25,000 per year to OpenTable in the form of equipment rentals, monthly fees and per-diner costs of $1 and up.

And even those supposed marketing perks that tout Katz’ eastside eatery on OpenTable’s Cleveland portal are not always what they are cracked up to be, he says.

“Your restaurant might not even appear to people looking for a table in a certain region if you are not in that region, if you happen to be offline, or if you’re booked up,” Katz states.

Fire, he says, lives and dies on a base of customers who know where and when they want to dine. Using a slightly different reservation system is not a significant hurdle.

“I think the main clientele who use OpenTable are travelers,” says Katz.

“If you’re going out of town, you often start with OpenTable to check all the best restaurants. But unfortunately now, you see a lot more chain restaurants and others that can afford a system like OpenTable. In a way, the best restaurants aren’t always on OpenTable, because they can’t or don’t want to spend the money.”

Over the years, a number of startups have challenged OpenTable, hoping to break the company’s stranglehold on the market. Not many, it seems, get very far; they either fold, remain niche or irrelevant, or get gobbled up by OpenTable. Reso is one of the latest to enter the game, and the company has selected Cleveland as its first U.S. market.

“Cleveland has a strong independent restaurant scene, and it has been getting more and more attention nationally for its chefs and great restaurants,” explains Tyler Davis, VP of operations for Reso. “We thought it was a strong market.”

While Reso might be new to the United States, the company has been providing a cloud-based restaurant management tool for years in its home market of Canada. Their new consumer-facing website and app will seamlessly pair up with that system.

“We really invested in Cleveland because we feel like we can build and grow the local market instead of doing a scattered approach where we can be everywhere but nowhere at the same time,” Davis says.

To that end, Reso hired Don Apel to manage, maintain and grow the Cleveland market. For years, Apel has worked in some of Cleveland’s finest restaurants, most recently as GM of Flour. Just weeks into their launch, Reso has inked deals with about a dozen area restaurants. That number is expected to double very soon. Most mention the predictable fees and ease of use as enticements to switch.

It’s still early for Katz, who signed on just a week ago, but he’s cautiously optimistic.

“It’s a risk,” he admits. “I think people are scared because OpenTable is such a big fish. But personally, I felt I needed to make a stand and do it. I felt confident enough that we’re serving a great product and have a great customer base to support us.”

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

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MUSIC

NOISE ADDICTS Indie rockers Sleigh Bells offer a preview on their forthcoming album

By Jeff Niesel GIVEN THAT THE INDIE ROCK ACT Sleigh Bells balances pop and noise elements, it only makes sense that Sleigh Bells guitarist Derek Edward Miller, who grew up in Florida, would have an appreciation for classic rock and hardcore punk.

“From a very early age, I was really obsessed with music,” he says via phone from his Brooklyn home. “I remember at age 5, 6 and 7 singing along to the big blockbuster records by people like Michael Jackson and George Michael. My mom loved classic rock as well and she also had pop records by people like Belinda Carlisle.”

He says he discovered the sturm und drang of hardcore punk at puberty, and he was hooked.

“That manic energy and aggression of hardcore appealed to young men,” he says. “It was happening right in my backyard too. You could form a band and there was a scene an hour south in Fort Lauderdale. I listened to hardcore

from 15 to 17. That’s not a lot of time but those were formative years. I eventually got tired of the downer subject matter of hardcore and metal — not that they should be singing about cupcakes. It was fine, but what I wanted was a marriage of the two things, something that was slick and poppy and less aggressively macho and testosterone driven, something like Cyndi Lauper with bigger kick drums.”

That’s the foundation of Sleigh Bells: the records Miller’s mom listened to and the energy and volume of the hardcore records.

Before forming Sleigh Bells, Miller spent some time with the Florida hardcore act Poison the Well. To date, that group has released several records and toured the globe. But despite its success, Miller was ready for a change. “[I learned] self-reliance and a strong work ethic and a distaste for bullshit,” Miller says. “One thing I love about hardcore is the DIY attitude. It’s

supposed to be about making great shit and playing great shows and less about other stuff. There was no social media back then and that stuff is such a large and powerful tool. But I often feel like now the social media is the thing itself and the music is just there to boost the internet fame. I busted my ass [with that band] trying to make good records.”

When Miller first met singer Alexis Krauss in 2008, he wasn’t really sure she’d be well-suited to singing the songs he’d penned. But one thing he knew for sure: He didn’t want to be in another band with a bunch of bros.

“It was a shot in the dark,” he says of handing a demo tape to the feisty Krauss. “When we met up, and I played her the material I had written up, she got psyched on it. She used to sing scratch vocals for different songwriters who would present their songs to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. She sent me that stuff and sounded great. And I thought we would get along. It’s an intimate

process. You’re sitting shoulder-toshoulder and eyeball-to-eyeball in the studio and on the stage. I had propositioned something like 30 to 40 other female singers but none of them were right. I wanted to work with a female vocalist. I didn’t want to be in a band with four other guys.

Those guys in Poison the Well are my brothers to this day, and I would take a bullet for them, but I didn’t want to be in a band where you just argue with other people.”

