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Type A, positive.

like cheers
The real 8 Mile Road, Detroit

How many times have I said read­ing a daily news­pa­per in Detroit is hardly ever boring?

Two years ago, 1-year-old Deante Reid died in his par­ents’ care — and, to avoid funeral costs, his par­ents tried to cre­mate him in a bar­be­cue grill, the boy’s mother told police. But the bones wouldn’t burn com­pletely, so the cou­ple hid what was left of the baby in the ceil­ing of a home on Dick­er­son in Detroit.

Jesus Christ. The story gets worse: The author­i­ties found about the bar­be­cue because they’re inves­ti­gat­ing the abuse of another kid in the same fam­ily. Burns.

Shud­der.

Well, don’t want to bring you down too early on Mon­day. I’m writ­ing this on my birth­day, a big birth­day, one that ends in a zero. It doesn’t make me happy — I don’t feel 50, although I’ve looked it since 40 or so. And while I’m happy to be 50 in the 21st cen­tury, when 50 is the new 35, noth­ing really changes. Women are invis­i­ble past 50. Nature is a bitch. Crone­hood is scant com­pen­sa­tion, but what the hell, we all can’t be Char­lotte Ram­pling.

Self-pity over. I’m glad to be alive, even in a world where peo­ple bar­be­cue their children.

Besides — [jar­ring change of mood; dis­trac­tion by shiny object] — I got a cool present. I knew it was cool when I couldn’t even play with it the whole first day because Kate was down­stairs with her friends, mak­ing a series of exper­i­men­tal films involv­ing mutant were­wolves and delin­quent teenagers. As soon as I retrieve it from the were­wolves, I think it’ll be a nice new resource for NN.C. More to come.

So how was everybody’s week­end? Good, I hope. I cel­e­brated my impend­ing mid­cen­tury doom by giv­ing blood Fri­day. I mean, why not? I’ve always been a blood donor; all any­one has ever had to do is ask. This was my 49th unit, and yes, I noted the sym­me­try. I started when I was young and healthy in Colum­bus, Ohio, and have seen quite a few things change since then. Image-wise, blood prod­ucts have gone from being the very stuff of life to agents of con­ta­gion more akin to toxic waste. The usu­ally put a sticker on your shirt as you’re leav­ing, some­thing like, “Be nice to me! I gave blood today.” If they were redesign­ing the stick­ers today, they should say, “Bow down before me! I have no com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, nor do I take Plavix, coumadin or Accu­tane and to my knowl­edge have not had sex with a man who’s had sex with another man since 1977.”

I’ve learned that the blood you give isn’t imme­di­ately rushed across the street to be infused in an acci­dent vic­tim; some­times it’s exported to another part of the world. Blood is a com­mod­ity, and the Red Cross treats it as such, and you shouldn’t be shocked or offended to learn this. Remem­ber those hor­ri­ble pic­tures of 9/11, of all the emer­gency med­ical per­son­nel lined up in ambu­lance bays, wait­ing for injured that never arrived? Remem­ber how Amer­ica responded? (The ones with­out stu­pid blogs, that is.) Feel­ing help­less in their liv­ing rooms, watch­ing the car­nage on TV, they went down to their local blood banks and donated a pint, blood that was, quite frankly, of no use to the thou­sands who died that day. Blood has a shelf life; gal­lons had to be dis­carded, rivers of blood now soak­ing into bio-waste land­fills. Les­son: Think before you give.

Of course, there’s always a need. Most blood stays in the com­mu­ni­ties where it’s col­lected. Every year it gets scarcer, and once you’ve donated blood in the 21st cen­tury, you under­stand why. When I started donat­ing in the late ‘70s, the ques­tions were about hepati­tis and recent vac­ci­na­tions, and the nice nurses touched you with their bare hands. Within a few years, they started ask­ing about AIDS and HIV, and every­one wore latex. A few years later, they insti­tuted a private-moment inter­lude in the inter­view, when you could slip behind a screen and put an anony­mous bar-code sticker on your chart that told the com­puter what you were too embar­rassed to tell the nice nurse — that you were an IV drug abuser or a catcher at last Sat­ur­day night’s bare­back anal-sex orgy.

