It's around 11:45, and I've been in the Mustang Inn for a few hours now. When I got here around dinner time, the place was nearly empty. This was great, because that meant I got a bit more attention from A., the tall, sexy bartender/waitress wearing nothing but a fence-net "dress," a thong, and a pair of Ugg knockoffs.
Perhaps more on her later, but around 11:30 the place began to fill up--sort of. A dozen or so people came in roughly at the same time. An older, hippy-looking couple--he had a long grey beard and flannel shirt; she had long, frizzy hair, granny glasses, and a denim shirt. A middle-aged black couple who shot a few games of pool and gave each other shit after every missed shot. He also chastised his wife for playing hip-hop on the jukebox: "Play some adult music! Play some grown-up music!"
And a bunch of factory workers, probably from the Rouge plant down the street. They talk about union issues, bitch about their bosses, but mostly just sit back and let all their weight collapse into their 70s era banquet hall chairs. They just got off work at 11:30 pm on a Saturday night. Everyone is smoking, despite the fact that Michigan banned it more than a year ago. Places like this seem to exist in their own space and time: stuck in the past, but with the affluence and optimism of Detroit's past sucked out. Seth Meyers is on the TV, doing Weekend Update on SNL. It's a weird reminder of the world outside this place.
I feel stupid getting sucked into this mindset, like when I taught English composition to factory workers downriver and was shocked to learn that many of them lived near me in the burbs north of Detroit. I'm a teacher, after all, so I'm used to my students thinking I live at school and freaking out when the see me at the mall. Now here I am doing the same thing. Is that it? Is it that factories and schools have that in common? Are they both places that seem outside of real life?
And then, I shit you not, as everyone is watching snl like we're in a big living room, the calm is broken by the sound of Rob Tyner screaming, "And now, it's time to kick out the jams, motherfucker!" I turn around to the jukebox to see that the old hippie dude put it on, followed by several more Detroit proto-punk classics, including I
Perhaps more on her later, but around 11:30 the place began to fill up--sort of. A dozen or so people came in roughly at the same time. An older, hippy-looking couple--he had a long grey beard and flannel shirt; she had long, frizzy hair, granny glasses, and a denim shirt. A middle-aged black couple who shot a few games of pool and gave each other shit after every missed shot. He also chastised his wife for playing hip-hop on the jukebox: "Play some adult music! Play some grown-up music!"
And a bunch of factory workers, probably from the Rouge plant down the street. They talk about union issues, bitch about their bosses, but mostly just sit back and let all their weight collapse into their 70s era banquet hall chairs. They just got off work at 11:30 pm on a Saturday night. Everyone is smoking, despite the fact that Michigan banned it more than a year ago. Places like this seem to exist in their own space and time: stuck in the past, but with the affluence and optimism of Detroit's past sucked out. Seth Meyers is on the TV, doing Weekend Update on SNL. It's a weird reminder of the world outside this place.
I feel stupid getting sucked into this mindset, like when I taught English composition to factory workers downriver and was shocked to learn that many of them lived near me in the burbs north of Detroit. I'm a teacher, after all, so I'm used to my students thinking I live at school and freaking out when the see me at the mall. Now here I am doing the same thing. Is that it? Is it that factories and schools have that in common? Are they both places that seem outside of real life?
And then, I shit you not, as everyone is watching snl like we're in a big living room, the calm is broken by the sound of Rob Tyner screaming, "And now, it's time to kick out the jams, motherfucker!" I turn around to the jukebox to see that the old hippie dude put it on, followed by several more Detroit proto-punk classics, including I
