Before you drink, be sure to obey the safety patrol.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Thursday, December 13, 2018
A Shoulder Clod Kind of Town
Ah, Flint. Good to know that — despite all the changes — it's still a place where Ruebens, shoulder clod, and brisket are considered light luncheon fare.
Roberto Acosta at MLive reports on the ownership change and menu updates at Blackstone's on Saginaw Street in downtown.
The restaurant will soon feature two menus -- daytime and nighttime -- each offering different items such as a classic Neapolitan-style pizza cooked in 170 seconds on a wood-fired oven.
"It's light. It's not the heavier variety like some of the other places," said Hester. "It's something that you can come down at lunch and you're not going to overeat."
The daytime menu will include sandwiches including the Big Sicilian from the Starlite menu, Reubens, hamburgers with a combination of shoulder clod and brisket meats ground in-house, and salads.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Lordstown, Meet Flint
Does this sound familiar?
The Associated Press reports:
"General Motors will cut up to 14,000 workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it abandons many of its car models and restructures to focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles, the automaker announced Monday.
"The reductions could amount to as much as 8 percent of GM's global workforce of 180,000 employees.""The restructuring reflects changing North American auto markets as manufacturers continue to shift away from cars toward SUVs and trucks. In October, almost 65 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S. were trucks or SUVs. That figure was about 50 percent cars just five years ago.
"GM is shedding cars largely because it doesn't make money on them, Citi analyst Itay Michaeli wrote in a note to investors."And...
"Trump, who has made bringing back auto jobs a big part of his appeal to Ohio and other Great Lakes states that are crucial to his re-election, also said he was being tough on General Motors CEO Mary Barra.
"At a rally near GM's Lordstown, Ohio, plant last summer, Trump told people not to sell their homes because the jobs are 'all coming back.'"
Monday, December 3, 2018
Slumming Became a Mania
"In the 1920s, 'slumming' became a mania, as urban elites sought out the exotic, the 'real,' wherever they could find it. They packed into the speakeasies that filled the cities after the imposition of Prohibition, where they could rub shoulders with Italian, Irish, or Jewish gangsters. They filled theaters to see ethnic entertainers such as Ragtime Jimmy Durante, late of Coney Island, or the anarchic Marx Brothers. And in the most startling turn of all, they discovered Negroes living in their midst.
"In the early 1920s, sophisticates scrambled to grab a share of the black life that the southern migration was bringing into cities. White producers mounted all-black musicals. White couples fumbled with the Charleston. And white patrons poured into Chicago's South Side jazz joints and Harlem nightclubs. If they were lucky, they squeezed into the Vendome, where Louis Armstrong held the floor, or Edmond's Cellar, where Ethel Waters sang the blues. The frenzy was shot through with condescension. White slummers thought black life exciting because it was "primitive" and vital. Visiting the ghetto's haunts became the era's way to snub mainstream society, to be in the avant-garde. 'Jazz, the blues, negro spirituals, all stimulate me enormously,' novelist Carl Van Vechten wrote H.L. Mencken in the summer of 1924. 'Doubtless, I shall discard them too in time.'"
Labels:
1920s,
Arc of Justice,
black migration,
books about Detroit,
Kevin Boyle,
slumming
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Spambot Poetry: Pretty Element of Content
The comment section of Flint Expatriates is truly a mixed
bag. For all the meaningful connections I've made with Flintoids over the
years, I've also had to deal with racists, weirdos, and sickos who think
Detroit actually knows how make a real Coney.
Then there are the spambots clogging the comment section and
forcing me to spend hours of my life deleting them. But I eventually discovered
that many were quite beautiful, if not poetic, with their tortured syntax,
goofed up conjugation, and lines that would feel at home in a Patti Smith cover of Nirvana.
Here's the latest batch, with my comments below each ode.
Pretty element of
content.
I just stumbled upon
your weblog and in accession capital to assert
that I get actually
enjoyed account
your weblog posts.
Anyway,
I will be subscribing
to your feeds
or even I achievement
you get admission to consistently rapidly.
— Teddy Bear
Thank you, Teddy Bear. I am having bumper stickers made as
we speak declaring "Pretty Element of Content!" I hope they will
bring solace to other drivers in these troubled times.
This is my very first
time i go to here.
I discovered a great
number of entertaining stuff in your blog site, particularly its discussion.
From your tons of feedback in your articles,
I guess I am not the
only one possessing each of the satisfaction here!
Preserve up the great
operate.
— drukarka 3d
Actually, drukarka 3d, judging from the sales of my book,
you may indeed be "the only one possessing each of the satisfaction here!"
I haven’t any word to
appreciate this post.
