NEW PROJECT WRITIN

I stand in line, waiting for a trio of hipsters (my kind, according to some) to buy their vinyl. Vinyl is a pure, physical manifestation of the music, they claim. We claim. The three bearded men, accompanied by bespectacled girlfriends, soon become none. This gives me the chance to tell the woman behind the counter to cough up a medium-sized t-shirt. She smiles caustically. I try to smile, really.

I turn around and exit through the front door. The entrance of the Grog Shop is also the entrance of a night-club called The B-side (vinyl’s everywhere, brah), and after a show, the surrounding sidewalk is almost always packed with hardcore partiers and hardcore hipsters. This mixture doesn’t usually elicit conflict, but it is still really damn easy to tell the difference between the two parties. I wade on through, pulling my keys out of my pocket even though I’m several hundred yards from my car. All the male clubbers look the same, I notice (as I have before). Clean cut and shaven, dressed in deliberately mangled blue jeans, white button-up shirts (untucked), and loafers. They talk about their workouts while sucking on cigs. Talk about girls and down their dranks. Talk to girls? Dance with girls.

“I’ma fuck him up,” says one tanned clubber to a group of taller, skinner, and paler homies. The speaker must be the alpha. His barks start the dialogue. The other dawgs follow his lead.

“Dude, I’m not gonna even try to stop you. That shit’s weak,” suggests a friend. And with that, the gate releases. OUR GREYHOUND IS ON THE RUN.

I watch as he strides towards an identical creature, dressed in clothes from the same brand. The agitated interrupts the stationary’s conversation by tossing out garbled insults. ALTRUISM IN THE NIGHT. He then punches the victim in the throat, precipitating a scuffle that ends with one man attempting (struggling, but with sobriety) to bash his twin’s head into the sidewalk. The whole ordeal (a real horrorshow, I tell ya, yell ya) lasts a couple of minutes before a group of slightly less inebriated clubbers, empowered by the anxious shrills of their girlfriends, breaks it up. I keep walking.

As I enter the parking garage and ascend the staircase to the top floor, I’m empty, and when I see my car I’m still empty. But then I see the cop near my car and I’m full of something. I mean, he’s full of shit, but I’m full of something angrier. The pig’s writing me a parking ticket, and I know for a fact that the meter only expired a few minutes ago. He tucks the pink slip of paper under the front windshield wiper, and I stay away. I don’t want conflict with a man who’s paid to break them up. That doesn’t mean I don’t want conflict, though.

Non-Fiction Project Writing

"This is magnificent,” exclaimed Patrick Calhoun. He sat crosslegged on a park bench, under a large tree of course. Too idyllic. An extensive cemetery—Lake View Cemetary—surrounded him, capitalized by the immense (understatement) stone cylinder in front of him. Inside rested the body of James A. Garfield. “I’d love nothing more than for the people of this fine city to come and experience the tremendous beauty of the landscape,” he added, huffing and puffing. Every syllable with an “oh” sound almost sent him tumbling backwards off of the bench. Everything else sounded like he didn’t say it. Calhoun’s twenty-one year old son stood in front of him, recording every word his father uttered on a notepad. “I’ve been thinking, and the more I’ve thought the better my thoughts become, you see?”

“Yes, sir.” His son nodded his head.

“Now, I’ve been thinking about this city and its people, and my meditations have lead me to an image of a vast, connected system of trains and street-cars, which could offer its passengers—even those who live three dozen miles from the city, perhaps—an indubitable and quick method of transportation. Now, my conversations with several like-minded, hardworking citizens have revealed a key social element in this particular equation: situated on the border of this fine city is a displeasing niche, a pocket of dirt-poor Italian immigrants. Those who I’ve talked to have told me to avoid placing a stop on this geographically-ideal location. However, my studies of the landscape have brought me an alternative. On the Mayfield Road, just past this cemetary, is a small intersection with Coventry Road. It’s nothing more than an insignificant dirt road, but there’s room to grow, comercially I mean.” He stood up and surveyed the area. “Yes, I feel I’ve birthed a tremendous idea.”

His son, with furrowed brow, finished his recording, looked up at his father, and closed the notebook.

