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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
UPFRONT THE FUND’S BRAD WHITEHEAD TO STEP DOWN, SAYS ROOM MUST BE MADE FOR NEW LEADERS BRAD WHITEHEAD, PRESIDENT of the Fund for our Economic Future, has announced that he will step down from the alliance he helped create in 2004. In an announcement last week, Whitehead said that he made the decision expressly to make room for new leaders. The 59-year-old will move into an advisory role by March 2020, after the announcement of the organization’s next president. He will also serve as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. “This was not an easy decision for me; I love what I do and I love this community,” Whitehead said in a statement provided to the media. “But it is absolutely the right time. I believe we are falling short of our potential as a region in part because we are not allowing sufficient space for generational leadership. We will benefit from fresh perspectives, fresh ideas, fresh culture.” Whitehead has shepherded the Fund — an alliance of 30 regional funding organizations — through 15 years of regional research and economic development strategy. In 2018, the Fund published its Two Tomorrows report, a local economic development road map which centered racial equity in its prescriptions for improving the region’s outcomes. At last year’s infamous “Dead Last” speech by Jon Pinney at the City Club, Whitehead was one of eight white male leaders called upon by name to step up and more assertively lead. Whitehead’s response has been an elegant one: to lead by making space for others. Shortly after Pinney’s speech, he publicly acknowledged the embarrassment of being among the white males listed. He wrote in a followup blog post that there had been “a palpable, growing expectation (horror?) in the [City Club] room that the list would end where it did.” He suggested at the time that the named leaders all nominate a non-white-male to lead on their behalf, and “to enable these emerging leaders by placing the full weight of our influence behind them.”
Whitehead has now done all these men one better. Not only did he forego a leadership role in Cleveland Rising, one of the “grand challenges” envisioned in Pinney’s speech, to make room for younger, more diverse voices there. (In fact, Whitehead was the only leader to speak with protesters outside the Cleveland. com headquarters at a planning summit in December.) But he has now actually surrendered his presidency, at the organization he founded, to do the same. — Sam Allard
Cleveland Fed: Earnings Gap to Blame for Persistence of Racial Wealth Gap One of the most striking statistics revealed last week at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, during a panel discussion about the persistence of the racial wealth gap, came from Jill Rizika, executive director of the local nonprofit Towards Employment. Towards Employment helps people with criminal backgrounds and other barriers get jobs, and Rizika explained that her organization had begun a skills-based hiring initiative which sought to “equalize the playing field” for local job seekers. The goal, she explained, was to encourage employers to focus on the skills required for particular jobs as opposed to educational credentials or years of experience. After taking skills tests facilitated by TE, 940 people secured employment through the initiative. Rizika reported that black and white participants were hired at equal rates. “That’s pretty exciting,” she said, “because the black unemployment rate in Northeast Ohio is three times that of the white unemployment rate.” But that wasn’t the striking statistic. Rizika also reported that of those 940, blacks earned just 49 percent of what their white counterparts earned. And the white participants with the lowest scores ended up earning over $5,000 more each year than the black participants with the highest scores. While Rizika noted that this was
a small sample size, it nevertheless demonstrated the persistent barriers that black workers face in a discriminatory labor market. These comments arrived after Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland economist Daniel Carroll presented research about the racial wealth gap. Carroll and the Fed’s Dionissi Aliprantis created an economic model, he said, to try to isolate the causes of the racial wealth gap and why it has remained virtually unchanged since 1962, even with the passage of a suite of civil rights laws in the 1960s. Wealth, as Carroll explained, refers simply to the total value of what one owns minus the total value of what one owes. It’s another way of referring to one’s “net worth.” And since 1962, the average wealth of black families has remained at about 14 percent of white families. That means that the wealth gap has remained at about 86 percent. Per the researchers’ findings, the single-most influential contribution to the persistence of this gap — more than differences in returns on investments or differences in inheritance size, a natural byproduct of historical wealth inequality — is the persistence of the earnings gap. Blacks simply do not make as much money in the labor market as whites. Working to close the earnings gap, though it will take time, would be the most effectual way to narrow and eventually close the racial wealth gap, the researchers said. Rizika’s comments helped clarify why the earnings gap remains so high. Discrimination in the labor market is one significant factor. Concentrated poverty and a lack of educational resources in hypersegregated neighborhoods is another. A third is the bias of the U.S. criminal justice system. “Black Ohioans are more likely to be arrested than whites for similar offenses,” Rizika said, “and they are incarcerated at six times the rate. While blacks represent only 13 percent of Ohio’s population, they make up 44 percent of the prison population.” (That’s only slightly better than in 1990, for the record, when black people made up 10.6
percent of the state population, but 48 percent of the prison population.) The effects of incarceration extend long after release. Rizika described something called “collateral sanctions,” which refers, among other things, to the more than 850 laws and rules that limit job opportunities for those with criminal convictions. “One in four Ohio jobs is blocked or restricted if you have a conviction,” Rizika said, “and the jobs available to those affected by collateral sanctions pay, on average, $4,700 less and are growing twice as fast.” She cited a national statistic that said serving time reduces one’s annual earnings by 40 percent. That happens to be the current earnings gap between white and black workers. — Allard
DIGIT WIDGET 160,000 Scooter rides logged in Cleveland since the official redeployment of the micromobility devices earlier this year.
5 Cleveland’s spot on Bloomberg’s annual list of inequality in America’s biggest cities, up from No. 22 the year before. Half of Cleveland averaged $ 30,000 in income a year; the top 5 percent averaged $ 262,924.
420 Number of rental units in Lakewood occupied by voucher tenants in 2013, according to a Plain Dealer investigation of income-based discrimination.
289 Number of rental units in Lakewood occupied by voucher tenants in 2018, according to the
PD.
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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FEATURE
40 BOOKS EVERY CLEVELANDER SHOULD READ
With its shortened days and whipping winds, winter in Northeast Ohio is the 10 months each year when we allow ourselves to throw on sweatpants, chug hot cocoa or bourbon and spend long evenings indoors mindlessly scrolling through Netflix’s inane personalized viewing options.
What fun!
B
UT FOR THOSE OF US either annoyed by (or morally suspicious of) the way screens have come to monopolize our attention — that is to say, monopolize our lives — books offer a warm refuge. But they can also be intimidating. If Netflix’s array of niche categories inspires helplessness or dread, imagine what a library can do! Where does one begin? What does one even like? Personal preferences naturally vary, but a list of books about Cleveland or by local authors, including fiction, nonfiction and poetry, is certainly a fun category for the literary dabbler, hardcore reader or local history buff. As it happens, we read a lot of nitty-gritty stuff about Cleveland as part of our jobs: daily newspaper stories; annual reports; the latest academic research on regional trends. And we’re also not shy about saying we’re big fans of fiction. But there hasn’t been, we realized, a long list of good local books that included many of the titles that have been most instrumental in shaping our understanding of the city. That seemed like an oversight, one we sought to immediately correct. Putting together this list, with input from some of our most trusted friends and readers, was a joy. But what follows should not be interpreted as an exhaustive or definitive collection. Like all hungry readers, we welcome suggestions for additional titles to include in later coverage and our personal libraries. And there were some we couldn’t include simply because of space constraints. Instead, think of these as books that have, for one reason or another, been important to us. In
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and Visible Voice, have permanent “Cleveland” sections in their stores and are keeping Cleveland’s rich literary history alive. Dive in! A (*) signifies a nonfiction title. Capsules written by Sam Allard (SA), Vince Grzegorek (VG), Daniel GrayKontar, Hannah Lebovitz (HL), Karen Long, John McQuaid (JM), Lou Muenz, Eric Sandy (ES), Brett Zelman (BZ).
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many cases they’re books that we just really enjoyed. In the poetry, fiction and nonfiction below, we hope that you find books that you’ve already read. We also hope you come across ones you haven’t, and maybe even ones you haven’t even heard of. We enthusiastically recommend them all, and wish for you the same nourishing sense of discovery, even epiphany, that accompanied our experiences with them. Virtually all of these titles are
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
available for borrowing at the Cleveland Public Library. Some of them are even on display at the downtown branch, in conjunction with this issue’s publication. While many of them may be difficult or expensive to buy, we recommend purchasing local books at local bookstores when you can. (It goes without saying that this list should double as a gift guide for the Cleveland reader in your life.) Many of our favorite shops, places like Mac’s Backs, Loganberry Books
World’d Too Much: The Selected Poetry of Russell Atkins (2019) Russell Atkins It is little known that Russell Atkins, one of the United States’ most important living poets, is a lifelong Clevelander. Atkins, now 93, was a contemporary of Langston Hughes, and in fact, it was Hughes who introduced Atkins’ work to publishers across the globe in the late 1940s. Atkins was among the first concrete poets, creating poetry that also appeared as artworks on the page. But Atkins’ poetry was also uniquely Cleveland, capturing everyday people and familiar settings with a brand of humor and honesty that memorialized the city through verse. At long last, thanks to the CSU Poetry Center and editors Kevin Prufer and Rober E. McDonough, the legacy of Atkins’ poetry lives through the book World’d Too Much, a necessary compendium that celebrates the contributions of a major figure in American letters who has for too long been relegated to the margins of American literary history. (Daniel Gray-Kontar)
poems encircle Thomas’ life, often its quotidian moments, with economy and grace and glints of humor. The second half, called Canary in Bloom, follows Beulah through daydreams and disappointments over 21 poems. Dove likened them to “pearls on a necklace,” poems able to stand alone, but more meaningful in sequence. The last two pages are a chronology, an exoskeleton of dates, from Thomas’ birth in 1900 to Beulah’s death in 1969. In those 69 years, Dove contains multitudes. She writes a specific, Midwestern AfricanAmerican arc, conjuring a space that had not yet existed in American letters. Looking at a smokestack in Obedience, Beulah’s “body’s no longer tender, but her mind is free.” (Karen Long)
*** Await Your Reply (2009) Dan Chaon The bearded, bespectacled Cleveland Heights-dwelling Dan Chaon (pronounced Shawn) has produced some of the tightest and most chilling prose of the past 20 years. His second novel, Await Your Reply, may be his best. Within it, he braids the frayed strands of three interlocking narratives with characters and settings plucked from his own life: Nebraska, Northwestern University, Cleveland Heights, Ohio. One of the three storylines follows estranged identical twins from the Heights who attended Roxboro Middle School and Hawken. There’s no room to try to explain the plot, but it’s enough to know that Chaon is a masterful prose stylist and a lowkey king of suspense. (SA)
*** *Democratizing Cleveland (2007, 2018) Randy Cunningham Many of the most popular and celebrated nonfiction accounts of Cleveland — and indeed, much of the scholarly work on this list — zoom in on the 1960s. That tumultuous decade was one of profound racial tension and political upheaval. But few Cleveland writers have examined in depth (beyond an armchair Dennis Kucinich screed or two) the decade from 1975 to 1985. And only Randy Cunningham, in his book which was re-released last year by Belt Publishing, has done so through the lens of community organizing. Via personal interviews and firsthand experience, Cunningham writes how power was fomented at the grassroots level and how neighborhood organizing paved the way for the community development corporation boom. CDCs have cropped up in virtually every Cleveland neighborhood and these days tend to focus at least as much on private real estate development as they do on building community. Cunningham knows why. (SA)
*** The Coming of Fabrizze (1960) Raymond DeCapite An under-the-radar Cleveland novelist, Raymond DeCapite should rightly be considered the bard of the South Side. The longtime Tremont resident absorbed the ethnic melting pot of the neighborhood from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and
filled his novels with characters Cleveland through-and-through. His debut effort, The Coming of Fabrizze, reaches back to the ’20s for what The New York Times called a “modern folk tale filled with love, laughter and the joy of life,” among many sparkling reviews at the time. The story follows a hardworking laborer who returns to his native village in Italy to the celebration of the townsfolk and his family but is soon followed by his nephew, Cenino Fabrizze, who accompanies his uncle Augustine back to Cleveland just in time for the stock market crash. The novel’s deft portrayal of ItalianAmerican immigrants’ hope and hard work in times both booming and less so was glowingly celebrated. His novels had been largely out of print and hard to find prior to his death in 2009, even though his son, Mike DeCapite, told Cleveland Magazine that none other than Don DeLillo, who loved Fabrizze, had sent a copy to the New York Review of Books in the hopes of reviving modern interest. Thankfully, the Kent State University Press reprinted this, and A Lost King, in 2010 so a new audience could discover what the generation before had so thoroughly enjoyed. (VG)
