The best part is: I could have done about 10 things this evening other than what I just described and all of them would have been as equally badass.

Peace.

This poem has been simmering for nearly a year now, and the day that inspired it will always be special to me. I was very concerned that it not be mawkish or cliché. I’m still not convinced I made it work, and I think it could still use some polish, especially clarification of subjects & objects. Since it has been simmering so long, I figure I’d better publish it before I never publish it. Thanks to Steve Goldberg & Milenko Budimir for the workshop help.

Concert Preview

I didn’t do a lot of homework on any of this before going, but I did see that there was a concert preview about 20 minutes before the concert preview started. My friend & I, braving the ridiculous weather, arrived just after the beginning, but I learned enough from the lecturer that I felt that I had something to hold on to and look for while listening to the music. I’m not a classical music aficionado by any stretch, so I’m hoping to use that ignorance as a strength in writing this. I felt that the concert preview was imperative for someone, like myself, who is unfamiliar with the music but wants to learn more about it. The preview was held in the Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Hall, a beautiful room filled with amazing woodwork.

The Performance

The actual performance began shortly after the preview ended. Our tickets were high up in the balcony, but when you’re listening to an orchestral performance, I don’t think where you sit is that important. What is important is that you’re actually in the venue when the performance starts. I had ducked out for a moment to get a quick drink and in the interim missed the beginning. Then I found out that you’re not allowed back in once the music has started. Thankfully a helpful usher led me to a very high door and snuck me in so I could see a great majority of Toshio Hosokawa’s Woven Dreams. Watching the orchestra was like looking at a slide under a microscope, lots of organic movement in concert.

The next piece, Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2, was (naturally) less dynamic to watch, instead the great acoustics of Severance Hall made it seem as if the music was welling out of the very air. This piece was my least favorite of the evening, although I don’t have any real reasons why that’s the case.

I really enjoyed the second half of the program. Toru Takemitsu’s Garden Rain was well named, each instrument in the heavily-muted brass ensemble were raindrops in the shower. The evening finished with Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, which I was looking forward to for its Hungarian folk music influences. I was not disappointed. I know that Cleveland has a strong Hungarian immigrant population (I’d never heard of paprikash before I moved here), and it was kind of neat to know that the performance I heard was almost 75 years to the day that it was first performed.

A Suggestion

I think there were a couple hundred empty seats in Severance Hall for this performance, and that’s a shame, because every concert that the orchestra puts on deserves to be delivered to a packed house. I also noticed that the age of the crowd tended toward the far side of middle aged. I think it would be great if Severance Hall altered their ticket prices a bit to attract a younger crowd. The cheapest regular admission tickets are $31, which is cover to a rock show and a night of beers for a lot of my friends. Extending the student discount to anyone under 30 would be a great way to get a younger crowd (many of which I know would like to experience orchestral performances and learn more about art music (a term which I find very troublesome)) to fill the empty seats and build a younger base of concert-goers for the future. I certainly know I would have gone to see the orchestra a few times in my 20s if I knew I could have picked up a ticket for $10 whenever a performance was upcoming.

Thanks!

I had a great time, enjoyed listening to and learning about the music, ogling the beauty of Severance Hall and seeing a side of Cleveland that was well-renowned but unknown to me.

I sometimes feel that a typical Clevelander would complain to the God that Saint Peter didn’t open the Pearly Gates fast enough. (Choosing to make that a Catholic reference instead of a hick reference is another sign of my growing Clevelandesqueness).

I first noticed this on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival (and in the ensuing post). It was a great time, but I was all, like, focusing on having to drive all over since the bridges were out of service, getting a splinter, no first aid kit, or whatever. Gotta cut that out, because negativity is the only thing I know that can survive by feeding off itself.

Cleveland has changed me in other ways, I’m much more cosmopolitan than I was when I moved here as a fresh, real-world-ignorant, college grad back in November of 2003. By cosmopolitan I mean, eager to seek out and appreciate the other cultures in what has become my town; less ignorant about gay folks, Jew folks, black folks, Hispanic folks, and more aware of how different sorts of politics are immersed in every aspect of daily life, learning to choose my battles, how to battle, how to navigate without taking sides, how to treat women, what confidence means (more on that later), how to take a metaphorical punch and keep on truckin’.

Basically, Cleveland took the raw stock of my upbringing and education, smithed it, tempered it and gave me whatever I have that approximates an edge.

This has been a year of introspection for me, and as I continue to become Cleveland, I’m sure there are aspects of living here that I’ll reject as equally as certain parts of speech and attitudes, but fewer things are more Cleveland than becoming Cleveland on your own terms.

Or whatever.

Cleveland and LeBron should be two, responsible, consenting adults, and if it is time to move on, the last thing Cleveland needs to be is the co-dependent, I’ll-debase-myself-if-only-you’ll-stay, undignified, crazy ex.

I’m not going to debate the merits of whatever decision LeBron makes. That’s up to him. What I’d rather talk about is Cleveland’s behavior regarding his decision. Fremdschämen doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Pinging the Problem

Connie Schultz wrote a column touching a bit on this, and the 20/30 Club members quoted by her get a bit closer to the point, but still miss it. I figure the best way to root at this issue is to take a couple of ideas from the column and point out where they get derailed.

Mike Gruss thinks that “instead of spending all this money and effort to keep LeBron, local leaders/celebs/billboards [should be] focused on stemming brain draining [sic] and keeping other people under 30.”

