Doughnuts
By David Budin

I’ve been to a bunch of meetings with various individuals, groups and organizations, where everyone is talking about big ideas they have – in the arts, in business, in civic projects. I’ve heard nothing but good ideas and I think at least some of them will eventually come to fruition. But if you hang around here long enough and watch what goes on, you know that some ideas, no matter how hard their proponents push for them, will fizzle.

I’m not sure why that happens. But it can get frustrating. And it makes me think of doughnuts. Not just because that would be my natural response to frustration. (Though, come to think of it, it’s also my response to positive situations, too.) But because of this:

In November 1964, when I was in the 10th grade, I took a trip to New York City and, hanging out in Greenwich Village for three days, I discovered three things: the Blues Project playing at the Café Au Go Go; a book of poetry by LeRoi Jones, who was then a Beat poet and playwright, and who is now a controversial loose cannon known as Amiri Baraka; and a book of surreal cartoons by a now-forgotten cartoonist named Merz (his name was Robert Griffith Merz, but the book was simply called Merz) – all of which I brought back with me to Cleveland Heights.

The two books were easy. The Blues Project was more difficult. But I accomplished that by hounding the people who ran the University Circle folk club La Cave until they booked the group a few months later, which, I think, helped to open the floodgates for the venerable folk institution to become a rock club, which then became too small for that scene, which may have contributed to its closing a few years later. But let’s not talk about that.

The LeRoi Jones book had an eye- and mind-opening impact on me. But the impact was short-lived. The Blues Project was a mind-blowing, groundbreaking group, but it broke up within a couple of years. That little cartoon, book, however, has stayed with me. I actually think about many of the wacky pictures and captions to this day. In fact, this day I thought of one. The picture showed this gigantic, almost-room-size, intricate and complex machine, out of which a single doughnut was emanating. A baker stood next to the machine, stretching and yawning. The caption read: Another day, another doughnut.

That’s the way we feel sometimes. As for my work, sometimes I’ll write an 800-word article -- for which I’ve done a ton of research, conducted several interviews and spent a long time piecing the story together like a puzzle -- and when it’s done, it’s still only 800 words. I look it and think: Another day, another doughnut. If that were this piece, I’d already be halfway there.

But I’m just getting started.

I thought about that doughnut cartoon last night because I thought about doughnuts. I often think about doughnuts. But last night I was coming home from the West Bank of the Flats, driving through the deserted East Bank of the Flats and up St. Clair in the Warehouse District, when I passed the empty Gilly’s donut place. Now that, to me, is a terrible story. I mean, I don’t even know the story, but it’s terrible.

Gilly’s started as Presti’s Doughnuts in Little Italy. Presti’s was an institution. It was there for, what? – 200 years? Lorenzo Carter started the place right after he finished building the first log cabin in Cleaveland. I’m not actually sure about that. But it was there a long time. And the reason that it stood the test of time is that it made the best doughnuts in the world. This is not my opinion, this is medical fact. Presti’s really did have the best doughnuts anywhere – and I’ve had doughnuts everywhere. You can look at me and see that.

Presti’s was always open all night long, but usually not during the day. When I was a full-time working musician, it was one of the few places you could go around here to get something really good to eat late at night, after a gig. When I worked at the Cleveland Play House in the early ‘80s, I would stop at Presti’s early in the morning, on my way to work, to pick up dozens of doughnuts for various occasions. Up until recently, I would often go there in the middle of the night so my wife and kids (and I) could have Presti’s doughnuts for their birthday breakfasts.

Then, a few years ago, someone bought the place and changed the name. Then they stopped making doughnuts there, but made them at their other location out in Mentor or Concord or Eastlake or Painesville. Then they started selling lots of other stuff besides doughnuts – cookies and other pastries. Then they opened a second, or, I guess, third, location in the Warehouse district. Then they closed that location. Then they closed the Little Italy location.

The owners were quoted as saying they were closing the original spot because they weren’t making money there. That may be true – because not only did they let the quality slip, but they stopped concentrating on what had kept the place in business for decades: doughnuts – great doughnuts. Still, it was shocking to hear that the doughnut shop formerly known as Presti’s had closed.

When someone told me about it in late September I got right in my car and drove past the place to see if it was really true. Well, it was two days later. And I was driving by the place anyway. But I felt like getting in my car and driving pat the place when I heard about it.

