PEOPLE (and a logo) THAT DIED, 2018
2
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
| clevescene.com cleves e cene n .com m | December Decemb mber er 122 - 18, 18, 2018 2018
3
$%#%-"%2 s 6/, .O
s#,% 6 % , ! . $ s
216-774-4399
CALL
OR
TEXT
ONE HOUR MASSAGE By Appointment Only 4098 Rocky River Dr. 44135 Open 11a-8p Daily/West Park Location
SPECIAL
72.99
$
Eastside | By Appointment Only | 27801 Euclid Ave. 44132
Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Group Publisher Chris Keating Publisher Andrew Zelman
Upfront
Associate Publisher Angela Nagal
Feature 'ET /UT
#30"%8": "7& #&%'03% r Ų ų ŏ#*,& Ų
Located less than one mile from the Bedford Reservation singletrack bike trail
9
All the best things to do in Cleveland this week
Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace
SALES, SERVICE, REPAIRS FAT & MOUNTAIN BIKE RENTALS.
10
People who died, 2018
Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Davis
ĂŽ *".? ?Ă€$& .E? '*" $) >?! ..*-$ .?ON SALE
6
Cleveland city of lights, city of summits
Editor Vince Grzegorek Editorial Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Web Editor Laura Morrison Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Writer Dott von Schneider Copy Editor Elaine Cicora
ĂŽ "? */-?Ă€$& ? -0$ ??? *?Ă€ ? 3? *-?!''? */???Ă€$&$) ?! 0 )"/- .
CONTENTS
Business Sales Assistant/Receptionist Megan Stimac Controller Kristy Dotson
!RT
Circulation Circulation Director Don Kriss
Eric Ripper is not a painter, but he is
Euclid Media Group Chief Executive OfďŹ cer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating OfďŹ cers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP Digital Services Stacy Volhein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon
Stage
25
Avenue Q is back, we’re sad to report
www.euclidmediagroup.com National Advertising Voice Media Group 1-800-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com
Film
27
Cleveland Scene 737 Bolivar Rd., #4100 Cleveland, OH 44115 www.clevescene.com Phone 216-241-7550 Retail & ClassiďŹ ed Fax 216-241-6275 Editorial Fax 216-802-7212 E-mail scene@clevescene.com
The Favourite is one of the year’s weirdest, best ďŹ lms
Cleveland Scene Magazine is published every week by Euclid Media Group.
Feeding the Browns
%AT
VeriďŹ ed Audit Member
Š o…‹ yw„„…Š }{Š ^_l |ˆ…ƒ Š~{‰{ Œwyy „{‰D Š o…‹ z… „…Š „{{z Š… x{ wŠ ˆ ‰ |…ˆ ^_l Š… €… „D Š Y…ƒ†{„‰wŠ …„ †ˆ…Œ z{zD
Cleveland Distribution Scene is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader
Music
33
Copyright The entire contents of Cleveland Scene Magazine are copyright 2018 by Euclid Media Group. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above.
Kelly Richey and drummer Sherri McGee bring their new band to the Winchester, plus all other shows to see this week
Subscriptions $150 (1 yr); $80 (6 mos.) Send name, address and zip code with check or money order to the address listed above with the title ‘Attn: Subscription Department’
3AVAGE ,OVE
Slight Christmas
248-620-2990
Printed By
...The story continues at clevescene.com Take
SCENE with you with the Issuu app! “Cleveland Scene Magazine�
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN G. 4
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
H O L I D AY S AV I N G S ! 1080p Full HD Video
Double Zoom Lens Kit Includes: AF-P DX NIKKOR ® 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens, AF-P DX NIKKOR 70 -300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED telephoto zoom lens, DSLR Travel Bag and “Getting Started with your Nikon DSLR” Online Class
$
496
95 ±
AFTER
350
$
INSTANT SAVINGS*
Join Us for
Nikon D E M O D AY December 14 & 15 12:00pm - 4:00pm 1080p Full HD Video
4K UHD
D750 Body Only with MB-D16 Multi-Battery Power Pack
D500 Body Only with MB-D17 Multi-Battery Power Pack
$
1396
95 ±
INSTANT $ 93995 SAVINGS* AFTER
$
1796
95 ±
INSTANT $ 46995 SAVINGS*
FREE Classes Exclusive Savings Register at
AFTER
2100 Center Road, Avon, Ohio 44011 440.934.1544
www.thepixelconnection.com Open 7 Days a Week
thepixelconnection.com 0% Financing Available for 6 months FREE class with the purchase of DSLR
Holiday Hours: Monday - Friday 10am - 8pm UÊ->ÌÕÀ`>ÞÊ£ä> Ê ÊÈ« ÊUÊ-Õ `>ÞÊ£Ó« Ê Êx«
* Instant Savings valid November 25, 2018 through December 29, 2018. ±All prices are suggested retail price. Actual selling offer is determined by each dealer at the time of sale. All prices and specifications are subject to change without notice. Instant Savings Offers do not apply to any used, refurbished or reconditioned products. †For compatibility and specifications regarding Wi-Fi ® compatibility, please visit www.nikonusa.com/wificompatibility. Quantities are limited to in-stock merchandise only. Images are for illustrative purposes only. Nikon is not responsible for printing or typographical errors. All Nikon products include Nikon Inc. USA limited warranty. ©2018 Nikon Inc.
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
5
UPFRONT SOME WILL SUMMIT FOR SUMMONS TO SUMMIT SESSION Economic development talks not inclusive, opponents say Still from Remesh poll
AS MANY AS 70 COMMUNITY leaders will convene Thursday at Cleveland.com HQ (1801 Superior Ave.) for a two-day “design session” to discuss and plan regional economic development strategies. The session will employ something called the “Appreciative Inquiry” method, developed at Case, which encourages positivity and is designed to build trust and consensus. Per the method’s founder, David Cooperrider, AI is “a proven method to help diverse stakeholders discover their collective strengths to align around a shared vision and then co-create action initiatives to realize their highest aspirations.” But this “design session” has been the subject of controversy. It was pursued and conceptualized by an As-Yet Unnamed Committee of 15 civic leaders (AYUCO15) that includes Cleveland.com editor Chris Quinn, and has been framed as the planning portion of a broader economic development summit in 2019, to which all will be theoretically invited. While AYUCO15 leaders and the press continue to say that the planning process should be “inclusive,” the full list of the session’s participants has not been released. And some wonder, given the makeup of AYUCO15, whether or not it will truly represent the community it’s ostensibly planning for. (Destination Cleveland has said that it will release the full list Wednesday.) On Nov. 26, Crain’s editor Elizabeth McIntyre wrote in an editor’s note that the group of 15 was startlingly lacking in female representation. Only two of the 15 leaders were women. “You can’t throw around words like ‘inclusion’ if you aren’t holding yourself to that very standard,” she wrote, “and the best place to start is by looking at who is, and who isn’t, seated at the table with you.” Local attorney Rebecca Maurer, who created the SerialLand blog, felt the same way. She volunteered for the design session, she told Scene, but was denied. She reported in a Crain’s column that she was told the
6
Public transit or sports stadiums? Poll respondents choose the first option.
list of participants had been culled from Cleveland Leadership Center’s program graduates, recent Crain’s “40 Under 40” honorees, and the private networks of those who have helped develop the effort. “I’ve never seen such a clear articulation of an unspoken truth embedded in our region’s economic development ecosystem,” Maurer wrote. “For so many in this space, ‘community members’ are business executives, nonprofit leaders, and the networks of those already at the table. Community members are not the average people whose lives and livelihoods depend on our region’s economy.” (Certain “outspoken individuals” from the local news media were also said to have been invited as well. This may or may not refer to Scene’s CEO Andrew Zelman, who received an invite from Destination Cleveland, but said he was not privy to the wider invite list.) In response to the lack of transparency and a presumed lack of inclusion, a group of protesters will rally outside 1801 Superior on Thursday calling for changes to the planning process. The rally has been billed as the launch of a larger effort to incorporate equity into long-term planning, and rally organizers say they’ll be soliciting applications from members of the public who wish to serve as community representatives.
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
“The response is necessary because the organizers of this [design session] have failed to create a transparent and inclusive process,” said Maurer, one of the rally organizers, in a prepared statement. “The group claims to have invited a broad set of community members to this crucial conversation. In fact, a private invitation went out to only a few dozen well-connected people. Since the invite list is secret, we have no idea if Cleveland will be wellrepresented in its true diversity or breadth of experience. We suspect not.” In a phone conversation Monday, Maurer said that it was important to address the issue of inclusion immediately. She also said that while she would be interested to see the full list of participants, and called Destination Cleveland’s plan to release it “a good first step,” much more is required. “What I’m worried about is that this [AI design session] is going to set the tone for the entire planning process,” she said. “If they only start thinking about inclusion and equity after the planning has taken place, it’s too late.” Like others, Maurer said she was surprised that the AYUCO15 leaders haven’t internalized what is by now more a mandate than a hint: Better community representation is important to the people of Northeast
Ohio. In virtually every recent conversation about local economic development, the most persistent refrain has been that Cleveland’s leaders are old and stale and hostile to new ideas. Jon Pinney, whose speech at the City Club in June is regarded as the summit’s public origin, was chastened for calling upon only white male leaders to step up and lead. “What should be hyper-awareness about inclusion has translated into hyper-awareness about using the word ‘inclusion,’” Maurer said. “It demonstrates that they aren’t listening.” She reiterated a version of a theme that she succinctly laid out in her Crain’s piece: “When you design the structure of the summit, you are helping to design the substance of the summit,” she wrote. “When you design the table, you choose who gets to sit there.” In the meantime, Destination Cleveland has invited media members to a briefing session Wednesday on the Appreciative Inquiry method, which appears, at first blush, to be a boardroom manifestation of “looking on the bright side.” An online introduction to the method says that AI “is about the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the strengthsfilled, opportunity-rich world around them. AI is not so much a
Photo courtesy of Cleveland City Hall
UPFRONT shift in the methods and models of organizational change, but AI is a fundamental shift in the overall perspective taken throughout the entire change process to ‘see’ the wholeness of the human system and to ‘inquire’ into that system’s strengths, possibilities, and successes.” When Chris Quinn and City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop inquired into the region’s successes in a live online poll last week, or inquired, at any rate, into what made respondents the most optimistic about the future, the most popular answer was, “Young People.” The polling was anonymous, beyond basic demographic information, so it’s unknown who the participants were. But the most noteworthy aspect was their low overall number. When Moulthrop asked what additional questions leaders should consider, one of the most popular answers was, “Why did only 85 people show up for this important convo?” In earlier coverage, the poll was publicized as having the capacity
WARNING: This product contains
Mayor Frank Jackson, left, swears in former Cleveland community development director Michael Cosgrove.
to support 1,000 participants and was marketed as an opportunity for community members to generate material for leaders as they continue to shape economic development strategy. The low turnout was clearly a letdown for both Quinn and Moulthrop. They suggested they might try to host another session in the near future. Though why anyone would participate, given the utter disregard by leaders for the actual
concerns and priorities of residents, remains unclear. The two most significant takeaways from the poll was that respondents consider public transit investment and lakefront development top priorities. Funding RTA, as opposed to sports stadiums, and getting rid of Burke Lakefront Airport were basically unanimous positions. Here was the consensus that Quinn and leaders claimed to
have been seeking! And yet, after seeing the responses, Quinn said he suspected getting rid of Burke just wouldn’t be possible because “it’s a no-go for the corporate community.” This admission revealed an underlying truth: that these conversations, however wellintentioned or appreciative in nature, do not matter one iota unless the consensus that is approached agrees with the consensus of the region’s corporate leaders.
NEW!
Why is it so hard to quit?
Faster Satisfaction E-liquid E-liquid Products Products
Maybe you haven’t found the right place that can help!
nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
Custom Alternative Solutions Start your journey at any designed for anyone. of our five area locations: Experienced sales consultants ready to help you transition from cigarettes Unlimited tastings and unparalleled selection ensures a smooth transition Largest product assortment for beginners Clean, welcoming, and friendly environment
Cuyahoga Falls
North Olmsted
Fairview Park
Elyria
Middleburg Heights All Allnew newAVAIL AVAILLife Lifecustomers customersget get10% 10%off offwhen when they mention Cleveland Scene at checkout they mention Cleveland Scene at checkout
AVAILvapor.com
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
7
Here’s the AYUCO 15: s
Hey Girls! Spice it up with NEW HAIR COLOR or style. See what’s new in wigs, scented body lotions & more!
GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE
Call Us For Your Appointment... Carabel Beauty Salon-Store | 15309 Madison Ave. Full Service Salon For Females
WE WENT OUT WHEN YOU COULDN’T. EVENT SLIDESHOWS. ONLY AT CLEVESCENE.COM
HALF PRICE HAIRCUTS AND $1.00 FACIALS OHIO'S PREMIER
SMOKE SHOP & TATTOO SUPPLY HEADQUARTERS
EVERY WEDNESDAY 11AM TO 3 PM
Expires 12/31/18 © c { { y
DAILY SPECIALS Tuesday – $1 Hot Lather Shave/Beard Trim Day with a purchase of a any haircut
NEEDLES: Combos Singles Cartridge Bug Pins Piercing
Wednesday – “Ladies Day” Buy a basic haircut at $6 and receive a Shampoo, Eyebrows or Facial for $1 Thursday - $1 Facial Day with the purchase of a any haircut.
INK: Specialty Sets Also MACHINES Coil Rotary Cartridge
The School that Barbers Recommend!
REGULAR MEN’S HAIRCUTS $5 HAIRCUT WITH LINE-UP $6 FADES $8
TATTOO KITS GLOVES FOOT PEDALS POWER SUPPLIES CLIP CORDS CHAIRS ARM RESTS AFTERCARE poizon_ _ink MADACIDE Tattoo Background SHARPS CONTAINERS GLASS PIPES BUTANE TORCHES INCENSE DIGITAL SCALES DETOX GRINDERS COLLECTABLES & MORE!
CLEVELAND
STRONGSVILLE
4264 Pearl Rd. 216.749.3440
19097 Drake Rd. 440.572.8287
EASTLAKE
GIRARD
32888 Vine St. 440.942.8668
16 N. State St. 330.545.8131
LORAIN
BARBERTON
832 Broadway 440.242.4080
536 W. Tuscarawas 330.753.0500
AKRON
MANSFIELD
1004 Kenmore Blvd. 330.753.3600
532 Park Ave. W 419.522.1695
STORE HOURS: Tuesday-Saturday: 9am-5pm 2546 Lorain Avenue, Ohio City One block west of the Westside Market
SEE OUR AD ON THE BACK COVER
8
Justin Bibb, senior consultant at Gallup / RTA board member s Julie Boland, central region managing partner at Ernst & Young s Akram Boutros, president and CEO at MetroHealth s Marc Byrnes, chairman of Oswald Companies s David Gilbert, president and CEO at Destination Cleveland s Ira Kaplan, executive chairman of Benesch (law firm) s Bernie Moreno, president of Bernie Moreno Companies s Jon Pinney, managing partner at Kohrman Jackson & Krantz (law firm) s Chris Quinn, editor and president of Advance Ohio/ cleveland.com s Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc. s Rev. Stephen Rowan, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church s Bob Smith, Cleveland market leader for HPM Partners s Dan Walsh, CEO Citymark Capital s Brian Zimmerman, CEO of Cleveland Metroparks s Ann Zoller, senior advisor with Strategy Design Partners — Sam Allard
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
216-241-6684
allstatehairstyling.com
Michael Cosgrove Is on Paid Leave at Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland Cleveland’s former community development director Michael Cosgrove, who was arrested late last month on felony charges, remains on paid leave at Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland, where he had been executive director since late last year. Cosgrove, who authorities say drove to Parma Heights with the intent to have sex with a 15-year-old on Nov. 26, has been removed from the NHS website. Gretchen Bowman, a client attorney at NHS since 2009, has been named acting director of the organization that provides education and support for the region’s home buyers. But Gerry Chattman, a lead attorney at Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, which has been retained by NHS and is handling all press inquiries related to the Cosgrove incident, told Scene that Cosgrove has not been fired. He’ll be on paid leave until there’s a clearer picture of what actually happened, he said. “In this country, someone is innocent until there’s a pronouncement of guilt,” Chattman said. “The board is trying to act responsibly.”
Cosgrove had served as Cleveland’s director of community development for much of 2017. He was officially appointed to the role after the death of former director Daryl Rush, though he’d been managing the department during the later stages of Rush’s battle with cancer, and he left the city for NHS in December of last year. On Monday, Nov. 26, Cosgrove drove to Parma Heights after having exchanged messages on social media with an undercover agent whom he thought was a 15-year-old girl. Investigators with the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children and Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department arrested him when he arrived at the chosen meeting location for sex. — Allard
DIGIT WIDGET 200 Number of citizen complaints against Cleveland police dating back to 2015 that warrant further investigation, according to Hillard Heintze, a security firm hired by Cleveland to tackle the extreme backlog of uninvestigated citizen complaints. Eighty-two other complaints were resolved and closed.
29
Percent of all elected official positions across the state of Ohio held by women, according to Matriots, a political action committee that works to get more women elected.
15.6 Infant mortality rate for black babies in Ohio (defined by number of infant deaths before first birthday per 1,000 births), a number that grew in 2017 while the infant mortality rate for white babies during that same period dropped to 5.3.
$1,200 Reimbursements sought and received by councilman Ken Johnson and approved by Kevin Kelley in the month of October, despite lax record keeping and incomplete receipts. That $1,200 also happens to be the maximum amount a councilman can be reimbursed per month.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
9
FEATURE
PEOPLE (and a logo) THAT DIED, 2018 BY E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P S TA F F
WITH THE NATIONALLY broadcast send-off for President George H.W. Bush only just in the rearview mirror, and with the calendar’s impending turnover to 2019 just a few weeks ahead, it’s that time of year when the notable deaths of 2018 will be aggregated and slideshow-ed for consumption on your favorite mobile device. You will read about and remember Anthony Bourdain and Stephen Hillenburg and Aretha Franklin and Stan Lee and William Goldman and Paul Allen and Mac Miller and other luminaries whose deaths were of general and widespread interest. What’s offered here is different. Yes, these people also died in 2018, but their deaths largely didn’t vault from the obit pages of The New York Times or Washington Post, where notable deaths are chronicled in beautiful and regular fashion, or from the obit pages of the daily papers of cities where these folks lived and worked. Their endings may not have merited a CNN chyron or Twitter Moment headline, but that they were lesser known doesn’t mean they aren’t worth remembering.
