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| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
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| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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CONTENTS FEBRUARY 14 - 27, 2024 • VOL. 54 No 16
Upfront .......................................6
Music ........................................19
Feature .......................................8
Livewire....................................21
Get Out ..................................... 14
Savage Love..............................22
1970-2024
Eat ............................................16 Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Publisher Denise Polverine
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| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
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“Cleveland Scene Magazine” COVER PHOTO BY MARK OPREA | DESIGN BY SAMANTHA SERNA
10th THE UAL ANN
23rd, 2024
VENUE
START
END
ARTIST
ADDRESS
101 Bottles
7:00 PM
9:00 PM
Mother Ale
115 N. Willow St.
157 Lounge
7:30 PM
9:30 PM
Gordan & the Gal
157 S. Water St.
Barflyy
7:00 PM
10:00PM
Revolution Pie
100 E. Erie St.
Belleria
7:00 PM
9:00 PM
Blue Moondogs
135 E. Erie St. #202
Bell Tower Brewing
6:00 PM
9:00 PM
Babies In Black
310 Park Ave.
Bricco
7:00 PM
9:00 PM
Rob Covert
210 S. Depeyster St.
Buffalo Wild Wings
6:30 PM
9:30 PM
The Jillettes
176 E. Main St.
Dominick's Pub
7:00 PM
11:00 PM
Abbey Road
147 Franklin Ave.
Kent State Hotel
6:00 PM
9:00 PM
Get Back
215 S. Depeyster St.
Last Exit Books & Cafe
8:00 PM
10:00 PM
Ella Choi
124 E. Main St.
Laziza
6:00 PM
8:00 PM
OPUS 216
195 E. Erie St.
The Loft
6:00 PM
9:00 PM
Jon Donnegan
112 W. Main St.
North Water Brewing
5:00 PM
7:00 PM
Hey Monea!
101 Crain Ave
7:30 PM
9:30 PM
The Reatles
Paninis
9:00 PM
12:00 AM
Mississippi Wheelhouse
295 S. Water St.
The Pub
9:00 PM
11:30 PM
Mike Binder & Priscella
401 Franklin Ave.
Ray's Place
8:00 PM
11:00 PM
Blue Shift
135 Franklin Ave.
Venice Cafe
8:00 PM
11:00 PM
Liverpool Lads
163 W. Erie St.
Water Street Tavern
6:00 PM
9:00 PM
Up Til 4
132 S. Water St.
Zephyr
8:00 PM
11:00 PM
The Sunrise Jones
106 W. Main St.
February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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BLAINE GRIFFIN DENIES PLAYING POLITICS WITH HOMELESS FUNDING FOR NEOCH LAST YEAR, AS A grassroots campaign launched around Issue 38, a variety of local organizations came out in support of the participatory budgeting push, including the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. NEOCH contributed $17,200 in cash and other assistance in backing the ballot issue that squared with its mission and, it hoped, would lead to more funding and representation for unhoused Clevelanders in the future. “We saw that PB CLE could be a way for [the unhoused] to have deeper civic engagement,” said NEOCH’s Executive Director Chris Knestrick. The issue, vehemently opposed by Cleveland city council, narrowly failed at the ballot, but the repercussions are still being felt. Recently, Council okayed legislation that would send $225,000 in city funds to NEOCH and the Metanoia Project to fund emergency shelter work on the west side. But Council President Blaine Griffin, and Council’s Finance, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee didn’t approve the funds without conditions: NEOCH will have to send the city detailed receipts every 30 days on how it’s spending the money, as Signal Cleveland first reported. Without mentioning PB Cle specifically, Griffin painted NEOCH as an organization that had worked against council. And two weeks ago, hours after deploying new rules at Monday’s council meeting that would allow him to boot disruptive protestors from chambers, Griffin told Scene it wasn’t council that had brought politics into the equation but NEOCH. “We have some serious concerns whenever we fund organizations that then in turn create a political arm, and for lack of a better word, utilize it to work against us,” Griffin said, standing in Council Chambers. Griffin green-lit the dollars, he said, “because we care
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more about those folks that are unhoused as opposed to getting political retribution. “We believe that people should organize,” he added. “We believe that people should engage residents. But we did not pay for them to lobby, put ballot initiatives and have staff people and other folks work against the interests of what we believe is the best of the city.” A day after Cuyahoga County doled out $3.9 million to fund a suite of homeless outreach initiatives, Knestrick remained perplexed by Griffin’s take. He told Scene that all of their previous grants require strict receipts for reimbursement—that is to say, Knestrick can’t spend a dime of City Hall’s dollars without them knowing what it’s intended for. “So there’s no possible way to be able to, even if I wanted to take it out,” Knestrick said. “And our housing justice positions are not even funded by the city.” NEOCH had also drawn the ire of Councilman Mike Polensek after the organization led support for Euclid Beach mobile home residents forced out by the Western Reserve Land Conservancy’s decision to turn the land into a park. (“I don’t know what they do, and they receive funding — and I couldn’t tell you, if my life depended on it — besides causing problems or trying to agitate council members,” Signal quoted Polensek as saying recently about NEOCH.) The $225,000 NEOCH and Metanoia will receive in February will go solely to seasonal shelters, which will help temporarily house about 300 people. – Mark Oprea
Does the City of Cleveland Need a New Flag? Many Think So. This Group is Doing Something About It The city of Cleveland’s official flag, approved by City Council
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
Photo by Emanuel Wallace
Armando Cañas, head of construction at Redhouse Studio, holds up a brick of building material made from mushrooms.
in 1895 and by Mayor Robert McKisson in 1896, was designed by Susan Hepburn, an 18-yearold art school graduate whose submission to a contest sponsored by The Plain Dealer, quickly organized in advance of the city’s centennial, gained the admiration of the selection committee, which praised its “power and simplicity.” Meant to capture stirring civic pride as the momentous date arrived, the design included symbolic nods to Cleveland’s position as a shipping port and its status as an industrial center. The colors — red, white and blue — were used to mirror those of the American flag and assuage concerns a city banner would upstage the national one. (The motto of “Progress and Prosperity” wasn’t included on the original design and was only added in the 1960s.) More than a century later, the flag has endured, but not without complaint. As the folks behind the CLE Flag Project, a volunteer group
who are embarking on a mission to give the city a new version, are quick to point out, the design does little to stir the same civic pride in Clevelanders today. Residents either hardly know what it looks like, or look upon it with derision. City Hall, for example, is one of the few places you’ll see it. “We’re a group of passionate Clevelanders,” said Brian Lachman. “And our goal is to create a flag that’s going to embody civic pride and embed itself in the culture of the city.” It was after a trip to Chicago that Lachman, Andrew Burkle and others started thinking in earnest about a piece of municipal art that few consider. Noticing how Chicago is one of the few major cities that embraces its flag, they decided to do something. “We were looking at designing the flag ourselves, and we went back and forth on a lot of options, like 50 designs, and we felt pretty good,” said Burkle. “And then all of a sudden, it dawned on us: We’re
approaching this the wrong way. It’s a symbol of a diverse city and here are three guys from Cleveland Heights designing a flag. That’s not the best approach to this. So we shifted gears to be more shepherds of the project.” Drawing in others who had long thought the city too needed a modern flag upgrade, the group started conversations around town — with non-profits, artists, and the city itself. “We stumbled across Milwaukee’s People’s Flag,” Burkle told Scene. “It’s a great website, and they had a similar process. But the one thing they didn’t do was involve the city early on. So currently, Milwaukee has this terrible flag that the city hasn’t embraced, but people fly the People’s Flag. So we wanted to get the city involved in our process and not just blindside them.” The city, and just about everyone Cleveland Flag has talked to, has been receptive. “Where we’re currently at is research, communication and outreach,” Lachman told Scene “A lot of what we’re doing is engaging the community and we had a really productive meeting with City Hall. They gave us an unofficial blessing to say keep doing what you’re doing. But they’re not involved. They have other things going on.” That outreach includes a small survey that the group would like to get in front of as many Clevelanders as possible, as the research phase continues to explore what, exactly, residents think should be featured on a new design. “What colors would work, what basic symbols, disregarding sports and skylines and for all intents and purposes, the Rock Hall,” Lachman said. “We’re defining the things we want to include, the things that in those conversations and in the survey have endured and we can all kind of agree on. The lake being one. We talked to the city and Cleveland has its official colors, and we debated on whether to disseminate those or not in the survey, but it asks what colors represent Cleveland to you. We want to give guidelines, not restrictions. We don’t want to lead too many conversations and we want a true representation of the city.” There will eventually be a graphic design competition with compensation for the winner, and they’ll build a committee, again representing Cleveland, that would wade through the submissions and finalize a flag. “Our end goal isn’t to sell it, and if we’re selling it, then it’s
going right back into the fund,” said Burkle. “The cool thing about Milwaukee’s People’s Flag is that it’s open-source, you can download it, the art is available. And we kind of landed on that’s the right way to approach this.” City Council, of course, would have to undertake a legislative process to consider and approve a new official design. That mountain is a mountain, but it’s one that waits down the road. For now, there’s much to be done, including collecting as many opinions as possible on the survey, which you can find at cleflag.org. – Vince Grzegorek
Fewer Than Half of City of Cleveland Employees Live in Cleveland Every week, 7,265 employees of the City of Cleveland leave their homes to attempt, in their own individual way, to make the city a better place to live. Yet, the majority of those workers—some 53 percent of them—opt not to live in the city for which they work. While 3,452 employees sport Cleveland addresses, the remaining 3,813 of them live in about 200 other municipalities around Northeast Ohio and beyond, according to data provided by the city in a public records request. Cities chosen otherwise were, as expected, inner-ring suburbs with a close commute and generally affordable real estate markets: Euclid (277), Parma (230), Garfield Heights (153), Lakewood (144), Cleveland Heights (134) and North Ridgeville (131). But others choose more farflung locales and deal with a more strenuous commute: one, an employee in Public Safety, lives a two-and-a-half-hour drive away in Alexandria, near Columbus. Another, a manager in the Finance Department, lives in Tipp City, near Dayton; and one, a special assistant to the mayor, apparently lives across state lines in Beaver Dam, Pennsylvania. Roughly two-thirds of Cleveland’s patrol officers live outside the city they protect. Only one executive assistant to Mayor Bibb lives in Cleveland, unlike all of the city’s municipal judges, seven out of ten custodians, roughly 70 percent of the Mayor’s Cabinet and some half of employees of its Department of Building & Housing staff. Other than obvious elements of
