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This is the second and final entry in a series inspired by a short road trip through Michigan my wife and I took this past summer. For Part 1 click here. We arrived in Detroit the same way we arrived in Suttons Bay: tired, hungry, and in an SUV built in Indiana by a foreign-owned company. We were staying at the Siren Hotel just downtown, and after we dropped off our car and our bags, we drifted into the neighborhood in search of food. Detroit bore the weight of COVID, just like everyplace else we had been. There were a few closed and vacant stores, and the People Mover was shut down. Despite the pandemic and the economic crisis the city had endured prior to it, there was some vibrance about Detroit. Ford Field, Little Caesars Arena, and Comerica Park were all within view, bringing fans of the Lions, Red Wings, Pistons, and Tigers -- and their wallets -- to downtown Detroit year-round. Stevie Wonder watched over us from the side of the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts -- just one of the many pieces of public art we saw during our short stay. That first night we wound up at a place reminiscent of Hop Lot in Suttons Bay. The Brakeman was an indoor beer garden with foosball, shuffleboard, and beer pong tables that served regional drafts along with cocktails. Hungry people like us could also get delicious chicken and biscuits from its adjoining neighbor, Penny Red’s. The Brakeman sold tokens at a converted ticket booth you would then use to pay for drinks, which was a little strange to me, and the inconvenience of it outweighed any novelty it initially offered. The tired, road-weary me would much rather have dealt with one point of purchase, but just like at Hop Lot, the good food and strong drinks would see me judging less and enjoying more as the evening wore on. As we waited for our meal, we noticed a smart looking middle-aged couple at a nearby table wearing matching shirts: his reading “I have everything I need” and hers proclaiming “I am everything.” The music was a mix of 80s new wave and soul, but in my head I heard Marvin and Tammi singing “You’re All I Need to Get By” as I settled in next to Cecily. It was another sparkling pinnacle point sharpened by the time we spent without such moments during the pandemic’s peak.
We went back to the Siren, and finished things off with some perfect pie at Karl’s, a fifties-style restaurant housed within. The warm glow of these glittering bokeh scenes was too devoid of people for a Friday evening after a Tigers game. This was probably an indication of COVID’s lasting reach, but also of Detroit’s struggle to emerge from the chrysalis of what it once was. The automobile and the industry that spawned it transformed Detroit from 285,000 people in 1900 to over 2 million people at its peak in 1950. Since then, the city has lost 60% of its population and much of the auto industry. Our hotel was symbolic of Detroit’s desire to invert its story arc. Before it was reborn as the Siren Hotel in 2018, 1509 Broadway was the mighty Wurlitzer Building. The musical instrument, jukebox, and radio manufacturer opened the building in 1926, and would remain its principal occupant for over 40 years. The building’s slow and steady decline at the hands of negligent, often absent owners started in the 70s, and by the time Ash Hotels got involved in 2015 the building was abandoned, falling down, and being gutted for parts. Ash did an amazing job of rescuing and restoring the building, while creating spaces that called people back to the city. We were among those that heard the call. The Siren deftly mixes modern amenities in a building that has seen its former glory restored. Our room was comfortable, and well appointed, but one thing really stood out: this strange, faded painting of an old woman. Who was she? Why was her picture in our room? Would we manage to sleep (or to do anything else) with her eyes glaring from across the room?  When we woke up it was sleep - 1, anything else - 0. The old lady was a strict chaperone. I think both of us gave her dirty looks as we got ready for our day at the Detroit Institute of Art. This was the main reason for our visit. I had known nothing about this museum, but Cecily had wanted to see it for years as it was supposed to have a fairly formidable, world-class collection. Despite Detroit’s struggles, which must have impacted the museum, it still held many valuable pieces past the time when other museums were selling objects just to stay aloft. But first we needed coffee. Ashe Supply Co. was a cafe and roastery just steps from the Siren, but it was closed during our visit as a result of COVID. We ended up at Madcap Coffee just around the corner. Madcap is based in Grand Rapids. It opened its Detroit location roughly a year before the pandemic hit, and it seems to be surviving, even though business was light when we stopped in on Friday morning. These dueling coffee roasters within easy walking distance of one another, and the many murals we passed moving between them says something about the level of gentrification in downtown Detroit. Indeed, a quick Google search shows at least seven coffee roasters (not just shops) within the Detroit metro area. Hipsters love coffee and street art! We took our coffee back to the hotel and texted the valet to bring our car about. The concierge at the Siren told us it would be easier to drive to the museum than it would be to try and catch a bus. As we waited for the car to come, we noticed an older couple trying to cram an awful lot of stuff into their Prius, including coolers, sleeping bags, and other camping gear. We got to chatting, and I learned that they were on a road trip, and that they didn’t want to leave things they obviously wouldn’t need at the hotel (like a camp stove) in their car at the garage because, “Well… You know…” Didn’t they get the memo? Detroit was hip and safe now. Couldn’t they smell the coffee? We had a short window at the museum as hours were reduced due to COVID. Cecily was an art history major, and when we go to a museum, we GO to the museum, taking it all in, and there was a lot to see at the DIA. The museum features a broad range of work from highly influential artists, including Rodin, Rembrandt, Belini, Matisse, Van Gogh (including some iconic portraits), Warhol, Monet, Degas, Munch, Kandinsky, Cezanne, and Wiley. It literally has something for everyone. We started our visit by learning about Robert Blackburn and Modern American Printmaking. Blackburn was an artist and teacher whose presence served to bridge the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement, and it was fascinating to learn about and celebrate the evolution of the man and his work. We would eventually move through the rest of the building as if on roller skates, making sure to hit the proverbial highlights.
