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CONTENTS JUNE 2-15, 2021 • VOL. 51 NO 36
Upfront .......................................5 Feature ..................................... 10 Film .......................................... 15
Arts .......................................... 17 Eat ............................................ 19 Savage Love .............................. 22
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UPFRONT NEWS
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Crazed Rocky River Parents Prove “Critical Race Theory” Means Whatever the Heck You Want It To
A PARADE OF RABID Rocky River parents called for the resignation of schools superintendent Michael Shoaf at a school board meeting last month and sharply criticized a contract with the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio for a series of courses on diversity, equity and inclusion. The so-called “JEDI” program, which the Diversity Center has taught in Rocky River schools since 2013, has lately been seized upon by conservative political groups as a high-mileage wedge issue. A faction of verklempt parents and community members in the western Cleveland suburb conveyed their beliefs that this program is indoctrinating students with hatred of white people and the United States. Like others in Trump circles and Republican-led legislatures around the country, these parents are decrying the JEDI program as an example of “Critical Race Theory” being taught in schools. The frequency and variety of that term’s
usage at the meeting, however, demonstrated just how rapidly it has been evacuated of meaning. Within weeks, Critical Race Theory has become little more than a battle cry, a buzzword to signal anti-wokeness, white persecution and the like. CRT can now infect any person, policy, college course, piece of journalism or speech with poisonous ideas about diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice (which are, in these quarters, bad by definition). Even acknowledging that race exists, and that people of different races have experienced different realities in the United States, is evidently a product of Critical Race Theory. In Rocky River, the JEDI program was the subject of controversy early last month when the district announced that it would expand the courses to younger students. The program, according to its own description, is designed “to empower students to feel confident in who they
are and have the skills to recognize and intervene when others aren’t being included...To enable educators and administrators to engage in conversations about issues that are affecting their students and families... and to engage families and caretakers in gaining the skills to offer solutions to make their school feel more inclusive to all students.” It wasn’t long before certain ideologues and opportunists began encouraging parents to identify the JEDI course for what it really was: a radical Marxist curriculum aimed at overthrowing the United States. Before Rocky River voters voted down a new school levy in April, they received a robocall from Portage County Tea Party leader Tom Zawistowski, who railed against the JEDI program in language so hyperbolic and unhinged it’s astonishing anyone took it seriously. The school district had been infiltrated by “radical Marxist teachers, staff and administrators,” Zawistowski alleged, “who want to
implement the racist, anti-American, nonsensical Critical Race Theory, which indoctrinates your children and grandchildren with race-based hatred of white people, of American history, and of capitalism, with the goal of the communist takeover of our nation.” The JEDI program, for what it’s worth, anticipated (or else responded to) these ravings by explicitly denying that it teaches Critical Race Theory in its online FAQ. The Diversity Center “focuses on shifting behaviors and not beliefs for cultivating inclusive and equitable environments that celebrate differences in the school community,” it says. “DCNEO programs do not: Tell everyone that they are racist. Indoctrinate people into one way of thinking... “DCNEO youth programming focuses on building awareness, understanding, and skills for cultivating a sense of belonging in schools and youth-serving organizations. Social identities, | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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UPFRONT culture, experience, and history impact how individuals navigate the world, including the education system. We provide education on specific social identity groups and how a history of bias and discrimination has impacted (and in some cases still impacts) the way students experience education at-large. However, our youth programming does not include Critical Race Theory as a component.” Good luck convincing the parents who spoke at the meeting Thursday. They claimed to “see through” the rhetoric about diversity and inclusion and “social and emotional learning.” Multiple commenters, echoing Zawistowski, referred to the JEDI program as “Marxist” and “Communist.” Many expressed fears that their children were being brainwashed into hating the United States and white people. Some expressed the belief that matters of race, gender and sexuality were more suited for the home than the classroom. Others were more extreme. “This is very similar to what happened in Nazi Germany,” said one commenter, following in the ironic footsteps of MAGA politicians comparing the Covid vaccine (and other things they don’t like) to the atrocities of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. “Hitler’s brown shirts were thugs and intimidators, much like today’s BLM and Antifa activists. This country has forgotten the lessons of Adolf Hitler.” Others noted that Superintendent Michael Shoaf serves on the board of directors of the Diversity Center, and suggested that the district’s $72,000 contract with the organization represented a clear conflict of interest. The Diversity Center did not respond to a voicemail and emailed request for comment. Shoaf, at the conclusion of the comment period, merely said he thought it’d be a good idea to arrange a meeting with representatives of the anti-CRT group to discuss their concerns. A representative from the organization Ohio Value Voters spoke as well. Ohio Value Voters was present at a recent Ohio Political Summit in Strongsville and is making opposition to “Critical Race Theory” central to its advocacy efforts statewide. Those efforts are bearing fruit. The Strongsville GOP has formed a committee to review
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the curriculum in the Strongsville schools to determine if there are elements of so-called Critical Race Theory there as well. It’s no surprise that this paranoia reached the Ohio Statehouse, one of the nation’s most fertile fields for demented ideas. Last month, Rep. Diane Grendell (R-Chesterland), introduced a bill targeting Critical Race Theory and other “divisive concepts” in Ohio curricula. Her bill would ban state school systems and other state entities from “creating feelings of discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress in individuals on account of his or her race, color, nationality, or sex.” Weeks later, another bill was introduced targeting CRT specifically. Not for nothing, but this is exactly the sort of snowflake language Republicans purport to despise. Legislating against white discomfort? Surreal. Rightwing candidates have also been using the specter of censorship from big tech to rile up their base, but are now supporting legislation that would effectively censor all interpretations of history in which white people are implicated. Free speech for me but not for thee, etc. Further afield, attacks on Critical Race Theory are getting results in spite of their groundlessness. Boise State University, in Idaho, suspended a suite of diversity courses after a complaint from a prominent community member, who’d alleged that he’d seen a video of a white student being forced to apologize for their whiteness in front of their class. The allegations were investigated by a major local law firm and could not be substantiated. Nikole Hannah-Jones, lead author and architect of the New York Times’ 1619 Project — the main target of the anti-CRT camp’s ravings — was last week denied tenure at the University of North Carolina when the university’s Board of Directors intervened on explicitly political grounds and overturned the recommendation of the journalism department. It’s unclear how significant the anti-CRT crowd is in Rocky River, a 95% white community that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. The commenters Thursday promised that they were only the bravest constituents from a large number of families concerned about the JEDI curricula and the scourge of cultural sensitivity broadly. Other residents told Scene that they suspected this was likely a small, though certainly noisy, minority. -Sam Allard
Cleveland Police Officer Previously Investigated for Use of Deadly Force, Using N-Word, Now Suspended for Simply Failing to Do Job Cleveland police detective John Kraynik has been suspended by the city for failing to complete work on cases assigned to him. “Director of Public Safety Karrie D. Howard announces that a Cleveland Police Detective has been suspended without pay for ten (10) days following an internal investigation which began after it was discovered that he failed to properly investigate and/or complete multiple cases assigned to him,” the city of Cleveland said in its daily news release last night. “Detective John Kraynik, 56, was hired in 1996. He is currently assigned to the Fourth District.” Further details were disclosed in Kraynik’s suspension letter: Kraynik “failed to complete 15 investigations” with 12 lacking a felony review form and 13 lacking a final clean-up report. “In failing to complete these reports, you did a disservice to those victims and violated community trust and expectations,” Director Howard said in the letter. Kraynik last appeared in headlines in 2018 when an internal affairs investigation into a separate target eventually involved his personal cell phone, on which investigators discovered multiple texts where Kraynik used the n-word to describe Ohio State football players. Because the messages were sent from his personal cell phone and while off duty, Kraynik faced no discipline besides attending diversity training. In 2005, Kraynik was one of two Cleveland police officers who shot and killed 15-year-old pizza deliveryman robber Brandon McCloud in a 5 a.m predawn search of his family’s house. The officers claimed McCloud lunged from a closet with a knife. A grand jury declined to indict them for shooting the teenager 10 times in his bedroom. -Vince Grzegorek
18 Apply for Ken Johnson City Council Seat By last month’s deadline, eighteen residents of Cleveland’s Ward 4 submitted applications to complete the remainder of Cleveland City Councilman Ken Johnson’s term. The Cleveland Probate Court
had been accepting applications since April 22, after Johnson was officially suspended by a panel of retired justices appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court. Johnson was arrested on corruption charges in February. The panel determined that Johnson›s charges related to his official role and that the public would be adversely affected were he to continue serving as councilman. The Probate Court’s Presiding Judge, Anthony J. Russo, will make a decision based on interviews with the applicants. The court’s magistrate, Jennifer Alexander, told Scene that Russo hopes to make a decision soon. “Judge Russo has found the process to be quite interesting,” Alexander wrote in an emailed statement. “Many qualified candidates with a strong commitment to the ward have applied.” Of the 18 applicants, nine have also pulled petitions at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, signaling their intention to run for a full fouryear term. Lashorn Caldwell, James Gay, Craig Willis, Michael Shomo, Cecil Ekechukwu, Rowland Mitchell, Antoine Tolbert, Deborah Gray and Daniel Sexton are those who have pulled petitions and also applied for the appointment. (Deborah Gray is the twin sister of Delores Gray, who was just appointed to replace Phyllis Cleveland in Ward 5.) APPLICANTS FOR WARD 4 COUNCIL 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
LaShorn K. Caldwell Barbara A Cole-Deberry Dontea T. Gresham James A. Gay Craig E. Willis Shafron E. Hawkins Michael Shomo Marion Gardner Marcia L. McCoy Darnell T. Brewer Jeff Burger Dontez Taylor Cecil Ekechukwu Rowland Mitchell Antoine Tolbert Deborah Gray Daniel Sexton Steven Charron, Jr.