*** Thomas & Beulah (1986) Rita Dove The year before the Pulitzer Prize caught up to the genius of Toni Morrison, it anointed another Ohio writer, awarding $1,000 to Rita Dove for Thomas and Beulah. Quietly mesmerizing, the book is centered on a version of Dove’s maternal grandparents’ lives in Akron. The first section, Mandolin, begins with her grandfather’s life on a Mississippi riverboat. Its 23
*** The Headmaster’s Papers (1983) Richard Hawley Richard Hawley is both a commercial best-selling author and someone who happens to be among some of your favorite authors’ favorite authors — count John Irving and Alice Munroe as fans. “Imagine a good man whose props have fallen away,” Hawley wrote in a journal before starting work on this book, which was first published by a small press in Vermont before receiving critical acclaim and a paperback reprinting from Bantam years later. That man is John Greeves, the headmaster at an all-boys private school in Cleveland. (Hawley would, months after the publication of this book, himself become the headmaster of University School.) This episolatory novel — a form in which the entire story is delivered by letters, notes, addresses, etc. — traces, in absolutely heartbreaking fashion, the changes in his professional and personal lives, which are driving the headmaster into uncharted and uncomfortable territory. His wife is dying, his son is an addict, his tethers to all that defined him are disappearing, and in letter after letter, speech after speech, life is propelling him toward the end as he attempts to grasp one last bit of autonomy from the wreckage. (VG)
*** The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1995) Langston Hughes, ed. by Arnold Rampersad This ultimate collection, arranged more or less chronologically,
includes nearly 900 poems from one of the greatest and most popular poets of all-time. Dubbed the Poet Laureate of African America, Hughes grew up in Cleveland and maintained a close relationship with Karamu House throughout his life. The collection includes both his most well-known work — including his 1951 book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred — and previously unpublished and suppressed material. It’s edited by Hughes’ own biographer Arnold Rampersad and is an indispensable edition for both the Hughes dabbler, the Hughes aficionado, and the Cleveland lit junkie. (SA)
*** *Cleveland: A Metropolitan Reader (1995) Ed. by Dennis Keating, Norman Krumholz and David C. Perry Composed chiefly of contributions from scholars at CSU’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, this monumental volume is the single most important anthology for understanding Cleveland’s history and political economy. It’d be an introductory textbook in virtually any college course about the city. With selections from each of the three editors, all giants in their respective fields; several historians who are included elsewhere on this list; and even a famous special “Cleveland Mayors” edition of Point of View by legendary local muckraker Roldo Bartimole, the seven-part book is a multifaceted compendium of the city’s social and political development. Classics upon classics! (SA)
*** *Derelict Paradise (2011) Daniel Kerr Of all the books on this list, Daniel Kerr’s Derelict Paradise may be the single most important. Covering a huge historical period, from the late 19th century to the early 21st, Kerr totally reframes homelessness and poverty in Cleveland by examining who has benefitted from it. There are so many epiphanic moments throughout that will utterly reshape (or reinforce) your conception of the city and its leaders. One of the most destabilizing revelations is that public dissent has been effectively crushed by rendering invisible the structural causes of inequality. Kerr’s clear, rigorously sourced prose is enhanced by a commitment to social justice. It’s both an infuriating and invigorating
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
9
FEATURE read. Kerr now teaches history at James Madison University, but his Cleveland masterwork will remain a vital source of reality for those who don’t wish to live in the Matrix. (SA)
*** *A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930 (1976) Kenneth L. Kusmer From Carl Stokes to Tamir Rice, race has defined modern Cleveland’s history. It’s a story of botched promises, institutional bigotry, and the sins of self-interest. But to fully understand the city today, you have to dig into Kusmer’s meticulous history of how AfricanAmericans went from a vibrant part of Cleveland’s city life in the 1800s to a segregated, forgotten population. Citing primary accounts and newspaper coverage, the historian documents how Cleveland was once a place of equality and abolitionist spirt in the years before the Civil War. By the industrial revolution, however, Cleveland’s new waves
of European immigrants set in motion a scramble of political power, sidelining black Clevelanders in the process. The book’s heartbreaking conclusion argues this fall from equality to segregation is what ultimately doomed the city. (VG)
*** Tampa (2012) Alissa Nutting What on earth is a book called
Tampa, which does indeed take place in the eponymous city — and for the record is about a middleschool teacher’s steamy affair with a 14-year-old student — doing on a list of essential Cleveland reads? Well, consumers of local fiction may be surprised to learn that author Alissa Nutting, the third vertex in a powerhouse triangle of contemporary Florida fiction writers which also includes Karen Russell and Lauren Groff, taught for a time at John Carroll University. And while her second novel, Made for Love, may be the more prescient literary achievement, Tampa owns the distinction of having been written primarily at the Lakewood Public Library, near where Nutting lived at the time. Cleveland should be overjoyed to claim it. (SA)
*** *The Silent Syndicate (1967) Hank Messick Through the meticulously documented story of the Cleveland Syndicate, this riveting account by Hank Messick manages to tell the full story of organized crime in mid-20th-Century America. This was before the mob’s vast influence
was widely known, and certainly before “the Mafia” was culturally popularized five years later in The Godfather. Messick’s extensive research was funded by the Ford Foundation, and even though the book was ultimately used by law enforcement agencies, it doesn’t read like a sober historical document. It has all the drama of the very best narrative nonfiction. And for Cleveland history buffs, it has the juicy details on the local mob’s litany of rackets: from rum-running on Lake Erie in Prohibition days to the casinos. (SA)
*** *Surrogate Suburbs (2017) Todd Michney Two decades into the 21st century, there are a significant number of black families living outside of the municipal boundaries of the city of Cleveland. A century ago, however, many had to fight just to reach the outer neighborhoods within the city. Todd Michney’s 2017 book highlights the struggles that upwardly-mobile Black families faced in their efforts to move away from the urban core. Areas such as Mount Pleasant, Hough and Glenville
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the Richardsons are attempting to adopt a Chinese-American baby, and the fight over that adoption takes over the town, which ultimately leads to a compelling battle with lines being drawn that end up unearthing family dynamics and secrets of both sides. (BZ)
FEATURE offered black families the chance to live a suburban-like lifestyle, even when they could not purchase a home or safely move to the cities outside of Cleveland. However, the existing white residents made even these intra-city migrations not only difficult but, in some cases, dangerous. Michney’s book sheds important light on the racial tensions that existed within the city of Cleveland at a time when black political and economic power were on the rise. But the book offers more than a tension-filled story line. It highlights the ways that black communities fought back against discrimination through sustained community and coalition building. The focus might be historical but the takeaways are still incredibly relevant. (HL)
*** *Cleveland: A Concise History (1990, 1997) Carol Poh Miller and Robert A. Wheeler This slim historical volume, weighing in at less than 200 pages before appendices, is one of the most engaging and accessible books about Cleveland. It’s chock full of trivia — gas lighting was introduced to downtown streets in 1850! — and swiftly charts the city’s historical course with special emphasis on Cleveland’s rich cultural and industrial heritage. The second edition, published in 1997, includes a chapter, “The New American City,” focused on the downtown development boom of the early Michael White years. For those wanting a wide-ranging, surfacelevel precis on the city, and for those who want their historical facts ironed out, there’s no better text to recommend. (SA)
*** The Bluest Eye (1970) Toni Morrison “Since why is difficult to handle,” Toni Morrison wrote in the prologue to her debut novel The Bluest Eye, “one must take refuge in how.” Hailing from Lorain, Ohio, Morrison chronicled the anguish of the black American experience in 11 revelatory novels. And while much of her work is rooted in Northeast Ohio, The Bluest Eye feels especially divined
12
***
from the community in which she grew up. Morrison has written that in her first book, she wanted to explore the tragic consequences of “accepting rejection as legitimate, as self-evident.” She follows a young black girl who wants, more than anything, blue eyes. Her prose is wondrous stuff. “Guileless and without vanity, we were still in love with ourselves then,” Morrison wrote. “We felt comfortable in our skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness. Jealousy we understood and thought natural — a desire to have what somebody else had; but envy was a strange, new feeling for us. And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us.” (SA)
The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle (1999) d.a. levy In the weeks and months leading up to d.a. levy’s suicide in 1968, the elegist of an earlier era of Cleveland would distribute copies of The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle, his underground newspaper, among artistic crowds and wayward wanderers. In his poems and criticism, levy called out the dysfunctional, often usurious relationship that the city has with its artists. Not much has changed since the late 1960s — certainly not in the power dynamics of local political structures. If anything, the artistic enclaves of Cleveland have moved on to bigger topics, addressing unease with broader capitalist systems and national trends (police violence, ICE raids, workers’ rights). And yet levy’s
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
*** *Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association (2007) Terry Pluto Before oral histories were even a thing, Terry Pluto cataloged the unbelievably funny, influential and short-lived American Basketball Association (1967-1976), an upstart league that challenged the NBA’s dominance with flashy characters and flashy play, eventually forcing a merger. With interviews from dozens of former players — and players there were, with the ABA giving basketball fans Moses Malone and Dr. J, just to name two — Loose Balls delivers the history the league, and its many bizarre and important moments, deserved. From players chartering their own flights and showing up minutes before the game in mink coats to coaches showing up at halftime, from the introduction of the 3-point line to an emphasis on dunks and high-flying action, it documented a league that was barely covered at the time but whose fingerprints are all over the modern game, and it remains one of the best sports books ever written. (VG)
***
*** Little Fires Everywhere (2017) Celeste Ng Shaker Heights native Celeste Ng stormed onto the literary scene in 2014 with her gripping novel Everything I Never Told You. And there was no sophomore slump. She followed it up in 2017 with Little Fires Everywhere, a critically acclaimed bestseller that takes place in the neareastside suburb that Ng grew up in. Shaker Heights is a well-manicured suburb with strict regulations and standards and giant mansions and a great history. But it’s also a suburb where there is a wide divide between the haves and have-nots, where race and class collide, and it’s this territory and dichotomy that Ng mines. The story focuses on an artist and mother, Mia, and her daughter Pearl, who rent a house from the wealthy Richardson family. Some friends of
Carroll, Sue Cavey, R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Val Mayerik, and Gerry Shamray It’s Harvey-freaking-Pekar: Of course you should read it. (VG)
words remain a powerful reminder that even the voiceless can be heard in the midst of a complicated, selfrighteous city. “Cleveland, I gave you / the poems that no one ever / wrote about you / and you gave me / NOTHING” (ES)
*** American Splendor (2003) Harvey Pekar, with introduction by R. Crumb and art by Kevin Brown, Gregory Budgett, Sean
*Cleveland: Confused City on a Seesaw (1976) Philip W. Porter If you’re interested in Cleveland’s history, but sick of seeing all these scholarly accounts of the city, perhaps you’ll be interested in Confused City on a Seesaw, Philip Porter’s firsthand account of his experiences in the city during his 50-year career as a newspaperman. Ascending to the executive editor throne at the Plain Dealer, Porter had unique insight on both Cleveland’s leadership class and the news media to which he belonged. In one chapter, he discusses at length one of the local media’s most influential 20th century figures, Louis Seltzer, “Mr. Cleveland,” editor of the Cleveland Press for 38 years. Overall, it’s a brisk, readable eyewitness account. (SA)
*** The Dead Key (2014) D.M. Pulley At first glance one might expect
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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D.M. Pulley’s The Dead Key to be a vanity project destined for a future in the local highlights section of a Northeast Ohio bookstore or Cuyahoga County Library branch. In fact, a rediscovered safe deposit box key becomes the catalyst for a tense and well-paced novel that brings to life two different eras of Cleveland — the nadir of 1978 and the hopeful resurgence of the late 1990s. (Its bona ďŹ des also include winning the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.) The reader follows the exploits of two young women, two decades apart, as they investigate the hidden activities in a downtown bank, which of course are not entirely what they seem. Like most thrillers set in a speciďŹ c place and time, overly pedantic readers will have their quibbles, but don’t let that get in the way of an entertaining tale with plenty of satisfying inside references to Cleveland. (JM)
*** *Ballots and Bullets (2018) James Robenalt Cleveland attorney James Robenalt’s account of the 1968 Glenville riots examines the ways that urban guerilla warfare was advanced as a method for combating racism in America’s cities. The book traces the local and national events that lead to the infamous Cleveland shootout that left 10 dead and more than 15 wounded. But it also describes the political aftermath, even to this day, noting that police brutality against black communities is still rampant and that the root causes of racism and poverty are often ignored in favor of politically expedient appeals for “law and order.� Another solid read from the Stokes era. (SA)
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread (1965, 2008) Don Robertson A road story set against one of the most devastating moments in Cleveland’s history, Don Robertson’s most beloved and well-regarded novel follows 9-year-old Morris Bird III as he sets out from his home on Edmunds Avenue off East 90th Street with his sister and wagon in tow to visit a friend across town. It is October 20, 1944, when gas leaked
from an East Ohio Gas storage tank, seeped into the sewer system, and caught ďŹ re, exploding a good chunk of the east side. One hundred and thirty people died, 70 homes were destroyed, 600 were left homeless. Robertson’s tale of adventure, friendship, loyalty and childlike awe brought comparisons to Tom Sawyer when it was ďŹ rst published in 1965. (It was later reissued in 2008.) Robertson, a native Clevelander and former Plain Dealer reporter, was regarded as a mid-selling author, and though some of his novels found homes in big publishing houses, he also struggled to ďŹ nd an audience at times. Stephen King, who has said Robertson is one of his favorite novelists of all time, published one of Robertson’s last books on his imprint in 1987. (VG)
*** *Cleveland: The Making of a City (1950) William Ganson Rose In terms of granular, nitty-gritty histories, you can’t do better than this book, published in 1950 by World Publishing. An invaluable historical diary of Cleveland and the Western Reserve, The Making of a City documents the region from the early days of the settlers to the industrial churn of post-WWII America. Rose, a lifelong Clevelander and former Plain Dealer editor, set about with a clear premise — how does a city form and grow? — and elucidated it with the people and events that made it happen. From the major movements and characters to the trivial — William Tax was the ďŹ rst person arrested in Cleveland, on May 21, 1836, after unlawfully ďŹ ring his gun; after the Kelley brothers formed a winery on their Lake Erie island, Mark Twain remarked, “You
can’t fool me with Kelley Island wine; I can tell it from vinegar every time — by the label on the bottle” — Rose collects everything you’d ever want to know about early Cleveland. (Lou Muenz; follow along with his reading of the book on Twitter @ MOCCleveland.)
