MyFriendCleveland

Get Your Smoke On, While You Still Can

Mayor Frank Jackson will announce his support of Issue 5, you know the one that bans smoking in bars, restaurants, and public spaces, today. Jackson did not support a smoking ban two years ago, so needless to say anti-smoking advocates in C-Town are sporting a serious hard on this morning. Shit’s about to get real serious.

Boys and Their Toys

What is up with the Lorain Police Department? The Plain Dealer recently called them out on numerous violations, and I guess it made certain officers jealous that their own names were not in print. You can now add the guy that thought using a stun-gun on a handcuffed prisoner in the back of a squad car was a good idea cause it showed, “he meant business.” Congrats on making the big time fella.

The Same Old Debate

Regina Brett’s new column about school uniforms rehashes all the shit you’ve heard before. Ideas about people not being able to tell who is rich and who is poor, no gang colors, and unity. The only interesting thing in this article is her opening line. “The students at some schools dress like hookers and thugs.” Tell it, sister!

Late to the Game Yet Again

We’ve been keeping you up to date on Issue 3, Learn and Earn, and slot machines in Ohio for some time now. We’ve brought the good, the bad, and Sam Fulwood. Well now The Free Times decides to play catch up and offer their own little introduction to the education versus gambling debate. How nice of you to join us.

HEADS UP!

MyFriendCleveland will be having our first ever sponsored show next Tuesday. The show will feature Pennsylvania punks, Pissed Jeans and will take place at Tower 2012. More on that soon, but you better clear your god damned calendars right now!

Ohio’s Hanging Chad

5,100 voters all over Cuyahoga County have been receiving flawed absentee ballots. Misspellings, omitted words, and even party affiliations have been botched on the ballots, but officials are saying to still send them in, and that the problem will be fixed. Then in a “well which is it?” moment, the same woman who is saying to just send in the ballots and not wait for a corrected version claims corrected versions will go out by the end of the week. Contradictary? Oh, hell yes.

Hey Lake Effect, You Better Have Gotten This Memo

This winter is supposed to be a warm one for the northern US. On top of that heating prices are going down like (insert inappropriate joke here, at last check the ones about alter boys and priests were still doing well). Of course there are always those who have to ruin the party and say shit about El Nino not having that strong of an effect, or point out that we may see snow flurries as early as this week. Well to them I say, never doubt El Nino, assholes, cause Santa Claus is watching, or something like that.

I Wanted to Hear About Eating Babies

Sam Fulwood responds to his critics with an article entitled “Modest Proposal to Mend City’s Ills,” and like my own title up there suggests, there wasn’t a god damned thing about eating babies in this piece. I mean not even a hint of it. Don’t think you just jack Swift’s title and then completely forgo talking about eating babies. Instead Fulwood gets all politician on us, dealing out ambiguos and underdeveloped ideas claiming that they would take 10 to 20 years to develop. Thanks for nothing, Sam.

Council Members Bail On Tea Party

Where to start on this one. Well of course there is the fabulous photo of columnist Michael K. McIntyre which never fails to send shivers up my spine. Did you know he was originally cast to play Hannbal in Silence of the Lambs? Jokes aside, City Council Pres. Martin Sweeney held a meeting to talk about behavior at meetings and a bunch of dudes couldn’t even be bothered to show up. Councilman Michael Dolan even fired off this wittcism, “I’m a busy guy, and if Marty wants to have a tea party, I’ll make my own decisions about whether or not to attend.” Ouch, well at least everyone isn’t as lazy as the city council. The Plain Dealer staff is so dead serious about their jobs that on their main page linking to this story they state, “Sweeney fired a colley last week.” I’m pretty sure the dude didn’t fire a dog (and yes I know that is not how the canine name is spelled) but you can read the article to determine for yourselves.

Why Does Everyone Think They Can Blog?

