And is Ochocinco his real name?

I really need to keep up on the rest of the paper. As many of you know, I ignore the sports section. Sorry, sports fans, but it’s just too late for me. I read world/nation, metro, business and arts. There are many fine sportswriters in the world and I look them up when I can, but keeping up is something I don’t have time for.

So it was that I learned that a Los Angeles Laker named “Metta World Peace” elbowed an opponent during a game the other day and was ejected. Shouldn’t there be some explanation of the name? Wait, there was explanation of the name? Back when it was changed? From who? Ohhhh, Ron Artest. That guy. He started the brawl at the Palace. And now he’s calling himself World Peace, but I don’t get the Metta. Can anyone explain this? He sounds like he’s still a long way from peaceful.

During my time on the sports copy desk — a six-month stretch that will provide me with a lifetime of boring dinner-party stories — I came to think of basketball as Armpit Season. Picture after picture of armpits. It got old.

In ten days, I’m going to a Tigers game, however. Because free tickets + warm spring night (I hope) = awesome.

Bloggage tonight? Yeah, some:

A stupid Kathleen Parker column. (Yeah, what else is new, right?) A funny Charles Pierce comment on it.

David Simon has a blog (a website, anyway). E-i-e-i-o.

Posted at 12:28 am in Current events, Same ol' same ol' | 110 Comments

This week, this endless week.

It took some hard pushin’, but I birthed ‘nother project for Bridge. Public-employee pensions, woo, but it’s over. I spent a chunk of today reporting a much lighter piece, and once the end-of-the-term grading is done, I’ll have a much lighter step to match.

Parts one, two, three, four.

And in the meantime, all I have to do is kill dozens of comments out of my email, not from Bridge readers but from Mlive, the newspaper/digital platform where we share our content. Apparently there are people in the world who have nothing better to do than snipe back and forth on newspaper comment boards.

Life is too short for that, but maybe not when your main point consists of honk and the person you’re arguing with says honk-honk.

Good lord, but there’s some bloggage to get to today, so let’s.

This was destined to go viral the minute the judge said, “Hot dog!” So enjoy. (You can’t see his hot dog.)

A naked man runs through my neighborhood. And I MISSED IT. Streaking isn’t back; he’s just a meth casualty released from the psych ward too soon.

Frank Rich on something that isn’t exactly news, but a decent primer on the sugar daddies swinging their moneybags in the current election.

And speaking of public-employee pensions, David Von Drehle tells a story better than I ever could — Rhode Island’s.

Off to edit some copy.

Posted at 1:11 am in Current events, Same ol' same ol' | 78 Comments

My very own crow.

I sent Coozledad an Electric Six T-shirt and all I got was this beautiful watercolor of his pet crow, which Alan just brought back from the framer today:

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A terrible photo, I know. Alan wanted to wait until daylight, but I insisted. Here’s a decent detail shot, from Cooz’s own blog. It’s just spectacular, and I’m amazed he’s this generous. I think I’ll send him an old ratty hoodie next, in the hope he’ll reply with some diamond earrings or something. We’ll walk it around the house for a week or two, until the crow tells us where he wants to hang (as long as it’s out of direct sunlight, or close to a bathroom).

This almost counters the news that we lost yet ANOTHER commenter, albeit one of the less-chatty ones — JayZ(the original), who, we learned from Bill, “passed away suddenly in France on Easter Sunday.” May I just say? That’s a line I’d like to see in my obituary someday, if that’s even possible.

I really don’t know what to say about that, other than I’m sorry.

And now it’s week’s end, “30 Rock” night, and I’m having a brownie and a second glass of wine, because why not? Tomorrow I’m going to hit the gym and it will surely hit me back, but I don’t care.

Bloggage?

Professionalism ain’t what it used to be.

The flight path of the pilot whose plane augured in to the Gulf of Mexico today. Lost pressure, blacked out, adios — it’s the same thing that happened to Payne Stewart’s plane a few years back. Arresting to see the final tracings.

Keep talkin’, liberal man. I’m sure it’ll do a lot of good.

Me, I’m going to bed. Have a great weekend, all.

Posted at 12:50 am in Current events, Same ol' same ol' | 98 Comments

Almost…there…

What a week it’s been so far. Moe dies Saturday. On Monday, my car started missing; the verdict was bad ignition coils. Three hunnert dollars, ma’am. Bright side: This might be a recall issue, in which case I can expect reimbursement in four to six weeks.

Today I sat on my glasses. Bright side: I was just telling Kate I’m ready for new ones. I’ve had these for years, and they fit great and look great, but five years is enough for one pair of glasses, if you aren’t Elvis Costello. Still, is this a little too perfect? The last time this happened, I said, “I might be ready for one of those iPhones,” and that very day my pink Razr disappeared, never to be found again.

