by jhon
Backing up a bit let's
take a closer look at the beginning of July...
Big plans were already in
the works, as always. I was running out of slates, copper nails and
areas I could get to without scaffolding on my job, so I decided to
wrap it up, in the nick of time, just before the H. Ruff Flamingo
event. “The what you say?” Well, “The Flamingo” is the
abandoned garage next to our house I comandeered, cleaned up and
redecorated (with lots of help) for a bar at the wedding. Having
spent so much energy on it and it just sitting; we really had wanted
to do something fun in there.
It was just about set to
host a book release for our friend that first Friday the 5th
of July, with just a little more clean up, but there was also
getting the grrrls (Clover and Roofus) to the vet, who you might not
have got to meet, but pretty much run our lives; checking in with my
Dad regarding his upcoming shoulder surgery and of course preparing
for the event of the summer, another McMahon-Hardie wedding (Maya &
Joe--woo hoo!!), so I headed over to the Trumbullplex. What! Why go
over to the Plex when there was an event that needed planning at our
house, for the yardsale of course!
I really wanted to cram in
a yardsale before we left for the U.P. wedding. This was going to be
a big summer for our community space & the houses on Trumbull
Ave. (where Clara and I met). The Trumbullplex is as infamous among
the artists and activists of Detroit as the Old Michigan Central
Train Depot is to the city at large. As the oldest anarchist
housing collective in the country we were officially turning 20! I
talked Clara into having the ultimate garage sale over there on
Saturday and Sunday to kick off the celebrations and got to pulling
out all sorts of crazy, but useful things from the infamous Trumbull
theatre, basement, and workroom. We have been trying to get rid of a
lot of extra things at our place, so I already had a pile back home
to move over there in the truck and lord knows the Trumbull
collective has collected a lot of stuff over the past 20 years, so
let's just say there was a lot of happy shoppers that 4th
of U Lie weekend, and we are a little more free of the burden of
stuff. Kameron (our nephew) was on board as well; he gathered up
his own “stuff” for the sale and helped out a lot early Saturday
morning. Plus, Lou's Mom Maria turned up with a full on BBQ and
cupcake setup meanwhile Kam fell for how soft Maria's fur coat was
she was selling, insisting that was all he wanted for his birthday.
What a fun 20th anniversary anarchist yard sale.
Oh, and the Flamingo's
BBQ/Poetry reading for James' Hart III's latest book of poetry,
Uncomfortable
Clowns, (the day before the yardsale) was awesome!
Everyone loved the intimacy of the space, we made all our money back
with book sales and a unique community vibe, maybe even a little
reminescent of the old days at the Zeigest meets a much smaller
version of the wedding party. The book release became our second
successful H. Ruff Flamingo event, where Clara played violin as the
openner after I welcomed everyone followed by another great poet,
Peter Markus, who read some special work for James the 3rd.
Clara played on a new
violin that came into her life free! Our friend Paul, who lives in
Boston, fixed it up for us as a wedding gift. The violin has an
amazing tone and is much better quality than her old one that she's
had since middle school. She's now saving for a new bow, which some
say effects more than 50% of the sound.
I know it's all a bit
confusing, it was a whirlwind weekend, so that's how it comes out on
the page I guess. The yard sale wrapped up on Sunday; Monday we
cleaned up both events, Dad had a successful surgery on his shoulder,
which finally got us to Tuesday morning. With the dogs, Kameron and
all our wedding clothes into the new car and off to the U.P. we went,
woo hoo!
2.1 ::: Maya & Joe's
Wedding / Collapse tour / Violin Exploration Camp / Trumbullplex
Slating
by jhon
Maya had asked me to DJ
the wedding but I didn't have gear for that, so I brought my records
and spent some time while everyone else was running around looking
for 2 turntables and a dj mixer, which eventually was found way out
in the woods. And that really is too long a story for this brief
update, but kinda makes me think I should be a DJ when we move to
Marquette someday. The wedding was incredible. They walked down an
“aisle” of apple trees with rolling green hills all around on a
beautiful day, there was a pig roast, huge stained glass art pieces
hanging from trees and buildings Maya & Joe did a swing dance to
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, kicking off the after party in
the loft of a huge old barn and Clara wore her new San Francisco boutique dress! I spent a lot of time just walking around the
grounds and talking about Detroit to a handful of folks and hardly
saw Kam as he was off running around with all the other kids.
