Charlie Louvin , Detroit, fresh oysters , and da p.d's resident weirdo

Charlie Louvin played a fine two hour plus set this past Friday December 14 , 2007, for the one hundred or so fans in attendance at The Beachland Ballroom on Waterloo Road in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood. Now a spry eighty years of age Charlie Louvin is the de facto voice for country music of the classic not contemporary fashion and is very much still a musical force today.Covering many favorites from his solo career and the career that included his late brother Ira . Mister Louvin performed Great Atomic Power , Cash On The Barrel Head , and the often covered Christian Life. As well as great interpretations of classics by Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton , Woody Guthrie , and a Blue Yodel by Jimmie Rogers among others. A highlight was a song that Mister Louvin addressed as his signature song , See The Big Man Cry. The band that backed Mister Louvin was able and soulful , and his duets with the female guitarist were breathtaking in a sparse beatific fashion. Though I caught Mister Louvin working a cigarette between his lips after the show , his voice is strong and he worked the corners of his vocal range in an upward fashion , gaining strength as the evening progressed. Charlie Louvin remains the humble king of true country music today , and it is a shame that not more fans were about this past Friday to listen to his great voice. The Beachland Ballroom is a true Cleveland treasure , with two owners who book consistently the most interesting , eclectic , and aesthetically pleasing acts on a weekly basis year round. Please support this important local institution , which truly is a gem. Just like old Charlie Louvin...........On to Detroit , Michigan for a quick tour this past weekend. Not much seems to have changed since my last visit a few years back. Sure , a few casinos have sprouted up amid the deserted and decayed streets of the Corktown neighborhood , though no real change seems to have occured save the pair of cookie cutter stadiums for football and baseball. I was glad to read recently in a article concerning the casino biz in Detroit that the homeless that panhandle the area around the casinos are now customers of the slot machines. I truly wish these destitute folk good luck , and I am happy that their money is green and spends as well as the next parties. As we know empirically , crime spikes upward with the advent of legalized gambling , and Detroit , Michigan would do better to work on attracting some of it's former citizens back into the city itself , instead of clipping the paychecks and funds available from the tormented addicted gamblers that casinos attract. I was glad to see that Tiger Stadium was still standing at the historic intersection of Michigan and Trumbell in the Corktown neighborhood. Many great sports memories exist for me and the entire State of Michigan. I would not be at all motivated ever to attend a Tigers game at the new Commerica Park. Seeing Commerica on television proves that another wave of cookie cutter ersatz intimate ball yards have been constructed since Baltimore's Camden yards provided the template for such phony architecture some years ago. Detroit's Tiger Stadium deserves a place on the National Register of Historic Buildings , and is significant in that it is the last standing example of a baseball stadium that was engineered and built with the fan in mind before the lodge holder. Wrigley Field in Chicago was built for a Federal League team , and is as worthy an architectural significant example. Fenway Park in Boston also unique and a valuable National structure worthy of preservation. Baseball has been played on the corner of Michigan and Trumbell since the Civil War , then a picnic grounds with a baseball diamond , and I for one would return every year without fail for a tourist trip to Detroit if Tiger Stadium was again utilized and preserved. As for Commerica Park , tear that abysmal phony ball yard down and move the Tigers back to Michigan and Trumbell. Detroit , Michigan is a great City in severe decline , and as a citizen of a similar City in decline it proves difficult to watch two cities repeat each other's mistakes. Time has come to work on providing safe inhabitable neighborhoods for those of us who remain in these cities , not more corporate welfare for the downtown players , land grab gangs , and greedy interests who pimp out the political system for their personal profit. If we place our elderly and children safety first , and all other concerns as secondary , we as a culture will be headed in the right direction..... Had a great trip across the mighty Cuyahoga , local Native American Indian for crooked, yesterday with my pal Slipsy Junior. Junior was kind enough to treat me to three fine bivalves from the briny Louisiana gulf stream of the oyster variety in their natural juicy selves replete with half shell's. Shucked up of course.Simple is best!Our pal Jose gave us each a pint container of his homemade sofrito as a Holiday gift. Thanks Jose! I will combine your kindness with baccala and eggplant in the Puerto Rican style and eat off it for a week or so. A visit outside to the fine Family concern of the DiCara's produced a lovely bag of fresh sweet English peas , eaten just like the oysters. Raw and naked.Mister DiCara is a old school Market man , and always has the best and freshest selection of seasonal