I don't hate Robin

Comic books are expensive.

Not the single issues, the ones that you purchase for $4. The problem with those is that they take five minutes to read, don’t contain a whole story arc and if the reader misses an issue the he/she misses out on major plot points.

What I’m writing about is a collection in a single bound book sold for $20 at a store. These ones still only take about 30 minutes to read and it’s difficult to justify paying that much money for something that lasts such a short amount of time, while making a waiter’s salary.

The past week I’ve gone to the downtown Kalamazoo library and checked out the collections they have. Comic books are located in the teen room, a marked off area in the basement where there are couches, “The Hunger Games” books and poetry collections. The room was created I think in part to give kids a place to hang out and feel safe. It would have been great when I was that age.

I try to go there during school hours, so I’m not the old guy reading superheroes.

It’s geared towards younger readers and maybe that’s why they have the first couple of collections of DC’s new 52 “Batman and Robin” series. I checked it out the other day in part because it’s nice to read a comic book when there people are in the house. For instance, you can read Superman and get asked to do the dishes without being concern of losing concentration, as opposed to “If on a winter’s night a traveler.”

I’ve never liked the character Robin too much. When I was a kid I was happy that my younger brother always wanted to be the part  for Halloween or when we were playing pretend. The Batman character seemed at odds with having a sidekick and since Robin was put into the comics’ last century solely to sell more books, I wasn’t a big fan of the storyline.

In addition to that, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolen’s movies are much better than “Batman Forever” or “Batman and Robin.”

But writer Peter J. Tomasi and artists such as Patrick Gleason have put together an amazing series (although I just found out Tomasi is leaving the book.) The story line touches the right nerves and balances the father son dynamic without being overdone and corny.

For those don’t read comic books, here is the summary of the current story line of Batman and Robin.

The new Robin is Batman’s son Damien. For some quick background, Dick Grayson was the original Robin and is now grownup and is Nightwing. Jason Todd was the second Robin, was killed by the Joker, came back to life and is now called “The Red Hood.” Tim Drake was the third Robin and is now the Red Robbin.

Now for the comics I’ve been reading. Robin’s mother, who is a bad person, created the current Robin, Damien in a test tube, without Bruce Wayne ever knowing about his “birth.” She raised him to be a deadly assassin from day one and when Robin was 10-years-old he was introduced to Bruce Wayne.

She taught Robin to be a bad guy, so it’s the basic nature/nurture argument there. But Robin decides to be with his dad and she retaliates by putting a $500 million bounty on his head.

Batman is not a great father, but Damien isn’t a very good son either. Batman’s one main code of ethic is that he will not kill anyone, something Robin doesn’t have a problem with, until Bruce Wayne attempts to “fix” the problem.

He doesn’t get along with his “older brother” Robins and puts himself in dangerous situations.

However Robin grows to become a more moral person throughout the series. Although he’s dismissive of Batman and draws disturbing pictures in his journal in the first couple of issues, they eventually get a dog and Robin starts to learn to be more ethical. Alfred and Damien form a great bond. Damien also finds one of Martha Wayne’s pearls and gives it to Bruce.

Then Robin dies protecting his father.

I was surprised the writer would kill such a young character, although I knew he wouldn’t be dead for long. (People are never really dead in comic books.)

Bruce Wayne acts a lot like grieving parents I have known. He blames himself. In the first issue after Robin dies there is no dialog, but lots of strong images, such as the Batmobile driving over the streetlight on crime alley where his parents died.

Batman goes on a spree and arrests a bunch of thugs, ties them up and puts under the Bat Signal for Gordon. He keeps getting more depressed and angry, so Alfred calls up the Robins to talk to him. He also pairs with Catwoman to save a young child.

Eventually he goes through a fight simulator over and over again to see if he could have saved his son. He finds out he couldn’t alone and the last issue of the storyline I read has Alfred taking a simulation and we find out that he could have prevented Robin from leaving the Batcave that night. He cries and Bruce puts his hand on shoulder and says, “I’m sorry I forgot you lost a son too.”

I’m well behind the current story, where Bruce is apparently dead and Robin has come back from the dead with superpowers, but I was very impressed with these books.

I thought the idea of Robin was just for kids, but the story of Batman and his son had great storytelling potential.

Like a Lamb

I was sitting in a bar, waiting for my laundry to next door dry last week. It was nice talking to the bartender, who I hadn’t spoken to for a while, and while I finished my whiskey and ginger ale she asked me where my wife and I were living at now.

