"I think Cleveland is a good place. Inner city is rough, but the outskirts is real beautiful, and great schools there. Plus my family, my mom and my sisters, they're all in Cleveland, so it's easier for me to be there than anywhere else." This quote, from an excellent Free Times interview with Charles "Wish Bone" Scruggs, of Cleveland-roots, Grammy award winning, multi-platinum rap trailblazers Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, sings the woes of a place branded as a "Shrinking City", where even the urban hard-core Thugs chose the 'burbs over the 'hood. The result of such out-migration, and downright defection, as is the case with all the other members of Bone, is the subject of a series of art exhibitions and related events taking place over the next month, all over town... which event sponsor Kent Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) introduces by pointing out: "In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Cleveland had lost nearly 20,000 residents in just five years. The city’s population of 458,684 was the lowest in nearly one hundred years." Starting Friday, April 20, 2007, at 4:30 PM, with a lecture at CUDC, explore what it means when a city loses its Bones...

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Few occassions in NEO or anywhere offer a more diverse and exciting perspective on life and art than the annual CIA BFA Thesis Exhibitions... from the CIA Website: See exceptional work by the next generation of artists and designers as graduating students present their Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis exhibitions. The Joseph McCullough Center will be bursting with energy and excitement as the Institute’s graduating seniors challenge the public with fresh ideas and commentaries on our world. Work will be presented in all media including performance and installation art. The senior thesis project is the culmination of a student’s career at the Institute. Please join us to celebrate their achievements!

Exhibition Hours

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About two years ago, the REALNEO team took on the challenge of helping to bridge the digital divide in NEO, in many ways, including recycling "obsolete" corporate computers, wiping the hard drives, and loading them with free versions of Linux and other Free Open Source Software (FOSS). One group of computers, provided by Progressive Insurance and Benesh Friedlander, that we freed from Microsoft-obsolescence, were given to a combination of Shaw High School seniors and senior citizens in East Cleveland. Shaw seniors have since taken their computers off to college, and, a few weeks ago, East Cleveland CIO Abulime Alli and I met with one of the senior citizens who received a desktop PC and now needed some tech support. I was  thrilled to help her out and interested to hear how having a Linux computer at home had changed her life.

Learn how the arts can change everything...from an individual to a nation!  Young Audiences invites you to hear two dynamic and engaging speakers on Friday, April 27th:

	Sir Ken Robinson, a senior advisor for education policy at the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles and expert in the development of creativity,education and the economy. 8:30 a.m., the Hyatt Regency Cleveland at the Arcade.   FREE.
	Aaron Dworkin , accomplished violinist and the founder of The Sphinx Organization, which works to overcome the cultural stereotype of classical music, and to encourage Black and Latino participation in the field.  12:00 p.m., Jacobs Field Terrace Club.  The cost is $25 and includes lunch. Registration required.

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What a spiritual day. The global global warming insight is starting to hit the fan, as it is becoming clear who are the terrorists of this world... polluters who will live to learn they lived "their way" to kill millions of the most impoverished people on Earth. It is good for humanity to have a new world of terrorists to consider, as we seem so quick to ignore mass-murderers. I always think about this around "Opening Day" in Cleveland, as so many in NEO celebrate ignorance of genocide. There was a disturbing little "editorial", er "column", by Cleveland Plain Dealer spiritual adviser Regina Brett about her attempts to summon an idol, St. Jude, to save from damnation the Cleveland baseball team known by the European name for the slaughtered native people of the Western Hemisphere - "the Indians" - seeking for our region redemption from damnation. Sorry, Regina, but you can't fool Mother Nature.

Westside Courts resident Emma Casey sits at home with her refurbished computer. Photo: Sarah Lai Stirland

Derek just sent me a link to this article that should get people here thinking about our local economy, violence, the digital divide and solutions... read about the type of bridges we're building for East Cleveland and Cleveland... from Wired, about 3,000 miles away from NEO....   Sarah Lai Stirland 04.04.07 | 2:00 AM SAN FRANCISCO -- The Westside Courts is a bleak concrete housing project in the city's Western Addition where violence is closer than a high-speed net connection, and one resident's first steps online include plans to create a memorial for the people who've died here. Last month, volunteers turned on a novel broadband network in this 135-unit block, throwing a digital lifeline to Emma Casey and other tenants. Using a refurbished PC she picked up for $100, the 47-year-old mother of two adult children is now going online to help her son find a job, get health information and, she says, pay tribute to neighbors who've met with violent or untimely deaths.

