What You Need to Know About Saturday’s 30th Annual Parade the Circle Event
One of the signature events of summer in Northeast Ohio, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s 30th annual Parade the Circle includes floats, dancers, live music, stilt-walkers, giant puppets, colorful costumes, vibrant characters, handmade masks and much more. This year’s parade theme is Mythology of Illusion. The parade begins at noon, but guests can enjoy hands-on activities…
Twerking to Cleveland This Weekend, Big Freedia Brings the Bounce to the Grog Shop
New Orleans rapper Big Freedia believes anyone can learn to twerk — even grandmothers. “We twerk in New Orleans from zero to 99,” Big Freedia says over the phone last week from her hometown. The butt-bouncing/pelvic thrusting dance move — made infamous in recent years by Miley Cyrus, and of course that viral video where a woman twerks…
Accidental Comedy Records Live Album at The Winchester This Wednesday
The Cleveland comedy collective known as Accidental Comedy host some of the most popular weekly comedy showcases in town, in addition to their star-studded Accidental Comedy Festival, taking place at Hilarities Aug. 29-Sept. 2. Tomorrow evening, Accidental Comedy members Cody Cooper, Josh Morrow, Mary Santora, John Bruton and Jimmie Graham are recording the group’s first…
In Advance of Her Upcoming Playhouse Square Show, Lisa Lampanelli Talks About Her Lengthy Career (And Has a Thing or Two to Say About Trump)
Best known for tossing out insults based on sexual preferences and racial stereotypes, comedian Lisa Lampanelli says she’s actually not sexist or racist at all. Rather, she feels she can be that way on stage because she’s not that way in real life. Lampanelli, who has published a memoir, had roles in a few films…
6 Ways to Celebrate Father’s Day in Cleveland That Aren’t Brunch
Father’s Day is swiftly approaching and while waiting in long lines for brunch may be a tradition for many families, Northeast Ohio offers many out-of-the-box opportunities for you and your dad. This Sunday, give your father the gift of adventure. Take Dad on a Ride Through Nature The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad is offering a…
Cleveland’s March Against ICE Takes Place on Public Square Thursday
After the raid of 114 immigrants in Sandusky last week, Cleveland and other cities across the country are planning protest marches alongside the organization, Families Belong Together this Thursday. The official mission statement of the organization is as follows: Families Belong Together opposes the cruel, inhumane and unjustified separation of children from their parents along the…
LeBron to Produce HBO Documentary on Exploitative College Sports System
LeBron James continues to add to his entertainment portfolio, this time with the announcement of an HBO documentary called Student Athlete. Produced by SpringHill Entertainment, James’ production company which he co-owns with business partner Maverick Carter, the documentary focuses on “the exploitative world of high-revenue college sports.” Despite being huge money makers for a billion…
Akron Police Seek Grant to Investigate Sexual Assault Cold Cases From 1,822 Rape Kits
Pending the results of the Akron City Council vote on Monday, June 18, Akron Police are looking to apply for a nearly $1 million grant to help bring sexual assault cold cases to justice. As it stands, the Akron police department does not have adequate staffing to effectively process the city’s backlog of cold cases,…
The Posies Bring Their 30th Anniversary Tour to the Music Box Supper Club
When the Posies (singer-songwriters Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow) formed some 30 years ago in Washington State, Seattle had yet to become the epicenter of alternative rock. And yet, thanks to a cassette demo that the band circulated, the group became successful and signed to a major label at one point. “Dream All Day,” a…
Cleveland Opera and Cleveland Ballet Join to Perform ‘The Haunted Manor,’ Plus the Rest of the Classical Music to Catch This Week
Three multi-event series get underway this week and continue through June. ChamberFest Cleveland embarks on its ten-concert seventh season, titled In Search of Freedom, on Thursday, June 14 at 7:30 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and marches forward on its quest through Saturday, June 30, visiting a variety of venues…
