On a thousand dollar budget for one month

I brought with me what I own, a backpack full of clothes, some books and notebooks. I've been working on reducing my possessions and after this trip I will have less stuff to carry around. It’s cheaper to go to NY and then take the bus to Detroit. I did that because of my small budget. The trip on the bus is annoying. I switched three times; one bus didn’t have air conditioning. The trip took fourteen hours. It started at 4 in the afternoon and arrived at 7 in the morning.

After that I looked for a place to stay, and found the Corktown hotel. $60 a night was too much for me, but I was tired of carrying my backpack. The next day I took the 510 bus to Warren which is the city next to Detroit. Warren is a city in name; really it’s more like a small town like any other small town in America. I found a small room in a motel for $32. It wasn’t too comfortable but the price was good while I looked for a room where I could stay for what I thought would be a two months stint. I stayed there for three nights. It didn’t have internet, which didn’t matter because I didn’t have a laptop yet. I went to the library everyday which set me back $4. The bus fare was $2.

I found a room for $275 a month on the west side of town in a house a woman is trying to fix up. It is empty so I sleep on the floor, which I don’t mind; it seems to be good for my back. I have access to a kitchen, a big plus. It’s cheaper to cook your own food than to eat outside all the time.

I bought a laptop for $165, a small netbook, an HP, which works really good. Then I bought a bicycle for $20, an old Schwinn racing bike and with it I go everywhere to save money on bus fare. It’s good for exercising especially here where things are spread out. You could do ten miles easy everyday here. The sun is a bitch though, it’s summer. I’m surprised it isn’t hotter though. The average has been in the upper eighties.

For internet service I go to the public libraries.

Tremors (The Beginnings (or the endings))

I feel or sense the tremor of the ground under my feet

I have a premonition that in due time it will give way

And I will inexorably plunge once more through the thick disturbing air of human emotions

That area where millions constantly plummet

I wonder if I'll relax on the way down

Or if I’ll flail about

Reaching out

Madly grasping for the illusion that I can stop the fall or slow it down

Cushion the inevitable impact down below

But all I'll get will be hand burns

The more I hold on the more painful they'll be

This time I should just fall free

And brace myself for what’s to come

The idea was to get one of the many abandoned buildings around the city and rebuild it using earthship methods, and turn it into a sort of alternative cultural center.

The project was supposed to start from scratch, asking the city to just give one of the buildings schedule for demolition. Once the building was obtained, then I and whoever cared to join, would go around collecting used tires of which there are many, lying around abandoned building and other places.

All this would make more sense within the context of Da Book and Da Other Book.

The majority of us have been conditioned to be passive and wait for experts to do everything. I wanted to find out if it was possible to do this project defying this conditioning.

I was going to do it alone, but decided very soon that it would be easier if more hands got involved.

This undertaking follows the idea of world citizenship, and it deals with the problem of independence from the excessive control.

It was to be done without any hoopla, and with as little financing from conventional sources as possible, a truly grassroots thing, an international grassroots undertaking.

Of course it was going to be up to the city of Detroit. It would make little sense to start something like this in a place that would be hostile towards it.

But things have changed. My girlfriend is pregnant and I have to go back to Berlin. I’ll ride around the city looking at places that would’ve been chosen until I leave next month.

At one point I will go to wherever office in the local government deals with the demolishing of abandoned buildings and ask for one just to gauge their reaction.