Now in our 21st year, CoolCleveland has, if anything, put an even finer point on our mission to highlight the coolest people, places and events in the region. We’ve expanded our footprint to all of NEO over the years, and our site has the most comprehensive listing and guide to locally owned culture: shops, restaurants, bars, venues. Our message: put the device down, get out and stay sharp.One way to keep your edge is to celebrate Earth Day this week at any one of multiple locations. Get a group together or go solo and do a beach cleanup like so many others this weekend around the Great Lakes. If you’d rather sip while saving Mother Earth, join the Metropark Zoo’s Party for the Planet, with special programming that’s free with admission. CMNH’s Community Earth Day celebration brings together a bunch of nonprofits to help you get proactive, also free with admission. Kent’s Who’s Your Mama Environmental Festival for music & art all afternoon. Dig yourself some banjo at the G.A.R. Hall, explore “What Is Dance?” at CPT with MorrisonDance, go deep on verse at the two-day Cleveland Poetry Festival, rock out with Cleveland Burlesque at the Beachland, or explore placemaking and public art at the re-launched Ignite! Neighbor Nights from Ingenuity. But whatever you do, don’t stay home hooked on NetflixMaxTV+Hulu ParamountPrimeYouTubeTikTok or anything else shoved down a screen towards your brain. Your community needs you and you need your community.
Sharp thinking helped David Bowie as he navigated his family’s history of mental illness. His half-brother Terry, who was a huge influence and David’s mentor, ended up taking his own life. But the artist never succumbed. In fact, he used his fears to fire his imagination and create some of the most iconic personas and songs in the modern era. As we celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month in May, join us for a Bowie Brunch at JUKEBOX. And stay on the edge.
David Bowie’s mother was schizophrenic, and his brother was institutionalized for years before taking his own life. David Bowie’s lyrics and themes are rife with allusions to alienation, suicide, fear and death, but he used these to fire his imagination and create his ever-changing personas.
In celebration of May as National Mental Health Awareness Month, Vanity Crash and Thomas Mulready present a Bowie Brunch with the show Cracked Actor on Sat 5/13 at noon at JUKEBOX on W. 29th in Ohio City with a special a la carte menu.
We can learn a lot about mental health from David Bowie, including self care. Enjoy an awesome brunch with friends. Read more.
Maybe it was his background coming from the western suburbs of Cleveland. But when Pat Johnson landed in the middle of San Francisco’s thriving, hard-partying music scene in 1971, he didn’t get swept away and become a casualty. He focused on his passion for photography and documented the scene for 40 years, in the studio, at events and onstage.
As things slowed down going into the third decade of the 2000s, he had time to reflect on his career and output, which makes up his book Blue Collar Photographer, filled with images of artists such as the Rolling Stones, Yoko Ono, Tina Turner & Tupac Shakur. He’ll be in town to promote it, with a stop at Mac’s Backs on Coventry Sat 4/22, where he’ll talk with photographer & CoolCleveland editor Anastasia Pantsios. Read more.
Join the Cleveland Museum of Natural History for an Earth Day celebration! Guests will have the opportunity to meet with representatives from local organizations that are working to protect and preserve our natural resources by building connections in our communities.
From 10AM-5PM on Sun 4/23, the following groups will be on site, along with planetarium shows, 3D movies, and wildlife presentations: Alliance for the Great Lakes; CWRU Women in Science and Engineering Roundtable; Cleveland Cultural Gardens; Drink Local. Drink Tap. and NEO Regional Sewer District. All activities are included with general admission. Read more.
Guitarist/songwriter Brian Alan Hager hit the scenewith local glam rockers Vanity Crash and gigged with bluesman Travis Haddix before going on to a busy and diverse solo career. This week he’s releasing the first four songs of a new album which will come out this fall, called Rock and Soul (Side A). It’s available on most streaming platforms, and on CD and vinyl. Read more.
Nonprofit Graffiti HeArt has provided scholarships and commissions to graffiti artists and muralists for ten years. Its annual Grapes & Graffiti benefit offers an evening for high rollers on Friday 4/21 & a low-cost party on Saturday 4/22. And you can meet the artist who did the Michael Stanley mural on Payne! Read more.
Their Chocolate Walk sells out within hours of tickets going on sale every fall and attracts revelers from all around. Now Downtown Lakewood is kicking off Spring Stroll allowing you to stroll between a dozen select retail locations on Sun 5/7, each serving a mimosa or lemonade plus an art offering. We’re announcing it early because only 200 tix are available, and they are going fast. Read more.
TUE 4/25 Get Rolling Support the safe-streets advocacy of nonprofit Bike Cleveland at a wine tasting at Tremont’s Visible Voice Books, where you can enjoy wine flights, munchies and book browsing as well.
WED 4/26 Dinner and a Show Alla Boara is one of NE Ohio’s most unusual groups, playing vintage Italian folk music with modern embellishments including jazz & world music. They’ll be at CVNP Happy Days Lodge, where a dinner option is also available.
For Americans concerned about the rise of antisemitism, racism and xenophobia, Timothy Egan’s new book, A Fever in theHeartland — The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, And the Woman Who Stopped Them. could provide answers and insights. Egan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, takes on the rise of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s; how it came to dominate the state of Indiana; took control of many state and local governments throughout the Midwest; and was fortunately stopped before its desire to take over the White House had any chance of success. Read more.
Scott is the first presidential hopeful of any race or party to announce his candidacy on the ramparts of Fort Sumter. The very cradle of the Confederacy. The site of the opening salvo of the American Civil War. An iconic location representative of the South’s defiance of the Lincoln administration’s desire to preserve the Union and where the first shots in a war to maintain slavery were fired. Read more.
