Lorain Man Slashes Neighbor’s Face After Political Discussion Goes Bad
“Look, Wilson, you’re welcome over here, just leave that Birther shit on the other side of the fence, okay?” Mom always said it’s bad policy to mix drinkin’ with political talkin’, leave that for sober minds. But sound advice had no purchase out in Lorain this week. There, a neighborly discussion about politics turned violent.…
The Quality of Cleveland Life Report
Your guide to living in fabulous Cleveland. Forbes dumps on Cleveland again, naming our delightful city the 9th most dangerous in the country. Chants of “At least we’re not Detroit” halted by random gunshots nearby. Matthew Fox claims a sucker punch from an RTA rider was the real cause of his altercation last year, and…
Power Rankings
A weekly roundup of the top newsmakers in town. 1. Clark Kent: Superman’s alter-ego quits the Daily Planet in a huff and bemoans the state of modern journalism. Will now blog full-time before transitioning into public relations. 2. Brazen Thieves: Two weeks after someone stole an RTA bus, someone else (presumably) stole the Dim &…
Concert Review: Dinosaur Jr. at the Beachland Ballroom
You could never accuse the guys in the indie rock trio Dinosaur Jr. of getting by on their rock star good looks. That’s certainly case now more than it was even when they first formed in 1984. With his long, silver hair and ragged goatee, singer-guitarist J. Mascis looks like some kind of wizard. And…
First Look – Taco Tonto’s
Taco Tonto’s is the latest business to build a nest in the Birdtown section of Lakewood. At a time when burritos seem to be everywhere, Taco Tonto’s comes swooping into Lakewood by way of Kent. The journey started when Kevin Yohn, longtime manager of the Kent location, and his wife Emily were given the opportunity…
Mother of Child Who Died from Meth Exposure Sentenced (Updated)
Update: The final defendant — Randy Legg — was sentenced for his part in the death of the 17-month-old boy. The 20-year-old plead guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and illegal possession of chemicals to manufacture drugs, according to Newsnet 5. He’ll spend seven years in jail. ***** The mother who let her 17-month-old son…
Rape Tips Found in Miami University Dorm Bathroom (Updated)
Update: The Miami University administration has decided to punish two male students for cooking up the rape pointers found posted in the dorm bathroom. But the school has released little else in terms of info, according to Newsnet5. Neither the students’ names or the details of the punishment is now known, although the handbook does…
There’s a Chronic Tanning Booth Urinator in North Olmsted
Soleil Tanning and Salon in North Olmsted has been dealing with an unusual situation. A woman, who has thus far not been identified, comes into the establishment, uses the stand-up tanning booth, and urinates in it. Yes. You read that correctly. It’s happened on at least four occasions, as documented by employees — September 20,…
Of Course the Kid Down the Street is Running a Million Dollar Drug Ring (Updated)
The innocent neighborhood drug dealer. Update: 17-year-old Tyler Pagenstecher, the high-school drug czar, as he’s come to be known, was sentenced to six months to three years in juvi Monday on charges stemming from his $20,000-a-month pot operation. The judge sent him to prison, but remarked that he’s “a pretty fine young person that went…
SOMOMOCHO was SO Good
Laura Wimberley The Pop Up Kings have done it again. When I heard that SOHO and Momocho were collaborating for what they called a one-night “Mash Up,” I had to go. Two of my two favorite foods are Southern and Mexican cuisine. Bringing them together sounded too good to be true. Before we get to…
Let there be Light
It’s official. Alan Glazen, along Randy and Linda Kelly, his talented partners from ABC/XYZ Tavern and Ontario Café, have signed a lease to take the reins of the bar and bocce courts at the Slovenian Workmen’s Home on Waterloo Rd. This exciting move signals another beam of light for “Operation Light Switch,” Glazen’s development vision…
Girl in Skunk Costume Accidentally Shot by Trigger-Happy Relative
See, skunk, child. Skunk, child. There is a difference. This story happened outside our usual jurisdiction of newsworthiness, but the event unfolded just over the state line in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, hill country that’s just as much an exburb of Youngstown as of Pittsburgh. The story also earns your time due to how sorry and…
Concert Review: Huey Lewis and the News at the Palace Theatre
When Huey Lewis and the News first became pop rock sensations in the ‘80s, they stood out as a rather conservative variation on what was most popular with the MTV crowd. Even Lewis seemed aware of that fact as he took a poke at himself in the self-effacing tune “Hip to be Square.” Now, some…
Concert Review: Silversun Pickups at House of Blues