Fri­day was my first donor appoint­ment in four years. The last one, in 2003, was mem­o­rable because it was in our office, and was marked by two faint­ings (Emma’s hus­band swooned, and Emma, watch­ing, swooned in sym­pa­thy. Or maybe it was the other way around.) and a set-to between a gay edi­tor and the bureau­cracy of the Amer­i­can Red Cross, who found his protes­ta­tions of rig­or­ous HIV test­ing, safe-sex prac­tices and mutual monogamy uncon­vinc­ing, and rejected him per­ma­nently. This year, I was told by a gruff nurse to read the man­ual before I even signed in.

“I’ve got some expe­ri­ence with this,” I said. “Is there any­thing new?”

“The FDA requires us to make you read the man­ual,” she replied.

OK. The man­ual: Do you feel well today? Are you prone to faint­ing spells? Had a recent tat­too? Pos­i­tive drug test for HIV? All famil­iar ques­tions, then a new med­ical hor­ror: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Dis­ease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob Dis­ease Vari­ant. Had a dura mater trans­plant lately? God, no. Can­cer? Chemo? Infec­tions? On to the con­traindi­cated drug list, which had grown by a page, now encom­pass­ing many of the won­der drugs adver­tised on prime-time tele­vi­sion. Insulin from bovine sources, blood thin­ners, acne drugs linked to birth defects. I began to won­der if this was worth it for a cou­ple of cook­ies, a glass of orange juice and a free blood-pressure check.

It took 45 min­utes to get through the screen­ing. After that, the nee­dle stick was a relief.

The whole oper­a­tion was under­staffed, and I didn’t have the usual post-donation expe­ri­ence of being walked to the can­teen by an old man who keeps a firm grip on your elbow, lest you pass out. They waved me over to the Lorna Doones with a ges­ture and told me to call if I devel­oped any alarm­ing symp­toms or recalled a pre­vi­ously for­got­ten inter­lude with a Vil­lage Per­son. The expe­ri­ence was, like so many things these days, not what it used to be.

So be nice to me. I put up with a lot of shit to keep the country’s blood sup­ply safe.

Blog­gage:

Meet a 3-year-old drum prodigy. Does he have a web­site? But of course. Sounds like his career’s well under­way, which is good, because his par­ents have enrolled him in a school that will require many record sales to meet the tuition bill.

Amy Wine­house is Judy Gar­land, 2007 ver­sion. What the hell is that hang­ing down between her legs? A tam­pon string?

More later, but less of it. I have so much work to do this week I’ll barely have time to make videos. There’s a prob­lem to have, eh?

Posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 9:50 am
in Same ol' same ol'.

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39 responses to
“Type A, positive.”

  1. 4dbirds said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:00 am

    Thank you Nancy. When my 2 year old daugh­ter was under­go­ing chemo, she needed blood tran­fu­sions on a reg­u­lar basis. Those anony­mous donors saved her life just as much as the doc­tors who treated her. I used to give on a reg­u­lar basis also until any­one who lived in Europe in the 80s was banned. It makes me won­der if the ARC is over-compensating for how they didn’t take AIDS seri­ously or if Creutzfeldt-Jakob Dis­ease is more a prob­lem than we’re being told.

  2. brian stouder said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    And inter­est­ingly enough, Amy Wine­house could well qual­ify to be a blood donor (I do phere­sis — where they give me my red stuff back, and just keep the platelets…but you usu­ally get stuck in both arms, and it takes 70 min­utes or so — and if you’re lucky in your arrival time, you get the remote con­trol for the tv), as long as the tatoos are more than 6 months old, and she only snorts her cocaine (and doesn’t inject it!)

