Meet the People of 2017's Cleveland People Issue

AKeemjamal Rollins Slam Poet and Educator at the LGBT Center Most poets are happy to get a smattering of applause for their efforts, so it’s unusual, and stirring, for a poet to receive a standing ovation. And it’s particularly notable when that tribute comes from your high school classmates. But that’s what happened to AKeemjamal Rollins after he read a poem in school at 13 years of age. “As I recall, the poem was based on some vocabulary words, such as ‘rueful.’ When I was done, all the kids stood and applauded. I guess that’s where my poetry career began.” Since then Rollins has made quite a name for himself in slam poetry circles, in Northeast Ohio and nationally. Last year, the local team he coached finished in seventh place at the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, Georgia, out of 72 teams. (Slam poetry, for the uninitiated, is a poetry competition in which poets read their poems and are scored by judges randomly selected from the audience.) He is also the coach of this year’s Northeast Ohio slam team, The People, competing at the nationals in Denver later this summer. Rollins has also competed in 10 other national events, as well as countless local and regional slam fests. During these intense competitions, audience members are encouraged — nay, summoned — to yell, cheer, boo, scream and react vocally in any way that moves them. In short, it’s a blast. Rollins is a master of the craft, using his background as theater performer and his gift for writing compressed, evocative language to win over virtually any audience he encounters. As Rollins says, “To succeed in slam poetry, you have to be your true self, you have to dig deep to the roots. What an audience sees in a slam event are the branches and leaves, but if the roots aren’t there, the poem won’t work.” Actually, Rollins didn’t write about himself until 2013, but since then he’s been exploring all aspects of his own roots. An example of that is when Rollins writes about his little brother Rashad who is on the autism spectrum. Rollins was astounded when one day, out of the blue, the 21-year-old Rashad said, “AKeem,” since Rashad had never said his brother’s name before. As Rollins explains it, “Whenever I write about my brother, I become present. I re-enter my body.” Here are two haikus Rollins has written about his brother: He is not a thing I don’t have an autism I have a brother He knows shooting stars Are angels playing Frisbee Using their halos When he’s not slamming, Rollins works as a prevention educator at the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, teaching comprehensive sex education to teens from 14 to 19 years of age in Cuyahoga County. He is in his second year of that work at the Center, and he looks forward to pursuing an Applied Behavior Analysis license in the future, so he can work with patients dealing with autism and related disorders. With AKeemjamal Rollins, the roots run deep and wide. — Christine Howey Credit: Ken Blaze

Aparna Bole Pediatrician, Medical Director for Community Integration, Sustainability Director Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and UH We caught up with Dr. Aparna Bole on a classic Cleveland morning, gray skies shifting seamlessly into sunny, cerulean blue and back again. From our vantage point on the rooftop of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital at UH’s main campus in University Circle, the city beamed with energy. Walls of flowers bordered our conversation as Bole described how she got to her current positions and what she’s looking forward to continuing to accomplish. “In health care, we’re becoming more and more aware of how much we need to widen our lens if we’re serious about improving the health of the populations we serve,” she says. She started the health system’s sustainability office in 2010, blending the themes of waste reduction, energy management, sustainable purchasing, healthful food, green buildings and an overall sense of wellness into a massive institution. This is a major motif in Bole’s work: identifying how the environmental context of a patient — the stuff in between medical procedures and check-ups — affects his or her health. With a rapidly changing healthcare business ecosystem and a rapidly changing climate, this sort of paradigm shift is paramount for places like UH. Bole is on the vanguard. Besides her two primary titles at UH, Bole remains a practicing pediatrician. And that’s where her work has seemingly been most visible, by taking a close look at how climate change and its air quality effects end up impacting our community’s most vulnerable population: children. This manifests as advocacy through health care operations, setting an example for local legislators and air quality control leaders. The key, Bole has noticed, is that government policy needs to be treated as a health issue. What is the home environment for Cleveland’s children like? What decisions have been made to improve the places where young Clevelanders grow up? “Ten to 20 percent of a population’s well-being is determined by access to excellent health care, and that’s great and we want to continue to provide that,” she says. “But if we really want to improve our community’s overall well-being, we need to focus on social, economic, environmental, physical issues in the community.” Cleveland is a great place to do just that. After growing up in Portland, Oregon, where environmental leanings have been a social constant for a long time, Bole landed in Cleveland to find a city that’s situated perfectly to do even more to improve its footprint on this world. With a public transit system traversing roadways conducive to cycling and walking, Cleveland’s old bones provide its current residents a platform to develop new, more sustainable community assets. The entrepreneur set has started companies that are built on green and eco-friendly models, which in turn benefit all neighbors. In the heart of it all, Bole finds optimism and enjoyment. “How lucky are we?” Bole says. “We have plenty of fresh water, we have these incredible bones in our city — this architectural richness and incredible cultural diversity. If you think about the challenge and opportunity of the American city, Cleveland embodies that for me in a way that’s really exciting and positive.” — Eric Sandy Credit: Ken Blaze

Brandon Luis Santiago Owner, Woodworker, Cleveland Hardwood Restoration One thing that Brandon Santiago does is cart around small pieces of finished lumber and leave them places, like small tokens or like a special bonus tip when he’s leaving a restaurant. Sometimes he just gives them to people. Today, when he comes to meet Scene at Working Class Brewery in West Park, he’s carrying a small piece of purpleheart finished with an eco-friendly mono coat. But that’s just one thing, because Santiago is a busy man. Santiago started Cleveland Hardwood Restoration six years ago after a few jobs and several years of training under a bona fide flooring master. “I studied him,” Santiago says, “and really studied to be better than him. I’m the type of person who … whatever I put my hands on, whether it’s making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or sanding a floor, I want to do the best.” He got his start by working in a vegan kitchen in Westlake. This goes all the way back to his childhood, helping his uncle tear down walls and build the place. When he hit 20 or so, his first child came along, and Santiago started thinking about where his life would take him. Naturally, he quit the job. The guy who owned the building offered Santiago some work just two days later. The gig involved floors, and Santiago dug in. “The floor was being sanded from the most disgusting state — and one rip from the machine and the wood looked brand new. My first, lasting memory was just walking into this house and seeing this and being like, ‘Holy shit. This is really cool.’ I fell in love with the craft from Day 1.” With that last sentence, Santiago nods to the cover of Hardwood Floors magazine’s 2017 Resource Book. There he is, on the cover of the industry’s most important publication. That very same quote adorns a photo of Santiago in his workman’s denim. It was the first time the magazine had ever featured a person on its cover. In just a short amount of time, Santiago’s Cleveland-based spirit and DIY attitude has given him some level of celebrity in the hardwood restoration world. His Instagram account, @clevelandwoodbee, boasts more than 13,000 followers. Through his photos, he showcases that very same feeling that first inspired his love of the craft years ago. This is another thing that Santiago does. During our conversation, a brewer stops by and shows Santiago that he’s still carrying the small piece of wood that he was given a few weeks back. This would be the ripple effect of Santiago’s presence. Originally, the mission was small and simple. But demand for Santiago’s work has grown fast, and he’s picked up a few employees and trained them himself — just like his own path not too long ago. With that, Santiago’s been able to define how he wants to run a company: good pay for a job well done with eco-friendly, socially conscious materials. (Cleveland Hardwood Restoration uses Rubio Monocoat natural oil finish, which sets him apart from the chemical-laden competition. “Let the wood be the wood,” Santiago says.) Before the magazine, and the company, and his family, though, Santiago very nearly missed out on his life altogether. A few days after his Lakewood High School graduation, he was pitching in a game at Clark Field in the West Denison Baseball League. He was hit hard with a baseball, blinding him completely in his right eye. “I’ve been told it could have killed me: the amount of damage that it did to my eye itself,” he says. “To think that that could have been it, right there, makes me kind of feel like I only have one shot at this life. So let’s start a hardwood floor business, let’s hire some guys, let’s buy a van. Let’s just ride the wave, because who the eff knows?” In so many ways, Santiago has carved his dream out of that ethos of hard work. It’s the classic Cleveland story, and he’s excited about the road ahead. “The next floor will come,” he says. “I’m a big believer in Cleveland.” — Eric Sandy Credit: Ken Blaze

