Odds set here for Wolstein , Stark , and Medical Mart

Gold and oil prices are up. Our United States economy is down. Seems that you need a scorecard locally to see who is currently winning the land grab wars in downtown Cleveland. More about this sport later. First up..... Let the New Year begin now that Ohio State University has lost yet another National Collegiate Football Championship .Who really cares about the nfl games that will follow? Nothing super about the super bowl , save the super amount of money that will be wagered on the remaining nfl scheduled playoffs and the gaudy super bowl. For this fan football is over until autumn 2008 . Thanks be for that. The Ohio State University versus Louisiana State University game last evening spoke miles for itself concerning who has the better collegiate football team.LSU hands down. The real test of a modern great State is in the number of major elected public officials currently incarcerated for crimes committed while holding public office.Let us examine how Louisiana and Ohio fare in this department. Just as in the Collegiate championship football game victors , the State of Louisiana wins hands down over Ohio in the number of elected officials serving time for committing crimes while holding public office , or their implicit involvement in fraud , bribery , and other politically related crimes. A short list of Louisiana politicians serving time currently , or facing time includes former Louisiana Governor Edward Edwards and his son Stephen Edwards , Orleans Parish School Board President Ellenese Brooks - Simms , former Louisiana Congressman Bill Jefferson , New Orleans City Council member at large Oliver Thomas , Judge Allan Greene , former Louisiana State Senate President Michael O' Keefe , and for good measure a sinner of the old fleshy school variety former Senator David Vitter. Whew! The list just goes on. No room here to document all the swampy political criminals that disgrace the great State of Louisiana. Huey Long would be proud of 'em , one and all! As in collegiate football , Louisiana has Ohio beat in the corrupt politician category hands down! Best Ohio can muster is the pitiful three stooges currently serving time for their white collar crimes : former congress Representatives James Traficant and Bob Ney , and the convicted " coingate " felon and former White house insider Tom Noe.How about them former politicos ?, Louisiana , and Ohio both appear to have terminal flaws in the respective Capital cities of Columbus , Ohio and Baton Rouge , Louisiana. Plenty of soap and water needed to clean up these disgraceful politicians! Game over... Let the local game of handicapping the players who use downtown Cleveland as a real estate scrum begin! For the year 2008 we will make book on which perspective real estate / development projects will actually get of the ground. Using race track logic , the long shot of the proposed projects is developer Stark's Warehouse District dream of one of his suburban " Legacy Village " , type developments , you know the faux little town square types complete with high end retail , big box stores , and a few residences proposed by Stark to fill the damnable empty parking lot space which now comprises fifty percent of the physical space that is referred to as the Warehouse district. I give Stark credit for attempting to fill in the long standing joke that the parking lot district that is also known as Cleveland's " Warehouse District" , is today via buying out the parking operators interests and filling it in with dense Urban development as a progressive City like Cleveland could have in it's design. Good luck however, money will be tight due to ongoing Federal credit problems , complicated by the Nationwide housing slump , and foreclosure mess. Corporate America is pretty strung out on borrowing large amounts of money to fund itself , and will be forced to tighten it's collective belt due to the likely event of a recession this year. Banks will be dreaming of dollars and shitting out nickels this year. Odds at Stark getting off to a 2008 start 85 to 1...... Developer Wolstein and his grand plans for the east side of the downtown Cleveland banks of the Cuyahoga River area known as the " Flats " , fares better to break ground in 2008 , though you can smell the taint of his slapping up an office building in true Cleveland " put the horse before the cart" fashion and poaching existing office leases from other downtown buildings prior to constructing any of the residential , or retail that Wolstein promised for the Flats site. Odds for the office building 10 to 1 , all other aspects of this Flats plan even coming close to getting started in 2008 , 70 to 1..... Now the big enchilada of developments , the more complicated Medical Merchandise Mart / Convention Center project currently having the public side funds collected via a sales tax increase that was generated in late 2007 by vote of the Cuyahoga County Commissioners. This project is racking up millions already via the tax levy , and stands the best chance of breaking ground due to the fact , if for no other reason , that money has been gathered and that usually translates to as much as spending it on your land baron friends , not putting funds aside for some sensible infrastructure improvements that would serve all of Cuyahoga County , not just the vested land grab players in this development ; Cleveland Clinic , University Hospital , the Corporate mess of hotels that is downtown Cleveland today , and most important the local land baron of choice ; Jacobs Group or Forest City that is recipient of the Medical Merchandise Mart / Convention Center location. Odds for this deal breaking ground in 2008 , 25 to 1. None of these projects really have the interests of the citizens of Cleveland or Cuyahoga County in mind via their designs. Unless of course you measure progress in the new service class jobs that these projects may attract when and if completed. Hard to believe , but we have yet to hit bottom in terms of population loss , tax revenues lost , and the ability to attract jobs to this region that are not the mop, bucket, and broom variety. If perchance all three of these projects fail so be it.Perhaps then more attention could be paid to real time problems that face our citizens daily , City services , Schools , and increased Safety forces among the many and diverse Urban problems that complicate life in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County..... Book Selling Time! So Ohio State football flames out in the Superbowl again. No problem! Coach Tressel seems to be a great fellow , and he is pretty secure in his job as long as he continues to manage to extract victories against " that team from up north". Read and listen to some of the best momenst in Ohio State Football history via your purchase of Eric Kaelin's BUCKEYE GLORY DAYS , THE MOST MEMORABLE GAMES OF OHIO STATE FOOTBALL. Last evening's Ohio State defeat for the National Championship is not included in this volume , though it will be considered highly memorable to the Tigers of Louisiana State University and their loyal fans. Louisiana politicians not currently under indictment for white collar crimes included. Best wishes to Kim and John , my family and friends.