GARY BURDEN As an elder millennial, I sort of straddle two worlds: the analog and the digital. I didn’t have a cell phone until I was a junior in high school, but I’ve been downloading music since the days of Napster and Limewire. That being said: I remember what it felt like to hold a CD, tape or record and cherish it in a different way than we do now — an era when we just pay $10 a month for unlimited streams of almost
10
every album of every artist ever. I specifically remember being in the gigantic Tower Records in New Orleans and flipping through the entire wall of darkwave/industrial CDs, mesmerized by how much of a collection they had. Or going home with a brand-new batch of music and sitting on the floor in my bedroom unraveling the album artwork and reading the lyrics along to the music. It was quite a different age, and some of the folks who helped make it so were the geniuses behind some of those album covers. Enter: Gary Burden. If you dig classic folk-rock, you probably remember the cover of Joni Mitchell’s Blue album, a close-up, high-contrast midnight-blue portrait of Mitchell looking down. It’s melancholic and rich and, most of all, it invokes feeling in the viewer. Burden designed that. The former
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
architect was actually a soughtafter album designer starting in the late ’60s for many a rock ’n’ roller and folk artist including the Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and even current artists like Conor Oberst, who’s probably best known for his work in the emotive indie-folk project Bright Eyes. “Gary always wanted the album packaging to reflect the spirit of the music and the wishes of the artists as much as possible,” Oberst said about Burden in a recent article in The New York Times. “He was often at odds with record labels when they sought to cut costs at the expense of what he and the artist had envisioned. Gary usually won those battles.” While studying architecture at UC Berkeley, Burden met Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas, who would ultimately be the one to turn him on to designing album covers for a living. “I met her and she asked me to do a remodel of her home in Laurel Canyon,” Burden said in a 2015 video interview with NPR’s World Cafe. “So she’s the one who said, ‘You know, Gary, you should make our new cover; you know how to design stuff,’” he said. The rest, you could say, is history. After a lifetime of contributing his own art to the music community, Burden died earlier this year on March 7. No cause was given. As time seems to slip faster beneath us and technology speeds the world up, Burden’s death feels like a reminder to slow down and look at the details; feel the textures and edges and maybe sit with — and breathe with — a piece of album art.
It’ll most likely enhance the entire musical experience. — Chris Conde
CHIEF WAHOO The racist red-faced symbol that has adorned the sleeves and ballcaps of the Cleveland Indians’ uniforms — not to mention the apparel and doodads of Cleveland baseball fans — since 1947, has succumbed at last to its inevitable
fate, possibly timed to Cleveland’s imminent date in the national spotlight with the 2019 MLB AllStar Game. The oft-floated and entirely plausible theory being that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, a vocal opponent of Wahoo’s continued use, told Cleveland the summer showcase would only be bestowed on the city if the offensive symbol was no longer around. MLB’s very
“
Journalism consists largely in saying, ‘Lord Jones is dead’ to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.
– C.K. Chesterton public announcement of deliberations between the team and the league on the Wahoo front in advance of the All-Star Game announcement lent a certain undeniable credence to the conjecture. In recent years, the team had “scaled back” the use of Wahoo in favor of a primary “Block C” logo, but the image was still beloved among diehard fans, prominent in the team shop and regularly worn by the team. Team owner Paul Dolan announced last year, though, that Wahoo at last would be eliminated, at least as an official logo on the team’s uniforms. Given MLB’s visible crusade, Dolan, who had over the years acknowledged Wahoo’s problematic existence and its reception outside of the city, could at least save face with ardent Wahoo’s supporters — many of whom now wear “Keep the Chief” or “Long Live the Chief” apparel to games — by saying it was Major League Baseball, not the Indians, who was to blame. Last year, the logo was paraded around for the full season, an outlandish farewell tour for a symbol that most everyone outside of Cleveland has long acknowledged represents an enduring harm to Native American communities. It was and is a grotesque caricature that belongs in a museum, if not a garbage can. Chief Wahoo first appeared in 1947, created by cartoonist Walter Goldbach, who was only 17 at the time. (Goldbach died in 2017.) The image was meant to “convey a spirit of pure joy and unbridled
enthusiasm,” at a time when Native American racism was still rampant. The team name was “inspired” by former Native American player Louis Sockalexis, in the sense that fans enjoyed taunting and jeering him for the duration of his very brief career, one cut short by alcoholism. That is the legacy that current Wahoo apologists so passionately claim to be honoring. In 1951, the logo evolved into the Red Sambo still in use today. His death is mourned and protested by thousands of Clevelanders who believe that professional baseball has been infiltrated by snowflake social justice warriors and race hucksters who are promoting racism where none exists for their own political and financial gain. It is unfortunately survived on the professional sporting stage by the Washington Redskins name and by dozens if not hundreds of similarly offensive logos and nicknames of high school teams across the country. — Sam Allard
i”
family in Budapest in 1921, she escaped the atrocities of the Holocaust — thanks in part to a Swiss letter of protection her father managed to obtain — and weathered WWII in an overcrowded apartment reportedly shared by 26 people. Although aimed for a job in the cosmetics industry, she instead broke the mold and became the first
JUDITH LEIBER If you can’t connect the dots between the words “handbag” and “art,” you’re probably not versed in the distinctive work of Judith Leiber, the late Hungarian designer who took a signature concept — whimsical metal clutches adorned with Swarovski crystals and semiprecious stones — and ran with it in vivid fashion for decades while carving her own niche in the fashion world. Born Judit Peto into a Jewish
woman to work at the Hungarian Handbag Guild, where she perfected design and fabrication skills from the ground up. In 1945, while selling her own handmade purses on the side, she met Gerson “Gus” Leiber, a Brooklyn-born Army sergeant and modernist painter stationed in Budapest. By 1947, they were married and living in New York City. In New York, she worked for
handbag manufacturers and hit an early career high in 1953 when first lady Mamie Eisenhower arrived at the Inaugural Ball carrying a small, bedazzled clutch crafted by Leiber. Although the credit went to her employer (designer Nettie Rosenstein), this turn of events foreshadowed a trend of powerful women — from queens and movie stars to first ladies Lady Bird Johnson, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush — clutching Leiber’s shimmering creations at high-profile events. In 1963, the couple officially dove into the luxury handbag business together via Judith Leiber Inc., with Gerson on the business end and Judith handling design, fabrication and marketing. In the decades that followed, Leiber took her playful, overthe-top aesthetic to the limit while challenging the confines of minaudières — decorated metal clutches only big enough to carry what she summed up as “a handkerchief, lipstick and a $100 bill.” Collaborative efforts involving sculptors, painters, jewelers and artisans in the U.S. and Italy, Leiber’s imaginative bags can take a year to complete and typically cost somewhere between $4,000 and $8,000, with made-to-order couture pieces ringing in closer to $20,000. Beyond meticulous attention to detail and unapproachable price tags, one of the most remarkable aspects of Leiber’s work is the juxtaposition of refined materials and techniques with nostalgic,
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
11
FEATURE child-like, even low-brow themes and concepts. Nevertheless her unapologetically extravagant minaudières — which have taken shape in dazzling cupcakes, ladybugs, cameras, cell phones, bundles of asparagus, Tutankhameninspired monkeys, burgers, fries and cocktails — have long been staples for A-list celebrities on oftenhumorless red carpets. Although the Leibers sold their business in 1993 for a reported $16 million (Judith stayed on board as designer until 1997), the Judith Leiber brand is still intact and active, offering a reverent continuum of the 5,000-plus designs its co-founder created throughout her colorful career. In 2005, Judith and Gerson opened the Leiber Collection in Springs, New York, to “house their works of art and to chronicle their careers.” While both are represented in major museum collections (he’s in the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum, she’s in the Smithsonian and the Met), the Leibers were thoughtfully showcased side-by-side in a trio of
recent exhibitions while they were both in their 90s. After 72 years of marriage, Judith and Gerson died at home within hours of one another, both from heart attacks, on April 30, 2018. As for the shimmering body of work she began building long before “bling” was even a blip on MerriamWebster’s radar, Judith Leiber presented her intricate evening bags as defiant status symbols, conceptual confections and wacky conversation pieces. All you need to enjoy one is a big bank account, a sense of humor to match and, as Leiber once suggested, an escort to carry the items that don’t fit in your minaudière. — Bryan Rindfuss
way, it was a very St. Louis crime: stupid and needlessly violent with an element of small-town familiarity. Arnold had become a favorite character in the city’s food-anddrink scene. He worked for 30 years for AAA, but it was his alter ego as the gregarious driver of a fifteenseat party bus and unofficial St. Louis ambassador that endeared
MIKE ARNOLD Mike Arnold, better known as “Gus Gus Fun Bus,” was run down in June by a stolen Ford F-150 in downtown St. Louis. A pair of carjackers, fresh off pepper-spraying two women, apparently saw the bearded 54-yearold filming them with his cell phone, veered off the road and intentionally slammed him with the two-anda-half ton truck, authorities say. They then crashed into a pole and were arrested within moments. In a
him to brewers, restaurateurs and bartenders. He delighted in a good beer and gutsy young chefs who gambled on optimism. He used his
ever-growing Twitter following to celebrate their work and introduce others to his favorite spots around town. In between, he offered congratulations on new babies, raised money for any number of causes and delivered weather reports with paternal advice to take care on the roads. At home, he was a father of eight who lifted sitting kids, chair and all, in his arms and danced them through the air, a husband whose wife woke to his voice: “Good morning, Angel.” He and his wife first purchased Gus Gus Fun Bus because it was one of the few vehicles big enough to accommodate their blended family. On the day Arnold was hit, he was downtown for a celebration of local food and chefs. He obviously knew about the city’s darker side. Anyone who has spent any time here is familiar with the violence that can so easily overwhelm. The wickedness, the dog dumb brutality of his own death was a reminder of that St. Louis. And if you want to fit his killing into that worldview, you can. But you will overlook what he saw here. You will miss the feisty beer-makers, the Cardinals’ baseball games and the restaurants that get better every year. You will miss the fun. — Doyle Murphy
Do Your Holiday Shopping With DeWitts!
SHOP OUR ONLINE STORE 24/7 tradesy.com/closet/dewittsjewelry and dewittsjewelry.com
W P >IIF? MOJCMNKL © GFOG [D jw wz}{ W {D cw ¢{ z ^{ }~ >JJF? LNICJHON © KNOF cw ¢{ z hzD c{ P >JJF? KMGCJIGF © MJNN c{ W {D i { [ fw w ^{ }~ P >JJF? IJKCKOOG © LHMG f{w hzD 12
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
DORCAS REILLY She may not be a household name but Dorcas Reilly is a household staple: her iconic Campbell’s Soup green bean casserole is served in more than 20 million American homes each Thanksgiving and, the rest of the year, acts as a quintessential comfort dish that can be popped in and out of the oven in less than 30 minutes. Reilly, a 1947 graduate of Drexel University’s Home Economics program, was one of the first two full-time employees at Campbell’s Camden, New Jersey, home economics department, working in the test kitchen to develop new recipes. Originally invented in 1955 as a “green bean bake” for an Associated Press story asking for a vegetable side dish made with pantry staples, the casserole calls for just six ingredients: a can of Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup, milk, soy sauce, black pepper, green beans and crispy French-fried onions. It was a wholesome homecooked dish crafted in an Atomic Age that celebrated canned goods and convenience cooking, but its combination of creamy, crunchy and salty has stood the test of time. Today, more than 60 years later, Campbell’s estimates upwards of 40 percent of their condensed mushroom soup sales are used to make Reilly’s casserole — the recipe is even printed on the back of the can. “Dorcas would often share that the first time she made her famous recipe, it did not receive the highest rating in Campbell’s internal testing,” wrote the company in an October memorial for Reilly’s passing. “Yet, it was her persistence
and creativity that led to an enduring recipe that will live on for decades to come.” Reilly worked for the company off and on from the 1940s to the 1980s, when she retired as manager of the Campbell’s Kitchen in 1988. In addition to her lasting bean legacy, she also invented hundreds of other soup-infused recipes including a tuna noodle casserole, tomato soup cake and tomato soup sloppy Joes. In 2002, Campbell’s donated Reilly’s original recipe card to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Alexandria, Virginia, placing her patented legacy alongside the likes of Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and Steve Wozniak. “I’m very proud of this,” she said of the recipe in a Campbell’s video, “and I was shocked when I realized how popular it had become.” — Maija Zummo
GLENN SNODDY Glenn Snoddy’s contribution to the world of music wasn’t through a song or a style of playing. It was more like he helped discover a new color. A recording engineer in Nashville in the early 1960s, Snoddy helped capture and recreate what is
commonly called “fuzz tone,” the distorted, overdriven effect that helped shape the sound of modern rock ’n’ roll. And it was all, quite literally, by accident. Already a recording veteran (he’d worked on pivotal sessions for Patsy Cline, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash), Snoddy was manning the console for a session with producer Don Law and country singer Marty
Robbins, who was recording his 1961 single “Don’t Worry.” A broken amplifier that the bass was running through created a dirty sound about halfway into the recording that caught the attention of everyone working on the track. “The transformer in the amplifier blew up,” Snoddy told Murfreesboro, Tennessee’s Daily News Journal in 2016 about the happy accident. The bassist (country and rockabilly session guitarist Grady Martin) reportedly wanted to redo his part, but Law and Snoddy insisted it remain. After its release, “Don’t Worry” went to No. 1 on Billboard’s singles chart and musicians in particular loved the sound. Snoddy says Nancy Sinatra was in Nashville and wanted that exact sound for a recording session, but by that point the original “broken” amp had completely died. So he began figuring out how to re-create the fuzz, designing and building a preamp effects box to capitalize on the curiosity. He sold the design to Gibson, which turned it into the Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1, the first commercially available guitar distortion pedal. While the distorted guitar sound was pioneered by players like Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Willie Lee Johnson and Link Wray (most notably on the revolutionary 1958 instrumental hit “Rumble”) in the decade leading up to his invention, Snoddy was the first to capture that fuzzy lightning in a bottle (or, rather, box). The Gibson pedal (which initially sold for $40) wasn’t an immediate hit and the company ramped down production of them until 1965, when Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards used his FZ-1 on the band’s seminal hit, “Satisfaction.” Gibson sold 40,000 pedals in the wake of that song’s success, after reportedly shipping a grand total of three over the course of the previous two years. The fuzz tone sound became the foundation of ’60s and ’70s rock ’n’ roll, leading the way for other popular pedals, including the Fuzz Face, beloved by Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend, and the Big Muff, which saw a revival in the late ’80s/ early ’90s and became the key to the guitar sounds of bands like Mudhoney, Smashing Pumpkins and many other alternative rock acts of the time. Snoddy, who’d later open Nashville’s Woodland Sound recording studio (home to many important sessions, including the one for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”), died
on May 21. He was 96. — Mike Breen
TED DABNEY In the beginning was a word. And the word was pizza. Pizza parlors, to be exact — the ones lit by the blinking screens of arcade cabinets and populated by animatronic critters. In the mid-1960s, such establishments only existed in ambitious schemes cooked up by Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell, two friends then employed
as engineers by California-based electronics company Ampex. Dabney agreed to join Bushnell in his business venture, which combined the former’s technological and electronics expertise with the latter’s unbridled creativity and experience working as a carnival barker during college. Unsurprisingly, the duo’s initial efforts failed to bear the intended fruit (or dough, for that matter), but they did mark the genesis of electronic gaming as a cultural institution. What started out as a farfetched dream would soon become a household name: Atari. At the time, coin-operated arcade cabinets were largely analog machines: pinball, fortune tellers, Skee-Ball. Dabney and Bushnell were intent on replicating the mechanical complexity of these games first on a computer, and later on a television set. Programming and buying computers was cost prohibitive, so Dabney — inspired by how a TV set’s vertical and horizontal controls move the picture back and forth — devised a way to move digital shapes across a screen using a universal platform | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
13
FEATURE PURCHASE A
$100 GIFT CARD GET A $10 BONUS CARD
Until Dec. 24, 2018
BUY 2 PRODUCTS - GET 1 FREE TANNING SPECIAL
BUY 2 MONTHS - GET 1 MONTH FREE!
Christmas Party!
-Õ `>Þ]Ê iVi LiÀÊ£ÈÊUÊ£ x« Tickets $20 UÊ ÞÊ `Ê*À Û `i`ÊLÞÊ Õ««>½ÃÊ >À iÌÊ* >Vi]Ê >Ê ÌÞ] >} ]Ê Õ â ½Ã]Ê/ iÊ iÀL>ÀÊ Ê vÌ Ê> `Ê ", t UÊ iiÀÊEÊ7 iÊ7À ÃÌL> `ÃÊ Û> >L iÊv ÀÊf£äÊUÊ ÀÊ*À âiÃÊEÊ,>vyÊiÃt w/All Proceeds o Cleveland Food Bank
14
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
TICKETS AVAILABLE VIA "" ÊE EVENTBRITE
that was cheaper to build and easier to manage and store. “Ted came up with the breakthrough idea that got rid of the computer so you didn’t have to have a computer to make the game work,” one of Atari’s first employees Allan Alcorn, told The Dallas Morning News in June. “It created the industry.” Bushnell pitched the new motion circuit technology to arcade manufacturer Nutting Associates, who helped the duo produce the first-ever commercially available coin-operated cabinet video game, Computer Space, in 1971. The sci-fi themed game netted Dabney and Bushnell enough royalties to found their own company, first called Syzygy and quickly renamed Atari. The company broke into the mainstream in 1972 with the release of Pong, a simplified departure from Computer Space that simulated table tennis with two lines and a dot. By the end of 1974, Atari sold more than 8,000 units of the game at $937 a pop. Unfortunately, Dabney reaped a much smaller reward than his partner. He learned that Bushnell had applied for a patent without his consent, submitting Dabney’s designs under his own name. Bushnell’s charisma pushed Dabney to a lower rung of Atari, leaving him frustrated enough to sell his ownership for $250,000 in 1973. Disillusioned by the perils of success, Dabney largely bowed out of the industry. In the meantime, Bushnell pushed Atari into living rooms with a series of video consoles. In the late ’70s, Bushnell enlisted Dabney to help develop a new venture — a restaurant-slasharcade called Pizza Time, later renamed Chuck E. Cheese’s. After further disputes split the pair up again, Dabney retreated from the entertainment industry for good. Dabney died of esophageal cancer on May 26. — Jude Noel
label exasperating. He saw himself as a realist. “What I describe here is only what I saw with my own eyes,” Voinovich writes in the introduction of his dystopian epic Moscow 2042. Of course the book, described by one reviewer as “the Soviet Catch-22,” is a ridiculous piece of fiction. The novel follows Russian dissident writer Vitaly Karsev, who essentially functions as Voinovich’s stand-in, as he bumbles his way into a time-traveling expedition 60 years into the future. He arrives in a Moscow governed as a city-state by “pure Communism,” a system wherein bathrooms are under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Natural Functions and newspapers are printed directly on toilet paper. Above it all is the Generalissimo — a strongman keeping the population under control on the combined strength of religious dogma, a ludicrous cult of personality and the secret police. The book was hit in the West when it was published in 1987 (it was banned in Soviet Russia). Decades later, contemporary scholars noted that the novel’s dystopian merger of the KGB, the Communist state and the church foreshadowed the rise of Vladimir Putin, creating a reality with odd parallels to the fictional Moscow of 2042.