Currently, 17 people — including Ken Johnson himself — have pulled petitions to run in the Ward 4 city council race, which has more candidates than any other ward in the city. Johnson, who is still getting paid his $87,000 per year salary while suspended, intends to appeal his suspension. -Sam Allard
Armond Budish Delivers Underwhelming State of the County Address “We’re normal!” yelped County Executive Armond Budish during his sixth State of the County address, a 30-minute prerecorded video delivered virtually Thursday, April 21, at the City Club of Cleveland. Budish was citing Cuyahoga County’s abundance of fresh water and its historical avoidance of natural disasters and framing these as selling points for business attraction. Why should high-tech manufacturers in need of a reliable supply of fresh water be located in the drought-afflicted states of California, Nevada and Arizona, he wondered? He also mentioned two other “potentially huge” businessattraction projects in development: a microgrid, which would provide continuous electricity to companies
DIGIT WIDGET 255,000 Doses of the Pfizer vaccine delivered at the CSU Wolstein Center mass vaccination site over its 12-week run.
$35 million Amount of federal HUD grant awarded to CMHA to redevelop the Woodhill Homes in BuckeyeWoodhill, one of the first and oldest public housing developments in the country.
12.9% Year-over-year increase in Cleveland home price sales.
3.5% Proposed increase in water rates in 2024 now being considered by Cleveland City Council. Suburbs would face steeper hikes.
even during power outages, and a lakefront plan centered on bike and pedestrian trails. The speech was interspersed with videos and marked by Budish’s overly expressive speaking style. Its purpose was to recapitulate the highs and lows of Cuyahoga County’s Covid response — PPE distribution, food distribution (via the Food Bank), small business grants, etc. — and its tone was generally upbeat, if not exuberant. Budish favorably compared the county’s GDP to peer cities and said the region was positioned to emerge from the pandemic “with strength and vitality.” He stressed that over the past year, the county has begun, at his urging, to apply an “equity lens” to all county projects. For example, he said that in addition to regular road repaving, the county was devoting additional paving resources to historically redlined neighborhoods. He promoted the recently opened mental health diversion center, operated by Oriana House, which he said would remove 500 people per year from the county jail, and highlighted county partnerships that have improved the digital divide and ensured that minority communities had access to Covid testing and the vaccine. One new initiative Budish announced was something he called the “Neighborhood Surge.” The County will be allocating a “surge” of resources to Cleveland’s Central neighborhood. These will be designed to improve internet access, physical infrastructure, (including the local rec center), and job opportunities. KeyBank will also host regular financial literacy programs there. The goal, Budish said, was to have a “transformative and lasting impact” on one of the county’s poorest and most historically marginalized areas. The tenor of the audience Q&A could not have been more divergent. Fielding questions relayed by City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop, Budish was evasive and vague. On the question of how residents could participate in assigning priorities for American Rescue Plan dollars, Budish said he hadn’t yet learned the rules, but was “open to” citizen participation. On the question of declining public transit ridership and the fact that many of county’s top employers aren’t accessible via public transit, Budish spoke about other elements from his climate action plan. When pressed, he said he wasn’t in charge of public transit. On a series of questions about the proposed new county jail, | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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UPFRONT Budish affirmed that the county had the debt capacity to build and pay for a new facility, but provided no meaningful details about the process. On a question about organized labor, and recent actions by the Cuyahoga County Library that may eliminate unionized janitorial jobs, Budish pleaded ignorance and said he had a history of supporting unions. -Sam Allard
Admit it. Gov. Mike DeWine’s Vaccine Lottery is Brilliant Gov. Mike DeWine faced an embarrassment of riches. After 19,000 deaths, Ohio’s Covid vaccine supply finally outstripped demand. Still, less than 40 percent of the population was fully vaccinated. Now came the hard part. If we were to ever reopen schools and stores, put people back to work and resume our former lives, he would have to convince the recalcitrant to get their shots. Every state was facing the same predicament, though it was especially acute in conservative lands. Those who understood the value of medicine charged the gates when the first doses appeared. Yet now he had to cultivate those on the sidelines of civic life: People too busy with jobs and kids to take the time. Non-English speakers struggling under all the noise. The young who’d been impervious to health concerns since time immemorial. The poor who assume that healthcare is a luxury. (The shot is free.) Then came the defiantly ignorant. Or more accurately, DeWine’s own party. They’d fought him every step of the way, from protesting outside his health director’s home to denouncing the slightest safety precautions. The result was the strangest resistance movement in U.S. history: Masses dead-set on harming themselves and those around them, if only to own the libs. Their fearmongering would make the Chinese secret service proud: The vaccine caused sterility and miscarriages. It contained microchips and “nanotransducers.” More people died from the vaccine than Covid itself. If you were a low-information citizen, the kind who clung to the first thing that crossed your Facebook feed, you believed. Doctors
were out the get you. But while they might call themselves “patriots,” this was more fashion statement than committed philosophy. The good of the country was nowhere to be found in their semi-articulate rage. It was all about “rights,” “liberty,” Me. Beneath all the bluster, they were little more than garden-variety narcissists. As anti-vax Dr. Elizabeth Laffay recently put it in testimony before the Ohio Legislature: It was not her “responsibility to put the health of the greater good before the health of myself as an individual.” The rest of us assumed that reason, science, and study would eventually carry the day. We were morons. DeWine held a keener grasp of human nature. He would bribe them. The governor announced a lottery for the newly vaccinated, with $1 million winners and college scholarships for the young. Vaccinations surged. So did the harrumphing. “I do not support using game show gimmicks with our federal tax dollars,” said state Rep. Jon Cross (R-Kenton). “Using taxpayer dollars to incentivize something of this nature is an abuse of public resources,” added Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland). House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes (D-Akron) called it a “a grave misuse of money that could be going to respond to this ongoing crisis.” Yet DeWine was responding to the crisis – with artful prudence. Amid Ohio’s $69 billion biennial budget, a few million was couch cushion change. Especially compared to the cost of hospitalizing all those who would otherwise be sick or dead. More to the point: It worked. Ohio’s vaccination rate rose 28 percent. He was literally saving lives. Countrywide, the infection rate is now on a five-week decline. But when you remove the vaccinated from the stats, the death and affliction rates are the same as they ever were. If you’re a true patriot — rather than the fashionista variety — you know “we all do better when we all do better,” as the late Sen. Paul Wellstone liked to say. By appealing to pure self-interest, DeWine showed us a faster way of getting there. -Pete Kotz
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scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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Illustration: Tyler Gross
THE POWERLESSNESS OF SPORTS AGAINST THE POWER OF SPORTS
The Cleveland pro sports team alliance for social justice shows its limits and contradictions By Vince Grzegorek THE IRONY, IT SEEMED, WAS lost on most everyone. On Sept. 22, 2020, the Cavs, Browns and Indians celebrated National Voter Registration Day in advance of the November elections with a nonpartisan voter registration drive in the atrium of the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Held in partnership with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and local democracy-building nonprofit Cleveland VOTES, the drive was a natural outgrowth of the