  3. nancy said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:11 am

    You’re wel­come. I don’t know if the ARC didn’t take AIDS seri­ously or not, how­ever. Cer­tainly, blood and blood prod­ucts were a big con­ta­gion vec­tor early on in the epi­demic, but once the test was devised, that took care of things. Where they erred, I think, was in edu­ca­tion. I recall being reg­u­larly stunned at how often the Red Cross would feel the need to say, “You can’t get AIDS from being a blood donor,” because fear of AIDS was really doing a num­ber on their donor ranks.

    It seemed like such a no-brainer — you can get AIDS from receiv­ing blood, not giv­ing it, and the nee­dles were always one-use dis­pos­ables. Peo­ple must really be crim­i­nally stupid.

  4. Dorothy said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:12 am

    My first offi­cial week­end liv­ing in Ohio again was cel­e­brated by vis­it­ing our son in Colum­bus, and we (me, Josh & Mike) all donated blood together. There was a Blood­mo­bile out­side of Best Buy in Polaris Shop­ping Cen­ter (I think) and it was fun, sit­ting there and razz­ing each other while we filled out the paper­work. I think we made the nurses dizzy with all of our goof­ing around. It was fun. I’ve only got­ten light headed once when donat­ing, and it was dur­ing the drip, not get­ting up after­wards. And once a co-worker fainted in my cubi­cle when she stopped by to chat after donat­ing. Scared the crap out of me.

    Our hol­i­day was nice for the most part. But it was also a lit­tle sad because Josh and his fiance called off their engage­ment. That’s small pota­toes com­pared to the news that my cousin Nora’s son Jeff (32 years old) found out he has a large tumor in his stom­ach. He sees a spe­cial­ist a week from today. We’re all pretty stunned by this. Jeff’s dad died almost 20 years ago from leukemia. Need­less to say, we are all hop­ing for the best pos­si­ble outcome.

    Brian — my hus­band has done the phere­sis too. To Rich, the one who died of leukemia. He hasn’t done it in a long time, but I think he would if any­one asked him.

  5. alex said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:13 am

    Glad to know the blood supply’s in such good hands. Remem­ber the old Plasma Donor Cen­ter here in the Fort? Wasn’t all that long ago when the worst skanks would line up in the morn­ing out­side of that place to get their drug money.

    All this close-up fuss about Amy Winehouse’s nasal lesion and they ignore her tam­pon string? Jeez.

  6. Julie said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:17 am

    Just had to stop by and wish you a most happy birth­day. I check in every day, and your posts are always a thought-provoking (and often­times, laugh-provoking) inter­lude in my day. I’m going to be right behind you on the approach to 5 – 0, and my son is Kate’s age, so very best wishes from a Geor­gia fan.
    Julie

  7. Dorothy said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:17 am

    I don’t think that’s a tam­pon string. It doesn’t look sturdy enough. I think it’s hang­ing from the hem of her garment.

  8. Laura said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:20 am

    Dorothy:

    I’m sorry to hear your news. But please know that what they can now do for can­cer verses what was done 20 (or even 5) years ago is noth­ing short of amaz­ing. I’ll keep good thoughts for you.

  9. Connie said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:38 am

    My kid had major jaw surgery when she was 15, and the sur­geon had her donate her own blood before the surgery, just in case. She was com­pletely freaked out when the nurse asked her if she had sex with any men from Africa in the last year. They didn’t need her blood dur­ing the surgery and I was dis­mayed to learn it could not be used for some­one else and would be discarded.

  10. MichaelG said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:42 am

    Happy Birth­day!!

  11. John said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:55 am

    What Dorothy said about the raggedy-ass “singer”.

    And a Happy Belated Birth­day to you! We cel­e­brated Betsy’s 50th in Can­cun, you should have beaten up Alan to take you some­where nice (and left Kate behind!). Remem­ber, 50 is the new 30!

  12. Dorothy said on November 26th, 2007 at 10:56 am

    Thanks, Laura. That’s exactly what I told Nora when we heard of the news. But Nora’s reply was “Yes, the brain is say­ing all those com­mon sense things about the advances in the treat­ment of can­cer. But my heart is explod­ing at the very thought of what he might have to go through.”

