wcpn renames local "regional roundup" morning news slot "benign hour"

Greetings from an eastbound passenger train, passing the Collinwood yards this early morning. "Hope springs eternal."

Only three days into the new year and wcpn is up to the same old tricks that have allowed them to take the public out of public radio on a daily basis. First a two odd minute teaser and hype for a newbie's online site with the moniker "advancenortheastohio.org". Sounds like a cheerleader's sideline chant.

"On Wisconsin," "Advance northeast Ohio" or some other form of drollery.
Rah, rah, arh!

A visit to this site seems to feature more of the usual wcpn sanctioned regular suspects, a link for Cleveland Plus, a "brain gain" section , and an overall cheery, upbeat, naive, head-in-the-sand view of the current sad state of affairs that is contemporary Cleveland, Ohio and the surrounding region that it represents.

My favorite little bitty sidebar section on this site is one entitled "transplanted."

I know, begs for jokes about the medical fiscal machinery located here, but trust me, this is comedy at its best when it comes to living in this region. The hallucinatory writing began with a visit to San Francisco and the nerve of the writer to suggest that San Francisco's Mission District reminded him of "Tremont."

Now having spent considerable months in the City of San Francisco for the past forty years, one could never confuse a vibrant dense multi-racial neighborhood such as San Francisco's Mission District with Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood.

No way on this Earth do they share much common ground.

The Mission has density in its population mix, aided by two Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] stops, which serve a bustling Hispanic, Caucasian, and Asian American population. The diverse merchants on Mission and Valencia Streets, the Mission's retail business streets, are comprised of bookstores, groceries, antique stores, and all the service businesses that comprise a neighborhood: banks, dry cleaners, coin laundries, etc .

(Tremont does not even have a grocery store!)

Restaurants of all stripes and forms fill Mission and Valencia Streets and the side streets that connect them. The legendary burritos rolled in the areas many Mexican restaurants have great girth and authentic fresh flavors. A number of personal friends, I know you are surprised I have many, reside either in the upper Mission or the adjoining Portrero Hill neighborhood, and I have walked this neighborhood for hours during the daytime, preferring it to the evening and its nighttime club scene, I don't drink, and visible Hispanic gangs.

The mere inclusion of such unchecked urban comparison between Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood and San Francisco's Mission district only gives this Clevelander's naive vision street cred, only if he fesses up to imbibing in some Bay area LSD, and wandering about mumbling far out man, Cleveland looks just like this here place, duh....

perhaps while under the influence of psychedelics?

Tripe soup, make that menudo, once again served daily by the make believe public radio station with the call letters wcpn. A virtual link to yet another cheer leading agency for the local lost cause.

Let's send a reminder to this advancenortheastohio bunch that politics here are corrupt in an over the top fashion, and that you can throw all the money, just like manure, at pet political projects that are recipients of corporate welfare, University Circle and Downtown Cleveland to be exact, and like putting a dress on a pig, doesn't make it less of a pig, just one that has had a pile of money tossed at it!

As for the weekly regional roundup radio program that aired this morning from nine to ten a.m. the radio gang that is wcpn should consider changing the name of this weak hitting hour to "the benign hour," given the flavor of news served to date.

The local daily fish wrap, da p.d., was of course in the wcpn house. Two other players present as well.

One half hour was spent in discussion of the variety of possibilities and challenges presented to voters due to the mishandling of voting machinery. Not much here was concluded save the obvious need to fix what is broken. Murder and crime and its relationship with regards to public safety and Cleveland Police layoffs, was handled well by da p.d.'s Joe Frolic, and even better by the retired policeman who called in wisely stating the obvious: no leadership in politics, no jobs or way out for low income residents, and that fewer police on the streets equals more crime.

A little blast at Dennis Kucinich and his UFO tales, and we are out of here on wcpn, with not much said for the hour's effort at news from this region. The flavor conjured in this less than stimulating hour of gas was truculent and impacted. Just like that pseudo public radio station wcpn.

A benign hour it was...

Keep thinking about that eastbound train, and what exists on the other end of the line?

New horizons?

Make no mistake of it, the majority of the domestic books we sell online are to zip codes on either coast. Very few to the heartland of this country. Seems to be a lesson here?

Perhaps this dense man will figure the problem out someday soon?

Welcome to the Iowa Caucasus. First stones tossed this evening! Good luck to anyone out there naive enough to still believe in the current state of politics in America, or sanity claus for that matter. Better you go to the race track and look into betting on the favorite horse running.

