Ninjas

Ninja Kicks from a recent trip up to the Thumb area of Michigan. Some great country up there. We ate at restaurant up near Caseville called the Farm restaurant. I highly recommend. The interior could use a bit more imagination, but the food is pretty dead-on. The sun was out for the drive up to the thumb, and the ninja kicks were flowing. We stopped at Bronner's in Frankenmuth- the world's largest Christmas store (their billboard campaign extends as far South as Florida).


Another one from Windmill installation near Bad Axe, MI. I think Bad Axe has a slight edge on Hell, MI for coolest city names. Michelle's ninja kick form has a slight edge of it's own from the high elbow.


From this angle, these silos almost look like the Renaissance Center. I've always liked these classic-looking enameled blue steel silos.


Ninja Kick the Roof in! These are the shortest cottages I've ever seen. The gutters are at about chin-height. Not sure how anybody can stand in there. I think Santa could Ninja Kick his way in there if he got tired of all the chimney dust.


BTW- Have you seen this? It's a 1970s video of the Ren Cen just before it opened. CLASSIC soundtrack. What ever happened to this kind of booster-ism for new building construction?

Rehabbing My New Mies Home

When I bought my townhouse in Lafayette Park a few months ago I was told by a few of the older ladies on the co-op board that I had gotten the deal of the century. I figured that was what they said to everybody. Don't get me wrong, I was pumped about getting an actual Mies Van der Rohe-designed condo for under $100k. Especially one of the single-story ones with it's own private courtyard. But when I heard the same opinion echoed by a kind woman who's lived in the neighborhood since it opened in 1959, I started to think maybe it was true after all.

I had my work cut out for me though. The place desperately needed a new floor, it had some glaringly bad suburban cabinets, and there was some pretty liberal use of wood paneling on the walls.

The place is nowhere nearly finished. It's pretty empty, but at least I'm done with construction. I need to come into a big chunk of money before I can afford furniture for this place, but I can be patient. Check out some pics from the progress...

Shiny new OSB floor, gray walls, freshly painted ceiling

Kitchen with a face lift: I re-clad the existing cabinets, kept the counter tops and removed some extra cabinets. The kitchen was crowded with cabinets when I bought it.

One of the under-cabinet 'puck' lights

Stripping paint off the original outlet covers

Good as new!

Valve where ground water heat pump enters the water heater. Still can't believe these Detroiters were hip enough to install geothermal heating for these condos ten years ago. Score!

Kitchen when I first bought it. Notice engineered wood flooring (glued to the concrete slab), horrible pink-tinted wood veneer cabinets, wallpaper I won't even get into

Demolition of floor. Damn all that glue!

Pulling up crappy engineered floorboards, measuring for finished floor, removing wood paneling

Who puts wood paneling on a Mies?!

Now every night I get to put more of my stuff away. A.D.D. heaven... And don't miss that wall of technicolor cabinets in the background, a definite keeper

Hanging Meats in Detroit

This photograph shows a recent pancetta & chorizo hanging in the basement of O'Connor Development on Michigan Avenue in Detroit, the early stages of our "Charcuterie Club," known also as "Meat Club." Pictured, from left: Mr. Dave Mancini, Mr. Chalres Sorel, Mr. Phillip Cooley and Mr. Putnam Weekley.

The gentlemen:
Mr. Mancini - Supino Pizzeria (www.supinopizza.com)
Mr. Sorel - Le Petit Zinc (www.lepetitzincdetroit.com), Lafayette Cafe (www.99cafelafayette.com), Chez Oskar (www.chezoskar.com)
Mr. Cooley - Slows Bar-B-Q (www.slowsbarbq.com)
Mr. Weekley- Detroit Drinks (www.detroitdrinks.com)

Mr. Weekley's advice on wine and beverage selection is quite possibly the perfect weapon in a young suitor's arsenal. The man cannot much get a sandwich when he visits the city of New York without some young lad accosting him for a good wine tip. On the evening pictured here, Mr. Weekely shared the acute insight that perhaps seventy years had lapsed since the practice of hanging meats in ones' basement was observed in the Corktown community of Detroit.