vegetables at the family stand that he now shares with his daughter Mellisa whose seasonal self adornment by means of very creative costumes always speaks for the season or holiday at hand. Do not miss trading with either of these two West Side Market merchants should happen to cross our crooked river. Have your passport in order how ever.....Thanks to P Danny , who read about the volume of Cleveland Stadium Memories in an earlier article and put his money up and purchased a copy.P Danny and his charming bride Greta are great Clevelander's , Greta being quite a good euchre player as well... Dan Oak also checked in on the Cleveland Stadium piece , and as most of us do shared a favorite moment concerning his memories of pater and the Cleveland Stadium. For me it was watching Ted Williams take batting practice on a sunny summer morning prior to a Saturday day game in the year 1959. Standing behind the home plate screen and watching Williams , then into his last years , crack one ball after another into the lower right field stands , the noise from the horsehide hitting the wood seats or adjoining concrete they perched on as audible today as that moment suspended in time nearly fifty years ago. My Father stood with us behind the screen pointing out Williams whip hand and the varieties and strong features of his impressive swing. n Now the sordid 21st century leaves me with a rather morbid vision of the splendid splinter's severed head packed in some sort of cryogenic soup , awaiting resurrection and transplant if the modern medical mavens can produce the means. I prefer the vision of Williams able swing , while my Father's hand was at my shoulder is now a memory flash stored as a lodestone of sanity compared to the hard scrabble science fiction bent antics of the modern world. Such as a nightmare version of Ed Wood's THEY STOLE HITLER'S BRAIN , was recast as " They Pickled The Splendid Splinter ....I have always imagined da p.d.'s Kevin O' Brien to be a weirdo of sorts , if indeed he existed at all. O'Brien"s low humor on the op ed page rivals the comedic slime that Rush Limbaugh pushes or the twisted antics of one National radio syndicated bland white bread sad humorist known as the drudge report. To take the content of any of the above as anything else as stand up humor would prove quite a stretch. Leave it to da p.d.'s butt buddies wcpn radio ,on the a.m. Thursday December 20 , 2007 nine to ten morning radio show , you know the confusing one that pretends to offer ideas , only to deliver pre digested opinions instead. The humor of refering to themselves as an idea stream is not lost on me , and to really seem to prove what a weird piece of work this O'Brien actually is , I can only assume that the pathos is not lost on wcpn either. Seems that O'Brien penned some poetic trashy ditties , reworded versions of Christmas Carols . Pastiches with a political flavor. O'Brien has a " face made for radio" and a voice to match the metaphor. And the mere inclusion of his croaking and belching some nonsense verse about " using awesome powers to tear down the Breuer Tower" to the tune of " Hark , the Herald Angels Sing" , was rather mundane and glibly morbid in it's delivery and content. Did nothing for me at all . Nor did the hour long show do very much for the radio public either , seeing as only three telephone calls were recieved , and the O' Brien muscial / political clips seemed to be added to fill a conspicuous void. O' Brien's odddly resembled in form only the original creative pastiches of Christmas Carols by the brilliant political humorist and syndicated cartoonist Walt Kelly of Pogo fame , and how O'Brien's verse and voice and content resembled some odd bleating and belching of a snarky little wag that fell into the wassail bowl. Whew! This O'Brien really is weird!.... Seems that the Cuyahoga County Government made enough of a mess on the corner of East Ninth and Euclid by purchasing this landmark building , in the first place.The Tower's proposed destruction was sad enough.Any locally and International recognized iconic architectural structure's proposed slaughter by a local Government is bad . The train of thought that arrived at that place to create rubble of acclaimed architecture only seems to further label Cleveland, Ohio as the rube town that it is already perceived as by the majority of the literate world today. Let us exercise at least the modicum of common sense , pausing long enough to prioritize our future as a County Government with declining tax futures. The cooler heads at Cuyahoga County seem to have taken just that pause and should now be rewarded for their current new found fiscal prudence .Let us look at the County's purchase of the Tower as a community asset and reward and sell the spin as just that. Throw some of the " arts money "gathered recently with the cigs tax at renovating the Tower. Try this spin folks?[ As part of an attempt to attract a more intelligent and art savvy tourist class, we the citizens of Cuyahoga County invite civilzed citizens of the world to visit this architecturally significant tower as you would a sculpture in an art museum , and by the way have fun here with the reopening of Cleveland Museum of Art , and look at the renovated Bruer CMA addition as well while you are here....