At Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum:  Looking For Myself In Hyperspace

Review   By BONNIE BISHOFF

Here are my credentials. I am 54 years old. At the risk of sounding like a Forrest Gump wanna-be, I share the following: When I was about 10, growing up in Shreveport, LA, I sang a song in a talent show at Linwood Junior High with some other locals and a lanky, older teenager with dark, duck-tailed hair who sang with a hillbilly band (as they were called then) from Memphis and wiggled all over the stage. The audience roared with laughter at him and giggled about his funny name. My mother called him "seedy" and told me not to watch. But I did. I was a witness. At the very beginning, I was there.

With my 12th birthday money in 1955, I bought three 78s (those are big, plastic records): Pat Boone's "Ain't That a Shame," "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Hailey and the Comets, and Little Richard's "Tutti-Frutti" (flipside: "Long Tall Sally"). My jazz- musician father had a fit. I can still sing every word of all of those songs. By the time I

was 13, I had discovered the black radio stations in Shreveport, and I was starting to listen to some real down-and-dirty rock and roll and some classic rhythm and blues. By the time I was 18, I was going to dances played by Cookie and the Cupcakes and Bo Diddley. By the time I was 21, the Beatles had crossed the Atlantic. By the time I turned an untrustworthy 30 in 1973, I could have written the book on rock 'n roll. I owned it!

So when I heard about the rock and roll museum in Cleveland, I was awestruck at the possibilities. The world of my youththe soundtrack of my lifethe snapshots of my soul were available to me and to future generations who could now experience what they had only seen on video until today. This would be the baby boomers' Tut exhibit. This would be our legacy to Americaan environment celebrating the sound, rhythm, movement, and new definitions of freedom that defined half a century. I couldn't wait to get there. I expected to meet myself around every corner in this shrine to us. I was positively giddy about this long-awaited reunion with my youth in a field of dreams where Johnny and Ronnie and Jimmy and Joey and Billie and Betsey and Hatti Patti would welcome me back to a world of slow-dancing on dark patios, bottled Dr. Pepper laced with a hit of bourbon, Chantilly perfume and Old Spice cologne (later White Shoulders and Canoe), bopping barefoot to the music of Mickey and Sylvia on the wet paved floor of the city pool pavilion, requesting Jimmy Clanton songs on the radio and dedicating them to various secret crushes from a secret admirer. At Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (America's second largest family tourist attraction after Disneyworld), I went looking for myself in hyperspace.

I couldn't find me.

Looking for self: what does one expect or hope to find? Well, in musicthe soundtrack of a life time specific times and places connected to songs define the significance of the music to an individual life. In the context of time and place, you can find yourself in the music that shaped your decisions and defined your emotional responses and accompanied significant moments that make your life your own. You should be able to find yourself in a museum dedicated to that music.

I couldn't find hyperspace, eitherthe fourth dimension: that parallel universe of highly subjective, compacted space-between-

words that surrounds objects invisible and electronic, dense with possibility and populated with totally unique and private and unshareable images an ocean of personhood teeming with developed and undeveloped forms of potential personal wisdom and awareness.

Now, there is certainly no way to evoke the REAL PAST it is far too subjective an experience but in hyperspace, concrete time and place are removed, and we are left with ourselves and an object in a vacuum. The only meaning is subjective memory in and of itself wakening old, stored emotions and personal visions of yourself in a world only you experienced. But in this museum, objects and sound run together in such confusion that the white sound coupled with the white experience adds up to nothingness.

Let me begin at the beginning of this non-magical, unmysterious tour.

On a blustery January day, my friends and I set out to the lakeshore of Cleveland to at last get a peek inside of the four-story, gray, conical, stone and glass structure that is the rock and roll museum. We hardly noticed the ten-minute uphill walk from the nearest parking area. We had been encouraged to make reservations; our 10:45 admission time was at hand. Upon entering the building, we were immediately commanded by a no-nonsense guard to check our umbrellas. We then proceeded through the cavernous, sort of bus-terminal lobbywith its list of predictable but somehow stultifying no-nos and rules of behavior to the dark entrance. Its portals resembled an old-fashioned movie theatre door. We could see neon possibilities glowing in the dark beyond us, beckoning us into a dream statea dream date. Another, somewhat surly, watchman-usher demanded our wrists and slapped on thick plastic bracelets, so strong that we were later unable to rip them off by hand and equipped, I would guess, with a sensor that tracks patron movement and time spent in areas around the museum. A little creepy, but probably justifiable. I guess maybe I was expecting just a stamp on my hand, but hey!

