CIFF: Believeland

You think you know how Believeland ends. You don't.

The ESPN Films 30 for 30, which premiered at the 40th Cleveland International Film Festival last night, doesn't begin with Earnest Byner collapsed on the turf of Municipal Stadium or Michael Jordan hanging in the air over Craig Ehlo's outstretched arm. Of course, those agonizing scenes of our sports misery play out in all their cursed disappointment in Northeast Ohio native Andy Billman's film. And all of our civic ghosts rattle their chains like so many action-movie villains: the burning river, Default, Mayor Perk, the Cleveland Joke, Denny the Kid.

Instead, the story begins in downtown's Huron Square Deli — fittingly, now closed — with a father and son.

If there's a hero in this film, Scott Raab, the former Esquire writer and Cleveland native, is it. A stand-in for tortured Clevelanders everywhere, Raab wears a T-shirt with a faded American flag and still carries the ticket stub from the Cleveland Browns 1964 championship. In scenes at the deli counter with Judah, Raab tries to explain us.

"All these hopes and dreams of a renaissance in Cleveland," Raab tells Judah, "everyone looks to the teams to somehow represent the city in a way that doesn't reinforce that image that it's a Loserville, it's a joke, it's a Mistake on the Lake."

If you focus on Red Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble, The Move, Game 7, The Decision — and this film goes through them all — then maybe it would feel like a reflection of all those stereotypes. But Billman's movie and Raab's narration make it so much more.

"It's about faith and family, loving and longing," says John Dahl, vice president and executive producer of ESPN Films and Original Content, in his introduction at the Connor Palace premiere.

That comes through in interviews with the vanquished heroes — Byner, Ehlo and Indians Mike Hargrove, Kenny Lofton and Jim Thome — and those who covered them.

In maybe the film's most poignant moment, a teary-eyed Byner looks straight into the camera and describes the fumble in the 1987 AFC Championship Game.

“I loved the game,” Byner says. “I loved playing for you all. And I’m sorry for letting you down.”
It dissolves into Browns coach Marty Schottenheimer with tears filling his own eyes: "I've never been around a player that got more out of his talent — and he was talented — than Earnest Byner. And he gave it to you every single play."

That connection among players and coaches, fans and players, players and their teammates, teams and the community and one generation and the next make Believeland special.

[Spoilers from this point forward.]

Toward the end, Browns legend Jim Brown offers a rye chuckle as one who knows what a championship is like, "Every year's next year, all they're askin' for is another '64 — an experience."
Raab knows it's more than that. "You didn't grow up here," he tells Judah at the lunch counter, "I don't expect you to be emotionally invested in this city."

"Well, I think I am," Judah says. "I like Cleveland. I love Cleveland."

A smile sneaks across Raab's face and he pulls his son closer, briefly kissing him on the head.
That's what a championship will feel like, Cleveland.

Believeland will screen again Saturday at 11:35 a.m., Sunday at 10:15 a.m., Monday at 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., all at Tower City Cinemas.

David Giffels and Scott Raab Read at Brews + Prose Second Anniversary

(Courtesy David Giffels)

To David Giffels, the Rust Belt is a promised land of grit and rust — a place where he unequivocally belongs.

On Tuesday, a pilgrimage to Ohio City and a brush-up on Giffels’ book, The Hard Way on Purpose, might inspire similar feelings in readers. Giffels, a University of Akron professor and former Akron Beacon Journal columnist, will read alongside Scott Raab, author of The Whore of Akron, writer-at-large for Esquire and occasional Cleveland Magazine contributor. The event, a second-anniversary celebration of the Brews + Prose reading series, will doubtless fill up fast.

We asked the Akron-born Giffels about LeBron, "ruin porn" photography and what to expect at the packed-house reading.

Q: What are you looking forward to about reading with Scott Raab?

A: We have this LeBron James connection, because I’ve written about it and he’s written about it in very, very different ways. I really want this to be a showdown. I think that’d be great if he was game to do that. Tuesday, who knows what could be happening with LeBron, so it could be kind of an electric kind of moment.

Q: Is the LeBron James as metaphor thing as important as it’s made out to be?

A: I’ve been constantly asking that question. I think it is. He represents such an interesting intersection, him being born just as the Rust Belt notion was beginning and to have been here, then through a weird twist of fate, to have stayed and begun his career here. All of that was at a point where Akron was at the lowest point of its sense of identity. Not that he would be our identity, but that he would represent a new identity, or part of a new identity. I think that’s fascinating.

Q: In your book, you talk about good and bad ruin porn. Does that concept glorify ruins in the wrong way?

A: The issue with ruin porn, especially in the specific Rust Belt ruin porn that I’m writing about, [is that] a lot of those photographs are being made by people who are exploiting it. They’re being made by people who aren’t from that place, who aren’t documenting something with any sort of social or civic or cultural intent so much as just to take fascination in the image itself. I think that’s shortsighted.

Where those images are useful is where the context is opened up, when they’re taken by people that understand it -- whether they’re from the place or they’ve taken the time to really understand it.

Brews + Prose, Market Garden Brewery, 1947 W. 25th St., Cleveland, July 1, 7 p.m.

