OompaLoompa

From Craigslist, This has to be some kind of scam, right? I googled wammerjammers and the chef's name and came up with nothing. Is someone just trying to get a bunch of busty gals to show up at Playhouse Square? Very weird. Wammerjammers----Now Hiring! Chef Babu Pratt-Witkowski, famous and hilarious winner of Canada's "Hoser Chef SuperStar 2012" is coming to you, Cleveland, to open a much needed Ohio location of his world famous pleasure dome... WAMMERJAMMERS Topless Burgers 4 Men. Now Hiring servers only at this time. Please send stats and pics (recent only please). Augmented knockers OK, but au naturel prefered (Chef Babu's preference). Or come in person to the lobby of the Hanna Building, Playhouse Square, Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, USA, with your glossy headshots and appropriate photos. Ask for Tony G. Inquire at reception desk, 10AM-4PM. Will be opening in the Hanna, 14th street. Hope to see you there, Cleveland!!! H http://cleveland.craigslist.org/fbh/4047904846.html

Yeah, I've actually added all these places to my list of clubs to contact, but I have never once gotten a gig from cold calling, emailing or sending demos. Everything I've ever gotten was through being recommended by someone who knew the booker. Places tend to book the people they already know. So if anybody knows who does the booking at any of these places and can recommend me to that person, it makes it much more likely they might actually look at my stuff and call me back...

This might seem like a weird place to put this, since it's not an urban planning related job, but I think a lot of the people on here may have contacts with local restaurants and clubs, so I am making an offer for anyone who can help me out. I've been on the road with the Glenn Miller Orchestra as their female vocalist, and a few of you may remember me from the Midnight Martini Show. Anyway, I am going to be leaving the road and returning home in May and looking for gigs. Specifically I'd like to get some regular or semi-regular nights to sing at a nice club or restaurant that would enjoy some nice jazz standards and so on. Anyone who can get me in the door for even a one-time gig at anyplace, I will pay a referral fee of $25. (I do reserve the right to turn down any gig that I don't feel is worth it, if it's too far away or doesn't pay enough for me to at least hire a pianist, etc.) If you are interested in helping me book more than one or two gigs and would like to be my "agent" we can discuss that too. Anyway, here's my website info, if you feel you know any places that would be interested in having me, please get in touch, thanks! http://www.eileenburns.org

Hi all, I have been thinking about something recently and I was wondering if this idea makes any sense, so feel free to point out reasons why this wouldn’t work because I kind of assume there are probably reasons why this hasn't been done. I live in Lakewood. Lakewood has an abundance of rental properties, and the city has offered loans of $50,000 to those who convert doubles into single-family homes. I haven’t seen too many people taking advantage of this. My feeling is that this is because most doubles wouldn’t make very desirable single family homes because most of them would be very large, perhaps larger than the average 3-4 member family would want, without the benefit of a yard. Most homes in Lakewood have very small yards, but the doubles have almost none because the building goes so much farther back onto the property. Besides the fact that no matter how well you do the conversion, the layout of the house will probably always be a bit wonky since it was never intended to be one large residence. But this got me to thinking that not everyone cares about yards. For instance, the Rockport Square townhomes seem to have done alright, so there is a market for yardless homes that are right up against each other and they don't seem like they would be much larger square footage wise than some of the double units in town. It seems like the main difference there is that the townhomes are new construction with all the modern conveniences. So what if a $50,000 loan was offered to renovate and update doubles to be sold as double condos instead? It would be less complicated so you could spend the money on updating appliances and amenities, maybe do some soundproofing of the floor/ceiling instead of having to use it to rework the whole layout. Does this seem feasible?

Anyone have a contact at this place if someone wanted to be considered to play jazz at this venue? It's hard to get your foot in the door at clubs/restaurants without a personal recommendation. It's not for me actually, but I know a few duos/trios that would love to play there and are great.

Hi guys, I’m looking for advice for a friend of mine who recently moved back to town and is having trouble meeting people to socialize with. He is 30, single, gay, loves to travel, likes fine dining and drink, theater, the arts, fashion, etc. He was in urban planning for a while at CSU, he recently graduated from the University of Baltimore and is working downtown with the Federal Government in customer support. He hasn’t met many people his age at work, he goes to a gym but hasn’t met anyone that way either. He’s very sociable but needs to find some like-minded people to hang out with. Any ideas?

