Cher, Live In Concert

     Page Two Hundred Thirty-Two.
     I saw Cher in concert recently. It was a memorable evening for a variety of reasons. I've written
previously that Cleveland's Playhouse Square was getting ready for a massive grand redesign with new signs, marquees, archways and lighting. A fireworks-festooned grand unveiling was to take place on Friday evening May 2nd, the same night as Cher's concert at Quicken Loans Arena. Also, the Indians were playing at Progressive Field simultaneously. All three events occurred within 1/2 mile of each other. All day long, local radio and TV was urging people to have multiple contingency plans for driving routes and parking. Brother, they weren't kidding.
     I remember downtown Cleveland in the '80's and '90's. It was a barren wasteland of old, decrepit, rundown buildings and lots of available parking. Those days are long ago. Now, all those buildings have been renovated and turned into upscale housing, offices, restaurants, stores and who knows what else? Subsequently, there's no longer a surplus of parking, darn it. (In the '80's and '90's I used to go dancing, often, at the few but fantastic bars which were down there.) Friday night's traffic and parking problems reminded me of Manhattan. It was incredible. It really felt like I was driving to Madison Square Garden to see her. But knowing downtown as I do and being assertive as I am, I did find a decent spot and while walking to the arena, took a long-cut through Playhouse Square during that party. The new decor really is cool.
     Now about Cher, She's Cher. What more can I say? Who knows if this really will be her final tour
so I just wanted to see her in concert, just this once. There was incredible staging, sets, costumes and so forth. However, she was a little distant and remote for my taste, but that's her reputation. Her opening act was Cyndi Lauper who was just the opposite, very warm and open in spite of no sets or costumes to speak of. If judged separately, Cyndi gets 8/10 and Cher gets 8/10 for completely different reasons. Don't ever miss either one of them in concert if given the opportunity. 

Green Day's American Idiot - A Review

     Page Two Hundred Twenty-Eight.
     I recently saw the Broadway touring company of Green Day's American Idiot down at Playhouse Square. In a nutshell, it was good but not great. If you attend live performances to see the staging of a great and uplifting story, miss this. If however, you like loud, great rock music, fantastic sets, good singing and dancing then by all means attend this show the next time you see it being staged. Simple enough. My rating? 6/10

Rocky Horror vs. Sound Of Music

     Page One Hundred Ninety-Six.
     For the last few months, I've had an Indian medical student roommate who's here, in Cleveland, doing a couple rotations at University Hospitals, one of our fine, local hospitals. He's leaving tomorrow and is hoping to come back in 2016 for his medical residency.  His stay has been pleasant. He's made friends and experienced some American/Cleveland culture. I've taken him to a few plays downtown at Playhouse Square; we've gone to a few museums in University Circle; I've taken him on numerous architectural tours and we've gone out to eat at a few places. All in all, I've tried to get him out and about as much as I could during one of Cleveland's most brutal winters in recent memory and I think I've been reasonably successful.

     I've also watched movies with him. I have a decent collection of DVD's and regardless of anyone's  cinematic taste, they'd eventually find something they like on my shelves. Just last night we watched Rocky Horror Picture Show. Afterwards he asked if that was pretty typical of American musicals. Ummmm, uh...

     I do know a little bit about Bollywood and Indian culture's taste in movies, but not too much. We had a long conversation about American musicals versus Indian ones and how Rocky Horror isn't typical of anything. So then I popped in The Sound Of Music. Half way through, he declared, "I like this movie better than Rocky Horror". Gee...

One Way To get More Hot Preztels

     Page One Hundred Fifty-Five.
     Here's my biggest problem in life right now. How do I get more hot pretzels from Playhouse Square without actually attending a show in one of the theaters?
     Last Friday evening I attended a glorious show at the Palace Theater and prior to the curtain rising, I naturally treated myself to a hot pretzel. Now, I've written in this blog before, numerous times, about Playhouse Square's hot pretzels, but last Friday's was particularly God-like. I was about to cry for the LSD-like euphoria, gratitude, emotion and profound thankfulness I was experiencing. While eating, I truly felt what it was like to win a new car on The Price Is Right. And, I began thinking right then and there that I really deserve hot pretzels more often than just when I attend a show. Granted, I've been attending shows regularly for the last few months, but I don't have anything planned now for the foreseeable future. How will I get through?
     Here's my devious plan. There are something like nine (?) stages/theaters at Playhouse Square. All these stages are within about four hundred feet of each other. (You'd have to see it to believe it. The combined seating is about 10,000.) Most of the theaters are on one side of Euclid Avenue but not all. Now here's the scoop... I think that the Ohio and State Theaters have their concessions outside the ticket-takers. All the other theaters have their food inside the ticket-takers realm, I'm pretty sure. So, in theory, when I get a serious craving, I can simply hop on down there (a 15 minute drive) and sneak into the lobbies of said Ohio or State and chow down. The only conflict might arise if there's no live performance of one type or another in those theaters when I'm dying for some doughy goodness. I envision that to be a rare occurrence though.
     I'm telling you, they're that good. At least to me. I recognize that everybody has their own taste, but I think these things are heavenly. 
     By the way, The show I went to last Friday was a retrospective of Big Band dance music of the World War Two era. I was surrounded by people who were really ancient. I'm sure they were wondering why some guy was moaning and groaning while sitting and eating his stinkin' hot pretzel. (I admit that I really was doing my best imitation of Sally from the movie "When Harry Met Sally". I'm sure you know the scene I'm referring to...)