city pride, having thousands of city employees splitting payroll taxes between Cleveland and other cities puts an obvious dent in the city’s general fund, which relies heavily on income tax. More residents equal more dollars to spend. In Mayor Justin Bibb’s mind, reversing that loss in fuel for the city’s general fund comes down to, he told Scene last month, shaping Cleveland’s housing market on par with its suburban neighbors. “We want to be a city of choice for our employees and for our residents as well,” Bibb said. “We were ranked by Zillow as one of the top ten hottest housing markets in the country. I think that speaks to the growing excitement and the growing interest in the brand and the product we are building for our city coming out of the pandemic.” The backstory of the sprawling residencies of Cleveland’s employees is rooted in legal history going back to 1982, when voters approved a law requiring city employees to live in Cleveland. That was the status quo for three decades, until May of 2006, when the Ohio Supreme Court found that forcing workers to live within city boundaries was unconstitutional. Each mayor had his or her stance. Frank Jackson initially threatened to fire employees that relocated to the suburbs—he got rid of at least eight—believing that Cleveland home-rule law took precedence over the state’s. Jackson, and Mayor Jane Campbell before that, was worried about losing precious tax revenue. “Officials have since maintained that the fiscal health of the city would be seriously compromised if city workers were allowed to live elsewhere,” a Plain Dealer editorial read in 2006. Such a mass exodus, especially from Cleveland’s west side, the paper argued, “could do real damage to the city.” City Hall spokesperson Marie Zickerfoose argued, in an email, that many of those 3,813 who live outside of Cleveland still rep ties to the city they work for. In some way. “Several members of the Mayor’s Cabinet live in the city, and multiple others were born and raised in Cleveland,” Zickerfoose said. “The administration spends an enormous amount of time in the community through grassroots outreach and other numerous efforts to hear about issues from residents directly.” – Mark Oprea
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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CONCRETE JUNGLE How Cleveland built a city devoted to parking—and how it’s trying to undo the damage and win over skeptics By Mark Oprea IT HAS LONG BEEN A mystery to Brent Zimmerman how dozens of people could threaten him over a parking lot. In the fall of 2020, that’s exactly what happened. Zimmerman, a developer of apartments and townhomes in his early forties, had for three years been eyeing a desolate lot off West 14th Street and Kenilworth Avenue in Tremont. His proposal to build 29 units housed in a contemporary four-story building centered around residents who didn’t rely on cars. Bike storage would welcome dwellers home. Curb space would give room for Ubers and DoorDash. But there had to be some allowance for vehicles: Lincoln Park Flats was required, by law, to add a lot of 20 parking spaces, which would—because of the tight space— require the razing of the rectory next door. The Cleveland Landmarks Commission said the church couldn’t be touched: Zimmerman’s parking lot was a no go. In November of 2020, he sought a parking variance with the Board of Zoning Appeals, which would allow him to construct Lincoln Park Flats without its originally required parking. There were roughly 76 on-street spaces in a block radius, which Zimmerman thought would be enough for incoming tenants, if they had cars in the first place. “Hey, we did studies,” Zimmerman recalled. “There are so many open spaces on that street.” Matt Moss, a City of Cleveland planner, was in favor of the variance. The city needed new housing. “If the cost of that is having to walk a little further to your car that’s parked on the street,” he recalled, “that was an acceptable trade off to us.” The resulting public feedback was something resemblant of a mob. “In ten years of representing this block club, we’ve never had the activity and the interest as with this project,” Kate O’Neil, head of the Auburn-Lincoln Park Block Club told BZA at the November 20 meeting. “It’s overwhelming, the opposition to this project. It’s a severe, adverse effect.” “Would you want to walk three blocks to get to your car? Bring
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groceries that far? Late at night?” one resident argued. “If you grant this variance, you’re setting a precedent for other developers to come in and want to build projects with no parking—that could create a real nightmare.” The nightmare was eventually Zimmerman’s: BZA denied his parking variance. The lot at West 14th and Kenilworth remains empty today. It may be a stretch, but parking may be the most controversial and overlooked problem in American society in the past eight decades. If we’re to use cars, we have to figure out the endless problem of where to store them. And then there’s the issue of where. Our Targets and Walmarts can’t seem to exist without the ocean of asphalt before them. Our stadiums without their five-story garage neighbors. Our single-family detached homes without fifty-foot driveways, or ample room along the street directly in front of the house. And there may be no better place to observe this problem play out than a midsize city like Cleveland. Since the 1960s, any single thing built in its borders was ordered by city code to include space for cars. The most glaring headache for developers—other than extending build time —is that parking lots and urban garages are, and have always been, insanely expensive: your average eight-foot-wide parking space costs about $5,000 to $10,000; put it in a concrete garage, $30,000 a spot. (And $4 a day in taxes and upkeep.) And, as one might guess, that financial pain is passed along elsewhere: in the cost of your rent, the theater employee’s wage, the price of that omelet. “There’s literally been no return on parking in the history of mankind,” Zimmerman recently told Scene. Getting rid of the necessity of building parking is, in Zimmerman’s mind, “the difference between doing some projects and not doing them.” Yet, eight decades after parking requirements were first drafted, a sea change spells a different future for builders like Zimmerman. Last August, City Council passed an update to the city’s zoning code that will now put the decision
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
Platinum’s 156-space lot off East 14th and Prospect Ave., across from the Hanna Theater.
about parking spots in the hands of developers to an extent not seen in the last half century. The suite of new laws will eliminate parking minimums within a quarter-mile radius of major transit corridors, like Detroit and Lorain Avenues in Ohio City. (Most of Ohio City in general will be covered.) And, in lieu of minimums, developers would be influenced instead by a new transit-demand management scorecard for build outs: ten points for “parking supply reduction”; six points for running a shuttle service; eight points for handing out complimentary RTA passes to residents. “Look, all we’ve done is say that through policy, that building for the car first and foremost is no longer going to be a requirement,” Moss said. “It used to be the law that you had to do that. And all we’ve done is say it’s no longer the requirement. Instead, we’re working on incentivizing people to build more walkable, transit-oriented buildings and spaces.” Moss added a caveat, as if preempting backlash: “Don’t worry. At the end of the day, it’s still going to be easy to drive around.” In a way, Moss has grown into the face for the diehard urbanist intelligentsia and a looming threat to the Cleveland status quo for others. (“He’s just pretentious,” one Ohio City resident told Scene. “It’s disgusting what he’s doing to the city.”) The emotional reaction to
Moss’ creed, and City Planning’s new laws, do however reveal what’s increasingly obvious as the city of Cleveland tries to inch away from car dependency. That parking, whether on a surface lot or curbside, touches every centimeter of our daily lives. As do laws engulfing it. And the conversation around how we plan Cleveland, unsurprisingly, has only furthered the current parking debate binary: on one side, progressive builders and city planners overjoyed to no longer see cities devoted to paradises paved. On the other hand, nail-biting residents and business owners that see parking as a vital and scarce resource—Cleveland is a driving city, after all—they themselves have to fight to protect. You see it in Glenville, where architect Kevin Oliver fought BZA about parking spots around a new complex in University Circle. (Most Case students don’t own cars, Oliver argued.) You see it in on Lorain, where a massive transit-oriented development project has run into complaints from neighbors. You hear it at every block club and from every anxious suburban soul descending downtown. But where do we park? “The whole thing is crazy. It is absolutely crazy,” Jeff Eisenberg, a west side landlord and owner of a beauty salon on Lorain Ave. in Ohio City, told Scene. “We have a lot of young guys that think this place is Chicago or New York. It’s not gonna
Mark Oprea
happen. It’s not a big city. It’s never going to be a big city.” Eisenberg recalled a recent failed tenancy deal as an example. “If you don’t have off-street parking, it’s okay, thanks, bye-bye.” *** When Angie Schmitt was growing up in Hilliard, a suburb of 37,000 situated off Columbus’ Outerbelt, she felt plagued by a distinctly American type of discontent. Schmitt liked to walk. The problem was that, like most if not all post-war suburbs, Hilliard in the 1990s—despite pockets of Main Street and Cemetery Road—was a car town. “I was a very adventurous girl, so I hated it,” Schmitt said. “I finally figured out, like, if I cut through a yard, walked along a ditch, I could walk to this one retail area. If I walked a really long time, I could hop on a bus to Ohio State.” Years later, as a reporter in her mid-twenties, Schmitt discovered a way to marry her two loves: writing and walking. In 2009, piqued by demolition of a building in Youngstown, Schmitt pivoted and signed up for planning school. She soon became one of the most outspoken contributors to Streetsblog USA, a site dedicated to pedestrianism. Though Schmitt oversaw bloggers in Portland and Chicago, she often turned to her own backyard, in Lakewood. A friend had emailed her an aerial view of Dallas’ overwhelming asphalt devoted to cars; Cleveland’s Warehouse District came to mind. She conjured a derogatory title for what she saw: parking craters. “It’s a depression in the middle of an urban area formed by the absence of buildings,” Schmitt said in the 2013 mini-documentary of the same name. Standing in the Warehouse, she has the camera tilt to seas of cars off St. Clair and West 6th. “We’ve got parking behind us. Parking there. Parking over there.” She sighed. “This is a gem of Downtown. And sadly, right across from that, we have a really big parking crater.” Depending on what side one’s on, the oceanic lots and aging garages that occupy twenty-eight percent of Downtown Cleveland are either a necessary convenience or a scar of past urban planning’s foibles. The problem is that parking, by its design, is always at battle with the Law of Convenience. Since the invention of the paved driveway, a silent hunger has been brewing in the bellies of drivers, a zero-sum game at the end of every car trip:
Angie Schmitt, a transportation activist, stands outside of the parking lot off West 9th St. and St. Clair Ave. where she filmed her documentary on “parking craters” 11 years ago.
