Profiles in Courageous TV Journalism: The Goat in the Drive-Thru Scandal
19 Action News Reporter Scott Taylor might never win the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. For the host of Dirty Dining, a great scoop is someone finding a roach in their salad or mouse-droppings in their taco. Some day he hopes to expose the coveted severed head in a bowl of minestrone. But, alas, a…
Don’t Equate Cockfighting with Boxing: The Roosters Don’t Have a Choice
Jed Mignano, Cuyahoga County’s chief humane officer, deserves a hearty round of applause for his tireless work to help stop cockfighting [“Chicken Wars,” July 4]. Thanks to Mr. Mignano’s persistence and compassion, fewer animals will suffer and die needlessly. Cockfighting is a barbaric blood sport that has no place in a civilized society. Unlike boxers…
It’s Getting Harder to Threaten a Judge These Days
With at least three incidents in the last 20 months, Northeast Ohio is becoming one with its inner child, who just happens to enjoy retaliating against judges. That’s when state Representative Lorraine Fende (D-Willowick) discovered that jurists have less legal protection than cops, firemen, paramedics, and even Hondo the Police Dog. Fende thinks they deserve…
Like Jesus, the N-Word Rises from the Dead
Today’s Plain Dealer contained an obituary for the N-word, which was apparently buried in Detroit on Monday. Black leaders eulogized the hateful word and planned to bury it in the Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery. “Die N-word,” Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said, according to the Associated Press’ account. “And we don’t want to see you ’round here…
Ann Arbor’s Food isn’t Quite Worth the Hype
Smaller than Cleveland, bigger than Kent, Michigan’s Ann Arbor is a haven for foodies, with its weekly Kerrytown Farmers’ Market, a downtown crammed with sidewalk cafes, and of course the Zingerman’s juggernaut, including The Deli, The Coffeehouse, The Bakehouse, The Creamery, and The Roadhouse — where executive chef Alex Young was a 2007 Beard nominee…
This Just In: Concert Announcements
This week, 26 new shows: Emo-riffic rock from The Academy Is, Armor for Sleep, and friends. Sultry blues from Big Leg Emma. Stripped-down classic rock from Triumph frontman Rik Emmett. Acerbic spoken-word from Henry Rollins. And aces hip-hop from Play Havoc, the Roots, Big Daddy Kane, and MC Lyte.
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Robbing Mary
The Scene Music Department isn’t available right now; their mothers didn’t pick them up from the Live Earth concert. To learn more about Friday’s Robbing Mary show, you’ll have to get it straight from guitarist Steve Keefe. Band: Robbing Mary Hometown: Cleveland Sounds like: “Son Volt meets the Drive-By Truckers meets Golden Smog, with plenty…
Nikki Giavasis: Temporary Fame with a Touch of Class
There’s nothing like a tragic crime to help a stumbling Hollywood career. For years, Nikki Giavasis has been trying to make a go of modeling and acting. She’s made a few brief TV appearances, but it wouldn’t be her ambition or breast size that catapulted her to stardom. It would be her bad taste in…
Cons for Kids: Putting the crime back into anti-crime
When the feds announced last year they were dropping $2.5 million to clean up Hough and St. Clair-Superior, residents in those neighborhoods were juiced. After all, this was more than just extra cops to battle their gang problems. It was badly needed cash for programs – athletics, especially. But this being Cleveland, things don’t always…
Nickelback Sells Out Blossom
Tuesday night’s Nickelback-Staind-Daughtry show at Blossom is sold out. Even the lawn seats. So if you want to beat the traffic, leave now. Cleveland hard-rock crew One Solitary Second kicks off the show, on the side stage, at 5:30 p.m. Daughtry is scheduled to hit the main stage promptly at 7. Staind goes on at…
Mikey G’s Entertainment Picks of the Week
This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: Chicago-based Celtic punks the Tossers don’t stray too far from the formula the Pogues concocted a couple of decades ago: Combine traditional Irish instruments (fiddles, tin whistles, accordions) with a dash of snarling fuck-you and a singer…
How I Started a Fabulous New Fashion Craze
It was a little disconcerted when everyone in the club began staring and pointing as I walked through. Then the DJ at Anatomy on West 9th spotted me. He left the booth as the music kept spinning. I knew I was on to something when the bidding started. The offer kept rising every few seconds.…
It’s Official: Frank Jackson Couldn’t Give a Shit about Cleveland Schools
When Frank Jackson was elected mayor, he responded to the incompetence of the Cleveland school board by asking all of its nine members to resign. No one did, of course, but now he’s apparently decided they’re all doing a fantastic job. Last week, he reappointed three of the longest-serving board members, all of whom sat…
The Creepy Elf Goes Pro on Letterman
Congressman Dennis Kucinich recently appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman to promote his new run for president of the United States. Sitting on a stack of phone books, Kucinich outlined his policy objectives, told a few sob stories about living in poverty and sleeping in cars as a child, and even dished the…
