Nothing Hill
A year ago, John Cusack was smarting over his breakup with Catherine Zeta-Jones, who, he lamented, was “out of my class — too smart, too pretty, too much.” He had waited for the moment when she would discover he was a fraud, a loser in a Dickies T-shirt. When she did notice what a mistake…
The Glam Slam Metal Jam
It ain’t nothin’ but a good time, or so the argument goes in favor of a spandex nostalgia tour like this one. But as Poison lead singer Bret Michaels might testify, a good time can have some ugly consequences for those who ignore the harsh facts behind the fun. Consider what they won’t mention on…
Fame and Misfortune
If there’s any justice in moviedom, this summer’s feel-good hit will be an unassuming Dutch comedy called Everybody’s Famous! Defying long odds, writer-director Dominique Deruddere has taken a couple of shopworn subjects — the public obsession with celebrity and the ineptitude of amateur criminals — and parlayed them into an original and inventive farce. It…
Randy Travis
Born and raised in North Carolina, Randy Bruce Traywick was working both as a cook and a singer at the Nashville Palace when he was signed to Warner Bros. Records. His debut album, 1986’s Storms Of Life, put to rest the Urban Cowboy era. And that was a good thing. With the guidance of his…
Boo Hoo
Anyone who’s ever worked in an art house knows that many customers show up knowing nothing about any of the movies, then demand a refund when their blind choice turns out to be insufficiently “arty.” This week, however, salvation is at hand. The Man Who Cried, an “old-school” art film straight out of a how-to…
James Taylor
It’s been a good 20 years since Sweet Baby James became Sweet Bald James, but James Taylor remains a boomer favorite, no matter how predictable his shows or how languorous his vocals. His latest recording is of the guest variety: He sings his own “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” and the Hoagy Carmichael-Duke Ellington…
The Company Loves Misery
“Now wait a minute,” you may say to yourself during the setup of Ken Loach’s new film, Bread and Roses. “Is that Tom Green? Because it sure looks like Tom Green, and judging by the way he’s climbing into that garbage can, he certainly acts like Tom Green . . .” Well, take a breath…
Iggy Pop
Throughout his storied, bloodied career, Iggy Pop has succeeded by not merely defying convention, but by deconstructing it. Pop’s opening volley with the Stooges was a revolutionary step forward for music that only pretended to be as stupid as it was loud. By the time anyone recognized its intelligence, he was already on to the…
The Mosquito Hunter
A Euclid resident had called the county to complain about the swarm attacking her patio every evening. Her backyard abuts a steep, wooded slope — perilously close to the shade and water of Euclid Creek, a mosquito haven. A county mosquito squad member now chats with the homeowner; two more inspect the creek below. Joe…
Kelly Joe Phelps
Kelly Joe Phelps’s first three albums established the young guitarist as one of the guiding lights of slide playing, as well as a folk/blues songwriter of incredible passion and grace. All three — 1994’s Lead Me On, 1997’s Roll Away the Stone, and 1999’s Shine Eyed Mister Zen — were stripped-down showcases of Phelps’s considerable…
Memento Montessori
On bad days, the crusty old soldier was listless. He didn’t even recognize his dearest friends. But ask him about the Spanish Civil War, and he’d instantly perk up, rattling off the names of bygone dictators like it was 1934. “That Franco is such a Fascist,” he’d rail. “You wouldn’t believe!” Alzheimer’s disease had ravaged…
Melissa Etheridge
The breaking-up-is-hard-to-do theme has scattered its hoary sentimentality across decades of music. Girl meets boy, boy digs girl, girl dumps boy (and vice versa) — it’s been a tenet of pop music since time began. So it was only a matter of time, one would suppose, until the theme was blatantly put to test with…
Skins Game
They come from all over, driving out Route 30, past the point where the freeway ends and the road stretches over the gentle hills. They drive past the old houses and the red-brick fire station of East Canton, past the faded sign for A. Roberto Cheese. Two miles outside of town, the trees give way…
The Walkin’ Cane Band