Armond Budish, County Council Exchange Testy Letters About Nurse Staffing at County Jail
Cuyahoga County council leadership and county executive Armond Budish traded snippy letters last week in the wake of a public safety committee meeting in late May that featured questions to and not many answers from Ken Mills, the county’s director of corrections, regarding nursing staffing at jail facilities. Among other revelations at the meeting: the…
Hot Summer Reading Recommendations from Five Independent Bookstores in Cleveland
Summer means having a little more time to dig into a good book. So we talked to a handful of Cleveland area bookstores about which works of fiction and non-fiction are worthy of your summer reading list. From Loganberry Books (13051 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights): Jesse Ball’s Census is a lyrical, deeply-felt father-son story about…
Popular Koko Bakery to Open Full-Service Café in Adjacent Space
As Cleveland’s Asian community continues to grow, so too does the number of authentic dining options in and around Asiatown. One of the newest comes courtesy of Koko Bakery (3710 Payne Ave., 216-881-7600), which has been serving up Asian delicacies for approximately a dozen years. Fans of the place doubtless have seen the craft paper-covered…
Summer Programs Help Feed the One in Five Ohio Children Who Struggle With Hunger
COLUMBUS, Ohio – People are working throughout Ohio in programs to ensure children don’t go hungry during the summer. It’s estimated that one in five Ohio children struggles with hunger, and the Summer Food Service Program has nearly 1,500 sites serving free, healthy meals to children up to age 18. Carol Whitmer, director of the…
Cleveland Summer Beerfest Adds Brews Cruise to Lineup This Weekend
Cleveland just can’t get enough beer it seems, and this weekend the summer version of the Cleveland Beerfest returns to Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. Doubling its brewery participants this year, the event includes more than 100 breweries, including local favorites like Masthead and Market Garden. Folks can also expect plenty of food trucks, silent disco…
Record Number of Drug Overdose Deaths in Cuyahoga County in 2017, But Rate of Increase Slowing
Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner Thomas Gilson released a preliminary report today regarding drug overdose deaths in 2017. The new data shows that the total number of overdose deaths in the county rose to 727 in 2017, compared to the 666 overdose deaths the previous year. Of the record-breaking 727 fatal drug overdoses in 2017, 492…
Don’t Let the IHOP Name Change Distract You From the End of Net Neutrality, Which Went Into Effect Today
Net Neutrality was implemented during the Obama administration in 2015, prohibiting internet providers from charging more for specific online content or from giving preferential treatment to certain websites. Today, the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules took effect, meaning internet service providers are no longer required to offer equal access to all web content. More…
Alkaline Trio to Play the Agora in August
The veteran punk act Alkaline Trio doesn’t have a new studio album out, but that hasn’t stopped the band from announcing a new set of tour dates. The group will perform on Aug. 9 at the Agora Theatre. “Seems like ages since we’ve properly toured and we couldn’t be more excited to get back out…
Lineup Announced for the 17th Annual A&F Challenge
An annual event that benefits the SeriousFun Children’s Network, a “global community” of camps for kids with serious illnesses, the A&F Challenge regularly features national alternative rock acts. This year, Fitz and the Tantrums, Judah & the Lion, Betty Who and Van William will headline the festival that takes place at 5 p.m. on Friday,…
RTA CEO Joe Calabrese Announces He’ll Retire in 2020 at End of Current Contract
Amid declining ridership, fare increases, perpetual budget woes, a scandal that saw its board president ushered out the door, a separate healthcare scandal involving double-digit employees and more than a million dollars in fraud, frustrations and delays on the Healthline after a judge ruled its “proof of payment” system unconstitutional last year, a newly approved…
Is Gov. Kasich Trying to Write His Way Into the White House?
