best of the blotter: calculators, pizza, and pregnant men

Employees at Ann Taylor at SouthPark Mall called security Oct. 16 when a man came into the store claiming to be pregnant with triplets.
A report said the man was wearing earrings and carrying a pink backpack and black purse.
Employees called security, who asked the man to leave, then escorted him out.

Not So Suspicious
A Greenbrier Drive resident reported receiving a package in the mail containing a threatening note and a piece of jewelry.
Police found no threatening note and a pretty good explanation for the package -- the resident's daughter had ordered a bracelet.

Time to start a fire
On Oct. 16, a pair of teenage girls decided it was time to round up several election yard signs and set them on fire in the 2000 block of 3^rd Street. They probably would’ve gotten away with the junior caper, but one of the girls decided her front yard was the best place to incinerate the signs. Both were cited for criminal mischief and released.

PETTY THEFT, BIDDULPH ROAD: A Cleveland man, 44, was arrested for petty theft at Giant Eagle Oct. 18. He tried to hide three cans of beer, two corned beef briskets, one pumpkin roll and four containers of pickling spices in a bag and in his jacket. The total value of the merchandise is $77.
He told the arresting officers he was trying to steal some dinner and “beer goes with corned beef.”


NOISE DISTURBANCE, ROYALTON ROAD: The excessive sounds of sawing or a dog wheezing in and adjacent apartment prompted a resident to call police at approximately 8 p.m. Oct. 27. The man also said his neighbor’s TV was too loud.
Officers went to the apartment and found the noise was actually the neighbor snoring. The caller was advised there’s nothing he could do.

MISCHIEF, PEARL ROAD: A man has had 53 political signs stolen from his yard and raw meat thrown into his yard during the last few weeks, and he told police at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 2 that someone had stuffed rocks into the exhaust pipe on his car.
The man said he would be installing video cameras.

SUSPICIOUS CONDITION, DETROIT ROAD: A woman said someone had placed a box on her car and she was concerned about what was in it. Baby shoes were found in the box on Nov. 3.

COMPLAINT, LAKE AVENUE: A man called police to say that it was suspicious that a passing driver said “trick-or-treat” at him Nov. 4.

Welfare Check
Passersby asked police to check on a man with long curly hair and a backpack walking on Webster Road about 10 a.m. Nov. 9 after he fell to a sitting position.
An officer took the man to Albion Road, where he planned to walk home. He just likes to walk around, a report said.

Robbery
A man told Shaker Heights police in the early morning hours of Nov. 10 that while babysitting a young child on Sydenham Road, he was the victim of a home invasion in which he was robbed of $280 in cash, his cell phone and vehicle. Two cordless phones were also taken from the home.
He later recanted, telling police he had in fact arranged for multiple female “escorts” to visit the home. The women physically assaulted him before robbing him and fleeing in his vehicle, he said. Police have yet to confirm his story.
The child was not reported injured during the incident.

FELONY SHOPLIFTING, SOUTHPARK CENTER: Office Max called police after someone stole $1,000 worth of Texas Instruments calculators at approximately12:30 p.m. Nov. 13. The store has the suspect on video, and the case is still under investigation. 

WELFARE CHECK, BOSTON ROAD: Strongsville police dispatchers received a glowing 9-1-1 call at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 12 from a 4-year-old girl, who called just to say she "loved policemen and wanted to give one a hug."
When asked where her parents were, the child said her mother was at work and then hung up. Officers called back twice and got a voicemail message. Officers checked the home and the girl was with her father.
No word on if the caller got to give the officer a hug.

Pizza frustrations — Mentor Police learned Friday that a trashed hotel room was the result of a frustrated man who could not get any pizza.
Daniel DiFranco of Willoughby is accused of causing more than $5,000 worth of damage to a room at America's Best Value Hotel. Mentor Police Lt. Ken Zbiegien said two or three inches of standing water was in the room, along with a disassembled bed and holes in the wall.

sleep can wait

Overdosing on good hangingoutness... returning to the art studio on Friday night to attempt to throw pots less suckily, plans to watch falling stars scuttled by fatigue, reunion with Kentinistas involving much food and revelry and sitting next to the fire pit. Family functions, dinner with good people, travels provided for thanks to generous folk with frequent flyer miles to burn, travels pondered and my passport application on its way to some bureaucrat's desk, showing up late for movie night to chortle and pick out a new turntable.

