Sunny Sunday Driving

Sunday June 14th, 2009 - Southgate, MI/Lake Villa, IL

I was thinking about driving back after the show last night but my iffy radiator situation told me not to. I had a nice hotel room and I didn’t see the benefit of risking a night in my car on the side of the road vs. hoping I’d get back to Chicago in time to race the drunks at bar time. Neither of those options thrilled me so I sprawled out on the bed and drifted off.

I’m very glad I did too. Today was as perfect a sunny late spring day as there could ever be and I really enjoyed the whole trip. I had my eye glued to the temperature gauge for the first half hour but it didn’t budge so the goop they put in yesterday must have worked out.
I fully expected to see a gusher of green goo come shooting out of my grill but it didn’t.

I still don’t trust it though and I’ll have it looked at before I take it on any more trips out of town. It was leaking pretty good at the oil change place and in my advancing age I was envious of the steady and consistent stream. I‘d have a hard time matching it these days.

The hotel was right next to I-75 which I took into the heart of downtown Detroit before turning west on I-94 for Chicago. Construction was blocking everything everywhere and I ended up having to drive right through some areas that looked like what I’d picture Beirut or Baghdad to look like after a night of carpet bombing. These were some serious ghettos.

For some reason hellishly bad neighborhoods have always fascinated me. I can’t help it. I always wonder how they got that bad in the first place without someone at least trying to do something about it. It seems like a lot of effort went into allowing things to deteriorate that badly in one place. I’ve seen some bad areas before but today was right at the tip top.

Or is that the bitter bottom? Block after block I saw run down houses and old buildings that were probably thriving in the heyday of the auto industry but are now just homes for pigeons or good places to unload dead bodies. Gang graffiti is everywhere and it seemed like I was on the set of a futuristic science fiction movie about how civilization crumbles.

I know I said how much I like Detroit and I still do. Even after my tour of the ugly side today I still find the vibe here to be to my liking as a whole. One thing I did see in all the mess was blacks and whites living together in squalor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in my travels. I’ve seen both in squalor, but never on the same block. I saw that a lot today.

I feel very sad to look at what was such a wonderful example of the American lifestyle that’s now rotting at the core. I wish I could have been living here when it was all running smoothly back in the day. Each one of the big three was cranking out muscle cars and big luxury boats with fins and chrome and anybody who wanted to work could score a job.

Entertainment was huge too. Motown was the music of a generation and Detroit was the home base. Berry Gordy took the example of the assembly line and put it to work in what he was doing. Lots of other music came out of here too like Alice Cooper and Bob Seger and Ted Nugent and for a long time my personal favorites Parliament/Funkadelic as well.

I know it wasn’t nirvana and nothing is perfect but that was probably about as close as it ever got. How much money filtered through Detroit back then? It has to stagger the mind. I thought about that as I drove past the rotting hulks of big buildings that probably housed what was state of the art technological equipment then but now are in a state of disrepair.

Gary, IN is like that too. I’ve driven through there many times and just gawked at all of the decay and wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about it. If I had big money I’d buy up chunks of Gary and Detroit and places like them cheaply and revitalize them.

But is that a good idea? Apparently not because nobody’s doing it. Manufacturing isn’t going to make a comeback in American life any time soon unfortunately. That ship sailed but did it have to? Was it due to progress or plain old fashioned greed? Probably both. It’s still fascinating to drive through the city for a while and soak it all in. I was mesmerized.

I also felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude bubble up inside me because I did get an opportunity to chase my own dreams and didn’t have to live like a rat in a sewer like a lot of these people are. No matter who is at fault my life has never been as dead ended as that so I felt very good about my life in a big hurry. I’ve had many good things come my way.

Sometimes it’s easy to zero in on what hasn’t gone right but that time wasn’t today. I’ve made it way farther than anyone else thought I would but I feel like I’m just starting out in many ways. I have a lot of things I still want to accomplish so I need to hack it out and get it on paper in front of as many people as possible so I’ll have to hit my goals to save face.

That can be great motivation and it was suggested by Bill Mihalic yesterday at lunch. It made sense then and it still does today. What was also perfect was listening to some Tony Robbins cassettes I bought at a thrift store for under a buck each. Tony has a series called “Power Talk” where he interviews heavy hitters each month and they’re very well done.

I enjoy pretty much everything Tony Robbins puts out. His recordings are listenable and his vibe is positive and I feel his energy coming right through my speakers anyplace I hear him. On a sunny day in my car I wasn’t sure was going to make it home he sounded extra good. My mind was in it and I soaked in as much of it as I could. It was a mental tune up.

Tony Robbins is a guy I’d love to meet someday and even work with him in coming up with a humor course as part of his seminar schedule. I had all kinds of ideas as I drove in the sunshine and I wrote them down on a legal pad. I have no shortage of things to get to.

Every day is turning into a time management puzzle. Today was productive because my drive was used to pack my coconut with positive information and I also used it to think of what I’m going to do in the immediate future and how I’m going to do it. Another puzzle.

Breaking it down into smaller chunks is the only way I’ll ever do anything. It’s way too overwhelming for me to look at the entire picture and try to get there all at once. This is a lot more manageable. I have my mini goals set for the next two weeks. That’s a big step.