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‘The ’90s sucked, man.’

Two movies this week­end, both old and ban­ished to cable, one a pleas­ant sur­prise, the other its oppo­site. Why? Because it’s Mon­day, I have to fin­ish a story for money and do the cus­tom­ary work for no money, and why else? Because it’s quar­terly tax day, the lit­tle foun­tains of joy for all self-employed lucky dev­ils like me.

First, “The Wrestler.” I’d been resist­ing it for what I con­sid­ered per­fectly good rea­sons, pri­mar­ily an allergy to Mickey Rourke and a ques­tion I could hon­estly answer no way, i.e., do I really care about pro­fes­sional wrestling’s per­ma­nent under­card? Friends, was I wrong.

Hon­estly, Rourke is nearly unrec­og­niz­able as Randy “the Ram” Robin­son. No, he is Robin­son. What­ever ’80s buzz he had as an actor, the stuff he squan­dered so read­ily with the usual van­ity projects, bad rela­tion­ships and worse behav­ior, lurks behind every shot of his ruined face. The fact the actor’s was ruined by plas­tic surgery and the wrestler’s by bad behav­ior and work is just serendip­ity. Rourke can barely move his mouth, but it plays as sup­pressed pain instead of Botox. But he’s not the best thing about “The Wrestler.” The details are, and I wished we’d got­ten an extra 24 hours of pay-per-view, because I wanted to watch it again and just look at the prod­ucts on the dressing-room coun­ters, the set dress­ing in his crappy trailer, the way Randy and his strip­per girl­friend exult over ’80s hair bands before “that Cobain pussy came around and ruined it all.”

And, I should add, the end­ing was absolutely per­fect. So go rent the DVD.

Next up: “Feast of Love,” a two-star dis­ap­point­ment that only gets the sec­ond star because of the cos­tumes and set design — every­body and every­thing looks real good. Oth­er­wise, bleh. The novel was one of the great dis­cov­er­ies of my year in Ann Arbor, rec­om­mended by one of my writ­ing teach­ers, who’d cho­sen Michigan’s MFA pro­gram over Iowa’s solely so she could study with Charles Bax­ter, the author. It’s a won­der­ful book, a “Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream” of rela­tion­ships roman­tic and famil­ial, old and young, and the movie is just pretty actresses get­ting naked. I know what you’re think­ing, but seri­ously: All those lovely breasts can’t save it.

One of my old screen­writ­ing profs men­tioned the film last Jan­u­ary, at a panel dis­cus­sion about Michigan’s tax incen­tives for moviemak­ing, and sug­gested relo­cat­ing the story from Ann Arbor to Port­land was a great mis­take and insult. I can’t agree 100 per­cent, but there is one scene that left me sneer­ing, in which a med­ical emer­gency mires a car try­ing to make its way to an ER; in the book they’re stuck in grid­locked traf­fic on Sta­dium Boule­vard, just as the Ohio State-Michigan game is end­ing. The char­ac­ters’ cries for help blend in with the exul­ta­tion of the crowd — the Wolver­ines pulled out another one — and it’s just a won­der­ful scene of tragedy and absur­dity, the indi­vid­ual buried in a sea of human­ity. Robert Ben­ton tries to dupli­cate it, but there’s some­thing about see­ing these wan Ore­go­ni­ans wav­ing their stu­pid thun­der sticks that was just ridicu­lous. It might have helped if they could have wran­gled more than 30 extras to pre­tend to be Big 10 foot­ball fans, too, but I guess they blew the bud­get on body makeup.

Also, if we give Mor­gan Free­man a siz­able sum of money, can we get it in writ­ing that he will never play a wise old man again? I know, I know — the voice, it’s Mor­gan Free­man, but all he’s required to do any­more is stare over the top of his read­ing glasses and be wise.

Bleh.

Can’t stay long today; see the usual excuses. A bit of blog­gage:

The Detroit dailies may be on life sup­port, but they’re going down swing­ing. Yes­ter­day in the Freep, yet another tale of offi­cial mis­con­duct — a pen­sion board that trav­els the world on tax dol­lars, leav­ing two days early, com­ing home five days late, etc. What a bunch of weasels.

Best new boat name in our neck of the lake: Amy’s Wine House. I’ll try to get a pic­ture next time I’m out in the kayak.

OK, off to the bak­ery and to start the Mon­day sprint. Good times!

Posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 9:05 am in Detroit life, Movies. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.


50 responses to
“‘The ’90s sucked, man.’”