Academic debates about the reality and cost of the so-called digital divide -- and the ability of individuals to fight economic disadvantage with nothing more than a computer and an IP address -- seem to crumble in a place like this. Like water and heat, internet is a clear necessity in the modern world, opening doors to education, employment and engagement.

YES - this is a huge story... the State of Ohio is suing Sherwin Williams and other paint manufacturers over the public nuisance caused by lead paint they sold here over decades... the state is joining five Ohio cities in this battle for our citizens - this case could very well take over the battle for the cities - very exciting times for our down-trodden state.  It is exciting to see the new Ohio leadership in action, after so many years of poor performance by past administrations.

TRUE ART GALLERY presents Michaelle Marshall, Jeanetta Ho and Laurel Herbold, April 6 – 30

OPENING RECEPTION, FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 2007, 6-10 P.M.

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Johnny Mango World Cafe and Bar is a love at first and each sight, bite and margarita restaurant for me - creatively well decorated, eclectic environment, friendly staff, and always a great crowd... whether just a few tables of regulars or packed with anyone or everyone in town (generally on weekends... especially when the weather is great and sidewalk patio is open). The reason is a fresh juice bar, meaning some of the best drinks and smoothies possible, along with a great selection of Tequila... along with Momocho (which is next door), they have the best margaritas in town... along with a "world-cafe" menu of fun, unusual foods, cooked fresh, with fresh ingredients, in the open kitchen... and location, location, location in beautiful, vibrant Ohio City.

I received an informative email this afternoon from Richard McDougald Enty, Planning Team Leader, Programming & Planning Department, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, about some of their Transit Oriented Development initiatives and vision. It is very exciting to see this as an active subject for discussion and planning here. I am a strong supporter of Transit Oriented Development and consider it the core foundation on which we should rebuild the City of Cleveland and surrounding suburbs.  Here is the vision from RTA:

This week's edition of Dee Perry's arts & culture television program Applause!, on WVIZ, features a segment on REALNEO... so I'd like to invite all the friends of realneo to join us for a screening party for the first broadcast of the program, Thusday, March 29, from 7:30 - 8:00 PM, at the great A.J. Rocco's Cafe, at 816 Huron Road, by East 9th Street. As a special treat, I was pleased to learn that A.J. Rocco's had already planned a very cool and complimentary event for that evening - Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman will be the guest bartender from 6-8 PM.

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I was quite honored to be contacted, a few weeks ago, by the producer of one of my favorite television programs, Dee Perry's "Applause", asking for information about REALNEO. Seems he was doing research on the spectacular Convivium 33 Gallery, which we have featured extensively on REALNEO, covering Christopher Pekoc here and Clarence Van Duzer here (photos from which were featured in Cleveland Magazine), so REALNEO came up in search results. The producer saw REALNEO as in interesting source of insight on arts and culture in NEO and suggested to his staff doing a segment on Applause about REALNEO. Even though we scheduled the interview, this seemed very abstract until I just saw a promotion on WVIZ for the show, featuring a scrolling view of the REALNEO home page.

It is a great pleasure to have our original Drupal developer Derek Arnold back in the server seat for REALNEO and all tech things 7gen (shown here at my favorite wifi and human friendly coffee house in town, Talkies). Besides already cleaning up months of tech messes, less than two weeks back on track, Derek is now in Sunnyvale, California, as probably the only NEO representative at the Yahoo sponsored OSCMS (Open Source Content Management System) conference, the Drupal Performance and Scalability Seminar and the Drupal Hackfest - March 22-25, 2007. We've been touching base while he is there and it is clear he is learning lots of great insight, spreading NEO love in the open source world, and showing all that we are serious about making this a real open source domain (and I mean realneo and this region, in that).

This year's Case Western Reserve University Distinguished Lecture at Severance Hall, March 20.2007, on the topic of Warped Passages, by Lisa Randall, was certainly a mind expander. Considering the title of the talk - "Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe - Hidden Dimensions" - and with the experience of sitting in the last row and looking down upon our little slice of life, in the expansive Severance Hall, in this "shrinking" physical region of mere humans, I left blown away... we are but specks of particles, strings and who knows what else in a universe of unknow dimensions where we understand so little, at the core, just as we understand so little in simple life on Earth and in NEO.

It has always bothered me to see full page ads in the Cleveland Plain Dealer for the traveling "Collectibles Buyers" who come into town for a few days to prey upon the most desperate citizens of our region, setting up shop in some seedy motel to buy jewelry, coins, watches, etc... the family treasures... from anyone they can scam. Recently, a local TV investigator did a segment on this sad practice, showing that the brokers offer their victims low values only the most pathetic fools would accept.

