Jammy Buggars: Odd Name, Good Beer, New Lakewood Pub
Jim Sprenger grew up in a family restaurant, but he left the business to pursue other endeavors. Of course, he ended up opening a restaurant of his own. “It’s in the blood,” admits the longtime Lakewood resident. On May 31, Sprenger opened Jammy Buggars (15625 Detroit Ave., 216-767-5922), an odd name for what is essentially…
Pic of the Day: News in Central Ohio
The paper in Mt. Vernon is lucky. Up here in the city, nothing much exciting happens, so we’re forced to write about semi-interesting stuff to fill space in the paper each week, because if we have one single guiding philosophy, it’s that something is better than nothing. (Feel free to disagree in the comments.) Down…
No Rush: Cleveland to Get Liberal Talk Radio Station
WABQ: Smoking the Limbaugh crowd. As blather emanating from the statehouse skews ever more conservative, it was only a matter of time before blather on our local airwaves started bending the other way. Frustrated liberal listener, Gary Richards has come to set you free. The Euclid radio veteran is set to launch WABQ-AM 1460, a…
Cleveland Woos the Art Deco World for 2015 Conference
Next year, Cleveland will host the International Public Markets Conference, tying in with the West Side Market’s 100th anniversary. If a local nonprofit gets its way, we’ll also be showing off our treasures to another specialized group of international aficionados. A group called 20th Century Society USA is making a bid to host the biennial…
Cleveland Public Theatre’s Color Problem
Theater groups are a notoriously cliquey lot, what with their exclusive post-show binges and their long hours spent bonding over songs sung by cats. The closeness can lead to seamless collaborations, but also to a nasty case of inbreeding when it comes to casting time. Enter Cleveland Public Theatre, whose mission to present cutting-edge productions…
Ohio Unemployment Numbers Rise For First Time in 2 Years
In case you needed any more evidence that shit is getting real the country’s leaders need to set aside their differences and come to a solution on the debt ceiling, the monthly unemployment numbers came out today, and it’s bad news all around. The national average rose in June from 9.1 to 9.2 percent —…
Cleveland’s ‘Flash Mob’ Law Fuzzy, Maybe Illegal
Use carefully. The jury may still be out on flash mobs — harmless group dance? malicious gang warfare? refreshing summertime treat? — but Cleveland isn’t wasting any time setting up its defenses. Before the city digs in with a hearty lineup of late-summer outdoor events, council has passed a new provision that takes the legal…
Tuesday Morning Music Swag Giveaway
Red Hot Village Chili People The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a new album coming out on August 30. It’s called I’m With You. You may have heard the first single, “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie.” It’s one of the Chili Peppers’ kinda-serious songs — you can tell because Anthony Kiedis sings in his…
Video: Sexy Indians Fans Explain How to Enjoy the Tribe
Are there two sexier or bigger Indians fans in Cleveland? We think not. (Via @dlayphoto)
The Quality of Cleveland Life Report
Your guide to thriving in fabulous Cleveland. A Break for Browns Fans: NFL lockout comes to an end, clearing the way for Browns to begin training camp Friday. Colt McCoy’s season-ending injury scheduled for either Saturday or Sunday. Think of the Children: Crocker Park slated for huge expansion, improved traffic patterns aimed at easing stress…
The Evolution of the Touchdown Dance
The lockout is officially over which means football is on its way. To celebrate, ESPN posted a video from the “Evolution of Dance” guy doing the evolution of the touchdown dance. Crain’s Joel Hammond reminds us that the “Evolution of Dance” guy is Bucyrus-native Judson Laipply, which means this video has something to do with…
Video Recap: Ohio Homecoming 2011
The Ohio Homecoming concert (celebrating Cleveland’s 215th birthday, if you didn’t know) may have been cut short and postponed, and Drake and reunited Bone never got a chance to hit the stage, but part of the show did go on before the clouds circled overhead and dropped rain. Here’s a vid recap of the dry…
What Cleveland Wants to See in The Flats
Ever since the complete and quick demise of the Flats’ East Bank and the slow spiral of the Flats’ West Bank, the debate in Cleveland has continued: What should we do with The Flats? There’s a river, there’s land, there’s a fancy new project, there’s a circus tent of sorts under which bands play, there…
Crocker Park Slated to Grow, Double in Size
Crocker Park is at once a beautiful, useful, and forward-thinking shopping, entertainment, and living complex, and also a major source of congestion, stress, traffic, noise, and an emblem of everything that is wrong with suburban sprawl. You don’t even have to necessarily believe one or the other. You can think both views are right and…
Fleet Foxes Coming to Town — Woo-Hoo!