  1. Dorothy said on June 15th, 2009 at 9:46 am

    We rented “The Wrestler” last week­end and I too was in awe of Mickey Rourke’s turn as Randy. Marisa Tomei was excel­lent as well. Now I just hope that he’ll cut his hair and find some other roles with which he can impress us.

    I have a list as long as my arm of movies I want to rent and/or see but we can’t seem to stop work­ing out­side long enough to do so. I was cut­ting the grass on our 3 acres on Sat­ur­day and looked briefly up at the lovely three porches that spread across the back of our house. I thought to myself “When the hell are we going to be able to sit on the porch and enjoy the yard?! All we do is weed the veg­etable gar­den, water it and the flow­ers we put in, and cut the grass!!!” Well it’s not really QUITE that bad but you get the idea. We do eat out­side on the screened in porch almost every day. My mom is com­ing for two weeks on July 3rd and I’m so glad she’ll get to enjoy the peace and quiet of the coun­try with us.

  2. moe99 said on June 15th, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Nancy, Is there a way you can get a kick­back from ama­zon in the UK? There’s a book that came out in Britain on June 1 that is not com­ing out in the states til July 29 and it’s one of the few authors who I will buy and buy in hard­back (Joe Aber­crom­bie). But no idea how to do it to ben­e­fit you.

  3. nancy said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:16 am

    Moe, I appre­ci­ate the ges­ture, but go ahead and order through Ama­zon UK. As teach­ers used to say, we’ll take the will for the deed.

  4. Julie Robinson said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am

    Dorothy, there are weeds burned into my reti­nas after this week­end, and we only have half an acre. After we get our youngest launched I think we will down­size and skip the yard­work.

    But you gotta know when to quit, so on Sat­ur­day night we went to The Pro­posal and I rec­om­mend it for silli­ness and laugh-out-loudness. On the way home the DH casu­ally won­dered how old San­dra Bul­lock is, because you see a lot of her in one scene, and she looks very good. (So does Ryan Reynolds.) Turns out she’s 45 and I’m think­ing she’s had some tight­en­ing done.

  5. Dexter said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:58 am

    And Alan Ball is back with “True­Blood”. He knows how to set a hook—fifteen sec­onds into sea­son 2 and we already had …well, I guess I don’t wanna spoil it for any­body who might catch it this week on replays.

  6. coozledad said on June 15th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    I hear The Decem­berists were play­ing at this rally.
    http://​www​.depend​ablerene​gade​.com/​d​e​p​e​n​d​a​b​l​e​_​r​e​n​e​g​a​d​e​/​2​0​0​9​/​0​6​/​h​o​l​y​-​c​r​a​p.html

  7. Dorothy said on June 15th, 2009 at 11:48 am

    San­dra has never had chil­dren either, Julie, so that helps her in the mid-section as well I’m sure. I give up spec­u­lat­ing on movie stars and their come­li­ness. They have the money = they’ll get work done if they desire it. Sim­ple equa­tion. I have no real envy of it any­more. I am try­ing to be sat­is­fied with the way I look/am because I have a real life, not a fairy tale, sun-kissed one. But if I won the lot­tery tomor­row? Bet your ass I’d be find­ing a way to shed about 50 pounds and flat­ten out my stom­ach in a heart­beat!

  8. brian stouder said on June 15th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

    “I know what you’re think­ing, but seri­ously: All those lovely breasts can’t save it.”

    My inter­pre­ta­tion: skip ‘The Wrestler’ and snap up ‘Feast of Breasts’! (just sayin’)

    “because you see a lot of her in one scene, and she looks very good.”

    Foot­note to the above inter­pre­ta­tion: A lot of San­dra Bul­lock??!! …and also pick up ‘The Pro­posal’!

    Michigan’s tax incen­tives for moviemak­ing, and sug­gested relo­cat­ing the story from Ann Arbor to Port­land

    Pam and I have been pon­der­ing where to go this sum­mer – and you know, we have noted a very nice parade of “See Michi­gan” adver­tise­ments lately. Before we ran off to Penn­syl­va­nia a few sum­mers ago, we were think­ing about going to Bat­tle Creek/Dearborn – but we allowed the demise of the attrac­tion at Kel­loggs to put the kibosh on that. But now we’re think­ing of tool­ing around Dearborn/Mackinaw City/D-town; not a “Stay-cation”, but instead a “stay-close” vaca­tion. (and we’ll skip the zoo at Belle Isle!)