Apprehensive about leaving her job to devote herself fully and completely to Sleigh Bells, Krauss eventually came around to buy what Miller was selling. After all, he was pretty convinced the band would have a fresh new sound.

“I was waiting tables and making rent,” he explains. “I’m not afraid to work for a living, but the music felt substantial to me. It felt like it was worth fighting for. It felt fresh to me.

She was a little resistant at first but after a year, it really came together.

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

49

MUSIC I was probably pressuring her, but she’s not a kid. She’s an adult. She was able to make her own decision about devoting herself to the group.”

The band’s 2009 EP included a version of “Infinity Guitars,” the choppy track that features distorted beats and a Kinks-like guitar riff. It would become an underground hit when the band re-released it as part of its 2010 full-length debut Treats.

“There’s a version of ‘Infinity Guitars’ with guitar, bass and drums,” says Miller. “But once I got into beatmaking, it became a different thing. That didn’t happen until I met Alexis. The first two tracks we wrote together — ‘Infinity Guitars’ and ‘Rill Rill’ — are borderline sweet and cloying. That’s a blessing and curse.

You don’t want to go too much in that direction. Sometimes, I struggle with the approach.”

He refers to the songs on the noisy 2012 follow-up, Reign of Terror, as “cartoonish metal.”

“I remember being torn about whether I would do stuff that was sweeter or more pop or something with more angst,” he says. “I don’t want to be too abstract about it. If you’re AC/DC, it’s like McDonald’s with their consistency. They do a thing so perfectly, there’s no need to explore. It’s

was worth releasing. We didn’t want to put something out just so we could go back on tour. Fuck that. A couple of years of not having a schedule was scary. You can’t live in a bubble of the tour and record cycle. I survived it.”

He says the band has just completed recording an album that he’s “really proud of.” It’s due out early next year.

“I started writing and recording in October of 2013,” he says. “It was the day we got on the bus for the Bitter Rivals tour. I worked from that point until the last track was recorded in June of this year. The songs I kept going back to and the ones that survived are ones I’m still psyched on. That’s tough to do. There are a number of songs that stuck around.

We still care deeply about them after having worked on them for 24 months. I worked on the fly on Bitter Rivals, not second-guessing myself.

I thought the speed would somehow sequence the record and forward momentum would color the record but it sounds like a lack of discipline and hard work. I hear flippant creative decisions. This new album is the first one I labored over.”

He describes the album’s singles “Hyper-Dark” and “Rule Number One” as outliers that don’t necessarily indicate what the album will sound like as a whole.

“The result of compiling songs over two years makes it eclectic,”

SLEIGH BELLS, NIGHTS 8:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 31, BEACHLAND BALLROOM, 15711 WATERLOO RD., 216-283-1124. TICKETS: $25, BEACHLANDBALLROOM.COM

a flawless band. Their fans love them.

I mention McDonald’s because you can get the same Big Mac everywhere.

If you ask Radiohead’s Thom Yorke about that, it’s the death of creativity.

They operate at opposite poles. I love both approaches.”

The group followed up Reign of Terror quickly with 2013’s Bitter Rivals, an album that possesses a more soulful groove, albeit while adhering to the band’s frenetic approach.

“I was trying to avoid downtime,” he says of the album. “I don’t have other hobbies. Beside that, it’s just getting fucked up. I can be very self-destructive. I’ve been better about policing myself. In hindsight, we made that record too quickly. About six of the songs I love. Two or three are some of the worst things we’ve done, and we will never play live.

After that album, I knew we would be off tour for a couple of years and not release another record until it

50

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

he says. “Some people will love that about it. Some will think it’s ridiculous. They’re both album tracks and don’t have a true chorus or traditional pop chorus. I like working in that framework. I chose ‘Rule Number One’ and Alexis chose ‘Hyper-Dark.’ We wanted to show people that we’re not sitting at home fucking around. We’ve been working hard.”

For the dynamic live show, the duo will expand to a trio.

“On the Bitter Rivals tour, we were a four-piece and it felt more like a rock band,” he says. “This is back to something that’s less identifiable as rock music. It’s still going to be sensory overload. I like volume, and I like strobes. I want to do it the way I see fit. There will be lots of energy and sensory overload.”

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

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| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

51

MUSIC ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER Classic rockers Toto to play their first Cleveland show in more than 20 years

By Matt Wardlaw AFTER CO-HEADLINING RUNS the past two summers that found the group sharing the stage with longtime friend Michael McDonald (in 2014) and then progressive rockers Yes (last summer), Toto is doing its first full-on headlining run of the United States in a long time. It’s a well-deserved victory for the band, which regrouped in 2010 after taking a short break. Former vocalist Joseph Williams returned for the first time since the late ’80s.

Keyboardist Steve Porcaro also came back after a break of more than a decade.

The reason for the reunion was poignant. Porcaro’s brother Mike, a founding member of Toto and former bassist for the group, had been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease); singer-guitarist Steve Lukather and the members of the band wanted to help generate money for Porcaro’s mounting medical bills.

The renewed union was something they wanted to carry forward after playing those initial shows for Porcaro’s benefit.

