Ham Sandwich

HAM SANDWICH HAS MOVED

2005-10-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

HAM SANDWICH HAS MOVED. THE MENU HAS CHANGED. YOU CAN NOW ENJOY
CITY CHICKEN

I HOPE YOU COME ALONG.

NORLL

THIS BLOG IS CHANGING ITS NAME & ADDRESS

2005-10-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

THE MENU AT THIS BLOG IS CHANGING. INSTEAD OF HAM SANDWICH, YOU'll NOW BE ABLE TO ENJOY:

CITY CHICKEN

AFTER OCT. 7, 2005, PLEASE VISIT:
http://citychicken.blogspot.com

I HOPE YOU COME ALONG.

NORLL

I'm gone

2005-10-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

My love-hate relationship with Hamtramck is now over. I’ve moved to not only a cushier south Oakland Co. suburb, but into a whole new housing existence, my first-time cohabitation with a girlfriend.

The one-year Hamtramck experiment is over and, sadly, I gleaned little from it. There are lots of things I’ll miss, chief among them, living closer to the city and the ballpark. Plus, there is something nice about voluntarily moving someplace where other people will not, like a weird little getaway. I wasn’t afraid to move to a worn-out looking city with an inordinate amount of petty crimes and assault. Bring it, bitches. And, thankfully, it was not brought. Nobody stole my car or smashed my windows, or beat me up for my pocket full of paycheck, all things I’d heard happening to others before I moved to Ham Sandwich.

I’ll miss my apartment, its gleaming wood floors and high ceilings

And that’s it. I will not miss having four people live above my head, running around like a fucking track meet up there. I couldn’t care less about the nightlife and the bars. I’d been in basically all of them at one point or another. We had fun when The Rooster and his girl visited and we hit some bars in the first month I was living on Caniff. That was a fun night. He took these at Adam’s,

which was at the end of my block and closed for good about four months after we visited.

But the most fun I think I had in Ham Sandwich was when Tom and Mawk came down for the Hamtramck Blowout. We loaded up our flasks and went on foot, through the alleys from bar to bar, drinking up, getting loaded, checking out unknown musical acts, being boys. We saw some OK bands, catching the Grande Nationals

at the New Dodge and then hiking to the Clock for some 2 a.m. grub. For a night, it was Glomtramck.

And that’s it. I didn’t make a whole lot of friends, I didn’t engrain myself in the community, and that was by design. For a decade, whenever someone mentioned Hamtramck, all I ever seemed to hear them say was “There are so many artists there,” and/or “It’s so creative!” Well, I saw shit for evidence of that, so I wish people would stop saying it. Where are the outdoor art installations? Where are the writers workshops? Where are the fucking galleries? There’s Planet Ant and, if you’re like me, and you find improv and live theater to be boring and lame, then it’s just a big purple building. Creative my ass. That town is boring, unless you’re a.) some skinny hipster who just can’t get enough “garage rock” or “neo-soul” or whatever these bands are tying to accomplish, or b.) a drunk. I’m not saying it’s a bad place, or that the residents are bad or boring, I’m just saying that I didn’t find the landscape of Hamtramck to be all that “exciting.”

I will not miss the litter. It is everywhere. A street sweeper would do wonders, but for a municipality that’s broke, like most of its residents, such items are a luxury.

I lived in Hamtramck when the Pope died, and that was something to experience, especially from a different perspective. That was heavier than I thought it would be. And while I never much cared for/thought much of/felt impacted by the presence of the Pope, I felt bad for the folks of Hamtramck who took it so hard.

Again, I certainly don’t hate it, nor am I beaming with Hamtramck Pride, but it was good for what it was. I think I have a deeper appreciation of quiet streets and clean gutters, people who aren’t afraid to say hello. I won’t miss the Albanian homeboys in their wife beaters, cropped hair and pseudo-bling, driving their uncle’s Escalade around town. Those guys can fuck off.

I guess I leave Hamtramck the same way I found it, craggy, indecorous and low-rent (literally, it’s why I moved there!), but rife with this odd mix of blue-collar pride and Old World values. Now, I go back to where it started, to the city I moved to from mid-Michigan when I was 20 (smartest fucking thing I ever did), 16 years ago, back to where it all began.

Breadfan

2005-09-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

Damn straight. It’s a van full of bread.

This could also pass as new incentive from GM. “Buy a beat-down van, get enough bread to last you through 2006!” Seriously though, I work next door to a bread outlet and these people were loading up this rather well-used Dodge with loaves of bread. I asked if I could take a picture and they agreed. Nice folks. This guy

and his female companion told me they were from a Detroit church group called Churches Intervention. He said that once week they scoop up donated bread from stores like this and distribute it to churches around the city, as well as food banks like Gleaners and Forgotten Harvest. “Sure is a lot of bread,” I said to him. “Yes,” he said, “we’re loading up more now than ever before, you know, to help the hurricane folks.”

I’ll say this once and I hope everyone agrees. Bread. Fucking. Rules.

I see too many of these

2005-09-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

Pickup trucks for everyone

2005-09-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Went to visit my country mouse brother last Sunday. This is the bar at the end of his road.

Look at it. It looks like a truck lot. You know who drives trucks like those? Pipefitters and mason guys, dudes with big hands and thick forearms, men who work outside all day lifting heavy shit and putting them back down. I'd like to see one of those downtown-Royal-Oak-on-a-Friday-night tough guys try to get smart in this fucking place.

Good to see you again

2005-09-22T06:46:00.000-07:00

I'd like officially and formally welcome the season of fall into the mix. About time it got here. And let's hope it stays around as long as possible. I am one of the many glad to see summer go bye-bye. It was brutal man, just brutal. May was unusually cool and dry, before June came in and fried everybody. According to the National Weather Service, July had nine, 90-plus degrees days. What they fail to mention were the other dozen 88-89 degree days. Those were equally as miserable. By the end of the July, the 90-plus days totalled 15, which, on paper, doesn't seem like much. That month also saw the hottest day of the summer, Sunday, July 24 when the heat index soared between 100-110 degrees. I was in San Francisco that day though. It was 68 and sunny.

August wasn't much better, with 10 days exceeding 88 degrees, but it did seem to have a few days here and there in the 70s. It was not as brutal as the summer of 1988, but it was damn close. It was long, hot, humid and seemingly never-ending. Believe me, I have the cooling bills to prove it.

But now is the time for Michigan fall, which, I think, is the most redeeming characteristic of this state. Colors, boots and sweaters, divine breezes, that customized crisp in the outdoor air, that uncanny purity. I can catch a whiff in October, any October, that will instantly return me, nostalgia-wise, to a specific day in my youth and the fond memories that come with it.

I have a new slogan for the state's tourism bureau:

"Fall. Bring it."

Dinner with friends

2005-09-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

Our first installment of dinner with friends was last Saturday. In an effort to spend more time with the people we love, Kerry came up with an idea of having, once a month, a set of her friends and a set of my friends to the house for dinner. There might be some kinks to work out — nothing big — but hopefully we can get everyone over at one point or another. Having the Saturday night hockey players for dinner might be tricky, so we might have to wait on them for a bye week or a gap in the seasons or something, but hang tight boys, we’ll have you, and your respective better halves, over soon enough.

Saturday’s lineup included Vince and Sue, Amy and Jeremy (the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence) and Cousin Matt. And I’ll be damned if this didn’t turn out to be a helluva good time. We greeted guests with custom-made margaritas (strong, strong, strong) with a recipe we pinched from our favorite San Francisco bar, the Mission’s own, Casanova.

Kerry put out some snacks including these tasty roasted nuts, as well as an artichoke dip and sliced baguettes. After a boatload of drinks, it was time to eat. Dinner looked like this.

We started off with some Michigan salad (balsamic vinegar, chopped walnuts, dried cherries, bleu cheese, romaine, cukes) before we got to the fish. This salmon recipe is proving to be a quick favorite of ours. We took six, 4-ounce organic filets and rubbed them with McCormick’s mustard powder and a little bit of sugar. Fire up the pan nice and hot with some olive oil and sear those filets, about 3 1/2 minutes on each side. Fuck yes. The middle dish is Kerry’s custom, gourmet macaroni and cheese with, ahem, hand-cut croutons baked on top. And in front of that is a greens dish I actually concocted in the form of asparagus and green beans tossed with olive oil and peppercorns, baked in the oven for about 10 minutes. Everyone seemed pretty pleased. I know I was. We capped it with her homemade Guinness cake (although this shot is a little blurry).

As equally sublime as the food was the company. We hung out off the back porch the rest of the night — which was comfortable and mild — yapping and tossing numerous bottles of wine and cocktails. It was great to see everyone and we were grateful that our friends were able to make it. We could do this once a month for the next 12 months and still not get everyone we know and like into our dining room. And for that, I think she and I are truly fortunate. We work hard to be decent, educated, reliable people and we’ve received an enormous payoff for that in the form of a legion of incredible friends — as oddly diverse as you could ever imagine — who dig us.

Al and the sun

2005-09-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

As a baseball fan and, more specifically, a Tigers fan, I average somewhere around 20 home games a year. I’ve been doing that for about the last five or six seasons. Before that, it was about eight or 10 games a year, going back to around 1991. I’ve spend a lot of time at Comerica Park and I’ve taken a lot of photos in and around the place, but this one instantly became my favorite.

When I snapped it, I thought it wouldn’t look so hot, but the sun worked to my advantage. Of all of the statues in the outfield, I love this Al Kaline one the most. I had the supreme honor of interviewing him (albeit rather quickly) during a Make-A-Wish event at the park several years ago. It took about five minutes and I think I shook through the whole thing. Arguably one of the best Detroit ballplayers ever and, for sure, the best outfielder to ever wear the "D."

Lions and deer

2005-09-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

The weekend turned out to be fun and relaxing at the same time. Got to hang with the Corbetts on Friday night, which is always a treat. Saturday was also fun in that I watched the Michigan game with Pete, which is also always a treat. Sunday was nice. Kerry and I went to this park in Ann Arbor that butts up to Nichols Arboretum. We hoofed it a mile or so to the banks of the Huron River where we had a lovely picnic. She packed some sandwiches, apple slices, some tuna pasta salad, a bottle of wine and a couple of brownies. It turned out to be quite the picture of contentment.

And while we skipped the flower garden portion of the Arb, which is really quite beautiful with its peonies and assorted flora, we did get quite a treat from nature. These folks came out to the river bank on the other side, much to my amazement.

The ducks also decided to go check them out.

We drove home from there, where I retired to Ham Sandwich to watch the Lions win. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday. Speaking of Ham Sandwich, keep a close eye on this spot, as it will be changing soon. I’m leaving the Sandwich to make an unprecedented leap in my life to move in with Kerry in Royal Oak. I am both excited and terrified at the same time. If I didn’t have such enormous mistrust for the shady looking motherfuckers I see in and around the Sandwich, I would suggest we live here. My landlord is renovating the building next door, complete with an 1,800-square-foot unit for $500 that comes complete with it’s own enormous, loft-like upper level, which would be perfect, in his words “for someone who is artist or has band.” Fucking Andre, man, that guy knows how to hook a place up

I’ve come to like Hamtramck a little bit. Maybe if I had more friends here, it would be different. There is a lot I will not miss about it, but that’s another topic for a different time. To all six of you who read this little section of Webdom, I will have to change not only the name of my little blog, but the address as well. As of Oct. 1, I will no longer live in Hamtramck, so the Web address of iliveinhamtramck.blogspot.com will no longer be relevant. I’ll keep you posted.

I started Ham Sandwich with the intent of making it all about Hamtramck, a plan that was quickly aborted after reading the fine folks at
Hamtramck Star. I dig these cats a lot and I don’t even know them, but their user profiles indicate interests in northern Michigan and punk rock (and they’re my age, so they’re probably into the same old shit I always liked). I thought about hitting them up and grabbing a beer one night, shit, they probably live about a block away from me for all I know, but my raging introversion won out. If you’re at all interested in what’s going on in Hamtramck, read them. They’re obviously very bright people.

Give it up

2005-09-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

I quote an esquire magazine cover when I say:

Will somebody please give this man an Oscar?

With a filmography like this, he should get some sort of lifetime achievement acknowledgement or something, anything. Look at this shit:

Broken Flowers (2005)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Coffee and Cigarettes
Lost in Translation
The Royal Tenenbaums
Osmosis Jones (2001)
Speaking of Sex (2001)
Charlie's Angels (2000)
Hamlet (2000/I)
Scout's Honor (1999)
Cradle Will Rock (1999)
Rushmore (1998)
With Friends Like These... (1998)
Wild Things (1998)
"Stories from My Childhood" (1998)
The Man Who Knew Too Little
Larger Than Life (1996)
Kingpin (1996)
Ed Wood (1994)
Mad Dog and Glory (1993)
Groundhog Day (1993)
What About Bob? (1991)
Quick Change (1990)
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Scrooged (1988)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
The Razor's Edge (1984)
Nothing Lasts Forever (1984)
Ghost Busters (1984)
Tootsie (1982)
Stripes (1981)
Loose Shoes (1980)
Caddyshack (1980)
Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)
Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979)
Meatballs (1979)
The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978) (TV)
"Saturday Night Live" (1975) (1977-1980)

See?

2005-09-06T12:26:00.000-07:00

See? When they're not mind-fucking little boys who don't know any better, or when they're not warping and distorting little girls' perceptions of sex and intimacy because they, as adults, couldn't foster a normal, healthy grasp on their own, nuns like to frolic in the snow. How cute. Shame they're not playing with live grenades or huge, two-handed clumps of feces.

I would, too

2005-09-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

I still miss you

2005-09-01T14:06:00.000-07:00

The house we used to live in

2005-08-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

OK, so it’s a really, really bad Smithereens reference (as if there are any good ones). This is a photo of what is now an empty lot. Before it was an empty lot, it was a two-story house that sat at the corner of South Center and Lincoln in downtown Royal Oak, where I, among others, lived on and off for eight years.
The house was bulldozed last week to make way for a new bank, but that’s not the story here. It was boarded up about a year ago. The story here is this house is now gone, forever, a place where I spent my formative years growing up into an adult will no longer stand at this corner. And it’s probably just as well. The place was a fucking dump, but it had character and a lot of characters living in it. Warped and uneven hardwood, lame stucco ceilings, one bathroom (for, at one time, four young adults to share), gawd-awful fake wood paneled walls in the kitchen, asbestos-filled drop ceiling tiles and the front door, that fucking front door that would never close right. Man, I hated that thing.

But I did then and still do love the people who lived there. What a great cast of friends that whole thing turned out to be, HKR chief among them, as well as Vinnie and Steve P. (aka Smegly Pardeau). John W. moved out and I’ve never really heard much of him, which is a bummer because he was a good guy — a funny man with a true heart — and I’m sure that we would still be good friends today if our line of communication hadn’t dried up and he didn’t get so goddamn weird.

I lived, again, on and off (I moved in and out four times, but always kept that same bedroom), in that house from the time I was 22 until I was 30. Show to me, please, I dare you, any stretch of the years of your life where you learn more, where your maturation is greater, where you are at your most carefree, than in your 20s. You rock the hardest in those years and, in many cases, also live the hardest (living mere blocks from Gusoline Alley didn’t help matters). But it’s not all pride. Those were years where I did a lot of stupid and reckless shit that worried and caused concern for people who cared about me. And I ignored those concerns and kept plowing ahead. Well, anyone who knows me well now, knows where that got me.

But I see this empty lot, and in a couple of months I’ll be seeing a drive-through ATM or some shit, and I think of the fun I had under that roof, with some very important people. I learned how great it is to have a pet in the house and we had some high-quality ones come through there, including four cats and two dogs — Zoey, Skooch, Symon, Remington, Thor, and the master, the roost’s ruler, the king of the crib, Max.

A couple of friends of mine came to refer to that place by street address only — eight-oh-three. I used to cut the grass and then sit on that front porch admiring my work. We attacked hardcore/asshole Christian protestors across the street one late afternoon, dousing them with water. We listened loudly to a lot of music that would be part of the foundation of our personalities, both then and today.

And we wrote. At one point, we were a house full of writers, which meant we were a house full of shit. Ha! But we wrote, in notebooks, on napkins, on computers, you name it. We generated a collective (yet separate) creativity in that house, at 803, that I think was unforgettable, at least for me. The tall chick with the red hair got the freelance ball rolling first, showing the rest of us how to make some loot doing what we loved. Steve wrote a song and ultimately got credit for it on a record by band in Portland before moving on to one of the big metro daily newspapers in Detroit. And me? I just listened to a lot of Slayer and Cypress Hill, going on and on in my notebooks before I got my first paying gig as a freelance essayist. We didn’t always get along, but we “got” each other, which is probably more important than anything else.

This was the view from the front porch, right below my bedroom window.

I was always fond of this picture. I’d sit at my desk and do my thing and I could spin around in my chair and blow smoke out of the window.
Eight years in that place. Weird that it’s gone.

Detroit Baseball

2005-08-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

Went to the Tigers game last night and left while it was still 9-0 in favor of Oakland. Detroit had a chance to at least clinch the .500 mark as far as win percentage is concerned. No dice. And maybe they will do it this week or possibly next, but it’s unlikely they will stay there for long. This team is impossible to summarize, so I won’t even bother. Instead, I will take a break from trying to figure out this 2005 Tigers squad to look back on some of my all-time Detroit Tigers.

These are the Tigers I grew up with, laying in front of the TV set on my stomach, wearing out my elbows, with my feet dangling up in the air behind me, my brother Frank in the same position to my right. And yes, a lot of the guys played on the 1984 World Championship team, of which we watched nearly every game (when baseball used to be on TV for people who didn’t have cable; Channel 50 carried, like, every home game when I was growing up; now, in this 2005 season, they did not air so much as one game. No money in it, right guys?).

But even before the ’84 season and in the few years after, we still watched religiously, until we got older and bored with it, trading in that pure, uncut glee in for music listening and ample dope smoking. But there was a time, and I was thinking of this last night when the Tigers couldn’t score a fucking run to save their sorry lives, when the professional baseball team in Detroit had a roster of players who could make things happen, to say the very least. So, to you, I present my Detroit Tiger heroes.

Tram/Lou

You start with these two and work your way back. Louis Rodman Whitaker and Alan Trammell were the longest-running double-play combo in baseball. With a man on and one out, and the ball hit to Tram, that fucking inning was over. That just doesn’t happen today. Plus, they got robbed of Hall of Fame enshrinement. Ryne Sandberg and Ozzie Smith get in? But Trammell and Whitaker do not? Yeah, that makes sense.

Tommy

Handled the hot corner as good as anybody in the American League during his time. Put him on the All-Mustache Team, too.

Senor Smoke/

1984 World Series MVP and Cy Young Award winner. Only pitcher to win both in the same season. Loved watching this guy throw the ball.

Ron LeFlore

Hell on wheels. Only player to go from the penitentiary to the big leagues. Was the fastest dude in baseball for a long time and made every kid want to be as quick as him. Was a self-admitted career criminal his entire life before breaking in with the Tigers in 1974. Had a 30-game hitting streak, which stood as the A.L.’s longest in 27 years. Dirty Jase is only man I’ve known to rock a LeFlore jersey in public.

Jack Morris

Ass-kicker supreme. The winningest pitcher of the 1980s, that’s right, an entire decade.

Lance Parrish

Best Tigers catcher since Bill Freehan. Had a huge bat and always played solid D. I remember a game, I forget the opponent, where a Detroit pitcher beaned the batter. The guy starts making his way to mound to fight and Parrish comes up from behind, bear hugs the guy, lifts him and up and turns him around toward first base. “There ya go, pal. Wrong way.” That guy didn’t put up much of a fight, either. Parrish was a big, muscular motherfucker, too. It seems like whenever he was up to bat, any of the women in our house — my mom, my sisters, her friends — suddenly had an interest in the game, if only for the time he was on TV.

Chester

Raging line drives went out to die in this man’s glove.

Gibby

He left town to hit the biggest home run in baseball history, but I’ll always remember this guy’s tough, gritty play. He formed a foundation in Detroit based on a will to win and to do anything and everything it takes to be a champion. He’s a bench coach for the 2005 team now and these guys can’t seem to take a page from his book. Sad, really.

Darrell Evans

Played first base and destroyed the ball at the plate. Lead the league with 40 homers in 1985, ended with 414 home runs for his career. The National League had Dale Murphy. We had Darrell.

The pathetic thing is, 20 years from now, nobody will be listing Bobby Higginson, Brandon Inge, Deivi Cruz or Luis Polonia as their Detroit baseball “heroes,” and these are the type of marginal players, at best, with which we’ve been saddled for most of my adult life. This 2005 team sucks and I hope they turn it around soon.

You can do it, too

2005-08-25T06:10:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter text, I believe, is fucking boorish and lame. And worse, are not only the diehards, the people who line up at midnight and dress in wizard garb and embrace this very dumb phenomenon, but those of seemingly adult age taking part in the craze. Much like the overgrown Star Wars dorks who get in costume, adult Harry Potter fanatics should be shot on sight. When that last stack of tripe came out, amid far too much hype, I remember seeing wire news photos of people all over the world waiting in line to buy the book. And that’s great. If you’re 12. But when you’re some 39-year-old, terrified of physical intimacy and you dress up in a robe and put a fucking lighting strike mark on your forehead and you willingly allow someone to not only take your picture, but smile while they do it, well, you’ve got problems my friend.

So, I’m in the woods up north and I see this uprooted tree.