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newly created Cleveland professional sports team alliance for equality and social justice. That alliance, formed in August 2020 in response to and during a summer of social justice protests and advocacy that saw players lead game and practice strikes across the leagues, was a commitment to bring the power and voices of the organizations as a whole into the conversation. By its own description, the alliance would “focus on improving
the relationship between law enforcement and its citizens, encouraging nonpartisan voting activities and increasing the opportunities for quality education for everyone” in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. “The social and economic disparity in our community reveals some ugly truths,” Cavs GM Koby Altman said at the time. “We never take for granted our place in the fabric of Cleveland, and hopefully our coming together inspires others
to join us.” “We understand the platform our organization has to make a positive impact on these important issues,” added Browns GM Andrew Berry. And for the Indians, President Chris Antonetti said, “We recognize the profound impact that professional sports have on the greater Cleveland community, and the enormous responsibility that comes with such a platform.” That the Cavs, Indians and Browns figure prominently in the
fabric of Cleveland is obvious and indisputable, and that they would join others in the social justice movement is welcomed given that fact, even if many of their sister organizations entered the conversation only after players used their leverage and star power to stop games. (To the Browns’ credit, the team formed a social justice committee in 2019.) Using their prominence and outsized voice, then, to register voters before the November elections was a natural decision to fulfill the alliance’s mission, and it came with glitz and star power. Custom t-shirts proclaiming “Cleveland Turns Up to Vote” were made in partnership with ILTHY, a PSA featuring Baker Mayfield, Kevin Love, Terry Francona and others was aired to spread the message, the Cavs posted voter registration information and worked with the county to open Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse as a voting location, and mascots were in attendance for the four-hour registration drive in September. “The Cavaliers organization has a long-standing record of supporting voter registration initiatives and promotions,” the team proudly said in a release. The effort, which the alliance tells Scene registered more than 1,000 voters, was laudable. That the Cavs participated with a straight face was laughable. They were, most seemed to not notice or care, advocating for participatory democracy in the House That Didn’t Quite Kill Local Democracy But Did Give It a Gaping Head Wound. The atrium of the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse was built as part of the Q Transformation deal, which Cleveland should never forget was a mortgage on the city’s future to sate its private masters, forged through a series of stunning, craven anti-democratic moves by all involved, including but not limited to: city council’s initial refusal to accept and certify signatures for a ballot referendum on the city’s $88 million portion of the bill; Dan Gilbert’s decision to petulantly and unilaterally pull out of the deal once the signatures were ordered to be certified by the Ohio Supreme Court, thus putting the issue on the ballot; the fear-mongering quotes from Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and others calling the death of the deal a death knell for the arena and a real reason the Cavs could leave town; and the backroom dealings and pressure
that forced the Greater Cleveland Congregations to pull the ballot initiative despite widespread public support garnered by one of the few successful grassroots campaigns in recent memory. So, yeah: A voter registration drive in that building given that history is more than a little ironic. And the irony isn’t beside the point. The irony is the point. If the pro sports team alliance looks around the local democratic landscape they’ll find a longdisenfranchised and/or uninterested electorate. Only 53% of registered Cleveland voters cast a ballot in the November 2020 election, fewer than in any presidential election since 2000. The numbers turn from bad to ghastly in local elections. Only 13% of Clevelanders cast a ballot in the last mayoral election. (Frank Jackson has presided over an abysmal era of voter turnout over his four terms, with 20,000 fewer voters in each election.) Turnout is even lower for city council races in certain wards, where a few dozen votes can swing a race. And no one, least of all Cleveland’s pro sports teams, should be surprised. As Scene’s Sam Allard wrote in the aftermath of the 2020 election: “For Cleveland’s leaders, the electorate is a thing to be marshaled and deployed every four years, at which time they are expected to fill in the bubble for the Democratic candidate. This is what voters mean when they say that they are ‘taken for granted.’ “For voters, it is not only a sense of apathy and despair over presidential politics that keeps them at home. It’s no doubt true that impoverished Clevelanders are so accustomed to their misery that they’re unlikely to be convinced that a vote for one or another candidate will improve the material conditions of their lives. It has not in the past. But it’s also true that they’ve tried to improve their lives, and every time they’ve done so at the local level, they’ve been shut out. “Though they’d deny it up and down, Cleveland City Council has made shutting out voters its preeminent mission. They communicate nothing with as much regularity and strength. Any councilperson bemoaning low voter turnout should recall that they forbid residents from offering public comment at council meetings; that they appoint their own successors, robbing residents of the ability to elect their own representatives; and that they work tirelessly to ensure
that citizen petitions are invalidated or sabotaged.” There’s no arguing with getting out the vote, and to the alliance’s credit, they told Scene, “We will continue our efforts to register fans to vote for the upcoming elections,” which will determine the city’s next mayor, and that Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse will hold multiple registration dates this fall. But if they’re looking for gratitude for handing Cleveland a Band-aid for the head wound they helped cause, they should look elsewhere. And if you’re looking for the alliance’s opinion on HB 294, a proposed Ohio bill that would restrict early and absentee voting, you won’t find one. You can, however, read an op-ed from Browns’ offensive tackle and Players Coalition member Chris Hubbard titled, “Fighting systemic racism now involves protecting our right to vote in Ohio.” “WE’VE MADE A LOT OF progress in less than a year, but it’s important to recognize we’re just in the initial phase and start of this long-term journey,” the alliance told Scene. “Staff members from all three teams have been meeting on a weekly basis as a full group since the beginning. Sub-groups focused on individual pillars of the CL3 Alliance have also been meeting on a regular basis as well.” On the education pillar work, the alliance had this to share. “The Education Taskforce has met with leaders in the education space, including CMSD, East Cleveland City Schools, Breakthrough Schools, Cleveland Foundation, Say Yes to Education – Cleveland and College Now Greater Cleveland,” the alliance said. “These discussions were focused on truly understanding the digital divide and equity in education landscapes in Cleveland and East Cleveland, our initial geographic areas of focus. The Alliance is now considering how the collective group will activate and support those points of focus in Cleveland and East Cleveland.” Cleveland’s digital divide is not new, and it is bad. According to the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Cleveland is the fourth worst-connected city in the country, and the lack of access, mapped geographically, is concentrated on the east side and basically mirrors historic redlining maps. Nearly 30% of homes in Cleveland are completely unconnected. In Cuyahoga County, 51% of households making $20,000 or less don’t have internet access.