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Cyber Monday

My friend Kim's ears must be ringing. I no sooner mentioned the word schnecken and one of these buttery loving hand-crafted sweet dough cinnamon raisin breads appear.

Thanks to the folks at the Virginia Bakery downstate for baking up these beauties.

This kind treat given to us by Kim and wrapped with his imaginative collage of color and black and white portraits of Sidney Greenstreet, Jack Johnson , Otto Graham ,Don Mossi, A Mexican masked wrestler, Sonny Liston in a hoodie , 'Harmonica' Frank Floyd, Willie Pep, Lou Groza ,Luke Easter, Humphrey Bogart , Tris Speaker , Peter Lorre , The famous ' dingus' , Joe Perry, 'Senor' Al Lopez ,Early Wynn , Rocky Marciano , Herb Score , Archie Moore , Roy Campanella , Cookie Gilchrist , Joe Nuxhall , and a few more figures inclusive of a spitting mad desert rodent whose resemblance to a middle-linebacker is uncanny.

Kim pasted all of these images on one very colorful and entertaining gift wrap box which inside contains his gift of a wax paper wrapped schnecken from Virginia Bakery.

A kind human being, Kim is old-school humble, and a decent family man who enjoys life and a few unique hobbies.

What surprises me more often than not upon receiving a kind parcel from Kim is that I recognize most of the people he has chosen to travel with as kind craft paper hitchhikers to guard the bakery, book or disc that he sends.

Very entertaining and easy on the eye.

I never discard one of Kim's unique wrapper art works, though if you were to ask Kim if he was an artist he would more likely than not demur.

I was so surprised at receiving the mail today, after not picking up any mail since before Thanksgiving, and finding a schnencken aboard that I chuckled aloud with glee at the serendipity of the universe is capable of. Write about something one day, shows up the next.

Food for thought?

Kim included on his wrapper art an old comic bookmark image that we used to advertise Old Erie Street Bookstore some years ago, prior to the advent of Cyber Monday and Black Friday.

