50,000 people have moved out of Detroit in the last three years. They tell me Detroit is the first American city to fall from the graces of capitalism. The motor city took a road trip south and left a legacy of abandoned buildings and empty parking lots in the blue exhaust trail.

I went into a Chinese restaurant called Chop Suey’s. You open door, and all there is, is a poster of the Great Wall of China. No chairs, no tables, just a little bullet proof window at the far end of the room. I walked all the way across the floor, where a dining room should be, and noticed another poster of strawberries. I got to the window and a woman was waiting for me, ready to take my order. But I decided not to eat there.

Is it ironic so many people live in their cars in Detroit? Probably not to the guy who lost his job at the GM plant. It was to me. The snow built up on roofs of old Cutlass’s, forty Christmas trees that didn’t sell on an empty lot three months later, still green against the new snow. I passed by homes that had been half knocked down and the bricks were strewn across the yard, but the front door was bolted shut. The shear number of empty warehouses and factories gave the place a post-Apocalyptic feel. People everywhere were pitching ideas on how to make money, either by me giving it to them outright, or them selling me can openers or repairing rust on my rental car. There is no money in Detroit.

The commander of police told me Detroit has the flu. “If Detroit falls, Michigan falls. If Michigan falls, America falls.” It felt like Detroit had more than the flu. It was in the final stages of auto-immune deficiency. Emphasis on auto. Is this the fate that awaits us, as our job market is outsourced and companies absolved from all responsibility? Will bulletproof glass be coming to the confession booth at your local Catholic church, too? Everything in Detroit is separated with bulletproof glass.
What this place needs is a sense of community.

One of the most thriving businesses was the 24-hour emergency boarding service. When someone throws a brick through your storefront plate glass window and you want to prevent everything from being looted, you give these folks a call and they come right on over and nail up some plywood.

“One man’s backyard is another man’s crime scene”, a guy told me in a bar, just after the Fire Chief bought the house a round. I fell in love with Detroit. The people who have stayed are strong, they believe in the future against all good evidence. It is possibly a city of dreamers, although often it feels like there is no hope for it.

I called a food critic who writes for the Detroit free press to attend the dinner, which was held at the Detroit artist s market gallery 4719 Woodward Avenue at East Forrest. I contacted channel 8 news to send out invitations for dinner on Saturday night. 23 chairs were set up and I had 450 requests. I honed it down to people who I felt represented Detroit, from what I’d seen over the last week and half I’d spent there.

I invited a police officer to hear how he felt, the GM executive was there, and a steel worker who was raising two daughters on his own. An 82-year-old African American woman arrived and talked to me about never wanting to leave Detroit, even if it burned to the ground. Which it is, slowly.

There is a thing called “dark tourism” in Detroit. People come from all over to watch the citizens burn their houses down the night before Halloween. It is a recent tradition, one that involves setting traps to keep firefighters from preventing a total loss. The point is to collect on insurance claims, and with everyone doing it on a special night, blame can be shifted to wild unsavory types running loose in the streets. (Apparently abandoned buildings were originally set on fire around this time by fledgling arsonists.)

People really wanted to talk about this city. That was the focus of the conversation for a while. Of course, we started off by having everyone go around the table and tell us about themselves, what they’re doing in Detroit and so on. Here’s a brief rundown of the diners:

Rabbi Mordehi Waldman and Jan Hosford-Heist, both of Oak Park

Catholic priest and counselor Lawrence Ventline of Sterling Heights

Former exotic dancer Cherry Sunday of Southgate

Professional crafter and teacher Olga Hodge, 82, of Detroit

Detroit Diesel machinist Dale Woolford, 44, and his daughters Morgan, 12, and Stephanie, 16, of Pinckney

GM retiree and historic building restorer John Lauve, 63, and his companion, Linda Croft, 61, an apartment manager, both of Holly

Johnie Bailey, 29, of Detroit, a premed student and Chrysler employee

Wine merchant Elie Boudt, 43, of Birmingham, who provided wine for the dinner

Phyllis Gantman, 53, of Farmington Hills, who worked for Metropolitan Life insurance company for 29 years until losing her job in a massive cutback in December

Ashley Woods, 20, of Orchard Lake, a student at Miami of Ohio University

Wendy Eason, 27, of Ypsilanti, who works in public relations for Caribou Coffee and is a campus minister at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church at the University of Michigan

Gregory Fell, 40, who travels around the world for Ford Motor Co. in various capacities

Country music recording artist and financial adviser Joseph James Giordano, 51, of Rochester

Detroit Police Inspector Billy McFarley, 55, commander of the 13th Police Precinct, with headquarters next door to the art gallery

Artist Mitch Cope, curator of the MORE art exhibit at the Detroit Artists Market and his parents, Hettie and Jim Cope, both 60, of Milford

Aaron Timlin, 34, of Detroit, executive director of the Detroit Artists Market

Gallery manager Christine Stamas of Detroit

It was great to have the priest, the rabbi and the former stripper all sitting next to each other. As Cherry Sunday told us her story, she handed the priest photo’s from her heyday. He was a sport and held them up for all to see as she talked.