Because we didn’t know if or when we’d be back again, we took our time with Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals. Rivera considered these frescos to be his masterpiece. I think they rival -- or at least parallel -- the Sistine Chapel (yes, I said it). Like much of the museum's vast collection, Rivera was lured to the city by Ford money, having been commissioned by Edsel Ford at the behest of museum director William Valentiner. The avowed communist and Henry Ford, the founder of industrial capitalism, had one thing in common: the belief in the God-like ability of technology to transform and transcend. Spanning 27 panels across four massive walls in the museum's Garden Courtyard, Rivera crafted scenes that would marvel and confound. He created a condensed, yet technically accurate ode to the work performed by workers at Ford's massive River Rouge plant, even depicting tourists who would come to the plant to see vehicles snake through its two-mile long assembly line. He praised the promise of a brotherhood of man united around industry while craftily acknowledging the commodification and exploitation of this labor under the watchful eye of an engineer whose visage is said to be a combination of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Industry's, and therefore humanity's potential for good or bad is seen in opposing panels on the North Wall dedicated to chemistry. The left corner sees the industrial manufacture of chemical weapons, while a beatific (and controversial) baby receives life-saving vaccines on the wall's right side. My words or the pictures I took can't do Rivera's work justice, and the following video flattens its grandeur while giving you a sense of what Rivera accomplished. It's included here just to tease you. For a more comprehensive study of the murals, the cosmology Rivera created with them, and the controversy they generated, get your hands on Linda Bank Downs' Diego Rivera: The Detroit Industry Murals . Then go to Detroit, stand in that courtyard, talk to a docent, and breath it all deeply down. While Rivera's murals frame and fix Detroit's former glory in plaster, another exhibit at the museum unintentionally channels the city's demise. Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950-2020 showcases the auto industry's creativity and innovation, and highlights the interplay between making art and making automobiles. The show features 12 iconic concept and production models from various Detroit auto makers, 36 works on paper highlighting the design process, and 7 pieces of artwork inspired by cars. As Cecily and I moved through the exhibit, we noticed a turning point where the designers reached for past glory by creating newer versions of classic models, like Ford's 2002 GT concept and its 2017 GT. This "drawing from the past," while, "looking to the future" continues to celebrate an industry that essentially abandoned the city it helped build, and in that abandonment ensured Detroit's fall from the hilltop. Continued labor unrest at the River Rouge plant was one of the reasons Ford Motor Co. decentralized its production process; which, over time, saw factories move further west and farther south. What remains of the industry and the city as a whole is a culture that, like the hotel we stayed at, screams the past into the face of a tumultuous present and an uncertain future. It is urban planning propelled by irony. The fact that we ended our final full day in Detroit at Cliff Bell's, a jazz club first opened in 1935, listening to another Diego Rivera -- this one an award winning saxophonist and composer -- was both wonderful and sadly fitting.