  9. Sue said on June 15th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    Brian: mmmm, love those “Pure Michi­gan” com­mer­cials.
    And every­one knows that all the best peo­ple vaca­tion on (or near) Glen Lake.

  10. moe99 said on June 15th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    West­boro Bap­tist Church is pick­et­ing at my kids’ high school:

    http://​www​.kirotv​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​1​9​7​5​5​9​2​3​/​d​e​t​a​i​l.html

    Inner city sci­ence and math mag­net school with nation­ally ranked jazz band and orches­tra.

  11. brian stouder said on June 15th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    love those “Pure Michi­gan” com­mer­cials

    it’s the voice-over guy; just as Mor­gan Free­man has the voice of God, the Michi­gan guy has the silky-smooth and sooth­ing voice of a golf tele­cast announcer

  12. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    That would be Tim Allen, he of “Home Improve­ment,” and with a delight­ful touch of irony, a period ear­lier in his life enjoy­ing the hos­pi­tal­ity of the Michi­gan Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions.

    That had to make the tap­ings all the sweeter . . . he does do a really, really good job. You’d be amazed how many takes it requires to cap­ture a smooth, flow­ing, 28.5 sec­ond voice track. (Got one once in two, and i’m still get­ting con­grat­u­lated for it, and that’s been three, four years.)

  13. Jolene said on June 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    What is it that the Rev. Phelps objects to about this school, moe?

  14. MichaelG said on June 15th, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    They’re run­ning those Michi­gan com­mer­cials here in Sac too. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make it to MI this year.

  15. moe99 said on June 15th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    There are a lot of black and and lot of jew­ish stu­dents there. I under­stand they think god hates both groups.

  16. brian stouder said on June 15th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Tim Allen!

    Now that you say that, I can “hear” him. Any­way, good stuff

  17. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 15th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    Oh, God hates pretty much every­one but the Phelps’ and their mates. Very, very sad, the whole West­boro clan is, and i’ve wor­ried for years that we’ll get a Koresh/Heaven’s Gate scene when Fred feels his own per­sonal end game clos­ing in.

    Palate cleanser, any­one? For all you folks who think long bike trips are vaca­tion mate­r­ial — http://​travel​.nytimes​.com/​2​0​0​9​/​0​6​/​1​4​/​t​r​a​v​e​l​/​1​4​p​r​o​v​e​n​c​e.html — laven­der and olive oil and Roman ruins aplenty.

  18. Sue said on June 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    That is Tim Allen! I can’t believe I missed that! Per­fect – they could have done some goofy ToolTime thing and instead came up with those won­der­ful, evoca­tive com­mer­cials. Very nice.

  19. Sue said on June 15th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    West­boro pick­eted at a mil­i­tary funeral near here a few years back. The local paper caught some flack for not cov­er­ing it more exten­sively. Turns out the fam­ily had requested min­i­mal cov­er­age if pos­si­ble, so they just printed one pic­ture and a cap­tion. After they got some let­ters to the edi­tor they ran a story explain­ing the deci­sions on the cov­er­age. Read­ing about how much went into the deci­sion process was inter­est­ing – lots of fac­tors to con­sider.

  20. deb said on June 15th, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    I haven’t seen the Michi­gan com­mer­cials here in Dairy­land. They sound intrigu­ing. The last Michi­gan tourism pro­mo­tion I remem­ber is the one that replaced the i’s in Michi­gan with excla­ma­tion points. A typesetter’s night­mare. And how would you pro­nounce it?

  21. Sue said on June 15th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    The com­mer­cials are on Youtube. That’s how I checked the Tim Allen voice so quickly.

  22. Jolene said on June 15th, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    The Michi­gan com­mer­cials are run­ning in the DC Metro area too, and they do look pretty invit­ing. I have friends who nor­mally spend a week at Cape May, but, since their grown kids are now in Chicago and Cal­i­for­nia, they decided a Mid­west­ern vaca­tion would work bet­ter this year. New Jersey’s loss is your gain.

  23. adrianne said on June 15th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    Mr. Phelps and com­pany pick­eted my Catholic Church on Palm Sun­day a cou­ple of years ago because the mayor of New Paltz decided to marry same-sex cou­ples “by the author­ity vested in me by the state of New York.” Phelps said the churches hadn’t done “enough” to oppose gay mar­riage. One of their signs read: “Thank God for 9/11″ because the ter­ror­ists killed a bunch of gay peo­ple, appar­ently. Onward, Chris­t­ian sol­diers!

  24. brian stouder said on June 15th, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    New Jer­sey.

