Scene September 7, 2022 by Chava Communications

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September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 5 COVER ART BY JAMES QUARLES Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Publisher Andrew Zelman Editor Vince Grzegorek Editorial Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Visual Arts Writer Shawn Mishak Stage Editor Christine Howey Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Creative Services Creative Director Haimanti Germain Art Director Evan Sult Production Manager Sean Bieri Graphic Designer Aspen Smit Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace Business Business & Sales Support Specialist Megan Stimac Controller Kristy Cramer Circulation Circulation Director Burt Sender ...The story continues at clevescene.com Take SCENE with you with the Issuu app! “Cleveland Scene Magazine” Upfront .......................................6 Feature 10 Get Out 16 Eat ............................................ 19 Music 23 Savage Love 35 Euclid Media Group Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP Digital Services Stacy Volhein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon www.euclidmediagroup.com National Advertising Voice Media 1-800-278-9866,Groupvmgadvertising.com Cleveland Scene 737 Bolivar Road Cleveland OH www.clevescene.com44115 Phone 216-505-8199 E-mail scene@clevescene.com Cleveland Scene Magazine is published every other week by Euclid Media Group Verified Audit Member Cleveland Distribution Scene is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader Subscriptions - $150 (1 yr); $80 (6 mos.) Email Megan - MStimac@CleveScene.com - to subscribe. CONTENTS Copyright The entire contents of Cleveland Scene Magazine are copyright 2020 by Euclid Media Group. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above. Subscriptions $150 (1 yr); $80 (6 mos.) Send name, address and zip code with check or money order to the address listed above with the title ‘Attn: Subscription Department’ SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 • VOL. 53 NO 5 REWIND: 1972 Scene was geeked as hell about the Grateful Dead in late October 1972, and that sounds like the right reaction.

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THE CITY OF CLEVELAND should immediately begin to scale up a mobile crisis response pilot program that reduces reliance on police for those experiencing mental or behavioral health challenges, according to a new report published by Policy Matters Ohio, the Center for Community Solutions and the Mental Health & Addiction Advocacy CoalitionKnown(MHAC)as“care response,” unarmed models for responding to non-violent calls that prioritize the health of the person experiencing a crisis have led to enormous cost savings for the cities that deploy them. Moreover, they result in fewer deadly interactions with law enforcement. The report notes that police across the United States shot and killed more than 1,000 people in 2021 and are on track to do the same in 2022. At least one in four people killed by police has a severe mental illness.InCleveland, Mayor Justin Bibb enthusiastically supported the idea of a co-responder model on the campaign trail in 2021. That’s not quite a “care response” model, because it still pairs a lawenforcement ofﬁcer with a social worker to respond to emergency calls. But it does acknowledge that armed, uniformed police ofﬁcers are kind of like hammers, and every emergency call isn’t a nail.

A co-responder pilot program currently exists within the Cleveland Division of Police (CDP) and has shown early signs of success, according to the administration. Per the CDP’s mid-year budget report, the Division has 80 officers who are trained as “Specialized [Crisis Intervention Team] officers” who handle the majority of the calls from those dealing with mental or behavioral health crises. Of that number, five are paired with social workers — these are the “coresponders” — to handle a variety of calls, including from “high utilizers” (repeat callers) in each of Cleveland’s five police districts. The overwhelming majority of these responses, (between 97.5% and 99.2% since 2020), has not resulted in police use of force, though force is still used more commonly on CIT calls than on standard police calls, which do not result in use of force 99.9% of the Accordingtime.toMayor Bibb’s press secretary, Marie Zickefoose, City Council recently approved funding for two additional mental health professionals to expand the CIT Unit, and CDP has partnered with the Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board to have 25%-40% of frontline officers trained as CIT Officers over the next four years, in compliance with the Consent Decree. “The value of crisis intervention to the Department of Public Safety and the Division of Police cannot be overstated,” Zickefoose said in a statement to Scene. “It is a major part of the holistic approach to serving the community. The CDP CIT co-responder program is always

EXPERTS SAY ADOPTING A “CARE RESPONSE” MODEL FOR NON-VIOLENT EMERGENCY CALLS WOULD BENEFIT CLEVELANDERS, POLICE AND BOTTOM LINE

Photo courtesy City of Cleveland

UPFRONT

He did say, though, that from CARE’s perspective, the ultimate question should be, “How do we best serve the needs of citizens,” not “How do we build a non-police response team?” And he worried that by focusing exclusively on non-police responses, the report’s authors were neglecting some of the most volatile incidents.Pietvan Lier, the lead author of the report for Policy Matters Ohio, agreed. He said that a care response model was not meant to supplant or even take funding away from existing law enforcement, and in fact was a strategy to maximize resources.

After the encounter at the justice center, the demonstration devolved into scattered riots throughout the evening, with incidents of vandalism along Euclid Avenue and elsewhere downtown.Gilbertemphasized that the actions of the Cleveland Division of Police that day occurred under the administration of Mayor Frank Jackson and Police Chief Calvin Williams, who failed to learn lessons from the mass demonstrations after the shooting death of Tamir Rice and the acquittal of ofﬁcer Michael Brelo in the #137shots case, among others.“We hope that this case can be a vehicle for reform,” Gilbert said. “The message to the city of Cleveland is: don’t do this again.” One of the plaintiffs in the case, Shainna Bernard, said that coming back to the stairs of the Justice Center, where she was Maced and brutalized, was “kind of surreal.”

“I was basically a bag man trying to describe what the ﬁnancing options were,” he told Scene In addition to ARPA funds, the report proposes exploring the use of opioid settlement money to fund a care response model. It also points out the potential for Medicaid reimbursements, especially as it pertains to EMS transport to the county diversion center.

“This is not anything against the police,” he said. “But they’re just not trained to do this work, no matter how hard they may try. This is not what police ofﬁcers are there for. We see this as a way to take away some of the work they’re not trained for and give them more time and resources to ﬁght violent crime.” Van Lier said Bibb’s co-responder model was a “step in the right direction,” but that there are clearly an enormous number of calls for which police are unnecessary and for which their very presence can escalate tension.

Twelve protesters who were arrested and jailed for peacefully demonstrating on May 30, 2020 have settled a lawsuit with the City of Cleveland, their attorneys announced Thursday on the steps of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center. After nearly two years of litigation, the city will pay $540,000 to the plaintiffs, who were protesting police brutality and the murder of George Floyd alongside thousands of othersTerrydowntown.Gilbertand Sarah Gelsomino of the law ﬁrm Friedman, Gilbert and Gerhardstein, represented the plaintiffs. In remarks Thursday, Gilbert said he hoped the settlement would provide some closure to his clients.

UPFRONT

“I want to say to potential protesters and activists: Do not be deterred. Keep coming back. This is just a stitch in the fabric of reform. Our goal is to combat police brutality and misconduct.”

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“These were innocent, peaceful protesters who were exercising their rights under the First Amendment,” Gilbert said. “A lot of the narrative in this case was about breaking windows and physical damage, but in the course of that day, these individuals were there passionately standing up for the family of George Floyd and seeking reforms with respect to the epidemic of police shootings in this country.” Gilbert said the jailing and mistreatment his clients experienced were the result of “indiscriminate and unjustified” use of force by Cleveland police officers that he believed emerged from panic and poor preparation on the department’s part. Law enforcement was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd outside the Justice Center, Gilbert said, and began firing tear gas, pepper balls and flash grenades in an effort to disperse the crowd, creating chaos. (That’s consistent with our first-hand reporting.)

“The report is meant to serve as an overarching policy review,” Anthes said. “It provides context for policy makers with what might be available and shows how they can leverage existing resources. I think the mayor and city council have both expressed interest in improving responses toward individuals experiencing mental and behavioral health crises. The care response model represents an evidence-based approach that saves government money. It’s also the right thing to do.”Anthes referenced the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon. The “Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets” teams are made up of a nurse or emergency medical technician and a mental health crisis worker. CAHOOTS teams received more than 16,000 calls in 2021 and required police backup only 301 times. Most of the calls were for things like welfare checks and transportation of individuals who were unhoused or dealing with mental health issues. The program had a budget of about $2 million, Anthes said, and saved the Eugene Police Department roughly $8 million.Timothy Sommerfelt is the Union Secretary for the Cleveland Association of Rescue Employees (CARE) Local 1975. He was also a member of the public safety subcommittee on Mayor Bibb’s transition team and has been engaged on a number of conversations about reimagining emergency response in Cleveland. He noted to Scene that appointing a cabinet-level ofﬁcial tasked with building a mental health crisis response team was one of the transition team’s key recommendations, and he thinks that’s an important next step. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 15 years of EMS,” he said. “It’s that mobile crisis isn’t mobile. The current system pretty much abdicates the responsibility for after-hours mental health care to police and EMS, and our members are pretty receptive to the idea of mental health response looking a little bit different in the future. It doesn’t have to be an ambulance or a police car with lights and sirens every single time.”

Sommerfelt said that one issue identiﬁed by the union’s membership was the high-frequency callers for whom repeat trips to the emergency room was clearly not a viable solution. He said models that employ a “community paramedicine” approach, with health workers in vans or SUVs proactively working to solve root problems, might be more effective. And it’d certainly be “less triggering” to some of these callers, many of whom have mental health issues, than an ambulance with strobe lights or police cars with armed ofﬁcers.

“But I want to say to potential protesters and activists: Do not be deterred,” she said. “Keep coming back. This is just a stitch in the fabric of reform. Our goal is to combat police brutality and misconduct. This has been rough, and it was terrifying, but we have to continue. Let’s redirect to the fact that we were there for each other

“I think a lot of us want people to have the most compassionate, supportive response available, to make sure they get the help they need,” he said, “and that’s often not somebody showing up with ﬂashing lights, bulletproof vests and a gun.”

