April 4 • 2019 41 jn understand his father who died of a nitrous oxide overdose when JJ was 4. “It helped me connect to my dad in a way I had not been connected before. Almost everybody I spoke to had a Barry Kramer story,” JJ says. “He was an incredibly brilliant visionary, but also a provocateur. He had a lot of volatile relation- ships. He would push people’ s buttons on purpose, reate chaos and then try to control and rein it in. Not everyone left on good terms with him, and some still had residual regret and hard feelings.” He says the interviews were often “therapeutic” for all involved. A Michigan native, JJ grew up in Franklin and West Bloomfield, becoming a bar mitzvah at Temple Israel before graduating from Andover High School in 1994 and Michigan State University in 1998. After attending Emory Law School in Atlanta and working in New York, he moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he has been vice president and associate general counsel for Abercrombie and Fitch for a decade. He lives in suburban Bexley with his wife and two young children. LEGACY GIFT When Barry died in 1981, he left the magazine to JJ, so, at 4, “I became the chairman of the board of my own rock ‘ n’ roll maga- zine,” he quips. His mom, Connie Kramer, then associate publisher, became publisher to keep it going. Over the decades, CREEM had its ups and downs, moving to Los Angeles, being sold and going out of print, and, after a lengthy court battle, a group headed by JJ regained control of its brand and archives in 2017. Connie, 72, lives in Commerce Township and is founder and director of RetroDoggy Rescue, devoted to finding homes for aban- doned and lost animals. “Before I rescued animals, I res- cued errant rock ‘ n’ roll writers,” she says. She went to Mumford High School in Detroit; and her parents, Harold and Cylvia Warren, were active Jewish community members. Connie and Barry were married in Las Vegas in 1973 after attending an Elvis concert and she still tells people Elvis sang at their wedding. They were also married in a Jewish ceremony by Rabbi Jacob Siegel of Adat Shalom at her parents’ home. Reached by phone with dogs barking in the background, she sounds high-energy, but pauses a moment as she recalls the times. “You don’ t get to do all the ups in life without all of the downs,” she says. “I look back at things now with a lot of love and a lot of melancholy. I would do most of it again, but I’ d have to be young.” Asked how she sees things with the benefit of hindsight, she says, “Every generation has its time, and I’ m a bit partial to the generation I lived in and grew up in. So many young people with so much to say came out of a subdued upbringing to live with an explosion of creative thought. It’ s not so different from what is happening today, but it was so much rawer.” LOOKING BACK While not directly involved in the film’ s production, she has seen the almost-final cut and approves of its warts-and-all storytelling. “It is damn accurate. Watching it with an aged eye, the first feel- ing I get is I don’ t know if I want to live this again,” she says. “We were loud. We were loud in our thinking, in our speech and in our music. The music was everything. “Barry and I shared ideas and concepts,” she says of their working together. She handled the adminis- trative end of the business — sub- scriptions, promotions, advertising, sales — as well as being a cook and self-described “house mother.” “He was not the easiest person to deal with,” she shares. “Success immobilized him. Nothing could happen without Barry’ s OK, and he wasn’ t okaying anything. The magazine was super-demanding, and nothing was giving him peace and joy. It was the perfect storm for Barry — we were getting a divorce though it wasn’ t because we didn’ t love each other. “The day after Barry died, I real- ized somebody had to take hold of the reins,” she says. “I just knew this was JJ’ s.” She says she kept it alive with the vital help of Sue Whitall — who became CREEM’ s editor before becoming a writer for the Detroit News in 1983 — and her father, “a brilliant businessman” who headed Paragon Steel. “I’ m incredibly proud of JJ. He spent about 10 years of his life to put every block in place to make this film. I’ m not just proud of how he has handled the details, but how he handled the people involved.” Surprisingly, not only was CREEM a product of Detroit, it was also a product of West Bloomfield. “Cass Avenue was the original communal space,” Connie says, but due to safety concerns after a robbery and need for more space, the magazine moved to largely undeveloped West Bloomfield. Its original farm was on the northwest corner of Haggerty and 14 Mile, housing on the southeast corner. “I spent most of my time at Cass Avenue and the farm dancing — it was the best emotional outlet ever,” Connie says. Affirming lyrics from the song “Rock ‘ n’ Roll” by The Velvet Underground’ s lead Lou Reed, later given a local twist by Detroit’ s own Mitch Ryder, she says, “I truly do mean it when I say my life was saved by rock ‘ n’ roll.” ■ Films With Jewish Ties A handful of films in this year’ s Freep Film Festival, April 10-14 at various venues, have Jewish elements to them. • Who Will Write Our History: In November 1940, days after the Nazis sealed 450,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, a secret band of journalists, scholars and commu- nity leaders decided to fight back, vowing to defeat Nazi lies and propaganda not with guns or fists but with pen and paper. Featuring the voices of Joan Allen and Adrien Brody, the film honors the Oyneg Shabes members’ determination in creating the most important cache of eyewitness accounts to survive the war. 11 a.m. Sunday, April 14, Detroit Historical Museum. • A Thousand Thoughts: This groundbreaking live documentary event combines a musical performance by the legendary Kronos Quartet with an immersive film experience that explores the contemporary classical group’ s career. Oscar-nominated Jewish filmmaker Sam Green was born in Detroit and attended University of Michigan. Green’ s film tells the story of the Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet, one of the world’ s most celebrated string ensembles, who will be performing live. Newsweek described the performance of A Thousand Thoughts as “easily the most mind-blowing performance” at last year’ s Sundance Film Festival. Michigan premiere. 7 p.m. Friday, April 12, Detroit Film Theatre, DIA. • Mike Wallace is Here: For more than 50 years, Jewish broadcast journalist Mike Wallace went head-to- head with the 20th century’ s most influential figures and became massively influential and widely feared. Avi Belkin examines Wallace’ s career and life using archival footage showing him on either side of the interview microphone as he rose to host of CBS’ s long-running 60 Minutes. Michigan premiere. 8:15 p.m. Saturday, April 13, Emagine Royal Oak. • What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael: Pauline Kael, the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, was likely the most powerful and personal movie critic of the 20th century. She ruthlessly pursued what made a movie or an actor’ s performance work or not. The film looks at what made Pauline’ s work so influential. Michigan premiere. Noon, Sunday, April 14, Marvin and Betty Danto Lecture Hall, DIA. • Untitled The Amazing Jonathan Documentary: This documentary about the Amazing Johnathan, the uniquely deranged Detroit magician/comedian who built a career out of shock and deception in the 1980s, becomes a bizarre story. Jonathan survives a terminal heart condition, and documentarian Ben Berman films the illusionist on an epic comeback tour where Jonathan drops a bombshell that sends the film spiraling into uncertainty. Michigan premiere. 4 p.m. Sunday, April 14, Emagine Royal Oak. • An Armenian Triology: Local composer Dan Yessian’ s life takes a turn when he is asked to write a classical composition to commemorate the 100th anni- versary of the Armenian Genocide. The film, produced by Detroiter Ohad Wilner (whose mother, Niva, teaches at Hillel Day School), follows Yessian’ s creative path and the piece’ s triumphant debut by the Amenian National Philharmonic Orchestra in his ancestral homeland. World premiere. 12:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13, Emagine Royal Oak, 3 p.m. Sunday, April 14, Patriot Theater at the War Memorial. For a full schedule, go to Freepfilmfest.com. Barry Kramer died when JJ was only 4. Connie Kramer and her young son, JJ, back in the day