    Off the top of my head, if I was headed to the Gar­den State, I’d want to see some Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War-related sites, and some McLellan-related sites (do they offer tours of his house, or some­thing? I’ve vis­ited a few his­toric homes, and they tend to be mar­velous expe­ri­ences – thanks to espe­cially ded­i­cated staffers and guides)…I bet they have a won­der­ful museum there some­where. (and in any case, it would be a chance to roll into Philly and visit Con­sti­tu­tion Hall, etc)

    Plus – do they have the USS New Jer­sey there?

    (we’re think­ing a week in DC, maybe next year – when the kids might gen­er­ally get more out of it)

  25. beb said on June 15th, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    I’m con­fused. I thought the Michi­gan ads were being nar­rated by Jeff Daniels, MI’s other native son. I must be think­ing of another series of ads. The one’s I’m think­ing of had Daniels in the pic­ture. Per­son­ally I can’t see how Michi­gan can come out ahead draw­ing movie pro­duc­tion here with big tax breaks. Michi­gan is known for its VARIABLE weather, not it’s per­fect weather. On the other hand there are A LOT of out of work crafts­man where will­ing to work cheap.

  26. Sue said on June 15th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    I think the Jeff Daniels ad is aimed at busi­nesses, not tourists. And Chicago and the Chicago area are known for vari­able weather too, and for awhile any­way it was a big movie loca­tion. Toronto is used a lot too, I hear, and that’s not exactly Cal­i­for­nia either. They filmed “Pub­lic Ene­mies” (Johnny Depp’s new movie) in Mil­wau­kee and Colum­bus last year. So maybe eco­nom­ics trumps weather.

  27. Catherine said on June 15th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    What’s lovely is when the loca­tion can become another char­ac­ter in the movie (or TV show). Gran Torino is a great exam­ple.

    Here’s a bad exam­ple: Legally Blonde. Watched it with my girls this week­end. Liked (parts of) the mes­sage, loved Reese… hated Pasadena try­ing to stand in for Cam­bridge.

  28. LAMary said on June 15th, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Brian, if you’re in north­ern NJ you can go to Ring­wood Manor. I have child­hood mem­o­ries of the place. I’m sure there are places in Mor­ris­town and Tren­ton as well. If you go to Philadel­phia let me know and I’ll send you con­tact info for my friend Ger­ald who knows a lot about Philly and its envi­rons. Go to Win­terthur in Delaware too.

  29. MichaelG said on June 15th, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    I heard you gotta watch your dri­ving. You can over­run Delaware. Nyuk, nyuk.

  30. MichaelG said on June 15th, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    Hey, Mary, Cather­ine (or any­body else in CA). You got a tamale lady where you work?

    A tamale lady is a usu­ally older Mex­i­can lady who sells fresh, home­made tamales. Used to be ten bucks a dozen but it’s up to fif­teen now. We’ve had a tamale lady for every larger build­ing where I’ve worked. Is it a tra­di­tion every­where or just here in Sacto? It was on my mind because I was just wrap­ping and freez­ing today’s deliv­ery. Guess what’s for din­ner. They’re del­ish. A glass of wine, a big salad and that’s it!

  31. Julie Robinson said on June 15th, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Our church sold tamales to ben­e­fit another church, whose mem­bers made the tamales. Right here in the Fort.

  32. LAMary said on June 15th, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    Where I used to work we had a tamale lady but none here. It’s a pretty ster­ile place. In my neigh­bor­hood there are peo­ple who sell tamales out of the backs of their cars, or a new devel­op­ment in the last two years is set­ting up a grill as well as a big ket­tle of steamed tamales in the front yard of a house, or in the park­ing lot of a busi­ness not open at night, and sell­ing all sorts of Mex­i­can food. The tire place down the street has this going on, as well a sev­eral sin­gle fam­ily res­i­dences. Some of these places actu­ally look busy, but oth­ers have a vaguely pathetic look.

  33. Catherine said on June 15th, 2009 at 7:59 pm

    MichaelG, yes but it was a tamale guy. Dif­fer­ent fill­ings on dif­fer­ent days of the week. Some­times a warm cooler with tamales and a cold cooler with fruit and drinks. When I worked for the Mouse, not so much — stricter secu­rity there than at my DH’s government-contractor. Now I get them from the farmer’s mar­ket. Looks like I have guests tonight (thanks for the notice, honey!), maybe I’ll bor­row your menu!

  34. Deborah said on June 15th, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    I thought the Michi­gan Ads were Jeff Daniels, doesn’t sound like Tim Allen to me. But very classy.

