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29 june 2000
----- Prologue: Friday At around 1:30 pm IceDog called me at work to give me some phone numbers. "Call us when you get in ... don't matter how late ... if I'm not at home, I'm at my friend Billy's, if my mom answers just say 'Hello Marie' and go from there." 45 minutes later I picked up Wamba at his apartment, we proceeded to the Cinema Bar for a pre-flight drink, and listened to the band's cd on the bar jukebox. We braved some nasty traffic on Sepulveda but made it to LAX seventy minutes before departure. 69 minutes later, we were finally allowed to pass through the security gates after being caught in a nightmare of pushing and crowding travellers trying to squeeze through an undermanned metal-detector checkpoint. It seemed as if the powers that be were conspiring to keep us in LA. Later, airborne, the flight attendant decided that we had had too much to drink and cut us off. I don't know why, since we hadn't drank that much and were hardly rowdy or disruptive. At that point, our rowmate began to engage us in conversation. He was from Detroit, but had to fly to LA a lot on business. He knew all the flight attendants and said that ours was the "nastiest woman" he had ever encountered. Then he pulled out a flask of scotch from his bag and proceeded to fill our little plastic cups. The conversation proceeded from there. "These are the first two days I've had off from work in over three years," explained Wamba. "And you're going to DETROIT???" laughed our rowmate. Spoken like a true native, I thought. Yes, on the surface, Detroit does not seem the ideal vacation spot. But if this guy sitting next to us was in anyway representative of the residents of motown, I thought we might be in for a very enjoyable trip. We landed at midnight. By 12:30 we were cruising east on I-94 in our new fire-engine red Mazda sedan, courtesy of the friendly people at Hertz. Called IceDog on the cell phone. No answer. Called his friend Billy's house and found him there. He expressed his desire to see us immediately and gave us directions to his house in Huntington Woods, where he'd meet us around 1:30am. We got lost. Somewhere we overshot a mark, and given that we hadn't written the directions down, there was only one thing we could do. We called IceDog. No answer. We called Billy again, who happily answered in the wee-hours and guided me, step-by-step, to where we needed to be. By the end of the call, we were parked in IceDog's driveway, and Billy and I were almost friends without having met. I was to find all of the people I met in Detroit like this -- friendly, unpretentious, and full of soul. IceDog and his mom pulled up five minutes later, around 1:30, and we headed into the house. Mom, who is in her 80s and six months out of hip surgery, headed to bed, and the three of us headed up to the attic, reaquainted ourselves, drank and smoked, and looked through a bunch of IceDog's musical memorabilia. A shotgun and some arrows autographed by Ted Nugent, a picture of IceDog playing with George Clinton, wearing a polyester jumpsuit and an afro wig ... it was a fitting end to the day. We checked into the hotel around 2:30, asked if there was anyplace we could get a bite to eat ... nothing was open, the desk clerk said, but she could look for leftovers in the kitchen. Ten minutes later, a Marriott employee knocked on our door and presented us with two ham sandwiches and four cans of soda. I couldn't imagine this kind of thing happening in LA -- in retrospect, the sandwiches never showed up on the room bill. The guy smiled and pointed at the cans of soda. "We didn't know what kind of pop you'd like, so just pick..." We did. "Pop." Another reminder we weren't in LA anymore. We ate and fell asleep. Saturday We slept late and met IceDog around noon. He took us to Royal Oak to lunch at "Mr. B's," where Billy (the direction-giver from the night before) joined us with his wife Jenny and his two year old daughter Emily. We were all fast friends, and Emily was calling me "Uncle Chuck" by the time the food was served. After lunch we picked up IceDog's mom and headed out to Farmington to see Nino, another friend of IceDog's who was playing in a band at the "Farmington Family Fun Festival" (cool alliteration, I thought). It was an outdoor fair with food, moon-walks for the kiddies, and a big stage. Shortly after arriving, Emily lost her balloon, which drifted upwards on a scenic trip to lord-knows-where. "Don't worry, we'll get you another one." said her mother. "But I want that one. YOU go get it," she ordered, pointing at me. I glanced at the balloon, hundreds of feet up and rising, about three blocks away. "But I left my cape in Los Angeles," I complained. She actually smiled. We got her another balloon. After the show, Nino joined us across the street for some drinks and dinner, and I shot some pictures of Emily and an