Yooper/Art Student Trashes The D in Seattle Paper

**FlyingJ** · June-07-10, 03:23 AM

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/t...nt?oid=4132988

She apparently had many interesting encounters with Black People. The mounting comments from the rightly outraged Detroiters are pure, vicious Motown Gold. Go get 'er!!!

**GOAT** · June-07-10, 08:55 AM

She seems a bit crazy to me [[talking cat and whatnot). But many of things she has seen anyone who has been to Detroit can pretty much vouch for.

**English** · June-07-10, 09:02 AM

Well, that's 5 minutes of my life I won't get back.

**jcole** · June-07-10, 09:07 AM

Here's this chicks bio:

In addition to photographing one extremely inebriated person, each and every week, since 2003, for The Stranger's Drunk of the Week, Kelly writes and makes original videos. Watch all sorts of interviews, profiles, and music-related good times on The Stranger's Video page. Kelly also enjoys watching and reviewing pornographic films, and is one day going to marry photographer Terry "T-Bone" Richardson.

It actually sounds like she's bragging about her exploits in Detroit, not knocking it. And, if you check the references to Zoot's and 'The New Dance Show', it's been a long time since she went to school here, early to mid-90's at least. Dance Show ended mid-90's. Zoot's closed in '97.

**RickBeall** · June-07-10, 10:12 AM

The savage beauty of Detroit as experienced by an art student who "vacationed" in Detroit for 5 years. An honest depiction of the experience from her perspective.

Rock on!

I think to some degree people manufacture their own experiences because of the fear they bring with them, ignorance of local behaviors, and the presuppositions that they relentlessly project onto people different from them. I'm not saying it is all that, but there is a strong element of it.

**smogboy** · June-07-10, 11:03 AM

What bothers me about the piece is that it just speaks more to her ignorance and stupidity. If it was really as bad as she says, why did she stick around? If a movie is that bad, I don't recall having to stick around until the bitter end just because I paid the full price of admission. If she loves Seattle or wherever she's at, then great- sing the praises of where you're at and what it is you do. This piece just stinks of things like talking about an old lover, even though you're now married. You can't change the past and pissing on it just re-affirms to the rest of us that you didn't learn from it. To me it's all experiences and until one has some distance [[and wisdom to look at it objectively) can one call it a good or bad experience.

And I'd say this about anyone's experiences-not a defense of our fair city here. Maybe I'm just not a huge fan of people pissing on their past like that. We all have little horrific things happen to us, but rather than "drive the car by looking in the rear view mirror", I guess I'd prefer to look forward in life.

**RickBeall** · June-07-10, 11:05 AM

I don't think she was pissing on her past, she was bragging about it.

**East Detroit** · June-07-10, 11:09 AM

She is first person bashing Detroit in order to get street cred in some coastal State.

Easy, lazy, boring.

**jcole** · June-07-10, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by RickBeall

I don't think she was pissing on her past, she was bragging about it.

I agree. Look at my post above; she's an odd girl to say the least.

**detroitsgwenivere** · June-07-10, 11:52 AM

I don't see what the big deal is. Any one of us could've wrote the same story. Nothing to get worked up about.

**fryar** · June-07-10, 11:56 AM

I guess I don't really know what Detroit was like in 1995, say. I'll say that I didn't used to get called cracker and whitey while walking around, in 2005, and that I find it hard to imagine that that was a constant state of affairs back then. I had a positive impression of Detroiters and Michiganders, notwithstanding that there were outliers, of course. So she dwells on being a minority in Detroit way too much.

But I can relate to parts of what she's talking about as well. I'm surely betraying my "spoiled" frame of reference, but the drive down Lafayette from my downtown apartment to the dry cleaner, which was on Van Dyke or thereabouts, was jaw-droppingly surreal on its own, due to the degree of blight. If you're not from a place like Detroit, it's just a total stunner, the burned down buildings, the buildings in the process of falling over, the empty lots. Never mind if you then make a wrong turn, or maybe you're gonna check out the neighborhoods, and you run into a block with stuffed bunnies and junk tacked to all the houses [[Heidelberg Project). Jimminy Cricket!

It would be wrong to represent that as being entirely representative of my time in Detroit, and I don't ever hold it out as that. But yeah, I'll believe that she drove down I-75, the hood flew off her car, and it did not provoke an accident, or that one night, a gaggle of clowns showed up and threw faygo bottles at her building, sure, why not. After all, on my way to the dry cleaners, I drove past a block of houses with stuffed bunny siding. I gather it's a work of art, perhaps an ironic comment on blight?

Let's keep it real, people. I doubt that the Seattle fan-board holds itself out as the home of the fabulous ruins of Seattle. There's a lot to love about Detroit, but it is one of those places where weird things like these can happen.

**Zacha341** · June-07-10, 01:30 PM

Ah - nothing like the ever-exploring, self-anointed, self-appointed, existential musing of an art student, I should know as I ARE one -- well was one... back in the day

!! LOL!

Originally Posted by RickBeall

The savage beauty of Detroit as experienced by an art student who "vacationed" in Detroit for 5 years. An honest depiction of the experience from her perspective.