-Sam Allard

12 May 30th Protesters Settle Lawsuit with Cleveland for $540,000

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com being reviewed for opportunities for expansion, which is largely dependent on staffing.” Both Mayor Bibb and Cleveland City Council have recommended devoting ARPA dollars to augment the CIT and co-responder programs. These were discussed at a city council caucus Monday. The administration proposed spending $5.1 million in a plan that would add a mental health dispatcher and hire a “senior-level strategist” to connect mental health and public safety efforts.The CIT expansion represents the largest chunk from the administration’s proposed ARPA spending on public safety. It also proposed spending $2.8 million on the controversial ShotSpotter technology, which uses microphones and artificial intelligence to locate the sound of gunfire. (The controversy stems from the fact that it has been overwhelmingly deployed in communities of color and has been prone to inaccurate reports.) Additionally, the administration has proposed spending $2.3 million on dash cameras for police vehicles. As for the authors of the report, they believe that a care response model integrates well with the Cuyahoga County Diversion Center, an alternative to the county jail for those experiencing mental health or substance abuse crises. They say a care response model is not designed to supplant armed law enforcement, but to be an additive strategy in Cleveland’s portfolio of emergency responses.LorenAnthes, a Medicaid policy wonk for the Center for Community Solutions, advised on the report.

WIDGETDIGIT

“Under the circumstances, these are the steps that we can take as a city to reinforce our values and expectations of all employees and help the community heal. We fully expect our police ofﬁcers—and all who serve the public across the city—to provide the highest levels of professionalism and respect to all citizens,” Bibb and Drummond said.

420’0”

Cleveland previously didn’t review social media posts from applying ofﬁcers.Quran’s tweets included one reading “Fuck that Jew,” another saluting Hitler, and others sharing anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

9/17, 7 p.m. Date and time of Ohio State football game against Toledo. 9/17, 7 p.m. Date and time of J.D. Vance rally in Youngstown featuring former President Donald Trump.

As riders disembarked from Red, Blue and Green line Rapid Transit trains at Tower City Center Tuesday morning, ofﬁcials with the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) announced the launch of a long-awaited program that will put civilian ambassadors on buses and trains.Framed as a “progressive policing and community engagement” initiative, the ambassador program is designed to decrease the presence of armed law enforcement on the RTA system, while providing identiﬁable personnel to assist customers with mobility and navigation issues and simultaneously discourage disruptive behavior.

The pair also used the incident to champion the importance of the newly formed Cleveland Community Police Commission, whose ﬁrst members will be introduced in the coming“Thisweeks.situation ampliﬁes why police reform is necessary.” Response from Jewish organizations was mixed.

Height of Top Thrill Dragster, the second-tallest roller coaster in the world, which Cedar Point announced this week would be retired in its current form. 8’0” Minimum mandatory height of perimeter enclosures for wolves, as decreed by the International Association of Zoos and Aquariums. A female Mexican Wolf at the Cleveland Zoo escaped its habitat Monday morning, though it was quickly and safely sedated. There were no injuries.

-Sam Allard RTA Launches Transit Ambassador Program

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September 7-20, 2022 clevescene.com that day. We took care of each other. We were there for a reason.” Cassandra Ziemer was another plaintiff in the case. They said they were arrested and spent three days in jail after getting pepper sprayed on the steps of the Justice Center. As a result of the traumatic experience, they have been unable to attend another protest since. “I’m really glad that we pursued this case and came to an agreement,” they said. “But I am not satisﬁed with the justice we obtained today. I’m going to keep pushing. I hope people remember what we stood up for then and now: that Black lives do matter.”

“There are no words to describe our disappointment that this hateful bigot will still be policing the streets of Cleveland, and we are concerned for its Jewish citizens,” Liora Rez, the executive director of StopAntisemitism told the Plain Dealer. -Vince Grzegorek scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene

While lauding the mayor’s harsh condemnation and the city’s new policies, groups like StopAntisemitism and the American Jewish Committee lamented the fact Quran, who was named the department’s ofﬁcer of the year in 2019, not only gets to keep his award but his “Whilejob.he made those statements prior to joining the CDP, they are inexcusable for anyone who wears the uniform,” the American Jewish Committee said in a statement.

“While these actions cannot undo the hurt and anger this ofﬁcer’s behavior has caused our Jewish community, we hope that they illustrate how seriously we take this situation.”

RTA CEO India Birdsong said the program, which will include a total of 10 ambassadors and 4 crisis intervention specialists once fully staffed, has been on the agency’s agenda for several years. She said she hoped it demonstrated RTA’s commitment to safety. “It’s been quite an endeavor to get here,” Birdsong said. “This program was born out of conversations to create a safe environment for our customers and staff alike... We want our programs to embody our [new mission statement, “Connecting the Community], and to effectuate that as strategically as possible.” Putting boots on the ground, Birdsong said, especially as riders return to the system in increasing numbers after two-plus years of a global pandemic, makes RTA more visible and more welcoming. She referenced the Downtown Cleveland Ambassadors program and noted that the RTA ambassadors, like DCA’s representatives, will help to maintain not only a safe but a clean environment for riders. The ambassador program emerged, in part, from conversations that began after a 2017 legal decision. Cleveland Municipal Court judge Emanuella Groves ruled that RTA’s system of enforcing fares with armed officers on the HealthLine and Red Line was unconstitutional. The current ambassador program is not designed as a replacement for fare enforcement, RTA COO Dr. Floun’say Caver said. Though they won’t be “checking fares,” they will assist with fare payment and other navigational questions. Caver described the program first and foremost as a way to enhance the RTA customer experience. In addition to the ambassadors, who will wear a uniform of red jackets and khaki pants, two crisis intervention specialists have been hired and two more have been budgeted for. These are trained social workers who will embed with RTA police and go out on calls in a kind of “co-responder” model. The goal will be to deescalate situations and incorporate “21st century policing tactics” across the spectrum of incidents the transit police encounter.RTA’sBoard Chair, Rev. Charles Lucas, said he inherited the idea of the ambassadors program when he stepped into the board chairmanship, and that he was happy to see it come to fruition under RTA’s current administration.“Idon’twant to get biblical with you,” he said, “but an ambassador is one who comes to bring peace to a situation. That’s what these ambassadors are going to do. They’re going to get on these buses and rails and bring peace to situations. They’re going to take difficult situations that are all tied up and turn them into a straight line.” According to a news release on the program, one to two teams per shift will provide coverage on RTA’s HealthLine and at Rapid stations, and will expand to other routes and locations as the program grows. Responding to a question from the media Tuesday, Dr. Caver said that even with the addition of the ambassadors, the HealthLine will not, at the moment, return to all-door boarding. Local riders and transit activists have agitated for a return to all-door boarding to increase the efficiency of Cleveland’s marquee Bus Rapid Transit route. -Sam Allard Cleveland Police Officer Won’t Be Disciplined for Antisemitic Tweets Since They Were Made Prior to Being Hired While condemning the antisemitic rhetoric used by Cleveland police officer Ismail Quran in tweets surfaced earlier this summer, the city of Cleveland in a statement last week said that because they were sent prior to Quran joining the force in 2018, he broke no policies or rules and will not be “Antisemitismpunished.andbigotry are reprehensible and have no place in our community or our police department. We have zero tolerance for hateful and dangerous rhetoric directed at our Jewish communities. This type of hate speech is a horrible example of explicit bias in our police force. We cannot emphasize strongly enough that discrimination of any kind, against anyone, simply will not be tolerated,” Mayor Justin Bibb and Cleveland Police Chief Wayne Drummond said in a joint release. “We are frustrated and disappointed that no charges can be filed against Officer Ismail Quran, despite extensive internal investigations by the Cleveland Division of Police (CDP), the City Prosecutor, and the Law Department. Officer Quran’s hateful offenses were communicated years before he was hired, making it impossible to successfully enforce discipline.”Thecity will institute a variety of steps to ensure something similar doesn’t happen again, including evaluating bias through behavioralbased interviews, social media monitoring, bias training, mandated cultural competency training for all Public Safety employees, and further mandatory training from the AntiDefamation League for all officers.

The 2022 AWBA winners coming to Cleveland are Percival Everett for “The Trees” (Fiction), Donika Kelly for “The Renunciations” (Poetry), George Makari for “Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia” (Nonfiction), Tiya Miles for “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake” (Nonfiction), and Lifetime Achievement winner Ishmael Reed. Book Week programs will culminate in the Great Lakes African American Writers Conference on September 17 at the downtown Cleveland Public Library featuring the prolific award-winning author Walter Mosley as the Langston Hughes Literary Keynote. Additionally, a Sunday Brunch fundraiser on September 18 will feature two-time James Beard Awardwinning culinary author Toni Tipton-Martin, who once edited the Plain Dealer food section, and local celebrity chef Eric Wells.Partners at all three organizations hope these combined efforts enhance and amplify the literary appetite of Cleveland. Some of the best authors in English will connect with local emerging talent to develop the next great voices, and collaborative events will inspire new projects and partnerships.Tocelebrate Cleveland Book Week, Scene is featuring poetry by local writers alongside Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners as well as an interview with Electric Literature Editor in Chief Denne Michele Norris, who is a 2022 GLAAWC speaker, Cleveland native, and the highest-ranking Black trans woman in publishing. See the full schedule of book week events at www.anisfield-wolf.org.

EDITH ANISFIELD WOLF was a published poet and civic activist from Cleveland who lived 1889-1963. From the time she was a young girl, she was passionately committed to social justice, and she used literature as a means to explore racial prejudice and celebrate human diversity.Awoman ahead of her time, she established the AnisﬁeldWolf Book Awards in 1935, some 20 years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Upon her death, she left her home to the Cleveland Welfare Association, her books to the Cleveland Public Library and her funds to the Cleveland Foundation for a community service award, aid for the needy and the Anisﬁeld-Wolf book prize.

CLEVELAND IS QUIETLY ONE of the most literary cities in the Ourcountry.regionhas vibrant independent bookstores, two of the top-rated library systems in the country, and a legacy of world-class authors that stretches from Toni Morrison to Langston Hughes, Mary Oliver to Rita Dove, Harvey Pekar to DanThisChaon.year, the literary community is coming together to make some noise. More than 50 free events for book lovers crowd the calendar from September 6-18, the work of three major partner organizations that crafted the 2022 Cleveland Book Week.