VLADIMIR VOINOVICH By the time of his death, Vladimir Voinovich was never mentioned without some variation of his title: satirist. Sometimes it was “famed satirist” or even “master satirist.” But the Russian writer, who spent his life alternatively fleeing and critiquing his homeland’s leaders, told interviewers that he found the
Voinovich noticed the similarity too. “I think it’s pretty close,” he admitted to The Daily Beast in 2015. By then, he had already lived many disparate roles. Born to a Jewish mother and journalist father, he served as a loyal Soviet soldier in
World War II, a wannabe poet under Stalin, a dissident writer under Khrushchev and then a satirist in exile in West Germany, where he penned Moscow 2042. Welcomed home during the presidency of Mikhail Gorbachev, he finally attained acceptance in his own homeland. And then, like an absurdist plot in one of Voinovich’s own works, Putin took control. Once again, Voinovich became an outspoken dissident, as the author rebuked the regime’s repression of the media and political opponents, as well as the war in Chechnya. Indeed, Voinovich managed to live long enough to become his own sort of time traveler. In his final years, he witnessed a backsliding Russia controlled by bureaucrats who projected breathtaking confidence in their leader, even as the country’s hard-won freedoms unraveled under that leader’s fist. “Next time, I’ll write a utopia,” Voinovich joked to an American crowd a few years ago. “People keep saying that all the bad things I write come true, so I’m going to write something good.” Instead, he suffered a heart attack. The master satirist died July 28. He left his prophetic gifts for the next generation of dissidents and trouble-makers — and stories of comic authoritarianism that, with each passing headline, seem less and less fantastical. — Danny Wicentowski
WILLIAM SHEARER It was 1979 when Dr. William Shearer first met 7-year-old David Vetter, the Texas boy who was born without an immune system and lived in a series of NASA-designed plastic bubbles. Many years later, Shearer recalled that first meeting in his blog. “He immediately put his arms in the gloves extending from his plastic isolator system to shake my hand and began quizzing me to make sure I understood that he was special and was competent enough to care for him,” Shearer wrote. Theirs would be a brief relationship; David died in 1984 at age 12 after an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant in an attempt to cure him of his severe combined immunodeficiency. Despite its brevity, the relationship would have a lasting legacy. “He was like his father at the hospital, another dad,” David’s father told The New York Times. “They had a real strong rapport, and David loved him.” Shearer died this October from
complications from polymyositis, an inflammatory disease that causes muscle weakness. Born in Detroit in 1937, he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from University of Detroit and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Wayne State University, and graduated the Washington University School of Medicine in 1970. He later served pediatrics and immunology residencies in St. Louis before moving to Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, where he treated David. David’s was a lonely life. His older brother died from SCID, and his parents knew if they had another boy there was a 50-50 chance he could also have the hereditary disease. As soon as he was born, David was placed into his first plastic bubble. Any objects like toys had to be sterilized and placed through a series of air locks, and he could never touch another human. Under Shearer’s care, the case of David — a handsome boy who loved Star Wars and the Texas Oilers — captivated audiences around the world, with Shearer serving as its face. While Shearer often remarked upon David’s resilience, observing David’s despair at living in isolation — he reportedly had recurring nightmares about his condition — caused him to debate the ethics of keeping the boy trapped in a plastic cage. At one point, he suggested removing David from the bubble and trying other treatment methods, but his parents pushed for keeping him until a suitable bone marrow donor could be found. In 1984, Shearer performed the long-awaited procedure. It didn’t work, and David soon became sick from a lymph node cancer caused by an undetected lymph-node virus in the marrow. He lived his final 15 days outside of his bubble in a hospital room, where his mother kissed him for the first time. On Feb. 22, Shearer appeared on television to announce David’s death, which he would later call one of the most difficult times of his life. But his story with David wasn’t over: With samples of David’s blood, Shearer determined that David died from an infection from the Epstein-Barr virus, and later identified a gene that causes immune deficiencies. His discoveries would allow for a test for the condition in newborns. Thanks in part to Shearer’s research, children with immune diseases are now able to live without plastic bubbles, and today more than 90 percent can be successfully treated with bone marrow and stem cell transplants within their first 28 days of life.
After David’s death, Shearer founded the David Center at Texas Children’s, a wing focused on treating immune diseases named in honor of his former patient and friend. He later focused his research on HIV and AIDS, participating in studies that led to the treatment and prevention of HIV and AIDS in children. “People often ask what’s the measure of someone’s life, but very few people stood as tall as David,” Dr. Shearer told The Houston Chronicle in 2009. “More than any scientist, he taught us by his life.” — Lee DeVito
THOMAS BOPP Thomas Bopp wasn’t looking for a comet when he peered into a telescope on Saturday, July 22, 1995. In fact, he wasn’t looking for anything. By day, the 47-year-old worked for a cement company, where he made a passing mention of his interest in astronomy to Jim Stevens, who ran an auto parts store in Phoenix. It was a hobby started when Bopp was just a boy growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, when his father gave him his first telescope. Stevens, it turned out, was also interested in telescopes. By night, the two became amateur astronomers, going stargazing with Stevens’ homemade telescope in the Arizona desert, with Stevens serving as Bopp’s mentor. That was exactly what they were doing that night, when Stevens trained his lens on a cluster of stars in the Sagittarius constellation shortly after 11 p.m. Stevens was eager for Bopp to take a look. But
what he didn’t realize was he had aimed his telescope directly at an unidentified flying object — what Bopp would later describe as “a little fuzzy glow.” In reality, it was a 46-mile-wide hunk of ice 577 million miles away, hurling through space. The stakes were high — comets are a coveted catch for astronomers, since they are conventionally named after those who discover them. But first Bopp and Stevens had to notify the Harvard University to officiate the discovery. This was not an easy task in the Arizona desert in the ’90s. After studying the object for several minutes to make sure it was not a star, Bopp got in his car and drove 20 miles to a truck stop to try to call Western Union from a pay phone to send a telegram to Harvard, because yes, you could still send telegrams in the ’90s. The Western Union representative didn’t have an address, so Bopp hung up and got in his car and drove home. Around 3 a.m., he barged into his bedroom, woke his wife, found the address in an astronomy book, and sent the telegram with the comet’s coordinates. The next morning, Bopp got a call from the International Astronomical Union. Unbeknownst to Bopp, another astronomer — a real astronomer, Alan Halle, with a doctorate in astronomy and everything — had also discovered the comet within minutes of him, and had already emailed the coordinates to Harvard from his home in New Mexico. But once again, the stars aligned for Bopp: By what he later described as “bizarre chance,” an IAU associate director happened to be in the office that Sunday and received the telegram. The comet, formally designated C/1995 O1, would be named HaleBopp, after both astronomers. Bopp quit his day job to attend to the media maelstrom that followed. In 1997, the comet reached perihelion, or its closest point to the sun. It lit up the night sky for more than 18 months, its long tail visible to the naked eye to millions of people in the Northern Hemisphere. It was the biggest, most visible comet since the Great Comet of 1811. The comet brought some misfortune, too. In March, 39 members of a California death cult, Heaven’s Gate, committed mass suicide, believing their bodies would be transported to an alien spacecraft following the comet. In the spring, when the comet was the closest to the Earth, Bopp’s brother and sisterin-law were killed by a car while
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
15
FEATURE photographing the comet. “This has been the best week of my life,” he told National Geographic. “And the worst.” In recent years, Bopp worked as a shuttle driver at a Toyota dealership. He died on Jan. 5 at a hospital in Phoenix at age 68 from liver failure. “I can find another job, but this is something that happens once in 10,000 lifetimes,” he told Newsweek when he quit his job to bask in the glow of Hale-Bopp. The comet is expected to next pass Earth in 4897. — Lee DeVito
MARK E. SMITH “If it’s me and your granny on bongos, then it’s a Fall gig.” A young Mark E. Smith started the Fall in the Manchester suburb of
Prestwich after the infamous 1976 Sex Pistols show in Manchester, where the majority of attendees ended up starting bands the next day. It was the only time in his life that Smith would (unwittingly) succumb to rock cliche. He spent the next 40 years trying his best to dismantle rock ’n’ roll and the music industry from the inside. Though he looked like an illtempered postal clerk or substitute teacher, Smith was still punk and disorderly to the very core. With the Fall, he built a sound antithetical to the idea of musical proficiency, favoring instead spontaneity and creative tension, laced it with biting,
16
clever, oft poetic lyrics and ended up with something every bit as inspirational as Gang of Four or Wire. The Fall were a band that (to their horror, perhaps) ended up inspiring generations of punk, new wave and alternative rock bands, and Smith became a de facto role model to those for whom the underground was more than just a temporary lifestyle choice. What other postpunk bands had enough cultural cachet to score a major label record deal (again), during the grunge revolution of the 1990s? The unforgettable songs and anthems piled up like discarded ex-band members (over 60 strong, all told): “Totally Wired,” “Mr. Pharmacist,” “The Classical,” “Hip Priest,” “Glam Racket,” “Ghost in My House,” “Big New Prinz.” Did you ever hear the Fall’s cover of disco standard “Lost In Music”? If the albums aren’t enough to slake your thirst, the Fall recorded 20+ live sessions with equally legendary British DJ John Peel over the BBC’s public radio airwaves between 1978 and 2004. Despite this fearsome productivity, Smith kept the Fall proudly “unprofessional.” If during a concert Smith would drink himself into oblivion, unplug an amp (or five), mess up keyboard settings, change up the setlist, or recruit a new drummer fifteen minutes before showtime, what of it? As Smith himself barked, it’s just “creative management, cock!” Smith was the Fall’s only constant member during their 40-plus years of intense creative drive (they were contemporaries of Joy Division, just to put things in perspective): one or more albums a year, restless, constantly changing music, grueling touring schedules that have the logistical sense of darts thrown at a map of the world, and a bandleader who apparently hasn’t eaten solid food in decades (subsisting on a liquid diet, as they say) dedicated to spontaneity, conflict, and uncertainty in day-to-day business affairs. Smith anecdotes are almost as legion as Fall anthems — creating a cranky, effortlessly, yes, punk mystique that others would kill for. There’s the apocryphal story of him catching some of his bandmates dancing to “Rock the Casbah” at an afterparty in the ’80s and summarily delivering slaps to every offender, or when he almost singlehandedly bottled Mumford & Sons offstage in the early ’00s, the time he fired a sound engineer for eating a salad, fired a drummer on the unlucky percussionist’s wedding
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
day, or when he agreed to play on British chat show Later … With Jools Holland with the contractual condition that the titular host not play “boogie-woogie piano anywhere near the Fall.” His never-ending embrace of chaos and tension had an ugly side to it; he could be vile and ugly to those closest to him. And yet, most remained loyal, believing in their flawed leader’s vision, like the long-suffering Hanley brothers and, of course, Smith’s most famous creative foil, guitarist and ex-wife Brix Smith. Brix was the most iconic member of the Fall, after Smith: a glammed-up American punk who contributed serrated guitar and unforgettable riffs to pivotal albums like The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall and The Frenz Experiment. Photos and video from her tenure in the Fall are essential and electrifying viewing, like transmissions from a strange alternate future. Their breakup was equally as seismic, though she rejoined the band for a brief time in the 1990s. Smith died at 60 after a long battle with cancer, but was still doing shows, in a wheelchair, in the year before he passed, and never ceased writing and releasing music regularly. There will likely never be a pop star quite like him again. — Matthew Moyer
ARNALDO “ARNIE” LERMA Ever heard the story of Xenu, the galactic, genocidal alien dictator who, when faced with overpopulation troubles 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth to execute with a lethal combination of volcanoes and hydrogen bombs — leaving
their disembodied spirits to cling to humans and whose removal could only be achieved through the teachings of the Church of Scientology? You can partially thank Arnie Lerma for that. Arnaldo Pagliarini Lerma was born in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 18, 1950, to a mother who was an executive secretary to the Sudanese ambassador and a father who was a Mexican agriculture official — and who would soon divorce months after his birth, according to Lerma’s autobiography. His mother was a Scientology official in the Washington, D.C. church around 1968, about three decades after American science fiction writer L.Ron Hubbard published the first texts that would form the basis of his new religion, Scientology. By the time Lerma joined Scientology at 16 at the urging of his mother, the church had been banned in several Australian states and stripped of its tax-exempt status by the IRS, which deemed it a commercial operation for Hubbard’s benefit — though a U.S. appeals court would later recognize it as a religion in 1969. Lerma signed a “billion-year contract” to serve on Scientology’s elite Sea Org, a paramilitary force that some critics have described as a totalitarian organization, according to the Washington Post. But his status among fellow Scientologists changed when Lerma and Hubbard’s daughter, Suzette Hubbard, fell in love (a claim that has been strongly disputed by the church). Lerma’s entanglement with Scientology ended after other Sea Org members allegedly threatened to mutilate him if he didn’t cancel his elopement with Suzette Hubbard. Exiled from the religion that had been his home for years, Lerma became one of Scientology’s fiercest critics. By 1994, he was posting public court documents involving the church online in the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup that “included testimony from former church officials who describe Scientology as a dangerous cult that brainwashes and blackmails its member and harasses defectors and critics,” which earned him intimidating visits from men in dark suits at his Arlington home, according to the Post. In 1995, Lerma was the first to post the “Fishman Affidavit,” which were documents submitted by exScientologist Steven Fishman that included criticisms of the church and the doctrine of Xenu, which Scientology officials argued was copyrighted and a trade secret. The church accused Lerma of
copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation, leading to a raid of his home by federal marshals, Scientology attorneys and technicians. The church’s Religious Technology Center (RTC) sued Lerma, his service provider and Post reporters for quoting the affidavit. A federal judge found Post reporters had not violated copyright for quoting a publicly available court document, but Lerma was liable for a small number of non-willful copyright violations and ordered to pay a $2,500 penalty. The court, though, recognized it was convinced “that the primary motivation of RTC in suing Lerma, DGS and The Post is to stifle criticism of Scientology in general and to harass its critics,” according to the 1995 ruling. Lerma continued his crusade against Scientology on his website, Lermanet, which became a resource for other critics, and gave interviews on the subject in print news stories, television and radio. On March 16, Lerma, 67, shot his wife, Ginger Sugerman, in the face with a handgun at their Georgia home before killing himself, according to the local newspaper, the Sylvania Telephone. Sugerman, 58, survived and told The Underground Bunker journalist and former editor of the The Village Voice Tony Ortega that her husband was taking oxycodone in his last months to deal with back pain and that his paranoia had increased. Ortega last reported that Sugerman, also a former Scientologist, was raising funds for her continuing surgeries and for efforts to honor Lerma’s work, despite his last atrocity. — Monivette Cordeiro
URSULA K. LE GUIN More than 20 novels, not counting several of her earliest works that remain unpublished. A dozen books on poetry. More than 100 short stories, collected throughout multiple volumes. Seven essay collections. Thirteen books for children. Five volumes of translation, including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by the Chilean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral. Oh, and a guide for writers. Even stingily speaking, the career of author Ursula K. Le Guin — one of the 20th century’s pioneering female science fiction and young adult writers — was prolific. Arguably her most enduring work, The Left Hand of Darkness inspired legions
of genre-influencing writers, including contemporary savants such as Neil Gaiman, JK Rowling, John Scalzi and the widely acclaimed Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale. In fact, some critics would argue that no single work did more to upend the genre’s seemingly predictable conventions than that of the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning
fantasies, devouring the science fiction magazines of the day. In 1951, she graduated from Radcliffe College before going on to earn a master’s degree in romance literature from Columbia University in 1952. From there, Le Guin was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Paris. While aboard a steamer set for France, she met the historian Charles Le Guin, whom she married a few months later. Later in life, the two would settle down and start a family in Portland, Oregon, where they lived in a Victorian house on a steep street just below the city’s Forest Park. As the Paris Review noted during an interview with Le Guin in 2013, perhaps appropriate for a science fiction author and much like the worlds she’d bend within her fiction’s narratives, their home appeared “larger on the inside than it does from without.” On Jan. 23, 2018, with one last conflict within a story to resolve, Le Guin passed away peacefully at her home in Portland. Her family did not cite a cause other than she had been in poor health due to old age. Le Guin was 88 years old. — Xander Peters
EMILY DOLE
novel, which imagined a world whose human inhabitants have no fixed gender; instead, their sexual roles are determined by context and express themselves only once every month. She would later refer to the story as a “thought experiment.” “I eliminated gender to find out what was left,” Le Guin told The Guardian in 2005. It remains one of the science fiction genre’s academic touchstones to this day. The only daughter of two anthropologists, Ursula Kroeber was born the youngest of four children in Berkeley, California, on Oct. 21, 1929. Her father, Alfred Kroeber, studied Native American tribes based in California, while her mother, Theodora Kracaw Kroeber, gained prominence in the same field with her acclaimed book, Ishi in Two Worlds, which chronicled the life and death of the state’s “last wild Indian.” Throughout her youth, with dinner-table talk of long lost worlds never far out of earshot, Le Guin would use her family’s deep understanding of the world as a jumping off point as she immersed herself in mythology and classic
In the late 1980s, to climb to the top of the mountain of women’s professional wrestling — albeit to reach what little there was there — was to be among the cast members on the hit sports show GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. By most reasonable estimates, it was the first of its kind on television; hitting the airwaves in 1986, the all-female wrestling program consisted of women assigned outlandish, stereotyped alter egos, with names that couldn’t have been further from the safe comforts of political correctness, like Matilda the Hun, Melody Trouble Vixen, Gremlina (she was only 4-foot-8), Babe the Farmer’s Daughter and Big Bad Mama. There, amongst the finest feminists of their time, you’d find the catalysts of what was then, and may still be, considered a flamboyant sub-culture. Considering the stress they put on their bodies, the female wrestling pioneers practically worked for free, making between $300 and $700 a week. There were no dental benefits that came with the job, just the risk of losing teeth in the process, nor was there medical insurance for the inevitable broken bones and bumps they’d suffer
from time to time, from broken collarbones to concussions. For the most part, their only guarantee at the end of the day was pain and exasperation — and, when the bright lights dimmed and all the roaring chatter and commotion was said and done, when show time was over, the glory. But among the many talented ladies who initially scratched the surface of women in professional wrestling, none of them are remembered quite like the one they called “Mountain Fiji.” In fact, as legend has it, she never lost a match, which makes sense when you consider that she stood at 5-foot-11-inches and was billed as weighing 350 pounds. But even so, Mountain Fiji would have never been had it not been for the woman behind her larger than life persona: Emily Dole. A proud Samoan American, an actress according to most definitions, an entertainer, an athlete by all means — Dole was by far the most recognizable character on GLOW, with her tree trunk-like arms and shoulders as wide as a volcano’s outer rim. Prior to her time as a professional wrestler, Dole is remembered for her ability to toss a shot put over 50 feet as a teenager at Buena Park High School in California — a feat that’s been repeated just twice since by other California high school girls. Later on, Dole qualified for two Olympic trials, where she finished fifth in 1976 and seventh in 1980. In her final years, as documented in the Netflix original film GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, Dole dealt with a number of health problems, many of which were born out of her career in wrestling, and had been staying in an assisted living facility. In 2008, her weight had begun to get the best of her as she climbed up to 425 pounds, although she would later cut it back down to 235 pounds. But like all volcanoes, though it had erupted hundreds of times within the wrestling ring, the fire inside her would inevitably lay dormant. On Jan. 2, 2018, Dole passed away from unknown complications. She was 60 years old. — Xander Peters
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
17
The Story You Know and Love!