Meanwhile, I’m finishing a big project at work, and it is another horse-eating deal. Annd it’s the end of the term, and at the moment I feel like one of those marathoners who enters the stadium doing the hurricane walk. If I can get to the end of the week, all will be OK.

And if I can get through tomorrow, I’m planning to have two (2) craft beers after work. Maybe Oberon, if they’ve tapped it at one of my Wednesday places.

In the meantime, I beg your tolerance for a few more days. In return, I bring these tasty links:

A nice piece by Laura Berman in the DetNews about what many claim doesn’t exist: True hunger in the U.S. of A.

Hump day. Let’s get over it, eh?

Posted at 12:35 am in Same ol' same ol' | 73 Comments

Gusty. Calm expected eventually.

It blew all day here, 25 mph steady and gusts a lot higher. Limbs down all over, power out to more than 50,000 customers. Knock wood and cast the evil eye aside, we weren’t one of them. Which didn’t stop me from having a fairly lousy day anyway, starting with an unexpected $300 car repair, continuing with blah-blah and salvaged only by dinner — grilled-asparagus omelets with gruyere cheese and a little slivered prosciutto. Both the cheese and the ham were odd-end leftovers. Black bean and roasted corn salad on the side, and a nice glass of wine.

And you know what? Nora Ephron is right: The best omelets are two whole eggs with a third yolk. Richer, but not too.

Remember when I said I’d be crushed for a few more days? I wasn’t kidding. Thanks anyway to my fellow Fellow Rob, who wrote yesterday to say, “your blog is still the shit.” He’s so nice. Take “the” out of that comment and it’s more accurate, but this too shall pass. I’d go dark for a few days, but I like to give y’all new threads to play in.

Any links? This:

Mrs. Romney goes shopping. In Palm Beach.

Mittens out-drawing Barry in Michigan, so far. Interesting map.

Happy Tuesday to all.

Posted at 12:30 am in Same ol' same ol' | 72 Comments

I find correct usage optional.

Driving to Lansing Friday morning, I found myself in an audio crisis. I can usually make NPR fill at least half the trip, but it’s pledge week. As a sustaining member, I opt out of the miseries of pledge week. Reached for my iPod, but ack! I’d left the earbuds at home, a hazard of dressing for work in the dark. Commercial radio it is, then. I stumbled across a wacky morning team, just as they announced they had a listener who believed she’d found the Word of the Day — some promotion, I expect. She was asked the word of the day, and answered “habitual.” Huzzah, she’s a winner, but wait, there’s one more hoop.

“Can you use it in a sentence?”

“I find chocolate habitual.”

“Very good! You win!”

Fortunately, I’m no longer driving this route at a full gallop, or else the twitching in my hands would have sent me off the road.

A pretty good story in today’s Freep, which qualifies as a unique take on the old problem of school safety. It considers a truly horrifying aspect of Detroit school life — the walk to school. I was telling my students the other day to try to keep fresh eyes, especially around Detroit, because it’s easy to start taking blight for granted, after you’ve seen it for a while. The photo gallery is an eye-popper.

On a lighter note, this amusing New York magazine piece on the artisanal artisanal-ness of Brooklyn. I recall exchanging an email or two with Roy after I stumbled across a Kickstarter for some outfit there, raising money to make artisanal soft drinks. Roy lived there at the time, and to my what-the-what question, he replied, “Not my part of Brooklyn.” Good to know.

Finally, I suppose most of you know by now that Moe, our comment-community member of four years, known in her analog life as Regina Cullen of Seattle, Wash., died over the weekend. In what has become a grim tradition here, J.C. has taken all her comments and collected them on a single page, which you can find here. (Link on the sidebar under Getting There from Here, along with those of Ashley Morris and Whitebeard.) It starts with her first appearance, Leap Day 2008, which we long-timers remember as Tim Goeglein Day. It ends, 2,204 comments later, on March 26 of this year. She was active and engaged, never self-pitying, throughout what must have been a long and very painful illness. She was posting on her Facebook page March 31 — a funny video of British animal voiceovers. The day before that, an excoriation of Mitt Romney’s contributions to the National Organization for Marriage. I think that was probably a pretty good distillation of Moe as we knew her — engaged with the nitty-gritty, but still up for a laugh. Our community will be poorer for her loss.