Cancer Fest at the City View Shopping Center
The party is going to be rockin’ this weekend at the City View Shopping Center in Garfield Heights. City Fest, formerly the city’s Home Days festival, was renamed to honor the new strip mall, a modern marvel of American ingenuity, an economic boon to the depressed suburb, and a pressure-cooker filled with enough toxic chemicals…
Reason No. 765,213 Why You Never Invite Peasants to See the Orchestra
On a balmy, rain-free evening, the Cleveland Orchestra dazzled 80,000 spectators on Public Square Thursday night for its 18th annual Star-Spangled Spectacular concert to celebrate Independence Day. It was equally stunning to see that conductor Franz Welser-Most has more class in the tip of his baton than some of the Neanderthals who sat through the…
Mikey G’s Weekend Entertainment Picks
This weekend’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Friday: Every week on his public-access cable TV show, The Jay Rossi Project, the titular star shines the spotlight on Cleveland’s nightlife. At tonight’s JRP Fundraising Networking Party, Rossi brings some of the magicians, steel drummers, and live…
Sultry Sundays
The house is packed every Saturday at Metropolis, when your favorite DJs from Z107.9 spin hip-hop, dance music, and reggaeton, filling the floor with the kind of borderline-acrobatic urban line dancing you see in movies. Forget the roof; the whole room is blazin’.
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
The Full Monty — As long as the idea of seeing male genitalia makes people go weak in the knees, there probably will be a place for The Fully Monty. This musical adaptation of the British movie is dependent on the fellows who are handed the satin thongs and asked to carry the show without…
Unplugging Neverland
Matthew Earnest, who directs Porthouse Theatre’s production of Peter Pan, which opens tonight, says J.M. Barrie’s classic is a perfect fit. “It speaks to me in terms of make-believe,” says the New Yorker. “It’s a theme that is especially resonant in the theater.” And rather than get all fancy with newfangled technology, Earnest uses a…
Scrimshaw
Even when it ventures into ambient country with its dreamy indie rock and electro, Scrimshaw’s messages are just and well articulated. On its new EP, the band excels at matching its lyrical vision with the atmospheric sounds. The title cut’s rain-forest imagery decries environmental devastation. The lush strings, female vocals, and soft techno beats evoke…
Long Day’s Journey
Night Watch, you may recall, told of an ancient feud waged between the forces of Light and Dark. As Russian supercombatants are wont to do, they organized themselves into complex bureaucracies, with the Night Watch heroes monitoring the vampiric shenanigans of the Day Watch set and vice versa. Inevitably, shit happened — mostly in a…
Mo’ Mooney
Sammy James Jr., frontman for New York City garage rockers the Mooney Suzuki, says the sunglasses are off — figuratively speaking, of course. On his band’s new CD, Have Mercy, the singer — rarely seen without his shades — moves out of his comfort zone of anonymous three-chord rave-ups and makes a record that’s, gulp,…
The Vacancies
The Vacancies have plenty for the kinda-punk kids at the Warped Tour who don’t know any better — and even more for jaded vets skulking in the back. Tantrum, the band’s second sorta-major release, is the kind of dense punk you just don’t hear these days. “Why do I waste my time on a stupid…
Auto-Chaotic
Transformers twiddles its big, fat, stupid robotic thumbs for the better part of two hours before jabbing them into your eye socket in the last 20 minutes. Yes! It’s torture enough waiting for the iPhone and the Second Coming without wondering when, exactly, this saga of dueling giant robots is going to get to the…
Feeling the Space
The dozens of pieces in Yoko Ono Imagine Peace, Featuring John & Yoko’s Year of Peace (on view at the Emily Davis Gallery) chronicle Ono’s myriad art projects over the past 40-plus years. The works are set up chronologically — from early advertising spots to collaborations with John Lennon to recent solo art. There’s even…
Sage the Poet
Forget the mainstream-underground battle. In hip-hop, success at both ends of the spectrum often depends on stereotype and formula. Either rappers get all blingy, or they waste all their time dissing the bling. Sage Francis is the exception. Operating outside the mainstream, Francis makes a different kind of poetry — one that draws fire even…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW The Powers of 2 — Not all artists are solitary, garret-dwelling creatures. Sometimes they actually work in groups and benefit from the arrangement. Take this show’s formula: four local artists, two studios. The result is one presentation that’s collectively stronger and more diverse than any individual in it. Each studio, however, has its shining…
In the Bag
Even though Cornhole Competitions have been blowing up all over the country for the past several years, the Willoughby Brewing Company is convinced that its new weekly open-play tourneys are going to be the Tuesday-night hit of the season. “We’ve seen a lot of wagering and a bit too competitive play so far,” laughs brewery…