  13. LA mary said on November 26th, 2007 at 11:19 am

    Happy Birth­day, and trust me 50 is not so bad. Just keep mov­ing and keep your eyes and ears open and it’s all fine. Until the hot flashes, but that’s another thing.
    I am occa­sion­ally ane­mic, so I go to the blood donor room here every month to see if I’m not too ane­mic to give blood. Twice I haven’t been. They’re a lot nicer in there than you described. Good cook­ies, choice of juice, and a coupon for a pint of Baskin Rob­bins. And I get out of my office for 45 min­utes or so, which is always a good thing.

  14. colleen said on November 26th, 2007 at 11:32 am

    Happy Birthday…I’m ten years behind you and still feel­ing trauma from the big 4 0.

    I started giv­ing blood over the summer…face the fear and get over it kind of thing. Last time I almost got sick and passed out. They tipped me ass over teaket­tle and handed me a red plas­tic bag before I fin­ished the sen­tence “I don’t feel well”.

    Next time I will eat before I go.….

  15. Danny said on November 26th, 2007 at 11:33 am

    A very Happy Birth­day to you, Nancy! WooHoo. In two years, my wife will join you.

  16. Danny said on November 26th, 2007 at 11:34 am

    About the blood thing. A few of you might remem­ber what I shared a cou­ple of years ago here. I have a cousin who is a hemo­phil­iac, now in his late 20’s. He has also been HIV-positive since the age of four due to a tainted blood trans­fu­sion. Talk about messed up. Try to imag­ine going through child­hood and ado­les­cence with HIV and the propen­sity to bleed lke a river.

  17. Sue said on November 26th, 2007 at 11:46 am

    Happy Birth­day, young­ster! I really don’t mind being invis­i­ble so much, but I have a real fear of becom­ing a Thought­less Impo­lite Old Per­son. Seems to start around 50 or so and gets worse. Maybe time’s get­ting short, but that doesn’t enti­tle me to hate young peo­ple, push to the front of the line, be rude and cheap to servers, or make my family’s lives mis­er­able. Seems like the older you get, the more pro­nounced your bad char­ac­ter­is­tics become, and I really watch myself for signs that I’m “turn­ing”. So far so good. I think.

  18. James Moehrke said on November 26th, 2007 at 12:30 pm

    Happy birth­day Nancy! It’s mine, too, and I’m here at the news­pa­per work­ing when I’d rather be lol­ly­gag­ging at home (if you con­sider read­ing blogs work­ing, that is). I’m now offi­cially closer to the big six zero than your 50, but hav­ing a 15-year-old is help­ing to keep me young. At least that’s my story.

  19. ashley said on November 26th, 2007 at 12:30 pm

    Happy 50 Nance. You’re still a “1” on the Ash­ley Mor­ris Binary Hot­ness Scale ™.

    I think you should cel­e­brate by a) get­ting a tat­too and b) get­ting a cheap drunk. That’s the other ben­e­fit of giv­ing blood.

  20. MichaelG said on November 26th, 2007 at 2:29 pm

    I wish I was 50 again and knew what I know now. If I don’t for­get it.

  21. Jeff said on November 26th, 2007 at 2:42 pm

    Con­grats on the half-century mark, Blog­mistress Ours, and thanks for the dona­tion — that’s a nice review of the pecu­liar­i­ties of the sys­tem in your post, said an every 60 day O neg donor. Eleven and a half gal­lons, and i still can’t quite fig­ure out what they’re doing when they do it, except gam­ing the price of cer­tain tests ver­sus the down­side of rudely screen­ing out major sub­pop­u­la­tions (read, gay men) they’ll need back someday.

    There’s clearly still a major worry about Mad Cow/BSE/C-J float­ing around out in the global med­ical com­mu­nity though, as those ques­tions have been in the inter­view for a long time, and get more focused, not less. Just a few weeks in the British Isles can get you spiked for dona­tion, while your safari in Kenya draws a “s’OK.” When i was in sem­i­nary run­ning blood dri­ves, a short stay in Africa and the shots you got were just casu­ally told “life­time defer­ral, thanks for play­ing.” Ditto tat­toos. Now it’s 30 days for licensed pierc­ings or tat­toos, a year for (ahem) more infor­mal work­man­ship, unless you got your jail­house tat from the con­fines of a cell you held down for more than three days, in which case … life­time (for now) deferral.