*** The Sparrow (1996) Mary Doria Russell Mary Doria Russell, of Lyndhurst, is one of Northeast Ohio’s most important novelists. The Sparrow is her glittering debut from ’96, and it remains a classic of speculative fiction. Weaving in the religious and existential questions that rack the minds and souls of so many seekers, the book follows Fr. Emilio Sandoz, whom St. Ignatius and John Carroll alums will be pleased to note is a Jesuit priest. Sandoz has returned from an outer space expedition physically and spiritually mutilated by a mysterious confrontation with an alien species. Russell wrote a sequel, Children of God (1999), and has more recently written two historical novels on gunslinger Doc Holliday. But for
those of us who encountered it in high school, The Sparrow will always hold a special place in our hearts. (SA)
*** The End (2008) Salvatore Scibona Set on a single day in 1953 in Elephant Park, Cleveland, an Italian immigrant community modeled after Murray Hill, Scibona’s rhapsodic 2008 novel was all the rage in MFA circles in the late aughts. The Plain Dealer uttered Scibona’s name in the same breath as such modernist giants as T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein! Esquire called it a mashup of Joan Didion and Alfred Hitchcock. Scibona faded from view until the publication of his second novel, The Volunteer, earlier this year, but The End remains a forceful, and at times ravishing, novel of immigration and family bonds. It should be more widely embraced by Cleveland readers. (SA)
***
Memoirs of an Ex Prom Queen (1972, 2019) Alix Kates Shulman Forty-five years after it was first published and became a best-seller, Alix Kates Shulman’s Memoirs of an Ex Prom Queen was reissued this year by Picador, bringing the groundbreaking feminist novel to a whole new audience. Though The New York Times condescendingly dinged it upon its debut — “The publishers announce this angry little book as the first feminist novel” — it found a wide and eager audience thanks to its darkly comedic and fiercely honest portrayal of Sasha, a girl who, like the author, grows up in Cleveland in the 1940s and ’50s, a time when things like abortions, date rape, gender roles, sexuality and vanity are both explicitly buried below the surface of everyday life and yet define it all. From dating to marriage to motherhood and divorce and beyond, from hope to crushing resignation and what comes after, it was a consciousness-raising flashbulb delivered to a mass audience in digestible fiction form that, some five decades later, remains a vital read. (VG)
*** The Changelings (1955, 1985) Jo Sinclair “The real ghetto, [Jo Sinclair] believed, was the ‘ghetto of the spirit’ into which large numbers of Americans were herded as children, when their inability to rationally explain such rejection left them with a bewildering sense of shame (and ever-present fear) that would inhibit their full flowering,” the Cleveland Arts Prize notes of the author, its recipient in 1961 for the prize for literature. That, as critics and academics have eloquently addressed at further lengths since then, is at the heart of Sinclair’s four novels, and for good reason. Jo Sinclair was the pseudonym used by Ruth Seid from the time of her first submitted and published piece for Esquire in 1938 — written while she was working at the WPA during the Great Depression — when entry into the world was easier for someone who could be male, and not Jewish, as opposed to the Cleveland middle-class Jewish lesbian that she was. Her first novel, Wasteland (1945), might be her best known, but The Changelings, first published in 1955 and reissued in 1985, is her
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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most complete. Set in an ItalianAmerican Cleveland neighborhood that’s become more Jewish over time and has lately witnessed an influx of African-Americans, the book centers on two young female teens who battle back fiercely against the racism, anti-Semitism and “mob thinking” of their elders. The New York Times championed it for the “power with which the author reveals the impact of [racial] struggle on the new generation, whose survival lies in their power to love.” Fifty years later, what Sinclair was talking about — of young generations challenging the ignorance inflicted upon them by the older generations around them, of acceptance and the erosion of racial, social and LGBT discrimination and hate — feels as relevant as when it was first published. (VG)
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*Believing in Cleveland (2017) Mark Souther Nowhere are Cleveland’s overzealous boosters more thoroughly taken to task than in the pages of Mark Souther’s Believing in Cleveland, which became an instant classic when it was published in 2017, at least for Cleveland history nerds and the wisecracking dissidents of Twitter. Souther’s premise is that decline and renaissance aren’t necessarily sequential phenomena and that in Cleveland, the two often occur side by side. One of the most important aspects of Souther’s first-of-its-kind research is that it exposed how local civic elites often promoted the city’s comeback in public but expressed grave reservations among themselves. (SA)
*** *The Pitch That Killed: Carl Mays, Ray Chapman and the Pennant Race of 1920 (1989) Mike Sowell The name Ray Chapman provokes an automatic, Jeopardy-like response in any baseball fanatic: Who was the only Major League Baseball player to die as a result of injuries suffered on the field? The pitch from Carl Mays on August 16, 1920 that struck Chapman in the head and resulted in his death provides the catalyst for Mike Sowell’s The Pitch that Killed:
Carl Mays, Ray Chapman and the Pennant Race of 1920. Sowell’s book explores the psychological impact on all those affected by the pitch. Chapman’s wife and teammates were obviously devastated, some to the point of suffering nervous breakdowns. Their heartache becomes all the more poignant as the Indians rebounded to win the World Series that year, the organization’s first. Sowell’s treatment of Carl Mays is the true achievement, though. He takes the reader through Mays’ life and motivations, from a wild spitballer who killed an opponent to a baseball lifer who would eventually work for the Indians in his postplaying career. (JM)
*** *Promises of Power (1973) Carl B. Stokes “For a brief time in Cleveland, I was the man in power.” So writes Carl Stokes in his trenchant political autobiography published in the years after his single turbulent mayoral term. “I had what no black man in this country has had before: direct control of the government of a predominantly white population. That power came to me because I seized a situation that had made me seem like a savior to men who ordinarily look on blacks as an alien and vaguely dangerous force.” (!!!) Reading histories of this pivotal era is crucial for understanding the city’s current woes, but just as important is hearing the personal perspective of the man at the center of it. His anecdotes and barbs make for lively reading. (SA)
*** *Good Kids, Bad City: A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America (2019) Kyle Swenson Expanding on an award-winning Scene investigation that helped exonerate three men wrongfully convicted of a 1975 murder in Cleveland, this book by former staff writer Kyle Swenson is a stunning narrative achievement. Delivering an incisive history of the city alongside a compelling and compassionate portrait of the lives of those three men, Good Kids, Bad City recounts the convictions and eventual exonerations some 40 years later in the framework of politics, race and criminal justice in Cleveland from the 1970s through today. (VG)
***
***
*The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904, 2018) Ida Tarbell Published serially in 19 installments in McClure’s Magazine between 1902 and 1904, Ida Tarbell’s agship expose on one of America’s most famous companies, Standard Oil (founded by John Rockefeller in Cleveland, Ohio), is an exemplar of muckraking journalism. Fortunately for local readers, the book was reissued last year by Belt Publishing as part of its “Revivalsâ€? series, with an introduction by Elizabeth Catte. Tarbell maintained an analytical rigor and distance in her work, even as she wrote with what Rockefeller’s biographer Ron Chernow described as an “indignation that throbbed just below the surface.â€? Her indignation, and her self-avowed “hatred of privilegeâ€? emerges from time to time, but her overall factsďŹ rst approach feels especially relevant now, as we recognize the value of journalism in its increasing absence and witness Standard Oil’s monopolistic and predatory tendencies repurposed and optimized in the high-tech world. (SA)
*Legacy Cities: Continuity and Change amid Decline and Revival (2019) Ed. by J. Rosie Tighe, Stephanie Ryberg-Webster Rarely do we ďŹ nd a book centered on the struggles and opportunities of cities like Cleveland, written by not just one or two urban policy experts but an entire department of them. Tighe and Ryberg-Webster’s edited volume grew out of a collaborative effort to highlight the uniqueness of Legacy Cities and resulted in a book that undoubtedly codiďŹ es much of the expertise within Cleveland State’s Levin School of Urban Affairs. The book is divided into three sections: It describes components of Legacy Cities across the United States, then it outlines the history and current state of decline in the Cleveland region, and ďŹ nally it offers clear strategies to mitigate decline and propel Cleveland toward resurgence. The book sets the groundwork for residents, public ofďŹ cials and business leaders to use policy levers to promote success and sustainability in the region. While other books have been written about the history and state of Cleveland,
the value of this book is that it is an edited work. Individual chapters are both succinct and substantive on their own and even more powerful when combined into a single volume. Here’s to hoping that local leaders take note of the book and recognize that much of its expertise is housed in a building only several blocks from their own. (HL)
*** The Space Between Us (2006) Thrity Umrigar In her second novel, longtime Case Western Reserve University professor, former journalist, and best-selling author Thrity Umrigar delivers a compelling and empathetic tale of class and family. Set in India, where Umrigar was born and lived until she was 21, The Space Between Us examines the relationship between Sera, a widowed Parsi housewife, and Bhima, the family’s servant. In powerfully perceptive and subtle details that illuminate the character’s inner lives — their individual traumas, their need for and pull toward each other, their shared experiences despite decisively different economic and social
statuses — Umrigar spins a tender, heartbreaking story that unspools with a quietly arresting quality. (VG)
*** Cherry (2018) Nico Walker There have been few buzzier books in the past year than Cherry, the semi-autobiographical debut novel from Nico Walker written entirely behind bars while serving an 11year sentence in federal prison for a string of bank robberies around Cleveland in late 2010 and early 2011. (The ďŹ lm rights were quickly snatched up for a princely sum by the Russo brothers shortly after publication.) Essentially a retelling of how he landed there, the novel spins the tale of a Cleveland boy who enlists and is shipped off to the Middle East, his struggle with undiagnosed PTSD upon his return, his descent into heroin addiction, and the bank robbery spree he subsequently engaged in to feed his habit. Whatever qualms one could point to — prose that seems, at times, an earnest, amateur impression of Henry Miller; an intensely misogynistic main
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The Broom of the System (1987) David Foster Wallace Wallace, who would later become famous for his 1,000-page opus Infinite Jest, and for his observant essays on American arts and culture — in particular, his commentary on the Midwest — penned his first zany novel as an undergrad at the University of Massachusetts and as a grad student at the University of Arizona. Like Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System features an enormous ensemble cast and explodes with the syntactical collision and formal diversity that are hallmarks of his work. For the purposes of this list, the story is set in Cleveland — a harebrained version, make no mistake — and the protagonist lives in the fictional suburb of East Corinth, “which determined the luxuriant and not unpopular shape of the Inner Belt section of I-271.” One can almost watch in real time this post-modernist master discover the immensity of his talent. (SA)
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character surrounded by shallowly developed female characters — Cherry is, from start to finish, a spare and unsparing portrait of the absolute horrors of war, both the unending ones fought overseas by America’s young men and women and the opioid-strangled one at home. (VG)
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
SCENE
Blackeyed (2014) Mary Weems Cuyahoga County Public Library’s 2019-2020 Writer in Residence, Mary Weems brings a prolific career with her when she reads. Known for her plays and poems, Weems’ work ranges across socioeconomic strata and recontextualizes the stories we’ve told ourselves about how the world is changing (and how we can change it). She draws the heartbreak and the emotional rebuilding process out of front-page headlines and national narratives — namely, the foreclosure crisis and its ongoing-ness, which has been both a local and national backdrop to much of her writing. We’ll point you to her 2014 book of plays and monologues, Blackeyed, in which she examines the textures of the black
American experience in its abundant contemporary shapes. Weems’ work is highly ekphrastic, and she invites the reader to sit awhile with her words and her invocations of different forms, different sounds. (ES)
*** Crooked River Burning (2001) Mark Winegardner When it comes to quintessential Cleveland novels, no list would be complete without Mark Winegardner’s 2001 epic, Crooked River Burning. Weaving a mix of fiction with mid-20th century Cleveland history, this epic, coming in at just under 600 pages, gets at the story of Cleveland from a macro sense. At the heart is a love story between an eastsider and a westsider bridging the city divide, but Winegardner also inserts legendary, real-life Clevelanders like Eliot Ness, Alan Freed and Carl Stokes into the mix, as well as notable eastside families that ran the city from behind the scenes in post-WWII Cleveland. Set against an era when Cleveland was changing by the day, the love story gets into the soul of the city, one which Winegardner clearly adored. (BZ)
*** *Checkmate in Cleveland (1972) Estelle Zannes The subtitle of Dr. Zannes 1972 political book is The Rhetoric of Confrontation During the Stokes Years. This forensic account of the political strategies in the major mayoral campaigns of the late 1960s — with deep focus on Carl Stokes vs. Seth Taft in 1967 — provides the sort of play-by-play coverage you’d expect from detailed, objective news coverage at the time. It is perhaps too in the weeds for casual readers, but the account offers valuable insight on racial politics, particularly as it evolved in the context of the riots in Hough and Glenville, and how the business community coalesced around Stokes to, in their view, purchase security. Dr. Zannes, who was a professor of communications, was interested foremost in the rhetorical strategies of political campaigns, and asserted that both Stokes and Dennis Kucinich brought a “showbiz quality” to local politics. (SA)
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
GET OUT everything you should do this week Photo courtesy of the Greater Cleveland Aquarium
WED
to perform a host of beloved Irving Berlin songs and plenty of dancing too. Tonight’s show takes place at 7:30 at the State Theatre, where performances continue through Dec. 1. Tickets start at $10. (Niesel) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
11/27
MUSIC
35th Annual Thanksgiving Eve Polka Jam You won’t find people playing Cleveland/Slovenian-style polka just anywhere. It’s a style of music that’s unique to Cleveland, and the musicians who’ll perform at the 35th annual Pre-Thanksgiving Polka Jam that takes place tonight at the Slovenian National Home, all know that. The event serves as an open jam session for all the famous polka musicians in town, and musicians travel in from the entire region for the Polka Hall of Fame’s award ceremony that takes place that weekend. Organizers say one musician from Slovenia should be in attendance. The bash begins at 6:30, and tickets cost $2. The bar will serve Slovenian wines, craft beers and Slovenian foods (think krajnska klobasa, jota, walnut potica, and želševka). (Jeff Niesel) 6417 St. Clair Ave., 216-361-5115, slovenianhome.com.
