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The Genesis for I Found My Motor City

Photo: 428 Crapo Street, Flint, Michigan, 1924. The house my father was born in and the house where I spent much of my childhood. That's my Dad and his mother, whom I called Bonna, on the front porch. The house is still there across from the Flint Public Library and Planetarium. I'm from Flint, Michigan. Yup, that Flint, the Flint of Michael Moore. I've often marveled that I had the gumption to escape the tentacles of an old world model - if you live in a company town, you get a job, a good job with benefits, you go to work, keep your head down and out of trouble and make sure you mind what the neighbors think... Only 40 minutes from Detroit, the other Motor City , Flint is the hometown of another iconoclast, Sandra Bernhard. It's no wonder I've often felt a bit like a rebel, with the AFL/CIO and Teamsters unions calling the shots and bands like the MC5 Kick'n Out The Jams. But I've morphed into an Angeleno, embracing this city with open arms
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Hollywood Bling

Veering down Vine Past Capital Records and Patron's Rock N' Roll neon sign Hollywood Bling
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Rock N' Roll Ginza

Sunrise on Sunset taunts me with a glimpse - the City of the Angels glimmers like a mirage, wearing a hazy mushroom cloud like a halo. While hopes and dreams are coming apart at the seams, Upstarts and pop ups still brave the fantasies of fame. I don't know where to go now but I've gotta get there fast. I'm chasing my future and trying to out run my past. Wheelin' down the Rock-N-Roll Ginza, I'm home at last. I found my Motor City...
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The Happy Bottom Riding Club - I Found My Motor City

The day was crystal clear, almost blinding in the clarity of the landscape. Smog often clouds the view, making the mountains appear etched in the background like a matte graphic, an illustration of the moment. But on this day, the mountains bulged into the view, giving me a fresh perspective on the somewhat industrial area I was passing through . I was on a mission to renew my passport at the Hollywood Way, Burbank California USPS. The Bob Hope Airport (where you still walk onto the tarmac and out to the stairs rolled up to the aircraft, sixties style) is practically across the street.  This is the hub of the birth of aerospace and aviation.  I rather liked the idea of making the passport pilgrimage, with anticipation of a transatlantic flight, in the shadow of aviation pioneers like Howard Hughes, who got his start right in this very neighborhood. There's a bronze statue of Amelia Earhart in a nearby park. Earhart became the most famous female pilot of all time. I bet people
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Chiseled Digits - I Found My Motor City

Buzzing by Hollywood on the 101, the chiseled digits of new construction, billboards on buildings, cranes reaching for the stars in the glow of the neo neon blazing atop hotels that are hip hot again...my lego transformer. I roll on towards the next icon, venus hanging, winking. i'm singing along to the dancing dot, six speaker surround sound - it's my personal mix. I found my motor city.
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Hazy, Lazy Ombre - I Found My Motor CityHH

Today the sky was clear but hazy...hardly any clouds, yet something was missing - the horizon... the mountains were completely disguised by a low layer of something...maybe smog, maybe marine layer... I couldn't help thinking about how painters flock to Paris or Amsterdam to paint. Something about the light... I can see how the light and the sky in Los Angeles inspires other kinds of artists - the clothing designers, textile designers and costume designers. Today's sky was a perfect ombre, light to dark, with the darkest "ring" being the low level layer preventing me from seeing the mountains. the part of the sky that was clear had thin cloud like matter spread across it like lace or an ombre tie dye pattern. I found my motor city.
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