Archive for May, 2009

Visit America at 10,120 feet above sea level and you will find the stubborn attitude necessary to make it through the winter, past the roller coaster of molybdenum pricing, past the hystrionix of molybrown, and out onto the flat expanses of the ancient fish hatcheries at the base of Mount Massive. Leadville, CO is one of the last great places in the United States, part silver mine holding pond, part Golden Burro grease, part genuine made in the USA, part six shooter, part PBR, and a little latté for good measure. It’s the crossroads where boom and bust times and the grit such a ride requires of families, collides with weekend visitors from Boulder and Aspen. It’s the town up the road from the ski resorts and down the hill from God.

At this altitude, the charm of the Victorian era is dancing with drunks at the Manhattan Bar, standing in line for coffee at Proving Grounds, trying to discern the meaning of Kum and Go in Leadville and the Loaf ‘n Jug in Frisco (wtf?).

It’s the trickiest of needles to thread in America. How to be authentic. How to make Bed and Breakfasts and Country Inns the genuine article in Leadville without being kitch on one hand, or becoming banal and silly like the condos in Breckenridge on the other. How to have a good cup of coffee along Harrison Street without becoming a snotty Main Street which will become a place more for visiting interlopers than residents in February.

I think I discovered something of that balance a year ago at the Leadville 100, where visitors and residents are together. It’s not perfect. Plenty of visitors arrive too good for Leadville, and then depart without having tasted the cherry pie. But it works. The grit that enables Leadville to persevere welcomes outsiders with a skeptical warmth that makes a kind of sense. The coffee is really good. And the future might be very warm.

Originally posted on August 20, 2007

well there’s mudflaps and the statements they make. and then there’s jimmyballs. you decide the cultural meaning and how it markets YOUR neighborhood to have the ape driving this thing park his ass on your street while you’re trying to sell your house. pretty funny maybe seeing mudflaps that demean women. or confederate flag stickers on bumpers that demean us all, but african americans especially. what i want to know is why the bundling occurs…how is it that where you find iceberg lettuce and velvetta you also find guns and ammo shops and where you find bait and tackle you find naked woman silhouettes on mudguards, and where you find this, you find economies in the comparative toilet. now jimmyballs. that’s another matter.

Originally posted on June 21, 2007

if you look close enough at the photograph of the service station pictured here, you will see clues to why the michigan economy can’t get traction. in the service station here is a BIG truck, a BIG sedan, and a three BIG SUVs.

while i was getting gas en route to the detroit airport, i saw the threads that governor granholm is wrestling with.

each coming in at well over 250, none of the drivers could pry themselves from the twizzlers, doodles, yoohoos, marylous, and pinkgoos they’d purchased inside moments earlier, which is just as well since few would seem much able to emerge later from their vehicles without assistance of some sort. this largeness is not disconnected from the largess the michigan delegation would have the rest of washington believe is necessary to unhinge detroit from the fat farm it has birthed. (more…)