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Since March 2021, staff of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (AWBA), presented by the Cleveland Foundation, the Great Lakes African American Writers Conference (GLAAWC pronounced “glossy”), and Literary Cleveland have worked to build the city’s most collaborative literary celebration yet.The goal is to elevate Cleveland as a national center of literary excellence, lift brilliant writers that other places overlook and sharpen our local literary conversations. Staff at the National Endowment for the Arts liked the idea enough to grant money toward this year’s celebration.Literary Cleveland will kick off Book Week with the eighth annual Inkubator Writing Conference, the largest free workshop in the nation. It features virtual events September 6-8 and free in-person programs at the downtown Cleveland Public Library on September 9-10 with keynote speaker Jami Attenberg. For 87 years, the AnisfieldWolf Book Awards have honored groundbreaking books that advance our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures. This year, Anisfield-Wolf events run September 14-16, with the awards ceremony to be held Thursday, September 15 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

Digging Into Cleveland Book Week, Bigger and Better an Ever in 2022

Edited and compiled by Lit Cleveland

e Legacy of Edith

Anis eld Wolf

The Head–died on August 3, 2015. When the two men ﬁnally came, they rolled a gurney into the other room, hushed talking on noises, then the tip of the gurney came out like a cruise ship. They were worried about dinging the walls. My mother’s whole body covered with a blanked. Her head gone. Her face gone. Rilke was wrong. The body is nothing without the head. My mother, now covered, was no longer my mother. A covered apple is no longer an apple. A sketch of a person isn’t the person. Somewhere, in the morning, my mother had become the sketch. And I would spend the rest of my life trying to shade her back in.

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com

DONIKA KELLY

Donika Kelly is the author of The Renunciations (Graywolf, 2021), winner of the Anisﬁeld-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary (Graywolf, 2016), the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Donika lives in Iowa City and is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Iowa. She will be reading from The Renunciations at the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland on Wednesday, September 14 at 4 p.m. as part of the Anisﬁeld-Wolf Book Awards events.

Six Poems from Local Arti s and Anis eld-Wolf Winners

Love Poem

prayer to alleviate shame Body, ﬁrst capital & I have bartered it oh God, oh trined mother, I have spent it story awash in the stench of what feeds me I am not what I have done to get here Body, trusted compass somehow, we have always made it out alive & isn’t that what this miraculous shroud was fashioned for this dazzling machine allow me to test the limits of what the senses can take I am starting to unravel my obsession with what carries us upright & tangled a bullet sails past the third moon & I claw rivers into my Body, unholiest of muses each breath that escapes is its own penance.

Let us be ocean and coast, a taking into and over one another: shifting sediment, a breaking down of rock: dredge and deposit. A series of prepositions meaning proximity, although the most of us extends away from one another. Once, in winter, I ventured far inland, forgot the crash of gravity pulling you over me and away—forgot there is a place where we meet and retreat but never let go. Let this be a moment of remembering, my love, as I stand at the edge of myself, cliff and sea grass and the screaming gull above, sighting your breadth to the horizon.

STEPHANIE GINESE

VICTORIA CHANG Victoria Chang’s collection OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) received a 2021 Anisﬁeld-Wolf Book Award in Poetry. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and lives in Los Angeles and is Acting Program Chair and Faculty member within Antioch’s low-residency MFA Program. Her new book of poetry, The Trees Witness Everything, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2022. She will be reading from OBIT at Lake View Cemetery’s Community Mausoleum on Friday, September 16 at 5 p.m. as part of the Anisﬁeld-Wolf Book Awards events.

ALI BLACK Ali Black is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in The Atticus Review, jubilat, Literary Hub, The Offing and elsewhere. Her first book of poetry, If It Heals At All, was selected by Jaki Shelton Green for the New Voices series at Jacar Press and it was named a finalist for the 2021 Ohioana Book Award. She will be presenting at Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator Writing Conference at the downtown Cleveland Public Library on September 9-10.

I WORE AN “I LOVE SHARON REED” T-SHIRT ON MY 30TH BIRTHDAY AND GOT BEAT UP & ARRESTED BY THE CLEVELAND POLICE whenever I tell this story my wife says she could’ve never been the girl who was with us that the cop body-slammed on the hood of his car because she was trying to record a part of our history that now rattles us anytime we try to celebrate. I know my wife pictures herself hurting the cop’s body before he could ever try and lay a hand on hers, but that type of dreaming only exists when you can no longer celebrate. I tell her how my words meant nothing to the cop who twisted my nose after I told him my uncle wore blue too as if colors ever united any of us. I let her know one of the smartest niggas with us took off his “I Love Sharon Reed” shirt and bounced as if he remembered his mother telling him to never ride four deep in a car or otherwise become a target by kicking it with a group of thirty niggas on W. 6th Street in downtown Cleveland after LeBron James makes his decision to leave a city that calls you and your friends a gang because you are all dressed in the same CopyrightT-shirt.©2020 by Ali Black. Used by permission of the author.

Stephanie Ginese is a writer from South Lorain, Ohio. She is the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother & an Italian immigrant father. She currently lives in Cleveland, by the lake, with her two children. Unto Dogs (Grieveland, 2022) is her debut book of poetry. She will be presenting at Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator Writing Conference at the downtown Cleveland Public Library on September 9-10.

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Denne Michele Nor s on W ting, Cleveland, and Elevating Black Trans Voices

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Interview by Rev. Dr. Leah C.K. Lewis

AFRICAN AMERICAN literature is not only a living archive of history and heritage, it is a futurist technology that forges new frontiers of identity, liberty, community, and creativity. The Great Lakes African American Writers Conference (GLAAWC) is a yearly celebration of the awesome depth and breadth of Black literature — its past, present, and future — infinite modalities, utilities, and possibilities. This year, in recognition of African American writers’ ability to celebrate, educate, and innovate, GLAAWC has named Denne Michele Norris the 2022 Alice Dunbar Nelson Professional Keynote Speaker. As editor-inchief of Electric Literature, Denne Michele is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literaryDennepublication.Michele’sfiction, which appears in the anthologies Everyday People: The Color of Life (Atria Books) and Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction, has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and her story “Where Every Boy Is Known and Loved” was a finalist for the 2018 Best Small Fictions Prize. She is a 2021 Out100 Honoree, 2019 Peter Taylor Fellow at The Kenyon Review Fiction Workshop, and co-host of the critically acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot. In a recent exchange with GLAAWC Founder and Executive Producer Rev. Dr. Leah C.K. Lewis, Denne Michele spoke candidly about her hometown connection to Cleveland, reasons for writing, and achievements and aspirations as an editor. GLAAWC attendees can enjoy Denne Michele’s keynote virtually or in person at the Louis Stokes Wing Main Auditorium of the CPL Main Branch on Saturday, September 17. When did you know you wanted to become a writer? An editor? I’ve been writing creatively since I was in middle school. I wrote my first novel in one of those now vintage Mead college ruled notebooks when I was 12. I’ve been writing ever since, but it was when I handed in my undergraduate thesis that I realized I was more proud of my writing than anything else I’d ever done. I decided that summer to give it a go and gave myself a deadline to have something — anything — published within 5 years — or I was going to law school. I published my first short story at 4 years and 8 months! I realized I was a strong editor in graduate school, and a few years later, a friend from grad school approached me about taking over the role of Fiction Editor at a wonderful literary journal, Apogee Journal, and I jumped at the opportunity. And I haven’t stopped since. How did life in Cleveland inspire your art? How did it inform your craft? Much of my fiction is set vaguely in the Midwest, but a lot of the novel I’m working on is actually set in Chagrin Falls. Place really informs both setting and character, so I find that life in Cleveland helps me think through all things character: motivation, tension, opinions and behaviors and choices — as well as the visuals I hope a reader conjures when they read my work. It also deeply impacts the sound of my characters, the sound of a setting — in as much as dialogue is crafted to reflect setting. Largely speaking, Cleveland has influenced my writing in the details — the characteristics that make fiction real to a reader. What role has being trans played in your compulsion — if I may call it that — to write? I think the biggest role that being trans has played in my compulsion to write is in helping to shape the subject matter I write about. From centering queer and trans characters of color to writing critically about the systemic challenges we face, it’s at the core why I’m driven to write, as well as how I approach the publishing industry from an editor’s perspective.Thereare so many large cultural conversations about trans people and identity writ large. But so often, the loudest voices talking about trans people aren’t trans Ismael Reed with translator Yuqing Lin. Reed says, “She was responsible for hismynovel, Japanese by Spring , becoming a national project in China, which meant that the gov. paid for its research. She visited us for a year under a U.C. Berkeley fellowship. We all visited Yosemite where this photo was taken by my daughter, Tennessee. She died recently of breast cancer, she was 40 and leaves behind 2 small kids.”

Turning to the bartender A pigeon, Pluto said At least we’re not a pigeon

The pigeon Was unrufﬂed, he said Calmly, wiping some glasses “Well, Pluto, it must be Scary to be on a Collision course with Neptune Who do you think will prevail From such an encounter? And Luca, you have to have One of Jacques Cousteau, Jr’s Submersibles to even Notice you Down there, cold, dark and YouLonelywill never see a rainbow While my neck is one Copyright © 2018 by Ishmael Reed. Used by permission of the author.