Project Writing # 4

I step towards my white Volvo, pausing briefly to unhook the keys from my beltloop. I press the button on the key ring and listen for the locks to raise, and only then do I continue my march. When I’m about five yards from my car I hear a man’s voice. The speaker tries to hide his grizzled tone, but the delicacy he applies is false. I don’t trust this utterance. I don’t trust this speaker.

“Young man, you look like a generous human bein’.” I hear the snake crawling through his esophagus. “You look like you’d help an old man out.” There’s venom in those words, or am I just too soft to obey?

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you out” I say, not looking. I inch forward and he follows.

“You haven’t even heard what I want, sir.” He wants my sympathy and my respect, but I’ve also frustrated him. I see him in the window of my car. I turn around to see if he’s really there.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go,” I tell him. Yeah, there he is. His face looks like a caricature of his voice. Hard leather trying too hard to feel soft. I’m neither surprised nor bothered by his bare torso. In the middle of a summer night, I often feel the urge to live shirtless, but I also realize his motivations are probably not his. “Excuse me.”

I reach for the handle on the Volvo and pull, fully expecting my visitor to understand the implication.

“You don’t understand. I just need you to help me out. I don’t need any money.” I hear the words and ignore their meaning. I crouch and enter my vehicle, positive he’s backing off. “Please, man.” There goes the delicacy. He places his hand on the frame of the car, preventing me from closing the door. I pull hard.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I raise my voice with each syllable. He tries to keep the car door open, pleading, but I keep pulling. I keep pulling. I don’t even know how scared I am. I don’t have time to know. I just pull until he gets the point. I pray to my god there’s some reason in his head. I pray to my god he gets the point. He backs off, apologetically. We share stares for an instant, then he turns away and runs down the ramp of the parking garage.

I sit in my car with windows closed. I start the car at some point and put it in reverse, but I keep my foot on the brake. Sitting. I press play on my ipod, pause it. Press play again, then release my foot from the brake. I back out and descend the three floors of the garage.

On the street I see two cop cars, lights flickering eternal. I see my monster in a backseat. He’d been taken. He’ll be tamed by a bigger beast, we hope. We, readers, are the bottom of the food chain.

Project Writing #4 Initial

“1: Remember”

I don’t know what it means, but on each floor of the Coventry’s parking garage, there it is. A simple white rectangle with a curious message. “1: Remember.” I don’t know what it’s trying to evoke.

I walk past the sign like I have so many times before. I don’t even consider it as I pull out my keys and unlock my white Volvo. The search for sleep haunts my head, pulling me home and into my bed.

Research Blurbs 5/25/10

In 1892, Patrick Calhoun came to the Cleveland area and developed the” Euclid Heights Allotment”, bordered by Mayfield, Coventry, and Cedar Roads to the city line…It was supposed to appeal to Cleveland's elite (by avoiding Italian immigrants living in Little Italy)

- The Coventry Village Business District, constructed between 1919 and 1922, = first fully developed commercial area in Euclid Heights…it was supported by the Heights Theatre at Coventry and Euclid Heights Boulevard.

- Before Patrick Calhoun developed the area, Coventry was little more than a dirt road.

- Coventry served it population, catering to different groups overtime. In the 1920s and 1930s, businesses included those targeting specific services including automobile, banking and dining. In the 1940s and 1950s, the business district catered to the immigrant Jewish community who frequented delicatessens and tailor shops. In the 1960s, Coventry became the home for the hippie generation. In the fall of 1967, local merchants began to cater to this population bringing this counterculture to Cleveland Heights.

- In 1919, the Heights Theatre, a 26,000 square foot, 1200 seat movie theater was one of the first commercial structures to be constructed within the Euclid Heights Allotment. The brick structure, designed by Cleveland architect Albert F. Janowitz, boasted a grand marquee marked with the beginning of what would become the first commercial district in Cleveland Heights.

Senior Project Writing #3

Our Teenage Punk stands with one foot on the curb and the other on the street. He hunches over the drain, spitting. Standing, he’s only abot five and a half feet tall, but his skinny jeans let him look taller. A single, empty Frank’s Red Hot Sauce bottle falls from his side and hits the sidewalk. Our Teenage Punk continues spitting. One look from the bottle to the kid makes the red tint of his spittle more noticeable. He’s relieving his mouth of a cayenne residue/saliva hybrid, naturally. Then we see Chipotle. Yes, Our Teenage Punk stole his beverage from Chipotle.