“Oh still in the Vine neighborhood,” I said.

“There are days, mostly in the spring,” she said. “When I drive down there and wish I still lived there, everyone is outside riding skateboards or walking their dogs and it looks like fun.”

“But,” she said. “Other times I go down there and can’t help but see all the broken beer bottles and the trash.”

Thursday, spring was in the air and it was one of the days I was able to look past trash.

The boulders of snow were dwindling, the sidewalks were mostly free of ice and our dog, Mr. Bojangles, was terribly excited.

He’s half Yorkshire Terrier and half Jack Russell (we think, he’s a rescue) February was so cold he couldn't walk far without getting frostbite. So with the sun shining and a light jacket on I went outside with him.

We passed a house with a college kid wearing a tank top and basketball shorts was grilling hamburgers on the porch. There were countless cigarette butts on the sidewalk but Bo wanted to go up and get some meat, the kid laughed.

“Sorry that’s for me little man,” he said.

I laughed.

We passed the adult rehab home. The men who stay there scare a lot of people on the street, but they’re trying their best, and from what I have heard, it’s difficult to get into the program.

Last summer there was an older man who lived there that had trouble communicating. He spent a lot of time outside on their steps. He was always nervous and polite when he asked if it was ok to pet Bo,, even though my wife and I always said it was fine. Seeing his smile light up when he petted the dog always gave me a warm feeling inside.

I don’t think he still lives there. If he does I didn't see him this week. The sidewalk is still blocked by a pileup of snow from the nearby parking lot, so I walked to other side of the street.

Further down the street was a group of WMU students on Spring Break. They were drinking PBR and listening to music. They said hi and asked his name, and laughed when I told him it was Mr. Bojangles. After we left, I picked him so he didn’t step on broken glass nearby.

We walked further down Walnut Street. Ahead on the hill was the remains of East Campus. It’s completely covered now in protective plastic and is set to open in June as an alumni center. I look forward to visiting it.

On Davis Street there are two retired couples that live next door to each other. They are part of the minority of people that own their own houses in the neighborhood.

I don’t know their names, but both couples have small dogs, Benjie and Suzy. They call my wife and I Bo’s parents. When we got married in October Benjie’s mom gave a small wedding present, just a coin purse. We have a special place for it.

When I turned the corner to come back to the house near the open field, I passed a teenager watching his younger brother and sister throw a baseball back and forth. He was reading a book in an oversized tire left by the football team, while his siblings struggled to hit swing a large bat.

When I came back home I heard the couple next door fighting loudly. When I tried to fall asleep later that night I prayed the loud explosion was a firework and not gunshot again.

Today, (Monday) Rhelia took Bo for another long walk and saw someone had planted flowers in their yard already. I saw them this afternoon, after her, Bo and I walked in the opposite direction of a loose pit-bull and I again carried him over some more broken glass.     

Goodbye and Thanks for all the Fish

I felt a melancholy sense of sadness during Harding’s “50 Percent Off Going out of Business Sale!” late last week. The store has now closed, but seeing the lone package of frozen potatoes in the freezer section, the nearly gone supply of soup and the inexplicably still there Halloween decorations made me think about my history in Kalamazoo.

I say this because the store has been a constant since I moved to town seven plus years ago. It’s location near a heavy rental property section of town had made it more or less my grocery store for many of those years. I know fearing change is common problem, and I can still drive somewhere else to pick up lunch meat. But for many of my neighbors, Harding’s was the one place they could walk to in order to buy ramen noodles, or an apple, or even a couple of beers.

It’s strange for me to write about a grocery store closing again, because the first article I ever wrote (St. Joseph High School’s “The Wind Up,” circa 2003) which made me think about possibly writing for a living, was about a family-owned grocery store that closed. It had been across the street from my mother’s work and I had gone there as a child after school let out for years.

I interviewed the family that owned the store and they said they simply couldn’t keep up with giant supermarkets invading the area. I talked to customers who were sad to see it go.  

It was pretty good piece of writing for a 16-year-old.  

The response from my journalism teacher, Mr. Holt, was a lot of encouragement. It felt great that I was good at something other than just tackling a quarterback on a Friday night.

But that’s not what this blog post is about.  