Weird Al Yankovic
With her stint in the Los Angeles County Jail, Paris Hilton may have put Lynwood, California, in the tabloids. But it was another pop culture maverick who put the city next to Compton on the map. Weird Al Yankovic’s latest album, Straight Outta Lynwood, pays tribute to his hometown. Not only does the title reference…
Suburban Secrets
Could it be that pervasive, mind-rotting soft rock is the cause of all our problems? If you hear one more repetition of the Cowsills’ “The Rain, the Park and Other Things” and head out to kill someone, would any jury convict you? Of course not. A person can only be pushed so far. Soft rock…
Mobile Home
Mobile’s story is an increasingly common one these days. A band scores big in its hometown, a major label woos them, their debut album is set for release, and then the record company sits on the record. “We knew it was a risk when we signed with Interscope,” says Mat Joly, singer for the Montreal…
The John Cowan Band
Long before critics coined the appellations “Americana” and “newgrass,” there was John Cowan. In 1974, after playing in a slew of Midwest rock bands, Cowan joined New Grass Revival, one of the first progressive bluegrass groups. After NGR dissolved in 1990, the Indiana-bred singer and bassist rocked with a country twang in the Sky Kings,…
Hick Tease
Often, what separates a standard lay from a grade-A romp is a detail here or there. A deft roll of the hips or a surprisingly acrobatic grind can turn mediocre sex play into memorable Nookie for the Ages. A similar attention to detail is required if a theatrical production is going to move its audience.…
Poguetry in Motion
Chicago-based Celtic punks the Tossers don’t stray too far from the formula the Pogues concocted a couple of decades ago: Combine traditional Irish instruments (fiddles, tin whistles, accordions) with a dash of snarling fuck-you, and mix with a singer who sounds like he just downed a pint of whiskey. Shake it all up, and you’ve…
Assault on Freedom, Part 6,542
Guinness certified Ohio as the world-record holder for statewide bans back in 2005, when lawmakers outlawed “doing anything kinda gay,” which ranges from driving a Prius to tucking in your shirt. But the legislature doesn’t want to hold the record; it wants to obliterate it. So Representative Courtney Combs (R-1940s Italy) is pushing a new…
Radio Birdman
Because second acts in rock are tiresome, it would seem Radio Birdman’s reunion is a completely unnecessary exercise by a band whose existence was roughly as obscure as it was brief. But nearly 30 years of mythologizing dictated the inevitable comeback. These Aussie proto-punks, who released just one proper LP, 1977’s Radios Appear, disbanded in…
When He Was Small
Chancer: Series 1 (Acorn) Available solely in the U.K. for years, this is a small-time release featuring a modestly big-time star at the get-go of his career: Clive Owen, looking all of 12 years old and 73 pounds, is a sacked investment banker who winds up in the employ of a family of fancy-schmancy carmakers.…
Bikini Bash
Aspiring models strut their stuff in string bikinis at tonight’s Dare2Wear Swimsuit Contest at Peabody’s. American Rockstar and five other local bands perform between the contest’s three rounds — which feature area gals sporting the latest beachwear line by Michigan-based designers Dare2Wear. First, ladies (who can sign up at the club through showtime) take the…
Chicken Wars
At best, Jed Mignano’s cramped office at Cleveland’s Animal Protective League fits three adults. It’s too small for meetings, too small for even cursory chats. But this is where his most important work is done. Cuyahoga County’s chief humane officer is charged with investigating animal cruelty large and small. He’s dealt with guys who’ve pounded…
Cult Rock Sampler
We’re gearing up for the evolution,” claims Tim DeLaughter in anticipation of The Fragile Army, the Polyphonic Spree’s new disc. Intentionally or not, DeLaughter sounds like a cult leader whenever he opens his mouth. Famed for their candy-colored choir robes, DeLaughter and his 20-odd followers come off like grinning rejects from Jesus Christ Superstar, crooning…
It Takes a Village
When Resident Evil 4 was originally released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2005, the game reinvented a lot of what had grown tiresome about the series. Most obvious were the setting and enemies you faced: Instead of the various building-overrun-by-zombies scenarios that played out in past versions, Resident Evil 4 begins with government agent Leon…
Porch Song
The Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers hosts Tales From the Porch at Cain Park tonight. And just in case the talking-animal fables don’t tip you off, “Some of the stories are not so real,” says spokeswoman Judy Bateman. “It’s an old African American tradition of the South — families would sit on the porch after…
Disturbing for Peace
It’s easy to understand Timothy Coil’s contempt for the military. The 40-year-old Hudson native enlisted in the Army as soon as he got his high-school diploma. For four years, he took pride in keeping Black Hawk helicopters airborne. But when his wife Yvette became pregnant in 1990, Coil began to rethink his profession. “I had…
Cosmic or Drunk?