Last night at House of Blues, Silversun Pickups gave a great performance to a nearly sold-out crowd of diverse ages from teenagers who were skipping their homework that was due the day after, to middle-aged adults who were already drunk from watching the Browns earlier that day. The entire band was in top form. Singer-guitarist…
Minor Found Working at Local Strip Club (Updated)
Good boots worth stealing. Update: This story got even stranger. This morning the Chronicle-Telegram reported one of the men caught with the 17-year-old stripper was actually a freshly-minted police officer. 31-year-old Matthew Byrd was found in the company of the minor and two other dancers only a few days after being sworn in as a…
Concert Review: Social Distortion at House of Blues
The more things change, the more Social Distortion stays the same. At least that’s the impression the band left last night at House of Blues for the first of two sold out shows. While singer-guitarist Mike Ness might have exchanged his wifebeater for a baggy suit and fedora that made him look like some kind…
Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall
Pinchas Steinberg Two questions about last night’s Cleveland Orchestra concert: Was that really an American orchestra onstage? And is all Russian music that loud? With Pinchas Steinberg at the podium, it was easy to close your eyes and be transported — to mother Russia for explosive bursts of history, tragedy and national pride, and to…
A Gentleman’s Guide to Sweetest Day
Three Sweet Sweetest Day Dates If you are like most men, Sweetest Day is one of those “Hallmark Holidays” that sneaks up and catches you unprepared. To prevent that from happening this year, I have put together three “turnkey” Sweetest Day dates. Each of these offerings is designed so that all you’re required to do…
Dan Gilbert Lands on MarketWatch Power List
Powerful people point with two fingers, not one. We all know Dan Gilbert — the man with his hands on the controls of the Cavs and the Horseshoe Casino, among other businesses — is currently a big fish in town, not to mention in his home base of Detroit. But according to a new national…
Power Rankings
A weekly roundup of the top newsmakers in town. 1. Frank Russo: The U.S. Attorney asks a federal judge to shorten the former auditor’s prison sentence on account of all of Russo’s snitching. Next up: the location of Jimmy Hoffa’s body and zero days behind bars. 2. Sherrod Brown/Josh Mandel: In the debate between the…
Letters We’d Like to Get
We get letters, and you’re all so nice for sending them. But here are some we didn’t receive that would have really made our day. *** Dear Scene: I had such a lovely visit in your city this week. Clevelanders are among the most patriotic, dedicated, and hardest-working Americans I’ve had the good fortune to…
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio at CIM
Photo: Fred Collins Sharon Robinson, Jaime Laredo, Joseph Kalichstein Was it the group or was it the space? Actually, it was both. Last night’s Mixon Masters concert at the Cleveland Institute of Music featured a world-class chamber ensemble, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, that turned in brilliant readings of Beethoven and Brahms standards and a lively, puckish…
First Look: CRUST in Tremont
Laura Wimberley At first glance, this charming street seems familiar. It reminds me of walking through the side streets of Greenwich Village in New York City. But Kenilworth Ave. is in our very own backyard, in the character-filled neighborhood of Tremont. Residing on this street is a very unassuming storefront, with large vertical letters on…
Cheap Eats
If fast-food joints are what spring to mind when you’re looking for an inexpensive meal, maybe it’s time to adjust your thinking. Some of Cleveland’s best quick, casual grub comes from that bastion of old-time goodness, the historic West Side Market. In honor of the Market’s ongoing centennial, we made a foray though the 100-plus…
Opening this Week
Like the other movies in the series, Paranormal Activity 4 is shot as if it were a documentary. The film’s teenage protagonist Alex (Kathryn Newton) fears Robbie (Brady Allen), an odd neighborhood kid who often sneaks into her tree house, has brought an evil spirit into her home. Robbie is staying with Alex and her…
All the Right Notes
With the work day circling the drain, the barstools are quickly filling up at Fat Head’s, an award-winning brewpub in North Olmsted. Brewmaster Matt Cole is standing behind the bar, leaning against a row of more than a dozen taps, swishing a gulp of beer around his mouth. On the other side of counter, Paul…
Glory Days
Standing at the curb next to his parked pickup, Danny Tharp slowly reaches into a box and unfurls a cocktail dress. The fabric is popsicle-red and looks new, despite the fact that it’s 50 years old. With barbs of sunlight shooting off his shaved head as he excitedly bobs around, Tharp explains that the dress…
Culinary Calendar
Saturday, October 20 Drink Like a Viking Mead —mankind’s oldest successful attempt at turning wholesome natural products into mind-altering substances — is enjoying a resurgence. Credit Game of Thrones, maybe. But both Forbes and The New York Times have given the fermented honey beverage the nod of late as a top food trend, and artisanal…