    Dorothy, watch out on the trip home! The deer, they are a ‘run­nin’. A friend’s step-daughter accor­dioned a car in front of her that hit a buck (six point, throw ‘em back) dart­ing across the road. Oddly, the shelves where the small, pint-sized flat bot­tles of scotch and whiskey nor­mally sit are all empty this morn­ing … ah, deer gun season.

    Now there’s a way to cel­e­brate a b-day, Nancy.

  22. Dorothy said on November 26th, 2007 at 2:49 pm

    Thanks, Jeff. I was actu­ally cau­tious at lunch time when I ran home to walk the pup. I’d rather just stay indoors for the next 8 days or so, except for my job. It’s just eas­ier that way.

  23. ie said on November 26th, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Happy Birth­day! Today is the first day of the blah blah blah.
    Just be glad that ol’ skanky Amy Wino wasn’t in the booth next to you, rac­ing for the Lorna Doones.

  24. beb said on November 26th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

    Ah yes, the Booby Trap. I’ve seem that mes­sage on their sign. It’s good for a laugh.

    In the time of the pre­miere of Harry Pot­ter and the Cham­ber of Secrets — that would be 6 – 8 years ago, my daugh­ter and a class­mate were going to the open­ing, I was dri­ving. My daugh­ter is 15 now so se must have been 8 – 9 at the time. We were dri­ving down 8 Mile because it was rush hour and 696 would have been impass­able. When we passed BT’s my daughter’s friend vol­un­teered that that was a top­less bar. Up till then I don’t think my daugh­ter had ever heard of top­less bars, let alone con­sid­ered what peo­ple do inside one. My fear for the rest of the drive was that she would ask that ques­tion. For­tu­nately she didn’t, but talk about awkward…

    bebe (20 years an eastsider)

  25. brian stouder said on November 26th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    and really, if you walked into Cheers and it was top­less, wouldn’t you run out scream­ing? (Diane??!! Carla??!! George has a big­ger rack than all of Sam’s staff combined)

  26. Cosmo Panzini said on November 26th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

    That skinny-ass young singer(?) rein­forces my long-held belief that tat­toos, no mat­ter how art­fully done, are merely dis­plays of self-loathing. I can imag­ine no other rea­son to have them. Oh, and Happy Birth­day Nancy. The 5 0 is tough for a while, but like every­thing else, the hor­ror fades.

  27. Peter said on November 26th, 2007 at 4:35 pm

    Happy Happy Birth­day to you Nancy. I hit the 50 last year, and other than real­iz­ing that I’m on the B side now, it’s not bad.

    Last time I gave blood I caused a com­mo­tion because I wouldn’t eat one of the pow­dered dough­nuts after­wards “You need the sugar” they said, “I’d rather afint than eat one of those sorry excuses for a dough­nut” said I. I’m sorry, but in my book dough­nuts are raised, big, and cov­ered in chocolate.

    If you believe that good art comes out of suf­fer­ing or depri­va­tion, Amy Wine­house has got the for­mula down pat. I love her music, but I can’t help but feel that I’m con­tribut­ing to her early demise.

  28. alex said on November 26th, 2007 at 5:50 pm

    Amy’s only nine­teen. Or maybe twenty now. From my stand­point as a forty-something lush she’s got a lotta good years left. Here’s hop­ing she con­tin­ues to do her thing for art’s sake.

    Oh, and happy five-oh Nance! I’m look­ing for­ward to my big bash in a cou­pla years. Please don’t make me go to rehab before then.

  29. Julie Robinson said on November 26th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    Happy Birth­day, Nance! It’s taken me awhile to get over turn­ing 50, and I had no prob­lem with 30 or 40. It was the first time I thought about how when my Dad was my age, he only had 12 years of life left. Depressing.

