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PUBLISHER Peter Rayes PETER@FLAME-MAG.COM ART DIRECTOR Caleb Snowberger CALEB@FLAME-MAG.COM MANAGING EDITOR Austin VanKirk AUSTIN@FLAME-MAG.COM ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Dorothy “Joan” Stevenson JOAN@FLAME-MAG.COM MEDIA RELATIONS COORDINATOR LeeAnn Connelly MEDIA@FLAME-MAG.COM LOCAL ADVERTISING Peter Rayes ADVERTISING@FLAME-MAG.COM NATIONAL ADVERTISING Rivendell Media 212-242-6863 SALES@RIVENDELLMEDIA.COM PHOTOGRAPHERS Alejandro Garza Murray Grondin Tony Lowe CONTRIBUTORS Tony Lowe Joan Stevenson Austin VanKirk Alejandro Garza GRAPHIC DESIGN PR Solutions Copyright © 2015. FM MEDIA GROUP LLC. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE PUBLISHER OR STAFF. NO PART OF FLAME, INCLUDING STORIES, ARTWORK, ADVERTISING, OR PHOTOS MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT FROM FM MEDIA GROUP LLC. FLAME MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY FM MEDIA GROUP LLC. FLAME MAGAZINE WILL NOT ACCEPT ADVERTISING WHICH IS FOUND TO VIOLATE LOCAL, STATE, OR FEDERAL LAW. THE PRESENCE OF THE NAME, LIKENESS, PHOTOGRAPH, OR OTHER REPRESENATION OF AN ORGANIZATION, BUSINESS, OR PERSON(S) IN FLAME MAGAZINE IS NOT AN INDICATION OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
TYSON GERSH Sowing Seeds of Change
I genuinely thought he was a very smart and nice person with great humility. For this interview I had to do research about Tyson and his baby the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI).
SOUND CHECK with Taylor Swift
bracelet taped to your seat. As her intro music plays, the bracelets light up and release a harmony of light effects in line with the rest of the show’s lighting to “Welcome to New York.”
SCENE PHOTOS
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Written by Alejandro Garza Photos by Tony Lowe
I’ve only met Tyson once and just from first meeting him I genuinely thought he was a smart, kind, and humble person. For this interview I had to do research about Tyson and his baby, the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI). What I discovered exceeded my first impression by leaps and bounds. Tyson is a guy that if the word lazy were a person, that person would be his mortal enemy. He has accomplished so much in his young life from teaching neuroscience, becoming a William J. Clinton distinguished lecturer, creating social change through volunteering, being recognized for his leadership left and right by multitudes of organizations and publications, and being a founder of MUFI. It takes a remarkable person to devote his life to helping the world and his community within it.
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Where does the produce go? Produce goes to one of four places. Our first priority is individual households in the area, using a suggested donation model. At any time, people who live in the neighborhood can come on site, we’ll harvest alongside them, weigh it out by variety, and then they could make donations based on a market guide. There’s no pressure to pay at all; the goal is to serve our charitable purpose, which is to get that produce into the hands of individuals living in an urban setting. The second priority is local markets, the third priority is local vendors, and then anything that doesn’t go to one of the first three is donated to the Coalition on Temporary Shelter or Forgotten Harvest. In 2013, you were recognized as a Michigan Difference Maker by University of Michigan–Dearborn. In a YouTube clip they posted you said you felt a social charge to make a difference. What sparked that motivation? The answer to that question really goes back to the founding of the nonprofit. At the time, I was working for the Urban Community Oral Health Intervention Project, looking at nutritional literacy and oral health practices in women of color who made less than ten thousand dollars a year, who had children under the age of five, and used the services of the WIC offices. I was essentially running these educational modules and getting what was ultimately a really salient introduction to what structural inequality in the food system looks like. I ended up seeing a lot of really poor food choices from nothing but well-intended people for themselves and for their infant kid. After this research experience, being my first real introduction to larger social inequity, I was faced with an existential crisis where it didn’t seem appropriate for me to continue living the way I had been living. I wanted to do something about all the problems I identified. It started as wanting to start a community garden that could end food insecurity in Detroit, which was super naïve and simplistic, but it was important that it was that way. A metaphor I like to use is this: imagine you’re standing in a room and you see a piece of string on the ground. You think somebody should pick that up, so you pick it up and realize it goes around the desk, so you kind of keep winding it around your hand. You walk around the desk and realize it goes across the room, so you continue because you’ve already started. Soon you realize it goes down the hallway, then out of the house, and up the street. This problem is so much bigger than you can handle, but you’ve already started and have made significant progress, so you keep going. I think that naivety is critically important to socially minded startups. When people realize how large some problems are they don't even attempt to tackle them because realistically there's little chance they could even make a dent. That’s where that spark came from, basically my limited understanding and thinking I could make a difference. I picked up the string. Outside of your work with MUFI you are an avid lecturer, having spoken for TEDx twice. You were also recently a director of development for optiMize, a social innovation challenge to help those with innovative ideas. So the question is, how do you manage your time and maintain a social life? Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have not mastered time management whatsoever. I do tend to take a lot on. When it comes to public speaking, lectures, or interviews, I tend to take a very on-the-fly approach, which I think leads to a more candid response. As a result, it doesn’t take as much time as it might for somebody who focuses on preparation. When it comes to a social life, I don’t really have one. I really enjoy the work that I’m doing. I wake up everyday and jump right back into work until I go to sleep. I rarely feel like I’m lacking in a social life. I have read that you grew up in Ann Arbor, and you became obsessed with Detroit. What attracted you to the Motor City? I grew up alternating between Ann Arbor, Michigan and Belton, Texas as a kid. Once I entered high school, I stayed in Ann Arbor. It wasn’t until college that I actually went to Detroit for the first time. Prior to that I always just stayed away because I was told to stay away from Detroit. When I went for the first time, my biggest surprise was that there were skyscrapers. I really had no idea I was that far removed from a city so close to where I lived. Once I got there it was so different from Ann Arbor, and so contrasting to my understanding of what America looked like, that I was really fascinated by it. A big motivation was just pure curiosity. Organizationally, it was really attractive, because that’s where we saw the need. As an organization started and run by lower-income twenty-somethings, it was the only place we could afford to buy a building and create an organization that was place-based. For quite some time, many publications and conversations people have been having are about the rebirth or rejuvenation of Detroit. How does MUFI fit into that mold?‟ My knee-jerk reaction is to push back on any of the words that start with “re-.” We’re not trying to create the same Detroit that used to exist. It’s a different time, and the major powerhouse that was Detroit back in the day doesn’t have that much relevance in 2015. I think we’re really looking at the lessons learned from post-industrialization and trying to be really innovative in our approach to building cities. The hope, I believe, that is shared among us, is that Detroit can be, and holds the potential to be, the best new city in America. It can be the city that we’ve always wanted, and I think that’s what we’re all interested in. What does the future hold for MUFI? In the immediate future, we are currently finishing our two-square-block site development, which includes the completion of a dozen place-based projects, all adjacent to each other and positioning that space as an epicenter for urban agriculture in the city. Moving forward from that space, we will be positioning ourselves as an active resource across the state. If everything we’re trying to accomplish is successful, just the model of the organization has scalability and applicability in other urban spaces, not only across the State of Michigan, but nationwide.
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with Taylor Swift Written by Peter Rayes Photos by Tony Lowe
FORD FIELD, DETROIT, MICHIGAN MAY 30, 2015 - 5/5 STARS FLASHING LIGHTS! The first thing you should notice is the battery-operated bracelet taped to your seat. As her intro music plays, the bracelets light up and release a harmony of light effects in line with the rest of the show’s lighting to “Welcome to New York.” What I noticed first were the young girls, almost half my age (I'm-28-and-a-half), parade around with awesome, elaborate, light-up signage. It really puts my generation’s signs made with poster board and permanent marker to shame. SURPRISE! After her performance of “I Knew You Were Trouble,” Taylor really gets deep with the crowd. “Being back in Detroit, Michigan, it's like, to be honest with you, it's like coming home." The pop star reminisces about singing the national anthem at Ford Field when she was 16, and playing the stadium for the “Speak Now Tour” and the “Red Tour.” Now back for the “1989 World Tour,” she promises surprises are in store. After her awesome performance of “All You Had To Do Was Stay,” Taylor Swift wonders how she could show Detroit's sold out crowd that she loves them more than she's been able to before. She charges the audience with providing the loudest possible screaming for the next four minutes and introduces the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, Dan Reynolds. Together they per-
form “Radioactive” on stage. 14//
JUNE 2015
SUPER MODEL BFF REALNESS! When the runway detaches from the stage and rises up, suspending her into the air for an acoustic duet of "You Are in Love" with the audience, it barely prepares us for the really neat effects of it later. The walkway further detaches during an inspirational monologue, opening the feels-gates for her performance of "Clean,” before raising up and spinning in the air, and where she previously played the guitar, she now plays the keyboard to "Love Story." The runway design of her set is a perfect setup for her performance of "Style," which features a sparkly sequin frayed dress. Taylor invites her gal pals, models Gigi Hadid and Martha Hunt, from her “Bad Blood” music video to the stage and catwalks up and down the runway, before she walks them off and returns to perform “This Love.” DETROIT SET LIST: "Welcome to New York" "New Romantics" "Blank Space"
"I Knew You Were Trouble" “I Wish You Would”
"How You Get the Girl" “I Know Places
“All You Had to Do Was Stay”
“Radioactive” (Imagine Dragon) with Dan Reynolds
“You Are In Love” “Clean”
“Love Story" “Style”
“This Love”
"Bad Blood”
"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
"Wildest Dreams”
"Out of the Woods" "Shake It Off"
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