Black and Almost Famous

Cover courtesy of Cleveland Public Library Digital Archives. 

CHAPTER XV: Dream Merchant Number 5

(from None of My Idols Were Worth Worship)

Those years spent in the Fine Arts Department of the Cleveland Public Library is where I read biographies and screenplays. In them, I dreamed of the life of a Hollywood screenwriter and novelist. There were moments when I imagined that I could be writer, producer, and director. Books fed dreams.  

Writer and director, Billy Wilder’s biography struck me as fascinating because he like another favorite screenwriter, Joseph Mankiewicz, worked as newspaper reporters. At first, I struggled to make the connection between journalism and Hollywood, but reading countless Hollywood biographies of screenwriters and directors, I discovered that I was on the right track with my journalism interest since for many famous screenwriters it was where they began.

This meant that I valued my time as one because I hoped it would lead to my becoming a screenwriter even when I knew my family or friends could not understand my thirst to see my name in print. Reading one of my articles made me forget about how far I would have to go to become a famous author—it encouraged me. Most valuable to me about being a reporter was the ability to produce words. Deadlines were intoxicating for me—sitting in the newsroom with other reporters allowed me to be myself at a time when I was losing my identity to drugs and activities that detracted from my plans. Walking over a friends’ house to get high when I could stay home and write was a waste of my time, but that was the part of me that had surrendered. Before, I never missed a deadline.

There was a photo column which my editor, Ollie Bell-Bey expected me to produce weekly and I used the paper’s Nikon 35 mm camera to make money on the side shooting photos of a drug dealer who fancied himself a model; or of couples, or girls who wanted to be models. That money went towards buying books, albums, or of course, concert tickets. Since my father had retired, he took up photography which meant there was darkroom equipment at the house. My father taught me how to process black and white Kodak film. He took me up to the bathroom, a makeshift darkroom where he taught me how to print photos—I had a lucrative side business. My photos earned me a Journalism Award at the end of the school year. The newspaper was a home for me, a place where I was happy which might not be all together true, because I at the time knew nothing about that emotion. Driven by the desire to be a writer, I wanted to move beyond getting high and hanging out with people who had no ambition. So, I kept my clippings in a scrapbook ready for opportunity. And when the day came, and I was prepared.

*****

Scene Magazine offices were on Huron Road. After bouncing down the stairs, I was disappointed to see how small the space looked. There was a receptionist or secretary who greeted me. She was nice. But I was stuck on the size of this place—this was the regions’ largest entertainment publication. Mark Kmetzko greeted me and brought into his cramped office where I sat in a chair ready to show someone that I was a real writer, but my feet barely touched the floor.

I became nervous. The space shrank because the walls cluttered with covers from the magazine, album covers, and posters of everyone from Mott the Hoople, Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and told the story of the magazine aesthetic made me doubt for a moment that I was good enough.

Across the desk from me was, an editor for Cleveland Scene Magazine. He had a nice hair and a wonderful mustache. Almost more important than the interview or the posters on the wall or the albums on his shelves was the IBM Selectric typewriter he had on his desk. It was my dream machine—I had imagined writing my first novel on one and had never seen one up close.

I was in Mark’s office because he had called me to come down because I had answered an advertisement. As I relaxed, I realized that Mark wanted to hire me.

They were looking for a music reviewer. My friends had no I idea that I had gotten together a few clippings, put them in an envelope along with a letter and mailed them off. I had forgotten about applying for the job when I got the call. This was my first professional newspaper job interview. I had a chance to become a music journalist like Cameron Crowe who worked for Rolling Stone Magazine, or Lester Bangs who worked for CREEM Magazine.  Now I could hang out at Swingo’s with the other rock journalists.

My review of The Wiz soundtrack produced by Quincy Jones. I grew up listening to soundtracks
because my father, a jazz musician, arranger, and composer made a practice of doing so.
As his daughter, I listened to what he had in his collection. And Quincy Jones was one of his
favorite composers. My father went so far as to pose in front of his stereo system a la Quincy.
It was reviewing this soundtrack and others that enabled me to use what I had learned as a kid.

In my folder was a review of the Minnie Riperton concert at Music Hall. I had my review of the electrifying Labelle concert at the Allen Theater. I had also shot photos of singer Patti Labelle flapping her black wings as she descended from the rafters dressed in all silver—a Larry LeGaspi design according to a Village Voice article. During my interview, I planned on talking about my exclusive interview with activist-actress Jane Fonda and her then husband Tom Hayden. While I was a journalism and political science major at the Metro Campus, I was a quick learner who could write music reviews, after all my father was a musician and all I had been commenting

Mark was a long-haired hippie type. He wasn’t tall, but when he shook my hand, I looked up and realized that he appeared long—he had tucked his salmon colored long john shirt into his low-riding blue bell-bottom jeans, which made his legs appear lengthy.  He tucked his brown hair behind his ears. His walrus mustache needed no trimming.

I watched his lips move. I can’t remember what he said. He talked for a time and then took me to a large room down the hall from his office.  Inside the room were stacks and stacks of albums. I knelt down on the floor and began to browse.

Mark gave me some instructions. After our meeting, I took my spoils and walked back up the stairs and out to Euclid Avenue.  I boarded the bus home. The buildings went past in a blur as I looked out the window. When I got home, I went down into the basement and started work. I had my Royal typewriter set up on the coffee table along with a bottle of white out and a stack of typing paper. My stack of music magazines would serve as a guide but also inspiration for the task-at-hand. I worked for Scene Magazine.

Within a few hours, I had missed dinner but produced three record reviews. The next day, when I got out of school, I took my work down to the office. Mark was shocked that I had turned around my work so quickly.  The training I learned as a staff writer had prepared me to write copy quickly. We often got an assignment and had to cover it that afternoon. I’d grab my white and green Reporters’ Notebook, a camera and a couple of rolls of black and white film and head off to an event. Our copy was always due on Tuesdays by noon; film on Wednesdays because our paper came out on Fridays. On deadline days, the office was crowded with reporters banging away on Underwood typewriters. I had grown to love that sound. A few weeks passed, Mark called me and asked me did I want to interview Brook Benton, a singer-songwriter. I said, sure. I had reviewed Brook’s album, which was actually the first piece I had published in the magazine.  

About the author

Charlotte Morgan is a writer who was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio where she has been fortunate to teach First-Year English at her Alma mater Cleveland State University. She has led Non-Fiction workshops around town in the hopes of helping others find their voice. As a writer, from time to time, her work investigates the black experience in the urban pastoral in the hopes of understanding not only why her ancestors were brought to the States but what was their destiny and purpose here. Her aim is to rob the graveyard of her insights, and ideas so that future generations have access. As a longtime journalist, her use of literary reportage has been influenced by the works of New Journalism writers like Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson and Cameron Crowe.  She seeks to skillfully capture images and dialogue which enlivens her prose.  

Excerpt from None of My Idols Were Worth Worship. Copyright 2020© MorganWorks.  

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