It’s official, with the warm weather and the pseudo-legal roadside firework stands it is urban woodpecker season. To all bird enthusiasts, one can find this urban woodpecker wherever gun violence is rampant. To put it in context and for those who want to experience the woodpeckers in my area, I live a few blocks from the Detroit border (map: Alter Road being the dividing line) in the low rent district of an east side suburb where old money and tightwads live and play.

Late last night, I heard the the sounds of fireworks both of the legal and non-legal variety and I thought… there’s got to be an urban woodpecker out there. On a quiet night, sitting out on the front porch, one can hear the woodpeckers parry one another. Some woodpeckers have a rapid, say semi-automatic, sound while others don’t have a rhythm at all. The exchange usually doesn’t last very long, the sounds and lights of police cars chase them away. The rather murderous woodpecker strikes when there are loud distractions and often when the summer heat gets to people and aggressions run high. With the declining population of city dwellers, it’s becoming more difficult to experience an urban woodpecker.

A police substation has been built close by and to control the urban woodpecker population, a patrol now canvases the streets. Though I don’t care to see one up close, I am wistful to hear them ringing in summer, just the same way they ring in the new year.

I make it a point not to talk about work, so the short of it is, I worked a really long day (Saturday) and had my very first nervous breakdown. There was weeping, rage, dizziness, that diarrhea churning feeling, the whole bit. Somehow staving off fatigue through the miracle of coffee and cigarettes, I succumbed to sandman when I hit the chesterfield. Thirteen hours of sleep later, except for a surreal snack consisting of a sliver of a cuban sandwich in hour seven, I awoke falsely refreshed.

Fortified by more cigarettes and coffee… I had the brilliant idea of heading down to IKEA. My distorted logic being… “it’s Father’s Day, nobody is going to be there… and I need some retail therapy. ” DEAD WRONG. Throngs of people milling about unfamiliar with shopping in the euro-popish, blonde-wood, brightly colored, stainless-steel clad, salon of oddly named meubles-moderne that is IKEA. Flashing back to my nervous break down from the day before, I nearly had a total agoraphobic super-freakout while wielding the blade from the mulit-tool that I keep in my purse. WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK?, probably because he just wanted to zip in, get a PRODUKT milk frother, and get out.

Praise to the power of capitalism and my creditors… I’m here once again at work…. so how was your weekend?

publicjourinal {at} gmail {decimal point} com

Days ahead of Midsommer, I’ve decided to change my messenger bag. Like the waspy gals in my community rocking the straw purses, it is high time that I put away my spring bag in favor for my summer bag. A new season, a slimmer bag, a smaller set of tech.

No longer weighed down by bits of lint, tissue, handfuls of loose change… I feel kicky and breezy on my way to the doldrums of the florescent lit cubicle. So, if you see a well dressed good-looking filipino guy with quirky accessories tooling around the Detroit metro area, flash him a smile and check him out, noting what he’s wearing… then email me (publicjourinal [at] gmail [dot] com)… because I’m dying to know what one looks like…

Driving along Michigan expressways this morning, I caught a soft-news piece on public radio about the declining popularity of manual transmissions. Now, I’ve never really ascribed to the notion that manual transmission affords drivers better fuel mileage but the piece kicked off toting that “fact”. Sad but true, Americans are slowly turning down manual transmission.

Though the piece largely defended manual transmission, the people used in the sound-bytes clearly stated the wavering attitude of the run-of-the-mill driver. One woman cited the fact that her city’s traffic sucked the fun out of driving a stick, which struck a cord in me. During harsh Detroit winters, the roads aren’t the best conditions for driving any vehicle. Compounded with a highly congested evening drive-time, I choose to take the bus. Now that the warm weather, the morning commute is akin to stock car racing, thus my love of driving a stick is restored.

For a different perspective, the daughter of the woman quoted shed some light on the situation. From what I recall, the daughter (18) said that that because the average engadgeted teen doesn’t want to fiddle with a gear shift as they busily chat on the mobile phone while holding a Starbucks coffee. I heard this and angrily bit down on the slice of pizza I was eating, sent a text message, and down-shifting into 4th gear to pass the jerk in front of me. With the surge of street-drag movies and motorcycle-building television shows, it puzzles me that in this youth-obsessed culture our teenagers aren’t clamoring to learn how to drive stick.

Being in the motor city I found it necessary to learn how to drive a stick because with the exotic cars around here, one is bound to be offered a test drive. I didn’t want to be offered a spin in a sporty luxury car and find that I’d have to turn it down because I didn’t know how to get it in gear. Case in point; the new James Bond, Daniel Craig was asked to drive a tricked out Aston Martin for the film. Not knowing how to drive a stick and the notion of a James Bond that just puts the car into “D” to get into a high speed chase, Mr. Craig was forced to learn.

Unfortunately, my biggest fear now is coming to fruition. It is now becoming difficult to find a manual drive car on a car dealer’s lot. If and when I decide to purchase a new vehicle, I may have to go back to the two-pedal ho-hum blues.

PS:
The image to the right is the “SHIFTER” logo, sold by the Detroit clothier “Made In Detroit“. Stop over and pick one up [here]