MODERN MANNERS

In keeping with the seasonal Holiday tradition that is now upon us , we will attempt to be full of good cheer and light , spreading abject joy and whimsical folly about as if constructed with aid of " sugar plums and candy". Who has been naughty? Who has been nice? Who really deserves the decade old defrosted carp pieces in their stockings?......For the Cleveland Browns Stadium crew increased business for 2008 .Plenty of tractor pulls , miniature automobile races , circus and carnivals acts , music events , softball tournaments , rooster fights , paper airplane toss competitions , watermelon seed spitting contests , rodeos , horse shows , new age meditation / levitation groups , motorcycle rallies , horseshoe toss , dwarf toss , corn hole player toss , pro rasslin' , boxing matches, [so kid action joe's bartender can eat], and most important of all international football { soccer} matches to increase the annual use of this facility that is currently occupied sixteen of the three hundred sixty five days of the year that it is available. Just imagine the extra glee the casual tourist from say , Iowa or Indiana , will feel when offered an additional tourist attraction that involves big engines , tires , warm beer , greasy food ,and yet another mindless activity to complement the big Cleveland vacation experience. Cleveland has turned over it's downtown lakefront to tourism so let the big canine house woof , goof ,and rock all summer long! Remember , a full house is a happy house , especially when playing poker......While we are in this neck of town we can't forget the main tourist trap downtown in our seasonal wishes. For the rock n' roll hall of fame we provide an unlimited supply of clothes hangers and laundry soap to do the wash and clean up the sordid aesthetics that plague this creatively impacted edifice. If our budget allows , a high colonic for this institution and those who occupy it daily would be in order. Everyone agrees that a clean house is a happy house...................The American daily newspapers are having a terrible year financially in 2007 , I thought of our tepid little propaganda mill at 1801 Superior , da pd , and thought that if they were sick and not doing so well perhaps they should see a doctor and get well. Surgical removal of this dying dailies foot from it's mouth a fitting gift. Perhaps then with this obstructions removed it might find it's voice again. Always brush your teeth and gargle after every meal . Antiseptic gargle required at the quilting bee located 1801 superior ...... We will continue these kind gifts to those naughty or nice enough to receive them into next year. Book Selling Time! Have a good look at our fine old symbol of downtown lakefront civic pride when Cleveland was still a major city . James Toman and Blaine S. Hayes CLEVELAND STADIUM SIXTY YEARS OF MEMORIES.Profusely illustrated and well researched , and an excellent choice for the true honked off lifer Cleveland sports fan who remembers the year 1964 and the Cleveland Browns NFL title game victory , and as well the last time any Cleveland sports team won a definitive championship. I listened to that December 1964 game in the kitchen of our family home via the ageless medium of radio. The television coverage was blocked out here in Cleveland. A warm roast cooking in the oven , my father's stoic response and our mutual reverence for # 32 Jim Brown .That time and inherent memories seems every bit as long as the forty three years that have since passed. Cleveland Stadium was built in 1932 , and still in fine shape when offered for slaughter to the modern demigods of the nfl as partial payment for a new old franchise here to replace our original Cleveland Browns. I visited the new cleveland browns stadium just once at half time courtesy of our friend Kim's kindness. Within the space of the single third quarter of play we observed in the stands a man fall head first while sitting up in his seat woofing , splitting open his head and bleeding profusely. Another near rabid fan was removing his clothing and was in turn removed by the stadium police. The whole experience of the fans was not in watching the game on the field , instead that grand old local sports tradition of getting shitfaced drunk and obnoxious. Somethings never change! Best wishes to my family , Kim and John , Get well soon Orley!

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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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Ain't my "Boss"

Bruce Springsteen was in town once again. B.S. and his e-street band are still peddling warmed over retread Phil Spector spins since 1973.

A constant source of embarrassment while residing in Cleveland during the 1970's, was witnessing this vastly overrated new jersey musical import being hyped up and tossed into the Cleveland radio market via the grease merchants from Columbia records and delivered willingly to the airwaves on wmms fm .

How disgusting it is to still encounter the fascination with Springsteen's music by the naive local crowd to this day. By all accounts Bruce Springsteen is a decent human being and I can positively identify with his non musical political beliefs, I have attempted to sample his offerings over the years but his musical message is lost somewhere in NEBRASKA.

Speaking of bosses, the daily fish wrapper, aka p.d. ,offered forth their new editor , one Susan Goldberg , for an hour of softball repartee via the airwaves of wcpn on their Monday morning November 5th "ideas stream ?" program, which aired from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.

Never has so little of consequence been said in such an allotted time.

The stench of self-serving palaver clogged the public airwaves for an hour and served to attract no real critical callers. One nice elderly woman called from Lakewood, Ohio, to express her son’s p.d. reading joy when he visits home from a southern Ohio city.

No wonder, if you believe that a quality newspaper is lacking here in the "best location in the nation"; try finding a newspaper down interstate 71 a piece! The p.d. seems to have open access to the public radio station's programming at the expense of any true public criticism, or inclusion of any contrarian or challenging thinkers derived from the public it purportively serves.

The ongoing relationship between the for profit and highly politically motivated pd and our so called " public radio station " wcpn is so cozy as to beg for a third party chaperon to be present to break up their on air petting and make out sessions that occur whenever one of the serial sycophants from the pd crawl into the wcpn radio stations friendly on air confines.

When Ms. Goldberg mentioned "the p.d. and journalistic ethics" I had to excuse myself from breakfast for purpose of an inspired prodigious creation of a malodorous purgative. Welcome, Ms. Goldberg to Ohio's largest newspaper, spaceport, and the ever so predictable quilting bee located at 1801 Superior.

In keeping with the loosely themed subject of writer's, it appears that the Hollywood branch of The Writer's Guild of America may be on strike for awhile.

Along with California oranges, one of our prime American exports is entertainment, and I wish these dedicated hacks the best of luck and success in their pursuit for residuals. In the meantime, perhaps Bart Simpson will pick up an old cigar butt of Winston Churchill's, and we can clone some political diplomacy for the world again.

Or when O. J. Simpson makes his date with the jailhouse he can find solace in Marge Simpson, and Martha Stewart as his main rappes.

If you are venturing a bit east of city limits check out Stevenson’s bar and grill , established 1920 along Lakeshore Boulevard in Euclid , Ohio. A great curative for the political upheaval in Euclid's bloody knuckled recall election tomorrow , Stevenson's is always the same great place for lunch or late dinner seven days a week, great hamburgers, fried baloney, homemade soups, handcut fries , and other comforting foods.

Plenty of cold beverages, and sports on the twin televisions that flank the long bar. The ambience here is the beauty of a restaurant that is charming, family run, and always a popular destination to take a visitor from out of the area.

Never have had anything less than a great meal, served up friendly and cooked to perfection every time. Try their loaded up fish sandwich.

Perfection!

Bookselling Time!

For an early holiday chore why not look no further than a copy of Mary Peale Schofield's LANDMARK ARCHITECTURE OF CLEVELAND, this enjoyable reliable history published in 1976, remains the most accurate and usable guide to date.

You the user will have to overlook the missing buildings that did not make the aesthetic or political cut, and have been taken down since the books publication.

You can always visit the vacant lot as a consolation prize. Such is life in historic preservation architecture starved Cleveland, Ohio.

Thanks to John and Kim, and my Family. Go Oranges! I mean Browns! Those NFL uniforms and all this orange cloth worship has got to go!

Ugly!

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