Take a Dive
Cleveland may be enjoying the craft beer renaissance, but it’s still a shot-and-a-beer city at heart. You want a $6 specialty brew that’s hoppy or has notes of something or other? That’s nice. But veteran Forest City drinkers would prefer to put that $6 toward something better, like a shot of some brown liquor and…
Now Playing in Akron
We were merrily working our way through before-dinner drinks at DBA, Dante Boccuzzi’s whimsical new restaurant in the heavily remodeled former VegiTerranean space in Akron, when the bread service appeared in a black vinyl basket. Our companion couldn’t resist tipping over the repurposed LP to read its label. “Now appearing on your tabletop as a…
Savage Love
Dear Dan I’m pro-choice. The anti-choice position—particularly the dumb contention that “personhood” begins when sperm hits egg—is illogical and unappealing. It’s not the most unappealing quality I can think of in a partner, though—that would probably be dishonesty. Your advice last week to the young woman who discovered that her boyfriend is anti-choice was terrible.…
My Sweet Fraud
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him,” says an ancient Buddhist koan, meaning that if you meet someone claiming to be the Buddha, it’s an illusion. Bikram Gandhi’s documentary Kumaré is a vivid demonstration of this principle. Gandhi, a young man from New Jersey, introduces himself in an engaging prologue that employs…
Opening This Week
Jacques (Nicolas Duvauchelle) and Patricia (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) come from completely different backgrounds. He’s a well-educated rich guy who rides around on a motorcycle and flies fighter planes, and she’s the daughter of a poor well-digger. So when the two fall in love, you just know there’s bound to be trouble. And when the girl’s widowed…
Slipping Into Darkness
“We’re all horrible people. Humanity’s a fucking cesspool.” That’s the misanthropic worldview of Abe, the overweight 35-year-old man-child at the center of the new film, Dark Horse. It also describes the philosophy of Abe’s creator, the complicated writer-director Todd Solondz, who is known for independent films with uncompromisingly dark themes. A college dropout, Abe lives…
Bootlegged Beginnings
If you traveled back in time to 2002 and told Silversun Pickups frontman Brian Aubert that in 10 years his band would be releasing its third studio album, he wouldn’t believe you. Though the band was performing at that time, putting out a CD never crossed the members’ minds. “We weren’t interested in recording or…
The Bat Lives
It’s been well documented that when Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman first sought a record label that would be interested in releasing Bat out of Hell, they regularly met with rejection. So when we ask Meat Loaf to tell us about what a struggle it was to finally get the album out, he quickly says,…
Singin’ for a Livin’
Though singer Huey Lewis and his backing band the News are readily associated with the ’80s, the singer’s career actually precedes the decade. Lewis, who has sold over 20 million albums during the course of his career, had pop/R&B hits such as “Heart of Rock & Roll,” “I Want a New Drug,” “Hip to be…
French Indelicacies
If you’ve lost touch with your inner four-year-old, the one who loves nothing more than poop/butt/fart jokes, you’d be an ass not to see The Imaginary Invalid, now at Great Lakes Theater. This is a show so laden with cheeky puns about buttocks and bung holes, an audience member may qualify for a proctologist’s license…
The Scene Six Pack
Overwhelmed by the endless options flowing out of Cleveland breweries? You needn’t be. Drink them all, and see what you like. Dabble, sip, or guzzle your way through every creation spinning out of the backrooms and brilliant minds and seasoned livers of the area’s brewmasters. It’s a journey well worth taking. But if you have…
Opening This Week
Set in Detroit but primarily filmed in Cleveland, Alex Cross pulls a switch and bait doesn’t work, especially since the filmmakers didn’t bother to change the street signs in downtown Cleveland to ensure they’d be consistent with the film’s Detroit-centric script. But the lack of attention to detail is really the least of this film’s…
City of Light
Along the banks of the Seine and on the benches of Luxembourg Gardens in the Paris of 1910, 23-year old Frank N. Wilcox found more freedom to paint than his native Cleveland ever afforded. The young man wrote back to the States, “People are used to artists and usually let you work anywhere in peace.…
Culture Jamming
TOP PICK Ben Gibbard Former Lives (Barsuk) Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard’s vocal delivery is hard to disguise. The guy practically over-enunciates every word. Not that that is a bad thing. His lyrics have a natural poeticism to them, and that’s certainly the case with the songs on this solo album, his full-length…
