Ode To Detroit!

voltee ♦ December 9, 2010 ♦ 5 Comments

Item: Tee-shirt Color/Fabric: White/crazy paint, cotton Designer: BDG Where Purchased: Urban Outfitters Years Owned: 8

The Vault of Nostalgery opens once more! This time I have found what was for many years my favorite tee. It was one of my $1 finds at Urban Outfitters, and one of the best because it was a unique combination of fashion and craft project.
In case you could not tell, I painted this my self! I felt very clever for using metallic paint. I’m not sure what exactly is clever about metallic paint, but that’s how I felt.
Something else I can’t tell you is how this ended up in the Vault of Nostalgery in the first place. It’s not like the other items in the Vault, since it’s still pretty much wearable. Perhaps I just wore this too much and got sick of it, but could not bring myself to get rid of it. Or perhaps I was trying to shut away the strongest memory I have of wearing it.
Yeah. It’s embarrassing.
This was I think close to eight years ago now. I was still living in Michigan, and had bought two tickets to see Beck and The Flaming Lips play in Detroit. On a whim, I decided to ask my friend Erica if she and her boyfriend (now husband) Ian wanted to go, too.
Erica was one of my dearest friends in high school, and Ian was my first-ever boyfriend when I was 12. I have a trove of ridiculous, hysterical, and wonderful memories of both of them.
But I did not, and still do not, see them enough, and Detroit was sort of halfway between us, and it seemed like a wonderful plan.
Nate could not go, so I went with our friend and roommate Ashley.
We were very excited.
It seemed like such a grown up, adventurous thing to do, driving to the big city, just us girls. It was quite thrilling.
We met Erica and Ian in downtown Detroit, and promptly headed to a bar.
This was the first time I had seen either of them in a long time, and I was inexplicably nervous, and was hoping a beer would loosen me up a little.
Ha.
We went to a very cool sort of dive bar, most likely exactly what you’re picturing in your mind when you visualize a Detroit bar. And they had 50 or 100 beers on tap or something. There were just taps everywhere. It was like a giant pipe organ made out of beer taps.
We decided to play a game called “Let’ all choose a beer we’ve never had before!” This is a very good game.
20 minute later, I am totally relaxed, talking about high school, sharing laughs and memories, being old pals.
Then I got up to use the bathroom. As I was leaving, Ashley and Erica came in. And outside waiting for us, Ian. Some sort of light struggled to turn on in my brain, something about how you should never, never leave a something unattended in a something. I shrugged it off.
Then when I got back to our drinks, there was a tip laying by them. As though perhaps someone had even approached our drinks in our absence.
How funny! I thought, and finished my beer. This naivety is one of the downsides to growing up in a cornfield.
Still having some time before the show began, we went and sat in Ian’s car and talked. I think we listened to Sea Change (oh, great album. Get it right now.)
This is when I started to feel like something was wrong.
Once we entered the theater, I was in sad sorry shape. Well, we all were, except Ashly, who did not drink anything in the bar. I have never been so dizzy in all my life. And then I lost all motor abilities. An usher literally carried me to my seat, while The Flaming Lips were playing. I only remember some animal costumes, and thinking they were the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen.
Beck came on, played two notes of my favorite song, a little ditty called “Cold Brains,” and then my mind fled. I don’t remember anything else, except some crazy dancing at one point.
But it just would not be a concert experience if I did not do some crazy dancing.
And here is the Great Debate in my life.
I remember this: The concert ending, and having to use the bathroom, getting lost, going through some swinging doors, wandering down a hallway, finding a deserted bathroom, coming out and making a wrong turn, going to Beck’s dressing room, seeing him chatting in a white bathrobe, a guard screaming and asking me what I thought I was doing, blubbering that I honestly had no idea, getting literally dragged down a hallway so severly that my arms were bruised for weeks, ending up by a large line of people with backstage passes, and then finding Ashley and crying.
Ashley remembers this: I disappeared for 45 minutes, could not possibly have gone backstage or seen Beck in a white bathrobe, and then suddenly I reappear just when she was ready to call the cops.
Such a mystery.
Here’s the even worse part of this story: Erica got violently ill as soon as the concert started, and they actually left before Beck even played. She was sick for days.
Ian was positive that we were drugged. Since I have nothing to compare it to, I can’t say. I just know that never in all my life have I ever felt like that. And my mouth tasted like copper for two days. It was horrible.
So, yes, we were stupid, and yes, we should have been more careful. But in the end we were all fine, and very, very lucky. Lesson learned.
The only bad thing that really happened was that we bought some books we didn’t need from some guy on the street. Yep, we found the only guy in Detroit prowling around selling books. Amazing.
I wish I could get a do-over on that night. It should have been legendary in a much different, less humiliating way. And I miss all of those friends. It physically hurts me.
And now for the matter at hand. Can I even fit into this shirt still? It’s teeny. With those funny sort of sleeves that I’m just not sure my guns will fit into. But I did paint it myself, and am rather proud of it, and wish that my hair could have gold and silver streaks in it. And that I had neon green eyes.

**I’m sad to let this go, but it’s just too small. I would love someone to give it a happy home!!