THU
11/28
THANKSGIVING
Free Thanksgiving Dinner Back in 1992, the original House of Blues in Cambridge, Massachusetts, began a tradition of serving the homeless and needy on Thanksgiving. House of Blues here in Cleveland has carried on that tradition for the past decade. Once again this year, it will offer a full Thanksgiving buffet dinner to those in need from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today. House of Blues employees, friends, family and vendors will provide the food. (Niesel) 308 Euclid Ave., 216-523-2583, houseofblues.com. DRAG
SPORTS
Cavs vs. Orlando Magic In Aaron Gordon, the Orlando Magic have one of the league’s most dynamic players. The guy is a true dunk artist, and he brings the Magic to town tonight for a game at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse against the Cavs. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. Consult the Cavs website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com. BOOKS
Mike DeCapite Book Signing Born in Cleveland on April Fool’s Day in the early ’60s, author Mike DeCapite didn’t start writing his first novel Through the Windshield, a book about blue-collar life on Cleveland’s southside, until he moved to London in the mid-’80s. In a review for the Austin Chronicle, autobiographical comic book author Harvey Pekar referred to Through the Windshield as “one of the better American novels of the past several years.” DeCapite’s published work also includes the chapbooks Sitting Pretty and Creamsicle Blue, as well as the shortprose collection Radiant Fog. Now living in New York, DeCapite has just completed Jacket Weather, and he’ll appear at Visible Voice Books tonight for a book signing and reading.
Scuba Claus returns to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. See: Friday
Cleveland poet Zenaida (Zena) Smith is also part of the evening. Smith’s writing ranges from the confessional to the surreal. Her 2018 book, Siding With Desire, deals with the various stages of being in love. The event starts at 7 p.m. Admission is free. (Niesel) 2258 Professor Ave., 216-961-0084, visiblevoicebooks.com.
decides to make a list of things he thinks will rescue his mother from her depression. The Cleveland Play House presents its take on the play tonight at 7:30 at the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre, where it continues through Dec. 22. Tickets start at $20. (Niesel) 1407 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, clevelandplayhouse.com.
THEATER
THEATER
Every Brilliant Thing Billed as “a surprising and immersive theatrical experience that speaks openly about depression, mental illness, and suicide,” Every Brilliant Thing focuses on a character who
White Christmas This lavish new production of the classic holiday musical tells the story of a song-and-dance team putting on a show in a “magical Vermont inn.” Along the way, they mange
GlamGore Monthly Drag Show Each month, GlamGore, a drag show at the Grog Shop, features a variety of performance artists under one roof. The shows include everyone from “beauty queens” to “drag monsters.” Tonight’s show theme is Seven Deadly Sins, and it’ll feature performers Rhett Corvette, Hugh Madbro, Hazel Lush and Samantha Echo. Tickets cost $10 in advance, $12 at the door, or $15 for VIP tickets that include a special photo opportunity/meet-andgreet with the cast at 8:30 p.m. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. DJ Zoë will attend to the turntables. (Niesel) 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs. COMEDY
Hot Carl’s 11th Annual Turkey Jam For more than a decade now, local comedian Hot Carl has hosted an annual Thanksgiving night comedy show designed to provide a good excuse for folks who need to get away from the family and leave the house for a minute. Hot Carl always performs, and this year’s guests include local comedians Brett Thomas, James E. Brassfield, Jimmie Graham, Martin Malloy, Dan Alton and Mike Farrell. The show starts at 9 p.m. at the Winchester Music Tavern in Lakewood, and tickets go
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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THEATER
GET OUT for $5. (Niesel) 12112 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-600-5338, facebook.com/ TheWinchesterMusicTavern.
FRI
A Christmas Story The Cleveland Play House’s production of Jean Shepherd’s beloved Christmas Story returns, as it does each holiday season, to the Allen Theatre. See it tonight at 7:30 — BB guns, bunny costumes, leg lamps and all. Performances continue through Dec. 23. Tickets
showing off at the Improv. Cast as the token black friend in every comedy ever made, he’s best known as the token black friend in 2001’s Zoolander. Godfrey’s hot right now, touring the country and making regular appearances on Comics Unleashed. His shows start at 7:30 and 10 tonight at the Improv, and he has additional shows scheduled
11/29
THEATER
SPORTS
Cavs vs. Milwaukee Bucks Also known at the Greek Freak, Giannis Antetokounmpo brings his Milwaukee Bucks to town tonight for their first game of the season at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Antetokounmpo might just be the season’s MVP, so consider this a good chance to see the man up close. The game begins at 7:30 p.m. Consult the Cavs website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.
PLAY IT LOUD celebrates instruments that are as iconic as the musicians who played them. Revel in these striking sound machines, explore how they defined the artist’s sound & elevated their identity, and witness the wild aftermath of the ultimate rock gesture, smashing guitars. Co-organized with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ENJOY EXTENDED HOURS
THANKSGIVING WEEKEND Friday the 29th & Saturday the 30th | 10AM - 9PM
THEATER
A Christmas Carol The Great Lakes Theatre’s annual production of this Charles Dickens’ classic returns to Playhouse Square tonight as it does each year at this time. The story about how a certain Scrooge comes to realize that he needs to embrace the holiday season has proven to be a timeless tale. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at the Ohio Theatre, where it continues through Dec. 22. Tickets are $28 to $75. (Niesel) 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
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COMEDY
The Holiday Hangover Show The Sprint Guy from those old Alltel commercials, Michael Busch hosts this night of standup comedy, sketches and music. Busch splits his time between L.A. and Cleveland. When in L.A., he’s a regular performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and when in Cleveland he produces and performs in various sketch and improv shows around town and teaches classes. Tonight’s bill also includes Bill Squire, Dana Quercioli, Hannah Corrigan, Flamingo City, Dave Flynt and Galina Rivina. The show starts at 8 at Hilarities. Tickets cost $20. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. FAMILY FUN
Photo by Paul Bergen/Redferns/Getty Images
Big Fish The critically acclaimed movieturned-musical, Big Fish is the next installment in the Near West Theatre’s Season of Discovery series. Based on the Daniel Wallace novel and the film directed by Tim Burton, Big Fish centers on parents and their children as well as “the tales we use to define ourselves and those we leave behind as our legacy.” Music is directed by Jordan Cooper and choreography is led by Katie Gibson. The musical runs weekends through Dec. 15. Tickets are as low as $10 for adults and $8 for children 12 and under. Reserved Star Seat tickets are $25. (Niesel) 6702 Detroit Rd., 216-961-6391, nearwesttheatre.org.
schizophrenic sister. The 2019 Austrian film screens today at 7 p.m. at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tickets cost $10, or $7 for CMA members. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
1100 Rock and Roll Blvd • 216.781.7625 • rockhall.com are $20 to $97. (Christine Howey) 1407 Euclid Ave., 216-2541-6000, clevelandplayhouse.com.
through Sunday. Tickets cost $20. (Brittany Rees) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com.
COMEDY
FILM
Godfrey Remember that 7Up guy? Good. Because he’s in town tonight. Godfrey, who got his start during a 1980s viral soda campaign, is
The Ground Beneath My Feet This well-crafted psychodrama centers on a woman whose life changes drastically when she’s forced to deal with her hospitalized
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
Scuba Claus The Greater Cleveland Aquarium’s annual Scuba Claus event takes place today, tomorrow and Sunday. Guests can talk to Scuba Claus while he’s in one of the exhibits and ask a question about diving or suggest gifts for the fish. Guests can also takes photos with Scuba Claus. The aquarium will also feature craft animal-themed snowflakes and a cold weather trivia challenge for a chance to win an aquarium experience prize package valued at $200. In addition, the animal care team will present holiday- and coldweather-themed feeding enrichment activities such as giving fish melting icicle treats and giving birds fruit ornaments. Children visiting on Scuba Claus appearance days also receive an original holiday mini activity book and a Scuba Claus temporary tattoo, while supplies last. Check the aquarium website for hours and ticket prices. The event continues through Dec. 24. (Niesel) 2000 Sycamore St., 216-862-8803, greaterclevelandaquarium.com. FAMILY FUN
The Wild Winter Lights Festival The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has brought back its holiday lights event that was discontinued after the 2004 season. The zoo has reworked the bright spectacle to include thousands of lights, a visit from Santa, an extremely tall teddy bear and, of course, plenty of animals. Dubbed the Wild Winter Lights Festival, the event
takes place today through Sunday from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Tickets start at $18.50 for those who aren’t members of the zoo and $15.50 for members. Find out more about the event and buy tickets on the website. (Laura Morrison) 3900 Wildlife Way, 216-661-6500, clemetzoo.com. FAMILY FUN
Winter Wonder Cleveland Based on similar concepts in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities, Winter Wonder Cleveland houses 10 larger-than-life installations all designed as photo backdrops for groups of families and friends. Open daily, the attraction at the Hamilton Collaborative Building features a replica set from a holiday movie, a giant swing that projects you out on a pendulum over the Cleveland skyline, three Olympic-style curling tracks where you can try your hand at the quirky Canadian sport, an enormous ship that sways and rocks as if it is in the middle of the ocean, a mirrored holiday tree room and other displays that combine appealing winter imagery, great lighting, group challenges and subtle nods to some favorite holiday movies and traditions. The event is priced variably for peak and non-peak times, and kids are always discounted. Groups seeking a private event such as a holiday party or team-building event can always be accommodated and are encouraged to inquire on the website. The pop-up opens today. Find hours and admission prices on the website. (Niesel) 5401 Hamilton Ave., winterwondercleveland.com. MUSIC
Yuja Wang Plays Rachmaninoff Pianist Yuja Wang sits in with the Cleveland Orchestra tonight at Severance Hall as it performs Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto. The program also includes pieces by Prokofiev, Poulenc and Ravel. Case Western Reserve University’s Emily Laurance gives the pre-concert talk that begins an hour before the concert. The concert takes place at 8 tonight and tomorrow night and at 3 p.m. on Sunday at Severance Hall. Consult the orchestra website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.
SAT
11/30
FILM
Aga Aga, Bulgaria’s official entry for
the 2020 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, centers on an older couple who live in a yurt in the frozen northern Siberian wilderness. They then set out to find their estranged daughter who lives in a nearby city. The movie screens at 7:05 tonight and at 8:45 tomorrow night at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. Tickets cost $10, or $7 for Cinematheque members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu.
