Plywood Cities

Walking a gritty few miles around our fast crumbling northeast Cleveland neighborhood this ominous penultimate March morning , the skies laced fast with tenebrific clouds. I am served reminder of two factoids in a very clear fashion. One , Bud Selig must live in the subterranean beer cellar in Suds City , because he sure does not possess a clue about Cleveland weather in late March. Two. There is sure a lot of dog shit on the street. Take the second factoid in whatever manner you wish ? As I amble past the boarded up Pizza Hut , Ponderosa Steakhouse ,Goodyear Tire Company , and a gross of other plywood encrusted storefronts , these grim visages do nothing to promote the idea of exercise that has gripped my aging psyche. Instead this brisk walk rapidly becomes a game of eyes down dodge the doggy doo doo , and hum a happy little tune in attempt to negate the ugly abandoned place this once lively neighborhoods retail district has become. Corporate abandonment! The worst vision on this stroll along the Boulevard however is the boarded up former K-Mart and more recently a former Big Lots store who abandoned retail efforts here due to changing demographics , now sits empty . Dangerous , and mouldering while awaiting an uncertain future as a proposed City recreation Center. Now as the signage for the former Big Lots store has been removed , leaving me with only a chuckle when remembering the letter "L" in the Big Lots sign was burned out for the last few years of the store's existence. A not so funny sight gag , that speaks more than less about contemporary life in Cleveland ,Ohio.Corporate bigots! Now , this massive former blue light special space now turned rancid taunts and mocks all of us who pass it daily.An eyesore! Yeah , yet another corporate invader species , in this case KMart from Detroit , Michigan , deciding that they wanted no part of our neighborhood, so they blew the property off and we are left with an ugly empty building as reminder of there Collinwood kiss off , complete with a pot holed parking lot designed now to bust your axle first and ask questions later left behind for good measure. I suppose some Ohio corporations , say perhaps the former office supply joint out on Warrensville Center Road in Shaker Heights , ditched stores in Detroit. Touche. Far as I am concerned Cleveland , Ohio and Detroit , Michigan are about in the same shape and often it proves difficult to discern any visible or demographic differences between the two cities. We Clevelanders are up here on the south shore of Lake Erie and right across the water lives our friends from Ontario , Canada. Lots of melons amid the hoser strains lay ahead on the other side of these Erie waters. Melons , I said . Sadies rule! Back here in Ward 11 our City Councilman , Mike Polensek proves daily he is a well intentioned sort. Prone now in the late stages of a rather lengthy career as city councilman to fashion himself as a sage and experienced leader , whose twenty nine years spent in Cleveland City council chambers gives him the right to comment upon a large number of Cleveland issues. You bet! Councilman Polensek received some national media attention for his chastising and dressing down of a local Collinwood youth that Polensek witnessed tossing litter among the streets he is entrusted as elected official to represent. The young man was rather blase in his response to our councilamn and there is the story. Councilman Polensek acted in a strong pseudo parental fashion in the hopes of advancing this young man's social graces and imparting to him the negative lesson of public littering . Or loitering? Does not matter. Any society is only as good as the sum of it's parts. Yu go Mike Polensek! I concur and applaud your efforts and agree with this cleanliness cause. As I said earlier Councilman Polensek is a well intentioned sort ...I last observed Mike Polensek at a Euclid , Ohio Democratic Party for Obama rally that featured Carolyn Kennedy as a principal speaker held prior to the Ohio primary at the Euclid Community Center earlier this year. Councilman Polensek took the podium early on in the affair and in addressing the issue of foreclosure in our region said he was " sick and tired of being sick and tired" , concerning the incidents of foreclosure and the dire effects they have on our communities. Well put , councilman. Polensek then sat in stern studied silence facing the crowd with a Ohio For Obama , sign flashed towards the crowd of 150 or so attendees for the remainder of the evening . A good soldier for a good cause... Collinwood has no recreation center , and the abandoned KMart on Lakeshore Boulevard has been the proposed site of one for as long as I can remember. The closest City of Cleveland recreation center is the Glenville Recreation Center on East 113th street , under ten miles in distance , yet worlds away in regards to youthful politics. Glenville is Tarblooder territory , Collinwood is Railroaders turf. An invisible boundary exists between these adjoining neighborhoods , and rivalries in high school sports and other more street like matters involving commercial boundaries and illicit activities , run high. It is an unfortunate fact of life that many of our youth are witness on a daily basis to the street crimes of drug sales and prostitution that occur in Cleveland neighborhoods. Most of the customers for these illicit criminal enterprises are drawn here from the five or so Counties that surround Cuyahoga ,and it is easy to spot these low life visitors as they amble about in their hoopty automobiles doing their dirty deeds here in Cleveland .Plenty of crime exists in the rather cross eyed outbacks and dirt trailer types sequestered deep into a surrounding rural county. Often these bad boys are related to some distant parish or township politicians who creates law not observes law , and to quote a phrase "the beat goes on." These so called victimless crimes do have their victims however. Our youth who are doomed to live amid this traffic. These emerging Cleveland youth would be well served with a recreation center as a means of building enough athletic skills , and social graces to perhaps deter them from choosing the easy entrepreneurial skills that have dire long term consequences.To date Councilman Polensek fights hard to deliver this Recreation Center for Collinwood citizens . Keeping an item like this alive is to keep it in the news and in the public eye. The Collinwood neighborhood is among the better off of others in the scheme of events which Cleveland , Ohio is comprised of today. Hanging on by the slightest of margins to a fading dignity is Collinwood , Ohio 2008. An important Cleveland neighborhood to study intensely and often. How goes the future of Collinwood so goes the city. I do not have to elaborate on the positive benefits of exercise for adults , and children alike. Nor does it take a genius to figure that if a household is troubled and chaos exists within it's fabric that youth spending time away from a dysfunctional home situation is a positive , not a negative. The message at the Obama rally was to imagine and embrace the ability to dream and imagine positive change.If we can deliver candidate Obama to the oval office perhaps more funds will reach the tired streets and neighborhoods of Cleveland ,Ohio and Detroit, Michigan. hopefully resulting in more recreation centers and social services? The chant at the Euclid community center rally for Obama ended with the crowd chanting " Yes we can, Yes we can" over and over again. Time has arrived to make some choices , perhaps Obama can make the difference.Today the shame of the empty Cleveland Browns football stadium , built with public funds for private profit, stands on our lakefront empty 355 days a year while our Cleveland youth suffer from a paucity of recreation facilities and their lives become a gamble against the odds of prison or death on Cleveland's mean streets. Thousands of well fed Mothers and Fathers and their off springs many from far off suburbs will attend the 2008 Cleveland American League baseball opener today , spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on beer and food , trophy t-shirt souvenirs and the like. Most Cleveland residents and youth never even get a sniff of this corporate oxymoron ballyard/billboard newly named " progressive field". Calamity field is more apt a name for the baseball yard that the progressive insurance company paid twenty million to name! How many recreation centers would twenty million build?! Hell, the Cleveland AL baseball team even remodeled the right field kids playground at the jake into the new calamity field " party deck". Hell of thing society and it's priorities. We were all children once , and how we treat all children speaks miles about who we really are.Obama knows that fact well. As does all concernedr parents worthy of their salt. Now the time has come to act as if we are entering the 21st century as opposed to entering the 19th century in our current backward ways. Obama has decent odds to pull us out of the mess we as Americans are dug into. Bet on it! The amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is pledged and in conversation with Councilman Polensek says is ready and available for an engineering study at the proposed KMart Recreation site on Lakeshore Boulevard. Councilman Polensek says senior fitness from local high rises should be first imperative. The Humphrey Athletic baseball fields behind the proposed site should remain ballfields forever. Historical evidence proves play on that site since the site was cleared years . This former farmland once used to grow the exotic hybrid Humphrey's popcorn used in the famous and delicious popcorn balls and bags of popped corn sold at Euclid Beach Park , East 105th and Euclid , and from a stand on Clevelands public square. Back when popcorn counted for something other than the great garnish it serves with soups or stews.Then as a parking lot until the amusement parks closing after the 1969 season. Flying turns fields forever! Yes we can!