September’s concert schedule just got a little bit brighter. Fleet Foxes, the bearded indie rockers who made one of our favorite albums of the year, are playing the Cleveland Masonic Auditorium on September 28. Added bonus: The occasionally awesome Walkmen are also on the bill. Tickets for the show (which the Grog Shop is presenting)…
Ohio Weather Damage Tops $500 Million
Ohio has enjoyed an interesting summer of weather so far, all topped off by the current heat wave dominating most of America. A few sunburns, heat exhaustion, sweaty nights with no AC, and more freckles than we care to count (we area beaming shade of orange/red these days) are not the only effects. There’s also…
Bonning of Bonbon Bake Shop Competes on ‘Cupcake Wars’
At 8 p.m. this Tuesday, July 26, Cleveland’s Courtney Bonning of Bonbon Bake Shop will appear on Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars.” Bonning says she and an assistant traveled to Los Angeles to compete against other bakeries. The local pastry chef describes the process as involving three rounds, with the final requiring the production of a…
Three Thieves Steal a Winnie the Pooh Purse
One would assume that prospective purse snatchers target high-value victims. That rich lady with the Gucci, that mom with the duffel bag and Prada sunglasses, that rich teen shopping at Crocker park — those are all victims from which you would expect a big score at the end of your criminal endeavor. But a Winnie…
SB5 Polling Shows Ohio Leaning Toward Overturning Collective Bargaining Law
Mr. Popular Last week, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted validated a small mountain of signatures collected for a referendum on SB5, Ohio’s controversial collective bargaining law, meaning that the issue will indeed appear on ballots this November. In early polling by Quinnipiac, SB5 is just about as unpopular as the unpopular Mr. Kasich who…
Someone Got LeBron’s Face Tattooed on Their Leg
Here’s the ink, which was tweeted out to King James himself this weekend. His response: “Oh damn! That’s how u feel. I appreciate the love,” which can be translated as: “Oh damn! That’s crazier than holding a one-hour nationally televised TV show to kick your hometown in the nuts.” Personally, we think the artist was…
Pic of the Day: Cleveland Knows How to Park a Bicycle
Found on the Cleveland sub-Reddit, titled, “It’s shit like this, Cleveland.” We’re not as angry, just as long as cars are now allowed to park where bicycles do. There’s a tidy spot on the stairs of our apartment we’ve been eying for our beat-down 2001 Saturn. (We also acknowledge an at least 17.2% chance the…
Anthony Sowell Found Guilty, Faces Death Penalty
Anthony Sowell was found guilty today by a jury for aggravated murder and a host of other charges stemming from the deaths of eleven women at his Imperial Avenue house. It took 15 hours for the jury to come to a decision. This really is just the beginning, however. As the PD reminds us, Sowell…
Pic of the Day: Harvey Pekar Statue Planned
Harvey Pekar is buried at Lake View Cemetery next to Eliot Ness. His widow, Joyce Brabner, hopes to build a statue there. At Comic-Con on Thursday, Brabner announced plans to raise funds through Kickstarter and described an early vision of the monument. Via the PD, she said, “The statue will be built on the gravesite…
Video: Shin-Soo Choo’s DUI Arrest (Updated)
Update: Morning Journal reports $775 fine and a suspended license until November 2 for Shin-Soo Choo. No jail. Also no punishment for sucking before he got injured. *** One could make the argument that there could have been a language barrier issue during Choo’s DUI stop in Sheffield Lake early Monday morning, with Choo perhaps…
Nerd Hordes to Flood Cleveland Streets; Avengers Shoot Coming
Our inner nerd just died. Besides resting a chainsaw against public employees’ collective bargaining rights and successfully shaking down casino developers, Governor John Kasich has another feather to jam into his first-term cap — he helped bring in the Avengers. We guess that should actually be The Avengers. As every comic nerd knows (and we’re…