More times than not that nag has the most money on him, and even when he doesn't win doesn't finish out of the money either. Horses run just like politicians. In the money! Today's Iowa candidates attract and spend money in a major fashion, and believe me when they take money from a contributor they owe a favor. Political life in the good old USA goes on unchecked and more resembles your high school student elections, than any real attempt to affect actual social change it in a fashion that does not come with favors attached to and owed to the players who contribute to campaigns.

I wonder how the majority of these politicians sleep at night?

Book Selling Time!

What better fashion to produce a great evenings sleep these frigid Cleveland winter's nights than curling up with a copy of THE DICTIONARY OF CLEVELAND BIOGRAPHY? - 545 pages comprising a veritable who's who of Cleveland history from the cities inception to the book's publication in 1996.

Do not look for exciting reading here, though pound-for-pound it will provide more excitement and usable content than the regular cast of people that peddle the notion of news on wcpn radio today. If ever a local institution needed a house cleaning and new face this impacted bunch does. Sad fact is the perceived notion of the word "public" mentioned in the same sentence with the call letters wcpn.

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Tremont , a Cleveland neighborhood

was quite a scary place to live or pass through in the late 1960's and 1970's.

Today being October 31st and All Hallows Eve, reminds me of many scary tales of Tremont.

Seedy housing and acrid polluted air ruled this neighborhood, perched just southwest of downtown Cleveland, and full faced into the constant blasts from the steel mills and industrial flats in the valley just below.

Not a pretty site at all back in the day, and from a pollution standpoint not much better today.

Lincoln Park was a twenty four hour illegal drug supermarket, infested to boot with a legion of drippy nosed paper bag glue-huffers, whose main avocation in life was to stumble up and down the Scranton Road hill to Train Avenue and the giant vats of chemicals available for these toluene tortured souls to zombie up on.

Most of the apartment buildings surrounding Lincoln Park were either shooting galleries for the junkies, or shady dens of ill repute of one form or the other, including the usual gamut of illicit activities such as after hours joints, gambling and prostitution.

Arson was a free form Olympic style event, with sirens shrieking away most evenings, and a much despised "Tremont arsonist", available for hire when a home or apartment building could not be sold , or a landlord wished to evict a tenant without using the court system.

Both daily newspapers wrote feature articles concerning this heinous criminal activity of arson and it's affects on the Tremont neighborhood, though this was a part of the city that in the 1970's, more resembled an out of control lawless free for all , than a nice place to raise a family.

Needless to say the drop in population in Tremont was dramatic.

The 1920 census shows a population of 36,000 residents of which only 8600 remain in the 2000 census figures. The construction of a large interstate highway divided the Tremont neighborhood, contributing to it's population loss, and to this day a direct walking route to downtown Cleveland is a feet of navigation involving a detour into the neighboring Ohio City via Abbey Avenue, or a grimy stroll through the industrial flats.

Tremont today still suffers the highest cancer rates, along with its East rim neighbor Slavic Village, in the entire city of Cleveland.

Now filled with trendy restaurants, art galleries, and ice cream parlors, contemporary Tremont has managed to capture the fancy of a young Cleveland crowd despite its obvious shortcomings.

Most of Tremont's housing stock is comprised of late nineteenth century single and two family homes without much architectural character or charm. These cheap homes were built to accommodate the waves of mostly Eastern European immigrants whose families migrated to Cleveland for work in the steel mills, most of the original families that occupied them moved into the suburbs post world war two, and they were then occupied by waves of Appalachian Americans, Puerto Rican, and Afro American families working hard for success and to duplicate the "American dream."

Now these same said homes are fine starter homes for single Clevelanders in their twenties and thirties, but like those before them they will move into the suburbs with great haste when faced with the dilemma of the current state of Cleveland schools, and the problems of raising their children in a marginal neighborhood like Tremont. Crime is still a major deterrent to any long term growth, and the visible scars of the arson activity of the sixties and seventies are visible today in the numerous empty lots that remain.

I have never understood the fascination of the contemporary set with this ugly smelling place known as Tremont.

Its citizens and businesses are a distinct positive contribution to life in today's Cleveland, the stench and belch of the fetid industrial valley below enough to keep me away.

Not to mention the scary hangover that remains from stepping around Tremont in my youth.

Book selling time!

In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, we would like to offer you the works of Clark Ashton Smith, DARK CHATEAU, GENIUS LOCI, and THE ABOMINATION OF YONDO.

These volumes were purchased from a crumbling neglected home in the adjoining Duck Island section of Tremont some years ago, and are looking for a scary collector to take them home.

We feature many other ARKHAM HOUSE titles as well for your holiday of haunted souls.

Best wishes for a safe and happy Halloween. All of my family, John and Kim, and all the costumed celebrators of this witchy old holiday

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