Car culture was perfected in California but it was born in Detroit, just as soul music was born in the Delta but perfected at 2648 West Grand Boulevard a few miles away from the Siren. Everything that made America great in that red, MAGA hat wearing sense could be seen in Motor City. During World War II Detroit was “The Arsenal of Democracy,” serving as the armorer for the Greatest Generation in its battle against Fascism and Imperialism. It also produced racism and redlining; redistricting and riots. The brotherhood the mural-making Rivera hoped industry would birth never emerged when this city was young and formidable. A place with the potential to be eternal became a punchline -- a dangerous city marked by disarray, damage, and disrepair. Detroit was largest US city ever to file for bankruptcy, and is America's most segregated. It was rightfully accused of violating human rights by the United Nations. 40% of the streetlights don't work, there are over 70,000 abandoned homes, and 25,000 vacant lots. I doubt we would let this happen to a city that has given us so much if it wasn't nearly 80% black.  Stephen Henderson said in the documentary The United States of Detroit that the city “is a place for the brave or the foolish… and maybe a little bit of both.” I always feel a bit foolish, and if the absence of fear equals bravery, then I guess I was brave during my short time moving in and around Detroit. I wish I saw more. I wish we had made it to Keyworth Stadium, where Detroit City FC is building a team and a fanbase from the ground up. I wish we had stopped by the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative and bought vegetables raised by residents who cultivated crops on abandoned lots. It's clear that a new Detroit is coming. Whether it's one that accepts the wholeness of its past -- the rust with the chrome -- or simply continues to serve the part at the expense of the whole remains to be seen. This is true of America. Everything about this nation's past, present, and future is wrapped up in what I saw during my six days in Michigan, and what I learned about the places I visited after I returned home. It's all connected by the same gleaming alabaster thread that joins two Diegos through time and distance. I fell in love with Suttons Bay on a bike trail just as I embraced Detroit on two feet, and explored Michigan on four wheels. The thoroughfares of freedom carved out of the wilderness by our forebearers wind through places divided into shades of red and blue and black and white, They are cracks in our nation's foundation half-heartedly repaired with a three-fifths mixture of freedom, oppression, and denial. If Suttons Bay, Detroit, Michigan as a state, and America as a nation, can ever be truly great, we must own this foundation, tear it down, and start again.
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Lots of minor SPOILERS ahead. This piece is definitely for people who've watched both seasons. It’s hard for me to write about Ted Lasso. So many others have delivered skillfully written think pieces detailing what’s right or wrong about the show, like how it serves as a balm for what’s ailing a COVID-ravaged and divided America, or how it reinforces the power of Ted’s white male privilege and fails to amplify LGBTQIA voices. Such articles make my words feel small and redundant, especially since I first tuned in to the show for less lofty reasons. The idea of a folksy yet clueless American football coach rubbing up against English football culture just seemed like a good laugh. I remembered the original promos Jason Sudeikis shot for NBC when they inked the US broadcast rights to the English Premier League in 2013. The mammoth potential to send up two very different but equally ridiculous versions of “football” culture stayed with Sudeikis and seemed too good to not flesh out. Those absurd moments hilariously came to pass in the show, but as the cartoon characters filling the screen began brushing up against one another, it was clear that the creatives behind the scenes were reaching for something deeper: so much so that I’ve found myself laughing, crying, and even thinking during its run right along with millions of others. Ted’s earnest sincerity won the hearts and minds of the show’s other characters while being an aspirational touchstone during the COVID shitstorm that was America in 2020. Every time he brought Rebecca biscuits (cookies in ‘Murica), shrugged off being a “wanker,” and called on his players to “believe” he was reinforcing the ideals we wanted to see in the world -- from our leaders, even -- but that were absent in the moment. But where does a protagonist go when his antagonists are no longer antagonistic? Ted succeeded in helping other characters become better people just as he was falling apart. This is where the show lives for me, and probably for a lot of people. Though finally copped to in full in “No Weddings and a Funeral” (Episode 10, Season 2), Ted Lasso has always been about parents and children. Initially, what we see regarding parenting in Ted Lasso is just thumbnails, not photographs, done quickly to capture and convey an impression in service of conflict and character development -- like when Ted calls home in the pilot episode. The brief exchange Ted shares with his wife and son lets us know that part of Ted’s journey will involve balancing long-distance fatherhood against an incredibly demanding job he is hilariously unqualified for while