NOW thru DEC 22 | THE HELEN written by DUNCAN MACMILLAN with JONNY DONAHOE directed by LAURA KEPLEY
MUSIC
Cleveland Pops Orchestra: Holiday Spectacular 2019 Cleveland Pops Orchestra and Pops Chorus, plus the “mellow” voice and showmanship of nationally acclaimed entertainer Michael Preaceley, team up today at Connor Palace for the orchestra’s annual Holiday Spectacular. Expect to sing along to holiday carols and songs. Adoptable puppies and kittens from local shelters will be on hand as well, and you can take family photos with Santa Claus. Bring new toys and games to help the City Mission in its efforts to provide gifts to needy kids. The event begins at 2 p.m., and tickets cost $19 to $45. (Niesel) 1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, clevelandpops.com. FILM
Give Me Liberty This film from director Krill Mikhanvsky created a buzz when it showed at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The movie centers on a medial transport driver who encounters a number of roadblocks as he tries to get his passengers to their various meetings and appointments. It screens at 9:05 tonight and at 6:30 tomorrow night at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. Tickets cost $12, or $9 for Cinematheque members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu. COMEDY
Ken Jeong Actor, producer and writer Ken Jeong got his big break when he was cast in the hit comedy film The Hangover. He’s gotten great roles ever since. The lead in the ABC sitcom Dr. Ken, he currently appears as a panelist on The Masked Singer, a wacky show that features celebrities performing in disguise. He provides color commentary as he tries to guess who’s behind the mask. Jeong brings his standup show to MGM Northfield Park – Center Stage tonight at 8. Tickets cost $39 to $69. (Niesel)
AN IMMERSIVE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE starring TARAH FLANAGAN and ALEX BRIGHTWELL in alternating performances
TICKETS START AT $20! STUDENT RUSH TICKETS ONLY $15!
216.241.6000 | clevelandplayhouse.com
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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GET OUT 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, mgmnorthfieldpark. mgmresorts.com. SPORTS
Monsters vs. Rochester Americans The Cleveland Cavaliers are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, and the Monsters get in on the action tonight as they take on the Rochester Americans at 7 p.m. at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. The game will feature Cavs’ entertainment teams and mascots. Consult the Monsters website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com. FAMILY FUN
Winterfest A free family event that takes place downtown, Winterfest begins with activities at 9 a.m. There will be live entertainment and musical performances, free horse-drawn carriage rides, gourmet food trucks, ice skating and a Kids’ Village. The event concludes with the ceremonial lighting of the holiday tree at 6 p.m.
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followed by fireworks, a visit from Santa Claus and his elves, and a concert by Nashville recording artist AC Jones. Find a complete schedule on the Downtown Cleveland Alliance website. (Niesel) downtowncleveland.com/events/ winterfest.
SUN
12/01
COMICS
Genghis Con Genghis Con returns today for its 11th installment, taking over the Tenk Building on the West Bank of the Flats. This time around, local graphic artist John G has recruited Cleveland artists such as Sequoia Bostick, co-founder of Cleveland’s Vagabond Comics, to help organize the event and select the lineup of exhibitors. The event is similar to other makers’ markets or local bazaars, only this time, booths are filled with independent writers and artists touting their ’zines and comics and other affiliated goods. This year, the Weird Realms DIY Game Room is also making a return. It highlights locally produced board games and role-playing games (think Dungeons & Dragons) — and don’t worry, the
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
rules will be explained. The show runs from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Tenk Buildling. It’s free. (Laura Morrison) 2111 Center St., genghisconcleveland.com. FILM
Growing Up Female and Methadone: An American Way of Dealing A three-time Oscar nominee who lives in the Dayton area, Julia Reichert is Ohio’s foremost non-fiction filmmaker. Julia Reichert: 50 Years in Film, a traveling retrospective that has come to the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, features screenings of restored versions of her films. Today at 4 p.m., the Cinematheque presents a double feature of her films: 1971’s Growing Up Female and 1974’s Methadone: An American Way of Dealing. Tickets cost $11, or $8 for Cinematheque members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu. COMEDY
Dina Hashem Soft-spoken comedian Dina Hashem describes herself as an “Arab lady,” but admits she can’t do an Arab accent. Still, she tries to mimic her father, who left her and her mother
when she young and moved back to the Middle East. That’s why she voted for Trump. “I’d vote for anyone who will keep my dad out of the country,” she jokes. She performs tonight at 7 at Hilarities. Tickets start at $13. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. FILM
Munch in Hell Director Stig Andersen profiles Dutch painter Edvard Munch in this documentary film, Munch in Hell. A Norwegian painter who sought to “bring light to darkness,” Munch left his entire art collection to the city of Oslo, reportedly the “greatest gift an artist has ever given to the public.” The film explores the ways in which the city has mistreated the esteemed artist’s collection. It screens at 1:30 p.m. today and at 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tickets cost $10, or $7 for CMA members. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
MON
12/02
MUSIC
Thank Yule For Being A Friend The Golden Gays NYC (or GGNYC)
became a sensation as a flash mob extravaganza. They’ve now evolved into something less transient, and their hit musical Hot Flashbacks premiered to rave reviews last year off-Broadway at Theatre Row. Thank Yule For Being A Friend, the Midwest tour that brings them to the Music Box tonight marks the fourth successful GGNYC tour and celebrates the holiday season. Tickets start at $25. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-242-1250, musicboxcle.com.
TUE
12/03
A Gift From Us to You!
SPORTS
Cavaliers vs. Detroit Pistons What used to be one of basketball’s greatest rivalries has subsided now that the Cavs and the Detroit Pistons are both in the process of rebuilding their teams. The Cavs have notched wins against division rivals such as the Indiana Pacers and the Chicago Bulls. They’ll be looking for another division win tonight as they take on the Pistons at 7 p.m. at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Check the website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com. THEATER
Mean Girls Part of the KeyBank Broadway Series, Mean Girls centers on a newbie who must navigate a high school filled with “frenemies.” Book writer Tina Fey, composer Jeff Richmond, lyricist Nell Benjamin and director Casey Nicholaw collaborated on this musical that’s based on the movie of the same name. Tonight’s show takes place at 7:30 p.m. at Connor Palace, where performances continue through Dec. 22. Tickets start at $10. (Niesel) 1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. MUSIC
Pure Yanni A unique concert featuring the composer Yanni, Pure Yanni will feature the man’s orchestrations performed exclusively on a piano. Yanni will also tell stories about traveling the globe. The performance, which takes place tonight at 8 at the State Theatre, will also include a live Q&A with the audience. Tickets start at $45. (Niesel) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
1395 W 10th St #120, Cleveland, OH 44113 | 216-621-7085
INVITE YOU AND A GUEST TO A SPECIAL SCREENING OF
Monday, December 9 at 7:00 PM Cinemark Valley View Visit www.sonyscreenings.com and enter the code JUMANJI2SCENE for your chance to download a pair of passes.
No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Limit 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 DECEMBER 13 scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
@Jumanjimovie #JUMANJI | clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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STAGE HUMBLE AND HUMAN Live Bodies For Sale brims with heartfelt performances by Roman Macharoni Photo by Grace McC Photography
OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, human trafficking has become fodder for films, TV crime shows and other media as advocates seek to raise awareness on the issue. Some of those stories are also exploitative, featuring flashy, surreal situations and broad generalizations paired with false statistics. That’s not what you’ll find from seasoned playwright, and anti-trafficking advocate in his own right, Christopher Johnston in his new part-documentary, partstage reading, part-drama Live Bodies For Sale at the adventurous Waterloo Arts. This is a more down-to-earth approach to the subject. Without any connotation, the play is pedestrian — simply take real people and their stories and showcase the real harm that comes from it, and the auxiliary epidemics that occur with causality to human trafficking, such as heroin overdosing and dependency. Dramatized situations of victims are juxtaposed with heart-to-heart discussions ripped straight from the mouths of sex trafficking survivors and the real people in Ohio who strive to make a difference. Director Terrance Spivey, a legend in the Cleveland theater community, injects the story with thought-provoking visuals and charm that take a concept that could result in something drab or emotionally cold and instead imbue it with a sparkling of authenticity, wit, and even the occasional joke to lighten the mood. The play forces you to connect and appeal to its characters on a visceral, universally human level. The cast shines at portraying these characters — some actual people living in Cleveland and abroad — with strength, heart and incredible resiliency. The majority of the play follows three narratives, the first of which is a series of group therapy sessions for sex trafficking survivors held at the Renee Jones Empowerment Center, where Lauren (Rocky Encalada), Nicole (Hayley Johnson), Martina (Juliette Regnier) and Shanice (Rochelle
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Jones, who also plays Renee Jones in some scenes) relive the painful memories of their experiences to share with the rest of the group. As newcomer Tammy (Arien Hodges) joins the bunch, the others help her let down her guard by letting her know that she isn’t the only one to endure being used by people for profit. The second and third narratives intertwine, as recent captive Emily (Emily Taylor) is brought into the world of sex trafficking by her smarmy pimp (Joseph Milan) and is informed of the rules she needs to follow in order to survive, also succumbing to subjugation and drug use along the way. She is discovered and brought in by undercover detective John Morgan (Stephen Hood) in his pursuit to bring those who profit off trafficking to justice. In his search, he breaks down how the underbelly of this criminal world operates and how officers like Morgan infiltrate it. Once their two stories collide, it’s the moments between Hood and Taylor that create some of the most captivating parts of the production. Hood’s rich voice and fatherly mannerisms toward Taylor’s character are complemented by Taylor’s spunky yet frightened persona. In many ways, the women of the group therapy sessions represent the stages of grief and PTSD associated with survival. Encalada — in her debut for Playwrights
Live Bodies For Sale is a thought-provoking look at human sex trafficking.
excels at portraying the doe-eyed and fragile victim with a motherly charm and natural kindness. As a mournful victim vying to be independent again, Jones boasts a vast emotional arsenal. Hodges shows great potential, and has her share of tear-jerking moments and dynamic monologues as a victim forced to constantly hide her emotions from the rest of the world. Milan, who also portrays Prosecutor Rick Bell from a specialized task force within Cuyahoga County, gives two very distinct performances in his double duty; as both a slightly overthe-top, detestable pimp and an authoritative yet still approachable lawman, Milan makes good use of his natural posture and dominant
LIVE BODIES FOR SALE THROUGH DEC. 15 CREATIVE SPACE AT WATERLOO ARTS, 397 EAST 156TH ST., 216-302-8856 PLAYWRIGHTSLOCAL.ORG
Local productions — bares her heart in explosive monologues on her character’s triggers and her life before exploitation. Johnson — like her character, in a slightly more confident and independent stage of grief — shows confidence beyond her years of experience. Regnier — who also plays Sister Cecelia Liberatore, another real-life local figurehead and advocate —
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
presence on stage. The technical layout of the play is as straightforward as the subject matter and script, but there are some clever creative liberties taken in Bodies. Particularly the costume choices by designer Inda BlatchGeib give each character instantly definable characteristics before even uttering a word. Additionally, the high-contrast lighting by
Marcus Dana adds depth to some of the most profound monologues. Live Bodies For Sale isn’t just an unabashed emotional roller coaster taken from heartfelt, honest testimonies by those affected by trafficking; it also warrants the attention of those beyond the theater community by its relevance, importance given the crime’s rampant nature and its ability to showcase its scope of the issue, locally and worldwide. While its execution is excellent in many ways, the subject matter of this production alone is enough to convince the most casual of theater fans to visit Waterloo Arts and witness one of the purest forms of the medium: a slightly dramatized iteration of people’s lives that — unfortunately — is too outrageous and devastating to make up. And if you leave the theater wondering what you can do to raise awareness and help people stuck in this horrible position, you can depart with a satisfying answer: A portion of the proceeds from this production go toward the Renee Jones Empowerment Center, and additional monetary donations can be made at the theater.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
MOVIES CHOOSE THE HARDER LIFE Queen & Slim is the outlaw story America needs right now By Laura Morrison Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
SO MANY OF THE CRIMES we see splashed across the nightly news in this country raise a question: What are the motivations of the people involved? And Queen & Slim gets right into the heart of the matter. No more than seven minutes into the film, after an incredibly blah first date at a diner, a black man (Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out) and woman (Jodie TurnerSmith, making her feature film debut) are driving home in Cleveland (because, obviously) when they’re pulled over by a white cop (singer Sturgill Simpson). The situation goes from ugly to worse almost immediately, and it ends with the cop dead on the ground, the woman with a bullet through her leg and the non-couple deciding they need to get out of town stat. The film opens today nationwide. Dashcam video footage of the incident is soon released and as the manhunt for the pair on the run reaches greater heights, people across the country begin to see them as folk heroes, when really, all they wanted to do was go home. They try to explain to those along their journey that it was all self defense, they weren’t trying to make a statement. No one wants to hear that though. Things have been boiling over for too long. The script, written by Lena Waithe (Master of None, The Chi) from a story she wrote with James
Frey (of the infamous A Million Little Pieces “memoir,” and who is from Cleveland), is a mishmash of high-octane tension, slow lyricism and, thankfully, some comedy. And while the outlaws are referred to once as the “black Bonnie and Clyde” in the film, the story isn’t the same. The pair — we’ll call them Queen and Slim even though their names are never spoken in the movie — travel through this glorious country toward New Orleans, where Queen’s pimp uncle lives in a sweet-ass century home with a few beautiful prostitutes. Here we learn more of Queen’s back story, about her first client
fresh out of law school and how her mother is dead. Despite the respite, the bickering pair must soon hit the road once again. Eventually, through close proximity and a general wearing down — Queen admits there would never have been a second date — love comes slowly and in a real way. A scene in a Bayou blues joint, with barely any dialogue, shows the nerves and beauty of a first dance with both wanting to impress one another. Still, not everything works in this movie helmed by Melina Matsoukas (of Beyoncé’s Formation music video). It’s too long, some of the dialogue editing feels off and
the juxtaposition of a graphic sex scene with a truly upsetting riot feels misplaced. But when our two leads are firing on all cylinders, playing off of one another like a well-oiled machine, the film sizzles. Queen & Slim ends how you know it must, in the way a movie of this kind was always going to: powerful and sad. Even without that element of surprise, moviegoers will leave the theaters with a hell of a lot to mull over. It’s far more than a piece of entertainment.
