Melting your soul, molding your life in the Alley

I'm going to give a personal year-by-year account of my experiences at Dally in the Alley. If you live in the Detroit area and don't know what Dally in the Alley is, then you should learn about it and just go. It's a great counterpoint to the commercial path that most festivals have taken. It's free, community focused and non-profit, bringing together people of all ages, ethnicities, lifestyles and backgrounds. I met my bandmate Leah at the Dally 2008, and I've always loved it there. My band Eleanora is playing there at 3:30 on the Forest Stage. You should get there early and stay late. Good luck parking if you're taking a car. Here's my history with this beautiful festival. All photos are taken by me unless stated otherwise.


2005: My first Dally. I didn't even know it was happening or what it was until that same afternoon. I moved into my dorm at CCS (10th floor, formerly a luxury hotel) the week before. I am on my own for the first time in my life. My white girl dreads are starting to lock in. I walk the streets feeling like I have been transported to a different time and place. It is low-lit. It is packed. It is loud. It is full of hippies with smiles on. It is my 18-year-old libby mind's heaven. I buy a patchwork dread cap for 20 bucks.

2006: The first year I go with Scottie. I don't remember much from it other than that, honestly.

2007: I wake up on the morning of the Dally, confused as to all the noise going on outside of my new apartment at Forest and Second. I saw the banners. I take a picture. I realize that this was exactly where the Dally in the Alley takes place. Scottie, Rachel and I take turns sitting in the bay window, watching the happenings. We go out and explore. We meet Rodriguez. We meet John Sinclair. We talk to people in Amsterdam Coffeehouse in the basement of our building. We feel the community.

Rachel Pearson

2008: Less than a week before this year's Dally, Scottie gets a call from Blair. "Hey, I need a drummer for the Dally in the Alley. Do you think you can learn a few of my songs and play them with me and a couple other people from my band?" They practice the day before the festival, where Scottie meets two lovely women named Markita and Leah who play trumpet and clarinet, and sing.

The day of Dally, I help Scottie unload the drums from my purple Plymouth Voyager. I stand in front of Forest Arms and recall the year before, when I was looking out of that window that's now boarded up. The building is a ruin after the fire in February that claimed the top two floors and one man's life. A beautiful young woman walks up to me. Scottie introduces her as Leah, the clarinetist who plays in Blair's band. We have a little chat and they set up on the Forest Stage, right in front of the Forest Arms. My sister comes up and we watch the band play together. The rest of the day is fun, and I get to talk to Leah and Markita more.

Lara Stephenson

2009: Scottie is in Rogue Satellites. We just moved to Ferndale. Rogue Satellites are playing the Alley Stage. Scottie's sister, brother-in-law, and nephew and niece boogie to the synth and drums. He brings Wendell up on the stage with him to try out the drums. Then there's a party at the Illy Mack apartment, with a lot of loud music in hot rooms, and I pass out in Steve's bed. I wake up the next morning to the sounds of someone throwing up in the doorway. "Yes," I think, "It was a successful Dally."

2010: Scottie plays a set with Tone and Niche during the day at the Forest Stage again. It's been a while since they've played together but he remembers the songs. Marco Polio and the New Vaccines play the Garden Stage late at night. Everyone wants to party, which means everyone wants to mosh really hard, and Steve Puwalski has to stop the music to tell everyone to calm down, have fun but have respect for each other and be in this one human family.

Unknown

2011: Blair left the world in July of this year. Audra Kubat rustles up a tribute where all the "Boyfriends" (after Blair and the Boyfriends) play his music. We are irritable. We are in mourning. We are good musicians who know his songs. We take the garden stage, and, though guaranteed an hour of play time, are given about 20 mins. It's heartbreaking because of how much we prepared, practicing at the Trumbullplex to get the show together. Yet I know the stages always run late. Leah and Markita are up there, Leah (my bandmate since 09) expecting her son, and also many of our friends, like Mike Anton, who survived a shot in the face on his birthday earlier in the summer. It's an emotional concert but the love just flows out of us. It's also my sister's going-away party, as she's lived on Hancock and is about to move to the UK to get her Master's degree. Her backyard is inside the actual alley.

Lara Stephenson

Lara Stephenson

Lara Stephenson

2012: J. Walker and the Crossguards play the Alley Stage to a big happy crowd. It's a dance party. It's a joyous celebration--as it has been since I have known the festival, as it was since the 80s, and as it will always be. The sun sets to their Motown-garage fusion and I feel at home. Eleanora was slotted to play at a point but we couldn't because of work conflicts. I think, "Next year. We gotta do it next year."

So now it's 2013 and my band Eleanora is going to play. I feel like a baby because so many of my friends have been going since the 90s or earlier. Do you have a favorite Dally memory?

Ends Meeting Ends

Sunday I was at a memorial for someone I thought of as an aunt through my teen years, surrounded by people who guided me through my formative years. As I sat in the church pew, during a lull, a spark of memory ignited and I recalled that last night I dreamt that I was being executed. I was going to get a lethal injection for a crime that I didn't commit. I believe the rest of my family was too, but I'm not sure. In any case, the battle had already been fought and I knew I was going to die. Most of the imagery was in a white cinder-blocked hallway, but the events were so cerebral that imagery wasn't that important. Emotion was everything.

