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 and eyes, as you never know what you're going to find around the next corner.
I Found My Motor City writes itself. When the muse – the sky, the skyline, the shape of a building – call to me, the words jump out of my fingers onto the page. I love Los Angeles, the City of The Angels, where all is forgiven, much is forgotten and where I am free to express myself in every way.
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