Detroit for better or worse, but getting better.

  Last night N and I saw the show at the Detroit Rep and driving home about 10:30 we found the entrance from Davison to I-96 East blocked because of an accident. We turned around and went south on Livernois, turn NW on Grand River, and back to I-96 West. We went through a lot of disheartening and frightening areas.

Over the last decade and a half I've been all over the city. Acted in plays, auditioned, and seen shows at the Planet Ant in Hamtramck, and the Detroit Rep on Woodrow Wilson near Davison. I've performed comedy at Starters a number of time (Plymouth Road two blocks west of Southfield freeway), a couple of other bars. I've performed at the GEM downtown. I performed at a bar near Wyoming and Grand Rapids, where you had to park in a fenced-in parking lot and get frisked for weapons and the show-runner told me not to walk the few blocks away to get a cup of coffee. He said, "drive or you’ll be killed." I worked in a rock video near Rosa Parks and Grand Boulevard amid far flung ruins, a TV show that brought me to the East Side and Masonic Temple. Seen operas etc. at the Detroit Opera House, I worked in voter protection at polling places in Detroit in '04, 08, '12 (twice), and '14. In 2012, at a polling place on W. Chicago just east of Dexter, I was walking out for a cup of coffee when three well-dressed local women on the way to vote looked at me in horror and told my I'd have to drive because (this was at high noon) it wasn't safe to walk. I was part of a group of Ann Arbor white guys that toured downtown places, including great soul food dinner at Café D’Mongo’s Speakeasy, and later at Bert's Place at the Eastern Market (got to hug Martha Reeves which capped off a great evening). I auditioned at Wayne and places in the inner city I can visualize but have forgotten the names, and eaten several dinners at the Cass Cafe on Woodward. I've also been to New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and Dallas. Detroit is far worse than the others I've seen. Yet I keep going there because there are things to do there that I want to do. And I can feel the excitement of a city that has nowhere to go but up, and is actually, if slowly, getting there, even if a huge percentage of its land is vacant or covered with decrepit buildings and marred by violence, too broke to police the town properly, to I hope Detroit’s pockets of vitality expand to fill the city and I hope it happens within my lifetime.

 

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