Saturday Night is More Than All Right
Oh Detroit. How I love thee.
The night started very nicely: dinner at Xochimilcos, hanging out with Jacob and Jeni and drinking Pacifico (fabulous beer).
We shot the sh*t and Jacob said the Subways were playing at the Magic Stick. Jeni likes the Arctic Monkeys better than the Subways (and Fiona Apple more than all of them), but we thought heading over to the Magic Stick would be a good start to the night.
On the way into the Magic Stick a homeless man asked if I had any change. I politely replied, “Sorry man, I don’t.” This was true. I don’t care change in my pockets anymore because I don’t like hearing the jingle...and because I’m slowly going insane.
Then another homeless man asked, “How you doing man?” I again politely replied, “Sorry I don’t have any.” Well the homeless man became angry with me and yelled, “I didn’t ask you for change!” Then he threw a book at me. It missed.
Once we got in the Magic Stick we found out the Subways weren’t playing, but instead there was a free communist music rally. Oh communism, my favorite (seriously), but I’ve become too corporate for the communists now. I don’t wear ripped blue jeans and a 1970’s leisure coat, which I guess is the new communist uniform. We listened to Heroes ‘N” Villains try to imitate the old scary jams, but just didn’t do it as well. We only stayed for a bit and then took off to the Shelter to see who was playing there. We all wanted to take a bumper sticker that stated, “F**k Cool Cities.” We didn’t know if it cost money so no one took one. Jacob pointed out, “If it did cost money, I would have said, that’s so corporate.”
Along the way, Jeni wanted a cannoli from this bakery in Greektown. She had had it there over Super Bowl weekend and now wanted it again. Since the Shelter is kinda next door to Greektown we drove by to see if it was open. It was and it was an absolute madhouse in there. I dropped Jacob and Jeni off and circled the block. Jeni bought four cannolis.
We headed over to the Shelter and saw the bar, Cock ‘n’ Bull along the way. And Cock ‘n’ Bull has a shuttle bus. We called it the shuttlecock…’n’ bull. (We laughed about that for a while. If you didn’t laugh, sorry.)
When we finally got to the Shelter we couldn’t park in the lot next to it. It was $10 and Mr. E (or some other rapper) wasn’t rapping anymore. We decided to circle the block and park behind it. We found a great spot and as we were walking up to the entrance a homeless man without a book came up and talked to us. He said his name was Papa Smurf and he did security for the city of Detroit. For a small fee, just some change, he would watch our car. At first we were like, “Are you Smurfing serious,” but then we politely declined his gracious offer and moved into the Shelter. The band sucked. It was $10, so we left.
We drove around until we decided to walk along the new river walk behind the Ren Cen. There is a huge map of the world on the sidewalk, Jacob and I think it is a Mercator Projection (although Greenland is not too large), and we walked around the world. I ran in circles around the places I’ve been to in Europe, ran around Japan and sang, “I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so” and discussed how distorted the map of the Western Hemisphere was; South America was below Michigan, there was no Texas and New York City was in Pennsylvania.
Anyhoo, we decided to call it a night after we traveled around the world. Good night. It was unique, but not innovative, just like the Strokes, right Jacob?
The night started very nicely: dinner at Xochimilcos, hanging out with Jacob and Jeni and drinking Pacifico (fabulous beer).
We shot the sh*t and Jacob said the Subways were playing at the Magic Stick. Jeni likes the Arctic Monkeys better than the Subways (and Fiona Apple more than all of them), but we thought heading over to the Magic Stick would be a good start to the night.
On the way into the Magic Stick a homeless man asked if I had any change. I politely replied, “Sorry man, I don’t.” This was true. I don’t care change in my pockets anymore because I don’t like hearing the jingle...and because I’m slowly going insane.
Then another homeless man asked, “How you doing man?” I again politely replied, “Sorry I don’t have any.” Well the homeless man became angry with me and yelled, “I didn’t ask you for change!” Then he threw a book at me. It missed.
Once we got in the Magic Stick we found out the Subways weren’t playing, but instead there was a free communist music rally. Oh communism, my favorite (seriously), but I’ve become too corporate for the communists now. I don’t wear ripped blue jeans and a 1970’s leisure coat, which I guess is the new communist uniform. We listened to Heroes ‘N” Villains try to imitate the old scary jams, but just didn’t do it as well. We only stayed for a bit and then took off to the Shelter to see who was playing there. We all wanted to take a bumper sticker that stated, “F**k Cool Cities.” We didn’t know if it cost money so no one took one. Jacob pointed out, “If it did cost money, I would have said, that’s so corporate.”
