Samples

William Shakespeare holding a Magic 8 Ball, cover art from the book "All the World's a Stage Fright" by Bob Abelman

All the World’s a Stage Fright – Chapter One

Whenever I look through the press releases sent to me by the city’s professional playhouses that announce their roster of new season productions, the former actor in me gets the itch to perform in one of them. That feeling always fades, like a phantom ache where a surgically removed limb used to be, when I remember that my name pays the bills better when in the byline of a show’s review than in its playbill.

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A Warm Look Back at the Cavaliers of the Cleveland Arena and Richfield Coliseum Years

A Game from 1988: The Cavaliers vs. Michael Jordan and the Bulls

The Bulls were so young, future stars Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant were coming off the bench. And the Cavs? They had John Williams, Craig Ehlo and Dell Curry coming off their bench. These were two good teams who indeed would be battling it out in the playoffs for several years. This was not Michael Jordan’s “Shot” in Game 5 of the 1989 playoffs. It wasn’t a playoff game at all. It was just a March night in the NBA from decades ago at my favorite place to watch a game. The Richfield Coliseum.

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Historic canal boat being pulled by mules

Canals of Ohio – From Best of One Tank Trips

Often, when I am on a One Tank Trip and tied up in a traffic jam on an interstate highway, I daydream about what it must have been like traveling in Ohio in the past, when we didn’t have limited-access highways. When life was much slower and simpler.

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National guardsmen advance uphill through tear gas clouds toward a crowd of students at Kent State University

Monday, May 4, 1970 – The Shootings at Kent State University

Guardsmen stirred at their posts, their forms drab and bulky in the early morning mist. Dew stretched white on the Commons, awaiting the sun. On the practice football field, guardsmen sleeping under tents awoke to see the first students of the day: the dishwashers and board jobbers who worked in the university dining halls. They trudged by with hardly a glance at the young soldiers. “Think we’ll get out of here today?” a soldier asked his sergeant. “Man,” the sergeant said, “I hope so.”

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Thirteen Seconds: Confrontation at Kent State, a book by Joe Eszterhas and Michael D. Roberts from Gray & Company, Publishers – front cover

Thirteen Seconds – The Kent State Shootings – A Look Back

Joe Eszterhas: Nearly a half century after its publication, I’m still proud of the fact that “Thirteen Seconds” dared to speak the unspeakable: That Richard Nixon, allied with Ohio Governor James Rhodes and Ohio National Guard Director Sylvester Del Corso, helped cause the deaths of four innocent young people …

Michael D. Roberts: Over the years, that fateful day has been revisited in seminars, articles, memorials, investigations, and government inquiries. In that time, no major revelation has come to light that would alter the facts in this book.

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Smoky, Sweaty, Rowdy, and Loud: Tales of Cleveland's Legendary Rock & Roll Landmarks, a book by Mike Olszewski from Gray & Company, Publishers – front cover

Swingos’ Celebrity Hotel—Rock & Roll Crash Pad in Cleveland

Hotels and rock stars have a long, twisted history. Just about every city has horror stories about rock stars, but everyone loved coming to Cleveland because of Swingos’ Celebrity Hotel. Artists came to town knowing the hotel had a top-rated restaurant, a superior wine list, exceptional security, and an owner who was very lenient as long as you paid your bills.

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