After a quick breakfast, we made like Elvis and left the building. (See how excited I was???) The directions were simple—go down one block, turn right, and go three more blocks until we saw the giant pyramid. Apparently, there was a shuttle, but I’m glad we walked instead. Otherwise, we would’ve missed this sign:
And we would’ve missed this:
That’s right, it was a giant rubber stamp, just sitting in the grass. I’m sure it has some sort of historical or artistic meaning, but I’m not sure what that is. It did crack me up, though.
There were also a couple of cool big guitars on the sidewalk. Louisville had giant horse statues all over town—Cleveland had guitars.
I thought downtown Cleveland was dead the night before—but it was even quieter this morning. It was really kind of spooky. You know those horror movies when the world ends and the characters wander the empty city streets? That’s what it felt like. Even the churches were empty—on a Sunday morning at 9:30! Pretty eerie…
And then, we saw it. The iconic pyramid, set in the middle of a big concrete island. I was like a pre-schooler—I couldn’t stop smiling and clapping. Here it was, the home of rock, and I was about to go in!
We read the sign commemorating this particular Ohio historical landmark, and why, indeed, Cleveland is considered the birthplace of rock n’ roll. It was pretty interesting, especially because when you think of music, you think of musical meccas like New Orleans, L.A., New York, Seattle…Ohio? But it’s true, that’s where my favorite form of music was born.
I didn’t think I could be any more excited, until we approached the entrance. There, above the door, was a banner for a special temporary exhibit—Women Who Rock! Hell to the yes!!! Suddenly, a great thing got even better. We were even more stoked about our visit.
We got there at 10 a.m. on the dot, just as the museum was opening, and waited patiently in line to buy tickets. There was a photographer at the front of the line, and we waved us over to the green screen. Mark smiled nicely, but Edra and I erupted into our best rock poses, fists held high, ready to rock. The photographer laughed at us.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” he told Edra. “You’re so well-behaved in line, then BAM! You bring it for the photos.”
We were only in the lobby of the museum, and I was already giving myself whiplash.
“There’s the giant Zoo TV sign from the U2 tour!” I screamed. “There’s the CBGB awning! There’s…a giant hot dog hanging from the sky? I don’t know why that’s there, but look at those cars hanging down, too!”
The main exhibit started in the basement. We took the escalator down, and I raced to a display case. It had some amazing guitars in it—ZZ Top guitars, an Ani DiFranco guitar, Dave Wakeling’s white guitar, the one he used the whole time for both the English Beat and General Public. There were some Jerry Garcia guitars, too—I spent about 15 minutes circling the case over and over again, just saying, “Wow, WOW!” I hadn’t even made it into the main exhibition area yet!
There was a brief movie about how rock started out as gospel music, and how it was pretty much stolen from the African-Americans. The movie premise was that rock was like a train barreling down the tracks—you either jumped aboard, or got out of the way, because it was powerful, and not slowing down for anything.
We moseyed past all the granddaddies of rock, the people who started out with a twangy guitar and a lone voice. It told of the gospel and bluegrass singers who paved the way. We moved past a section on censorship and the Parent’s Resource Music Group (PMRC), which I’d forgotten about. Then it was on to the Elvis room, where they had a huge car on display that Elvis had given an employee during the 70s. Elvis’s life was on display, too, through videos, signs, old letters and his clothes hanging in the cases.
I lost both Mark and Edra here, in the second room. I think I lost myself, too, in all the words, the stories, the displays. I didn’t worry about them—I knew Edra was soaking it all in, too, at her own pace, and I knew Mark would find something to interest him, too. He’s really into music, but his history is much more recent—he doesn’t have the decades of appreciation that Edra and I do. Luckily, there were lots of interactive displays where he could listen to music and watch videos, so I knew he was fine.
There was a random, circular little room alcove to the side of the Elvis room, which I thought was the Women Who Rock exhibit. On the walls were fantastic black and white framed photos of the women musicians who played in Cleveland over the past 25 years. They were evocative and moving, full of emotion. It was like a front-row view of some of the best concerts around.
The museum does a fantastic job of breaking the music up by time, genres, and even individual musicians. After Elvis, the displays were by decade, from the 50s be-bop and early rock (Little Richard, Marvin Gaye), to the 60s (the hippies!), the 70s (punk!), the 80s (new wave, hair bands and heavy metal!) and the 90s (grunge music!). It was unbelievable, all of it, and the things they had on display just blew my mind. Angus Young’s schoolboy outfit, Slash’s hat, the Scorpions double guitar. They had hand-written lyrics (on notebook paper!) from some of the most famous songs around, and they had videos of everything. I seriously could have pulled up a chair and sat there reading all day long.
