"A factory of sadness."

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

We all have loved you, Rael.

Cleveland has always been kind to Peter Gabriel and to Genesis. When few in the United States even knew who they were, they would attract sold-out crowds here. I found a review of their 1973 gig at the Musical Hall in my high school newspaper.

In 1974 they released their most ambitious and ill-fated album to date, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. "Concept" albums were already a worn-out phenomenon, and yet the band created a two-album set that weaved out an utterly bizarre tale from the mind of Peter Gabriel, following what we would call a "Nuyorican" kid (of whom Gabriel knew none) named Rael, who is transported to an "Alice In Wonderland" type underworld in pursuit of his lost brother John.

He is frozen in space, is forced to confront his first, humiliating sexual encounter, is made love to by a mythical beast, has his penis surgically removed, and finds out he and his brother are actually the same person.

I love this record.

Unfortunately, the album had not yet been released when they began their world tour in America. Imagine paying good money to see your favorite band, but they refuse to play anything you have ever heard before. Some may have been thrilled, most were not. This "performance event" also involved over 1,000 slides and many large, unwieldy costumes which Gabriel had designed with no thought given to how to get the mic anywhere near his mouth.

As you can imagine, there were plenty of "Spinal Tap" moments. The show closes with a strobe on Rael and his doppelganger (a mannequin) at opposite sides of the stage, making it look like he's in two places at once. Closing night the dummy was missing and in its place a nude roadie. And after 120 performances, it was never filmed.

According to manager Tony Smith, the day came, early in the tour, when Gabriel announced that he was quitting the group. The fact that he decided to tell his manager this news in a hideous, orange-paneled hotel room at Swingos makes yet another notable moment in Cleveland Rock and Roll history.

In 2005 (Jesus, really? Six years ago?) I took Josh to see The Musical Box, a French-Canadian tribute band that recreates the Gabriel-era Genesis tours in exacting detail. They brought The Lamb to the Allen Theatre. I had asked my father, but he was going to be out of town. He was pretty interested in Genesis around the same time I was, during my high school and college years. This time around, however, he asked me, and I was only too delighted to accept.

So last night we saw The Lamb in the State Theatre. Myself and a 76 year-old man. The median audience member was a guy somewhere between mine and my father's age. There were assorted wives, but also other women who looked like they actually wanted to be there. I noticed this time, as opposed to five years ago, a number of teenage girls with their fathers. The father-daughter combo seated behind us were cute, she was really interested in the program they'd bought, and he was only too happy to share his insight.

It's a great show. I mean, it's a tribute band, but I would much rather see this than, say, 1964: The Tribute because once you get beyond the "Whoa! They sound just like ..!" factor, what do you have? Why pay to see someone impersonate the Beatles when you can just listen to a CD or watch a movie?  

Watching these guys is like seeing a play or something, rock storytelling, there's a lot to look at and listen to -- with a crowd of like-minded creeps who applaud and whoop and cheer. And, if you are the guy sitting in front of me, light up a marihuana cigarette.

For an encore, they played Watcher of the Skies and, yes, The Musical Box.

Sources:
Genesis: Chapter and Verse (Collins, Banks, Gabriel, Rutheford, Hackett)
Peter Gabriel: An Authorized Biography (Spencer Bright)

The New York City Marathon

Today, Harris Falk runs the New York City Marathon.
(This photo is from 2009.)


UPDATE: 5:10:46 Way to go, Harris!


Founded in 1970, the New York City Marathon was originally four laps around Central Park. While attractive (by 1970 standards) I cannot imagine anything more challenging and tedious than running around Central Park four times. It's not merely the repetition, it's also a very hilly course.


Marathon Man (1976)
"Hurrr -- why don't you just trying ACTING!?"
In 1976 the race map was drawn to touch all five boroughs. Expecting New York City denizens to be outraged at over 300 blocked intersections, no one was prepared for the crowds, excitement and positive energy created by the event. Participation in the NYC Marathon exploded.




Beginning on Staten Island, runners traverse the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn where they remain for 13 miles before taking in a few miles of Queens, and crossing the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan. North up First Avenue into the Bronx (one mile) and then back into Manhattan before concluding in Central Park. The cheering is truly outrageous.


Cruising under Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 2009 ...


... running over Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 2006.


Hey! You! Douchebag in the hat!

Soucres:
My 2006 NYC Marathon Experience (Daddy Runs Fast)
The Bowery Boys Podcast: NYC Marathon History

Alex Bevan

"I'm a skinny, little boy from Cleveland, Ohio.
Come to drink your women and chase your beer."
- Skinny
My brother had a copy of Springboard (released 1976) and while the original attraction for me was to hear the forbidden lyrics of his signature song about the ectomorphic, young, alcoholic from Cleveland, Ohio, I soon enough found myself lying on the couch in the den, wearing those oversize headphones, listening to both sides of an album of sweet, simple acoustic love songs that I still really like a lot.

I first saw Bevan perform live my freshman year at O.U. where I learned alternate lyrics to Skinny which I ended up stealing, or "improving upon" when Scott T. and would perform the song at Lucky's a few years later. He also played the coffee house anthem, FOLKSINGERS ARE BORING:

Nobody comes to the coffee house,
Nobody comes to the coffee house,
Nobody comes to the coffee house,
Folk singers are boring.

Boring, Boring
Folk singers are boring,
Boring, Boring
Folk singers are boring.

First they sing a song about a train,
Then they sing a song about a train,
And then they sing a song about a train,
Folk singers are boring.

I was at my friend Leah's house almost ten years ago for her dad's birthday party, when out of the house walks Alex Bevan. Turns out her dad has been playing with him on and off since the late 1970s. Crazy.