It’s the summer of 2005, and hip tastemakers are drooling over Avarus’ modern psychedelia. Like Sasquatch, however, few have seen these mysterious Finns in the flesh. The group flies from Helsinki to the U.K., where it’s scheduled to perform Subcurrent, a renowned music fest featuring avant-garde and left-field artists from around the world. This is…
Our top DVD picks scheduled for release on July 3:
Baa Baa Black Sheep: Volume 2 (Universal) Baseball’s Most Unbreakable Feats (Shout!) Batfink: The Complete Series (Shout) Disappearances (Universal) Dora the Explorer: Summer Explorer (Paramount) Degrassi: The Next Generation — Season 5 (Funimation) Dream a Little Dream 2 (Echo Bridge) Driving Lessons (Sony) Eureka: Season One (Universal) Filmation’s Ghostbusters: Volume Two (Brentwood) George Lopez: America’s…
Post-Fourth Party
Don’t put those sparklers away yet — there’s one more July Fourth celebration. The Cleveland Orchestra presents its annual Star-Spangled Spectacular Concert downtown tonight. The bash (now in its 18th year) ranks as one of the city’s top draws. It’s also one of the best. Franz Welser-Möst conducts the ensemble in a program of favorites…
Anatomy by Scalpel
The feeling arrived a decade ago at the age of 30, when she saw a picture of a naked woman. “That’s when I noticed I was a little different,” says Kelly, who’s embarrassed to use her real name. The vaginal lips — the labia — on the woman in the picture didn’t protrude like hers.…
The Beastie Boys
Since the release of Licensed to Ill in 1986, all paths to New York nostalgia have gone through the Beastie Boys. But with The Mix-Up, an all-instrumental record, they’ve got nothing to say. To the 5 Boroughs, released in 2004, was an exercise in reminiscence masquerading as a nod to current events — post-September 11…
The Plague Next Door
You can’t quarantine this ugly disease: As an educated African American woman, it seems like the more educated I become, the more ignorant others get. Bob Gross [Letters, June 20] indicated that when whites are abused by blacks, the voices of racial activists are silent. He cited an incident involving a white woman who hit…
Candid Camera
Like Lars von Trier’s films, Red Road plays with viewers’ expectations. Also like the movies of von Trier (who had a hand in this production), Red Road is filled with naturally raw sights and sounds — shot on location and with minimum cleanup. Even the characters’ thick Scottish brogues require subtitles. It’s an engrossing story…
Feel the Suede
A million-dollar renovation buys some impressive details, including cherry-wood railings, three VIP areas, and custom-designed wrought iron. But the best features of Willoughby’s new Suede club are still the intangibles: vibe, cheap drinks, and — it’s hard to put a price on this one — no 20-minute drive down the Shoreway and back. “This club…
Rick James
It’s hard to view posthumously released albums as anything but crass commercialism. But for a guy like Rick James, whose drug and legal woes made him a Dave Chappelle parody before his death in 2004, any reminder — however flawed — of his musical greatness is welcome. This sums up Deeper Still, a gentle collection…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
BOOK — Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies: Writer Brian Coleman documents the making-of stories behind three dozen classic rap albums in this fascinating read. Old-school records by Eric B. & Rakim (Paid in Full) and Public Enemy (It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back) duly receive the most page…
The Little Easy
On its surface, the Fairport Harbor Mardi Gras has little in common with its Big Easy namesake. There’s not a whole lot of colorfully decorated costumes and floats, Fat Tuesday is nowhere in sight, and girls don’t trade peeks at their boobs for cheap plastic beads. But there’s a definite “circus-like energy,” says spokesman Jim…
Buck 65
Since his B-boy beginnings in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Buck 65 has explored the outer reaches of rap. “I’m not going to limit my palette in order to fit within hip-hop’s narrow scope,” says the MC, turntablist, and producer, touring in anticipation of Situation, due this fall. Buck 65 ( a.k.a. Richard Terfry) crafts ghoulish productions…
Ryan Adams
Ryan Adams has released an album every year since his 2000 debut. Except for 2006, that is. He dropped three the year before, so maybe he needed a break. Then again, the dude regularly posts half-baked tracks and hip-hop goofs to his website. He’s too busy to sit on his ass and wonder if he…
