Michael Kitchen's Blog, page 19

May 30, 2014: at Cincinnati Saints

May 30, 2014

Detroit City FC 3, Cincinnati Saints 2

DCFC William Mellors-Blair 4′

DCFC Zach Myers 12′

Saints Marc Hansson 57′

Saints Joshua Henderson 70′

DCFC Michael Lamb 90+

Welcome to Cincinnati.  The team that provides no programs to its few attendees, and sells no scarves.

This was my first road trip, as it was in my sister’s neighborhood where the Kitchen/DCFC vs Bruce/Saints rivalry continued.  I left early and arrived in the late afternoon.  As a good uncle should I brought extra Le Rouge scarves for my sister, Marie, and nieces Amanda (17) and Ashley (13) to wear, and taught them a couple chants (We Will Sing For You, City and No One Likes Us), however they chose to stick with their home team.  We had Skyline for dinner.  I know this is difficult to admit with Northern Guard Supporters reading this, but yes, I actually like Skyline Chili.  You can’t lose when one of the ingredients is cinnamon.  With baking chocolate as another, well, I am naturally drawn to the stuff.  For I am a chocoholic, and I have no desire to recover!  My family introduced me to Half Price Books.  I quickly browsed the shelves, as it was drawing close to game time.

The game.  Marie, Amanda, and Ashley didn’t want to join me with the Northern Guard Supporters, so they sat with their small patch of fans while I joined NGS.

Le Rouge took a 2-0 lead within the first fifteen minutes of the match, and carried it into halftime.  Amanda said she couldn’t understand everything we were chanting from the other side of the field, and Ashley called us annoying.  Prior to the game, Amanda bet me ten dollars that Cincinnati would win.  I countered with the challenge that if Cincy won, I’d give her $10, and if Detroit won, she would have to put on one of my DCFC scarves and have her photo taken with it for me to post on Facebook.  She declined, and at halftime she was glad.

Isn’t this an uncle’s job?  To impart the wisdom of not betting against Le Rouge – especially with a Cincinnati opponent?

In the second half, Le Rouge started making personnel changes which disrupted the flow.  The Saints tallied two goals by the seventieth minute to level it.  But it was City’s destiny for history this evening.  In January, 1995, I and fellow Detroit Vipers fan Larry Nader, drove down to an International Hockey League game between the Cincinnati Cyclones and Detroit Vipers for my first road trip rooting for the aqua-and-eggplant.  It was a back-and-forth game which the Vipers won in the waning seconds.  Almost twenty years later, my blood transfused from aqua-and-eggplant to rouge-and-gold, Michael Lamb delivered the winning goal from a corner kick.  Once again, my Detroit team sent the Cincinnati fans home disappointed.

After the game I could tell that Marie, Amanda, and Ashley were excited by the result.  Their team made a game of it, providing them with the potential for poking fun at me.  In the end, the three points went home to Detroit with me.  Amanda expressed interest in going to future Saints games (I think because she’s a junior in high school and the guys are college players).  Whatever works, eh?

Kitchen/DCFC  2

Bruce/Saints    0

Pre-Game

Action

If you want to watch the full match, its on YouTube.

May 23, 2014: Lansing United

May 23, 2014

Detroit City FC 1, Lansing United 0

DCFC Josh Rogers (PK) 10′

Attendance:  3,112

It was a record crowd, breaking the three-thousand mark as Le Rouge hosted Lansing United this Friday evening.  The largest gathering of fans allowed for an effective cross-stadium chant.

The game was a chippy affair, with Josh Rogers scoring early on a PK…

and the birth of a new chant as an almost-fight broke out in the second half.

Three games, three clean sheets.  Detroit City ain’t nothing to fuck with.

Pre-Game

Action!

Sunday at Cass: May 24, 2015

Sunday at Cass

May 24, 2015

What exactly is “Sundays in the Park with Our Friends and Forgotten Workers?”  How did it come about?

Sundays in the Park with Our Friends and Forgotten Workers began in the summer of 2011.  The Wobbly Kitchen of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) participated with the Detroit Underground Initiative with this event in solidarity of the Food Not Bombs group that had been arrested for giving food to the hungry in Orlando, FL.  Other social groups began participating in the semi-monthly gathering.