So some days (and this is VERY rare, mind you) it comes into question just how sweet MFC actually is. I mean do we publish items of interest? Are we funny? Well we now have a daily reminder that we indeed are not the worst blog going in Cleveland. The Scene has their own up an running and it has been a serious debate as to what is worse, it’s content - weeks old stories from Time magazine about Mike Judge’s new film not being distributed, calling an editor at The Scene the “best music critic in the world” only to learn he is rocking Evanescence and My Chemical Romance (sorry Andy) – or its title, “C-Notes: Mirth and Adventure from the Paris of the Rust Belt.” How they got Paris is anyone’s guess.

Not That Clever

The Gates Mills Doc who poisoned his wife and then fled to the Mid East has been arrested in Cyprus. Reading this brings up a serious question, do people really still use cyanide? I mean shit’s cliche, like rat poison.

New Review From Our Long Lost Friend

Good friend and man-about-town Peter Moysaenko has given us another gift wrapped up in his Fucked Up review. The review isn’t fucked up, Fucked Up is the name of the band.

Cleveland Killed The Indie Stars

CNN drops an interesting piece on Indie record stores, and indie businesses in general. Numbers have been dropping sharply for such stores in the past 3 years with, you guessed it, astute reader, Cleveland as one of the hardest hit. Read on, get informed, and stay indie in the face of your corporate crazy state. I mean, Wal-Mart does have a pretty sweet music selection. 

Smoke Em’ If You Got Em’ Cuase You Might Not Be Able to Soon

There are now two smoking ban bills up for voting, one from SmokeFree Ohio and one from Smoke Less Ohio. PD gives the breakdown…

“The SmokeFree Ohio proposal would ban smoking in all workplaces. Smoke Less would also ban smoking indoors, but exempt bars, some restaurants, bingo halls and bowling alleys. The measure would also repeal 21 local smoking bans already in place in Ohio.”
Shit gets weirder though, if you vote for both Smoke Less wins, because it is a constitutional amendment. So if you smokers are hitting the bars tonight, make sure you enjoy.

Cleveland Schools Chief Executive Gets All “Lean on Me” With Troubled Kids

There is a new guy in town, one who in Akron, with half the enrollment of Cleveland schools, expelled more students last year. Dude, is not playing around. His get tough approach has some school officials with their panties in a bind, but others, simply say, “Right on, right fucking on man,” or something like that.  Morgan Freeman would be proud.

Show Tonight Pals:

LAST NIGHT, THE CHURCH WAS SHUTDOWN BY CLEVELAND VICE DETECTIVES, IN AN ATTEMPT TO CONTINUE THE CENSORSHIP OF INDEPENDENT MUSIC VENUES THROUGH LEGALITY AND CLASS POLITICS. THE HEAD VICE DETECTIVE ACTUALLY SAID, “I GUESS SOMEONE HAS A VENDETTA AGAINST YOU.”

6:37AM THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5TH
R.A. WASHINGTON

Parma Has Been Around for 100 Years… Do You Care?

The Plain Dealer is reporting that there’s a local Cleveland dork, I mean historian who has been collecting valuable artifacts dating as far back as 1907. Sure this isn’t really that big of a deal, but is it a big deal that anyone cares about a trolly ticket from Parma? Absorb the paradox.

Legacy Village Now Offers Even More Excitement

As if rich people don’t have enough problems, now they have to deal with, can you believe this, deer, beavers, and bears (yes, bears). In Lyndhurst, city officials have passed an ordinace that allows any private or public land owner who owns more than 10 acres to hunt these wild critters. The catch is, the only places that own that much land in Lyndhurst are Legacy Village, the Cleveland Clinic, and two country clubs. So put on your best polo and flip-flops, grab your rifle, and grab a mocha-double-latte after you bag your first buck.

Reporting on a Gay Bathhouse Really Strokes the Scene’s… Ego

Everyone’s favorite “ultra-progressive” rag, The Scene, reports on two men attempting to create a gay batthouse in Cleveland, and all the struggles that come with that. Fair enough, good for them, but what is great about this piece is how within the first two paragraphs, the Scene gives itself a proverbial handjob for being “non-mainstream” and being the type of press that the two men highlighted in the article WOULD talk to. Bravo, Scene staff, you’re so insprirational.