trying to save a marriage he doesn’t want to end. The poignancy of this scene is brilliantly soundtracked against “Opus 26” by Dustin O’Halloran, but I might have played Jamie T’s version of The Replacements’ “Bastards of Young.” The opening line -- “God, what a mess…” seems to capture the gravity of the moment and the premise of the show, while also solidly connecting to issues Ted has with his father. Later we learn that Ted’s tenacious optimism stems from losing his father to depression and suicide. He is determined not to quit -- on his players, his marriage, his friends, or his life. Like Ted, many of the characters can trace their struggles to the universal need to define ourselves against and apart from our parents, or to be the people they hope us to become. Getting star player Jamie Tartt (“doo-dooo-do-do-do-doo”) to play the sort of football that puts the team’s success ahead of his own glory is another arc directly related to fatherhood. Jamie’s father James stands as Dick Dastardly to Ted’s Peter Perfect, and in coaching Jamie to “make the extra pass” Ted is really asking Jamie to disobey his father. Owner Rebecca Whelton’s need to tear down the team her ex-husband loves so much can be seen not only as an attack against his unfaithfulness, but also against her father’s infidelity and her mother’s acceptance of it. Nate Shelley’s rise from bullied kitman to a (somewhat) confident coach only happens when he ditches the humble, unassuming persona crafted by his parents and bluntly calls out Richmond players. He completes his arc towards villainy in this season's finale when he confronts Ted and rejects the Lasso Way. He moves on to Rupert as a role model because for Nate, "the ones who love us least are the ones we die to please." Sam Obisanya puts his role on the team in jeopardy after a text from his father pointing out a sponsor’s role in Nigerian corruption and environmental exploitation inspires Sam to protest. Roy Kent, whose signature lines are “Fuuuuuuck” and a cross between a grunt and a growl, lovingly stands as a surrogate father to his niece Phoebe. He comes to realize that his professional life after football carries little meaning unless he is passing his knowledge of the game on to younger players. It is Roy, Jamie’s foil in season 1, who steps in to comfort Jamie when Tartt’s anger at his father boils over into violence. In all of these examples the show is not just comedically sending up sports culture, but critically inverting the masculine expectations of that culture; and, by extension, fatherhood itself.  The author, before he learned the truth about Dubai Air. All of us need a Doctor Sharon to help us unravel our issues with our parents. My dad was absent, but in his absence he was no less an influence. Much of my adolescence saw me reaching to connect with possible stand-ins -- something grown-up Nate seems to be doing -- as I longed for the attention my dad took from me when I was six. When I became a father myself, I worked to be the inverse of the negative he left undeveloped in my psyche; even as my marriage fell apart shortly after my daughter was born. I also tried to run, but the weight of my father’s absence in my life kept me nearer to my daughter. It becomes clear that Ted’s choice to leave his family back in the States is motivated by personal reasons as much as professional ones, and that choice gives the show’s absurd premise unexpected sharpness that cuts deeper as the show progresses. Like the Greyhounds, Ted’s role as “husband” is relegated by the first season’s end, and while he tearfully resigns as husband just as he later offers to resign as coach, we know Ted will never step away from being Henry’s dad. This is the better path he plots for his son, and the example he sets for his players and for the very real men watching the show. In loving Michelle enough to let her go, Ted shows Henry that true love is selfless. Even if it hurts. It stands in sharp contrast to James Tartt and to every real story about a controlling male athlete or abusive male coach. It also serves to drive the show’s acclaim and criticism, at least to some extent. "Carol of the Bells," the controversial Christmas episode works because it shows people being buoyed by the loving presence of others -- something we all long for even if we may be too jaded to admit it. Ted’s disconsolation at being away from his son on Christmas is eased by Rebecca as they play Secret Santa for children in need. Roy and Keely help Phoebe in an arc that sees them help her and a bully at school be better. Meanwhile a stream of Richmond players make their way to the Higgins family home. It is the bumbling Leslie Higgins, who is probably less qualified for his role as Director of Football Operations than Ted is as manager, who represents the show’s best father figure. No doubt, even his seemingly well-adjusted children are destined to struggle against their perceptions of their parents’ expectations or shortcomings. It’s the caring community, so sweetly presented to those kids in this episode -- and the hope that comes with it -- that Ted Lasso fans love. In this sense, criticism of the show’s lack of representation is valid. I have faith that Ted Lasso will introduce a character who is a member of the LGBTQIA community, though some suspect they already have (#ColinHughes). When that happens it will be controversial and polarizing, and perfect in its imperfection. It’s a challenge to give ANY sitcom character three-dimensions, and the male sports world is not known to be the most welcoming of places. The basic premise of professional athletics is rooted in the traditional, often toxic norms of fathering and fostering masculinity (to the detriment of female athletes whose growing success challenges those norms). While AFC Richmond is a fictional pro sports team, it is still a product of this reality (which Nate embraces in Vaderesque fashion). It's Ted Lasso's inversion of those ideals that I stay tethered to and want to see in my world. All of us -- even people who don’t like the show -- are Richmond til we die, the sons of no one, and we all want a seat at that surfboard.  