michigan

At the Drive-In

You can see it from the road, clear as day, when the leaves are gone. It’s right off the side of the road after the highway exit.

It just sits there.

I drive by an old drive-in movie theater in Albion often. By the road, there’s a pair of old abandoned houses, with a drive next to them that leads to the drive-in.

The drive-in concession stand sits way back in the weeds, surrounded by a rotting wooden fence. The speaker poles are still out there – an invisible grid to a long-ago torn down screen.

As soon as the snow melted, I ventured out there to see what it was all about.

Years ago, the drive-in did pretty well. It drew in people from all over, thanks to its handy interstate location. But then things took a downturn, and the drive-in had to specialize. What did it pick?

Porn. Of course.

And much like anything else, you know you’re on the downturn when you resort to smut. So the drive-in closed. And rotted. And the screen was torn down and turned into scraps.

One story says that cars would pull over on the side of the highway to watch the on-screen smut. So the drive-in owners installed spotlights to shine into the roadway, blocking the view.

Now, there’s no shining. It’s all dark. The snow is melting, and everything is dripping and peeling.

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Tycho in Concert

I always describe Tycho as sounding like a day on a California beach set to music.

And not just the audio; their visuals tell a definite story. So I was pretty excited to see them last Friday in Royal Oak, Michigan, at the Royal Oak Music Theater.

For one, they don’t come to town very often. Heck, they don’t tour often. As soon as I saw they were heading to town, I snatched up a ticket.

But two, I love shooting live music, and any chance to photograph a band with such a visual vibe is an adventure.

Tycho did not disappoint. They drip with cool summer days, surf-side acoustics, and enveloping color and sound. They’re great musicians as well.

The problem? Concert goers who lit cigarettes and try to shove their way to the front row. I was second row, and felt a responsibility to those in front of me to help them enjoy the show unmolested. One 17 year old girl who tried wedging her way to the front, after a few shoves and blocks, called me “old” and said I looked like her dad. Fair enough – but you’re still not getting up front.

I’ll say I’ve never had a worse concert-going experience than I did at the Tycho show. The music and performance? Great. Perfect. The crowd? Miserable.

Still. Tick this one off the photographic bucket list.

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“Are You A Naturalist?”

He popped out of the woods right in front of me on the trail, all crazy-haired and bearded. He was an older man. Not homeless, but maybe. I didn’t even hear him approach, and that’s the danger when you hike alone. Any guy could pop out of the woods and ask for your credentials.

“Not anymore,” I said.

“Well something’s gnawing on the trees in the woods.” He pointed to a thick section of the forest. It’s no wonder I couldn’t see him before. “About knee high.”

He wouldn’t look me in the eye. No, he was somewhere else. Somewhere in those woods.

His hands gripped an iPod and a set of headphones. How long had he been in these woods? And how did he spot a gnawed tree, knee-high?

“Not rabbit, or deer. It’s too low to be a deer. Maybe woodchuck. I don’t know.”

I tried to seem interested. I even thought about taking his portrait, right there in the middle of the Barton Nature Area in Ann Arbor. It’d make for a great photo, this dude with his swollen lips and unwashed jacket.

“I’m trying to find a naturalist so I can drag them out in the woods to take a look,” he told me.  “But you don’t qualify.“

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