Generally not a good idea to take photos of bridges, especially in this post-9/11 existence. People get a little touchy.
A few weeks ago, I posted this recipe for a cocktail called the Journalist. I found this wholly fitting, as I have been a journalist and still know many a-credentialed still working in the field, miraculously.
A couple of Saturday nights ago, we bought the ingredients for this concoction after inviting friends over to get drunk in our living room with us. They turned out quite well. The taste, I should say, is distinct. The Curacao seems to dominate the flavor, which is a combination of sweet and tangy, with a hint of orange, but not much. A miniscule part of it had a ginger-cinnamon hint to it, but nothing overpowering. It was weird. However, I am not surprised people drank these in the '30s.
Unless, of course, you are the proprietor of a wig store, an auto repair shop specializing in used parts and worn tires, or a liquor store. Today's missive was inspired by something I read here, a somewhat popular Detroit message board.
One of the litany of complaints about Detroit -- and please, let's hold off on the snickers that come with a dwindling population, the unsafe streets, corrupt and ineffective city council, a school district facing a $300 million-plus deficit and the closure of more than 100 schools, staggering property taxes that don't come close to matching the city services, and the rich landscape of eyesores around the city -- is that some of the more recognizable retailers refuse to set up shop in the city.
There aren't a lot of grocery stores in Detroit. And there certainly aren't any specialty grocers, either. Because, you know, there aren't a fuck of a lot of people living in the city limits who are the demographic for $22 bottles of olive oil. There are a handful of grocers in some pockets of the city, but the number of stores that actually sell fresh fruit, meat, and vegetables? Well, that's an entirely different conversation.
At the abovementioned message board, somebody threw this up:
While a bit small, resolution-wise, it's not hard to ascertain that this is a 7-11 store locator for southeast Michigan. See all of those logos? That is the suburbs. See the empty patch in the middle? That is the Detroit city limits. So, who else is avoiding Detroit, besides young, college-educated professionals; those with an aversion to stealing cars; those with a penchant for not mugging, shooting, or raping; or those seeking elected office who cannot be paid off by special interest for as little as a bag of bbq chips and a hundy? Department store chain, Meijer, for one:
Pretty much where all of those red dots start lining up, is very close to where Detroit ends and the suburbs begin.
Who else? Well, it looks like home improvement superstore Lowe's (indicated on the map with a blue square and a number inside of it) isn't wasting its time and insurance premiums on a city where a certain percentage of the residents don't feel like doing shit to their homes:
And so on. There is no Pier One Imports and no Trader Joe's. But, hey, if you want to pay thrice the retail amount for a big-screen TV or a sectional sofa, Rent-A-Center is unafraid to open -- and stay open -- in the city.
Shit, there's nine in the city proper, not to mention Hamtramck and 2 in Redford, which is "as Detroit" as it comes. Need one of those payday loans at 30 percent interest, you know, the places that make cash available to actually sink you below being check-to-check? Plenty of them in Detroit (store indicator is green dot with number in it):
There's 6 within the city limits right there. Been panhandling all day and your liquor store owner is being finicky about taking all of that change? Coinstar isn't afraid of the big bad wolf:
It is almost Keystone Cops-like. Hand-wringers who live in the city and abhor the suburbs cry for development, while perfectly viable buildings sit empty. Previously abandoned buildings downtown are renovated into four-star hotels that few in the city can afford to patronize. Those with the passion and interest believe that people need to move downtown, to support businesses, to create the ripple effect that leads to success in other major metropolitan environs, even, if not especially, in the second-tier cities like Detroit.
But how in the fuck are people going to move to a city where they can't buy fresh produce and groceries? Where they can't go pick up a pair of new tube socks after 6 p.m., because the lone K-mart that managed to stay open, actually closes at 6 p.m.? Where there are no taxicabs? Detroit is void of what people need and full of shit nobody wants -- and by "shit" I mean the derelicts, as well as the embedded-in-their-shitty-neighborhood-know-it-alls, and fucking hipsters.
There is a mass exodus in the city proper that is rivaling White Flight of the early '70s, and everyone seems to be looking around and saying "We're gonna MAKE it!"
I spend more time and money in the city than most of the people I personally know, save for one or two who are there with an unrivaled frequency. More often than not, I am given the impression from Detroit residents that I am not welcomed. I guess I know how Lowe's feels.
If you were to open up a business of your own, what would it be?
Submitted by beth.
Whorehouse/gambling den/cocktail mill.
Give the people boys what they want.
She flipped the fuck out.
We finished this over the weekend:
Bette Davis was superb. She absolutely crushed. She is so creepy and so undeniably fucked up in this portrayal. Totally worth it. Good call by Mrs. Chicken, putting this one in the queue.
I don't mind a smattering of his music here and there -- and even that is being generous -- but for the most part, Kanye West really is nothing more than a self-important crybaby whom I really can't take seriously. Yeah, we get it, you're into fashion. Noted.
A favorite exerpt of mine, from Russell Means' epic (at least to me) autobiography "Where White Men Fear to Tread":
"Compared to how long it takes the wind and water to turn a rock into sand, our lifetimes on this earth amount to less than the blink of an eye.
"In eternity, there is no death. Your body is returned to Grandmother Earth, but your spirit survives. Your blood survives in your children -- procreation is immortality.
"Anyone who doesn't believe in reincarnation has never seen a leaf fall from a tree, never seen a bud emerge from a barren branch, never looked at the heavens and marked the death of worlds and suns and galaxies and the birth of new ones. Indigineous people know there is no beginning and no end. If the rest of the human race would accept that, feel that, live that, they would no longer fear the unknown, they would no longer fear the darkness called death. They would accept that the darkness is part of them. It is their friend."
From Jim Harrison's book "It's a Good Day to Die":
"Someone once said and I think it was a Russian poet that 'we are only shadows of our imagination on Earth.'"
What three things do you regret not learning to do?
1. Clean and gut a fish.
2. Drive a stick.
3. Successfully mastering every component of the table saw.