A Free-Market Pub Crawl

I've had about five people in the last two weeks ask me whether my boss is Santa Clause. And it's not because of some kind of strange resemblance. He certainly didn't go ahead and legally change his name to Santa Clause like my dad's cousin did. I'm guessing it must have been because we passed out 5,000 of these around town:

Now Santa's got a pretty good thing going- fame, a pretty good track record for showing up and getting the job done, and he's always got those hot momma's kissing him under the mistletoe. And I know, I know- he gets to fly and stuff- and I don't want to belittle that- but how about a full-on pub crawl that ends in divebar karaoke and a rock show for a day at work. Santa's kinda got nothing on that. Especially not when it was my first day working at a so-called "real job" in a year and a half.

Let me explain. The three of us met up on a Saturday afternoon back in November to take these things to the streets. We had some great success right off the bat- Slows Bar-b-q agreed to take about a thousand and put one in with each bill going out. Maybe that was a bit of a shoe-in since Phil is one of the owners, but its always smart to start out on a good note. 'Hit all the balls in front of you' is what my professor, Perry Kulper once said. But that streak continued pretty well for the rest of the day. When all was said and done- we got six places that see a steady stream of city and suburban folks to actively shlep these guides on behalf of Detroit small businesses - either by having waitstaff slide them in with bill presenters or put them into those metal-loopy things that sit on the tables.

Now, not every place we visited was quite so happy to help their fellow Detroit businesses. But not for our trying. We'd sit at their bar anyway, and happily drink one to them in any case.

Well, that was the first time I'd been drinking with Phil and Toby. And if there's one thing the three of us have in common-it's that we're all top-notch dreamers. I mean, I for one as a child set a new school record in third grade by getting 28 check-marks on my report card. I had my two best friends in class with me and we were always talking, scheming, working on the next big thing. The teacher would always be yelling, "Sit on the Seat and Stay There!" And we'd mimic her, adding an H somewhere within that first word, but anyway- I digress. Well, Toby and Phil are actually more than just dreamers- they've actually done some real things in this city, some real great things, I might add. And they've managed to pick up some pretty good connections along the way. So when you throw them together for an afternoon/evening of drinking- you're bound to get some really good seeds planted. I for one have a solid four projects at work now because of that day. All dreamed up over rounds of various whiskey drinks. This blog is one of them.

#2 started when Toby saw my friend Ko's car parked on Michigan Ave out front of Slows. She's got this old Explorer. Hasn't driven it for like six months. Tires have been flat, battery dead, muffler shot, stereo gone. And Toby starts talking about how we should fix it up for her. Phil's like- I can get her keys. And I'm thinking that'd be sweet. Now about five seconds later I've officially filed that thought in the Never-Gonna-Happen-In-A-Million-Years folder. Which has seen a lot of use in the past year and a half I've lived here. But I guess Phil didn't. Cause he wound up calling me the next morning saying - hey homeboy, how we gonna do this for Ko? And I'm like ...uh ....yeah ...we should ... ...do it. Well, we did. And it was pretty amazing. I'll get to that whole thing in another post. Her car looks snazzy, btw.

Well, after Slows we went to a place that didn't much like our shtick. But we still stuck around and had a drink. We've got wills of steel. The bartender was a young, nervous little guy who broke a bottle while trying to introduce himself to us. But I guess I'd be nervous too if I was trying to pull off the kinda stuff he's up to at the tender age of like, 19 (can't be more than 23, honest). He moved to a loft in Brush Park- a place that's sort of a graveyard of old 19th Century mansions. Out of his home he runs a speakeasy called the Breakfast Club with his girlfriend, a chef. It runs the 1st Friday of every month, starting after 2am with three inspired breakfast dishes and a full bar. Candle-lit, raw, exposed brick walls, a dj upstairs in the loft, tables scattered all around. Beautiful scene. I went this past Friday and it blew my mind. Felt like I was walking into the party for which they invented cocaine. Well anyway, the guy took our names and emails and said he'd add us to the guest list. When you go there, they give you this card, which you'll need to get in every time after:



We also planned a trip to Cuba for Phil and Toby's birthdays in February at that bar. I can't wait. (I guess that's #5, forgot about that one till now. Gotta remind Phil and Toby).

