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    Hello Cleveland: Things You Should Know About the Most Unique City in the World
    Hello Cleveland: Things You Should Know About the Most Unique City in the World
    Hello Cleveland: Things You Should Know About the Most Unique City in the World
    Ebook209 pages1 hour

    Hello Cleveland: Things You Should Know About the Most Unique City in the World

    By Nick Perry and Jason Look

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    About this ebook

    Hello Cleveland unlocks the hidden, larger-than life history and culture of Cleveland, Ohio, possibly the country's most misunderstood city. Locals, visitors, transplants, and people—who moved away as soon as they could—will gain a well-rounded picture of the city's passionate pursuits, dark corners, dubious claims to fame, and disarmingly friendly culture. Nick Perry, who grew up in Cleveland and then moved back as an adult, invites you to join him in taking a loving, brutally honest look under the hood. Develop an appreciation for local celebrities like Devo, Bone Thugs & Harmony, Lil' John and Big Chuck, and Dick Goddard the weather guy. Marvel at landmarks like the Great Lakes, the Metroparks, and the world's largest outdoor chandelier. There are plenty of downsides and none are sugarcoated. You'll discover why Cleveland is the reason for the creation of the Environmental Protection Act and how it's largely to blame for the widespread adoption of suburban city planning. But you can still find a heartwarming pride in rooting for sports teams that seem cursed to lose every championship. As the city's unofficial slogan says, "You've got to be tough," but there's a lot to love—especially when the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra wanders into the dive bar you're sitting in and starts to play an impromptu concert. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMicrocosm Publishing
    Release dateJun 14, 2022
    ISBN9781648410840
    Hello Cleveland: Things You Should Know About the Most Unique City in the World
    Author

    Nick Perry

    Nick Perry spent his childhood in Dorset, out in the countryside daydreaming most of the time. He was educated at Parkstone Sea Training School before leaving for London where he worked for ATV Television. He travelled around Europe moving from job to job until he came into money. On impulse he bought a hill farm in North Wales. He lives with his wife Arabella in the Wiltshire countryside where he spends his time writing, walking and listening to classical music.

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      Book preview

      Hello Cleveland - Nick Perry

      9781621060529.jpg

      Hello Cleveland

      Things You Should Know About the Most Unique City in the World

      © Nick Perry and Jason Look, 2022

      This edition © Microcosm Publishing, 2022

      First edition, first published July 14, 2022

      For a catalog, write or visit:

      Microcosm Publishing

      2752 N Williams Ave.

      Portland, OR 97227

      www.Microcosm.Pub

      eBook ISBN 978-1-64841-084-0

      This is Microcosm #1

      Edited and designed by Joe Biel

      For Juliet

      Microcosm Publishing is Portland’s most diversified publishing house and distributor with a focus on the colorful, authentic, and empowering. Our books and zines have put your power in your hands since 1996, equipping readers to make positive changes in their lives and in the world around them. Microcosm emphasizes skill-building, showing hidden histories, and fostering creativity through challenging conventional publishing wisdom with books and bookettes about DIY skills, food, bicycling, gender, self-care, and social justice. What was once a distro and record label was started by Joe Biel in a drafty bedroom and has become among the oldest independent publishing houses in Portland, OR. We are a politically moderate, centrist publisher in a world that has inched to the right for the past 80 years.

      Did you know that you can buy our books directly from us at sliding scale rates? Support a small, independent publisher and pay less than Amazon’s price at www.Microcosm.Pub

      Publisher’s Note

      WHERE DO I GET OFF

      E. 1999 ETERNAL

      OUTSIDERS

      THE THINKER

      HOW DID I GET HERE

      WARNING

      THE BRIDGE WAR

      THE CITY OBJECTIVELY

      THE GREAT LAKES

      SIZE

      ABANDONED BUILDINGS

      THE HOUGH RIOTS

      DOWNTOWN

      CLEVELAnd sports

      the time we actually won

      favorite season

      helltown

      halloweekends

      serial killers

      burning river family

      FAMILY

      juggalos

      punk

      cleveland celebs

      john hughes

      TALK THROUGH YOUR NOSE

      weather

      frankenstorm

      no power=no music=no customers=no money

      goddard

      lil’ john and big chuck

      the casino

      booze

      tower city

      steelyard COMMONS

      THE WORLD’S LARGEST OUTDOOR CHANDELIER

      THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA

      BALTO

      LONDON. PARIS. TOKYO. NEW YORK CITY. CLEVELAND.