Delonte West Releasing Mixtape
Former Cavalier fan favorite Delonte West already set the music world ablaze once with his KFC freestyling (Hot sauce in our bags forever, D), but with the NBA lockout closing business for the foreseeable future, Delonte is making a more legit go of it with “The Lockout,” his mixtape album which will be released soon.…
Cooking S’Mores in a Hot Car is the New Frying an Egg on the Sidewalk
When the mercury ticks up near 100 there’s a rote routine of stories the local news media pops out: How senior citizens have to stay cool! Don’t forget to drink water! It’s freaking hot! Babies can’t live outside in 100-degree heat by themselves! There’s also the “It’s so hot you can fry an egg on…
Happy Birthday, Cleveland
Happy birthday, Cleveland. On this day in 1796, General Moses Cleaveland, one of the founders of the Connecticut Land Company, arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, took a look around at the beauty and wonder around him, and said, “This would be a fine, fine place for a city. Well, it’s not a…
Columbus Road Bridge Closed Again
You can look, you just can’t get there. It was just about a week ago when mechanical failures led to the temporary closure of the Columbus Road bridge, a vital getaway vein for downtown workers escaping at rush hour and hoping to avoid the cluster that is the Inner Belt bridge. Originally, it was supposed…
Hall of Fame Game Canceled
The NFL labor situation has been one of the most boring stories of the year. In a business as profitable as professional football, the season was going to be played. That’s simply fact. What happened over the past few months kept a few journalists busy, but no one in their right mind thought that 2011-2012…
Ground Hero
Summer’s superhero bonanza continues with Captain America: The First Avenger, the final lead-in movie to next summer’s all-star Avengers, and it falls somewhere between the terrific X-Men: First Class and the awful Green Lantern. Chris Evans (so unlikable as the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies, a little better here) plays Steve Rogers, a…
‘The Avengers’ Filming Will Close Part of E. 9th for Most of August
Head’s up, Cleveland: Filming for The Avengers will close E. 9th St. between Euclid and Prospect from August 8 to August 31. That should be fun. The city’s posted a brief release about other “intermittent” closures and detours filming will cause, but no details except that for now. You were all excited for movies to…
Old Jillian’s Space in the Heights Reopens Tomorrow as Myxx, a Tapas Lounge
The last Jillian’s Billiard Club in Ohio closed on February 20 of this year when the 20-year-old Cleveland Heights location shut down for good. Tomorrow, July 22, the building will reopen as Myxx (12459 Cedar Rd., 216-321-6999). Building owner Kim Lisboa has converted the 10,000-square-foot space into what she describes as a “New York-style tapas…
Pic of the Day: Josh Cribbs Fights Cleveland Heights Parking Ticket (Updated)
Update: Josh Cribbs lost his tumultuous battle with Cleveland Heights today and must pay the fine plus court costs. Geez, hope he gets a job soon. *** As residents of the fine Cleveland Heights area, we don’t need to be told that the city has a less than stellar reputation for parking. Anal might be…
Port Authority Wants to Hear What You Think of Its Plan
Michael: All right, listen, this is all getting a little crazy. We cannot accept their plea if we don’t even know what the plea is.Barry Zuckerkorn: Do you want to read it?Michael: No, it is pretty thick. Maybe we should just take the plea. It wasn’t that long ago that Michael D. Roberts took you…
Classic Rock at the Beachland Includes Old-School Akron Punks, Nutsacks
Akron punks Zero Defex embrace classic rock tonight … or something like that Just a reminder that if you need something to do tonight, the Beachland Tavern has something called the Mid-Summer Classic Rock Show going on. We know Cleveland loves its classic rock. But despite its name, that doesn’t seem to be what’s really…