And the digital divide’s acute impact on low-income families was exacerbated during the pandemic as CMSD schools went fully remote for nearly a year in a city where CMSD families had little access to get their kids connected online: Nearly 40% of CMSD households lack internet and nine schools within the district are located in neighborhoods where that number climbs to more than 50%. To temporarily bridge the divide during the pandemic, CMSD spent $14 million on new equipment — partially funded by a $100,000 KeyBank grant and a $151,466 state grant — that included 13,500 WiFi hotspots (with data for one year at a total of $3 million) and 27,000 tablets and computers (that must be returned after graduation). Citywide, the efforts are similarly piecemeal. DigitalC, a nonprofit that brings affordable internet ($18/month) to low-income areas in Cleveland, currently services 1,000 homes in Fairfax, Hough, Central, Glenville, Clark-Fulton and Buckeye-Woodhill. Cobbling together grants and donations, it hopes to increase that number to 3,000 and then 6,000 by the end of the year. It’s doing so with a mix of technologies, including tapping into the citizens broadband radio spectrum. But, as DigitalC’s CEO Dorothy Baunach told Cleveland.com, “There’s no way to do this without fiber in the ground. But to dig up this city and do what we’re planning to do would cost, I don’t know, hundreds of millions of dollars to put fiber in the ground to every house.” Perhaps in the coming year the alliance chips in with a donation that would provide WiFi hotspots or equipment for families or cuts a $1 million check to DigitalC to further its work. (Cleveland Indians Charities last year raised $50,000 to help the Breakthrough charter schools in Cleveland purchase hotspots and Chromebooks for students learning at home.) Every little bit counts in closing the gap, and the more impetus and speed behind solutions, the better. But there’s little mystery here. It’s about money. “It’s how fast can we get our city connected,” Baunach said. “Because every day that a family isn’t connected is a day that their health suffers, their education suffers and their access to economic opportunity suffers.” But relying wholly on private investment won’t solve the problem, and relying wholly on private investment is how we got here in the first place. Samantha Schartman is the | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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chief executive of Connected Insights, a company that provides data research and consulting for nonprofits. She’s also one of the authors of “Connecting Cuyahoga,” a report which detailed Northeast Ohio’s sharp digital divide. She told Eye on Ohio last year that “the situation will not improve until city and county governments decide to prioritize digital equity by giving residents a way to get efficient broadband.” And who’s getting left behind? Poor people. (Not for nothing, but while the Alliance says team averages are around $16 for nonunion part-time employees, the starting wage for some positions is $11 for the Cavs, $9.60 for the Indians and $9.50 for the Browns.) “Digital inclusion leadership in the country is more the exception than the rule,” she said. “Ohio does not lead in this way, and that is why we are one of the worst connected cities and one of the worst connected counties in the country.” And the failure of local leaders is to bring reliable internet is directly tied to a lack of economic development in neighborhoods. “That means, when we are looking around at our local economy and we’re not seeing the jobs, we’re not seeing industry coming here. This is just one of the reasons we are not competitive.” Cleveland City Council President and Cleveland mayoral candidate Kevin Kelley knows all this. Closing the digital divide has been a pet cause of his for years and has become a key component of his mayoral platform. In an op-ed last May, Kelley wrote, “We cannot just continue to talk about the problem... There are solutions available and now is the time to identify the right solutions for Cleveland, both short-term and long-term. Now is the time.” Kelley has first-hand knowledge of how well a public solution can work: In 2011, using some federal money along with some city revenue and ward-specific money, he brought his constituents free internet with Old Brooklyn Connects. Covering 4.5 square miles, the network provides basic WiFi service levels (not suitable for gaming or for a household’s multiple devices all streaming at the same time) to thousands of homes and businesses. In a speech on the steps of City Hall officially announcing his candidacy for mayor, Kelley said his number-one policy priority, which he cited in both prepared remarks and in a question about how he’d spend federal coronavirus aid, was ending
Using the atrium of the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse to launch a voter registration drive was a stunningly ironic decision.
the digital divide. The problem, as always, is money. If the estimate for digging and laying fiber to fully connect every Cleveland household is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the estimate to do a fraction of that using workarounds and other tech to put a serious dent in the divide is still high — $40 million, according to DigitalC. The massive federal coronavirus aid relief could be used to fund a solution, but it also represents a once-in-a-lifetime windfall subject to heated debates on its deployment to any number of suitable and deserving causes and politicians tasked with making wise decisions. And recent Cleveland history has proved, if nothing else, that it’s a fool’s errand to trust leaders to invest in the city and its citizens and not chase magic bullets or pour resources into subsidizing the corporate community. Kevin Kelley, again, knows this, as chief co-conspirator in the Q Deal. According to the Georgia Law Review: “Before 1948, there were only twenty-eight professional sports stadiums and only four were built with a modest amount of government funds. Over the next half of the 20th century, American sports teams spent over $20 billion on stadiums for the four major American sports leagues of which, conservatively, taxpayers paid $14.727 billion.” Here’s the system we’ve built: Owners hold infinitely appreciating assets in the franchises themselves while running them, without the nagging problems of property tax or paying for repairs, in constantly depreciating assets owned by the public. To sweeten the deal, the stadiums and arenas become obsolete in short order. At which time the owners come back and ask the city/county to build a new one or dramatically renovate the old one. It’s insanity, and bad policy, as
noted by an ever-growing body of research that says the economic impact claimed by cherry-picked consultants and tourism bureaus are not just exaggerated but wrong. Taxpayers have simply not gotten anywhere close to a return on their investment and had their basic services needs ignored in favor of a farcical trickle-down stadium theory of local economics where the trickle never even gets to their door. But professional sports owners hold almost complete sway over local politicians, so cities come back to the table again and again and again to open the public coffers, held hostage by owners who can always head-nod at a better offer down the street and the rabid fanbase that’d beat down the door of the man who let them leave. Cleveland’s been no different. And now the sin tax well is dry (in fact, the county has had to borrow tens of millions of dollars as an advance on future sin tax revenue to pay for upgrades required by Gateway leases), the city will be paying off its $88 million contribution (before interest) to the Q Transformation until 2034, (while it won’t even finish paying off its debt from the original construction of the thenGund Arena until 2023), Destination Cleveland forked over $44 million for the deal, Cuyahoga County is out $16 million, the Haslams are at Frank Jackson’s desk with a dazzling lakefront plan that could cost $229 million with Lord knows how much covered by Cleveland taxpayers, and with the Indians’ lease at Progressive Field up in 2023, the Gateway Development Corporation is already talking about novel ways to drum up public funds to pay for the upgrades the team will assuredly demand in exchange for signing on the dotted line and County Executive Armond Budish has said the Q Deal is the kind of deal he’d like to make with the
team. If the alliance is looking for huge sums of money that could be spent on solving a public problem, it could check their offices. DigitalC says $40 million would begin to put a dent in the digital divide. Imagine a better-negotiated Q Deal, one that saw Cleveland’s contribution at a mere $48 million instead of $88 million. Imagine refusing to pay a cent for the arena renovations and instead using the entirety of the admissions tax collected to expand WiFi access to thousands of homes a year. Imagine, as states like Iowa and New Hampshire allow, Cleveland using government bonds not for the Q but for a publicly owned broadband network to fully close the digital divide, paid off by a decade of admission taxes? Imagine Dan Gilbert, the 23rdrichest human being on the entire planet, the Haslams, one of only eight billionaire families in the state of Ohio, and the Dolans putting their hands back in their pockets, or at least local leaders who would tell them to instead of bending over backward to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare while residents live in desperate, sustained poverty without access to basic services. It’s certainly hard to, especially when ‘Cleveland’s Living Room,” as the Cavs so affectionately called the renovated arena, has 20 gigabit LAN connections and a 77,000 squarefoot-facade that can be lit in 1,500 different color combinations while a kid sitting in an actual living room in Hough can’t even get on the internet. THE ALLIANCE’S THIRD PILLAR, Law Enforcement, presents an area in which the three professional sports teams have the fewest, if any, conflicts, but also an area in which it | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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hasn’t set its sights very high. Per the alliance: “The 3-Team law enforcement working group came together to focus on building and strengthening relationships between law enforcement and the community. As a first step, the working group set out on a listening tour in order to better understand the ongoing efforts, as well as concerns or tensions in the community. After speaking with a variety of law enforcement organizations and leaders as well as community organizations, the overwhelming demand signal was to leverage the 3-Team platform to create opportunities for dialogue.” Dialogue is good, and though it’s not a new idea, leveraging the team’s star power and reach to bring sides together is certainly something it can do that ranks somewhere north of stamping JUSTICE on the sideline. It does, however, seem not just the path of least controversy and resistance but a path at least partially divergent from the social justice movement that precipitated the alliance’s formation. Namely, a movement concerned with racism and police killing Black men and women. It would be ideal, and more aligned with the cause, for the alliance to take a harder stand and publicly come out in favor of solutions that address those issues – for example, the ballot initiative from Citizens for a Safer Cleveland that would amend the city of Cleveland’s charter to create stronger civilian oversight of the police department, or proposed police reforms from Gov. Mike DeWine that have stalled as Americans mourned the oneyear anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. As it stands, the alliance has instead focused on how residents can better understand law enforcement and, ostensibly, the other way around as well. Along with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and the Cleveland Police Foundation’s Pipeline Program, the Alliance hosted its first “Conversations for Change” event in February, bringing 50 students together with Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams and a group of officers. “The intent of the forum was to create small group dialogue between law enforcement officers and students,” the alliance told Scene. “Using a music video by Lil Baby (‘The Bigger Picture’) as the catalyst for discussion, the groups quickly engaged in real issues and