Ohio Governor John Kasich has been pulling a page out of Alexander Hamilton’s playbook as of late, publishing five different guest columns for multiple publications in the last 11 days. Since May 29, Kasich has written criticisms of the Republicans in Washington (primarily Trump), while simultaneously promoting his own ideas for the future of the…
Supreme Court Upholds Ohio’s Controversial ‘Use It or Lose It’ Voter Purge Law
The Supreme Court ruled today in a 5-4 decision that Ohio did not previously violate federal laws by purging voters who don’t vote and fail to return notices confirming their residency. The court’s five conservative justices voted in the majority, with the court’s four liberals dissenting. According to the ruling, the practice, known as the “supplemental process,”…
Real Estate Happy to Be Back at Beachland Ballroom This Week
You can always spot a band a mile away. It’s something about those haircuts and the stylishly disheveled clothing. When the members of indie rock act Real Estate pile out of a van at a rest stop or a gas station while on tour, bassist Alex Bleeker says the stares are plentiful. “First of all,…
Environmental Groups Say Trump’s Coal and Nuclear Power Bailout Would be a Raw Deal for Ohioans
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Environmental groups in Ohio say a proposed plan to bail out failing coal and nuclear plants is a raw deal for consumers. The White House is considering an order that would force grid operators to purchase electric power from struggling coal and nuclear plants. Neil Waggoner, Ohio Beyond Coal Campaign representative for…
Former Military Brass Talk Advanced Energies in Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Top retired military brass stopped in Ohio this week to encourage continued innovations in advanced energy technologies in both the state and the country. Retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn was among those meeting with business and political leaders in Cleveland to discuss why American leadership in energy is imperative for both economic…
Stop Parking Your Cars on Public Square, You Lazy Doofuses
Maybe the redesigned Public Square isn’t all that we thought it was going to be, but that doesn’t mean we have to actively make it worse. Case in point: Is it a place you should park your car? No. It’s also illegal. Also, no. That hasn’t stopped folks pulling right up in the middle of…
Help Identify Two Jerks That Stole a Kitten in Critical Need of Medication From the Cleveland APL
Sometime around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, June 6th, a 5-foot tall caucasian female in her late tweens or early twenties and a red-headed male around the same age kidnapped a two-pound, brown tabby kitten with white paws from the Cleveland Animal Protective League. The APL released photos of the surveillance video showing a couple along…
The Importance of Saturday’s PurpleStride Cleveland Event From an ‘Almost’ Pancreatic Cancer Survivor
When looking at the statistics for all stages of pancreatic cancer, the mortality rate after five years is 91 percent. Meaning, if there were 100 people with pancreatic cancer standing before you, only nine of them would remain in five years. I am hoping that in March of 2019, on my five-year ‘cancerversary,’ I will…
New Multi-Media Lectures About the Beatles to Debut at the Bop Stop This Fall
A couple of years back, local Bowiephile Thomas Mulready began hosting “An Evening With(out) David Bowie,” an in-depth presentation featuring rare video clips, “needle drops,” obscure cuts and recently surfaced details regarding the Thin White Duke. The show offers “a multitude of factoids and little-known background informed by a framework of themes the artist mined…
Iconic Cleveland Bar Flannery’s Irish Pub Sold to New Local Owners
Since 1997, long before East Fourth Street was a bustling entertainment district, Flannery’s Irish Pub (323 Prospect Ave., 216-781-7782) has been providing good cheer in the form of beer, spirits and food to large and consistent crowds. It is a staple destination on St. Patrick’s Day and is stop number one for many bound for…
Feds Offer to Return $57,330 Seized From Legal Immigrant at Hopkins Airport. He Says They’re Short $770 and He’ll Wait for Trial