ISHMAEL REED

Ishmael Reed is the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Lifetime Achievement recipient. He has published over 30 books of poetry, prose, essays, and plays, including the groundbreaking novel Mumbo Jumbo. He will be featured on The City Club on Friday, September 16 at 11:30 a.m. as part of the AnisfieldWolf Book Awards events. Going For Seventy-Five for Yuqing Lin Alex Honnold climbs with no rope nor gear He breaks between the meadow and stars His youthful zest plays chicken with fear He chalks his hands to grip the rock And reaches El Capitan’s top block by block We’ve scaled the cliffs and are climbing down We nod as the Honnold’s pass us by They dazzle the crowd that made the trip While we dangle by our fingertips We made some missteps In our Duckeddaythe boulders of our time Came through the mists and fog SurvivedOkay to climb another day Our ups and downs are quite a few But few of them have had our vista The silverfish have swarmed us too And we, too, have sometimes Forgotten our glue And often we’re cut And other times, we bleed The older we get, the less rope we need Our destination is among the weeds Pluto and Luca Walk into a Bar Pluto overhears Luca say Why aren’t I given credit for All life that exists? Is it because I’m a single-cell, bacterium-like organism? I, who am the ancestor of trees, birds, fish And just about everything that you Can think of Instead of looking to the sky for God, they should look to the bottom Of the ocean where I live O, you think that you don’t get Respect, Pluto said First, they gave me that Dreadful name after the Greek Hades and then They dismiss me as Just a big snowball in space And now that they find I’m more ThatComplicatedunderneath my surface Lie oceans and possibly life I’m booted from the news cycle by the discovery of a 9th planet

people — and that’s a problem. I’m blessed enough to be in a position to do something about it, and that’s a huge part of my motivation, both as a writer, and as an editor. Your identity exists in the intersection of so many different groups, all of which are considered “oppressed.” Has publishing and gaining recognition as a writer been harder for you as a Black trans woman? How have you overcome obstacles put in your path, and how would you encourage other writers, be they Black, LGBTQI+, women, what have you, to keep pushing? It’s difficult for me to speak on whether or not it’s been more challenging for me to gain recognition because I’m a Black trans woman. I’m not in charge of what recognition I do or don’t receive. I don’t make those decisions. My honest feeling is that I started receiving recognition when my work was strong enough to earn it. I’ve always been almost single-mindedly focused on the work, the craft of what I’m doing. Not for some selfsatisfied, high-minded reason, but for pragmatic reasons. I’m not in control of how my work will be received — that has very little to do with the writer beyond what they do on the page. A writer can promote their work until the cows come home, but it doesn’t mean readers will like it or even read it. What I can control is the effort I put forth. I can control whether or not I’ve earned the time and energy it takes to read my writing. I focus my energy on the things I can, at least, influence, if not entirely Systematicallycontrol.speaking,

transphobic rhetoric. People’s identities are not discussion points, and we have a habit of engaging with some people.identitiesmanydelegitimizingourjustifythatmustAmerica,patriarchytheingenderedfromthistranstheinherentlytransness,whenboth-sidesismseriousdiscussingwhichdegradesintegrityoflives.Ithinktendencycomesourownverytraumathecontextofcishetwhitethatisbutwenotallowframeworktousoppressingownpeople,ortheandvariedofBlackTherearemanyBlacktransactiviststhatthecommunityshouldbereading

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 13

it’s incredibly difﬁcult for QPOC, especially Black trans people, to gain a sturdy foothold in this industry, and that is largely because the majority of decision makers are cishet white people. That’s just a fact. I encourage writers to focus on the primacy of craft. When you really know the craft of your artform, no one can take that away from your work. It’s undeniable. There are many aspiring writers out there—there are not always many exceptional ones. I also encourage writers, once they feel they have a steady handle on craft, to adopt a Shonda Rhimes “Year of Yes” mentality. But not for one year — do it for ﬁve. Do everything you can to meet people, talented, hard working people with integrity. Support them in their literary efforts. Invest in their success. They will likely do the same for you, and then you’ll have community — and that’s crucial.

What are some of the important things you seek to say about these things through your writing?

Your ﬁrst novel features a protagonist whose father dies, plunging him into a deep identity crisis. On the podcast Ideas on Fire, you say the book deals with “...shame, homophobia, race, interracial relationships…, questions of masculinity and femininity…, religion and faith.”

What do you want readers to understand or realize through the experience of your work? I certainly hope that readers will fall in love with these characters, but probably my biggest hope is that readers will come away from this book understanding that we can free ourselves from these shackles. We have constructed our society along certain lines, by human design. That is such a gift. It means that we can reimagine a better version at any time, and we can set out to make that better version a reality. And by the way, that’s the (much simpliﬁed) story of America. Let’s reimagine gender, let’s reimagine faith, let’s reimagine our rules on what everyone should or shouldn’t be.

How can the African American writing community elevate trans voices? Who are some of the trans writers out there right now that you want to shine a light on and help bring to a wider audience?

I think we can start by not caping for Black folks who spout

If someone were to begin reading your work today, what should they pick up to get a meaningful sense of who you are as a writer and the project of your writing? What is your favorite published thing you’ve ever written? What are you working on now? My story “Daddy’s Boy” is an early project of mine, published in 2016, that, while short, exemplifies so much of what occupies my literary imagination. There’s also an anthology celebrating short stories by writers of color, Everyday People: The Color of Life, that includes an excerpt of my novel, entitled “Last Rites.” I’m still working on that novel, and I’m starting the next novel and working on a number of short stories. Tell us about Electric Lit. What does it contribute to the literary world that is unique and important? Electric Lit is an independent digital publisher of short work with a mission to make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive since 2009. We publish two acclaimed literary magazines: Recommended Reading, for longer-form short fiction, and The Commuter, for poetry, graphic narrative, and flash prose. Outside of those, we also publish essays, book lists, and author interviews. As EL’s third editor-in-chief, I oversee the editorial operations of everything other than Recommended Reading and The Commuter. All of our work is available online for free, and every year we serve over 5 million readers. We’re often the first to publish or very early champions of new and emerging voices who become crucial to the American publishing landscape. Was it important for you to become an editor? What do you consider your job as an editor? I love connecting with authors and working together to affirm their vision — and sometimes grow it — of their work. The thing that becoming a full-time editor has done is that it’s given me a whole new level of regard for my work as an editor. Until I started working at EL — although I genuinely loved editing — I saw it primarily as something that would serve my ambitions as a writer. It’s so much more important to me now — my ambitions as an editor and my ambitions for my writing are, of course, intertwined, but they’re also very separate. Editing — and what I hope to accomplish as an editor — is just as important to me, if not more important, than whatever happens to my own writing. And I never knew I could feel that way about something.

What are some things you can tell writers about getting published as an experienced editor? Listen closely to editors — take their advice when it’s right, but don’t be afraid to go a different way when it’s wrong. The editor doesn’t always have the answers, and that is not the editor’s job. Lastly, getting published is a wonderful thing for many reasons. It is not the be-all-end-all of a life in letters. Whether you are published or not, the task becomes more and more simple, I think, as you move forward. The task is to continue writing, continue reading. Keep traversing this road we’ve chosen, even if you can’t see very far in front of you. As my mother would say, that’s the time to step out on faith. Living life as a writer, ultimately, is about stepping out on faith.

and elevating right now, like Raquel Willis and Janet Mock. There are also the poets Danez Smith and Rickey Laurentiis who’ve been consistently doing beautiful work for several years. Akwaeke Emezi is a wonderful writer, too.

It has been said that “It’s lonely at the top.” Is that the case for you as the highest-ranking Black trans woman in publishing today? Yes. But I’m working hard to change it.

Denne Michele Norris. Courtesy of Hilary Leichter scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene

| clevescene.com | September 7-20, 202214

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 15

TUE 09/13

THU 09/08

| clevescene.com | September 7-20, 202216

SUN 09/11

11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

FRI 09/09

Trixie and Katya Live! Drag’s dynamic drag duo will deliver

SAT 09/10

Shining Star CLE 2022

GET OUT Everything to do in Cleveland for the next two weeks

The Los Angeles Angels, one of the biggest disappointments in the American League, come to Progressive Field for a three-game series. The Angels swept the Guardians earlier this season when the Guardians played them in Anaheim, but the Angels have not played well since then. First pitch is at 24016:10.Ontario St., mlb.com/guardians.216-420-4487,

WED 09/07

Dressed for the Job: Clevelanders in Uniform

Chalk Festival

Cleveland Oktoberfest

The 10 X 3 Songwriter Band Showcase Hosted by Brent Kirby

The concept of 10x3 is a prearranged line up with 10 songwriters/bands performing three songs each. Two of the them required to be original, and the third can be the artist’s choice. Local singer-songwriter Brent Kirby hosts the event, which runs from 7 to 9 tonight at the Bop Stop. Admission is 2920free.Detroit Ave., themusicsettlement.org.216-771-6551,

The sixth annual Shining Star CLE promises feature solo-singing by talented high school students from all over Northeast Ohio. A panel of celebrity judges will select the top 4 ﬁnalists; then the judges and the audience will vote for the scholarship winners. It all starts tonight at 7 at Mimi Ohio Theatre. 1511 Euclid Ave., playhousesquare.org.216-241-6000, MON 09/12

The annual Paulaner Cleveland Oktoberfest continues today at Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds. The fest features more than 20 different types of Oktoberfest-style beers, 15 German and European restaurants, 20 bands from all over the world, more than 100 vendors and local artisans, a daily beer stein-holding contest, the largest glockenspiel in the country, wiener dog races, a Miss Oktoberfest contest, a 5-K race and entertainment for all ages. More than 70,000 people are expected to attend the event. Festivities continue tomorrow too. Consult the website for a schedule and hours of 19201operation.East Bagley Rd., Middleburg Heights, 440clevelandoktoberfest.com.243-0090,

Guardians vs. Los Angeles Angels

Cleveland Oktoberfest continues at Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds. See: Fri., Sept. 9.

Photo: Emanuel Wallace

The Cleveland History Center and Museum Advisory Council Curator of Costume and Textiles Patty Edmonson host a grand opening of this new costume exhibit in the Chisholm Halle Costume Wing from 6 to 8 p.m. Guests are encouraged to come in uniform and enjoy a complimentary drink and light refreshments, as well as additional wine and beer available for purchase. Admission is $20 per person, $10 for 10825members.EastBlvd., 216-721-5722, wrhs.org.

This annual festival features sidewalk artistry by professional chalk artists and local community groups, families, and individuals, all using Cleveland Museum of Art’s south plaza and walkways that wind through the Fine Arts Garden and down to Wade Lagoon as a colorful canvas. A modern expression of a Renaissance tradition from 16thcentury Italy in which beggars copied paintings of the Madonna by Raphael and his contemporaries using chalk on the plazas outside cathedrals, the festival takes place from noon to 5 p.m. today and tomorrow. Squares and boxes of chalk are available for $10 with on-site, day-of registration (supplies limited). No advance reservations will be taken.