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concerns. The session wrapped up with students sharing what they discussed in their small group. Finally, the group moderator, Kevin Clayton, gave everyone an ‘I Will’ challenge.” The alliance held a virtual follow up in March with the students to hear what they’d been thinking about since the first session and “to follow up on their I Will challenges.” A second engagement was held at the Power of Sports Summit at Progressive Field in April. If the police officers also completed I Will challenges, no one bothered to follow up. PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAMS employ thousands of people, and like in any large organization, those employees represent every shade of the political spectrum. You’re as likely to find someone with a Trump 2024 sign in their front yard as you are to find someone with a Black Lives Matter sign in their living room window. For every liberal darling like Steve Kerr, there’s a MAGAhumping Bill Belichick. For every Andrew Hawkins, who wore a ‘Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford’ t-shirt during pre-game introductions in 2014, there’s a Dee Haslam, who donated cash to the Cleveland police union so the amateur cop football team, which at that time included Timothy Loehmann, the former Cleveland cop who shot and killed Rice, could fly to California for a game. Even in a PSA on the safety of Covid-19 vaccines produced by the Cleveland pro sports team alliance, there’s only the illusion of unity – Indians’ ace relief pitcher James Karinchak, for example, has lately used his modest Instagram bully pulpit to share to share disgusting thoughts equating public health campaigns promoting vaccinations to tactics used by Nazi Germany. By simply focusing its efforts on issues of equality, the Alliance finds itself on the left of many of the teams’ employees, and building consensus for messaging naturally has to accommodate for that. The Alliance is also hamstrung by the fact that it’s left of the fans who love the teams, generally, and certainly left of the majority of ticketholding fans. Coming out against a repressive GOP-led voting bill or in favor of wholesale police oversight reform shouldn’t be but is likely an untenable ask in the face of possible backlash. Those limitations and tight public relations navigations, though, pale in comparison to the biggest obstacle.
While executives from the upper echelons of all three teams have participated in some form in the alliance, including “ownership involvement at various points,” the alliance has no seat at any meaningful table. The owners are the ones dumping massive campaign donations into the coffers of their preferred candidates and using their outsized power and presence in the corridors of power at City Hall, Cuyahoga County and the Statehouse to shape decisions, like how to spend public money. Owners are also, by and large, a right-leaning lot, beholden to Republicans for acquiescent regulation and tax policy, amoral in most situations where their bottom line is concerned. (In what might feel like an extreme example, in an ESPN report last year on pro sports owners turning to dark money donations to escape public disclosure of their Trump support, one owner mused, “I’m so worried about Biden’s regulations, so I’m funding as much as I can privately and confidentially to get Trump reelected. I know he’s crazy, and I hope Democrats take the House and the Senate, but then Trump can block stuff and protect us on the taxes and regulation.”) The point was money talks, both for the owners and for the elected officials who’ll grant them access and legislative favors. And the importance of that financial relationship is even more pronounced locally, where owners are not one in a long list of uber-rich supporters begging for attention but one of a small handful of powerful people that mayors and county executives feel they can’t afford to ignore. And they’ve used that access, and that leverage, to pilfer every last public cent they can. Cleveland’s elected leaders have been all too happy to play along, mortgaging the future and ignoring the essential services they pay lip service to during campaigns as the actual remedies to improving the daily lives of everyday Clevelanders. It’s how they get their campaigns funded, after all. Gilbert and a lengthy list of Cavs, Jack Entertainment, Bedrock Detroit and Rocket Companies executives poured money into Council President Kevin Kelley’s campaign coffers for his work in jamming the Q Deal down Cleveland’s throats. In advance of the Browns’ proposed lakefront project making its way through the public process, the Haslams each contributed max individual donations to Kelley’s mayoral
campaign in December and were joined with smaller donations from the team’s Executive Vice President and COO David Jenkins and Ted Tywang, the team’s general counsel and Vice President of the Haslam Sports Group. All three teams like to talk about being good corporate citizens – a promise to be just that appears on the Indians’ diversity initiatives webpage – and local leaders use the same language – Cleveland’s Chief of Regional Development, Ed Rybka, recently praised the Browns’ lakefront proposal, one whose funding is a complete mystery to everyone but the Haslams and Frank Jackson, as a chief example of them being just that. The problem is that the asking them to be good corporate citizens has been a raw deal for most Clevelanders. They’re corporations first, whose paramount concern is profit, and whose voice and power as corporate citizens dwarf and silence those of regular citizens. Being a good corporate citizen also almost exclusively means charity. It means cutting a check, returfing a school’s football field, sponsoring a scholarship, or enlisting the well-heeled fans of the teams to do so on their behalf. It’s a pittance compared to the resources they’ve sucked from communities, but the leaders who sold you out get to claim community benefits and the teams get to parade around town as generous philanthropic benefactors. It’s also what the CL3 Alliance is doing so far (paying for the fireworks at the inaugural Juneteenth Freedom Fest, for example) when what the moment calls for, and what their pillars of social justice emphasis demand, is wholesale policy change as well as internal and external reflection on what role the teams have played in undermining those causes. (It’s also worth remembering that, as United Way of Greater Cleveland CEO August Napoli correctly pointed out last year, advocating for policy solutions is far more effective for putting a dent in issues like poverty than writing a check.) If “the social and economic disparity in our community reveals some ugly truths,” as Koby Altman said in the launch of the CL3 Alliance, some of those ugly truths can be found on the doorsteps of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, FirstEnergy Stadium and Progressive Field.
scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene
FILM
SHHHHH
Photo courtesy Paramount Pictures
A Quiet Place Part II is a solid-ass sequel By Sam Allard RAKISH HEARTTHROB CILLIAN Murphy is in many ways an antiJohn Krasinski. In physical size, off-screen persona, and on-screen energy, the two are practically opposites. One is Irish, lean, private to the point of reclusivity and morally ambiguous. The other is American, brawny, sentimental to the point of mawkishness and heroic by personal preference. One of them is a very good actor, and it’s not John Krasinksi. The Peaky Blinders star is bearded and emotionally frayed as the newest member of the ensemble cast in A Quiet Place Part II, which opened last Friday nationwide. His presence elevates what is already an entertaining, high-voltage actionthriller script that builds on the success of the 2018 original. In defiance of the standard Hollywood playbook, Part II is a relatively modest expansion of the world previously introduced. The bad guys are still alien monsters who are hypersensitive to sound. There is no alien mothership now hovering, no outer-space chases now afoot, and no U.S. military now doing battle on the streets of a major American city. The sequel still takes place in the woods and small towns of upstate New York, and the gimmick – and the chief source of the film’s thrills – remains the same: everyone has to stay silent to avoid detection and death at the monsters› claws. Directed once again by
Krasinski, Part II features Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) and her three children searching for safety after the violent barnyard encounter with which the first film concluded. The hearing-impaired eldest daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), has devised a way to fight back against the monsters and might have a way to broaden the scope of her methods. But in order to be sure, she has to test out her theory a two-day hike away. A new acquaintance, Emmett (Murphy) is enlisted to track her down. Meantime, Evelyn and her injured son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and a new baby must find ways to survive in an abandoned industrial facility. The genius of the script is that every humdrum activity is imbued with life-and-death stakes when it must be completed in silence. It’s evident that a Part III is on the horizon, and this second installment deftly bridges the gap between opener and closer. The action is creatively staged to maximize both visual and aural thrills and the cast thrives via facial expression in the relative absence of dialogue. An opening prologue that revisits the day the aliens arrive will likely be the most heart-pounding action of the year until F9drops in a few weeks. This is what a solid sequel looks like.
