Immigration Debate Meets Varejao Debacle. What Took So Long, Lou?
Poet Laureate ‘vlfljr’ thinks Varejao should ‘live on the trash heap like the other Brazilians.’ UPDATED BELOW The PD has confirmed what ESPN confirmed earlier, which was confirmed by the Charlotte Observer after being reported by a Brazilian pub called UOL Esporte: Anderson Varejao might be leaving the Cavs, but probably isn’t, unless he does.…
Reader: Tower City Only Checking for Black IDs
A word from a caller: I go through Tower City a lot for work, and yes, I am African American, 21-years old [“Pragmatic Racism,” November 29]. I was there with my little brother, going around shopping, and yes they did ask for our ID, of course. And then I look around, I’m seeing a whole…
City Smells a Rat. No Wait, That’s a Bum
What? You don’t want this guy peeing on your shoe on the way to work? Cleveland’s homeless population just decreased. At least in Public Square. And by decreased, we mean simply moved out of view. So not really. But Frank Jackson would like you to think so anyway, especially if you usually don’t come downtown.…
Bill Belichick’s PB&J Sucks
Bill Belichick might have bragging rights for his undefeated New England Patriots, but his cooking skills are on par with those of a third-grader. That’s right, Belichick knows how to make a PB&J sammich. The Hoodie doesn’t appear to have much acumen in the kitchen. If we know anything about our old friend Bill, however,…
The Budapest Blonde Gets Back in the Kitchen
Ilona Simon is not a real chef. But she is looking forward to playing the part at Budapest Blue, her recently opened Ohio City cocktail spot, where she’s launching weekday lunch service beginning Tuesday, Dec. 11. “I’m so excited to finally be cooking, I may even have to change the spelling of my last name!”…
This Just In: The Boss in C-Bus, and Lots of Other Concert Announcements
This week, Santa brings nine new shows. If you didn’t get tickets to the sold-out show at the Q, you can catch Springsteeen in Columbus. State of Conviction reunions at Peabody’s. Rapper-producer Marz is coming to town — his Lung Fu Mo She might be the best rap-rock album (for what that’s worth). And what…
SI’s Peter King: “This [Derek] Anderson Is Just Too Nice.”
Apparently Pro Football’s Bestest Reporter™ was in Cleveland last week, researching a story that’s bound to unearth some interesting or insightful dirt on the Browns’ Season of Dreams. (We’re still waiting on a morsel from the guys who get paid to hang out 12 months a year.) While waiting for his car near the House…
The 12 Days of Holidays, Part II: The Hanukkah Song
So many Christmas songs, so few Hanukkah songs — even though J.C. was Jewish. So Adam Sandler’s had to write three versions of his “Hanukkah Song.” Click above for version three. Click here for a fan video of part one. Here’s part two. And as long as we’re at it, here’s David Lee Roth, the…
Is This a New Day for the Ohio EPA?
