The Man from Primrose Lane lived a lie and died a millionaire. By Phil McIntyre The door was unlocked, even though the dead man inside was a notorious recluse. Patrolman Thomas Sackett stepped inside. It was June, 21st, 2008. Minutes earlier, sixteen-year-old William Beachum had phoned 911 to report that the old man who lived [...]
Like all good revolutions, ours started in a bar. A year ago, we met inside the Spitfire Saloon at the edge of Cleveland, on West 117: the bar’s owner, Stosh Burgess; former Free Times marketing guy, Ray Leonardi; former Free Times classifieds sales leader, Alice Leslie; and me, a guy who had written [...]
The annual Ohio Bigfoot convention wrapped up yesterday. Among those on hand was Bob Gimlin, one of the men who captured the shaky footage of a Northwestern “bigfoot” jogging along a riverbank–his film remains the best evidence of this creature to date. The Bigfoot Field Reporter has the full review.
Under the cover of night, local politicians, newsmen, and quasi-celebrities made their way into a recording room at Cleveland State, May 3, to record “Please Stay, Lebron,” a musical plea to the North Coast B-ball messiah. The song and the video, soon to be viral, was the brainchild of Mike Polk, best known for [...]
It’s hard to be so arrogantly condescending that a room full of fellow politicians simply laughs at you, but former Shaker Heights Mayor Judy Rawson managed to pull that off with a flourish at a Cuyahoga County Council Planning forum on April 28. Billed as a discussion of the “role” of the new county [...]
We should never do special issues—that was one of Ray’s warnings when we launched The Independent last August. Ray is our marketing director. We worked together at the Free Times, where he was their marketing guy, too. Special issues, like “Best Of’s” and “Back to Campus” editions, are ridiculous undertakings for small publications. It [...]
If you’re an aspiring writer living in NE Ohio, you need to know about The Lit. The Lit has been around, in one incarnation or another, for 36 years. As the story goes, it began with a group of writers who played baseball together, circa 1974. It was known for a while as [...]
By James Renner Crooked River Burning, By Mark Winegardner Pretending to be a love story, this novel is actually a ballad about the rise and fall of Cleveland, itself. The crux of it, though, is the tale of a young politician with ties to the mafia (so, no real suspension of disbelief needed [...]
