The bad news? Once again, our Tuscany (or equivalent) vacation was pushed to the back burner by events out of our control. This time, the economic collapse of the modern world. Whatever. The good news? We drove to Cleveland and experienced one of the great museum takes there is. The Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

I won’t bore you with a description of the building (brilliant IM Pei design), or the beauty of the setting (lakeside amidst the best looking structures in Ohio)……it was inside the building where the magic occurred. On a scale of 1 to 10, if your love of modern popular music is above 5 — go to this place before you die. One caveat: Do NOT go casually for an hour or two. Plan on spending at least 5 hours (I was in the building for 9 hours over 2 days, and with a few more Red Bulls, could have spent more time). Not kidding.

Music is emotion, and this place is slathered with the emotions for your childhood, youth, young adulthood and even middle age. Images and audio are infinitely combined to entertain and educate. You experience an odd and exhilirating combination of nostalgia and discovery…..how is that possible? Specifics? OK.

1) Extensive video footage of a skinny Bruce Springsteen going berserk at various Jersey venues (special exhibit on Bruce runs through the end of 2009 and I thought my wife might take up residence inside the room).

2) Kiosks (with multiple headsets) where you can view audio and video of artists by genre and then view further video of the artists that influenced them. I could have spent hours on this alone. Every wonder who influenced Nirvana?

3) Literally hours of unreleased Jimi Hendrix sessions recordings (if they’d had a chair at the kiosk, I would still be there). Other artists too….I happen to like Hendrix.

4) A multi-screened movie theatre with a brilliantly produced highlight film of everyone inducted in the Hall of Fame. Organized by year of induction.

5) Exhibits centered around key geographical music hotbeds: London, New York, San Francisco, Memphis, LA, Chicago, etc.

6) Cool gift shop.

Need I go on? In order to qualify for induction an artist must have a record made at least 25 years ago. First inductees were folks like Ray Charles, Chuck Berry and Elvis. More recently: U2, REM, Madonna, Lynard Skynard, The Clash and Talking Heads. Blues and Motown greats are also abundant. A day pass is $22. You can go back on day 2 for $11. Maybe the food aint as good as Tuscany, but for “escape” value? Unbeatable.

More spin class music than I could ever use….Surely you have a friend or relative in Cleveland? Go. www.rockhall.com