Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Denial rocks on

This wire story is a tad depressing. It describes the lineup for a concert at Madison Square Garden, celebrating the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary. Nowhere is it even mentioned that the Hall itself is in (shhh...) Cleveland. As far as I know, since the museum's inception the induction ceremonies have always been held in New York. Because celebrities cannot possibly be asked to go to (shhh....) Cleveland. In fact their names should not even appear in the same article as...that word.

Look, I've (mostly) gotten over my Cleveland defensiveness. (Where are you from? Well, a suburb of Cleveland and it's not so bad there's a great orchestra and lots of trees and we don't all wear white socks and eat sausages...) I live in the Bay Area for good reason. Also, I went to the Rock Hall once and found it bombastic, staid, and tedious. But I have to wonder if the people who worked so hard to bring the museum to Cleveland ever suspected that it would prove yet another source of humiliation for the city. Instead of raising Cleveland's profile, it slaps it down, over and over, as every mention of the museum means deliberately not saying where it is. It's almost absurd.

What can Cleveland do? Even being represented by Dennis Kucinich is not enough to make it hip...

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