I did a search for this, but it doesn't look like anyone mentioned it. NPR's Talk of the Nation broadcast from Cleveland yesterday. Among other topics, like Harvey Pekar, politics and manufacturing, they did an interesting piece about reimagining the city in it's new, smaller population density. Someone named Jeff wrote in to compliment the downtown architecture, it sounded like a UOer. You can listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=11-10-2010

The following article about Jazz28 and Verve was on Cleveland.com: http://www.cleveland.com/dining/index.ssf/2010/05/clevelands_jazz_28_takes_its_m.html

This is what I'm not clear about. It seems like they are just managing the entertainment. I do remember last time we were at Jazz 28, talking to Mark at the end of the night that he seemed to be stretched a little thin, I believe he has a regular full-time job and then he was running Jazz 28 in the evenings? So maybe they made a decision that it was just too much to do. I did like Jazz 28, it was a friendly atmosphere, diverse crowd and they had good food too. It's really difficult to be able to financially support live music in a venue that small though. Hopefully they will be able to transfer some of that atmosphere over to Verve.

Verve Review I just wanted to give a shout out to this new place, at least it’s new to me, Verve on Carnegie in the old Juniper Grill spot. Was there on Friday night to see the BF playing with the Sammy DeLeon quartet. He got the scallops, which I sampled, and they were excellent. Service was very friendly, the décor is nice and the music was great. FYI they just started doing live music, they took over the lineup from Jazz 28, which has closed. I think this is a positive thing, as Verve has more room, Jazz 28 was really tiny and hard to accommodate musicians and be profitable. I am not sure what Mark and Deborah’s (the nice couple from Jazz 28) affiliation is with Verve, they seem to be handling the entertainment. It was a small crowd when I got there, but it was getting late and the weather was horrible, so that may have kept some people away. I encourage folks to check it out, especially if you’re looking for a place to hear live music. There doesn’t seem to be any cover. You can see the music lineup on Jazz 28’s website or Verve’s facebook page. http://www.vervecleveland.com

Is Villa Zapata still open? Someone told me they thought it closed.

This is funny that you posted this, because I had the same problem last year. This year I got two seed mat heating pads, which made a huge difference. All my seeds sprouted a lot faster. I am not using them right now, as it has gotten pretty warm and I don't want to make them too warm. They are kind of expensive, I got two that are about 20" x 20" and they cost about $45 apiece, but hopefully they will last a long time. You plug them in and they give bottom heat to the seed trays. I don't have a grow light, but they are in a nice, sunny room. Most everything seems to be growing well so far. Although the marjoram I started several weeks ago seems to have stalled out and isn't getting any bigger. I think they have enough room, I don't know what the problem is. Anyone try to use peat pots? My BF got me some peat pot trays for individual seedlings and I tried to start some seeds in them but they almost immediately start to break down once they get moist. I have to water the stuff, I don't get how I can keep the stuff wet without it turning into wet cardboard and falling apart.

I wish an improv group like Cabaret Dada would move into that space. I always thought they were better off downtown where they could get spur of the moment, walk-in traffic. The rent would probably be difficult though. I know the spot in the Warehouse District was difficult to pay for and then they had that break-in and robbery which was kind of the end for them there. I still think that would be a great location for improv though. And if someone did short shows, like a half hour every hour you could do 4-5 shows a night, charge a small ticket price and keep people flowing in and out. Younger people going out don't want to commit to a whole 2 hour show. But they might pop in for a quick bit of entertainment, then on to the next place. Anyway, that's my two cents.