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True Art Heist , North Collinwood revisited

Walking by the True Art Gallery in Cleveland's north Collinwood neighborhood this past Saturday evening , I was touched by the tiny child's bicycle locked onto an equally miniature tree in front of the now closed gallery space. The bike's bright purple color with the orange plastic chain that holding it in place served testimony to so much of what is wrong with the sad priorities that occur in the contemporary urban scheme of events today. The Cuyahoga County government sponsored and passed legislation under the aegis of " Arts and cultural initiative". What does it take for some of these funds to find there way to the street level , and help a marginal neighborhood like North Collinwood , retain the sweat equity that Ms. Deveney of True Art Gallery , has placed into the space with help of her partner in the past two years? As stated in the first post here discussing True Art gallery , had suffered an earlier break in in September 2007 . And that not being bad enough , to have to suffer the indignity of a second break in , this one at the hands of a Collinwood neighbor , who was apprehended in a police sting while selling the stolen paintings a few blocks from True Art Galleries boarded up storefront. Insult added to injury. And yes , not all of the paintings that were heisted from the gallery have been recovered as of yet.Those stolen painting that sold were at deep discounted street prices of a fraction of the arts sticker prices , it is not very likely that this stolen art will find it's way back to the members who exhibited at True Art , and became victims along with Ms. Deveney and her partner . Ms. Deveney in her true blue large hearted fashion is working on a benefit for the artists whose paintings were stolen and not recovered. The real victims here are the North Collinwood community which looses one of the start up business's that made an aesthetic difference to those who visited the area. Across East 156Th Street from True Art is the other new start up business Cafe Marika , another sweat equity project attempting to get a leg up in a marginal neighborhood, that has suffered more than it's share of street crime and bad luck recently . Cafe Marika has the old world charm of a cafe in Budapest or Prague , and the pastries , foodstuffs and strong coffee or drink to go along with it. It is the potential success of these start ups that will determine the future of the Waterloo business district and North Collinwood. Down the block from cafe Marika, and True Art exists the Waterloo areas anchor business , The world renowned Beachland Ballroom , ready to celebrate it's eighth year in another six weeks. A record store , Music Saves , and hipster retail shop Shoperooni are the other neighborhood attractions to date. I just can't get the picture out of my mind of the boarded up windows at True Art gallery , and the tiny child's bicycle tied up in front of the empty True Art storefront. Most of us remember our initial " art " attempts from our childhoods , and having had fun from our creative efforts , either set down the paints and brushes , or ran with them for the remainder of our days. In a small city like Cleveland , Ohio today , it appears that many young adults consider themselves " fine artists" , and let you know about their artworks in a variety of mannerisms that need no further explanation. Just have a walk or drive about the Tremont or Little Italy neighborhoods , and get a taste of this " art " flavor. North Collinwood , and Waterloo Road was looking for this sort of flavor with regards to True Art gallery. Shame that they did not have a better chance at success. Though I would imagine that if local Collinwood children were given the opportunity to just be kids working at their " art " projects after school , that a now empty storefront such as True Art would have great value as a community asset in serving as deterrent to the crime oriented streets that surround it. All those millions of dollars collected by Cuyahoga County for it's " Arts and Cultural initiative", do not appear to have found there way to the street level were they may do some real good in struggling communities such as North Collinwood , and it's culture of poverty and crime that victimize our children. Write to your County Commissioners and ask them how we can send our neighborhoods and children an arts lifeline? Book Selling Time! It is not nice to mix politics with anything as far as I am concerned , and when politics and art mix it is never very pleasant. We offer today a copy of Ralph Shikes , THE INDIGNANT EYE , The artist as social critic from the fifteenth century to Picasso. I only wish that more scrutiny was placed upon the dispersal of tax generated funds that's aim are to support an " arts and cultural initiative". Many artists goals throughout history have been aimed at skewering politicians at the end of their ink pens , and for damn good reasons. Art and politics do mix , and it is the artist who justly lampoons or kicks the politicos into the muck they crawl about in that get my vote any day of the week. Thomas Nast comes to mind as the nineteenth century American artist whose work best represents this form of satire that portrays the politicians in their most authentic form. Who is your favorite? Send along yours and we will print them here at a later date.

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Glenn Schwartz is alive and well

and still playing regular gigs around Cleveland, Ohio. I have been listening to Glenn Schwartz play electric guitar live for forty-one years, beginning with his James Gang days in the mid 1960's, and following him right along to this very day.

I caught his homeboy gig at the Beachland ballroom this very evening and as usual was rewarded immensely by his style of play.

Glenn and his bass playing brother Gene are Collinwood natives and raised not far from the Beachland Ballroom on Waterloo Road. I make no bones about my belief that Glenn Schwartz is one of the top ten electric guitarists working today. Period.

Sure, the stories are the stuff of legend and yore. Jimi Hendrix did request Glenn to play guitar at his final birthday party before his tragic early passing. Glenn did perform for Hendrix, and his ascended style of fretwork gave him truck with a wide variety of fellow blues inspired guitarists the likes of Beck, Clapton, and Page among others. Brother Gene served as both bass player and automobile driver to the late great Robert "Junior" Lockwood, who held high opinion of Glenn's guitar playing.