Virb is the Word
Candee D*Vine wants to be your friend! She’s 19, cute, bisexual, and “up for anything.” If you approve her request — and you probably will — she’ll go into the pile with the rest of your “friends,” who are more than happy to invite you to check out their naughty Webcams, remind you about half-price…
The Avett Brothers
The Avett Brothers are a band you have to see to get. Their shows crackle with the electricity and warmth of a family get-together. The trio’s traditional instrumentation — acoustic guitar, banjo, and stand-up bass — belies their origins. These are old-school punks from the Southeast’s Piedmont region, whose DIY ethos and in-the-moment attitude have…
David Torn
David Torn packs more into a single track than most musicians do an entire album. He’s a texturalist who thrives on improvisation and collaboration, the foundations of his new disc. For Prezens, Torn doctored hours of tracks recorded live in 2005, crafting an unpredictable sequence in which it’s hard to tell where Torn’s distorted guitar…
Sweet Dreams
Always . . . Patsy Cline, now playing at Carousel Dinner Theatre, tells the true story of a Texas housewife and her relationship with the country-music legend. When Louise Seger wrote a fan letter to Cline, she never imagined the singer would write back — let alone show up at her house for coffee. “What…
Nickelback/Staind
These modern rock heavyweights need no introduction and no promotion. Staind used to be huge; Nickelback is now. Them’s the facts. If you’re a fan, you already know why you’re going — because Chad Kroeger is dreamy. Even if Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” doesn’t melt your heart the way it did 25 years ago,…
Dining Out
Alfresco fever has reached epidemic proportions this summer, and there’s scarcely a restaurant where you can’t dine outside. Still, some places are better than others. Besides Twin Lakes’ Mangiamo! (left), here are a few other spots we favor for catching a breeze: On the East Side, the shady sidewalk tables in front of Fire Food…
Purple Haze
At the second-annual Ohio Lavender Festival, Jody Byrne will show off her two acres of lavender as well as the scented soaps, lotions, and cake mixes she makes out of the plant. “I didn’t create this beautiful setting,” she says. “Mother Nature did.” Along with tours of Daybreak Lavender Farm, today’s outing includes several craft-making…
Marnie Stern
“Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling,” off Marnie Stern’s debut, provides a cool metaphor for the guitar whiz’s music. Backed by bassist John-Reed Thompson and drummer Zach Hill of Hella, In Advance of the Broken Arm sees Stern slice complicated math-rock riffs into tiny shards that resemble a diamond ceiling shooting light in a million directions.…
Kamijo/Shuttah
Shadoks specializes in obscure relics from the hippie era — bands with names like Mystery Meat and Love Depression. Two of the label’s latest reissues spotlight Kamijo, a group out of Japan, and an English act calling itself Shuttah. Released in 1971, Kamijo’s Martha consists of humble tunes built from acoustic guitar, piano, and intimate…
Bridge Work
In Cliff Hershman’s A Narrow Bridge, a long-lost son makes a surprise visit to his remarried father. But the reunion quickly sours when he discovers that Dad is nothing more than an oily con man. The drama — now playing at Akron’s the Bang & the Clatter Theatre — is a semi-autobiographical glimpse at Hershman’s…
Fightfest
Hockey’s better live. So is pro wrestling. And ultimate fighting — hell, it’s pretty good on TV, but you really just need to see it live; blood could splatter on you. Fightfest’s Black and Blues tour pits 30 of the toughest upcoming mixed-martial-arts fighters against each other in 15 fights that aren’t quite no-holds-barred, but…
Outside Chance
Sissies who dwell in warmer climes don’t know how good they have it. For those hothouse flowers, any time is a fine time to head outdoors. But do they appreciate it? Not likely. On the other hand, take your average northeast Ohioan: In a good year, about 80 percent of our time is spent dodging…
Tell Us a Joke, Piano Man
Despite owning a pair of college degrees, Michael Mack chose stand-up comedy over advertising. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was a kid,” he says. Growing up in Florida, Mack continuously worked the creative side of his brain. “I always wanted to be a musician or a magician or a ventriloquist,” he says. “Anybody…