Oh, and I also forgot to mention the stop we took in North Corktown at the new pump-track that Phil helped build the day before we all met up. We went there right after Slows. We pulled up and there were a handful of folks hanging around geeked about their shiny new park. Phil had brought over a bunch of dirt left over from the landscape project we built in front of Michigan Central Station this summer and these guys helped guide him & his bobcat to make a figure-8 track for the bikers to ride. The corner of Cochrane & Sycamore in North Corktown: 1967- Riot Hell. 2009- Dirtbike Heaven. Victory.

Well anyway, a few other places, a few really great drinks and varying degrees of success with those shopping guides. We sure did have a lot more to say about them as time went on though. I remember at Union Street, where in the end they picked up what we were putting down, that all three of us were talking while the owner tried to listen. He scanned each of our faces right to left, sometimes nodding, like he was reading a really big book.

At Michael Simon's Roast, we got some appetizers and a round of Rye & Sodas. Delicious. I'm pretty sure it was here that Toby dreamed up the Slows cookbook. That's #3. Slows has a pretty amazing story. The block it's on was a cold wench of a place a few years ago (please forgive my french) before Phil's family purchased four buildings and got a group together to open up the Bar-B-Q shop there. The place has since become the miracle child of Detroit. It's like a crackhouse for suburbanites. And a local favorite to boot. Enter the restaurant's info into Business Plan Pro and see what happens... You'd have to pull out some voodoo magic to get it to show you the sales figures they pull in Downtown Detroit. Anyway, we were talking something about Slows and the community around the old Michigan Central Station. And about how it seems like the successful business owners in Detroit 'get it' that you have to support the whole community to succeed and not just fend for yourself. Something like that. Phil was noticing that our track record with the guides was hitting this point home,


And that's when Toby started talking about doing a cookbook/business community/Detroit story. How to build a business in Detroit and how to make a mean 'slaw all rolled into one. He's already mentioned it to his publisher at Harper-Collins, the one that put out his book 'Sharp Teeth' and it seems like there's a good chance we can get it rolling.

Well, we crossed the finish line with two places for a drink without the shopping guides. Jumbo's Bar on 3rd Street and The Lager House in Corktown. Jumbo's is a first-class cinder-block dive. No windows. Right in the heart of the sketchy Cass Corridor- well, maybe not as rough as those days when you could catch a show at the Gold Dollar, but still not the place you'd want to go start up a game of midnight tag. We each took the karaoke mic for a spin to celebrate.

And finally, things ended at the Lager House. If I ever was a sharp guy, I sure wasn't by the time I got there. I almost blew the surprise we had in store for Ko- but managed to cover it up somehow. Then we watched the band (usually I'd at least know the name of the band I go see, but I guess I just had a lot on my mind after my first day of work...)

Oh, and there's also a top secret project I'll be working on involving that Lucky Old Train Station. See that's #4. But I can't say a peep about that. And there's also a #6 and that's a bar, but I can't let that one outta the bag either. Highly confidential stuff. Well, for Santa Clause, and all the Fans of the Underdog City, goodnight. We'll see you in Cuba.

The First Assignment

Last fall, as the nation's economy took a swan dive toward an empty pool, Time Magazine rushed out to the homeland of the Big 3 to capture some high/res portraits of the Motor City. Published as the "Remains of Detroit"- the images would become part of a cover story for the magazine, and the digital slideshow circulated about like some Youtube fetish. Even my mom forwarded it to me. In case you missed it: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1864272,00.html

Well, I've got a bit of a bone to pick with Time Magazine. Not for their overall effort toward my new hometown (sending writers out to live here seems like a pretty good way to get a pulse on the situation: see their Detroit Blog). But for their choice of a title. The Remains of Detroit? As though the shrink from 2 million people in the 1950s to under a million today gives you license to completely disregard the remaining 900,000+ people living here now. Picture it: [the voice of Charleton Heston] 'And this... Today... What's left of our nation's Greatest... Industrial... Empire...' (cue the slideshow with 5 second fade-outs...).