Mmmmmm... Yummy...

Euclid Avenue

     Page One Hundred Thirty-Five.
     I'm currently reading a book which is all about a major thorough fare here in Cleveland: Euclid Avenue. I've mentioned in this blog before that Cleveland has a long history of tremendous wealth and during the 19th century most of that wealth was concentrated in one five mile section of Euclid. Well, reading about those people and their homes is just amazing. Can you imagine a private home with a basement large enough to house a real boxcar so the inventor-homeowner can improve the national railroad system? Or, how about a backyard with the world's largest windmill so the inventor-homeowner can improve national electrical systems? How about a residence with an observatory in back so its inventor-homeowner can observe the stars and distant galaxies?
     Some of these homes were up to 40,000 square feet in size. The smaller ones on the strip were maybe 5,000. John D. Rockefeller's home was average sized coming in at under 10,000 square feet but his estate was 2 acres and over 200 feet wide, much larger than his neighbors.
     Nowadays, only about three or four mansions remain of the couple hundred which were sitting there in 1900. After World War One, some of the homeowners gradually moved to the suburbs to get away from the grit and grime of the city. Other homes were gobbled up by commerce as Euclid was slowly transforming from residential to commercial. Some of the homes were too big for 20th century lifestyles.
     That five mile strip today is (in order): Downtown; Playhouse Square (Cleveland's theater district); Cleveland State University; mixed use combined with future development and last but certainly not least, The Cleveland Clinic.
     If you ever make it to Cleveland, Ohio drive down Euclid which recently underwent a $197,000,000 overhaul and street-scape project. Just imagine the ghosts.

Cleveland's Playhouse Square

     Page One Hundred-Seventeen.
     Well, it's official: there's one spot in downtown Cleveland where I can purchase a good hot pretzel.
     On page one hundred-thirteen of this blog I wrote about my displeasure with the current state of  affairs concerning contemporary, American, hot pretzels. However, I mentioned that I did eat a good one recently while downtown at a performance. Well, it happened again at the same location. So, I think I've hit on something here.
     Playhouse Square is here in Cleveland, downtown, at the intersection of East Fourteenth Street and Euclid Avenue. It's a conglomeration of about eight or nine stages with over ten thousand seats. It's the largest theater complex in America outside of Lincoln Center in New York City. The buildings and primary stages were all built in the 1920's at the height of the "movie palace" era though some were intended to be Vaudeville houses, too. The theaters had a great run until the late '60's when they began loosing customers to the suburbs. Then, fires and vandals were a real threat to the buildings and there was serious talk of tearing the buildings down.
     The Playhouse Square Association, a non-profit group, was formed in the early '70's to purchase and save the buildings and stages. Over the next twenty years, The Playhouse Square Association was extremely successful in their renovations and marketing of the venues. So nowadays, you can go down and see visiting Broadway musical productions, dance, Shakespeare, student theater, avante-garde theater, the occasional Rock show, you name it. (One of my brothers tells the story of how he saw the Doors at Playhouse Square in 1968.) Almost any evening of the year you can go down and see two, three or four different wonderful things. Well... maybe not quite that much all the time, but often it really is that much.
     So, right now, and for the next two weeks, they're showing classic movies at the Palace Theater. Last Thursday at the opening night of the 16th annual "Cinema at the Square" they showed Grease. And, not only that, but it was a Grease sing-a-long, with all the lyrics superimposed onto the screen. The Palace is huge, a few thousand seats, and it was packed. It was too fun for words and they served a great hot pretzel.
     I was down at Playhouse Square a few weeks ago when I got the other really great hot pretzel, too. So I think I've hit a gold mine for good hot pretzels. (The play I saw a few weeks ago was awful, but the evening was glorious because of the wonderful pretzel.)  On Sunday, August 11th, at 2PM, I'll be back down there to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I can't wait for that hot pretzel!
     (Actually, I have quite a history with the Palace Theater. In the 1990's I was an extra in Cleveland Ballet's version of The Nutcracker for five or six years. So I was on that stage many times. Then in the late-90's I was once in charge of decorating the Palace lobby for a benefit party. It's a stunning, opulent theater. These are two separate stories that I'll share sometime.)