“You know, Joseph has really been a huge ... Joseph and Steve coming back were just a huge asset to the band. Steve’s touches were sorely missed. He does so much subtle stuff that really makes the sound of the band the way it originally sounded with the two keyboard thing,” Lukather explains in a conversation prior to the beginning of the tour.

“Joseph’s voice is better than it ever was, and he’s a childhood friend too, so I’m looking around the stage at guys that I grew up with since I was like 15 years old. That makes a difference, especially a bunch of guys that have been through all that we’ve been through together, the good, bad and the ugly — and to still have the desire and passion to do this. Some guys go on the road, they don’t like each other or whatever, they’re just doing it for a check or whatever, which is fine, I guess.

You know, everybody’s got to make a living, but there’s more to it than this. Because we can all do other stuff for money, if that’s what’s the case. There’s still something drawing us back to this band. There’s still something left to say. Otherwise we would have bagged it.”

52

Porcaro passed away in March 2015; but his illness brought the band back together for the right reasons.

“You know, we’re helping a brother out,” Lukather explains.

“And within that, we rediscovered, first off, that we’ve been lifelong brothers, through that intense sadness, it brought us together and made us realize, you know what?

There’s not too many people in the world that a.) get a second chance at this thing, and b.) still have a career after all of these years. We did a tour that was so successful and so much fun. We gave Mikey and the family some money and we said, ‘Do you want to do this next year again for fun?’ Everybody’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah!’

Then it developed into this thing that we’re doing every year.”

Cleveland’s 20-year drought will finally come to an end this week, when Toto plays at the Rocksino.

Both Lukather and Steve Porcaro have fond memories of Cleveland, where they played the Agora on their very first tour of the United States as Toto. The Agora show took place

[Scaggs]. We were there in Cleveland at Swingos, and we were hanging out with the Tubes and it was one of the coolest nights. For some reason, we were both there for like three days and we both had time off. I forget what the situation was, but it was one of the coolest parties of my life. Seriously. It was just this great rock ’n’ roll time period then and it was Cleveland. We love Cleveland, seriously.”

But it’s been more than 20 years since that last Cleveland show.

“You know, isn’t it scary,” Lukather asks, “just to say that out loud?”

“One thing that’s cool about this tour is that we were very upset, you know, we were going to do another kind of co-headlining thing with Boz, like we’d done the last couple of years with Michael McDonald and Yes,” Porcaro adds. “We were going to do the same thing with Boz and just kind of do a greatest hits set and get off. That all fell through, so now we’re doing an evening with Toto, so everyone gets to see our full two-hour set.”

TOTO 7:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 31, HARD ROCK LIVE, 10777 NORTHFIELD RD, NORTHFIELD, 330-908-7625. TICKETS: $47.50-$65, HRROCKSINONORTHFIELDPARK.COM

in February 1979, was broadcast on both radio and television locally and eventually was broadcast overseas and on Japanese television.

“Cleveland’s always been a special place. It really is a special rock and roll town,” Porcaro says during a separate interview. “We were there once when we were with Boz

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

Which means deeper cuts and a few surprises — including a Cleveland-appropriate “Trower Power” moment from Lukather you won’t want to miss. (You’ll see what we mean when you get there.) And, of course, Lukather promises you’ll hear all of the hits too, from “Africa” to “Hold the Line” and “Rosanna.”

“Obviously, you know, we’ve got to play the songs people have grown up with,” he says. “But we get to play some new stuff and some deep cuts and everybody gets to stretch out and play a little bit more. It’s a little bit more relaxed, because nobody’s looking at their watch. And production-wise, with sounds and lights and all of that stuff, it will be pretty nice.”

The evening will feature a sampling of music from 2015’s Toto XIV, the band’s 13th studio album, and they’re proud of how it turned out, even though the circumstances started in a slightly negative place.

“The 35th anniversary, we decided to do a DVD to commemorate that, and then we found out our first manager signed something that we didn’t know about that if we did a live DVD, we owed this Italian guy a full studio record or we couldn’t put out the live DVD,” he says. “Now, we were trying to figure out how that happened; that was just bad management. We started getting into some litigation and it got really expensive and our lawyers go, ‘Look man, this guy’s going to pay you a fortune to do a record — do the record.’”

So what started out negative turned into a positive.

“We said, ‘You know, if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to make a really good record. We can’t just throw a blues record together, get a check and tell everyone to fuck off,’” Lukather says. “That would be pretty lame.

We owed it to ourselves to see if we still had a good one left in us and we threw down. We spent a lot of hours in a little room together, regrouping and figuring out how we wanted to do this and what you got was Toto XIV, which to me, is something I’m very proud of. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen again. It was also great, because Joseph got another chance at the wheel and he certainly deserved that and proved that. We all had a blast and here we are going into our seventh year of doing this when we thought it was done. We’re going to see the 40th anniversary and beyond, I think.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

| clevescene.com m | August 31 - September 6, 2016

53

MUSIC BACK TO THE PAST Uncle Earl reunites for a heartfelt tour of old-time Appalachian music

By Eric Sandy A FEW YEARS BACK, ST. VRAIN Creek in Lyons, Colorado, flooded the town something fierce. Across Boulder County, and much of the central part of the state, a cold front mingled with humid air from the south and produced a series of natural disasters that left eight dead.