Last week we shared the story of Rustem Kazazi, a retired Albanian police officer and U.S. citizen living in Parma Heights who had over $58,000 seized at Hopkins airport by U.S. Customs agents without being charged with a crime. The money was seized through civil asset forfeiture, a widespread practice that allows law enforcement to…
How Anthony Bourdain Remembered Cleveland and Harvey Pekar
[image-1] Anthony Bourdain is dead at the age of 61 from an apparent suicide. The celebrated author and TV star was found in his hotel room in France, where he was filming a new episode for his CNN show. What’s striking this morning, even in the few hours since the news of his death, is…
Lineup of Musical Acts Announced for This Year’s Kamm’s Corners Farmers Market
Since its inception 12 years ago, the Kamm’s Corners Farmers Market has sought to offer more than just local fruits and veggies. Each market also features a musical performance. The market, which takes place on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at West 168th St. and Lorain Ave., comes off like a family get together. “We…
Broadway’s ‘Frozen’ is Coming to Cleveland in 2020
The Tony-nominated stage version of Disney’s Frozen is coming to Cleveland in 2020. The exact date has yet to be revealed, but Playhouse Square announced yesterday that the show is set to hit in the summer months. Compared with the popular animated film, this musical version, which made its Broadway debut earlier this year, has…
Devon Turchan Talks About Transforming into ‘Hedwig and The Angry Inch,’ Opening Friday at Blank Canvas Theatre
John Cameron Mitchell’s dreamchild Hedwig and the Angry Inch follows a fictional rock band fronted by an East German song stylist who survives a botched sex change operation left with “a Barbie Doll crotch, an angry inch.” The musical has a devoted cult following, as does the film despite being a box-office bomb. John Cameron…
Akron’s Bechdel Film Fest Looks to Unlock $48,000 Matching Grant
We reported back in March about the announcement of the inaugural Bechdel Film Festival to take place at The Nightlight Cinema in Akron, a festival dedicated to films that pass the Bechdel Test. In partnership with the Nightlight Cinema and Akron Summit County Public Library, Bechdel Fest is set for May 28 – June 2,…
Cleveland Public Schools Lost $39 Million to ECOT Since 2012, According to Report
Public school districts in the state of Ohio lost more than a half billion dollars — $590 million, to be exact — to the controversial, problematic and now-closed Electronic Classroom of the Future online charter school since 2012. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s portion of that was $39 million. Those numbers come from Innovation Ohio,…
Jack White Electrifies Sold-Out Crowd at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica
During “Corporation,” the first song in last night’s two-hour set before a sold-out crowd at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica, singer-guitarist Jack White and his talented backing band embarked on an extended jam that found White taking a musical page out of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion playbook as he paused throughout the lurching song to…
Ohio Senate Introduces Bill to Start School Year After Labor Day, End Around Memorial Day
Ohio lawmakers are currently considering a bill that would change the schedule of Ohio public schools, starting the academic year after Labor Day. Senate Bill 34 was introduced by state senator Gayle Manning (R-North Ridgeville), and the Dayton Daily News reports the Ohio House Education Committee recently held a second hearing on the proposal earlier…
Singer-Songwriter Vance Joy Shows Off His Storytelling Abilities at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica
You didn’t know that Vance Joy has an extra-large glow-in-the-dark tooth, did you? Well, that’s the kind of story you hear when you attend one of his concerts. Joy returned to Cleveland last night on his Nation of Two Tour, playing a nearly sold-out concert at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. The music and design of…
Kluber, Steph Curry and R.I.P. Rubber Bowl — The A to Z Podcast With Andre Knott and Zac Jackson
Andre and Zac talk a little hoops, discuss Corey Kluber’s understated greatness and play a little American Fireworks Glory Days as the Akron Rubber Bowl is finally put out of its misery. Subscribe to A to Z on iTunes here.