The rabbi was a bit disappointed to find out my mother wasn’t Jewish. Which means I’m not Jewish, in the orthodox sense. “I’m part of the Tribe of God!” I screamed And then my head spun around 360 degrees, while I projectile vomited…bad joke.

I did honestly cry at one point during dinner. The stories were so powerful. The rabbi suffered through lymphoma, which brought up memories of mine. When I was a child, my bone marrow stopped producing white blood cells, and they considered me dead. Later, when I was 22, a doctor, investigating a lump under my armpit, told me I had either, leukemia, lymphoma, or AIDS. I freaked out and hit the road for three months, skipping the scheduled surgery, and just thought about life and the end of it coming my way. I got back into town; they removed a lymph node, and said I was fine.

To be in Detroit, seeing my achievement, how I was able to bring people together who would never meet, I felt overwhelmed. This was a moment when all the hard work came into focus, and I saw the result, and it felt important. In a town that needs community desperately, one was being started.

Angel Foods catered the event, free of charge. They were into the project, and excited to see what was going to happen. We ate a salad of mixed greens with cranberries and candied nuts, pecan encrusted chicken, roasted vegetables and crème Brule.

Ann Arbor, MI

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention. May I have your attention, please.

Thank you.

As you know, a lot of great things are coming out of Detroit. The White Stripes, Canadian weather, and thank god on March 20th, I’ll be coming back out of there as well. In the meantime, I will be a featured artist at a show put on by Detroit Artists Market entitled, “M.O.R.E.” (manufacturers of real excellence). This show aims to compare how artists use media with how corporations use media.

I plan to put on my best suit and go to corporations and explain to them why art is important. I’ll cold call offices, walk in and ask to set up appointments with someone in marketing. Should I get drunk first? Or stay sober, but cut off my ear at some point? The art community has some exciting things to offer a business. I’m not sure if those are two of them. But for a hundred thousand or so, I will be able to come up with some important outside perspectives, I’m sure.

Please forgive the break in continuity from the National Dinner Tour, but this is a big opportunity to preach the gospel of art to a group of business school sinners.

Thank you for you attention. Please enjoy your evening.

“What’s this?” you ask. “Drum’s on aisle three?”. Yes indeed. Right there at Tom’s Liquors in Prunedale, aka “Prunetucky”, every saturday night, the boys get together and jam. Two drummers, three guitarists, a singer, bongo drums resting on a cooler, amps and cords up and down different aisles, cases of beer flying out the door, and I just stopped in for some turkey jerky.

Stop by some time, in the minimall at the junction of San Miguel Canyon Road and Prunedale North Road. Tom’s Liquors Rocks!

Lisa was so helpful. She loved answering emails and the phone. If I spent five minutes on the phone with the forty or so calls a day, that would be 3 and one third hours a day. Then, if I spent five minutes a day responding to 200 emails, that would be another 16 and a half hours. That would be about 20 hours a day replying. Thanks to Lisa, I was able to eat dinner with my hosts instead of doing all that.

Real soon I will have a bit of her writing here. It is lost on my computer right now.

666 is hell, 777 is heaven. 555 5555 is the number that calls fantasy land. Even the phone companies play along. There is importance in numbers. 510 872 7326 has enough numbers that people know they can reach a very specific person. If I hadn’t added my area code, I would not have this dinner tour. By including the whole number, people were given an opportunity to spy on me in a way. They had something personal of mine. It is like finding a wallet, and enjoying the process of going through every fold and pocket for information. People call to find out who is on the other end. The telephone number becomes a wormhole people can crawl through and come out on my end of the line, in a whole new world.

I gave people something to be curious about, and I reward their curiosity positively. So often we are warned against curiosity. It kills cats, after all. But as an artist, curiosity is integral to my life, and I want to encourage it in others.

My phone number is what made this project possible. If I had put my website address on the message board, there would not be as much interest. A web site is removed from me in a way that a phone number is not. Especially being it is my cell phone. That is, in this culture, an extension of my body. It is closer to me than my home address. I am my cell phone number!