Brett Jones President, Evergreen Energy Solutions Lights, lettuce and laundry. It’s alliterative shorthand for employees of Evergreen Cooperatives that basically describes the employee-owned operation’s three areas of business. There’s Evergreen Energy Solutions (lights), which encompasses work in LED installation and construction; Evergreen Laundry Cooperative (laundry, of course), which does large- and small-scale work for nursing homes, hospitals and more; and Green City Growers (lettuce), the 3.2-acre hydroponic greenhouse in the Central neighborhood that grows all kinds of lettuce for area restaurants and for further distribution. Evergreen began back in 2008 with the laundry facility, then the energy solutions business, and finally the greenhouse in 2012. There have been bumps in the road, but lights and laundry are profitable and lettuce is projected to be this year. Shaker Heights native Brett Jones is the president of Evergreen Energy Solutions and is part of the leadership team that’s helped guide the businesses, which employ around 140 people, 60 of whom are members. (Employees can join the co-op after a year.) The whole “mission” aspect of Evergreen wasn’t something he initially “got” when he started. After high school, Jones went to Ohio State, finishing his degree while he was abroad in South Africa. He was a Fulbright fellow and got into global logistics (freighting), founding and working at a handful of businesses before being recruited to run Tri-C’s workforce program. It wasn’t long before Evergreen sought him out — they were working on a solar project at the time — and Jones signed on to help them with top-line growth in 2012. “I understood the mission aspect a little at first,” he says over coffee at Dewey’s in Shaker Heights, where he lives in the house where he was raised, and where his mother was raised before that. “But I wasn’t a community development or economic development guy. I was a business guy. So I wondered how we were going to do all this mission stuff, but after six months, I got bit by the bug. It’s a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Jones answers 10 questions when he’s asked one. It’s an “if this happens, then this happens, and if that happens, then this happens” proposition, all bubbling with passion. For example, Evergreen will find out later this year whether it’s the recipient of $5 million of the $100 million available from the Quality Jobs Fund, founded by Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco and the New World Foundation with the goal of enhancing local wealth and creating long-term sustainable working families. If Evergreen receives the funding, Jones says it will be a game-changer with ripple effects. “That will allow us to convert existing businesses into worker-owned co-ops,” he says, noting they’d focus on industrial businesses in Cleveland, like tool and die operations. “You have these places where a current owner wants to retire, and they’re not private-equity sized companies, but maybe they’re attractive to offshoring. So you’re converting them to worker-owned, to stay here. There are a lot of baby boomers who are ready to retire and business that may move or close. That devastates local economies, when you lose 10 or 20 jobs in aggregate. That industrial base in Cleveland is still strong and we want to keep that here. “Motives change when employees own the business,” he says. “When you talk about quality jobs, higher wages are part of that conversation, and benefits packages, and opportunities to not only have a living wage but to share in the profits of a company. We can create a new ownership class in America, close that income inequality gap, improve lives, create a new economic class.” Evergreen’s living it. Employees, many of whom are refugees or ex-convicts, get access to financial training and affordable mortgages; members attend quarterly board meetings and vote on issues affecting the business and share in the profits. There may be 140 now, Jones says, but there will be more, especially in the LED and energy divisions. “A new ownership and economic class,” he says. “That’s the stuff that gets you out of bed in the morning.” — Vince Grzegorek Credit: Ken Blaze

Brianna Jones Owner, Lush and Lovely Floristry Stepping into Lush and Lovely Floristry in Ohio City for the first time, your nostrils are bombarded by an earthy sweetness. It’s an entirely unique sensory experience for visitors, but for owner Brianna Jones, it barely registers any more. This is the building where she spends most of her time, after all. When not on the first floor caring for her plants, two birds and loyal customers, she’s upstairs looking after her children or studying for business classes at Cuyahoga Community College. Sleep is rare. Lush and Lovely opened in October, and already Jones says the shop has built up a slew of regulars, many of them women in their 20s. Flowers, succulents and other green things are especially popular among the younger demographic, Jones says. Slide through any fashionable millennial’s Instagram feed and you’ll notice artfully posed women among green and neutral tones. “Millennials in particular, we have a need to be environmentally friendly,” the 31-year-old explains from a highly Instagrammable corner of her shop. “The plants bring you closer to nature, and there’s this new spin on floral designs that makes it exciting.” Rather than tight bouquets, many young women (brides in particular) are looking for a loose, organic, garden feel. “It’s the dahlias and peonies, versus roses and carnations,” she says. “I think we’re seeing a lot of younger people becoming florists too. It’s not just your grandma’s florists on the scene anymore.” This modern resurgence is part of what got Jones into the industry. Growing up near the Poconos Mountains of Pennsylvania, Jones says she was always a “flower picker” and her mother always filled their home with plants. Later, after being stationed with the Army in Afghanistan (where the only flowers grew in the poppy fields), Jones went to art school in Georgia. Last year, when her husband also got out of the service, they decided to move to Cleveland, where her grandparents live. “My husband and I had been talking about the possibility of opening a floristry shop, but it wasn’t serious. It really only became an idea last summer,” Jones says. “But when I make these rash decisions, I am all in. I did the same thing with the military. I just stopped in a recruiting office randomly and a couple weeks later, I shipped off to boot camp.” From the beginning, when Jones opened the shop with her sister Brooke Witt (who has since left the business), Lush and Lovely has hosted monthly workshops, teaching people how to make hip crafts like flower crowns and succulent tea cups. Jones also focused on keeping costs low (bouquets start at $20), while sourcing as much as possible from sustainable farms. Now, nearly a year in, the entrepreneur says she feels at home, personally and professionally. “For some reason I’ve always had a strong connection to Cleveland; since first visiting, I always knew I wanted to live here,” Jones says. “I was a nobody and I just opened this shop, and I didn’t know anyone here, but people have been so supportive.” —Laura Morrison Credit: Ken Blaze

W. Daniel Bickerstaff Principal, Ubiquitous Design, LTD When architect Daniel Bickerstaff realized, with a start, that he wasn’t just on the design subcommittee for the African-American Cultural Garden, he was in charge of spearheading the design, he went six months without picking up a pencil. “That’s unheard of for me,” says the Shaker Heights resident, speaking at a conference table in his firm’s office on Lee Road. “But I really wanted to understand this dual citizenship — this idea of being both African and American — before I put my ideas down.” Bickerstaff says during his extensive research of the harrowing Middle Passage and the experience of African-Americans in the United States, he would often find himself weeping at his computer screen. “I’m a big guy, 285 pounds,” says Bickerstaff, “but it was that emotional.” Bickerstaff, whose father is from Alabama, says he never discussed race with his family but that he sees the importance — no, the necessity — of doing so. “Just like our Jewish brothers and sisters,” he says, “this country must embrace and express our history, even the awful parts. In doing so, we pay respect to those who survived. That’s why I’m sitting here in this air-conditioned office.” Bickerstaff grew up in Hough (the 8200 block of Superior) and attended Cleveland public schools until the 10th grade, when he won a scholarship and finished high school in Boston. Afterward, he attended Washington University in St. Louis to study architecture, in defiance of a prominent professor who encouraged him to switch to social work. Energized, and proud of his academic accomplishments, he returned to Cleveland in 1986. After working in the private sector for a few years, he worked in the city’s planning office. He was Mayor Michael White’s chief architect before he set out on his own in 2002. Since that time, his firm, Ubiquitous Design, LTD, has worked on an array of local projects. Bickerstaff has a passion for historic preservation and designed the Men’s retail clothing store at Clifton Boulevard and Lake Avenue that used to be a BP gas station. He designed the red and metallic contemporary condos on Brayton Avenue in Tremont. He has designed churches and hotels and local parks. (In case you’re wondering — we couldn’t resist asking — Bickerstaff’s favorite building in Cleveland is the Terminal Tower. He worked there fresh out of college and has fond memories of, among other things, the fountain. He says he looks forward to what Tower City can be again, now that a sufficient downtown population exists to patronize the businesses there.) But his crown jewel remains the cultural garden. Though only the $600,000 first phase of the $2.5 million project is complete, the finished portion is already an important symbol for Cleveland’s African-American community. The garden was originally dedicated in 1977, but a committee to raise funds and build the memorial wasn’t established until 2003. The completed portion includes a large archway and a black corridor that signifies the Doorway of No Return in West Africa. “These are torturous things we’re representing,” Bickerstaff says, of his concept, “but I wanted the design to be beautiful, to be elegant, and to be something we’re proud of as a community.” Bickerstaff says the fundraising for the remaining phases is ongoing, and that he’ll be involved until the final stone is laid. “For me,” he says, “it’s a labor of love.” — Sam Allard Credit: Ken Blaze