I was still thinking about – meaning: craving – doughnuts today, when I had to drive to a place near an Amy Joy doughnut shop. I decided to stop in to get a cup of coffee. I was thinking that they were supposed to have good coffee and I wanted to try it. I realized later that it’s Dunkin Donuts that’s promoting its coffee. I was wishing I’d stopped at one of those, because this was one of the worst cups of coffee I’d ever had. It tasted like it might have been left over from the early chemists’ experiments in simulating coffee flavor.

But at least they had doughnuts there. Now, a few weeks ago, my wife went to Patterson Fruit Farm in Chesterland. We always go there in the fall (and other times, too, but fall is the best). Patterson’s has, besides all of its fresh fruit, the best cider in the area, and the best a lot of things, including apple fritters. Since I couldn’t go to Patterson’s with my wife, she brought home an apple fritter for me. (And, by the way, don’t tell my doctor about that.)

When I walked into Amy Joy, I noticed they had apple fritters, so, I mean, why buy a doughnut when you can get an apple fritter? So I had one. (And, by the way, don’t tell my doctor or my wife about that one.) I guess if I hadn’t recently had a Patterson’s apple fritter, this one might have been acceptable, but, like I said, I recently had a Patterson’s apple fritter. So, another little disappointment, and another surprise.

Like last Saturday, when I ate at Sushi Rock on the East Side. All I had heard about the place, from a lot of people, was that the food was great, but the servers were snotty and rude. Interestingly, though, our server couldn’t have been nicer or more friendly, helpful and patient. But the food was mediocre. There were eight people at the table and we tried a lot of different things besides sushi, including steak and duck. So, yeah, it was a pleasant surprise to get such a nice server, but, ultimately, when we were paying the $240 bill, I realized that if I had to decide, and could choose one only one, it would be good food; it’s easier to forget about bad service.

Then the next morning, Sunday, I went to the great new WCPN studios in Playhouse Square to watch a taping of the NPR show Says You. It’s a nationally broadcast radio program that involves two teams of three intellectual panelists, competing in various word games. The show tapes all around the country and this time they came to Northern Ohio, taping shows on Friday night and Sunday morning in Cleveland, and Saturday in Youngstown. The Cleveland shows are supposed to air on WCPN 90.3FM in early November, but, as they say, check your local listings.

I’ll admit that the real reason I went was to hear the musicians from Roots of American Music, who were playing several times during the shows. ROAM is a non-profit music and education organization that takes inter-active programs into schools. Several area musicians participate in the different programs.

The group that played for the Says You broadcast consisted ROAM founder and director Kevin Richards and Blue Lunch leader Bob Frank on guitar and vocals, Mike Petrone on piano, Ray DeForest on bass and Erik Diaz on drums. They played lots of roots-rock oldies and the audience loved them; the show’s host and producer, Richard Sher, loved them; and, in fact, all the panelists got up and danced to them at the end of the taping.

The reason that I went to hear the band and not the show is that every time I’ve listened to the show, it didn’t seem that funny to me, and the panelists all seemed a little too self-congratulatory. Maybe I never listened long enough, though, because the shows I saw taped here were really funny; the panelists were quick-witted and they did not seem to display that attitude I thought I’d detected before.

Maybe they were having an unusually good day here in Cleveland. Maybe it just sounds different live than it does on the radio. Maybe I was wrong. Whatever, it was another nice surprise. Plus, backstage, they had good cookies and things – though no doughnuts. But they probably wouldn’t have been good doughnuts, anyway.

Presti’s is gone and now Cleveland needs great doughnuts. Cleveland needs other things, too, of course ... but doughnuts is always a good ice-breaker. My week was like a microcosm of life in Cleveland. There are good surprises and there are disappointments. A lot of big ideas in Cleveland – in business, in the arts, in civic projects – seem to keep starting and stalling. Cleveland is a place where lots of people come up with lots of good ideas. Sometimes people mobilize others to actually act on ideas. Sometimes they don’t. And sometimes when people do act on their great ideas, the projects come to fruition. Sometimes it’s “another day, another doughnut.”

Let’s try to come up with more doughnuts, and fewer holes.

From Cool Cleveland contributor David Budin popcyclesATsbcglobal.net

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