Michigan is everything America was, is, and could be all packed into what can look like a campfire on souvenir t-shirts. My wife Cecily and I recently cut through the state on a road trip that saw us boomerang from Beverly, Massachusetts to Chicago, Illinois and back. My sister-in-law was getting married in northern Illinois, so in addition to celebrating with family, Cec and I decided to use the occasion to break out of our COVID cocoon. We picked Michigan as a featured stop. Cecily had been secretly carrying on with Michigan behind my back after we saw a band called the Michigan Rattlers open a show in Boston. They blew us -- and the headliner -- away. They quickly became one of Cecily’s favorite bands, and we were both struck by their presence and their music's ability to project a sense of place we didn't know but might want to see. Until then, all we knew about Michigan was:
 The author and his better half. On the road again. You grow up hearing “America the Beautiful” and I live in a beautiful place. But the beauty around you is often dulled into normalcy because it’s the setting for all of the mundanities of daily life. Vacations are supposed to remedy that, but COVID forced me to really see and appreciate the beauty of Massachusetts’ North Shore because I couldn’t leave it for over a year. One of my favorite biking and birding spots is just three miles away, but I never knew it existed -- and I’ve lived here for nearly fifteen years -- until COVID shook the kaleidoscope and changed the view. That’s another reason why we chose Michigan; because COVID inspired us to look for beauty in places we may not have considered before. People around here plan vacations to Florida, or to Vegas, or -- if they’re really ambitious -- to Italy. They don’t go to Michigan. Didn't Michigan spawn McVeigh? Didn't armed men "storm" the capital over COVID restrictions? Weren’t some of them arrested for plotting to kidnap the governor? Aren’t the cities rusted, broken, and dangerous? Maybe, but we found beauty in the state and in the act of being there. We would go back in a heartbeat. Suttons Bay felt like the kind of resort town one might find in Maine, only "unsalted" and sans lobster. There was a small, colorful strip filled with restaurants, coffee and souvenir shops, and a small theater all promoting the idea that life was different on the M22 -- the state highway that followed the coast of Lake Michigan along the Leelanau Peninsula. We had booked a room at the M22 Inn - Suttons Bay, which is a holdover from the days when driving was a new and exciting way for middle-class families to spend their leisure time. We were across the road from the lake, though the view was more beautiful than it was practical as it lacked a beach. Our room was large and clean, just a few miles away from downtown, and last updated in the 1980s. Still. It would do, mauve and all. We dropped our bags and headed into Suttons Bay for dinner buoyed by nostalgia for a time we barely knew, when cars were tipped with chrome.
COVID's impact was evident everywhere. We never saw a member of the motel staff, as check-in and check-out was entirely remote. Our room was open with keys waiting on the dresser along with a number to call if we needed anything. In town some shops stood closed, others had signs apologizing for service issues brought on by staffing shortages, while some were only open with limited hours. We had trouble landing a place to eat until we found Hop Lot Brewing Company just outside of town on the way back to the motel. We dropped ourselves into one of the many outdoor tables situated among the fire pits and corn hole games in a large, inviting courtyard surrounded by beautiful trees and tried to shake the miles off. Despite being ordered from our phones via QR code, the food at Hop Lot was tasty and made with care, the cider was sweet and cold, and we found the grumpy weariness that came from a day spent on the road only to struggle to find a meal quickly fading away. When Cecily and I travel, we like to connect with locals if at all possible. I remember a trip to Puerto Rico where we spent a couple of hours at a kiosko in Luquillo sharing stellar mojitos with the bartender and a regular who were schooling us about the pros and cons of Puerto Rican statehood. Something like this happens to us wherever we go, but despite being out in the world after more than a year locked away, we had simply made our bubble portable. We were Spartans using masks as shields, with weak strings of drifting conversation tenuously connecting us to people sorta nearby. We looked at the itinerary for the next day's winery/cider-house bike tour between bites and sips as the sun dipped behind the trees. Lights strung on wires among their branches gave our bubble a warm glow.
