Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Last weekend a couple of friends and I made the 13 plus hour voyage to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was an interesting experience. The first thing that shocked me was the sheer number of people there. We were there on a Monday and it was packed. One of the employees at the hotel I stayed at said that the Hall is the biggest tourist attraction in Cleveland. One of the employees at the Hall of Fame said that they average 40,000 people per day during the weekend. Are there really that many people who care enough about Rock and Roll to drive to Cleveland for it? Apparently... But I would have never guessed that there were.

The museum was pretty interesting. I saw all of the things that you would expect to see: a smashed Townshend SG, a couple of Hendrix Strats, the Zoo TV backdrop and a huge chunk of the Wall from the original tour but it was the other, more personal things that appealed to me. An original Elvis Presely tour contract (not signed by any lawyers but by Elvis and the Colonel) the original Lyrics sheet to "We're Not Gonna Take It" from Tommy (filled with scribbles and eraser marks the way only a writer can appreciate). It was these kind of artifacts that made the trip worthwhile, while making me feel kind of creepy. The more I saw, the more I realized that these icons were actually human beings much closer to me or you than to gods. So why did I drive 1400 miles to see some of their old garage? Is a sheet of paper more important because it has the words to "Bad" on it than a sheet that you or I wrote the grocery list on... I am not being rhetorical, because I don't know what the answer is. Its just a thought that’s been going through my head since we went to the hall.