Daniel Gray-Kontar Playwright, Teacher, Artist “One thing I know,” says Daniel Gray-Kontar. “I don’t want to be 50 years old, rapping. All due respect to Snoop Dogg, I don’t want to be running around on somebody’s stage, saying, ‘Throw your hands in the air like you just don’t care.'” Gray-Kontar is 46. The dusting of white in his goatee is the only visual evidence that he’s not 10 years younger. He’s a versatile writer and artist and says that he has always tried to find the medium that allows him to best express himself, the medium that makes the most sense for the times. In the past, that medium was journalism; in the past, it was hip-hop. “Right now, it’s poetry,” he says. “Poetry allows the same capacity to play with language and rhythm and meaning, but without some of the restrictions of rap.” Performance poetry is also one of the key subjects taught and explored at the Twelve Literary Center, in North Collinwood, which Gray-Kontar founded last year. There, teenagers participate in a fellowship where they learn performance poetry and “various aspects of social justice.” (Right now, five teens from Twelve are representing Cleveland in the Brave New Voices youth slam poetry festival and competition in San Francisco.) In every aspect of his life and work, Gray-Kontar is committed to young people and advocating on their behalf. He was a creative writing teacher at the Cleveland School of the Arts for many years and has always believed that in society, “young people are often spoken at or spoken to. “But it’s incumbent upon us to listen,” he says. “Young people live in this world too, and they often have answers that go overlooked.” One of the goals of the Twelve literary space, in fact, is intergenerational performance and dialogue. “We’ve had conversations about race in this space,” Gray-Kontar says, sitting on one of Twelve’s comfy couches that form a perimeter around a performance area. “We’ve had conversations about class. We’ve had conversations about gender equity. The perceptions that young people have are different than those of older people. Both perceptions are equally valid, and that tension between them helps us unpack the issues. It’s about mutual respect.” Gray-Kontar is also a recent addition to the Northeast Shores board of trustees. In that capacity he focuses on education issues and sits on the governance subcommittee. He says right now, he’s intent on developing increased youth leadership opportunities. It should come as little surprise that when he was tapped to collaborate on a play to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the historic Carl Stokes mayoral election, Gray-Kontar insisted on bringing youth on board. “That was the one thing I said to [Karamu House president Tony Sias],” Gray-Kontar says. “I said I’m down. I just need to make sure young people are involved.” The resulting play, a ‘choreopoem’ called Believe in Cleveland, utilized documentary material, hip-hop lyrics and scripted dialogue. It was performed in June at Karamu and featured significant written contributions from local teens. Gray-Kontar says he’s excited about the possibility of another run of the show (not at Karamu) later this year. For now, though, he’s thrilled to be at Twelve. He says when he was let go from from CMSD — like a lot of artist-teachers, Gray-Kontar didn’t have his teaching certification — it was the first time he’d cried in a long time. “But it turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened,” he says. “Now I can bring the same message I taught at [Cleveland School of the Arts] to youth all over Northeast Ohio.” — Jeff Niesel Credit: Ken Blaze

Deb Sherman Owner, Aut-O-Rama Twin Drive-In The Aut-O-Rama in North Ridgeville wasn’t the first drive-in theater in Cleveland, but, in 1972, it was the first to offer two screens. “We actually opened this after the big wave of drive-in theaters in the 1950s,” says Deb Sherman, the owner. “So ours looks a little different. We learned from the others what worked and what didn’t.” It was birthed seven years before the addition of the second screen, back in 1965, by Sherman’s late husband’s family. Her father-in-law wasn’t necessarily a film lover; he was more of a businessman, always looking for new ideas. Thus, the second screen. Sherman’s husband and his brother joined their father in the business shortly after he opened it, and it’s been in the family ever since, with all five Sherman children helping her run the place since her husband’s death in 1993. Three of the kids have since moved away, but sons Tim and Del are still around to help their mom. “I wouldn’t be able to do it without them,” Sherman says. “I’ve got three grandkids that are local, and they’ll help out and be here just about every night, and if we don’t burn them out, hopefully they’ll be around here for a while.” Sherman’s 8-year-old granddaughter runs the register, while her 10-year-old grandson will be popping popcorn and running pizza orders. Ohio is actually the leading state for drive-in theaters, along with Pennsylvania. “There are 26 in Ohio, last I heard,” Sherman says. The Buckeye State’s temperate climate lends itself to the industry, as does the local love of automobiles. “One of my theories,” Sherman says, “is that it’s part of the whole car climate of this area, with all the car manufacturing back in the days, and people just love their cars and doing things with their cars, and that’s a big part of it, hopping in the car and staying in it and watching a movie from the car.” The allure is part nostalgia, part functional, and part programming. While they’ll show newer movies, the attraction of combining a semi-old-timey outing with semi-old-timey movies has packed in the crowds. Sherman, in addition to doing everything including running the concession stands, is the chief curator. “The films from the 1980s are always the most popular,” she says. “Pretty in Pink, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles. That’s what people like to see. And I look down the list of what was popular in each decade and choose based on that, but the ’80s draw the best.” Coincidentally, the 1980s is also when drive-ins were really struggling — when cable television came out, when the VCR became popular and video stores were big and people were staying home. “That was a really rough decade for us and that’s when most of the drive-ins around here closed.” But Aut-O-Rama stayed open, and while there have been ups and downs since then, it’s been pretty steady the last couple of decades, and since digital projectors were installed in 2013, they have seen an uptick in customers. With half a century in the books, here’s to another. — Brett Zelman Credit: Ken Blaze

Eric Rogers Chef-Owner, Fix Bistro, Sweet Fix At the age of 19, and with nothing resembling an advanced degree, Eric Rogers was employed as a file clerk by University Hospitals. His work ethic, confidence and optimistic personality helped him scale the corporate ladder all the way to finance manager. “I’ve always been a hard worker,” he says. “Anything I do, I do with full force. That’s how I was raised.” Much of what Rogers needed to know, he learned in his grandparents’ East Cleveland restaurant, where he began working at the age of 8. He started off small, cleaning greens, snapping beans, peeling potatoes. But by the age of 13, he was the restaurant’s head cook. “Customers started coming in and saying, ‘I want the little guy to cook my food,'” Rogers recounts. “That’s when I started taking it more seriously.” Even during the Desk Job years, Rogers never fully put away the apron. His backyard barbecues drew crowds, his guests shifting from family and friends to paying customers. At 33, he made the decision to walk away from his corporate gig and follow his heart. While his wife was unconditionally supportive, Rogers’ parents thought he was crazy. But all those years poring over the hospital ledgers provided him with a degree of financial aptitude that many fledgling entrepreneurs lack. “I didn’t just jump off a building: I planned,” he explains. “I created a business plan, did market analysis, looked for a void in the community … I took a professional approach, and at the end of the day, I knew I couldn’t fail if I had a great product.” First came Nevaeh Cuisine, a Creole- and Cajun-style eatery in South Euclid, which he quickly traded in for a “great little corner spot” in Cleveland Heights. Rogers took his soul/Cajun leanings and reshaped them into a “fast-gourmet” sandwich concept called Black Box Fix. “I knew this area would appreciate what I do,” he says. “I was creating food that this side of the city had never seen before. After that it was like, boom, everything blew up.” You could call Black Box the restaurant that OMG Phillys built. That immensely popular hoagie consists of sauteed chicken, peppers and onions capped with plump seasoned shrimp, and thousands were selling each week. When a larger space opened nearby, Rogers eagerly expanded into a full-service restaurant called the Fix Bistro. In his old spot, he partnered with a baker to open Sweet Fix, a neighborhood bakery. This summer, Fawaky Fix, a partnership with the owner of Fawaky Burst Juice, will open on the same road. Soon after, Soul Fix, a healthy soul food carry-out, will open down the road. But the move that Rogers seems most pleased about is the chance to take the Black Box Fix concept to Legacy Village. “They called us, and that was something that made us very proud, being one of the first black-owned businesses to go in Legacy Village,” Rogers says. “It’s a whole different market, and we have to prove ourselves, but I think it’s a model that crosses cultural borders.” Does Rogers ever pine for the relatively tranquil days working the desk? “I love what I do, and the fact that my wife is now doing it with me definitely helps,” he reports. “I wake up every day and do what I love, so I never feel like I’m working. You can’t beat that in life.” — Douglas Trattner Credit: Ken Blaze

Freda Levenson Legal Director, ACLU Ohio There will come a time when America’s lovefest with the ACLU will end, or at least taper off. Freda Levenson knows this. The Trump administration and its attendant policies and rhetoric put the legendary civil rights organization in the spotlight, especially after it battled the president’s Muslim Ban. “The ACLU has brought some of the foundational Constitutional cases, we have a long history, but we’re not your grandmother’s ACLU,” says Levenson, the legal director of ACLU Ohio, in her office one June afternoon. “We’re as fresh and relevant as ever, and we can partly thank President Trump for that. When he was campaigning, the rhetoric was so laughable and not credible, but the ACLU took his promises seriously and we were prepared for legal challenges. So when he made good on promises to cut back rights, the ACLU was ready.” In one weekend following their first victory over Trump’s Muslim Ban, the ACLU received $24 million in online donations from more than 350,000 individuals. “Our membership swelled,” Levenson says, “and people that maybe hadn’t noticed the ACLU were calling us heroes.” That has been great, in exposure and pure monetary terms. The donations allowed for additional hiring, but the ACLU has only about 300 staff attorneys nationwide compared to some 19,000 government lawyers — “We’re still David to Trump’s Goliath,” she says — but it’s untenable. Folks who pledged support who might think the ACLU exists to fight Trump might not like it when that portion of their work doesn’t continue to populate headlines, or if and when the ACLU represents someone they disagree with. “It’s not going to last forever,” Levenson says. “And we’re very proud of the work we do that’s also the opposite of taking on Trump.” They represented Citizens for Trump during the RNC, for instance. Levenson also cites the famous 1970s case when the ACLU represented neo-Nazis and their right to march in Illinois. As ethics and morals become fungible and flexible based on partisanship, strange bedfellows is a useful test to see if a person or organization hews to the straight and narrow points of their mission. The ACLU passes with flying colors. “We’re an equal opportunity pain in the butt,” Levenson says. “We’re staunchly nonpartisan. We represent people that we or you may disagree with, but it doesn’t matter if their Constitutional rights are being violated. Free speech protects all speech, including hate speech, and our Constitution is designed in a way that if you disagree with something or find it offensive, the solution isn’t to censor it, because then it goes underground. The solution is more speech.” Levenson calls the ACLU gig the “dessert of her career.” She grew up in Shaker Heights, went to Wellesley, then to the University of Michigan for law school. She landed a job as a commercial litigator and eventually became partner at a large Chicago law firm when her professional status was a rarity. “I was the second woman at a very large firm,” she says. “A lot of people didn’t understand that I was a lawyer. If I showed up to a meeting, someone would ask me to get them coffee. If I came to court, the judge would say, ‘Miss, when’s your boss getting here?’ The lawyer’s lounge at the firm, to get there, you had to go through the men’s bathroom. If I wanted to go to a lounge, I had to go through the women’s room to the secretary’s lounge. It was a novel experience; times were changing rapidly. It was great training.” After moving back to Northeast Ohio, and as her four children grew older, Levenson taught as an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University and started volunteering with the ACLU. It wasn’t long before she was hired as a senior staff attorney, then managing attorney, then legal director. While she praises her experience as a commercial litigator, it wasn’t “as satisfying as combining your passion with your intellectual pursuit,” she beams. And while the ACLU continues to fight Trumpian battles, exceptionally important work is being done on the local level every single day, just like it’s always been. In Ohio, Levenson and the ACLU fought a vital battle against the state for purging Ohio’s voter roles. A 6th Circuit Court ruling sided with them, allowing the votes of some 7,500 Ohioans who otherwise wouldn’t have had their votes counted in the November election, through an emergency temporary action. Which isn’t the end of the battle: the Supreme Court will hear the case later this year. “I’m living my dream,” she says. “It’s such a gift to work with your passion and always be on the right side.” — Vince Grzegorek Credit: Ken Blaze