Grand Traverse Bike Tours is right in downtown Suttons Bay. They would provide hybrid bikes, choreograph stops at wineries and cideries near the trail, and pick up any purchases we made and have them waiting at their shop at the end of the day. There’s a freedom that comes with moving from one place to another on a bicycle, particularly if those places allow you to consume large quantities of alcohol. I know you can be cited for driving under the influence on a bike in Massachusetts, and probably on a bike trail in Michigan, too. Thankfully, pedaling from place to verdant place kept us alert, even at our fairly leisurely pace. Being in a car with Cecily during our trip was probably the closest we came to feeling as safe and secure as we had traveling pre-covid, and this comfort followed us on bikes in Suttons Bay. In the open air we could risk being maskless, and this buoyed us as we navigated masking inside each winery before reaching an outdoor table where we could eat and drink mask-free. Grand Traverse had us stopping at Black Star Farms, Shady Lane Cellars, Suttons Bay Ciders, and Mawby Wines. We were looking at roughly seven miles out and another seven back, which was a lot for us. Fortunately, the bike trail itself is mostly level and very well maintained, but we had to go on-road and up some hills to get to a few stops. Sometimes we walked if a particular hill was too steep. We did a lot of pedaling, and tasted a lot of fermented fruit juice, but didn’t appreciate all of it. That has more to do with us, as Cecily and I aren’t big wine drinkers, and we like our cider on the sweet side whereas the American cider market leans towards dry. Still, each place was simply beautiful. Black Star Farms is a “160 acre winery estate” with an inn on-site that offers gourmet, farm to table meals complete with wine pairings, and guests can stroll through the vineyards or hike some of the trails running through the property. We settled into a table on a deck overlooking the vineyards and ordered a flight; and while we were tempted by a few wines, their apple-cherry cider was the winner. Having never been to the area before, I’m not sure how crowded it should have been, but it seemed like we had more space than we should. That cuts two ways with COVID. You want enough room to feel safe, but you want a place like Black Star to be crowded enough to thrive. Maybe we were just early -- it was barely after 11:00 -- but wasn’t day-drinking a thing in wine country in the summertime? We had another glass of the apple-cherry cider, bought two bottles, and then wobbled, er -- pedaled -- to Shady Lane, where Grand Traverse had a delicious lunch waiting for us in insulated coolers. Shady Lane sits on an “historic estate” and claims to offer “an experience worth having” in addition to wine. The grounds were beautiful, and they had an amazing outdoor bar, but the staff seemed a bit put out by having us there, and people at a nearby table were complaining about their daughters-in-law and the perils of shopping. They seemed immune to the same novelty and charm we found so intoxicating (I swear it wasn’t just the wine) in Suttons Bay. This was a bit sad, but understandable. Work is work; life is life; and both can be mundane -- even in the prettiest of places. We finished our lunch and moved on to Suttons Bay Ciders, which boasts of having the best view in Northern Michigan. They might be right. Their deck stands over tree-filled hills that roll right down to Lake Michigan, and they have this beautiful border collie who chases frisbees through the trees and brings them back minutes later. We found much of what we tasted to be too dry for us, but the ice cider was quite nice, and while I regret not trying the apple brandy, we had bikes to ride, and we were wobbly enough already. When we finally made it to Mawby, we were tired and a little hurried as we wanted to get back to the bike shop before they closed. We were going through the motions on and off the bike. We had already ridden about 12 miles at that point, and it was another 4 back to the bike shop, so glasses moved from tables to mouths like feet on pedals. We didn’t do much bird watching that day. Birding is a casual activity that requires time and patience. We were on a schedule, and most of what we saw were fleeting glimpses of familiar birds -- an American Goldfinch, a Robin. A Red-Winged Blackbird, and a Cedar Waxwing. I had never seen a Waxwing before this summer, and now they seemed to be everywhere I looked. Despite being rushed, I did add two birds to my life-list: a Purple Finch, and an Indigo Bunting. The birds, the wine and cider, the scenery, and the company roll together in my memory like a blurred out montage from a video for a happy song by the Cure or some other dreamy shoe-gaze act, all gauzy and bright and warm, which is exactly how I felt at the time. Unsalted. Unhurried. Content.  Normalcy isn’t the only thing that can blur a place’s natural beauty. It can be blunted and obscured by things that happen there. Two days after my wife and I left the Leelanau region for Detroit, this Washington Post article about how white students “auctioned” off their black classmates over social media came across my news feed. This mock slave auction took place in Traverse City, where my wife and I would have wound up if we followed the Leelanau Trail to its southern terminus. School administrators and community leaders took the incident as evidence that students and staff needed more training about what it takes to live in a diverse community, while others argued that the “slave trade” group on Snap Chat was not indicative of who and what Traverse City is as a whole. Proponents of this bad-apple point-of-view claim that the district’s equity resolution was an unwarranted attempt to slip critical race theory into the curriculum. One parent, a “White mother