I’m back from the ‘burgh! I’ll try to post more photos at some point, but the BF took most of the photos and I don’t have them on my computer, I just have a couple here I took with my phone. Anyway, here is my summary of the experience. Friday: We arrived at our hotel around 3:00 pm. We stayed at a Marriott west of the city in an area near the airport called Robinson Town Center. It was a weird place to stay, all big box stores and strip malls and our hotel. But most of the places downtown we looked at were considerably more expensive. We got a good deal and the room was very nice with a very good breakfast buffet every morning and it was only about 8 miles from downtown. After we dropped off our things, we headed to town. We decided to check out Carson St./South Side, which was very cool. This was one area Pittsburgh has us beat, because the closest Cleveland neighborhood I can liken it to would be Coventry, but this is a much larger strip that stretches considerably farther. It had a very eclectic mix of shops and eateries (and a tattoo parlor practically every block), and the people-watching includes a diverse mix of freaks, hippies and regular folks. The surrounding neighborhood has some very cool old brick homes but most of them are not in great shape and the neighborhood seems to be a bit economically depressed, but not scary or anything. At this point, the BF was in need of a frosty alcoholic beverage, so we stopped into a place called Fatheads, and then realized that this is the same Fatheads that just opened in North Olmsted, which we have not been to yet. BF had the Headhunter IPA and liked it a lot. I had their bottled ale which I forget the name of, but it was good. Weird that we had to come to Pittsburgh to try Cleveland beer. (BTW, Great Lakes beer is common in Pittsburgh too). We wandered down to the end of Carson St. where they have built a Crocker Park-esque development called South Side Works. The Boilermaker jazz band was playing out in the square so we stopped to listen for a while and got some advice on things to do in town from the bandleader who is an acquaintance of BFs. We wandered back down Carson and had another drink in a little corner bar and by the time we left, the character of the street had definitely changed into sort of a rowdy, slightly seedy frat party atmosphere, like the clientele of the flats when it was in its decline. Not really our scene, so we headed over to Shadyside trying to find a couple music clubs that were listed in their equivalent of Scene, but didn't find them. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot over there except some upscale shops that were closed. It had kind of a Rocky River vibe, although denser, narrow streets, nice homes. At this point we headed back to the hotel and hopped in the Jacuzzi, had a couple beers we had brought from home and called it a night. Saturday: We decided to head down to the Strip District which we were told was very cool. First we had to sit in traffic for an hour and a half because there was a Kenny Chesney concert that people apparently were showing up for hours and hours in advance and we were all going into town through the 2-lane Fort Pitt tunnel. Nightmare. Finally got to the strip. Saturday 9 am – 3 pm is the time to go there, all kinds of vendors are cooking on the street, it is awesome. We got a couple coffees at la Prima, BF splurged on a couple cigars as a treat for later (cigars seem pretty popular in Pittsburgh) and was drooling over the huge Italian grocer and enormous fish market. We got a fish sandwich and some kind of tasty mung bean pancake thing. (Side note, I think Pittsburgh is even more obsessed with the Penguins than we were with the Cavs; signs, shirts and penguin hats were everywhere. A sign at the fish market read, “You can’t buy octopus if you are from Detroit. ID Required.”) We headed over to the Three Rivers Arts Fest which is a very nice downtown event that goes on for 10 days. It used to be 3 weeks apparently, but they condensed it. Everything is free and it is quite a big festival. We saw a few short plays, tons of art booths and listened to a couple bands. Had a drink and a bite at a little Cabaret bar in their theater district. Their downtown has a similar feel to Cleveland. A small geographical area, signs of progress, some nice restaurants and shops, but still a lot of empty places and stuff closed on the weekends. I didn’t notice much residential downtown. Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers is a nice space with a lovely setting and well utilized for the event, though greatly in need of renovation. Based on signage and fenced off areas, that is already underway. There is also some enormous hole in an intersection right near the park, I don’t know if this is going to be a new skyscraper? I didn’t see any signage indicating what is being built there. Hangin' in Point State Park After a long hot day of walking around in the sun, and unable to find a really good beer all day, we decided to get a six pack and go back to the hotel to relax. We needed a few items from the store anyway, and since our hotel is in the middle of big box mecca we went to Walmart for the first (and probably last) time ever. Anyway, they had no alcohol whatsoever. I ventured that maybe they don’t sell booze because it’s Walmart and they have morality issues with it? So we drove around some more and found a Giant Eagle. Again, no beer. What the h*ll? Then some kind soul informed us that alcohol can only be sold by certain establishments and bars in PA. Now we understood why so many bars sold six packs. He started to give us directions to the closest liquor store