“This was the town that really brought our band together,” Abigail Washburn tells Scene.

She’s talking about Uncle Earl, an old-time Appalachian string band based for some time in Lyons. “The flood had a devastating impact on so many people.”

By 2013, though, Uncle Earl hadn’t been as active as they were in the 2000s. The core lineup had moved on to other projects. But when the call for fundraising and support came in the wake of the floods, each musician stepped up and rallied. They loved one another, after all.

“We just all wanted to see each other and be with each other again and check in after several years of being apart,” Washburn says. (She’s calling in from Lyons, actually, where she’s staying with Uncle Earl founder KC Groves before taking a vacation to Australia.) The RockyGrass festival came together in short order, despite logistical and meteorological challenges, and Uncle Earl (Washburn on banjo, Groves on mandolin, Kristin Andreassen on guitar, and Rayna Gellert on fiddle) reunited to play the event.

From there, the musicians made an informal pact to keep playing brief reunion sets and short tours like the one that lands in Cleveland on Sept. 4, and so they have.

“We just so enjoyed being together again,” Washburn says.

“When we stopped playing in that

54

particular configuration, we all felt a lot of sadness about not having that time together. And we know this music had inspired a lot of people — especially young women — to start playing music, whether it be old-time or not. They saw this group of women up onstage, traveling and playing music, and they thought, ‘I can do it too!’ We want to go say hi to them again.”

(Interestingly enough, Colleen Miller, at Music Box Supper Club, helped support the band in their earlier days in her role at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.)

With that in mind, the band plans on touching all corners of their canon for these current shows. Going back through the albums and EPs today, it’s clear that the music is timeless — even as it remains rooted in a very specific era of American history.

The band’s last album, 2007’s Waterloo, Tennessee, opens with the upbeat melodies of “BlackEyed Susie,” which bleeds into a mysterious final few seconds where the title is sung in the background of the strings. Then, the rest of the

Communicating lessons on love, loss and happiness, Uncle Earl spins through that world of “old-time music,” a patchwork of traditions that grew out of the earliest immigrants to America from Ireland and Scotland, and slaves from West Africa. When Africans were brought to America, slave traders played music on the ships to improve transatlantic survival rates — a way of keeping their spirits intact. Back on the plantation, slaves would play trancelike banjo music while Irish owners would perform a fiddle melody on top of that. “It’s an extremely bittersweet root,” Washburn says of this important development in American music history. Jazz, blues, bluegrass and, later, rock ’n’ roll all evolved out of the old-time Appalachian lineage.

Back around the turn of the millennium, genres like bluegrass and the amorphous “Americana” began growing in popularity and shining a spotlight once again on banjos and fiddles. Uncle Earl, devoted in each musician’s love for the legacy of those instruments, was there to ride the wave.

UNCLE EARL 8 P.M. SUNDAY, SEPT. 4, MUSIC BOX SUPPER CLUB, 1148 MAIN AVE., 216-242-1250. TICKETS: $18 ADV, $20 DOS, MUSICBOXCLE.COM

album springs forth.

And it’s a dynamic trip, this album. The band’s last notch in the history books before parting ways for a spell is a varied jaunt through a different era.

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

“Once this configuration came together, it just really took off,” Washburn says of the mid-2000s.

“It’s like the band understood its purpose, and it was very clear that we’re an old-time Appalachian band

that was going to take the music to different places in our collaborative songwriting.”

Plus, the chemistry was off the charts, she says. That particular lineup toured here in the States and internationally for six years, laughing and loving one another and their growing fan base.

Part of the allure then and now is that Uncle Earl comprises a group of women in what might seem, if you dwell too long among the distorted world of music journalism, like a male-dominated community. Washburn points out, though, that the old-time traditions included many women and femalefronted bands. She cites the Coon Creek Girls, out of east Kentucky, as one of her favorite outfits from the 1930s. “We wanted to stay in that tradition, and we’ve loved doing that,” she says.

Crediting, in part, O Brother, Where Art Thou? for bringing old-time music to the mainstream, Washburn and her all-women band found a niche in the right time — and enjoyed what they were doing. “We just laugh and laugh,” she says. “We have so much fun playing together.”

This time around, the band is touring in a bus — as opposed to a van, like the old days — and touring with their expanding families. Some things change, surely, but most things stay the same.

esandy@clevescene.com t@EricSandy

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55

LIVEWIRE

all the live music you should see this week Photo by Camillo Fuentealba

WED

8/31

10 X 3 Singer Songwriter Showcase: Hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Brazilian Duo Guitar: Paulinho Costa invites Jim Carr: 9 p.m., $5.

The Euclid Tavern.

Celtic Thunder - Legacy: 8 p.m., $10$71. State Theatre.

Joe Hunter: 7 p.m., Free. BLU Jazz+.

Jerreau/Tae Miles/R the Czar/Stoke/ Chucky Supreme: 9 p.m., $15. Grog Shop.

Ray McNiece – Tongue – n – Groove/ Guy Pernetti: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.

Thor Platter Band (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $7. Music Box Supper Club.

