Blogs

We've written a lot about local investigative reporter Carl Monday's unintentional comic genius — particularly his ruthless takedown of the Library Masturbator and his squabble with the Masturbator's dad.

So this week, when I clicked on Carl's blog in search of more comedic inspiration, the tears of joy flowed like Mickey's when I read this:

"It's 7:30am ... and a 'reporter' and two photographers are camped out at the end of my driveway. Wait ... isn't that my job? The 'reporter' approaches and barks out something like this ...' Carl, I'm a big fan of yours. How do you like going after sleeze bags?' This must be some kind of a joke. Well, in fact it is. The kind you find on Comedy Central."

Carl went onto explain that a Daily Show correspondent ambushed him recently, and spent the day shooting footage around Cleveland for a piece to run this week. I excitedly tuned into Comedy Central last night, and sure enough, between John Stewart's goofy President Bush impressions and an interview with James McGreevey, I was treated to Jason Jones, the show's funniest correspondent, cranking it in front of Browns Stadium.

God Bless basic cable.

I won't spoil the details, but rest assured there's a classic confrontation between Jones and Carl. And there are plenty of scenic shots of Cleveland — accented by Jason Jones pretending to, as Carl would say, "pleasure himself." If you can get Comedy Central's spotty video archives to work, you can watch the piece here. Just click on "Rubbing out crime." The show airs again tonight at 8, and the video should be up on YouTube soon enough.

There's also a really awkward video of Carl confronting Jason Jones here.

Enjoy. — Joe P. Tone.

Though Republican leaders like to bag on fags, it might be wise to never trust people so obsessed with the sexual activity of another man.

Introducing Florida congressman Mark Foley. He actually founded the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. That's like hiring John Mark Karr to babysit. But he had to resign after he was caught sending flirtatious emails to a 16-year-old boy who worked in his office.

Hey, at least Clinton was into chicks. And they were over 18.

The Foley case has a familiar ring, since it parallels the private doings of Summit County's own Republican boss, Alex Arshinkoff, who frequents campaigns against homos by day and paws at them like a lonely sailor by night.

It seems the Party of Moral Values is being hosted by the Whore of Babylon. -- Kevin Hoffman

Tailgate parties at football-stadium parking lots are so 2003. Real sports fans know that the best tailgate parties happen outside of the mall on game day.

Sunday's tailgate party in front of the new Dick's Sporting Goods at Westfield Southpark features such gridiron staples as giant inflatables, jugglers, and stilt-walkers. It happens from 9 a.m. to noon, presumably so shoppers can get inside the mall to purchase some Bath & Body Works Sensual Amber body moisturizer. before kickoff. --Michael Gallucci

Polite society dictates that we must respect all religions. But that's stupid, isn't it? After all, Judaism is way better than your religion. To prove it -- and in honor of the Jewish High Holy Days (Monday is Yom Kippur) -- we offer these Ten Reasons Why You Should Really Wish You Were a Jew:

1. On certain holidays, such as Purim (the Jewish version of Halloween), getting drunk is required.

2. We only have one day a year when we must confess our sins. Catholics have to do it every week. Morons.

3. Our holiest days require that we not work. In fact, working on Friday nights, our Sabbath, is totally against the rules. You're supposed to have sex instead. (Okay, so only with your wife, but you don't see the Protestants approving pro-boning commandments, do you?)

4. Hanukah features eight days of presents; Christmas has only one. What were you people thinking?

5. Our calendar is lunar, which means Christians can never figure out which days we're supposed to have off. This comes in handy when you want to call in sick with a hangover. "I can't come to work, boss. It's Matzoh Ball Day."

6. Fried food is a big part of some holidays. Eating potato pancakes and donuts is considered a good deed.

7. Our New Year lasts two days, so we get to party twice as long.

8. On Yom Kippur, you're not supposed to shave or brush your teeth. Our religion doesn't damn slacking; it promotes it.

9. Think of Yom Kippur as an enforced diet. You're can't eat for 24 hours, and it's hard to sneak cookies with God watching.

10. We actually invented the low carb diet. On Passover, we can't eat bread for a whole week. Atkins is a fraud.

-- Lisa Rab & Rebecca Meiser

When news hit the international drag community that the Hershey Chocolate company was considering legal action against Toledo drag queen Hershae Chocolatae for trademark infringement ("Bitter Chocolate," September 13, 2006), they mobilized quickly, calling for a boycott of all Hershey products.