Curtain (book)

Through her early 80s Christie found it increasingly difficult to write. Contemporary studies suggest she was suffering from Alzheimer's, as her capacity for vocabulary began to diminish exponentially. In 1975 she chose to release Curtain, the "final" Hercule Poirot novel. It was released in Britain in September of that year, and shortly thereafter in the United States where it became a best-seller.

Critics noted this work was a marked improvement over her recent work. This may have been because Christie had actually written Curtain during World War II. She has also written a "final chapter" for her popular detective, Miss Jane Marple. She did this out of concern for her own survival during the war, and to give her characters what we today might call "closure."

Because in the case of Poirot, he dies. Sorry to give away the ending. He did receive an obituary in the New York Times, so it's not exactly a secret. I will say no more.

Oddly enough, the author did little to update the book from the 1940s to the present, in spite of the fact that her other works took place during the time period in which they were published. Poirot's last case reunites the Belgian detective with Captain Arthur Hastings whom we meet in the very first Poirot mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, though Christie had not used Hastings as a character since 1937. If contemporary, Hastings would be in his late 60s ... and Poirot a centenarian.

Preparing for the role of Hercule Poirot has its challenges. I'm not a big mystery reader, I never read a single Poirot novel or story until this year. However, my awareness of the character stretches back to 1976 when my brothers returned from a trip to England with my father. Henrik was consumed with mystery novels, he had a monthly subscription to Ellery Queen Magazine. Christie had been dead since the beginning of the year, and though I had little comprehension of what he was telling me about her detective, the idea of writing a novel to be published posthumously (it wasn't, but I thought he was telling me it had been) seemed kind of spooky. So did the shadowy cover of this book, written by a dead woman, featuring a guy in a bowler and a weird mustache.

I have avoided watching any of the films, or any of the TV series -- which is a shame because I love David Suchet and am looking forward to seeing what many have told me is the definitive interpretation of the role. No, I am just reading the books, finding my inspiration there. Right now I am ploughing through The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. My father famously gave away the ending to Henrik, for which he has never been forgiven. Unfortunately, whenever my father recounts this tale (he finds it amusing) he gives away the ending again, to whomever is listening.

Including me. I will never forgive him.

Sources:
The Guardian
Wikipedia

It Can't Happen Here (The Final)

Cleveland Public Theatre hosted the Cleveland staged reading of "It Can’t Happen Here" on Monday, October 24, 2011. The event was directed by David Hansen and featured Case Western Reserve University adjunct professor John Vacha, author of "Showtime In Cleveland," the definitive history of Cleveland theater.

The company represented a cross-section of regional, professional theater. Dremus Jessup was performed by Dr. Michael Mauldin, head of the Cleveland State University theater department. Mary Greenhill was read by Cleveland Play House Associat Artistic Director Laura Kepley, and Dr. Fowler Greenhill by Ms. Kepley’s real-life husband, acclaimed playwright George Brant. Company also included Great Lakes Theater actor-teachers Brian McNally and Tim Keo, Cleveland Public Theater Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Wood, as well as local professionals Myles Byrd, Mark Cipra, Elisa Hanna, Hester Lewellen, Brian Pedaci and Lew Wallace.

This reading, free and open to the public, was attended by 50 audience members. The evening opened with a “curtain raiser,” a reading of a ten-minute comic scene from David Hansen’s "Cleveland Centennial." This brief “Living Newspaper” style scene describes a fictional backstage account of the actual opening night of "It Can’t Happen Here" in Cleveland in 1936, but also includes actual quotations from Hallie Flanagan, Sinclair Lewis and local and nation critical response to the production. Presenting this scene was an entertaining way of providing historical context of this event to that evening’s 2011 audience.

Following this, John Vacha shared a 5-minute presentation including slides from opening night of the Cleveland production at the Carter Theatre at East 9th and Prospect. The full “September, 1936” version of "It Can’t Happen Here" was read with one, ten-minute intermission. Read with intensity, speed, humor and pathos, the running time of the reading itself was less than two hours, playing something like a “radio drama.” After the reading was concluded, Hansen and Vacha fielded a few questions from the audience. Some familiar with the book pointed up differences between that and this stage version, and asked if any changes had been made to make the story take place in Ohio (there were, as was done for the Cleveland production in 1936.) They wanted to know how successful the Cleveland production of "It Can’t Happen Here" was (it was very successful, and only closed because of scheduling.)

Response to the play itself was very, very positive. Many were impressed at how topical the script remains, and asked if there were any plans for a fully-staged production.



Earlier in the day Hansen and Vacha were interviewed on the local NPR affiliate, WCPN.

The Armpit of the Nation

"Mistake on the Lake" hurts. But not as much as "Armpit of the Nation."

In 1976, the four year-old Cleveland Magazine decided that since Cleveland was entirely unable to clean up its own mess (and this was before the default) the classiest course of action was to piss on some city sorrier than we were.

Hence, The Great Cleveland Magazine Scapegoat Contest. Nice. The "winner" was, for no particular reason, Dayton.

Reader Tess Muharsky of Willowick wrote, “In Dayton they think Ibsen stars in the Beverly Hillbillies and the Nutcracker Suite is a wrestling hold. So culturally void is it that locals insist Twelfth Night is when lovers exchange a dozen lords-a-leaping. And only in Dayton are shrimp cocktails ordered ‘up.’”

Okay. And yet, Johnny Carson did not get the message. Some guy from Euclid sent a plunger labeled Key To The City of Buffalo.

Urban Dictionary states plainly that the nation's armpit is currently New Jersey. Feel better?

Source:
Cleveland Magazine
Urban Dictionary