Mark binelli, contributing editor of Rolling Stone magazine returns to the city to present a history and profile the influx of artists, environmentalists, and City Planners who are reimaging the urban landscion. This is a little under an hour. [applause] im thrilled mark asked me to be a part of this. As they said, old friends from ann arbor where we went to college and editors at the college newspaper. I knew then that mark was from the area, like i am, but i didnt know of his intense interest in history and the stories here, and so that leads me to my first question which is what really led you to want to write this book . I remember you calling me when you were starting to work on it, and you said, i want to write a book about detroit. I thought, yeah, well, so does everybody; right . [laughter] this turned out to be a different book than others we red now. I sensed that a tiny bit when we got lunch. You were one the first people i talked to about it, and thank you, first of all, for doing this. I guess, i dont know, ive always been drawn to detroit as a topic, and, you know, i thought for the longest time it would be a novel, that seemed like that seemed like the way to go, and then, you know, they when i came back in 2009, for Rolling Stone, i was assigned a piece on the auto show. This was, you know, january 2009 so you remember, you were here. Sure. It was the, you know, the chrysler and gm on the brink of bankruptcy, the former mayor was in jail, and detroit had become sort of the, you know, the poster city of recession basically. Right. Ive seen reporters come from not just all over the country, but from all over the world basically to, you know, cover the story, but also to gawk in a weird way and to, you know, take a few photos of the packer plant, and, you know, use detroit as like some sort of metaphor for whatever was happening in the country, and thats probably around the time i called you, and you were like, oh, yeah, good luck, buddy. [laughter] i did believe, i guess, that as a, you know, as someone from the area, i could, you know, hopefully bring a nuance and a sensitivity to the topic. That includes that nuance includes things like humor. You know, i think, so often somebody comes to detroit for a few days, focusing on, like, the bleakest, you know, and most tired narratives told again and again and again, and, you know, again, as you know, detroit is a city with, you know, fascinating characters and you talk to people and just dont, you know, take pictures of empty buildings with, like, nobody in the picture. Right. Thats one of the things that struck me of the book. Its not about detroit, the buildings. Its about detroit, the people. In some cases, just people you happen to cross. I mean, its not talking heads. Its not public officials. Its not press people. Its just people you met, and thats always one of my favorite stories in the book is the day that you go down to the site of the former the original ponchtrain, now has a ponch train hotel on it sitting there empty, and you met a bunch of different people down there, but one was this guy, tony. I wanted you to talk a little bit about tony, how you met him, and why you included him in the book. I thought it was just kind of a sort of telling moment. I mean, yeah, and i guess i like i love that kind of moment because of the serendipty of it. I road i read detroits history not long after i got here, and, you know, as a lot of people here probably know, you know, right down there near the plaza is where cadillac, the french explorer first landed, theres a statue, and thats what the fort was. I was reading that, and sort of unusually funny day, and in the fall, and so i decided to make my way down there and sit outside, and it was, you know, it was a weekday, and it was pretty empty, and, yeah, a guy tony approached me. Looked like he might be a street guy, like, maybe homeless, and i thought he was going to ask me for money. He saw me reading, and, instead, he pulled out a couple battered paperback books out of his pocket. One was the world according to garp. [laughter] he talked about huh he loved john irvin, and then somehow he told me about his experience in the prison system, told me about his scars and bullet wounds, and he eventually starts telling me that, you know, he doesnt want people dont want to mess with him, and he yanks up the sweatshirt, and he had a giant machete and ax in his belt. Hes just said straight faced, you know, im a licensed carpenter, and im allowed to carry my tools. [laughter] only in detroit; right . It was great, i mean, great for the purpose of the narrative of the detroit moment. You know, his name was tony, antwan, cadillac, just a lot of resonance. Right, right. Youre telling the story of the city through these through these characters who you meet, but one of the things that struck me about the book is youre not so much making obvious youre making observations. Yourself not making judgments, and theres not that much analysis in the book. Its really just a story of what its like to be here now, what its like to live here now, and you tie that in nicely with the history of the place in lots of different instances. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Ive done a lot of interviews the last couple days, and people want analysis, kind of a sound bite. I had radio interviews yesterday with people in different parts of the country, and they wanted to know whats next in detroit . How do you fix detroit . Just like ridiculous questions, and i said it was not a policy book, and if i could answer the question, you know, in, like, 30 seconds, i would announce my running for mayor, probably. [laughter] you and everybody else. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, i tried, really, to just talk to people, you know, and sort of let detroiters tell their story, and, yeah, you know, the history, as you said, so rich and, you know, some multilayered. I just let that come out. Right, right. Another really striking part of the book, for me, was about the blues concerts that happen oh, yeah. Thats actually not far from where i grew up. Right, near that park; right . Downtown, right, and where i live now, in fact, ive been there. Im not sure ive seen anybody else come to detroit and actually pick up on the fact that things like that still go on, and in neighborhoods like that, and thats a neighborhood that, if you went over there and drove through, you would think theres almost nobody living there anymore. Yeah, yeah, and, no, i found that thing interesting. This is, like, off st. Auburn, a part of the east side of detroit where, you know, there are youll go down blocks, and theres like one house left, and the grass is up to here in the summer. You know, you really feel like its a field in the country or something, and, you know, it i found it really fascinating the way people kind of take ownership of that and can sometimes, you know, turn it into its not an asset exactly. They at least make something of it. This guy, pete bera, who happens to be a cousin of joe lewis and related to tom who ran for mayor a couple times. Oh, right, of course, yeah. Everybodys connected. Yeah, right. He just started having these, you know, kind of block long fields basically that had once been, you know, densely pop populated with residential houses, and they are empty, and now he has blues concerts there every sunday in the summer. Its a good scene and a good crowd of people come out. Thats another only in detroit thing, i think. I mean, you feel like, you know, youre in clarksdale, mississippi, but year youre five minutes from downtown. I know youre from the area like we said, but after ann arbor, you left and mostly lived other places, and then you come back to detroit to tell the story. Tell me about the things that surprised you about the city things that you found that were different, that maybe you didnt expect or things that you found that were the same, that maybe shocked you. You know, i think the first thing that surprised me was how much i liked living here to be honest. [laughter] i mean, to be full disclosure, you know, when i decided to do the piece, i moved away in 93 , i guess, and, you know, my family still lives here. A year never went by where i didnt visit at least a couple times, but, actually, the idea of a real extended stay just kind of, you know, like planting myself here, i wasnt sure how it would go. I had a life in new york, likedded my life there, and i thought i would approach it as sort of a regular reporting gig where i would come in, report work, really hard for, like, a week, you know, get everything done i needed done, and then retreat back to new york for four weeks. It didnt work out that way. I mean, i really found myself spending more time here than in new york and really making a lot of great friends, and, really, i dont know. Being inspired by, you know, things, like, you know, things like what you just mentioned, you know, the pete bara weekly thing, and just, you know, that there is a kind of interesting energy that its hard to put your finger on, but its, you know, des cooper, you probably know her, i quote here in the book. Sure. Shes not innative to detroit, moved here in the 1980s, a long time journalist, a smart thinker about detroit, and she talked about how detroit is the sort of place where, you know, people are doing things every day that youre not expecting to do anywhere else. I mean, people are coming home from work and then patrolling their neighborhoods because, you know, there are not police there. You know, they are reclaiming vacant lopts lots turning them into gardens or concert venues and boarding up vacant houses. Theres a chapter in the book called diy detroit, and i feel that surprised me, i guess, the extent of that and how, you know, real and, you know, kind of inspirational that can be. Right, right. Some of the characters you come across on your journey in the book are familiar characters, characters written up all the time in reference to detroit, and one of those is somebody who lives, again, not too far from me, and where i grew up, and ive read i dont know how many Different Things about tyri who i met several times and talked to, but this treatment of him, i thought, was very different than i read anywhere else. I want to read a couple paragraphs how you captured and him talk more about it. Its at the end of the section saying he was pondering why he did what he did and how he got to this point in his life, waving arms skyward again, believing in a purpose for all of us. The sky looked strikingly beautiful this morning, felt like arguing with his host, and got back to the car, everything fine, i worried all morning for nothing. A pheasant dashed in front of our path. We seemed to all cry out at once, delightedded, once so inclined might have one so inclined might have interpreted the moment as arguing something good. Thats a really hopeful set of phrases you put together around a guy who im not sure was described that way. Just another thing i stumbled upon. Hes been written about a lot, and so i had a list of those people who i wanted to reach out to, especially when i arrived here because i didnt know what the direction of the book would be, and i somehow got an email, and his wife responded and said he doesnt do interviews unless hes paid now or something. [laughter] i was like, all right. I was hanging out with the other people, the other people in that passage, and so it was a buy rich bellman, who was a long time, kind of labor activist working with grace bogs who is, you know, a really interesting activist as well. Sure. And weirdly, mark rudd, part of the underground, 60s and 70s, doing this, and on a tour, i tagged along, ending up at the idleberg project, and he just happened to be there, and, yeah, i dont know, everything just seemed very weirdly pore tiewtous. I had never talked to him before, and hes very, you know, very devout, and he conned of, just out of the kind of, just out of the blue asked us about god, and we were, like, huh, and we were on the street that hes, you know, that was left for dead when he reclaimed it in the 8 0s, and 1980s, and hes turned into this really, you know, International Tourist destination, go there any day of the week, and you see, you know, people there from all over, and, yeah, i dont know. There its not, i mean, its not him as celebrity in the book. No. Hes just a guy. Just happened to pull up in a truck, and, i dont know, checking out the flag he just attached to one of the houses or something, yeah, so i would much rather present a wellknow character like that, where they are off. Its not, you know, its off kilter rather than sit down and do a former interview and have talking points to get the same story. Im going to indulge myself here because i work at one of the newspapers, but you write a lot about press