In 2013, a committee of volunteers coordinated a fund-raiser in which all the money raised would be spent on food and supplies donated at the park.  The first was held on November 14, 2013, with subsequent fundraisers held on October 16, 2014 and October 1, 2015.

If you are interested in participating, just come down to Cass Park in Detroit on the 2nd or 4th Sunday of the month.  The table and food set-up begins at 11AM and lasts a couple hours.  Don’t feel you have to bring something.  Just show up, and soon you’ll discover how you can help.

(Sources:  “Helping Friends at Cass Park.” and Fundraiser email by Maryanne Dunmire.)

 

Sunday at Cass: May 10, 2015

Sunday at Cass

May 10, 2015

The evening before was the first home match of the season for Detroit City FC at Cass Tech High School stadium.  They hosted a friendly (an exhibition) match against the Muskegon Risers. The rain fell hard before the game, which caused my camera to shutdown before the match started.  I dropped it in a bag of rice, hoping for it to dry out quickly.  It emerged in the morning from its Lazarus Pit ready for another trip down to Cass.

Mother’s Day.  Single roses were distributed to the mothers this lovely morning.

This was the first Sunday that I went to Cass Park without going to Still Point first.  I brought with me eighteen pairs of socks that I had purchased at Costco.  From my hands they disappeared as quickly as I pulled them apart from their packaging.  I observed and I photographed. In reviewing the photos and reflecting on the couple hours at Cass this morning, I composed these words which have been the headliner to every Facebook photo album I’ve created since.

I walk amongst saints

as they administer to

others whose hunger is so deep

I cannot fathom.

I am no saint.  I’m merely a guy with a camera who shares these images of saints doing what saints do; performing miracles through their acts of compassion.

I have not experienced the sensation of going to bed hungry because there was no food in the kitchen; nor the anxiety of where tomorrow’s meal would come from.  I have not been in a situation where I did not have a bed to rest my head on at night. I have been extremely fortunate. And as I pulled the socks from their packaging, I was struck by the desire of those who snatched them up.  A shallow reaction might have been one of condemnation from a judgmental mind.  But I took a deep breath.  I realized that present before me was a hunger beyond the depth of my understanding.

 

Sunday at Cass: April 26, 2015

Sunday at Cass

April 26, 2015

A brief history of the Cass Corridor.

Detroit’s Cass Corridor is a strip of the city which is bordered on the east by Woodward Avenue, on the west by the M-10/Lodge Freeway, on the north by Warren Avenue, and on the south by I-75.  Lewis Cass, Michigan’s Territory Governor from 1813 to 1831 and the Democratic Party presidential candidate in 1848, purchased the strip of land.  In the late 1800’s, the industrial revolution transformed the area into a neighborhood for the wealthy, until the turn of the 20th Century when the automobile industry grew, drawing more people to the city.  The upper class began building homes further from the heart of the bustling downtown.  With the increase in population, the expansive homes in the Corridor became apartments for new Detroiters to rent.  The area became more urban, and with Wayne State University at the northern section of the Corridor, the area transformed into the home of both poverty and art.  The revolutionary period of the 1960’s made Cass Corridor the Greenwich Village of Detroit, where artists, musicians, and writers created and protests took place while urban decay spread.

Cass Park is near the southern base of the Corridor.  On its southern border is Cass Tech High School.  Cass Union was the first school established in the area in 1861.  In 1919, the massive building was erected.  The new building was constructed in 2004, just north on an adjacent plot.  The old school was demolished after a 2007 fire damaged the vacated structure.

Cass Tech High School has an enrollment of just over 2,300 students, and is a Michigan Department of Education Reward School-Ranked in the top 5% of all high schools in the state of Michigan.  It was also the home stadium for four years to Detroit City FC, the city’s fourth-tier professional soccer team which entered the National Premiere Soccer League in 2012.

On Cass Park’s western border is the Metropolitan Center for High Technology.  Owned by Wayne State University, it provides aid to technological start-ups.  It was originally constructed in the 1920’s and was the corporate headquarters for the S.S. Kresge Company until 1972 when it was donated to the Detroit Institute of Technology.