The less I have to walk, the more prized the space. City planners have long wrestled with this theory— Americans in general don’t like to walk—since the 1940s, a decade when car ownership doubled, while weighing the cost to their city centers. Ultimately, as Schmitt’s “Parking Craters” documentary in 2013 made visible, the winner was convenience. “We created that world,” Donald Shoup, a professor at UCLA who specializes in parking reform, told Scene. “We created a world where you have to have a car, because parking is free in most places you go. Things are spread far apart. And with all the traffic, it’s not pleasant to walk. And biking is dangerous.” He added, “But no one wants to sacrifice their car for the greater good.” Shoup, who’s so respected in his field that some planners dub themselves “Shoupistas,” has been promoting an antidote to the carsin-cities issue since at least 2006, when he published the wildlypopular High Cost of Free Parking. Though the book’s 733 pages long, its premise is easily digestible: every place you go, whether it be that Bob Evans off I-71 or that Key Bank on West 25th, has been designed and dictated by guidelines and parking space requirements
that date back to the early 1970s. And those requirements, Shoup has long argued, are based on arbitrary pseudo-math: seven spots for each lane of a bowling alley; three for each doctor at a hospital; and so on. These are laws that have long acted as, Shoup says, a “fertility drug for cars.” He expanded the metaphor in a recent article: “Removing off-street parking requirements resembles birth control for parking spaces,” he wrote. “There will be no more unwanted ones.” What could be directly tied to Shoup’s advocacy in San Francisco has led to a parking reform zeitgeist across America. In 2017, Buffalo cut code forcing developers to build parking lots. Berkeley and San Jose followed. By 2022, fifteen U.S. cities had either greatly reduced or vaporized laws requiring parking to be built, replaced with more promising legislation. “There won’t be pushback,” Shoup told Scene, “because there’s nothing to push back against.” *** If Angie Schmitt devoted her life to the culture of walking, then James Lister committed himself to a life of driving. Born in Cleveland
in 1907, and raised in Twinsburg and Lakewood, Lister grew up intrigued by the architecture of the Beaux Arts modernists. He graduated from Harvard and Cornell with degrees in landscape architecture, and was so good at what he did that a Prix de Rome scholarship sent him to Europe for two years. In 1949, after a decade on the newly created City Planning Commission, Lister was tapped by Mayor Frank Loche to grow the mayor’s burgeoning response to city decay, to its aging tenement buildings and “crowded slums.” As history knows it, this was the birth of Urban Renewal, the glorious plan to modernize American downtowns. Or, as Loche apparently once put it: “People expect you keep the good, and eliminate the bad.” Lister, who had done a good job nursing the $700 million in federal money as head of Cleveland’s Freeway Planning Bureau—chief among the projects at the time: building Interstate 71—was chosen by Mayor Anthony Celebrezze in 1956 to lead the city’s formalized Department of Urban Renewal. By then, Lister had forgotten what he’d seen in prewar Europe, and was sold on the promise of the American automobile. He had traveled to cities like Detroit and
February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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Mark Oprea
Los Angeles to survey state-of-theart parking garages with bathrooms and lounges, those that would, he believed, help reverse the city’s car dilemma. We need “a program that would recognize the maximum, and best use of the land in the entire city,” Lister said, according to Cleveland: City On Schedule. “And do this in a way that was arranged by logic, rather than by chaos.” Lister’s logic was, you could say, data-driven. From 1948 to 1950, he oversaw the city’s first parking survey—entitled “Our Downtown Parking Headache, And How We Can Cure It”—which would act as the bedrock for parking policy for the next five decades. And it was a policy of fear: 29,146 spaces existed downtown; the study, seeing families buy cars at a feverish pace, recommended over 6,300 new ones. “Piecemeal,” mom-and-pop lots sprouted up, the report read, but no survey had “accurately” detailed such demand as a whole. The study was a bat signal to businessmen disguised as a lifesaver for fleeing suburbanites. “A lot of Clevelanders will someday be saying to their friends, ‘Remember when it was worth your life to park downtown?’” the survey surmised. “‘Well, you ought to see it now! Parking spaces wherever you need them! Why, the way they’ve got things fixed, it’s just as easy to park downtown as in your own driveway at home!” A sequel to the survey, published in December 1956, was way more alarmist. “The avalanche is coming!” it cried. “The avalanche of private automobiles, trucks, buses and taxis—and Cleveland should be prepared!” It was a perfect storm. With Urban Renewal subsidies coming from Washington, City Planning’s parking requirements installed in city code and Great Depression-era property costs looming, building owners went into a kind of survival mode. Parking, after all, was now big business. One estimate in the late 1970s predicted, at most, a 13 percent return in investment for the owner of a 300-space lot. And so, buildings—no matter how historic, useful or aesthetically-pleasing— went down, and went down fast. From 1951 to 1986, just in the Warehouse District alone, 106 of its 175 buildings, from the Terminal Theatre to the Academy Building to the Weddell House, were bulldozed to eventually make way for parking. The city, drunk on the promise of Urban Renewal, was there along for the ride. A 1959 Building Evaluations survey detailed the
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hunger for better profits over the apparent financial gamble of rehab. “Rear facades not good,” it noted about the ten-story Hotel Auditorium on East 6th. “It has not been a success as a business venture.” Or, for what would be the garage at 1421 East 9th: “Land value almost nine times the value of improvements.” Parking was an out, even if it was seen as a temporary solution. “Oh man, you could make a lot of money in that business,” Lee Stevens, the city’s last parking commissioner until his retirement in 2013, told Scene. “I mean, I’m a parking guy. And the thought always was, ‘Do you want to serve the public? Or, do you want to make money?’” And money was made. By 1978, Downtown possessed 618 facilities with 53,912 spaces, triple the number of parking spots since Lister came to town. New construction, like the Justice Center and the Federal Building, after all, demanded storage for workers’ cars. The effect was a little like using hot sauce to cure an open wound. By 1980, Cleveland’s population had been halved since the city’s first parking study that attempted to save it. Moreover, even after the roaring Cleveland 1990s, the 197 lots and garages around by 2004 never reached more The Warehouse District last August. From the 1920s to the 1970s, 106 buildings were razed to than 80 percent capacity in a year. the ground here to, eventually, make way for parking. “Given this level of utilization,” the “Downtown Cleveland Parking feel like they’re okay. Their cars are Market Study” concluded that year, at the U.S. Bank garage on East okay. And they want to be as close “there’s an effective surplus of 14th, there were 24 cars, out of 700 as possible to their venue.” approximately 4,600 parking spaces total spaces. “Most of the garage is Zeffer, as those in the industry throughout Downtown.” Cleveland empty at night,” its attendant told know him, is as synonymous with had built too many. Scene from inside her booth, as she Cleveland’s parking world as LeBron By then, the city appeared to scrolled through TikTok. “The ones have come to its senses. Most of that are here are the ones that stay.” James is to basketball. “The guy probably works, like, 360 days a Downtown’s remaining buildings year,” Troy Mayer, the president were covered under local landmark *** of the Parking Association, told protections. A newly added part of Scene. “He knows everyone. He the parking code, Section 394.12, It’s 11 a.m. on a Tuesday in late knows the homeless people. The was intended to “preserve the September when members of the building owners. The lot attendants. urban architectural character Cleveland Parking Association I can’t get him to go home if my life of Downtown by limiting the assemble their monthly meeting depended on it.” establishment and expansion of in a shared room on the ninth Zeffer’s hustle in the industry is, surface parking lots” within those floor of The Athlon. And there, especially these days, completely districts. That is to say, do away sitting among the industry warranted. Ever since the pandemic with parking requirements. veterans and CPD lieutenants pushed everyone indoors in 2020, Today isn’t much different. eating turkey sandwiches, is Joe and sped up a work-from-home One-third of Downtown’s 128 lots Zeffer, a 64-year-old bald man phenomenon, parking analysts and garages, according to a 2016 dressed in a black Under Armour have been trying to figure out survey, never clock above 80 percent polo and loose khakis. The topic how to compensate for the drop capacity. (And half are in “fair” or for today’s meeting: cars stolen in customers. Since the parking “poor” condition.) On a Monday in out of downtown garages. About boom of the 1970s, lot owners and August, Scene walked through a 100 people were invited. About 20 managers—the APCOAs, Platinums series of downtown garages and showed up. and Shaia’s of the world—catered lots just after rush hour. The 900 “It’s all about feeling and safety,” heavily to the commuter, especially Prospect Garage, across from the Zeffer told the room, in a booming those that paid three figures for County Building, had 70 spaces bass that sounds unmistakably like Everybody a monthly swipe card. It’s sort of filled of its 800. The lot of the actor Brad Garrett’s from like a handshake agreement Urban Greyhound had two, out of 209. And Loves Raymond. “People want to
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
Mark Oprea
Cleveland Parking By The Numbers 28
the percentage of Downtown that’s parking, according to Cuyahoga County GIS maps .
24,300,000
total square feet of surface parking Downtown.
84,800,000
total square feet of Downtown. 22: the percentage of Ohio City devoted to parking
50
the score, out of 100, Cleveland was rated by the Parking Reform Network
84
percentage of Clevelanders who live within a quarter mile of a bus stop.
106
Joe Zeffer, a parking operations manager for Platinum who’s worked in the industry since he was 17. “People want to feel like they’re okay. Their cars are okay,” he said. “And they want to be as close as possible to their venue.”