    Also, saw these movies recently: The Reader (excel­lent), Rachel’s Get­ting Mar­ried (good), Burn After Read­ing (good but weird).

    If you are going to MI for vaca­tion, look­ing for a cool place go to Empire, small town on Lake Michi­gan, near Tra­verse City. Very quaint.

    My two cents.

  35. Scout said on June 15th, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    Just got back from LA, where we spent the entire week­end in Hol­ly­wood and West Hol­ly­wood. Spot­ted exactly ONE famous per­son… Tim Allen. We were sit­ting at a cof­feeshop at the cor­ner of Santa Mon­ica and San Vicente when he strolled by with another guy.

    Then I come home, check up on my emails and favorite blogs and behold – sev­eral men­tions of Tim Allen here at nn.c.

    Syn­chronic­ity is alive and well in my life.

  36. Quote of the day « The Apostate said on June 15th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    [...] – Nancy Nall [...]

  37. brian stouder said on June 15th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    A star fall, a phone call,
    It joins all,
    Syn­chronic­ity.

    It’s so deep, it’s so wide
    Your inside
    Syn­chronic­ity.

    Effect with­out a cause
    Sub-atomic laws, sci­en­tific pause
    Syn­chronic­ity

    I Googled Empire, and imme­di­ately perked up at remarks about an air­show there…and then got a chuckle out of the fact that it’s an RC air show! Despite that, these RC planes are fairly large – they showed a 4-engine Her­cules in Coast Guard liv­ery, and the text men­tions remote con­trolled jet planes….very inter­est­ing.

    If we go all the way north to Maci­naw, then the ques­tion is do we veer off to the west and Hol­land and Empire, or east and Dear­born and D-town.

    Who knows? Only the Shadow knows…

  38. beb said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:23 pm

    My wife tells me that Jeff Daniels is doing ads to attract bussi­ness to Michi­gan. I don;t call see­ing any “Pure Michi­gan” ads lately­but I can see where Tim Allen would be a good choice. He does have a good voice.

    We don;t have tamale ladies in NE Detroit, but I’m sure there’s a bunch around Mex­ico Town. What we tend to have uphere are lots of small out­door BBQ stands. Of course peo­ple like their BBQ so much they will BBQ on New Year’s eve (or most any other day) if there isn’t a bliz­zard.

    I read where they shot Pub­lic Ene­mies in Mil­wau­kee because ’09 Mil­wau­kee eerily resem­bled ’30 Chicago. I’m not sure if I’d like hear­ing that about my town (My town, today is Detroit, which would be the per­fect place to film any fur­ther Ter­mi­na­tor movies since it looks like the Apoc­a­lypse.) What I mean is one likes to think one lives is a hip, mod­ern city, not some last century’s holdover. On the other hand, the build­ings of the teens and twen­ties had so much char­ac­ter in them. Even the sim­ple store­fronts were styl­ish. Per­haps more styl­ish than a hip, mod­ern city….

    Brian at 37, to the west is Tra­verse City and the cherry orchards. To the east are a series of pic­toresque light­houses. Many years ago my wife and I drive from D-town to Tra­verse City then north to Mack­i­naw and down the East coast to back home. It was a fall “col­ors” tour — with freez­ing rain on the first day! But still a fun trip.

  39. Joe Kobiela said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    Brian,
    The R.C. fly in’s are pretty cool. The detail in some of the mod­els is amaz­ing. I saw a P-47 Thun­der­bolt one time, as I looked at it some­thing caught my eye, Their were scuff marks on the top of the wings, I asked the builder about them and he looked at me kinda funny and said, Those were the mechan­ics foot­prints. Try the Soo some time, noth­ing like tak­ing a lock tour then eat­ing lunch at a park and watch­ing a 1000ft ship go buy only a few yards away, close enough to talk with the crew. Go into Canada and take the Agawa Canyon train trip also. Amaz­ing views out the sta­tion doors.
    Pilot Joe

  40. coozledad said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:40 pm

    Beb: I think the twen­ties were more Bohemian than the rock­ers spent mil­lions pre­tend­ing to be. Their music, art, and mores were a hell of a lot stranger than any­thing that came after. The most heroin-soaked Britrock dip­shit accom­pa­ny­ing his descent into brain-death with a strat is a mewl­ing Vic­to­rian in com­par­i­son with Jel­ly­roll Mor­ton. And if archi­tec­ture is an indi­ca­tor of intel­li­gence, we are totally hosed.