Greg Coleridge Activist, Move to Amend “The problem isn’t that the government is broken,” Greg Coleridge says, whipping out one of many activist slogans he’s been repeating so long they’re inextricably threaded into the fabric of his speech. “It’s that it’s fixed.” “Fixed as in rigged,” he says, leaning in, making sure the message is clear. Coleridge’s central issue is corporate power and the insidious effects of money in politics. He is a man who has known that corporations aren’t people since long before Citizens United. Citizens United was the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that held that money was a form of speech, and that capping corporations’ campaign contributions was an unconstitutional infringement of their First Amendment rights. It facilitated a massive growth in Super PACs. “But it was a perverted kind of blessing,” says Coleridge, clipboard in hand, seated at the Cleveland Heights Public Library with a smattering of activist literature in front of him. “It made people wake up. They might not realize, though, that this is nothing new. This has been going on for 125 years.” Coleridge, an Akron native and Oberlin College alum, now works for Move to Amend, a national coalition formed in 2009 committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that’s accountable to people, not corporations. He’s been doing this genre of work for years. For example: “This is from 1996,” Coleridge says, referencing a 96-page Citizens Over Corporations pamphlet he authored for the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) as a by-product of a meeting with frustrated activists. Back then, and until earlier this year, Coleridge was the program director for economic and political justice with the American Friends Service Committee. “I’d done work with non-violence campaigns,” Coleridge says, “but quite frankly, we ended up evolving — or some might say devolving — into looking at issues of democracy and corporate power in politics.” Coleridge has worked locally to get 12 Ohio municipalities to pass resolutions asking congress to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would state two things: 1) Only humans, not corporations, are legal persons, and 2) money is not equivalent to speech. “The reason we’re so frustrated, why we’re literally banging our heads against the wall,” Coleridge says, “is because there are a lot of fruits and vegetables you can boycott one at a time. But we don’t have enough time. We have to look at the fundamentals — and the analysis shows that the overarching problem is the increasing power and rights of corporations.” Coleridge says that he sees many local activists doing critical work — in labor, consumer protection, the environment, etc. — and even remembered fondly his week in Seattle in 1999 protesting the World Trade Organization. He said that to this day, there has been nothing more liberating than shutting down those Seattle streets. But he said activists need to focus on corporate power or else their progress will be limited. “I’m not saying drop everything. This doesn’t need to be your No. 1 issue,” Coleridge says. “But maybe make it No. 2.” — Sam Allard Credit: Ken Blaze

Jen Brumfield Naturalist, Cleveland Metroparks One of the great and mostly rare joys in life is to take a passion from childhood and build it into a sustainable career, a way of life as an adult. We should all be so lucky, and Cleveland Metroparks naturalist Jen Brumfield is among the few who can claim that thrill. “I swear to god that I was interested in birds in utero,” she tells Scene on a windy morning at Wendy Park earlier this summer. She comes here every morning to scout feathered friends along the breakwall and in the small woodlot near the volleyball courts. This is one of the best birdwatching spots in Northeast Ohio, she says, and therein lies her life’s passion: the many and varied birds of planet Earth. On that day, she was leading one of her many birding walks in the park, passing on her knowledge of summertime songbirds and regaling a crowd of maybe 20 with her own brand of humor and insight. “You know when you first become conscious of life, your first memories … I remember just liking birds,” she says. Her father was a science teacher and her mother was a nurse, and instead of buying things they channeled their family’s time and money into trips to the park, road trips, vacations. “We owned, like, nothing. No video games. No elaborate TV. We spent our money on experiences.” Back then, Brumfield’s home was ringed with birdfeeders. When her father would fill them up with seeds, she’d run into the house and wait patiently for whatever birds would happen by that day. This is how it’s always been, since her earliest days. (Some of her first words were related to birds, to her mother’s chagrin. “It was like ‘Dad’ and ‘Hawk’ and ‘Grackle,'” she says. “‘Mom’ was like sixth.”) From there, she went on frequent Audubon bird walks and pored over field guides constantly. By 11 or 12, she was leading her own bird walks. All along, her parents were incredibly supportive of her interests. They sent her to southeast Arizona for a bird camp once; at 16, they sent her to Belize for the birds. She worked hard and gathered scholarships to fund her passion. What’s interesting about birdwatching is how similar it is to a broad spectrum of other activities, how transferable it is for naturalists to share with rookies. Many in the field will compare it, sometimes reluctantly, to Pokemon Go. “It’s like this big hide-and-seek game,” Brumfield says. “It’s like collecting stamps, but in a fun way.” After a string of outdoorsy jobs in the area, she landed at Rocky River Nature Center one day to sell some artwork. She had just gotten back into town after a three-day hawk watch in Buffalo. Her reputation preceded her, as these things happen, and Brumfield was hired to do seasonal, outdoor education work and field-guide writing. She moved up in the Metroparks world. “The opportunities are incredible,” she says of the organization. With a visible platform in a prime North American birdwatching region, Brumfield has been able to develop and hone her passion. In 2012, she broke the record for the most bird species seen in Cuyahoga County with 270. (She saw 53 species on Jan. 1 alone, including a snowy owl at the airport.) Our visit with Brumfield at Wendy Park was so impressive that we incorporated her work into a recent feature on the nexus of birdwatching and climate activism. Something she said that morning, winds whipping fast around our interview, really stuck with us, mostly because Brumfield is about as enthusiastic a naturalist as you’ll find: “”Little do people know anymore that we’re conscious! We can make decisions and not just go with the flow!” She’s made her passion into her life, and she shares that with other people everyday. — Eric Sandy Credit: Ken Blaze

Jeremy Umansky Chef, Owner, Larder Despite a very inauspicious culinary start, Jeremy Umansky seems to be incapable of making an ill-timed move. After speaking up for fellow students and staff at the Culinary Institute of America, telling the New York Times that, “The C.I.A. … feels like a corporation that is pumping students out for the benefit of the industry,” he was compelled to leave the program just three months shy of a degree. “It further invigorated me to pursue what I thought was right when it comes to food and what I was going to do with it,” Umansky explains. While still a student in the fertile Hudson Valley of New York, Umansky managed to learn plenty. He was very active with that region’s Slow Food chapter, one of the largest in the country, even representing it as a delegate at the organization’s annual conference in Italy. Umansky simultaneously served as president of his school’s Garden Society while working on a 40-acre vegetable farm that supplied the university. That same year he spent some quality time with author and fermentation guru Sandor Katz. “All of this was happening to me at the same time — farming and agriculture, foraging and wild foods, food preservation and fermentation — so it was really easy for me to make connections between them because they are all so interconnected,” he says. With such a diverse and relevant skill set, Umansky had little trouble landing a job, despite his premature departure from university. His first was as a chef at Wild Hive Farm in the Hudson Valley, working for small-batch grain pioneer Don Lewis. His next move earned him the title of executive chef at Brooklyn’s Fairway Market, where he worked alongside Steven Jenkins, author of what is widely considered the bible on fine cheese. It wasn’t long before Umansky was being recruited by Whole Foods in Manhattan, where he developed a local-foods program for chefs. After his stint there, the young chef flew across the country to help launch Feast, an online culinary school for home cooks that was quickly backed by 500 Startups. Once that project was up and running, Umansky returned to New York, where he was brought on as chef at Brooklyn Fish Camp. “We already decided that between student loans, the grind of New York, and the fact that we were ready to start family planning, we just had to get out,” says Umansky, who is now married to Allie and father to daughter Emilia. “We were looking at San Fran, Austin, Philly … I came in town for my best friend’s wedding — it was the first time since 2006 that I had been in Cleveland for longer than two days — and my mind was blown.” At the time, in 2014, cook, sous chef and chef jobs were his for the taking, Umansky explains. But he had something else in mind. He stole some of chef Jonathon Sawyer’s time and showed him some of the stuff he was working on: wild edibles, foraging, ferments, charcuterie. He was brought on board at Trentina, where the pair developed one of the most progressive koji-culturing programs in the country. “Modesty aside, when it comes to koji and what I’ve developed with the use of enzymes and the way we are using them, the buck stops here,” Umansky states. “A colleague of mine described it best when he said, ‘The application of koji makes food taste like the best junk food ever, but it’s good for you.'” Next up for Umansky is Larder, a modern delicatessen in Hingetown that will rely on many of the techniques he’s amassed during his relatively brief but already remarkable culinary journey. “I’ve been working in kitchens in various aspects since I was about 11,” he reports. “I don’t necessarily like the idea of destiny or fate, but it kind of feels like this has all been just that. — Douglas Trattner Credit: Ken Blaze