Renewal helped usher in: You bring me employees’ cars; I’ll figure out how to store them. But then, in March 2020, employees stopped parking. Mayer, who is also Platinum’s general manager, said they once had “about 1,500” monthly passholder parkers that filled their 3,500 spaces across Downtown. Two months later, that May, they barely had 200. And today, the demand still isn’t hot: “Maybe six, seven hundred,” Mayer said. “We’re still only at about half.” A week before the association’s September planning, Zeffer took Scene on a walking tour of two of the 22 lots and garages he’s been overseeing in some capacity for the past 47 years. The sky was clear, so the sun had made touring the Theater District somewhat of a chore; Zeffer had anticipated, it seemed, a tour by car. But there was a Guardians game that night, and Zeffer needed to prepare his mind, and his auditors and attendants, for the upcoming rush. (Customers who would pay $10 to $40 to park.) The conversation shifted to the two pillars of Zeffer’s current business: the residential population growing slowly around Zeffer’s facilities; and the “special events crowd” that spends a fourth of a 24/7 monthly pass to store their car for a few hours. “You have to understand that this whole entire industry has always been based on demand,” Zeffer said, stopping for a break in the middle of his lot off Huron and East 12th, in the shadow of the Hanna garage. “And you have to have something in the area to
make it worthwhile to park around.” “What about Progressive Field?” “That’s way over there,” Zeffer said, nodding west. “What do you mean ‘way over there’? It’s a block down.” “It doesn’t matter,” he said. He nodded to a lot a block east on Prospect, which was charging $10 less. “If I’m paying $40, I’m going to park as close as I can. If I charge $40 here? They won’t pay it. They don’t want to walk.” This psychology, the commuter’s perspective distorted by the cramped space of the city, may be even more fascinating to Mayer, who at first took the job as Association’s president last January with an apathetic shrug. “It wasn’t like I raised my hand and said, ‘Hey, I’m here. I want to do this,’” Mayer said, sitting at Restore off Huron in October. In his plaid business casual and jeans, Mayer gave off more clean accountant vibes than parking attendant. “It was more like, ‘Troy, you’ve been in parking for 20 years. You come to our meetings. You’re the best fit for this.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’” Besides the obvious reasons for tackling the summer spike in car thefts—mostly Kias and Hyundais— Mayer said, like Zeffer posited, safety and feeling are key in luring Downtown residents to monthly passes. That is, to make up for the loss in the office workers of a fading era. It’s almost a funny irony that stems from the effect of new apartment complexes being able to build as much parking as they see fit: Mayer’s there to take those left over. He pointed to The Athlon as a
prime example. “Quite frankly, that’s what’s keeping us somewhat alive,” he said. “They only have, like, 100 parking spaces, but have about 300 units.” He smiled. “So they have to find parking elsewhere.” Mayer’s mind jumped to the parking business’ natural rival: onstreet parking. The city was teasing its Smart Parking makeover— paying for your spot with your smartphone. Its parking revenue could double. (Advocates have long pushed to eliminate free on-street parking as a remedy to both stir revenue and balance the demand.) “The only problem is that no one pays for parking,” Mayer said, point blank. He turned to Huron Road, which was full of cars lined against its curbs. “Seriously. Go out there right now. See how many of those meters are red.” At that, Mayer grabbed his coffee, and walked east on Huron, pointing out fourteen vehicles that were, according to their meters, parked illegally. “See that? ‘No Parking Fire Zone,’ ‘No Parking Anytime This Way.’ And that car right there,” Mayer said, signaling with his coffee cup to a white Transit Connect. “Him? He’ll never get a ticket.” *** About a decade after he was embedded in an infantry battalion in Afghanistan, Zach Cooper found himself in the university town of Bradford, England. He was 32, and had a full ride for a masters degree in conflict resolution. In his down time, Cooper toured Europe, and
total number of buildings torn down in the Warehouse District to make way, eventually, for lots and garages
126
current number of lots and garages Downtown.
1982
peak year for parking spaces across the city.
$0.25 amount it cost to park all day downtown in 1958.
29,146
number of parking spaces Downtown had in 1949.
6,314
number of more spaces Downtown “needed” in 1950.
$68,316
profit in dollars one lot owner made in 1958.
449
number of lots and garages downtown in 1968.
6
percentage of Downtown demolished from 1950 to 1970.
$10,000,000
dollars the City of Cleveland receives from its Downtown eight-percent parking tax.
$28,000
dollars it costs to build one space in your average concrete parking garage.
2017
year Buffalo becomes first city to do away with parking minimums.
February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
11
Mark Oprea
Whitney Anderson, 37, an interior designer in Ohio City, was originally lined up to rent Sartorial’s upstairs space.
always stopped in bespoke clothing shops stocked with specialty suits and flat caps. But it was one in Bradford that left the biggest impression. While ringing up a keepsake hat to take home to Cleveland, Cooper watched as one shop tailor pulled a secret hatch behind the counter. “And behind it was two beer taps,” Cooper recalled. “That was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I honestly fell in love with it instantly.” In 2020, back in Cleveland, Cooper set out earnestly to try and recreate the spirit of that Bradford shop. It became for him a new sense of purpose. A year-and-a-half later, with the help of a mentor, Cooper sought real estate. Twelve properties later, he found it at 3929 Lorain Avenue, a faded-yellow, Art Deco funeral home abandoned since 2010. “There were needle caps all around the floor upstairs,” Cooper recalled. “Squatters lived in the basement. I mean, it was bad.” The following year, Cooper followed the typical developer path. He drafted a five-year business plan; he signed a Veteran-approved SBA loan. He chose a name for the suitshop-slash-speakeasy, Sartorial, and posted its details on CoUrbanize, a forum for design plans. “Ninetyeight percent of the feedback was positive,” Cooper said. “People just wanted to see the building renovated.” Cooper had his plans greenlit by the Ohio City Design Review, then by the Ohio City Historic District Landmark review— the funeral home was historical— and then by City Planning and the
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Board of Zoning Appeals. It was the last entity that was the most important in Cooper’s timeline. Because the Bodnar Funeral Home was zoned as a Local Retail Business District, he had to get four variances from BZA to operate Sartorial for “live entertainment and amusement use.” Which meant, according to the city’s code, Cooper had to build 27 parking spaces to accommodate, “per standard, unreduced formula,” his eventual bargoers. Cooper panicked. Building a lot with 27 spaces would cost, at about $10,000 a space, somewhere in the ballpark of $300,000. Cooper found the whole notion ludicrous. “There’s no world where I could make that happen,” Cooper said. Fortunately, BZA, in late February of 2023, granted him variances—he, unlike what was normally forced into existence by city law, no longer had to build a lot. That is, until David Ellison sued the city a week later. “The Cleveland Board of Zoning Appeals exceeded its legal authority,” his appeal read, “arbitrarily, capriciously, unreasonably and without support of a preponderance of substantial, reliable and probative evidence when it granted the parking variances.” Or, as Cooper put it, “David accused the city of breaking the law.” Ellison, an Ohio City-based architect in his sixties with the look of a late career Ernest Hemingway, was not a stranger to fighting variances. He had sued the city back in 2022 for granting them for 41 West, a luxury apartment complex under construction across the street
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
Zach Cooper, 37, stands in the former parking lot of the Bodnar Funeral Home off Lorain Ave., which he’ll renovate into the lot of Sartorial, a men’s clothing store and speakeasy.
from Ellison’s studio on Lorain. (He keeps a folder on his computer called “Neighborhood Issues.” “Not all are lawsuits,” he said.) The string of protests over the years has shaped Ellison’s reputation as a stickler for rules, which some Ohio City residents see as antiprogressive. “I really wasn’t surprised when I heard who it was,” Whitney Anderson, a 37-year-old interior designer originally lined up to rent out Sartorial’s upstairs space. Ellison’s lawsuit dragged out so long Anderson looked elsewhere. “Maybe this is me thinking that I have more influence than I do, but I wanted to have a conversation with David, and let him know that he was hurting two legitimate, hopeful business owners.” A block down, over at Ellison’s two-story studio, which is pristinely organized and decorated with drawings of Ancient Greece and century-old planning texts, the architect repeatedly reaffirmed that he wasn’t trying to harm Sartorial. A lot of Ellison’s ire, if you could call it that, seems to stem back to the fact that he himself was forced, back in 2013, to build a parking lot for his own building. “I don’t actually have anything against Zach,” he said, sitting at a roundtable in front of three massive bookshelves. “I think he’s an optimistic kind of guy that wants to create this thing for the community.” Ellison’s tone shifted. “But what he has in mind, the way he’s described it, is not allowed by the law. So, the question is, do you
violate the law and grant variances that are unjustified? Or do you change the law?” *** The two-mile stretch of Lorain Ave. from the Hope Memorial Bridge on West 20th to the Michael Zone Rec Center on West 65th has been pretty much untouched for 50 years. It offers curbside parking for 335 vehicles on both sides and welcomes, despite the 25 MPH speed limit, cars going far faster. And its two miles of sidewalks have, with their tree grate defects and tilted telephone poles, have deteriorated. The street is also, according to those who prefer two wheels to four, a life threat. At least ten pedestrians have been hit and killed, a recent study found, on Lorain in the past five years. It’s on Cleveland’s High Crash Network of roadways because of this. “Oh, it’s horrible,” Jacob VanSickle, the head of Bike Cleveland, told Scene recently. “People drive recklessly. And a lot of times people aren’t parked there, so they treat it like four lanes.” In January, the city presented its updated plan to refashion the street with the Lorain Midway, which would build a multi-use protected path, install new curbs, traffic signals, tree beds, RTA bus stops and, most importantly to those who gathered at Urban Community School to get a first set of eyes on the design, eliminate somewhere between a quarter and half of on street parking. Though the project still needs
Mark Oprea
David Ellison, in his architectural studio on Lorain Ave. in Ohio City, sued the city last year for allowing Zach Cooper to build a men’s clothing shop and speakeasy without parking.
millions before it’s fully funded, and despite construction being years down the road, business owners freaked. Those spots, many of them cried, are revenue. “As respectful as I am of the bike community, I think removing those spots is really going to hurt us badly,” Karen Small, the owner of Juneberry Table off West 41st, said recently. “I mean, there are very few people that are willing to walk in zero degree weather.” “Oh, you can tell it’s a 10-yearold project,” Jonah Oryszak, the owner of Heart of Gold off 41st told Scene at the event. “I think the neighborhood has grown so much that it really doesn’t need a project like this as it’s drawn.” Though he supports a general street redesign, Oryszak can’t help but consider the “realities” of how his clientele order food in 2024, whether it be through DoorDash or from a curb-lane pickup. He fears the Midway being constructed—and removing hundreds of on-street spaces—without plans to add a parking garage, or two, would be disastrous. “Seventy percent of my customer base is from the suburbs,” he added. “I get calls all the time: ‘We’re coming here. Where’s your parking lot?’ ‘Well, we don’t have one.’ And click.”
