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.

Location

draw your own conclusions about the market.   post em here.

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).

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.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to tie together many of the theoretical pieces that I've developed and evolved over the years which just might comprise a holistic collection of synergistic sustainability submittals that comprise a body of work that could be considered contributive to the collective Whole.   They all fit together in a seamless way, without wayward explanation needed.  Ultimately these could be taken to begin to build a roadmap toward the ultimate vision - significant progress beyond the impending activation of the Genesis project, and the core change mechanisms and revenue driving efforts to drive it.  To put it simply, I hope the world's change leaders take these and implement them as they see fit for their particular sphere of influence.  If we take care to integrate structure, process and function meaningfully it should result in sustainable positive change.  Recent dialogues with AI/change leaders from Nepal and Zambia bode well for implementation potential.

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? 

wind turbine at Indian Lake High School in Lewiston, Ohio

The list of states considering or adopting film production tax incentives continues to grow.  More than 30 states now offer some form of tax or production incentives, with a few more states preparing to create or expand their incentive packages.  I've previously pointed to Louisiana's success. Tax incentives have helped the state rise in the ranks and Louisiana is now third in the US for film production (behind only CA and NY).  With the hard, diligent work of the Cleveland Film Commission, Ohio took a modest step forward last year, but can we take another step forward to provide stronger incentives to make films here?  The state of Ohio is trailing, while other states continue to move forward.

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

Location

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.

Dana Schutz, Relic, 2006
30 x 22 inches, #28 of 100

While chatting with my parents the other day, my dad mentioned they had just bought the above print by globally-hot NEO/CIA trained artist Dana Schutz, who blew the NEO art scene wide open this Fall with her fantastic exhibition of paintings that drew international acclaim and such massive crowds the MOCA gift shop sold out of everything on hand... here's a write up about this print from a Dana Schutz fan in Houston, and gushing praise about the show and MOCA from a visiting arts champion from Detroit (who I quote, about MoCA/Cleveland: "For me MOCA in Cleveland was bittersweet.  It was great to see that places like Detroit can build up and become something and even support young artists.  It is hope that Detroit ,too can have a contemporary.  But it was also a sad reality check that we are a city lacking a fertile art environment.  Let's hope that the talks of Detroit getting a contemporary will actually go somewhere.  Maybe we can kidnap some of the city planners from Cleveland????"). I hadn't heard anything about this important print (or any Schutz prints on the market), which my parents said Dana donated to MoCA to raise funds for them, so I asked my parents how they had heard about it and they said they believed they read about it in the international arts magazine ArtNews - not anywhere in NEO. They sought it out - bought it - and MoCA made money. There are more for sale... more money to be made for MoCA (at $2,200 a piece, making good money for MoCA)... more great arts investments to be made by arts patrons, here or elsewhere.

In what is more of a PR blurb than news article, Crain's Business today reported that "Port study completion docked until summer". As I recall, there had been plans for Cuyahoga County to fund a port study, for $100,000, and the Port was planning their own study, so I am curious which this is. More important, I wonder why the new director would choose to delay gaining professional, independent insight to help him "evaluate the port and its operations"... I'll be interested in Ed Hauser's take on this, which I'll post here shortly. 

First let me start off by saying that worms are one of the keys to hands sustainability education.  Capable of imparting lessons about landfills, organic waste landfill diversion, benificial reuse, food chains, composting, recycling, global warming etc etc etc, worms are an underutilized and cost effective resource for education. 

A growing share of municipal waste contains electronic or electric products. E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams and makes up approximately 4 per cent of municipal waste in the European Union. In the US, between 14 and 20 million PC’s become obsolete every year. The picture is similar all over the world and e-waste is increasing steadily.

As a core group of innovative urban planners and developers move forward creating a new way in East Cleveland, it is exciting to look back along the main street that brought us to today, and that will take so many deserving citizens past those with little insight who have driven so much of this region into poverty. Looking back, and forward, here is a powerful set of perspectives from CIA graduate and Kent Urban Design graduate student Joe Stanley, of NEO Main Street, from two years ago, under a former administration. Now, under Mayor Brewer and his staff, redevelopment of this community is underway  - thanks for your vision and keeping the faith, Joe!

"ITS A NEW DAY IN EAST CLEVELAND"

Go "Citizen" Ed Hauser. Doing good to do good, so all may do well! Here is his latest mapping of the landscape of redevelopment of NEO as abstracted by the powers who be to do well for themselves and their friends. Reply requested! I agree with Ed's conclusion:

Looking forward to presenting innovative solutions for the future of development.  I'm so there.  Let's present the following in mind-blowing, art-form fashion:

This is the vision for :  A Sustainable Future - my exhibit to be first presented at Ingenuity Festival this July 19-22.   Don't miss it!  These also happen to be four ideas to spark regional economic evolution.  Here are some key ideas to change the world - starting with East Cleveland and NEO...

CBS 60 Minutes, March 4, 2007

Comptroller Says Medicare Program Endangers Financial Stability

    Like an Old Testament prophet, David Walker has been traveling the country, urging people to "wake up before it's too late." Medicare is just the biggest of the problems. There is nothing like putting our children into a black hole of debt. Find article here.