His Beachland Ballroom gigs are polite affairs, not to be confused with the often drunken crowds who trade barbs and act in a confrontational fashion concerning the often preaching style of Glenn's raps and rants while playing his weekly Thursday evening show at Major Hooples bar on Cleveland's west side.

Glenn plays in a unique blues style, completing the task of playing intense, sonic lead riffs and runs simultaneously, while accompanying himself with stiff rhythm chords for effect. -- Truly amazing stuff.

Equivalent to the amazing way a Bert Blyleven curve ball would break over home plate in baseball parlance. Combining the basic blues with psychedelic melts, and then runs at precise rhythm and blues, makes for an exiting evenings listening.

Glenn is a born again Christian, and often relates in an honest heart-felt manner his sometimes graphic vision of our next world and common fate. Calling the media out on their collective lies, referring to the television as the "gooftube" and warning us away from its ill affects also a part of Glenn's rants and raps.

He speaks of going twenty days without food and having to shoulder quarters of beef for delivery while working driving a truck at the NOFT at Fortieth Street and Orange Avenue, just east of downtown Cleveland.

This is so common in America today or yesterday, give our true artists and musicians chain saws, power tools, knives, and meat hooks and tell them to earn a living with their hands.

Glenn talks about his gigs at Cleveland's Warrensville Workhouse, Coolie's Farm, where the "black people called me slide," and Glenn breaks out his slide and works out a few musical numbers using this piece of round steel for incredible bent notes and explosive rapt points.

When Glenn plays the slide guitar, I close my eyes, and can here the industrial noises of the former Coit Road Chevrolet plant that was formerly on Coit Road in Collinwood until the early 1980's.

As a nod to the season Glenn, Gene, and their drummer played a magnificent version of the Christmas classic Holy Night. Unique and authentic was their read of this hymn.

When we were young men we would visit the fields at the edge of town, take all the wmms buzzard t-shirts we could find, placing the t-shirts over and around stumps, or with the t-shirts fastened to propped up logs, we would kick back, load up our guns, and blast the living shit out of the stinky buzzard rags, leaving them pocked with holes, perforated strips of cotton cloth flapping in the breeze.

It was only in this rather inert fashion that we could achieve any real satisfaction and cathartic response from the radio oppression that that lousy bunch of east coast pirates were peddling in our home town.

Revenge is best taken cold. We once appropriated a buzzard statue and dragged it along to our shooting site, though it only took a few shots from our guns to reduce it to plaster and dust. Big deal, the lousy image of the wmms buzzard was swiped from the Kansas Jayhawk likeness, and always seemed just as phony as that tasteless radio station wmms was in the day.

Iron Gut alert.A Middle Eastern Buffet is serving up an all you can eat spread on west 117Th street north of Lorain. We attempted this fare twice with mixed results. The meats are mostly back of bird chicken, utility lamb, and ground beef, and fairly uninspired stews of these meats combined with various vegetables:

eggplant and beef: oily yet surprisingly fine tasting
squash and beef: mealy
lamb, ribs and okra: slimy and chewy
potato and chicken: mushy
chicken with lemon: dry
No fish in sight.
Salads are standard fares
humus, babaganoush, tabbouleh: predictable.

plenty of plain white rice and pita bread for starch. pickled radishes, turnips, cucumbers, and a sparse green salad rounded out the mess. Beverages are extra, and if you desire water bring your own.

Desert was limited to a single philo-dough based cheese pastry. Tea, coffee, and sodas are available as well. My bride suffered mightily from the effects of the beef meatballs and cold falafels.

I had stomach pains for twenty four hours after eating at this spot.

Most food seems to suffer from sitting around on the steam table a bit longer than it should, and when we arrived at six p. m. on a Tuesday night we were only joined by one other couple while we supped.

Would have preferred to boil the wmms buzzard and serve it back to the buffet folk instead of ever consider eating there again.

Book Selling Time!

As remedy to the bad buffet , and to acknowledge Glenn Schwartz's wisdom considering the merits of a good appetite and the fine tasting and comforting food we are provided in substance with while dwelling our short time on planet Earth may we suggest a copy of the Time Life MIDDLE EASTERN COOKING.

This finely illustrated and historically accurate cook book will cure any ill effects from a local iron gut buffet.

Thanks again to Kim, John and my Family.

If you can pass or forward this post to a friend. Glenn Schwartz and the Beachland Ballroom are a great combination. Come out the next time that the Schwartz Brothers Band plays and make an evening of it. The Beachland Kitchen puts out a great dinner these days. telephone ahead for choices. And please support these two great Collinwood institutions and their unique symbiosis.

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