lmorrison@clevescene.com t@lowesays
SPOTLIGHT: KNIVES OUT STRUCTURED AS A STEREOTYPICAL whodunit, Knives Out intends to keep you guessing, and it successfully does that and then some. The finely crafted film includes a dizzying array of twists and turns — and a pretty fantastic performance by Daniel Craig as the slow-talking Southern investigator itching to figure out who did what to whom. It’s now playing areawide. The movie commences, as most whodunits do, at the scene of a crime. Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), a very wealthy, renowned author of mystery
novels, has died of an apparent suicide at his 85th birthday party. All of his family members were present at his mansion on the night of his death, and they all had possible motives. His playboy grandson Ransom (Chris Evans) left the party in a huff after an argument. Thrombey’s youngest son Walter (Michael Shannon) has clashed with his father on how to properly run his publishing company. Thrombey’s daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and husband Richard (Don Johnson) had various run-ins with Thrombey,
and Thrombey’s daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) has been stealing the money her father-in-law gives her for her daughter’s college tuition. And yet, despite all this, the motives don’t point to a clear culprit. In fact, the woman who was with Thrombey closest to the time of death is his caretaker Marta (Ana de Armas), a woman so sweet and innocent, she pukes when she lies. Detective Benoit Blanc (Craig), the private detective working on the case as a consultant (we don’t know who hired him), gravitates to Marta because he knows she’s the one
person he can trust. Much of the film revolves around their interaction, and if there’s a flaw, it’s that the other characters don’t get their due. But in the end, writer-director Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) masterfully unveils plot twists piece-by-piece until the final sequence when Benoit artfully puts it all together for us and brings things to a close with a terrific “aha” moment. — Jeff Niesel
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
EAT THE CALL OF THE WILD Jeremy Umanski teaches Cleveland’s aspiring foragers about the wild bounty of Northeast Ohio By Walker Macmurdo Photo by Ken Blaze
IT’S THE LAST SUNDAY IN JUNE, and dull, wooly heat weighs down on an unpaved parking lot outside of Nelson-Kennedy Ledges State Park. In a back corner of the lot, Jeremy Umansky holds court between an irrigation ditch and the rusted wheel well of a silver Dodge Durango. He’s teaching two dozen of us — hip kids, big boys in Browns jerseys, young professionals, hobbyists, boomers, a vegan cheesemaker — how to safely and confidently forage for some of the approximately 300 edible plants and 100 fungi that grow wild in Northeast Ohio. “If you find a plant that has thorns, and produces fruit that looks like blackberries or raspberries, you can eat it,” advises Umansky, after spotting a familiar tangle of thorns near the ground. He was drawn to this patch of brush by the fuzzy, fuschia cones of staghorn sumac — the North American relative of the bush whose dried berries are ground into the tart, peppery seasoning widely used across Middle Eastern cuisines — visible from across the lot. Within 15 minutes, Umansky deciphered blackberries, wild roses, wild grapes, cattails and thistles from the brush surrounding the sumac. We were surrounded by edible plants, all of which Umansky regularly uses in the dishes he serves at his James Beard Award-nominated Ohio City restaurant, Larder Delicatessen and Bakery. At Larder, Umansky and his partners and staff serve housemade fried chicken sandwiches, ferments, pickles, salads and gigantic pastries to diners throughout the week — many of which are made with ingredients harvested from Northeast Ohio’s collective backyard. “Personally, I work with about 150 to 175 different species of mushrooms,” says Umansky. “Plants, we probably use over 300 different species. When we use the ingredients [at Larder], they’re just fully integrated into our cooking. They aren’t called out as something special or unique because we want everybody to be able to relate to it.” Umansky holds a Wild-foraged Mushroom Certification from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, one of only a
handful of qualifications professional foragers can receive in the United States (Ohio does not regulate wild foraged foods). Growing up in Solon, Umansky began foraging with his mother, harvesting wild blackberries from a dirt-bike pathway in a wooded lot near his home. He began foraging professionally in New York, working as a land manager for a farm that partnered with Cornell University, New York’s state agricultural school. “We worked on an added value program of developing wild foods into a product listing,” says Umansky. “Teaching farmers how to recognize that instead of spraying your fields, you can harvest these things and sell them for a primo at the New York City green markets.” After returning to Cleveland in 2014, Umansky began teaching foraging classes to make money while he and his partners were opening Larder. Today, he runs these twohour classes twice monthly from April through early November as part of Larder’s food education program, which includes classes on topics including fermentation, charcuterie and canning. “We’re a very nature-phobic society,” says Umansky. “We’re mycophobic. We’re afraid of fungi. People are afraid to even touch them — they think they’re going to die. We’re afraid of every berry, thanks to great sensationalized outdoor adventures like
Into the Wild. Every plant you touch is going to give you a rash because of poison ivy. Essentially, we’re afraid of the outdoors. And we shouldn’t be, because we’re part of the ecosystem. Being able to dispel that is a huge goal.” Umansky’s class serves as an introduction to foraging in and around Cleveland. Through the afternoon, we learned how to identify a handful of Northeast Ohio’s most common edible — and poisonous — plants and mushrooms, as well as ground rules for how to safely and responsibly forage. “Outside of the black and white of ‘this is poisonous and will kill you,’ and this is delicious,’ there’s all these other ramifications of improperly foraging and being a bad steward,” explains Umansky. “You can be trespassing on someone’s lawn. There’s places you legally can’t forage — like in the Metroparks — and you’ll get a ticket. There’s also issues of places that are contaminated. It may look like a beautiful, wild space, but there can be cadmium or lead in the soil.” Once we moved from the parking lot into the forested sandstone contours of the Ledges, my personal goal was to find and harvest a patch of chanterelles, the squat, golden mushroom which grows near birch trees and is prized by chefs for its peppery flavor. As we picked through the underbrush, aspiring foragers
would bring different plants and mushrooms to Umansky’s attention, each of which he identified by its Latin name and described in detail. Almost every mushroom we were able to dredge up from the forest floor was, unfortunately, not palatable, meaning it would either dissolve into nothingness when cooked, taste awful or, if ingested, send you running to the bathroom. One forager was able to find a hatful of tiny chanterelles, but the enormous haul I had been hoping for did not arrive. I returned to the Ledges with a backpack and pocketknife on a heavy July morning, mushrooms on the brain. Two weekends later, patches of apricot lumps had spread through the forest floor. I checked the underside of a cap, seeing gills that split off divergently in little rivulets rushing toward the sky. These mushrooms were clearly, unmistakably, chanterelles. And they were everywhere. I began harvesting, slicing the larger mushrooms in each patch off at the base of the stem. After a half hour’s worth of mushrooming, I had over a pound and a half of chanterelles, at least forty bucks’ worth at any grocery store. That evening, I would roast my chanterelles with garlic and olive oil and toss them with parsley, Parmesan, butter, black pepper and tagliatelle. “Most of the rest of the world, foraging is a normalized activity that’s just part of how you put food on the table,” says Umansky. “In Eastern Europe, most of Asia, from Russia down to Thailand, large parts of Central and South America, that is just as much a regular thing for putting food on the table as it is for us to go to the supermarket. To find something here that you can get with your own hands, that you can enjoy eating with your family … it’s captivating.”
Larder holds foraging classes twice monthly, April through November. The two-hour classes are $25, cash or credit. To sign up, call 216-912-8203. See larderdb.com for more information.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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EAT BITES Immigrant Son Brewery to open this spring in Lakewood By Douglas Trattner
ORDER ONLINE
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WHEN CONSTANTINO’S MARKET closed its Lakewood grocery store, it was a sad day for the family-run business, which also operates stores downtown and in University Circle. But the closure also provided one family member with the opportunity he had been waiting for for years: the ideal property for Immigrant Son Brewery. “There are so many things that are absolutely perfect and serendipitous to it, including down to the design of the building,” says Andrew Revy, who is the brewery’s founder. This will be Lakewood’s first and only brewery, Revy adds, likely because securing the right building at the right price with sufficient space and adequate parking is nearly impossible. This one clocks in at 9,000 square feet, is family owned, and comes with a generous parking lot capable of accommodating 38 cars. “It’s almost turnkey except for the brewery equipment, the brewpub, the brewer,” Revy jokes. Revy says that he’s had the concept for Immigrant Son fully formed in his mind for years, and when the building became available, he set those plans in motion. “I’ve been wanting to do a brewery for a very long time,” he explains. “When the name came to me a few years ago, it really resonated. I’m a first-generation American; my parents are from Hungary, who came here two weeks before the revolution. So, I’m an immigrant son. My heritage is very important to me, but so is growing up here in Cleveland, which is very much a melting pot city. Once I started diving deeper into this, even outside my own personal experience, you realize that beer is part of every culture. People brought their beers with them when they immigrated here.” Immigrant Son (18120 Sloane Ave., in Lakewood’s West End) will be a full-on brewery and brewpub, with equal emphasis placed on the food and the beer. The building will be split equally between the two endeavors, with a 10-barrel brewery in one half and the 200-seat bar and restaurant in the other. On tap will be 20 house beers, but also a full
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
Photo courtesy Andrew Revy
cocktail program and wine list. The brewer will be Cara Baker, a name that will be familiar to most brewers in Northeast Ohio. “I’m really excited about our brewer,” Revy adds. “She’s very much entrenched in the scene. She’s very well respected for her knowledge and passion. She’s very talented, let me tell you. But it’s also really great to have a female brewer in this very much male-dominated industry.” The brewery will be separate but visible from the pub thanks to windows and glass doors. The full-service restaurant will continue the immigrant theme with its “New World meets Old World” approach to food. Diners can look forward to elevated but approachable melting pot cuisine, dished up in a highceilinged space trimmed in a pleasing mix of wood, metal and glass. Look for Immigrant Son Brewery to open sometime this spring.
Rosso Italia to Open in Former Red Beachwood Space First Week of December Last month, Red Steakhouse in Beachwood was permanently put to bed in advance of a new Red opening at Pinecrest, which it will do on Nov. 29. That space, next door to Blu (3355 Richmond Rd., 216-831-5599), will
become Rosso Italia, an Italian restaurant. “I’ve always wanted to do Italian food,” says owner Brad Friedlander. “We have a lot of great Italian restaurants in Cleveland, but I always thought there was something missing.” Friedlander says that the move didn’t require much of a stretch as Red already had more than a few Italian-style dishes on the menu. “A lot of people don’t realize that Red had a shitload of Italian food on the menu,” he says. “We’re just expanding on that. We’re still going to have steaks, we’re still going to have chicken, we’re still going to have many of the items we used to have, to a certain extent, but there’s just going to be more of an Italian influence.” Chefs Joe Lang and Julian Kuczma will prepare everything from scratch, starting with the breads and pastas and ending with desserts. The menu will have antipasti, cheeses, grilled sardines, stuffed peppers, osso buco, eggplant Milanese, veal marsala, and a chicken Parm “that could feed a family of four.” A cena con amici (dinner with friends) option will include antipasti, two pastas, an entree and sides for around $45 per person.