Rich the Kid — Rich Forever Tour: 7 p.m., $20. House of Blues.

Sleigh Bells: 8:30 p.m., $25.

Beachland Ballroom.

The Stray Birds/G.S. Harper: 8:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Beachland Tavern.

Swingtime Big Band: 7:30 p.m., $10.

Bop Stop.

Toto: 7:30 p.m., $47.50-$65. Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park.

THU

9/01

Rival Sons/Teasebox: Well established by now as a band worthy of repping this decade’s contributions to rock ‘n’ roll, Rival Sons (the kid cousins of the Black Keys, sonically) dropped a new album recently that continues that narrative. While it’s a short album, the band packs a lot of heat into its close quarters. Bookended, sort of, by parts one and two of the title track, the record is a fine example of 2010s-era riff rock served with anthemic throwbacks to, e.g., Jimmy Page’s scene. Each song -- and earlier tunes -- blaze with energy that’s sure to translate to the stage. The album closes with the haunting and yearning “All That I Want,” a crestfallen message to a dispassionate lover. All of which is to say: These guys run the gamut.

(Eric Sandy), 9 p.m., $20. Grog Shop.

Blu Jazz Big Band Residency & Birthday Bash with the Sam Blakeslee Large Group: 8 p.m., $10.

BLU Jazz+.

Elvis Depressedly/Teen Suicide/ Nicole Dollanganger: 7:30 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Chris Hatton’s Musical Circus (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers

56

SAT

Talented singer-songwriter Xenia Rubinos plays the Beachland in support of her new album, Black Terry Cat. See: Sunday.

Lounge.

Hollow Earth IX: 9 p.m., Free. Happy Dog. Jam Night with the Bad Boys of Blues: 9 p.m., Free. Brothers Lounge.

MELODIME/The Can’t Evens: 8 p.m., $12. Musica.

Leah Natale: 8 p.m., $10. Nighttown.

Jesse Royal: 8:30 p.m., $12 ADV, $14 DOS. Beachland Tavern.

Spyder Stompers/Time Tripper: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.

Valley Queen (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.

FRI

9/02

Ace Frehley/Scorpion Child: 8 p.m.

Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park.

Demi Lovato/Nick Jonas: 7 p.m., $29.95-$89.95. Quicken Loans Arena.

NE Ohio Prog Fest Vol. One w/ AxonNeuron/Figurehead: The inaugural edition of the NEOhio Prog Fest features Axon-Neuron, a progressive rock group from Akron that just released its third studio effort, a double-disc “progressive journey” that finds the six-piece band playing with a 21-piece orchestra. Tonight’s concert also features sets from the progressive rock/fusion band Figurehead, the instrumental-funkfusion group Copali and the jazzinspired progressive actthe Jared Lees Band, all of whom hail from the region. (Jeff Niesel), 7 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. The Kent Stage.

Black Dog Octet: 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. BLU Jazz+.

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

Bwak Dwagon/Soft Copy/Iron Oxide: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Aaron Carter: 7 p.m., $15-$50.

Odeon.

Corey Grand & Friends/Freshie/ Lo Life Lane/Walker OG/Ghost Noises: 9 p.m., $7 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern.

Erizzyrok/Dave Zup: 8:30 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Beachland Ballroom.

Gildersleeve Reunion: 8 p.m., $10.

Musica.

Hells Headbash 3: 2 p.m., $45-$125.

The Agora Theatre.

Laurence Hobgood Trio: 8 p.m., $20.

Bop Stop.

Hubb’s Groove: A Tribute to George Duke: 8:30 p.m., $20. Nighttown.

Late Nite Lounge: Drag Bingo (in the Supper Club): 10:30 p.m., Free.

Music Box Supper Club.

Christine Marie (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Tim Matson Trio/Rio Neon/George Foley & Friends: 5:30 p.m.

Barking Spider Tavern.

Meg and the Magnetosphere/ Mallory San Marco/The Katy: 9 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern.

Monolord/Beastmaker/Sweat Lodge/Gazzan: 9 p.m., $12 ADV, $14 DOS. Grog Shop.

Red Ball Jets: 9:30 p.m., $5.

Brothers Lounge.

Rock the Lock with The Machine Performs Pink Floyd: 7 p.m. Lock 3 Live.

Moss Stanley: 10:30 p.m., free.

Nighttown.

Tropical Cleveland: Hot Dance Latin Party: 9:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $15 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.

Vomitface/Pack Wolf: 9 p.m., $5.

Now That’s Class.

9/03

Archie and the Bunkers/Wesley Who/The Spectres: A local garage rock group which consists of teenage brothers Emmett and Cullen O’Connor on keys and vocals, Archie and the Bunkers have made some serious headway since forming in 2013. The two guys initially began recording music in their basement and self-produced their first two EPs (Comrade X and Trade Winds). Last year, the group issued its first fulllength album on the UK-based Dirty Water Records. The guys recorded the album’s 12 songs at Ghetto Recorders in Detroit with famed producer/engineer Jim Diamond.