In the first house I lived at in Kalamazoo I had four roommates and we were all under 22-years-old and immature. At that time I worked at a pizza place and the chief reason for me to go to Harding’s was to buy bologna (Yes, you can get sick of pizza) and beer. I would sometimes borrow my neighbors humorously basket equipped bike and buy the above mentioned items.

(They were even more irresponsible than us and ended up getting evicted after a couple months.  They didn’t have jobs, however they had a punk rock band, so they seemed pretty cool.)

If it was a Friday I would also cash my work checks there and get money order for my rent. While I was able to eventually obtain a bank account with money in it, there are still many people in the area who need these functions of a store to pay their bills.

On Holidays such as the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, my friends and I would go to the store and buy burgers, hot dogs and if we had a few good days waiting tables, steak. It seemed the good times would never end.

However, a strange thing happened. I got older.

After several crash and burn relationships, I met the woman who agreed to marry me. She lived near the store as well, and I gave up a fear of commitment while we walked alongside the flour and the baking pans.

I know that it is a lame and sexist joke that, “I married my wife because of her cooking.” Still in my case it’s somewhat true. Rhelia is a great cook. She grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, where cooking is still an art form.

If you listen to “A Prairie Home Companion,” you’ll understand what I mean. If you don’t well, listen to public radio once in a while, it’s a lot of fun.

We learned to navigate the sales on our tight budget, and she made me great home cooked meals for me in the first time in years. When she wasn’t in the mood to cook, I made some pretty good frozen pizzas.

So when we walked along the emptying isles of the store last week I was sad, not just for losing the convenience of the store, but by losing an important part of the neighborhood. It was crowded, and there were all types of people there. Young people and old people, black and white, people we knew and people I couldn’t have known from Adam.

In addition there were people working the checkout lanes. They were real people, not machines and they checked you out and bagged your groceries instead watching you do it, like at other stores in town.

Even though I don’t know the names of everyone that’s worked there, most of them were nice. The owners of the store said the people could possibly move to other jobs in the company, but most of the 60 people were left without a job, according to an employee I was talking to.

I hope they can find a new job. I hope the location gets a new grocery store, although I don’t have much hope for one. The store was built in 1971 and has been a grocery store all that time. A developer has bought it, but a developer recently bought the Packard Plant in Detroit too.

The difference was the grocery store was still useful.  

For diehard County commissioner fans...Not much happened at this meeting.

The St. Clair County Commissioner met in Marine City Thursday and heard a presentation from City Manager John Gabor that detailed Marine City’s revitalization program.

“It’s a great story to tell,” County Chairman Jeff Bohm said. “They’ve really revitalized the downtown.”  

Bohm said the presentation detailed unique shops that have returned to Marine City in the last eight years and how the city has had to make some tough changes.

“It’s a great small town,” Bohm said.

In other news, the board of commissioners appointed David Whipple of Port Huron to the St. Clair Library Commission Board. Whipple will replace retiring library chairman Arnold Larson.

“He’s a good man, and involved in the community,” Bohm said.

Commissioner Tom Reilly said the board also discussed using natural gas to power facilities at the county-run Smiths Creek Landfill. The landfill currently uses propane for operations.

“It’s time to make a change,” Reilly said. “It’s something I’ll discuss more at our next meeting.”  

Writer Cut: County to buy Art Van Building

Readers, this is unedited so their may be some typos, but since their is high interest in the article I figured I'd include some of my notes. 

The St. Clair County Board of Commissioners approved spending $560,000 to buy the former Art Van Furniture building in downtown Port Huron at a board meeting with a 5-2 vote Thursday night.

Commissioner Tom Reilly and Bill Gratopp voted against the purchase.

At the start of the meeting, two memorandums were added to the board agenda that detailed the agreement between the board of commissioners and the library, and the parks and recreation department.

More than a dozen members of the community attended the meeting to voice their disapproval of the purchase, including city and township officials. In addition many nurses, from the St. Clair County Health Department spoke against spending such a large amount of money on the property when they haven’t received a raise in year.   

Port Huron city council member Ken Harris spoke against the resolution to but the property.  

“I’m here tonight to speak against the property purchase.” Harris said. “I think this is a step backwards. I don’t see the advantages of having another parking structure.”

“Right now you don’t know that the money will be used for what it was being dedicated for,” Greenwood Township Supervisor Terry Gill said. “I don’t think you should be doing that.”

“I would like to know, what’s the rush? The first I heard about it was Wednesday in the paper. The mileages are coming up,” Lynn Township board member Juanita Hunter said. “It feels like this is being shoved down our throats.”