Just giving you a little eye relief with some flying cars!
But there was still so much more to see…I moved onto an exhibit of mannequins modeling more iconic clothing. Here was the Who, then Bono’s shiny gold suit and red shirt. There was David Bowie’s flowing cape, and Michael Jackson’s red Thriller jacket, and his white Bad jacket! And his glove! Unbelievable…
There was a brief room—a hallway, really--about the rap, and its artists. It had some pictures of the early rap stars like L.L. Cool J, Salt n Peppa, Run D.M.C. I think the most current star they had was Snoop Dog—they could definitely beef up that exhibit.
There was a room of local sons and daughters—the Ohio natives who became rock legends, including Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, and Devo.
There was an entire room dedicated to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. An avid Beatles fanatic, I skipped right past the Stones, and stood drooling, while my mind exploded over the Beatles memorabilia. There, in front of me, were the actual gray, three-button suits the Beatles wore! Here was Ringo’s Starr’s drum head, with “The Beatles” logo on it! Here was John Lennon’s green military uniform from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover! I literally thought my head might explode in this section. I parked myself on a nearby bench, and watched an endless loop of videos about the Beatles.
This is where I finally met up with Mark. I looked at my phone and realized I’d been lost down there for more than two hours! And that was only the first floor, which I felt like I’d rushed through.
Mark and I headed upstairs for lunch. There was a School of Rock band playing live below us, made up of future girl rock stars. I was so proud of them—it was like watching a relay race, and these young girls were carrying the baton forward. I was so proud of them. (OK, yes, the hall did make me a little emotional—I wear my musical heart on my sleeve!)
After lunch, we wandered through the remaining displays, and watched a movie chronicling the hall of fame inductees throughout the years. I was having the best time, singing along with all the songs, but Mark grew bored around 1996, so we bailed. We watched a crazy video montage, which played like a history of MTV, or my whole high-school self.
Finally, we climbed the stairs up to the Women Who Rock exhibit, and let me tell you, it DID rock. It was incredible. We spent another couple hours there, climbing higher and higher, until we were in another tiny round room. This room displayed all more famous rock star outfits, from Joan Jett’s jacket, to Grace Slick’s dress, and Madonna’s corset, all in leather. They had outfits from Beyonce, Cyndi Lauper, Gwen Stefani, even Lady Gaga’s meat dress (which I think was actually a re-creation of the actual dress). It was amazing!
We finally found Edra, eating lunch. She’d only been downstairs so far, and was surprised and a bit panicked to realize she’d spent four hours down there. She tossed here lunch and moved on to see the rest of the museum.
Breaking up all the words...with a giant flying hot dog!
Mark and I moved down to the gift store. I hadn’t bought many souvenirs along the trip yet, just a couple Christmas tree ornaments. But I did some damage to my credit card here.
Edra was still wandering the hallowed halls when we left at 4:30. She stayed until the end, when they kicked her out of the museum at closing an hour later. We both agreed that we easily could’ve stayed another few hours. A follow-up trip may be in my future…
I asked the cashier at the gift shop to recommend a good dinner place, and he immediately said, “Fat Fish Blue.” I was stoked because our shuttle went there, and the restaurant had live music. Sadly, we got there at the end of the set, but the food was still good, and the beers were still cold. Which was good, because the shrimp was so spicy, it burned my mouth. That’s right, the hottest food I’ve eaten was in CLEVELAND, OHIO!!!
I was still tripping over the empty population. We finally found out where the people were—too bad it was a small corridor of bars where we couldn’t really take Mark.
We cruised around a little more of the city, stumbling upon a super cool statue, which we investigated. Even better than the statue, there were lightning bugs in the park! We got so excited about that. We were on the tiniest patch of grass in a city of concrete, but there they were, little green fireflies buzzing around. We caught and released them all.
Our activities were cut short when Edra noticed a homeless man…err…watering the plants in the park. We realized it was a bit of a seedy area, and phoned for the shuttle back to the hotel.
So that was pretty much all we saw of Cleveland—mostly the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. But that was fine by us, it was the whole reason we came to Cleveland, anyway. My stomach was full of good food, and my head was still swirling when I went to bed, happily humming tunes and giving thanks to rock.
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