The problem with the whole thing is that on the flip side of the coin, you've got people saying stuff like this about Detroit these days:

"It would be ignorant not to recognize the problems the city is facing, and perhaps as a creative soul I have a rose tinted perspective, but the freedom, the energy and the inspiring individuals I met there are unequalled by anything I’ve felt living in Paris for the last 3 years." -- Susan Connie Marsh, Publisher of Under the Influence Magazine

"You feel the potential, and if you don't grab it and run with it, you'll lose it. ... You can't do these things anywhere else. People with ideas are coming here; there is hope in the people that come here. … There is possibility in Detroit." -- Diederick Kraaijeveld, Dutch artist

"I've lived in a number of terrific places, including Paris and Reykjavik and Kyoto. But I keep setting my books in Michigan. For whatever reason, Detroit has the most powerful hold on my imagination." --Brad Leithauser, writer

---

So I got this new job at Team Detroit with a very agreeable boss named Toby Barlow who asked me to start up a blog. He was named 'Best Candidate for Intergalactic Ambassador of Detroit' by Metrotimes (read it here) and you'll pick up on that by seeking out any of his Detroit-focused editorials for the NY times. Google them, they're great. From buying a house for $100 - to the amazing support the community gives new business owners - to the joys of biking in the Motor City. Toby's moved around a bit getting to where he's at in life - from SF to NYC and now to Detroit. And while he set Sharp Teeth out in LA, he's writing another novel that takes place in his new (and favorite) city: you guessed it, Motor Town. (As I write this, he's just sent an email from Paris via India & London, calling himself out on being sappy for how much he misses this place.)

Anyway, this blog's gonna be a forum that tries to shed some light on what else remains here. Down on the ground, between those empty hulking edifices. I have a crazy sense that focusing on what actually remains in the D is gonna be a tough assignment. Not because I'll have to rack my brain to find anything of value going on here. But because I can feel the city changing around me and growing every single day. I can't go out and get a freakin' beer in this city without hearing about something else that's about to start up, something that's just opened, or is starting to blow up. And since more and more the trend seems to be people wanting to work together to achieve larger goals, the Remains of the D will probably grow even quicker. So it won't be very easy to try and capture a fair sense of it. But you definitely won't have to twist my arm to get me to try.

So what the F- are you gonna find on this blog?

Well, for starters- some projects that myself or my agreeable boss Toby or our good friend Phillip Cooley over at Slows Bar-B-Q are involved in. Things ranging from Phil helping to build a bmx pump track on an empty lot in a neighborhood that 99% of reporters write off as a lost cause; a neighborhood hit hard by the '67 riots, that stands mostly abandoned today, and yet houses some of Detroit's best examples of urban agriculture (I love you North Corktown)... To things like the Detroit Ford Reclamation Project where the three of us cooked up a pool of cash to pimp the ride of our friend Ko, a local rockstar (see - it's not just bad things that happen to cars in Detroit, Mr. Insurance Man)... To things like - oh wait, I can't say that one. But it involves the very photogenic Michigan Central Station- yes the very one in Times famous slideshow (I want you, train station).

Also, you're gonna find some transcripts from the early stages of us setting up these projects. And these'll make for some pretty good reads. I promise. See, like many of the people who claim (for whatever crazy reason) they can spot some light at the end of the dark Detroit night- Phil, Toby and I are obsessed dreamers. Always scheming (& even sometimes succeeding!). We think it only fair to relate some of our crazy roller coaster process to you- so that when people ask us how'd you pull that off, we can say- have a look! Also, I'll let you in on a little hint: the process is like a really good drug. Lots of fun, really fast, sometimes outta control, but making you feel real good all over (especially before the doubts start to kick in). And like I said, sometimes things actually work out! I drove a bobcat this summer in front of the train station while helping build a landscape with Los Pistoleros and Daimler Financial. Did I have any credentials to operate that thing? HELL... NO! In fact- I actually dropped the bucket on Phil's foot as we were packing up the last of the native grass plants to head out and leave for the day. Somehow his foot didn't break. (Shhhh. Don't mention that one to Mr Insurance please.)

What else are you gonna find here? Well, interviews. Kid Rock and Jack White and the scandalous Detroit politicians and Meatloaf and such. Well, maybe not Meatloaf. And I guess maybe not those other folks either, but I won't rule it out just yet. Never say never.

Of course, my agreeable boss will drop in as well to say some smart things that we'll all learn from and say 'oh yeah- that makes sense!'

Oh! and we're gonna get some pictures for you to look at too. Not sure of what yet, but they'll be in there, I promise. I know that a lot of text can be boring. So thank you for sticking it out with me so far.

Well, that's about it for now. Gotta flip thru my shiny new Team Detroit rolodex and check to see if Meatloaf's in there. More to come soon...