Ross, who works at Verizon, has called me to talk about getting me a good cell plan. He immediately picked up on the importance of my phone to this project. Conversation is Verizon’s bread and butter. Someone is making a profit every time I talk.

It can be depressing to see things that way, can’t it? But Verizon may become a sponsor, or donate a phone with email capability. I could post to the blog here right from my phone. The possibilities are endless. No more driving around looking for an internet cafe.

I began this post speaking philosophically about numbers and their human connection. I end with the realization numbers in some cases represent how much monetary power I have. My phone number versus my bank account, in a battle to the finish!

Back in October my story came out in the New York Post. That very day Barbara, who works at this talent agency, sent me a FedEx envelope with a letter inside that offered to buy my life rights to this project. I have talked to her on and off on the phone about that possibility, but I haven’t signed anything. So while I was in L.A., I called to ask if I could meet her face to face so I would know what she looks like.

Barbara meets me on the third floor, and she is nice. I have brought Jon Rolston along for spiritual advice, and Clark Caldwell can’t film me because ICM doesn’t allow that sort of creativity at their talent agency, but he comes along to help me because he has some experience with talent agents.

Barbara seems to be my age, and cute, and happy, and she invites us into her office and offers us drinks. She steps out to get them from somewhere down the hall and I whip out my little digital camera and take a picture. I’m not sure why Jon Rolston, my spiritual advisor, looks like a backwoods pig farmer who got into some moonshine, and I’m not sure why I thought he should come with me on this important talk, but I suppose this whole project is a learning experience for us all. Barbara comes back in the room with bottled waters, and we play nervously with the screw caps as she smiles and asks us how the trip is going.

It feels like she is genuine. Her eyes light up, she makes constant eye contact, she doesn’t try to push us in any direction. Then I begin to wonder if that is something they teach people. Actors are a dime a dozen in this town, right? But I feel good about it and her. It would be nice to bring the people’s stories out to the public. I really feel like I have met unsung heroes on this trip. Just absolutely amazing.

So here I am in Beverly Hills, ten blocks from Hollywood. I had dinner last night with a man who has just co-produced Brittany Spears movie “Crossroads”. He wants to work with me on turning my story into a romantic comedy.

There are issues of credibility to discuss. On the one hand, it would be very interesting to see Hollywood totally mangle my dream. I could step back and really watch the process of rape, of big budget destruction. Because this is a very simple idea I have. Dinner with strangers. And to hear a pitch is flattering. I explained to John that I needed to return to the art world. That that was the world interests me. He counters with the fact I could fund a lot of art with this money. I talk about the concept of selling out. He returns with the charge that I am afraid to take my idea to the next level. I am not a martyr, I do need money to see this project through. It costs money to drive an RV around. And I need to pay a astronomical cell phone bill. After all, my phone number is written all over the press. I like to drink coffee. What else? I eat breakfast, and lunch. Dinner is paid for now. But I smoke. Cigarettes don’t grow on trees, do they? Not the ones with filters. You get the picture. I’m not making money out here, I’m just living a dream. There is a difference.

If I could let Jonathon McHugh make a movie about a photo assistant who is looking for love, so he puts his name and number in a Victoria Secret’s catalogue, but eventually falls for the girl next door who feeds his fish while he is out on dates, I would. It would be an interesting study on media. I would love to have it be a single chapter in the life of this project.

Unfortunately, the majority of people would see the movie version first, and when and if they came into contact with me, I would be the cheap version. That’s a problem. That movie would become bigger than me, whether it was good or bad.

There is also the fact I told the AP reporter I was turning down offers to make it into a movie. Let me rephrase that the more fully explore my truth.

“I don’t want to think I am expressing myself one way, only to have it come out totally different.”

So, if someone wants to make a movie, I am willing to do so, as long as I have creative control. Agents, please take note.

Jonathon was looking tired when we came for dinner. We were an hour late, thanks to that famous LA traffic. What had taken 2 hours to drive after midnight took 4 hours in the daylight. We were graciously received regardless. Dinner was outstanding. I even have the recipe for you. This has been a dinner that has been on my mind. In the back of my mind for a while. When I picture a dinner with a movie producer, I think of an all white house. Very modern. In the hills. It was on a slight rise, not a hill. And only three blocks from a busy street with Chinese take out and fish tanks for sale, It was a very lovely home, with terra cotta colored walls lots of folk art hung on display, and their kids listening to music in a room down the hall. An old chocolate lab was wheezing around the dinner table, his hips creaking with displacia. For copyright purposes, Clark asked Jonathon to turn off the music so that he could film the dinner. (I don’t normally talk about this apect of the dinner tour, because I want this blog to be about the people I eat with, not about the process of making a documentary. I ought to start a separate blog for that.)