WED 09/14

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 17 Duane Betts Johnny Stachela Barry Duane Oakley Thurs. Sept. 8 The Fixx with Jill Sobule Fri. Sept. 9 Jimmy Carter Former Blind Boys of Alabama Lead singer Sat. Sept. 10 An Evening with Al Di Meola Sun. Sept. 11 FamilyWatkinsHour Wed. Sept. 21 Steve Kimock & Friends Fri. Sept. 23 AT THE GOODYEAR THEATER Get tix at goodyeartheater.com or ticketmaster.com Re-CreationAShowSixtiesThe1960sMusical Sat., Nov. 5 ALSO COMING IN 2022 Sunday Sept. 25 | Jim Messina NEW! Sunday Oct. 9 | Messages & Miracles with Psychic Laura Lyn NEW! Friday Oct. 14 | Ekoostik Hookah NEW! Saturday Oct. 15 | Dark Side of The Moon Saturday Oct. 8 | Blues Traveler 35th Anniv. Show! Friday & Saturday | Jonah Koslen/Tommy Dobeck/ Oct. 21 & 22 Daniel Pecchio Songs & stories from the first three MSB albums Sunday, Oct. 23 | Martin Sexton Thursday, Oct. 27 | Jon McLaughlin with Kris Allen Wednesday Nov. 2 | Sophie B. Hawkins Thursday, Nov. 3 | Tab Benoit Friday Nov. 4 | Tim O’Brien/Jan Fribicius/ Chris Smither Saturday Nov. 5 | John McCutcheon’s Pete Seeger 100th B-Day Celebration NEW! Sunday Nov. 6 | John McEuen and The Circle Band NEW! Thursday Nov. 10 | JD Simo & Patrick Sweany Saturday Nov. 12 | Lucy Kaplansky NEW! Sunday Nov. 20 | Matt Kearny Acoustic Trio Tour NEW! Sun. Dec. 4 | Karla Bonoff/Livingston Taylor Holiday Show

Daniel Simonsen

SUN 09/18

Grammy nominated, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning actor, writer, producer, director and comedian Craig Ferguson has recorded numerous standup specials for Netﬂix, Epix, Comedy Central and Amazon. He brings his Fancy Rascal tour to Mimi Ohio Theatre tonight at 7:30. Tickets start at $45. 1511 Euclid Ave., playhousesquare.org.216-241-6000,

Guardians vs. Minnesota Twins

A showcase of sex-positive short ﬁlms, all curated by writer Dan Savage, the HUMP! Film Festival features dirty movies created by people who aren’t porn stars but want to be them just for this festival. The ﬁlms feature all kinds of body sizes, shapes, ages, colors, sexualities, genders, kinks, and fetishes. Tonight’s screening takes place at 7:30 at the Capitol. HUMP! has become a national phenomenon selling tens of thousands of tickets, screening in over 50 cities across the United States and Canada. 1390 West 65th St., clevelandcinemas.com.216-651-7295,

A series that will have a bearing on the division race concludes today as the Guardians and Minnesota Twins square off at 1:10 p.m. at Progressive Field, bringing a ﬁve-game series to a conclusion. The two teams have been neck-and-neck all season, and this is a game the Guards need to win to stay in contention for the 2401playoffs.Ontario St., mlb.com/guardians.216-420-4487, TUE 09/20

THU 09/15

“unparalleled feats playhousesquare.org.216-241-6000,

Little Shop of Horrors

Comedian Daniel Simonsen regularly performs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and won UK’s So You Think You’re Funny and Best Newcomer awards. His appearance on Russell Howard’s Good News garnered a whopping 2.4 million views on YouTube. He performs tonight at 7 at 2035Hilarities.East Fourth St., pickwickandfrolic.com.216-241-7425,

FRI 09/16

MON 09/19

Craig Ferguson

HUMP! Film Festival

Local rapper/promoter Dirty Jones and Scene’s own Manny Wallace host Shit Show Karaoke, a weekly event at the B-Side Liquor Lounge wherein patrons choose from “an unlimited selection of jams from hip-hop to hard rock,” and are encouraged to “be as bad as you want.” Fueled by drink and shot specials, it all goes down tonight at 10 p.m. Admission is 2785free.Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, bsideliquorlounge.com.216-932-1966,

of theatrical eroticism and hilarious ingenuity right before your very eyes,” as it’s put in a press release, as they bring their touring show to town tonight for a performance at 8 at Connor Palace. Tickets start at $38. 1615 Euclid Ave.,

SAT 09/17

D’Est

In conjunction with Contact, an exhibition conceived and organized by Renée Green for moCa Cleveland as part of FRONT International 2022, Green has curated a film series expanding on the exhibition’s exploration of the poetics of relation. The series takes place in Case Western Reserve University’s Strosacker Auditorium, and it includes a wide breadth of films by Green, her peers and the filmmakers who’ve been influential to the artist’s practice. Chantal Akermann’s D’Est screens tonight at 7. Admission is 2180free. Adelbert Rd., mocacleveland.org.216-421-8671, scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

The songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken are behind this sci-ﬁ musical that features popular favorites such as “Suddenly, Seymour,” “Skid Row,” and “Somewhere That’s Green.” The Great Lakes Theater Festival presents the play tonight at 7:30 at the Hanna Theatre, where performances continue through Oct. 9. Tickets start at $20. 2067 East 14th St., playhousesquare.org.216-241-6000,

Shitshow Karaoke

CORDELIA 2058 EAST 4 TH ST., CLEVELAND , CORDELIACLE.COM216-230-2355

TrattnerDougbyPhoto

EAT MAKIN’ GRANDMA PROUD

The youngest restaurant on East 4th St. is its most daring and delicious

IF YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE A restaurant as celebrated as Lola, pray that it gets replaced by one as fun and original as Cordelia. This distinctive new restaurant already has propelled East 4th Street back into culinary relevance while simultaneously giving the entire Cleveland dining scene the jumpstart it so desperately needed. In the kitchen, chef Vinnie Cimino reminds diners that eating out can still be exciting, daring and delicious. In the dining room, owner Andrew Watts exhibits a rare and extraordinary knack for making guests feel seen, heard and appreciated.Despitethe tender age of two months, Cordelia displays the maturity of a much more seasoned restaurant. From the city’s most dramatic open kitchen, Cimino calls out orders to his team at a volume commensurate with the din of the restaurant around him. The scene will look and sound familiar to regulars of the boisterous basement kitchen at Greenhouse Tavern during its heyday. From his side of the pass, the chef inspects and then dispatches plate after plate of technically complicated but supremely approachable food. When was the last time you picked up a menu and encountered dishes like tongue on toast, fried watermelon, smoked beef carpaccio, fish toast and corn ribs. Cimino’s contemporary takes on seasonal Midwest cookery are propelled by whimsy but grounded by execution and flavor. Start with a selection of “pantry snacks and relish trays” for the table. Served with heaps of grilled bread and deep-fried saltines, spreadable items like chive-topped pimento cheese with smoked chili powder, roasted garlic with local honey, and roasted carrot puree with hazelnuts offer a communal way to kick off a meal. Assemble a platter of three ($25) or five ($38) snacks so you don’t skip over bites like jammy soft-cooked eggs with Japanese seasoning and pinwheels of thinsliced country ham wrapped around crisp pickles. At Cordelia, every dish comes with a story but never at the expense of the food. The “overdressed” greens ($12), a salad liberally topped with cheese and tossed in a silky white French dressing, are an homage to Luigi’s in Akron. The fat noodles ($18) star the same sort of “handkerchief” pasta that the chef grew up enjoying; here the free-form noodles are topped with charred sweet corn, pistachio crumbs and a kick of chili-fueled heat. Evoking the flavors of a pastrami on rye from the Jewish deli, the tongue on toast ($15) is an open-face stack of thin-sliced, butter-soft tongue on plush bread with pickles and mustard seeds. If you make it past the crunchy armor-like shell of Cordelia’s brined and buttermilk-fried chicken, which is sold as a leg-and-thigh combo ($14) or entire spatchcocked bird ($42), you’ll find some of the sweetest, juiciest poultry in town. That meat tastes even better after being dunked in the indulgent pimento cheese butter. As much fun as they sound, corn ribs ($15) are curled sections of corn on the cob that are grilled to order, glazed with miso-honey butter and sprinkled with dukkah spice. When it comes to the smashburger wars, Cordelia might have fired the parting shot. Dubbed the Burger Box ($21), this four-slider, pull-apart affair on airy everything bread features the customary beef, pickles and special sauce. But it’s the epic cheese skirt, a tortilla-size disc of griddle-toasted cheese, that leaves a lasting impression. It’s nice to see a resident pastry chef back in this space. During our visit, Ryan Boone was dishing up tahi-nut-butter and jelly ($8), a nutty tahini custard topped with plum jam, and a pitch-perfect choco taco ($9), a waffle cone filled with pistachio ice cream and dipped in chocolate.Todrink, there is a great selection of unique, boutique, and often lowintervention wines, with a reasonable number of by-the-glass options. The craft draft, can and bottle list leaves room for a few fun goses, sours, lambics and ciders. Rounding out the beverage program is a roster of classic and creative cocktails, often with Latin flair. A year’s worth of interior work has left the former Lola space lighter, brighter and more lively thanks to a greatly expanded bar and lounge area. Best described as granny chic, the colorful restaurant artfully melds mix-and-match cane-backed furniture, vintage silver and tableware and grand floral-print wallpaper. Other notable improvements to the property include an enlarged kitchen counter, broader front patio and retractable frontNotwindows.onlyhas East 4th Street gained an exceptional new independent eatery, it also has added some legendary exterior signage to its already impressive collection. The stunning 1940s-inspired signs with animated lights help bookend the robust and, at long last, fully occupied street in the heart of downtown. dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 19

By Douglas Trattner

| clevescene.com | September 7-20, 202220

Jill Vedaa and Jessica Parkison’s new Gordon Square venture will be a Spanish tapas and paella restaurant called Evelyn

The Chocolate Bar in Downtown Cleveland Has Permanently Closed Through downtown closings and openings over the last decade-plus, The Chocolate Bar has, somehow, stood its ground at the end of East 4th St. on Euclid Ave., an impervious ganache existing despite and amid shifting culinary trends. Now, citing “continuous staffing challenges,” it will no more. The local franchise of the Buffaloborn chain, which still has spots there, as well as in Georgia and, believe it or not, two locations in Kuwait, drew fans for its extensive dessert menu but was, as Scene wrote in 2010, a world away from the quality of its neighbors across the street on East 4th. It announced the closure in the last days of August on Facebook, saying: “The Chocolate Bar thanks you for your 13 years of loyal patronage. Due to continuous staffing challenges, The Chocolate Bar must close its doors. It has become too difficult with the lack of staff to provide our loyal customers with the quality of service they deserve. It has been a pleasure to serve you and be a part of the many birthday celebrations, rehearsal dinners, retirement parties,bachelorette parties and graduation festivities that were celebrated here. Remember: Everything is BETTER with Chocolate!”