It’s not often the Ohio EPA gets to look like a responsible watchdog. After years of ignoring a chemical leak in Middlefield, watching Mittal Steel poison the air in Slavic Village, and allowing a Garfield Heights shopping center to be built on a toxic-waste site, we’re just grateful they haven’t made burning tires the official…
Reader: It Wasn’t Just Black Kids Causing Problems at Tower City
I am an employee in the Tower City Mall, and your article was uncalled for, unjust, and basically you’re being very biased in your thinking [“Pragmatic Racism,” November 28]. It wasn’t just white women who were scared. There were black women who were scared also. But that doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about a black…
Gangsta Mom Lets Her License Plates Do the Threatening
The “Road Scholars” section of the Plain Dealer, which every Monday tells the story behind a different Clevelander’s vanity plate, is usually dominated by “IWUVFLUFFY”-style plates—odes to pets or other saccharine-sweet declarations. But today’s plate, “I GET EVN,” clearly belongs to a capo of the fabled Mom Mafia. Marcella Krucek, a school-bus driver with antifreeze…
Concert Cheat Sheet: José González
Who: José González When: Tuesday, December 4 Where: The Grog Shop Why: Mopey folks unite! Singer-songwriter González makes wispy, delicate folk-pop that’s cherished by fans of dead gloom merchant Nick Drake. Latest Album: In Our Nature Best Album: Veneer (2005) Didja Know? Despite his south-of-the-border-sounding name, González hails from Sweden! Listen Now: “Down the Line,”…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Patrick Sweaney & Deguello/ Wallace Coleman & Dave Thomas
This week, Money Where Your Mouth Is brings you roots-rock from Patrick Sweaney & Deguello and blues you can use by Wallace Coleman and Dave Thomas — not to be confused with Pere Ubu’s David Thomas. Or the Wendy’s guy. …
Surprise, Surprise: Avon Lake Gets Clean Bill of Health
In Avon Lake, it will take more than a fancy government study to prove to residents that their town isn’t a hot-spot of cancer. On Drummond Street, which has only 28 homes, 10 people have developed potentially deadly cancers in just the last five years. That statistic would be alarming even if all the afflicted…
The 12 Days of Holidays, Part One: How the Empire Stole Christmas
The 1978 Star Wars Christmas special — uh, sorry, holiday special — was the original example of “awesomely bad.” Now, a kind soul has distilled the entire two-hour show into five minutes (any more could make you spew your eggnog). In addition to Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia (who sings a space holiday song), and Han…
Abstinence Groupies Plead: “Give us our money back!”
Most people living in this century realize that, as birth-control methods go, ordering your kids to not have sex is about as effective as urging freshly inseminated sperm to “Turn around! No! The other way!” But the good folks at the National Abstinence Education Association just haven’t caught on yet. For years, groups like theirs…
When it Comes to Being Really Sad, We’re Number 7!
For you downers who were upset about Cleveland falling from number one to number four in the “poorest city rankings,” here’s a stat that might cheer you: In a first-time ranking of the most and least depressed states, Ohioans have been named the seventh most depressed. (If you believe Men’s Health, it’s probably because we…
Diversion of the Day: “Discovery May Help Fat Asses Everywhere”
Fat Kid Successfully Avoids Ridicule By Swimming With Shirt On Today’s brief refuge from those damn TPS reports is brought to you buy the Onion, and Brian, the fat kid who refused to take off his shirt. — Joe P. Tone
NPR Reviews Britney Spears: “The technological jingle-jangles tickle our earlobes!”
Sources say Britney Spears bet NPR’s Ken Tucker that he would never review her album. The loser had to shave his or her head. NPR is best known for broadcasting bedtime stories about striking female cab drivers in Pakistan. Which is why, listening to the station while driving yesterday, I almost hit a tree when…
Sober? Cleveland? How Dare You, Men’s Health!!!
The editors of Men’s Health have named our fair city everything from stupid and stressed-out to fat and toxic. But nothing offends like the title they’ll be dropping on Cleveland in next month’s issue: the 16th most sober city in the country, which is kind of like saying LA is one the cleanest cities in…
Without Further Ado, the Most F’ed Up PSA You Will Ever See
When we’re not downloading new Wu-Tang tracks, catching up on what Zooey Deschanel’s been doing lately, or, you know, working and stuff, we spend most of our 9-to-5 checking out online PSAs. The above is our current fave, courtesy of prevent-it.ca, some sort of bat-ass crazy workplace safety group out of Canada. — Michael Gallucci
No Reservations: Tables at Lola are growing scarce
Rumors of an eight-month wait notwithstanding, it’s still possible to snag a table at Lola, Michael “Iron Chef” Symon’s flagship restaurant on E. 4th St. Just don’t plan on getting in at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. Following Symon’s ascension to the position of Next Iron Chef – and his first televised victory, on…
Reader: Does Tim Hagan Have a Conflict in Medical Mart Deal?