On the park’s northern border is the Masonic Temple, one of the architectural gems of Detroit.  Construction began on the temple in 1920 and was completed in 1926.  The sixteen-story building is host to concerts, shows, wedding receptions and graduations.  It is the world’s largest Masonic Temple.

On the park’s eastern border is about to be the new Illitch development.  You know, the one where the City of Detroit is providing corporate welfare to a billionaire so he can have a new hockey stadium, while the City files for bankruptcy, unable to pay pensions and debts.  I won’t rant, because Dave Zirin sums it up here.

I stopped by this particular morning after Still Point’s Sunday service.

Sources:

Images of America: Detroit’s Cass Corridor by Armando Delicato and Elias Khalil (Arcadia Publishing, 2012)

Cass Tech High School website

Wikipedia.

Sunday at Cass: March 8, 2015

Sunday at Cass

March 8, 2015

There are three events in the Buddha’s life that are recognized with special services at Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple.  There is the day of his birth (recognized with a Sunday service in May); his enlightenment (recognized with a Friday evening through Saturday morning sitting in January); and Parinirvana, or the day he died (recognized with a Sunday service in March).  On the day of the Parinirvana service in 2015 was another Sunday at Cass.

After having been given the honor to read the Four Brahma-viharas during the service – the four divine states of dwelling cultivated through meditation; The Way of Love; The Way of Compassion; The Way of Sympathetic Joy; The Way of Equanimity – and reminded and refreshed by the final words spoken by Buddha – Be diligent in your efforts to attain liberation – I made my way down to Cass Park after the service.

It was another chilly day where hearts were warm and hungry bellies filled.  No matter the person’s individual spiritual practice, the common religion of compassion and community is powerful to witness.

 

May 16, 2014: Michigan Stars

May 16, 2014

Detroit City FC 3, Michigan Stars 0

DCFC  Zach Myers (William Mellors-Blair) 23′

DCFC  William Mellors-Blair (Spencer Thompson) 24′

DCFC  Zach Myers (Cyrus Saydee) 41′

Attendance: 2,641

Surpassing our attendance record by 7, the second game of the season pitted Le Rouge against the Michigan Stars – the disease formerly known as FC Sparta.  The drama was magnified by the defection of Detroit City FC striker Stefan St. Louis to this opponent.  St. Louis (pronounced San Louie) scored City’s first goal in club history, and had become a fan favorite.  In one game, after scoring a goal he ran over to the Supporters’ Section and raised his jersey to reveal a t-shirt beneath which read City Til I Die.  His decision to play for the Stars incurred the wrath of the Northern Guard Supporters.  It was declared that because he wore the City Til I Die t-shirt, and that now his allegiance was to the Michigan Stars, that he was dead to the supporters.  They even created a special chant to dishonor the former Le Rouge player.  Sung to the tune of Clementine:

You’re a traitor, You’re a traitor, You’re a TRAIIIIITOR, St. Louis

You were City, Now you’re shitty, You’ll get no pity, St. Louis.

You’re a traitor, You’re a traitor, You’re a TRAIIIIITOR, St. Louis

You were City, Til they paid you, What’s the price of loy-al-ty?

Yup.  There ain’t no pity in Detroit City.

While at Harry’s, I tried the City Red Ale.  I’m not a drinker, though on rare occasion I’ll have a bottle of Redd’s Apple Ale at home, which usually takes some time for me to consume.  The before and after photo of what I imbibed before the match is proof of how much of a light-weight I am when it comes to my liquor intake.

Pre-Game

Action

Sunday at Cass: February 22, 2015

Sunday at Cass

February 22, 2015

I had heard about this semi-monthly action of compassion from Barbara Ingalls, a friend of mine.  She had often posted photos of this on her Facebook page.  It was easy for me to find reasons not to come down.  We had purchased a house in Chesterfield Township, a 30-mile jaunt down I-94; Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple’s service begins at 10:30AM, ending around 11:30AM, not leaving much time to swing down to Cass Park in time to participate significantly; and lately, there always seemed to be construction on I-94 on the weekends leading into Detroit, with more detours and back-ups obstructing the drive.  Then there was the weather – the cold and snow during the winter and the summer distractions.  And, to be honest, busy weeks and late-night Saturday nights discouraged me from setting an alarm on Sunday mornings.