And I think, this looks like something out of one of J.K. Rowling’s books (does the J.K. stand for “Just Kidding?” As in, “yeah, I was just kidding about being a normal, rational adult”) or perhaps one of the very popular motion pictures. I see the trunk and I being to imagine … “that the monster wizzlewop of Gumbleledorp, with his uprooted tentacles dripping dirt and evil, maniac grin, would unleash the furious power of a thousand fazzleshots. The subterranean village of Closekta, with its 407 (exactly!) dwellers, happy, untroubled, placid like a morning lake, would soon feel the epic fury. One Closektan, the young Folentra, feared not the wizzlewop …”

See? Anyone can write this fucking crap. Put it right up there with sci-fi, calculus and auto insurance in the Top 25 of Bullshit.

The place to be, at least for me.

2005-08-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Hey, that rhymes. Makes me sound like a poet, although I can't really stand that type of writing, or the people who make it, except, of course, for Bobby at Skull Bolt. I dig this guy's words.

Anyway.

Spent three days up on the Leelanau Peninsula with my homepiece, Glom. We had a lot of fun, to say the very least. The weather was sketchy, as it poured down hard Saturday morning, but other than that, it wasn’t too bad. Sunday was breezy and cool, about 60, making it feel a little bit like fall. Speaking of fall, it’s not too far off. This summer has been one of the hottest I can recall, but on Aug. 20, we found this tree along a stretch of road by Northport, already flexing some colors.

Anyone who reads this knows that I manage to take a lot of pictures of trees. I don’t know why. But here are some more. These were on the campsite next to ours.

This one looks like a pair of tree legs coming out of the ground.

Saturday we got up and went to the Peshawbestown Pow Wow, which is probably the biggest reason for our visit, that and to chill on this choice piece of land on this magnificent Great Lake. Due to the rain, the event was held indoors, which just wasn’t the same. The outside venue is the best. Here, it was kind of cramped in this big gymnasium and to be quite honest, after about an hour, it started to smell like the inside of a dog’s ass in here. The lighting was tricky, too.

We tooled around a little and then headed back to the site. Glom and I took a long and relaxing swim in Lake Michigan. We later retired for some cooked-over-the-fire grub,

and assorted goodies, before being treated to this stunning sunset.

We got up Sunday for what would be one of the highlights of the weekend — a visit with my nephew Max, his folks and his grandma Diane. Hard to believe that this boy is 14 months old. He looks like he’s 2.

And this, well, this is my favorite shot of Max so far.

We took off and hit some wineries. Here are the vineyards at Black Star Farms.

They ultimately grow a lot of these there.

Again, another fine weekend in one of my favorite places to be. Here is your author.

Dig the pulp

2005-08-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

Always had a great interest in these things, the covers at least. This is one of my favorites.

Happy birthday to me, bitches. And happy one-year anniversary to Dirty Jase on the blogging tip. You've had some real gems on there. Look forward to another year of your world.

Best snippet of someone else's conversation, ever

2005-08-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

I work in a building with about, I don’t know, 150-and-something people in various departments. In a different department is this broad, she’s about 55 or so and really obnoxious. She is the sole reason I no longer eat a lunch in the room designated for such activity in the lower lever of our building. She has this disgusting habit of openly discussing assorted health ailments not only in herself, but friends and family. From her brother’s abscessed whatever, to her infected God knows what, to dry sockets, to rare blood diseases, it’s always something with this lady. Try powering down a bowl of leftover spag with that going on at the next table.

She married last year, some semi-toothless, scraggly-bearded man, one apparently very fond of denim and rusty, beat-up vans. Today, I walk from the restroom to my desk, past the area where she works and I notice one of her co-workers at her desk. They’re having a conversation. And based on body language and previous experience, one person in this conversation (the sicko lady) is apparently more stressed than the other. It looks like one is consoling the other or offering some reprieve from the tension, serving perhaps as the rock against which the frustrated can beat themselves, or maybe the office-cubicle harbor in the tempest.

As Doppler would have it, I start picking up muted parts of their conversation as I approach and as I pass, I hear this, and nothing more "… I don’t know. If I’m in the kitchen baking muffins and he’s in the other room watching Chuck Norris movies …”

Made my day. Made my fucking day, I swear.

Me no likey

2005-08-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

Along Carpenter street, east of Jos. Campau, is the literal dividing line between Detroit and Hamtramck. On the north side of Carpenter is Detroit, and to the south, Ham Sandwich. Perhaps it’s fitting (or not) that the Detroit side of Carpenter is home to an empty, defunct structure that just creeps the hell out of me — the old Greater Detroit Hospital.

I have no idea how long it’s been closed, nor do I really care. But, at one time, if you got fucked up on too much drugs or shot any where near this part of town, you probably ended up here.

Personally, there is something peculiar and painfully creepy about abandoned hospitals. I don’t know if it’s the vibe or what, but it just feels like those brick walls are doing a great job of holding in decades of pain and frustration. Conversely, one could argue, “Yes, but what about years of recovery, healing, the loving, caring hospice that comes with a hospital’s staff? The thousands of people who came in sick or hurt and ultimately left feeling better, stronger?” Fuck that. The pain is what sticks out. Or the motherfuckers who died in there. I got a feeling there are some lost souls inside this structure, just cruising around …

And I especially enjoy, by the way, the anti-terrorism graffiti. Nicely done. That, and the warning to avoid any coital activity with Liz.

Sunday in the park

2005-08-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

A couple of Sundays ago, I had the pleasure of taking in a Toledo Mud Hens game with Kerry’s brothers and cousin, Matt. Me, Matt, Casey, Rian and Rian’s son, Brendan, visited Fifth Third Field to see Toledo, despite having the best record in the International League this year, get beat down by the Durham Bulls. Detroit Tigers dh/first basemen Dmitri Young’s little brother Delmon plays for Durham and that was interesting to see, although I don’t recall him doing anything remarkable.
The park is very nice, only a few years old.

And here is a shot of the boys at the park, from left, Matt, The Bean, Casey, Rian, and next to Rian, in the blue shirt and dark shorts is the long-lost Burke cousin, Reggie.

It was definitely a good time. Those guys are always a lot of fun and hopefully we do one more, perhaps at Comerica, before the season’s end.

2005-08-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

Can't Hardly Wait (apologies to Mr. Westerberg)

2005-08-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

I’m a lucky, lucky man. It really has been a great summer, one of the best ones on record for me, save, of course, for this disastrous weather. This heat is oppressive, stifling and simply a massive buzz kill. But the summer, activity-wise, has been positively sublime. And it’s only going to get better in a couple of weeks.

We started out with a great party at Kerry’s in early June. We then had Blast Supreme at Sandra and Mike’s wedding at the Scarab Club (that was truly a beautiful occasion and a joyous evening that, as far as weddings go, will rank up high on my all-time list). We went to Bravo! Bravo! after that, had a peaceful and weather-perfect Fourth of July at Megan and Duke’s place with the Hauns, Nicki and Chris H. and the kids, and the Cavanaughs (fine young man, that Brennan). That was a lot of fun. We drank beer and me, Pete and Brennan played some Wiffle Ball. Show to me a better time. I dare you.

We took a long weekend on the other side of the state with our camping peeps, but instead of camping we stayed in a beautiful house and had ourselves quite a time. We came back on a Monday and that same night I hit the home run derby with the fellas, as well as the All-Star Game the next night. Monumental, really, especially if you’re a baseball fan. A week later it was off to San Francisco with the woman I love to see a friend that I love and a city that I-, well, you get the point.

And the weekend of Aug. 19-22 while the Dream Cruise rages, me and my best friend, a guy with whom I’ve been tight for almost 30 years, are visiting the finest spot in Michigan, the Leelanau Peninsula. We missed it last year and planned well in advance this year. We love it up there, and for reasons too lengthy to post. The water alone is breathtaking. It’s a lot of this

and this

The campground provides fine accommodations despite being rustic in its nature. Tom has a camper with electricity, so we not only refrigerate our chow and bevvies, we can rock Yahtzee on a level playing surface with moderately soft lighting. Looking away from the site a couple of years ago, the view was this

And this was my campsite from the same year, nice and set back from the road, shrouded in huge, 100-year-old trees

Leelanau State Park is very nice and scenic. It is home to a lighthouse, which is always a cool Michigan landmark. It also has this stone birdhouse

and this very interesting-looking stone flower holder thingy

To drive around the peninsula, which we could do all day long, is a sight. Where you find houses, they are cute and charming and where you drive along lakes or the bay, you find endless serenity. And where there is a city or a small town, I see a place I could live forever. Driving along assorted roads, it’s easy to spot things like this

or this

The campground itself is about 15 minutes north of the city of Northport, home to this fine bakery

There, they make the best cinnamon roll twisty things you can imagine. I usually have one on my way out of town. Tom and I chilled on those benches in front, kicking it with some old-timers the last time we were in town. On the way back to camp is a small airport with this kickass stone structure

I had a rather substandard disposable camera the last time I was there. Now, armed with a somewhat standard digital and Photoshop, I’m hoping to capture much more compelling imagery. We go for the pow wow in Peshabestown. The Indians are kind of funky about picture taking. Some of them feel you’re capturing their soul with a camera, and not in a good way. We’ll go this year and if memory serves, I think I recall a portion of the program where you can use cameras. We look forward to this. That, and it’s just a great place to be, to be out of town, to be away from Ham Sandwich and up north with crisp air in the company of a good friend, doing nothing but having a fun and relaxing time.

Did I mention that we’re going a couple of days after my birthday? Yes, life is good. And it’s only going to get better.

Hamtramck, a little bit of ghetto in the middle of, well, Detroit

2005-08-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hamtramck cops shoot another pit

The Citizen reports in its July 27 edition that Hamtramck cops, for the second time since April, had to shoot dead a pit bull after it attacked a child in the city. “Police say that the dog jumped off of a porch in the 3000 block of Norwalk and attacked the victim without provocation.”

The article further states: “The boy was bitten several times in the stomach and other parts of the body. Police attempted to Taser the dog but ended up shooting it when the animal would not calm down.” Back in April, a 6-year-old Hamtramck girl was mauled to death by the family pit bull.

There are so many things wrong with that above passage, but the one that makes me cringe extra hard is “the family pit bull.” Family pit bull? Really?

Now, a family pet is dead and a child is probably completely freaked by being attacked by this dog, a breed who has been BANNED in some cities in America, including Denver, not that that white trash outpost is to be considered exemplarly or anything

I hate to make sweeping generalizations, but the only people I’ve ever seen with a pit bull or bearing some semblance of ownership to the breed are homeboys and fucking wiggers. I’m sure there are exceptions, but this is clearly the majority. Why? Why would anyone want to get anywhere NEAR a dog that has the propensity to rip loose your left arm? Because DMX had a bunch in his video or Fat Joe rapped about it, that’s why. Fucking idiots. They should lose their children for being so goddamn stupid. Surprised they didn’t eat the thing at birth.

San Francisco, in many parts

2005-07-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

Thursday

The flight sucked but we got in and shuttled to the Clift Hotel on Geary in Union Square in the middle of the afternoon. We chill and decide Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack in The Mission is our inaugural dining spot. We get in the J Church from Powell Street Market like it was yesterday. It took me a second to figure it out, but once we got in, and I sat back down in those molded plastic orange seats, my San Fran memories started coming back. Kerry and I walked by the apartment in which I lived during my brief stint in 1996.

Dinner was fun. It was kind of divey, but you could tell they had pride in the place. Tattooed waitresses, a bar that sits about eight people, a line strung across part of the dining room with aprons hanging from it, walls covered in original, colorful art and a beer list that was simply stunning. You could get a pint of Stella Artois or a 40 of Mickey’s, in the bottle and probably ice fucking cold. Appetizer was ricotta and goat cheese terrine stuffed with pinenuts, sundried tomatoes and oregeno served with flatbread. We enjoyed a plate of the house special, spaghetti, which came with these perfectly seasoned meatballs. We shared a plate of that, as well as a bottle of Zoom Pets Petite Syrah from Vinum Cellars.
It looked like this

Back downtown on the J to Union Square where we walked up to Chinatown about six or seven blocks. I thought this dead-end alley looked interesting and inviting.

Later, we found the SF landmark I’d heard about from two different people of amazing but cool contrasts, Dirty Jase and Kerry’s dad. I’d known aout Lefty O’Doul through baseball lore and tale and about six years ago Jason started telling me about this kickass sports-kinda bar named Lefty O’Doul’s.

A bar with a full buffet about 10 feet behind it, where you can get everything from pie to huge pieces of ham and beef

Great place. The bartender, we discovered, is from Redford, there are enormous black-and-white photos on all of the ways, some with Lefty and many without. The legs of each barstool are actually four Louisville Slugger baseball bats.

Friday

I got up insanely early at 6:30 a.m. and took a walk down Geary to Hyde, up a block to Post and then back. I find it rather noteworthy that at least this part of The City, if not other major metro downtowns is this: The street people out at 7:08 a.m. screaming into a fire hydrant? That’s some mental illness shit, or, in homeboy speak, it’s some mental shit illness. This, however, is not to be confused with the raging majority of people asking you for money who opted for alcoholism or drug addiction first, and the money spent on that, in lieu of, say, paying rent or showing up to work every day. I saw this 6 foot 6 black dude just fucking cruising down the street on foot, a beat-up blanket in one hand and a red-white-and-blue basketball in the other. He stopped only to yell into the window of a closed bistro.
We later took the Powell Hyde cable car to the wharf, which wasn’t so bad because it was a beautiful morning. But being crammed into that thing wasn’t so great. The wharf was a good walk and we got to see these guys at Pier 37

The walk around the wharf was nice and the weather was perfect, 70 and sunny. I could see Alcatraz pretty well.

Visited Ghiradelli Square before Jason picked me up and we checked out the ballpark, drove around town and stopped at his place (and Leslie and Benito’s). This is where LHP happens

Leslie’s sister lives upstairs. This is the view from up there. ,p>

Kerry and I would later go back to The Mission and hang out a little longer. Before eating at Puerto Allegre,

we had to wait about 30 minutes so we booked ass across the street to this place, Casanova.

We liked it there and ended up going back two days later for some late-afternoon drinks on a Sunday. They looked like this, and wow, we’re they strong

This is a Casanova margarita, it has about a half-pint of cheap tequila in each one. We had one before dinner. After dinner, at the earlier behest of Babs, Kerry and I went to the Fairmont.

Also, on the way home, we saw the biggest, nastiest, most fucked up looking cockroach ever. He was pleasuring himself on that appeared to be an empty French fry container.

Saturday

Breakfast at the Brentwood about five blocks away, the finest breakfast we’ll have the entire trip. Met up with Jason and Leslie to ride with them down to Santa Cruz, this awe-inspiring, cliffside surfing community. I thought this was a very generous thing for these two to do for us. They put the kid away for a day and drive our asses some 70 miles down this amazing coastal Hwy. 1. It was foggy out into the water, but we still saw some amazing views. Real waves. Who knew? Santa Cruz was a fun and cool little town. We had lunch, shopped a bit, I picked up some T-shirts and stickers for my nephews Nick and Alex at this skateboard shop. We ducked into a store for a bit of whimsy.

We also went to a surf shop that had quite a display. Here is a guy’s board that was attacked by a great white shark. See those perforations toward the lower left corner of the board? Those are teeth marks.

We drove around SC and up to the big cliff/coast/surf/beach area up there, I think it was Cliffside Drive. Amazing. Sadly, I didn’t really get any shots, so this one stays with the memory. Lots of surfers out there and these charming, one-level, very colorful homes that when, I don’t know, you see a California setting in a movie or TV show, when it first comes on and you think “That must be California,” that’s what these neighborhoods looked like.
We spent all day there, driving back to the city and getting dropped off at the Clift around 6. We were kind of beat, so we got horizontal for a second before taking off and getting some dinner. We kept it kind of low, eating dinner down the street at The Cheesecake Factory in Macy’s and tooled around Union Square for a little before calling it a night.

Sunday

We packed about as much into this day as you can possibly imagine, from the time we got up until the time I flopped in the bed, fully smashed, and feel asleep. We got up and had breakfast at Lefty’s and took a cab to Columbus Avenue for what I’ve really been waiting for, a visit to the revered City Lights Bookstore.

Fuck yes. Kerouac, Ginsberg. Burroughs. Ferlinghetti. Some of the strongest American writers ever and this, this bookstore was their spot. We mingled around there maybe an hour. I picked up a moleskine-looking copy of Dave Eggers’ “How We Are Hungry,” as well as “Satchel Paige’s America” by William Price Fox. Honestly, I could walk around this place all afternoon, or simply take them up on their suggestion.

We split and hoofed it to Chinatown where we later lunched at Four Seas. It was dim sum-style, but good nonetheless. We chowed well. They had this freaky-looking guy here

Also, they had the fire escapes open and, honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I walked out on one and took this shot along Grant Street.

It was a little shaky for me, as heights of any nature will render me useless and spooked.

We hopped a California line cable car down to the Embarcadero. Kerry got this shot.

Nicely done, babe. There was a small art fair going on, so we looked around, but the especially noteworthy element here were these trees.

We went to the bay front and sat down before heading back to a business district where I once worked. This was weird. I temped this shitty job in this building on Spear, between Mission and Howard. It was a Sunday, but we went anyway and I found the exact spot where I would take my lunch breaks in 1996, smoking Marlboros and intently reading the work of Russell Means. The visit was slightly surreal. I was a confused, bewildered, hostile young man the days I spent in that spot. I was not a happy person at all. More accurately, I didn’t love and appreciate myself the way I do today. But enough of the self-analysis bullshit.

We cabbed it back to The Mission where I continued, thanks to Kerry’s patience and understanding, my memory lane trip by going into the Kilowatt, a bar on 16th where I spent a lot of time during my brief stay. Andy Jackson was working and while we eyed each up trying to figure if we were who we thought we were, we eventually greeted each other, shook hands and yapped through a beer. We exchanged phone numbers and I left after my one beer, which is as long as I wanted to stay in there in the first place. Just wanted to go back and exorcise some shit I left behind 9 years ago. Mission accomplished. And since we’re this close, and it IS 5 p.m. on a Sunday, we decided it was in our best interest to go back to Casanova for some of those atomic margs. We threw down a couple, sitting on a comfy couch in the back and had some serious dialogue. We cabbed it back to the hotel and then to Richmond for the dinner we’d been waiting for the entire trip.

Casey and Mary gave to Kerry for her birthday a “gift certificate” (50 bucks and a map) to this place in Richmond called Burma Superstar.

We had a small wait, so we visited this bar across the street, keeping the buzz alive. Thirty minutes later, we’re back to the restaurant, throwing down some of these bad boys,

They are samosas, basically curry and potatoes. We ordered up some lamb curry, which looked like this and was unbelievably good.

Next up was this chicken and basil dish.

The whole thing, complete with a coupla Anchor Steams, hit every spot you can imagine. We went back to the bar, The Last Day Saloon, had more drinks and played with the jukebox. Kerry went deep and found “Bubbly Toes,” while I watched the Cubs and Cardinals play in the professional baseball contest on the television. Took a cab back to Union Square where it was getting late and Kerry, understandably, wanted to crash out. I kept around town a little bit, having a drink at Lefty’s and taking some really bad photos. Also, and I don’t know what in the fuck I was thinking, but I kept walking around trying to get more shots of God only knows what. For some intoxicated reason, I thought this Chinese restaurant made a good photo, so much so I had to get out in the middle of O’Farrell street to do it, with cars and cabs flying by me honking and yelling. It turned out like this.

See what happens when you drink too much? You do stupid shit like this. I went back to the Clift and fell asleep. This was the most alcohol-fueled night of the trip and at only one, I think we did quite well.

This is the night view from our room

Monday

We got up and had the worst, lamest breakfast ever at David’s Deli across the street. Overpriced crap is what it was. We scooped up the rental car and drove up to Muir Woods. My hangover went away after we got there. This place was stunning. California redwoods everywhere, it is a true ecological treasure.

Many of these trees are more than 600 years old. It’s very cool and moist in there, a lovely walk and a very serene, almost spiritually majestic environment.

It is named after John Muir, scientist and author. A pamphlet describes the following: “During his lengthy wanderings Muir contemplated the relationship between humans and the rest of nature, concluding that all life forms have inherent value and a right to exist. He believed humans are no greater or lesser than other forms of life. His writings brought broad public acceptance of conservation as an environmental ethic.” We are glad he did.

We took the car to Sausilito, where we had a fine, bayfront lunch at Scomas.

We walked around a bit and drove up to San Rafael past Spider Murphy’s Tattoos, the shop where Jason, years ago, put these big hunks of ink on my outer forearms. We drove back across the bridge and into The City, where we tooled around for an hour on San Francisco’s streets and through Golden Gate Park. We would later have dinner at Scalas, which turned out to be very marginal in its cuisine yet painfully fantastic in the bill. Overpriced, average food and really shitty, weird service. Avoid that place. It sucks.

Great trip, had a total, constant blast. I know a lot of this looks like it revolved around food, which is somewhat true. We did put some effort and planning into that. I’m a restaurant writer. When I go on vacation, I want to try a lot of different shit. And we did. Kerry’s a total pro at the travel thing and I think this trip did wonders for our already solid and steady relationship. And speaking of eating, San Francisco is home to these lovely, little bombs, the It’s It Bar

Kerry was having some sort of flashback/recall of these things from her last visit, but couldn’t remember the name. Jason told us and one of the doormen at the Clift showed us just where to find them. They are basically an oatmeal cookie, a huge lump of ice cream, another oatmeal cookie on top of that and then dipped in chocolate. I had only one. Really. I swear.

It was too good to see Dirty Jase. I love that man like a brother (and in the past we’ve gotten mad at each other like only brothers can). Every time I see him our friendship gets stronger. I look forward to seeing he and Leslie again as soon as possible.
We miss The City already.

How NOT to get from Chicago to Detroit

2005-07-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

Leaving our San Francisco vacation was no problem. It was getting out of Chicago on a layover that proved maddening. We touched down amid nothing spectacular, deplaned and hit the concourse in O’Hare at 4 p.m., thinking we had about 50 minutes to make our connection, putting us back in Detroit at about 7:30 p.m. Wrong.

Our one-hour flight to Detroit was canceled. United said the weather was too bad. The next flight for us? Leaving 9 a.m. THE NEXT DAY to Detroit via, get this, Pittsburgh. Four more hours in the air and a day later than we planned. While in what would be the two-hour, seven-gate deep line to United’s customer service desk we also learned that no rental cars were available.

She calls Northwest and the best they can do is getting us directly to Detroit at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning for $100 each. She takes it.
It is now 7:30 p.m. Again, our plane should be over, oh, I don’t know, Ann Arbor at this point. Instead, Kerry and I have been on our feet for about three hours, and she just put two more airline tickets on her credit card. And this is where we stand: We have a 7:30 a.m. flight leaving not O’Hare tomorrow morning, but Midway. We are at O’Hare. We have no car. 800-number lady tells me where we can stay, which is pretty much anywhere — 10 minutes from O’Hare or 10 from Midway. And how exactly do we get to, say, the Courtyard in Alsip? Oh, that’s an $80 cab fare the driver told us. The Red Roof downtown has a room for $140 a night but how in the hell are we supposed to get there? And how do we get to the other airport at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow morning for a 7:30 flight?

We settled on a Super Eight motel 10 minutes from O’Hell, I mean O’Hare. We hop in a cab that airport and what happens next would be the first of two or three landmark instances that would test my very will. Our cab driver has no idea how to get to our hotel. Granted, it’s not downtown, but there is a line of 20 cabs outside the airport, it looks like the medal round of the fucking cabbie Olympics. I assume these guys know where they’re going. Know what I mean? You get in cab say, “Hi, we’re going to Shaws, it’s at 29-,” and the guy cuts you off and says, “Got it,” and floors it. That’s how it works, like, every time. This guy, this—man, I just, I just wanted to poke his fucking eye out.

We all judge people when we look at them, some of us to varying degrees, but I would say that most normal, rational adults — people like me and the fine readers of Ham Sandwich — folks who consider themselves pretty well-adjusted, most likely eye up other people and have some sort of quiet opinion to themselves. I think we all look at others and might have thought any or some of the following remarks, or something of a similar nature:
said to yourself:
“Nice tits.”
“Nice cell phone”
“I’d totally fuck that guy if I wasn’t married.”
“Those are really dumb shoes.”
“You wouldn’t a lot less stupid if maybe you untucked that sweater.”
“I don’t trust that guy.”
“Is that her, or do my feet stink?”
That kind of shit. We all do it, in some form, and anyone who says they don’t is most likely full of shit.

The meter is running.
“Look man, you’re not going to drive us all over the place looking for South Mannheim Road with the meter on, right?”
He can’t understand a fucking word I’m saying.

He is unsuccessfully searching for Franklin Park in this handy dandy-looking guide to the city. He hands it back to us through the square in the Plexiglas, and asks if we can find it on his list. We exit the cab.

We get in another cab. He tells us, “fare, plus half.”
“What does that mean,” I ask. “Fare, plus half of the fare.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to the suburbs.”
Sure, I think to myself, that “plus half” just became your tip, pal. The ride costs us $30. We check in to the Super 8 in what looks like some weird commercial/industrial area at about 8:30 p.m., speaking to each other constantly about how good a shower will feel and to just get a pizza into us and crash, just get out of town and our asses back home.

Did I mention that both of our cell phones died (and our chargers were in our bags on the plane) after we made the last reservations about an hour before? That happened.

We check in, make a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call and have another cab company pick us up, drive us another $30 back to O’Hare, so we can get on the L and ride to Midway. We head down some nasty $60-a-night hotel hallway when I pass a closed door about seven down from ours. Man, that guy’s TV is up really, really loud and I don’t know what he’s watching, but that’s quite a fight scene. Only it’s not a fight scene on a TV show. It’s a man in that room, beating the absolute hell out of a woman.

We kept walking, I hoped Kerry didn’t hear it, as we were both exhausted from our own little ass-whipping, administered hours before by United Airlines, the airport, the cabbies, the hemorrhaging of money just to get to a room to later get a flight that would be a day late (we both called in to work already, before my phone quit).
She didn’t hear it. Like a fool, I told her what I heard, We get to our room and find it has a lovely smell of musky low-budget air freshener. I picture a corporate purchaser for Super 8, maybe at the HQ in, I don’t know, Raleigh or some goddamn place, placing the big order. “Yeah and we need three boxes of “Just-Been-On-A-Stationary-Bike-For-Two-Hours, Sweaty Sluice Taint Funk, ozium-style, aerosol spray can air freshener for the Franklin Park hotel. Thanks, Hal.”

We went from six days of 4 1/2-star-luxury at The Clift in San Franciso, with seemingly infinity-thread count sheets, a chic lobby and waitstaff falling over us, to a stinky, shitty ghetto hotel — literally, a day late and a dollar short — with some guy nearly killing his bitch at the end of the hall. We plan to order a pizza. No phone book. He have to go back up to the lobby to get one. She’s not staying in that room alone so we go back together. Again, I pass this room at the end of the hall and it’s like having to walk past a train wreck a second time. It was one of the most disturbing things I’ve heard.

It doesn’t sound good. It sounds like someone being bounced off of walls, hard thuds, a man growling things like “You fucking bitch!” and the like, and this woman just screaming like a pierced jackyl. At this point the manager comes around the corner with a black woman in her 40s, with Hi-I-just-woke-up hair that looks like something Macy Gray pays $350 to have done, and she’s accompanying the manager saying to him “he’s going to jail tonight, he’s been in there beating on her for three hours.” Something to that effect. We go back into quiet shock mode, like when we realized our flight was cancelled, when we realized we had to stay the night in Chicago, when we fully understood how much this was going to suck, and worked past it to eventually feel better? Well, we got sucked back in. We got to the counter, got the pizza number and the woman who called the manager came up there also, leaned her back against the counter and said to us “It sounds like he’s been torturing her in there.” And she was right. And she’s probably been listening to this half of the evening.

Again, what happened next would really test what was becoming my frayed, spent will. We walk back to the room and the guy, the guy doing all of the beating, is out in the hallway and she, presumably the victim, is about 10 feet away from him, doing a kind of half-circling pace with her back to him. We walk buy. Kerry won’t look at them. She’s scared. I have to look at him. I have to show this guy I’m not scared. And I wasn’t, but I sure as fuck was not very comfortable. Here is a guy been throwing his girlfriend around for hours, ramped up on adrenaline. If he and I come to blows, he’s had time to warm up. I have not. Now, I’m not about to get into a fistfight with this fella, but I know I have to look him in the eye and let him know I’m not passive, and to show I’m ready in case he decides to be hostile with me too. “What up, doo?” I say susserantly, barely audible. He barely nods and we walk on. By the time we get to the room, Kerry’s had enough and suggest we call someone, anyone, Parker, the Fullertons, Laura and Jason. We do and take another $35 cab ride out of South Franklin Park into Belmont which, to my surprise, looked and felt so much like Hamtramck, I could’ve sworn I smelled Polish Village meatballs. We got to Roscoe Village and was greeted with hugs from Nancy who, bless her heart, stayed up later than she certainly planned for a Tuesday night, listening to us gab off our crazy story. We slept in the spare room of their lovely home, quarters that rival most hotels, relieved to be somewhere cleaner, safer and putting us on the cusp of, finally, sleep. It was about 11:30 before we feel asleep, not before remarking about how good it felt to be in their house, that you can feel the love in that place, between Chris and Nancy and their adorable little girl, the 14-month-old Bryn.

We slept, got up at 5:30 a.m., had a cab come scoop us up and take us to Midway. Our flight there was delayed an hour, but we got out of there and back to Detroit all after that. I never thought I’d be so happy to be back in the Ham Sandwich. And there’s probably a reason for that, but I can’t quite articulate it.

Outdoor Jesus and baby booze

2005-07-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

I seem to have a love-hate relationship with Hamtramck. Sometimes, I like the way it looks, other times, I find it an eyesore. For example, in early May (when it was ONLY 80 degrees), The Rooster and I went to a Tigers game. I came home after that, parked in front of my place and had a happy little moment in viewing my environment. There were people all about the street, seemingly every nationality you can imagine, a beautiful day in a stretch of town that looks like it should be in a big city. It was nice. And then there are days I want to slap some of these Bosnian homeboys around with a chainsaw.

At the east end of Caniff, or so it seems, it’s the Krown Supermarket. And no, that is not a typo. I dig my ghetto supermarket. Kerry and I went there one day in January and WJLB-FM (number 1 for hip-hop and R & B, in case you didn’t know; or, as my dad would probably call it, “nigger radio”) was broadcasting live from the location. I about shat. It was awesome. I walked up to Coco and shook her hand and told her I dig the nigger rad- I mean, the station, I dig the station. And I do. I listen to that shit. I love that shit. And it’s otherwise not a bad place to shop, a little gruff and grimey, but not bad. It’s good for staples and that’s about it. I sure as hell would not buy my meat or fruit there (thanks Holiday Market in Royal Oak, for your overpriced stock and fucking snotty, trendy shoppers to which I am painfully addicted). But Kerry and I were in the Krown the other day and we saw something that nearly blew what’s left of my mind. So much so, I had to come back just to photograph it.

Everything in Hamtramck is behind glass. Obviously, the liquor stores do it, but so does the Post Office. And King Video (which I love, thanks to its seemingly exclusive stock of martial arts and pornography), the employees are behind the glass. I undestand this for safety purposes. I’m surprised it’s not the case at the library, to be honest. But this? This is just messed up

At the Krown Supermarket, you have the baby formula behind the counter, right next to the booze. That’s fucking weird, I’m sorry. I know products like Enfamil are shoplifted with quite a bit of regularity, but man, this is a sad commentary.

I took that on Saturday and later had to head down to Pewabic Pottery for what turned out to be a blown freelance assignment. I decided to take Chene as far as I could. It had been a while since I was on that street, the first time being a year or so ago, when The Rooster took me to Elmwood Cemetery on the east side so we could find the grave marker for Richard “Maserati Rick” Carter, which we did, thanks to Rooster’s eagle, I mean, keen eye.

I remember this stretch of Chene being as blown-out an area as I’ve ever seen, which, for me, is an absolute feast for the eyes. It wasn’t until I started down it again Saturday that I remember our Sunday morning adventure a few years ago. There are some insane-looking burned out buildings and storefronts on this stretch of street. And to be honest, I don’t know if I’d even want to be driving around there at night, it’s THAT fucked up. But this was about noon on Saturday, so it was relatively harmless, save for this beat-up, rail-thin white hooker who kept waving to me. She was doing this because I kept circling the block around Chene and Frederick, trying to eye up this

very strange outdoor worship area. I got out and snapped a couple of shots. For some reason, I was temporarily obsessed with this setup.

. I eventually made it to Pewabic and it’s stunning, 100-year-old house/gallery on Jefferson. Since the show about which I intended to write wasn’t exactly happening, I decided to take some photos. Enjoy

Blogging will be light this week and especially next week, as Ham Sandwich takes a much-needed vacation to head to San Francisco.

Throwdown in Motown

2005-07-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

It’s about time someone stepped up and started slapping motherfuckers around. Despite losing, 5-0, Sunday, the Tigers had quite a battle on the field when both teams’ benches erupted in a nice, little brawl. Fitting too, that it was against Kansas City, but this fight was a helluva lot different than the one in 2001 when these two teams threw down.

No, back then, Detroit’s Rob Fick lie in the fetal on home plate as two Kansas City guys pummeled him. Jeff Weaver started the whole damn thing and nobody on his team backed him up. After that fight, Detroit looked like a team headed nowhere. They had little talent and, worse, they had no camaraderie for each other. If you don’t have your teammates’ back, you shouldn’t be on the field. For years that team spiraled as losers and I wouldn’t be surprised if it started with that game.

But this, this was different. Kansas City pitcher and freelance pedophile Runelvys Hernandez (nice first name, by the way) plunked Carlos Guillen on the head. First off, you stay away from the melon, hit him in the back or the wrist or some shit, but don’t go for the helmet, asshole. After a little jawing, the benches eventually emptied into what became, what I thought, was an interesting sight.

You have relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth (who, by the way, is our only reliever thanks to Troy Percival’s Fisher Price arm), literally, body-slamming Kansas City’s Jeremy Affeldt. That was nice. And I say that because these guys came out of the dugout swinging. This wasn’t like years ago when the team would’ve stood by and watched Guillen get issued a beat-down. They came in that bitch to fight Sunday. And fight they did. Manager Alan Trammell was out there, Lance Parrish was out there and so was Kirk Gibson, all of them mainly restoring order. But when your bench coaches alone could probably annihilate most of the players on the opposing team, you’ve got some serious guns in that dugout.

Now granted, fist-fighting is wrong and there were a lot of kids at that game, seeing something they probably shouldn’t. I don’t condone that. And Detroit did lose the game, blowing yet another opportunity to get to .500, which alone is a sad goal, but one with which we are saddled. They looked like shit on that field yesterday and that has to change. However, in my own little fantasy world, I would like to think that the brawl actually played out like this: Kansas City Manager Buddy Bell let that fight happen to get Detroit riled up. Why? Because the Tigers head to first-place Chicago this week for a three-game series. Why not send a nice, stirred-up hornets nest to the Windy City? KC is in last place, so why should they care? Get Detroit all jacked up heading into Chicago for three games they are slated to lose anyway and give the White Sox a little something to think about. Now, I know the fight had nothing to do with that, but it’s my blog and my imagination. So there.

I wonder

2005-07-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

I was in line to get into Comerica at the All-Star Game Tuesday when I looked down and took a random photo. The exterior of the main entrance of the ballpark is loaded with commemorative bricks people purchased when Comerica opened. There has to be a couple of thousand bricks out there. I happened to look down and snap this

for no real reason. I stared at it as long as I was in that spot (about three minutes) and couldn’t help but wonder a little about Mr. Albus. Who was he? Where was he from? Livonia? Up north? Corktown? I wondered if he was a nice guy or if he died some bitter, old jerk. Trying to consider what his life was like, for no apparent reason. Was he an old GM guy? Did he own a brake shop on Livernois? Did he coach JV football in Waterford? I picture a tall, Lee Iacocca-looking fella, with a couple of grandkids he spoiled the best he could, with a cute-for-65, gray-haired wife. He liked to fish and didn’t care much for jazz music. Maybe he played tennis. Maybe he was an asshole. Whoever he is, someone in his family or circle of friends thought enough of him to buy a brick with his name on it outside of a Major League Baseball stadium. Maybe they go to the park now and then and know exactly where to look. “Yep, there’s ol’ Billy right there,” a buddy or neighbor might say, pointing to the exact same spot where my camera lens was focused Tuesday. In complete randomness, I captured his name and gave a little thought to a stranger’s existence.

Mid-Summer Classic, indeed; Ham Sandwich goes to the big game

2005-07-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Dirty Jase and I were e-mailing back and forth yesterday when I got his last correspondence about an hour before I left work. “Have a good time being a part of history tonight,” he wrote. And that’s when it really hit me: I was going to the 76th Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Comerica Park, practically in my own back yard.
I’ve been to, maybe, about 80 home games at Comerica Park, give or take 10, since it opened in 2000. There have been a lot of very fond (and not so fond) memories in that place. First off, I should say that none of this would have been possible for not the efforts of Brian C. He hooked all of this up. He got is in the season-ticket package thing two years ago, knowing we’d be first in line for All-Star tickets two years later. He pays for this shit up front and takes care of all of the dirty work. Without him, last night simply does not happen, so big ups to the Lord of Wards.

And the sign says it all.

The game started, appropriately enough with two Detroit baseball legends — Al Kaline and Gates Brown — throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.

This was preceded by my favorite part of any All-Star Game, the announcement of the starters as the teams line the first base and third base lines. I always thought that looked really cool, as it does here.

The pageantry continued with the singing of not only the American and Canadian national anthems, but, as a shot out to our friends in England trying to wrap their minds around the bombing bullshit last week, the DSO performed the British national anthem as well. The flags looked kind of regal and commanding in the outfield.

I am not at all impressed with, or really astounded by, or respectful of, military might. Never did shit for me. Not once. Big tanks? Big fucking deal, I say. But last night, right after the national anthem, a Stealth Bomber flew right above my head over Comerica Park. I have to say I was kind of impressed and somewhat relieved. That was something to see.

They announced this guy

and the place went bonkers.

Aside from it being painfully hot, the night was perfect. The game itself? Kind of boring, from a strategic standpoint. The American League (sorry Martian) blew out to a 7-0 lead before the N.L made it look good with 5 runs over the last 3 innings. Still, the game was kind of standard, save for a few key and exciting elements. Both teams turned five double plays and they were all seamless and perfect executions. And while seeing Dontrelle Willis pitch was one thing to which I was really looking forward, it was interesting to watch Mark Teixera blast a 2-run homer off the young Marlin. I tried, I really truly tried to get a good zoom shot of Dontrelle in mid-kick of that insane delivery of his, but this was the best I could do.

And naturally, I had to try to secure a couple of shots for some fine baseball peeps of mine. This is for Martian and Pistol Pete, your only Giants rep on the N.L. Not at all a good shot. I got more of his name and cut off his face, so my apologies. Here’s your boy.

And for Jeff Weller, I had to get his boy Ichiro. Jeff’s a diehard Mariners fan and he means it, mister. Here ya go, Jessy.

Still, it was a nice night at the park. I forgot about this kick-ass mural up on the second deck going down.

And, as I learned, with any major sporting event, you get all types there. But it’s different than, say, Opening Day. The opener is all about Detroiters. An event like the All-Star Game attracts a fancier crowd, if there is such a thing for a baseball gathering. They looked like 40,000 marina people, cats with a lot of money hanging out and blowing cash. However, those folks were nowhere near our row. No, we had three of biggest assholes you can imagine. Games like this bring out people who don’t spend much time at ballparks. It’s like New Year’s Eve or St. Patrick’s Day. People don’t touch a drop of booze all year long and then lose their minds in one night. Same thing here. These guys,

these inbred, white-trash fucks did nothing but complain every time we left our row, which was, like, three or four times over the course of the game. If it happened thrice in a two-inning span, it’s one thing. But this is a sellout game and you have six people in the middle of row, drinking large cups of beer who either a.) have to piss, or b.) want to go have a smoke. So, every time we walk by, they grumble and bitch. I wanted to punch the tank-top wearing shitbag right in the jaw, the fucking jerk. I noticed a speck of something on his arm, too

Nice ink, bro.

We still managed to have a lot of fun, the boys that is. Brian, Joe and J.J. really made it happen. Speaking of J.J., here he is exemplifying some pure, uncut enthusiasm for this historic night.

And most importantly, Detroit had a jewel-like shine about it in the days leading up to the game, as well as the marquee event itself. Nobody opened fire, nobody did some stupid shit in the stands and I saw numerous TV reports where out-of-town journalists had a lot of nice things to say about the city. Chief among those comments were that many of these writers could see the city’s attempt to turn shit around, at least from an appearance standpoint, and they seemed to encourage that, in a nice-job-but-keep-it-going sort of way. Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News had glowing comments for the city and he’s probably the biggest media wig in town for the game. It’s nice, for once, to be on the receiving end of a couple of compliments regarding the city you love, when it’s so easy for the rest of the country to take a big shit on it, like everyone loves to do.

I’m looking forward to the Super Bowl.

Always so nice to get out of town

2005-07-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

Finally, or so it seemed, I got my ass off of Caniff and out of Ham Sandwich for a nice, four-day weekend on the other side of the state (might as well be the world). No dirty streets, no liquor store weirdos (although a handful of weirdos getting liquored up, that’s for sure), no exhaust, no bullshit. We went to Mears, Michigan to a nice place near Silver Lake, which is about two minutes away from Lake Michigan. Lovely, really. The big attraction there are the living dunes. It was a great four days, with 10 truly sincere friends. We got up there around 3 or so in the afternoon on Friday, roll up this long, two-track driveway to find this.

Nice place, sleeps about a gazillion.

We eat quite well during this time, lots of grilling (steaks, fajitas, snausages), huge breakfasts and plenty of imbibing. Chris’ dad sort of built this place as an investment property and we were able to take full advantage. Needless to say, we go “large” on a lot of things, including butter

and, of course, corn (that’s a quarter at the bottom of that can)

Kerry and I got up Saturday and hoofed it up and down some dunes at Lighthouse Park, right on Lake Michigan. It was a sandy beach with perfectly blue water, but those dunes are quite exhaustive to climb and descend. The lighthouse, though, was really quite tall.

We went for a dune ride/tour later that day. The living dunes up there are quite an interesting ecological study. They just keep moving, for decades they swallow up treetops and cabins. Our tour guide was partially witty, but especially noteworthy are the rigs in which they haul tourists around.

Ours was a 1974 International that, according to the dune dude, gets 2.5 miles to the gallon. On the way out, we got a good look at this cute little swamp.

After that, we went to Cedar Point (not the Ohio amusement park), this county park up the road and had a little picnic. We walked along the beach for a while before heading back to the cabin for massive amounts of grub.

Spending four days with a couple of little ones can be trying for childless types like myself, but these kids were really good and behaved quite well. This is Pat and Karin’s little girl, Abby, on the beach at sunset.

And it’s kind of hard to not like kids who know how to yuk it up a little. I give to you, green apple smiles.

Sunday, Kerry and I got up and drove to Grand Rapids to see Rob and Steph. Rob and I worked together at this shitty little weekly newspaper in Plymouth, oh, about 10 years ago, as did Steph. That’s where they met. Rob and I formed quite a bond during that time. They’ve been in G-Rap for the last six years and that was pretty much the last time I saw them, just before they moved. I don’t know what else to say other than I really admire and respect both of them. I could go on for about another 3,000 words, but it all would end up saying the same thing. This is the family in their living room.

Not the clearest photo in the bunch, but I wanted it anyway. Those kids in the middle? Liam and Daisy? Perhaps two of the cutest, most charming youngsters I’ve ever met. That Daisy has the sweetest, reddest cheeks and she just kept smiling the whole time we were there. I wish I was closer to Rob and Steph, I would like to hang out with them more often.

We headed back to Mears and while en route to the park where we would catch some stunning sunsets, we see this sign on the side of the road.

Now, it’s no secret that the western side of the state is rife with religious zealot assholes, probably more so than anywhere else in the state. And this kind of signage surely does little in the way of exploding such a stereotype. The only problem with this sign, other than its brash unrighteousness based on unproven and unsubstantiated folklore is that “alcohol” really doesn’t “enslave people.” Addiction enslaves people or, more realistically, people enslave themselves. They just use alcohol (or drugs or sex or shopping) as the tool. Big difference, reverend.

The night was relaxing and beautiful. We sat on the beach and watched the second soothing sunset of the weekend. I don’t think I’ll forget this one for quite some time.

Back to Ham Sandwich yesterday, slept, showered and then headed to Comerica to watch Bobby Abreu blast some serious home runs out of Comerica. Man, 24 of them in the first round alone. To find a more phenomenal display of power, one would probably have to look to the engines of a space shuttle, the gales of a hurricane, or, a circa-1991 Mike Tyson shot to the dome. Tonight, I go to the All-Star Game. Hurray for me, I say.

The Man. Defined

2005-07-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get choked up just thinking about this guy. I had the supreme honor of meeting Ernie Harwell and shaking his hand in 2000 inside the press box at Comerica Park. I quite very nearly shat myself. But my greatest memory of Harwell aren’t his Ernie-isms or that caramel-coated voice or his seemingly bottomless knowledge of baseball history and lore, it’s actually remembering his voice on the radio from when I was young. The Wellers always left their front and back doors unlocked. Why get up to answer the door when you have a half-dozen neighborhood kids treating your kitchen like Grand Central Station?

And it seemed like every day I would come hauling ass through that back door, in through the empty kitchen — with my only goal of getting upstairs to get Tom, Jerry, Bill or Jeff to go do something, or nothing, for that matter — and would stop dead, my attention summoned by the smooth voice coming from the small, brown rectangular clock radio that sat crooked-like in the open window sill. I would wait until the at-bat was over, or stand there in this very warm kitchen until a score came up and then my pause button would be lifted and I would head up looking for the fellas. I liked that Ernie called Chet Lemon “Chester” and that he pronounced nine “nahhhn.”

Served four years with the Marines, started his broadcasting career in 1940, called Bobby Thomson’s playoff homer in 1951 and Hoyt Wilhelm’s 1958 no-hitter against the Yankees, inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, the National Sportscaster Hall of Fame and was awarded the Ford C. Frick award for broadcasting excellence. He was, and still is, the only broadcaster to ever be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown while still on the mic.

They can put whomever they want in the booth, but Ernie Harwell is, was and will always be The Voice Of The Tigers.

Baltimore-Philadelphia revisited

2005-07-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

I found a few more photos from the trip east two summers ago, so this will be the last of it. We spent a full day in Baltimore before getting up Sunday and driving to Philadelphia. The plan was to drive from Detroit to Baltimore, spend the day there to catch the Mariners-Orioles game (which we did) and then head to Philly on Saturday to see the Phillies play at home in The Met. Sadly, when we got there for the 1:05 p.m. start, we were told the game time was moved to 7 p.m., which we could not do because we had to head back to Michigan so I could be to work Monday morning. That especially sucked because I was looking forward to seeing Philadelphia play at the venerable Met.

On the way out—it seemed like a 13-hour drive—Tom and I stopped at this crazy, creepy diner in Pennsylvania.

Not that there was anything wrong with the place, food-wise, but it was just weirdin there. There were about six people in there eating and they all, I don’t know, the place just creeped both of us the fuck out and I guess I can only leave it at that.

Again, like I said earlier, Camden Yards is a very nice park. Here is a shot of Tom and I before we took to our seats.

We drove back to the hotel that night and met Jeff in the a.m. to drive into Philadelphia. We had only the morning, really, and that was unfortunate because I really want to see some more of that town. Not only does it have a rich, historically political identity, but South Street seemed like the place to be. Lots of cool shops and, I’ll be nothing short of honest here, some lovely-looking ladies running around there. Jeff insisted we go here for some authentic cheese steak action, which we did.

It was my only Philly steak sandwich and it was pretty damn good. Tom claims he still has his napkin, replete with grease stains on it. I did notice something interesting while standing in line, though. They had this colorful, wooden plaque memorializing some dead cop from the neighborhood.

Turns out this fella was the guy that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed. Whatever. I can’t stand cops anyway, but I thought it would be funny as fuck if some dirt-ass, dreadlocked, college campus-type wandered by in one of those “Free Mumia” T-shirts. I remember seeing those shirts and signs all over when I was a student at Wayne State back in the early-90s. It was interesting to see the other half of that situation.

Let's go back a bit.

2005-07-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

All of this summer planning and getaways are rising in me a bit of nostalgia. I thought last summer was pretty good and this summer is also turning out to be very interesting. This upcoming weekend, I have Friday and Monday off and we (as in all 10 of us) are heading to Silver Lake, on the western side of the state. Guaranteed there are some insane living sand dunes and, if the sky permits, some stunning sunsets. After that, we return for a night where get to take in Comerica Park for the All-Star Game and then, nine days later, Kerry and I head to San Francisco for a week to hang out and have a lot of fun.

I finally scanned some old photos I had sitting around and came across a couple from the Baltimore trip two summers ago. That was quite a time because I liked Baltimore, it reminded me a lot of Detroit — old neighborhoods, a strong blue collar vibe, a barely populated downtown and lots of black people. We went to see Tom’s brother Jeff, which was the reason we headed out there in the first place. Like Tom and Jerry and Bill, I grew up with Jeff. It seemed like he was always around (probably because we kept him up late at night with our choking/coughing, loud yapping and even louder music).

Anyway, we got to Baltimore and crashed late at night, getting up the next day and heading to Lexington Market, this big, kickass indoor market. They had stands and stands of anything you’d ever want to eat, and on this day, they had some steel drummers playing. And while I had a shitty disposable camera, I still did my best. I found this place to be very interesting in its signage.

If you’re going to eat fried chicken, it might as well be superfried.

Tom and I went exploring a little around downtown — as much as we could on foot, anyway. We checked out this big-ass aquarium and the marina district before wandering away down some side streets. We came across this place so I made Tom pose.

Still though, the main reason for the trip was to not only see Jeff, but to watch his Seattle Mariners take on the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. Great fucking park, by the way. This was the one that did for baseball parks across the country. Camden opened in 1992 with its vintage-park design and owners everywhere wanted a new one for their team (and many did follow suit), with lots of bricks and an old-timey feel. But Baltimore, really, was the first one to do it. Good for them.

I especially like this shot of Tom and Jeff.

Blood brothers those two, the second youngest in line in a family of nine. I dig these guys, fucking solid friends forever who have never and will never let me down, never sell me out or try to play some little bitch mind game like some people who claim friendship will often attempt. I can count on these guys (and their brothers) forever. That’s some real shit right there.

The numbers don't lie, especially when they say nothing

2005-06-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hard to tell if this guy is any good. He could suck, or, he could be quite phenomenal, actually. Language barriers man, no good for anyone.

Miss you, Mitch

2005-06-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

Martian posted this at Left Hand Pathos today. I ripped it off. Enjoy.

Mitch Hedberg quotes.
“No real reason except that he was fucking funny and I miss all the jokes I will never get to hear from him...”-Jase

I got an ant farm. Them fellas didn't grow shit.

I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long.

Last week I helped my friend stay put. It's a lot easier than helping someone move. I just went over to his house and made sure that he did not start to load shit into a truck.

I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others.

I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.

I want to be a race car passenger: just a guy who bugs the driver. "Say man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Why do we gotta keep going in circles? Can I put my feet out the window? Boy, you really like Tide."

I got in an argument with a girlfriend inside of a tent. That's a bad place for an argument, because I tried to walk out, and had to slam the flap.

I type a 101 words a minute. But it's in my own language.

I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run. He's fuzzy. Get outta here.

I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that.

My sister wanted to be an actress, but she never made it. She does live in a trailer. She made it half way. She's an actress, she just never gets called to the set.

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up.

I like vending machines, because snacks are better when they fall.

Pickles are cucumbers that sold out.

I was walking down the street with my friend and he said "I hear music." As if there's any other way to take it in.

2-in-1 is a bullshit term, because 1 is not big enough to hold 2. That's why 2 was created.

I know a lot about cars. I can look at a car's headlights and tell you exactly which way it's coming.

This shirt is dry clean only. Which means...it's dirty.

At my hotel room, my friend came over and asked to use the phone. I said "Certainly." He said "Do I need to dial 9?" I say "Yeah. Especially if it's in the number. You can try four and five back to back real quick."

My lucky number is four billion. That doesn't come in real handy when you're gambling. "Come on, four billion! Fuck. Seven. I need more dice."

I love blackjack. But I'm not addicted to gambling. I'm addicted to sitting in a semi circle.

I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time.

I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kabobs.

I used to do drugs. I still do drugs. But I used to, too.

The thing about tennis is: no matter how much I play, I'll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They're fucking relentless.

I think Pringles initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But Pringles is a laid back company. They said "Fuck it. Cut em up."

A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.

An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You would never see an "Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order" sign, just "Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience."

Because of Acid, I now know that butter is way better than margarine.

So, I sit at the hotel at night and I think of something that's funny. Or, If the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of wasn't funny.

You know that Pepperidge Farm bread, that stuff is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it, and then still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it, I don't need another step between me and toast.

This product that was on TV was available for four easy payments of $19.95. I would like a product that was available for three easy payments and one complicated payment. We can't tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is going to hard.

You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don't want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.

I would imagine if you could understand Morse Code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy.

I don't wear a watch because I want my arms to weigh the same. So if somebody asks me what time it is, I have to tell them something that is going on. "What time is it, Mitch?" "Uh, that guy is eating a hamburger." "Shit, I had to be somewhere..."

I went to the park and saw this kid flying a kite. The kid was really excited. I don't know why, that's what they're supposed to do. Now if he had had a chair on the other end of that string, I would have been impressed.

At my hotel room, my friend came over and asked to use the phone. I said "Certainly." He said "Do I need to dial 9?" I say "Yeah. Especially if it's in the number. You can try four and five back to back real quick."

I played golf... I did not get a hole in one, but I did hit a guy. That's way more satisfying...

I saw a human pyramid once. It was totally unnecessary.

This shirt is dry clean only. Which means... It's dirty.

I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, Don't even act like I didn't buy a doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D".

My friend was walking down the street and he said, "I hear music." As if there is any other way of taking it in. I tried to taste it, but it did not work.

I snake bite emergency kit is a body bag.

Sometimes I wake up and I think I should start wearing a beret, but I don't do it though. One day I'm gonna though. You bet your ass, I will have a beret on. That's ridiculous, but it's true. I always fight with wearing a beret.

A minibar is a machine that makes everything expensive. When I take something out of the minibar, I always fathom that I'll go and replace it before they check it off, but they make that stuff impossible to replace. I go to the store and ask, "Do you have coke in a glass harmonica? ...Do you have individually wrapped cashews?"

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

It's hard to dance if you just your lost wallet. "Whoa! Where's my wallet? But, hey this song is funky..."

It's very dangerous to wave to people you don't know because what if they don't have hands? They'll think you're cocky.

Someone handed me a picture and said, "This is a picture of me when I was younger." Every picture of you is when you were younger. "...Here's a picture of me when I'm older." Where'd you get that camera man?

If I was a locksmith, I'd be pimping that out man. I'll trade you a free key duplication for... That joke made me laugh before I could finish it, which is good, because it had no ending.

I want to be a race car passenger: just a guy who bugs the driver. "Say man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Why do we gotta keep going in circles? Can I put my feet out the window? Man, you really like Tide..."

I wrote a letter to my dad - I wrote, "I really enjoy being here," but I accidentally wrote rarely instead of really. But I still wanted to use it so i crossed it out and wrote, "I rarely drive steamboats, dad - there's a lot of shit you don't know about me. Quit trying to act like I'm a steamboat operator." This letter took a harsh turn right away...

I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone needs to get ahold of me they just say, "Mitch," and I say, "what" and turn my head slightly...

Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can get yelled at for having. Goddamn it Otto, you are an alcoholic. Goddamn it Otto, you have Lupis... one of those two doesn't sound right.

I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammible and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.

I like cinnimon rolls, but I don't always have time to make a pan. That's why I wish they would sell cinnimon roll incense. After all I'd rather light a stick and have my roommate wake up with false hopes.

People teach their dogs to sit, it's a trick. I've been sitting my whole life, and a dog has never looked at me as though he thought I was tricky.

My friend said to me, "You know what I like? Mashed potatoes." I was like, "Dude, you have to give me time to guess. If you're going to quiz me you have to insert a pause."

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see an "Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order" sign, just "Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience."

I used to be a hot-tar roofer. Yeah, I remember that day...

A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.

I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shishkabobs.

That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, "It's cool, he's with me."

If you had a friend who was a tightrope walker, and you were walking down a sidewalk, and he fell, that would be completely unacceptible...

I know a lot about cars. I can look at a car's headlights and tell you exactly which way it's coming.

I have a cheese-shredder at home, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, which is sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, and now I have little bits of sponge that would melt easily over tortilla chips...

If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be messed-up.

I bought a seven dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring.

My sister wanted to be an actress, but she never made it. She does live in a trailer. She got half way. She's an actress, she just never gets called to the set.

Every time I go and shave, I assume there is somebody else on the planet shaving as well, so I say, "I'm gonna go shave too."

Why are there no during pictures.

I have an underwater camera just in case I crash my car into a river, and at the last minute I see a photo opportunity of a fish that I have never seen.

I had a velco wallet in a casino. That sound annoyed the hell out of me. Whenever I lost money, and I opened the wallet, it was like the sound of my addiction.

Sometimes I fall asleep at night with my clothes on. I'm going to have all my clothes made out of blankets.

I type a 101 words a minute. But it's in my own language.

My apartment is infested with koala bears. It's the cutest infestation ever. Way better than cockroaches. When I turn on the light, a bunch of koala bears scatter, but I don't want them too. I'm like, "Hey... Hold on fellows... Let me hold one of you, and feed you a leaf." Koala bears are so cute, why do they have to be so far away from me. We need to ship a few over, so I can hold one, and pat it on its head.

I wish I could play little league now. I'd be way better than before.

I never joined the army because at ease was never that easy to me. Seemed rather uptight still. I don't relax by parting my legs slightly and putting my hands behind my back. That does not equal ease. At ease was not being in the military. I am at ease, bro, because I am not in the military.

I had a bag of fritos, they were texas grilled fritos. These fritos had grill marks on them. They remind me of something, when we used to fire up the barbeque and throw down some fritos. I can still see my dad with the apron on, better flip that frito, dad, you know how I like mine.

I opened-up a yogurt, underneath the lid it said, "Please try again." because they were having a contest that I was unaware of. I thought maybe I opened the yogurt wrong. ...Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me... "Come on Mitchell, don't give up!" An inspirational message from your friends at Yoplait, fruit on the bottom, hope on top.

I hate flossing, I wish I just had one long curvy tooth.

The next time I move I hope I get a real easy phone number, something like 2222222. People will ask, "Mitch, how do I get a hold of you?" I'll say, "Just press two for a while, when I answer, you'll know that you've pressed two enough."

My lucky number is 4 billion, that doesn't come in real handy when your gambling. I'm gonna need some more dice, 4 billion divided by 6, at least.

A waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap.

You know they call corn-on-the-cob, "corn-on-the-cob", but that's how it comes out of the ground. They should just call it corn, and every other type of corn, corn-off-the-cob. It's not like if someone cut off my arm they would call it "Mitch", and then re-attached it, and call it "Mitch-all-together".

I like buying snacks from a vending machine because food is better when it falls. Sometimes at the grocery, I'll drop a candy bar so that it will achieve its maximum flavor potential.

On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana?

My roommate says, "I'm going to take a shower and shave, does anyone need to use the bathroom?" It's like some weird quiz where he reveals the answer first.

I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. There's a large out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside.

I wrote my friend a letter with a highlighting pen, but he could not read it, he thought I was trying to show him certain parts of a piece of paper.

I use the word totally too much. I need to change it up and use a word that is different but has the same meaning. Mitch do you like submarine sandwhiches? All-encompassingly...

I think pickles are cucumbers that sold out. They sold their soul to the devil, and the devil is dill...

...and then at the end of the letter I like to write "P.S. - this is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.

I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others.

I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that.

The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall.

My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, I said "No, but I want a regular banana later, so, Yeah."

Mr. Pibb is a poor imitation of Dr. Pepper. Dude didn't even get his degree.

Get out!!!!

2005-06-28T06:11:00.000-07:00

lame
Originally uploaded by norll.

Man, I hope they have some left.

Ode to a Martian ...

2005-06-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

So, this really good guy I know turned 38 over the
weekend. Now, I won’t get into some long, soupy missive about what it’s like to have a bro like Jason. We’ve both been through quite a bit, from really good times, to periods of not speaking to one another to e-mail fights to whatever. When you’ve known someone as long and as tight as we have, you eventually work shit out, and while friendship goes both ways, I feel that I’m definitely the better person for knowing him. Many know him by given nicknames of Buddha or Dirty Jase. But before that, back when we were young and brash, he went by a lot of other names — Martian, Wafflehead, Virus 25, JaseJase, among others. Here I will share some images of Jason Joseph Voisine, sort of an evolution if you will. This is how we see him today.

But many, many moons back, he used to do shit like this. You know whose kitchen that was shot in, don’t you? Hint: his family owns a cheese company.

When he moved to San Francisco, he was still quite a young man. Here, I like to call this the Svelte Jase.

Still, he would come back periodically. Me, him and Glom would head to Rush Lake for long weekends of binge drinking and excessiveness, chief among them, Yahtzee. Here he is doing the math, probably fucking cheating too. Bitch. Just kidding.

One winter he came back to Michigan and we went to The Palace, where he ran into one of his favorite Detroit athletes. Coupla Bad Boys, indeed.

Nowadays, he takes cameras and does shit like this.

Happy belated birthday, buddy. Glad you liked the package. See you in a few weeks.

If not one, then the other

2005-06-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

In the post below, I believe I challenged the San Antonio Spurs to "bring it." I would like to tell Tim Duncan, "uh, thanks, I got it. 'It' being what I asked you to bring."

If I can't have back-to-back NBA titles for the Pistons, at the very least I can look forward to back-to-back nights of getting a decent amount of sleep. Thanks in a "fuck you" sort of way to ABC for the 9:20 p.m. tipoffs and not one of those on a Friday or Saturday night.

Bring it.

2005-06-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

This is almost too much to take. A Game 7 NBA Finals game that’s about seven hours away. I’m not even playing in the damn thing and I’m nervous.

There is something storybook-like-but-with-out-the-storybook about this specific Pistons team. I love the fact that they’re a bunch of weirdos and presumed underachievers, at least by NBA standards, that nobody wanted. Ben Wallace played college ball at Virginia Union. Chauncy Billups is on his FIFTH pro basketball team. What do you think prompted Joe Dumars to get either one or both of them? Chaunce was a good shot in Denver, but that’s about it. He comes to Detroit and he’s MVP? Wallace is a decent rebounder in Orlando. He comes to Detroit and, literally, redefines the practice. In his path, he earns an NBA championship and three Defensive Player of the Year awards. It should’ve been four. The league gave that shit to Ron Artest last year because they don’t want Detroit having too much of a good thing.

And then we have Rasheed Wallace, perhaps my favorite Piston ever (apologies to Buddha, Spider, Microwave and the Worm). Branded, seared if you will, an asshole malcontent in Portland. Busted with dope in his ride, chiding the media, ignoring the coaches and, above all, acting like an immature idiot on the court. He comes to Detroit, has a little sit-down with LB and Joe D. and becomes the crucial element to last year’s championship season. He takes no shit and lets his mouth flap whenever and wherever he wishes. With that, I can identify.

But finally, and ultimately, you have a team that truly embodies its city like none other. Can people in the Bronx really identify with Derek Jeter’s Madison Avenue lifestyle and Fort Knox salary? Did the dope-slinging, white-girl-fucking Dallas Cowboys teams of the early to mid-90s really embody the Texas community they purportedly represented? The Pistons, however, are emblematic of Detroit’s reputation and people who live, work and play in Detroit. Nobody likes the Pistons, not ESPN, not the NBA, not NBC, David Stern or any other cities’ fans. And as Detroiters, we know that the rest of the country really doesn’t like us, either. They see our city as the armpit of the Midwest, the broken, frayed loop in the decimated Rust Belt. Nobody vacations here, nobody feels safe here, the rest of the country, unless they have friends or family here, thinks it is a murderous wasteland of failing industry and violent homeboys. Look at the Pistons roster. Castoffs nobody wanted, a team assembled of players that coaches and general managers looked at said “uh, you’ve GOT to be kidding me,” kind of like how someone from, say, Chicago or New Orleans would react after being asked if they wanted to go to Detroit for a “long weekend.”

This is a Detroit team that knows how to win but is prone to mistakes. It is a team that wins huge games when there is no other option. Faced with the decision of performing successfully or face falling short of your own, personalized lofty standards, they dig a deeper layer and pull out a pride-soaked, humility-addled sense of accomplishment.

Somewhere on Detroit’s west side, a mother of three in some shitty apartment, with precious little income or supporting adult figure in the home (read: a daddy to the kids), comes home from a double-shift at one of her three jobs (where she probably makes less than her white counterpart), puts her kids to sleep and, after cleaning up and trying to pay bills, manages four hours of sleep so she can get up and give them a modest, possibly substandard breakfast. But she’s trying because she won’t give up. There’s some guy in a stifling cauldron of a shop somewhere in the city, taking an extra couple of hours at the end of a 14-hour day rebuilding engine cores because he knows that extra $47 is a couple of days worth of groceries for his family. That’s the kind of shit I’m talking about.

And when the Pistons won that Game 7 against Miami — Jesus H., Miami? Can you find a more polar opposite than Detroit? The moon, perhaps? — Richard Hamilton tells reporters “This is what we do. This is what we HAVE to do.” And it’s what we have to do also, to get up every day and make a living, to sometimes sacrifice. This basketball team gets no recognition from the rest of the country for being champions, for playing “team ball” … for being real. And neither do we. We get no credit for being decent, relatively honest and painfully hard-working, loving people in a tough city that has about as much in the way of looks as an infected ear canal. To that, in the media, the Pistons say keep the credit, keep the respect, we’ll keep the championship trophy.

Let’s hope it sticks around for another year.

Din-din

2005-06-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

We had quite a fine meal last night, constructed right in the kitchen and enjoyed enormously by Kerry and I. A foodie, I am not. Well, I might be an amateur one in the making, but to me, foodies are people very well-versed, enamored by and painfully respective of, the culture of food. From the caper to the caramelized, they know it all and dig it all. And they do it for fun and elightenment. Having said that, I would like to introduce the rather toothsome meal we made last night.

Entirely her idea, as she is the adventurous cook in this relationship, she found recipes for spiced tuna salad and corn cakes. We made them both. The tuna salad was incredibly good, with a nice little kick of zest. We used ahi tuna for this deal, and at $20 a pound it was worth every cent. It was pan-seared and delicious. Here is the recipe:

Spiced, pan-seared tuna salad
Makes 4 salads; Total time: 30 min

Stir Together:
3 T. fresh orange juice
2 T. sweet orange marmalade
1 t. kosher salt

Marinate, Season and Sear:
1 lb. Fresh tuna, cut into 2-inch pieces, Cajun seasoning to taste
2 T. vegetable oil
1 cup grape tomatoes

Whisk Together:
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 T. mayo
2 T. honey
1 T. minced fresh tarragon
1/2 t. fresh kosher salt

Combine; Toss with Dressing
8 cups romaine, torn
1/2 cup red onion
1 can Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed (15 oz.); salt to taste

Stir 3 T. orange juice, marmalade, and 1 t. salt together.
Marinate tuna pieces in the marmalade mixture for 5 minutes. Drain, then place on a plate and season with Cajun spices. Heat 2 T. oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high. Sear tuna until brown, then add tomatoes and sauté, stirring occasionally, until blistered, 1-2 minutes

Whisk together juices, oil, mayo, honey, tarragon and salt
Combine romaine, onion and beans. Add dressing to taste, toss to coat, and season with salt.
Divide the salad evenly among four serving plates. Top each with some of the tuna and tomatoes and serve while tuna is warm.

We left out the tomatoes. I can’t stand them anyway, let alone warm. And when we make this dish again — and we will because it’s a total keeper — I think brown rice might be a suitable replacement for the romaine. Maybe drizzle a little soy sauce on it. This is what it looked like last night.

I was left to the corn cakes, which probably isn’t the healthiest thing in the world (white flour, sugar, oil, fried in a pan), but goddamn they were good. And a little indulgence of that variety, once in a bluest of moons, isn’t going to kill anyone, especially me, with the Fisher-Price heart. They tasted a lot like, well, cornbread. Make them this way:

Corn Cakes

Whisk together:
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup yellow all-purpose flour
1 1/2 T. sugar
1/2 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
Pinch of cayenne

Combine and Add; Fry Cakes in:
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 cup corn, chopped, fresh or frozen
1/4 cup scallions
4 T. vegetable oil, divided

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Combine buttermilk, egg, corn and scallions; add to dry ingredients and stir just to combine. Heat a sauté pan at medium-high.
Add 2 T. oil to the pan, then pour 1/4 cup batter into the pan for each cake, spreading them into 3-inch to 4-inch circles. Cook cakes until crisp, about 2 minutes on each side, then drain on a paper towel-lined rack. Add remaining oil to the pan and repeat process.
After frying, drain cakes on paper towels. Keep them warm in a 200-degree oven. They turned out looking like this

Like I said, they turned out phenomenally well, at least in my opinion. Cooking with your significant other, I’ve learned, is a great opportunity in several forms. For someone like me, it lends a little more confidence in the kitchen. It also requires a little teamwork. But most importantly, it provides an invaluable opportunity to talk, even if it’s what happened with your day sort of stuff. Or, if you’re like us, you use it as a chance to have some semi-serious conversations about important issues like upcoming vacations, planning, and moving in together. But the best part, like cutting the grass or shoveling the sidewalk, is you get to enjoy the work when it’s done, much like we did here.

This should surprise nobody

2005-06-22T12:26:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, please, please put your hands together for my hometown …

This from today’s mlive.com:

Bay City tops national listing of job losses
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
By Rob Clark
Bay County has earned a dubious distinction: By percentage, it is the nation's biggest loser of jobs over the past year.
A report issued earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Labor shows that from April 2004 to April 2005, the Bay City statistical area lost 1,200 jobs, dropping from 40,300 in 2004 to 39,100 this year.
The 3 percent loss was the highest percentage decline among the 367 metropolitan areas nationwide that are tracked by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The statistics reflect the number of employees on nonfarm payrolls.
The Bay City statistical area encompasses all of Bay County.
Local economic development leaders said the statistics should serve as a wake-up call.
"I think what it does is shows that, now more than ever, we need to recruit new jobs and do everything we can to help local businesses expand," said Michael D. Seward, president of the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce.
"I'm surprised to hear that Bay City is right at the top of the list. But we know we have lost jobs here and we have to do something about it."
Seward said local and state officials, including representatives of government and business, must work together to make Michigan a better place to do business and then more effectively spread the word.
"When you look at the cost of doing business in Michigan versus other states, we simply do not rank with them," said Seward. "We need to do the things that make businesses look at Michigan and the Bay area in a more positive way.
"Michigan is far and away the worst in job growth in the U.S., and we need to turn that around."
Bay County isn't alone when it comes to job losses in Michigan.
The Department of Labor also reported that the Detroit-Warren-Livonia market lost 21,600 jobs from April 2004 to April 2005, making it the biggest employment loser in the country, well ahead of the second-largest loser, Baton Rouge, La., which saw a decline of 2,400 jobs.
The Lansing-East Lansing area had the sixth-biggest employment decline, losing 1,500 jobs, according to the report.
While some market areas of Michigan did show slight increases in employment over the year - including Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo - none of those areas was among the largest gainers.
The Washington, D.C., market area saw the largest jump in number of jobs, 84,500, and Yuma, Ariz., had the largest percentage increase, 10.8 percent.
Frederick W. Hollister, president and chief executive officer of Bay Future Inc., said his organization is aware of the work to be done.

"The economy in the state of Michigan has had some difficulties. The state, overall, hasn't had the kind of job growth and retention that we would hope for," said Hollister, who took over as head of the public-private economic development organization about three weeks ago. "I don't think there is anything in particular that makes Bay City different."
But, he said Bay City and Bay County have a lot of positive attributes, among them a good location, a strong work force and experience in traditional manufacturing.
"I feel confident that as the economy improves, we can find opportunities to grow in Bay County," Hollister said. "It's just going to take some time. I think there's a lot of good work we can do; we just need to get to it."
State employment statistics compiled by the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth show some positive movement on the job front in Bay County.
The agency reports that total employment, including farm payrolls, part-time workers and those who work from home, grew from 52,473 in April 2004 to 52,832 this past April.
However, Bay County's unemployment rate remained at 7.1 percent during that time.
But a non-scientific survey conducted by The Times in March showed that year-to-year employment at Bay County's top 50 employers fell more than 4 percent, from 17,278 jobs in 2004 to 16,560 this year.
The Bay City area was one of 58 market areas to report job declines to the U.S. Department of Labor this year. Another 305 metropolitan areas reported increases and four areas had no change.
The report can be viewed at www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm.

Birthday fun with Max

2005-06-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was Maxwell’s first birthday party and while we couldn’t stay for very long, it was still some good fun. This was true for a couple of different reasons, the boy’s birthday celebration chief among them. But for me, personally, it was good to see some folks I have not seen in a very long time, including Max’s parents. It’s been a couple of years since I saw Al and Roseanne, as well as Fred and Diane, so that was definitely good for my soul. Those people, for pretty much all of my adult life, have treated me very well and I have as much respect for them as I do for myself. And, of course, who could forget Stella Dog?

Max definitely made out. Looks like he got some great toys and some pretty bomb clothes, plus a lot of attention. He behaved quite well, I must admit. With all of the hoopla around him, he didn’t freak out. He took a break from the festivities to ready up a smooch for the stuffed toy Diane was putting in front of him.

Kid loves his grandma, obviously. I think anyone who knows Max’s grandma feels the same way. I know I do. And with all of the activity, a boy has to replenish his fluids, you know. And he sure did love his red balloon and toy lawnmower. I don’t think he separated himself from it the entire time I was there.

Not that I’m ready to run out and start having them, but I think Maxwell will go down as the kid whose birth and presence really sort of modified the way I look at babies and children in general. I dig my nephew.

Best bread ... EVER!

2005-06-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

000_1047
Originally uploaded by norll.

I know many would disagree, but this, hands down, the best damn loaf of bread around. It's from a bakery in Saginaw, Michigan and produces the best toasted tuna fish sandwich you'll ever enjoy. I don't get back up to mid-Michigan often, and for a lot of different reasons, but when I do, I score at least a loaf when I'm there.

Charles

2005-06-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

Charlie_profile_site
Originally uploaded by norll.

She's getting noticed, alright

2005-06-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

This is from today’s Free Press:

June 16, 2005

A 24-year-old Clinton Township woman who made up a story that she had been raped on I-696 pleaded guilty Wednesday to filing a false police report. Sabrina Zerzycki faces up to 4 years in prison and a $2,000 fine when she is sentenced July 20 by Oakland County Circuit Judge Edward Sosnick. Zerzycki told police April 6 that she had a flat tire on I-696 when a motorist stopped and offered assistance. Instead, she said, he raped her in her car. Two weeks later, she admitted making up the story.

I remember when this story broke at, like, 11 p.m. at night. For two weeks, every woman driving that stretch of 696 was paranoid as hell and I’m sure any guy driving a late- to early ‘90s Ford F-150 was just as nervous. The cops even hauled one suspect in for four hours of questioning before he was released. The nerve of this warped fuck. She invokes the worst, most despicable crime, the most hideous, soul-annihilating event that could happen to any woman, all because she reportedly wanted some attention. Is she for real? Four years in prison is right. I hope the judge gives every second of it to her. And when she’s in the joint, I’m sure a handful of extra-large homegirls with some scary-looking strap-ons will make her think twice about throwing the word “rape” around. Dumb bitch.

An evening's cruise

2005-06-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

The weather has turned nicer and since the day I moved to Detroit (still, the smartest thing I’ve ever done) and its suburbs back in August of 1990, I’ve always enjoyed just driving around the city on a nice night. Granted, it’s not something I get to do a lot of, so, like flying a kite, I enjoy it when I can. Plus, with my newfound interest in photography (to which I owe a certain amount of thanks for their inspiration, two guys with cameras and blogs, Dirty Jase and The Rooster; thanks, fellas), I’ve since become compelled to actually get out of the car and take some shots. And so it was last night in the evening when I had to go shoot a couple of venues for my puny, little freelance gig, I found inspiration in the city and decided to take advantage. First was a stop at the Northern Lights Lounge, where Kegger kind of guided me around to some good vantage points. I got this.

Which he really liked and said he hopes to use in some promotional materials. Before that, however, I was stopped at Woodward at the Boulevard. Looking to my left, I saw this gentleman, who kept swaying to the breeze and massaging his groin.

No, that’s not fucked up or anything.

After the Northern Lights and the street autoeroticist, I wanted to head by the Mercury Bar by old Tiger Stadium. They’ve been renovating the place for more than a year now and I wanted to see the progress so I can ultimately cover it. I took Warren to Trumbull and found myself in the Woodbridge area, a place I’ve long-forgotten for me since Tiger Stadium closed. I just to zip down this exact way back when I was a student at Wayne State. Back in the day, you could get into the ballpark for free after the 7th inning. Listening to game on the radio in the school’s newspaper office, I often would head down if it was tied, or if someone was going for a landmark like the 100th career win or 200th home run or something. I once burned quite a path down here, but it’s been years since I’ve been on Trumbull anywhere north of Michigan. I thought this place looked very interesting.

I’m not about to comment on Detroit’s blight and the beauty of its old structures. I have too much respect for the folks who do it right, but buildings like this fascinate me. I wonder what it was like inside of there when it was vibrant and lively. What kind of families lived there, the fun they may have had, what their holidays were like, say, back in the ‘40s and ‘50s when the city had a pulse and buildings like this were alive.

I figured since I’m out taking pictures, I might as well get the old Michigan Central Railroad Station.

This thing is monumentally cool looking, it’s just insane. Again, I wonder what excitement it held back in the day. That fucking mayor of Detroit (and I think that’s all I’ll refer to him from now until Freman bounces his ass out of office) had designs to make this the new police headquarters.

Good luck with all of that, guy.

Weekend update: Cars and candy

2005-06-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

Not bad, a little hot but not bad. I spent all day Saturday running around, which was a colossal drag. And had it not been for me finding the shot of the month, I would’ve suffered great disappointment. I took Conant all the way up to Eight Mile and found this gem at Conant and East Lantz. Dig it.

Now there’s an address for you: Chocolate City. Hi, my name is Norll and I live at 138 Super Fly Avenue (at the corner of Mack Motherfucker) in Chocolate City, Michigan. The ZIP code is 5, baby. It had a portable marquee in the parking lot inviting all ladies to come and try out for employment. They also advertise for patrons to come “watch all NBA games here.” Game Three anybody?

Speaking of mack motherfuckers, I got to see Dirty Jase this weekend at his ma’s house. We hung out for a few hours while Grant fully assaulted the grill. It was nice. It was a good, family meal with someone else’s family who treats me like I’m one of their own. I have about three surrogate parents right now and I love all of them (thanks Mr. and Mrs. Wells, Fred and Diane). Good to see Paul and talk boxing with him. I hope to get him down for a couple of fights. I’d like to go see Tommy Hearns’ kid throw down next bout he has. One of the only redeeming things in mid-Michigan are the excellent cars you see for sale by the side of the road. Some old German immigrant farmer out in Auburn probably has an untouched-in-a-decade, spotless ’76 Cutlass Supreme in his yard, ready for purchase. So, we were heading to Dorothy and Ross’ house and I spot the bad boy of them all, the rare REAL hybrid before they starting using that term to market new Hondas. That’s right, the half-truck, half-muscle car enigma that is, the El Camino

When we were young adults still acting like 13-year-olds, Jase and I often referred to the El Camino as the “Bad El.” This thing was for sale on the side of the road. God, I just love the kitsch of it alone. Note here, the customized tailpipes with the Chevy emblem and the vanity plate. Only in Bay City, people.

Hey man, I know it's warm outside

2005-06-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

reader
Originally uploaded by norll.

But put a fucking shirt on!! The heatwave in Ham Sandwich last week was unbearable. Well, at least not for me. My stealth landlord did it right the central air unit. I kept it so cold in there, I think I got sick. But I get up today for work and I see this guy across the street. He was there the evening prior also. Now look, I make fun of myself before I make fun of anyone else, so I'm not trying to be mean. And quite frankly, my upper body physique is nothing to brag about, which is why I wear a fucking shirt when in public.

It gets up to 95 in Ham Sandwich for seven straight days and it's nothing but flesh and man nipples everywhere. Gross. But hey, at least he's reading, right? And from the looks of it, he's nearly finished. Hopefully, when done with his tome, he'll go inside and properly clothe himself.

Me and my girl

2005-06-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

Kerry and I were talking the other day and she wondered aloud why I’ve yet to post a picture of us on this blog spot. And I guess I didn’t really have a good answer. I thought that for the sake of self-preservation, I would never do such a thing, but I think about four people read this anyway, so it’s probably very harmless. It took me a while to find a good one, one that I really liked, one I felt really showcased our commitment to each other, a photo, if you well, that captures more than just our physical selves, but, rather our aura of love surrounding us. So, for all to see, here we are, the happy couple.

This was an especially poignant moment in our relationship, the day we had the studio shots done. She, of all people, was adamant about wearing our matching Ruff Ryders medallions. What!! What!!! Often we debate what is the best DMX song of all time. She insists on saying “Fuck Y’all” and/or “Niggaz Done Started Something” are the truest, real reflections of DMX’s discography, that those are not songs, rather, they are one man’s journal, a portal into the truest part of the soul. I usually win out, though. It’s hard to argue against “What These Bitches Want.” Compelling, really.

Alright, alright, just kidding. This is really what I think is a good picture of us. She claims not to like it, but it’s one of my favorites.

It was taken last summer at the Heidelberg Project, one of our favorite things about Detroit. And it was taken at a time that was really the infancy of our relationship, one that has grown into something really quite wonderful. So, yes, I said it here in my little blogsphere and quite frankly, I’d write it in the sky if it were that important.

City living and so, so much more

2005-06-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

Before the Pistons game 1 (a very deflating loss) Thursday, Kerry and I went to this opening reception event for the recently renovated Carlton Hotel. It was interesting, but we didn’t stay long. Had some wine and a quick snack while checking out these overly priced loft spaces. They were very nice and sleek, but a little on the small side. Plus, starting in the $250s, it’s obviously a bit rich for my blood. It was still kind of fun to check them out. As is keeping with my nature, I couldn’t help but be annoyed, just a little. The crowd man, I mean, there was a.) some serious money in this room, and b.) if it weren’t the big $$ developers, it was a bunch of trendy “see me’s” hanging out. The live jazz was nice and the wine was really good. What I could’ve done without? The well-placed Vespa scooters around the reception area. I got a hundred that says no one in that room has a clue how to operate or maintain one of those fucking things. And really, come on. Let’s say you shell out the loot for one of these pads, you mean to tell me you’re going to ride your Vespa down John R or Brush? Where? It’s not like there is a Papa Vino’s down the block, you know. Or a library, or a bookstore, or a place to get a drink.

What I do like is the revitalization of that area. John R and Brush have long been nasty little wastelands. It’s nice, I guess, to see people pump some loot down there and spiffy up the dwellings. I can’t imagine they’re displacing a lot of people when there isn’t shit down there to begin with. One thing I would be curious to see: Kerry ran into a friend of hers who is actually buying a unit in this building. She mentioned something about moving in “after the security is set up.” That should be interesting to see how that plays out. I mean, I don’t live there nor do I plan on it, so I suppose my opinion might not mean much, but when you have a depressed area with a bunch of cool, but crumbling buildings all around it, I guess I’d rather see some revitalization and residency with a bunch of “yuppie types” rather than a bunch of junkie assholes walking around like zombies.

The units, like I said, were pretty sharp, but a bit small. However, if you’re an absolute baseball nut like me, you could walk to the park.

We went up to the third floor and took a look around. We actually got out onto a balcony and I got what I think is an amazing view of the city.

I was getting dizzy, though. Man, I don’t like being up that high. Admittedly, I could never do the rooftop thing. I’m so scared to death of heights, I get nervous standing on my porch. I’ll leave that stuff to the pros. Some cats go up high in funky buildings and they get a lot my respect because I sure as hell wouldn’t have the balls to even think about doing that stuff.

They did have a nice setup there, though. Kind of pretty, actually.

We left and decided to head to the Northern Lights Lounge on Baltimore. I knew it had switched hands and wanted to write it up for my little freelance gig. What a great surprise. We stayed for the first half of the Pistons game and hung out yukking it up with the bartender, a woman named Kyle. Very cool. Turns out Kerry also knows the owner (big shock, she seems to know everyone). So last night I get to meet Michael Solaka, president of the New Center Council, a Detroit nonprofit. According to Kerry, it gets much of its funding from GM mainly to revitalize the New Center area, working with developers and politicians to make things happen. Solaka owns the place, which used to be called The Tandem. Really nice guy, very cordial and funny and real, which has been a big priority for me in people these days. It’s kind of dark in there.

I also met a guy named Greg Visee (“Kegger” they call him), who has his hands in about three or Detroit-based business-to-business organizations and other initiatives, but I can’t remember any of them. He, too, was very cool and extremely funny. We look forward to going to back there.

So, yeah, not bad for a sweltering 90-degree night in the city. Looking forward to seeing Dirty Jase up at his ma’s house on Sunday, so I doubt I’ll blog much until after then. Game 2 is Sunday night. Detroit needs to split in San Antone before they come home for three straight.

That's right

2005-06-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

Pistons Win

There, at least somebody said it. It was a good, close game and an intense series, but Miami is done and it is on to the Finals. This team is incredible, especially these guys

It’s fun to watch, not so much as fan of basketball, because I couldn’t care less about the game or the league. It’s clearly not what it once was. I understand that sports evolve. Great. But the NBA has become a joke of sorts. There is no intense sense of competition that dominated the game in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Today, guys all have the same agents and same endorsement deals so they’re all cushy with each other. Guys help opponents up off the floor a little too often. There’s a lot of hand-slappin’ and a little too much love before tip-offs. The league is soft. But these Pistons seem to dodge that unpleasant endorsement. They pass, they feed off of each other and they have a team president who built this team so that if one guy goes down, there is another there to step up and hit it. Can’t say that about a lot of teams. Are you listening, Miami? They brought in Shaq to win a title, but it’s clearly not happening this year.

Poke fun at Michigan and the Midwest all you want. We really don’t care. Miami can have the beaches, the fashion designers, the Cubans, the fucking gun lords, coke dealers, retirees, the cheesy chic nightclubs filled with guys who work way too hard to look like Sean Paul and the rest of the “hip” vibe that accompanies that city. Eat it up, folks. One thing you do not have and will not have is an NBA championship. And that’s what this was about, right? Yes, Detroit is a dirty, violent, economically stunted city and the Midwest is filled with fat-asses in roomy shorts who smoke too much. We understand that, so reminding us really isn’t the jab one thinks it is.

Bring on San Antonio, bitches.

Detroit basketball

2005-06-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

Time to cut this shit out. Tonight is Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals between Detroit and Miami. Winner goes to the Finals. Loser goes home, ass firmly in his hand. This series has been insane. Blowouts by Detroit, ass-kickings by Miami and through all of it, the constant rumors of Detroit coach Larry Brown and will he go to Cleveland at the end of the season. The coach? Everyone is talking about the coach? Last time I checked, the coach doesn’t dribble the ball up the fucking court and try to score, now does he?

Joe Dumars knew when he brought Larry Brown to this team that Brown is always looking for his next best option. He’s like the guy at the party talking to you but looking over your shoulder to see if there is someone else with whom he should be speaking. And that’s fine. He brought us a championship (hopefully two, and hopefully, incredibly back to back, as is the Piston Way) and if he wants to bolt, then bolt. Don’t be surprised when they bring in Phil Jackson to coach. Detroit sports sacrilege you say? If Chris Chelios, one of the most hated Red Wings opponents of all time (and I say “one of” because there is a long list of dirty dildoes who also hold the crown, they have names like Roy and Lemiuex and Marc Crawford), can sign with Detroit from the Blackhawks and come in here and win, embracing the Greek community, then anything can happen. Phil can keep all of his pseudo-hippie bullshit he wants, but I’d love to see him on our bench.

All of this, however, is inconsequential at this point. NBC, ESPN.com and the rest of those bitch-made punks are bored with Detroit. And it shows in their coverage. You could tell they were disappointed that Detroit won last year. Instead of “Detroit wins,” it was “Lakers lose,” followed by every quote imaginable by Kobe and Shaq and Phil and the rest of a team that was immediately dismantled in after aftermath of a beatdown that could be described only as leviathan in its nature. And so it is this year. Ben Wallace gets Defensive Player of the Year

and nobody nationwide blinks. But we are so used to this. This is how it has been for the Pistons. I remember back in 1988, when the Pistons beat Washington 3-2 and then Chicago 4-1 and then the mighty Boston Celtics, a team so revered by the national media they expected everyone to fucking genuflect before it, 4 games to 3. No, they got no love for that. It was “Chicago loses, Jordan still rules,” or “Boston loses, the world loves Larry.” No respect for Isaiah or Laimbeer or Joe D. and the seemingly bottomless bench that turned up every night for a seminar in teamwork, hustle and humility. Same thing in 1989, when they won the damn thing. They killed Boston (and that roster of Bird, Ainge, Parish, McHale and Johnson; classless pieces of shit every one of them), then beat Milwaukee 4-0 and the Bulls 4-2 before taking it 4-3 from L.A. And still, it wasn’t until they repeated the following year that they got a little respect.

Thankfully, it’s not about that now, nor was it ever really. This is a team that cares not if they get the nod by guys like Charles Barkley on TNT or from Brent Musberger back in the day. They don’t need it and they say so quite openly in print. Let Ben rule the middle or “keep a tight paint” as Kenyon Martin said to Sports Illustrated when describing Ben’s game. Keep a tight paint is right. Or Tayshaun blocking shots or Chaunce nailing the clutch. “Going to work” is a pretty fitting slogan for this team. I hope they show up tonight and slap Miami flat. Maybe someone will actually say “Detroit wins.” I’ll do it here if they don’t.

Some serious weather

2005-06-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of people, I have a great interest in severe weather. This is something developed at a young age with T/Glom. Love the storms, especially the thunderous variety. Well, Sunday was very hot, stifling actually (91 and muggier than a street bandit). So it was with great relief that a massive storm front came in around 8 p.m. and cooled everything off for a while. Kerry knocked on my back door and alerted to me that the clouds were looking crazy so we ran out on Caniff and stood on the porch checking it out. It got dark, quick-like. For a second it looked like this.

and then it looked a lot like this

before it ultimately looked like this

It was a nice, little storm. Knocked out some serious power around the metro area, but didn’t, thankfully, affect us.

Party down the line

2005-06-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

body>Now that was a lot of fun. Kerry and I had a “joint” party where we invited her friends and my friends to gather at her place in Royal Oak for a ton of some really good food, a bunch of booze and a general sense of festive communication. Although I did miss the presence of H & H, the Pardos, LB and Fossy, it was quite a time indeed. I’m a lucky boy in that I have a girlfriend that is a solid and adventurous cook, so the food was great. Also, the ladies from the camping posse showed up with a bunch of grub in tow and that was also a huge hit. Nothing though, beat Mary’s appetizer selection, featured here.

That’s right, those are Starbursts on a stick. Hells yes. I get along rather well with Kerry’s friends and family and she to mine, so this party wasn’t exactly a surprise that it would be fun and everyone would get along. Plus, the Pistons-Heat Game 6 was on, so that gave a lot of people something to keep themselves occupied/interested. I wasn’t in an especially photographic mood, but here are some fine folks watching the game in Kerry’s living room.

Still, quite a few kicked it outside. It was nice when it darkened and cooled a little. Vinnie and Kim conversing in the back yard amid the torch lights in the background, sort of. She’s a nice gal, way to go Vince.

It’s a challenge to find a better time when you’re surrounded by people you like. Take this fella for example.

He’s a lot of fun and even though I’ve been around him but a couple of times, we’ve been able to talk a lot about the aggressive music we like and some great bands that influenced us as adults. Plus, he’s just funny as fuck. Great guy that Jeremy, welcomed at my crib any time. The night turned sour toward the end when, not to my surprise at all, I saw Shaq’s big, stupid mug on the TV screen. I asked David to get a shot of me expressing myself to Mr. O’Neal. Hope your season ends tonight, fuckface.

Of course, I can’t say enough good things about Kerry’s brothers. This is Rian

But perhaps the highlight of the night is T showing up for, literally, five minutes. Just long enough to get in this shot with Matt and Chip, a couple of my favorite people these days.

He and Mr. Wells were coming from Comerica Park and headed back up north. He popped in to say hi and then was on his way. I would say that Tommy Boy is looking good these days. He’s been eating a lot of wolf berries and some other natural-type items. It’s definitely showing.

That party was a hell of a lot of work and it was worth every second, I think. Friends rule. Everyone else can fuck theyselves.

Memorial Day

2005-05-31T08:31:00.000-07:00

The holiday weekend saw a lot of activity, at least what I would consider to be a lot. We started Friday night with a wedding rehearsal dinner downtown at Union Street. Kerry’s friend was getting married, so that took up a better part of the weekend. The wedding was Saturday and was held at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Highland Park. Myself, not necessarily a big churchgoer, but I do dig how they look. This place was pretty stately and beautiful.

We had it pretty good after that. The reception was in the Renaissance Club, which is on, I think, the 31st floor of the Renaissance Center, affording to visitors a rather sweeping view of Detroit, Windsor and the surrounding suburbs.
I swear, by the way I felt when I woke up on Sunday, you would think that drink was to scale with the buildings outside. Ouch. It was a good, fun reception though. I like my girlfriend’s friends. From the onset, they’ve all been very cool to me. A lot of people were in from out of town, as most weddings will do. A small group of us ended up outside at about 1 in the morning, hanging out on the promenade at the Detroit River, outside of our hotel. It’s unlikely that I’ll see the people in this photo in the same room at the same time, but they certainly were a lot of fun.

We were both out of it Sunday. We headed to Pockets’ surprise party, so it was good to see our camping peeps there. We couched it Sunday night, watching a really good movie called “Enduring Love,” which, I think, has probably one of the most intense opening scenes I’ve seen possibly ever. We also watched rest of the really shitty Pistons game. Fucking refs. We got up Monday and went to Eastern Market for some flowers.

These vendors are really quite interesting. They are open 24/7, literally. I asked the kid working, “So, if I want to come down at 3 in the morning on a Tuesday and get a hanging basket, you’re open.” He applied in the affirmative. Twenty-four-hour outdoor flower vendors. Who knew? If you want to check them out, go here.

We headed to the Detroit Zoo after that. It was a nice day for it and we were having a hard time coming up with shit to do on our day off, believe it or not. We caught a couple of longnecks , as well as a very relaxed lioness
We also caught a glimpse of the new polar bear cub that was born at the zoo last month. Very cute.

Hi, I'm dumb.

2005-05-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

This is what you get, you fucking idiots. I hope it hurts.

"Sith" Fans Maimed in Lightsaber Mishap

By Charlie Amter
2 hours, 14 minutes ago
The Force--let alone common sense--was definitely not with them.
Two British Star Wars fans sustained critical injuries after constructing their own lightsabers from fluorescent light tubes filled with liquid fuel.
According to British media reports, a 20-year-old man and his 17-year-old female friend were filming a mock duel in homage to Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith, the latest chapter of George Lucas' record-breaking franchise.
The duo were reportedly emulating one of Sith's key battles, a lightsaber clash between Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker.
The two Brits suffered severe burns when their homemade sabers exploded. The two had been videotaping their clash. They have been hospitalized at Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire since the accident Sunday.
Aside from fiery accidents, the Sith craze is being blamed on a string of robberies. In separate incidents in Illinois and Florida, dark side-inspired crooks wearing Darth Vader helmets are being sought by police on assault and robbery charges.
Meanwhile, in other Sith-related news, federal authorities have shut down online file-sharing network Elite Torrents. The network had Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith available as a download hours before the film even bowed in U.S. theaters on May 19. Officials for the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security said users of the site had downloaded Sith more than 10,000 times in its first 24 hours of availibility.
Still, the online leak hasn't hurt Sith's bottom line, as the film broke all kinds of box-office records, including a Chewbacca-size $50 million on its first day of release.
All told, the film has raked in nearly $183 million domestically, per BoxOfficeMojo.com, with the lucrative Memorial Day weekend looming.

Don’t get me wrong. This is no slight on Star Wars fans, not in the least. But if you’re pulling this kind of stunt, first-degree burns are probably in order.

Polska in the Park

2005-05-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

It worked out well all the way around. I had already planned to go to the <
Friday night Tigers game against Arizona (first weekend of interleague play) when I get a call from Chris Pockets the day before asking me I want the fourth of four choice seats about 20 rows behind home plate. Nice. I get to the park and imagine my surprise when I see this on the big scoreboard.

For some reason, I dig most things Polish. And I’m not even Polish. A few minutes later, they trotted out a bunch of kids who started dancing in the outfield. It was kind of trippy, so I thought to grab a couple of shots of the action.

I met Chris, Don and Bruno in section 125 for what turned out to be a nice night, weather-wise, of baseball. The Diamondbacks’ Brandon Webb no-hit the Tigers for about seven innings, which kind of sucked, and while we lost, 6-2, which really sucked, it was still a nice night at the park. This, despite having to see that bitch-made punk Tony Clark playing for the D’backs.

The next night was even better. Kerry and I went to our first game together, which might not sound like a big deal to most people, but it was kind of important to me. She’s not exactly a fan of the sport, but she knows I spend a certain amount of time at Comerica and that I have this game in my blood, so she decided to come along. We had a lot of fun, had a couple of big beers and watched the Tigers win, 3-2, in 11 innings. We went to the WAB after the game and listened to the Grande Nationals with Brian C. and Kirsten. Not a bad night at all.

Politics is bullshit

2005-05-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

George W. Bush knew before Sept. 11 that he was going to do everything in his power to take out Saddam Hussein. After Sept. 11, he reportedly wavered on even entering Afghanistan, instead considering a military strike against Iraq. Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. The one-track mind of a redneck. More than 1,500 American soldiers are dead and the reputation of this country is now that of a blind, ravaging, brain-damaged beast. The president lies and smiles at the same time, kind of like that inbred-looking kid you went to school with, the one you want you wanted to slap just for the sake of hearing that sound.

In Detroit, on our local level, the mayor also continues to smile and lie. But he’s not some rich, oil-wealthy, white Republican. No, he’s a big homeboy with a penchant for rap music, Moet and Chandon (as the Detroit Free Press has revealed), strippers and sodomizing a city that’s already down. It’s no longer Motown, and when Kwame Kilpatrick is done with it, it’s going to be fucking NoTown. Look, I’m not going to get into some great political commentary here. That’s not my bag and quite frankly, I’m not as smart and well-armed to pull it off. But what Bush has done to this country and what Kwame has done to the city are obvious, disheartening and disgusting. It’s like Kwame’s mom gave to him a puppy for this birthday and rather than play with it and train it, he methodically ripped off each one of its legs, fucked it and then ate it. That’s what he’s doing to Detroit. Right now he’s in the “fucking” stage of that disturbing analogy.

I’ll never buy property in Wayne County, I don’t give a fuck where it is. I may live in Hamtramck now, but it won’t be for long. And it’s going to be a long time before I ever vote in another presidential election. Bush lied. Clinton lied, they all bullshit the voters because they don’t respect them.

I don’t know what it is about today, but I’m especially appalled at the way things are being done. Or not done, for that matter. And no, this isn’t an open invitation for some bearded asshole from the World Workers Party to pawn off some poorly mimeographed literature and try to fuel my disdain for the government. Those guys can fuck off, too. I see you at Eastern Market. You ain’t shit to me. I want to beat you silly with a sack full of sweet potatoes and unopened pop cans. Bitches.

I really don’t know I’m giving this so much thought today. I’m actually in a good mood. I have a good life and my soul is clean.

When, Matt?

2005-05-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

When, Matt?

It’s been quite some time since Detroit Lions president Matt Millen opened his big stupid mouth, I’m wondering when the next bomb will drop. A couple of seasons ago, during an interview on Chicago radio (Mike Ditka’s show, actually), Millen referred to one of this players as a “devout coward.” There are a couple of different things wrong with this, starting with its appropriateness and ending with its status in the world of proper grammar and sentence structure. People are typically “devout” about religious affairs. Webster’s New World also defines it as “earnest” and “sincere.” It just seems like a mismatch of words.

Last year, following a game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Millen, within earshot of a dozen reporters who were actually interviewing him, got pissy when former Lion Johnnie Morton ignored him in a hallway after the game (and why wouldn’t Morton diss the fool who traded him?). Millen called him, among other things, a “faggot,” to which Morton should’ve punched him the fucking mouth. Men who openly question and/or remark upon other men’s sexual preference typically have some sort of underlying, unspoken conflict with their own (e.g. cops, football players, high school gym teachers, most fraternity brethren [my apologies to my friend Pete and a bunch of his friends; those guys are all really cool and sort of undid a little of my sweeping generalization that all fraternity guys are fucking tools. Pete rules.], etc.). I am calling it right here and now that Millen, again, will say something not just controversial and newsworthy, but outright thoughtless and stupid come the 2005 season. I say, lets’ see, hmmmm, Week 5. He won’t be able to contain himself much later in the season than that. I wasn’t sure what to make when Detroit signed that guy out of the broadcast booth and I’m convinced he’s the wrong person for the job. He has no modicum of self-restraint or tolerance. You don’t hear Joe Dumars talking like that, do you? No, he’s too busy orchestrating a team to championships. Millen can’t get past .500. He’s a classless, brainless failure fuckbag of a man and I look forward to the day he leaves his job in Michigan.

Let the poppers pop and the breakers break.

2005-05-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

breakdance
Originally uploaded by norll.

A trip up The Thumb

2005-05-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

So, the first camping experience of the season was a success, although there wasn’t much to it. I drove to Harbor Beach Saturday, met Tom in the afternoon, we crashed in his camper for the night and took off the next day. Nothing big, but it was nice to get out of town, even for just one night. And the weather was decent. It got chilly at night, but we burned enough wood to power a small nation, so that seemed to work.

So, I’m driving up M-25, headed north way past Port Huron and Lexington, enjoying the sometimes fleeting glimpses of Lake Huron, when, all of a sudden, to my right, HOLY FUCKING HELL IF I DIDN’T FIND MY MID-LIFE CRISIS!!

Will you please, please, please take a look at that big, beautiful sonofabitch. Airstreams rock and this thing is like a train car. Oh yes, I can see it now perched just right on my big-ass chunk of land up north while I build my permanent home (sigh).

I get up there, me and Tom chill for a bit and then head into town. We found this little cemetery that had some well-placed signage

A visit into downtown Harbor Beach showed us some historical signs and wouldn’t you know it, HB is the burial place of none other than Frank Murphy, former gov. of Michigan and mayor of Detroit. We went back to the skull orchard to find his marker.

It was warm in Hamtramck when I left Saturday at noon, but as I got closer to the shore it dropped, literally, 20 degrees. We headed to some lighthouse and nailed what I thought was the shot of the weekend, thanks to Tom’s eagle eye.

The rest of the night held little in the way of surprises. We burned and chilled out, trying to pick up the Tigers on the radio. We ended up back in the camper playing some Yahtzee. Tom killed me six games straight. Here is his enthusiasm and rich sportsmanship.
We still had fun. He killed me on the first card and when we came back for another six, I knew I was doomed from the minute he filled out his scorecard and in the name category, wrote only “Rasheed.” I knew I was fucked. The campground was OK, but had way too many lights. I got this before I fell asleep.

Lazy Sunday

2005-05-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

While this is a little late, it was still a good weekend. Kerry and I got up two Sundays ago and decided the best thing to do would be cruise around Boston-Edison and Indian Village, checking out open houses. I always feel like some sort of dirty interloper at first. I mean, I’m in no position to buy a house and certainly not one of these pads. But after a while, I revert to the “fuck it and fuck them” theory. The door’s open people, don’t mind if I do. And these real estate people know, too. They know you ain’t buying shit. They, too, can fuck off. The house in Boston-Edison was nice. It has these killer windows in the dining room.

In one of the main, upper level bathrooms it was this amazing sink
. I swear, nothing beats the really cool, old-timey fixtures and designs that make up a classic house like that. The place was about 400k, had three levels and this very odd garage with a Spanish-tiled roof. Before we got there, though, we were stopped at a four-way on Second Avenue, when we heard some serious-sounding gospel music. It was coming from the basement of the building next to us. We pulled over and listened for about five minutes. It sounded great. Their drummer was just getting off. You know, some of the words are a little intense, but the musicianship was, well, divine.

Army slut/idiot/fuckbag

2005-05-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

skankjpg
Originally uploaded by norll.

Sometimes I would just rather be up north.

2005-05-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Spring is here and summer is en route. And while I get doubly excited about baseball games, grilling, chilling outdoors, nice, long walks, sweaty Saturdays in the yard, and the always invigorating sun, the one thing dominating my gray matter these days is the thought of going camping.

I’ll preface all of this by saying that I am an amateur camper, at the very best. But I am getting better and I do have some experience. My camping resume is split up into a couple of different areas. First, “The Family” camping trip, taken the second weekend in July with 10 people I really love and admire. And while they are not blood relations, we have a tight relationship nonetheless. I’ve been going with them for the last four years and I’ve had a true blast every time. Most of these cats, I only really get to spend quality time with during this trip, so we all get very excited at loafing around the fire and jumping in a Great Lake. It’s a lot of food, booze and camaraderie. There are 11 or 12 of us total. We eat like champs. I’ll write more about them later.

For now, with the weather changing, I can only think these days of northern Michigan and camping with my pal Tom. The other component to my annual camping schedule, in addition to the big, aforementioned group thing, is the long weekend trip to Leelanau State Park for the annual pow wow up there in Peshawbestown, outside of Suttons Bay. Tom and I meet up with H’s parents up there — they turned us on to this pow wow — and they rock forever, so it’s GREAT to see them. Love those two, Fred and D. This is a multi-tribal event with lots of drums and dancing (fancy dancing, elder dancing, singing, food, booths, all sorts of cool things). It’s incredibly intense. I mean, these folks are serious and it’s a total respect thing. Tom and I go there and we keep our mouths shut and watch these men, women and children pay homage to their rich culture and tradition. A narrator explains the dances and the dress and tradition. Drummers and singers sit in the middle in this big hut-looking thing while the dancers dance around the outside. At one point, they have a community dance, where anyone in the audience can come in and walk around the outside. You don’t have to dance, you can just walk around if you want. Tom and I are too chickenshit to do it. Maybe this year.

The campground, a beautiful 15-minute drive along the lake from the pow wow grounds, itself is stunning. Huge lots, enormous canopies of trees and Lake Michigan right in front of you. I zip open my tent and the lake is pretty much right there. No showers or electrical, but Tom has juice running to his camper from big-ass car batteries, so we can play Yahtzee at night with the lights on inside. He also has this bomb radio. It’s a crank-up thing and can pick up stations as far away as Missouri. Not bad, considering that we are in northern Michigan. Two years ago, we sat around a fire listening to a Lions pre-season game and when that was done, we were able to pick up the Cardinals game out of St. Louis until about 10:30.

This is the trip that really does it for me. I just love it up there. It’s like a blender for my senses and a soothing tonic at the same time. Seeing Fred and D. has a lot to do with it. Did I mention that I think those folks are really cool? Something about the air up there (see the link to the right on this blog—Leelanau) is oddly refreshing. We’re just outside of town, so we can head into Northport, which, every time I step foot in it I want to move there, and we can head all about the area. It’s hard to find a place that has any comparable impact on me. Something about northern Michigan is painfully unrivaled in its beauty and history.

We’ve always had good weather and when it’s 90-plus degrees in Detroit in August, with all of that cement, steel and glass, that Lake Michigan breeze makes it about 78 in Leelanau. Fuck yes.

But the entire camping dynamic, no matter where we are, has become an increasingly interesting hobby for me. Tom and I have burned a lot of wood in our years. I am one of these people who feel a fire is best when it is nice and high. much like myself when I’m up north. Last year, Tom and I went for what I thought were optimal conditions and this turned out to be one of the best camping experiences yet. We went after deer season, up to Clear Lake, Michigan in the middle of November. The nighttime temps were about 30 degrees and we did get some light snow. But it was great having the grounds to ourselves (there are about 100 sites and probably only three people camping that weekend). Plus, it was cold, so while this fire raged, we stood buy in jackets or layers of shirts, maybe taking a pull from the flask now and then and listening to old-timey a.m. radio drama programs. I remember specifically the story of Isabel Larue, the love of a young man’s life who was actually a ghost. This shit is from the ‘30s, so it’s pretty hokey and funny.

We got up Saturday and went for a walk. I found some dew
We also walked some hiking trails that weren’t marked so well. We retreated before we got lost, but it was a beautiful crisp day, pretty much at fall’s end. We saw a whitetail deer pop up and bolt from its resting spot about 40 feet from us. I don’t care who you are, but nobody is THAT quick on the camera. I tried to get a shot, but, well, those guys are pretty fast. We came back around the lake and Tom took in some serious reflection.

We got in Tom’s truck on Saturday and drove around Tomahawk Lake, a place we never knew existed. They have some killer campgrounds up there, but they’re kind of creepy. They are really primitive and huge, but they’re pretty backwoods. We hope to get up there this summer. We found this magnificent row of trees. We drove the 30 minutes to nearby Onaway, which is a strange little town. I remember my mom taking my brother Frank and I infrequently when we would spend weekends and summers on nearby Rush Lake. It was the only semblance of civilization up there, or so it seemed to a 12 year old. Once there, we absolutely had to pull over. We were pretty stoned and looking for a place to have a drink, but we were not having much luck. Instead, we found the library, this beautiful old building with these fucking bizarre structures on the front lawn:
If I’m not mistaken, I think that’s a big iron eagle’s head and some massive war-type artillery machine. Right? Either way, it’s still pretty twisted. That’s a scary part of the state anyway, a lot of rednecks and weirdos. The Traverse City/Leelanau area, for better or worse, is a lot cleaner, but still kind of raging on the affluent tip, perhaps the toniest of all northern Michigan destinations. But I would rather be there than anywhere else sometimes.

We had another fire that Saturday night and the temps got down around 30 again. It was huge. We kept stacking pallets and then pieces of wood, two pieces one way, two facing the other, like a little tower. It burns quickly that way and those coals get pretty hot. I took this shot inside
and it seems like you could stare at it for hours. And I think sometimes we have. And it’s times like this when I think of one of my favorite quotes. This, from Ernest Seton Thompson: “For millions of years our race has seen in this blessed fire the means and emblem of light, warmth, protection, friendly gathering, council. All the hallow of ancient thoughts, hearth, fireside, home is centered in its glow, and the home tie itself is weakened with the waning of the home fire. Not in the steam radiator can we find the spell; not in the water coil; not even in the gas log; they do not reach the heart. Only the ancient sacred fire of wood has power to touch and thrill the chords of primitive remembrance. When men sit together at the campfire they seem to shed all modern form and poise, and hark back to the primitive—to meet as man and man—to show the naked soul. Your campfire partner wins your inner love; and having camped in peace together, is a lasting bond of union—however wide your worlds may be apart.”

I think about this passage when I’m around a fire with people like Tom, or Toppi or Chip, Pat OD or Chris. And I believe it.

The rest of the weekend was fun but not very noteworthy. We burned some more and headed back “down state” Monday morning. I’ve been camping about a dozen times now and that was certainly the best, for whatever reason I don’t know. There are a handful of places I want to hit in summer of 2005, including up around Rogers City and the Huron National Forest. Like I said, I’m certainly no expert and I really can’t camp for more than four days straight. And camping purists will say we are doing it all wrong, but it’s not about them now is it? It’s about me and those close to me, from whom I glean a certain strength and joy with the summer night sky overhead, stars so big you could reach up and pluck one off to keep for yourself and the blissful, enchanting sounds of the Great Lakes humming along.

Zoe Olivia is here

2005-04-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

Rich R. is a good friend of mine. I could say a lot about him, chief among them that he is a good man, a quality journalist, is humble, true and above all else, trustworthy. His beautiful and cool wife gave birth to their daughter over the weekend, their first child. Here she is.

It's hard to refute, that is one cute kid. Which, however, is no surprise to me considering the gene pool from which she selected. If Rich is half as good at fatherhood as he is at being a friend, that kid's in good hands.

Hells yes

2005-04-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

I get into work the other day and my friend Nick drops this off at my desk. I'm astounded and intrigued at this product. First, it comes in two parts, one can of beans and a smaller, top can containing what is called the "fixin's," which is basically sauce and bacon. Also, this auxilliary container is sealed with some industrial-strength tape, blue in color. Mass production of this canned meal must be a bitch.

Upon my desk it will sit. Thanks, Nick.

Mayor McStupid

2005-04-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Hamtramck mayor is accused in sex assault

April 26, 2005

BY CECIL ANGEL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Michigan State Police are investigating a woman's accusation that the mayor of Hamtramck sexually assaulted her, then punched her, at a bar in the city, a State Police spokesman said Monday.

The mayor denies the allegation.

State Police Lt. Harold Love said the incident allegedly took place at the 88 Avenue Lounge on Conant. "It's going to be a high-profile case," he said.

The woman is 29 years old and lives in Roseville. According to her lawyer, Jason Malkiewicz, she and her boyfriend were at the bar shortly before 1:50 a.m. Sunday when Hamtramck's Mayor Thomas Jankowski walked into the bar.

A mutual friend of the woman and Jankowski called her over, saying, "Come and take a picture with the mayor."

At first, Jankowski held his hand in front of his face, but the woman insisted another unobstructed picture be taken. "He reached underneath, between her legs and touched her crotch area," Malkiewicz said.

The two began arguing, her lawyer said.

The boyfriend confronted Jankowski and the mayor hit him on the head, Malkiewicz said.

As the fight escalated, the bar's bouncers tried to restrain the mayor, but Jankowski swung at the woman, hitting her in the eye, Malkiewicz said.

In a written statement, Jankowski said, "The allegations are false. I'm anxious to respond to set the record straight. But because this is a legal matter, I am required to refrain from any comment. I will respond at the appropriate forum. I have no further comment at this time."

The couple went to the boyfriend's family's home in St. Clair Shores and at 3:15 a.m., tried to file a police report but police told them they had to go to Hamtramck. At about 4 a.m., they filed a police report in Hamtramck, Malkiewicz said.

It is the second time in less than a year that State Police have investigated an accusation of violence against Jankowski. In September, City Councilman Chuck Cirgenski accused the mayor of striking him twice in another Hamtramck bar.

Some advice here, OK? If you’re in a bar in Hamtramck (you won’t be alone, this town is rife with drunks) and Mayor Tom Jankowski walks in, either leave immediately or try to pre-empt the situation by getting in the first hit, preferably in the nuts or in the neck.

Who is this guy? He slaps around Hamtramck rummies and Roseville bar sluts? He certainly owns all of the trappings of a bitch-made little punk.

Personally, I think the southeastern Michigan area could reap incredible revenue benefits if we established and promoted, much like the NCAA basketball tournament every year in March, a Battle of the Mayors.

Let’s say you start with a field of 16 mayors, all from municipalities, excluding any township or village supervisors (sorry Lathrup Village and Clinton Township, you guys suck anyway).
We can get Jim “The Cappucino Killer” Ellison from Royal Oak, Michael “The Killer Pimp” Guido from Dearborn, Richard “Tie You Up” Notte (pronounced KNOTT-EE) from Sterling Heights, Pontiac’s Willie “Put You In Some Serious” Payne, and other municipal leaders. Three, three-minute rounds eliminate the first batch into the second round, a field of eight, and then a field of four and so on.

Believe it, Jankowski wouldn’t get into the semis or even the final. You can bet the championship bout will pit Warren Mayor Mark Steenbergh and Detroit’s Kwame Kilpatrick. Both hate each other, especially the Warren mayor, who blames Kilpatrick for annual staggering water rate hikes and crime that he blames “comes from the south,” meaning south of Eight Mile, a remark that, despite its obvious accuracy, raised quite a stir. Steenbergh is a large male, with huge broad shoulders and big ol’ fists. He was a high school rasslin’ and football star.

Kwame, however, stands about a gazillion feet, 82 inches tall, weighs about the same as a Jeep, played linebacker at Florida A & M and has an entourage that could rival the population of Akron, Ohio. These two big rigs in the round would be a sight, with the winner quashing any claim to the baddest fucking mayor in metro Detroit.

I mean, if you’re going to do it, then do it big and do it right. Want to be a tough guy? Then, fight a tough guy. Don’t go slapping barflies around, especially the bitches.

Whoa

2005-04-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Eiserman & Goats
Originally uploaded by iamafriendofthesquirrels.

I'd like to think that he's probably a really nice guy.

Rejected pope names?

2005-04-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

I've sent numerous unreturned correspondences to the Vatican. I thought I would share with you my top new pope names.

Pope Leroy Erasmus the Funktastic

Pope Todd the Trailerparkian

The honorable Pope Juan de la Goyez el magnifico, in this corner, weighing in at 119 pounds ...

The Donald

Pope Bernie Armbreaker III

The Dope Pope. Word.

And probably the most realistic: The overdressed guy at the Vatican who makes decisions that don't affect me.

Portend?

2005-04-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

On my 34th birthday last year, I noticed a couple of visible hairs poking out from my ear canal. This freaked me out. Freaked me out in a "holy fucking hell" sort of way. Man, I thought the singular, runaway member of the eyebrow clan you know, the one that needs a trim every three weeks despite no other growth from it's neighbors was bad enough.

Now I don't feel so bad, looking at this guy.

Downtown

2005-04-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

Got what I thought was an admirable shot of the People Mover and Renaissance Center downtown Wednesday night while checking out a new lounge on Monroe Street.

The place is called the Delux Cocktail Lounge and was incredibly lame. Gross, actually. Trying to be a little too much for everyone. We're a cocktail lounge, no wait, we're a meathead hangout for ex-college jocks drinking Jagermeister, no wait, we're a martini bar, no wait, we're an electronica-inspired DJ dance room. No wait, we're a stopover for the casino losers. No wait ...

Actually, what they are was defined perfectly in the men's room when I left. The following is a picture of the stainless steel shelf directly above the toilet in the men’s room stall. Odd place for a shelf, I thought. Looking a bit closer, the white specks on the surface are obviously leftover bits of blow. Nice place, shitbags.

I cover freelance nightlife and dining for the biggest media company on the globe. I do it locally in Detroit. To do an effective job, I have to physically go into new bars and restaurants all of the time. Great gig, some people have said. No, it’s not. It sucks sometimes, especially last night and especially seeing this. I sat at the bar for 15 minutes watching part of the Pistons game and taking some notes on the bar’s interior, overhearing some of the worst conversations ever. I kept looking at the two male bartenders and could’ve sworn they were both high. But no, I thought, you have no proof of this, so don’t rush to any conclusions. Then I go to take a leak and find someone’s dirty little remnants. Nice

Macomb County sucks, always has.

2005-04-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

If there was any doubt why the east side suburbs of Detroit are gross and must be destroyed, this story seals it.

Dog show

2005-04-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

mastiff
Originally uploaded by norll.

Went to the dog show at Cobo a few weeks ago, found this guy trying to take a nap.

Two days in Toronto

2005-04-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

We got into Toronto, after a bitch of a wait at the border, around 5 p.m. or so. This was my inaugural visit to the city (Kerry has been here numerous times as a child and in recent years as a correspondent covering the Toronto Film Festival) and I was immediately impressed when we came in on the Frederick G. Gardiner freeway. Lots of cool buildings and a stunning waterfront to the right. We came in past the Skydome, got off into downtown and got right on York Street. After navigating the streets, Kerry found the hotel, a four-star Hilton at the corner of York and Richmond. This place was choice. Nice, big room with a good view of downtown and beyond. Plus, it was centrally located, I thought, to Yonge and Queen streets, which are fine avenues for shopping and checking shit out.

Friday evening, we took off for Queen Street, which reminds me a little bit of the Haight in San Francisco, which is both good and bad. Bad, in that you have a lot of street people, derelicts, dirtbags and other psychos panhandling en masse. Whatevs. You made your own choice, bitches. I made mine. Now step the fuck off. We stopped first at this little bar/restaurant, called The Butcher and The Belcher. We had a couple of pints and, on the counsel of the hotel’s concierge, headed to Chinatown for dinner at this Japanese place called Lee Garden. The dinner was phenomenal, dynamic, fucking toothsome, if you will. Very little English going on in this place. You write your entree number on a little piece of paper they provide and then they later return with goodness for you. We had some sort of peppered steak dish that was tasty, to say the least. They had the worst beer there, though. Steam Whistle. Tasted more like an ass whistle. The restaurant itself is on Spadina and it was a nice walk from Queen Street. A lot of Asian market action open on the sidewalk (you can buy fresh fruit and veggies on the street until all hours of the night). That was kind of nice to see.

We hightailed it back to Queen Street after dinner and walked around, checking out the storefronts. A lot of “boutique”-style clothing stores selling $150 jeans for malnourished club kids, a couple of painfully overpriced furniture stores and a wealth of this-and-that sort of retail composition. Some bars, some restaurants, but mainly standard commercial operations like indie hardware stores, places to buy shoes, galleries, that kind of shit. It was kinds of edgy and not at all sterile, which is what put me right at ease.

The Rex Hotel and Jazz Club was the next stop. Earlier, at the Butcher, we scanned the local free alt-weekly and noticed that the Rex was hosting what sounded like a great musical adventure, Al Kay’s World of Trombones, a seven-piece trombone unit. They sounded great. It was a nice environment. Jazz can sometimes be very boring and sleepy, but these guys were excellent.

We traipsed around town as Kerry was trying to find some mystery bar she and a friend once frequented. We took the public transportation subway up to Yonge and Bloor streets, but could not find the place. I did get to see old Maple Leaf Garden. I found that to be pretty spectacular. We ended up at the most godforsaken place you can imagine. It was horrible. It was bar, but it looked more like a titty bar only without the dancers and nudity. Kerry nailed it perfectly, calling it a “cafeteria for alcoholics.” That’s exactly how it was laid out and the description was apt. We went back to the hotel and crashed, a little too boozy for our own good.

Toronto, Part II

2005-04-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning of Easter weekend in Toronto. It’s, like, 9 a.m. and nobody is around. It was as if we had the whole town to ourselves. We grabbed a bagel and a paper, chowed and then headed to take in the city. The main reason, on Kerry’s end, for this trip was to go to Ikea, which we did. It wasn’t half the nightmare I expected and we were out of there by 1 p.m. From there, we headed to the BCE Place and the Hockey Hall of Fame. Wow. It was a great visit. The lower level had a lot of jerseys and displays and nick-nack shit, but the main level was remarkable. Housed in this century-old historical building with a cathedral ceiling displaying stained glass patterns I could describe only as colorful and regal. The room alone, its aesthetics, was breathtaking. Nearly church-like in its stature, it houses the original trophies, including the first Stanley Cup, as well as the Conn Smythe, Selke, Vezina, Lady Byng and others. It was also has the individual player plaques. In addition to a ton of old-timers like Guy Lafleur, Bobby Orr and Rocket Richard, we got to see Detroit Wings greats Gordie Howe, Sid Abel, Paul Coffey and Larry Murphy, among many others. Other than that, it wasn’t much. The lower level was iffy. You can only see so many skates and jerseys before it gets kind of old. I am glad we went, though. I scored a “Hockey Night In Canada” T-shirt of which I am very proud.

We left the Hall and tooled around Yonge Street before we parked and went to a couple of stores. Saw some dude getting beat down in the back of a Toronto cop car at 2 in the afternoon. That was interesting. We went to this girly soap store that Kerry lists as one of her favorites, called Lush. We went there and then a few doors down to this vintage candy/toy store. I displayed what I thought was amazing restraint. Drove back down Yonge and took in an overwhelming sensation of what a vibrant, clean, efficient and very cool city can be. Lots of big buildings, groups of people walking about, engaging in assorted acts of consumerism, people-watching, etc. I was complimented by my girlfriend on my “big city driving,” which was very flattering because I was hoping she’d take notice of how I deftly I handled the car amid hearty metropolitan traffic.

Saturday, late afternoon, we hit the pool. Usually I’m very leery of public swimming holes, especially those in hotels. You just never know what nasty shit people are doing. But we really wanted to swim and the place was close to empty so we did some indoor/outdoor floating and treading, which was nice. It was about 35 degrees outside and I’m in this heated pool, outside, surrounded by skyscrapers. It was a nice moment. We rinsed all the chemical bullshit off our skin (which, by the way, is the body’s largest organ) and headed back to Queen Street. We grabbed a beer at some forgettable bar on Queen. It looked like a spiffied-up biker bar. Like a bar for bikers with mortgages and kids.

We headed then to Little Italy. This was one of the highlights of the trip. Not Little Italy, but our cabbie. He was an interesting fella (and I know cab drivers oftentimes play to their patrons because it helps with a tip; I wasn’t THAT impressed when he took a call on his phone and referred to us as “VIPs”) with quite a story. Born and raised in Ethiopia, he became degreed in geology in Italy before arriving in Canada five years ago. He said the Canadian government doesn’t recognize his degree so he’s playing hack until he gets his act together. Great guy, very affable and funny.

We bypassed our reservation at the Diplomatico in Little Italy. It just looked a little stripped down. It reminded me of the Red Lion in Bay City. We wanted something a little nicer, but not too fancy. An Italian restaurater was having a smoke outside of his own place, Tavola Calda on College Street.”Don’t even think about it,” he said, as we muddled the chalk sandwich board sign showcasing the night’s specials. That kind of cockiness had me sold. For talking like that, this guy must know how to cook. We sat, and the owner, Pat, kept popping by before things got busy. The food was good. I had pasta with veal meatballs (never before had veal, doubt I will again), Kerry had the chicken parm with a beet salad. We split a bottle of red. It was a nice night. Dessert sucked.

We split out of there and took a cab to, where else, Queen Street. We found a bar close to the hotel and had a drink there. A couple of drunken idiots served as our entertainment despite the moderately heavy conversation my girlfriend and I were having about judging people solely on appearance. She says it’s abhorrent. I say it sometimes comes in handy. We agreed not to, and then headed to the lounge at the Sheraton a few blocks up. Funny thing before we left. One of the drunken idiots struck up talk, keeping it short on our way out, he warned us of the direction where we were headed. “Lots of drugs and guns and bad guys over,” he belched. “Be careful.” Playing us for naïve tourists, no doubt. The whole thing was harmless but I still thought the guy was a fucking tool anyway. We went to the Sheraton and had dessert, a couple of cocktails and watched part of a professional curling tournament.

Sunday I got up and went for a long walk alone down Queen, way past anywhere we had been.
Nobody was out. I kept going until I got to the “fashion district,” which was kind of seedy-looking and clearly where they made the clothes and not anywhere near where they sold the high-end duds to trendy boys with tousled hair and college English teacher sport coats and anorexic party girls in throwback 1978 garb and trust funds. Even the graffiti in Toronto was interesting. And this isn't even the best. On a pole, someone scribbled "Slow down, people." No shit. . I kept on to Portland Street, made a left and then went back down Adelaide. I did, however, find a dog park. But on this, Easter morning, it had but a few pooches. DP
I kept on for another mile until I got back near the hotel. We swam, showered and split.

It was tough leaving Toronto. It is a town I would surely love to re-visit, maybe take Tom there to see the Tigers play the Blue Jays, and go back there with Kerry when we have a little more loot to shop and fuck around with some top-shelf dining. It was very clean and when I walked around Sunday morning the only people out were municipal employees in mini-street sweepers cleaning up. The other thing I noticed about Toronto is its lack of overweight people. Nearly everyone I saw was rather slender or possessed some form of what appeared to be physical fitness, moderate or otherwise. Most everyone we encountered was friendly and non-threatening or, and this really is MY favorite, they merely kept to themselves. Not a lot of questions, not some dumb, shitty vibe, not some stupid look on their faces, just people going “aboot” their business, so much so, that they really don’t need to incorporate you into it by being an idiot, or cutting you off in traffic, or getting in your way or looking at you oddly.

I could’ve done without the aggressive and insane panhandlers. Sometimes I want to punch blind some of those fuckers, especially the young kids, many of them considering themselves too counterculture to work a “real” job, or raving lunatics, clearly in need (and obviously not receiving), some semblance of entry level mental health care, oozing deeper into their own personal tar pits. Their sense of entitlement was unsettling. One man, asleep at the corner of Queen and Victoria streets, had his personal effects laid out around him with a cardboard sign scribbled with a list of what he said he “needed.” The list included a haircut, which I thought was odd. It also read that he was suffering from a broken collarbone, despite visibly sleeping on his side, a position that’s impossible to assume with such a fracture. Liars, all of them. And they can all fuck off.

They aren’t at war there, either. I didn’t see one “Support our Troops” sign, which so saturate our landscape here, they carry less and less weight every time I see one. No banners and no magnetic ribbon-shaped signs on the trunks of minivans. That was quite an unexpected relief. Good for them.

A fine town, Toronto. I look forward to a return.

max

2005-04-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

max
Originally uploaded by norll.

This is Max. Max is my nephew. He is a big boy and a really good kid. Sounds like I just described myself. Anyway ... look at him. LOOK AT HIM!!!

He's cute and he's special and I just love the shit out of the little guy.

No finer logo in all of sports

2005-04-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

DetroitD
Originally uploaded by norll.

Try to tell me otherwise. Fuck the Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys' star and all the rest. The only one that comes close are the Giants "SF." And that's only because of Dirty Jase.

Respect.

Wow

2005-04-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

This was posted on the WDIV Web site today. I love living in a community where barn life can run rampant in abandoned cement structures. What’s next? A wild, constipated yak doing cartwheels through Pope Park?

Goat Leads Hamtramck Police On Chase

Officers Use Lasso To Catch Animal

HAMTRAMCK, Mich. -- Hamtramck police may spend most of their time chasing after criminals, but on Wednesday, it was a goat they were after, Local 4 reported.

Officers got the call at about 4 p.m. that the animal was running wild inside a parking garage that's attached to the former Greater Detroit Hospital, which is now vacant.

"I've never seen anything like that in Hamtramck," said Officer Max Garbarino. "(We) got the call (and) we pulled up, looked at each other and said, 'You've got to be kidding.'"

The goat was captured after officers lassoed it by the legs and pulled it to the ground, the station reported.

Officer Mike Parisek, who is from Texas, was credited with the catch.

"It was the funniest thing I've ever seen ... a dozen cops chasing around a goat inside a parking structure," Parisek said.

The goat was taken to the Michigan Humane Society, where it spent Wednesday night resting on a bed of hay after the tiring chase.

Authorities do not know who the goat belongs to but are asking anyone with information to contact the Humane Society at (248) 799-7400.

Finally.

2005-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Tigers finally opened the season Monday, slapping flat Kansas City in an 11-2 romp. Just as important, however, were the fine conditions. Seventy degrees and sunny, on a Monday, with me sitting on a patio in Harmonie Park at 11 in the morning, and not in the office. Very nice. I won't even get into the unchecked optimism for this year's team. They should play .500 or better. What's most memorable for me is the last home opener I attended. It was 2002, 37 degrees and some dolt from Cleveland took the game's first pitch over the wall for a home run. The Indians would score nine more runs in that game before the Tigers even got a base hit. Monday was much better. Dmitri Young jacks three home runs in the game and we cruise to victory in style, the sun shining, my face getting red.

And so it goes for basbeall fans everywhere. The season has commenced, as the ultimate harbinger arrives. Yes, there will be some games played in less than ideal conditions (e.g. rain, cold, etc.), but it can't last for long. With Opening Day comes the prospect of May, and then mid-May and the first day of June, and so on. Jason Martian in San Francisco has his beloved Giants in check. Jeff Wells in Philly has his beloved Mariners in check. And fans in Detroit wait for the ultimate — some warm weather and a 7-game win streak.

Eastern Market III

2005-03-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

I took what I thought was a clever little shot of this guy (I refer to him as "Johnny Guitar") in Eastern Market last fall. I asked if he would mind and he politely obliged.

For some reason, the weather gets a skosh warmer and I'm thinking about Eastern Market a lot. And it's not like I go there every Saturday when it's open (although I should), so I'm not trying to front. I dig the history, the open-air, the seemingly unlimited amounts of different types of people there (but not those pseudo-Communist, Workers World Party chumps; those guys suck, along with their poorly mimiographed literature). Like warm-weather baseball at Comerica, grilling out, shorts and T-shirts, the sun on my bald dome, Eastern Market is not too far off.

Also not too far off is May 15, when the market celebrates its 39th annual Eastern Market Flower Days. Sponsored jointly by the Eastern Market Merchants Association, the Metro Detroit Flower Growers Association and the City of Detroit Tourism and Cultural Affairs Department, it brings in more than 150 growers from all over Michigan, Ohio and Canada to sell flowers and shubbery.

More than 105,000 turned out last year, with 500,000-plus plants and flats, and 50,000 shrubs and bushes being sold. 2005 also marks, dig this, the 164th anniversary of Eastern Market, 114 years in its present location (bound roughly by Gratiot, Riopelle, Rivard and Division), since moving from Cadillac Square.

For more information on Flower Day, call the EMMA office at (586) 393-8800, Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST.

Go. Buy some cool, pretty stuff for your yard.

Soon, just hold on.

2005-03-16T07:44:00.000-08:00

easternmarket
Originally uploaded by norll.

OK, it is March 16 and spring technically begins in four days. In Michigan, that means nothing, but I was reminded of how close we are to spring/summer and how I can't wait to embrace it when I came across this photo I took at Eastern Market last year. I look forward to that first kinda warm-ish Saturday when the market is packed and buzzing. In the meantime, everyone just needs to chill the fuck out, stop bitching about the cold and sit tight. It will be here before you know it.

2005-03-14T08:18:00.000-08:00

Hamtramck boy, 9, is caught in line of fire and shot

BY SALINA ALI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Two men are to be arraigned today in the shooting of a 9-year-old boy on the crowded streets of Hamtramck on Sunday afternoon.
The men, both from Hamtramck, were arrested less than five hours after a bullet tore through the boy's body as he walked with his mother along Jos. Campau at around 2:15 p.m.
The boy, who was not identified, was taken to Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit. His condition was not disclosed Sunday night.
Hamtramck police said the boy was an innocent bystander caught up in an ongoing conflict between the suspects and another group.
Detective Michael Szymanski said the two men parked a white Ford Escort along Jos. Campau and walked along the busy commercial strip for some shopping. They saw another group and exchanged heated words before one of the men pulled a gun and fired one shot.
The bullet struck the boy.
Szymanski said the boy and his mother ran into a local store to call 911. Police later found the bullet on the ground outside the store.
Around 6:40 p.m., police arrested the man believed to have pulled the trigger and the driver of the Escort.
"There's no doubt in my mind that we have the suspected shooter in custody," Szymanski said.
Police have impounded the car and the gun they think was used in the shooting. Szymanski said it was witness testimony that helped authorities track the suspects so quickly.
The men are to be arraigned at 3 p.m. in 31st District Court in Hamtramck.
Police are investigating the cause of the altercation leading to the shooting.

Gee, let me guess, some Serbian and Albanian assholes duking it out on the street, right? Or perhaps some homeboys throwing down? What is this, the Wild West? Whatevs. This sucks, most importantly, for that poor little kid. But it's also a huge drag because I walk down Jos. Campau, right where that shooting happened, at least three times a week. It was 2 p.m. on a Sunday. I've done that, at that exact time, on at the very least a half-dozen occasions.

Grande Nationals

2005-03-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

Grande Nationals
Originally uploaded by norll.

This is Stevie from the Grande Nationals literally rocking the mic at The Lager House. The Jerome P. Cavanagh Social Room to be exact. They absolutely crushed at the Hamtramck Blowout Friday March 4 at the New Dodge Lounge. This band hits it. Hard. You do not.

Yeah, right.

2005-03-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

muslimidiot
Originally uploaded by norll.

Is that right?

2005-03-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

Really?

I couldn’t help but notice this sticker on the front door of an apartment on Holbrook, about two blocks west of Joseph Campau.

He does have a point. There is no compulsion in Islam. I assume this person is referring to the discipline associated with this synthetic, manmade faith, this ersatz version of a true religion. Do we know what else is absent from Islam? Let me highlight but a few. There may be no compulsion in Islam, and there is also no rational behavior in Islam, nor is there a sense of connectedness to the roots of civilization like, say, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism or Catholicism.

There is also apparently no sound judgment in Islam, either. Take, for example, the Muslim view of dogs in society. Sane folks look at canines for what they are — four-legged companions that get nearly an equal treatment to human counterparts. However, their spot on the food chain is continuously enforced. They sleep on the floor, they shit outside and they do what they’re told. Muslims view the dog as “unclean,” to be used for work purposes only, a beast so vile that any plate or dish that comes in contact with the dog, or from which the dog has eaten or licked, must be washed eight times, one of those times washed with sand or earth. Sand or earth? To wash the dish the dog licked? This is rational how? Oh, but there’s no compulsion in Islam.

There’s also apparently no tolerance in Islam, either. Any cult that beats and maims its women with such workmanlike form and casual acceptance is stained and reeks of a weakness with which only the cowardly can identify. A colleague pointed out perfectly that Muslim men are chumps, that they maintain such uncontrollable, almost animalistic sexuality that “they drape their women like a fucking sofa,” he says. The mere sight of a speck of woman’s flesh sends them into a state familiar to rabid (yet unclean, apparently) dogs and cannibals.

And while there is no compulsion in Islam, there is also no personal hygiene there, too. It is no secret that some denizens, current and former, from the regions of Iraq, Iran, India and assorted ‘stans,” aren’t exactly warm-water-and-soap savvy. This isn’t a sweeping generalization. I am not saying all brown people stink, nor is my opinion rooted in nationalism. I’m not a love-it-or-leave-it type. That would be ludicrous and wrong. Of the dozen people from these regions that I’ve either known personally or have been in close contact with, all of them have smelled like, well, let’s see, if the armpit had an asshole, the stench from that would be a good example.

No compulsion in Islam, but plenty of opportunity for you in America, right? Easy for you to live in Hamtramck and enjoy Western freedoms, along with the bells and whistles that come from an open economy and a society that encourages you to blare your Call to Prayer daily through the city’s loudspeakers (who paid for those, by the way?) and to do and say as you wish. If everything non-Islamic is so “compulsive” and undisciplined, if we as Americans “take our freedoms for granted” (as a Hindu once told me), if we’re all such slobs and ill-faithed weaklings, why are you on our soil? Why here? Why not Canada or Mexico?

St. Florian

2005-03-09T10:33:00.000-08:00

florian
Originally uploaded by norll.

This is one of the more beautiful churches I've seen in years. It's huge and it's really quite amazing looking. I would be curious about its interior, but that's not happening, so I guess I leave to the imagination.

Fancy indeed

2005-03-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

fancy
Originally uploaded by norll.

I loves me some New Palace Bakery. Check it out. It's at 9883 Jos. Campau, south of Caniff. Call 313-875-1334 for hours. Actually, the sign alone is what caught my eye. "Fancy Cakes" it says. I love it. Sounds like a cute pet name for that special someone, you know, like "sugar nuts" or "honey tits" or something like that. The bread is good, but I can't give to you any reviews of the sweets, as I've successfully avoided those temptations. Cool enough though is the meat counter. That's right, a modest little meat counter inside the bakery. When you have a Kowalski meat plant in your town, there's a meat counter seemingly everywhere, even the library.

Sleeper/blown shot

2005-03-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

sleeper
Originally uploaded by norll.

This is a man taking a nap on Caniff outside of a liquor store. I can't remember the store, but it's west of Jos. Campau on Caniff, sort of by the car wash there and the Roosevelt bar. Some punk kid in this Pistons jersey walked right in front of my shot, despite him clearly seeing what I was doing. And it's not like the kid was doing it for the bum's sake, either. I took this at about 2 p.m. on a weekday back in November. He woke up about 30 minutes later and took off.

Record Graveyard

2005-03-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

isaac
Originally uploaded by norll.

This place is pretty cool. It is the Record Graveyard, located at 11303 Joseph Campau, nearly at the northwest corner of Caniff. It is all-vinyl and no pretense. Give them a call at 313-365-8095.

The cutout of Isaac Hayes on the front window is choice.

Uncle Duke is dead

2005-02-23T08:52:00.000-08:00

Hunter S. dies at 67

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson blew his incredible brains out Sunday, Feb. 20, 2005 at his secluded Woody Creek, Colo. compound. Good for him. Bad for us.

I say good for him because like the rest of the selfish chumps before him, he elected suicide as a way to pussy out of the whole deal we call life. No more problems for the good doctor. I hope that his suicide inspires others to do the same—namely Katie Couric, the Bush daughters, George Steinbrenner, and any or all of the members of Matchbox 20 (as well as their friends, fans, Web masters, forum writers and road crew).

Bad for us, I add, because we lose yet another legend, a great mind and creative genius who is sadly no longer with us, a la the likes of Johnny Cash, Johnny Carson, Arthur Ashe, Jam Master Jay, Joe Strummer and countless others.. I know that such departures should pave the way for other legends-in-the-making, but it’s impossible to replicate the vast cultural (and entirely personal) impact people like this have.

For three days, I’ve wolfed down a lot of stories explaining gonzo journalism to people who had no idea who of Thompson’s antics and abilities. That’s what homogenized news is for, really. And people who are TOO into people like Hunter Thompson, well, they’re just as annoying. It’s long been evident that HST helped to pioneer the writer-as-a-part-of-the-story style. And that’s great … for Hunter S. Thompson. Too many college scribes and overly mothered sorts with a laptop or a notebook, trying to pimp his style just isn’t getting it done. The “road trip” novel should have started and ended with Kerouac.

Personally, I don’t think emulating someone’s style is very flattering. Like Chuck D. and Sparky Anderson, HST was a colossal influence on me as an individual. But I took him for what he was — a sharp, candid, acerbic motherfucker who milked every nickel of an expense account and, rightfully so, tortured his editors.

I was 16 when I read “Hell’s Angels,” given to me by my good friend and power bro, Martian. After picking myself from off the floor when I was finished, I felt a rush of influence, some sort sign that it was OK to be writer, or at least to want to be a writer. I had always known that, but it seemed to land a good jab at that time. But I used that only for what it was intended. I didn’t aspire to write about hazy road trips or out-of-control benders of pills, Scotch and circus clowns. What I did glean from the good doctor was the following — that is was OK to be venomous with your words, if the situation called for it; that intensity wasn’t something to tuck away, but rather to be embraced and applied liberally; and that if you know what you’re talking about, or at least sound like you do, you can get away with pretty much anything.

His reputation as a writer will be untouched and his status as a cultural icon will be unrivaled. I mean, come on, when they make a movie loosely based on your work, as they did with “Fear and Loathing,” and they cast Johnny Depp to be you, well, it’s safe to say that you’ve arrived. And some years after that, last Sunday to be exact, Hunter Thompson decided that it was also time to leave.

One of my finer peeps, my man Howard L., sent to me a perfect quote from HST, one I think writers everywhere should appreciate. And in honor of The Man, I can only encourage everyone to consume mass quantities of bourbon, huff a couple of bags of ether and go blow some shit up.

“I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I
suspect it's a little like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old
whores don't do much giggling."
Hunter S. Thompson, RIP

Initial Observations

2005-02-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

Ham Sandwich

Hamtramck Living

I moved to Hamtramck in October, 2004 (which, at this printing, makes it about four months or so). It’s an experiment of sorts, or at least it is turning out as such.

My dwelling is great and I really do enjoy the apartment. I have plenty of room and aside from the loud thuds and bangs from the upstairs tenants’ kids, it’s not that bad. Otherwise, I have insanely high ceilings, wide-open rooms, a new bathroom with a long tile bench-like component to it, fresh wooden floors and my own home office.

One can’t help but notice the not-so-subtleties of a new municipality, especially one with such an oddly raging identity as Hamtramck. I’ll get into some of the individual retailers later (especially my video store, whose stock appears to be 60 percent martial arts movies, 30 percent pornography and roughly 10 percent of new releases in not only English, but every other language uttered on this planet).

If you’ve ever been through Hamtramck, you’ll notice it’s a pretty poor town. The city’s government is in financial receivership (hear that Kwame?). Things were notably worse back in 1999-2000 when a rampant rat problem overran the alleys, the city couldn’t afford to pay its workers and the general state of fiscal stability dissipated as quickly as a plate of globkies at last call. Rent, however, is cheap. And like the call to prayer that blares from the city’s loudspeakers, summoning Muslims to engage in their synthetic, man-made religion, the cheap rent brought me here.

And it’s not so bad, really. I mean, aside from the stench of piss in the streets, the filthy gutters, the horrible drivers, the quietly arrogant sense of entitlement from the community’s elders, the homeboys, the fucking derelicts and lack of any green space whatsoever, it’s tolerable. It really is, at least for now.

I keep looking for the upshot to living in Hamtramck and maybe I’ll find it before I move, but right now, it’s kind of fleeting. Being a writer, I thought living in a “creative community” would be a sense that kind of hung in the air, you know, like when you’re in Ann Arbor. You can feel it there. And you can kind of feel it in Hamtramck, but it’s like it has to work through a couple of layers of clothing to get to you. And if diversity is what you crave, if you want for your lifestyle to look like a fucking Benetton ad, than this is also your place. At one time dominated by the Polish and Polish-Americans, Hamtramck is a stew of sorts — warm, murky and very brown. Pakistanis, Arabs, Bengalis, Sikhs and Indians occupy the same blocks at Bosnians, Albanians, Yemenis and Macedonians. Knock yourself out on the multiculturalism, folks.

What I do like is the showcase of the Midwestern Work Ethic here. I took a walk on a Saturday and saw what looked like a lot of “shop guys” tending to what little lawns they have or changing their brakes on their pickup trucks. I took a day off and didn’t notice a lot of aimless types at 10 in the morning, basically fucking off. It’s the bluest collar I’ve ever seen. And it’s a live-and-let-live mentality in this city. Nobody says shit to me, and that’s exactly how I like it. I dig the Polish eagles and the references to the Pope (especially Pope Park; a park that is nothing but cement and benches and a huge statue of the pontiff) and the sometimes Eastern bloc good looks on some of the ladies. I like that there are a gazillion bars in Hamtramck, but I don’t spend too much time in any of them. People who spend too much time in bars get surly and turn into unappreciative assholes. I know. I was one of them.

It’s not a bad to live, and when I write just like that I can hear Bon Scott singing, “Hell ain’t a bad place to be.” And while I’m not exactly jumping up and down, yearning to the named to the All-Hamtramck 2005 Team, I’m not disgusted or bored, either.

Ham Sandwich

2005-02-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

Ham Sandwich

Please Bear With Me

I am slowly trying to score with this very entry-level HTML writing, which, by the way, reminds me of high school computer class. This page will temporarily look like dogshit until I get it mastered. Please be patient, folks.

Ham Sandwich

HAM SANDWICH HAS MOVED

THIS BLOG IS CHANGING ITS NAME & ADDRESS

THE MENU AT THIS BLOG IS CHANGING. INSTEAD OF HAM SANDWICH, YOU'll NOW BE ABLE TO ENJOY: CITY CHICKEN AFTER OCT. 7, 2005, PLEASE VISIT: http://citychicken.blogspot.com I HOPE YOU COME ALONG. NORLL

I'm gone

Breadfan

I see too many of these

Pickup trucks for everyone

Good to see you again

Dinner with friends

Al and the sun

Lions and deer

Give it up

Will somebody please give this man an Oscar?

See?

I would, too

I still miss you

The house we used to live in

Detroit Baseball

Tram/Lou

Tommy

Senor Smoke/

Ron LeFlore

Jack Morris

Lance Parrish

Chester

Gibby

Darrell Evans

You can do it, too

The place to be, at least for me.

Dig the pulp

Best snippet of someone else's conversation, ever

Me no likey

Sunday in the park

Can't Hardly Wait (apologies to Mr. Westerberg)

Hamtramck, a little bit of ghetto in the middle of, well, Detroit

Hamtramck cops shoot another pit

San Francisco, in many parts

Monday

How NOT to get from Chicago to Detroit

Outdoor Jesus and baby booze

Throwdown in Motown

I wonder

Mid-Summer Classic, indeed; Ham Sandwich goes to the big game

Always so nice to get out of town

The Man. Defined

Baltimore-Philadelphia revisited

Let's go back a bit.

The numbers don't lie, especially when they say nothing

Miss you, Mitch

Get out!!!!

Ode to a Martian ...

If not one, then the other

Bring it.

Din-din

This should surprise nobody

Birthday fun with Max

Best bread ... EVER!

Charles

She's getting noticed, alright

An evening's cruise

Weekend update: Cars and candy

Hey man, I know it's warm outside

Me and my girl

City living and so, so much more

That's right

Pistons Win

Detroit basketball

Some serious weather

Party down the line

Memorial Day

Hi, I'm dumb.

Polska in the Park

Politics is bullshit

When, Matt?

Let the poppers pop and the breakers break.

A trip up The Thumb

Lazy Sunday

Army slut/idiot/fuckbag

Sometimes I would just rather be up north.

THE MENU AT THIS BLOG IS CHANGING. INSTEAD OF HAM SANDWICH, YOU'll NOW BE ABLE TO ENJOY:

CITY CHICKEN

AFTER OCT. 7, 2005, PLEASE VISIT:
http://citychicken.blogspot.com

I HOPE YOU COME ALONG.

NORLL