Isn’t there some law or governmental rule that required County Commissioner Tim Hagan to recuse himself from the vote for the county sales tax increase, because of his close relationship with the Kennedy family, who would profit from this Medical Mart they would own? Hagan is godfather to a Kennedy child or something like that…
More Evidence That the Trident is an Underused Tool in Office Homicides
Angry Boss w/ Will Ferrell on FunnyOrDie.com Somebody posted this on FunnyOrDie.com. Thank God for somebody. — Joe P. Tone
PD Readers: “Enough with that cute shit. Let’s get racist!”
Yesterday, The Plain Dealer published a front-page article on recent census results that found that Latino surnames Garcia and Rodriguez have creeped into the top 10 most common surnames in America. The PD, never one to pass up a chance to be cutesy — this is the same paper that provided cut-out midge masks after…
Lunch at Table 45: In and out before anyone knows you’re gone
A business lunch at an elegant boîte is always a nice treat – if you can afford being away from your desk for two or three hours. So cheers to the staff at Table 45, the swell salon in the InterContinental Hotel featuring chef Zachary Bruell’s award-winning world cuisine, for making mid-day indulgence as time-efficient…
House Speaker Defends Laziness: “If we don’t work, we can’t screw up.”
The Columbus Dispatch reported yesterday that Ohio lawmakers are having their least productive year in a decade, which is sort of like saying Jason Priestley is a worse actor than he was in 1997. Yet, as hard as it is to believe, it’s actually true. In the past six months, the Ohio House has met…
Kate Voegele, Bay Village Pop Star-in-Training, to Pop up on One Tree Hill
Bay Village singer-songwriter and MySpace fave Kate Voegele will have a recurring role on tween hit One Tree Hill starting on January 22. The 20-year-old Voegele will play a singer-songwriter in several episodes. She’ll also perform songs from her debut CD, Don’t Look Away. Voegele’s character steps into the spotlight after her old band’s frontman…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Black Diamond
This time, Neil Diamond impersonator Theron explains why you should sing “Sweet Caroline” with him this weekend. Band: Black Diamond Show Website/Myspace: www.myspace.com/blackneildiamond or www.blackdiamondvocals.com Hometown: Kalamazoo Sounds like: “Neil Diamond” Recommend for fans of: “Neil Diamond and feel-good tunes.” Fun fact: “The planet’s ONLY African-American Neil Diamond tribute singer.” Playing Where/When: Saturday, December 1…
For Hate-Mail ‘Hoax,’ Case Professor to Serve Six Months
In May, we brought you the story of Ramani Pilla, the Case Western statistics professor who struggled to advance in her department and was eventually caught sending hate mail … to herself. Last winter, she told investigators that her colleagues were sending her threatening letters in retaliation for a discrimination complaint she had filed. She…
Chartering New Lows
It’s no secret that Ohio’s charter-school system is a piggy bank for crooks. If you can pass a job screening at Panda Express, you can qualify for millions of taxpayer dollars to open your own school. Take the administrators of the defunct International Preparatory School, whose administrators Scene exposed in 2005 for paying themselves massive…
Low in the Theater
Low in the Sky, the Akron-Kent melodic-soundscape group, provides the soundtrack to “Amazing Life,” a new THX trailer that demonstrates the capabilities of audio-video systems in top-tier movie theaters. The clip went out to 3,000 state-of-the-art film houses across the country on November 20. The piece was commissioned by California’s eyestorm productions, a creative agency…
Skip to the Lou
If you’re a Northeast Ohio radiohead, you might sometimes wonder whatever happened to Lou Santini. The ex-WMMS-FM 100.7 jock is now a stand-up comic in L.A., with a homecoming show tonight in Cuyahoga Falls. “I knew I’d accomplished everything I wanted to in Ohio. I wanted to be a good DJ with a good following,…
