I’ll be heading to Ann Arbor this evening, to soak up the sun, sand, and surf and to take part in a live “Wait, Wait” if there’s time.
WEMU’s website has decided to prepare for the event by posting an interview with li’l ol’ me. Reading it, I have to say that I still haven’t mastered the art of the email interview. What reads well in a correspondence comes across as pretty durn stilted in interview format, which one tends to read as a conversation. Hmmm. This has happened before. Oh well, “Live and fail to learn,” that’s what I always say.
It’s an interesting state. “Michigan” is a Sioux name, meaning “extra peninsula that looks like it should belong to someone else.” The State Bird is the Ford Focus and the official language is “1940’s Cinema Standard English,” which is why I’ve had to learn phrases like, “Say, dollface, gimme another cuppa joe, and shake a leg,” and the traditional greeting, “Put ‘er there, pal, what’s the rumpus?” Michigan, it should be noted, is in the Eastern Time Zone, even though geographically it looks like it should be on Central Time. The Michigan legislature decided to go with E.S.T. in 1925, in an attempt “to make Indiana feel perpetually tardy.”
Hopefully, I’ll be able to update you all from there. The natives tell me that they know a medicine man who can channel the internet.
Fanny Roborat
16 comments
N in Seattle
June 25, 2003 at 1:28 pm
1Adam, you do know the story behind the UP, don’t you? It was Michigan’s consolation prize for losing the Michigan-Ohio War of 1835-36. It was a dispute about where to set the border between the two, prior to Michigan attaining statehood.
Ohio won the battle by a decision (by the US Congress), and got to keep Toledo. Massive deposits of iron ore were found in the UP about 10 years later.
I am not making this up (see this and this).
Erica
June 25, 2003 at 1:52 pm
2We in Michigan won the battle by not ending up with Toledo.
Tuesday
June 25, 2003 at 3:14 pm
3OMG How did I not know about this?
I’ll try very hard to make it to the show.
t.a.
June 25, 2003 at 3:51 pm
4not to be rude, but there seems to be a folically-oriented difference between your WWDTM av & the photos of yourself that you have posted in various. this is the sort of photo-phiddling that could be seen by some as disengenuous (if not downright dishonest) by some & could prove harmful towards your election bid. is an update in order — somewhere?
N in Seattle
June 25, 2003 at 3:56 pm
5Yes, Erica, that was the facetious point I was making.
Although I’ve never lived in either state, I’m always on your side of the contemporary Michigan-Ohio War held every fall.
michael
June 25, 2003 at 8:50 pm
6I can’t help wondering if I’m the only one wondering…would that title be a reference to side 2, track one, of Billy Joel’s “The Stranger”? If so, congratulations. Always make one’s pop-culture references as dated, obscure and blindingly-white as possible, I always say!
Murray
June 25, 2003 at 9:34 pm
7Adam, when you get to A2 (that would be A squared) I think that you will be surpised to find out that the city is more than just a half million rabid Wolverine fans looking to kick butt on a fall Saturday afternoon. As a New Yorker, I think that you will be quite amazed at how cosmopolitan it is. Think, one of the finest schools on earth, relaxed, beautiful campus, great arts community, restaurants of every type, 1997 nationl football champions, 1989 national basket ball champions, what’s not to like? NYU, Columbia, CUNY? Not a chance.
OK, Ypsiltucky next door is not that great.
Matthew Bueche
June 25, 2003 at 10:22 pm
8Why are you going to Ann Arbor when the event is at EMU? Murray is right (see above). Where you are headed is Ypsilanti. You should mention that name for the comic value alone (wait until you see the town!)
PS: only casualty of Michigan-Ohio war over Toledo: one mule. Honest.
Educated Comedian
June 25, 2003 at 11:24 pm
9I was hoping to make it to this one, Adam, but tickets sold out QUICK. Quite a pisser. Ah well.
Chicory
June 26, 2003 at 2:06 pm
10Alrighty, folks. Let’s just get a few facts straight here:
The Summer Festival, of which WWDTM is a part, is in Ann Arbor. Or, A-squared if you are a local.
WEMU is Eastern’s station but they are 1/2 sponsor of the show. EMU is in Ypsilanti- no longer Ypsitucky due to real estate price increases. (Few can afford to live in A2 anymore)
Iron ore? Seattle, Michigan’s UP is full of COPPER ore too - far more valuable. Motown, aka Detroit, is the “rust belt”
Speaking of Ypsi- after the Greek Patriot General Demetrius Ypsilanti - the Depot Town area is very nice, as is Riverside Park and the Hudson Car Museum. The best part about being in Ypsilanti is that you are NOT in Wayne County.
I have my tickets, my “Felber for President” buttons and my dancing shoes on. Can’t wait for this evening.
Um, Adam, Michigan is NOT a Souix word. “Michigan” comes from the Indian, most likely Ojibway, word “Michigama” meaning great or big lake. As one who grewup near the Pottowatomi, I’ve learned the importance of getting the tribes right
InDAknow Girl
June 26, 2003 at 4:27 pm
11A source very close to me has sent word that Adam may consume alcoholic type bevs after the perf with some monster raving party people who happen to also be in a teaching capacity at U of M’s notoriously debouched philosophy department.
You’ll see it in Page Six tomorrow, but you heard it here today… and I’d guess you’ll be able to order “Professors Gone Wild” right here on this very site. Or not.
Chicory
June 27, 2003 at 1:25 pm
12I was there, InDaKnow, but I’m not saying
schramm-i-am
July 4, 2003 at 6:08 pm
13Indiana is on EST year-round. So why would Michigan being on EST make Hoosiers feel tardy?
John Isbell
July 4, 2003 at 7:24 pm
14My goodness there are some literal-minded replies here! Great post, great entertaining thread with lots of details. Just to continue the mindless pedantry, Indiana in fact does something very complex with time, on a county by county basis (I’m sitting in Monroe County as I write). And aren’t OH and MI still technically at war?
Did you also know that Bill Cosby didn’t really have a childhood friend called Fat Albert?
I’m embarrassed to say I really like the song “The Stranger.” But I can’t listen to the album. Certainly not rye bread.
Anonymous
January 14, 2004 at 9:28 pm
15Everything in Michigan that’s south of M-46 sucks
This includes U of M.
FSU Rules!
Jackie
March 17, 2004 at 5:23 pm
16I am not sure what this site is supposed to be about, but interesting. I was born and lived in the UP for the first 9 years of my life and my family grew up there. I now live in Montana and the thing I get teased about most is when asking a question….You be there on time, eh? MICHIGAN DOES NOT SUCK!! NOT the UP OR DOWN!!