Now, the band has just released the follow-up, Mystery Lover. Jason Tarulli, the front of house engineer for the Black Keys, recorded the EP at his Studio Time recording studio in Akron. Nick Knox, former drummer of the Cramps, worked as Senior Advisor on the album, which opens with the rousing Doors-like track “All That Lovin.’” The album is currently streaming on the band’s website. The band plans to debut several new songs tonight for its first Cleveland show since returning from a European tour. (Niesel), 9 p.m., $8. Grog Shop.

Kamal Abdul-Alim: 9 p.m., Free. The Euclid Tavern.

Disco Paradiso Vol. 2: 9 p.m., $7. Now That’s Class.

An Evening with Glass Harp: 8 p.m., $30-$45. The Kent Stage.

Hells Headbash 3: 2 p.m., $45-$125.

The Agora Theatre.

Laurence Hobgood Trio: 8 p.m., $20.

BLU Jazz+.

Bill Lestock/Saul Glennon: 8 p.m.

Barking Spider Tavern.

Lock 3 Live presents En Vogue: 7 p.m. Lock 3 Live.

Mr. Speed — A Tribute to KISS: 7 p.m., $14. House of Blues.

Sister Smirk Tape Release Show/ Proud Parents/FASCINATING!/ Window Kits: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Teddy Boys/Samfox/The Few and the Far: 9 p.m., $8. Beachland Tavern.

Jeff Varga (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m.

Brothers Lounge.

Charles Walker Band: 9:30 p.m., $5.

Brothers Lounge.

Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free.

Nighttown.

Wing Dam/Cigarette Playdate/Slug Fest: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class.

LIVEWIRE SUN

9/04

Dirty Bourbon River Show (in the Supper Club): Remember that one time we all took the airboat to that voodoo show deep in the bayou?

When Dirty Bourbon River Show cranks up the heat tonight in Cleveland, it’ll be very similar. This is “big brass gypsy circus rock,” as they say, and it requires one to give him or herself to other planes of grooviness. Straight outta New Orleans, the band serves up one of the finest live shows on the circuit these days, and their recent album, Important Things Humans Should Know, contains a healthy variety of song structures and piano- and brass-driven intrigue. This is more of an event than a concert, one might say, so do come prepared to be transported. (Sandy), 8 p.m., $12, Music Box Supper Club Xenia Rubinos/The Katy: When recording her new album Black Terry Cat, singer-songwriter Xenia Rubinos and longtime drummer Marco Buccelli, who produced the album, put in some long hours. Along with engineer Jeremy Loucas, the three worked an average of 16 to 17 hours a day for five months to complete the disc named after “a giant black scraggly cat” that surprised Rubinos one night at her Brooklyn home. The talented Rubinos effortlessly shifts from R&B to hip-hop and jazz. NPR appropriately included the record in its “Top 30 Favorite Albums of the Year So Far” and the infectious song “Mexican Chef” might be one of the year’s best singles. (Niesel), 8:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Beachland Tavern.

Lebanese Byrd Quintet: 5 p.m., $12.

Bop Stop.

Clean House Benefit with I-Tal/ Outlaws I & I/Austin Walkin’ Cane/The Flavor/Bobby Dragon: 8 p.m., $15. Beachland Ballroom.

Drose/Murderedman/Actual Form/ Moltar: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class.

George Foley & Friends: 6 p.m.

Barking Spider Tavern.

Hells Headbash 3: 2 p.m., $45-$125.

The Agora Theatre.

Housefest 4 with I-Tal/Outlaws I & I/Gato’s Gullah Gumbo/Austin “Walkin’” Cane/The Flavor: 8 p.m., $15. Beachland Ballroom.

Irish Sundays: The Kilroys: 3 p.m., Free. Music Box Supper Club.

Late Night Karaoke: DJ Terkalerk (in the Supper Club): 10:30 p.m., Free.

Music Box Supper Club.

Al Mazur (in the Wine Bar): 5:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Nostalgia Factor: 3 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.

Pigpen Theatre Co./Morningsiders/ Istvan Medgyesi: 8:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Grog Shop.

Pizza Money (in the Locker Room): 9 p.m., Free. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Rock the Hall Featuring Bret Michaels/RATT/Warrant/ Firehouse: 6 p.m., $29.50-$129.50.

Goodyear Theater.

Uncle Earl/Paul Kovac/Mark Olitsky: 8 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.

TUE

9/06

AC/DC’s ‘Rock or Bust’ World Tour: The AC/DC Rock or Bust World Tour recently returned to the States for 10 final shows in August and September with the current line-up of Angus Young, Cliff Williams, Stevie Young, Chris Slade and guest singer Axl Rose of Guns N Roses. Earlier this year, singer Brian Johnson had to leave the U.S. tour after being advised by doctors that he risked total hearing loss if he continued to perform live. The group continued to tour with Rose handling lead vocals. Given that Rose has just come off a monster Guns N Roses reunion tour, expect him to be in fine form for tonight’s show. (Niesel), 8 p.m., $75-$135.

Quicken Loans Arena.

Dori Amarillo & Gretje Angell: 7 p.m., $15 ADV, $18 DOS. BLU Jazz+.

Big Pooh/Jay Doe/DJ Nuera/DJ Corey Grand/DTD Deliquents: 8:30 p.m., $15. Grog Shop.