John Panza Musician, Founder, Panza Foundation Since he launched the Panza Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to support local indie rock acts, a couple of years ago, John Panza has become one of the most outspoken proponents of the local music scene. He is, of course, many other things, including a cancer patient, an active member of a number of local acts, and a full-time English professor at Cuyahoga Community College. It’s not surprising, then, that he can speak eloquently on any number of topics, including the city’s discriminating noise rock scene, local rock venues and local promoters who do and don’t treat the artists’ best interests as a priority. Panza started playing drums when he was 7. It was sort of a family calling; his dad had played drums, and his mother’s father was [a] bluegrass musician. “I knew music was something I would enjoy, and when I got to around 11 years old, I was taking jazz drumming with a private teacher,” he says one afternoon from the screened-in porch of his Cleveland Heights home. “My jazz teacher was trying to move me to marimba, but I discovered Dead Kennedys at the same time. There wasn’t much of a choice between the two.” Panza drummed in his mom’s basement, playing along to tapes and teaching himself tempo changes and speed. When he was in grad school studying literary theory at John Carroll University, he formed his first band, Simoom, with one of his students and a fellow grad student who happened to be his office mate. His life took a sharp turn for the worse in January of 2012. After a show at the Happy Dog, with his indie rock act Blaka Watra, Panza felt sick and threw up. He woke up the next morning with a flu, went to the doctor and got a chest X-ray. They found fluid surrounding his lung and drained the fluids. The fluid kept coming back. “They opened me up, and the surgeon saw cancer,” he says. “The [CT] scans never showed it.” After three rounds of chemo, major surgery that involved the removal of his right lung, half his diaphragm and a rib, and then radiation, he finally healed. Exposure to asbestos had caused the incurable cancer. After a little research, he realized his father had brought home asbestos on his clothes. Panza sued the company that was the culprit. In the wake of the trial he formed the Panza Foundation, turning the settlement money into a force of local good. “Being a musician and playing for over 20 years, if there’s one overriding characteristic of musicians, they’re bad at asking for help,” he says when asked about the foundation’s goals. “Sometimes it’s lack of knowledge and sometimes it’s pride. Unlike painters and orchestra people who have grants and scholarships, indie rock musicians that make challenging music don’t have that. The one characteristic we wanted above all else was no application process, because bands won’t ask for help. The foundation’s concept is that we provide them with what they need to succeed. We pick bands that play original music and play regularly and play nice with others. What they do with the money we give them is their choice.” Panza admits there has been a connection between his work as a teacher at Tri-C and his ardent support for the local music scene of which he’s a part. “When I taught humanities regularly at Tri-C, I felt as if my musical background and experience gave me a more nuanced understanding of what other artists were doing in other areas, and I translated that in the classroom as best I could,” he says. “I’m older than a lot of musicians in Cleveland. I’m 43, but I still learn new things every day from these bands we sponsor. They constantly remind me that teaching is a two-way street.” — Jeff Niesel Credit: Ken Blaze

Kasumi Artist There are few better ways to describe a modern artist who explores all types of artistic mediums and fields, from film and drawing to performance art and theater, than as a modern renaissance woman. And it’s just about the best way to characterize Cleveland Heights-based artist Kasumi, who sort of defies and explicitly works against classifications. Recently, Kasumi has been focused on what she calls her Perpetual Loops, which are a series of one or more images spliced together to create a sort of infinite GIF. (A collection of her loops was recently featured on the Eric Andre Show on Comedy Central.) In addition to the GIFs, she’s created an immersive virtual reality, 360-degree piece called “Pizzaland 360,” which is just as cool as it sounds. Her media art has been displayed on the exterior of the Cleveland Museum of Art and inside the DC Tower in Vienna, Austria. The loops find their origins in Kasumi’s 2015 feature-length film Shockwaves, which consisted of gestures used in place of words, with the gestures and clips turned into a full narrative. Kasumi used close to 25,000 clips in the movie, or about 10 times the number of clips an average film will use. Looking for a project after the film, but being exhausted from the film, led her to the idea of the loops, something she could finish in a week. “They’re instant gratification. Total instant gratification,” she says. Perpetual Loops, of course, aren’t all she’s focused on these days. “I try to find whatever medium fits the concept. If it’s a still image, I’ll do a print or a photo,” she says. “I started also playing around with collage recently. It all sort of starts with ‘what if’, and then you just sort of go.” She uses Instagram to present her work now — it was Tumblr, before that kind of died — and believes that it’s only a matter of time before another platform takes its place. She’s also in the process of developing an app that incorporates art, music and entertainment with a sort of create-your-own adventure, mix and match program. “My mother was an artist, and my father was a rocket scientist, so technology doesn’t daunt me and prevent me from using new high-tech tools,” Kasumi says. Kasumi, a prestigious Guggenheim Fellow in 2011 who also happens to have classical baroque musical training in her artistic toolbox, doesn’t like to talk about her personal life and would rather focus on her work. “My background — like most of ours — is a mixture of many cultures and influences. I’m trying to get away from the characterization of, ‘we’re this ethnicity’ or ‘that category’ of artist,” she explains. You can see her film Shockwaves, her Infinite Series, her TEDx talk and more of her work at Kasumifilms.com. — Brett Zelman Credit: Ken Blaze

Keisha Gonzalez Managing Director, Metro West Community Development Organization In the next year or two, Clark/Fulton will boast a long overdue addition to the neighborhood. El Mercado, which will be set in a 30,000-plus-square-foot building on Clark just south of West 25th, will serve as the physical and cultural anchor for the neighborhood, in Ward 14, which has the densest Latin population in the state. Think what the Asia Town Center did for that neighborhood, plus more. Keisha Gonzalez, managing director of the Metro West Community Development Organization, along with a broad coalition led by councilman Brian Cummins, the Hispanic Business Center, the Hispanic Alliance and other community leaders have been working toward transforming the structure and bringing in anchor tenants who will cover food, culture, arts and more. It follows on the heels of the success of La Placita, the neighborhood’s annual summertime market, and the larger mission of La Villa Hispana, which consists of an effort to bolster local businesses. “I really can’t personally take any credit for that,” Gonzalez says about the market. “Brian Cummins and people from the Hispanic Business Center … they literally stood at the intersection and realized how is it that there are so many Hispanics here, so much social vibrancy and interaction, but no physical manifestation of that. They realized if everyone moved their gears simultaneously, we could make a physical development that goes along with the social component that already exists.” The HBC is relocating their entire operation to the building, for example, and they’re hoping to attract a daycare, offer small business training and coalesce the neighborhood’s arts and culture around it. It’s a vitally important development in a neighborhood that, as Gonzalez puts it, sits in between a bunch of “trendy” neighborhoods. It’s also one she grew up in and didn’t imagine returning to. “I would say the first time I got exposure outside of the neighborhood was when I went to Magnificat for high school,” she says. After one semester at an art and design school, she transferred to Cleveland State and got her bachelors in anthropology with a focus on archaeology. But she didn’t have her sights set on Egypt. “CSU had acquired the collection for the Irishtown Bend, so it was urban archeology, picking up cultures in urban settings and figuring out how people lived.” She followed with a masters in historic preservation at the University of Delaware. And then she came home, but just for a little bit, she thought. She viewed her first job at Metro West as a temporary one, just something to do until she figured out the long-term career plan. And then she got hooked, serving the same people she grew up with. “Honestly, it was one of those things,” she says. “You learn about CDCs in college and you think that sounds horrible, I never want to work there. But then I started with community organizing here. I knew the streets. I knew the people. It took serving my people to realize it’s something I really wanted to do. I realized I was the happiest when my skills and talents were serving the people around me, the people that raised me.” It’s those same people who the broad coalition wants to elevate, whether it’s at La Placita or El Mercado. “We’re not trying to necessarily attract outside business or concepts or entertainment,” Gonzalez says. “We really want to tap into the talent and blood that exists in the neighborhood, whether it’s testing their toes in entrepreneurship… . La Villa Hispana has been 30 years in the making. It’s gone from a social services center to a district agency and now this. It’s grown so much.” Clark/Fulton lays claim to the oldest Latin bakery in Cleveland and a slew of other businesses that might not get the recognition or broader support from Northeast Ohio simply because of where they’re located. Slowly but surely, that’s changing. El Mercado will be a big step, but Gonzalez implores small ones from fellow Clevelanders as well. “In addition to events, just experiment,” she says. “I really want people to be encouraged to not be put off by neighborhoods that sit among the trendy ones. There’s so much to be offered, not only in Clark/Fulton but the Brooklyn Centers and the Stockyards and throughout Cleveland, east to west, places that are nestled between the development. Walk the streets, find something to eat.” Sounds like good advice to us. — Vince Grzegorek Credit: Ken Blaze

