No Tears In Aisle Three

Back from Detroit over the weekend with random observations, thoughts, and a question or two:

I heard stories everywhere of the economic devastation. Michigan is not just in a recession..it's real damn close to a depression: A Target store cashier breaks into tears and tells my friend that she just got laid off from her full time job and now all she has left is the part time gig that won't make the nut... a woman told me that last week was the slowest week ever at the pool hall/ bar she owns, and when drinking and shooting pool are down in Detroit.. well that's like finding out folks stopped jerking off in San Francisco.... Holy Leading Indicator Batman...

I also noticed far less traffic on the roads than I remember..my friend explained that " people don't have any money to go anywhere...." but almost no cars on 12 mile road on a Saturday night was straight up spooky.....

And then I watch the Tee Vee machine to see a trash mob lady holding a bible up screaming how she doesn't want health care reform... which makes about as much sense as holding up Das Capital by Marx while screaming that you don't like commies...... God these people are extra crunchy stupid ( not to mention irony free). I suspect most of these folks also don't believe in evolution, the scientific method, separation of church and state, and multi-syllabic words.......

Last thing we did was go to a very well attended Moody Blues show... (otherwise known as an AARP rally) ... I sensed a real nostalgia in the crowd not just for the harmonies and great songs of our youth... but for the sense that we could change the world...that we were going to be different somehow, that we would balance our ideals with our ambitions.....yet somehow we ended up with the TV mob people shouting down compassion... isn't life strange indeed