The part of the dream that I remember involved knowing that I could pick my last meal, the last music I heard, and my visuals while I died.* And what it really involved was me accepting the quickly coming inevitability of my own death. It was REAL. Unlike my zombie dreams, which seethe with reverie, adventure, and independence, this dream shoved together my consciousness with the end of my consciousness. The processes I went through in this flash of night were genuine, even though I know the probable cause for profound feelings in dreams. While the processes may be an effect of my brain trying to sort out its intake, that doesn't make the lessons or the experience any less real or valid. It really jarred me, forcing me to not just think about the reality of death but to truly experience it, completely forget it for eight hours, and resurrect it in the midst of slight grief. And of course, once it's resurrected, that feeling can be remotely accessed; genuinely re-felt upon command. It requires that unconscious point of gullibility and spontaneity to tap that feeling truly. Quite an unsettling sliver of sleep, that one.















*For the record, salmon sashimi and mashed potatoes with Mom's eclair cake, Erik Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1, and Elizabeth Lake shore at sunrise.

A Note on Creation and Destruction.

I'm a guilty pseudo-punk. Intellectually, I despise the forces of modern slavery (corporate rule, sanctioned addictions, etc.) and the subliminal traps we as humans are born into. Concretely, I pretty much don't do a damn thing about it. I think a lot about changing that. A lot. I think about art's role in revolution and change, and I think about the creative power of community, and I think about the uses of current modes and tools in the fight for better ways of living for everyone. I think about the "I" versus the "we" and I think about creativity versus destruction. But I think. Part of the problem with that is that it doesn't even get to the physical, visceral "talk" point with other people. I just sit on it. Mull it over. Get angry. Post an article. Complain with friends about the obvious things through well-thought-through Facebook comments. And then let it recede, nestling into the little pacifist blankets in my brain to sleep until next month.

I mean, look at this, what I'm doing right now. I'm writing on a blog which a dozen people read but I don't update enough to expect them to, into the continuous self-purging noise of the internet, for what? A release? I guess that must be what it is. I have a hard time talking with people but I can be eloquent in text.  However, the obsessive attachment with non-physical, non-verbal interactions that riddles the globe and my generation especially is ruining the very spirit of life, empathy and real communication that is so key to actually changing anything for better. Yes, outrage spread by angry consumers can get demeaning shirts off the shelves, and can generate conversation about the horrible things that are being publicized all over our culture, but what about the things that are only experienced in reality? At the end of the day, the Western world is hooked into twisted machines of continuous insatiability while the third world uses water they shit in (and the wealthy dump toxins in) to make their food and wash their clothes. When it comes down to it, our culture is eating itself and we can't even really fathom what it's like to struggle in the way that people trying to survive actually struggle.

Living the way we do causes a lot of anger and repression. We are one psycho bunch of people. More than half (I'd be willing to bet at least 3/4) of us have some sort of psychological issue or mental disorder. We're grossly unhappy, and many of us, especially the young ones, react in almost a knee-jerk fashion. We want to destroy what's making us unhappy. Many of us are smart enough to know, even just in fragments, what is responsible for pushing in on all sides (other than our own selves, of course). We know it's that boss who won't let you take a break on your job because you don't smoke, that logo that keeps insisting you won't be able to live without an iPhone once you get it, that movie that reiterates exactly how a woman and a man should act and present themselves. But it's bigger than that. We just lash out at the small stuff. Sneer at the Apple employee. Tell people how awful the movies and how fake the actors are. Hold a deep contempt for all the smokers who stand outside and talk about things you couldn't care less about. Maybe we sometimes take direct action. Spraypaint the crap out of a billboard. Spit in our boss's face with the final straw. Egg the producers. Destroy. Even if it's well-prepared for and thought out, it's still knee-jerk.

One of the concepts I dealt with a lot in art school was destruction as a form of creation, and vice versa.  Burning a house fertilizes the soil, etc. Destruction brings renewal. It's something I definitely agree with, generally. In fact, I'm sick of making art that just adds more stuff to this miasma. As much as new images seem constantly needed (especially on such an image-heavy environment the world is in now), the value of the image is a far, far cry from the value of genuine experience, and the ecological impact of artistic materials (including computers, production, and more, not just paint and canvas) weighs out the value of that image, to me. The spraypaint that was used to "subvertize" is horrible for the Earth and for our health. The eggs used to pummel the bigwigs were taken from probably abused chickens, a total waste of unrealized life. That window you smashed cut up the feet of a little boy walking through the street in his sandals. Using bad destruction as symbolism is dangerous too. You want to smash your TV? Go ahead. The chemicals in there will make people sick and kill plants and curious animals. This kind of "destroy" mentality is counter-active.