      AND FOR OUR FINAL CULTURAL INSTITUTION...

      THE METRO PARKS

      CRITTERS

      THE SALT MINE

      BURKE LAKEFRONT AIRPORT

      BALLOON FEST ‘86

      FISH FRY

      CULTURAl clubs

      clam bake

      the west side market

      edgewater beach

      toxic algae blooms

      fuck it

      before you leave

      and I’ll leave you with this

      Five years ago, I was at a home and garden show with some of our authors. Two people working the show and I stuck around afterwards and began commiserating about growing up in Cleveland. I soon discovered that they knew as little about the place as I had growing up. As we each went home for the night, I was reminded of how absolutely fascinating and unique Cleveland is. All of that rust and corruption, grit and crime, and glamor and personality sure leaves millions of unbelievable stories in its wake. 

      Everyone in Cleveland has a certain kind of unrealized ambition. They want to be the President or a rapper or the greatest line cook of all time or a CEO, even if only to swindle every penny out of the corporation that they are in charge of. But at the end of the day, most of these ambitions are just stories for parties and to waltz around the truth when someone asks you, Whatcha been up to?

      I know this song and dance well. You see, I have been telling myself these stories about my own ambition for years. Sure, I accomplished some things, but Cleveland gave me the absolute grit and determination to always dream bigger than the place I currently occupy. In my quest to understand the place I came from, I ordered every book about the history of Cleveland. They were all painfully boring or academic or just skirted around any interesting information. Let’s not forget that Cleveland is responsible for creating city zoning because of a 1926 court case, now imposed on the entire country. But before long, nepotism and squabbling took hold and the city was the first major U.S. city to go into bankruptcy. Our river caught on fire only a dozen times and the federal government created the Environmental Protection Agency in response (and all I got was forty years of lousy lead poisoning). The weird thing is, more people know about LeBron James, Ariel Castro, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the epic crimes, and the white flight that decimated the population than the fact that Cleveland has the largest Slovenian population in the U.S.—or how it got this way. So many young people leave as soon as they can that they forget how lovable the city is and never learn the truly interesting history it has.

      Then I noticed that Detroit and even fucking Akron have books about them—and I became intent on publishing one about Cleveland. You see, in the earliest formative days of Microcosm, I met Mike Hudson of the 1977 punk band, The Pagans. When I discovered his website was full of writing about Cleveland’s rich history, we agreed that he would write a cultural history of Cleveland and I would publish it. 

      We agreed on a horns-and-halos, warts-and-all history of Cleveland. But Mike kept writing about crimes, ex-girlfriends, and serial killers. Those things are either not of interest or already well-documented. And in a Cleveland story that eerily paralleled that of Dead Boys’ singer Stiv Bators, in 2017, Mike crashed his car while drunk driving and died of unattended internal injuries and a life of hard living. I was crushed because this kind of story just felt all too real and familiar from many friends going through the same motions already. Also because twenty years later, Mike had started to write the book in earnest. I had finally decided to give up on this project. But then Nick emailed me to recollect that one time we had run into each other in the Portland City Archives. I asked him if he had interest in writing this book, and like all good Clevelanders, he was up for anything that day. Nine years later, I wonder how many regrets he has.

      I told him I wanted to get to know Cleveland like I know the friends I grew up with: fuckups, but lovable fuckups who stick up for me when times get shitty. Cleveland is like that. It’ll steal your two dollars, but it’ll make you laugh at all of the things you witness.

      Psychologists say that the first step in overcoming your trauma is understanding it, naming it, and making conscious decisions not to repeat it. I love Cleveland with all of my heart, but I couldn’t stay. I grew up during the darkest timeline and seeing how that ripples through my yet-living friends is just too much to bear witness to daily. But I’m still invested, because Cleveland is fascinating. And its people need this.

      Thanks, Joe. No pressure, right?

      When the idea for Hello Cleveland was initially brought to me it should have been a red flag that Joe’s been trying to get this book written for a quarter of a century to no avail. Had I replied, Hmm, sounds interesting, let me think about it? and then dodged emails forever after, life would have been much easier.

      But I didn’t. I said, Oh, I’ll just write it. Like I was going to the store anyways and Joe had asked me if I could pick up some toothpaste while I was there.

      Tube of Colgate and a book about the strangest place I know? Sure thing.

      Very early on in writing Hello Cleveland it occurred to me just how daunting this whole endeavor was going to be. Mainly because I knew that no matter what I wrote, it would be endlessly and mercilessly criticized

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