A CHRISTMAS STORY NOVEMBER 23 – DECEMBER 23 | ALLEN THEATRE written by PHILIP GRECIAN | directed by JOHN McCLUGGAGE based on the motion picture written by JEAN SHEPHERD, LEIGH BROWN & BOB CLARK
AND DON’T FORGET... Come early or stay after to enjoy the FREE Festival of Trees, with dozens of beautiful holiday trees decorating the Allen Theatre lobbies! Presenting Sponsor
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
216.241.6000 | clevelandplayhouse.com
SPAMILTON AN AMERICAN PARODY
CREATED , WRITTEN , AND DIRECTED GERARD ALESSANDRINI
OPENS NEXT WEEK
December 20 – January 6
BY
216-241-6000 Group Sales 216-640-8600 playhousesquare.org
INVITE YOU TO THE MOST ORIGINAL MOVIE OF THE YEAR
Tuesday, December 18 7:00PM Atlas Eastgate For your chance to have your name on the guest list at the advance screening, visit https://tinyurl.com /y7pecm56 NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. While supplies last. One entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Seating at the screening is first-come, first-served and is not guaranteed. Please arrive early. Winners will be chosen at random. Winners within the past 30 days are ineligible.
IN THEATERS DECEMBER 21 WelcomeToMarwen.com
18
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
GET OUT everything you should do this week Photo by Emanuel Wallace
WED
12/12
HOLIDAY MUSIC
The 10th Annual Ryan Humbert Holiday Extravaganza For the past decade, local singersongwriter Ryan Humbert has hosted his annual Holiday Extravaganza. This year’s incarnation features a 12-piece band with Humbert and longtime backup singer Emily Bates performing Big Band, jazz and pop standards along with rearranged versions of Humbert’s original tunes. The show will raise money for Cleveland Clinic Akron General Hospital’s Muffins for Mammograms program, which provides free mammograms year-round for uninsured or under-insured women throughout Northeast Ohio. The concert begins at 7:30 at the Akron Civic Theatre, where it repeats tomorrow night. Tickets are $20. (Jeff Niesel) 182 South Main St., Akron, 330-253-2488, akroncivic.com. SPORTS
Cavaliers vs. New York Knicks After more retooling during the off-season, the New York Knicks, one of the league’s most storied franchises, remain a mediocre team. The current roster, however, does include one bright spot: forward/center Kristaps Porzingis, the highest drafted Latvian and Baltic player in NBA history. The Knicks play the Cavaliers tonight at 7 at the Q. Consult the Cavs website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com. THEATER
A Christmas Story The Cleveland Play House’s production of Jean Shepherd’s beloved Christmas Story rides a two-hour wave of intricate details to unerringly establish the period and to help even the youngest patrons make the leap back to a time before televisions were omnipresent and cowboy hero Red Ryder was king of the wireless. See it tonight at 7:30 at the Allen Theatre. Performances continue through Dec. 23. Tickets are $25 to $97. (Christine Howey) 1407 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
A Star Wars-themed burlesque show comes to the Beachland. See: Friday. COMEDY
Ryan Dalton It’s been a long, slow climb to the middle for Cleveland comic Ryan Dalton. The guy started performing standup in 1998 and has had some minor success. He’s regularly on The Bob and Tom Radio Show and has appeared on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham. He also makes the rounds of the comedy festival circuit. Much like Seinfeld, Dalton jokes about life’s absurdities. It’s a testament to the strength of his material that he doesn’t need to rely heavily on obscenities in order to be funny, and he’ll joke about things like what a mistake it is to tell a woman she has a gray hair. He performs at 8 tonight at Hilarities. Tickets are $13 and $18. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. THEATER
A Magical Cirque Christmas The press release for A Magical Cirque Christmas promises
that the event will include “jawdropping magic” along with “breathtaking circus acts” and “the most angelic voices singing your favorite Christmas carols. Be transported to the Golden Age of entertainment by “mind-blowing talents, stunning costumes, comedy and more” when the event touches down at the State Theater on Playhouse Square tonight at 7:30. Tickets start at $15 and are available on the website.(Niesel) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. DANCE
The Nutcracker Tonight at the Hanna Theatre on Playhouse Square, the Cleveland Ballet takes on the Nutcracker, a ballet in two acts that tells the classic story of how a young woman’s favorite Christmas toy comes to life and takes her on a fantastic trip through a magical kingdom. Tonight’s performance begins at 7 p.m.; additional performances continue throughout the weekend. Tickets are $25 to
$79; get them on the website. (Niesel) 2067 East 14th St., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. MUSIC
Singers’ Night Earlier this fall, Return of Simple frontman Rob Kovacs started hosting a monthly Singers’ Night at Bar 107 in Berea. The evening features local singers taking turns performing on stage while Kovacs accompanies them on piano. Singers are encouraged to bring sheet music or choose from Kovacs’ long song list (which is posted on the website). Lyrics aren’t provided, but performers can bring their own if needed. Each month will feature a new local singer who will perform a short set. Sign-ups for the night begin at 8 p.m. with the first singer of the night kicking things off at 8:30 p.m. Admission is free. (Niesel) 107 Front St., Berea, 440-973-4431, 107berea.com. | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
19
GET OUT MUSIC
Stella’s Records Launch Party Last month, Stella’s Music Club, the new music venue on East Ninth Street in downtown Cleveland, announced it’ll launch a record label, simply dubbed Stella’s Records. Tonight’s show at the club features Birds in the Boneyard, a pop-jazz-rock band from Queens, and will serve as a party to celebrate the label’s launch. While in Cleveland last month, the band met with local producer Jim Wirt (Incubus) about producing the album slated to come out on the Stella’s imprint. Disconnected, Pale Hollow, the Tony Lang Band and the Black Moods are also on the bill. The show starts at 7 p.m. (Niesel) 2217 East Ninth St., 216-272-3377, stellasmusic.com.
THU
sentiments, like compassion for the downtrodden, is always a mustsee — whether you’ve seen it before or not. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at the Ohio Theatre. Tickets are $15 to $75. Performances continue through Dec. 23. (Howey) 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
Steve Byrne Comedian Steve Byrne, the star and creator of the TBS sit-com Sullivan and Son, gets laughs by making fun of people based on the types of music they listen to; he also likes to have audience members join him on stage so he can create his own boy band. Byrne likes to make observational jokes about married life. “Eating at McDonald’s is the closest I’ll come to cheating on my wife,” he jokes. “I see those arches and think, ‘Oh shit, I want you inside of me.’” Expect a lively, interactive show when he performs tonight at 8 at Hilarities, where he has additional performances scheduled through Saturday. Tickets start at $23. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.
Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s own, internationally acclaimed baroque orchestra, performs an Appalachian Christmas program tonight, with a concert dubbed Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain: An Irish-Appalachian Celebration. There will be fiddlers, singers and bagpipe players, all under the guidance of artistic director Jeannette Sorrell. Tonight’s performance begins at 8 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tickets start at $28. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. DEBBIE HARRY of BLONDIE Class of 2006
SPORTS
Photo by James Shive
LY I M A F S& D N E I FR N? W O T IN
R I E H T K C RO IDAY! HOL t io residen h O t s a e 19 North y visiting Get the $ for you PLUS an c. 31st* e e rate onlin ily now through D fam friends &
TICKETS AT
rockhall.com / local19
*Online Only. Terms & conditions apply.
THEATER
A Christmas Carol This Great Lakes Theater production of Charles Dickens’ classic never fails to engage and delight. Framed cozily as a story within a story in this Gerald Freedman adaptation, the production really comes alive once the ghost of Jacob Marley appears, dragging his chains and creaking eerily with every movement. This annual tribute to knee-jerk liberal
exile of Cosimo de’ Medici, head of the prominent banking family that thrived in 15th-century Florence. Part 1 of the series screened earlier this month at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Part 2 screens today at 7 p.m. Part 3 screens at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday and at 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday. Tickets are $10, or $7 for CMA members. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. HOLIDAY MUSIC
12/13
COMEDY
20
his gift with others to help them relieve their stress and possibly heal them with laughter. A clean comic, Stevens performs in both comedy clubs and churches. He performs at 7:30 tonight at the Improv, and again at 7 on Sunday night. Tickets are $17. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com.
COMEDY
Jay Stevens “Laughter is a healing medicine,” says comic Shawn D. Stevenson (aka Jay Stevens), a native Clevelander. Stevens didn’t initially intend to pursue a career in comedy. But after he had a religious awakening nearly 20 years ago, he felt the need to share
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
FRI
12/14
FILM
The Age of the Medici, Part 2 Originally released in Italy in 1973 as a three-part TV series, The Age of Medici, which was directed by Roberto Rossellini, chronicles the
Cavaliers vs. Milwaukee Bucks The Milwaukee Bucks have become a playoff-caliber team ever since star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo joined the squad. Though it’s still early in the season, this year’s team appears to be one of the best teams in the East. The Cavaliers will have a hard time getting the win tonight when the two teams face off at 7:30 p.m. at the Q. Consult the Cavs’ website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com. HOLIDAY SHOPPING
Cleveland Holiday Flea The Cleveland Flea is back for another round of holiday cheer. For 2017’s iteration, the Flea took over Ohio City’s former Unique Thrift space. But now that a Planet Fitness is there, the winter-themed event is headed to the renovated Madison event center on Payne Avenue. Event planners chose to add 50 to 75 booths featuring enough locally made and antique items to cheer up even the biggest Scrooge around. The holiday market takes place from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. today and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday. Advance tickets run $10 to $20; add five bucks if you buy them at the door. (Laura Morrison) 4601 Payne Ave., theclevelandflea.com.
HOLIDAY MUSIC
Cleveland Orchestra Christmas Concert The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus celebrate the holidays with their annual series of Christmas concerts at Severance Hall. You’ll find sing-alongs, guest choruses and a “surprise visitor” as the orchestra teams up with the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus, the Cleveland State University Chorale and the College of Wooster Chorus for these seasonal performances. Tonight’s concert begins at 7:30; additional concerts continue through Sunday. Consult the website for ticket prices and more information. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com. FILM
The Great Buster: A Celebration The Great Buster: A Celebration, a new documentary film by Peter Bogdanovich, celebrates the artistry of silent film star Buster Keaton. Bogdanovich uses film clips, along with interviews with Mel Brooks, Bill Hader, Werner Herzog and Quentin Tarantino, to honor the talented Keaton. The movie makes its Cleveland debut tonight at 9:25 p.m. at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, where it screens again at 6:50 tomorrow night. Tickets are $10, or $7 for Cinematheque members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu. HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS
FAMILY FUN
Scuba Claus & the Seas’N of Play Scuba Claus & the Seas’N of Play continues today, tomorrow and Sunday at the Greater Cleveland
MONDAY 12/31 4PM BILL NYE INSPIRED COCKTAILS NO COVER / THE SCIENCE GUY SHOW MARATHON
LIMITED EDITION BILL“NYE”2019 TEES
PLUS
How the Kishka Saved Christmas! For 11 years, Clevelander DJ Kishka hosted a Polka Happy Hour at the Happy Dog Tavern. He launched the event in 2005 with an impromptu polka jam after a polka band that was scheduled to play didn’t show up. Two years ago, Kishka brought the monthly event to an end. But he comes back to the Happy Dog tonight for his annual How the Kishka Saved Christmas happening. He’ll put up a fake Christmas tree with sauerkraut tinsel and hand out pierogi ornaments to be colored and hung as well. It all starts at 6, and admission is free. (Niesel) 5801 Detroit Ave., 216-651-9474, happydogcleveland.com.
WILL BE GIVEN TO THE FIRST 100 PEOPLE THRU THE DOOR!
16-BIT BAR+ARCADE 15012 DETROIT AVE + 16-BITBAR.COM | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
21
Coming Attractions Give the gift that always gets applause! playhousesquare.org/giftcard or 216-640-8800
BEHIND THE SCENES OF
SERIAL SEASON 3 with Sarah Koenig & Emmanuel Dzotsi December 15
GET OUT Aquarium. Kids get a temporary tattoo, an activity book and the chance to expend some of their excess holiday spirit by learning about and imitating the movements of crabs, archerfish, frogs, frilled lizards and other Aquarium residents. Guests of all ages can participate in an aquarium-wide scavenger hunt and/or talk to and snap a selfie with Scuba Claus while he dives in the Aquarium’s 230,000-gallon shark exhibit from 1 to 2 p.m. Aquarium hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Check the website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 2000 Sycamore St., 216-862-8803, greaterclevelandaquarium.com. BURLESQUE
ELVIS BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE January 13
JUSTIN WILLMAN: MAGIC IN REAL LIFE February 16
Star Wars Burlesque: The Return of the Tease The local burlesque company Le Femme Mystique Burlesque regularly hosts events in Northeast Ohio. One of its most unique events, Star Wars Burlesque: The Return of the Tease will return to the Beachland Ballroom at 8 tonight. This year’s performers include Bella Sin, Noella Deville, Cece Noir, Scarlett Chaton and Deva Diamond. A couple of Cleveland Burlesque Academy graduating students will be on hand as well. The show starts at 8:30 p.m., and tickets are $17 in advance, or $20 at the door. (Niesel) 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com. COMEDY
DISNEY’S DCAPPELLA February 27
ALSO COMING
THE MUSICAL BOX GENESIS EXTRAVAGANZA March 14
STEVEN WRIGHT March 22
216-241-6000 Group Sales 216-640-8600 playhousesquare.org
22
Sheryl Underwood Since becoming the first female finalist in the Miller Lite Comedy Search in 1989, Sheryl Underwood’s comedy career has taken off. Underwood’s language is colorful yet not overly vulgar. She covers plenty of racy material and likes to crack jokes about how screwed up relations between men and women can be. Since 2011, she’s been a host on the daytime TV show The Talk. She performs at 7:30 and 10 tonight and at 7 and 9:30 tomorrow night at the Improv. Tickets are $27. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com. HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS
Walkabout Tremont During this month’s holidaythemed Walkabout Tremont, you
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
can stop by any of the Tremont art galleries to see their current and/or new exhibits, drop in at the plentiful bars, restaurants and specialty shops that participate in the art stroll, and even nab a free ride on Lolly the Trolley. The walk takes place from 5 to 10 tonight. Check out the website for a schedule, maps and a listing of entertainment and food and drink specials. (Niesel) walkabouttremont.com.
SAT
12/15
SPOKEN WORD
Behind the Scenes of Serial Season 3 The first podcast to win a Peabody Award, Serial narrates true crime stories over multiple episodes. Tonight at 8 at the State Theatre, Sarah Koenig and Emmanuel Dzotsi (an Ohio native) will talk about Season 3 and offer a behindthe-scenes look at the program. The City Club of Cleveland CEO Dan Moulthrop will moderate the discussion, and a Q&A period will follow the presentation. Tickets start at $25. (Niesel) 1519 Euclid Avenue, 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. FILM
Jack Frost Cleveland Cinemas’ Late Shift series, a program dedicated to the nostalgic cult and camp cinema that we love even though it’s certainly not Oscar-worthy material, has been a fixture at the local chain of theaters since 2006. The 2018 schedule continues tonight with Jack Frost, the cult film about how serial killer Jack Frost turns into a snow-covered mutant after an accident with a chemical truck. Guests who wear a plaid scarf will receive a free bag of popcorn. Tickets are $6. (Niesel) 1390 West 65th St., 216-651-7295, clevelandcinemas.com. SPORTS
Monsters vs. Rochester Americans After playing the Rochester Americans on their home turf last night, the Cleveland Monsters take on the team tonight at 7 at the Q. Tonight is Grow the Game Night, and the first 5,000 kids (12 and under) will receive a free youth jersey. Fans are also encouraged to bring new and unwrapped toys to the game, which will go to pre-selected nonprofits in Northeast Ohio, serving children. Consult the Q website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.
SUN
12/16
SPORTS
Cavaliers vs. Philadelphia 76ers One of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, the Philadelphia 76ers added more talent to the roster last month when they picked up All-Star forward Jimmy Butler from the Minnesota Timberwolves. Butler adds athleticism and scoring, giving the team yet another offensive threat. Beating the 76ers will be difficult for the Cavs. The game begins at 3:30 p.m. at the Q. Consult the Q website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com. MUSIC
Gospel Brunch The monthly Gospel Brunch has been a spiritual Sunday staple for years at the House of Blues. The all-you-can-eat musical extravaganza features Southern classics like chicken jambalaya, biscuits and gravy, and chicken and waffles, along with soulstirring, foot-stomping music that might find you dancing in the aisles. Seatings are at 11 a.m. Tickets are $40 and are available online, by phone or at the box office. (Niesel) 308 Euclid Ave., 216-523-2583, houseofblues.com. MUSIC
Straight No Chaser The male a cappella group Straight No Chaser had such success with their 2013 release Under the Influence, with musical cameos from Jason Mraz, Rob Thomas, Phil Collins and Dolly Parton, that it essentially became a household name. Expect to hear songs from that album tonight, alongside holiday tunes and selections from the band’s extensive back catalog. Performances are at 3 and 7:30 p.m. at the State Theatre. Tickets are $29.50 to $59.50. (Niesel) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. BOOKS
Sunday Beat As part of a Sunday Beat promotion at Visible Voice Books, if you purchase a New York Times at the store, you’ll receive a free cup of coffee or tea and a Jim Alesci’s Place pastry. An added bonus: A jazz, Americana, samba or bossa nova band will perform from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Anyone who shows a
12/17
TRIVIA
Monday Night Trivia Do you have tons of obscure music knowledge? Are you a student of fast food menus and their nuanced histories? What say you about the geographic evolution of Scotch whisky? Tonight’s your chance to wow your friends, make yourself instantly more desirable to someone you’re newly dating, and hang with Cleveland’s headiest hipsters and hot dog lovers. It’s the Happy Dog Monday Night Trivia. Starting at 8 p.m., expect themed rounds and general
NIGHTLIFE
Shit Show Karaoke Local rapper/promoter Dirty Jones and Scene’s own Manny Wallace host Shit Show Karaoke, a weekly event at the B-Side Liquor Lounge wherein patrons choose from “an unlimited selection of jams from hip-hop to hard rock,” and are encouraged to “be as bad as you want.” Fueled by drink and shot specials, it all goes down tonight at 10 p.m. (Niesel) 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge.com. FOOD + BEER
Wing Dang Doodle Blues icon Howlin’ Wolf famously covered “Wang Dang Doodle,” the old blues tune penned by Willie Dixon. Prosperity Social Club in
Tremont has adopted that slogan, calling its wing night Wing Dang Doodle. The weekly event features specials on Buffalo wings and cold brews. Prosperity will not only serve up substantial, $1 whole wings, but it’ll also offer meatless Monday “wing” baskets for vegans. Discounted drafts and a playlist of vintage-electric blues and soulful R&B curated by local musician Clint Holley will be on tap as well. Wing Dang Doodle takes place every Monday from 6 p.m. to midnight. (Niesel) 1109 Starkweather Ave., 216-937-1938, prosperitysocialclub.com.
