Category: Back in the Day

Yes, I know nobody trusts Wikipedia anymore. But I had a super time this morning checking out the entries of every place I’ve ever lived and learning a thing or two…

Ann Arbor, Michigan (1973-1991): President Lyndon Johnson announced the “Great Society” in Ann Arbor in 1964.

Baltimore, Maryland (1991-1997): Baltimore is home to the world’s tallest five-sided equilateral building, the Baltimore World Trade Center.

Los Angeles, California (Summers of 1991, 1992): Los Angeles and its suburbs have 13 area codes.

Austin, Texas (1997-2000): Austin is situated on the Balcones Fault, a non-active earthquake zone.

San Francisco, California (2000-Present): San Francisco’s city flag is a rising pheonix, adopted after the devastating 1906 earthquake. The motto beneath it reads “Gold in Peace, Iron in War.”

Try it with your hometowns. It’s fun.

I’m way tied up in catch up from my many weeks away and won’t be able to blog for a few days. Until then Suzan took this awesome picture of the State Theatre in Ann Arbor that I’d like to share with you. Enjoy. I’ll speak to you soon.

Flickr has a pool dedicated to the architecture of my home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, which brings back all kinds of memories. Bet your hometown is in there too.

So this guy and I grew up down the street from one another. I just found out that’s he’s now a member of the Ann Arbor City Council, recently elected. That’s the town where we both grew up. He was interviewed on the local political cable access show by our 8th grade civics teacher.

Sheesh.

Oh, and this is the second time this has happened. This guy and I graduated from college the same year. He was “Jamie” back then.

Update: Leigh and I have been exchanging emails. Which is wild.

10 points for anyone who gets the pun in the title of this post…

What a lovely Independence Day. Suzan and I arose early for our annual session of Flag Counting, this time accompanied by our friend Wendy. The rules of Flag Counting are simple…

1. You do not talk about Flag Counting (that was Wendy’s)

2. Only American flags, outside, that can unfurl count. That means nothing hung in a window or no flag murals, xeroxes or anything like that.

3. You must, as much as possible, not know where you are going. The whole idea behind Flag Counting is to get all together lost and disoriented while seeing your environs with new eyes and a fresh perspective.

4. The accompanying music must be of the blantantly but superficially American sort. For me, that means Springsteen, Mellencamp, and The Hooters.

Perhaps due to anti-war smolder in the city, flag turnout was quite a bit lower than last year. Mysteriously too, we ended up in my friend Jack’s neighborhood without ever trying and dropped by for a chat.

After dropping Wendy off, we beelined to Bill’s Place for a classic All-American meal then stopped at Green Apple Books on the way home. Many of Northern California’s independent bookstores were celebrating Independence Day by waiving the sales tax on all purchases. Green Apple was even giving away free hot dogs.

I went in looking for one book. And came out with six.

After snagging some garderning supplies for Suzan (I got her a rooftop garden for her birthday), we headed home and killed time before the fireworks. We had plans to meet up with Tantek and Amber but I left his phone number at home. We settled for a drink afterward after meeting at the foot of Buena Vista Park.

Arriving home before midnight, I hustled to the roof of our building to perform a yearly ritual. Since 1994, I have ended the 4th of July with a song by The Hooters called “Washington’s Day”, about faith, healing and the hope that when the world is a better, truer place, that we will all be there with the one’s we love to tell the story of how it happened.

Here’s how it goes…

“Did you think I could ever forget?
That night by the Arlington Flame?
In the silence I heard it,
Through streets so deserted,
You whispered and called me by name.

Did you think I could ever forget?
That powerful look in your eye?
Where Lincoln stood strong,
and you held me so long,
There that night on the 4th of July.”

That’s a little of why this is my favorite holiday.

Happy Halloween everybody! I’m playing it very low key this year since we had our party last weekend and that’s all the holiday I need. I was a pirate.

So I’m home, Suzan’s out. I’ve just listened to Saint-Saens’s Dans Macabre, a wonderful 19th century piece that my elementary school music teacher, Ms. Stafford used to play for us at Halloween and we got to dance around like skeletons. Dans Macabre means “Dance of the Dead” and the piece is all about the one day a year (that would be Oct. 31) when the dead get to stand up and dance like the living. Death accompanies it all on his violin.

Ms. Stafford would play the song on a record player, one kid would be Death (usually a little blond girl. I never asked why) and the rest of us would be the skeletons.

So I turned off all the lights in my apartment, put the song on the stereo and flung myself about the room like a pile of bones caught up by the wind.

My friend Amy pointed me to an online diary creatively titled Ann Arbor Sucks, a broadside of my beloved hometown. It’s pretty opaque and not just because of the black background. The diarist merely identifies his/herself as a “grad student at the University of Michigan” no major, no age, not even mention of a gender. They do however like Stereolab.

I grew up in Ann Arbor and naturally think it’s the greatest place in the world. But if I was graduate student age (and still as bitter and misanthropic as I was when I was a graduate student) I’d probably be knocking Ann Arbor about the ears too. It’s a beautiful little university town in which to be an elementary school student, a retired professor or hell, even a college student. But to be in your mid-twenties, looking for underground polka music, alternative puppetry performances or to just to culturally spread your wings, Ann Arbor feels pretty damn provincial.

I don’t live there anymore, if that’s an indication.

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday dear sell-elf

Happy Birthday to me!

*bowing* Thank you. I’ll be here all week.

Obligatory link to Amazon Wish List.

Birthday week has officially begun. Mine, that is. Wednesday I turn 29.

Yowza.

Gifts and well wishes accepted but not required. Aw hell, bring ’em on. Love is good.

I’m headed back to Ann Arbor for a week. My parents are selling the house I grew up in and I have to go pack up my room. In my head, I feel like I’m ready for this. I haven’t lived there in 10 years and have a house, friends and a life right here in San Francisco. In my heart, things ache. Its the last door closing on my childhood. I’m going to be 29 next month and all this adult stuff, though necessary, scares the wits out of me.

So posts will be occassional, with maybe a few tears. This will not be an easy week. I’m going to need you.