We Are Ohio Surpass Their Goal (Updated)
Updated: Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced today that the SB5 referendum collected 915,456 valid signatures, certifying that the group more than surpassed the necessary 231,147 number for the issue to appear on the ballot. According to the Dayton Daily News, “backers of the referendum had to collect signatures in 44 of Ohio’s 88…
Grady Sizemore on DL Again, Will Never Be Healthy (Updated)
One example of him standing on both legs without injuring them. Update: Did you know Grady Sizemore suffered a sports hernia injury in May on the same slide that injured his knee? Neither did anyone else until today when the Tribe announced that Sizemore underwent successful abdominal surgery and will be out 4-6 weeks. Sizemore’s…
Man Arrested at His Wedding Spends Special Night in Jail
Conventional wisdom states that you shouldn’t get too drunk at your own wedding. Other people’s weddings? Booze it up, black out, hit on anything that moves. But your own? You want to be able to remember the special night, and you want to be able to perform on the special night. Get blotto, and that’s…
Mechanics of Things Need Your Help to Snag Energy Drink Contest
Vote! Vote! Vote! Cleveland metal band Mechanics of Things is one of the groups singled out in Rockstar Energy Drink’s 2011 Rockstar Uproar Battle of the Bands contest. It’s one of those fan-generated things, so the more votes they get, the better chance they have of snagging top honors, which means they’ll play onstage when…
Ohio Ranked First for Toxic Air Emissions
Do you smell that? That’s not just garbage rotting exponentially faster under the heat dome. It’s a little more carcinogen-y than that. According to Reuters, two environmental groups Wednesday said that Ohio is tops on a list of 20 states with the most toxic air pollution. Pennsylvania and Florida followed at the two and three…
Pic of the Day: Peyton Hillis Dresses Up for SportsCenter
Browns running back and Madden cover star Peyton Hillis popped by ESPN’s SportsCenter this morning for an interview and he said, “Eff this, I’m going to wear shorts and a backward hat and a white t-shirt. Hey, how’s my beard look? Pretty baller, right? Wanna go hunt some wild boar? No? Wanna watch me throw…
Concert Review: Warped Tour at Blossom Music Center
Paramore: Warped vets, fan faves The funny thing about the Warped Tour is that the older the tour gets (it’s now in its 17th year), the younger the crowds get. Part of me wants to believe that’s how tour founder Kevin Lyman envisioned it. What started out as a traveling punk-rock festival is now a…
Cleveland Ranked 17th Most Walkable City
Walk Score rated the most walkable cities in America and Cleveland came in 17th on the list of the 50 biggest cities. Not great, not bad. Plenty of work to do to ensure that neighborhoods are dotted with grocery stores and barber shops and essential Indian take-out restaurants and that pedestrians can get to those…
Christmas in July Beer Celebrations in Cleveland
You like Christmas in July, what with all the heavenly off-season offerings you normally only enjoy during the winter. The Beer Blog likes Christmas in July, when breweries unleash the potent and seasoned notes of delicious holiday ales. Reader, meet The Beer Blog, and its comprehensive list of joints around Ohio, with many many in…
John Kasich’s Poll Numbers Drop Some More
Back in May, John Kasich had polling numbers that made us write this: The governor’s approval ratings now have him somewhere between “Weird kid who eats his boogers and has to sit by himself at lunch,” and, “Weird kid who eats his boogers and sits with one other person at lunch.” That was when Kasich…
Suspicious Package in Downtown Cleveland Was Just Someone’s Lunch
Earlier today a “suspicious package” was found near E. 9th and Lakeside. 19 Action News has an update: Hope it wasn’t tuna salad.
