All I could think about was May 4. The tear gas. The rubber bullets. The police. The angry students.
The Kent State shootings happened 18 years before I was born, but as
I watched the Saturday-night riot on College Avenue, May 4 was all I
could think about. But Saturday’s riot wasn’t fueled by politics or a
generation gap. It was fueled by drunk college students with an urge to
light things on fire and police who refused to let students gain
control.
For the past five years, College Fest has been part of the spring
semester. And each year, the heat and an abundance of cheap beer leads
to an out-of-control crowd, forcing the police to break up the block
party. So everyone assumed this year’s festival would be the same.
After a day of drinking and gorgeous weather, things started to go
awry at 8:40 p.m. According to the Daily Kent Stater, police
attempted to disperse the crowd, and protesters began to throw glass
bottles at officers. Police responded by firing non-lethal ammunition
from paintball guns. Ten minutes later, a fire was started at the end
of the street. I’ve never seen a fire that high. Everything went in,
from couches to textbook-size pieces of wood. From rooftops, porches
and sidewalks, students watched the fire, cheering it on.
By 9:05 p.m., police were in full riot gear at the end of the
street, arresting anyone who wouldn’t leave the area. As police began
to march down College Avenue, the excitement escalated to tension and
fear. Suddenly, the mass of people turned and started running down the
street, away from the cops. My friend Ray grabbed my hand and pulled me
down the street, warning me to watch out for the shattered beer bottles
covering the ground.
Once the crowd made it to the end of the street, everyone assumed
the worst was over. But the festivalgoers weren’t ready to give in yet.
They started three more fires. At the intersection of College Avenue
and Lincoln Street, a few men pulled several street signs out of the
ground, throwing them into the growing pyre. People were still running.
The air smelt smoky. Finally, Ray and I decided we had to leave. I was
sweaty, muddy and shaken. I wildly texted everyone in the newsroom as
Ray continued to pull me by the hand away from the scene. Then I heard
several popping noises.
“What’s that noise?” I asked Ray, looking up mid-text.
No reply.
“Answer me!” I said, hitting him. “What is that noise?”
“It’s the rubber bullets,” he said, speeding up. It was definitely
time to leave.
Sunday morning, College Avenue residents began to clean up the mess
from the night before. Video, pictures and first-hand accounts flooded
the converged website for Kent State’s student newspaper, television
and radio station. Fifty people had been arrested for failure to
disperse. The university issued a statement saying it was “disappointed
in the events that have occurred and finds the behavior
inexcusable.”
Kent State was once again in the news.
— Brittany Moseley
ADD SOME VARIETY
Buildings like the Capitol Theater on Detroit Avenue are giving
neighborhoods something to brag about again. And as the Northeast
Shores Development Corp. tries to turn around others, like the old
LaSalle on East 185th in North Collinwood, the Westown Community
Development Corp. is closer to that goal. The group will soon buy the
decrepit Variety Theater at 11815 Lorain Avenue for a complete makeover
into a renovated theater, seven storefronts and 13 apartments
upstairs.
Ward 19 councilwoman Dona Brady was successful on Monday in
convincing Cleveland City Council’s finance committee to pitch in
$211,000 in redevelopment funding toward the 80-year-old building’s
purchase. A group, Friends of the Variety Theater (varietytheatrecleveland.com),
has already raised the remainder of the $1 million asking price through
loan promises, and has purchased a new marquee — currently in
storage — to return the tired-looking block to an earlier,
prouder time.
“They can’t put the sign up without owning the building,” Brady told
her colleagues. “So when we do, it’s going to be something. The decline
of the Variety, especially the marquee going into such drastic decline,
has been sort of a symbol of decline for this neighborhood. So now
we’re going to be able to install this marquee, and it’s going to be a
beacon for the area again.”
The Westown CDC has been championing the effort for nearly four
years, for obvious reasons, says Brady. Last year, Brady was
instrumental in having the area — from 110th to 123rd streets
— declared a historic district.
“If you don’t act proactively to control what’s torn down or put up,
you’re going to lose the neighborhood’s whole sense of identity,” she
says.
And she’s happy that the godforsaken “headbanger” music —
played there by a slew of big metal and punk acts until a judge shut it
down in 1986 — won’t be emanating from the rafters again.
Renovations, expected to last as long as a half-decade, will begin
once the sign goes up and the building is firmly under the Friends’
control, says Brady — and as soon as the remaining $6
million-plus in restoration costs can be raised. — Dan
Harkins
CLEAR CHANNEL “SECOND WAVE” DROWNS AT LEAST FOUR
Two weeks after a national meeting that mandated a “second wave” of
cutbacks, Clear Channel has slashed drive-time lineups from WTAM 1100
AM and WMVX 106.5 FM.
WTAM’s Mike Trivisonno is now flying solo. Mike Trivisonno
Show wingmen Phil Rado and Marty “Big Daddy” Allen, both native
Clevelanders, were cut Monday. Rado got his gig when the Browns bounced
to Baltimore, and his dead-on Art Modell impression proved popular.
He’s been full-time with the show since 2000. Allen, a 27-year radio
veteran, has been with Triv for 15 years.
“You’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with,”
notes media analyst John Gorman. “And Marty Allen has been with him for
most of his career. It’s safe to say that Allen has a lot to do
with Trivosonno’s success.”
Mix 106.5 has canceled The Brian & Joe Radio Show and the
namesakes behind it. Brian Cronauer and Joe Fowler first teamed up at
Akron’s WONE 97.5 FM in the late ’80s. During the ’90s, they became top
draws at WMMS and WENZ.
Clear Channel — which owns 1,200 stations nationwide,
including 10 in Northeast Ohio and six in Cleveland — cut nearly
2,000 employees in January. This round of cuts came two weeks after
local executives were summoned to a national meeting in Texas.
