I’m at the microphone tonight at Molly Maguire’s (which I still call the Barge Inn since I started going there when it was under different ownership). It’s good to be back. I get five songs in, including two Neil Diamond, one David Allen Coe, and Ramjam’s “Black Betty”.
875 miles
I decide that a non-half-assed drive is in my best interest, and leave SF about noon. I drive 875 miles, with short breaks for gas and restroom. I leave SF at noon, and am in Seattle about 1am. Not bad.
The Modern City
I started classes today. There was an orientation – so many people, so many races and beliefs, so much knowledge. Our cohort weekend seminar is entitled ‘The Modern City’. We’re to read ‘Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in postwar Detroit’ – I can imagine that’s going to be a depressing read. I’m pretty well-versed on Chicago’s battle with racism and the older Mayor Daley’s attempts to separate races into their own neighborhoods. Of course, Chicago and its suburbs are sprawled all the way out to Rockford, a two-hour drive from the city when the traffic is light. The rings of suburbs show quite clearly the path of white flight.
Registration
Today I registered at New College of California for the Weekend BA Completion Program in Humanities. It’s hard to believe I’ve been to eight schools in the last 12 years, and I guess that lends itself to my flightyness and unwillingness to commit to anything for a long period of time. This feels right, though – standing in line with a group of people who are so much more racially, culturally and age diverse than anything I’ve encountered at my last school, Cornish. That consisted mostly of 20 – 22 year olds, and I felt like the older guy going back to school to rob the life force out of a newer generation, but in not so subtle a way that the baby boomers have gone after my generation.I’m Generation X. That’s so dated by today’s standards.