Really i am impressed
from this post
the person who create
this post it was a great human.
— Anonymous
Thanks for the kind words. I'd like to think, in my moments
of unbridled hubris, that I am a great human. But your use of the past tense
does cause me some concern.
Nice blog and
absolutely outstanding.
You can do something
much better but i still say this perfect.
Keep trying for the
best.
— Indianapolis Junk Yard
Junk yard, why do you torment me? You say it's perfect, but
then tell me I can do much better. This kind of Zen crap may work in Indy, but
not in Flint.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Time Travel Is a Discretionary Art
Downtown Flint, Michigan in the 1950s (Photo by Mary Fisher) |
"I find these days that a wistful form of time travel has become a persistent political theme, both on the right and on the left. On November 10 The New York Times reported that nearly seven in ten Republicans prefer America as it was in the 1950s, a nostalgia of course entirely unavailable to a person like me, for in that period I could not vote, marry my husband, have my children, work in the university I work in, or live in my neighborhood. Time travel is a discretionary art: a pleasure trip for some and a horror story for others. Meanwhile some on the left have time travel fancies of their own, imagining that the same rigid ideological principles once applied to the matters of workers’ rights, welfare, and trade can be applied unchanged to a globalized world of fluid capital."
— Zadie Smith, New York Review of Books, 2016
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Feeling Blue in Flint and San Francisco
The more things change, the more they stay the same, at least when it comes to politics.
My old Flint precinct in Civic Park is decidedly blue, just like my current precinct in San Francisco's Bernal Heights, according to this great New York Times "extremely detailed map of the 2016 election."
My old Flint precinct in Civic Park is decidedly blue, just like my current precinct in San Francisco's Bernal Heights, according to this great New York Times "extremely detailed map of the 2016 election."
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gordon Young
Praise for Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gordon Young
"One can read Teardown and go 'My, my, my! What a horrid town! Thank God I don't live there!' Oh, but you do. Just as the 'Roger & Me Flint' of the 1980s was the precursor to a wave of downsizing that eventually hit every American community, Gordon Young's Flint of 2013, as so profoundly depicted in this book, is your latest warning of what's in store for you — all of you, no matter where you live — in the next decade. The only difference between your town and Flint is that the Grim Reaper just likes to visit us first. It's all here in Teardown, a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once great American city."
— Michael Moore
"There must be a thousand good reasons to flee Flint. I
can't assume there are many reasons to return. Gordon Young's Teardown supplies a few of these
answers. A humorous, heartfelt and often haunting tale of a town not many could
love. Fortunately for us, a few still do."
— Ben Hamper, author of Rivethead: Tales
From the Assembly Line
“Teardown is the tragic and somehow
hilarious tale of one man's attempt to return to his hometown of Flint,
Michigan. Gordon Young is a Flintoid at heart, and his candid observations
about both the shrinking city and his own economic woes read heartbreakingly
true.”
— Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City:
The Education of an Urban Farmer
“Armed with an aluminum baseball bat
and a truth-seeking pen, Gordon Young returns to the post-industrial wasteland
of his hometown — Vehicle City, aka Flint, Michigan — in search of a derelict
house to buy and restore. At least that's his cover story. Young's true mission
is to reclaim his past in order to make sense of his present. If you're
bewitched by the place where you grew up, you'll find comfort and a sense of
home in the pages of Teardown.
— Jack Shafer, Reuters columnist and a former Michigander
“Like so many other Flintites, I visit my hometown with a mix
of sadness, repugnance, and anger. Flint is too easy to
criticize, but I look back in gratitude
for the values Flint instilled and the bonds I made that remain with me to this day. You can take the boy out of
Flint, but you can’t take Flint out of the boy.”
— Howard Bragman, author of Where’s My Fifteen Minutes?
“Teardown is a funny and ultimately
heartbreaking memoir. The travails of house hunting are skillfully interwoven
with Gordon Young’s attempt to reconcile life in his adopted city of San
Francisco with his allegiance to Flint, Michigan, the troubled city of his
childhood. The result is an all too contemporary American story of loyalty,
loss, and finding your way home.”
— Tom Pohrt, artist and author of Careless
Rambles by John Clare, Having a Wonderful
Time, and Coyote Goes Walking.
For more information, including excerpts, photos, and events, visit www.teardownbook.com.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Flint, Michigan would be hard hit by G.O.P. Medicaid work requirements
Flint, prepared to get screwed, as usual. This time it's Medicaid.
Alice Ollstein of TPM reports:
In the GOP-controlled states of Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, waiver proposals would subject hundreds of thousands of Medicaid enrollees to work requirements, threatening to cut off their health insurance if they can’t meet an hours-per-week threshold.
