(The SS General Sherman burning. Photo courtesy of the DPRK Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum.) Elisabeth-with-an-S came by, topped up my Grenacha with a practiced twist of her lithe wrist and kept moving. The belt of extraordinarily intense storms that scoured the South were passing through, and the bar of the Willow had filled up […]

(USS Pueblo, TAEG-2 as she appeared when commissioned in 1944. US Army Photo.) I always get a little unhinged in time when I hang out with Admiral Mac. His merry eyes dance across the decades, sweeping me out of this bold new decade in a slightly threadbare almost post-American century. We are hanging in, but […]

(Admiral Mac is out and about again in the Spring weather. Photo Socotra.) They say there is truth in wine, and I am a fervent believer in the principle. I managed to extricate myself from the office and walk under the delicate blue skies and head down to the Willow around the cocktail hour. From […]

(Detroit’s Finest break up a Whiskeytown liquor operation.) Elliott Ness, my ass. It is enough to make a Detroiter spit. That grand-standing son-of-a-bitch was charged with taking down Al Capone, and as head of the 300-man Untouchables, conducted a bunch of high-profile operations against the mobster. Elliot was never one to hide his brilliance under […]

(Members of a local Detroit social group, circa 1930. Detroit News photo.) It is Easter, the morning of the Risen Christ, and worth a contemplation of color. Nothing is black and white in the Easter season, though our crazy binary natures try to paint everything as either one of the other. In nature, things are […]

(Postcards that went into circulation in Ontario and Michigan depicting Canada as the barroom for the United States were vehemently opposed by temperance organizations. Cartoon from “The Rum Runners, a prohibition scrapbook” by C.H. (Marty) Gervais.) Go down to the river, brother, and the throw yourself on the current. It will set you free. Hear […]

(Raven’s Rail Car. A concept design from the American Motors design studio, circa 1955. Photo Socotra.) Whammo! The Hubrismobile became possessed by Germanic demons immediately upon impact. I don’t know what it was- a trench or really significant pothole of some sort on North George Mason that I could not see in the darkness. I […]

(The James Scott Fountain on Belle Isle. Detroit’s RecCen in the background.) Detroit may be capital of the Rust Belt (sorry, Pittsburgh) but once it had a buckle of iron. It is said that the legendary maker of the modern world, Henry Ford, met a Yemeni sailor in the early 1900s. The story has been […]

(Visionary industrialist, racist and philanthropist Henry Ford the First. Photo FoMoCo.) Gentle Readers, I have had my fill of the vile aspersions cast on lovely Detroit, the city of my birth. I was working on the agenda for the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit Tour that I intend to conduct when we are there. It is […]

(Duke Ellington in formal garb around the time he invented a new world. Photo courtesy Ellington Estate.) Day One back from the Front Range of the Rockies was in the bag. I was eager to have a glass of crisp Willow White and talk about the remarkable things that had occurred that morning. At least […]