Woman Instructed to Turn Down Music Turns on Elvis Instead
Our favorite bit from the police blotters this morning, courtesy of North Royalton and the Sun News: At 10:14 p.m. July 16, North Royalton police were dispatched to Deer Creek Drive for a report of a loud stereo. A highly intoxicated female resident was advised to turn her music down. Police left but returned at…
Pic of the Day: Center of the World, Ohio
Bash us for being late to the party if you think that’s the case, but it was just today that we learned that there’s a small unincorporated community in Trumbull County called “Center of the World.” That simply tickles us. Neil Zurcher went there once (we love us some Neil Zurcher) and had this to…
Cleveland is Resilient-ish
Here’s a map compiled with data by and from the University of California Berkeley that addresses “resiliency” in major metro areas across America. (If you want to know what exactly they studied and what factors played a role in the rankings, they are listed here, and include business ownership, voting, income, education, and more.) What’s…
1,000-Year Rain in Northeast Ohio
Did it rain a little bit around Northeast Ohio the other night? Yeah, something like that. Via the ABJ, just more rain in a shorter span than Akron’s seen in over 50 years and what hasn’t happened since “Ermengol II succeeded Ermengol I as Count of Urgell,” according to Wikipedia, and probably won’t happen again…
Surrealists in Bloom
Photographers probably have difficulty convincing skeptical audiences that their work is indeed a craft. After all, it’s created on highly complex machines that everybody uses. Just point and click, yes? No. Skill and sensitivity are as essential to the photographer as any artist, and both traits are on display in the creations of nine artists…
Gig Killers
For almost five years, Ken Janssen has booked the bands you see at the Beachland. He’s leaving soon to focus full time on his gig as a realtor: “I’m really interested in Cleveland’s urban renewal,” he says. He admits it’s hard walking away. A champion of local music, Janssen — who’s also frontman for throwback…
At the Arthouse
The Kid From Cleveland The real-life pennant-winning Indians (including Bob Feller, Lou Boudreau, Hank Greenberg, and Satchel Paige) show up in this 1949 movie about a baseball team helping a troubled teen. The kid is played by Russ Tamblyn, who was in West Side Story, The War of the Gargantuas, and Twin Peaks, and is…
Get Out!
Thursday | 21 At Hilarities Ralphie May Saves Cleveland Ralphie May has the solution to all of Cleveland’s problems: “You need to get the mayor to change the name to Lake Awesome,” he says. “Everyone would want to come to a lake named Awesome!” May says he has nothing but love for our town: everything…
Hello, Kitty!
Dressed in a headband and a pair of geta (traditional Japanese wooden sandals), chef Jonathon Sawyer welcomed the first official diners into Noodlecat last Thursday. Following a few days of “friends and family” dinners, when the staff fine-tuned food, drinks, and service, the Japanese noodle bar opened to the public on Tuesday, July 19. The…
Warped Speed
The Warped Tour pretty much defines the term “option paralysis.” There are so many bands, if you don’t have a list of who you want to see, you’ll wind up staggering around in a daze and probably get heatstroke. Here’s a list of the 10 artists you shouldn’t miss when the tour stops at Blossom…
On View This Week
Making it simple at the Sculpture Center: Minimal to the Max In SculptureX, Cleveland’s Sculpture Center celebrates the legacy of Modern minimalism as it lives within six prominent artists, all of whom teach at universities in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. The exhibition consists, unsurprisingly, of sculpture, but few pieces strive to resemble objects in their…
CD Review: R.E.M.