By Douglas Trattner

THREE MONTHS AFTER CHEF Jill Vedaa and partner Jessica Parkison shared news that they’d scooped up the former Spice spot in Gordon Square for a new venture, they’re ready to share just what they have in Whenstore.itopens next September, Evelyn, named after Vedda’s mother, will ﬁnd the pair behind Salt dishing up “elevated tapas,” which they said in an Instagram post today doesn’t mean small plates, and paella. “Between the two of us, we’ve always had a love for all things Spanish,” they said. “The food, culture, wine, sherrys... It made sense that our next space would highlight just that.” If you want a sneak peek of what might make its way onto Evelyn’s menu, make a reservation or stop by Salt on Oct. 16 for a preview event. Work is underway at the space and Vedaa earlier this summer told Scene how excited they are to be a part of the neighborhood and for the neighborhood to set eyes on the renovations.“Wereally want to change how it looks inside. Because it was such an iconic restaurant for so long, we want people to walk in and think that this is a different place. We’re not in a huge rush because we want to make sure it’s the way we want it,” she said. “This is prime. The amount of people that are in that area already and will be in the next ﬁve to 10 years is insane.”

Future of Fahrenheit Spot in Tremont Up in the Air Chef Rocco Whalen says that a recent real estate listing for the Tremont building that houses Fahrenheit was as much of a surprise to him as it was to the rest of the neighborhood. The listing of 820 Jefferson Avenue by Progressive Urban Real Estate has an asking price of “This$1,490,000.wasoutofleft ﬁeld,” Whalen says. “It’s not me selling the building; I don’t own the parcel. The owner of the building decided that he was going to list the building for 1.49.” Whalen currently is building a new two-story home for Fahrenheit in the former John Q’s Steakhouse property by Public Square. The chef’s plan was to convert the Tremont space into a new concept, which he already has mapped out in hisThemind.property owner, Mark LaGrange, sees the situation differently. LaGrange says that Whalen will reach the end of his lease in seven months and that he has thus far made no commitment to sign a new lease or make attempts to convert Fahrenheit to a new concept. It is LaGrange’s desire to sell the building to someone who will operate a new“Hisrestaurant.leaseisup in March,” LaGrange reports. “He’s leaving and he’s given me no indication that he wants to stay. We’re getting pretty close; we’re six, seven months away. I ﬁgured I would give someone an opportunity to put a nice restaurant there to own the building.” By listing the building now, while Fahrenheit is still operating, LaGrange says potential buyers would have a great opportunity to see the space in action. “We have to keep Tremont alive,” adds LaGrange. “My main consideration is to keep a restaurant in there. I still own Edison’s and it brings me business when there are diners on either side of me.” Whalen would love to own the building, but the price puts it out of reach, he says. “If it was about half that price I’d probably just grab it and call it a day, but that’s an awful lot of money.”

EAT BITES

It’s only been a year and a half since Tommy Karakostas opened Tost Sandwich Café (13427 Madison Ave., 216-801-4243) in Lakewood, but two more locations already are in the works. Before the end of the year, the longtime owner of the Greek Village will open new Tost shops in Ohio City and KarakostasTremont.says that while he was working on the Ohio City location, he was approached by a developer about a possible Tremont outpost. Now, the two shops are moving forward simultaneously, with the Tremont store likely to open first. That property presently is taking shape at the Scranton Avenue Carriage Works (2341 Scranton Rd.), at the intersection of Scranton and Kenilworth.TheOhio City store will anchor the Jamestown building on Detroit at W. 28th Street, just west of The Quarter.TheEuropean-style deli, café and market is known for creative, well-built sandwiches, coffee drinks, pastries, and gourmet pantry items. Karakostas says that Ohio City and Tremont shoppers will find everything they love about the Lakewood store and more. “People will find the exact same selection and menu, but in Ohio City we will be opening earlier and serving breakfast out of there seven days,” he explains. “And in Tremont, we’ll also be serving breakfast but we’re going to add a mini-market area with more produce, bread and things like Karakostas,that.”who owns the 14-year-old Greek Village in Lakewood, says that the second Greek Village store in Ohio City is on track to open this fall after a handful of delays.

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 21 SaltcourtesyPhoto

Lakewood’s Tost Sandwich Cafe to Add Locations in Ohio City and Tremont

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner Jill Vedaa and Jessica Parkinson.

By Jeff Niesel BEFORE THEY FORMED

A LOOSER APPROACH

HOLY ASTRONOID,FAWN,OLAMESA 7 P.M. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 14, FOUNDRY CONCERT CLUB, 11729 DETROIT AVE., 440-637-5483. TICKETS: $15 FOUNDRYCONCERTCLUB.COM.ADV,

Holy Fawn polishes its immersive sound on well-crafted new album

THE shoegaze/metal/post-rock act Holy Fawn, bassist Alex Rieth, guitarist Evan Phelps and singer-guitarist Ryan Osterman all worked together at a Guitar Center in Phoenix. After Osterman’s band Owl & Penny came to an end, the three decided to jam together with drummer Austin Reinholz. At that point, Rieth says he knew the group had something special.“Webonded over a shared like of music, and our personalities really meshed with each other,” says Rieth in a recent interview from his Phoenix home. Holy Fawn performs on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at the Foundry in Lakewood. “I listened to a lot of metal. I think the first CD I ever owned was the Locust, which really blew any conception I had about music out of the water. I liked Pantera, Megadeth and Metallica. I discovered modern metal with Lamb of God and Slipknot. We had a threehour long instrumental improv jam session together. From that moment, we knew we had something to work with. We just rode the same rhythm or melody, and it was definitely in the post-rock vein of things.” After putting out an EP in 2018, the group really raised some eyebrows when it released its full-length debut, Death Spells, an ambitiously atmospheric album that drew from both metal and post-rock and comes off as a heavier Sigur Ros, the Icelandic post-rock band that Osterman idolizes. “It took a while because we’re all neurotic perfectionists and as we were recording it, we moved a bunch and went to different spaces and our gear got better,” says Rieth when asked about the making of the album. “It took about two years to finish that record because there were so many moving parts. It was super rewarding. I have so many fond memories of putting that album together and watching it grow into the beast that it became. It was surreal when Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe named it his album of the year. I lost my mind. I couldn’t believe that. It’s rewarding to see it received the way it was.”

MUSIC

The band followed the album up with The Black Moon, an EP of tunes that Osterman wrote right after Death“TheSpellsbiggest difference with that album was that we brought in Matt Bayless to record and engineer it,” Rieth says. “It was the first time with an outside producer. He’s done records with Mastodon and Isis — landmark albums. Getting to work with him was great. He’s in Seattle, but we recorded in Phoenix. He flew down for four or five days and he guided us in what we were doing.” The pandemic forced the band to take a completely different approach for its latest effort, Dimensional Bleed “With Dimensional Bleed, we couldn’t craft the songs in a live setting,” he says. “Dimensional Bleed was written almost entirely in the studio. There are songs we have never played together as a full band. Production-wise, we were a little looser. At the time, not knowing where the future of live music would be, we just wanted to make a really cool record with great atmosphere and would figure out how to play it liveThislater.”time around, they enlisted Mike Watts (the Dillinger Escape Plan, Glassjaw, the Dear Hunter) for mixing and additional production and Mike Kalajian for mastering. The first single, “Death is a Relief,” begins quietly but escalates before concluding with somber vocals that make it sound as if a children’s choir is singing. “That was the first new song that came into the early phases of putting the album together,” says Rieth when asked about the track. “Ryan [Osterman] writes most of the record. He had this germ of an idea. We were happy with it. It’s one of our favorites on the album. It was a cool way to start out the process. With the vocals, a lot of it is both Ryan and Austin [Reinholz]. Austin did a lot of singing on the album. Austin does the mixing too and will add layers. We did a lot of production work on this album. It’s his magic touch that’s contributing to the vocals you hear at the end.” Rieth says the band is still getting its set list together and finding a way to work backing tracks into the set that will provide extra synthesizers and auxiliary percussion.“Ofthefour of us, we have a wide variety of music we like,” says Rieth. “Atmospheric music is maybe the one ingredient we all collectively love. We all enjoy it greatly. It comes naturally when we’re playing. Some of the songs we’ve played so often, we don’t even need to practice them. We’re still breaking in the new songs and putting in as much work as possible. I think the backing track will really beef things up. We’re really excited about the headlining run.” jniesel@clevescene.com @jniesel BarthCharlesPhoto: Holy Fawn.

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| clevescene.com | September 7-20, 202224

By Jeff Niesel IDLES.

WHEN SINGER JOE TALBOT started the post-punk band IDLES back in 2009, it was in response to what he perceived as a rather lackluster music scene in Bristol, England.“Westarted the band with the premise that there were a lot of bands around who were driven by ego and not by the passion of live music,” he says in a recent Zoom call from Brussels with guitarist Mark Bowen by his side. IDLES performs on Friday, Sept. 9, at the Agora. “I wanted to start a band that exudes passion. I had good friends of mine — Bowen and [bassist] [Adam] Dev[onshire] — that I knew had the same energy that I had. I was a fan, and I wanted to feel that. I wanted to make something that represented what was missing in my world. I wanted to see it every night, and now I do. And now we do.” As much as IDLES launched to “fill a gap,” as Talbot puts it, the group was not alone. “A lot of our contemporaries were influences,” he says. “It wasn’t just bands from before. There were also Metz, Preoccupations, Protomartyr and Ice Age. There were so many great bands exploding at the same time. It felt like a wave of energy and people making something from a gap. It was a great time, and it is a great time. They’re all still creating amazing music. Before that, I wouldn’t say it was guitar music that led us to where we are. Before that, I was into hip-hop and techno and all sorts of other stuff. Post-punk was where we started. That wasn’t from a sense of history. That was from a sense of necessity. That was what we wanted to make together. That was what we knew we could make together well. It just felt right. It was appropriate that we made that music because that’s what we were all excited about at the time.” Talbot and Bowen say they tried to be as “blunt as possible” on the band’s 2017 full-length debut, Brutalism, as well as the albums that immediately followed it. “[By the time of Brutalism], we were really starting to find a groove,” says Bowen. “We got it, and the album came very quickly. It was representative of us at the time. We had become prolific in a short amount of time. Also, the press doesn’t really take EPs seriously. They might see it as an interesting document if a band is between albums. But people aren’t really concerned about precursors unless you’re hype as hell. For us, it was a natural growth. The LP is our niche now. It helps us explain ourselves. We have enough space and nuance, as we discovered on our last album, Crawler, to represent who we are as people and who we are as a band.”