Pragmatic Racism
The guard stands at the bottom of the escalator in his trademark Smokey the Bear hat, wearing the dulled determination of one who does the unpleasant for a living. Two young women descend from the upper floor. He asks for their IDs. They laugh anxiously, are-you-serious? expressions stamped on their faces. The guard just checked…
Loudon Wainwright III
Loudon Wainwright III is probably best known, along with fellow folkie and ex-spouse Kate McGarrigle, as the founder of a musical dynasty that includes singer-songwriters Rufus and Martha. But he’s been writing songs since the late ’60s, when he was tagged one of his generation’s “new Dylans.” Wainwright has released more than 20 albums since…
Parade to the Wade
Illuminated dancers and humongous puppets lead a procession of lights as the Cleveland Museum of Art celebrates the holidays at the Lantern Festival. The winter carnival starts inside the museum, where curator Jane Glaubinger shares some of her favorite pieces in the Modern Masters exhibit. At 2 p.m., everyone can create a simple Tiffany-style lantern…
Celebrity Fantasy Leagues
Todd Galloway, an IT manager from Berea, clicked on his e-mail with an audible groan. Awaiting him was yet another mass e-mail from a friend, bemoaning the cruel fate befallen his fantasy-football team. To the 26-year-old computer geek, who secretly preferred soccer to football, it often seemed as if that “was the only things [my…
Major Stars
Singer Kate Biggar and guitarist Wayne Rogers have quickly become the MVPs of Boston’s Major Stars, a septet that threads white-hot psychedelic guitar licks through blues-soaked freight-train vocals. Over the past decade, the Stars built their rep on blistering live shows that are capable of stunning audiences in ways that their albums never can (though…
Tree Huggers
At this time of year, a walk through the Cleveland Play House rotunda, done up for its annual Festival of Trees, feels like a stroll through a storybook forest. The theater has erected more than 60 decorated trees in its lobby for the past 11 holiday seasons. With 40 Cleveland-based companies as sponsors, each tree’s…
Touch of Evel
Hot Rod (Paramount) Andy Samberg, best known for stuffing his dick in a box on Saturday Night Live, is Rod Kimble, a wannabe stuntman with very little “man” in him. He lives with his mom (Sissy Spacek, not kidding) and a stepdad (Ian McShane), who needs a new heart at a “conveniently priced $50,000,” which…
Michael McDonald
There was a time when Michael McDonald was sort of the soft-rock equivalent of the chemical company BASF, whose ads proclaimed, “We don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better.” From the mid-’70s through the late ’80s, McDonald lent his R&B-speckled rasp to songs…
Kneeling to Neil
Theron Denson has spent the last seven years raising eyebrows as “the planet’s only black Neil Diamond.” He doesn’t look much like Neil. But when Denson sings, you could swear you’re listening to the crooner himself. In Lakewood tonight, Denson performs a tribute to Diamond’s tunes, from “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” to “America.”…
Eyes Wide Open
Brian De Palma is angry — angry about the war in Iraq, and angry that his Iraq movie, Redacted, has fallen victim to the same censorship it strives to protest. When he finished his film — a kaleidoscopic re-imagining of the lead-up to five U.S. soldiers’ 2006 rape and murder of a teenage Iraqi girl…
Spitalfield
Emo trio Spitalfield got a jump on the genre, forming nearly a decade ago in suburban Chicago. The group recently called it quits — perhaps a harbinger of things to come (After all, who wants to hear a 30-year-old guy complaining that girls just don’t get him?). But before they put away their guitars (and,…
Happy Go Lucky
Columbus’ Happy Chichester depends on audiences to rate his music. Signs of crowd affirmation have become his linchpin (grounding? lifeline? sustenance? personal touchstone?) since his band, Howlin’ Maggie, broke up in 2002 and he started to record his solo CD, Lovers Come Back. At first, loneliness in the studio overwhelmed him. “It became like a…