TUE
exciting concerts. Tonight’s free, all-ages performance celebrates both the holidays and the group’s ninth anniversary. The music starts at 8 at the Happy Dog. Did we mention that it’s free? (Patrick Stoops) 5801 Detroit Ave., 216-651-9474, classicalrevolutioncleveland. wordpress.com. MUSIC
Open Turntable Tuesday Tonight from 6 to 9, the Winchester hosts its weekly Open Turntable Tuesday. DJ Kris Koch offers 20-minute slots to people who want to bring their own vinyl and spin their favorite songs or deep tracks. Turntables are provided; you can play three to five songs during your time slot; and a mic is available to talk about the selections. (Niesel) 12112 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-600-5338, facebook.com/ TheWinchesterMusicTavern.
12/18
MUSIC
Classical Revolution Cleveland Classical Revolution Cleveland brings chamber music to the people, in locations that invite relaxation and casual fun. Performers like the Trepanning Trio, Anime Duo, students of Cleveland Institute of Music and even Cleveland Orchestra members sometimes grace the stage in these
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
ADDRESS (SPSVEHS &ZI LIǽIPH :MPPEKI ONLINE www.MetroParks.cc/Theatre PHONE 440.949.5200 ext. 221
GIFTS
Presented by
French Creek T heatre
THE
MAGI OF THE
Music by Randy Courts Lyrics by Mark St. Germain and Randy Courts Directed by Jacqi Loewy
November 30 - December 16 Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sunday Matinees at 3:00pm
Tickets: $16 - $18 for adults and $10 for children
SPONSORED BY:
X XI XII I II III
Call (440) 949-5200 ext. 221 or visit us online at www.MetroParks.cc/theatre to purchase yours today!
I VIIVIIIX
MON
knowledge questions that seem considerably trickier than some of the other live trivia locales in town. Obviously, have a hot dog and a craft brew while you’re at it. And arrive early: Seats fill up fast. (Sam Allard) 5801 Detroit Ave., 216-651-9474, happydogcleveland.com.
IV V VI
Sunday receipt from Music Box, Prosperity Social Club or any of the Tremont restaurants that offer brunch can enter a same-day drawing for a $30 Visible Voice gift certificate and a $25 Visible Voice Loyalty Card. They’ll also receive 10 percent off any Visible Voice book purchase. The bookstore is open today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Niesel) 2258 Professor Ave., 216-961-0084, visiblevoicebooks.com.
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
23
ART NEW MEDIA Eric Rippert is not a painter, but he is By Dott von Schneider Photo courtesy of Eric Rippert
ON THIS PARTICULAR DAY THERE is a moody, contemplative air about Eric Rippert’s studio, ensconced in the westside’s 78th Street Studios complex. As we sit and chat, he looks like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, which isn’t far from the truth. Like many persons of a certain age, he, along with his sister, is returning the love he has received from his father by aiding with his day-to-day care. “With the passing of Nikki [Delamotte] and everything else, November was a hard month,” he admits. “Lately I’ve been working in an almost stream of consciousness; then these images were starting to emerge.” Rippert describes his painting in progress, “The Man Whose Head Expanded”: “On this one there was this Basquiat-esque skull and it was kind of scary, actually, and I didn’t know where that came from. Anyway, these images are popping out from my childhood. For example, I saw this rocket car once, and I always drew it with this cockpit bubble and I was sitting in there and it was always going west and there was always flames coming out of the back. I’m not sure where the train imagery comes from … it seems like everywhere I’ve been there’s always been a train going by, except at my dad’s.” As a painter, Rippert is hiking the aesthetic and intellectual paths that make an artist interesting. You see, Rippert is an accomplished photographer with a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MFA from the Vermont College of Art. He has exhibited internationally with works included in the Progressive Art Collection and the Columbus Museum of Art, as well as in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s permanent collections. We had previously visited the artist’s studio during the CAN Triennial. At the time, he was hanging a multi-dimensional installation titled “Blanket Fort” that had been previously exhibited at the Maria Neal Art Project’s Native Cleveland annex. “Most of that work was photographic,” says Rippert. “I started to incorporate paintings into it, painting on photos, printing photos on top of paint and that
24
“The Man Whose Head Expanded,” an Eric Rippert painting in progress.
whole show was about family and nostalgia.” Around the same time, American Greetings contacted him and offered a show in their galleries. “I asked if I could do anything I wanted and they said, ‘yes.’ I was surprised at how well they were received.” Fortified by this positive reception, he continued forward. Rippert felt freed. “My whole artistic life as a photographer, I was trained very properly and very much by the rules,” he says. “When I started to paint, I didn’t have that same fear of failure. If my paintings sucked, well, I’m self-taught. I’m using parts of my brain that I didn’t use before. It’s the freeing process of making mistakes.” It was worth the risk. There is a depth to Rippert’s new work that makes us feel like we are flying. He keeps the media simple, starting with acrylic with gesso. Sometimes he mixes them; often he
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
uses the acrylics straight. There are hints of spray paint that add gloss and a seductive ghosting effect. There is a great deal of mark making and gestural movement with graphite; the eye unravels and travels throughout. The painting we are describing is titled “Me! I Disconnect From You,” named after a song from the 1979 Tubeway Army album Replicas, written by Gary Numan. In fact, all of his paintings are named after songs. “When I was working in photography everything had a narrative, so I gave them some sort of cinematic title or location title; but when it came to making work that wasn’t about anything, I was stuck. Do I number it? The song titles were a natural fit as I listen to a song and then the work takes symbiotic shape.” We learn that these black and white pieces were curated into an exhibition by Thomas Huck of University Hospital, along with works by eight other artists.
It’s hard not to get hung up on other people’s work, Rippert says, wondering if they are more successful because of style, luck or who they know. “I just know that I started painting about two years ago and there’s some crappy ones behind the walls; the ratio being more crappy ones than the ones that I’m more comfortable with.” Rippert brings it back to “How to Be an Artist,” a list of 33 dos and don’ts written by New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz. “My favorite one reminds me to make an enemy of envy. Don’t covet what other people are doing, there’s always people doing better work, but just keep doing what you’re doing and remember when you started painting that you didn’t care if you failed or not. So I continue to do that and the work seems to evolve.”
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
STAGE SESAME STREET IS CURB-STOMPED ONCE AGAIN The puppet show for adults is back with Avenue Q at Blank Canvas Theatre Bu Christine Howey Photo by Andy Dudik
WE ARE ALL GARY COLEMAN. That child actor, who attained high pop-culture status when he played Arnold on Diff’rent Strokes more than 30 years ago, never quite made a successful transition to adulthood. And his inability to leave childhood behind was further intensified by his height, which stopped at 4-foot-8 due to a medical condition. Regardless of our height, we are all Gary Coleman when it comes to figuring out how to be an adult. It all seemed so much simpler back when we were singing along to “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?” We thought it would be a lot easier when we grew up, but eventually we saw how wrong we were. And that is the genius behind Avenue Q, the puppet-powered musical now generating big laughs at Blank Canvas Theatre. By poking fun at the general vibe and a couple specific characters from Sesame Street, the catchy music and clever lyrics by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez — not to mention the book by the equally witty Jeff Whitty — make this show a thoroughly enjoyable modern classic. And the cast at BCT under the ever-imaginative direction of Patrick Ciamacco delivers the goods. Just like the PBS show that inspired AQ, there are human characters that interact with the puppets, which are handled out in the open by actors who mirror the emotions of the characters on the ends of their arms. If Sesame Street is “Avenue A,” with all its happiness and self-actualizing monsters (lookin’ at you, Cookie), Avenue Q is many blocks away, alphabetically and otherwise. This is a totally different ’hood, where young adults are depressed, older adults are nasty, and a monster named Trekkie (Brett DiCello), who lives above the garbage can, is addicted to porn. When it comes to capturing the troubled zeitgeist facing those fresh out of college in the early 2000s, it doesn’t get much better than the third song, “It Sucks to Be Me.” Plagued with unemployment, underemployment and romantic dead-ends, these people are really depressed. But as the song notes, nobody is worse
off than Gary Coleman (Neda Spears) who is working as the local super after his parents stole all his money from the TV series. (Let’s pause for an aside: You call that depressed? Just think how they’d feel now, 15 years after these lyrics were written, with a killer clown in the White House, horrific fires and floods destroying entire towns, and
his fiancee Christmas Eve (Anna Sylvester), a young Asian woman who is a social worker/therapist with no clients. After that, it’s puppets all the way down, including lovable loser Nicky (Trey Gilpin) who shares living space with the fiercely closeted Rod (Scott Esposito), in an ambiguously Platonic relationship. Newcomer
AVENUE Q THROUGH DEC. 22 AT BLANK CANVAS THEATRE, WEST 78TH STREET STUDIOS, 1300 WEST 78 ST., 440-941-0458. BLANKCANVASTHEATRE.COM
an international “ally” hacking a U.S. journalist to pieces in a consulate. There’s not enough puppet tequila in the world to drown that downer. Welcome to Avenue Z.) Anyhow, the challenges faced by the characters in this play are much more personal. In addition to Coleman, the other two human characters are wannabe comedian Brian (Luke Scattergood) and
Princeton (Shane Patrick O’Neill) arrives looking for a flat and is soon attracted to Kate Monster (Leah Smith) a kindergarten assistant who dreams of opening a school for monsters. But their love match is challenged by the appearance of the subtly named and amply endowed Lucy the Slut, and two animals that embody the dark side, called the Bad Idea
Bears (David Turner and Becca Ciamacco, who are much funnier than their namesake Bad News Bears). Also, Kate is tormented by her snarky teaching mentor Mrs. T. (Kate Michalski), whose full last name always gets one of the biggest laughs. The production stays on its toes, thanks to some frequently non-PC projections on two screens. For instance, the shape of Lucy’s electronic EKG, after she suffers a horrendous encounter with a penny, traces her heartbeat by graphing her bustline. Director Ciamacco keeps the chuckles rolling throughout the two acts with some bad puns, one of which teaches numbers by showing five night stands, then a one-night stand, accompanied by a reasonably graphic cartoon. The voices are all serviceable, with some — particularly those of Smith, Esposito and O’Neill — shining even as they croon using their pinched, nasally character voices. Their efforts are aided by the accompaniment of a tight little band conducted by Matt Dolan. And yes, whether you want it or not, there is some sweaty puppet-onpuppet sex involving unique positions and hyper-energetic acrobatics that can only be achieved when someone 10 times taller than you has their wiggling hand up your butt. This is the perfect show for BCT, since the intimate surroundings allow the audience to engage with the actor/puppeteers and their puppets, designed and constructed for this production by director Ciamacco, Noah Hrbek and Dave Haaz-Baroque. The only thing the script gets wrong is stated in the final song “For Now,” which posits that all our troubles are temporary. Well, if that was true in the past it appears not to be the case now, given the world’s impending climate catastrophes. So as much fun as Avenue Q is, it seems about time for an Avenue Z musical to be created. If we’re on the brink of the apocalypse, we might as well exit laughing.
scene@clevescene.com t@christinehowey | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
25
26
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
MOVIES THE QUEEN AND I Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite is among 2018’s weirdest, best By Sam Allard Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight
YORGOS LANTHIMOS, IN ONLY three short years, has become one of the most unique and potent creative forces in Hollywood. On the heels of The Lobster (2015) and last year’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, he has directed The Favourite, a film that is somehow both more and less weird than his previous two, but equally rich in style, eccentricity and humor. Starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, the film opens Friday. Colman, (The Lobster, Broadchurch) is England’s Queen Anne. She is an emotional roller coaster of a sovereign, often taken to temper tantrums, giggle fits, and explosive melancholy, which stems in equal parts from various physical maladies — gout, notably — and from loneliness. Her closest friend and advisor is Lady Sarah Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), who does much of the country’s governing while Anne languishes in solitude. Abigail (Emma Stone) is a former Lady who has fallen upon hard times. Her father gambled her away in a card game some years ago, she says, and she’s been suffering rapes and abuse at the hands of assorted Neanderthals ever since. She arrives at the Queen’s court seeking work, and quickly endears herself to Lady Marlborough, a distant cousin and, eventually, Queen Anne herself.
The Favourite’s central conflict, then, is an escalating war between Marlborough and Abigail for the Queen’s affections — her favor. This plot plays out, with devious twists and turns, among the baroque halls and bedchambers and manicured grounds of the Queen’s court. The setting provides no shortage of shadowy corners for lurking, candlelit stairways for consorting and huge windows for suicidal leaping. There’s also any number of ballrooms and grand open spaces within which the absurdity of aristocratic wealth and affectation can be properly — that is, parodically — captured. Lanthimos has the good comedic sense and incisive satiric edge to film some of this grotesquerie in slowmotion, as in for example the wigged members of parliament exhorting their personal ducks onward in a duck race, or hurling fruit at a naked man for some light afternoon entertainment. These buffoons are made up with so much powder and mascara and misshapen splotches of blush that they sometimes resemble a band of deranged clowns. Nick Hoult as the haughty aristocrats’ spokesman and Joe Alwyn as a horny soldier — “I’m hard as a rock and it’s our wedding night!” — embrace Lanthimos’ zany spirit. But the film’s heart is Colman, who manages to cut through the
outrageousness with moments of real emotion that transcend the parody. She’s also devilishly funny. One can imagine the ways in which this identical script, in the hands of a different director, would have been radically different: A dark thriller by David Fincher, perhaps? A glam arthouse biopic with a contemporary edge by Sofia Coppola? A lush period drama about sexual liberation by Tom Hooper or Ang Lee? But Lanthimos’ film triangulates the humor and off-kilteredness in these characters’ relationships and blows all the lids off. Instead of a prim, choreographed dance, Rachel
Weisz and Joe Alwyn gyrate and leap and wriggle; instead of a tense or brutish sexual assault in the woods, Alwyn lunges like an NFL linebacker, fully horizontal, and Emma Stone kicks him in the balls and the face during a prolonged tussle; instead of a somber whipping scene, a guard rips open Emma Stone’s dress from the back, and the head maid, sensing a rape, chastises the guard matterof-factly: “Do it in the barn, if that’s what it is, and not in my kitchen!”
(Jennifer Ehle) to help her carry that load. Flash forward to 2017 and Celeste (Natalie Portman) has become a mega star who can’t even walk outside her hotel room without being accosted by paparazzi. She’s still relying on her sister, manager and publicist, but those relationships now feel more codependent. Her sister writes her songs, her manager provides her with the drugs she wants and her publicist covers for her when some kind of controversy emerges. And there are plenty of controversies. Celeste pays millions to a pedestrian she hits with her car, and she has a difficult time relating to her
daughter (also played by Cassidy). The film’s second half feels like a completely different film (Willem Dafoe struggles to make it all connect with his voice-over), but it’s also the more compelling half since it’s the half that features Portman, who gives a solid performance. The second half also includes more concert footage, and Portman is quite convincing in those scenes and comes off as a Katy Perry/Lady Gaga-like pop diva who’s had to overcome a difficult upbringing. — Jeff Niesel
sallard@clevescene.com t@scenesallard
SPOTLIGHT: VOX LUX AT ONE POINT IN VOX LUX, which opens on Friday at the Cedar Lee Theatre, Celeste (Natalie Portman) gives her daughter a bit of advice. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Michelangelo or Michael and Angelo from New Brighton,” she says. “All you need is an angle.” That statement seems to sum up the point of this drama that starts slow but finishes strong as it explores the trappings of stardom. The film opens in dramatic fashion with a school shooting. When the shooter comes into her classroom, a teenaged Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) tries to reason with the kid and tells him to let the other students go, so they can sit and pray
with one another and, you know, work things out with God. It’s a bit naïve but also incredibly brave and shows just how fearless Celeste could be. The shooter, however, responds by gunning down the other students and grazing Celeste. She recovers and, at a memorial for the students who died, sings a touching song that she and her sister wrote about the incident. Her performance inadvertently jump-starts her career, and a star is born. Pop stardom carries some pretty heavy baggage, and Celeste immediately teams up with her sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin), a manager (Jude Law) and a publicist
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
27
GREAT FOOD, GREAT FOLKS, & GOOD TIMES! LARGEST BEER & BOURBON SELECTION IN THE AREA KARAOKE NIGHT! EVERY THURSDAY!
HOLIDAY EVENTS Christmas Eve Candlelight Dinner
Game Day Sprcials During All Browns & Cavs Games
Serving Our Regular Menu 3:30-9pm (Now taking reservations)
New Year’s Eve
Noon-10pm | Serving Our Regular Menu (Now Taking Reservations)
New Year’s Day
Noon-7pm Serving Our Regular Menu & the Traditional Roast Pork & Sauerkraut Dinner (Now taking reservations)
PURCHASE $100 OF GIFT CERTIFICATES, GET A BONUS $20 GIFT CERTIFICATE! PURCHASE $50 OF GIFT CERTIFICATES, GET A BONUS $10 GIFT CERTIFICATE! BONUS GIFT CERTIFCATES VALID BETWEEN 1/1/19 - 2/28/19
4 1 2 9 E 4 9 T H S T R E E T | C U YA H O G A H E I G H T S , O H 2 1 6 . 4 1 7 . 3 1 0 2 | 4 9 S T R E E T TAV E R N . C O M
NOW IN THREE LOCATIONS!
11526 Clifton Blvd. Cleveland, OH 44102
Delivery Now Available
18405 Detroit Ave. Lakewood 216.221.0676
216-631-6111
To See Our Other Locations Check Out indiagardencleveland.com
ticktocktavern.net
TOP RATED VEGAN & VEGETARIAN CUISINE $
5.00 OFF
Your Next Meal Sign Up On indiagardencleveland.com
Thanking Our Wonderful Customers For Continuously Making Us The #1 Indian Cuisine Restaurant In Northeast Ohio!
OPEN FOR BREAKFAST, LUNCH & DINNER
$8.85 FISH FRY EVERY WEDS & FRI
CATERING & DELIVERY AVAILABLE
HOUSE SPECIALS LUNCH BUFFET 7 DAYS A WEEK
HOURS: Mon- Fri 11:30am- 2:30pm / 5:00pm- 10:00pm Sat & Sun 12:00pm- 3:00pm / 5:00pm- 10:00pm
BEST NEIGHBORHOOD BAR
YOUR FOOTBALL HEADQUARTERS ALL SEASON LONG!