We were then told in serious tones just which direction to take to proceed through the museum. Each of us, of course in rebellious rock and roll mode by nowtook off in his or her own direction to experience this adventure in our singular way. As it turned out, it didn't matter a whit which path we or anyone else took: this was all set up for traffic control probably essential in the crowded days of

summer, but we were practically the only ones there that day! A sad little tone colored by the business-like rules had vaguely begun to rob us of our exhuberance as we entered the dark hallways of Level One.

In the center of Level One, there is a cinema. It is divided into two sections. Section one shows "Mystery Train," a pretty good short film about the roots of rock in gospel, blues, country, folk, and fifties rock and rolla little fragmented, but on the whole, well-made and worthwhile. Then the audience proceeds to the left (on command from an unseen voice) and enters a second cinema for part 2, "Kick Out the Jams," a chronicle of the rock and roll explosion in the fifties and sixties. This one is far from worthwhile: endless short clips of badly shot footage of bands in concert, juxtaposed with long, repetitious interviews with a handful of musicians. But at last one is sprung to proceed through the rest of the experience, free at lastor so I thought from the humdrum of video screens and their predictable, limiting images.

In the exhibition areas of the museum, sections of the display are named and dividedthough so subtly one is hardly aware of the changeswith such catchy titles as "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," "Come See about Me," and "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You"all of which might be appealing if the section designations were identified and somehow really did set specific areas apart from one another. "Don't Knock the Rock" (the gateway into the displays from the early years) consists of fairly large graphic depictions of selected quotes from fearful opponents of the music from earlier times (such as, would you believe, Tipper Gore?) as well as large video screens showing footage of preachers and DJs ranting and raving and breaking old 78s. This area is the first of quite a few subtle and sometimes not so subtle disclaimers that keep turning up around the building, and that somehow send a subliminal message separating "us" from "them". The problem is that one is never quite sure whether the museum is on the side of "us" or "them"or even which is which.

The densely overcrowded and dimly lit areas celebrating the early years add up to what can only be called a non-eventa crowded, dark, cold, colorless, rigid, soulless, incomplete, and unimaginative display of mostly disconnected artifacts: 8x10 glossies; occasional pieces of sheet music with marginal notes; some hand-written lyrics; old Cub Scout shirts and report cards of the stars (all crowded together in glass cases, many of them at floor levelbring your glasses and be ready to stoop, bend over, or kneel in order to read the endless

typewritten and handwritten documents on exhibit five feet below eye level); plus a few tie-dyed shirts from the sixties; a cape that belonged to Elvis; a hand-painted car that belonged to Janis; a wool hat that belonged to Dion; costumes worn by the Supremes and Michael Jackson modeled by four identical mannequins in gender appropriate wigs; and a virtual slew of old guitars.

Aurally, this exhibit is a nightmare. The hall is dominated by TV screens mounted everywhere: showing video snippets of information, snippets of concerts, snippets of biographies, all playing at a volume that prevents the listener/watcher from separating the audio of one sound track from another. Words and music come from all directions and create a din of white noise that evokes the feel of outer space, not hyperspace. There is absolutely no design to the sound or to the juxtaposition of one sound against another. Now randomness has its place (I remember happenings and "Paul is Dead" when you played the record backwards), but the random is out of place when it is inescapable, or when it is in no way spontaneous. Chaos theory requires live action, one-time hit-or-miss occurances, humans making behavioral choices it celebrates fate. In this museum (which exists to give homage to the sublime intervals of ordered sounds), the aural chaos profoundly frustrates all human attempts to distinguish one audio signal from another. It creates chaos out of order. Perhaps the strongest intrusion into any concentration I might have been able to develop, as I tried so hard to become one with this place, was the proliferation of fragmented videos and partial musical clips with which I was constantly bombarded. Publicity for the museum actually boasts of "the 96 monitor video wall of performance segments from a variety of artists." I've seen displays like that at Sears.