“You go girl,” shouts his friend. Despite his nature, he’s trying to grow a beard. Judging from the sight (vision is one of two ways through which we can gauge the legitimacy of one’s beard), the endeavor has been far from fruitful.

“Shut the fuck up,” responds Our Teenage Punk. He snickers, then spits some more. When he’s done spitting, which requires several concentrated seconds, he stands up straight, looking at his audience as he wipes his grin with a pale forearm. For the moment, he is our hero; he overcomes obstacles no one else is willing to surmount, and we don’t seem to care that said obstacles are irrelevant or that the act of overcoming them is little more than fleeting. We wanted to see someone steal a bottle from Chipotle and drink the entire thing, and Our Motherfucking Teenage Punk did just that.

He’s there every Friday, every Saturday, and every Sunday. He attends Cleveland Heights High School, and he’d drop out if it didn’t mean losing contact with his friends. His friends aren’t like him in any way, but there they are every weekend, slouching around, smoking cigs, skateboarding, blasting loud music and singing along. His jeans sport an unrealistic number of holes, and his t-shirts (he wears his influences on black cloth, wears them on his chest) look as though they’ve never been washed. But that’s how he bought them, right? He strides up and down Coventry, surveying the area for familiar faces. Everyone’s either a friend or an enemy, of course. Mock the former, mock the latter. That’s what Our Teenage Punks live for, mocking. Fire is motion. Is motion growth? Everyday Our Teenage Punk resists becoming defined by his boundaries, but he has become so integrated in the Local System that his blows send him backwards. Coventry owns him. He’s just far too stubborn to admit it.

When it hit the ground, the bottle didn’t break.

Senior Project Writing #2

“College is worthless. Your much better doing what you want. College is giving up the best years you’ve got.” He had an agenda, delivering the lines in a tone that sounded like they had been delivered before. “What school do you guys go to?

“Hawken.” In unison.

“I knew a kid who went there. He goes to Miami University now.” He moves several inches closer, placing his left hand on our table for support while resting his right hand on John’s shoulder. John smiles, but his eyes look uneased. “He’s wasting his life, I’m telling him. Colleges help nobody but the people who own ‘em.” At this point, Eve loses control of her laugh, letting loose an awkward gasp of sorts, which our lecturer immediately notices.

By half past two o’clock in the morning, everyone who’s over 21 in Coventry Village is likely drunk. Students from various colleges and universites (and high school students in some case) flock to the area in order to satisfy their need for alcohol, sex, and weed. Nightclubs like “The B-Side Liquor Lounge” stand responsible for most of the area’s late night traffic. This is not a rebellious youth, this is a die-hard, partying, and playful youth.

“What the hell are you laughing at? I’m dead serious. Don’t laugh at this shit.” His words are slurred and he stumbles while trying remain stationary. “Don’t be punks.”

“Thanks, but we’re trying to eat,” I tell him.

“Look at you, kid. I liked you guys, but this guy,” he says, pointing to me, “is an ass.” Eve’s chuckle popped the cork. We all laugh nervously.

With the growing influx of partiers, Coventry Village has, in the past decade, seen a rapid expansion of the number of Cleveland Heights police officers who frequent the area. Most of the locals and all of the students despise the cops, who, rather than breaking up the numerous fist fights or halting the frequent drug use, prefer to bust pedestrians for speeding/surpassing the alotted time on the parking meter. Consensus says they’re more of a problem than they could be.

I ask him to leave for a second time. Our sandwiches are delivered to the table, and we all just really want to get at ‘em, but here’s this asshole trying to censure us for pursuing higher levels of education because he likely dropped out after spending a semester or two inebriated. I say that because he’s drunk. We just want to eat our sandwiches.

“Who do you think you are, kid?” I look at John, and we silently agree to get up and go. We grab our sandwiches. Eve and Hannah catch the cue and do the same. He backs off, offended. “You’re not gonna listen to what I have to say? Respectful.” He’s still slurring and stuttering.

“I’m sorry, but we have to go.” We walk out of Dave’s Cosmic Subs and find a bench, where we sit down and eat. He’s too drunk to follow.

It’s hard to tell whether it’s the kids or the cops who are the bigger problem.