Mike Kinney, marketing manager of Clear Channel’s Cleveland cluster,
said he couldn’t discuss the local cuts and pointed Scene at the
national office. He said the total number of jobs lost was “just a
few,” under 10, on-air and off-air.
Trivisonno didn’t return Scene‘s e-mail by press time. Even
reliable moles in the Clear Channel cluster had clammed up. The
corporate behemoth has issued a don’t-talk-to-the-press mandate —
but it’s clear the company is looking for an excuse to trim its payroll
— and its overhead — by any means necessary. —
D.X. Ferris
THE PEOPLE … UNITED …
WILL NEVER … UM, WHAT?
Everybody knows that marijuana has long roots that stretch straight
to hell. Just ask Daddy Reagan: It’s weed, not grass. Yes, it’s
a fiery danger to us all.
That’s why alcohol and cigarettes are the legal elixirs, people
— the good drugs, taxed to the hilt and available at a corner
near you. Don’t even bother finding out for yourselves about
marijuana’s worth. Would the government really lie?
And medical benefits, our ass. Surely the dozen states that have
legalized medical cannabis are just in it for the money. Huh? The
American Medical Association signed on? What do physicians know?
We still don’t know why anybody would show up for the surely illicit
Cleveland Marijuana March at “high” noon, Saturday, May 2. The
decade-old march, in conjunction with festivities taking place in about
300 other cities across the globe, will begin at Public Square with the
Weed Olympics, pagan-sounding though it is.
Some of the events: the Cottonmouth Challenge, in which contestants
shove as many cotton balls as they can in their mouths; the Munchies, a
race to see who can eat a bowl of Funions the fastest; and a bong relay
that will have competitors putting their heads on a bat, spinning
around and then seeing who can roll the fastest joint (with simulated
ingredients, of course). Silly stoners, spinning makes you dizzy!
But the event isn’t all merriment and silliness, apparently. After
gathering reinforcements (last year’s rain-stymied event drew 500), the
revelers will head out on a march around the Justice Center, then end
up, sometime around 2 p.m., at a party in Huntington Park, with
activists, party games and music from Zoo Station, the Groove Prophets
and Jim & E Roc.
Laura Kosa-Thomas, a 36-year-old from Lorain, is in her second year
organizing the event as president of the Ohio Cannabis Society. She’s
also founder of Pot TV.
“As soon as you mention I smoke it, people instantly think you’re
stupid,” says Kosa-Thomas, who notes how, with her medical problems,
she could move to a state like Michigan that’s legalized medical
cannabis. But what good would that do for Ohio? “I want to stay here
and fight. It’s ridiculous. Alcohol can ruin a marriage, a life,
somebody else’s life, but I can smoke an ounce and not do that. I might
eat up everything in the house and go to sleep, but that’s it.”
Go to clevelandohiomarijuanamarch.ning.com for more information and to tap into the local activist scene. And if
you go to Saturday’s march, be careful — weed’s still illegal.
And thank goodness. Who needs all those taxes? — Dan
Harkins
Web only:
THEY’RE HERE
Stand down, amateur apparition hunters: Cleveland just got its very
own Ghostbusters. The nonprofit Munroe Falls Paranormal Society, at
your service.
The seven-member crew includes a historian, an electrical engineer,
a psychic and a fear counselor boasting 40-plus years of investigative
know-how. And it just announced in a professional-enough release that
it’s expanding its turf to include all of Northeast, Northwest and
Central Ohio. And just in time: Chief among our area’s most pressing
woes is this glut of do-nothing ghosts watching all of us fuck.
“While MFPS offers its services free of charge, we are still able to
provide a professional quality investigative service utilizing the
latest technologies and practices in the paranormal research and
investigation field,” reads the statement. “The MFPS team provides
community support for home owners, property owners, business owners,
historical sites or anywhere this phenomena may be reported to
exist.”
Though he’s been looking into paranormal activity for two decades
— the result, he says, of experiencing a “dark mass, or shadow
person,” in a house in Bratenahl — Eric Haney (programmer and
engineer by day, MFPS founder and lead investigator by night) didn’t
start the group until about two years ago in his sleepy little town of
Munroe Falls. Population: about 5,000. Total stoplights: two. Most
famous resident: murderer Richard Cooey, chief contributor to the
psychic malaise.
“This is obviously self-boasting, but we’re one of the better
paranormal organizations,” he says. They make a decent case, with
histories, legends and a long list of important-sounding equipment at
their disposal.
“There’s people who’re terrified in their homes, wanting to sell
their homes,” says Haney, “This investigation we had in Massillon,
these people were going to sell their home and leave because they
didn’t understand what was going on. But over the course of a few
months, we were able to pinpoint that what they had going on was
paranormal, but it wasn’t anything that was going to hurt them. We did
counseling through the process, and now they’re much more comfortable
in their home. To us, it’s satisfying to help these individuals.”
And other times, he says, a perfectly good explanation is to be had.
In an alleged case (they conveniently can’t reveal their clients) out
of Cuyahoga Falls, a woman thought she was seeing ghosts, and it was
really just that she was sensitive to the high electromagnetic field
being put off by her old-ass alarm clock. They switched it out. Problem
solved.
“We have a scientific approach toward this,” he says. “We don’t go
in 100 percent sure that there is paranormal activity. We look at all
the possibilities of natural phenomena before we even take something as
paranormal.”
So, what? They go in 95 percent sure? That’s the way we want our
Ghostbusters, though. Right?
E-mail the group at ehaney@munroe-falls-paranormal-society.com or call 330.328.1215. Or you can just channel some fresh brainwaves to
their psychic, Ava: She’ll feel your vibe and return the message by the
end of the next business day. — Dan Harkins
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2009.