BROWNS - ATBRONCOS
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15 AT 8:20PM $5.75 PITCHER SPECIAL DURING GAME
CATCH THE CAVS AT MA! $5.75 Pitcher Special
During Every Game All Season Long 28
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
UÊ iivÊ-ÌÀ }> vvÊUÊ > LÊ «ÃÊUÊ ÕÃ> > UÊ V i Ê*>«À >Ã ÊUÊ }}Ê* > ÌÊ*>À iÃ>
WORLD FAMOUS BBQ RIBS & CHICKEN
EAT PROFESSIONAL-GRADE FUEL Feeding the Cleveland Browns is an exercise in volume and science By Douglas Trattner Photo courtesy of Cleveland Browns
A TYPICAL WEEKLY SHOPPING list for the Cleveland Browns looks something like this: 700 pounds of chicken, 300 pounds of salmon, 420 pounds of broccoli, 400 pounds of strawberries, 35 pounds of creamy peanut butter, and 195 gallons of water. You might want to grab an extra cart. Each member of the 53-man roster burns between 3,000 and 6,000 calories on a typical practice day. It’s Katy Meassick’s job to make sure those calories are replenished in a way that boosts player performance on the field. As the team’s performance dietician, Meassick attends to the very specific nutritional needs of every player on the team, paying particular attention to height, weight and position. “They get guidance on what they need to eat for their height and weight based on their performance level,” Meassick explains. “The positions are a huge part of it. DBs and wide receivers are going to cover a lot more ground than your strength and power positions like the defensive and offensive linemen, who are more about holding their ground.” For Meassick, who previously worked as director of sports nutrition at Florida State University, it’s an around-the-clock job. In season, she works seven days a week, both here and on the road, overseeing every meal, snack and sip that passes through the lips of players. That includes meals on the plane, meals at the hotel, and every bite and beverage before, during and after the game. Despite a relatively short regular season compared to basketball and baseball, the members of the Cleveland Browns are under the watchful eye of Meassick and her team nearly year-round. Players report for training camp at the end of July and aren’t released until the last week of January. They’re back to begin their off-season training programs by the start of April, which runs clear through the end of June. Grown men will eat what and when they want, but professional athletes will not argue with productive results, Meassick asserts. “We want them to be educated about what they are eating, how they are eating and why they are eating
certain foods,” she says. “When they see the payoff of investing in their health and performance through food, they understand that they should be focusing on that throughout the entire season, preseason and offseason as well.” The first players begin filtering into the cafeteria at the Berea training facility as early as 4:45 a.m., and the last ones hit the road around 6 or 7 p.m. In addition to meals like breakfast, lunch and dinner, there is food and drink available throughout the day. Breakfast is the biggest meal of the day, with options like egg white omelets, breakfast tacos, turkey sausage, pork sausage, pancakes and waffles, all prepared by an executive chef and staff of 10. One of the busiest employees is the one who crews the smoothie station, preparing an average of 75 nutritious drinks per day. In addition to a cornucopia of fresh fruit and vegetables, the players have access to beneficial additives like turmeric, ginger, cayenne, bee pollen, spirulina and whey protein. “My theory is, even if you don’t feel like eating, you can drink it,” says Meassick, adding that some players, especially the rookies, don’t always eat breakfast. “If you eat too little, but you’re outputting a lot, one of the first things to go is your immunity. We want to make sure that we are providing enough energy to help keep
their immunity strong.” Meassick takes a “learning lab” approach to educating players about eating right. Most items are accompanied by a sign, flag or placard bearing the nutritional info and an infographic indicating which foods excel at providing quick energy as opposed to building muscle or boosting immunity. Barcodes are provided for those using apps like MyFitnessPal to track the foods they eat. The team is currently vegan-free, but all other preferences and allergies are accommodated. Little is left to chance, with the performance dietician literally mapping out the placement of items at the salad bar, strategically placing foods like dark leafy greens and colorful peppers in the front row. Lunch typically includes a pasta bar and grill station serving lean proteins like salmon and chicken. Sadly, there’s no creamy ranch dressing for those salads, and the so-called cream of mushroom soup is made with milk as opposed to heavy cream. Scattered throughout the facility — near the gym, in the corridors, by the practice field — are refueling stations stocked with quick-grab items like water, fruit, protein bars, granola and even PB&J sandwiches, ensuring that players are never far from fuel. “Essentially, we are just a bunch of little kids who need to be taken care of, and we want to be happy, and
they do an incredible job with that,” says punter Britton Colquitt. “The nutrition with Katy is second to none. I have been in Denver, and they had a good thing going, and this has even gone up from there. Every year since I have been here, too, it has gotten better.”
FEEDING THE HUNGRY For 20 years, the Cleveland Browns have hosted the Taste of the Browns, the principle annual fundraiser for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. In that time, the event has raised more than $2.5 million for the region’s largest hunger relief organization. That translates to 10 million meals for Northeast Ohio families. “When you think about the Cleveland Browns and what we want to mean to the community, it’s really about providing a winning football team, supporting the fan base, and giving back to Northeast Ohio,” says Jenner Tekancic, VP of community relations. For the Browns organization, there is no offseason when it comes to giving back. In addition to the Taste of the Browns, there are give-back programs like Youth Football, First and Ten, and fan-driven food drives.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
29
EAT BITES Flight Cleveland opens this week in Gordon Square By Douglas Trattner WHEN FLIGHT CLEVELAND (5712 Detroit Ave., 216-905-2533) opens Friday in the Gordon Square neighborhood, it will likely become one of the most attractive and appealing spaces around in which to explore and enjoy wine. The two-room storefront is unrecognizable from its days as Latitude 41, thanks to six months of intensive renovation under the watchful eye of owner Lindsay Smith. Since taking possession of the property in June, Smith has swapped out all the flooring, exposed the brick walls, installed tile accents, and fabricated an impressive bar and backbar, the anchor of which is a 29-bottle Cruvinet system that preserves and dispenses white and red wines at optimal temperatures. The well-appointed interior is populated with eclectic furniture that melds old with new, like an acid green Victorian couch juxtaposed against a custom-built contemporary booth. “I really wanted people to feel comfortable, so the intention was to make it feel like a living room,” says Smith, formerly Bon Appetit’s director of catering and sales at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “There is enough seating for everybody’s preferences. There’s soft seating for those who want to get cozy, there’s bar seating for the bar people, and there’s the table and chairs for those who prefer that environment.” All told, there is seating for about 60. The heart and soul of the wine bar menu is the flights category. A trio of wines is presented in a small box along with printed cards that provide information on the wine’s country of origin, grape varietal, and tasting notes. Also listed is the retail price of the bottle, “so if you fall in love with something you’re drinking, we can add that to your check for you to take with you,” Smith says. In addition to the flights, wines are available by the tasting pour, glass and bottle, which are sold at retail plus $12 corkage fee. Everything that is on the menu is available for purchase in the wine shop, which stocks about 400 labels. “The idea has always been that it’s a combination wine shop and bar,
30
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
with both feeding off of each other,” says Smith. “The goal was to curate a retail shop that focuses on affordability and finding things that are a little off the beaten path. I want to be the neighborhood wine shop.” This neighborhood wine shop focuses on value and variety, with most bottles landing in the $12 to $35 category. A 13-under-13 section will always be stocked with taste-tested bargains for all palates. Rounding out the menu are three Cleveland draft beers, enough booze for basic cocktails, and a small-bites roster built around olives, cheeses, meats and chocolates from Astoria, Ohio City Provisions and Lilly Chocolates. “I think one of the things that makes us fit in so well here is that we aren’t doing another restaurant,” Smith says. “We’re trying to support and collaborate with the restaurant community that’s here.” Flight Cleveland will be open Tuesday through Sunday.
Edwins Butcher Shop to Open Dec. 13 Since opening Edwins Leadership & Restaurant Institute, Brandon Chrostowski has been single-minded in his mission to provide a meaningful way forward for ex-convicts. When the Edwins Butcher Shop (13024 Buckeye Rd.) opens this Thursday, in the BuckeyeShaker neighborhood of Cleveland, Chrostowski will provide another layer of culinary edification for students while introducing a neighborhoodappropriate retail food option. “My goal on this whole project is always student-driven, to make sure that students learn a skill set here,” Chrostowski said of what will be the first fresh meat vendor to open in the neighborhood in some 50 years. “But the idea is to bridge this gap between what we are doing and the community we are doing it in. You can’t just pop in a Starbucks and say it’s for everyone. It’s got to feel like it’s for everyone. If it doesn’t, I’ve failed.”
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner
Stella’s Music Club presents...
Stella’s Records LAUNCH PARTY
X Wednesday, December 12th Starting at 6pm 2217 East 9th Street, Cleveland, OH 44115
stellasmusic.com | stellasrecords.com
ADVERTISE WITH SCENE.
Let Marion’s Cater your Function At the Holiday Inn Cleveland Northeast-Mentor Call To Reserve Your Date.
440-951-7399
Mediterranean Restaurant and Tapas Bar
Located in Holiday Inn (Rt 2 & 306) 7701 Reynolds Rd Mentor • Monday- Saturday 4PM-10PM
440-951-7100 • MarionsMediterranean.com
SIT DOWN WITH YOUR GUESTS.
Call 216-241-7550 for more information.
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
31
32
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
Photos Doug Deutsch Publicity Services
S
INGER-GUITARIST KELLY RICHEY HAS A long career that stretches back 25 years. She’s released 16 albums over the course of that time and played lead guitar in Stealin Horses, a popular Kentucky-based rock group once signed to Arista Records. Drummer Sherri McGee is an indemand session musician who previously anchored the rock group Velvet Elvis. Earlier this year, the two formed the Cincinnatibased female power duo, the Spear Shakers. They’ll bring their combination of blues and rock to the Winchester Music Tavern in Lakewood at 8 p.m. on Friday. In separate phone interviews, the two discussed working together in the band.
TALK ABOUT HOW THE TWO OF YOU KNOW EACH OTHER. Richey: [McGee] came to Lexington in 1980. Shortly after that, I was playing with Stealin Horses. They signed to Arista in 1986. She was in Velvet Elvis. They signed to Enigma Records at about that time. We knew who we were, but we were in different musical cliques and never had an opportunity to
work together. They started touring, and we started touring. I ended up based out of Nashville, and she ended up based out of L.A. I always wanted to work with her. I came off the road about two years ago after the touring season and sold my house and downsized to see what the next move was. I wasn’t sure what I saw in my future. I knew I wanted it to be simplified. I stepped back and took some time to reflect. I was asked to play in an all-female cover band for a New Year’s Eve date last year. That’s something I don’t really do. It was just one show, but it sounded like a lot of fun. I told them that if they could get Sherri to do it, I would do it. She said she’d do it, so we did, and we had so much fun. McGee: We kind of crossed paths in the early ’80s. I used to see her play in the really early ’80s when she used to play guitar behind her head. She was quite the show person. When I was in Velvet Elvis, we were both on the road. This girl in Lexington put together a one-off band of girls and I had played with them before. They were doing it again, and I thought it was a lot of work for one night. But she said that Kelly was playing guitar, and then I wanted to do it. She heard that I was on drums and was excited to do it too. We said, “What do you think about doing
something together?” This is the first time I’ve been excited about a band in a long time. Generally, I play with three or four bands at any given time. It’s fun, and it’s right up my alley. ARE THERE OTHER FEMALE MUSICIANS YOU PARTICULARLY ADMIRE? Richey: There are. I just saw Tash Sultana at the Fox Theatre here in Oakland. She uses loops and beats. She does these bedroom takes and knocks out these songs. She’s touring all over the world, and she sold out the Fox other night. It was the night of my birthday, and that’s why I came out. That kind of thing inspires me. There haven’t been that many female guitarists that inspire my guitar playing, but there have been female songwriters who have inspired me. There’s Joni Mitchell and Heart and Fleetwood Mac. McGee: Well, I just happened to be watching TV the other night, and they were doing a special on the Carpenters. Karen Carpenter was the drummer. When I was a kid, I would rush to the TV to watch her play drums. I used to play in a band in Hollywood and Kathy Valentine was the guitar player and Rosie | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
33
MUSIC Flores played with us for a while too. I still keep up with them. The drummer for Kid Rock is pretty badass too. THE GROUP IS BILLED AS A FEMALE POWER DUO. TALK ABOUT THAT APPROACH AND WHAT THAT ENTAILS. Richey: I had tried to do that during my break, but I couldn’t find the right drummer. Sherri and I got together and rehearsed once. I realized it would work out fine. I bring the music I’ve been working on, and she follows me right off the cliff. We’ve hit it hard, and I’ve been booking regional venues I’ve played in the past. When it comes to power duos, the White Stripes initially caught my attention. I started listening to them and they had that great live record. It was so reckless and then the Black Keys came out. I thought, “Wow!” He has that great big kick drum. It takes that kind of
my guitar sound, which has evolved. I’m a guitar player through and through. I’ve started writing more material too. McGee: It’s her songs, and they come easily to me. Her songs have a Zeppelin-ish feel to them that I like. They have good melodies and good lyrics and good rhythms. We’re finding our way playing together. I LIKE YOUR PERFORMANCE OF “LEAVING IT ALL BEHIND.” WHAT’S THE STORY BEHIND THAT TUNE? Richey: When I did my last two solo albums, I found three crates filled with cassette tapes along with eight boxes of poetry. I transferred them all to digital because I knew they wouldn’t last forever. I found 72 hours of material and pulled from that most of the songs on my last album. “Leaving it All Behind” was where I was in life at that time; I wanted to move forward and not be so stressed. It’s just an upbeat tune. I just got that groove in my head, and I couldn’t shake it. I always loved Bad
THE SPEAR SHAKERS, SAM HOOPER GROUP, CITY HEAT 8 P.M. FRIDAY, DEC. 14, THE WINCHESTER TAVERN, 12112 MADISON AVE. 216-600-5338, LAKEWOOD. TICKETS: $8-$12, THEWINCHESTERMUSICTAVERN.COM
drummer to pull that off. I’m a pedal board guru and I’m so into them, I almost need a separate therapy session to help me deal with them. I’ve been experimenting with different delays in the studio. I set up live in my studio for my past two records, and it’s like I merged on the highway and ended up on this exit. So it’s been something I wanted to do for a while, and now it’s finally manifested itself. McGee: When Kelly and I first talked about this, she said, “Think of a bass player you like to play with.” We tried out one guy. He would have been fine, but he was too busy. I said, “Why don’t we just be a two-piece? The Black Keys do it. The White Stripes do it.” Kelly has such a fat sound. I just play off of what she’s doing. I think we practiced one time. WHAT SONGS WILL MAKE THEIR WAY INTO THE SET?
34
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
Richey: They’re all originals, but sometimes, I will do a Hendrix or Zeppelin tune at the end. I’m pulling material from my last two solo albums. I have two complete records and almost every song works for what Sherri and I do. It’s all original, and it’s allowed me to reform and embrace songs that I’m playing the way I originally wrote them. I’m expanding
Company. Sherri and I had only done a couple of shows together when we first played it on a TV news program. It’s become one of Sherri’s favorites. McGee: When I make my notes, and I’m learning the song, on that one, the first thing I wrote down was “sit up straight.” That means I’ll be doing a lot of foot work with my kick drum. It just has that beat. I can’t be slumped over. DO YOU THINK YOU’LL DO AN ALBUM TOGETHER? Richey: We just finished a three-song EP. We’re going to do festivals this summer. I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had in my career. This is stress-free, and we’re good friends. We didn’t really know each other before we started playing together but now we’re good friends. McGee: We recorded three songs just last week and got video footage of them too. I’m fairly anxious to see the footage. It’s been going great so far. Any band is like a relationship with different personalities and egos, and we just seem to really click. She’s just a good person, and I’m a pretty cool cat too.
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
35
MUSIC A BLUE CHRISTMAS
MUSIC
Over the Rhine explores the melancholy side of the holiday By Jeff Niesel
Photo by Dave King
SHORTLY AFTER OVER THE Rhine formed in Cincinnati nearly 30 years ago, the band appeared on National Public Radio and played a few Christmas tunes. That gift has kept on giving. The group continues to play holiday music on an annual basis. It performs a special holiday show at 7 p.m. on Sunday at Music Box Supper Club. “Some of our earliest musical memories of any kind happened this time of year when we were kids,” says multi-instrumentalist Linford Detweiler (keyboards, electric bass, vocals) in a recent phone interview. “We have memories of being in little churches and standing around in our flannel bathrobes and impersonating Middle Eastern shepherds and singing the old carols. We worked up a few old carols for that NPR appearance, and [singer] Karin [Bergquist] read a poem called ‘The Oxen.’ We put this program together in the spirit of those childhood Christmas pageants of old. The phones kind of lit up a little bit, and people started asking if we had recorded any of our Christmas music. We hadn’t thought about it at the time.” Eventually, the band would release The Darkest Night of the Year, an album that Detweiler refers to as an “odd little recording” that did have some traditional tunes on it. The album opens with a somber rendition of “The First Noel” and includes versions of classic Christmas tunes such as “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Silent Night.” “It was actually a lot of fun to make that record,” says Detweiler. “We recorded it mostly in my bedroom with some makeshift recording gear. My main objective for that project was just to get the darkness into the record. As the nights get longer and the days get shorter, I wanted to feel that dimension to the season. There’s so much enforced cheerfulness that goes along with Christmas. There’s another side to the holidays that intrigued me. It’s a little bit more serious and frankly heartbreaking at times, depending on the circumstances.”
36
For 2007’s Snow Angels, the band refrained from revisiting the tried-and-true holiday songs and wrote its own damn Christmas songs. The bluesy opening number, “All I Ever Get for Christmas Is Blue” comes off as a Billie Holiday number with its woozy vocals and pretty piano melody.
curious about the Christmas songs that had not been written.” With 2014’s Blood Oranges in the Snow, the band continued to present somber Christmas songs. “After we recorded that, Karin said we had stumbled onto a new genre of ‘reality Christmas music,’” says Detweiler. “If there’s an empty seat at the table or if you’ve lost a
OVER THE RHINE, CLARENCE BUCARO 7 P.M. SUNDAY, DEC. 16, MUSIC BOX SUPPER CLUB, 1148 MAIN AVE. 216-242-1250. TICKETS: $32 ADV, $38 DOS, MUSICBOXCLE.COM
“Irving Berlin said something to the effect that every songwriter who wants to make a living needs to write songs for every occasion,” says Detweiler, when asked about the album. “He really tried to do that. There are so many great Christmas songs that have been written. As songwriters, we were
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
loved one or lost a job, that stuff doesn’t just disappear during the holidays. Me being a little bit of a melancholy, artistic type, there’s something heartbreaking about this time of year that I’ve always felt. Some of that comes out in our original tunes. We found some of the space to fill in the gaps where
there were very few Christmas songs written.” The band has compiled the albums into a box set it will sell at the upcoming Music Box gig, along with other albums from its extensive catalog. Next year, in fact, will mark a significant milestone for the band. It will signify 30 years since it first formed. “We’ll certainly lift a glass for the many small victories along the way,” says Detweiler. “More interesting than looking back, we want to look ahead to what’s next. We’re reinventing what our music career looks like. We started our own music festival that takes place every Memorial Day weekend, and we’ve been restoring an old 1870s barn. Our dream is to own our music venue in the middle of nowhere. We want to continue to make records and tour too. It’s been a long road.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
37
7 6 / : . ;/, .96
+ /;: 3,=,3(:5 * + 7 .: = 3 / ) : 0+ /; .96. 6 3 * < ,
SAT 12/15
SAT 12/22
#,%6%,!.$ 3%33)/.3 02%3%.43
WED 12/19
A WILHELM SCREAM MOPACINO & FRIENDS THE WHISKEY&2) HOLLOW 7/23()0 4()3 s(%!24 ,5.' (!26%9 0%+!2
(90% " #(2)34-!3
,!9:)% "/.%s!, &!4: */%9 !)#(s4(% 6).$93s#/229 -)#(!%,3
WED 12/12 : 02%3%.43 :6)0 -53)# 3%2)%3 &%!452).'