Madden Man
It’s Monday night in Garfield, late, and the streets are empty. But tucked among the boarded-up shopfronts that line this battered suburb, there is one neon-lit hive of energy: the Upscale Sports Lounge. The screen door of this sprawling, aluminum-sided bar shakes from the heavy bass vibrating inside, where a unique combination of promotions has…
White Magic
There are moments on the new White Magic EP, Dark Stars, that recall ’60s singer-songwriter Judy Collins. The connection makes zero sense, since Collins is a celestial body with a voice carved from crystal. White Magic’s singer, Mira Billotte, is small and grim, with a moan that’s as black as 3 a.m. on a moonless…
Break a Leg (Lamp)
Unless you’ve been living in a cave — and your cave doesn’t have cable — you’ve seen the cinematic version of A Christmas Story. You may have even traipsed through the Tremont house where scenes of Ralphie, his BB gun, and the leg lamp were shot. The Cleveland Play House is now staging the film’s…
Like a Complete Unknown
I’m Not There is the movie of the year — but to whom does Todd Haynes’s Bob Dylan biopic actually belong, and when was it really made? The great attention-grabber of last month’s New York Film Festival, I’m Not There is as notable for its stunt casting as its elusive subject. It’s Six Actors in…
The King Kahn & BBQ Show
King Khan is a Montreal native who now lives in Berlin. He borrows as much from 1960s girl groups as he does from the era’s grainy garage rock. He skirts the frontiers of Chuck Berry-style rock and roll, and Sam Cooke-kissed R&B, while scuffing his music with a punk ethos that makes for riotous live…
Pooch Hooch
Shadow has reason to cheer these days. Now that a book of poetry about the nine-year-old lab mix is in stores, owner Holly McCain gives her a bowl of Happy Tail Ale after every book-signing. “I call it puppy beer,” says McCain, who’s published Brown Eyes in Shadow’s honor. “It’s nonalcoholic. But when dogs drink…
Plumb Tuckered Out?
There’s no surer sign that a franchise is in trouble than when it blasts into outer space. So you were right to be nervous when Nintendo announced its plans to follow up the subpar game Super Mario Sunshine with something called Super Mario Galaxy, which promised to launch the mustached plumber into orbit. But after…
Ryan Bingham
Ryan Bingham lived the hard life: without a home since his teens, finding work on ranches, and singing songs of sadness. Americana fans have heard this story many times, and it’s easy to dismiss Bingham’s debut album, Mescalito, as a slab of clichéd silliness — especially when he sings in both English and Spanish about…
Ballet bling
A little girl’s visions of a giant toy, dancing mice, and a kingdom of sweets come to life this weekend for Ballet Theatre of Ohio’s production of The Nutcracker. And the troupe has amped up Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic with some sparkle. “We’re going to have magnificent new costumes and lots of great props,” says Valerie…
Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week:
Bratz (Lionsgate) Drunken Angel: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Elvis: Blue Suede Collection (Warner Bros.) ESPNU Honor Roll: The Best of College Football Vol. 3 (ESPN) Happy Days: The Third Season (Paramount) Hot Fuzz: 3-Disc Collector’s Edition (Universal) The Land Before Time: The Wisdom of Friends (Universal) Laverne & Shirley: The Third Season (Paramount) Logan’s Run…
Wishbone Ash
Let’s get something straight: The Winchester is not a graveyard for cock-rocking dinosaurs and FM-radio relics. Yet some local music fans think this is true, simply because most artists who play the Lakewood club are old and ragged enough to collect Social Security. But Jim Mileti’s rock and roll IQ is too damn high to…
Puccini on the ‘Puter
