The Voices in Frank's Head

CBS (parent company of the UPN television network) and TimeWarner (parent company of the WB) have announced that they will merge their respective networks into one, single television network that is aimed at the youth market to be called "CB". Since Detroit currently has both a UPN and a WB affiliate, this move will presumably leave one of them without any content to air. Personally, I really hope that whichever one of them is left "contentless" decides to fill the void with somekind of original programming. God knows TV needs somekind of originallity to it.

It's been on the air for seven great years and won a boat load of Emmys and Golden Globes; not to mention SAG and Writers' Guild Awards. It launched some amazing fan sites and kept Americans glued to their TV sets. It was one of the few prime time shows with the guts to broadcast live. More importantly, it made politics cool. But all good things come to an end. NBC has announced that The West Wing will come to an end after this season. It's a regretable fact of life that keeping a TV show on the air for more than five years is a daughting task; a challenge that the show has thrived on so far. The unfortunate passing of John Spencer last month did not make it any easier. The show will be missed.

I went into the Vinton Building on Woodward in downtown Detroit (just north of One Detroit Center) with one of the guys who is working on rehabbing this historic abandoned building into residential lofts. The Vinton is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but has sat vacant for years now. Once upong a time, I used to crawl through all sort of abandoned buildings. Now, however, that I'm on the ugly side of 30 - it just isn't as much fun to try find my way into a boarded up buiding. However, when someone offers me the chance to walk right in the front door with no need to crawl through an open window or anything like that - I can't pass it up. Structurally, the Vinton is in great shape. There's one or two issues to deal with, but nothing major. Most of what they'll need to do will be because of its conversion from an office building to a residential property. It's currently a mess on the inside - but not that much more so than any other const...

Okay - one more post about my trip to Toronto and then I'll shut up about it. I promise. One of the things that I saw in Toronto was a monument to Canadian workers who had died on the job over the past centure. There are 100 plaques on this wall. Each of them represents a Canadian worker who died; one of them represents all of the workers who died that year. This plaque in particular struck me. First, cause I happened by the monument on the anniversay of this gentleman's death. Second, he died from asbestos - the same thing that killed my Dad. Finally, there's the fact that his given name was Frank - just like my Dad and I. It strange how I can feel a connection to a complete stranger, who was lived in a foreign country and who died before I even got out of diapers. R.I.P. Frank Sypher.

There were a couple of things on my trip to Toronto that simply cracked me up. So much so that I felt compelled to photograph them and share them with the entire world - or at least that portion of the world that reads this blog.I love the name of this store. They tell me that there's more them around. God, I wish we had one in Detroit. It would make much more sense for us to have one, seeing as how Detroit used to be a French territory. Toronto, however, was never a part of France. I don't care what they actually sell. I just want to be able to point to a store in downtown Detroit that has a sign saying, "fcuk." I don't really ask for that much, do I? I know. I know. Simple pleasures for simple minds. I also got a kick out of this recycling container. It criticises global warming, encourages you to recycle and has an adorable polar bear on it.Ya can't ask for much more than that. I also like it because, since it's a recycling container, there will be ...

My God, have I ever been neglectful of my blog! So, much has happened in the past couple of weeks that never got posted. Oh, well. I won't go into every detail about my trip to Toronto. I had once thought about chronicling all of the highlights in a series of posts, but two weeks later there doesn't seem like much of a point in that much. Anyway, my friend Dave Baschal and I went to Toronto for New Year's. It seemed much more interesting than anything that was going on in Detroit that day. We were there for three days and had a blast. The bars and nightlife in Toronto are top-notch. I hate to say this, but they're better than Detroit and pretty much make you forget about Chicago. (It's clearer, the folks are more polite, there's less crime, transit is better and American money goes 15% farther, which pretty much makes up for the higher taxes). They also have some really interest shopping. Plus, there's a lot of stuff in downtown Toronto that's connected...

I was lying in bed the other morning - kind of debating whether or not I actually wanted to get out of bed, but knowing full well that I had to and soon - when I noticed a strange light poking its way through my bedroom shades. It was rather bright and don't remember every seeing anything like this. I jumped out of bed to investigate it. There was actually a giant ball of fire in the sky near me. It turns out that it was this that they call "the Sun." Supposedly, it's been there all the time - behind all of those gray clouds that have been hanging over Michigan for weeks.