Siriphan “Kiwi” Wongpeng Owner, Thai Thai On her first Fourth of July as a U.S. citizen, Siriphan “Kiwi” Wongpeng did the most American thing ever: She went to a friend’s house for a cookout and then took in a fireworks display. Wongpeng, who runs the wildly popular Lakewood restaurant Thai Thai with her mom, dad and brother, says that she was the last in her family to make it official. Although she filed her Application for Naturalization back in November, the change in administration delayed the exam until this past May. The Wongpengs immigrated to Boston from Thailand in 2000, when Kiwi was still in high school. Her aunt, who had a 15-year head start in that city, was running four Thai restaurants. Like the rest of the family, Kiwi worked in the restaurants washing dishes, cutting vegetables and packing to-go orders. “I did not answer the phone,” she jokes, alluding to her lack of command of the English language back then. It was a random set of events that caused the family to relocate to Cleveland five years later. “We ended up in Ohio because my mother came to the Cleveland Clinic for eye surgery and was here for a week, and she just loved how simple life was in Ohio and she said, ‘We have to move to Cleveland,'” says Kiwi, admitting that the move was an adjustment. “They took me to downtown Cleveland at night and there was nothing. In Boston, there’s always something going on.” Within a month of landing in Cleveland, Kiwi’s parents took over a small Chinese restaurant on Madison Avenue and opened Thai Hut in its place. They followed that business with the Asian Grille, which they operated for about eight years, until it closed last year. It was Kiwi who suggested to the family that they open a new Thai place that completely bucked convention. “We were making Thai food for Americans, it’s sad to say,” Kiwi explains. “I meet a lot of people who had been to Thailand and they always ask about the food they had there. I said, ‘Why don’t we do something different? Why don’t we make food like it is in Bangkok?'” Within a few months of opening Thai Thai, the family knew it was onto something. The restaurant’s stripped-down menu of street foods and Thai classics like Duck Noodle Soup, Kra Praow and Pad Ke Mao was resonating with both Asian and non-Asian diners. And before long, the small 20-seat eatery was packing them in every day. “By that summer we knew it was a good idea because people came in and liked it,” she explains. “When Thai people come in a lot, we know that we are doing something good. I feel really bad because we only have, like, five tables.” Thai Thai’s participation at last year’s Night Market Cleveland has exposed the restaurant to an even wider audience, says Kiwi, now a single mom, but for now, there are no plans to expand or change course. “We don’t want to take any chance to go to another location and it’s not working,” she explains. “So we go slow. We’re very happy. We didn’t think it would go this fast. We just wanted something to do in the family. We’re just lucky.” — Douglas Trattner Credit: Ken Blaze

Lynn Hampton President, Black Shield When the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association voted not only to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in the union’s history but also to endorse Donald Trump, it might have been the first time that many Clevelanders became familiar with Lynn Hampton or realized that the CPPA isn’t the only police union in the city. Hampton, the president of the Black Shield, the African-American police union, spoke out vehemently against the choice. The Black Shield was first formed in 1946 as a social club of sorts and is one of the oldest minority police unions in the country. What started as a place where minorities could go for camaraderie and support, whether it was getting a fair shake in the hiring process or a promotion, took on serious cultural issues as civil rights battles exploded in the 1970s. Two landmark cases in Cleveland, in fact, started with the Black Shield, which sued the city in 1972 over fair minority hiring practices and again in 1975 to get more women on the job. Its size and relevance has ebbed and flowed since then, experiencing a downturn with poor leadership during the Mike White era. And though its membership is historically small — about 200 — its importance may never be more sizable. Though all of its members belong to the CPPA, and while CPPA holds the bargaining power with the city, opinions on issues of violence, police brutality and politics voiced by human megaphone Steve Loomis, the president of the CPPA, don’t always reflect the opinions of all the cops on the force. “I think I may have one up on Steve, because I’ve been African-American all my life,” says Hampton, a 23-year veteran on the force who grew up in the St. Clair neighborhood on the same block with three other friends who also became cops. “It can be frustrating because at times. … The commentary you’re giving is how you see things, your reality and your world. His reality and world are different than mine. I see how African-Americans have issues with the police here and all over the country.” That history in Cleveland is full of blemishes, from hiring practices to high-profile cases such as Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson and Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. “Some things I agree on with Steve, and there are others I don’t,” Hampton says. “When people say stuff about Black Lives Matter and compare them to the Ku Klux Klan, which he has, I want to ask if he knows his history. Like, do you know why the Black Panthers was formed? Because it’s what’s happening now. I look at hearings from 1966 and you’d think it was modern day. It sounds like stuff from last week.” Whereas Loomis rails against the consent decree, Hampton see a long history that falls right in line with the pattern and practice that the Justice Department found when it examined Cleveland’s police force. “Is it a coincidence that there were twentysomething cities with consent decrees?” he asks, noting how Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the current administration view the findings. “The black community already was looking at the police with a critical eye. How are you going to fix the problem if you pretend it’s not there? The police make mistakes, and they need to admit when they do.” Hampton notes that even if something happens that isn’t local, something in South Carolina, or Minnesota, or Cincinnati, it still affects how people view the police here. Which is part of what his job entails — being a community voice and face, fostering communication between the residents and the police. The Black Shield contributes book bags and school supplies to kids, and Hampton is pursuing an ambitious mentoring program. The Shield also helps recruit prospective cops to prepare for and take entrance exams. “I’m a firm believer that the demographics of the force should reflect the demographics of the population,” Hampton says, noting that Cleveland is still a ways off from that ideal. The same goes for promotions to the upper levels of the department. “If everything was fair, there wouldn’t be a need for the Black Shield. But here we are.” — Vince Grzegorek Credit: Ken Blaze

Mike Paramore Comedian Long before he found himself on stage in front of a mic, Mike Paramore really wanted to play football. Like many Pee Wee football players, he wanted to make the NFL. Thing was, coaches along the way had similar ideas, including the staff at the University of Akron. They recruited Paramore, who played linebacker at Garfield High, with the idea that he could lose weight and kick some serious ass at strong safety. “I was kind of a reckless hitter,” says Paramore, who went to 10 different schools in 12 years while growing up here, as he sits at the downtown Corner Alley bar, munching on a taco hamburger stacked with tortilla chips. Decked out in a black Jordan T-shirt and sweats, Paramore still possesses that defensive swagger even though he long ago blew out his knee, his NFL dreams dashed in the process. “It was kind of depressing,” he admits. While living in Columbus where he was recovering from surgery, he “stumbled across” an improv team and thought he’d give it a shot since he was always “the funny guy.” “I actually hate being the center of attention, but improv was way out of my comfort zone,” he says. “Being a comedian is contrary to who I am as a person. I haven’t decided if I get to be who I really am when I’m on stage, or if I get to get away from who I really am. I’m still trying to figure that part out.” He put together a five-minute standup set that served as his tryout for the improv team. It went well. People laughed. But Paramore, who says he was shaking during the entire routine, swore he’d never do standup again. And yet, friends coaxed him into competing in a “funniest person” contest in Columbus and then in Cincinnati. He placed second both times. As a reward, he received a week-long hosting gig. He’s gotten gigs ever since. “It was a snowball effect,” says Paramore, who now performs regularly and books himself into clubs throughout the country. “My material has always been life observations,” says the comedian, who last year released the comedy album, The Things We Tell Ourselves. “I feel more comfortable talking about race now that I’m more comfortable on stage, which isn’t very comfortable at all. I still have to have a Long Island before going on stage. That’s come more with me gaining a voice. I never broached the subject of race until the last couple of years.” While he’s not exactly sure where this is all going to take him, there is a certain satisfaction he gets from even being able to consider the idea that one day he could make a living off comedy. And the attention? Well, he’s still that shy kid at heart. “I would be okay with being famous. It’s been said to me that I will be great in an unscripted show interacting with people, but my goal is to be able to support my family using comedy,” he says. “I think it’s awesome to be able to travel around the country and sell tickets using your name because I was on a show, or be famous just for your comedy like a Bill Burr or Brian Regan. But I would be perfectly fine being the wealthy, working comic that nobody knows, if that’s possible.” — Jeff Niesel Credit: Ken Blaze

