Gary – Robin Amer

Shame That Tuned!

Abraham Levitan_Flickr_Third Coast — Abraham Levitan performing at the Third Coast Festival awards ceremony in 2010.

Have you ever seen Shame That Tune, the musical game show that happens every month at The Hideout?

Three participants read embarrassing stories about their lives. Then, host Brian Costello interviews them for a few minutes. By that time, pianist Abraham Levitan has composed a song based on their story, in a musical genre determined by spinning a musical Wheel of Fortune. (When I went, options included “Good Aerosmith,” “Bad Aerosmith,” and “Muppets.”)

Let me tell you – Abraham Levitan makes this show. He is so talented, so quick and so funny! Seeing him perform in Shame That Tune, one feels the pleasure of recognition, watching him weave little details from each story into the song; delight, in his ability to mimic almost any musical style; and amazement that he has done it all SO FAST.

So imagine my delight and amazement when I learned recently that, unbeknownst to me, I had been Shame That Tuned! Well, sort of.

I’m embarrassed I didn’t know this sooner, but here’s what I learned: The lovely ladies of the Third Coast International Audio Festival’s program Re:Sound will, on occasion, commission Abraham to write and record a song based on the radio pieces they present in that week’s episode. And they had commissioned Abraham to write a song for their episode called The Lost Show, which features my story Ghosts of Gary.

I heard a rebroadcast of the show when I was driving home from somewhere a few weeks ago. It’s always fun to turn on the radio and hear your own story pop up (never gets old for me, actually) but I was totally surprised and enthralled when I heard Abraham’s song.

Along with my story about the abandoned Palace Movie Theater in Gary, Ind., the show features stories about Hopi teenagers struggling not to lose their language; an episode of Nate DiMeo’s excellent podcast The Memory Palace about two sisters who discover they can speak to the dead, and a story about a nursing home for actors. From that Abraham wrote a song, which to my ears sounds like a waltz, called We Were Beautiful When We Were Young:

May you die in Act five, Scene three
May your kids learn the native tongue
My sister and me haunt the streets of Gary
We were beautiful when we were young

Me and my sister, we talk to the dead
We find out exactly how Sam Beckett read
We break into the Palace
Where performing live
It’s the ghosts of the Jackson Five

When our dead brothers come back we’ll all form a line
If we can speak their language they’ll let us off fine
But just when they’ll appear, don’t nobody know
It’s like waiting for Godot

May you die in Act five, Scene three
May your kids learn the native tongue
My sister and me haunt the streets of Gary
We were beautiful when we were young

I fell asleep in the lobby
And didn’t get home until four
Dance my dreams with Dillinger’s ghost
Man, my mother was so, oh…

So I died in Act three
So my kids never learned my tongue
My sister and me haunt the streets of Gary
We were beautiful when we were young
We were beautiful when we were young

The audio is above. Please listen to it! Aside from the novelty factor, it’s really very haunting and beautiful, with Abraham’s plaintive vocals and the resonant sounds of the organ. I also love all of his little touches, like the eerie “ABC…1-2-3…” after the verse about the ghosts of the Jackson Five.

Eugene’s Gary

A portrait of one Gary neighborhood through the eyes of one resident.

Part 1, 7:50

Part 2, 5:05

Part 3, 6:02

Eugene’s Gary is a portrait of one Gary, Indiana neighborhood through the eyes of Eugene Pawlak. Pawlak, who fixes up houses and is a life-long Gary resident, is the kind of guy you want as your neighbor. He looks out for kids riding bikes in the middle of the street, helps octogenarians carry in their groceries and knows everyone on the block.

But Pawlak’s happy-go-lucky disposition belies a starker past. As he joshes with his neighbors, slowly a portrait of Eugene himself emerges. A freak, on-the-job accident at U.S. Steel left him physically and emotionally broken; only by channeling his energy through his children was he able to find his footing again.

Produced in the style of cinema verite using complex but subtle on-site field recordings, (local birds, bicycle bells, the slow rumble of a passing train) the sparse but purposeful use of sound in Eugene’s Gary highlights and supports the unique timbre of each character’s voice.

This series was originally recorded and aired on Vocalo.org during several live broadcasts in August of 2007.

Eugene’s Gary won 3rd place in the category of Best Use of Sound from the Indiana Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists.

Lease Eugene’s Gary for broadcast through the Public Radio Exchange (PRX).

Ghosts of Gary

The story of one abandoned movie theater is the story of this very post-industrial city. People haunt places, and places haunt people.

19:14

Ghosts of Gary is an exploration of Gary, Indiana’s semi-abandoned downtown and historic past. Dorothy, a non-Indiana native, stumbles into Gary on a road trip and sees the remnants of its once vibrant downtown. Among the shuttered buildings is the stately Palace movie theater, long-closed. But how long closed? Has it been closed since the Jackson Five, still advertised on the theater’s marquee, were last together? Has Gary’s downtown been a ghost town that long?

With the help of some life-long Gary residents, an urban explorer, and an investigative journalist, Ghosts of Gary unravels the mystery of the Palace Theater and how long it has been closed. On the way the story touches upon John Dillinger’s escape from the Crown Point jail, the subbasements of Broadway Avenue and the economic exploits of Donald Trump.

The individual stories and interviews in this series originally aired on Vocalo.org as part of several different live broadcasts between June and October of 2007. Production by Robin Amer. Additional production of title segment by Adam Yoffe and Tom Herman. Music by Mudboy and Black Forest/Black Sea. Voices, in order are: Dorothy Fennell, Laura Jones, Mr. Matthews, Eugene Pawlak, “Syd,” and Steve Walsh. Above photo by Dorothy Fennell.

Ghosts of Gary won Best Radio Documentary 2007 from the Indiana chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists. It was also nominated for a Peter Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club in the Radio Documentary category.

Lease Ghosts of Gary for broadcast through the Public Radio Exchange (PRX).