R.E.M.’s terrific fourth album is usually lost in the shuffle between 1985’s meh Fables of the Reconstruction and 1987’s commercial breakthrough Document. Too bad, since some of the band’s best songs — “Begin the Begin,” “Fall on Me,” “I Believe” — are here. This two-disc 25th anniversary edition adds 19 fully formed demos R.E.M. laid…
Concert Calendar
Keith Urban Keith Urban is one of those country artists you don’t hear much of unless you’re tuned in to his bracket of stardom. Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and even Brad Paisley have made significant crossover leaps that straddle both their home genres and the anything-goes tornado of pop music. But Urban’s steam-cleaned honky tonk…
Stuck on Hairspray
These days, it’s hard not to get on somebody’s screen, what with all the TV channels, reality shows, and geek fests. And failing those, you can always hook up a web cam and start your own internet show. Ah, but if you nurtured dreams of electronic glory back in the 1960s, as Tracy Turnblad does…
Home Movies
Beauty and the Beast (Criterion) Nothing against the Disney musical, but Jean Cocteau’s 1946 version is the definitive Beauty and the Beast. It’s also one of the greatest fantasy movies you’ll ever see. It makes its Blu-ray debut in a disc loaded with extras, including an insightful documentary, scholarly commentary, and a Philip Glass opera…
CD Review: Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
Former Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello may be one of the planet’s best shredders, but one listen to the solo recordings he makes as the Nightwatchman reveals where his true intentions lie. On this eight-song EP, he channels rabble-rousing folksingers like Woody Guthrie and Billy Bragg with a set of songs…
Salad Days
Joe Joltin and George Chase Jr. didn’t invent the concept of a chopped salad café, but they appear to be making up for lost time. The duo’s local start-up, Chop It Salad Co., has gone from zero to three stores in just over a year. Two more are expected to come online soon, and as…
On Stage This Week
Grand Hotel: Mercury Summer Stock continues its 13th season with this rarely performed musical. Set in decadent Berlin during the Roaring Twenties, the plot weaves a masterful drama from the troubles of six disparate (and desperate!) characters thrown together for a weekend in the city’s poshest hotel. Through July 30 at the Brooks Theatre in…
Hot in the Kitchen
By all appearances, Giovanna Mingroni was living a chef’s dream. In the mid-1990s, she snagged a coveted entry-level role at the celebrated Zuni Café in San Francisco. Five short years later, she had scratched her way up the ladder to the No. 2 spot, right behind chef and co-owner Judy Rodgers. Meanwhile, over in Oakland,…
Stay In!
TOP PICK – VIDEO GAME Shadows of the Damned (Electronic Arts) There are plenty of shooters out there that mix big-ass guns and elements of horror. But few have the wild-ride urgency of Shadows of the Damned (for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360). You play a demon hunter who’s out to rescue his honey…
Frank Talk
I nearly spilled my coffee when I read that Mayor Frank Jackson accused Columbus of playing politics with our kids by making it hard to fire inept teachers. My surprise was in seeing that Jackson finally said something meaningful, but my cynicism told me he was merely politicking himself. The next mayoral election is still…
Film Capsules
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two The eighth and final Harry Potter movie is everything you hoped it would be: big, beautiful, thrilling, emotional, and a gratifying conclusion to a series that’s had more ups than downs over the past 10 years. It picks up where last year’s dark Deathly Hallows: Part One…
Fluff Buddies
After three sequels, two green comic book heros, and a whole bunch of penguins, Hollywood’s rounding out its summer releases with director Will Gluck’s romantic comedy Friends with Benefits. It’s essentially a reimagining of When Harry Met Sally… and, y’know, every other romantic comedy ever made, but its witty dialogue and cameos keep the proceedings…
CD Review: They Might Be Giants
After spending the past few years recording kids albums, They Might Be Giants return with their first new record for grown-ups since 2007’s The Else. The results are irresistible, thanks to the duo’s ability to blend genres and knack for theatrical music that never sounds too precious. Don’t like a certain song? Wait about two…
We Get Mail
Prosecutorial Misconduct It’s about time somebody came out with the truth about Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Bill Mason, both asleep at the switch and more concerned about guaranteeing their political future than anything remotely concerned with leadership. [“Silent Enforcer,” May 25, 2011]. If it weren’t for the likes of political deadbeats C. Ellen Connally and…
Local Band in Focus
Meet the Band: Jeremy Cottrell (vocals, upright bass, banjo), Aaron “A-Train” Cottrell (guitars, vocals), and “Detroit” Denny Van Arnhem (guitars, vocals) All Aboard: The Parma-based Cottrell brothers always knew they’d start a band. After all, they already had Aaron’s childhood nickname ready to go. All they needed was a lead guitar player. Enter Van Arnhem.…
CD Review: The Sleeps
This new electro-rock band has an obvious love for the ’80s. On its debut EP, the Cleveland trio blends airy vocals, fuzzy synths, and classic drum machines with slick production that was handled in-house. The vocals are a little rough at times, but Fuse otherwise delivers a catchy slice of retro candy. It’s easy to…