    The Red Cross peo­ple really love you when you’re O neg­a­tive and haven’t had the RSV virus (I think that’s the one). They call and gen­tly remind you that you have the spe­cial blood they give the new­borns. Not that they’d want you to feel guilty.

  30. basset said on November 26th, 2007 at 9:51 pm

    south of Nashville on I-65, just above the Alabama state line, you can see the “Boo­bie Bun­ga­low”… where, a few years ago, a cou­ple of 400-pound locals mur­dered one of the strip­pers, chopped her up, and tried to burn her mor­tal remains in a metal drum with the trash.

    mean­while, I am com­ing up on 35 years of blood dona­tion, start­ing at IU back in the early 70s when we used to line up for hours in Alumni Hall because Pur­due was gonna win the blood-drive con­test if we didn’t all turn out and help. never went to a sin­gle foot­ball game the whole time I was there, no bas­ket­ball either unless I was work­ing, but I’ll sure bleed for old IU. still don’t have babesio­sis or Cha­gas’ dis­ease, either.

  31. michaelj said on November 26th, 2007 at 11:41 pm

    Could some­body explain to me what the J. Geils conec­tion is to actual Detroit music? I hate to come across as some elit­ist, but I grew up going to the Motown Revue and the Michi­gan State Fair. We had SRC and MC5 and Bob Seger Sys­tem. And we had Motown.

    We didn’t lack for musi­cal tal­ent. I know Hide­out was before Nancy’s time, but, for instance, Pep Per­rine on drums behind Seger on lead on Ram­blin’ Gam­blin’ was non­pareil, and Heavy Music, those were bet­ter than all of the other regional records of that time in space, includ­ing Geils. Actu­ally, SRC was as good as MC5, maybe better.

    I went to school in New Eng­land (at Holy Cross) about that same time, and there were Bary and the Remains, James Mont­gomery etc. Those Boston bands put Giles in the also-ran, but Detroit ruled. Good grief, Amboy Dukes were actu­ally better.

    I know none of you ever heard Detroit music first hand in the late 60s. If you think “Some­body Help Me” exists in the same uni­verse as “Shakin’ Street”, well that’s the same sort of mind­set that leads to vot­ing Repub­li­can. Lis­ten to the Sonic and Brother Wayne Kramer twin gui­tars on any song on “Kick Out the Jams” and you see where Skynyrd got the idea.

    Any­way, I don’t under­stand J. Geils hagiog­ra­phy on an allegedly Detroit web­site. I did kinda get the drink­ing with Magic Dick ref­er­ence. I was in Jack’s on Mass Ave. with Peter Wolfe when Reg­gie Jack­son actu­ally cheated in the ’77 World Series. The wooma-gooma voice of the J. Geils Band was out­raged about the obvi­ous cheating.

    Amaz­ingly, the only other time I ever saw the guy was the night Isiah threw the inbound pass rightto Larry. Who hit DJ for the game win­ner. We were on the side­walk. On Mass­a­chu­setts Ave. Out­side Jack’s, home away fromhome of Bonny, the crazy red­head, Raitt. The club where they both became famous. About 200 back from the TV. He was a DJ before he ever got to sing “Love Stinks”. Good guy. Boston guy.

    Any­way, that was the night Isiah became a leg­endary ass­hole pariah by attempt­ing to den­i­grate Larry when Larry punked him on the court. “If he (WAS) black, he’d just be another player”. Try the sub­junc­tive, moron. Worse than Matt Millen’s ouvre. We went home and played “Tales of Lucy Blue” aka, “Ramblin”Gamblin Man”.

    Of course, if you love Detroit music, and you’ve got a brain these days, Edwin Starr was clair­voy­ant, except that it was “war” and not “occu­pa­tion” he thought was patently use­less. Two plus two is on my mind.

  32. michaelj said on November 27th, 2007 at 2:40 am

    Would every­body agree that Warren’s Were­wolf is the great­est were­wolf song? But of course, he also wrote the great “lawyer” song. Did any of y’all ever see War­ren in per­son? I can play a 12-string pretty well. This guy was ridicu­lously good.