Those waivers include exemptions for the counties with the highest unemployment, which tend to be majority-white, GOP-leaning, and rural. But many low-income people of color who live in high-unemployment urban centers would not qualify, because the wealthier suburbs surrounding those cities pull the overall county unemployment rate below the threshold.
In Michigan, the GOP-controlled legislature is trying to pass a bill to make the 700,000 people enrolled in the state’s Medicaid expansion either work at least 29 hours per week or lose their benefits for a year. According to the state’s own numbers, 105,000 people could lose their insurance, but that burden will not be shared equally across the state.
A Washington Post analysis found that while African Americans make up about 23 percent of Medicaid enrollees in Michigan, they would make up just 1.2 percent of the people eligible for an exemption. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Michigan Medicaid enrollees are white, but white residents would make up 85 percent of the population eligible for an exemption.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Places to Park by the Factories and Buildings
I see the shapes
I remember from maps
I see the shoreline
I see the whitecaps
A baseball diamond, nice weather down there
I see the school and the houses where the kids are
Places to park by the factories and buildings
Restaurants and bars for later in the evening
Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas
And I have learned how these things work together
I see the parkway that passes through them all
And I have learned how to look at these things, and I say
[Chorus]
I wouldn't live there if you paid me
I wouldn't live like that, no siree!
I wouldn't do the things the way those people do
I wouldn't live there if you paid me to
I guess it's healthy, I guess the air is clean
I guess those people have fun with their neighbors and friends
Look at that kitchen and all of that food
Look at them eat it, I guess it tastes real good
They grow it in those farmlands
Then they bring it to the storeThey put it in the car trunk
Then they bring it back home
And I say
[Chorus]
I wouldn't live there if you paid me
I wouldn't live like that, no siree!
I wouldn't do the things the way those people do
I wouldn't live there if you paid me to!
I'm tired of looking out the windows of the airplane
I'm tired of traveling, I want to be somewhere
It's not even worth talking
About those people down there
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo, ga ga ga
Goo goo goo goo, ga ga ga ga!
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Happy Birthday Tiger Stadium
"April 20, 1912 —the day should be trumpeted. There should be balloons and bunting. A celebration. A cake. There is none of that. Just silence. They would prefer we forget.
"It opened in the era of ragtime music and black Model T's. Airplanes were still aeroplanes. Mary Pickford was becoming a star, and Jim Thorpe soon would be. The First World War had yet to begin and women wouldn't get the right to vote for eight years. It was a time when fans wore sports coats and dress hats and paid to stand in the outfield, separated from the players not by a home-run fence but by a rope that defined the playing area."
— Tom Stanton, The Final Season
Deindustrialization, Decline, and Opioids
"If industrialization caused an opium epidemic, deindustrialization is no small part of what’s fueling our opioid surge. It’s telling that the drug has not taken off as intensely among all Americans — especially not among the engaged, multiethnic, urban-dwelling, financially successful inhabitants of the coasts. The poppy has instead found a home in those places left behind — towns and small cities that owed their success to a particular industry, whose civic life was built around a factory or a mine. Unlike in Europe, where cities and towns existed long before industrialization, much of America’s heartland has no remaining preindustrial history, given the destruction of Native American societies. The gutting of that industrial backbone — especially as globalization intensified in a country where market forces are least restrained — has been not just an economic fact but a cultural, even spiritual devastation. The pain was exacerbated by the Great Recession and has barely receded in the years since. And to meet that pain, America’s uniquely market-driven health-care system was more than ready."And...
"Market capitalism and revolutionary technology in the past couple of decades have transformed our economic and cultural reality, most intensely for those without college degrees. The dignity that many working-class men retained by providing for their families through physical labor has been greatly reduced by automation. Stable family life has collapsed, and the number of children without two parents in the home has risen among the white working and middle classes. The internet has ravaged local retail stores, flattening the uniqueness of many communities. Smartphones have eviscerated those moments of oxytocin-friendly actual human interaction. Meaning — once effortlessly provided by a more unified and often religious culture shared, at least nominally, by others — is harder to find, and the proportion of Americans who identify as “nones,” with no religious affiliation, has risen to record levels. Even as we near peak employment and record-high median household income, a sense of permanent economic insecurity and spiritual emptiness has become widespread. Some of that emptiness was once assuaged by a constantly rising standard of living, generation to generation. But that has now evaporated for most Americans."
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Flint Photos: Doomed Space
"A rich silence, heavy with secrets and untold stories, hangs in the air of each doomed space, and the banal residue of everyday life seems to cling to the blank walls like mold"
— Holly Myers, LA Weekly, 2001
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