Cleveland Conference Week Begins With Rock Hall City

"In my waxed up hair and my painted shoes," in the words of The Replacements, who remain a major glaring omission from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and whom I proudly sported on my shirt, I was ready for my Labor Day visit to the museum here near my Westin hotel in Cleveland.

I knew the three-hour opening-night reception at Content Marketing World, the conference I'm here to attend (featuring John Cleese, Nick Offerman, and Barenaked Ladies, I might add), would not be enough time to tour what is pretty much my ultimate museum. And I was right. I spent six hours there, mostly on the bottom floor and also watching films about American Bandstand, the Hall's inductees, and how "video killed the radio star."

The tour begins with odds and ends like Joan Jett's first car (a sweet black Jaguar), the Fender bass of Mike Mills of R.E.M., and Alex Van Halen's ridiculous mega-bass drums.

I think I realized that music from the Midwest might actually be my favorite rock geography. I stood in awe viewing a collage of Replacements flyers, a contract to play CBGB's under the band name Gary and the Boners, a bill for damages they caused at a 1985 UC-Davis gig, and penned lyrics to "Bastards of Young" and "Here Comes a Regular."

The reason a case could be made for the Midwest (despite my obvious bias, being from St. Louis): along with the Mats in this exhibit are Soul Asylum, Husker Du, the Jayhawks, Prince, Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt, Violent Femmes, Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins, Cheap Trick, Afghan Whigs, and Guided By Voices (criminally absent from even having a piece in the museum unlike all these bands that are not inducted but at least represented).

The facility gives plenty of space to Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles.

Run D.M.C.'s Adidas, Madonna's trend-setting jewelry, the school-boy suit of AC/DC's Angus Young, Elvis' military jacket, Stevie Wonder's sunglasses, Joey Ramone's leather jacket, Kurt Cobain's guitar, a piece of Pink Floyd's Wall, and Michael Jackson's glove are just some of the iconic artifacts not to be missed.

Also, I found the note from Charles Manson to Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner offering interview material in exchange for a jailhouse subscription to be charming.

If you love rock music as much as I do, buy yourself a ticket to Cleveland. I can't believe the place has been open here on the shore of Lake Erie since 1986 and this was my maiden landing.

The Stones and the Holocaust Lead the Pack of Stuff You Should Watch Now

I've been doing a lot more TV- and movie-watching lately than blogging. What have I liked and what has stunk, you ask?

Crossfire Hurricane (***** out of ***** stars), a documentary about the darker side of the Rolling Stones, including the drug busts, Altamont, and the death of guitarist Brian Jones, is hands down the best thing I've seen this spring.

The runner-up, although extremely sad and very difficult to take, is another documentary, called Night Will Fall (***** out of ***** stars). It's the story of British and American filmmakers who were given access to the final days of the Nazi death camps. They film endless horrors but also capture everyday moments of at-least-momentary sanity behind the camp walls. The Germans decided the movies would hurt their attempts to move on as a people and buried the footage for years until now. I began watching because of the promise that Alfred Hitchcock would be featured as the man hired to direct the films. I stayed watching because this part of the Jewish people's history is too important to all of mankind and it's our duty to watch.

I finally got around to Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (****1/2 out of ***** stars) and I have to admit it is pretty great. If this 2013 fictionalization isn't reason enough for Congress to reform the investment sector, then at the very least Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio have taken a step forward in helping us all realize the sliminess of the profession.

Three little films I didn't expect much from but ended up being pleased by include:

• This Is Where I Leave You (**** out of ***** stars): I guess it's just too difficult for Jason Bateman to do any wrong. It helps that the all-star cast works really well together. It includes Tina Fey, Adam Driver, and Jane Fonda.
• The Way, Way Back (***1/2 out of ***** stars): Fourteen-year-old shy kid Duncan has to spend the summer on Cape Cod with jerky relatives played by Steve Carell and Allison Janney. Luckily, he finds shelter with a new group of friends, including Sam Rockwell and Maya Rudolph, at the local water park.
• Talk Radio (*** out of ***** stars): I haven't missed many Oliver Stone flicks over the years, but this one from 1988 slipped past me. Eric Bogosian turns in a powerful performance as the talk host who passionately and offensively argues against everyone who calls the station.

I thought I would like A Million Ways to Die in the West (*1/2 out of ***** stars), but Seth MacFarlane rips off Blazing Saddles with absolutely none of that classic's charm. Painful.

I also looked forward to the sci-fi Ender's Game (*1/2 out of ***** stars), but the story of a kid sent to military school to train for an alien attack is an absolute snoozefest. Even Harrison Ford's cool can't save it. In fact, Ford is pretty bad and seems flat-out uninterested waiting around for his turn in the upcoming Star Wars reboot.

Also worth mentioning are four TV shows I have really been getting into: Bloodline, Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black, and Bate's Motel. They're all well worth watching.

Best Magazine Reads: Freddie Mercury Was the Messenger of the Gods

Although I've never been a massive Queen fan, catchy songs like "Killer Queen," "You're My Best Friend," and "Under Pressure" are undeniably high in the rock cannon.

And when writer Mikal Gilmore has an article in Rolling Stone, I know it's going to be loaded with nuggets about the debauchery of whichever classic-rock act he's researched. Here's what I learned recently about Queen:

1. I knew Freddie Mercury grew up in Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa because I visited the Freddie Mercury gift shop there while on honeymoon in 2005. But I didn't recall his real name growing up there was Farrokh Bulsara, or that he went by the nickname of "Bucky" because of his teeth, a topic he was sensitive about his whole life. Teachers, instead, began affectionately calling him Freddie and he embraced it.

2. With British Colonial rule ending in 1964, riots broke out in Zanzibar and Mercury's family moved to England right at the time it began swinging with the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

3. The name Mercury was a reference to the Roman messenger of the gods.

4. It took Mercury a long time to realize he was gay. He always thought he liked women. Even till the end of his life, he referred to Mary Austin, his personal secretary and advisor, as his common-law wife.

5. Queen stopped touring the U.S. after 1982 because its audiences were the least accepting of Mercury's flamboyant stage persona. As guitarist Brian May said, there was always some other place that loved them a lot more than America and could let them be themselves.

6. Mercury's feelings were hurt when nobody from the band was invited to participate in Bob Geldolf's "Do They It's Christmastime?" But Geldolf invited them to play Live Aid London in 1985 and the band stole the show.

7. One day after Mercury finally announced to the world that he had AIDS, he died at age 45. Aretha Franklin sang at his funeral and he was cremated. Mary Austin placed his ashes in a location that has never been announced.