Black Friday was simply referred to as the day after Thanksgiving for the majority of my life, and always a great retail day for sales at our book store.

This comic image shows the glowing face of anticipation of a customer inside OESB his palms open and face smiling looking at a glowing book amid a stack of volumes.
Serendipity!

No longer am I witness to this retail activity within our closed downtown bookstore.

Nobody comes to downtown Cleveland to shop any longer, and those daily workers that are able to take off, never work the day after Thanksgiving.

I did attempt to visit down town to retrieve the mail on Black Friday, though found the mail drop locked at noon.

So it goes in today's inclement climate and hostile workplace known as downtown Cleveland, Ohio 2007!

The post Thanksgiving Friday was always a favorite for the good run of years we enjoyed at Old Erie Street Book store from 1976 to 2001. Realizing that other cities might provide a better environment for an open book store such as ours, I keep an ear to the ground, and no longer entertain any false illusions concerning any positive reform occurring in downtown Cleveland.

Yet another season of lager louts, insipid suburban trash vomit creatures, not to mention the usual corrupt self interest gangs of suits letting what’s left of Cleveland's downtown go to hell in a hand cart.

We had a great run!

Old Erie Street Book Store did not leave. The City of Cleveland did a vanishing act instead, and the fat lady has yet to yodel! Last one out please turn out the lights.

Cyber Monday however is a different story.

A gray gulag vision greets dawn. I close my eyes and click on the Brasiliana tape of warm Portuguese voiced Brazilian music, roll over and go back to sleep.

The mambo and samba beats are the only musical cure for these cold rainy seasons of autumn and winter in the post industrial hitherlands of Ohio.

120 days of darkness are upon us, and let the warm psychedelic samba riffs that leap with a glow from Os Mutantes rule the airwaves.

Bossa Nova rules!

'Bat Macumba eh', eh' Bat Macumba Ola'.

The five albums released by Os Mutantes, from 1968 to 1972 remain among my all-time favorites, and we do not need to go into anything further concerning the underwear drawer emptied into I.M. Pei’s joke on our lakefront, just know that I have magic markered a nice round rock with the words OS MUTANTES, and they are getting into the rock n' roll hall of fame via catapult or sling shot this coming spring!

So bring on the mighty fecundity of cyber Monday, the internet version of black Friday.

Oh boy, can't wait to get downtown and check the e-mails for orders. Er, one order alas is all to be found. Such is the fickle business of bookselling in the year 2007.

We list near 20,000 fairly interesting titles for sale on three internet sites, and we receive but one order on cyber Monday. Should have stayed in bed!

Schnecken worth the show, and now is the time to return home for a warm cup of cafe noir and a slice of the schnecken.

Bookselling Time!

Slim's old sage M.F.K. Fisher is more forgotten today than remembered in this testosterone fueled era of competitive cooking.

We offer a sure fire cure for any of the ills cyber Monday may deal you in her WITH BOLD KNIFE & FORK. 318 great pages, including 140 plus recipes. Unfortunately no recipe for Schnecken. Better ask Kim for that one, or get lucky and find the location of the Virginia Bakery.

Thanks to all!

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Of knives and other sharp items