Classical music isn’t dead; it’s just gone digital. And the proof is in Amazon.com’s MP3 sales in October, when sales of works by classical composer Richard Wagner trumped Kanye West’s rap tunes. “If, as people say, the internet is a paradise for geeks, it would logically work to the benefit of one of the most…
Music to Our Mouth
Forget his modern-American menu, with its harmonious riffs on seafood, steaks, and handmade pastas. If you want a glimpse of the real Dante Boccuzzi — chef, rocker, and, since September, owner of Dante, inside Valley View’s former Lockkeepers — look no further than his shiny black breadbaskets. Right away, you can see the guy’s got…
The Hives
Hip-hop producer Pharrell Williams steps behind the boards for a pair of songs on the Hives’ fourth CD. But The Black and White Album is no makeover — the band pretty much sticks to the two-chords/two-minutes principle that made it Sweden’s chief contribution to the garage revival five years ago. A mid-song breakdown in “Well…
Hung Jury
As he steps on stage in Twelve Angry Men, Kevin Dobson is reminded of the time he was turned down for jury duty. The case pitted a railroad company against a business owner, who claimed his shop caught fire from sparks shooting from a passing locomotive. Because Dobson didn’t buy the story, he didn’t make…
Sweetest Things
TOP PICK — The Joshua Tree (Island) U2’s best album celebrates its 20th anniversary with a three-disc set that tags on a CD of B-sides and a DVD of a Paris concert. But it’s Tree classics like “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and “With or Without…
King Louie and the Loose Diamonds
For the past 15 years, New Orleans dynamo King Louie Bankston has blazed a ragged, righteous trail — from drumming with garage iconoclasts the Royal Pendletons to guiding the Black Rose Band’s southern-rock/power-pop collision. Albums by the short-lived Bad Times, the star-crossed Exploding Hearts, and the ever-evolving King Louie One Man Band (to name just…
All That Brass
Over the Rhine would like to give props to the horn section, which inspired the group’s latest CD, The Trumpet Child. Listen for the Miles Davis and John Coltrane influences when the husband-wife duo takes the stage tonight in Kent. “A theme that recurred in the old hymns was the idea that the world would…
Alicia Keys
Like many of her R&B contemporaries, Alicia Keys comes up short in the melody department. She and her peers possess the chops, the feel, and even the look of their predecessors, but they just don’t have their tunes. So Keys’ collaborative outreach on her third studio album, As I Am, doesn’t seem like a bad…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Bug — Focusing on a couple of down-and-outers in a fleabag Oklahoma motel, this play will make you itch in places that can’t be scratched. Agnes is on the run from life, holed up in a pitiful roadside room. Her gal-pal R.C. (Jen Kilka) has brought over a quiet fellow named Peter, who winds up…
Polka Freak Out
If you know a better Euro-Tex-Mex accordion-rock group that’s appeared on The Simpsons and won two Grammys, we’d like to hear about it. Bubba Hernandez is the nuclear core of Brave Combo, and Alex Meixner brings the oompah, mashing up German and Spanish styles in tunes like “Bad Cat Polka.” The band also pumps life…
Bah to the Humbug
So you’re a grinch this holiday season: You’re sick of Santa, fed up with Christmas carols, and tired of hearing those annoying Salvation Army bells. The Beck Center for the Arts feels your pain. For the third straight year, the theater continues its tradition of opening the holiday-free Beauty and the Beast tonight. The classic…
Nathamuni Brothers
While traveling South India in the mid-’70s, anthropology prof Robert Garfias crossed paths with the seven-member Nathamuni Brothers. But forget the whole Ravi Shankar-with-sitar stereotype. That’s primarily North Indian music, which drones far more than the busy, almost manic brass bands popular at the southern end of the country. The Nathamuni Brothers employ Western instruments…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions..