  41. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:52 pm

    Don’t miss Saugatuck (just south of Hol­land). And if you get there, do the S.S. Kee­watin tour (which is tech­ni­cally in Dou­glas).

    [By the way, Nancy; isn't it fun pay­ing taxes on work that you haven't been paid for yet? This turns out to be the most pro­foundly annoy­ing part of free­lance work, IMHO.]

  42. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 15th, 2009 at 10:56 pm

    Pilot Joe, i have to admit — i love the Soo:

    https://​web​cam​.crrel​.usace​.army​.mil/soo/

  43. Jean S said on June 16th, 2009 at 12:04 am

    any­one else remem­ber the “Say ‘Yes!’ to Michi­gan” cam­paign of the late 70s? That was just plain lame.

  44. CrazyCatLady said on June 16th, 2009 at 1:07 am

    Lived all my years in Detroit. Lots to do. I love Green­field Vil­lage and the Henry Ford Museum in Dear­born (We even got mem­ber­ships), The Detroit Sci­ence Museum (mem­ber­ships), the World Class Detroit Zoo (mem­ber­ships), and the amaz­ing Detroit Insti­tute of Art. And if you come to Dear­born, try the Ford Rouge Assem­bly Tour – Cool exhibits and even fun rides. They also have the largest Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion in Amer­ica. Great eth­nic restau­rants every­where!! I love Michigan’s 1,000 miles of shore­line. Beb and I did love the north. Now that our girl is 16, she might not like it. She’d rather go to Chicago. She’s been twice and would love to live there. PS: Go Red Wings!! The 2010 Stan­ley Cup will come home to you!! Booya!!!!

  45. Dexter said on June 16th, 2009 at 2:42 am

    I’ve been a fan of a YouTu­ber named artist­mac for a few years now…here’s his video evi­dence that Detroit African Amer­i­can folks like safe, quiet neigh­bor­hoods, too:

    http://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​c​a​U​h​V​u​n​p​h​p​w​&​a​m​p​;​f​e​a​t​u​r​e​=​r​elated

  46. basset said on June 16th, 2009 at 7:03 am

    We went on the Rouge assem­bly tour back in the late 70s, when they were turn­ing out Fox-body Mus­tangs and Capris, and it looked like a micro­cosm of every­thing that was wrong with the US auto indus­try. Dis­or­ga­nized, trash all over the place, dark, dirty, guys on the line hoot­ing at the women on the tour, you could feel the don’t-give-a-shit atti­tude ris­ing from the line like heat com­ing off a paved road.

    Went through the Nis­san and Sat­urn plants in Ten­nessee a few years later and it was the exact oppo­site, a pur­pose­ful vibe and every­thing seemed to have its place. GM had this whole new approach to labor going at Sat­urn, you see how long they let that last… and the UAW’s never been able to get into Nis­san.

  47. beb said on June 16th, 2009 at 7:47 am

    Outer Drive is a big boule­vard that loops all around Detroit. It was where the swanky peo­ple lived. There are indeed some swell houses on that street. Then there are places a few blocks off Outer Drive where vacan­cies near 100%, and burned out houses lit­ter the block. Its all about the eco­nom­ics. If you have money you will buy nice houses and want to live in clean, well man­aged com­mu­ni­ties. If you don’t have money — wel­come to hell.

  48. Connie said on June 16th, 2009 at 9:31 am

    Brian, I will join Sue and Deb­o­rah in rec­om­mend­ing Glen Lake, Empire, and the Sleep­ing Bear Dunes, the most beau­ti­ful place in Michi­gan. Of course I’ve been going there for like 40 years. If you make it up that way the last week in July we would be happy to have you visit our lit­tle place. You can easy spend a great fam­ily week in Lee­lanau and next door Grand Tra­verse County.

  49. Linda said on June 16th, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    Brian, isn’t it amaz­ing that you can’t even guess Tim Allen’s avun­cu­lar bari­tone once it’s divorced from his usual goofy char­ac­ters? In those ads, he sounds like some­body wise enough to give you vaca­tion advice.

  50. Linda said on June 16th, 2009 at 10:20 pm

    Bas­set:
    In the South, UAW, or any other union, can’t even get into hell­hole plants, because peo­ple have this inco­her­ent hate-on for unions. When I lived down there, I asked peo­ple to explain it, and peo­ple just sort of sput­tered that they did bad things, or made work­ers bad, or some­thing. I’m union, and haven’t grown cloven feet. Just yet.

    I tried to edit that into the last col­umn, but appar­ently, that’s not doable.

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