Aaron Foley - How To Live In Detroit Without Being A Jackass

About the Author

A aron Foley grew up in and currently lives in Detroit, which gives him more street cred than a lot of others. He has written about Detroit for several local and national publications, including Jalopnik , CNN, MLive and several others. His essay, We Love Detroit, Even if You Dont, was included in A Detroit Anthology (Belt Publishing, 2014). How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass is his first book.

Copyright 2015 by Belt Publishing

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Portions of this were previously published in The Periphery and Belt Magazine.

First Printing, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9968367-0-8

Belt Publishing

www.beltmag.com

Book design, cover design, and illustrations by Haley Suzanne Stone

How to

LIVE IN DETROIT

WITHOUT BEING

A JACKASS

By Aaron Foley

INTRODUCTION

W ere living in a time when everyone thinks theyre an expert on Detroit.

Everyone is an urban planner. Everyone knows whats best for Detroit, no matter how long theyve lived here. Everyones a scholar, everyone knows the real deal, everyones a problem solver.

But no one can ever be an expert on Detroit. The city is just too large for anyone to do a comprehensive analysis of life in this city. There are historical chronicles, guidebooks, and almanacs of Detroit; there are collections of essays; there are stories, both fiction and non. But it is impossible to capture the Detroit experience in one place.

So thats my disclaimer. This book is by no means comprehensive or cumulative. But Ill be confident enough to say that it should be a starter. A warm-up. A little bit of light in the darkness.

Now if youre reading this and already proclaim yourself an expert on Detroit, stop right now. If youve got a stack of local history books sitting on your kitchen counter, if youre at the ready on every online forum with someone asking a question about Detroit, if you mainline melted wax from Motown LPs and your piss is Faygo Redpop, this book is not for you.

But if youre ready to learn something new about Detroit, read on. Because were all learning something new about Detroit, even us so-called experts. But I didnt want to write a book about things you can easily Google. If you want a book about famous people from Detroit, go read the Wikipedia list of famous people from Detroit. If you want to know where the best restaurants are, go to Yelp or somewhere.

It is an interesting time to be in Detroit, though. Writing this was a challenge, because every time I stated something declarative about a particular subject, an announcement came down saying it had changed. Things are changing rapidly here, and its difficult to keep up.

For many of us, Detroit is changing too fast. We are losing, very quickly, people and places that we have known all our lives. And it seems sometimes like Detroits newer residents are all too quick to say good riddance to things that are sentimental to old-timers.

Thats where the jackass part comes in. A lot of what I have written deals in the history of Detroit, and how we learn from our past. But again, Detroit is so large, so diverse, that one persons past is certainly not the nexts. So Im just offering what I know, the stories Ive been told, the lessons Ive learned, in the hope that you will connect Detroits history to its future, and not be a dick about it.

Its a little hard living here sometimes. But its easy not to be a jackass. Heres how.

L ets begin with some rules for how to live in Detroit. The first one is to remember that a coney dog, the famous Detroit delicacy, does not define the city. It is just a hot dog with meat sauce on it.

I dont want to say that the coney dog is not special. Its just not spectacular, even if almost every list, travel piece, think piece, and essay about Detroit mentions it. It is simply cheap meat on top of cheaper meat with cheap garnish.

The coney dog has earned its rightful place, but it is so deeply ingrained in Detroit culture that newcomers and visitorsI wont say outsidersbegin to associate this city with coney dogs alone. Oh, Ive gotta get a coney! Where are those coney places? Whats the best coney?

Our two most famous coney dog spots are American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island, and they both have the good fortune of being located in downtown Detroit. They seat few, and they only take cash. They are iconic, legendary restaurantsbut they are not the only way to define this city. The other icons of Detroit culturethe plant where Henry Ford instituted the $5-a-day wage, the two studios where Berry Gordy made music to make the world dance, and the new farms reclaiming the earth where ribbon farms of the 1800s were plentifulare perhaps more important.

Eating a coney dog does not define living in Detroit, because living here is not simple. It can be hard to live here, but easy existence is boring. Here in Detroit, you live . You live experiences unmatched.

Detroit is much more than restaurants; it is the churches, the ubiquitous, required soul music, the children, the sports, the cars, the schools, the endless line dances fashioned from creative minds, the art we could have lost and the love we find in the littlest things.

The second rule of living in Detroit is to recognize how large and diverse it is. No two experiences are shared. Knowing how many peoplecurrently around 700,000 on a good day, down from highs of 2 millioninhabit its 139-square-mile space is key to going forward, because your Detroit experience will be different than anyone elses.

Dont trust the listicles and slideshows, no matter how inspiring and positive they may be. Much that has been written about Detroit and is still being written about Detroit is done by the hands of residents still getting their feet wet themselves.

Thats a good segue into your third rule of living here: never, ever weigh your Detroit experience against the next persons. Ive seen people come here after, like, a year , and all of a sudden are dictating to people who have lived here forever what its like in Detroit. What arrogance.

For instance, I visited a trendy home-design store in the city where they sell these canvas tote bags that read: Im just more Detroit than you. How does carrying a tote bag make someone more Detroit than me? When I was in kindergarten, my mom and I spent a night sleeping in our bathtub because the guy in the apartment next door decided that was a good night to shoot his wife in a domestic dispute. I thought the blood on the walls of the hallway was ketchup. Thats just one of the crazy stories a Detroiter might have. Put that on your tote bag.

Fourth rule: Be careful of people who make rules and tell you they are actually more Detroit than you. There are Detroiters all around who will try to tell you that there are certain authenticity tests you must pass before you can call yourself a Detroiter. Absolutely none of those tests will be accurate, because as I said before, we all have different experiences.

Some will try to say that you havent lived in Detroit unless youve gone to this bar, or you havent lived in Detroit unless youve had this crazy thing happen to you, or you dont really live in Detroit because you dont live in a certain neighborhood, or youre not really a Detroiter unless youve lived here for a certain amount of time, or youre not really Detroit unless youve met some other out-of-thin-air checklist most likely made up by some kid at Wayne State who thinks he knows every goddamn thing because he survived getting mugged outside the Temple Bar. Its all bullshit.