Pamela Eyerdam Manager, Special Collections, Cleveland Public Library “I’m a proponent of teachable moments,” says Pamela Eyerdam, the manager of special collections and fine arts at the Cleveland Public Library. Right now, she’s showing off a few of the “profile sheets” she’s put together to highlight bits and pieces of the CPL’s John G. White Chess Collection, the largest of its kind in the world. This one’s about chess legend Emanuel Lasker. “Often, people don’t like to read a big block of text, so I try to keep them to a single page,” she says. She walks over to a display table featuring old autographs. Here, a document signed by Abraham Lincoln; beneath it, one signed by Marie Antoinette. “With kids,” Eyerdam says, “you’ve got to bring in the gore, so we talk about the guillotines.” Born in Cleveland, raised in Maple Heights, and currently living in Walton Hills, Eyerdam has been with CPL for 12 years. But she’s been a librarian for 35. She has worked for both Cleveland State University and the University of Akron. “In my field, when you move from academia to public, you’re kind of a traitor,” she says. But for Eyerdam, the CPL is just as much a university as her previous places of employment. Indeed, John G. White, the philanthropist and avid chess collector whose personal bequest forms the core of the chess library, was a firm believer in literature’s power to educate. Eyerdam is almost as fervid a fan of White as White himself was of chess. She describes his good deeds with affection and reverence: He was sportsman. A philanthropist. Every week, he would deliver baskets full of books to children. These days, the White collection is known the world over. Eyerdam says the special collections wing (on the third floor of the main library building) gets more tourists than local visitors. Every summer, for example, they host chess researchers from American and Europeans universities. An international club of chess players and collectors holds a mini-conference there every few years. When the John G. White Chess Collection was featured in a 2012 cover story in Chess Life magazine — “For us, being on the cover of Chess Life is like being on the cover of Time,” says Eyerdam — the reporter remarked upon Eyerdam’s hospitality. “If you’ve ever done serious research in national archives in Europe or private libraries in America,” wrote reporter Mark Taylor, “you had probably got the impression at some point that you were not exactly welcome. Not so in the CPL Special Collections room. [Eyerdam] has taken [John G. White’s] attitude to heart and created a welcoming atmosphere most rare among first-rate collections.” But Eyerdam sees her hospitality as in keeping with the library’s “public university mantra” and the progressive attitudes of John G. White and former Cleveland mayor Tom Johnson. “For a city to be progressive, it needs to educate the general public,” Eyerdam says. “Educate people so they can get jobs and the city can be more progressive.” She shrugs. That much is obvious to her. “And look,” she says, gesturing to the windows that face Daniel Burnham’s glorious green mall and Lake Erie in the distance. “We’ve got the best views in the city.” — Sam Allard Credit: Ken Blaze

Pandora Robertson Co-director, Ohio City Theater Project “If you want to get a visceral sense of how it felt to be swept up in the Hough riots, Incendiaries will take you by the hand through that hellscape.” That’s how I described Incendiaries last year, a volatile and risky theatrical piece conceived and directed by Pandora Robertson, the co-director of the Ohio City Theater Project (OCTP). The play would seem a far cry from Robertson’s full-time job as a database applications developer and administrator at Case Western Reserve University. But as Robertson notes, “Development and directing are similar in that you must create something out of nothing.” When not massaging the software at Case, she is often working with performers in a collaborative effort to fashion plays that address important social and political issues. In the past, Robertson tackled the concept of confession (a priest’s confession of abuse) in the devised play Free Radical and the Late Night Sketchbook that played, among other venues, at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City. Robertson is deeply involved in that community and, as co-director of OCTP along with Sarah Greywitt and Fred Mowery, she is working to enhance life in that area. Indeed, the mission of OCTP is to pursue excellence in theater arts and build community through creative innovation, mentoring and neighborhood involvement. One example of that involvement is their 2017 Summer Arts Camp, a free puppet and mask theater camp for youth ages 8 to 14, running until July 26 at the Michael J. Zone Recreation Center. In the camp, the kids make puppets and masks and then put on their own puppet show at the end. The goal, as Robertson explains it, is simple: “We want to empower young people by giving them access to their own voice through theater arts. And also, help them develop leadership skills.” In addition, OCTP is involved in putting on shows in non-traditional spaces, in churches and parish halls, so that the community has easy access to plays they might not ordinarily see. As for the immediate future, Robertson says, “We will perform Incendiaries as part of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture’s (CAC) Arts & Culture in the Square, in downtown Cleveland’s Public Square, on Saturday, July 22, at 2:30 p.m. There will also be a post-performance theater workshop for actors and non-actors, adults and teens 14 and up.” Robertson is married to David Shimotakahara, executive artistic director and founder of Groundworks Dance Theater here in Cleveland. They met in Montreal, Canada, when they were both dance students and eventually moved to Akron to dance for Ohio Ballet under the direction of Heinz Poll. After her dance career was over, Robertson began choreographing, acting and directing at theaters around Cleveland. “The arts and theater were in my blood,” says Robertson, “since my father was an actor, my mother was an artist and my stepfather was a musician. After I did a small cameo role in a musical directed by Vicky Bussert, back in the day, I was hooked!” And even though she’s dealing with computer data all day long, she still has plenty of energy for her theater pursuits at night. As she says, “I’m very lucky to be able to do what I love!” — Christine Howey Credit: Ken Blaze

Puspa Gajmer Founder, Himalayan Music Academy When he was just a child, Puspa Gajmer and his family fled Bhutan amid ethnic cleansing to a refugee camp in Nepal. They spent the next 20 years there. During that time Gajmer learned English and studied music, got a degree from Tribhuvan University and dreamed of a better life. In 2011, he came to the United States and ended up in a small city in Illinois. “There were very few Nepalese people there,” he says. “It was very, very small.” Friends and family eventually suggested that Gajmer move to Akron, where they arrived in 2013. “There were lots of immigrants here,” he says. “It’s an international area and very welcoming.” Gajmer, now 32, continued his education at the University of Akron and, in his spare time, began to teach traditional Nepalese music to students at his home. When one student turned to two which turned to three which turned to four, a friend suggested he open a more traditional space in which he could not only serve more students … but stop using his house. It was the kernel of an idea, and Gajmer’s friends and family figured he’d rent a small space and grow gradually. Instead, Gajmer found a location on North Main Street and opened a proper school with additional instructors. “It’s going so good, so good,” Gajmer says. “We have about 40 students and while some are Nepalese, a lot of others are not. They are just interested in learning about our songs and our cultural instruments.” And they couldn’t learn from a better teacher: Gajmer is a celebrated artist and has recorded albums of traditional Nepalese folks songs. “It’s a different melody than other sounds,” he says. “The refugee camp was very stressful and very difficult,” he says, reflecting on how far he’s come. “Now I feel very proud to be here, working with the different community organizations.” Students have already performed around the city and more concerts are slated during the year. “I just love helping them and seeing them improve,” he says, with paternal pride. “I’m blessed to be here and doing this.” — Vince Grzegorek Credit: Ken Blaze

Ron Ledgard Managing Editor, The Athletic Cleveland Journalism hasn’t stopped experiencing seismic changes since the advent of the internet, where new ideas are being attempted every single day. It’s especially true for daily newspapers and doubly true for the sports section. “When you’re involved in and on the newspaper side for as long as I was, then you kind of see where digital is going, you see the restraints that are put on the sports section,” says Ron Ledgard, managing editor of The Athletic Cleveland. It’s part of the reason he’s now at the subscription-based, online-only regional sports site that was launched this past March. It followed, after venture capital fundraising, the original Athletic, born in Chicago in 2015, and The Athletic Toronto, which launched earlier this year. The site already boasts four full-time writers, including those hired away from Cleveland.com, 92.3 The Fan and Pro Football Talk. For his part, Ledgard arrived at The Athletic after a brief stint at an online property in Pittsburgh and, before that, 16 years with the Akron Beacon Journal and Ohio.com, where he spent the first 14 years as sports editor and the last two as digital editor. It was an evolution that informed how sports can and should be covered. “The games are at 7 at night, end at 10:30 and the deadline is at 10:29,” he says. “You’re getting stories with not much content. You almost knew what the reporter was going to write if you watched the game. The Athletic is different. We don’t do a game story. I like to read long-form stories, I like to read analysis, and that’s what we’re working for here: fans that want to know why things happened instead of what happened.” That means offering writers free rein on what they cover and how, not to mention emphasizing content that isn’t click-driven, minutiae-based stories, ones that involve real reporting. Ledgard doesn’t pay much attention to the subscriber count, but the hiring of a new writer like Ari Wasserman from Cleveland.com to cover Ohio State sports implies to him that the site is doing well. “We’ve been trying to get deeper features, whether it’s Travis Sawchik describing a Francisco Lindor story about him swinging his bat at his locker and actually showing Travis how his swing pattern path has changed, to getting into deep analytics that TJ (Zuppe) is doing with the Indians,” he says. “Or Jason (Lloyd), who’s covered the Cavs for seven years and knows the ins and outs of the team.” Ledgard’s job is to get the writers a little out of their comfort zone, which might mean getting Zuppe to write a more traditional feature or getting Lloyd to dig deeper into analytics. The Athletic isn’t a solve-all, just part of the ecosystem, one that Ledgard sees value in from top to bottom and, ultimately, hope. “There will be the free sites with the quick minutiae stuff, bloggers, some not doing much, some that are really good, really pushing the envelop on some of this, especially on the analytics side, and particularly baseball. That’s where it started, with the fans like that,” he says. “At the end of the day, I still think that people like to read.” — Brett Zelman Credit: Ken Blaze