“To be honest, addiction and recovery and a yearning to be part of something bigger than yourself is something I’ve been working for 13 years,” says Talbot when asked about his approach to the songs on Crawler, adding that viewing art exhibitions inspire him more than books. “It’s my process. It’s the only thing I know how to write about. It comes out in different ways and different subjects. For me, it’s how I write a song and not what I write about that is a challenge and point of interest. All I can write about is what it’s in my head. I don’t force a subject, but I can change and explore and challenge myself in ways that it comes out. It’s more to do with poetry and prose and melody and rhythm and the structure and how I useAwords.”performance here at the Beachland Ballroom in 2019 provided the inspiration for the melancholy tune appropriately dubbed “The Beachland Ballroom.”

IDLES, INJURY RESERVE 7 P.M. FRIDAY, SEPT. 9, AGORA THEATRE, 5000 EUCLID AVE., 216-881-2221. TICKETS: $32.50-$60, AGORACLEVELAND.COM. jniesel@clevescene.com t @jniesel HamTomPhoto: rockers IDLES bring their dynamic live show to Agora

MUSIC

the

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 25

A more introspective effort, Crawler ﬁnds Talbot exploring his personal battles with addiction. The album opens with the moody “MTT 420 RR,” an ominous song that ﬁnds Talbot speaking more than singing in a Nick Cave-like baritone.

“It was a really good show,” says Talbot when asked about the gig. “It was a good crowd. [It was a] fun crowd. It was a killer lineup. [The Beachland] is one of my favorite venues in the world.” With its mix of heavy rockers (“The Wheel”) and industrial strength atmospheric numbers (“When the Lights Come On”), Crawler suggests just how much the band has evolved since its early“Withdays.the ﬁrst albums, my ego wanted me to be seen as this intellectual thing,” says Talbot. “I knew that would ruin the songwriting. You become pretentious when you let your ego work toward something like that. It’s often shit and dishonest. I wanted to strip myself of that and strip myself of the poetics and intellectualism. Now, I’ve done that. We killed it in the hip-hop sense. We murdered it. We did it to death because we wanted to do that. Now, I can challenge myself with some poetry and whatever the fuck I feel like that day.”

RAW POWER Brit

I did it when there was no money.

jniesel@clevescene.com t @jniesel

By Jeff Niesel

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 27

culture.Hehosts

Talk about selling your mixtapes back in the day. What was that like? I used to sit on the street corner. They got so big that they revolutionized the DJ business and how music was played and how a DJ should look and sound and perform. It wasn’t just about my mixtape. I take all those things together and still bring them together on the stage. That was my way of doing it. When I did it, it blew up to a world-wide thing. Before I did it, it wasn’t that big. After I did it, it became a world-wide phenomenon and DJs took my path in terms of how I sounded and how I looked and performed. They took that path, which is a good thing because before me a DJ wasn’t really making no bread. How’d you wind up DJing on major networks like HBO, BET and VH1? It came from me grinding the streets and making myself known for making albums and movies. Besides talent, it’s how you treat people. I was really good at that. Fortunately, it brought me a lot of different things. Talk about working with Jay-Z on “Hard Knock Life.” Jay is cool. He don’t write nothing down on paper. He thinks in his head. It comes out the way it comes out. I’ve known him for a long time. My manager started working with Roc-a-fella first and then started managing me, so that relationship goes way back. When I gave him “Hard Knock Life,” that opened the doors in a big, big way. It was going on my album, and I gave it to him for his album. It was a good thing. You’ve performed with Jennifer Lopez. Talk about that. I opened for her in Vegas. I’ve also worked with Kendrick Lamar. I’ve worked with everybody. Everybody is people just doing what they’re doing and having fun. I did Martha Stewart’s first party when she came out of jail. I did so many things. I did a party for Michael Jordan and on and on. Earlier this year, you released The Love. When did those songs start to come together? I sat down during the pandemic to focus on other things. I just wanted to focus on this one project. We wanted to do something different. I produced and wrote the whole album. My album Soundtrack to the Streets was the first of its kind. It was a producer album with all the rappers — Jay-Z and Busta and Nas — before all the DJ albums came out. With The Love, I didn’t want to do the same thing. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make the record I wanted to make. I didn’t need a whole bunch of people on it. It came out good, and people loved it. It offers a positive perspective at a time when it’s hard to be positive about anything. Absolutely. I wanted to be different from everybody else. When everybody is doing the same thing, I wanted to stand out. As much as I appreciate the messages in the songs, the beats are there too. I did all the beats. I did all the vocals. I did everything. I didn’t put no mainstream artists on it. My mother is on the front cover, and my daughter is on the second single and video, “Uptown.” It’s not just typical album that has two songs and that’s it. It’s a full body of work.

What will the live show be like? We’re going to stomp it out. It’s party time. We all come to have a good time. We’re going to turn Cleveland up all the way to 10. That’s it.

MUSIC

ClevelandFestFreshofCourtesyPhoto: Kid Capri.

Fresh Fest Cleveland headliner Kid Capri discusses his illustrious hip-hop career

GRAMMY WINNING DJ AND producer Kid Capri famously started scratching when he was only 8. His career would subsequently take off after he began circulating his mixtapes in the Bronx. Reportedly, the ﬁrst DJ to perform on major networks like HBO, BET and VH1, Capri continues to promote hip-hop a Sirius radio show that features both “old school jams and new school bangers,” as it’s put in a press release. In a recent phone interview, he spoke about his new album, The Love, which just came out earlier this year. Kid Capri headlines Fresh Fest Cleveland, which takes place on Saturday, Sept. 10, at Rid-All Farm & Otter Park. Talk about those early days when you would scratch records on your dad’s Zenith stereo system. What inspired you to take up scratching at such a young age? It was a hobby. It was something we did when we were growing up. When I was a little kid, that was just what I did. What kind of music did you play? Everything. I played all kinds of music. That’s how I grew up and what we would listen to in our household. That’s what we listened to. It was a lot of soul music.

Do you remember your ﬁrst paying gig? Yeah. I do. It wasn’t a lot of money, but I was happy to get paid. I knew if I could get paid that little bit of money, big things would come later.

HE’S GOT THE BEATS

I appreciated it a little more when I started getting the money. It was at a hotel in Manhattan. It was my ﬁrst big show I did with all these other big-name artists.

| clevescene.com | September 7-20, 202228

| clevescene.com | September 7-20, 202230

The up-and-coming rock band Dirty Honey rolls into House of Blues tonight with fellow Los Angelesbased rock band Dorothy and Detroit rockers Mac Saturn. Dirty Honey’s single “When I’m Gone” suggests the band owes a debt to both AC/DC and Black Crowes, both of whom it channels in the hard rocking tune. The show starts at 6:30. Consult the club’s website for more info. 308 Euclid Ave., houseofblues.com.216-523-2583,

Real music in the real world

This 17-year-old indie rock artist’s three EPs to date — cypress grove, all dogs go to heaven (plus its deluxe edition old dog, new tricks) and then i’ll be happy with ericdoa— have received widespread critical acclaim. Most recently, he released the jittery single “minnesota” and collaborated with Machine Gun Kelly on “more than life.” He performs at 8 tonight at the Beachland Ballroom. Tickets cost $25.

The talented jazz fusion guitarist comes to the Kent Stage tonight at 8. Tickets start at $48. 175 E. Main St., Kent, 330-677-5005, kentstage.org.

This popular group scored seven straight Top Ten hits in the U.K. and six Top Ten singles in the U.S. with tunes such as “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,” “Time (Clock of the Heart),” “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya,” “Church of the Poison Mind,” “Karma Chameleon,” “Miss Me Blind” and “It’s a Miracle.” It performs tonight at 8 at MGM Northfield Park — Center 10705Stage. Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, mgmresorts.com/en.html.mgmnorthfieldpark.

Gary Clark Jr. Gary Clark Jr. exploded out of Austin, Texas, winning pretty much every award at SXSW in 2012 and then nabbing a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance. Clark Jr., who portrays American blues singer-songwriter Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup in Baz Luhrmann’s new film, Elvis, has been plenty busy lately. In addition to sustaining a career as a terrific blues/rock guitarist, he recently served as served as the official Music Director for Jon Stewart’s acceptance of the 23rd Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. At work on his fourth full-length, Clark Jr. will perform tonight at 8 at MGM Northfield Park — Center Stage. 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, mgmresorts.com/en.html.mgmnorthfieldpark.

FRI 09/16 Boy George & Culture Club

The Dream Syndicate

WED 09/14

NationLiveofCourtesyPhoto: Gary Clark Jr. comes to MGM Northﬁeld Park — Center Stage. See: Tuesday, Sept. 13. scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

Dirty Honey

LIVEWIRE

Jimmy Carter A member of the Blind Boys of Alabama for 40 years and has sung for three presidents, won ﬁve Grammy Awards, been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and collaborated with the likes of Willie Nelson, Marc Cohn, Ben Harper, Peter Gabriel, Mavis Staples and Robert Randolph. He comes to the Kent Stage tonight at 6:30. Tickets start at $30. 175 E. Main St., Kent, 330-677-5005, kentstage.org.

Tenacious D Tenacious D — Jack Black and Kyle Gass — will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their platinumcertiﬁed self-titled debut, which came out in September of 2001. The comedic duo writes tongue-in-cheek rock songs that explicitly act as heavy metal parodies even if they’re good songs in their own right. The concert begins at 8 tonight at 1145Blossom.W.Steels Corners Rd., Cuyahoga Falls, 216-231-1111, livenation.com.