Along the way, Jeni wanted a cannoli from this bakery in Greektown. She had had it there over Super Bowl weekend and now wanted it again. Since the Shelter is kinda next door to Greektown we drove by to see if it was open. It was and it was an absolute madhouse in there. I dropped Jacob and Jeni off and circled the block. Jeni bought four cannolis.
We headed over to the Shelter and saw the bar, Cock ‘n’ Bull along the way. And Cock ‘n’ Bull has a shuttle bus. We called it the shuttlecock…’n’ bull. (We laughed about that for a while. If you didn’t laugh, sorry.)
When we finally got to the Shelter we couldn’t park in the lot next to it. It was $10 and Mr. E (or some other rapper) wasn’t rapping anymore. We decided to circle the block and park behind it. We found a great spot and as we were walking up to the entrance a homeless man without a book came up and talked to us. He said his name was Papa Smurf and he did security for the city of Detroit. For a small fee, just some change, he would watch our car. At first we were like, “Are you Smurfing serious,” but then we politely declined his gracious offer and moved into the Shelter. The band sucked. It was $10, so we left.
We drove around until we decided to walk along the new river walk behind the Ren Cen. There is a huge map of the world on the sidewalk, Jacob and I think it is a Mercator Projection (although Greenland is not too large), and we walked around the world. I ran in circles around the places I’ve been to in Europe, ran around Japan and sang, “I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so” and discussed how distorted the map of the Western Hemisphere was; South America was below Michigan, there was no Texas and New York City was in Pennsylvania.
Anyhoo, we decided to call it a night after we traveled around the world. Good night. It was unique, but not innovative, just like the Strokes, right Jacob?
posted by az at 9:41 AM
8 Comments:
That sounds like a fantistic evening! I miss evenings like that.
The post is funny, but it doesn't begin to describe how much we were laughing last night.
The homeless guy throwing a book at Andy...like the homeless guy knows how to read. Priceless.
It's nice that Detroit still looks like it did for the Super Bowl. Except the bar we went to on Woodward disappeared. Funny.
jeni, i think some homeless can read.
jon we'll have more of those and next time you'll be involved.
dear andy,
you should know more than anyone i am being sarcastic.
sincerely,
jeni
Dear Jeni,
I absolutely love the comment in the form of a letter!
Kudos,
Jon
"Like all map projections, attempting to fit a curved surface onto a flat sheet, the shape of the map is a distortion of the true layout of the Earth's surface. The Mercator projection exaggerates the size and distorts the shape of areas far from the equator. For example, Greenland is presented as being roughly as large as Africa, when in fact Africa's area is approximately 13 times that of Greenland as shown by Tissot's Indicatrix.
"Although the Mercator projection is still in common use for navigation, critics argue that it is not suited to representing the entire world in publications and wall maps due to its distortion of land area. Mercator himself used the equal-area sinusoidal projection to show relative areas. As a result of these criticisms, modern atlases no longer use the Mercator projection for world maps or for areas distant from the equator, preferring other cylindrical projections, or forms of equal-area projection. The Mercator projection is still commonly used for areas near the equator, however.
"The equal-area Gall-Peters projection has also been proposed as an alternative to address these concerns. This presents a very different view of the world: the shape, rather than the size of areas is distorted. Areas near the equator are stretched vertically; areas far from the equator are squashed. A 1989 resolution by seven North American Geographical groups decried the use of all rectangular coordinate world maps, including the Gall-Peters projection.
"Google Maps currently uses a Mercator projection for its map images, probably because a magnification of any small region of a Mercator map will appear undistorted in shape with north at the top. Despite its relative scale distortions, the Mercator is therefore well-suited to an interactive world map that can be panned and zoomed seamlessly to local maps. (Google Satellite, on the other hand, used a plate carrée projection until recently.)"
(Taken from Wikipedia)
You did a good job of hilighting all the interesting points of the night. I still don't know what to think about homeless people throwing books. He just wasted an entire days work by throwing his book. He was just cranky because business was slow...which is to be expected when you panhandle outside of a communist gathering. Communists don't like to admit that they use money, because it is evil. They do sell things...It just isn't clear what they do with that money. My guess is that they take it back to their commune and burn it for heat. Although they were just a bunch of hipsters in denial about the flawed(but even I can find common groud with them) ideals they were promoting, I always enjoy the atmosphere at events like that. I guess I just like seeing people standing up for something that goes against the mainstream. plus space music is pretty good.
I am impressed that Detroit is still looking relatively good. Maybe if the local government eases up a little, it can maintain growth without irregular incentives like the superbowl.
Okays guys
jacob, i agree. if you want to panhandle for money, don't do it outside a communist rally and certainly don't throw a book.
as for detroit, if kwame can stop taking money for his own personal use, detroit may be okay.
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