After each person spoke out against buying the Art Van building there was a loud applause from the audience.  After the purchase was approved many people attending the meeting walked out.

Before the meeting St. Clair County Library System Director Allison Arnold expressed her support of the property purchase.

“We’re looking at the future of the library,” Arnold said. “We know there is a need to update our building.”

Library board president Arnold Larson said that if the purchase is not used for library funds, it will serve just as a five or six years, and essentially is a fund transfer. He spoke in the meeting in favor of the purchase.  

“The St. Clair County Library System Board of Trustees is exploring the possible expansion of the main branch facility. If constructed, it is likely that an expanded or new facility will be located on the same block that the main branch now occupies,” the memorandum signed by Larson said.

“It is anticipated that if the Library expands or constructs a new main branch, that existing parking will be displaced,” the memorandum continued. 

The memorandum said the library would commit up to $200,000 to the purchase and if the library didn’t use it within 10 years it would be taken back. Commissioner Howard Heidemann said it was important to realize the money would be paid back if it was not used. 

County chairman Jeff Bohm had a presentation that explained how the property was on sale for $1.2 million three years ago and the board decided to buy the property after price for the property was lowered.    

He said the county had an independent specialist look into the cost of the building.  

“We like the property because of the way it fits into the county’s campus,” Bohm said.

Bohm said parking issues in downtown Port Huron have been well documented. He said the city of Port Huron has not made a firm commitment to using the property but said but they do have interest and added library has been in discussion with the board for a while on the subject.

“I’m not going to speak for them for their specific plans because they don’t have them honed in yet,” Bohm said.

Other members of the board offered support for the property purchase and said echoed that the purchase was approved by the library and parks and recreation. The decision to purchase the property was moved around on the agenda several times to allow for public discussion before the board voted on the resolution.

“What we have before us tonight is signed agreement with the library board and parks and recreation to move forward,” Commissioner Karl Tomion said.

Later, Tomion said a lot of people were getting the wrong impression were the county was getting the money for the purchase.

“We’re not raiding their funds,” Tomion said  

“The millage money is in question will be used for the library,” Commissioner David Rushing said. “There are a lot of legitimate concerns brought up tonight.

“I have reservations on this but I will be supportive,” Rushing said.   

Two commissioners spoke against the resolution, Tom Reilly said he could not support the project because of the way purchase was handled.

Commissioner Bill Gratopp said he could not support it the purchase because he ran for election on the promise of creating more public parks in his district. He said he believed the money was better used by the Parks and Recreation Department.

Before the board voted on the resolution Bohm said the board has discussed the purchase at length in workshops and with the public. He said the board have discussed the purchase for three years and the best time to act now. 

Links to Coltrane and Godzilla. What I'm listening to

Because every now and then I need to take a break from writing about car accidents, fires and editing the lame detective book I wrote; I’m putting together a quick five part list of music I think is good.

John Coltrane: A Love Supreme

Coltrane seemed to pushing ahead with every note he played; and never to a greater extent to this album that was recorded in December of 1964 and released in 1965. I have been listening to this 33 minute recording on loop for several weeks now and each time I'm blown always by the expansive emotion of you can feel coming from his saxophone. Part of it comes from the voice of the record even though only three words are chanted halfway through the first track, "Acknowledgement."

During the second and third tracks, “Resolution” and “Pursuance” respectfully, Coltrane’s saxophone wails outside of the standard scale of where the song should go, before going back into the grove where it then catapults the song forward.

My fiancé called me today while I was listening to it and I described part 2 on the record as being tossed around in the sea during a storm. That’s a good thing in my view—I like being on in a small boat in high winds.

An underrated aspect “A Love Supreme,” I’ve noticed missing from other articles about it is the interplay between the piano player and the drummer. There are moments towards the end that sound more intricate—and for lack of a better word—more hardcore, than anything ever played by a speed metal band.

Eminem: Rap God

I spend a lot of time driving north of Detroit and the rap stations in the city have been playing this song non-stop for the last two weeks. Slim Shady proves that he can still rap more skillfully than other rappers out there (well at least more skillfully than 2 Chains or whoever the else is popular right now.) Now that I’m on the eastside of the state I hope to go to a good rap concert sometime soon, although I know I won’t be able to afford tickets to his shows in Detroit at Comerica Park.