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
HEN THE INDIE ROCK ACT Guided by Voices would come to Cleveland in the 1990s, either Cobra Verde or Gem, bands that featured local guitar hero Doug Gillard, would often open for the Dayton group. A big fan of the band, Gillard would regularly jump up on stage with the guys to jam. He and members of Cobra Verde would formally back GBV on 1997’s exuberant Mag Earwhig! and the tour in support of the release. “I was friends with that classic lineup, and Cobra Verde was excited to play with a band we loved and make that record and do that tour,” says Gillard, now a full-
time member of GBV, via phone from his New York home. GBV performs at 9 p.m. on Friday at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights. After Mag Earwhig!, Gillard would soldier on with the GBV guys as they signed to TVT Records and recorded 1999’s Do the Collapse and 2001’s Isolation Drills, terrific albums that nearly delivered the massive pop/rock hit that had always eluded the band. “The band had been on Matador, but TVT had better distribution,” explains Gillard. Gillard’s run with the group continued until the band’s 2004 farewell tour, appropriately dubbed the Electrifying Conclusion Tour. “That tour was great, and the last blowout
was in Chicago, and there’s a DVD of that show,” Gillard says. “We knew the band was coming to an end, so we just had fun. I didn’t think the band would ever come back, and that was fine. I just wanted [singer] Bob [Pollard] to do what he wanted to do, and everyone thought we’d be moving on.” Pollard would put the classic lineup of the band back together in 2010 to play the Matador Records 21st anniversary celebration in Las Vegas. Gillard played the after parties for the warmup gigs the band played prior to the Vegas show. The group toured and recorded until disbanding once again in 2014, only to reunite again in 2016 and issue Please Be Honest, an album Pollard recorded entirely
on his own. Gillard returned to the fold in July of 2016. “It was a trip to come back,” he admits. “I had to learn a few new songs, but I already knew a lot of songs. I had to learn the new album, which became August by Cake too. I was excited to come back to the band. At that time, things started to gel with all of us.” For August by Cake, Pollard recorded five of the songs on his own before bringing the band together to complete the disc. Singerguitarist Bobby Bare Jr., an alt-country artist in his own right, also joined the band for the first time in the studio for that album. “It’s fun to record with Bobby [Bare Jr.],” says Gillard. “He even wrote a couple of songs. He’s fun to tour with too.”
jniesel@clevescene.com | t@jniesel | clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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MUSIC Pollard wanted each member to write at least two songs for August by Cake, the band’s first double disc. The riveting Wholike “5° on the Inside” opens the 32-song album with a bang as Pollard then continues to exploit his British Invasion obsession with songs such as “Fever Pitch” and “What Begins on New Year’s Day.” Since the release of that album, the band’s been plenty busy, having released How Do You Spell Heaven in 2017 and Space Gun in 2018. This year alone, the group has issued Zeppelin Over China, Warp and Woof and Sweating the Plague. “We try to make the records a little different from each other, and we try to experiment in the studio as much as we can within reason and bring something unique to every song,” says Gillard. “We have to compartmentalize in our mind learning songs for a new record that’s not out yet and learning to play the songs from the record that’s just been released.”
he wanted the feel of arena rock,” says Gillard. “His way of defining that term comes from the late ’60s and early ’70s. He saw Kiss live the first time they came to Dayton in 1974, and he saw UFO early on and AC/DC early on. It’s not like stadium rock but the dry album-oriented rock. I would put Blue Oyster Cult in that category too. I grew up on WMMS and all of that was ingrained in my mind too. There’s some post-punk and prog as well.” For Gillard, who started wanting to play guitar at a young age simply because music was always on at his home and in the car, touring and recording incessantly with GBV has been a dream come true. “My dad was musical and played guitar as a hobby,” he says. “I just gravitated to music. I can’t pinpoint a single thing, but I grew up loving and watching the Monkees and the Archies, and my sister had the Beatles and Paul Revere and the Raiders albums. Every since I can remember, I’ve been banging on stuff and trying to play music.” Outside of GBV, he’s been
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
The band has cut the last few records at engineer Travis Harrison’s New York studio, Serious Business. “Travis is our front-of-thehouse sound guy when we play live, so it’s very comfortable to work with him, and we’re all working toward the same thing,” says Gillard. “It’s convenient for the three of us in the New York area, and we have fun doing it as well. Travis has an efficient way of working. We try not to waste too much time in the studio.” Sweating the Plague songs such as “Downer” and “Tiger Top” sound particularly heavy and eschew the band’s British Invasion tendencies for something a little harder. “Sons of the Beard,” the album’s final track, has a majestic, Emerson, Lake and Palmer feel to it. “One of Bob [Pollard]’s notes for the album was that
plenty busy too. He plays on the forthcoming album from indie rock veterans Nada Surf and has produced an album by the Oakland, California-based indie rock act Bye Bye Blackbirds. He’s also been collaborating with Clevelander Matthew Wascovich on a variety of projects and is still active in the Beatles tribute act Bambi Kino. He plays on a few tracks on the latest effort from the Cleveland band Metrolight, and he can be heard on the recent reissue of the Pollard solo album, Speak Kindly Of Your Volunteer Fire Department. “Just knowing there’s always new configurations of chord and always room to do something different keeps me inspired,” he says. “The possibilities are always kind of endless when you pick up a guitar or keyboard to make a song. I’m always inspired by that.”
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SAD MUSIC, SAD COMEDY
MUSIC ESTABLISHING A MUSIC AGENDA Local musician hopes his new book will help bands better understand the music business By Jeff Niesel Photo Courtesy of Chris Bianchi
CHRIS BIANCHI, A LOCALLY based artist manager and indie label owner who grew up in Streetsboro and now lives in Kent, might be in his 30s, but he’s had years of experience in the music industry. His former heavy metal band, Forever in Terror, signed a record deal when he was still in high school. “Legally, the parents had to sign our contract,” he says one day over lunch. Bianchi, who runs CB Entertainment, has just published The Music Agenda: Best Practices for Your Music Career, an e-book designed to help bands understand how they can make money from their music, and he’s partnered with INgrooves/Universal Music to host his own record label, Legend Recordings. “That was pretty exciting and what got me started in the business. I learned hands-on. It fell into my lap to follow up on our shows and collect our money every night and follow up on the business side of things.” At age 3, Bianchi had a mini drum kit, and as he got older, he gravitated to the hard rock that was popular in the ’80s. “I liked bands like Kiss, Poison, Motley Crue,” he says. “As I got into high school, my parents were supportive when I wanted to start a band. They helped us sell tickets when we played at the old Peabody’s and would drive us up in the minivan with our classmates to the shows.” Forever in Terror performed for a couple of years before inking its deal with Metal Blade. The band regularly played throughout Northeast Ohio and even toured Canada. “It was a learning experience,” says Bianchi. “The label was supportive and gave us opportunity when other people wouldn’t. I’m forever thankful for that. If I knew now what I knew then, it would be different. There was nobody to teach us. They just sent us out on tour, and nobody explained the business side of things to us. That was one of the things that led to our failure. We just didn’t understand business.” While on tour with Forever in Terror, Bianchi discovered other up-and-coming bands and began to
think of ways he could help such acts. So when Forever in Terror disbanded, he turned to management and artist development. “I would give other bands guidance and took bands on tour,” he says. Around 2011, he and a friend started booking shows at the Outpost Concert Club. They booked then-unknown acts such as Machine Gun Kelly and Twenty One Pilots. CB Entertainment formed at that point. “The first time, there were like three people there to see Twenty One Pilots,” says Bianchi. “They were opening for one of our bands. They were just a local act out of Columbus. We paid them $20 or something, and they put on an incredible show. About six months later, they came back through on another tour package, and there were 50 or 60 people.” Bianchi says that given the way consumers get their music today, bands don’t necessarily need a record label.
“I have a formula in place depending on the artist and what they want to accomplish,” he says. “I build assets with them and teach them the business. It’s almost like a college class even though I’m no professor. I show [bands] how to create LLCs and how to establish credit and get on the road. That’s been the bread and butter. I do some management as well. I try to help artists go from local to national.” Currently, Bianchi has an artist and consulting roster of about 12 bands. Six months ago, he was speaking at a music conference in Pittsburgh and befriended William Metzger, a lawyer who had similar interests. They talked about the things they had in common and agreed to collaborate on a book together. “We worked on it back and forth for about six months and then sent it to an editor who tightened it up and made it look more professional,” says Bianchi.
“We’ve gotten great response from musicians and industry people as well. Other artist managers have bought the book and told me they were inspired by it. That’s been a twist to it. We didn’t imagine that. We just thought musicians would be the main audience.” They’ve built a playlist on Spotify, so that any band that buys the book goes on a custom playlist associated with the book. There will also be a physical copy of the book, and an audiobook is in the works as well. “I think it’ll stand the test of time for a good three to five years, if not longer,” says Bianchi. “We’ve been talking to some schools about using the book and creating curriculum around it. That would be my goal — I want to get more into speaking engagements and spreading awareness.”
jniesel@clevescene.com scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene t@jniesel
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
LIVEWIRE
all the live music you should see this week Photo by Peter Larson
WED
11/27
Beatles Blowout With Sunrise Jones: 7:30 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Cosmic Slop: A Night of Upbeat Dance Music From the Margins of Music: Tonight at 9 at Now That’s Class, DJ Hamaradio, A-Live and Ghostnoises spin Detroit techno, Chicago footwork, ’80s electro, sleek boogie, Afrosynth music, house, electro, new wave and kwaito at an regular event dubbed Cosmic Slop. (Jeff Niesel) free. Now That’s Class. Daddy Longlegs Homegrown Revival/Meg and the Magnetosphere: 8 p.m., $10. Beachland Tavern. Front Porch Lights/ BEACHWEEK/Worry Stone (in the Supper Club): 7 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Funtcase/SweetTooth /Konium/ Hekate/Voto/DJ Krytikal: 9 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Jack Harlow/ALLBLACK: 7:30 p.m., $17 ADV, $20 DOS. Grog Shop. JiMiller Band’s Annual Night Before Thanksgiving Bash: 8 p.m., $10. The Winchester. Mike, Jim & Bill Do The Beatles White Album: 7 p.m., $15. Nighttown. Red Money/Johnny in the Grave: 8 p.m., $8. CODA. Watkins Glen Revival – A Tribute to Summer Jam at Watkins Glen Featuring Revival (Allman Brothers) and Sunshine Daydream (The Grateful Dead): 8 p.m., $15 ADV, $20 DOS. House of Blues.
FRI
11/29
Benefit for the Rainforest Featuring Oregon Space Trail of Doom/Broken Keys: All ticket sales from tonight’s show headlined by local indie rockers Oregon Space Trail of Doom will be donated to Rainforest Trust. The show will begin with an hour-long jazz set by Oregon Space Trail of Jazz, an Oregon Space Trail of Doom spinoff. DJ Broken Keys will then spin from 10 to 11 p.m. Oregon Space Trail of Doom will close the night out. The event will also feature pop-ups
Welshly Arms returns to House of Blues. See: Saturday.
from vendors such as the Time Change Generator, Cleveland Print Company and Akron Recording Company. Evening Son will provide the live visuals/projections. In addition, Oregon Space Trail of Jazz will celebrate the release of its second EP, Our Daily Bread. The EP will feature three original songs. (Niesel) 9 p.m., $6. Happy Dog. Cats on Holiday Presents the Kinks (in the Supper Club): 7:30 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Cave Twins/Moths in the Attic/ Drew Joseph: 8 p.m., $8. CODA. Cycles/Bypass Circuit: 9 p.m., $10. The Winchester. Forecast: 8:30 p.m., $15. Nighttown. Gay New Wave Night with DJ Guilala: 9 p.m., free. Now That’s Class. The Cory Grinder Band/Dan Whitaker & the Shinebenders: 9 p.m., $7 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Guided by Voices: 9 p.m., $38 ADV, $40 DOS. Grog Shop. Happy Hour with DJ Dollar Country: 6 p.m., free. Happy Dog. Issues/Sleep Token/Lil Aaron/ Polyphia/Blossom Reynolds: 6:30 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. House of Blues. Journey Tribute by E5C4P3: 8 p.m. Music Box Supper Club. Mondo Magic (in the Locker Room): 9 p.m., free. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.
People Under the Stairs/Gills/ Kratom/Pine Taar: 4 p.m., free. Now That’s Class. The Pineapple Thief Featuring Gavin Harrison/Randy McStine/ The Receiver: 7:30 p.m., $30 ADV, $35 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown.
SAT
11/30
Blizzard Bash: The 14th annual Blizzard Bash benefiting the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland will take place at 7 tonight at the Beachland Tavern. Local acts such as Corry Michaels, Top Hat Black, Jul Big Green and Apostle Jones will perform. All of the money taken at the door as well as presale tickets will go directly to the Hunger Network. Last year, Blizzard Bash raised enough money to provide 6,000 meals. The Hunger Network Food Rescue saves perfectly fresh, healthy food destined for waste and puts it into the hands of those who are hungry in our community. Tickets to the event cost $10; they can be purchased by calling the Beachland Tavern or by visiting the Beachland website. (Niesel) Beachland Tavern. Conya Doss: 7:30 p.m., $30. Nighttown. The Full Counts/Honolulu High/
Lack of Direction: 9 p.m., $6. Happy Dog. Only the Dopest II Featuring Obnox/Downhill Collective/ Lil Foul/Funkshway/Fresh Produce/Big Poppa Benji/Tribe Untitled/Curly Chuck: 7 p.m., $8. Now That’s Class. The Pistol Mystics/Time Cat/The Tufted Puffins: 9 p.m., $10. The Winchester. Ski Mask the Slump God/Pouya/ DJ Scheme & Danny Towers: 8 p.m. Agora Theatre. Tiny Moving Parts/Fredo Disco & Standards: 8 p.m., $18 ADV, $22 DOS. Grog Shop. Voodoo Funk/The Modernes: 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Wave Magnetik/Free Black!: 8 p.m., $10. CODA. Welshly Arms/Betcha: Local singer-guitarist Sam Getz was a session guy before he joined local singer-songwriter Kate Voegele for her 2006 tour. He spent four years on the road with her and then hooked up with indie rockers Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers and toured with them for three years. When that band took a hiatus in 2012, Getz put together Welshly Arms, christening the group with a name that comes from a Saturday Night Live skit. The band’s been steadily touring and recording ever since. Last year,
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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KentStage =HGÍM FBLL MA>L> @K>:M LAHPL MB<D>ML HG L:E> GHP
The Woodchopper’s Ball
(Featuring Muriel Anderson, Michael Kelsey, Brian Henke, Mark Sganga, Jesse Smith, Helen Avakian, and more)
Hot Tuna
Zach Deputy - Red Moon Tour
Wed December 11
Fri December 13
Sat December 7
Tuck & Patti Sat December 14
The Fixx
First Snow
Thu December 19
Sat December 21
Ekoostik Hookah
Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn
The High Kings
Tue December 31
Mon February 3
Mon February 24
We Banjo 3
Dave Mason
Carbon Leaf
Wed March 4
Sat March 7
Sun March 8
JUST ANNOUNCED!