incredibly unstressed IceDog, who seemed to have lost all of his aggression since landing in Michigan. I realized the same thing was happening to me as well. Loads of stress off my shoulders, a general all-around-good mood, and a feeling of being surrounded by friends and family, most of whom I'd known for less than six hours. Dinner ended and we went back to Billy and Jenny's house. Wamba played with Emily, who was quite content with her new balloon, and we sat around and talked about music. Midnight came and went, and little Emily was still up and hanging with us. We nicknamed her "party girl." I snapped one more shot of her before we left. We picked up the car at IceDog's, found a White Castle on the way home, and brought the twelve burgers back to the hotel. Once again, we ate and literally passed out from exhaustion. Sunday We slept late and headed to Benihana for lunch. Just Wamba and I. It was a weird interlude to the trip, but right down the street from the hotel. It reminded me of LA for a bit, but the food was good and cheap and an appropriate if not fitting prelude to our designated day for doing Detroit proper. After meeting up with IceDog and his resilient mom, we headed to his brother's place to say hi. I had become friends with him when he lived in LA many years ago, but hadn't seen him since he moved back to Detroit. We hung out for about thirty minutes and caught up, snapped a quick pic, and headed to Billy and Jenny's. Nino showed up, and the whole group of us headed downtown. Our first stop was on Woodward Ave, where we checked out Comerica Park, the brand new home of the Detroit Tigers. The group posed for a pic in front of the stadium, and then we headed across the street to the Fox Theatre, an historic musical landmark. IceDog, Wamba, and I tried to look important beneath the marquee, and then stopped for a cold drink at the Hockeytown Bar. From there I called Jen (to ask if she knew what architectural firm did the stadium -- she didn't) and my parents (just to say hi). After a touristy but undeniably scenic ride around downtown on the "Detroit People Mover" (aka "The Soul Train" or "People Remover"), we headed to Greektown for dinner. It was to be the climax of the trip, as our entire group was met by Billy and Nino's moms for an incredible evening of food and conversation at the New Hellas restaurant across from the historic St Mary's Church. I experienced a new appetizer called skordalia which is this garlicky puree that I couldn't stop eating. I dubbed the stuff "soul grits" much to the amusement of the wait staff. Following dinner, I snapped a final picture of the group (left to right -- Billy (with Emily in his lap), Billy's mom, IceDog's mom, Nino's mom, Wamba, my empty seat, Nino, IceDog, and Jenny) and we headed back to the burbs to hang at Billy and Jenny's again. On the way back to the hotel, Wamba and I lamented having to get up at 5am for our flight back to LA. I offhandedly suggested moving the flight back to later in the day. The idea solidified as we got closer to the hotel. Back at the hotel, I checked my email and received an email entry from Scott of Medea Sin, and something clicked in my head. I remembered him living somewhere in Michigan ... I went to diarist.net and found his town name and typed it into mapquest. The little star came up a couple miles south of our hotel, about one mile from IceDog's place ... well, basically, we'd been driving through there constantly. So I emailed him and told him we were in town for another five hours or so, but might try to get a later flight. He emailed back and suggested monday dinner if we managed to snag the later flight. I called Northwest and got put on hold for a half hour. So I hung up and called Continental (whose miles I used for the flight) and got right through -- they tapped into Northwest's computers and pushed our flight back to 11pm on Monday, no charge. A collective sigh of relief from myself and Wamba ... not only did we not have to board a plane in five hours, we could actually get a decent night's sleep. And so we did. Monday We slept late again, almost missed checkout, which I accomplished at 11:59am through the television set. Called Hertz and extended the car rental for $21, and we hopped on I-75 heading south towards downtown. Since IceDog was already on his way back to LA, we figured we'd act like complete tourists, turn the trip international, and head over to the casino in Windsor, Ontario. Windsor is due south of Detroit, right across the river. We paid the toll on the Ambassador Bridge and glided over the river, humming "O Canada" in a shaky two-part harmony. At the Customs/Immigration booth a young crew-cutted blond man proceeded to question me on the purpose of our visit. He stuck his head down to look at Wamba, and immediately jumped out of the booth and tagged our car with a yellow sticker. "Please pull forward, turn left, and stop." We did. At