} Sounds to me like hot air , my own wind at that . Yet when I open an envelope with a plea for arts funds , or just some buncha aired out media copy , it more resembles a travel dialogue than copy..... Our civic good fortune placed Breuer's only major skyscraper safely in Government hands . The demographic is increasing for a modernism positive voting generation born after 1970 that will applaud the efforts of an enlightened County Government that would recognize the Tower's significance in accordance with International architectural and design institutions that gave Breuer and the Tower it's due earlier this year by including it in a catalogue of important Breuer design works. This International recognition is well reported in an article by Christopher Magg printed in the New York Times , earlier in this year when the local County Government still had it in mind to destroy the Tower . Please google New York Times , Christopher Magg / Marcel Breuer, for this well written article concerning this Cleveland political art fiasco. So far , so good with regards to the Cuyahoga County Governments ownership of the Tower. It is not uncommon in Europe and other outposts of civilization to leave historic buildings in a form of pre preservation stasis , and it is with sincere hope that this pattern of thought will prevail with regards to the Tower.... Mothballing and taking the time to make appropriate sound planning ideas regarding the fates of the former Cleveland Trust properties , including their original Euclid Avenue buildings East along Euclid from the rotunda. It was on this site that the second Breuer Tower was to have been built as part of his original plans desingened for The Twin Towers . In a sane world the proposed and unbuilt second Tower would be constructed sometime within the twenty first century and Breuer's vision completed and serving as headquarters for a progressive regional government. The Superb Terra cot ta gems of the Halle Brother Buildings and the CAC , and upper Euclid Avenue must be restored as a district if a preservation minded city is to function correctly and aesthetically in concert with smart Cities. Cleveland deserves intelligent Government. We are the people.{ "Look at the peoples", Charles Brown , yet another late great American voice}..... As for O' Brien and his op ed article's in da p.d. , sorry I can't say as to having the pleasure of reading one. I have attempted a few sentences of his churlish prose and having been reminded of my own read on no farther. Without fail have chuckled and departed the column knowing just were this weirdo's efforts were headed. I do not read the funny pages either.My Mother is eighty one years old , Irish as lace , and a good judge of character even now while currently suffering a tough illness. O' Brien's columns are not an illness she can suffer , nor his rabid and sometimes vapid political views. Perhaps , as many former newspaper employee's count upon to do with the shank end of their careers , just prior to visiting God's waiting room and after mowing an eternity of lawns .That is , using the contacts made while in the employ of the media to stagger about a water cooler while employed in the public relations, advertising , or some other poisonous propaganda trade.With the emerging bond crisis to further complicate the foreclosure fiasco , expect 2008 to tank , and some lean years lie ahead for corporate America in the media , entertainment sectors .Layoffs accross the board will follow. All of us will suffer to some degree. Personally try the European Union , their currency is faring better these days , and we will have accrued so much debt that if our bad bets are called in we run the risk of loosing our collective wealth and value as a Nation.... 1801 Superior is a modern architectural and creative failure , and appears to suffer an impending fiscal crisis and failure as well. Prudent media concerns periodically trim dead timber as it will be soft wood that tumbles if you belong to management. Fat salaries and little produced copy should equal liability in terms of most of our current survival oriented careers in the work force. If O' Brien is one of the architects of the current op-ed page on da p.d. , he would seem expendable as a productive or creative force . With corporate profits in peril in the dead tree industries , fatted cattle will be slaughtered..... In a City such as Cleveland, Ohio in the year 2007 , whose downtown offers little in the terms of architectural significance , one less historic structure means quite a bit to those of us in possession of our faculties and some sort of responsible aesthetic selves. O'Brien's sad arse songs provide evidence of da p.d.'s croaking and signing for their suppah's on the public airwaves of wcpn radio. wcpn takes the public out of public radio 24/7/365! Leave the singing to the likes of Charlie Louvin ! Book Selling Time! Time again for a quick look back a mere thirty one years and the great volume penned by Mary - Peale Schofield LANDMARK ARCHITECTURE OF CLEVELAND. Read and view the Marcel Breuer Cleveland Trust Tower on pages 97 to 99. of this fine volume. The sad fact concerning Cleveland architecture is that many of these documented buildings are victims of poor planning and have been demolished in the past thirty odd years. The destruction of the Breuer structure would only provide yet another cultural black eye for a city mostly considered a mid west rube outpost of less than salient aesthetics and ethics. Stop International art terrorism , save the Breuer Tower!

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