Since he started performing with his backing band, the Fly-Rite Boys, some 30 years ago, singer-guitarist Big Sandy has continually attracted new young fans and introduced them to Western swing and rockabilly.

The reconstituted group comes to the Grog Shop to mark the 40th anniversary of the album and will play it in its entirety. The concert begins at 8 p.m. 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.

The Dream Syndicate singerguitarist Steve Wynn discovered punk rock and garage rock when he was in college. So when he came back home to Los Angeles, he decided to form a band that would combine those two loves. Sounding like a cross between the Velvet Underground and Television, the band’s 1982 debut, Days of Wine and Roses, resonated with rock critics and fanatics alike. The band would eventually sign with a major label before calling it quits in 1988.

SUN 09/11

An Evening with Al DiMeola

The Get Up Kids ﬁrst got together in 1995 and the band was a major player in the mid-’90s emo scene, along with Green Day and Weezer. After signing to Vagrant Records in 1999, the band released Something to Write Home About. The album was a massive success and singlehandedly made Vagrant Records one of the top independent labels in the country. Since then, the Get Up Kids have been a major inﬂuence on bands like Blink-182, Fall Out Boy and Hellogoodbye. The group brings its 25th anniversary tour to the Grog Shop tonight. The concert begins at 8:30. 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.

Sandy recently released an album of old tunes that he’s rearranged into acoustic instrumentals. His music, which recalls the type of music that was popular decades ago, has an easygoing vibe that appeals to fans of traditional country and rockabilly alike. He’s been playing Cleveland for years and always puts on a good show. He performs tonight at 8 at the Beachland Tavern. Tickets cost $15 in advance, $18 at the door. 15711 Waterloo Rd., beachlandballroom.com.216-383-1124,

Moon Man’s Landing

TUE 09/20 glaive

A Cleveland native, rapper Kid Cudi has curated his Moon Man’s Landing music festival that’s headed to the West Bank of the Flats today.

A proliﬁc composer, Al DiMeola has released more than 30 albums as a leader while collaborating on a dozen or so others with the likes of Return to Forever (with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White), Acoustic Guitar Trio and Jean-Luc Ponty.

Playboi Carti, Haim, Pusha T, Don Toliver, Mike Dean, Chip Tha Ripper, 070 Shake, Dominic Fike and DJ E-V and Bone Thugs-NHarmony are set to perform. Check the website for more moonmanslanding.com.info.

The Get Up Kids

TUE 09/13

SAT 09/17 Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys

SUN 09/18

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 31 SAT 09/10

Courtesy photo

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 33

By Jeff Niesel MEET THE BAND: Matt Moody (vocals, guitar)

GOING THE SOLO ROUTE: Moody says his new album, Still a Kid in a Painted Sky, represents his ﬁrst true solo effort. “I produced it,” he says. “I used all Cleveland players on it. I wanted to write the songs and produce them the way I wanted. It was less a band effort and more like, ‘Here’s my vision, and I want to do it exactly the way I see it.’ They’re all recent tunes except for the song ‘Graveyard,’ which I’ve had for about ten years.” He recorded drums and grand pianos and some of the guitars in Cleveland with producer Jim Stewart. “Everything else was recorded in my bedroom studio,” he says. “The guys who did the horns ﬂew in the tracks. They did that at their home studio. It was kind of a hodgepodge.”

THE CONNECTION:CLEVELAND

L.A.-based singersongwriter Matt Moody grew up in a suburb outside of Cleveland and didn’t initially think much about becoming a performer. Hearing Nirvana for the ﬁrst time changed all that and set him on course to explore singing and songwriting. Over the course of his career, Moody, who got his start with the Cleveland-based hard rock act Shred Rot in the 2010s, has worked with established artists like Steve Cropper (Booker T. & the MG’s), John Corabi (Motley Crue), Johnny Garcia (Garth Brooks) and Jim Wirt (Incubus, Fiona Apple). He’s also collaborated with local musicians such as Ray Flanagan and Mimi Arden. “There was always a good music scene in Cleveland from as long as I can remember,” he says. “The scenes would change according to what style of music I was playing. With Shred Rot, there was always [venues such as] Peabody’s or the Phantasy or the Foundry. We were playing heavier music, and that’s where we played. Doing the songwriter thing, through Brent Kirby’s 10x3 and Brother’s Lounge, I found a community in the songwriter scene as well. I always found the Cleveland music scene has been supportive and big enough to explore and still meet new people.” After Shred Rot, Moody released a few singles as M. Moody before becoming a full-ﬂedged solo act.

WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR HIM: Still a Kid in a Painted Sky opens with “Shifting Candlelight,” a mid-tempo pop tune that starts with a soundbite from a John Wayne movie before shifting into twangy guitars and cooing vocals. Moody comfortably slips into a near falsetto for “Cutting You Loose,” a tune buttressed by bluesy guitar riff. Clevelanders Jacob Wynne and David Kasper liven up tunes such as “John Wayne” with spirited horn playing. “They did a great job,” he says of the duo. “I just told them to go for it. I was hearing some melodies, but I just trusted those guys. They’re both pros. What they sent me back, I just loved, so I kept it all. I had never tracked horns on a record before. I really wanted to make a big statement with this record. Horns add a liveliness that other instruments tend to miss sometimes.” Moody co-wrote the album closer “Miller Light” with local singer-songwriter Hannah Stak. “We wrote it the way we recorded it — on an acoustic guitar,” says Moody. “We tried tracking it a few different ways, and it didn’t feel right. At the very end of the whole recording process, we had everything tracked and were going to go into the mixing phase, and we capped it off by sitting in front of this big ribbon microphone at Jim Stewart’s studio and gave Lee Kolarik, who played drums on the record, a shaker and tambourine. We laid it down in one take, and It felt like a great way to end the record.” Local singer-guitarist Ray Flanagan contributes to the tune “Driftin’.” “I sent [Flanagan] the song, and he recorded at home and sent me what he had, and I loved it,” says Moody, who adds he’ll release another EP in the fall.

MATT MOODY

WHERE YOU CAN HEAR HIM: mattismoody.com. WHERE YOU CAN SEE HIM: Matt Moody performs with Mr. Carnivore and Michelle Gaw at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 16, at CODA. scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene Matt Moody.

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Hey Dan: I’m a 38-year-old cis het woman who is also a public high school teacher in a small town. After a string of unsatisfying relationships in my 20s, I realized that I’ve only experienced sexual pleasure without a partner. Despite being excited by the idea of partnered sex, once there’s a dick inside me, I hate it. Only one thing still seemed appealing: receiving oral sex. I’d love that with someone skilled. By age 33, I gave up dating since finding a partner only interested in going down on me seemed both impossible and selfish. I put all my energy into my career, my family, and my community. After years of fighting the fascism that is gaining hold in our public schools, I’m burnt out and my standard selfcare routines aren’t cutting it. I’m considering seeking companionship once again. Is there an easy way to find a partner interested in eating me out but not (or only rarely) anything else? I know the best options are the apps but there are parents as well as former students on those. I already have a target on my back as a liberal teacher. I can’t afford to get caught seeking sex online and the time and energy to date before disclosing my sexual preference sounds exhausting. I don’t want another apple-themed gift. I want my pussy licked.

Why would anyone want to be a teacher these days? Outraged parents, shit pay, shittier governors, racist demagoguery, book bans, “don’t say gay” laws … and on top of all that, not being free to look for sex where everyone else does these days —on the apps — because you might get spotted by a parent who is also looking for sex on the apps and then get attacked at a schoolboard meeting that makes the local news and goes viral and then have to endure a month of death threats after getting dragged on Libs of TikTok and Fox News. According to ABC News, fewer and fewer people these days do want to be teachers. There are 300,000 teacher and school staff vacancies in the United States right now, a situation the Washington Post describes as “catastrophic,” with red states and Trump counties experiencing the worst shortages. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, as red states and rural areas are overrun with precisely the kind of deranged Trump supporters and other assorted conspiracy theorists who keep attacking teachers and school librarians and administrators. But there are shortages of teachers in more progressive places too, TACO, which means you could easily get a job in a big city in a blue state. Not only would you be less likely to be spotted on the apps by a parent with a kid in your school in a blue state (because there a lot more people on the apps in big cities), you would also be far less likely to be attacked by a parent who did spot you on an app. (Less likely to get attacked, more likely to get licked.) And just as the governors of blue states think you should be able to teach about, oh, slavery and redlining and segregation and Jim Crow (and the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese internment camps during WWII and the Trail of Tears and on and on), most blue-state governors would be fine with you getting your pussy licked — on your own time, by other consenting adults — if that’s what you want. Hoping to get some tips from other teachers, I shared your email on Twitter. Suggestions ranged from getting on FetLife, which can be a problematic place, to checking out — and perhaps posting on — the r/ RandomActsOfMuffDive subreddit on Reddit. And more than a few of my followers wondered whether you might prefer a woman to a man, seeing as you never really cared for dick.Being a gay dude, however, I know plenty of people who are attracted to men but don’t enjoy getting fucked. (Some guys are tops, some guys are sides.) Luckily for you, TACO, there are straight and bi men out there who only want to eat pussy. I’ve heard from scores of them over the years. Some had severe erectile dysfunction and preferred succeeding at cunnilingus to failing at vaginal intercourse; others were straight male submissives who wanted to orally service a woman without getting anything in return; and more than a few were men who loved eating pussy and somehow wound up married to women who hated oral sex and these men wanted to find women to go down on — and just go down on — outside their relationships, with their wives’ permission (in some cases) or without it (in most cases). But to find them you’re going to have to get on the apps, TACO, which may mean getting out of your small town. Hey Dan: Gay kinky sub here and after quite a few years of meeting guys in bars, online, apps, etc., I’m questioning if there are ... Go to savage.love to read the rest! questions@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage www.savage.love Joe Newton

By Dan Savage

September 7-20, 2022 | clevescene.com | 35

There is more to this week’s Savage Love. To read the entire column, go to savage.love.

SAVAGE LOVE SCHOOLED ME ONCE

Teacher After Cunnilingus Only

Scene September 7, 2022

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