    But he wrote con­densed ver­sions of his­tory, world and per­sonal. “I heard Woodrow Wilson’s guns
    I heard Maria call­ing
    Say­ing, “Ver­acruz is dying
    And Cuernavaca’s falling”

    Cuernevaca was a bad place to get caught up in his­toric moments.

    Appar­ently, Warren’s best friend in his later years was John D. McDon­ald. Sur­pris­ing he didn’t seek out his fel­low LA cur­mud­geon Wal­ter Mose­ley, who car­ries the John D. McDon­ald flame. Wal­ter Mose­ley wrote this: “You said don’t shoot him, right? Well I didn’t. I choked him. If you didn’t want him killed, Easy, why’d you leave him with me?” Ray­mond “Mouse” Alexan­der. The defin­i­tive Don Chea­dle role.

  33. Dave said on November 27th, 2007 at 3:12 am

    Wow, what a lot of inter­est­ing com­ments that stray all over. Nancy, happy birth­day, I’ve got seven years on you and it isn’t too bad but the next big-0 birth­day might make me think oth­er­wise. It’s true, if you’ve got your health, I don’t know if you have every­thing but with­out it, noth­ing else mat­ters as much.

    Julie Robin­son, my wife woke up on the morn­ing of her 56th birth­day and the first thing she said was, “I’ve lived longer than my dad”. Some­thing I knew she was think­ing for awhile but she’d never come out and directly said it.

  34. elaine said on November 27th, 2007 at 7:48 am

    Happy Birth­day, Nancy! I’m a year and some behind you, so break fifty in good for me.

  35. del said on November 27th, 2007 at 8:40 am

    michaelj, great stuff. As for its Detroit con­nec­tion, as near as I can tell Geils just started get­ting a ton of radio airplay.

  36. john c said on November 27th, 2007 at 9:15 am

    michaelj:
    I think, like Metro Times, you had a dif­fer­ent idea of Detroit songs. J Geils’ was a great song “about” Detroit, or at least with a Detroit ref­er­ence … not nec­es­sar­ily from Detroit. And I won’t quib­ble with how he stacks up with the greats you men­tioned. But, even though I didn’t grow up here, I will sug­gest that Peter Wolf and co embody a cer­tain Detroit rockin’ spirit in the tra­di­tion of the MC5, the Amboy Dukes, Iggy and the Stooges, etc., which is to say they were a great rockin’ party band. You didn’t go to one of their shows to stand their and lis­ten to some good songs. You went there to par­tic­i­pate in an arse-whoopin’ show.

  37. michaela said on November 27th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

    A belated Happy Birth­day from a long­time lurker… I aspire to join y’all in the sec­ond half of your first cen­tury one day.

    As for Peter Wolf: I have noth­ing to say about his Detroit cred, but I will say that he showed up at the Spring­steen show in Boston last week and, holy cow, is he the worse for the wear. He did a loose-limbed dance/singalong with Patti Scialfa dur­ing “10th Avenue Freeze­out” and then slith­ered off­stage. He was on the 2nd or 3rd step when he real­ized he’d left his cock­tail on the drum riser; hastier moves were never seen. I only won­der what was in that cup…

  38. brian stouder said on November 27th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    Wel­come Michaela!

    I’ve only been to a very few con­certs; caught John Mel­len­camp at Deer Creek — which was mar­velous. As Motor City 5 is to Detroit, so too is Mel­len­camp to an open-air venue in an Indi­ana corn­field in July.

    One thing about that con­cert, though, was that Blind Mel­lon was the open­ing act. They had one big hit out — No Rain — and they were just ter­ri­ble!! Awful!! Worse than crash­ing ham­mers in a metal beam shop. The lead singer was lit­er­ally rolling on the stage and groan­ing and gurgling.…he would be dead of an OD within a few months.

    (and in fact, Pearl Jam and Eddie Ved­der had a lit­tle ditty out directed at Blind Melon’s lead singer, but alas — he paid no heed!)

  39. Kim said on November 27th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    Late again, but happy birth­day and many, many more!

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