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| Kam on the way there. Working on a chapter of his story. |
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| Mom polishing a set of silver for Maya & Joe that she put together from thrift store hunting & gathering |
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| Where we found the DJ mixer...the workshop of our BFFs when we move up there someday. |
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| Rita, Dad, Mom |
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| wedding setting farm/apple orchard |
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| Kam on the way home, with Clover |
The next day we had to get
on the road and make the 8 hour drive back with dogs and 9 year old
so Kam could start sports camp, Clara could start her violin camp and
I could play our first show of tour the next day in Ypsilanti. Since
Dad couldn't drive while in recovery, we stopped in Rochester Hills
on the way home and I borrowed the van for the bands tour. My punk
band, Collapse (Ashleigh, Mikey, Matthew, Anderson and me), toured
Pittsburgh, Mont Clair New Jersey, NYC (at the infamous ABC No Rio on
the lower east side), Philly and D.C. while Clara taught 3 groups a
day in the 4th
annual Violin Exploration Camp at the Conner Capuchin Soup Kitchen. 4
new students ages 4-8 from the Rosa
Parks Youth Program were brought into Detroit
Youth Volume that week under Clara's daily, loving Suzuki
method instruction!
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| Clara & Johnathan |
After driving home from
D.C. we got the scaffolding and set it up; the day after that I tore
into a section of Plex Victorian-style roof badly in need of a new
copper valley and as it turned out a lot of rafter repairs. It was a
lot more work than I anticipated but it meant something more to me
than just taking care of a bad valley and some roof leaks. For me
Trumbullplex is an experiment with sharing the joys and hardships of
life. Rather than take on a mass of debt that the Capitalist system
pretty much demands a group owns the buildings together and all pitch
in an amount less expensive than rent and bills even would be, but
the trade off is you have to get together and meet to plan how things
will happen and issues will be resolved. We have gone so far into
the idea that each individual should have access to things that are
supposed to make our quality of life better, that the systems of
production and management of this single minded way that we have
become used to is actually doing the opposite. What I have seen is
there are better ways to live and not buy into all the American hype,
we dont need so much stuff as much as we need to learn to better
communicate and take care that we are not ignoring the fact built
into the system are saftey nets that do not heal people but create a
permanent life of struggle, but hey why should we make our lives
about caring for
The Trumbullplex, the
oldest anarchist housing collective and art space in the country, as
having its 20th anniversary since 1993, when the
collective became a State non-profit and was a community theater and
artists apartments. A band called Mischeif
Brew who was celebration their 10th year of playing
Trumbullplex kicked off the night of the Flyer Art Show, along with
Jhon's band, Collapse. Flyers on the wall were only a small part of
the vast accumulation, arranged in sections like “Poetry/Art”,
“Women's Nights”, “Puppets/Theater”, “Specifically
Political”, “Work days”, “Weddings/Funerals”, “Cafes”,
“Benefits for Others”... A low-key BBQ for all current and
X-plexers followed on Sunday with good food and old friends pouring
over hundreds of photos from our personal collections.
2.2 ::: Guernsey Lake /
Sand Lakes / Kameron Turns 10
by clara
We decided to make it a
priority to take the new kayaks somewhere and got the chance to drive
Carolyn and her 2 babies, Finn & Rowan, up to her family cabin on
Torch Lake. After spending a night there we drove down the other side
of the lake to Traverse City to find a thrift store since Jhon
realized he left Clara's bag at home and she had no other clothes to
wear...of course it was Sunday so no thrift stores were open and
Clara had to accept the nightmare of spending $75 at K-Mart to
something other than jeans for kayaking, a bathing suit and warm
shirt for camping. Regardless, after searching for our favorite Sand
Lakes, we ended up at the beautiful, clear Guernsey Lakes and stayed
up late on the shore in sleeping bags watching the Leonid meteor
showers (shooting stars!). The next day, we kayaked on the lake with
a family of loons! There was a fuzzy brown baby and 2 parents diving
down, bringing up food.
After mom and dad moved
Maya into the new apartment in Pittsbugh with Joe, they stopped by
our place on the way home. We traveled Sand Lakes and met 8
Trumbullplex pals at our favorite lake. We took hikes to find wild
turkey feathers and flicker feathers, cooked over and sang around the
campfire, swam around the blue-green lake and applied mud body masks
from the shore.
Kameron turned 10 in
August. There was a party in Nana and Papa's new Great Room—an
addition that Papa's son, Chuck, worked very hard on to complete
before their Woodward Cruise party. Auntie Sandra's family came too.
Kameron has done so many thing this year that he's never done
before—a poem he wrote about water was published in a poetry book
at Young Authors summer camp at Cranbrook, he tried out and made it
onto a travel soccer team, played lacrosse at the Cranbrook sports
summer camp, wrote a script and presented himself as Orville Wright
in the school wax museum, inadvertently started an after school
science experiment club and a lot more.