  Filling in on la estacion tonight for a homie's metal show, which inevitably leads to she plays what? Shocking that one can indeed be eclectic in one's sonic palate without saying "I listen to everything" in the sense that music is background noise rather than something that moves you. It's funny when one digs into a genre and there are so many permutations and threads that technically fall under the same umbrella and sound completely different from each other.

And tomorrow... sleeping in, cooking, hanging out with cousins and the relatives whose company I enjoy, avoiding Black Friday like the plague, hopefully doing some adventuring of some kind.

artus scheiner

Some of these owe Dulac big-time but that doesn't mean these renderings of fairy tales, Shakespeare, and sundry ancient mythology and Czech epic aren't beautiful or imbued with a style all their own... Thanks 50watts!

stanislaw wyspanski

Author, playwright, artist, designer, wish I could do at least one of those well enough to be somewhat memorable.

mikhail nesterov

I know there's a lot of church/state issues involving the Russian Orthodox Church (it's not like European Catholicism was any kinder or gentler in another time either), but damn if the art isn't beautiful.

Mikhail Nesterov, muralist, painter of portraits, landscapes, and icons.

earthing

The car is 3/4s done, these Clevelandia roads take a toll on frames and inner parts, I got it back from the mechanic, walked the Jungle Puppy, fed the cats, scrounged together some leftovers, called a friend to talk about possibly starting to go to Al-Anon to figure out how to deal with the drunks in my life, and drove out to the east side to get my drone on.

Got a cup of coffee near closing time, drank it outside, ended up talking to Dylan (generally I don't seek out the band, but he was out there, a few others were, and it coalesced naturally) with a couple of college radio people from the community college in the next county over, and found out there were mutual friends, because this world up here is so very small. We made the requisite black metal jokes, discussed the might of the Melvins, and talked radio business about the FCC.

The first opener was half the headliner playing chilled out bass and mellotron jazzness, Eagle Twin was heavy and more compelling live than on online clips, oodles guitar hero riffage, propulsive drumming, and lyrics referencing a whole lot of literature that made for a satisfying set.

Earth is a slow-burning thing, watching the interplay of keyboard/trombone, basslines and ringing chords, and the deliberate drumming (sadly no cello this time, probably would have dissolved into emotional sappitude if it was there). Reflective Powers have led to earplug wearing which was good because everything was loud, and clear even through the foam. By the end of the night I was sleepy and lost in the sounds, resting my tired legs on a chair in the corner since most people in this town work early and were starting to disperse.

Maybe it's the socialness that nicotine engenders, the small turnout, or something in the crisp November air, but despite the introverted music, it was a friendly crowd, or maybe I was more social because I was there alone and so were others who drove from other rusty environs to congregate in the meditative sounds, but people were mingling and talking in ways that I don't always see at shows. I don't have the idealistic view of music bringing people together, but there was something nice about watching some good tunes with some nice folks that felt really good in the middle of a long week...

calmdowncomedown

Too much caffeine, too little nutrition, and the melancholic weighs heavy, I'm told I should smile and be more engaging today, and usually I am, but patience for horny undergrads and creepy old dudes is already thin and wearing thinner, I don't want to talk anymore than I have to, graciousness so often gets misconstrued as flirtation, see what you want to see, don't we all. This everpresent effervescent smile is nothing special, it's just kind of there at this point. I zoned out through class, did some mindless copy-pastework, the fatigue and the winter in my bones sets in.

Eleven days til twenty-nine. My aunt calls me to tell me that she's having a birthday party for my cousin and asks what I'm doing for my "big day" and I say nothing, because that's generally what it is. My cousin's turning 13 this week and still seems so young. She's awkward the way I was at her age and I wonder if her middle school years will be as hellish as mine, especially since there's some uprooting and sadness already there, the prototypical American crashdown dreams of foreclosures and lost soulness in the fabric of her daily life. Last night I reassured a friend of mine that she's not the only one dealing with the confusion of social interactions and relationships and I  step away and feel like I'm still muddling through just as directionless as ever being ten years her senior. I still don't know how to speak love and truth into the worlds of my loved ones.

Hopefully I'm not broke tonight when I pick up the car, and I'm going to go and get cathartic to Dylan Carlson's drone, it's the kind of music that one can be alone to, that hits me in the gut and brings the catharsis. I crave that right now, to keen to the cello and the ringing out of guitar tones, the slow unfurling. There is always time to sleep, these halfhearted dreams can be deferred another year.