We wanted to show that the drag community is "one to be reckoned with," says Amanda Lynn Harding-Storm Turner, the Canada organizer. She's asking gay people, drag queens, and gay-owned to not purchase Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey Bars, Hershey Kisses, Hershey Cookies, Almond Joy, Twizzlers, Jolly Ranchers, Ice Breakers, Take 5, York Peppermint Patties, Hershey Syrup, Smores or Pay Days.

"We want to show Hershey Chocolates that the gay community, drag queens and others associated with us have the will as consumers ... to make a dent in the income of the company," says Turner. "They have hit the gay and drag community we feel unfairly by taking legal action against a well respected member." -- Rebecca Meiser

After Iraq-war vet Mike Barnett was arrested for robbing pedophiles ["To Rob A Predator," September 20, 2006], the public debated whether victimizing perverts merited a veteran's arrest. Half said yes, the other half said no.

After all, Barnett's scheme was patterned after the popular Dateline segment "To Catch A Predator," where reporters pose online as a 15-year-old girl and then lure pedophiles to a house, where they're arrested. The only twist to Barnett's ruse was that he robbed about a dozen sexual predators before setting them free. He was charged on eight counts of extortion and robbery.

On September 21, Carroll County Prosecutor Don Burns decided to go easy on Barnett. He offered him 17 months in prison if he'd plead guilty to just one count of attempted extortion. Barnett accepted the deal. His father, Tom, says 14 of those 17 months will be suspended and after 30 days, Barnett may receive a judicial release.

Barnett's wife, Maria, who was also arrested for aiding in her husband's scam, is still under house arrest and awaiting trial. She is also hoping for a sweet deal.

Despite her new criminal record, Maria's future has been looking up lately. Her attorney, Brendan Delay, says Maria, a 21-year-old Italian immigrant, was recently approved for her green card. She was also accepted into Muskingum College, where she hopes to study biology.

Alas, "She won't be able to attend," Delay says. "It's hard to be a co-ed and be in jail — not even Oberlin College offers that program." -- Denise Grollmus

Scene calendar editor Mike Gallucci, more commonly known as the Great Music Critic in the History of the World�, launches his first installment of What I Listened to Last Night, a chance for readers to hear the voice of God -- or perhaps a lesser saint -- on all matters music:

Chingy — Hoodstar: With cuts like "Club Getting' Crowded" and "Ass N Da Aurr" filling his third CD, this young rapper pretty much has two things on his mind (and they both involve ballin'). And didn't Master P do a song about "Dem Jeans" a couple years ago? Yawn. Making the mix: "Pullin' Me Back."

Gov't Mule — High & Mighty: Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes' other band piles on the Southern boogie for a whopping 70-plus minutes. There's a hefty stomp to the music, but it's a little numbing, especially when Haynes loses himself in "Whipping Post"-style solos. Making the mix: "Mr. High & Mighty."

The Pogues: Peace and Love: There's a great EP buried in this flawed 1989 album. Drugs and booze pretty much consumed singer Shane MacGowan — who appears on only half of the tracks — by this time. The remastered reissue adds some leftovers from the era. Making the mix: "White City."

Live-band hip-hop phenom the Roots will play a free show Saturday, September 30 at Mirage on the Water (2510 Elm St., on the West Bank of the Flats, 216-348-1135). Doors open at 10 p.m.

For tickets, RSVP to TONYSLIST@TANQUERAYSTYLESESSIONS.COM by Thursday, September 28. Include first and last name. Offer valid to party people 21 and over only, while tickets remain. I.D. required at door, strictly enforced dress code: sharp and stylish.

Ace DJ Mick Boogie will warm up the crowd.

See you there.

Phil Freeman's piece on why progressive rock acts are denied entry into the Rock Hall of Fame illuminates the obvious, but he doesn't offer any explanations or solutions.

Bands like Genesis, Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Roxy Music and Soft Machine lost a lot of credibility in the mid-to-late '70s because their challenging music strayed too far from basic roots-based rock and roll. It was viewed as pretentious, self-indulgent and high-brow. Punk rock, despite being amateurish and (eventually) equally self-indulgent, offered a refreshing alternative.

I think a lot of it, too, is classism and reverse racism. There is a definite bias toward working class and black acts, even though a number of those inducted are one-hit wonders for whom aging stuffed shirts like Ahmet Ertugun have a particular nostalgia.