Surrounded by this gray hall of horror is an open space named "Let's Spend the Night Together." OK, how can you miss on this one? We're talking the Beatles and the Stones now. "Have you seen the psychedelic exhibit?" someone asks. Guess what: stage costumes, tie-dyed clothes, album covers, a few painted flowers on the floor, more and more and more guitarsand of course, the ever-present video screens. Not even so much as a black light. "If you remember the sixties, you weren't there," goes the old saying. Well, neither was the curator of this room. There is nothing more I can add except to say that I heard recently that the museum had received a significant contribution from The Who more old drums, guitars, and speakers. And on April 3rd, 1998, CNN announced that the rock and roll

museum had added an entire new wing for video "rockumentaries." I rest my case.

On to the next area: more TVs showing endless video clips of the emerging psychedelic scenes in London and San Francisco, more concert performance clips, more bits of interviewsno one segment ever lasting more than a minute. A place to flee. But fleeing leads one into the arena devoted to fansand yet more video! Videos of fans and fanatical behaviour, videos showing glimpses of the interaction between fans and performersand worst of all, videos of interviews with fans. The only "real" visual in the area is the drumstick collection of some famous rock drummer, arrayed in a sunburst design.

Feeling a lot like Alice In Wonderland, I turned into the room of "One Hit Wonders" full of album covers, 8x10 glossies, tiny textual references, and available audio from computersall featuring different performers and their one shining moment of fame. If they were lucky enough to have ever been on video, you can probably see it here. I wouldn't know. I was just passing through.

And so it continuededucational, perhaps, but barely interesting. Along the side halls of the museum, in the less "popular" settings, I found a few industrial rooms such as the one that shows the making of a songfull of yet more text, more audio, more photos. But at least free of those dreaded videos and their frenzied clips.

A very dark room full of shower stall listening areas and computers with ear phones enabled me to hear 500 songs that shaped rock and rollmost still fairly popular and easy to hear in modern TV commercials or on those specialty rock and roll albums available by phonebut none of the wonderful obscure stuff that would really knock your virtual bobby socks off and bring tears to your eyes if only you could hear them once more. Stan's Record Shop on Texas Street in Shreveport had old listening booths in which you could sit and listen to a record before you bought it. Wouldn't it be satisfying if there had only been one of those tucked in a corner here for those of us who might remember?

But it is not the specificsor lack thereofthat are significant here. Nothing specific evokes the memories or jolts the psyche of every visitor. Yet an evocation of time and place is essential a psychic space or shape with wormholes through which one can travel to reshape her own experience or his own relationship to the past to gain insight, understanding, new perspective. But this is all exhibit;

no environment, no energy, no ghosts; random objects under glass and a plethora of video clips just don't do the trick. How can you find your self and your spiritual relationship with time in this dimly lit, gray hall of cold, inanimate memorabilia?

Up on Level 2, a video tree (!) presents the history of music videos from MTV (the eighties to the present). Another exhibit shows the impact of (what else?) TV on rock and roll; there is also an exhibit of video clips of the best 10 rock and roll films and video clips of some rock artists' favorite movies and a video about Alan Freedand at last a stairway to Level 3 and fast food and natural light and pretty views of Lake Erie.

Level 4 and still searching: another cinema examining various aspects of rock and rollwe skipped it. And, then, kind of unexpectedly, we came across the only real installation in the museuma recreation of The Wall in honor of Pink Floyd. Separate from the other exhibits (and one floor up from the snack bar), it is a three- dimensional structure with appropriate graffitti, strange figures, and words of confession and warning by Roger Waters about the dehumanization of performance. Indirectly lit by natural illumination, it is evocative, philosophical, and visually stimulating, compelling, and sophisticated. Offered in silence, it creates the strongest rhythms in the museum.

