Jimmy Doom Puts Small's Bar in Hamtramck on the Map of American Literary Tours
Enjoy a Nice Brewski and Meet Doom, Ruland, Cassidy and Burch
Monday, May 15th, 2023 at 10:54 AM
Near Masonic Hall
Detroit, Michigan
Remember, DETROITED has shifted to trying to produce good results in the City of Detroit. I discovered Jimmy Doom’s Substack, the Roulette Weal, while visiting Book Suey in Hamtramck. The clerk at Book Suey made me welcome, but the clerk went straight back to Doom’s Substack when I went about my bookstore business.
Doom bartends at Small’s. Maybe the clientele of Small’s inspires the characters that inhabit the Roulette Weal’s universe. So, Doom can throw a party on Wednesday, May 15th, 2023 if Doom wants to throw a party. Doom has coaxed Jim Ruland to pay a Detroit visit on a book tour. Why wouldn’t I share that opportunity with those who love literature and local culture?
Doom has added two more features to the program that begins at 6 PM. Who is Gabriel Cassidy? Google guessing leads me to believe that Cassidy teaches philosophy at Wayne State University, earning his PhD in the department. A reader of Roulette Weal goes by that name, so maybe that’s the one. Cassidy probably has a few manuscripts in progress. Doom shares his stoke by helping this bloke.
Hamtramck makes a great place for a philosopher to read to an audience. I walk the streets of Hamtramck, thinking, “There’s a Nothingness at the Heart of Being.” Yet in Hamtramck, I swear I feel an essence that precedes existence. Jean-Paul Sarte insists that existence precedes essence. Yes, I studied Existentialism in college, even achieving a zero to prove how well I learned the lessons.
Aaron Burch is much more prominent, a wandering author following the same dharma as Jim Ruland. Burch has a few novels published under the name of Aaron Burch. We can hope to hear the author read from Year of the Buffalo, How to Predict the Weather, or maybe even Backswing. Burch, one surmises, has an obsession with Stephen King and probably Charles Bukowski. Burch, Ruland and Doom all make me think of Bukowski, who would have loved drinking in Hamtramck and writing about denizens around the bar.
Doom makes me think that a copy of Flannery O’Connor’s collected short stories arrived wrapped up, gifted to Doom, for the end-of-the-year holidays. One senses that Doom has gold mined the American grotesque, shaping characters that show beauty despite less than beautiful circumstances. I wonder if Wayne County has become to Doom what Yoknapatawpha County became to William Faulkner. We won’t know until a scholar writes a reference decoding it all for us. Great writers write stories that construct a fictional universe. George Lucas, for example, created the Star Wars Universe.
Doom made sure I knew that beverages, alcoholic and nonalcoholic, will be available to purchase. You probably could bring in a nice fresh squeezed juice from a juice bar at one of the late-night Muslim markets nearby Small’s. The produce couldn’t be fresher.
I wrote this copy to promote the Michigan Substack Gathering. Then, my computer died before I could post it.
What Is The Michigan Substack Gathering?
Michigan Substack Gathering hopes to gather the Substack community, writers and readers, at events throughout the state. We focus on Detroit and Southwest Michigan, but we hope to promote writers and create audiences throughout the state.
We also love that Substack is easier to learn and therefore easy to share. Hence, we'll help readers become writers, happily making money writing in Michigan, maybe even writing about Michigan.
We look forward to discovering Michigan Substack authors and making them better known. For example, we're happy to support the Jim Ruland reading Wednesday, May 15th, 2023 at Small's in Hamtramck. That night organized by Detroit Substack personality Jimmy Doom exemplifies what we hope to promote and produce.