Posted at 12:46 am in Detroit life, Same ol' same ol' | 63 Comments

As we say: -30-

We’ve been having some terrible restaurant luck lately. The last couple of Easters, we have been meeting Alan’s sister for a meal halfway between our places, i.e. Toledo. The place we went last year went out of business, and this year’s choice, a boîte in the hipster district called Manhattan’s, should do the same. I hope they serve a great cocktail, because their brunch was an overpriced festival of disappointment. Fortunately, Toledo has a fine zoo, and that’s where we spent the afternoon, looking for the meerkats but not finding them — their exhibit was being remodeled. We did see the baby elephant, whose name is Louie. And the usual complement of beasts large and small. Alan was in search of the monkey house of his childhood memories, and we finally found it. It had been renovated into a food court, and the old cage-type setup is perfect for housing junk food-eating people, if you ask me.

Maybe Manhattan’s should investigate a rehab.

Otherwise, a fine weekend. One of my Facebook network, a professional photographer, posted a socko picture he took early Saturday morning, one he said he’s been trying to capture for four years. If you live around here, you know this weekend was exceptionally clear, and the moon was full Friday night. Another one.

That was a hell of a “Mad Men” last night, ain’a? I’m impressed by how well they’re conjuring the ’60s so far this season. Say “the ’60s” and it’s easy to default to hippies. It’s much more, and we forget how the drumbeat of urban violence really began to get loud around this time. Discuss, if you’re so inclined.

As many of you know, eight years ago I was fortunate enough to be a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, a sabbatical year for mid-career journalists. The fellowship was named for its major benefactors; the Knight was the foundation, and the Wallace was Mike, who died this weekend. He came to town every year, to meet the fellows and hobnob around his alma mater, where he was much-loved and respected. He didn’t come our year, however. Charles Eisendrath, the fellowship director, apologized on his behalf: “The bad news is, Mike had to cancel. He’s crashing deadline on a story. The good news is, he’s 86 and crashing deadline on a story.”

And so I didn’t lay eyes on him until a few years later, when he came in for a reunion to celebrate some milestone or another. I didn’t talk to him, as he was the sort of guy who is surrounded by people clamoring for his attention, and what do you say to Mike Wallace? That was great, when you nailed that guy that time, maybe. I haven’t watched “60 Minutes” in years, and when I have, I’m struck by what a throwback it is, but the fact remains, it’s a classic, and classics don’t change because everything else does. For many, many years, it was the gold standard, and Wallace was the most important reporter they had. I’m sure, in the days to come, some bold gnat will sneer about his early days as a pitchman for Fluffo shortening, or some vapid actress interview, but the fact remains, when it counted, he cast a long, long shadow.

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Posted at 12:28 am in Media, Same ol' same ol' | 39 Comments

A diet plate.

An all-links Friday update? Sure, works for me. Opening Day was clear and sunny and beautiful, but damn cold. I was standing on a corner waiting for a light to change near Wayne State, and the wind gusted in my face, and what did I do? I moaned. It’s April. Time for crazy weather to stop this shit and start being spring. Those two weeks of summer were a cruel taunt. Easter Sunday will be rainy and barely 60. But it’s time to strip the cover off the boat and get this show on the road, eh?

Best Tumblr I’ve seen in a while: Texts from Hillary.

But still, my fave is Animals Talking in All Caps.

It’s a tough town: Second law-abiding Detroiter in a week shoots and kills an intruder. Any more of this, and the ghost of Charlton Heston will come to town.

Are any of you even at work today? Happy Passover, and a somber Good Friday. And who’ll be watching “The Ten Commandments?” I will.

Posted at 8:39 am in Detroit life, Popculch, Same ol' same ol' | 83 Comments

Feeding from the tap.

Today, a question for the room: Have you ever eaten a spear of asparagus right out of the ground? Snapped it off and ate it as you wandered through the rows? You should try it sometime, if you ever get a chance; it’s like a whole different vegetable, as tender at the base as it is at the tip. No bitterness, no stringiness. I’m thinking these rabbits are onto something. Maybe we should all get on all fours and graze a bit.

No, I haven’t been smoking weed or anything. John and Sam, aka J.C. and Sam, have been in Lansing for the last few weeks, helping Sammy’s father start his journey down the ghost road. That journey having commenced over the weekend, I stopped by on my way out of town yesterday and beheld his legendary garden — he was a botanist — which will be on its own this season, although I’m sure the neighbors will enjoy the strawberries and raspberries and other perennials. We enjoyed the raw asparagus. Man, what a revelation.

And if you had spent most of the day in Excel training, that’s what you’d remember about the day, too.

Excel: I know it’s a titan of software. I know it makes data analysis possible in ways undreamed of by data nerds in times gone by, but when the most common thing you hear in several hours of training is, “Excel will trip you up,” maybe there’s a little feature-not-bug thing going on. I use Numbers, m’self. It does everything Excel does — except for something called “pivot tables,” and may I never learn what those are — and looks prettier.