City planners like Matt Moss and Sarah Davis said that future iterations of the Midway will consider drop-off zones and parking agreements with private lots (like the one at McCafferty Health Center off 42nd St.), along with meeting one-on-one with folks like Small and Oryszak to consider more of the immediate retail view. “One thing we hear a lot is like, ‘If you take away the parking here, how am I going to be able to run in and grab something quick and leave?’” Moss said. “And again, that’s why we’re trying to figure out how to maximize street parking while still achieving all the other goals of the project.” And maybe the parking demand isn’t as steep as businesses believe it is. A parking study of Lorain last year found the street hit its highest occupancy – 47% – on a weekend. During the week? Below 30%. That hasn’t stopped the backlash. But, to Moss, that’s to be expected. “Hey, we’ve been building for driving for over a half century,” he said. “You get the behavior you build for.”
moprea@clevescene.com t@mark_oprea February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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GET OUT WED
Everything to do in Cleveland for the next two weeks 02/14
Cavaliers vs. Chicago Bulls With trade rumors swirling after a slow start, the Chicago Bulls arrive today at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse to take on the Cavs. The Bulls have played erratically this season, so the Cavs should be able to get the win when the two teams face off at 7:30 p.m. 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.
CelloGayageum An intercultural musical duo composed of cellist Sol Daniel Kim and gayageum player Dayoung Yoon, CelloGayageum draws inspiration from the Pavilion of Unity in Berlin. The group blends the musical cultures and instruments of the cello and gayageum to create “a harmonious symbiosis in both sound and style.” It performs tonight at 7:30 at Cleveland Museum of Art. 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
The Play That Goes Wrong Billed as “an international hit that’s equal parts Monty Python and Sherlock Holmes,” this play centers on an opening night that goes awry. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at the Allen Theatre, where performances continue through March 3. 1407 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
THU
02/15
Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express When a man is stabbed in his locked compartment while riding the famed Orient Express, investigator Hercule Poirot tries to figure out whodunnit. Tonight’s performance of this comedic twist on the Agatha Christie mystery takes place at 7:30 at the Hanna Theatre, where performances continue through March 3. 2067 East 14th St., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
History on Tap: A Celebration of Black Culture Tickets to this special History on Tap event at the Western Reserve Historical Society include full museum access, carousel rides and live DJ entertainment with DJ 8 Bit. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. It all commences at 5 p.m. 10825 East Blvd., 216-721-5722, wrhs.org.
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The High School Rock Off is back at the Rock Hall. See: Saturday, Feb. 17.| Emanuel Wallace
FRI
02/16
Monster Jam 2024 This annual event that features some of the biggest and nastiest monster trucks rolls into Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse for its annual visit. Tonight’s competition begins at 7, and the trucks continue to compete through Sunday. 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.
Third Friday From 5 to 9 p.m., many of the 78th Street Studios resident artist studios and galleries will be open as part of this monthly event. There will be live music, and Local West, a Gordon Square sandwich shop, will serve food. BARneo will have a selection of adult beverages as well. Admission is free. 1300 West 78th St., 78thstreetstudios. com.
SAT
02/17
face off at the Final Exam that takes place at 6 p.m. on March 2. 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-5158444, rockhall.com.
brings his Emotional Support Tour to Connor Palace tonight at 7. 1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
Jump Back Ball 2024
Toni Morrison Community Reading
This annual benefit for Playhouse Square’s education programs features cocktails, live entertainment, games of chance, a raffle and a silent auction. The event, dubbed Villains Unleashed: A Night of Chaos, begins at 7 p.m. at the State Theatre. 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
One of the great literary talents, the late Toni Morrison was born and raised in Northeast Ohio. To celebrate her legacy, Literary Cleveland and ThirdSpace Action have teamed up for a free-in-person reading at ThirdSpace Action Lab. An open mic session follows featured readings. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. 1464 E 105th St. #302, thirdspaceactionlab.com.
SUN
02/18
COYO Winter Concert Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus will perform selections by Faure and Schubert at this special winter concert that takes place today at 7 p.m. at Mandel Concert Hall. 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.
2024 High School Rock-Off
John Crist’s Emotional Support Tour
The annual High School Rock Off returns to the Rock Hall tonight at 6. This marks the final iteration of the contest, and ten bands will compete to
Known for viral videos like “Honest Football Coach,” “Every Parent at Disney” and “Brands that Need To Be CANCELLED,” comedian John Crist
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
TUE
02/20
Funny Girl Expect to hear classic songs such as “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “I’m the Greatest Star” and “People” in this musical-comedy that centers on Fanny Brice, a girl from the Lower East Side who dreams of a life on the stage. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at Connor Palace, where performances continue through March 10. 1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
WED
02/21
Middletown Amid the smallville charm of Middletown, there exists a lesser known and mysterious side. This play by Will Eno explores the culture of America’s small towns. It features the CWRU/CPH MFA Acting Program’s Class of 2026. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at the Helen, where performances continue through March 2. 1407 Euclid Ave, 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
Midnight Rental Presents Secret Movie Night Hosted by Lenora from the internet hit-series Midnight Rental, Midnight Rental Movie Nights offers the best in VHS B-movies. This event, which takes place at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights, starts at 7 p.m. with a screening of bad retro commercials. A special movie presentation follows at 8 p.m. A movie night menu featuring popcorn, candy, chips and pizza rolls will be available for purchase. 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.
THU
02/22
Ancestra Cleveland State University presents this play inspired by the 1853 National Women’s Rights Convention. The production combines a historical account of the pioneers for women’s rights with the biography of a contemporary journalism student who writes about reproductive healthcare. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at the Outcalt Theatre, where performances continue through March 3. 1407 Euclid Ave, 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
Beethoven’s Pastoral Conductor Philippe Herreweghe leads the Cleveland Orchestra as it takes on selections from Beethoven and Haydn tonight at 7:30 at Mandel Concert Hall, where performances continue through Sunday. 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.
Cavaliers vs. Orlando Magic The Orlando Magic have proven to be one of the best teams in the highly competitive NBA Eastern Conference, so tonight’s game against the Cavs should be a real battle. Tipoff is at 7. Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.
FRI
02/23
Don “DC” Curry The films Next Friday and Friday After Next were terrific vehicles for a number of black comedians. Don “DC” Curry, who played the part of sex-crazed Uncle Elroy Jones, certainly benefited from the exposure. Curry, who boasts he only talks about “the truth” in his standup routines, often sounds like a grumpy old man as he complains about fancy restaurants where the servers fawn over their customers. He performs tonight at 7:30 and 10 at the Cleveland Funny Bone, where he has shows scheduled through Sunday. 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-4677, cleveland.funnybone.com.
SAT
02/24
Cain Park Freeze Fest From 4 to 9 p.m. today and from noon to 4 p.m. tomorrow, Cain Park in Cleveland Heights will transform the top of its sledding hill into a winter wonderland. Heated tents will house local vendors, including the Wine Spot, CLE Urban Winery and Marchant Manor Cheese. DJ Marcus Alan Ward will spin crowd favorites on both days. There will be food trucks, a fire pit and many “s’more” surprises. 14591 Superior Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-371-3000, cainpark.com.