But I wanted to do this.  I wanted to balance this with my practice.  I decided on this particular Sunday, after the service at Still Point, to witness what was going on at Cass Park.  My hope was to alternate Sundays – with sitting practice at Still Point on the 1st and 3rd (and 5th) Sundays of the month, and life practice on the 2nd and 4th.

I happened to pick a Sunday that Barb couldn’t attend.  I felt a little out of place, standing out in my Detroit Vipers jacket and camera slung around my neck.  I mingled a little.  One volunteer asked me about my Vipers jacket.  She told me her sister had dated Peter Ciavaglia – one of the stars of the team back in the day.  He is still in the area, she told me, as a financial consultant.  Vintage as it is, that Vipers jacket still opens the door to conversation.

I chatted with the man on the left in the photo above.  He was a mechanic for twenty-plus years.  He admitted to using cocaine while employed, but held down the job all those years until the business went under.  He sought recovery and has been off drugs, which cost him his family.  He explained to me that they deserted him because they were all drug users and felt uncomfortable about his clean and sober lifestyle.  He worked for a garage for another couple years, but it closed, then he lost his apartment and had been homeless ever since.  He talked about taking care of his brother who had suffered a stroke and lived on the west side of Detroit.  His brother just sits around the house and bemoans about not being able to do anything, losing all sense of purpose.  He said he’d much rather be homeless and alive then moping around a home feeling hopeless.

The scarves on the trees were left behind for those who wandered into Cass Park after everyone had left.

I was conservative about my photography, unsure of the protocol and wanting to respect the sanctity of what I was witnessing.

Book Review: The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer

I enjoy going to book signings.  I treasure the opportunity to meet a writer, hear about their lives and influences and the book they’ve recently published that has put them on the stage or in the book store.  However, a recent book signing event was the worst I have ever attended, which is quite a contrast from the book I was reading at the time.

I’ll tell you about it in a moment.

The Art of Asking or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer (Grand Central Publishing, 2014) is a must-read for any artist.  When I saw it at the book store I immediately thought it would be a good self-help book for my wife.  She is stubbornly independent, so much so that when she took the Buddhist Precepts, she was given a name with the meaning, “Relies on Self.”  Buying her the book, though, would be useless because she prefers e-books to the real thing.

I found myself at the book store again, in front of this book, curious about its message.  The only thing I knew about Amanda Palmer was having heard her recording of “The Ukulele Anthem” on Occupy This Album.  I’d read the inside flap and the back cover blurbs, and, I don’t know, something within it called to me.

A lot of this book is memoir of her artistic career to this point.  But it is also a reflection on her practice of asking and trusting.  “I wanted to address a fundamental topic that has been troubling me: To tell my artist friends that it was okay to ask.  It was okay to ask for money, and it was okay to ask for help.” (Page 5, emphasis in original).

It’s a legitimate topic for those of us who are in the arts.  And Ms. Palmer’s career as an artist began on the streets of Boston, where she dressed up as a bride, stood on a platform, remained stationary until someone dropped money into a hat before her.  She would then animate and give the patron a flower, making eye contact while smiling; the gift of seeing the patron.

A statue performer at the 2012 Ann Arbor Art Fair.

Palmer hits on all the buttons that disable us as artists from asking for help.  For example, she calls out our fear of the Fraud Police:

The Fraud Police are the imaginary, terrifying force of “real” grown-ups who you believe – at some subconscious level – are going to come knocking on your door in the middle of the night, saying:

We’ve been watching you, and we have evidence that you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE DOING.  You stand accused of the crime of completely winging it, you are guilty of making shit up as you go along, you do not actually deserve your job, we are taking everything away and we are TELLING EVERYBODY.

(Page 42-43).

She counters that what we do, as artists, is not conventionally categorized and is new.  “When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy.  You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand.  And feel stupid doing it.” (Page 43).  This is what gives the Fraud Police strength.  I know.  I write, and I have in my mind what the wand looks like that will make me feel legitimate in calling myself a Writer.  But that’s the kind of bullshit I, and other artists, need to cut through in order to make that leap.

In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple:

The professionals know they’re winging it.