Cooking the Books

We brought you some info on issue 3, Ohio’s plan to use slot machines to raise money for education. Well looks like they were exaggerating the numbers. In a Plain Dealer article a dude calls Learn and Earn out on their claimed $1 billion a year saying it would actually be $853 million. Personally, I’d take either amount, but that’s just me.

Changing Strategy for the Big Leagues

Congressman Sherrod Brown, who was on the cover of last week’s Free Times as a hopeful for the Dems, and who opposed the Patriot Act and often goes the way of the ACLU, is now voting for the Military Commissons Act, a bill that goes against standards of prisoner treatment set up by the Geneva Convention. The Free Times gets all poli-sci and dishes out the details.

College Influenced This Dude

An ex-Case Dean was convicted of buying coke at a Beachwood hotel. No word yet on where the party is at or how much a cup will cost, but beer pong will be going all night and DJ Bonehead will be spinning Modern Rock and Hip-Hop till’ the break of dawn. I’ll see you there.

Plain Dealer Points Out More Problems

I almost had some solid alliteration going on there, almost. The ever-descriptive Dealer dishes delightful details on housing in Cleveland. Shit, almost had it again. First we get the mass exodus, then the poorest big city, now it looks like we can add, “Homeownership in the city fell significantly between 2000 and 2005, with vacancy rates rising nearly 47 percent.” The Plain Dealer then tries to make it look not so bad by saying that housing costs stayed under inflation, which really just means housing costs didn’t go up that much cause nobody was buying and/or could afford higher costs. Where this article really hits it stride however is right… about… HERE, “On Monday, Cleveland City Council introduced an ordinance meant to tackle complaints about noise, drug dealing and other nuisances. Fines would be levied after three strikes.” So what you are telling me is that if you are caught selling drugs three times you now get a fine? It sure beats that slap on the wrist and wag of the finger the cops used to dish out.

Racists Redistrict

Okay, so that was a good bit of alliteration, well actually it wasn’t. That was really damn short. Shit.
The US sued Euclid after a three-year investigation claiming that the city’s redistricting left black candidates without as much of a chance to be elected. The city council finally moved that shit back around allowing for Ward 3′s black residents to jump from 39 to 45 percent. The city council went on to say that the Justice Department’s accusations were false, after residents felt that redistricting was an admission of guilt. Ah, I love watching the “cover my ass” scramble, it’s almost as good as the truffle shuffle.

New Age Nerds Need to Nurse Non-existent Knowledge

Hot damn! I think I’ve got it! Too bad this title is only slightly connected to what I am going to talk about.
A Lakeside retreat called “Artist’s Way” has been offering women a chance to get in touch with their creative sides and just plain old relax since the 90s. The women dance using veils, create an 8 page collage, paint, stamp book, write in journals, and create prayer alters?! Ok, so that last one ups the creep factor a bit. Still, I’m sure a bunch of scented candles and incense wash away the smell of yuppies trying to force an artistic side, cause that shit stinks.

It has Officially Hit the Fan for Lorain Police

In a lengthy article The Plain Dealer takes a look at the Lorain police department, where misconduct seems to be a bit of a problem. I would spit out a couple of the juiciest bits, but this baby is jam packed with them. So I leave you with this…
“Court and police records show at least 72 instances of officers or dispatchers fighting, drinking to excess, losing their guns, insulting residents, harassing women or violating other policies — all in the past six years.” At first I thought I was reading a synopsis of the new Police Academy movie.

And Bears, Oh My!

In this month’s Alternative Press (you know that little rag published in Cleveland) local indie poppers Bears are featured in the “unsigned bands” section. I would link you, but apparently that section doesn’t carry enough clout to make it onto AP’s website.

Shaker Heights Shakes it Up

Ok, so the title is a bit cheesy, it’s Monday, you’re lucky I even found three news stories worth sharing with you. This one comes to us from the always classy 19 Action News. Shaker Heights high has a elected a guy as Homecoming Queen, making him the first openly homosexual student to run for the position. To watch the clip just click on the first video link on the page. Why doesn’t anyone make their sites easier for goons who like to steal news stories?