And other than that, it was a lot of driving. But a beautiful day.

Bloggage?

Sure: Lots of women get abortions at 24 weeks, because they “had to have a career.” A dispatch from the right-wing propaganda war, “October Baby.”

It’s simply appalling how long it’s taken Detroit’s city council to come to terms with reality, but it finally did. I’ve started making screen captures of Charles Pugh’s glasses — he wears a different pair every day. I’m thinking it’s a metaphor.

And now I’m off to my warm, soft bed. Downside of the week, y’all.

Posted at 12:19 am in Detroit life, Movies, Same ol' same ol' | 61 Comments

Luck. Or something else.

I was having office hours today when the department secretary stuck her head in the door.

“You haven’t responded to your invitation to the diversity awards,” she said.

“I never got an invitation to the diversity awards,” I said.

“It’s in your mailbox.”

“I have a mailbox?” Kidding. I learned I had a mailbox about six months ago, maybe longer. I hadn’t checked it since. So I found it — it’s in an office I never visit — and pulled out the invitation to the diversity awards. Also, one to the department Christmas party and something from the president informing us of the rich menu of learning experiences available on campus. I reached all the way back, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

And pulled out something that looked like the paychecks I used to receive before I signed up for direct deposit. Surely it was some sort of tax document. Dammit, already filed, I thought, ripping off the zip tabs on the ends, wondering if I’d have to file an amended return.

Unfolded it. It was a check. Made out to me. For several hundred dollars. Dated April 27, 2011. I have no idea why I was paid by check when it was supposed to be coming electronically. Don’t know why I didn’t notice I was short, except that adjuncts are paid through the term and when the term stops, the money stops, and this was likely the last one of the term. I probably thought it just stopped early.

I could go on at great length explaining my budgeting process to you, but it would only serve to make me sound even stupider. As it was, the two or three people I had to explain this to by way of getting it voided and repaid looked at me like I’m some silly rich twit who didn’t even know she was short an entire paycheck a whole year previous.

“I’m not rich!” I told them. “I’m just dumb.”

In three to five days, I will have a brand-new check. In four to six days, I predict a bill will arrive for precisely that amount.

One of my longer-term resolutions this year is to get certain financial ducks in a row. So if you owe me any money, please send a check now. Or just order lots of Amazon through the Kickback Lounge.

The WSJ had a story Thursday about how high schools are dealing with the prom-dress problem, i.e., enforcing the dress code necessitated by the new prom dresses.

“New prom dresses?” you ask. “How new can they be?”

How about this new, to use an extreme example, but not all that unusual, evidently. The story says that the trend toward cut-down-to-there, slit-up-to-here, tight/plunging/see-through dresses is coming out of Hollywood, driven by “Dancing With the Stars,” the Real Housewives and J-Lo, mainly. I urge you to take a walk through the Promgirl online catalog, and marvel — at the models, all of whom look like Kardashians on the far side of 30; at the cutouts; at the boob jobs; at the…whatever this is. Do any of the girls whose mothers permit them to walk outside the house dressed like this have any sense of propriety? Or are they all raising their girls to be sold into white slavery? I tell Kate if she wants to dress like this, I will teach her to say, in Russian, “My name is Olga, and I cost two hundred dollars.”

Best line from the story:

Southmoore High’s guidelines say male students must keep their shirts on all night. “We don’t care that you work out,” the guide states.

OK, then! Got any bloggage? Yes, and a wide variety of it.

From New York magazine, President John Tyler, born in 1790, our 10th president, has a living grandson. Yes, grandson:

Both my grandfather — the president — and my father, were married twice. And they had children by their first wives. And their first wives died, and they married again and had more children. And my father was 75 when I was born, his father was 63 when he was born. John Tyler had fifteen children — eight by his first wife, seven by his second wife — so it does get very confusing.

A T-shirt company in town sells a wide variety of shirts promoting various parts of the Metro — one emblazoned Taylortucky, for a downriver community; another showing a sombrero-wearing cactus for Mexicantown. But it wasn’t until it released one for Dearborn that featured the city’s name in Arabic letters that the shit hit the fan. Maybe that’s too strong. It was more like a vile fart in front of an air conditioner. I still want one.

Dig it: A nice piece on a Detroit urban farmer, and mine on the Mower Gang, if you missed the link in the comments yesterday.

There’s a second Mad Style post today! T-Lo, the gift that keeps on blogging.

A good weekend, all. Sorry I’ve been so uninspired, of late. It’s been a killer week.

Posted at 12:59 am in Current events, Same ol' same ol' | 71 Comments