coverage of the city and the book, and particularly local press coverage, and the first time you sort of visit with that is with the headlines about crime in the city, and i think one of the tricks about writing about detroit is assumes its not one thing or the other, not assuming its these things and not those, but its all the things trying to figure out how they all coexist and fit together, and i thought you did a good job of, you know, Something Like murder, which we get a lot of coverage for and is a violence is a real presence here in peoples lives here, and i thought you did a good job of capturing how its both surreal to you as an outsider, the headlines you see, but a real presence, also, for people here. Yeah, for sure. I mean, youre right. Its one of those, you know, several aspects of the story that i think is told so often and can be told in a caricatured way. I struggled with how to, you know, deal with it myself. You just cant ignore it. Its, you know, i mean, i think i think it was the detroit news just had that poll recently sure. Where 40 of the detroiters said they wanted to move within the next four years if they could citing crime as the number one reason. Right. I mean, its like you cant tell the story, honestly, without reckoning with that kind of thing, but how to do it was tricky. You know, again, i think telling the story through characters, for me, was the way to go. Its the kind of nonfiction writing i like to read, you know, hearing it through a character rather than through, you know, statistics or whatever. I mean, along the lines of crime, one john carlisle, detroit blogger john [laughter] there he is. He took me to the weird place, a whole other story called club thunderbolt [laughter] yeah, talk about that later. Well come back to that. Yeah. The crime aspect of the story was, you know, this guy, chitchatting with them, and one of us noticed a whole in his front door that was crudely covered up with a board like somebody hammered it shut, and i was, like, what happened . He said he was upstairs one night watching leno and heard somebody breaking in, ran down stairs with a shotgun. Hes heavily armed, had a gun hanging out of his pants with an arsenal he showed me. Runs downstairs, shoots the guy through the guy, doesnt hit him, intentionally shot low, didnt want to hit him, called police, and it took police four hours to get there. They told him, next time, aim higher. I think its a better way of sort of illustrating, you know, the severity of whats going on here. Right, right. Talk about club thunder bolt. [laughter] this came up on the web chat you had. I figured id let you talk about it. The blogger john is one of the first people i met when i initially came here to report on the auto show and the Auto Industry for Rolling Stone. I didnt know at that point i was going to do a book, but i started poking around and looking at local blog, and i found his blog, and just loved it, and so emailed him, and he, you know, wrote back right away and showed me around for that story, and then, you know, we became friends, and when i moved here, we occasionally went out and said, oh, a found a crazy spot that you have to see, and this spot was particularly this might have been the crazyist, i think, we could say; right . Hes probably found Something Else since then. [laughter] this guy who had was living in his parents house, both died, again, a rough neighborhood in detroit, he had been shot in the face as a kid, like a teenager maybe, and so his face was, like lookedded like he had a stroke. It was partially paralyzed, but he was a strange, intense character, heavily armed. The club part is he turned his parents house into a strip club so you had to call this number, and if you went there, you end up in the house that is furnished, you know, looks like it was furnished by a couple in, like, the late 1960 s, like frozen in time with the creepy wood paneled way, but then theres, like, strippers. [laughter] yeah, that was the weird night. [laughter] there was another part of the book that really, another pass camming in the book that struck me, and you wrote about evangelist murders that happened over on the east side, and i thought it was really interesting how you sort of drew a parallel to those murders and murders that had happened, i think, 80 years before . Yeah. In the same neighborhood, but then you talk about covering going to sort of see the trial, and i thought i would just read, again, a short passage to capture how you essentially write about us in the press and how we deal with these things. You say, when i arrived in the courtroom in frank murphy hall, i was surprised by the absence of any other journalist. I thought i pulled a boner and turned out unnecessarily early and fretted veterans of the crime never bothered with that first day. Not a single reporter turned out for the duration trial. You would figure a dismemberment would be a crisis, but it was not by detroit standards. What do you have to do around here to get ink . That same week, the crime story was a 12yearold girl who tried to rob a Convenience Store with a loaded gun. Thats a real insight to the challenges we have, but just the challenge that anybody has coming here just sort of taking it all in and trying to sort through whats important and whats not. That was the strange thing. You mentioned the evangelist murders. At one point, i was just doing a lot of research into detroit history, and i came across this very sensational crime that happened, you know, in the 20s, in this it caught my attention because it involved italians, and my parents were here, are, you know, both italian immigrants, and so at that time, this neighborhood actually, very close to where the blues concerts are on the east side, was very italian, and there was this guy, called himself benny evangelist. His last anytime was evangelista. He was kind of a cult leader. There was some catholic stuff, but he basically had his own religion and wrote a weird book called small like the secret history of the universe revealed through a cult science in detroit, michigan. [laughter] which i almost used for my title, but then i [laughter] publishers were like, oh not into it. [laughter] just to tell the story very quickly, he ended up he and the entire family were brutally, you know, gruesomely murdered, beheaded, and, you know, his children killed as well, and it was a big sensational story at the time, and we