Rock and roll was huge, IS hugebut not one thing in this museum is physically, spiritually or psychically huge. Even the Hall of Fame is just smalltucked four stories up, prefaced in its outer lobby by a continuous showing ofyesvideo clips from induction ceremonies and reached , popularly, by an endless, curving, almost completely dark, windowless, close and claustrophobic stairway that feels like something out of a haunted exhibit at some county fair. Somewhere there must be an elevator to access the Hall of Fame, but you would really have to look for it.

Once there, in a sort of playhouse-sized rotunda, your eyes finally adjust to the dark and you discover that the round walls are electronically displaying (in the tiniest images yetliterally snapshot-sized) the names and sometimes the faces of the honorees. You can't even make the rounds at your own rhythm, pace, and leisure. You soon discover that this electronic display is fading in and out at about the speed it takes my little old Mac to download the most extensive graphic presentations off the net. So if you walk up to the image of a star too late, it fades away and there is some real down time, while

you wait for Sam Cooke or whoever to reappear. If you are lucky enough to have the Hall of Fame and Sam Cooke's little display to yourself, you can actually get close enough to press your nose up against the black glass wall and read the tiny print beside Sam's tiny likeness. It's a space from which you absolutely cannot wait to escape.

All done. The track takes you by the gift shop on your way out: an ocean (a Dali painting) of literally thousands of unbought T-shirts packed into racks, dripping from floor to ceiling, andappropriately enough tapes and CDs to take your breath away. A shop, taking up a space bigger than any of the individual exhibits in the museum. The big picture grows clearer.

As we left the building, some ancient roadies were setting up a sound stageoversize speakers and allin the fairly small lobby. They were preparing for a 3 p.m. concert by some unknown group about to bombard this limited, walled space with yet more sound. We walked out into the cold rain and welcomed the fresh wet air and the quarter mile walk back to the car and the blessed, blessed silence.

The museum and its philosphy is very mainstream even as it represents a movement that is anything but. It seems to be unfinishedthings are missing. With due respect, the planners do seem to recognize the problemhow to present this monumental era in "museum language"but somewhere along the way, they missed the solution. The museum superimposes a cleanliness and a regime (even in its cone-like, circular design) that stands out in contrast to the grease and anarchy that it claims to celebrate. It makes rock and roll respectable. This is a safe place to bring the kiddies. It backs up the cover story you gave them about your past. It puts its own conservative spin on our history and how music has shaped it. Something significant has been lost, not found. The rock and roll museum and hall of fame is erasing, not adding to, our collective memory.

In all of the rock and roll museum, there is no recreation of real spacenothing to feel, touch or walk into. Not a breathtaking moment in the whole eventnot once do you turn a corner or step across some threshhold into a parallel universe. The many dark spaces seem just unlitas if the authorities are conserving electricity. There is no lighting design to define areas or evoke atmosphere or underline significant points, perhaps because no one thing is given any particular significance. The museum could never be called a

hyperspace experience an exploration of the space between words and notes connected by wormholes through the last forty years.

So, truth to tell, not only did I not find my self in the whorls of time and space I so passionately hoped to discover waiting for me there in Cleveland, I didn't find a museum either. The reality the Rock and Roll Museum is misnamed. A museum preserves the past for the present and future. In a museum, we should find treasures at every turn, wonders unavailable to us anywhere else in the world. A museum should provide moments of experience or re-experience, not just a collection of random relicsand most certainly not in endless rounds of constant, invasive video. The rock and roll museum creates no identifiable environment no time, no place, no grounding experiencefrom which to say with confidence, "I lived then; and this is the truth of how it was."

Bonnie Bishoff is a member of Actors Equity Association and has performed at regional theatres around the country, including the Kennedy Center, Tulane Center Stage, Commonwealth Stage and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Favorite acting experiences over the years have included roles in Blithe Spirit, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Sea Gull, Glass Menagerie and Long Day's Journey into Night. Bonnie has also directed professionally for Williams College Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Oldcastle Theatre Company. For many years Bonnie has taught and directed at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts where she is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts.