What have you been putting off all weekend?
Sobriety
Bored and unable to sleep in on a Saturday morning, I continued my a.m. driving series through Detroit's Southwest neighborhoods. When I hear that Journey song about the boy "born and raised in south Detroit," this is the part of town I imagine. See, there really is no "south Detroit." You have the East Side, the West Side and Southwest. The rest of the city has its own designations like Woodbridge, New Center, Corktown, Warrendale, Midtown, Brightmoor, Palmer Woods, Hubbard Farms, Delray, Indian Village, the Cultural Center, and so on. But really, the Big Three are East, West and Southwest.
I don't spend as much time in this part of the city as I would like, should, but I have a feeling that will be changing this summer. I've discovered more to this area then I previously thought existed. Color me lazy or sheltered, but I really ventured only as far as Mexicantown and parts of Vernor West, the former being a slew of restaurants with a strong suburban clientele. And while there is nothing wrong with that, but when I venture out into some of the fringe neighborhoods or go into some bizarre-o, out of the way bar in an area no one else I know would go (save for, of course, my homeboy who spearheads many of these ventures), the last thing I want to see is a room full of people who, well, look like me. Give me the obscure, the true local flavor, not some perfumed pig to comfort the young couple from Clawson. And I found a lot of that flavor while getting somewhat lost around southwest this morning, tooling aimlessly up and down Vernor far west than I ever knew existed, down Springwells, Mullane, Lawndale, Junction, etc. Fuck a bunch of farmers market or waiting in line at Toast. I want to see some real shit.
Looks like I missed the taco truck ...
And in a social climate where seemingly everywhere I turn with a camera people are constantly suspicious and nearly always aggressive with remarks and questions like "Why are you taking pictures?!!?" and "Who are you working for?!?!" (for which answers are, in this order: "fuck you and fuck you"), it made my day when I saw this guy.
Nice guy. Totally restores my faith in humanity for at least the next 12 hours, until some some dolt fucks it all up. We need more Carloses in the world -- even-tempered polite individuals just grilling up about 20 pounds of finely seasoned chicken at 10 a.m. on a Saturday.
Swung by the old Tiger Stadium, where recent news reports have been agog with the erection of a 10-foot high fence, the definite precursor to the structure's demolition. That bitch, finally, is coming down.
Just tear it down, please. It's an eyesore and a waste of space in a Corktown neighborhood that is choking on its own potential to be a dominant part of the city. We've all had our fun at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Great. Great fucking times. But those times expired, so rip the goddamn thing down already.
If we go too long between grooming for Lamont, he ends up looking like this:
A couple of weeks ago, I had the misfortune of having a pair of $5 flip-flops disintegrate on me. Unfortunate not only because the pieces of shit were not even a week old, but the undoing came as I was exiting Comerica Park after a Tigers game with my car about, oh, seven blocks away. So, I hoofed it, half-buzzed and somewhat embarrassed, down Montcalm, across Woodward and down Elizabeth, nearly to Grand River.
My foot looked like this when I got home.
How have you changed in the past year?
Submitted by littleduckling.
I was offered a job at a different company last year and gleefully accepted. In that time, I have completely modified the way I not only behave in the workplace but my vision of what a competent, successful employee does while he's on the clock.
In my previous job, I acted foolish and drew way, way too much negative attention to myself. This was a direct result of having no respect for my boss. This guy had zilch in the way of leadership capabilities, enigma or even a rudimentary understanding of the demands of my position. He is a rich, overprivileged airhead who, on Election Day, called me into his office and asked "Why wouldn't anyone vote for Bush?" He comes from a family who did not understand the motives behind 9/11. I learned this when his brother pulled me aside that day and asked "Why would anyone want to do that do us?" Also, on his watch, countless lunatics and malcontents ran roughshod, while the harder-working staff members were granted heaping doses of scrutiny and unfair treatment, the likes of which were so brazen and misguided, you would've thought this guy had his formal training at Gitmo. Another of his relatives in this family-owned company circulated a "send all" e-mail to the rest of the building, encouraging employees to support a grass-roots prayer in public school initiative. When I pointed it out to my boss that this is not only in poor taste, but could be offensive to some and could, quite possibly, lead to a litigious action if someone really wanted to be a pain in the ass, he just grinned that rich guy grin and kept fantasizing about his tee time or sucking off sheriff deputies or whatever it was that went on in that empty head of his.
My co-workers were equally as dangerous. Most of the lot were bitter, resentful, backstabbing, untrustworthy and otherwise useless fucks. I've gotten more results from a broken screwdriver than I did from 90 percent of the people there. You had the obsessive hoarder whose desk looked like a junkyard; the morbidly obese editor who, on more than one occasion, spelled her own name wrong in her byline; the Stepford mom/wife who was afforded leniency and perks that were not at all an option for anyone else; and, lest I forget, the sheltered graphic designer with an apparent gender complex (he was technically a man, but acted like a little bitch) who gleaned more satisfaction from narcing out colleagues on trivial shit than actually performing at a level other than standard. Believe me, there is more.
But, I got out. And that has been the biggest change in the last year. With all of that shitstorm swirling around me, I did what came naturally, and that was to resist and act out. I made fun of everyone around me. I was combative and disinterested. My behavior was textbook passive-aggressive. I hated going to work every day and made sure anyone within earshot was equally as miserable, or at least I tried. My work suffered and in this business, when my work suffers, it makes others suffer. My lack of focus and total disjointedness created work for other people, other people who are still friends of mine (if that job yielded anything good, it was the four or five friends I made and managed to keep), and for that I still feel like a shit. That wasn't the plan at all, but that's how it started to fall into place. I would zone out for hours and quibble with my boss over stupid shit that had no relevance. I had stopped growing and learning at work, and began embracing my own learned helplessness.
But now, what a difference a job makes. I come to work mildly enthused and embrace new ideas. The people around me and on my staff are total pros and people rarely take shortcuts. Meetings are productive and helpful. My boss and the boss above that person are motivated to see that I succeed. I now strive for professionalism, where ennui and despair once reigned with fury. I rarely swear at work, unless in a private conversation with someone I trust. I come in early. It's not so much that I am "into my job," I'm just really into a healthier work climate. I can't fail here, it just doesn't seem possible. Is it my dream scenario? Not exactly, but it beats the hell out of the nightmare I lived for more than 9 years working for a clueless ball-breaker and his collection of two-faced sycophants.
If you had to go on a two-week vacation with any celebrity, who would you pick as your traveling companion and where would you go?
Bill Murray; Tokyo
It looked like a lot of fun in the movie.
Marlee Matlin working on memoir
If you knew you were about to lose your voice permanently, what is the last thing you would want to say?
Submitted by exer.
"Rosebud."
First, there were Daytons. Then, came the spinners. Now, it looks like black is back.
No, I have not hit my head and now speak only in unrecognizable fragments. I am referencing car wheels, specifically, rims and all of their chrome-y goodness.
If you drive anywhere along Eight Mile Road near Marlowe in Detroit, you can’t miss this place.
The window display alone – part garish, part awe-inspiring – is enough to nab your eyes, if for only a glance. Inside, its rows of chromed wheels range in inch size from 14-24, some 2,000 wheels total. Also in there are some fellas friendly enough to take a few minutes on a Saturday morning to talk rims. These guys can expertly shoehorn any one of them onto your car in 45 minutes or less, with a price tag anywhere from $899 to $30,000 and greater.
Hot Wheel City is a Detroit-based custom wheel franchise operating six stores in the metro area. The Eight Mile-Marlowe location employs six, including the manager Chuck, and one of this other top guys, Joe. Its calling card is the neon-lit exterior and long walls of chrome wheels.
Rim culture, to a Chicken, is oddly fascinating. I see them everywhere. And in Detroit, with its emphasis on the automobile; and in car culture, where the emphasis --no, the demand-- is on you having the tightest shit on your ride imaginable, the fruit is ripe for picking and eager consumption.
People who are really into their cars command a certain amount of understanding and, I feel, appreciation for what they put on the road. It takes a lot of devotion, time and, yes, money to get a car to where you want it, to where when you’re driving in plain view of everyone else, you and that vehicle are in an entirely separate category. You are classified as “one of those,” and by that, I mean, you’re one of those who has made how the car looks and performs one of your highest personal priorities. Face it, we have a lot of dumb shit that comes into our view on any drive. I enjoy the random glimpse of something colorful and distinct -- be it a muraled conversion van with a Southwest scene along the side, or a purple lowrider; something, anything. I'm forced to see shit like Honda Elements or worse, the back of the head of the guy holding up the fast lane.
Car guys with fly rides harvest their own version of what they believe is success. They do the work late at night, early in the morning, and often when it's not convenient. Some people do this with working out, others do with their career, and still others do it at shit like drug dealing or being a lazy ass. This pattern is also seen on the ascension of athletes at even the semi-elite level. They have something in them that relentlessly forces them to achieve something slightly different than the benchmarks others around them utilize.
You see it in the paint jobs of car people's cars, the window tint, and the meticulous interior. Jesus, I could go on about car stereos alone, what, with the thousands cats pump into their sleds, from the NASA-like displays in the dash, to the maze of wires and mind-blowing (and cochlea melting) wattage in the trunks. You can have your car fully tricked, but it doesn’t mean much, in the car community, unless you’re riding on something significant.
“Rims are the number one accessory,” Chuck told me. “At least they were before the economy took a dump.”
Chuck added that his typical customer is the 21- to 24-year-old male, but many stories using customers as examples illustrate even greater range than the car kids in their early to mid-20s. There is the 40-something attorney with a benign decision-making complex, or the 64-year-old woman with the black 1996 Trans Am, who dubbed out her buggy. Their cars and personalities are as varied as one's imagination. They drive Jaguars, Benzes and beemers. Chuck said the Chargers, Magnums and 350 CS’s are the rides of which he sees most in the shop lately. Some customers, it’s obvious what they do, especially if they are, how do I say this, a Sidewalk Executive. Still, others have included members of the Detroit Shock – “The guard,” Chuck recalls. “What was her name?” And by saying that, he not only painted a picture of the diversity of their clientele, but accurately summed up pretty much every guy’s view on the WNBA – as well as Detroit boxing champ Tommy Hearns, and right on down the career line. Some bring cars they’ve had forever; others come with cars they just bought.
