——-

I had the task of having to cold-call John Sinclair. I needed to set up a meeting about the Ann Arbor Sun Project. It was 2:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. I couldn’t email, I just had to call him up and I just had to do it. So I did, and John answered. He was eating breakfast somewhere. His voice was gruff, bordering on unfriendly, quite a bit different than our past correspondence via email, where he signed his messages “Love, John”, and happily gave me permission to not only publish some of the Sun articles on the blog, but to do “‘whatever I wanted” with them.

At this point, the “Ann Arbor Sun Project” had split off into several directions. I wanted to do a lot with them, but found it was too big a task to take on myself. So I decided to take on partners to share in the undertaking. The Ann Arbor District Library is now planning on releasing every newspaper digitally, there are events being planned to celebrate both the 40th anniversary of the John Sinclair Freedom Rally and John’s 70th bithday, and also a possible oral history book about the Ann Arbor Sun. This book, which has drawn interest from a few local publishers, was something I was working on with my friend Chris Peters, the man behind the new Dennis Coffey and Laura Lee albums and podcasts.

So on the phone I told John I’d like to meet him and talk more about everything, and he agreed, but told me to call back tomorrow to set up a time. I did, and got through again, and we set up a meeting in a few days at his room at the Bohemian National Homes in Detroit. He told me about his radio show, I promised to check it out.

Chris was coming with me on the meeting, so we met at a bar in Woodbridge near Wayne State University. I was excited but my nerves were running a bit so I had a cold Oberon with no orange to ease up a little. We soon headed down Trumbull to find John’s house. It had been a while since I had been in the city. I imagined what it would be like to go exploring on my bike, as Detroit land-mass wise is amazingly large. We passed by Tigers Stadium, razed to the ground. Chris said he couldn’t believe how small the park looked. It was sad. Gone and nothing but an empty old weedy lot, totally blending and melting into the city. Damn.

We got to where we thought was John’s place, the Bohemian National Home. An old funky brick building, brightly painted doors and signs mixed with boarded up entrances and windows, several stories high, possibly housing actual people but with no cars around anywhere. Instantly confused, we parked in the lot and sort of stumbled around the building, not knowing where or how to enter. We stood at what looked like an entrance, and as I called John I glanced behind my shoulder down an ancient, quiet Detroit street.

John came out and opened the door. First of all, he looked way younger. He didn’t look like a near 70 year man. And he was tall, at least two or three inches over 6 foot. He looked alive and healthy, and his white beard hung like a peaceful dagger down to the top zipper of his Tigers warm up jacket. When I showed my daughter Ella the picture of us when I got home she asked if it was Santa Claus. John just said hello and walked inside and we followed him. An attractive woman in her early 40s sat in a common area room and smiled to us. Passing her, he led us into his room with an outstretched arm, where two mismatched wooden chairs awaited us. “Have a seat”, he said.

We shook hands and started with the small talk and then into the big talk, and back into the deeper small talk, like John’s knowledge of jazz and New Orleans music, who we mutually knew, etc, and all the while I sat digging his room. On the wall was a hand painted sign that designated this room as John Sinclair’s, as the Bohemian National Home’s “Poet in Residence”. Against the far wall and where John sat with was a small bed. On the wall facing me was a plain desk and white laptop computer, which John fiddled with and played us music while we talked. Beneath the “Poet in Residence” sign was a shelf that had his own published books on top, along with some of his CDs he made, performing spoken word with blues and jazz musicians. There was a jar of Jiffy creamy peanut butter next to the books. Underneath were a few more small shelves with various books and items. That was it.

Our visit was settled in and was good and lasted about an hour. By the end John and I were talking about radio and he was showing me his radio show and website and I was showing him this blog. He actually got excited about the Tigers post, particularly the audio of the Ernie Harwell World Series call I posted. He was impressed that I had the Little Tino and the Hawaiians 45, haha. I didn’t really have too much prepared ahead of time as far as questions or an agenda. I just wanted to hang out with him and that’s what I did.

Chris and I both bought copies of his latest book, “It’s All Good: A John Sinclair Reader”, which he signed for me “To Geoff, keep digging into those Ann Arbor Suns, with love, John Sinclair, Detroit 4-13-10″. I also ended up with his CD, “Underground Issues”, an issue of Big City Rhythm and Blues magazine that he was featured in, and a pamphlet for Trans-Love Energies Compassion Collective.

Other highlights: At one point John invited us out to Amsterdam to do a follow up interview, so I’ll keep you posted on that. Another interesting moment was when John scoffed at Cousins Vinyl being located in Plymouth, a city “full of squares” and it kinda irritated me and I gave it right back to him and defended good ole Plymouth Industrial Center, even pointing out that a mutual friend had a print shop in there. A few other times we’d be talking, and just like I would do if I had my own music collection at my fingertips, he’d jump up and play a song on his laptop, one of which followed my comment on all the records that got washed away in the Katrina hurricane in New Orleans, which was a song about that very subject. He made us listen carefully when the singer wailed about his records but was glad his James Browns didn’t float off ’cause they were “top shelf”. That was fun, listening to music with John Sinclair. We got to meet a few other people who lived or hung around the Bohemian National Home, they would duck in from time to time to say a few words to John, treating him like a respected elder, a favorite uncle, someone who was obviously liked and enjoyed.

As far as the Ann Arbor Sun project, it’s going. It’s no longer my project, but several people’s projects now, all with a little different spin. I’m just in the middle of it all, doing what I can, the way I do, trying to keep digging into those Ann Arbor Suns.

-Cousin Geoff