The amateurs pretend they’re not.

Page 44.

Another obstacle are the critics.  The voices from real people who have little good to say about what we are doing or what we’ve produced.  Standing on that platform, Palmer heard numerous insults, focusing on the one that, again, sends chills through us all.

Get A Job!

I had a job.  I was doing my job.  I mean, sure.  It was a weird job.  And a job I’d created out of thin air with no permission from a higher authority.  But I was working, and people were paying me.  Didn’t that make it a job?  And, I would think as my face burned with resentment, I was making a consistent income, which made the GET A JOB insult hurt even more.   Page 55.

I know that’s a mental brick wall I beat my head against often.  I come from practical parents.  If I had pursued a Bachelor’s in English with the hope of pursuing a Master in Fine Arts in Writing, instead of a Bachelor’s in Business with an Accounting major, it would have been frowned upon from my blue-collar, pragmatic parents.  The purpose of college was to Get A Job.

Palmer goes on to tell about the band she started – The Dresden Dolls – and how she used social media to connect with fans.  She would do concerts and contact fans ahead of time to ask any of them if they had a place they could stay after the performance.  She built a fan base and put her trust into them.  They, in turn, shared with her.  This was a major factor in her ability to raise over one million dollars with a Kickstarter campaign for the release of a new album and tour.  That is what prompted the folks at TED to have her record a TED Talk about the Art of Asking, and subsequently the writing of this book.  Here is the TED Talk.

Something that recently hit home was a section where Palmer talks about the signing line.

The signing line is a cross between a wedding party, a photo booth, and the international arrivals terminal at the airport; a blurry collision of flash intimacies.  It’s a reunion with those I haven’t met yet.  There are a lot of tears and a lot of high-fiving and a lot of hugging.  There’s also a lot of asking, in both directions.

Will you take a picture for us?

Will you take a picture with us?

Do you need a hug?

Can I have a drink?

Do you want a drink?

Will you hold my drink?

Why are you crying?

It’s not always the fans crying.  I’ve been held by many fans on nights I needed a random shoulder on which to collapse.

I’ve observed signing lines at other concerts that are not like this, where it’s all business and security officers stand there making sure nobody touches The Talent.  I’ve had to argue with security officers appointed to my signing lines, explaining that, unlike other bands, we don’t WANT security to hurry people along, or shoo them away, making sure they don’t stop to talk.  I need people to stop and talk and hug me, or else I feel like an automaton.  (Page 104-105).

This takes me to the worst book signing event I attended.  It happened on October 28, 2015, when Drew Barrymore came to Ann Arbor to read from her memoir, Wildflower (Dutton, 2015).  The event took place at the Ann Arbor Theater.

It was a two-part event, with Ms. Barrymore and a moderator on stage reading and discussing the book in the first part, then the book signing at the end.

For the discussion portion, before she was introduced, the moderator laid down the rules, which included “no photography during the discussion.”  When I first entered the theater, there were signs taped up on the walls and doors “No Cameras.” I took mine in anyway, asking more than one Michigan Theater employee/volunteer if I was going to have a problem.  The common response was that it would be left up to security.  My thought was, What the hell?  It’s not like they’re taking everyone’s cellphones away.

I was sitting in the 7th row on the aisle. When Ms. Barrymore took to the stage, people began lifting their cellphones to take photos. Michigan Theater security swarmed the area making them stop. I left my camera off (though I was ready to turn it on if security became overzealous and another rent-a-cop or cop issue happened, for there was a strong police presence as well).

For the book signing portion, the moderator, prior to introducing Ms. Barrymore, laid down the ground rules for that, too.  They were 1) she was signing the book, only the book and no other paraphernalia; 2) that she was not personalizing any of the signatures; and 3) that there was to be no conversation or photo taking of her during the process, other than to say a quick “thank you.”

While waiting for my section to be called to get in the autograph line, I asked an usher if the no-camera/no-photography policy was the Michigan Theater’s. She said no, that the policies they adhere to are set by each event.

Ms. Barrymore and her policy did not respect her fans. It felt more like a “pay your money; be grateful that I’m here; do not take my photo; let me sign your book in quick, assembly-line fashion, and be on your way.”