H I S F G KIN
LIVEWIRE the group had some significant success with “Down to the River,” a grunge-y, White Stripes-like tune. Expect to hear it at tonight’s show. (Niesel) 8 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. House of Blues.
SUN
12/4 | 7PM | $15
Brockhampton/slowthai/100 Gecs: 7 p.m. Agora Theatre. Mover Shaker/Teamonade/For Your Health/Jimmy Lo Fi (in the Locker Room): 8 p.m., $13.03. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Tobe Nwigwe: 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. House of Blues. Reverend Horton Heat’s Holiday Hayride: 8 p.m., $30 ADV, $32 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Sunday Night Heat with Curly Chuck/Ghutty Mac/King Jerm/ DJ Coop: 10 p.m., $10 ADV, $15 DOS. Grog Shop. Nick Zuber & Friends — Beat Ewing’s Sarcoma (in the Supper Club): 7 p.m., $17 ADV, $22 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.
Tickets available at thekentstage.com or 877-987-6487 GMK [w cw i {{ © a{ B e~ JJHJF
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
DE’SEAN JONES, “KNOMADIK REVERENCE” 12/5 | 7PM | $20
FRONT STEPS HOUSING AND SERVICES PRESENTS
A HOLIDAY NIGHT OUT WITH
BLUES CHRONICLES 12/6 | 8PM | $20 HELEN WELCH PRESENTS
“ GOT MY LOVE TO KEEP ME WARM” 12/6 | 11PM | FREE
JAZZ JAM SESSION 12/7 | 7PM | $25
JAVON JACKSON QUARTET 12/8 | 2PM | $10
ZELOS: A PHOTO EXHIBITION BY
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MON
12/02
Hanif Abdurraqib: 8 p.m., $10. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. As I Lay Dying/After the Burial/ Emmure: 7:30 p.m., $27.50 ADV, $32.50 DOS. House of Blues. Cleveland State University Jazz Showcase: 7:30 p.m., $5. Bop Stop. Manchester Orchestra/Foxing/Oso Oso: 6:30 p.m. Agora Theatre.
TUE
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
BREAKING NEWS...
12/03
Bonnie Clydeman/Kid Tested/Buzz Aldrin: 8:30 p.m., $7. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Aaron Carter/Rule of Young/ Someday Soon/heyohwell: 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. Grog Shop. The Cover Girls featuring Debi Lewin & Jennifer Lee: 7 p.m., $20. Nighttown. Bill Kirchen’s Honky Tonk Holiday with the Hounds of Bakersfield: 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Steel Panther/Stitched Up Heart: 8 p.m., $28.50 ADV, $35 DOS. House of Blues.
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
41
BAND OF THE WEEK THE FULL COUNTS By Jeff Niesel
Photo by Leslie Clague
m[Zd[iZWoB del[cX[h HM © 10:00PM
THANKSGIVING EVE BASH!
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MEET THE BAND: Eric Vermillion (bass,
TOM PETTY TRIBUTE BAND
A SUPER GROUP OF SORTS: This band that includes ex-members of Gumball and the Cynics came together a couple of years ago when Vermillion started jamming with Quinlan in a band called FOOD. (The name stands for Far Out Old Dudes.) “Pittsburgh is a pretty small town, and we all kind of know each other,” explains Vermillion, adding that after FOOD disbanded, he and Urbano continued to play with guests such as guitarist Don Fleming from the indie rock band Gumball. “The first Full Counts record was just me and Mike [Quinlan], and I had different people play guitar,” says Vermillion. “Ethan Winograd, who is now a permanent member, played on a couple of tracks too. I had never done anything that way. I had a bunch of songs piled up, and Mike just rehearsed them and built them up in the studio. When we finished the record, I realized we needed to put together a band.”
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
vocals), Mike Quinlan (drums), Mark Urbano (guitar), Ethan Winograd (guitar, vocals)
MORE COHESIVE THIS TIME AROUND:
Vermillion says the band’s new album, Next Up, sounds more cohesive and has a great garage rock feel. “Hopefully, there’s some variety in there too,” he says. “Some is fast and some is slow. We grew up playing punk rock in the ’80s as teenagers, and this is where we’re at now. It’s just rock ’n’ roll stuff. We’ve gotten comparisons to the Smithereens, and I would’ve never thought of that. Ethan [Winograd], who plays lead on every song, has
a lot of different sounds going on and makes the record in a way.” The band cut it in Pittsburgh at Electric Eye Recorders with Mike Hickman. “He’s amazing,” says Vermillion. “He’s a ’60s psychedelic rock guy who played in the same scene as the 13th Floor Elevators. He retired and has his own studio in his house. He has a great ear, and I relate to the guy. He’s great to work with.” WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR THEM: Though
Next Up is particularly noisy, many of the songs feature sharp pop hooks. The track “I Know” is particularly catchy, and “Let’s Go” has a Stooges-like fierceness to it. “Not Tonight” benefits from a riveting guitar solo that just doesn’t quit. The band plans to put more tunes together during the winter, but Vermillion says it won’t rush into recording a third album. Cincinnati’s Phratry Records released the two albums, and Mike Montgomery, who plays with Kelly Deal in the Dayton-based indie rock band R.Ring, did the mastering. The upcoming show at the Happy Dog will mark the band’s first gig in Cleveland. WHERE YOU CAN HEAR THEM:
thefullcounts.bandcamp.com. WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM: The Full
Counts perform with Honolulu High and Lack of Direction at 9 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 30, at the Happy Dog.
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
| clevescene.com m | November 27 - December 3, 2019
43
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| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
SAVAGE LOVE BLUFF CALLS by Dan Savage I’m a heterosexual cis woman in a monogamous marriage. My husband and I have always struggled to connect sexually, mostly because he has extreme anxiety that makes doing anything new or different difficult. He’s been in therapy since before I met him, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much. His anxiety has caused him to shut down every sexual ask I’ve ever made because he’s afraid he won’t “do it right.” He’s a PIV-and-nothing-more kind of guy, but I’m not asking for varsity-level stuff, just boring things like talking about fantasies, a little role-play, staying in bed on a Sunday just to have sex, etc. All of it is off the table. I understand he has a right to veto sex acts, but isn’t this all pretty basic, run-of-the-mill stuff? He’ll still get his PIV; I just want there to be other elements before the PIV starts. It’s still a no. Talking to him about this sends him into a depressive episode where I then have to spend hours telling him he’s not a bad person, so I’ve stopped bringing it up. I’ve tried to talk to therapists about navigating this issue, but most change the subject. One actually told me that it was good that we don’t have good sex, because if we did, we wouldn’t have good communication in other areas. (I never went back to that one.) This has gone on for so long that I’ve lost all interest in sex. My libido, which used to be very high, has vanished. Whenever he wants sex, I do it — but I dread it. Do you have any ideas on how I can navigate this topic with my husband so he doesn’t shut down? How can I make him understand that it’s okay to experiment sexually and it will be okay if it’s not perfect? — Lost And So Sad You’re going to have to call your husband’s bluff, LASS, and power through the predictable meltdown. That means raising — again — your unhappiness with your sex life, explaining your need for some prePIV intimacy and play, informing him this is no longer a desperate request but a non-negotiable demand, and then refusing to shift into caregiver mode when his depressive episode starts. I’m not suggesting your husband’s anxiety and depression are an act, LASS, or that being made aware of your unhappiness
isn’t a trigger. But if depressive episodes get your husband out of conversations he’d rather avoid — and if they allow him to dictate the terms of your sex life and treat your pussy like a Fleshlight — then his subconscious could be weaponizing those depressive episodes. And if you shift to caregiver mode every single time — so long as you’re willing to spend hours reassuring him that he’s not a bad person — then your grievances will never be addressed, much less resolved. So even if it means spending an extremely unpleasant evening, weekend, or few weeks with him, you’re going to have to raise the issue and refuse to reassure your husband. Line up whatever support you think he might need before you make your stand — you could also make your stand during a couples
*** I’m a bisexual trans woman living in Europe. A couple of months ago, I began an amazing relationship with a woman who works as an escort. For a while, everything was as good as it gets, until I said something inconsiderate about her job and she took offense. We were having a conversation about “what we were” (girlfriends? lovers? partners?) and any rules we’d like the other to observe, and I said I’d rather not see her after she’d been with a client, I’d rather wait until the next day. She took this as me thinking her job was “dirty,” which was absolutely not my intention. I explained that I’d spent 10 years in open relationships and it was just a habit I was used to. (If you sleep with someone else, go home,
“my libido, which used to be very high, has vanished. whenever he wants sex, i do it, but i dread it.” counseling session — and give him maybe one “You’re not a bad person, really!” and then refuse to back down. And when he shuts down, LASS, it will be his therapist’s job to pry him back open, not yours. And the sex you’re currently having? The sex you dread and don’t enjoy? The sooner you stop having it, LASS, the sooner your husband will come to understand that he’s going to have to give a little (so very little!) if he wants to have sex at all. If and when he does, then you can borrow a page from the varsity-level kinkster handbook: Take baby steps. In the same way people who are turned on by, say, more intense bondage scenes (suspension, immobilization, etc.) start with lighter bondage scenes (hands behind the back, spreadeagled on the bed, etc.), you can start with something small and easy for him to get right, like 20 minutes of cuddling in bed together on a Sunday morning before progressing to PIV sex.
take a shower, sleep off the emotions, see you tomorrow.) She said that her clients were not lovers, it’s completely different, and it would make seeing her complicated, as we work different hours. I immediately realized how she was right and said so. She was aloof for a few days afterward, and she eventually told me that she didn’t feel like she could be with someone who understood so little about her job. I pleaded with her to give me a second chance and told her that I’d never even met a sex worker before, so there was a learning curve for me, and she agreed that we could carry on seeing each other. But she remained distant, canceling plans and not replying, until she eventually told me that she was just too scared of getting hurt, because it’s happened so many times before. I was absolutely shattered. I spent the next few days drinking in bed and licking my wounds. I was falling in love with this woman, and I ruined it with my big mouth. After a couple of days, I started going about my life again. And soon enough, she started texting me, asking me how my day
was, casual stuff, and it’s just really painful. I don’t know how to reply to her. If she has changed her mind, then I’ll date her again in a heartbeat, given how freaking amazing she is. But if she’s just (kind of inconsiderately) making conversation, then I can see myself getting my heart broken all over again. I’m torn between asking her to stop texting me and carrying on with the casual texting to see if anything comes of it. Any advice? — Tearful Escort’s Ex Getting Really Lonely If you two couldn’t handle a simple misunderstanding, TEEGRL, how are you going to resolve a serious conflict? Or forgive a profound betrayal? You know, the kind of shit people in LTRs do? Actually, I’m being unfair: You seem perfectly capable of handling this misunderstanding, TEEGRL, it was your ex-whatever-she-was (girlfriend? lover? partner?) who wasn’t able to handle it. But in fairness to her — I need to be fair to everybody — sex workers are often shamed by romantic partners who pretended, at the outset of the relationship, to be fine with their jobs. Your comment about not wanting to see her after she was with a client could reasonably be interpreted as whorephobic. But your explanation — it was a rule in all your past open relationships — was reasonable, and your ex-whatevershe-was, if she were a reasonable person, should have been able to see that. And perhaps she is reasonable, TEEGRL. Maybe she started texting you about casual stuff because she feels bad about pulling away and sees now that she overreacted. To determine whether that’s the case — and to determine whether she’s still open to dating you — you’ll have to risk asking the dreaded direct question: “Hey, it’s great to hear from you! I’d love to pick up where we left off, if you’re still interested. Are you? Please let me know!”
On the Lovecast, shy lady doms rise up! With Midori: savagelovecast.com.
mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage
| clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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440.342.7355 (SELL) To Buy...or Sell
Call Grizzell *Some restrictions will apply *for those who qualify... we consider... Se Habla Espanol
'//$ #2%$)4 s "!$ #2%$)4 s "!.+2504#9 | clevescene.com | November 27 - December 3, 2019
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