From Amsterdam to the Motor City

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Trip Start Dec 19, 2006 Trip End Feb 22, 2007 Next
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  Detroit, Michigan, United States
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

(Detroit, Tuesday, December 19, 2006)-A smooth flight across the Atlantic Ocean with Northwest Airlines, although the level of service continues to be degenerated by the proprietors and one is constantly reminded of William Burroughs' economium to the effect that American life is now about simplifying and degrading the consumer as well as the product. In that respect I'm glad I'm not much of a consumer, but it's increasingly painful to watch one's fellow citizens degenerate in their eagerness to have their humanity reduced by the market forces they love so much.

I flew directly to Detroit, arrived in the early evening and Adam Brook took me straight to the Shorecrest Motel on East Jefferson where I would spend the one night I had allotted to the Motor City. (Thanks, Adam!) The Shorecrest used to be the Blues Motel when the Soup Kitchen Saloon was still open around the corner, and I'm thinking about the first time I saw Gatemouth Brown in Detroit when we pull up. Gates had that station wagon the band traveled in with the legend  "Kickin' Ass & Takin' Names" enscrolled on the side.

#49

"let's call this"

for jayne cortez


baseball, poetry, &
rhythm & blues-
& all 3

in one most
glorious day,
april 15, 1982-

let's call this
opening day,
like the sky

opened up & grinned
all over detroit
& at the shrine

of truth & beauty
at michigan & trumbull
even the tigers came thru

4 to 2
over toronto
& at the detroit

institute of arts
jayne cortez
made the scene

with her crazy
poetry-
making machine

& to top it off,
making his first
detroit appearance

in recorded memory,
the pride
of orange, texas,

ladies &
gentlemen, that mighty
man of music, mister

clarence
"gatemouth"
brown!

so let's call this a
perfect
day then, & please

please, please,
i'm down on my knees
begging for more-

80 more
home games to go, &
let the hits just

keep on coming
day after day
for the rest of the year!

            -detroit
            april 17, 1982

from always know: a book of monk


I had planned to have dinner with my daughter Sunny and my granddaughter little B but Sunny was locked into a serious study pattern for the final examination of her long college career-after tomorrow morning she'll finally be done, and she wants to go out right. So I give her a rain check, take a little nap instead, and then walk the few brisk blocks over to the Buzz Bar for my gig with R.J. Spangler & the cats.

I'd thought I'd maximize my opportunity to see some dear friends in the D on my one night there so I booked myself onto R.J.'s Tuesday night session at the Buzz and, sure enough, my fantasies were fulfilled. I couldn't list everyone who showed up, but Phil Hale was there, Ms. Cubie, my estranged wife Penny & her co-workers from the Grosse Pointe Country Club, Holice P. Wood, the great tenor saxophonist Keith Kaminsky, Doc was behind the bar, Chrissy and Rosey were on the set, Rodney-man, I could go on and on, but let it suffice to say that a good time was had by all.

The sad part was that Adam Brook, who does my merchandise for me and serves as my road manager in America whenever circumstances permit, was explicitly disinvited from the show because of this stupid incident involving a couple of people I know the last time I played there-an incident with which Adam had nothing at all to do. So I had to suffer not only the indignity of these two characters bringing their idiotic affairs onto my gig and involving the presence of the police, but also the unwelcome absence of Adam Brook just when I needed him the most.   

I had to leave for Ann Arbor at 10:00 am the next morning, so there was uncharacteristically very little hanging out after the Buzz "and so to bed," as Mr. Pepys would put it.


-New York City
January 1, 2007

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