MORE Ps FROM THE D

Poking around derelict structures with a film crew all day makes it really easy to feel like an American poverty tourist, especially when you keep running into other people doing the same. I assumed most of the white kids/middle-aged men with cameras and blogs/press passes were from out of town like us, but actually everybody we bumped into was a native or semi-native Detroiter documenting his own city’s ruination.

Folks are just really into journalism up there, I guess.

This is Detroit’s world-famous abandoned train depot. Some guy from Time shot a bunch of pictures of it earlier this year to illustrate a story about GM and Chrysler going under. Only problem is the building’s been this way since the 80s. Nice work, Time.

It was actually a really hopping place for a rubble-strewn nuclear-winter building. There was a little volunteer crew working on the park in front of it who helped us through the gate, before we went in we had to wait for this Japanese photographer from NY who takes pictures of herself naked in abandoned buildings to put on her clothes, and after she left we bumped into a musician named Deity who was shooting a music video on the roof (apparently by himself).

One thing that’s been slowly dawning on me is how lousy Detroit’s graffiti is. You’d think with the all the available wallspace and disinterested cops and ICP, kids would come up with some real works of art. I can’t tell if this is supposed to be bush or butt.

Evidently homeless people are really pissed off about the Al-Asad administration’s continued funneling of Iranian arms into Lebanon.

They’re also racist against rats.

One of the stories we’re shooting in town is an episode of Americana about Hair Wars. That’s the thing where all the hair stylists in the city get together and make insane weave-and-spritz sculptures that come like four feet off the top of the ladies’ heads and are shaped like basketballs and go-karts. A long time ago there was a New Yorker piece about it and I think one of the guys has been on Top Model or something, so I kind of thought it’d already been milked for what it’s worth, but then we started talking with some of the stylists and realized they are the funnest people in town. They’re also all guys and the majority are somehow straight. This is Goldie. He sounds like a black Harvey Fierstein and is famous in the hair-show world for his full-body weave suits and falling down drunk onstage at competitions.

Here he is gluing 30-40 garlands of Chinese people’s hair onto a girl’s skull.

Goldie invited us over to his house for rehearsals after work. We got stuck in traffic on the way to his neighborhood and thought we’d fucked up, but turns out this is just his email signature.

This takes on even more unfortunate connotations if you grew up in Atlanta.

Here’s the problem. This was on 8 Mile or one of those other ridiculous, 20-lane-wide streets. The cops had both directions of traffic squeezed all the way down to the shoulder. See those little black specks in the road at the right and left of the picture? It’s a pair of children’s shoes.

This doesn’t seem like a great idea.

We made it to the next day’s rehearsal in time. Goldie’s set this year is sort of a casual medley of parts from Saturday Night Fever, West Side Story, and Grease. Pardon, I meant megamix.

Most of the models are his nephews and their buddies and other folks from the neighborhood, so the whole thing felt sort of like tryouts for the school play. Just with slightly more blunt smoke.

Then we headed into the burbs to shoot amateur porn with some Iraqi refugees.

Eating in Detroit’s a little weird. There’s a lot of Middle Eastern food in the Arab part of Dearborn, but even out in the suburbs I don’t think I saw a single “ethnic” restaurant. Not even Mexican. Outside of fast food and sidewalk BBQ, options in the city are pretty much limited to a handful of “Coney Island” stands, which is Michigan/five-year-old for “chili dog.” The onions on here are the first vegetables I’ve had in days.

The fork comes in handy around bite three.

Speaking of fast food though, holy shit have they got that locked down. Have you ever heard of a “butter burger”? It is exactly as its name describes, a hamburger so lubed up with butter that it exits the body about an hour after entry in a single, similarly viscous clump.

Totally rude.

Anyways, that’s about it, I’m getting back to NY in a couple hours and look forward to ingesting something containing cellulose. For now, here’s a loose agglomeration of Detroitian signs that “tickled” me.

“Pantheion”

Shots missed: Suburban wigger taking upskirt pictures of his girlfriend in the grass median of Michigan Ave, Rim City tire shop, abandoned “Timbuktu Academy of Science and Technology.”