On a side note, it’s nice to hear Eminem rap without having to put up with a highly computerized hook featuring a pretty girl every freaking 30 seconds during the chorus.

Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz Yet to Come

I planned on hating this record. Everything I’ve heard about Coleman is that he’s too out there; even Miles Davis once said he thought Coleman was insane. However even though the horns don’t seem where “they should be” this record works. I listened to it for the first time Tuesday as I was trying to jog for the first time in a while.

The drum beat changes quickly when you don’t expect it to, even in the records first track “Lonely Woman,” but that’s what keeps the music exciting. The tone of the instruments is also different. While the band doesn’t remain in a groove for long, when it’s there— it makes the moment count.

Various Arstist; Godzilla 1954-1975

If I ever played first base for the Detroit Tigers, I know what my walk up music would be. The original 1954 main theme (track 2) is the most instantly recognizable sound in the movies, but the dread of “Godzilla Comes Ashore” is a strange mix of classical music, jazz and classic monster movie sound.

I’d love that sound playing on a pitcher’s mind as I made my way to the plate. It would be much better than some players. (I’m looking at you Ben Zobrist.)

The rest of the album isn’t bad if you’re listening to headphones, but I wouldn’t recommend bumping the songs while driving around in a car this summer. Well except for “Mothra’s Song,” this is basically a pop song that is supposed to be sung by two magical Japanese fairies that are 6 inches tall. And this song rocks in any situation.  

Fun fact Godzilla’s roar was originally made by rubbing a leather glove down the strings of a bass. 

Outkast: Aquemini

The biggest song on this was “Rosa Parks,” but if you listen to the whole record you find that the hit single flows effortlessly with the rest of the album. Standout tracks are “Synthesizer” featuring George Clinton and “Da Art of Storytelling,” parts one and two.

I’m not a huge fan of rap, but this record shows where the style can go if rappers really wants to tell a story. The music itself is great, but the images Andre 3000 and Big Boi give the listener could be audio books or poems by themselves. 

Changes In Latitudes

Lake Huron is starting to freeze over the last night of me living at the Port Austin Motel. I’m heading to Kalamazoo tomorrow night for Thanksgiving and after that I will be moving into an apartment with a news reporter for the radio station in Bad Axe. It seems like it will be a great way to save money and even sounds like a start of an old sitcom on network TV.

It was pretty clear tonight and I walked out to the lake to look out over it for a last night here. I got to the last part of the dead-end road and kept walking on the beach. The sand has been frozen solid, so I didn’t get any sand in my shoes and it was so quiet, for a moment I thought I could hear the water turning to ice.

That was a silly thought, I couldn’t.

Instead a shower of snow appeared out of nowhere and started falling quickly, covering my coat in snowflakes. I hope that tomorrow when I am driving back to Kalamazoo in my trusty Toyota that the weather doesn’t change quickly like that and isn’t horrible

Work has been very busy this week because I am trying to cram what would be a full week’s worth of reporting and writing into three days. My editor Dave Shane said that I shouldn’t be concerned, I get paid for the time off because it’s holiday even if I work only three days, but that concept seems very foreign to me because of my time working manual labor and in the service industry. The concept of working hard – installed in me by my father and driven home when I realized what happens when you don’t (you get fired) is something that still feels strange when I’m doing what I enjoy doing… working at the newspaper.

Back to where I was. Living with Bryan closer to Bad Axe will overall be a big upgrade, saving me money and time spent driving. Still—I will miss staying here at the motel. It’s been a change of pace living alone for the first time in my life, but I will miss the feeling of living here. It’s kind of felt like a throwback to old Raymond Chandler books of a guy from out of town staying in a cheap motel, a hardboiled reporter writing for the paper.

My biggest regret is that I’ve been unable to finish the book I’m writing here although I’ve made some progress.

Most of all I will miss the motel owner, Michael. Having him and is wife up here when I first moved to the area was a godsend. They read the paper here and were very supportive of my articles talking whenever I see them. In additon, their dog and cats in the office and outside the motel always cheered me up and reminded me of home.

It was a little like having set of surrogate grandparents at the motel. I just went outside and had a talk with him. I said next time I’m in Port Austin I would stop by and have a cop coffee like we used to do outside before the cold weather hit.

So here end the Stephen King/Hitchcock like story of staying here throughout the Halloween season and the fall. The move will be great and offer even more in flexibility for the future, but part of me is sentimental about leaving.