a round up

The weekend: beers, dance clubs, girly cigars, observing from above failed attempts at the human mating ritual, Jameson on the ice, bar bands and feats of strength. I trumped a week of hard times with 48 action packed hours of country-home/punk-rock lifestyle. I'm glad i didn't sleep through it.




Economy: shat upon

I tried to explain what it was like to be from south east Michigan, the collective area that we'll call Detroit. The motorcity. I think i was drunk and they may have been as well, but the points were valid: unity through despair. An entire metropolis that's spent the last 20... fuck 40 years being beat down. Constantly ranked last in quality of life poles, Detroit has made it every list from most overweight to most STDS per capita. My generation has never known a "good time" in the auto industry. Crime, unemployment, destitution and racism are the standard.

And yet, it seems to breed a heartiness that i couldn't quite explain when drunk at a noisy festival and can't quite explain here. Its a blue-collar fortitude that always manages to carry on and i think it's at the heart of my love/hate relationship with this place. Or it could just be Stockholm syndrome. Whatever. The point is, the people i work with and I are all on the brink of unemployment and no one seems to really care. It's more like a joke as the weaker of the herd is slowly eliminated via termination or relocation. So it goes.





I lean to the left but in a "meh" kind of way. It's fine. It's feels better over here, but just a little bit. But i will confess: i am hyped up the the Barack-Star. It's not even that i think he's going to make MY life better. It just, he HAS to be better than the alternative... right?

(if only the election was in March...)


Conclusion: I've had a solid month to consider the lay of the land, you know, with the metaphysical and the retrospective kind of what nots. And what I figure is, baring an uncharacteristically bad roll of the dice, everyone gets about 50 good, free independent years. It's not a particularly earth-shattering revelation, just a nice way of boxing up what it is we're all working with.

Well, that, and those 50 years are mostly like assembling a puzzle. Except you don't start with any pieces but instead collect them as you go. Oh, and there's no corner pieces; Just beers and bears and caves, shaky jobs and ladders, Ducatis and strangers that become un-strangers and then go back to being strangers. Yup. A September of collecting my thoughts and that's what i came up with.


Here's to the pieces that fit and the pieces that don't: Knowing the score and rolling the dice. {Insert bumper-sticker catchphrase here}


Speaking of which, mark your calenders:
Oct 23: Chesto and I vs. Madison the Wisconsin
¡Tag team battle royal!™
The search for puzzle pieces goes on forever!


T.I. it would seem, subscribes to traditional sociological and economic gender roles. Does that mean every mare in the stable gets a Bentley convt.?




Life is complicated and confusing.