the "search and seizure" compound we were accosted by two more young blond crew-cutted men who looked like they'd fit very well into one of the Hitler Youth groups. (We later nicknamed them Hans and Franz, not very original, I know). Hans tore the sticker off the car, read the codes on it, and asked us to step out of the car and stand behind a yellow line. I later suspected the sticker had a "Search the black guy" code on it, for they completely left me and my bag alone. Wamba was questioned by Franz while Hans searched through his socks and underwear, emptying his bag and making quite a mess of the backseat. After about five minutes, having found nothing incriminating, they let us go with a disappointed "Enjoy your stay in Canada." At the casino, we cleaned up the car and I helped Wamba repack his bag. We headed straight to the bar where I bought him a bloody mary and got the whole racism thing off our chests. I think I was more upset than him -- probably, he explained, because he was much more used to it than I was. I was determined to take some money off the Canadians for our trouble. I got $50 out of the ATM, and we headed to one of the roulette tables. I had been half-bragging to Wamba about how my intuitive "prime number" system worked wonders on the wheel the last time I was in Vegas, so I sat down and started playing the numbers. Ten minutes later I was cleaned out. "Enjoy your stay in Canada," said the evil dealer. We headed back to the bar for some more bloody maries. (Wamba was later to remark -- "for all the shit we went through in Canada, they sure make a good bloody") Back to the ATM, got out another $50, and headed to a completely empty roulette table with a bored looking dealer who seemed very happy to see me. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I was a bit more relaxed this time and I was "feeling the wheel" a bit better. I stuck with my system through three bad spins, and was down to $25. I adjusted a bit toward the middle twelve for the fourth spin, since the wheel was favoring those numbers. I won $75 on that spin, as two of my numbers came in. I grabbed the three $25 chips and handed them to Wamba. "That's for dinner," I said. I was back to even, not having lost, not having won, with $25 worth of chips on the table, and still determined to take some money from Canada. I played conservatively and won pretty consistently, but not as dramatically big as the first winning spin. Wamba looked at his watch and said we had to go, so I cashed in, tipped the dealer a few bucks, and we headed out. We got back in the car with $56 more than we walked in with. I asked Wamba "Was that shit at the border worth $56?" "That shit at the border was just normal, man. Get over it." So I did. We took the tunnel back to the states and once again pulled up at the customs/immigration booth. A rather bored looking man greeted us. "Citizenship?" "United States." "And you?" to Wamba. "U.S." "Welcome home gentlemen. Have a nice day." And that was it. We headed up Woodward Avenue to Grand Boulevard, hung a left, and there it was, right past Rosa Parks Avenue on the left hand side. "Hitsville USA," the original Motown Studios and museum. I hung a u-turn and parked right out front. I took a picture of Wamba in front of the famous front door to "Studio A," and he took one of me (see entry photo). We proceeded inside and paid our $6. There was a short video, and then a tour of the whole house/studio. We saw Berry Gordy's apartment, the original 'Supremes' dresses, and Michael Jackson's hat and white glove. Back downstairs we were allowed to walk into the highlight of the tour, Studio A, the room where every one of Motown's early hits was recorded. I was enthralled, and went crazy with the camera, shooting the mixing board, the tape decks, the drumset, and of course, the Hammond B-3. We dragged ourselves out of this "Cathedral of Soul" and headed back upstairs to the gift shop. Michael and the Jackson Five were singing "I'll Be There" on the overhead speakers. "Was that tune recorded downstairs?" I asked. "Everything we play in here was recorded downstairs," replied the clerk with a proud smile. Michael stopped singing, and on came David Ruffin belting out "My Girl" with the Temptations. Too cool. Hitsville, indeed. I bought a souvenir baseball cap and some postcards, Wamba pointed at his watch and said we needed to get going if we were going to make our dinner meeting with Scott and Amy. A bit reluctantly, we left Motown and headed back north to the burbs. We got back to the hotel with about five minutes to spare. We perched ourselves at the lobby bar, ordered some martinis, and five minutes later Scott and Amy walked in. They sat down and joined us for drinks and we went through the whole introduction thing. Then we hopped into their car and proceeded to the New Seoul Korean restaurant. The conversation got better and better on the way to the