Rock on!

I think to some degree people manufacture their own experiences because of the fear they bring with them, ignorance of local behaviors, and the presuppositions that they relentlessly project onto people different from them. I'm not saying it is all that, but there is a strong element of it.

**Zacha341** · June-07-10, 01:31 PM

It's hard to tell with some types. It all comes from some deep angst and pathos that can get ponderous...

Originally Posted by RickBeall

I don't think she was pissing on her past, she was bragging about it.

**jcole** · June-07-10, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by Zacha341

Ah - nothing like the ever-exploring, self-anointed, self-appointed, existential musing of an art student, I should know as I ARE one -- well was one... back in the day

!! LOL!

She's not a girl anymore. Her exploits took place at least 15 years ago. Maybe you knew her?

**Zacha341** · June-07-10, 01:37 PM

LOL! I just skimmed... I've heard enough of that kind of writing from my own days in undergrad. Though some of it was interesting.

Originally Posted by English

Well, that's 5 minutes of my life I won't get back.

**douglasm** · June-07-10, 01:40 PM

Keep in mind that we're not dealing with the Seattle Times here. The Stranger is what passes for a "alternative" newspaper out here. Someone should let this girl loose in Ranier Beach area of Seattle. Or Toppenish.

I wonder sometimes if people worry too much about the "image" of Detroit and not enough about the reality. Cleveland, no matter what it does, will forever be known as "The Mistake By The Lake", and I sometimes wonder if Detroit's moaning about what other people think of her just perpetuates the image of a hell hole.

**Zacha341** · June-07-10, 01:41 PM

LOL! I thought about that... but the style reminds me of that... we probably took the same creative writing class together!

Originally Posted by jcole

She's not a girl anymore. Her exploits took place at least 15 years ago. Maybe you knew her?

**iheartthed** · June-07-10, 01:45 PM

Why is she looking for somewhere to eat while driving on the freeway?

**menckensghost** · June-07-10, 02:07 PM

Reminds me of those t-shirts, "I'm so bad, I vacation in Detroit." Out there in Starbuck City this probably gives her street cred. I think it was cute. Something my pampered, sheltered kid sister might write to her friends after coming for a visit.

I've lived all over the place. London, Newark, Brooklyn, Houston, Philly, Los Angeles. And when I told people there that I was born and raised in Detroit I had immediate street cred. This chippy was only visiting. I'm sure she embellished a bit [[I do remember Nubs) and I don't think she was trashing our city. She's just a piece of Wonder Bread looking for some cred in a pumpernickel world.

**iheartthed** · June-07-10, 02:07 PM

Okay, suspicions confirmed. She spent all of her time in Detroit high on shrooms:

The only other thing living in that house, aside from the three of us, is my roommate's spooky black Persian cat. Always hiding somewhere. Can never pet it. Once, we can't find it for almost a week. My roommate leaves to make a "Lost Cat" flyer at Kinko's, thinking it somehow got outside. Boyfriend is sitting in the living room, and I'm at one end of the long hallway near the bathroom. The cat comes stumbling out of one of the bedrooms and just sits in the middle of the hallway, not moving, staring intently at me. I say, all sweet, "Kiiiii-teee, there you are!" The cat just stares. Then its mouth opens slightly and a very deep man's voice says, "Hello." With that, the cat walks back into the bedroom. Boyfriend says, "Who just said 'Hello'?" Not making this up. I scream and lock myself in the bathroom. For hours.

**mikeinmotown** · June-07-10, 03:07 PM

this chicks an idiot. WSU/Cass area was never that bad. She's just trying to prove she has writing talent and is funny. She has neither.

**Roq** · June-07-10, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by East Detroit

She is first person bashing Detroit in order to get street cred in some coastal State.

Easy, lazy, boring.

Exactly. I wonder if she has been informed yet that this "story" has already been done to death and her work is about as original as a LeDuff piece.

**Stinger4me** · June-07-10, 04:21 PM

Some of you folks ought to spend a week in the UP or back out in the boonies. Afterwards consider what someone from those areas would think after spending a semester or two in Motown. Sometimes residents of the big city have lost touch with some things. I wonder how they would adjust to living in a county with no traffic light in 576 square miles, few if any houses for several square miles. Just think about it.

**n7hn** · June-07-10, 04:30 PM

I grew up in detroit and spent many summers on farms in northern mi.... they arent angels either, even 15 years or more ago. Id say she is a drama queen and is embellishing every little thing to have something to talk about in her otherwise dull, counrty life. Im sure in some way she believes it was so aweful, but I think her narrowminded perspective just fed her own panic. I stopped reading at the "potatoes out the window" part, that to me shows she probably was looking for conflict and sh*t to complain about. ...... that being said, I didnt find ther story at all amusing. Just a bunch of random happenings that I dont even believe. Glad she drove her bumperless horizon to seatle..... with any luck she will mildew over................

**n7hn** · June-07-10, 04:35 PM

any dumb country girl leaving money around in a apron unattended deserves to get ripped off...... apparantly by all her stories she knew she wasnt in say , oscoda.....