SUN
02/25
CIM Organ Studio From 2 to 3 p.m. today at Cleveland Museum of Art, conservatory musicians from the Cleveland Institute of Music in the studio of acclaimed organist Todd Wilson will present a free afternoon recital of works for solo organ on the museum’s McMyler Memorial Organ. 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
TUE
02/27
Cavaliers vs. Dallas Mavericks Led by sharpshooter Luca Doncic, the Dallas Mavericks are one of the better teams in the NBA’s Western Conference. They make their one-andonly regular season visit to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse to take on the Cavs tonight at 7. 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
15
EAT HOME COOKING
The long journey to open Rich Caribbean is paying off By Douglas Trattner KEDEMAH MCHUGH WAS doing all the right things. The Jamaican-born cook enrolled in the EDWINS culinary training program to gain the knowledge needed to one day open his own restaurant. He started off small, running a modest food stand inside the Kabas African Market on Lee Road, where he sold items like jerk chicken and curried goat. From there he went to work in area clubs like Sir-Rah House and Epic, cultivating a following for his Caribbean foods one hearty plate at a time. McHugh was well on the way to achieving his dream when the “altercation” took place. Both he and his wife, Melissa, were the victims of an aggravated assault. After months of recuperation, McHugh found himself back at square one. Before long, however, the cook started cooking. He fired up the drum grill, busted out the stewpots, and returned to making the foods of his native Kingston. McHugh transformed the garage at his Union-Miles home into a makeshift restaurant and began posting the day’s offerings on social media. Rich Caribbean was back in business. The couple operated this way for about two years when McHugh’s dream came to fruition. Late last year he got the keys to a space at the Shoppes at Buckeye, less than a mile from the EDWINS campus. In early December, the McHughs celebrated the grand opening, with Cleveland City Council President Blaine A. Griffin on hand to personally congratulate them. As a diehard Jamaican food fan, I didn’t wait long to visit. The shop is colorful and welcoming, with a warm mix of assorted woods covering many surfaces. Reggae music played on the sound system and tropical spices filled the air. In typical fast-casual fashion, guests work their way down the line, with a clear view of the day’s dishes on the other side of the glass. An easy-toread menu is displayed on a large
16
Kedemah and Melissa McHugh | Doug Trattner wall-mounted monitor. Most Jamaican restaurants in town offer largely identical menus, but that doesn’t mean they’re indistinguishable from one another. McHugh has built a devoted following over these past five years because his food stands out: the ingredients are better, the techniques are textbook, and the chef’s work ethic is unmatched. “This is traditional Jamaican food – what I was raised on,” McHugh says in his rhythmic Caribbean accent. “I learned it from my mama and my grandmother back home in Kingston. We just try to keep it as authentic as can be.” Many of the spices, seasonings, and curry blends are imported from Jamaica, giving the food a vibrancy and allure that seems lacking in some of the competition. McHugh’s intensely flavored jerk chicken ($15), grilled out back over wood, is dark as night. The meat comes easily off the bone while still retaining some chew and there’s a building, persistent heat. I’ve eaten oxtail ($20) all over town and these rank at or near the top. After a long, slow braise, the jiggly beef releases from the
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
RICH CARIBBEAN CUISINE
11351 Buckeye Rd., Cleveland, 216-417-4067 bone with zero fight. The gelatinrich gravy is sticky and sweet, and the stew is fortified with spinners (dumplings) and butter beans. The oxtail is placed in the box with warm cabbage and rice and peas (kidney beans), then capped with a few extra ladles of sauce. If jerk is too spicy and oxtail too adventurous, there’s no shame in ordering the appealing curry chicken ($14). The yellow-hued meat is tender and bathed in a mellow curry-scented sauce. As wonderful as all those dishes are, it’s the dreamy curry goat ($18) that will keep me coming back. For the meager price of navigating a few small, sharp bones, the diner is rewarded with heaps of mild, sweet goat meat and creamy spuds in an aromatic Caribbeanspiced gravy. “You say goat and they stop, but once people try it, it ends up being their favorite,” says Melissa. In addition to the regular items, McHugh offers one or two daily specials, such as jerk pork, steamed
fish, curry-coconut conch, and shrimp pasta. Although I haven’t tried it, the fried chicken has been receiving a lot of positive attention. You’ll find it in the warm-food display alongside the beef patties, veggie patties and fry dumplings. Soups are on a rotating schedule, with options like seafood soup, fish tea soup and mannish water soup, the famous goat’s-head brew that inspired the Rolling Stones album of the same name. On Saturdays, the shop busts out classic Jamaican breakfast dishes like silky peanut porridge and ackee and saltfish. Considering the path it took to get here, the McHugh’s are rightfully proud of their new establishment. In most situations it feels trite to say that the food is made with love, but at Rich Caribbean, there’s really no other way to put it.
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner
EAT BITES
Schnitz Ale Brewery expands with new production facility and tasting room in Strongsville By Douglas Trattner WHEN FAT HEAD’S MOVED into its massive Middleburg Heights production facility, it set off a game of craft-beer musical chairs. Eager for more production capacity themselves, the Brew Kettle team decamped from its Strongsvillebased brewery for the former Fat Head’s facility on Sheldon Road. That cleared the way for the Djurin family to make a similar jump by staking a claim on the former Brew Kettle space for their two-year-old Schnitz Ale brand. That family, which also operates Das Schnitzel Haus, purchased the property in 2022 and started brewing there this past fall. “We were very limited with that 7-barrel brewery in Parma,” explains CEO Igor Djurin. “The right opportunity arrived with the old Brew Kettle production facility, so we jumped on it.” The move expands the brand’s output capacity 12-fold, going from just 600 barrels per year in Parma to 500 barrels per month in Strongsville. The new Schnitz Ale facility will focus on core beers like the Coach Dunkel, Boozendorf Hazy DIPA, and Classic Kolsch. It will also clear the way for big seasonal releases that will include an Irish red ale, summer shandy, Oktoberfest Märzen and Christmas ale. Thanks to a distribution deal with Heidelberg, the beers will be sold at Giant Eagle, Heinen’s and DrugMart with more accounts to come. And because every good brewery needs a tasting room, the Djurins are putting one of their own together in Strongsville. Dubbed Schnitz Ale Brew Works (20102 Progress Dr.), the expected opening date is March 1. “What we really want to accomplish with it is to get back to your traditional brewery tasting room, where people come in and talk beer,” adds Djurin. “The nice thing with this place is that it’s away from the hustle and bustle, per se, tucked away in an industrial parkway.” The 50-seat pub and gift shop will carry regular and exclusive
Schnitz Ale beers and serve light fare like salads, pretzels, and other snacks along with offerings from the Schnitz Ale food truck.
Mapleside Farms to Add Winery to Mix of Offerings at this 100-YearOld Attraction in Brunswick Since Greg and Kelly Clement purchased Mapleside Farms in 2010, they haven’t stopped updating, improving and adding amenities. For 100 years, the 144-acre property in Brunswick has been the place to go to celebrate all things autumn, but the Clements have a plan to transform the orchard into a yearround destination. “Me and my wife both grew up in Brunswick, so we’ve been coming to Mapleside since we were kids,” Greg explains. “Here’s this incredibly beautiful piece of land, let’s just take what we know was working and just increase that.” Since taking over, the owners have greatly expanded the fall festival calendar, adding themed events, live music and hayrides. One of the most successful additions was “Vino the Way,” wine tastings that are held in the giant corn maze. Launched a handful of years back, the highly sought after tickets typically sell out for the entire season long before the first sip. “What we wanted to do was create a really cool experience,” adds Clement. “I’m a big experience guy; I believe that buying stuff is cool but investing in experiences – these are the things we remember.” Greg says that he and Kelly, both of whom are wine lovers, have long thought about adding a winery aspect to the Brunswick property. The success of Vino the Way encouraged them to get serious about the jump. “We have the perfect property,” he says. “So many people come to Mapleside, sit on the hill and watch a concert. This feels like Napa Valley.”
Courtesy of Schnitz Ale Brewery
Clement points to growing features like height above sea level, soil type, climate, and change of seasons as support of their plans. “There’s this myth that you can’t grow a great red, or even a great white, wine in Ohio – that it has to be a dessert wine,” he says. While the owners intend to plant 14 acres of wine grapes on the Brunswick property, the bulk of the viniculture will take place five miles south in Medina County, where the Clements purchased 124 acres. That property, dubbed “Vine, a Mapleside vineyard and venue,” will be reserved for agriculture and events. The plan is to start putting vines into the ground at both properties this year. The vines will have to get established for a couple years before the Clements can begin crushing the grapes and making wine. Meanwhile, the apple biz has never been brighter. Clement says that he plans on doubling the number of trees on the property from 3,000 to 6,000 over the next decade. The fruit is purchased by customers in the form of you-pick apples, grab-and-go bags, apple pies, and sticky-crisp caramel apples. Mapleside grows 17 different varieties that begin ripening in midSeptember and continue through late-October. “We go through maybe five to six thousand caramel apples a weekend in the fall,” the owner says. “We keep getting busier and busier every year, so I think that all of the apples that we’re able to produce here, we’re going to be able to sell.” Clement says that he also plans to revive the once-popular hard cider brand Johnny Juice. Starting this summer, the stores and cafes that had been open only in the fall will be converted to year-
round amenities. A new winery and full-service eatery will join a quickserve cider house and refreshed bakery. And before long, guests will be able to enjoy a glass of locally produced wine with those majestic sunset views.
BD’s Mongolian Grill on Coventry Has Closed After Nearly 30 Years in Business When BD’s Mongolian Grill (1854 Coventry Rd.) opened its doors in 1997, the restaurant offered a unique and interactive dining experience akin to hibachi, but without all the splatter. Diners took pleasure in piling ingredients and sauces into a bowl and then handing them off to a grill cook, who would stir-fry them up in plain view. Although the thrill may have vanished many moons ago, the restaurant chugged along, seemingly immune from the economic ups and downs of the street as well as the wider hospitality industry around it. Along with Coventry stalwarts like Tommy’s, Grum’s and Inn on Coventry, BD’s Mongolian was a constant presence on the street for nearly 30 years. That all ended this week when the restaurant failed to open its doors following a “temporary” closure for repairs and maintenance. A staffer on site confirmed that the restaurant was permanently closed. The closure leaves four remaining locations in Ohio, two of which are in the Greater Columbus area.