of two who graduated from Traverse public schools,” told the Post, “We were all brought up not to take someone’s race into consideration. That’s what we’re guaranteed in America.” But some students did just that: they singled out some of their classmates on the basis of race and subjected them to a humiliating reminder that it was once legal to buy and sell people who looked like them. I wonder if the people who stood up against the resolution were motivated by something they wouldn’t say aloud, that Traverse City students don’t need diversity training because Traverse City isn’t very diverse. The town is 90 percent white, but that didn’t stop Nevaeh Wharton’s classmates from “selling” her for a hundred dollars before ultimately giving her away. Even under the pressure of a global pandemic, we cannot live in a bubble; not really. In communities that are physically closed because of COVID digital roads continue to push and pull information to us and our children, no matter how fast we pedal. This year, students in two other communities -- one outside of Fort Worth, Texas and another outside of Portland, Oregon -- conducted their own “slave auctions” on social media. While people and politicians argue whether or not systemic racism exists, America the Beautiful remains ugly and unwelcoming in ways you can’t see from the seat of your bike, though the people you ride by may be on either side of that ugliness. Southern trees once bore strange fruit. Oregon was meant to be a “white utopia.” What happened in Traverse City doesn't make my memories of the area any less gauzy and golden. The ugly things that happen in beautiful places challenge us to make sure that all Americans can enjoy that beauty, especially when most of the Americans who live in our community look like us. “America the Beautiful” isn’t just about the physical beauty of the country, even though those are the lines most people seem to remember. Other lines talk of brotherhood, something I don’t think some students in Traverse City remembered or that the ones they bid on felt. It recognizes that our nation has flaws -- an act some people feel is now divisive and unpatriotic -- and asks for God’s help in mending them. It mentions gleaming alabaster cities, which describes Detroit, our next stop, in its prime.  My daughter asked why I always say good things about the songs she writes. She'll be 18 soon, and she's rightfully expecting me to treat her like the adult she's becoming, even if that means introducing a new level of static into our lives. Mirren knows that adults who are in healthy relationships sometimes say hurtful things in service of honesty, just as adults might hide truths from children for the sake of self-esteem. I loathe conflict, and I often find myself walking a tightrope trying to be honest while not creating tension. I honestly haven't heard a song of Mirren's I didn't like, though. I think there are a few reasons for this. I'm not sure how she hears a finished song, but when Mirren plays me the rough cuts, they're in a style that I'm already partial to: just her and her guitar. I love the "three chords and the truth" vibe that comes through as opposed to this: There's a purity in her rough drafts' lack of precision that's almost punk to me, and I hope it carries over should she ever do more with the songs. Mirren's also got a great sense of wordplay, and her lyrics often wrap themselves in and around a melody in ways that remind me of my favorite artists. Her words aren't just there to prop up the music, and vice-versa. Mirren's music and lyrics love each other. These songs are hers to share, but I mention them because I'm certain about how I feel about them, whereas I find myself wavering about how to close my soundtrack. Stories have arcs because we are satisfied by the idea of resolution, and stories with unsatisfying endings don't find much of an audience, or leave those they do find scratching their heads, especially if "Don't Stop Believing" is playing in the background. When I started out this series of posts over a year ago, I set out to create a playlist that served as a soundtrack to my COVID story. This is the last post in that series, and while (I think) I have a suitable song to roll over the end credits my story doesn't have a neat ending. Our stories don't stop when the theater lights come up. As my COVID story ripples and vibrates into a future I can't predict or understand, this is the song that plays at the end: "RESERVATIONS" - WILCO |
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This picture is as much a tribute as a swipe, as discerning Stones fans will recognize the shirt and the pose from this picture of Keith Richards taken during the band's 1975 US tour. In that, McKenna reaches back to a time when touring was possible. While the Glimmer Twins have decades of earned swagger to carry them through the pandemic, COVID has sidelined emerging artists like McKenna, cutting off a vital marketing and revenue stream that threatens the viability of their craft for years to come. That makes McKenna's photo smart marketing as well as good crack. With traditional methods of promotion altered by the pandemic, McKenna and his fans mounted a social media campaign to #getdeclantonumber1. Speaking to Jess Iszatt on the UK's The Record Club, McKenna confessed, “I’m determined to beat The Rolling Stones, which is pretty strange to be saying. You’ve got to go into these things with confidence, even when you’re technically the underdog. I think you’ve gotta have faith. I’ve been blown away by the response, it’s been pretty outrageous the people who have got behind it and how amazing this past week has been. It’s unreal, it’s really getting down to the wire.” And it almost worked. Despite leading heading into the final day, Zeros ceded the top spot to Goats Head Soup, coming just 800 units shy.