Jared & the Mill/Edison/Oldboy: 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Tavern.

Open Mic Night with Gary Hall: 7 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.

Prom Nite/Know So: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class.

Shitshow Karaoke Hosted by Dirty Jones: 8 p.m., Free. Grog Shop.

Spires in the Sunset Rise/ Onewayness/dRachEmUsiK/ Magic Murder Bag (in the Locker Room): 8 p.m., $8. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Two-Set Tuesday Featuring Duo Decibel System with Tom Adams and the Last Resort (in the Wine Bar): 7 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Young the Giant/Ra Ra Riot: 7 p.m., $37.50. House of Blues.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

57

FRI., SEPTEMBER 30

The Babys

“Isn’t it Time” “Everytime I Think of You”

SAT., OCTOBER 8 Songs & Stories with

SAT. OCTOBER 1 Jazz Sax Legend

David Sanborn

SAT., OCT. 15 Smooth Jazz Great

Kathy Mattea & Bill Cooley FRI., NOV. 4 Eagles Tribute

Out of Eden

Marion Meadows feat.

Paul Taylor FRI., NOV. 11 Former Tower of Power Sax Man

Richard Elliott FRI. & SAT. NOV. 18-19 Funk/R & B Great

WED., NOVEMBER 23 Akron Native

Joseph Arthur

Jeffrey Osbourne

FRI., NOVEMBER 25

SAT., NOVEMBER 26

Annual Holiday Stomp!

“The Modern Day Rat Pack”

The Walking Clampetts

Dom & Russ

& The Numbers Band TUES., NOVEMBER 29 A Peter White Christmas

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| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

Photo by Steven Mastroianni

BAND OF THE WEEK DUO DECIBEL SYSTEM

By Jeff Niesel MEET THE BAND: Miss Melvis (vocals, guitar), John Scully (drums) MORE MILES THAN MONEY: Over the years, this local band’s two members have played with acts such as the Heathers, Chump, Flat Can Company, Numbskull, Starvation Army and the SLAP Jazz Quartet. The group came together shortly after Melvis moved back to Cleveland after a stint in Texas. She mostly played solo shows but had a gig scheduled at the Empire that required her to play with a drummer. Her drummer at the time bailed and she knew Scully had just left the band he was in. He played with her and the two have played together as Duo Decibel System ever since. “It kept going,” Melvis says.

“He contributes songwriting, and I was anxious to do his stuff that he never had an outlet for. We’re comfortable with each other’s writing, and now we’re switching to this format where I sing, and he composes.

It’s worked out really well.”

A BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY: The story of two local rockers who struggle to overcome a breakup, the duo’s new album, Exit Stage Love, features a wide array of musical styles as the two dabble in punk, folk, ambient noise and “sequenced minimalism.” The songs are about living in Texas and the subsequent breakup that Melvis endured before coming home. “The songs are about a lost love really,” says Melvis. “When we were recording and writing it, we realized it fits that theme of sadness but hope too. I’m talking a lot about how beautiful the love was.

There’s a song called ‘Bittersweet’ that sums up the album.”

WATT’S UP: Count Firehose/Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, who plays bass with Melvis on a solo single she put out a couple of years back, as a supporter. He interviewed the band last months on his Watt from Pedro show and has played the new album on his podcast. “It’s a great show,” Melvis says of Watt’s program. “He plays some different stuff — some you may have heard of, some you haven’t.”

WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR THEM: Album opener “It Only Hurts” includes snarling guitars and hiccupping vocals as the two manage to create quite a post-punk racket. “We wanted a big sound for the duo but we still wanted to show a sensitive side,” says Melvis. “I’m influenced by so much.

From the past, it was people like Alice Cooper and Freddie Mercury. Now, I listen to a lot of Lucinda Williams.

John and I have been going to the third Tuesday show called Outlab at Bop Stop. We started popping up there and getting into that scene a little bit which is more jazz and improv. We were influenced by that a little bit on the album too. John is into electronic beats and really loves sequencing stuff. We just wanted a good balance of styles.”

WHERE YOU CAN HEAR THEM: facebook. com/duodecibelsystem.

WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM: Duo Decibel System performs with Tom Adams and the Last Resort at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 6, at Brothers Lounge.

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

| clevescene.com | August 31 - September 6, 2016

59

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9/7 | 7:00PM DORI AMARILIO AND GRETJE ANGELL

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9/8 | 8:00PM ALEX SCHROCK TRIO

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9/9 | 8:00PM SELVAGGIO/BROWN/ THOMPSON/JOHNSON

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9/11 | 7:00PM CLEVELAND JAZZ ORCHESTRA WITH JOE LOVANO

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Thursday September 1 Time Tripper 8:00 (rock & roll) Spyder Stompers 10:00 (americana, blues)

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George Foley & Friends 5:30 (jazz, swing, rag) Rio Neon 8:00 (folk, jazz, rock) Tim Matson Trio 10:00 (blues, jazz)

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Saturday September 3 Saul Glennon 8:00 (original pop) Bill Lestock 10:00 (bluegrass, folk)

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SAVAGE LOVE CLIENT TELL

By Dan Savage Dear Dan, I have been seeing sex workers for 30 years, and I shudder to think how shitty my life would have been without them. Some have become friends, but I’ve appreciated all of them. Negative stereotypes about guys like me are not fair, but sex work does have its problems. Some clients (including females) are difficult — difficult clients aren’t typically violent; more often they’re inconsiderate and demanding.