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner
February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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INDEPENDENTLY OWNED & OPERATED SINCE 2000
15711 WATERLOO RD CLEVELAND OH 44110 CHARGE BY PHONE 216.383.1124 ONLINE TICKETS & COMPLETE SCHEDULE BEACHLANDBALLROOM.COM
NEW ANNOUNCES
5.1 THE ARCADIAN WILD 4.14 CAROLINE ROSE•LA FORCE 2.16 NEO WORKER CENTER FUNDRAISER 3.30 GRATEFUL FOR BIGGIE 3.16 NEW! MIHALI @ GROG SHOP 2.25 HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH SCREENING 3.18 NEW! JAKE XERXES FUSSELL 3.30 NEW! NOUVEAU DECADENCE BURLESQUE 4.16 QWANQWA•CHURCH OF THE STARRY WISDOM 5.2 NEW! THE GARCIA PROJECT JERRY GARCIA TRIBUTE 4.18 RICH AUCOIN 5.5 TY SEGALL•SHARPIE SMILE 3.19 TOW’RS 3.20 WAYNE HANCOCK 4.2 MATT ANDERSEN•OLD MAN LUEDECKE 4.17 RUEN BROTHERS 3.5 MARY TIMONY•YOUBET 5.6 VARIETOPIA W/PAUL F. TOMPKINS 2nd SHOW 4.22 BODEGA 3.22 OWEN RIVER•CHARITY CUNNINGHAM 3.6 NEW! DISHWASHER POSSUM 4.3 THE HI-JIVERS 4.5 STEVE FORBERT 4.19 NIGHT CLUB 5.9 LOS STRAITJACKETS 4.24 DELTA BOMBERS + IV & THE STRANGE BAND 5.8 TWRP 3.22 JOEY HARKUM•PERSONSPLACESTHINGS 3.7 LAVEDA•YOUTH PALLET 4.5 COASTAL CLUB•JORDAN DEAN 5.17 PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS 3.23 THIS IS JUST A TRIBUTE: RIZE OF THE FENIX 4.6 ADAM PADDOCK•THE MEATBALL MOB 4.24 THE MARY WALLOPERS 3.8 NEW! WHISKEY THROTTLE 4.26 ALLAH-LAS 5.19 MARK LETTIERI GROUP 3.9 NEW! ABSTRACT SOUNDS•THICARUS 3.26 POST SEX NACHOS•SIMILIAR KIND 4.10 THE THING 4.11 NEW! DC THE DON 4.25 DANIELLE NICOLE 4.28 MIDNIGHT NORTH•FIRESIDE COLLECTIVE 5.24 NEW! GHALIA VOLT•KRISTINE JACKSON 3.15 NEW! LEA MARRA & THE RIVER BOYS 3.27 ROBERT LOCKWOOD JR. CELEBRATION 4.12 IN THE PINES•SUPER SPORT 6.12 NEW! AVI KAPLAN 4.30 VISION VIDEO•THEN COMES SILENCE 3.27 PACIFIC DUB 3.29 ANDREA VON KAMPEN 4.14 NEW! THE LOCAL HONEYS 3.16 THE DOLLYROTS•DETENTION
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| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
MUSIC FEELING IT STILL
Portugal. The Man guitarist talks about digging deep into the band’s back catalog By Jeff Niesel EVEN THOUGH HE ISN’T A founding member of the indie rock act Portugal. The Man, guitarist Eric Howk grew up in Alaska with the band’s two core members, bassist Zach Carothers and singer-multi-instrumentalist John Gourley. He fondly recalls that formative time period. “We were pretty remote,” says Howk via phone from band rehearsals in Portland, OR. Portugal. The Man performs at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 17, at the Agora. “He had an hour-long bus ride, and I had an hour-long bus ride. I’ve known John since the second grade, and I met Zach through school band. We were learning how to play jazz standards.. Howk then found out that Zach had his own garage band that rehearsed in his mom’s basement. They were called the Dependable Letdowns. “He had three originals but knew something like 20 covers,” says Howk. “He was the first kid I saw on a microphone. That the first time I saw a child wearing skate shoes and baggy jeans and playing a guitar like crap and singing Dead Kennedys and Helmet songs.” During that time period, Howk says he mostly sat in his room and learned to play solos, but seeing Carothers perform left a lasting impression. “I learned a lot from Zach, who had this knowledge built into him,” he says. “He had never played outside of Alaska but knew that practice was important and even if were building bad habits, we had to play the song over and over until it almost sounded like the song we were trying to cover.” While Carothers and Gourley started playing together in Alaska, they quickly found that touring from the remote state would prove to be too difficult, so they relocated
PORTUGAL. THE MAN. | Courtesy of the Agora
to Portland and launched Portugal. The Man in 2004. The band has steadily toured and recorded since issuing its 2006 debut, Waiter: “You Vultures!” Early on, the group took a “Beatles in Hamburg” approach and tried to play as often as it could and release as an album a year. In 2010, that approach yielded great dividends, and the band signed with Atlantic Records and began to see its popularity increase with each album. In the wake of 2011’s In the Mountain in the Cloud, the group would hit the festival circuit and performed at fests such as Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. “At that point, I had made a few attempts to jump onto the Portugal. The Man freight train,” says Howk. “They’ve always had this unbelievable work ethic. Even with no budget for touring, they were playing 200 shows a year. To commit to that meant ‘goodbye life’ and ‘hello back of the van eating unseasoned rice.’ It was a commitment.” Howk, who now uses a wheelchair, was on the verge of joining the band in 2007, but a spinal injury “put a pin in a lot of things.” But then, in 2013, he came on stage and jammed with the band. It wasn’t long before he became an official member.
PORTUGAL. THE MAN, SNACKTIME, 7 P.M. SATURDAY, FEB. 17, AGORA THEATRE, 5000 EUCLID AVE., 216-881-2221, AGORACLEVELAND. COM. TICKETS: $42.50-$89.50.
“At that point, my whole idea of a band was that you have your songs that you recorded, and your job is to play them perfectly as they were recorded and then play the next song, and that’s that,” he says. “The beauty of jumping into a band like this is that there is a flow to it. You stop trying to executive it perfectly. Everyone was looking around and giving each other insider baseball signals, and I was hooked.” The band’s popularity soared in 2017 when “Feel It Still,” a funky song with a thick bass riff and falsetto-like vocals, became a huge hit. Howk says the group still enjoys playing “Feel It Still” but is “really digging into it” during the current rehearsals to unearth tracks from the now-extensive back catalog. “In the past, we’ve been a band that’s peppered in a fair amount of covers and song references and things like that,” he says. “We’re at the point where we’re realizing that we’re 120 songs deep and have a bunch of records in our pocket. We’re starting to reference ourselves, and we’re trying to do a proper retrospective. We’re playing stuff from the first record. It’s been
good for us. It’s been great. We’re playing the hits but also diving deeper into where we’ve come from.” He adds that the group hasn’t yet figured out its intro. Last year, it started shows with metallic riffs from “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “South of Heaven” and “Cowboys from Hell.” “The metal thing is super fun and very bombastic and theatrical,” says Howk. “We’ve been doing a few things with Cheap Trick, and it’s given us an appreciation for the band. They got their name because [guitarist] Rick Nielsen saw Slade in concert and said that they did every cheap trick in the book. Opening with Slayer and Pantera is definitely a ‘cheap trick.’ We come out and shred. We might try to come up with a recipe of our own with our own ingredients. But we might just do the metal if we can’t beat it. It’s pretty tough to beat Metallica in the shock-and-awe department.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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SILK BAND ROCK N’ ROLL EXPRESS STRUM & STRUMMER KARAOKE MICK & RICK BANK JONES’N MY FRIEND JACK KARAOKE
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
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Real music in the real world
WED
begins tonight at 8. 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
02/14
Neck Deep The UK-based hard rock band Neck Deep brings its headlining tour to the Agora with special guests Drain, Bearings and Higher Power. The tour supports the band’s recent album that includes recent singles “We Need More Bricks,” “It Won’t Be Like This Forever” and Take Me with You.” 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
FRI
02/16
Chayla Hope’s Be Mine Valentine’s Soiree The local singer-songwriter hosts a special Valentine’s Day weekend concert tonight at 7 at Mahall’s 20 Lanes in Lakewood. Bershy and DRIXY open. 13200 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216521-3280, mahalls20lanes.com.
Jo Dee Messina The popular country singer-songwriter kicked off her career nearly 30 years ago with the single “Heads Carolina, Tails California.” In the wake of that single, she’s delivered No. 1 hits and 16 Top 40 songs. In the wake of releasing a new single last years, she brings her latest tour to TempleLive at the Cleveland Masonic tonight at 8. 3615 Euclid Ave., 216-881-6350, masoniccleveland.com.
SAT
02/17
Belles Wildflower Country Tour According to press materials, Nashville insiders have compared country singersongwriter Belles to a young Dolly Parton. The current tour that brings her to the Rialto Theatre in Akron tonight supports last year’s EP, The Way You Break a Heart. The singersongwriter has opened for the likes of Miranda Lambert, Old Dominion, Dan + Shay, Brett Eldridge, Chris Lane, Rodney Atkins, Lee Brice, Eli Young Band and Russell Dickerson. The concert begins at 7. 1000 Kenmore Blvd., Akron, 234-5251956, rialtotheatre.com.
That 1 Guy A good old-fashioned one man band, Mike Silverman, aka That 1 Guy, returns to the Beachland Tavern, a club he’s played many times during his decade-long career. Silverman plays the Magic Pipe, an instrument of metal, strings and electronics. The concert
WED
Emanuel Wallace
LIVEWIRE
02/21
Stick Men Even as a rejuvenated King Crimson continues to tour, Crimson bassist Tony Levin has managed to find the time to devote to Stick Men, a side project that includes Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto and guitarist Markus Reuter. A few years ago, the group issued Prog Noir, an album that shows off the band’s songwriting as much as it shows off the group’s chops. The eerie title track features Bowie-like vocals and distorted vocals. Another highlight in the band’s catalog, the digital only live album, Roppongi — Live in Tokyo 2017, features Crimson saxophonist and flutist Mel Collins. Tonight’s concert at the Beachland starts at 8. Local rockers CuDa, Schief & CuDa open. 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
THU
02/22
Static X and Sevendust Led by the late Wayne Static, Static X found itself part of the nu-metal movement of the ‘90s. In the wake of Static’s death in 2014, the group has somehow soldiered on and has teamed up with Sevendust, a hard rock act from the same era, for the current tour. The two bands bring their coheadlining tour to the Agora Theatre tonight at 5:30. Dope and Lines of Loyalty open. 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
FRI
02/23
Drake The pop/R&B/rap superstar makes his first appearance in Cleveland in ages this weekend for a pair of shows. His eighth album, last year’s For All the Dogs, was another smash hit and delivered singles such as the shimmering ballad “Slime You Out” (featuring SZA) and the edgy “First Person Shooter” (featuring J. Cole). As a result, Drake is now tied with Michael Jackson for the most No. 1 singles by a male solo artist. The concerts begin at 8 tonight and tomorrow night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. J. Cole opens.
Brite Winter is back for its 15th year. See: Saturday, Feb. 24.
1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.