restaurant ... Scott got paged twice, Wamba and I went on and on about how much we loved Detroit and how little we wanted to go back to LA. In retrospect, we must have sounded like we hated LA ... at that moment, maybe we did. I think we were just enjoying Detroit too much. Dinner was delicious. Scott was just what I expected from his journal, maybe even exceeding my expectations in the friendliness department -- he was just really easy to talk to. He had his first-ever sip of sake from Amy's cup (I was proud to be there for such a momentous occasion), and Amy was radiant with a really cool wit ("Why is it that they always assume that the woman is not drinking?" she said half-bitterly as they placed the three sake cups in front of me, Wamba, and Scott -- Scott was the one _not_ having sake). Watching Scott and Amy interact was fun -- they make an incredible couple, at least from what we saw. Wamba even mentioned to me on the flight home how perfect for one another they seemed, and how great it was they we got to meet them. I agreed. If we ever get back to Detroit ... or if they ever get themselves to LA -- well, I'm sure we'll all see each other again. The waitress took a photo of the four of us before we left ... a really good memory. On the way to the airport, we stopped downtown for a final drink at the "Summit," a revolving cocktail lounge 70 floors above the city, accessible by a seemingly endless glass-elevator ride. Once at the top, we had another pair of martinis, and a shot a final photo of Wamba, looking pensively across the river at the Windsor Casino on the opposite shore in Canada. I wondered what was going through his mind when I snapped it. Over an hour later, at the airport bar (named and branded after the TV show "Cheers" -- whatever happened to the generic airport bar of yesteryear? I miss those places) Wamba looked at me and said "Chuckie, you're getting that look on your face." "What look?" "That uncomfortably pensive and stressed look -- I haven't seen you look like that since LA." It was true. We were all more relaxed in Detroit. Our return to the City of Angels was impending, and I was beginning to feel it. We landed late, around 2am. The first thing I smelled was the ocean, and it smelled rancid to me. Maybe it was in my head. I dropped off Wamba and headed to AC and Gabby's in Venice. Too tired to drive to Malibu, I let myself in with my key (the lease is still in my name) and crashed in my clothes on the couch. Epilogue Gabby woke me up at 7:30, and I went right to work. No shave, no shower, in the clothes I slept in. Turns out my boss was visiting from New York and decided to hold me captive in all-day meetings. I periodically paused to drench myself in cologne and deodorant, and tried desparately to reinvigorate myself with six very large cups of black coffee. At days end, I found myself back at the Cinema Bar, waiting out the traffic and awaiting the arrival of a friend. Realizing the Cinema was a mere block from Wamba's apartment, I called and asked him to join us. He obliged, and we talked and drank and I tried to counteract the caffeine overdose that was coursing through my veins. I stopped at Granita for dinner on the way home, nearly fell asleep there, and finally did crash, in my own bed, at around 10pm. I slept til 11 yesterday morning, and worked from home. At 5pm I met some ex-coworkers and Fritz at the Dume Room for a quick drink, and then headed to band practice. We ran through the set, talked about the future, and looked at photos of the Luna Park gig. I was still tired, and crashed early again. This morning I made it into work, feeling fresh and mostly recuperated from the trip. It's 3pm now and I'm only on my second (very small) cup of coffee. I spent my lunch break on the web looking for a decent airfare for my parents' 50th. The direct flights are still in the $560 range. I can get it as low as $370 if I fly through Cleveland and then on a very small propellor plane from there to Islip, Long Island, about ninety minutes from my parents' place. Is that worth it to save $200? I don't know. Maybe I'll ask the forum. I think this is the longest entry I've ever written. I'll just leave it at that. ~~~ In the forum:How much inconvenience is justified by "cheap" airfare? 28 june 1999: good soul : Rather Large Woman just farted. It's rather unladylike. I wish I had the guts to fart on an airplane. Whoaboy, it's a stinker. And I don't mind. I've come to accept everything, or whatever ... 29 june 1998: road retching : My piano teacher, the late Mr. Schlossberger, drove like this. I remember he drove me home one night after a lesson -- it was the first time I ever got motion sickness in a car. His right foot would alternate flooring the gas, and slamming on the brakes, gas, brakes, back and forth until I felt like I was in some out of control electric rocking chair.
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