A Spring Suzuki Workshop will be held at the Windermere United Methodist Church on Euclid Avenue, from April 9 - 13th, in East Cleveland. Our guest faculty will be Arvilla Rovit.

  Arvilla Rovit has Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The Juilliard School where she studied with Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory and Hsin-yun Huang.  A graduate of the internationally acclaimed School for Strings Teacher Training Program (New York), a two-year apprentice program in Suzuki Pedagogy, and having attended numerous Teacher Training Workshops, Ms. Rovit is Suzuki Teacher Certified to teach violin and viola.  Her Suzuki viola teachers have included William Preucil, Sr., and Betsy Stuen-Walker.  Upon graduating from Juilliard Arvilla was awarded a Special Award for Achievement by Drs. Marilyn Pearl and Norman Roland.

Proud to see my parents support this exciting expression of the arts in NEO, hosted at the Main Branch of the Cleveland Public Library - thanks to Charles Burkett for pointing out this notice about the show on the CPL website. - it is worth checking out this exhibition, organized by the very cool Elmer Buford

A snippet from Palm Beach Post on organic juice sales.   Though I consume it in tandem with organic milk, organic juice availability just has not kept pace.   Looks like they finally are waking up in the Orange belt.  Tropica (worlds largest juice guru) only got into the game this Feb.   See how behind the ball the big boys can be.   Looks like it wont be much longer now.  I wonder what is next? 

Timing and participating in the World are everything. I was awed to be pulling out of the Hough Bakery complex parking lot in East Cleveland today, listening on WCPN to one of my favorite media sources on Earth - BBC's World Have Your Say - and hearing something like "broadcasting from the East Cleveland Public Library". U-TURN!!!

The great NEO-roots arts Champion David Thomas - driving force behind the amazing Pere Ubu, Rocket From The Tombs, and all things Ubu Projex - brings his Two Pale Boys to Cleveland for their only show in the United States. REALNEO will be there to share the excitement... see some brief notes from my interview with David Thomas from his last RFTT tour through Cleveland here. Make your plans now to turn out for this remarkable event and support the most innovative musical genius ever to rise from our region... and support the Beachland! More below:

 
DAVID THOMAS AND TWO PALE BOYSPERFORM ONE U.S. SHOW ONLY - at the Beachland

David Thomas and two pale boys continue to support their last release
titled, 18 Monkeys On A Dead Man's Chest (Smog Veil).  The album is the
group's fifth release and their third studio album.  It takes the group's
extraordinary sonic lexicon, the trademark soundscaping of  electronic
trumpeter Andy Diagram and guitar/synthesist Keith Moliné, and injects it
with a furious rock urgency. Check the zigzagging riffs and knife-edge
angularity of the blistering "Numbers Man."  There are no drums on this
track and no drums at all during the band's live performance of the material
from the album.

April 10th
at Beachland Ballroom
in Cleveland, Ohio
9:30 pm set time

18 Monkeys On A Dead Man's Chest contains the following nine tracks 1) "New
Orleans Fuzz," 2. "Numbers Man," 3. "Little Sister," 4. "Habeas Corpus," 5.
"Brunswick Parking Lot," 6. "Nebraska Alcohol Abuse," 7. "Sad Eyed
Lowlands," 8. "Golden Surf" and 9. "Prepare for The End."

"Ceaselessly inventive"
- Sunday Times

"Twisted and inspired, it is like everything and nothing you've ever
heard...beautiful and haunted stuff in which to both lose and find
yourself."
- Time Out

"His otherworldly, slightly deranged voice...bears comparison with no other
voice: child-like, full of guilt, pitched somewhere around, although not at,
falsetto, but - and this is the fulcrum of his appeal, around which his
whole oeuvre pivots - it has a serene, mournful quality. Nick Drake and Ian
Curtis had that quality too, but Thomas's palette is broader, his
inclination more avant-garde."
- The Guardian

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Always one of the most important arts events of each year, in NEO, the Cleveland Institute of Art Student Independent Exhibition (now in its 61st year) proves, as promoted, "Tradition doesn’t always have to be stodgy". Far from stodgy - this show is always exciting, in your face, over the top, fun and inspiring. It is also one of the best places in the world to see what art and artists are influencing this region now and will continue to change the world throughout our lives.

ROLDO    has been talking sense to power for years in NEO.  Here he is,  with his indefatigable energy,  keeping at it here, on CoolCleveland with his views  on tax abatements.  Roldo, I hear you!