ONGOING Victoria Anders — Sometimes the right frame really does make all the difference. On their own, these black-and-white, untitled photos of Cleveland might not garner much attention. But as Anders presents them, printed on metal and dangling inside customized aluminum borders, they’re sure to turn heads. Subject-wise, Anders is absorbed with Cleveland’s aging infrastructure:…
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult
Twenty years later, Thrill Kill Kult still kills. Granted, its latter-day electro-disco material isn’t six kinds of sexy, like its early industrial-goth-dance classics — but it’s still pretty hot. For its anniversary tour, the band is playing steamy tracks from its entire history, dating back to the first Wax Trax release, I See Good Spirits…
Acid Test
Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy is about as mind-blowing as a hit of acid. Set in a lush tropical “dreamscape,” the show dazzles with acrobats and aerialists under ultraviolet lights. The storyline is just as giddy: A ladybug and the soul of a tree narrate the tale of an emu hatching from an egg. After it’s…
Team Tuck
Team Tuck’s appearances on DJ Joey Fingaz’s mixtapes earned the Akron duo some serious cred. But MCs X-tro and Jay Tuck can’t quite pull it together on their own album. Ohio Representatives features some solid tunes — particularly “Rock This City” and “Don’t Worry” —but there’s also plenty of filler. X-tro and Tuck don’t help…
Sweetness and Light
Google Sweden, and you’ll come up with some hits that sound positively utopian: phenomenal public schools, impossibly low crime rates, and a universal health-care system that could silence Michael Moore. At first listen, the music of Peter Bjorn and John, the country’s current indie-rock poster boys, appears to reflect this idyllic existence. They play bubblegum…
Hate Rape
Impressive in scope if unremarkable in style, The Rape of Europa provides a chronology of World War II as it was experienced by “David,” “Mona Lisa,” and other artistic treasures the Nazis plundered. Though dryly executed and narrated by a staid Joan Allen, the documentary — which was featured at the Cleveland International Film Festival…
Lez Affair
Playwright Patricia Kane destroys the notion of a perfect Ozzie-and-Harriet world in her musical comedy Pulp, which opens tonight at Cleveland Public Theatre. And she does it by imagining a setting perfect for shattering dreams and breaking hearts: an underground lesbian bar in 1950s Chicago.This entire 85-minute show takes place in the Well, where lezzies…
Unsparing Sea
As far as we know, Unsparing Sea’s full-length debut is the only CD that gives a credit shout-out to eeriness. There are also plenty of cellos, harmoniums, saws, glockenspiels, and accordions on A Cloud in the Cathedral, a majestic sprawl of baroque psychedelia and Victorian gothic. Frontman J.R. Bennett obsesses over old-world imagery. Sinking ships,…
Play Nice
As soft-spoken, modest, and polite as he is, it’s hard to believe that José González gets mad. But he does. “I get angry when people hate and kill,” says the 29-year-old singer-songwriter, who lives in Sweden. “It’s like being a kid and being like, ‘Why can’t people just get along?’ That sort of naive, almost…
Animotion
Animation runs through Dave Fleischer’s veins. He’s a digital-arts professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, he’s the nephew of legendary cartoonists Dave and Max Fleischer, and he’s the host of tonight’s Lesser-Known Masterpieces of Animation. The program will feature several animated short films made between 1912 and 1980. The oldest will be the classic…
Ball Barings
In 40 years, Beachwood shutterbug Herb Ascherman has snapped enough photos of tattooed, toned, and wrinkled physiques to wallpaper Northeast Ohio. He’s singled out 100 pics of his “grown-up children at play” for his retrospective exhibit, Bodies: 1967-2007. “I’m a paid voyeur, and this pulls together one of the long-standing themes of my career,” says…
Fair Game
“Contract Killing,” November 14 Beautiful bucks deserve straight shooters: What a great article. Before finally deciding to pick up this issue of Scene, I had noticed the cover, read the title of your article, and continued to walk past on a few occasions. I assumed it was just another article about the Solon deer kills.…
‘Tis the Season
Daryl Hall and John Oates’ Home for Christmas became a surprise hit last year. This year, it’s turning into the gift that keeps on giving. The CD was recently reissued, and the duo is now on the road performing the album — a collection of seasonal favorites plus a couple of originals — in its…
Global Swarming
East meets West over dim sum and booze during tonight’s EthniCity social mixer at Bo Loong Chinese Restaurant. The monthly “tabletop travel stop” is the Cleveland Council on World Affairs’ pet project to let yuppies solve the world’s woes by brainstorming ideas in Northeast Ohio’s ethnic eateries. “It’s an opportunity for internationally minded individuals to…
Vegas, Baby!
It’s tough to overlook the Midnight Swinger onstage. With his pompadour ‘do and his wide-lapelled jackets, Las Vegas comic David Scott looks and sounds like equal parts Liberace, Sinatra, and Elvis. “This would be what you would see if you were in Vegas and said, ‘Hey! Let’s go catch a show!'” says Scott, whose stage…