Good thought, but money isn’t the issue and keeping folks younger than me isn’t the issue.

Then there’s the folks from the 20/30 Club who say attitude matters.

That’s the first step! But then, it suddenly the 20/30 Club point morphs into waiting for political leaders or the City of Cleveland to come to them. Derailed!

A Flanking Maneuver at The Big Fix

All the talk about LeBron being a necessity for this City, and the hyperbolic “he’s the only thing keeping this town from going ghost” is systematically symptomatic in the Cleveland zeitgeist. This town always looks for The Big Fix Silver Bullet Solution™. Roldo has been beating this drum for longer than I’ve been alive. LeBron James, The Medical Mart, Gateway, are the three that come to mind most easily. All are/were supposed to save Cleveland from Certain Doom™, right?

Big fixes aren’t the answer, or just a band-aid, or any other crummy analogy. What happened with Katrina, the Haitian earthquake, Deepwater Horizon? Thousands of people rushed to the sources of pain like white blood cells after an infection. Thousands of individual solutions to the same problem, working simultaneously, but not necessarily in concert.

The Real Problem

Sports fans think the Big Fix is keeping LeBron, the 20/30 Club thinks the Big Fix is getting politicos & power players to pay attention to the 20/30 Club, other folks think throwing money at this or that is the Big Fix.

Cleveland doesn’t need a big fix, because Cleveland ain’t broke. What’s broke are the attitudes of the folks who live here. It is easy to come up with ideas that spend someone else’s money, it is easy to say that no one in power pays attention to you. The Real Problem isn’t with Cleveland, it is with the folks who think that Cleveland is the problem.

A Possible Solution

If there is one thing I’ve learned in this town, it is that you can’t wait for others to give you permission, to come up with ideas, or to implement them. You take initiative. Cleveland is a place where you have to do things yourself; a true American city. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of talk, but not much follow-through. What Cleveland needs are the hundreds and thousands of young people mentioned in Connie’s column, plus the hundreds and thousands of everyone else to have a good attitude about this town, to realize that Cleveland ain’t broke, and to do their part to make it a bit better anyway.

Attitudes matter, and Clevelanders have to stop feeling entitled to savior athletes, entitled to attention from those in power, and entitled to cash money. People haven’t been flocking to Portland, OR, or Austin, TX for years because of their star athletes or convention center facilities but because the people that live there are passionate about living there.

You get what you work for, not what you beg for. So instead of begging for LeBron to save us, and paying folks to stand on street corners holding placards that cheapen the meaning of the words Home, Commitment and Mission, we should love Cleveland because it is home, and be committed to the mission of our community; thousands of people with their own solutions, working for each other, not themselves.

The begging is just plain embarrassing.

I took Bram to Train Day today. I intended to take him to the Cuyahoga County Fatherhood Initiative‘s day at the zoo, but a timely Facebook tip as we were heading out the door changed my plans. Abraham pretty much woke up demanding trains today, so I was happy to oblige.

The Cleveland Metroparks Ohio & Erie Canal Reservation is part of the Towpath Trail and is amazingly picturesque. Pretty much right in the heart of Cuyahoga County too.

The event reminded a bit of the Old Time Music Festival that I took Bram to in Metamora, IN last year. The whole of Metamora is still historic, and they’ve got an old big black steam engine and a canal boat that you can take rides on. It’s even got a functioning water-wheel-turned grist mill. The Ohio & Erie Canal Reservation has the canal, but no boat or train. There was old-timey music though, and I sang along to The Wabash Cannonball twice.

Train Day had no up close and personal actual trains, but lots of model trains, a hobo trail with real live hobos, a completely awesome Lego train exhibit, and the chance to get right up close to a marsh and spy on some blue herons. Abraham had almost as good a time as I did. My good times always exceed his because seeing him have a good time increases my enjoyment exponentially.

We ate an apple with with a hobo named Apple Annie, sat on a bench and ate chocolate fudge ice cream, colored a button and looked at trains six ways from Sunday. It helped that the trestle had CSX trains running across it every half hour as well.

Unfortunately, I have no photos or video because, although I brought my camera, my memory card was elsewhere.

All in all, a good Father’s Day weekend, so far. The dude conked out on the way home from Train Day and is currently snoring on my bed. Being a dad is the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done.

On 13 May 2010, I went to the Front Room Gallery for John G‘s Caveman Diaries 7 ‘zine release; Megachurch‘s album release & show with Clan of the Cave Bear and Swindlella. Great crowd, great exhibition by John G, and great music. Unfortunately I forgot my earplugs. Fortunately, I got my mitts on CMD7, the Megachurch album (which I forced Mikey, Dan & Brian to autograph) and music from Cave Bear & Swindlella (whose Christmas CD is bonkers).

This post only took a little over a week to come together. I wish there was a faster way to get HD video up to YouTube, but there isn’t. Rock on, guys. Seven video playlist is below.

I need to hang out in Parma more often. All kinds of great places to go.

Two booths really caught my eye, the t-shirts from Psycho Reindeer, and Erin Carek’s science-fiction collage work. I picked up the set of rocketman coasters from her. Erin is also responsible for organizing the art show. The addition of a few good bands helped make the night a great time.

Here are the bands:

• Bafflegab
• Safari
• How To Breathe Underwater

And here are a few of the folks there who had stuff I liked:

• S Type Creative
• Coterie
• White Dragon Paper