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sallard@clevescene.com t@scenesallard | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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| clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
ARTS HEAVYHITTERS
“AlmostREAL” with artists Liz Maugans and Douglas Max Utter now on view at HEDGE Gallery By Shawn Mishak HEDGE GALLERY IN 78TH Street Studios is presenting the long-anticipated exhibition “AlmostREAL” featuring the latest works by Liz Maugans and Douglas Max Utter. The show opened last week and runs through July 2nd. “AlmostREAL” merges two heavy hitting Cleveland artists into one optic orchestra. Liz Maugans brings her subtle wit, resplendent colors and contextual messaging, while Douglas Max Utter presents his somber reckonings drawing from family photos and television shows, conjuring up the past, both exploiting the observed moment with from and color. “Almost Real is not so much a description of the work I do, or that Liz Maugans does, but is an attempt to emphasize the peculiar nature of the way that our various art practices respond to and use the events and furnishings of our lives,” says Utter. “Liz builds a network of allusions to her daily experience in some prints and drawings, and at other times creates richly layered scenarios of fragments that evoke bigger, more transformative lifesituations. The intention was to generate the conditions for a new sort of potent psychological imagery that celebrated and mourned universal human events and emotions, on a level that could read as very immediate, personal, and process-generated.” Utter is a timeless grand master of the ‘Cleveland order of artists who is also a writer, a poet and a teacher. His piece “Thoughts of An Island” is an image of a young woman, stoic yet mournful, staring out at an ocean of trouble, resigned to a reprieve that is ever-evading. It features Utter’s quintessential stark white face detailed in black smear and shrouded by swaths of color and abstract shapes which he makes fall effortlessly into place with an abandoned which comes with a lifetime of experience. There are a few self-portraits of Utter in the show. “Bathroom Mirror” depicts Utter, shirtless and
vulnerable with his back turned on himself, his face weary. The back of his head is reflected while we see a white bird out the window perhaps to represent the loss of freedom which comes with age. White birds throughout history have been known to symbolize peace, purity, hope or the classic religious representation the Holy Spirit, which would not be far from Utter’s wheelhouse, as he periodically references religious iconography. “Visit to Trempealeau” is based on a black and white Kodak photograph of Utter’s grandmother and his father when he was about 3 years old, along with two other family members, with a goat in the foreground adding a layer obscurity. The two women are in traditional garb with two young boys, one petting the horned, black goat. Two of the figures’ faces are smeared with red paint and two with blue distorting their image in Utter fashion. It is disturbing while still playful. In all of Doug’s work he provides a narrative evoking conversations, examination and contemplation. It is not so much in the subject matter of the images as it is in the poetry of color, texture and technique which bring together stunning works of contemporary art with all the transformative complexity we long for. “Why a goat?” asks Utter. “There was no goat in the original photo, although there is another picture in the same album of my Dad when he was maybe eight years old, with his sister Ann, riding in a Little Rascals kind of cart pulled by the very same black goat, with long, biblical-looking horns. It is quite clear both in the photograph and in my work that these were not happy people, not at least on that day in their lives. But their existence is what fascinates me, the power and presence that they project, the common humanity that they so obviously share with just about anyone; and the fact that their blood flows in my veins, and other things – bits of knowledge and personal, family experience, tricks of speech,
Douglas Max Utter
“Thoughts of an Island”
and appearance. Paintings are always about that – about the strangeness of life.” Liz Maugans’ work is steeped in vivacious color, sometimes cryptic phrasing, and interludes of repetition of geometric shapes, and in this series, what she describes as ‘mouse holes’ in particular. In one piece, “Casseroles LIE,” she chose to add three digital scales in front of the piece which has two casserole dishes ‘tattooed’ on both thighs as we get the POV from the person weighing themselves. Perhaps this is a commentary on the struggle between body image and the gastronomic ecstasy. “Drive-Thru” is a child-like rendering of what appears to be a tour bus constructed in the words — asymptomatic, stimulus, package, early, severance, EZ pass — intermingled with the cacophonic ‘blah’ we end up perceiving when over-stimulated by TV news or the radio, all interwoven to resemble a corncob on wheels. At the top of the frame there is a marquee reading ‘complacency,’ and the wheels spell out the word TOUR. This piece seems a subliminal commentary on the bombardment of facts, phrases and considerations which have overwhelmed us for the past 17 or so months in the midst of COVID-19 updates on practice and procedures. There is a construction
cone in front of the bus indicating that all of this is a work in progress and we are still trying to overcome the worldwide PTSD which we all continue to process moving forward. “For me, this entire series I am calling, ‘Searching Baseline,’ and is a return to painting and using an abundance of text as image,” reveals Maungans. “The acrylic plasticity in the paintings suggest a languishing, slow, carelessness that is offset in other areas by an obsessive tedium. In ‘Meta Mucil Man,’ sloppy, drippy applied paint the color of Pepto Bismol creates a lethargy in the inactivity of the Lone Ranger head perched, looking West, on the labored-over chaise lawn chair. The equal rows created in the grassy green paint suggest the pattern of a freshly mowed lawn. Regularity and routine reigns for the Lone Ranger.” Whether is be through text, pattern, collage, screen print or paint, Maugans lets the world wash over her like bare feet on a shoreline syphoning out the water and contending with what’s left. She tells a story in a web-like arc verse and Shakespearean three-Sact play. The viewer must be willing to get on the bus with her, take the tour and let her guide.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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? E L C in c a m t s e b e th s a h o h W It’s up to you to decide... Come experience the tastiest food fight and only Mac and Cheese Festival in Cleveland! Cleveland’s finest food trucks will be serving up delicious mac and cheese specials and more all day long. Listen to live acoustic entertainment at the Front St Social Stage, vote for your favorite mac dishes , and share your experiences on social to win prizes. Benefiting local charity W.A.G.S. 4 Kids! S U N DAY, J U N E 6 T H $2 T I C K E T S 11 A . M . - 7 P. M . C U YA H O G A C O U N T Y FA I R G R O U N D S M AC N C H E E S E T H R OW D OW N . C O M 18
| clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
EAT
Photo by Doug Trattner
JOIN THE PARTY
Kindred Spirit is a solid addition to Van Aken’s already solid culinary lineup, even if there’s room for improvement By Douglas Trattner ON A RECENT THURSDAY evening it felt as though Shaker Heights was the epicenter of Northeast Ohio. Every square inch of Van Aken District was activated, from the fully occupied front patios of restaurants like Michael’s Genuine and Kindred Spirit to the grassy knoll, where children scampered over top like ants at a picnic. Tuttle Road, a former through-way, had been converted to green space, more than tripling the existing patio space just outside the Market Hall, which itself was a beehive of activity. If the Van Sweringen brothers could see their sleepy suburban bedroom community now. Despite what has proven to be an unassailable track record with respect to food-and-beverage tenant selection at Van Aken, with a failure or turnover rate approaching nil, there has been one high-profile closure. Sawyer’s, chef Jonathon Sawyer’s last remaining Cleveland eatery, closed at the outset of the pandemic and never reopened. The space was quickly assumed by Forward, the Cleveland-based
hospitality group that already operated the rooftop bar above, Garden City. For Forward CEO Michael Schwartz and team, it was an opportunity to redesign the property from scratch, addressing issues
