I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star Read Free

T-shirts, and watched
Sixteen Candles
until we fell asleep.
    The best thing to me about growing up in a suburb of Detroit was going into Detroit—there was always great stuff to do there when I was a kid, and I actually did it. I am so happy, looking back, that my parents didn’t hide out in their little suburb, that they took advantage of all the Motor City had to offer. There was a zoo, an awesome art museum with the most beautiful Diego Rivera mural you’ll ever see, this gorgeous painting of an assembly line that is such a perfect representation of what Detroit was built on. A science center. The Red Wings played downtown, as did the Tigers. While I was in high school, they were renovating some old theaters in the city, and my first date with my first boyfriend, Eric Campbell, was to see
Casablanca
downtown at the Fox Theatre. It was the first time I’d ever seen the movie, and it was especially thrilling to see it on a big screen in a theater that it most likely played in the first time around. When I waslittle, there were lots of picnics, boat races, and Belle Isle, a little island/giant park that was connected to downtown by a bridge. But when I was old enough to go downtown with just my friends, I really fell in love with Detroit’s music scene. There were great little bars and venues that local and touring bands would play in, and I tried to catch them all. I had a fake ID and I used it! There were great record stores, and with Ann Arbor about twenty minutes away in the opposite direction we Detroiters had great music at our fingertips.
    I feel so brokenhearted today about the state of my hometown. As I write this, it’s all over the news that Detroit has just filed for bankruptcy. My hometown is waving the white flag and admitting defeat. Maybe it’s just because I’m from there, but I think there is something special about Detroit. It’s like Detroit is America’s sad family member who can’t catch a break, a cautionary fable to teach our country a lesson—I just don’t understand what the lesson is. Don’t steal? Don’t give up? Don’t burn your shit down the night before Halloween? In my fantasy that city is like the Little Engine That Could. For so many years it was saying, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Except in the Detroit version of that story, before getting to the top of the mountain, it stopped and said, “I can’t.” I want my little engine to get back to “I think I can.” And eventually to “I
know
I can!” Detroit was a town of blue-collar workers. It created a middle class and, at one time, good-paying jobs with benefits for anyone, no matter one’s education or color. It has an art museum, a symphony, it is the home of Motown, KISS, Jack White, and a cute zoo with all the main animals. And it made cars! Who loves their cars more than Americans? It has Lions and Tigers and Red Wings and Pistons. There’s water everywhere and another country just a bridge or tunnel away. I am so lucky to be from Detroit, and I want so badly for it to get better, and now I feel terriblefor abandoning it, but I have a lot of hope for my first home. It always took such good care of me, and I think it’s time I pay a little back, or forward. There’s still a lot of Detroit left in me, and even though I live in L.A. now, I’ll always be a Punk Rock Pick Locker at heart.

I Used to Be More Ugly
    I HATE WHEN I TELL PEOPLE I WAS UGLY AND THEY are like, “No … you’re exaggerating.” I really was; I have proof (see Ugly Judy 1). It’s OK, I’m over it now, but I had an
extremely
long awkward phase that I think I am still (and might always be) recovering from. If I’m being honest, I believe that this is why I think I’m more attractive than I probably am. You see, when you are used to looking at this (see Ugly Judy 2) in the mirror every day for years, when you start to see this (see Pretty Judy), it looks pretty good, you know? I mean, trust me, I know I’m no