To be fair, I have not been to an Amanda Palmer event, especially now that she is rising in celebrity status.  But what she wrote about her feelings about signing lines seems genuine.  And she puts it quite accurately in the TED talk.  “Celebrity is a lot of people loving you from a distance.”  That was my Drew Barrymore experience, one whose book has fallen so low on my priority reading list now that it could end up being one of the many books in my library that won’t be able to read in this lifetime.

Amanda Palmer is a musician who offers us a flower, sharing the human experience on stage and with those who are touched by her music, like an artist.  Drew Barrymore is an actress who offers us a Wildflower, which is like a weed – a plant growing in the wrong place – sharing stories about her life with her fans from a distance, like a celebrity.

Book signings are for writers who are artists, not celebrities.

The closest photo I could get of Drew Barrymore at her book signing event, October 28, 2015 in Ann Arbor, MI.

May 10, 2014: Cincinnati Saints

May 10, 2014

Detroit City FC 1, Cincinnati Saints 0

DCFC Zach Myers (Colin McAtee) 37′

Attendance – 2,147

Home opener.  I was looking forward to this match.  Not only because it was the home opener, but because Le Rouge hosted a new team in the division, the Cincinnati Saints.

I have this personal rivalry thing with Cincinnati. When I see the Northern Guard Supporters’ FUCK OHIO scarf, I’m conflicted because I don’t mind Columbus, where, prior to Detroit City FC, I would attend a Columbus Crew match once or twice a year.  But I do think of Cincinnati.  That festering boil on the banks of the Ohio River, with its Marge Schotts and Bill Cunninghams, its love for Reds and Bengals and ignorance of hockey.  Okay.  It may not be all that bad.  I actually considered seeking employment down there twenty-five years ago.  I’m certainly glad I didn’t find it and stayed in Detroit.

My sister, Marie and her husband, Rob Bruce moved down there in the early 1990’s, and have raised their family just across the border in Kentucky.  Back in 1994 a new Detroit hockey franchise entered the International Hockey League: The Detroit Vipers.  The season prior to that, the Cincinnati Cyclones, who had spent two years in the East Coast Hockey League (think Slap Shot), moved up to the IHL level.

Finally, a meaningful rivalry.

During the 1996-97 season, I began photographing and writing for a Michigan-based hockey publication, which put me in the box between the benches at The Palace of Auburn Hills, capturing images of my new favorite team.  And those were good days for this sibling’s team.  From 1994-1999, the Vipers had a regular season record of 25-8-5 against the Cyclones, and met them once in the playoffs, eliminating the Cyclones four games to two in the 1998 quarter-finals.

Then, in 1999, Bill Davidson purchased the Tampa Bay Lightning, transforming the Vipers into the minor league affiliate of the cellar-dwelling NHL team.  Two years later, the IHL folded and with it the Vipers.  Those final two seasons coincided with my first two-years of law school, taking me away from the stadium, though my heart still beat aqua-and-eggplant.  That was the only seasons of joy for the Cyclones.  The Vipers managed a single win and two shoot-out losses in 17 games.

Thirteen years later…my sister and her family have a soccer team.  Time to resurrect the sibling rivalry!

We (my wife and I as my sister’s family was a no-show) arrived downtown early for lunch.  I parked near the stadium, and as we were walking to Harry’s, we bumped into Sergeant Scary as he was leading a small band of Northern Guard Supporters back towards Cass.  He stopped me and said, “Sir, we’re unfurling the largest tifo we’ve made in the parents’ section…” then provided details of when and where to catch it’s appearance.  I made sure I was in the best position to capture it both in still and in motion.  Though Sir?  I was a bit surprised until my wife reminded me that I am older than they are, receiving my AARP card after the team’s first season.  Sigh.  The mind’s age is always younger than the body’s, I suppose.

Harry’s was crowded so we ate downstairs. We marched, we cheered, and of course, we won.  Another bit of bragging rights in the sibling rivalry.

Pre-Game

 

Game Time!

Wished my sister and her family had come up for the match to get a feel for the Northern Guard Supporters experience.  But alas, like all the Saints’ fans, they stayed home for this one.

Of course, the sibling rivalry went as expected.

Kitchen/DCFC  1

Bruce/Saints  0