Wheels, try as their reputation might, are not wholly reliant on social strata to move its product. It doesn’t matter who in the hell you are. If you can throw a grand and some change together, you can get something decidedly big, shiny and nice – four of them, actually – to roll you down the street, right past your neighbors, peers, girlfriends … that fucking dickslap of a guy you can’t stand. I would think that at some juncture, most people have seen something like this at one point: an old, beat-up car with brand new rims worth more than the rest of the unit combined. The absurdity of the contrast alone, if you even dwell on it, can give you a headache. It’s out there.
“We see it every day,” Joe said. “You can take the ugliest car on the street, put new wheels on it and make it look good. It doesn’t matter to a lot of these guys.”
And when it comes down to it, size is evidently critical. It helps to understand the interest if you have an appreciation of or can even, on a rudimentary level, understand hip-hop music and videos of that genre. Guys have been rapping about rims for a long time. And like most things in a rap song – guns, amount of cash, amount of fine bitches, weed, and, most importantly, how grossly sanguinely you will render other, say, sucka MCs – the greater the amount, the better. It started with the 16-inch wheel and then 18-inchers – called 18s. Raps started mentioning 20-inch rims. Those are called 20s, which mainly ride on SUVs and trucks. Twenty-two, 24- and 26-inch rims are huge. They are to your ride in the street what the size of Tony Montana’s pile of blow toward the end of "Scarface" was to cokeheads. Personally, neither one seems practical. And yet greater sizes are even more extreme.
“Size matters; 22s are about image, It’s all about personal choice. The bigger, the better. Some guys can’t get enough; 30s are out there.” Chuck said. “But average people don’t want those big ones. They stay around 18-20 (inches). A lot of cars come stock with 20-inch rims. Those are being stolen a lot, right off the lot.
When you have something considered to be a commodity by others, the odds of having it stolen rise in a notable parallel to how often it is showcased in a rap video. You put $1,700 wheels on your Yukon, chances are someone else would prefer to steal them from you to either make them their own, or convert a version of their market value to liquid.
“We put wheel locks on all of them,” Joe said of Hot Wheels rims. “If they want the wheels, they have to steal the whole car.”
When I was a young Chicken, we called them mag wheels. When I was in my 20s, I started hearing guys rapping about Daytons. Rims that spin when the vehicle is stopped rose to popularity several years back. Now, a greater interest is getting away from full-on chrome, to powder coated black, some, Chuck says, with colored spokes.
Whatever direction the trend goes, Chuck says they have to look only California’s way to get a glimpse of what’s hot and what will ultimately make its way here.
“Whatever you see going on in California is what you’ll eventually see here. The West Coast sets the pace. Always.”
There are seemingly countless designs. You can have them busy, tame, solid, spoked the fuck out, big, or small.
Clearly, they are not for everybody. I have 14-inch wheels on my economy-sized vehicle, and those rims are adorned with plastic wheel covers. But again, the way my car looks has never been much of a priority. But when that changes, I think I know where to go.
I don't like what some of these jackoffs are doing with the micron of authority they think they have.
April 28, 2008, Comerica Park, Detroit: A University of Michigan professor buys his 7-year-old son a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade. The kid drinks about half of it before an usher approaches and asks the father if he is aware that the product contains alcohol. He admits he did not know that. Before the dad can inspect the bottle, the usher yanks it from the kid's hand and calls the cops. The boy is wheeled from the park on a gurney to nearby Childrens Hospital, where a blood sample is drawn. The kid drops spotless, but is held by Family Services for two more days while they investigate. Story draws tons of attention, and the kid ultimately goes home to Mom and Dad Egghead, who, I hope, have been contacting lawyers to sue the shit out of the club.
May 26, 2008, Safeco Field, Seattle: During a Boston-Seattle tilt, two lesbians who were smooching throughout the game were confronted by an usher who told the two to stop kissing, saying he fielded a complaint from a nearby mother who was distraught by the visual. That matter, at publishing time, is presently being investigated.
I have been to games where they activate on the big screen, something called the Smooch Cam, where its operators capture fans in the stands and if they see themselves on the screen, they're supposed to kiss each other, much to the delight of the rest of the crowd. Funny, I've never seen a same-sex couple on there. This isn't really important to me. I couldn't care less, honestly. But my greater concern is these overzealous ushers, imposing their misinterpretation of club policy rather inconsistently, to calm the fears of the irrational and sheltered.
Some people just can't get enough. They'll wring dry what little authority they think they have. And as far as the chicks at Safeco go, this usher must be a total pussy. If he had any brains, he would've approached the two and said "Uh, ladies, a little less hair in the face; a lot more tongue, OK? I wanna see some swirlin' going on in there."