of the dining room that eliminated the clunky dining platform in the middle of the space. Now, from our seats outdoors, we could see clear into the open kitchen. A quick glance at the chartstyle menu reveals an emphasis on
KINDRED SPIRIT 3396 TUTTLE RD., SHAKER HTS. 216-860-0410 KINDREDSPIRITCLE.COM
with respect to both design and menu. The goal was to make the restaurant more broadly appealing by serving food that was flavorful but conservative. While that might be a win for casual shoppers, it’s a loss for diners who still hope to be pleasantly surprised by a chef’s creations. We strolled up and grabbed seats on the patio, a comfortable mix of tables and soft seating overlooking the central park. The view seemed to improve not just outward, but inward as well thanks to a major renovation
small plates and sharable dishes – “snacky” foods, for lack of a better word. Only four large plates are presented, but there’s no reason those cannot be passed around the table as well. As Alex Trebek would say, “The categories are” -- dips and spreads, vegetables, fish and seafood, kebabs and mains. Many items take advantage of the live-fire cooking equipment that Sawyer left behind, including the kebabs and large plates. The meal started on a high note, with a zippy “orange” wine ($10)
from California and a captivating gin-based cocktail ($10) fortified with black tea. Our opening salvo consisted of a summery salad ($11) with perfectly textured lentils, diced vegetables, nuts and celery leaves in a light, bright dressing. We dragged wedges of plush pita through a mound of creamy hummus topped with wheels of crisp chiles and a sprinkle of warm Middle Eastern spices. Round two revealed a kink in the armor. If I were to guess, our lamb kebabs came off the grill while our fish was still swimming in hot oil. The result was smoking-hot fried fish but tepid meat. Temperature issue aside, the lamb ($13) was well charred, tender and paired with a frothy coconut and curry scented yogurt sauce. Better yet were the uber-crunchy and assertively seasoned whitefish nuggets ($14) that managed to taste even better when dunked in the silky lemonspiked aioli. These dishes might be considered “small plates,” but they are by no means small. Other skewers star shrimp, chicken and tofu. The creativity seems to dip as the plates increase in size. Choices are of the salmon, meat-and-potato and pasta variety. There’s an expertly grilled and sliced hangar steak ($26) paired with roasted spuds, both of which come showered with heaps of smoky paprika. A pungent preserved-mushroom sauce is on the side for a dip. I’m not at all sure what happened with the grilled chicken thigh and polenta dish ($22). The polenta wasn’t so much creamy as it was soupy, submerged beneath a half-inch of olive-flavored broth. We focused on the wood-fire grilled boneless thighs instead. Before or after dinner, diners can make a detour to Garden City. As it happens, the swanky rooftop bar and lounge opened after Sawyer’s had closed, so the two components never had an opportunity to coexist. Now, they enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Guests who snag seats on the highly coveted terrace enjoy elevated views of the entire Van Aken District. To go with that view is a menu of signature cocktails and a truncated selection of small plates from downstairs. Even from this lofty vantage point, it’s nearly impossible to recall the dated shopping plazas and convoluted intersections that Van Aken District replaced. And isn’t that the point?
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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| clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
Photo by Doug Trattner
EAT BITES
Haunted House-themed restaurant to open in former Cleveland Heights Melt Space By Douglas Trattner MELT CLOSED ITS CLEVELAND Heights location last year after a decade in business. Unbeknown to most passersby, there has been a flurry of activity taking place behind the papered-up windows. When guests do return to the prominent space at the eastern edge of the city, they will be blown away by what they discover. “I wanted to get that element of What are you talking about,” says new owner Ryan “DJ Ryan Wolf” Gullatt. “We didn’t want to do anything that anybody else has already done. Billed as “the Haunted House Restaurant, where the only thing that’s scary is how good the food is,” the one-of-a-kind space presently taking shape will pay homage to the pantheon of great horror flicks. As soon as guests cross the threshold they’ll be greeted by the aroma of fresh-popped popcorn. In place of a traditional host stand is the ticket booth. Original artwork celebrates iconic characters like Pennywise, Slimer and Frankenstein’s monster. And staffers will dress in theater usher uniforms. Along with partners Andre Scott, Jeremiah Burks and Christopher Thomas, Gullatt has enlisted some high-power help with the menu. Listed as Senior Executive Chef is Darnell “SuperChef” Ferguson, a rising star on food TV who has become something of a role model for aspiring cooks of color. Ferguson also operates popular SuperChefs restaurants in Columbus and Louisville. Diners can look forward to “urban eclectic American dishes,” with a focus on comfort foods with a twist. A “brinner” section will offer breakfast-for-dinner plates like French toast and waffles. The 125-seat restaurant, which is being designed by Wright Spaces, will be a fun, family friendly place showcasing feel-good music. Kids will be encouraged to dress up like their favorite character or superhero. Gullatt says that he and his partners are shooting for a late-June opening.
Elle Restaurant to bring seasonal Mediterranean fare to former Harvest Kitchen Space in Solon Jay Leitson and Izzy Schachner continue to fortify their positions in Solon. The team is behind 56 Kitchen, which has locations in that city as well as Mayfield, a Solonbased catering company of the same name, and soon will unveil Birdigo, a fast-casual fried chicken concept. Schachner says that while 2020 was a challenging year all around, the experience only confirmed that their fondness for the suburb is a two-way street. “What took place last year was quite touching to us – the amount of support from our customers, the city and our staff,” he says. “They told us that we had to survive and they all kept pushing us in a good way. So it felt right to invest in Solon when a space became available.” That space is the former Harvest Kitchen property (33730 Bainbridge Rd.), which closed in 2019. Construction has begun to transform the space into Elle, an upscale Mediterranean restaurant. The estimated time of arrival is pegged at August. “The whole point was to be able to do higher-end entrees that don’t make sense at 56,” Schachner adds. “The complaint we constantly hear is that people have to leave Solon to have a nice night out. There are places around here, but they are not in Solon.” In advance of this latest expansion, the team added some key personnel, mainly longtime Doug Katz employee Ian Thompson as director of operations and executive chef Patrick Capouzzo. Schachner describes the design as “Bohemian chic – sophisticated but still fun.” Diners can expect a lush interior with crushed velvet drapes, white tablecloths and an underlit onyx bar top. There will be 100 seats inside and out. The Mediterranean menu will focus on bright, fresh and seasonal dishes, many cooked over a live-fire grill. From the bar come creative concoctions like The Snappy Monk,
made with snap pea-infused tequila, Chartreuse, muddled mint, fresh lime and agave. The Caprese Martini features Ketel One, basil-infused Bianco vermouth and tomato consommé.
Cent’s Pizza in Ohio City Has Begun Offering Some Carry-Out Sales in Advance of July Opening For nearly two and half years, we have been following the progress of Vincent Morelli as he has endeavored to open Cent’s Pizza on the western edge of Ohio City. The ambitious project required a total renovation of the former PM Security building on Lorain (5010 Lorain Ave.) by the landlord. Like many projects, this one was stalled by the events of last year. Now, however, Morelli has crossed a major milestone. While the shop won’t be open until July for dine-in service, it has begun selling pizzas for carry-out. They must be ordered in advance for Friday, Saturday and Sunday pick-ups, typically selling out far in advance of the weekend. For now, the menu is limited to four pizzas, including a white pizza topped with mozzarella, ricotta and garlic and a pepperoni with tomato, pepperoni, parmesan and pickled chiles. Two salads are also available, the “Big Caesar” with kale and a house starring frisee and fresh herbs with vinaigrette. One snack, pepperoni bites with ranch or marinara dipping sauce, is also in the menu.