which was at least 15 miles away. We let it go and went back to the hotel defeated, BF nursed his last Dogfishhead and vowed to find good Pittsburgh beer tomorrow. Sunday: We were told by several people that the Mattress Factory was pretty cool, so we headed out to check that out. We got there a little before it opened, so we wandered around the neighborhood. It is a pretty depressed area immediately over the river from downtown on the north side. The housing stock is very cool old brownstones, some of which have been renovated and are beautiful, but the neighborhood as a whole has a long way to go. The Mattress Factory is housed in 4 floors of what I assume is an old mattress factory, it also has an auxiliary building a few doors down that was open that day. The mirror rooms were kind of cool: Most of the rest was the usual modern art type stuff and then some of the exhibits were the kind that make you feel like you’ve been ripped off. One room was just a musty basement with the walls covered in black plastic garbage bags and a looped CD making beeping sounds. Another room was total blackness and you are supposed to sit in a chair and wait to see whatever it is you are supposed to see. I saw my ten dollars floating into a black hole of stupidity. I suppose the exhibits change and it probably depends on when you go, but we were underwhelmed. We headed back to the arts fest to see a musician BF had been excited to see, but we either had the time wrong or picked up a misprinted schedule, because it turned out he was on at 6:00, not 4:00. We had reservations at Lidia Bastianich’s restaurant for that evening, so we couldn’t stick around. So we went to the restaurant, which is back in the strip. BF is a big fan of her cooking show and had been wanting to go to her restaurant for a long time. We budgeted for this to be our big splurge and expected to spend some dough. We got a medium-priced bottle of wine, caesar salad, he got the pasta special (three samples of the pastas of the day which can be refilled based on whichever ones you want more of), I ordered the beef cheeks ravioli special. The wine was nice, the ceasar salad was quite plain, my ravioli was badly overcooked (chewy, hard edges), and his pasta also had issues. Plus it took over a half hour and a couple requests before he got the refill of the two pastas that he requested. The only thing that was really good was the dessert (chocolate semifreddo with peanut butter ice cream) and the coffee, I had an excellent latte. Considering the prices they were charging, this was again a disappointing experience. Undaunted, we decided to resume our hunt for beer. A bartender downtown had recommended Penn Brewery, so we headed out to the north side again. We pulled into the parking lot…Closed. Arrgh! ….But just when it seems that all is lost, we strike up a conversation with these two hippie dudes who are looking at a map. Turns out they are on a cross-country road trip and fellow travelers on a quest for good beer. They relate stories of a mythical place, a former church converted into a brewery. Finding it on their GPS system, we head out once again in search of the holy grail. After a number of wrong turns, we drive into a fairly non-descript neighborhood, and come upon the promised land… We walk through the doors…[Queue sound of angels singing] Yes, those are the tanks on the altar. Feel free to genuflect… This place is huge, though it was pretty quiet at the time we were there. The hippie dudes got some food and porters I think (dark beers seem popular in the ‘burgh), I got the Cherry Quadzilla, which was I liked, BF got some kind of pepper flavored beer which was pretty good too. And it made me think, we have tons of soon to be abandoned churches in the Cleve, this would be fantastic here. Check it out at www.churchbrew.com. Monday: Headed over to do the Duquense incline (touristy, yeah, but still fun and a great view of the city.) There’s not much up there at the top, an overlook, a couple restaurants, that’s about it. Headed back out of town, stopped in a local park for a picnic lunch, hit IKEA for a little bit and headed home. Overall, we had a good experience and liked Pittsburgh a lot, but also have a better appreciation for Cleveland too. There are clearly a lot of similarities between the two cities with their benefits and struggles. My advice if you go, check out Carson St. during the day (or if you’re a party animal, you might like it at night), the Strip on Saturday morning and the Church Brew House anytime. If I went back, first of all I’d get a better map and do more research rather than the “winging it” approach we took. I might like to take a boat trip on the river or one of the Duck tours, Carnegie museum, and I would try to stay in the city rather than outside. Oh, and I’d stock up on beer…

This place isn't that new, but I'd like to give a shout out to the Asian Grille on Clifton in the Truffles building. We went there Monday after once again trying to get into Melt (thinking, well it's 9:00 pm on a Monday night, maybe we'll actually be able to get in...nope, still 45 minute wait...no thanks). We've eaten at the Asian Grille several times and the food is always good, plus the atmosphere is nicer for a sit-down meal than a typical chinese take out place, although they do take out too. It seems to be mostly Thai food. I ventured away from my usual Pad Thai and tried the Massaman curry with pork which was excellent. The BF had some kind of really hot red curry with seafood and also liked it a lot. Anyway, I wanted to plug it because no one ever seems to be in there. They have a nice little patio too. And you can walk to Big Fun!