There's also a bias against English artists (why else haven't Small Faces, Zombies, Fairport Convention and the Moody Blues been inducted?).

The blacklist against many white, English, musically literate progressive rockers reminds me of our politically correct high-school and college English departments. In our zeal to explore the works of minority and women writers -- many of whom deserve to be studied -- we seem to think we have to turn our backs on hundreds of years of classic literature merely because it was the progeny of white males. Maya Angelou and Alice Walker deserve to be studied, but the vast majority of great literature has come from writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Dostoevsky, Dickens and Proust.

Similarly, while there's room at the table for Charles Brown, Parliament/Funkadelic and Blondie (well, maybe not Blondie), we should also recognize the challenging and cutting edge music by late '60s and early '70s prog-rockers. We fans of great progressive rock need to continue to make noise, but I'm not sure denigrating those that have already been inducted will help our cause.
Pete Kurtz
Marysville

Though Ohio City may have celebrated when Moda, West 25th Street's hottest club, shut down this summer, the rest of us were suffering. Okay, so the nightly brawls, gunfits, and the owner's conviction on money laundering charges may have created small problems, but the club also provided the best place in town to learn salsa dancing. Without it, where were we supposed to get our sweaty, drunken, Dirty Dancing groove on?

Thankfully, View on Prospect Avenue has stepped up to the plate. The club now hosts dance lessons on Friday nights at 9 p.m., for a $5 cover. Granted, the live band and disco ball that made Moda feel like 1950s Havana are gone, but the enthusiastic instructors (including the ever-popular Carlos) are back.

Next Friday, the club is even hosting a party after salsa lessons at City Hall. That's right, Mayor Frank Jackson thinks he's Patrick Swayze now. Let's just hope he doesn't try to dress the part. -- Lisa Rab

Yes, the NBA Finals ended not long ago, but since basketball season is, like, 11 months long, the new year is just around the corner.

The Cavs will host Media Day on Monday, a chance for all the players to talk about "how they're ready to start working and come together as a team to play like we know we can," or something equally artful. Training camp opens next week, too, and believe it or not, LeBron and Co. will be in uniform in less than two weeks, for a preseason game against Boston on October 10th.

But for fans — at least those too poor to shell out for season tickets — the key date is Saturday, 10 a.m. That's when single-game tickets go on sale, at cavs.com, The Q box office, or 1-800-4-NBA-TIX. So whether you want to take little Junior to a game, or hope to make some extra cash scalping those suckers later on, check out the Cavs schedule and start picking your games.

Be sure to take a hard look at the second week of February, when four playoff teams — the Pistons, Clippers, Heat, and Lakers — visit The Q in the same week. If the Cavs are a championship team, that's they're chance to prove it. — Joe P. Tone

A director's cut of the video for Mushroomhead's eerie new single "Simple Survival" is available at iklipz.com.

Chad Calek, an up and coming director who's shot well-received clips for Bleeding Through and Index Case, directed. Between performance footage, some shaky conceptual footage follows a young couple through what appears to be a drunken attempt to infiltrate the band's practice space during a dress rehearsal for its upcoming national tour. Then they get locked in a stairwell, where they seem to get stomach cramps and pass out. But even a light blue tint isn't enough to make it scary.

"Chad's good, but the narrative stuff didn't work for us," 'Head drummer-producer Skinny told Scene during a recent interview. "We're going to cut it. The final version will be just us playing." -- D.X. Ferris

It appears that Plain Dealer reporter Mark Puente is running into trouble with Lorain Police, though the union says it ain't true. This from today's Lorain Morning Journal:

President of FOP disputes harassment allegations

By JENNIFER BRACKEN, Morning Journal Writer

LORAIN -- Lorain Faternal Order of Police Lodge 3 President Buddy Sivert is disputing allegations by a Plain Dealer reporter that he has been harassed by police officers.

''Ninety-five percent of the people in our department don't know what Mark Puente looks like, let alone what his family looks like,'' Sivert said. ''Our officers would not do anything to make his family feel threatened.''

The Plain Dealer Managing Editor Thomas O'Hara wrote a letter to Lorain city officials alleging that Lorain police officers were lurking around Puente's family at a Lorain Admiral King High School football game and in a separate incident air was let out of Puente's vehicle tires while parked at the Lorain City Hall parking lot.