(/34%$ "9 */(. "254/.
THU 12/13
DANCEHALL ON COVENTRY
THE SOFT MOON HIDE
SUN 12/30 .%7 9%!23 %6% 02%'!-%
SUN 1/27
LINGUA IGNOTA
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION (!..!( 34!+s+)- (!&&%9
# ,%6%, "!,!.#%$ "2%!+&!34
4(% 2/"). ",!+% 3/5.$ %80%2)-%.4
TUE 12/18
&2)
COUSIN SIMPLE DOAKS
OBNOX 3-/+% 3#2%%.
&),,%2
2%$ 2/3% 0!.)# 0%!#(#52,3s-%,,/78!#4
THU 12/20
SAT 1/5
COPPER THIEVES INT’L ORANGE ANIMAL
LO-PAN 2%"2%!4(%2
"%7!2%7/,6%3
7% ,)6% "9 .)'(4 GOOSED
SUN 12/23
SUN 1/6
2%$ ",!#+ '2%%. #(2)34-!3
BRENT KIRBY "2!84/. 4!9,/2
MUAMIN COLLECTIVE 34/+% 0/05,) $* #!.$) &2%3#!
!,933! "/9$ -)#(%,,% '!7
TUE 12/25
THU 1/17
DJ CHOP 02%3%.43 XMAS NIGHT OUT
LITZ 4(% #!4 3 -%/7 $9.!-/ ,/6%
THU 12/27
&2)
THE KATZ PAJAMAS
BENNY THE BUTCHER
-%-"%23 /& %+//34)+ (//+!( 9/3%-)'(4
/2%'/. 30!#% 42!), /& $//-
TUE 12/25
SAT 1/19
MO’MOJO THE ARK BAND
VACATIONER MONSTER RALLY
FRIDAY 12.14 B-SIDE FRIDAY (10pm) w/DJ NUERA FREE!
&2)
AFTERFUNK with UNCLE GNARLY WED 2/13
BAS 2%88 ,)&% 2!*
INNANET JAMES #/22%9 #
SATURDAY 12.15 THE PLAYERS BALL (10pm) w/ESO +YOMI +CHOMP FREE BEFORE 11PM SUNDAY 12.16 OPEN STAGE SOUND SYSTEM (7pm) Full Band Open Mic Night Hosted by BIRD DOG & XELA
&2)
TOKEN "%47%%. 3/-%7(%2% TOUR SAT 2/16
MARTY FRIEDMAN IMMORTAL GUARDIAN !#45!, &/2MON 12/17 WED 12/26 7%$ 4(5 &2) 3!4 45% 35. 35. 4(5 45% 4(5 &2) 35. 3!4 45% 7%$ &2) SAT 3/9 45% 4(5 &2) 45% &2) &2) -/. TUE 4/16 SUN 4/21
MAKE ‘EM LAUGH MONDAYS GONZOs!CID #ATSs&AT "ACK -ANGO $)342!#4%$s-OOD "OREDs2ULE /F 9OUNG *!-%3 %--%44 "!.$s5PTIGHT 3UGAR @ 3 $!.#% .)'(4 ,)6% &OOTLOOSE W $* $R 1UINN 9/)$s4ERMINAL ,OVERSs3AM 'OLDBERG */.!4(!. "2/7.s%ASY ,IVING #ULTURE .).%49./7 3(/7#!3% 4( !6%s!JA *!2%4 2)$$)#+ "OWLING FOR 3OUP s"OBBY 6AUGHN -!')# ')!.4s#ASTLECOMER 5./4(%!#4)6)34 #(%229 ',!:%22s0ALEHOUND !* -)4#(%,,s-ARTEEN 7(/ 7%%+,9 s ,)6% 0/$#!34 "RAVO!RTIST PRESENTS 3%4 )4 /&& 0).%'2/6% ˆSOLD OUT! -!'')% 2/3% THE %80%.$!",%3s"ALLYHOO GRANDSON !,, 4(%- 7)4#(%3 6(3 #/,,%#4)/. -!8 &2/34 4/+9/ 0/,)#% #,5" 4(% #/!4(!.'%23s3ISTER 3MIRK ,!$9 ,!-" ,!52! *!.% '2!#% 4(% $%6/52).' -/4(%23 HEALTH
;PJRL[Z JHU IL W\YJOHZLK MVY HSS ZOV^Z H[ [OL JS\I ^P[OV\[ H ZLY]PJL MLL I` WOVUL MVY H Z\YJOHYNL VY H[ HU` VM [OL MVSSV^PUN SVJH[PVUZ!
)90;;(5@»: 9,*69+ :/67 *SL]LSHUK ,90, :;9,,; .<0;(9: >PSSV\NOI` 3667 ;YLTVU[ 4@ 405+»: ,@, 9,*69+: 3HRL^VVK 9,*69+ 9,=63<;065 *SL]LSHUK /LPNO[Z 9,*69+ :/67 >PSSV^PJR :8<(9, 9,*69+: (RYVU ;/, =05@3 .966=, )LKMVYK
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
THURSDAY 12.13 THE HOOKUP (10pm) College ID night with DJ MIKE FILLY
THE BRUMMIES 4(% -!3/. $)342)#4
'2/' 3(/0 &2%% 3(/7 7%%+%.$
CHOLLY #/50 $% '2!#%
WEDNESDAY 12.12 KISS ALL HIPSTERS CLE (9pm) Indie Rock Dance Party
THU 1/31
#5-5,53 %.4%24!).-%.4 STEELYARD SOUNDSYSTEM 2!0452% 345$)/3
THU 1/3
Twitter & Instagram @BSIDECOVENTRY
3!.3 2%"%,,)/.
VIRTUAL NYE #(52#( /& $25- "!33
SUN 12/16 8-!3 7)4( 4(% "53(%3
Happy Hour Every Day 6—9 PM
MUTTS 3(!7. 3(%,"9
MON 12/31
ROCKMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS
38
PRINCEMAS &%!4 $* $!22)#+ '2!.4 CHIP THA RIPPER QUENTIN MILLER
&2) '43 02%3%.43 2$ !..5!,
^^^ [PJRL[Ã…` JVT
SAT 1/26
SAT 12/29
A VERY LAST CALL CHRISTMAS
;0*2,;: ;6 .96. :/67 ,=,5;: (9, (=(03()3, ;/96<./
TINDER LIVE with LANE MOORE
DAVE HILL MARY SANTORA
THU 12/13
0/,!23
TUE 1/22
3!4 0-
VIC MENSA
OTTAWA CAPTAIN KIDD
2875 EUCLID HEIGHTS BLVD CLEVELAND HEIGHTS WWW.BSIDELIQUORLOUNGE.COM
MONDAY 12.17 SHITSHOW KARAOKE (10pm) Hosted By DIRTY JONES w/ special guests! NO COVER! TUESDAY 12.18 LYRICAL RHYTHMS (9pm) + Live Band Open Mic Poetry Hip Hop Soul Experience
LIVEWIRE WED
all the live music you should see this week Photo by Roger Erickson
12/12
10x3 Singer/Songwriter Showcase hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Lou Armagno “Sinatra Selects” With Special Guest Dianne Palmer: 7 p.m., $15. Nighttown. Cholly/Uncle Gnarly: 8 p.m., $6. Beachland Ballroom. Billy Coakley’s Christmas Drum Karaoke: 8 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge. Frode Gjerstad Trio: 8 p.m., $15. Bop Stop. Twist/Eric Bond/Method (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., $10. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.
THU
12/13
Parker Gispert: 8 p.m., $10. Now That’s Class. Chris Hatton’s Musical Circus (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge. Hawken School’s Music in the City Showcase: 8 p.m., $10-$15. Nighttown. Jam Night with the Bad Boys of Blues: 9 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge. The New Soft Shoe: The Music of Gram Parsons: 8 p.m., $8 ADV, $12 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Northeast Ohio Drum & Music Jam: 9 p.m., free. Beachland Ballroom. Therapy Thursday Featuring Rob Kovacs: 8 p.m., free. CODA. Tri-C Vocal Jazz Winter Concert: 7:30 p.m., free. Bop Stop.
FRI
12/14
Jim Crompton (in the Wine Bar): 6 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Dennis DeYoung: The Grand Illusion 40th Anniversary Album Tour: Though he can’t legally tour and record as Styx, singer Dennis DeYoung, who wrote and sang lead vocals on seven of Styx’s eight Top 10 hits including “Babe,” “Mr. Roboto,” “The Best of Times,” “Show Me the Way,” “Lady,” “Don’t Let It End,” “Come Sail Away” and “Too Much Time On My Hands,” continues to play songs from the prog-rock band’s catalog during live performances. DeYoung comes to town tonight to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Styx
Joan Jett returns to Hard Rock Live. See: Sunday.
album The Grand Illusion. He’ll perform the album in its entirety and also play all eight of Styx’s Top 10 hits. (Jeff Niesel), 8 p.m., $32.50-$65. Hard Rock Rocksino. James Emmett Band: 8 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Flipcoin/Swell Tides/Who Hit Me/Mahogany Temper (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., $5. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Debbie Gifford Quartet: 8 p.m., $15. Bop Stop. GTS Presents the Third Annual Rockmare Before Christmas: 7:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Grog Shop. The Hellenic Underground: 9 p.m., free. Happy Dog. Jimmy Jack (in the Wine Bar): 9 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Carlos Jones & the P.L.U.S. Band: 10 p.m., $8. Brothers Lounge. The Morning Bird/Meg & the Magnetosphere/Shetler Jones/ Joe Joyce Band: 8 p.m., $7. CODA. The Muckers: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Popa Chubby (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. The Spear Shakers/Sam Hooper Group/City Heat: 8 p.m., $8-$12.
The Winchester. Spyro Gyra: 8 p.m., $35. The Kent Stage. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown.
SAT
12/15
Beach Bunny/Field Medic/The Dollyhoppers/Tallulah Patience (in the Locker Room): 7:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Sean Benjamin (in the Wine Bar): 6 p.m. Brothers Lounge. The Bourbon & Blues Revue Featuring Todd Albright/Austin Walkin’ Cane/Istvan Medyesi: 8 p.m., $8. CODA. First Snow: A Trans Siberian Orchestra Tribute: 8 p.m., $15$23. The Kent Stage. Hubb’s Holiday Groove Feat. Mariama Whyte: 8 p.m., $20. Bop Stop. Kristine Jackson (in the Wine Bar): 9 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Geoffrey Keezer Trio: 4 p.m., $20. Nighttown. Tom Petty Tribute by Shadow of a Doubt (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $10. Music Box Supper Club. The Ragbirds/Top Hat Black:
8 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Bobby Sanabria Trio: 1 p.m., free. Bop Stop. Michael Stanley & the Resonators/Donnie Iris and the Cruisers: Despite his recent health issues, local singerguitarist Michael Stanley continues to be productive. He’s put out an album a year for the past six years, self-releasing the discs through his own Line Level label. Expect to hear MSB favs as well as a good sampling of Stanley’s solo material tonight at a show that pairs him with singer-guitarist Donnie Iris, another Midwestern rocker who’s become a legacy act and still draws well in Northeast Ohio. (Niesel) 8 p.m., $48.50-$75. Hard Rock Rocksino. That ’80s Band: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. Uptight Sugar/Time Cat: 9 p.m., $6. Happy Dog. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. A Wilhelm Scream/Worship This/ Heart & Lung/Harvey Pekar: 9 p.m., $15. Grog Shop.
SUN
12/16
Christmas With the Bushes with the Bush Administration/Hannah Stak/The Robin Blake Sound Experiment/Kim Haffey: 8:30 p.m., $6. Grog Shop. The City Lite Band (in the Supper Club): 4 p.m., $6. Music Box Supper Club. The Gospel Music Historical Society: 6 p.m., $25. Bop Stop. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts: Almost five years ago, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts played the first-ever show at the newly opened Hard Rock Live in Northfield. Jett kicked off the terrific 90-minute concert with the glitter-rock inspired “TMI,” and then delivered the stuttering anthem “Cherry Bomb.” A grunge-y rendition of “Do You Wanna Touch Me” and a punked-up version of “Bad Reputation” followed. Since that appearance, Jett has been inducted into the Rock Hall, something that acknowledges the significance of her influence on rock ’n’ roll and giving her a good second wind. (Niesel) 7:30 p.m., $59.50$89.50. Hard Rock Rocksino. Over the Rhine: 7 p.m., $32 ADV, $38 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
39
LIVEWIRE UPCOMING ENTERTAINMENT!
DENNIS DEYOUNG DEC 14
Mike Petrone (Piano Sing-Along): 5:30 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge. Bill Rudman’s Christmas Cabaret: For tonight’s annual Christmas extravaganza, Bill Rudman has put together a show of more than 30 songs, blending Christmas standards and novelties. The set list draws heavily on Great American Songbook composers like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin. Expect to hear classics such as “Winter Wonderland,” “Let It Snow,” and tributes to Rudolph, Frosty and Mr. Grinch. Yep, you can bring the grandparents to this gig. (Niesel) 7 p.m., $30-$35. Nighttown. Survival Kit Sundays with Achilles Tenderloin/Gretchen Pleuss/ John Kalman/Brian Straw (in the Underdog): 8 p.m., free. Happy Dog.
JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS DEC 16
NEW YEAR'S EVE BASH
BRET MICHAELS DEC 27
E5C4P3 THE JOURNEY TRIBUTE & DJ DENICIO DEC 31
1/12 Walt Sanders
A Tribute to the Bee Gees
1/18 The Wall Live Extravaganza
2/14 Rick Springfield
1/19 The Clairvoyants 1/25&1/26 Gabriel Iglesias
2/17 Candlebox 3/1 Amy Grant
Celebrating the Music of Pink Floyd
MON
2/2 Stayin’ Alive
“One Night With You” Elvis Tribute
One Show Fits All World Tour
ED PRESENT
BY
UPCOMING ENTERTAINMENT!
MATT JOHNSON’S DUELING PIANO FIASCO! DEC 28
RICH GUZZI Comedy Hypnosis Experience DEC 29, 30 & 31
live music presented by
every friday and saturday
12/14 CONUNDRUM DUO 12/15 ATOM X BAND 12/21 ARMSTRONG BEARCATS 12/22 ERIC BROOKE BAND
TUE
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT TICKETMASTER.COM AND THE ROCKSINO BOX OFFICE, OPEN DAILY FROM 1PM - 9PM. ALL TICKET SALES FINAL.
FIND YOUR RHYTHM
TM
HRRNP.COM • 330.908.7625
VEGAS EXPERIENCE. OHIO ADDRESS. TM
MUST BE 21 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER. FOR FREE, CONFIDENTIAL HELP 24/7, CALL THE OHIO RESPONSIBLE GAMBLING HELPLINE AT 1.800.589.9966 OR VISIT WWW.ORG.OHIO.GOV.
40
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
PROUD ENTERTAINMENT PARTNER OF THE
CLEVELAND INDIANS
12/18
Amanda & Rick (in the Wine Bar): 7 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Cousin Simple/DOAKS: 8:30 p.m., $5 ADV, $7 DOS. Grog Shop. Larkin Poe/Goodnight, Texas: 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. M2B2 Big Band: 8 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
THE ifWpcWj_Yi
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16 GEORGETOWN & VOSH’S ANNUAL
BRUNCH WITH SANTA
12/17
2 Chefs and a Beat: 8:30 p.m., $12. CODA. EO11/The SpYder Stompers/Sugar Pie: 7:30 p.m., $5. Beachland Tavern. Bill Rudman’s Christmas Cabaret: For tonight’s annual Christmas extravaganza, Bill Rudman has put together a show of more than 30 songs, blending Christmas standards and novelties. The set list draws heavily on Great American Songbook composers like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin. Expect to hear classics such as “Winter Wonderland,” “Let It Snow,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and tributes to Rudolph, Frosty and Mr. Grinch. Yep, you can bring the grandparents to this gig. (Niesel) 7 p.m., $30-$35. Nighttown. Skatch Anderssen Orchestra: 8 p.m., $7. Brothers Lounge. Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Stripped Down
\h_ZWoB Z[Y[cX[h GJ © NPIFfc
Featuring LIVE REINDEER!
Brunch Served from GFPIFw C IPGK fw w | {z w Winter m z{ w z ~ Y w| | ~{ a z B o Y y w i {y w < f~ e { | w 7
VISIT WEBSITE FOR DETAILS. cedZWoB Z[Y[cX[h GM © LPFFfc
TOUR OF GOOD CHEER FUNRAISER VISIT WEBSITE FOR DETAILS.
\h_ZWoB Z[Y[cX[h HG © NPFFfc
SHOUT!
Join Us For
NEW YEAR’S EVE
Visit website for details. GREAT MUSIC, FOOD & DRINK Book Your Special Events With Us! 1414 RIVERSIDE DRIVE LAKEWOOD HGLCMLMCKHFH © l ~y xDy
Photo by Laura Wimbels
BAND OF THE WEEK P.STOOPS By Jeff Niesel MEET THE BAND: Patrick Stoops
(turntables, synthesizers, bass, drum machine, percussion)
stage with acts like Badbadnotgood, Open Mike Eagle, Serengeti, Astronautalis, Blockhead, Yoni Wolf and !!!.