I felt like it was the clashing of two worlds. Hollywood versus San Francisco. Beatnik meets producer. It was a shiny and faulty offer, very confusing, and he is a genuinely nice guy. His wife was a great hostess, I met his kids, his friends, and that made it hard to understand. If you think of Pluto shaking Jupiter’s hand, you will understand two worlds colliding. That was my dinner in Hollywood. The whole dinner was a pitch, about where this project could go.

In the end, Jonathan came outside and took a look in the RV. He got a good laugh out of it, and congratulated our spirit. He recommended we go stay down by the beach with the other bums, and went back inside his beautiful Santa Monica home. I almost ran back after him.

Not a bad meal. In the morning, we met back up with Jonathan in Burbank, following he and his friend around L.A. freeways, heading to a special effects studio, where Jonathan was working out details on another project he is working on with Snoop Dog.

Here’s Vincent, a really cool guy originally from Jersey, who moved his studio to L.A. He showed us some of his creations. This place was a lot of fun to walk around inside of, but it smelled really strong of plastics. Vincent said it was dental acrylic. This part of the trip really made it feel like we did Hollywood right.

Clark is hidden in this picture. Try to find him:

These are the feet of the Pop Tart Yeti, a giant creature in a commercial.

Did you know blog is a shortened version of web logue? I know Blog is not in Microsoft Word’s spell check, so you may not know what it is either. Don’t feel bad! Perhaps you came here from a link, and don’t know you are able to reply directly to what I’ve said, simply by clicking on “comments” at the bottom of each post. Try it today! Imagine it to be like email, but you click “post” instead of “send”. Then everyone can read what you wrote. You now have an audience of millions! It’s the newest thing! You made it this far in cyber space, why are you stopping now? There’s no charge, no risk, and no problem!

Try it today, let me know if I should make a Hollywood version of my story. Thanks for your input!

Poor John. I rushed him to the hospital last night after we got jumped for being “a bunch of San Francisco Pansies.” I think he’s going to be okay.

While at the hospital I feel asleep on an x-ray table and they started dressing me in lead, preparing me for an x-ray. Thank god Lisa jumped in and saved me.

Here you get to read the thoughts of Clark’s intern, who worked with us in San Francisco and down in San Diego. Both those handsome men have the name of John, or Jon, and both have mustaches. John the Intern with moustache refers to the John on the far right. Enjoy!

Last night at Brad’s house, after hauling some equipment in, Lisa (the intern), Jon and I had really no other responsibility than to keep out of Clark’s shot. So we stole ourselves away to the attic-cum-loft, visited by a black cat and, occasionally, by Brad’s very kind wife bearing snacks and wine. When she was up there, the four of us talked about all sorts of things – Things that she may never have said in front of a camera (one of the stickiest points of documentary).

As an intern, I’ve spent four or five hours some evenings hoisting a boom, a day organizing and securing gear. Mostly, though, I think my usefulness comes from being an extra set of hands and pockets at those rare moments when Clark would be well served by having been born part octopus.

Not everything gets on film. People say things, in a corner, upstairs, somewhere off camera, that are pretty damn interesting but decidedly private. So, one is left with scraps of conversation dying to be related but un-relatable. It’s a dangerous temptation sometimes.

Having dinner with the world, in front of the world, but intimately – it doesn’t seem possible unless one breaks bonds of trust. Often, people just don’t understand what’s going on with this tour, that there must be some ulterior motive. My most asked question has been ‘How do complete strangers determine that we’re legitimate?’ Why do people trust us to come into their homes? And moreover, why are they so incredibly generous? It’s not because they want to be movie stars, right?

So the big secret (or rather, The big thing-that-people-think-is-supposed-to-be-secret-but-everyone-almost-knows-to-be-true) is that when Marc answers the phone, it’s not always Marc who’s playing Marc. Sometimes Lisa answers. She can’t even pretend to be Marc – most people recognize her voice as feminine instantly. Sometimes I’m Marc, and sometimes Jon is. Could this cause controversy? Is this like the president pretending to care via form-letter plus stamped-signature? Is it a lie told to gain undue popularity?

This thing seems to be primarily about having authentic conversation with strangers, and people calling very often get that from Lisa, Marc, Jon, or me. If people feel screwed by not getting to talk to Marc, I would tell them that they’re missing the point. Why talk to Marc? Why not finally get to know your neighbor or satisfy your curiosity about that striking fellow you seem to be following? The other answer to this question is provided by Marc’s reference to Jeff Koons (For his recent paintings, he creates images using magazine cut-outs and then hires others to turn those images into a painting).

-John