After a preliminary investigation by the Lorain Police Department showed there was no merit to the allegations, Lorain police Chief Cel Rivera forwarded the allegations to the FBI in Cleveland. The FBI is investigating the incidences and alleged threats, according to an FBI spokesman.

O'Hara has said Puente is working on an investigative piece about the Lorain Police Department. Puente is trying to connect the dots between several lawsuits ''floating'' around, according to O'Hara.

Sivert said Puente has obtained police officers' personal cell phone numbers, pager numbers and home phone numbers, and left messages with their family members.

''He has done this over the last two weeks, leaving messages saying he needs comments because they are going to be in the paper,'' Sivert said, adding that all the officers' numbers are unlisted. ''Naturally, the police officers are upset about that and don't appreciate being called at home.''

O'Hara said Puente was doing his duty as a reporter by obtaining phone numbers needed to get the information he needs.

Sivert said he believes Puente made the allegations in an effort to generate publicity for his story.

O'Hara denied that and said he believed it was appropriate to alert officials to what had been going on.

''I thought with the sum total of the events, it was prudent to alert the folks in Lorain, and that was the sole purpose of my communication,'' O'Hara said.

Sivert said the police anticipated being cleared of wrongdoing in the article.

''They would never do anything to jeopardize their jobs,'' he said about police officers. ''The officers are looking forward to the article so they can be vindicated of his threats.''

Puente has allegedly made several accusations of wrong doing to police department personnel from ''tips'' he received from an inside source, Sivert said.

''He needs to get some proof before saying these things,'' Sivert said. ''We have had officers who were investigated, disciplined and even fired for their actions on the job. Three have been criminally charged. There's no new news there. How can he question our integrity and say we are covering things up and that we're thieves?''

The bottom line, Sivert said, is that Puente is distracting Lorain police officers from doing their jobs and hurting the morale of the police department.

''Why target the Lorain Police Department?'' he said. ''I think he's trying to damage our police officers in their personal and professional lives.''

Lorain police Chief Cel Rivera has spoken to the officers during briefing sessions to encourage them to continue doing what they are in the city to do, Sivert said.

''He's telling them to keep working and don't worry about what someone is going to print in the paper,'' he said. ''Generally, things were picking up morale-wise and now he makes people not want to go out there because they are worried about false claims.''

Morning Journal Writer Megan King contributed to this story.

The GOP has chosen the site for its convention, and it ain't us. Minneapolis-St. Paul will host the 2008 Republican shindig, according to CNN.

Of course, everybody except Sam Fulwood knew this was a foregone conclusion. After all, Cleveland makes not the perfect poster child for demonstrating to the nation just how well Republican policies have worked.

With a handy assist from local Democrats, the city is almost as much a symbol of government incompetence as Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. We are yet again the poorest town in the nation, proving that President Bush's much-lauded tax cuts didn't do much for guys without yachting attire. Our school system is in shambles, leaving pretty much every kid behind. And our election system is in such a sorry state that we've become the national model for How to Steal and Election. All of which makes it rather difficult for Republicans to "Believe In Cleveland." -- Kevin Hoffman

Mushroomhead sold a lot of albums in its first week, Savior Sorrow. We can't tell you exactly how many, though. Depending on who you're talking to, the Cleveland band's solid new LP sold either 12,000 copies or 26,000 -- something like that.

Trade journal Hits Daily Double and estimates by Megaforce (a long-running metalworks that's the band's new home) say the disc sold 26,000 copies. Nielsen SoundScan, the generally accepted source of sales data, says Mushroomhead sold 12,000.

According to Megaforce, SoundScan alerted its paid subscribers that figures for the week spanning September 17-24 may be inaccurate. Megaforce theorizes that SoundScan numbers didn't include sales at Best Buy, which was running an exclusive limited edition of the album. It wasn't the only disc with inconsistencies. Megaforce says that figures for the new Elton John album are also 11,000 copies lighter in the SoundScan figures.

Even with the low figure, Savior Sorrow cracked the top 100 on the Billboard album chart, landing at no. 73.

It's not the seven-man art-metal assault squad's first bad break with numbers. The band's summer concert was by far the largest show of the lackluster CMJ/Rock Hall Music Fest weekend. Held at the 3,000 capacity Plain Dealer Pavilion at Nautica, the show looked like it was three-quarters full, but the band says its check was based on paid attendance of 1,800 — leaving them to wonder whether the venue was half-empty or half full. -- D.X. Ferris