The emphasis needs to shift from selfish anger to active responsibility. The same goals can be accomplished, but through means that benefit or at least stabilize the people, animals, plants and geography around. Yeah, it might take more time, it might mean scratching ideas that would make more sense because they "work with the concept more aesthetically". But ultimately, we have to ask ourselves what is more important; the individualistic triumph of cleverness, or the ethical, communal triumph of intelligence. It's a weird place for us to come from. Considering we are continually told to be ourselves, screw the crowd, and that everyone is out to get us, it's hard to think of others as our allies. But I think it's high time we do that. Not by following the masses, but by seeking out genuine companionship, responsible ways of creation, and honest, open dialogue.

Cynicism ain't gonna get us very far. In fact, I believe that's the biggest problem with the portion of the youth who can actualize change. We gotta stop smashing our Stratocaster on the stage floor and start putting it in the hands of a thirsty young girl. It will make far more difference. In a spectacle that proclaims as its mission, "MORE, MORE, MORE!", we need to become the louder voice, screaming, "WE CAN DO BETTER!" What is better than more? I'm not sure, but I know some things that go into it. We're sick with an absurd hunger and the doctor's telling us there's no reason to change our diet. He doesn't even acknowledge the tapeworm comfortably inside. We have to tell him we know it's there. We have to become the doctors, the teachers, the students, the explorers, the crafters, the farmers, the builders, the ambassadors and councils that determine our own well-being. I know I've got a long way to go. I'm writing a blog post that I'll post on my Facebook wall in hopes that someone reads and comments. But I swear, I want to make a change. I want to try to engage people in conversation. I want to learn what people have to offer, no matter what their background. I'm just so sick of all this... stuff. I want to experience reality, or at least the quasi-reality we're offered, to see what transformation needs to happen, through creative, responsible destruction and construction. I don't like being so cynical, as easy as it is. Anyone else?

"hope our poems make things clear..."

I know it's been a month, and I know a lot of my posts tend to be either entirely too cheery or entire downers. But this is going to be mostly the latter. I hope it's got enough of the former.

My friend died today. Or yesterday. It doesn't matter which day. I've always been able to tell others that I feel blessed to have had a great childhood with little grief and strong foundations. Although I have a lot of friends who encountered significant loss early in life, and I have encountered major loss of some kind, I've been lucky in that a peer never unexpectedly left. This is hard.

David Blair is an artist, a poet, a musician, an actor, an author, a thinker, a performer, a teacher, and one of many gods I've hugged in life. I'm so happy, in a way, that I have an opportunity to help cultivate the seeds he's spread. He's not gone, but he did die. I'm expecting him to call and say, Oh, they mixed me up with some other dude. You know how it goes! and then laugh big with a piratey tooth gap. But he left, and he just gave everyone he touched with the next task: to take his lessons and craft them into our own beauty, to give that beauty to other people of all creeds and stations (I don't care how cheesy this is) and to ensure that that beauty is multipliable infinitely. He traveled the whole world and called Detroit home. He introduced me to half of my friends, and the other half just knew him. I played his CD release two years ago, my Birthday Eve. We did an impromptu unrehearsed Purple Rain. I'm rambling but I guess I can't help it.

This loss is such a shock that it requires me to be vigilant of all the amazing people that Blair has touched in his life. He was SO completely uncompromising that he lived 7 lifetimes in his short 50 years. And he didn't lead just by example; hundreds of students can attest to that. I'm one of them.

He has believed so enthusiastically about humanity that typical Detroit cynicism immediately stops being cool as soon as he enters the room. His natural knack for musical and English language commands whatever he points his tongue or pen or guitar toward. He's worked hard his whole fucking amazing life. The things he can see make the most privileged feel blind. Just say "hello" and you may have stopped a war, right?

I'm going to leave you with a poem about this city. Why? Because I can't lie, I hate it here sometimes. But you can't listen to this piece and not fall in love with the insanity like the first time. You just can't. Us mental cases are too sweet.

What To Do, Part Two of Infinity, Or: Zombie Dreams Abound

I keep having zombie dreams. Last night I had one for the first time in months. In these dreams there are rarely zombies; in fact often times there are only half a dozen or so people at all. Mostly they consist of the struggle to ransack and seek out everything that will be useful, starting from my own home and then moving with a friend or two to a camp. Many times they are more about exploring houses, and the dreams have a very whimsical aspect. Once in a while, like last night, there will be an element of danger, but the danger isn't zombies (even though they are the reason for this societal meltdown), it's the people who scour the houses for anything useful, rob anyone who might be there, and kill them. Last night I hid in an attic at my parents' house with someone until these people left. Then it was all business, grabbing what to me were the most important items to take in whatever car we were going to find. Almost always, the people I am with, who are allies or camp-mates, are unspecific; that is, they have no identity that I know of. Last night's dream took place near the beginning of the apocalypse, but I have had some where I had been wandering the countryside with a few "friends" (no one I know in real life), mostly in cars, for perhaps years. One dream took place at night, in winter, and we searched for a house that we could settle down in for good, now that the threat was over. It was so peaceful, looking down that line of houses, some porch lights lit (which in the dream just meant that the power grid for that neighborhood was functional), and knowing that there were worlds of architecture to explore with barely any people to get in the way.