Clients need to understand that all people have limits and feelings, and money doesn’t change that. But what can we clients do to fight stupid, regressive, repressive laws that harm sex workers?

— Not A John You can speak up, NAJ. The current line from prohibitionists — people who want sex work to remain illegal — is that all women who sell sex are victims and all men who buy sex are monsters. But talk to actual sex workers and you hear about considerate, regular clients who are kind, respectful, and sometimes personally helpful in unexpected ways.

You also hear about clients who are threatening or violent — and how laws against sex work make it impossible for them to go to the police, making them more vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and abuse, not less.

There is a large and growing sex workers’ rights movement, NAJ, which Emily Bazelon wrote about in a terrific cover story for the New York Times Magazine (“Should Prostitution Be a Crime?” May 5, 2016). Amnesty International recently called for the full decriminalization of sex work, joining Human Rights Watch, the World Health Organization, and other large, mainstream health and human rights groups.

Maggie McNeill, a sex worker, activist, and writer, wrote a blistering piece on her blog (“The Honest Courtesan”) about a recent undercover police operation in Seattle. Scores of men seeking to hire sex workers — the men ranged from surgeons to bus drivers to journalists — were arrested and subjected to ritualized public humiliation designed to discourage other men from paying for sex.

“These crusades do nothing but hurt the most vulnerable individuals on both sides of the transaction,” McNeill wrote. “The only way to stop this [is

for] all of you clients out there to get off of your duffs and fight. ” The legal risks and social stigma attached to buying sex doubtless leave some clients feeling like they can’t speak up and join the fight, and the much-touted “Nordic Model” is upping the legal stakes for buyers of sex. (The Nordic Model makes buying sex illegal, not selling it. In theory, only clients are supposed to suffer, but in practice, the women are punished, too. Bazelon unpacks the harms of the Nordic Model in her story — please go read it.)

But sex workers today, like gays and lesbians not too long ago, are coming out in ever-greater numbers to fight for their rights in the face of potentially dire legal and social consequences.

Clients need to join the fight — or perhaps I should say clients need to rejoin the fight.

In The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution, author Faramerz Dabhoiwala writes about “Societies of Virtue” that formed all over England in the late 17th century.

Adulterers, fornicators, and Sabbathbreakers were persecuted by these groups, NAJ, but their campaigns against prostitutes were particularly vicious and indiscriminate.

Then a beautiful thing happened.

“In the spring of 1711, a drive against ‘loose women and their male followers’ in Covent Garden was foiled when ‘the constables were dreadfully maimed, and one mortally wounded, by ruffians aided by 40 soldiers of the guards, who entered into a combination to protect the women,’” writes Dabhoiwala. “On another occasion in the East End, a crowd of over a thousand seamen mobbed the local magistrates and forcibly released a group of convicted prostitutes being sent to a house of correction.”

I’m not suggesting that today’s clients form mobs and attack prohibitionists, cops, prosecutors, and their enablers in the media. But clients can and should be out there speaking up in defense of sex workers and themselves. Sex workers are speaking up and fighting back — on Twitter and other social-media platforms — and they’re staring down the stigma, the shame, and the law on their own. It’s time for their clients to join them in the fight.

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W N T O W N D AY S EXPERIENCE DOWNTOWN FOR A CHANCE TO WIN ON-FIELD CLEVELAND FOOTBALL SEATS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 VISIT THESE FIVE EVENTS TO GET YOUR STAMPS TO BE ENTERED TO WIN ON-FIELD SEATS TO THE GAME!

1. MONDAY: HOTEL HOP 4PM – 9PM

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Visit downtown’s newest hotels for a traveling happy hour, dinner and dessert tour.

Deposit your entry with 5 stamped days into the drawing drum located at JACK Cleveland Casino.

Entries need to be in between 6PM – 8:29PM. Grand prize winner will attend the September 18 game ON THE FIELD.

2. TUESDAY: WAREHOUSE YAPPY HOUR 5PM – 7PM A dog-friendly happy hour in the Warehouse District.

3. WEDNESDAY: NORTH COAST ROCKIN’ 6PM – 9PM Paddle boats, volleyball, food, drinks and live music at North Coast Harbor.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18: CLEVELAND FOOTBALL HOME OPENER! Grand Prize Winner and their guest will enjoy the Cleveland home opener from THE JACK CLEVELAND PRICELESS SEATS!

4. THURSDAY: PLAYHOUSE SQUARE WINE FESTIVAL 5PM – 8PM Wine tasting, painting and more at Playhouse Square.

5. FRIDAY – SUNDAY: OKTOBERFEST Downtown’s first Oktoberfest goes all weekend long on Public Square.

For full details on Downtown Days, visit DowntownCleveland.com.

GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-589-9966 Must be 21 or older to gamble. ©2016 Jack Entertainment LLC.

JACK players sit in the end zone!