Into the Blue: Grateful Dead Revival Night Regardless of your take on the Grateful Dead, the band to which Into the Blue, an ensemble of local musicians pays tribute, the group maintains a damn important stature in the rock ‘n’ roll canon. Into the Blue revives that spirit and lends it the respect Jerry and Co. rightfully deserve. Anyone interesting in hearing — and seeing — great music flow from the stage should check out what these guys are doing. Fellow musicians and artists will glean inspiration. Tonight’s concert begins at 9 at the Beachland Ballroom. 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
SAT
02/24
Brite Winter This annual arts and music festival that’s now in its 15th year will celebrate Cleveland’s connection to the Cuyahoga River and the Great Lakes. Local rock/funk band Wanyama serves as headliner, and other notable acts slated to perform include Chayla Hope, LoConti, Ray Flanagan & the Mean Machines and Hello! 3D. The event begins at 3 p.m. on the West Bank of the Flats. Admission is $12. britewinter.com.
Glixen This indie rock act received some attention last year after releasing a solid string of singles with Julia’s War before delivering their debut EP, She Only Said. Led by singer Aislinn
Ritchie, a woman with a dreamy, Hope Sandoval-like voice, the group plans to release more singles this year before hitting the festival circuit. The forthcoming single “foreversoon” packs a punch and sounds like My Bloody Valentine on steroids. Expect to hear it tonight when the band plays Mahall’s 20 Lanes in Lakewood at 7:30. Dogs Run free open. 13200 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216521-3280, mahalls20lanes.com.
October London The singer-songwriter brings his tour in support of his new album, The Rebirth of Marvin, to the Agora tonight at 7. Expect to hear slow jams such as “Back to Your Place” and “Midnight Love Affair” as London channels Marvin Gaye’s spirit. J. Brown and Shindellas open the show. 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
MON
02/26
Cold War Kids From 2006’s Robbers & Cowards onward, Cold War Kids have delivered infectious grooves and evocative lyrics that draw from rock, blues, R&B and soul. On tour in support of a terrific self-titled album of bluesy new tunes that came out last year, the group celebrates its 20th anniversary with tonight’s show at House of Blues. The concert begins at 7. 308 Euclid Ave., 216-523-2583, houseofblues.com.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene February 14 - 27, 2024 | clevescene.com |
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SAVAGE LOVE SMASH BUTTON By Dan Savage 1. How do you tell the difference between when someone says they love you in a Platonic way and when someone says they love you in a romantic way? My heart is breaking and it’s my own fault. I started cheating on my husband of 29 years, casually at first — making out, getting groped, no penetrative sex — and then I met a man and we just clicked. I caught feelings and we started to have an intense, kinky, and very sexual and emotional relationship. I love my husband. We are extremely compatible in so many ways, except this one: I am kinky and poly whereas he is vanilla and monogamous. Even though I haven’t disclosed my cheating to him, we have been talking about my desire to be non-monogamous. He knows I’m kinkier than he is, although I can’t disclose how I came to know I need BDSM in my life. I have also discovered that I am bisexual, but not biromantic. Because of this, my husband has moved on monogamy and agreed to be a little monogamish: he consents to me exploring sexual encounters with women, primarily because he guiltily admits that he finds it a non-threatening turn-on since I am not romantically attracted to women. I have presented to my husband that I WANT to be non-monogamous and that I am capable of polyamory. He hasn’t consented. Even though he says he doesn’t want to say no or hold me back from exploring my sexuality, he says if I were to issue an ultimatum, we would get divorced. So, this is basically his ultimatum. Meanwhile, my lover and I have recognized that the struggles in our relationship stem from the fact that I am cheating on my husband. It raises doubts for my lover about whether I am deceiving him, since I am obviously capable of deceit. I hate this. When I ask him what he wants, my lover says he wants me not to hate myself so much. And so, we have decided to “pause” our affair until I can figure out how to get right with my husband and be able to be ethnically nonmonogamous. Adding to my heartbreak: I NEED both these relationships. My husband can only flex so far in the kink direction. He cannot be the dominant partner I need. I’ve told him this, more or less. And he takes it as saying that without that he is nothing, which is not true. He is almost everything, but he can’t stand being not “enough.” He is afraid that I will resent him if he doesn’t agree to nonmonogamy. Which I don’t. But if we divorce so I can feel fulfilled, that will destroy him. I don’t think he believes I would choose nonmonogamy or kink over him. And I really don’t want to leave him or lose my lover. I cannot choose between them. I need them
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both. My heart is BREAKING. Help. Brokenhearted And Seeking Insightful Counsel I’m sorry about your heart but I can’t with your problem. The mail this week — the mail for weeks — has been nothing but letters from longmarried straight people thinking about cheating or already cheating or desperately trying to renegotiate monogamous commitments they made decades ago or desperately pretending that’s what they’re doing, e.g., they’re going through the motions of discussing ethical non-monogamy in the hopes of legitimizing the non-ethical nonmonogamy they’re already practicing. I don’t mean to come across as unsympathetic, BASIC, but you’ve been smashing your pussy down on the selfdestruct button for a while now. You didn’t get the answer you wanted from your husband — permission to fuck other men — and instead of countering his ultimatum (“No fucking around with other men or it’s over”) with an ultimatum of your own (“Permission to fuck around with other men or it’s over”), you went out and started fucking around with other men. You may not have been consciously aware that you were smashing your pussy down on the self-destruct button, but you either knew or should have known you were setting something in motion that would blow up your marriage. This is all going to come out. Your husband is going to find out about your lover and then you’re going to find out whether your husband’s threat to divorce was serious. Threatening to divorce someone you love is easy, actually divorcing someone you love is hard. And divorce is a long, drawn-out process and your husband will have time to reconsider his decision before it’s final. But only the truth can free you from the miserable corner you’ve painted yourself into. And while it’s going to be unpleasant, telling the truth — the messy, painful truth — is the only way you out. Sometimes married people smash their hands/mouths/pussies/dicks down on the self-destruct button and wind up destroying their marriages. Sometimes that’s what they want. But sometimes the marriage survives the explosion and something new and beautiful is built on the rubble. Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones. But there’s only one way to find out. Alright, I dug through the mail and looking for questions that aren’t about cheating or negotiating non-monogamy or embracing tolyamory and managed to find a few… I am invited to a (gay) sex party. When invited for dinner you bring a bottle of wine, but what is the proper etiquette for a sex party? Come showered and douched, I guess. What else? Do I bring something for the host? Newby At Sex Party A host gift is a thoughtful idea, NASP, but slipping your host a little cash — paper towels are way more expensive than they used to be — may be a better idea.
| clevescene.com | February 14 - 27, 2024
“I usually ask for a £5 tip to cover the costs of food, soft drinks, and hard drinks I provide at the parties I run,” said Ali Bushell, author of the Sex Party Handbook. “Even if the host of NASP’s first sex party doesn’t ask for money, being willing to tip the host $10 or so is always appreciated. It’s especially appreciated when the guest acknowledges the time and effort that went into making the event happen and mentions that they’re grateful.” While Bushell makes alcohol available at the parties he hosts at his home in London, not all sex party hosts serve booze. “Bringing alcohol isn’t a terrible idea,” said Bushell, “but NASP needs to bear in mind some people might prefer the party to be dry. So, if he’s thinking of bringing a six pack of beer or bottle of wine to share, best to check with the host about whether that would be welcome.” And big ups to arriving very recently douched and very freshly showered. Also: don’t wear cologne, put your phone away, be polite when you decline to play with someone, be just as polite to someone who declines to play with you, get on PrEP (prevents HIV infection), look into DoxyPEP (offers some protection against other sexually transmitted infections), and maybe consider using condoms (they offer excellent protection against HIV and other STIs). Ali Bushell’s Sex Party Handbook is available on Amazon. When he’s not hosing sex parties, Bushell hosts the The Healers Guild, a podcast for people seeking or offering healing.
I have a lover and we are long-distance. I’d like to spend the limited time we have in person doing physical activities — getting intimate — but he takes a long time to warm up and needs to spend a lot of time talking first. If we had all the time in the world, that wouldn’t be a problem, but we usually only see each other on business trips that take us to each other’s cities. Can we cut to the chase without shortchanging his need to reconnect emotionally first? Down To Business You can’t. I’m a 28-year-old woman in Australia. I am talking to a very hot dominant man in his forties that I met on reddit who’s in my area. He gives me extremely explicit tasks that he wants photos of constantly including writing his initials on me each day. I have verified his ID — I know his real name and he is who he says he is — but other than the fact that he’s married and very private about his life, I don’t know much about him. I’m enjoying having a regular (constant!) D/s dynamic in my life but I’m worried these photos would ruin me if they got out. But I’m enjoying our online play
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so much I’ve stopped talking to people on dating apps because his play is more fun for me. It’s hard to find hot kinky people that are normal/hot IRL in my area. Advice please? Personal Images Complicate Situation The risk you’re running — losing control of your photos — is not some ancillary risk that you can mitigate or eliminate while still enjoying this connection. Your entire relationship with this man consists of taking the pictures he orders you to and then sending them to him. You want this sexy dominant man to have power over you — you’re turned on by the thought of him having power over you — and these photos are the power he has over you. You aren’t sending these photos to get the sex, PICS, the sending of the photos is the sex. Now, sex is never risk-free — there’s no such things as entirely safe sex — but sane people do what they can to mitigate risks. Gay men take PrEP so they can enjoy PIB without having to worry about the risk of contracting HIV; straight women use birth control so they can enjoy PIV without having to worry about the risk of contracting feti. But the only way to eliminate the risk here is for you to stop sending these photos — to abstain from sending more photos — but that also eliminates everything that’s pleasurable about this connection. That said, PICS, the fact that know this man’s name — and that you know he’s married — does provide you with some protection. If this man were to post your photos online because you wanted to end the relationship, you have legal recourse — revenge porn is a crime in Australia — and so the risks here are shared and that will hopefully motivate him to keep your photos on a secure and un-hackable server and not to do anything stupid or vindictive when you move on to a hot Dom you can see IRL. Got problems? Everyone does! Send your question to mailbox@savage.love! Podcasts, columns and more at Savage. Love
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