I managed to make it down to Detroit just in time to meet up with long time Cove bartender Landry and some other up north characters for a pitcher at The Town Pump on Woodward before the Black Keys played the old State Theatre, now the Fillmore. The venue is amazing, decorated in classic Detroit, and even with just an electric guitar and a drum set on stage, the band rocked the whole house. Detroit may not have the downtown scene of Chicago or New York, but it has it’s own pulse, and it was a cool feeling to be a part of that for the night.
Grand Rapids is kind of like a grown up Traverse City. Last night was a chance to catch up with displaced Leland friends and tell stories about past summers. A trip to GR is never complete without meeting up with Peter downtown for a beer. There’s so many cool bars downtown, its hard to fit them all into one night.
Today marks the last day of my up north winter vacation. Tomorrow I’ll pack my bags and hit the road for destinations both known and unknown. It’s never easy leaving Fishtown, even this time of the year, but you can never really fully appreciate a place unless you leave it from time to time. Besides, there’s a whole lot else out there to see.
I don’t think that I’ve ever spent this much time in Leland in the winter and its a different and amazing place. As I write this, I’m sitting in the best office in the world, right on Van’s Beach. The only sound in the background, the shifting, piling ice, and rippling water.
The sun is out today and the wind calm. Before I knew it I had walked past whaleback and into Good Harbor. It’s a good day to be in Fishtown.
It was the kind of day that felt right for a movie. The State Theatre in Traverse City is probably one of the best places anywhere to go watch a film, not discounting The Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay. We’re really lucky to have these small movie houses playing great films in our area.
If you have the chance to go to The State, don’t pass it up. If you’ve been, then you’ve seen the starlight dotted ceiling and the art deco wall sconces, and you may have even caught Michael Moore, the visionary mascot of the renovated theatre just standing out front welcoming people, like he was tonight.
And if you get the chance to see Slumdog Millionaire while its still running through this week, then you won’t be disappointed. Its one of the most cinematically creative films I’ve seen and looks promising for a best picture oscar this year.
There’s been a lot of buzz about film in Michigan the last several years. The Traverse City film festival brought the first real wave of interest to our area. Now that the state has passed a tax incentive to encourage the making of films in Michigan, there should be even more interest. Already there has been some usage of Leelanau county for new movies and even a prospected use of Fishtown in a Haley Berry starred film. So far that hasn’t come to pass, but if the Michigan film industry sees continued growth its only a matter of time till Fishtown hits the big screen.
The sunset looked better in Leland than Traverse City, but it still managed to turn the sky pink behind the silhouette of building 50 at the old State Hospital. The sun angle is so low this time of year it appears to almost hit pyramid point from Fishtown. By July it will be back up between the Manitou Islands where its best.
It’s starting to get real cold again. Van’s beach scarcely resembles the place it was a couple of days ago when the sun was out. 29 mph wind gusts had whitecaps crashing and sending showers of freezing spray over the breakwall and newly formed ice castles. Amazing to watch, and I even made it back to the car before my fingers fell off.
It’s never too early to start thinking about the “Here Comes the Sun” party. The band’s booked and the snow should be melted off the deck by the time they hit the stage May 25, 2009.
This year The Cove welcomes back The Hidden Agenda band.
Getting up on stage to play a number on the trumpet with some of the “Here Comes the Sun” bands over the years are among some of my best Cove memories. Today I finally got a chance to do something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time and picked up my trumpet for some instruction with the Traverse City Symphony’s principal horn player, Bob Pavlic. By the time Memorial Day rolls around hopefully I’ll have my chops back enough for some Rick James.
The sun did come out today and I shoveled more snow. Two hours was enough to make it through the bank and enough for me to call Gerard Belanger to finish the job. That put a quick end to that project and left me and Lily, the dog, enough time to go explore the ice drifts on Van’s beach. Even with temperatures in the teens, Leland still has the best beach anywhere.