Austin “Walkin’ Cane” Charanghat was born with a diseased left leg that was eventually amputated five years ago. He was also born with two strong hands and 10 nimble fingers that have enabled him to become one of the best guitar players in Cleveland history. The self-styled “world’s finest one-legged East Indian blues guitarist” is…
Greasing the Kids
What does a $2,000 campaign contribution buy these days? That’s the question ahead for builders, engineers, architects, and bond sellers who contributed $132,320 to the Committee for Cleveland’s Children in its successful school bond and levy drive. All told, The Edge counts 66 construction-related contractors who ponied up. Now it’s possible these good people are…
Klinky Sex
Robert Scott Crane insists he had no idea that people would be so fascinated with his famous father’s penis (or is that his father’s famous penis?). “We knew it would be big,” Scotty Crane says, “but we didn’t know how big.” He’s talking not about the member in question–of its impressiveness, you can make up…
Praise for a Page-Turner
And for Francis, the stone-turner: Thank you so much for such a logical, methodical, and organized article [“Her One Mistake,” June 28]. Tom Francis left no stone unturned. The article, which was so easy to read, immediately caught my attention and drew me in. The Scene newspaper stand that sits outside of the post office…
Down Argentine Way
The bad news is that with hundreds of musicals begging for rediscovery, Beck Center has chosen to lavish a vast number of resources on that overexposed piece of synthetic Latin American fluff, Evita. The good news is that Beck’s done it with total originality, forgoing the usual aping of the Broadway production. Evita represents that…
Square Dealings
Although the beautifully restored theaters of Playhouse Square have drawn enthusiastic crowds, the district’s dining options haven’t earned a commensurate ovation. But that sorry state of affairs is beginning to change, with the new Starbucks attracting traffic to the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East 14th Street. And now the expanded and relocated Hanna Restaurant…
Big on the Little Bar
He paused for a moment in the doorway, shaking the rain off his old fedora and turning down the collar on his rumpled trench coat. Outside, in the alley, a black De Soto crept by, its headlights probing the darkness; dour-faced Officer O’Reilly, the weary beat cop, scowled forcefully in its general direction, then went…
Gund Shy
To the Cleveland sports fan, an afternoon in the Dawg Pound, gnawing Milk Bones and guzzling beer through a terrier mask, handily settles under the umbrella of wholesome entertainment. But for those stalwart families still convinced that professional sports should be a bastion of family values, there are the Cleveland Rockers. “At the last Indians…
Babes With Balls
Last year, Betty Blowtorch earned $45,000 on tour — not a bad take for a then-unsigned all-chick sleaze-rock band with songs like “Shut Up and Fuck.” Of course, Betty Blowtorch spent $44,000 to earn that 45K, paying the rent with day jobs between two-week touring stints. Reminiscing about a decade on the L.A. scene, soft-spoken…
Albee Adrift
Outdoor theater is not a new concept, but for the fledgling Charenton Theater Company, which artistic director James Mango describes as a “small, homeless theater,” holding performances at city park benches is practically a necessity. Charenton’s current production, which will be staged outside at various locations through August 18, is Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story,…
People’s Punk
Teenage Grandpa is sitting on an old dirty couch in the basement of Speak in Tongues, Cleveland’s punk rock, avant-jazz, experimental art venue/crash pad. There’s an ashtray spilled on the floor, and the place smells vaguely of urine. Teenage Grandpa makes a move toward cleaning up the ashes, then sits back down, apparently deciding it’s…
Leapin’ Lizards!
A third Jurassic Park movie was of course inevitable, given that the second shattered box office records (it also shattered the conventional notion that any movie starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, and a bunch of dinosaurs had to be at least somewhat interesting). But when you have one of the hottest box office properties of…
Aaron Judgment
Made-for-Disney artist Aaron Carter isn’t the most talented lad. His flat, newly pubescent voice has all the range of an aged first baseman. He doesn’t so much dance as flop around like a small halibut. Not that any of this matters. Kids, it seems, are a merciful lot. Welcome to the burgeoning genre of kiddie…