Water in Lake Erie recedes. Giving away ground. As well the declining corporate music business , and it's bosom friend in the soft entertainment industry , your basic dead tree and typeset companions in the publishing fields of books , slick magazines , tabloids , and the doubtful American daily newspaper are going the way of the model t ford. And this is the dire news that is never really told by the twin industries that spin their fortunes from nickels , dimes , and bold faced lies. Fiscal bad news is perceived as not fit to print , lest it mess up the hair of it's financial agents and investors , or wake up further the smoldering public sentiment for fairness and honesty in reporting which is immediate , free , and far more interesting to consume today in the streaming on line sphere that many of our lives are lived within today.///////// Suffering double digit fiscal erosion every year the recorded music end of the entertainment industry is in a free fall. Technological savvy Internet users and a diminishing market are the one - two combination that stagger the kneecaps , causing audible knocking under it's hood and the dead timber bunch sent head over heals to oblivion and beyond. All right, I did not go for the obvious play on words , dead timbre , though I sneak it in 'hear' for my own amusement. As for the temporary reprieve granted the contemporary version of the daily newspaper , most will be but a printed dead tree memories in the scant space of a few years to come. It is an impossible task to read the local version of newspaper mediocrity , the plain dealer , and derive anything of intellectual value or stimulation . No candor , wit , or objectivity spring forth from the keypads of it's " writers" , these days. A dumbed down amateur air seems to be the flavor of it's style book , the lack of any in depth reporting is painfully obvious , daily, weekly , and monthly , year in year out. I do like the editorial cartoonist who works on the p.d. op-ed page , Egan the fishing and racetrack writer on the sports page as well, Photographer Lynne Ischaey , and some others employed are talented in the limited aesthetic fashion of news gathering and it's dissemination conspired by the business and political goals of the cleveland plain dealer and it's companion lower tier newspapers that dot the print journalism landscape of a USA today universe. Even if you posses meager artistic talents , as most of us do, you are apt never to have a means of using them to anywhere near potential while employed by a contemporary news or media concern such as the Cleveland plain dealer. Pathetic. The syndicated news efforts are far better than the locally gathered variety. I prefer to read quality 'stringers' such as Christopher Maag , write about Cleveland , Ohio news via the pages of The New York Times , than the Cleveland plain dealer version. In the New York Times a higher level of authentic news and opine appear in a news article , and a better " style book" demands better writing and reporting of news. On the positive side , today's online edition of the plain dealer featured a one minute streaming video news clip of chef Michael Symon's coronation as iron chef. A tip of the high white hat to Michael , and in the realm of Cleveland plain dealer front pages news for the past two days which I did not read , proved all I needed to view and understand of this culinary circus event. Perfect! This clip from the plain dealer online version is a good example of why modern streaming news is today's authentic news , and these clips will only get shorter and more pared down as the attention spans and demands upon future humans space available within their collective minds is an issue to chew upon. Minimal perfection of the light weight news of the passing hour , minute , second , fractional seconds. With the advent of the hand held video and photography devices , add stroke of a keypad , upload and bingo instant news. The textual efforts in the online plain dealer proved succinct but unreadable as news , so minute in content or news value as if to make television news appear to contain more viable content. A universal law should exist prohibiting the use of the words television and news in the same sentence . Yet the plain dealer online " breaking news" reads as if the news offered was compressed and composed for the eyes of a third grade child. Leaving the classified ads section as the only reason to purchase the plain dealer and I would have nothing to do with the p.d. at all if it were not for this advertising section . Far better to spend the extra .075 cents daily and buy the New York Times . Possessing a nose for news and a more discerning pall ate , the New York Times , International Herald Tribune , or any other well written and edited newspaper left standing in the world today printed in the English language is more to my taste . The New York Times , though not without many faults and biases , provides a more discerning and erudite printed news flavor , and is closer in aroma and strength to the coffee I imbibe every morning . Few and far between these days these newspapers of worthy note , and the p.d. is merely a near extinct old species fish , washing up on a dying lakes shore in a diminishing market of readers and consumers , and now is forced to compete a little leaner every year in terms of it's new hires , and looks to it's corpulent staff of writers for meat and is given cheap hamburger in it's printed place. The politics of this newspaper are well documented by my old Friend Roldo Bartimole in his well written , Point