Raab, Izrael Talk LeBron at Happy Dog

Last night, The Happy Dog was the scene of a debate of sorts between Esquire writer Scott Raab, author of The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James (read an excerpt here), and writer and culture critic Jimi Izrael, a supporter of LeBron's right to leave town. Plain Dealer columnist and WCPN 90.3 Sound of Ideas host Michael McIntyre moderated the event, which was dubbed The Derision but felt more like a good-natured debate between friends.

Raab started the evening by reading an excerpt from his book — a scene in which he meets Izrael at a black barber shop in Cleveland Heights, where Raab grew up, and the men discuss James' legacy in Cleveland, centering on race.

"It's late in the book," Raab said. "And it's the only time I try to face, head on, that issue."

Once Izrael took the stage, the early part of the debate was more a continuation of their conversation from that barber shop.

"A lot of people of color saw [The Decision] as a young man who had agency over his life," Izrael said. "That's something uncommon to black people."

"When I left Cleveland, I didn't inflict a severe emotional and economic wound on the town," Raab countered. "I didn't disappoint anyone."

Though Raab and Izrael disagreed, they were clearly chummy. This wasn't a knock-down fight by any means. As the night went on, those in the crowd proved to be the most outwardly passionate — be it for or against James. Raab and Izrael came off as pragmatic and reasoned by comparison.

An early questioner asked if The Decision hadn't happened, did Raab think people would still be as upset?

"The only circumstances under which LeBron would have left that I would not have been angry would have been after bringing a championship home," Raab answered.

A common theme in the crowd's questions was whether we as a culture take sports too seriously. One person made the comparison to the reaction of Penn State students to the firing of Joe Paterno.

"I know on one level it's only sports," Raab said. "People get worked up about seeing a painting or listening to music, but sports really does take on a meaning way out of proportion to its actual bearing on our lives."

Some questions were less reasoned, traveling to the outskirts of hypothetical sense: What if James had scored more points in a particular game? Is the lockout his fault? Would it have been any different if our NBA team was the Akron Cavaliers instead of the Cleveland Cavaliers?

Ultimately, McIntyre brought the discussion back around to Raab and his book.

"You said in the book that you were searching for the soul Lebron James." McIntyre said. "Did you find it?"

"No," Raab said. "I'm not calling him a soulless spawn of satan. The title and the subtitle — I wouldn't take any of this s--t too seriously."

The event benefited Ohio City Writers, a nonprofit youth creative writing center, of which Izrael is a board member.

Scott Raab talks LeBron, his book on our podcast

Scott Raab feels our pain. A native Clevelander, Esquire writer-at-large and author of The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James, Raab joined us for our November podcast to talk Browns, LeBron and his book (listen to the interview).

"I was hoping to write the happy book about our homegrown Moses leading us all finally to the Promised Land," Raab says. "I saw very quickly, as a credentialed journalist going to Cavs practices and games, that there was a level of dysfunction that was extraordinary ... From my point of view, the relationship between the media and LeBron, LeBron and the media, the team and LeBron. It was so screwy. It was so out of wack." 

The Whore of Akron will be released Nov. 15, and if you want to see and hear Raab in person, hit the Happy Dog Monday, Nov. 14, for "The Derision" where Raab will face off against Ohio City Writers board member Jimi Izrael, who has a very different opinion about LeBron's decision to leave Cleveland. Raab will also be at Visible Voice Books Thursday, Nov. 17. 

Pre-order for Scott Raab's LeBron Book Begins, Title Announced

Veteran Esquire writer and Cleveland native Scott Raab (left) certainly has a catchy title for his upcoming book about LeBron James. The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James was made available for pre-order at Amazon.com today.

Raab announced the name of his book on Sirius/XM's Mad Dog Radio following the Cavaliers' Feb. 11 win over the Los Angeles Clippers to snap the team's 26-game losing streak. We wondered at the time if Raab was just having fun, but it appears the title is real.

The book will be released Nov. 15, 2011 and is available for $17.15, according to Amazon's pre-order page. If you want to keep up with Raab's constant antagonizing of LeBron James and the Miami Heat in the meantime, follow him on Twitter at @Scott_Raab.

The Postmortem

Now that we all know how Lebron filled in the blanks to our "Choice Words" article in this month's issue (many of our choice words for Lebron can't be printed here), the Cavs brass put a happy-face Band-Aid on the gaping wound left in the organization by LBJerk's departure at today's 1 p.m. press conference.

"Even without LeBron this team has more talent than the two teams I took over in Jersey and New Orleans," offered new head coach Byron Scott.

Scott took the Nets to the NBA Finals in his second ('01-'02) and third seasons on the New Jersey bench. In his fourth year in New Orleans, he guided a Hornets team that had won 18 games in his first season to 56 victories in '07-'08. (Part of that must be credited to the addition of Chris Paul after that first season as well.)

Scott says those lessons should serve him well as the Cavs move forward without Lebron. "Yeah, I think I'm the perfect guy for the job."

In case you're not as optimistic, take a read of Esquire writer and former Clevelander Scott Raab's pre-decision doomsday scenario (you know, since it came to pass and all ... but be aware, there's some pretty brutal language in there about Art Modell. Feel free to substitute Lebron's name for those references in the future).

Then go back and read Dan Gilbert's manifesto in comic sans again just for fun.