You would think going up against one of the greatest rock and roll acts of all time with an album that many feel successfully channels another would be enough to satiate any 21 year-old's ego. But McKenna is driven by doubt as much as anything else. Zeros is an homage to McKenna's love of 70's glam. It's Major Tom stepping through the door and emerging as Ziggy Stardust. But McKenna wants to be himself more than anyone else, and sitting on Zeros due to COVID has led to some self-doubt. “The most imposter syndrome I’ve ever felt is now,” he told NME. “I’ve just been sitting on an album for a year, and I have had too much time to ask myself questions about the musical direction I have gone in. When you get to that point, you begin to wonder if you are an absolute fraud.” Taken against that comment, and you know the arrogance McKenna wears has more to do with him and less to do with Jagger.
"You Better Believe!!!" is the lead track from Zeros, and it simultaneously affirms and indicts what's possible if... you do what the title suggests. In "You Better Believe!!!" the success McKenna craves, technology and the consumerism that drives it, and religion and religious leaders all "lose their flavors like gum stuck to our heels." Yet McKenna's response to all of these failures is an emphatic, three exclamation point declaration that, still, "You Better Believe!!!" It's an anthem with sentiments the left and right can get behind, even as McKenna hints that they shouldn't. It's this dichotomy that I'm struggling with at the moment. I'm not sure my red is red anymore, though I know the bird itself exists.
I want a climax to this strange story we're staging, but I feel instead that I'm caught in a looping montage of rising and falling action. If 2020 is our collective rock-bottom, then the protests, the election, the vaccine -- all amplified by COVID -- should cause us to engage in the sort of self-reflection that might lead to the cathartic shift I crave. That hasn't happened. Instead the distance between the people who want America to be great again and those who finally want it to be great for all has further eroded and canyoned before my eyes. A disturbingly large number of Americans -- including some at the highest levels of government -- believe that wearing masks to combat COVID's spread should be an individual matter. They're willfully blind to the collective good that comes from the inconvenience of wearing a mask. Yet these same people suddenly have eyes for all lives when it comes to people of color.
"You Better Believe!!!" is the lead track from Zeros, and it simultaneously affirms and indicts what's possible if... you do what the title suggests. In "You Better Believe!!!" the success McKenna craves, technology and the consumerism that drives it, and religion and religious leaders all "lose their flavors like gum stuck to our heels." Yet McKenna's response to all of these failures is an emphatic, three exclamation point declaration that, still, "You Better Believe!!!" It's an anthem with sentiments the left and right can get behind, even as McKenna hints that they shouldn't. It's this dichotomy that I'm struggling with at the moment. I'm not sure my red is red anymore, though I know the bird itself exists.
I want a climax to this strange story we're staging, but I feel instead that I'm caught in a looping montage of rising and falling action. If 2020 is our collective rock-bottom, then the protests, the election, the vaccine -- all amplified by COVID -- should cause us to engage in the sort of self-reflection that might lead to the cathartic shift I crave. That hasn't happened. Instead the distance between the people who want America to be great again and those who finally want it to be great for all has further eroded and canyoned before my eyes. A disturbingly large number of Americans -- including some at the highest levels of government -- believe that wearing masks to combat COVID's spread should be an individual matter. They're willfully blind to the collective good that comes from the inconvenience of wearing a mask. Yet these same people suddenly have eyes for all lives when it comes to people of color.
Photo via Riverfront Times
McKenna ends "You Better Believe!!!" by explaining:
| I'm off out to buy a bag of Quavers And Nike trainers Comfort you can feel And you know that it's real because you saw it at the station God's creation With a half off summer deal |
It's an ending where everything that lifts us up brings us down while everything that brings us down lifts us up. I'm stepping into 2021 with no idea how my movie will end, knowing only that I'm more afraid of other peoples' certainty than my own lack of it. There are ghosts stealing votes in Michigan, where all cops are bastards. Black Lives Matter in DC, where Trump rides clouds of tear gas to church.