Rising Star Coffee to Open Cafe Inside Lucky’s Market on Lakewood-Cleveland Border Since acquiring Lucky’s Market on the Cleveland-Lakewood border,
Dave’s Markets has continued to find ways to increase ties to local companies while improving the experience for shoppers. Last year the market invited the owners of Edison’s Pizza in Tremont to open a satellite store inside the grocery and soon Rising Star Coffee Roasters will join them. Rising Star, which started in Ohio City back in 2012, has grown to five cafes, with locations added in Lakewood, downtown Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights. There also is the main roasting facility in Cleveland. Next up for the brand is Lucky’s Market, which will open Thursday July 1. “This is definitely a different territory for us,” says co-owner Brandon Riggs. “This is right in between our Lakewood and Hingetown shops, which is why we felt comfortable doing it.” Riggs describes the café as slightly smaller than the one inside the Market Hall at Van Aken District. But, he adds, it will feature the same equipment, the same baristas and the same retail offerings coffee lovers have come to expect at all the locations. To start, the hours will be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. but those could change based on demand, says Riggs. “Lucky’s is thrilled to welcome Rising Star Coffee Roasters to our Cleveland location,” says Aaron Saltzman of Lucky’s and Dave’s. “Local means a lot to us and Rising Star embodies what we look for in a local partner. We look forward to customers enjoying their delicious coffee and latte drinks!”
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
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SAVAGE LOVE QUICKIES By Dan Savage Hey, Dan: I had a stroke a year ago. The woman I was dating at the time stepped away. I have no hard feelings, but I long for intimacy again. I am profoundly grateful that I don’t have any major outward injuries from the stroke, but my stamina is still very low and might always be. That makes me selfconscious and insecure about sex. Would it be “over-sharing” if I told someone about my stroke before we go to bed for the first time? It seems like it will kill the mood and almost certainly make things less fun. Am I obligated to share this information? — Outwardly Okay Privately Struggling You’re not obligated to share this kind of health information before going to bed with someone for the first time, OOPS, but you might wanna share it. At the root of your worries about post-stroke stamina is a fear of falling short of a new partner’s expectations — expectations shaped by assumptions a new partner might have about your stamina based on your overall appearance of good health. Resetting your partner’s expectations will take the pressure off — indeed, if you tell a new partner you recently had a stroke, OOPS, you’ll most likely exceed her (reset) expectations. And that could give your sexual selfconfidence a welcome boost.
Hey, Dan: I’m a recently separated 42-year-old straight male. I’m internet dating for the first time, and I met an awesome girl who makes me laugh, makes me playlists on Spotify, and is just generally amazing. Of course there’s a glitch: I’m not attracted to her. I tried, but I think the romantic relationship needs to end. She has mentioned several times in the last couple of months that I treat her better than anybody she’s ever dated. (That blows my mind — apparently cooking dinner, occasional flowers, and returning texts puts me head and shoulders above everyone else?) My question: How do you break that kind of news to someone without looking like an asshole? —Anxiously Hesitating Over Looming End
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| clevescene.com | June 2-8, 2021
Speaking of expectations … You’re a newly separated man, and you’ve only been seeing this woman for a couple of months. If her expectations were reasonable and she kept them in check, AHOLE, then she knows the odds were stacked against something long-term. She’ll still be sad about the relationship ending, and she might think you’re an asshole for ending it — she might actually need to think you’re an asshole to cauterize the emotional wound (so don’t argue with her if she calls you an asshole) — but if you didn’t make any premature declarations of undying love, AHOLE, then she’s unlikely to think you’re an asshole forever. And, looking on the bright side: She may be less likely to put up with guys who don’t cook, don’t come through with flowers, and don’t respond to her texts in a reasonable amount of time after being with you.
Hey, Dan: My friend’s grandmother was walking through a park when she was accosted by a man asking for sex. (Yes, my friend’s grandmother.) The man wasn’t violent. It was more of a plea for physical affection but definitely one that was made in a rapey way. He had something in his hand, but it wasn’t a weapon: It was a negative COVID-19 test. He showed it to her as if to say, “It’s OK! I’m not a real threat!” Is this what we’ve come to as a society? Is the isolation that people have suffered over the last year going to result in the rate of sexual assault going up? —Pandemic’s Awful Reality Keeps Scaring The combination of our politics and this pandemic seems to have broken some people, PARKS, and brought out the barely suppressed absolute worst in others. I fear things are going to get a lot shittier before they get any better — in our parks, in our politics, and just generally on our planet. Here’s hoping humanity manages to exceed my expectations.
Hey, Dan: I’m dating someone 13 years younger than me. He’s a monogamous man, [but] I’m not a monogamous woman. We’ve been monogamous due to the pandemic
but with the explicit understanding that we won’t work out in the long term due to our different opinions on monogamy. I’ll be vaccinated soon, but I don’t want to break up with him after I get the hots for someone else. That seems like a dick move. My lizard brain tells me that if he would explore non-monogamy, he’d come to the conclusion that it’s a good approach. Should I put on my big-girl pants and break it off? —Rip Off The Bandage Albeit Nicely You don’t have to end it after finding someone else you wanna fuck — or before — but you will need to give this guy a heads up before you fuck someone else. And who knows? He may be willing to give non-monogamy a try once the pandemic ends (perhaps one-sided non-monogamy, e.g., you’re free to sleep with other people and he’s free to remain monogamous to you), ROTBAN, just as you were willing to give monogamy a try while the pandemic raged. He’s significantly younger, but I assume he’s an adult (he is an adult, right?) and, as an adult, he’s free to make his own choices. Your only obligation is to ensure he has all the information he needs to make a fully informed choice.
Hey, Dan: Bi-girl, early 30s, in an open relationship with a man. A question of ethics: Say I’m on the apps looking to hook up with women. I’m upfront that I’m in an open relationship and looking for casual fun. I have no intention of trying to leverage these dates into threesomes with me and my boyfriend. But it turns my boyfriend on to hear about the fun I have with other people. Would it be wrong to let my boyfriend come sit, anonymously, in a bar where I’m meeting a date? I’ll ignore him, he won’t stare or approach me and my date; he’ll just get a thrill out of being there. On the one hand, I assume most women wouldn’t be into this scenario. So that’s a reason not to do it. But on the other hand, they wouldn’t know. I realize this depends on actually executing the plan with discretion, but that seems doable. Thoughts? —Seeking Perspectives In Ethical Dating
This passes my Permissible Secret Perving test (which I unpack at length in an upcoming book) — it passes the PSP test so long as the other woman doesn’t know your boyfriend is there and never finds out your boyfriend was there — but it fails the Golden Rule test. Meaning, this probably isn’t something you would want others doing unto you and therefore isn’t something you should do unto others. So Jesus thinks you shouldn’t do this, SPIED, and I think … well, I don’t think you should. That’s too strong a word. But I definitely think you could.
Hey, Dan: Do you know what’s in commercial sex lubes? Chemicals. And chemicals are bad and unnatural. Seriously. I prefer olive oil or something else from the kitchen. But whenever I use cooking oils, I find that a tiny layer of dead cells sloughs off my cock. That isn’t a problem, but the cells seem to gather together, and it feels like grains of sand. I’m assuming certain oils loosen dead skin cells and it causes this. Are there some oils that don’t do that? —Stroking Not Sanding We use a commercial sex lube at our place, SNS, and our cocks aren’t shedding dead skin cells at noticeable/clumpable rates or making our asses feel like they’re packed with sand. And we do know what’s in our lube: Our preferred brand, Spunk, is made from avocado and coconut oils, and these ingredients, according to Spunk’s website, “are organic and chemical-free.” Now if you Google, say, “chemical composition of avocado oil,” you’ll learn that it, like everything else — including your precious olive oil — is composed of various chemicals. Natural, not man-made, but chemicals still. That said, SNS, if the oils you’re using as lube are causing your dick to disintegrate, then you might wanna give Spunk a chance.
mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage www.savagelovecast.com
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