A CLASSICAL CASE: A former Scene
contributor, Stoops started experimenting with electronic music in the late ’90s. “I was really into the turntablists of that time, acts like Mixmaster Mike, RJD2 and the Invisibl Skratch Piklz,” he says. “I studied music composition at Cleveland State, and my primary instrument was piano. I studied classical and jazz, and I specialized in turn-of-the-century French compositions.” At Cleveland State, he also took a computers and music class that rekindled his interest in electronic music. He debuted his sample-based compositions starting with his 2014 EP, object permanence, and then followed it up with 2016’s Ancient Computers. Over the course of his career, p.stoops has shared the
EMBRACING AN URBAN VIBE: Stoops
says he sees his new EP, Sentient Commuters, as a “spiritual sequel” to his previous full-length. “It’s from the same world, but a lot of the samples in Ancient Computers are taken from bossa nova and jazz from the ’60s, and I wanted something with more of a feel of mid- to late-’70s and early ’80s. I sampled the French group Antena and this late ’70s Motown singer named Mandré. He sounds like an early version of Daft Punk with vocoders and things like that. I wanted something that had more of an urban vibe to it. Ancient Computers was more about the natural world.” Stoops recorded the songs at his home studio. “Because my writing and recording are so tied together, I
INVITES YOU AND A GUEST TO AN ADVANCE SCREENING OF
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19 2018 7:00PM REGAL GREAT NORTHERN MALL
FOR YOUR CHANCE TO RECEIVE AN ADMIT-TWO PASS, VISIT STXTICKETS.COM /2ACTSCENE *This film is rated PG-13. Passes are limited and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. No purchase necessary. While supplies last. One admit-two pass per person. Theatre is overbooked to ensure a full house and seating is not guaranteed. A recipient assumes any and all risks related to use of ticket, and accepts any restrictions required by ticket provider. STXfilms, Cleveland Scene and their affiliates accepts no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a ticket. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred to redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. Void where prohibited by law. This screening will be monitored for unauthorized recordings. Any attempted use of recording devices will result in immediate removal from the theater, forfeiture, and may subject you to criminal and civil liability. Additional terms and conditions may apply.
#SECONDACT IN THEATERS DECEMBER 21 www.secondact.movie
/SecondAct
@SecondAct
@secondactmovie
can’t go to a studio without dropping tens of thousands of dollars because of how much time I’m spending.” WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR HIM: Album
opener “Neon Mausoleum” features vocal samples as well as melodic synthesizer riffs. Things get trippy on the instrumental “Public Beach,” but Stoops again settles into a good groove on “Contemporary Travelogue.” The album’s single, “Get Money,” features whispered vocals and sounds particularly menacing; it comes across as something that could be on the soundtrack to a heist film. “The sample that starts that whole track comes from an early ’80s children’s exercise record that was put out by
Disney called Mousercise,” he says. “It has this track written and performed by Edwin Starr. I like the bass line and vocal line, and I just built onto it with a chorus synth part from a Mandré track. Because of the types of things I often want to sample, I’m often listening to music that’s never been popular.” WHERE YOU CAN HEAR HIM: pstoops.com. WHERE YOU CAN SEE HIM: P.stoops
performs with Young Teazer at 11 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 14, at Touch Supper Club.
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
YOU AND A GUEST ARE INVITED TO AN ADVANCE SCREENING
MONDAY, DECEMBER 17 7:00PM PLEASE VISIT WBTICKETS.COM AND ENTER THE CODE AQUASMX4 TO DOWNLOAD YOUR COMPLIMENTARY PASSES RATED PG-13 FOR SEQUENCES OF SCI-FI VIOLENCE AND ACTION, AND FOR SOME LANGUAGE.
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.
IN THEATERS DECEMBER 21 Soundtrack Available Now aquamanmovie.com #Aquaman | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
41
KentStage The
=HGÍM FBLL MA>L> @K>:M LAHPL MB<D>ML HG L:E> GHP
THIS WEEK’S SHOWS ARE GRACIOUSLY SPONSORED BY
Spyro Gyra
Fri Dec. 14
First Snow Trans Siberian Orchestra Tribute Sat Dec. 15
Keller Williams Pettygrass Sat Jan 19
12/12 | 8PM | $15
FRODE GJERSTAD TRIO PLUS ONE 12/13 | 7:30PM | FREE
TRI-C VOCAL WINTER JAZZ CONCERT 12/14 | 8PM | $15
DEBBIE GIFFORD QUARTET: ‘TIS THE SEASON TO BE JAZZY 12/15 | 1PM | $20
HOLI”DAY” FIESTA WITH BOBBY SANABRIA 12/15 | 8PM HUBB’S HOLIDAY GROOVE CELEBRATION
FEAT. MARIAMA WHYTE
Cowboy Mouth Nathan & The Zydeco Cha Chas Thu Feb. 14 & Fri Feb 15
Hard Day’s Night Sat. Feb 23
Bob James
Sun Feb.24
12/16 | 6PM | $25 THE GOSPEL MUSIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESENTS
AN EVENING OF CHRISTMAS MUSIC 12/19 | 7PM | $15
PETE CAVANO & JOE HUNTER 12/20 | 8PM | $12
BROKEN ORNAMENTS:
A HOLIDAY CONCERT WITH AN IMPULSE TOWARDS DESTRUKTION 12/21 | 7:30PM | $15
BOB FRANK:
“TRUE STORIES & OUTRAGEOUS LIES” CD RELEASE 12/21 | 11PM | FREE TRI-C JAZZFEST PRESENTS:
JAZZ JAM SESSION
Loudon Wainwright III Thur Feb 28
Graham Nash
Sat Mar 16 @ Akron Civic
Stephen Bishop & Robbie Dupree Sat Mar 2
Pat Metheny SIde Eye Sat. Mar 23
The Earls of Leicester Tue. Mar 5
David Wilcox & Mary Nielson Chapman Fri. March. 29
ALL SHOWS AT THE KENT STAGE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED Tickets available at thekentstage.com or 877-987-6487 GMK [w cw i {{ © a{ B e~ JJHJF
12/22 | 8PM | $20
DAN WILSON’S ELECTRIC ENSEMBLE 12/23 | 7PM | $20
HERB WILBORN JR. “CHRISTMAS SERENADE”
INVITE YOU AND A GUEST TO AN ADVANCE SCREENING
Wednesday, December 19 at 7:00 PM Regal Crocker Park Visit www.sonyscreenings.com
and enter the code ESCAPEVV20068 for your chance to download your complimentary passes
No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. One pass per person. Each pass admits two. Passes are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis, while supplies last. No phone calls please. Seating is not guaranteed
IN THEATERS JANUARY 4 @EscapeRoom
#EscapeRoomMovie
42
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
@Escape_Room
EscapeRoom.Movie
$5 mules HAPPY HOUR
till 8p
m DAI
LY
SLASH
BOOK YOUR PARTY TODAY FOR FREE.
LOVES OUR GAMEROOM!
GO TO TIMEWARPBAR.COM FOR RESERVATIONS
• BIG BALL BOWLING • BILLIARDS • SHUFFLE PUCK • GOLDEN TEE • POWER PUTT • NBA JAM
BACHELORETTE, CORPORATE, BIRTHDAY OR ANY OCCASION.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14
DISCO INFERNO SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15
SPAZMATICS
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28
BREAKFAST TRICKY DICK & THE COVER UPS CLUB
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29
DISCO INFERNO
“Coolest local live band venue I’ve seen in a long time” - Slash
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21
FACTION
MONDAY, DECEMBER 31
NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY! THAT 80’s BAND
Happy Hour!
POWER HOUR!
KARAOKE
Every Day
sun-Thurs 8-9p
THURSDAY & SUNDAY
Until 8pm!
$2.00 Drinks!
9pm-1am
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
43
44
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
SAVAGE LOVE SLIGHT CHRISTMAS By Dan Savage Straight and married but not boring, and heading to my parents’ house for our first family Christmas since my asshole MAGA brother “stumbled over” the Tumblr blog where the wife and I posted about our sexual adventures. (Pics of MMF threesomes and cross-dressing/pegging sessions, plus some dirty “true enough” stories.) My brother has always been an angry screwup, so he leapt on the chance to send the link to my parents, siblings, and even some close family friends. Our Tumblr blog is still up because we aren’t ashamed. Any advice? — Totally Uncool Malicious Bastard’s Lame Reveal Your Tumblr blog isn’t going to be up for much longer, TUMBLR, as the company that owns Tumblr — Verizon — is ashamed of your blog and the millions of others like it. Tumblr announced last week that all “adult” content is banned as of Dec. 17. And the definition of “adult content” is pretty broad: “photos, videos, and GIFs of human genitalia, female-presenting nipples, and any media involving sex acts, including illustrations.” This is not just a blow to people who use Tumblr for porn — and that’s most people who use Tumblr — but also to the sex work community. Sex workers had already been driven off most other online platforms by anti-sex-work crusaders, and now they are being driven off Tumblr as well. Forcing sex workers off the internet won’t end sex work, the stated goal of anti-sexwork crusaders, but it will make sex work more dangerous — which tells us everything we need to know about the motives of anti-sex-work crusaders. Sex workers weren’t just advertising online, they were organizing — in addition to honing the political argument for decriminalizing sex work, they were screening potential clients and sharing information with each other about dangerous clients. Just like anti-choice/anti-abortion crusaders, anti-sex-work crusaders don’t want to “protect” women; they want to punish women for making choices they disapprove of. (As a general rule: If what you’re doing makes people less safe, you don’t get to claim you’re trying to protect anyone — it’s like claiming you only set houses on fire to drive home the importance of smoke alarms.)
Anyway, fuck your sex-shaming/ smut-shaming brother, TUMBLR. As for the rest of your family, you and the wife should slap smiles on your faces and act like you’ve done nothing wrong — because you haven’t done anything wrong.
How can I explain to my sisters that although I am a free sexual woman, I still prefer men as sexual partners? My sisters are both involved with women and they cannot understand how, with all the awful sexual inequality in the world, I can still be primarily attracted to men. Sometimes I even imagine my sexuality as a gay man’s sexuality in a woman’s body, and I try to explain it to them in this way. I’m not kidding around by asking this question. This is a real issue. — Give It To Me Straight P.S. I have a straight male friend who says he’s a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. What do you think of this? You can’t help who you’re attracted to, GITMS, and the contempt of family members can’t change a person’s sexual or romantic orientation. Your sisters should understand that, since they most likely wouldn’t be with women if the contempt of family members had that kind of power. As for describing yourself as a gay man trapped in a woman’s body and your straight male friend describing himself as a lesbian trapped in a man’s body … Unless the two of you are trans — in which case, you could be homos trapped in the wrong bodies — your friend is just another straight guy mortified by the mess straight people (mostly white, mostly men) have made of the world. You’re also mortified by straightness, GITMS, or at least the sexual inequality that often comes with it. But instead of your straight male friend opting out of heterosexuality (which he can’t do) or you framing your attraction to men as a gay thing to get your sisters off your back (which you shouldn’t have to do), your friend should identify as straight (because he is) and you should identify as someone who doesn’t give a shit what her sisters think (because you shouldn’t).
mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage
HALF HOUR FREE
Real Singles, Real Fun...
1-216-377-6292
More Numbers: 1-800-926-6000 Livelinks.com, 18+ | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
45
WISH YOU WERE HERE. MISSED EVENT? We’reANhiring. CATCH UP WITH SLIDESHOWS. CHECK OUT OPENINGS ONLY AT CLEVESCENE.COM AT CLEVESCENE.COM
PHONE LINES 100’s OF SEXY LATINO SINGLES Meet Hot Latin Locals! Get your FREE trial! 18+ 216.626.7777 440.325.7777 www.questchat.com
ALL KINDS OF SINGLES Straight 216-912-2222 Curious 216-912-6000 FREE Code 3227, 18+
CALL NOW, MEET TONIGHT! FREE to try! 18+ 216.626.7777 / 440.325.7777 Other Cities: 1.888.257.5757 www.questchat.com
EXPLICIT CHAT WITH SEXY LOCALS
Get your FREE TRIAL! 18+ CALL The Night Exchange NOW! 216.502.4388 / 440.499.6400 www.nightexchange.com
FUN SEXY SINGLES
Send Message FREE! 216-912-2222 Use FREE Code 3229, 18+
HOT LOCAL URBAN SINGLES!
Are looking to hook up now! Try it FREE! 18+ 216.367.1010 / 440.424.0303 www.metrovibechatline.com
Make a Connection. Real People, Flirty Chat Call FREE! 216-377-6292 or 800-926-6000 www.livelinks.com 18+
MEET GAY & BI LOCALS
Browse & Respond FREE! 216-912-6000 Use FREE Code 2642, 18+
Where Local Girls Go Wild!
Call 216-377-6290 or 800-700-6666 Try FREE! www.redhotdateline.com
WHERE SINGLES MEET
Listen to Ads & Reply FREE! 216-912-2222 FREE Code 3228, 18+
Playmates Playmatesand and soul soulmates... mates...
+++++
5 STAR MASSAGE by Vanessa
+++++ If you’re looking for a really good massage, look no further! I offer & specialize in deep tissue massage therapy.
Your premier choice for classy & fun entertainment providing firstrate entertainment for all occasion, including a wet & wild bachelor parties, divorce parties, birthday celebrations & retirement parties! Whatever the reason is that you request our services, rest assured that we have what you’re looking for! Our carefully selected adorable playmates cater to any occasion! We offer a diverse selection of exotic, classy, sophisticated & gorgeous ladies for you to choose from.
OUTCALLS ONLY
216-273-5802
Cleveland:
216-377-6336 18+ MegaMates.com 46
| clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
Massage - Certified CARING MASSAGE Days & Evenings, weekends. Warm candlelight atmosphere. Lakewood/West Suburbs Linda 216-221-5935
Massage - Licensced MASSAGE & BODYWORK Now Open in West Park Call or Text 216-774-4399 Open Daily 11am-8pm
SIT DOWN WITH YOUR GUESTS.
LAKEWOOD CLIFFS APARTMENTS 18900 Detroit Extension Newly Renovated 1-2 Bedroom Apts Heat & Water Included Updated Laundry on Site Off Street Parking Air Conditioning Secure Entry Lake and Park Views Call for our Specials 216-392-5384 *****some restrictions apply*****
PARK PLACE Spacious 1BR and 2BR suites available. Steps from Edgewater Park. Heat included. Off-street parking available. 216-392-5384
Relaxation Limited 3834 west 140 st Cleveland Ohio 44111 The Relaxation In Town Walk Ins Welcome 216-671-3813 Relaxationlimited.com 12pm -9 pm Mon -Sat
• WALK-INS WELCOME • Relaxation has never been better! Low rates, great friendly staff.
Personals MAN SEEKING FEMALE Youngish, Hip, Fit, Attractive, 50ish year old- professional black male, 6ft athletic build. Seeking attractive, fit, fun, professional female of any color & ages 38 to late 40’s (no children). Must be interested in travel, fine dining, fitness, art & compassionate. Seeking a life partner interested in marriage & starting a family. No smokers & no drug users please. Contact Dean at 216-577-8306
Bulletin Board WANTS TO PURCHASE minerals and other oil & gas interests. Send details P.O. Box 13557, Denver, CO 80201
Help Wanted NOW HIRING for BRASSICA at the Van Aken District in Shaker Heights! Come and join our busy Sandwich & Salad Shop, known for its exceptional food, nutritious ingredients and remarkably friendly people. Full and part-time hours available. $12+/ hour + Free Meals. Please Apply Online: www.brassicas.com/sh
Cleveland
METRO LOFTS APARTMENT Located at 3307 Scranton Rd., in Cleveland. 216-351-6936. 21 Loft Style Apartments Secured Entry Off-Street Parking Available Pets welcome w/ fee Central A/C
PARKSIDE Spacious 1BR and 2BR suites available. Steps from Lakewood Park. Heat included. 216-392-5384
ADVERTISE
3834 W. 140 ST. | Cleveland, OH 44111
HOURS:
WITH SCENE.
Mon ~ Fri : 12PM ~ 10 PM Sat : 12 PM ~ 8 PM | Sun 1pm - 7pm
Call 216-241-7550 for more information.
Real Estate: West/Suburbs Hedgewood Manor Spacious updated 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom suite, Secured entry, laundry on site. Air conditioning. 440-829-8444.
Escape into a world of total comfort, relaxation and rejuvenation!
Room For Rent For your private appointments West Side Home For more info 216-235-0052
WATERBURY
Real Estate Services
Large, remodeled 1br and 2 BR suites. Heat included. Off-street parking available. 216-392-5384.
LUXURIOUS EXPERIENCE. AFFORDABLE PRICING (440)545-1213 7043 Pearl Rd | Middleburg Heights | 44130 allendeshaunwleeness.com
WINDSOR 1 BR suites. Backs up to Cleveland Metroparks. Heat Included. Secured Entry. Off-Street Parking Available. 216-392-5384
Rentals: West/Suburbs
EDGECLIFF Large, upgraded suites. Heat included. Overlooking the metro parks. Free off-street parking available. 216-392-5384
HOME BUYERS!!!
FREE MONEY!!! DOWN PAYMENT PROGRAM*
BUY YOUR DREAM HOME!!! Plus Get Up To $100k + More*
BROOKSIDE OVAL APARTMENT Located on Park Fulton Oval near the Cleveland Metroparks! 216-351-6936 Choose from any of our newly remodeled 1 & 2 bdrm apartments, all w/ modern kitchens & bathrooms. All feature air-conditioning & Garage parking also available. Brookside is located close to I-480, I-71, and I-90, just minutes from downtown Cleveland. Come home to the beautiful park-like setting of Brookside Apartments! You’ll be happy to call Brookside home.
(216)671-3813
(for new kitchen, new roof, new carpet, appliances, paint, basement waterproofing, windows, heating & cooling)*
ELBUR Located on a private tree lined street, 1BR and 2BR suites available. Off-street parking available. Heat included. 216-392-5384.
Who are you after dark? Free trial for men, always free for ladies.
1-216-377-6290 More Numbers: 1-800-700-6666 Redhotdateline.com 18+
NEVER EVER EVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO BUY A HOME!!! Great Low Fixed Interest Rates* When YOUR dreams come true... OUR dreams come true!!!
440.342.7355 (SELL) To Buy...or Sell
Call Grizzell *Some restrictions will apply *for those who qualify... we consider... Se Habla Espanol
FREE TRIAL
Discreet Chat Guy to Guy
216.626.0320
'//$ #2%$)4 s "!$ #2%$)4 s "!.+2504#9 | clevescene.com | December 12 - 18, 2018
47
OHIO’S PREMIER
SMOKE SHOP & TATTOO SUPPLY
OHIO BLOWN GLASS! At Each Location
HEADQUARTERS! ɞVAPORIZERSɞ The Flintstones! GLASS HOUSE EASTLAKE
Ohio’s Own!
FULL LINE OF CLEANSING PRODUCTS
COLLECTABLES!
Large Selection!
MASKS
Full Line of
SILICONE PRODUCTS
CANVAS ART TraysɞT-Shirts BandanasɞSocks Lanyards Dog Toys & Collars CONES TIPS WRAPS TRAYS
CLEVELAND 4264 Pearl Rd. 216.749.3440
Happy Holidays From The Glass House Family!
BARBERTON GIRARD STRONGSVILLE America’s 19097 Drake Rd. 536 W. Tuscarawas 16 N. State St. #1 Incense 440.572.8287 330.753.0500 330.545.8131
EASTLAKE AKRON 32888 Vine St. 1004 Kenmore Blvd. 330.753.3600 440.942.8668
LORAIN
832 Broadway 440.242.4080
AUTHORIZED DEALER
STORES CLOSED CHRISTMAS DAY Limited Hours Christmas Eve
www.glasshouseohio.com
MANSFIELD
532 Park Ave. West 419.522.1695
Fresh SAGE!