Rose Breckenridge Lecturer, Cleveland Orchestra Music Study Groups In the summer, while the Cleveland Orchestra is busy with its Blossom concert series, Rose Breckenridge hunkers down deep inside next season’s music. “Summer is hibernation time,” Breckenridge says. “Don’t call me.” As the instructor and administrator for the Cleveland Orchestra’s Music Study Groups, Breckenridge is currently writing her lectures for the 2017-2018 season, which also just happens to be the 100th anniversary of the outfit. Writing the lectures means breaking down Beethoven and Mahler and more to make it comprehensible and accessible to all. The hibernation occurs in her home office, piled with scores and books, while recordings of the works she’ll be discussing repeat constantly on her CD player. Earlier this month, Breckenridge was at Severance Hall, a place she’s known intimately for three decades, for a proof meeting of the study group listening guide – the 100-page manuscript given to each series attendee. It will feature past program notes and score excerpts, which aid attendees through Breckenridge’s daytime lectures at libraries and churches throughout the year. “My approach is to find the drama in every piece. Everyone understands drama, and most music is drama,” she says. “Not everyone understands the technical terms in music, so I use a lot of metaphors.” Breckenridge, who moved from Chicago to earn her doctorate at Case Western Reserve University, has taught these classes since the 1980s, when the program was run by the Women’s Committee of the Cleveland Orchestra (which, as of last month, has changed its name to Friends of the Cleveland Orchestra to be more inclusive). Since 1994, the Orchestra has taken the reins, putting Breckenridge officially in charge. And it makes sense that she’s the one still running the show. When Breckenridge speaks about classical music, her eyes light up. She wants you to understand that the more you learn about the music, the more fascinating it becomes. “Classical music, it’s beyond words,” the pianist says. “If you could put it in words, you wouldn’t need it. To me, it’s like part of the air: I need rest and food and joy and music. I can give you a musical tour of what’s happening in the artwork, but the beauty of music is you can’t say what it means. I can only offer you an interpretation.” Breckenridge acknowledges that you don’t have to like every piece of music, but she counters that the more you learn about the work, the more it may grow on you. She says she’s afraid that to a new generation, classical music may all sound like elevator music. “There’s a lot more entertainment choices these days, and the future of any orchestra is all about cultural heritage,” she says. “My whole life I’ve been devoted to finding meaning in the arts, and the spiritual power of the arts, and every thinking person has to examine their life and decide what is important.” Knowing so much about composers and their signature styles can even come in handy on the home scene. Sometimes, when Breckenridge is in the car with her husband listening to the classical music station, he’ll ask her to guess which composer wrote the piece. It’s a little game, one she often wins. “My ultimate goal really is to share the joy of music with everybody,” says Breckenridge, who also gives concert preview lectures when called upon. “So when people do go to a concert, they can experience it more deeply.” During the summer’s busiest writing points, Breckenridge will set aside at least one hour of the day for peace and quiet. She likes to take walks and meditate on the music and hammer out what she wants to say. “But at some point you have to say ‘that’s it,’ you have to write the lecture, and turn it in,” she says. “But sometimes you wish you had more time.” —Laura Morrison Credit: Ken Blaze

Shel Greenberg Erba Owner, Punk Yoga Shel Greenberg Erba sits cross-legged on a yoga mat that reads, “Unfuck the world.” She is not sitting in some cozy studio with natural light pouring in through glass windows, but instead at Mahall’s, the bowling alley, concert venue bar and restaurant, which makes perfect sense. Here she is free to teach her brand of yoga, full of loud music, four-letter words and inner peace. She points to her cut up Jaws T-shirt and explains to this morning’s Punk Rock Yoga class that she always thought the shark was a misunderstood villain: He was just hungry, you see. “Now close your eyes and breathe,” she says. “Find that hunger.” Erba’s not here to say punk yoga — which she’s taught in Cleveland for more than two years — can save the world, but it saved her. About seven years ago, Erba quit her job and enrolled at Kent State University to realize her dream of teaching elementary school. That change came with a lot of stress and she needed a way to quiet her mind. At first, that wasn’t yoga. She hated the first two classes. “I’m really klutzy,” the now 45-year-old says. “I’d been going to the gym, but I could barely touch my toes. The first two classes, I was really bad. I didn’t understand the sweating; I didn’t understand the breath. But then I connected with one teacher. Eventually my practice — it wasn’t pretty, but it was mine.” When school teaching didn’t pan out, yoga instruction became the new outlet. As a 40th birthday present, Erba’s parents paid for her yoga teacher’s training. Friends and family came to her first classes and laughed with her when she made mistakes. At first she used the tranquil music found at most yoga studios. But at home she did her sun salutations while blasting David Bowie, Queens of the Stone Age, Sleater-Kinney and, of course, the Partridge Family. Online, she saw other yogis who’d combined the two. Her husband encouraged her to reach out to Beachland Ballroom to see if they had space for yoga with a punk attitude. The Ballroom gave her a shot, and Punk Rock Yoga has now expanded to Mahall’s, Black Market and Tremont Athletic Club. “I realized I didn’t have to do the typical yoga, the slow yoga music, I could play what I wanted,” says Erba, who’s also a local rock photographer. “It’s that feeling when you go to a show and the floorboards are shaking and you feel it up your legs and your arms. You feel like a rock star and it’s exciting, but also there’s a calm in that moment.” Not all yoga studios have welcomed Erba’s classes. And Erba agrees her music choices aren’t for everyone. Yet her goal is to make sure the people who do attend are not only safe, but “find the fire within.” “I think people new to yoga are worried about their sweat smelling or accidentally farting … actually the farting in class is an initiation of sorts,” Erba says with a laugh. “But it’s finding the calm in the chaos, and that chaos can be really good excitement and it can be the stressful shitty anxiety. So if you can slow down the moment, you can be entirely present.” Today’s class has students at a variety of ages and levels. Erba walks around making small corrections of hips and arm positions. “Surf through those shark-infested waters,” she tells the class during a tricky balancing pose. “You will come out the other side.” — Laura Morrison Credit: Ken Blaze

Stamy Paul Founder, President, Graffiti HeArt Stamy Paul has used one of the last taboo art genres to make a powerful, positive impact on the city and community. By day, Paul works at Airgas’ division headquarters in Independence as division vice president of human resources. By night (and weekends), she runs Graffiti HeArt, which she founded in 2013 after being inspired by graffiti art, both legal and otherwise, during business trips to Argentina, China and Europe. “When I started this organization, there were very few commissioned murals in the Cleveland area outside of Collinwood and a few other areas,” she says. “Cleveland was behind the curve with fully embracing mural installations on large scale, or even considering graffiti as an art form. I wanted this for Cleveland, especially to revitalize areas that may be neglected and need an economic boost. Graffiti HeArt, which is entirely staffed by volunteers, officially debuted in August 2014 during the Gay Games. From there, they’ve helped facilitate numerous mural projects throughout Northeast Ohio, at schools such as CMSD’s Campus International School, as well as at Crocker Park, Tyler Village, Dealer Tire, Airgas and more. And, of course, the Welcome to Cleveland post-card style mural in Ohio City. “I think we can all agree it’s one of my favorites,” she says of the work by New York artist, Victor Ving, with participating local artists Vic Savage and Alan Gilbertson. The explosion of commissioned mural art around the city, from Ohio City to Collinwood, from east to west, has been a welcome addition to the local art scene in recent years. But Paul still loves the good old-fashioned illegal works too. “The RTA Red Line and the tracks along Train Avenue are probably the favorite places to appreciate ‘illegal’ graffiti,” she says, “in addition to watching trains go by where you can view amazing graffiti art from all over the country.” Paul and the other board members are in search of a permanent location in Cleveland that can become the new home for Graffiti HeArt, “a place that would encompass a graffiti gallery, artists’ workspace and workshop to build walls for installation, as well as to host art- and education-related events.” On that front, it should be noted, Graffiti HeArt’s projects help fund scholarships for aspiring young artists to attend the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Pre-College Program, a summer program for high school students to take college-level art and design classes. “By leveraging a graffiti-for-hire concept, we can serve a dual purpose: revitalize and beautify spaces and communities, while supporting youth education opportunities in the arts. I’m thrilled that our organization has made a tremendous impact.” — Josh Usmani Credit: Ken Blaze

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