Get Outta Town: The 2018 Summer Road Trip Guide
From music in Motown to arts and beer in the Queen City, from a game in one of baseball’s great temples to one of the largest strips of bars in the country, it’s high time to pack the car and get the hell out of town for a weekend. Sure, you might be right with…
Summer Road Trip: 36 Hours in Ashtabula
Like many wine lovers, my wife and I have been making habitual trips to the Grand River Valley, Ohio’s largest wine region that straddles the Grand River just south of Lake Erie. But over the past handful of years, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of progress and growth taking place in the area.…
Summer Road Trip: 36 Hours in Buffalo
There’s probably never been a better time to visit Buffalo, New York, what with its “Rust Belt renaissance” narrative unfolding in much the same way we’ve experienced here in Cleveland. It’s a three-hour straight shot up I-90, and you’ll feel right at home as soon as you drop off the Skyway. It’s got the Great…
Summer Road Trip: 36 Hours in Chicago
Sweet home, Chicago. Composed of 77 neighborhoods, the Windy City is a national treasure trove of delicious food, exciting nightlife, unique experiences and plenty of tourist attractions. For those who have yet to have the pleasure, Chicago is so much more than the spot for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I’m here…
Summer Road Trip: 36 Hours in Cincinnati
In all, 52 neighborhoods make up Cincinnati, aka the Queen of the Midwest. Each has its own distinct texture and history, and while, as is said about many Midwest cities, Cincy is experiencing a resurgent cultural boom, the truth is the devotion to the arts, excellent food and coolness has always been there in those…
Summer Road Trip: 36 Hours in Detroit
It might sound crazy, but it is possible: You really can go on a vacation to Detroit. After decades of being a symbol of Rust Belt decline and a national punchline, Detroit is finally enjoying a new status as a “Comeback City,” energized at least in part by Quicken Loans’ corporate headquarters, relocated downtown within…
Summer Road Trip: 36 Hours in Pittsburgh
Regarded as the “city of champions,” Pittsburgh, as we know all too well, is home to some great sports franchises. You can and should hate the Steelers, but there are plenty of reasons to love their city. A mere two-hour drive southeast from Cleveland, the hilly city is located at the convergence of three rivers…
Get Out: Everything You Should Be Doing in Cleveland This Weekend (June 6-12)
WED 06/06 Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Back in the early ’60s, Carole King and husband Gerry Goffin emerged as a formidable songwriting duo, crafting dozens of chart hits for other artists. In the ’70s, King finally started singing and recording her own tunes. Her 1971 album Tapestry became a huge hit. Beautiful: The Carole…
The Controversial 1979 Play ‘Bent’ Explores Gay Identity and Love During the Holocaust
In the shattering book, “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen,” author and concentration camp victim Tadeusz Borowski relates a telling and ghastly moment. After a transport has pulled into Auschwitz with its cars filled with Jews and other “undesirables,” a little girl on the platform is yelling out for her mother, who is…
‘Hereditary’ Offers a Traumatizing Exploration of Guilt and Grief
There’s always one film that comes out of festival season each year boasting the hyperbolic signature of “scariest film of the year.” Films like It Follows and The Babadook have all generated impressive buzz that, by the time the film reaches theaters, can taint the expectations of audiences and leave them with feelings of disappointment.…
Band of the Week: Dirty Heads
MEET THE BAND: Matt Ochoa (drums), Dave Foral (bass), John Olazabal (percussion), Jared “Dirty J” Watson (vocals), Dustin “Duddy B” Bushnell (vocals, guitar) A LOT OF EVERYTHING: The band formed about 17 years ago in Huntington Beach, a coastal Southern California city known for its terrific surf and superb beaches. “When we started playing music…
Savage Love: Shameful
I’ve been married to my husband for two years. Five months into our relationship, he confessed that he was an adult baby. I was so grossed out, I was literally ill. (Why would this great guy want to be like this?) I told him he would have to choose: diapers or me. He chose me.…
‘The Misandrists’ is an Aggressive Satire That’s Absolutely Unsafe for Squares
Thank the gay gods for Bruce LaBruce. Queer filmmaker, actor, critic, and sometimes pornographer, Bruce La Bruce is known for his boundary pushing films that weave indie artistry and gay porn technique to dissect the themes of sexual exploration and rebellion against cultural norms, and The Misandrists is easily one of his best. The movie…