Of View columns over the past forty years , and it is due to Roldo's fine and dogged efforts to keep the politics and goals of the "pee dee " as actual news and under public scrutiny that I have an appreciation for the low aims and skulduggery that the current plain dealer represents in Cleveland , Ohio. ///////// File transfers and digital downloads are the death knoll for the recorded music business , or a return to it's budget origins . What once was a physical salable product in the form of a vinyl record album , compact disc , or magnetic tape of recorded music is now a .99 cent musical download and the equivalent of a Internet jukebox that allows the dollar to spit back to the user a metaphorical penny to be chalked up against the .098 cents due for the tune purchased and downloaded. The recorded music industry started over a century ago , selling single tune cylinder recordings and then .78 r.p.m. recorded discs for dimes to dollars, and this same music business in one hundred years time has returned to it's low rent origins in a modern 21st century market that demands custom designed immediate gratification via it's fickle custom blending digital consumers. ///////////////////// Factor in the effects of the hyperbole merchants employed by these industries in public relations , advertising , and the business of ballyhoo, vitriol , and blather created by the newspaper and entertainment industries . No wonder today's critical , picky youngsters will have nothing much to do with this coven of bad actors and professional liars. Witching hour approaches for these flawed and vulnerable industries and those employed by them. Heads are rolling wholesale , and add to this fray a National writer's strike , and let those left standing sort events out. The media ship is lilting in it's traditional safe harbor waters , and taking on water fast. The propaganda newspaper merchants and electrical entertainment peddlers will be moving in together on some low rent flop where their .99 cent and .50 cent products will die a lonely corporate death. Good riddance! BOOK SELLING TIME! Ernest Hemingway FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS . First American edition. Eleven eleven is the chosen day to celebrate Veteran's Day in the United States Of America. I am old enough to remember the hoards of street seller's with pin on red poppies for sale , to benefit the less than fortunate homeless or otherwise suffering veterans of previous American wars , and all news sources that disclose that a significant number of homeless men in these United States of America today are veterans of the Vietnam War. As a nation we treat our pets better than our less than fortunate veterans and homeless human beings. Many others homeless in America are either mentally ill , handicapped or crippled in some fashion. Find space in your life for these fallen fellow humans. The season is upon us to find space in our collective and individual hearts for others not as fortunate. Spend some of our most precious commodity , time , in your busy life to help provide some basic needs and attention to one who is less fortunate. Take a tip from my pal John , who sent me a pair of boat sized tennis shoes for my old baseball pal James to wear. A random act of kindness , that will be appreciated by this still worthy human life that deserves better than he receives , and does not complain . You will not have to look far these days. Poverty is a scourge upon this land , and the mounting fiscal woes that foreclosures and a society that chooses to live in great collective denial,debt , and fiscal peril occurs will certainly produce more casualties , not to mention the impending shake out in the entertainment and dead tree industries. We here at Old Erie Street Bookstore soldier on selling books the best we can in a world market where demand is far out stripped by supply , and the pressure price wise is downward not up. A second hand player in the entertainment and dead tree industry , I give book selling another decade or so prior to it's extinction, save some unique printed items that might appeal to antiquarians and art mavens. The Hemingway offered is without a dust jacket and not a top collector's grade edition , though I expect it has good value based on the prices of comparable new volumes of fiction or literature today. That we will sell this volume prior to the Year's impending calendar end is likely. Be the first on your block to take a Ernest Hemingway first edition as your office party or retirement gift for than newly unemployed person in the entertainment or news industry.////////// Culinary Bites! My old pal and original skillet man Slim , who burns porcine hash and slings root beverages at his public chowhouse and science project down Kentucky way , aptly named SLIM'S, and just a tad North of the queen city of the South and I both agreed , Michael Symon is the new iron chef. News only because we both figured it out well before it was filmed ,Slim and I both concurred at the announcement of the series some months back that Michael was to win.Results are in and no place to place a bet! Sounds like a new sports book with all the odds and evens factored in , should be established for the outcome of future culinary match ups for those who wish to wager on such competitions.Make note , I only mention this culinary crowning of the victor in the name of a sports championship coming to Cleveland. Cleveland beats New Orleans in the culinary world series . " Hey Rube!". " That's Entertainment".

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