AADL Talks To: Vicki Honeyman, Owner of Vicki's Wash & Wear Haircuts and Former Executive Director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival

Tue, 03/25/2025 - 9:00am

When: January 30, 2025

In this episode AADL Talks to Vicki Honeyman. A woman of many talents and interests, Vicki spent 15 years as director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival after years of involvement in the University of Michigan’s film societies. She owned the store Heavenly Metal for 18 years, and continues her decades-long career cutting hair. Vicki tells us about balancing all of her roles and interests, fueled by her love of curation in all forms.

Transcript

• [00:00:10] [MUSIC]
• [00:00:10] ELIZABETH SMITH: Hi, this is Elizabeth.
• [00:00:11] KATRINA ANBENDER: And this is Katrina. In this episode, AADL Talks To Vicki Honeyman. A woman of many talents and interests, Vicki spent 15 years as the director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival after many years of involvement in the University of Michigan's Film Societies. She owned the store Heavenly Metal for 18 years and still continues her decades-long career cutting hair. Vicki tells us about balancing all of these roles fueled by her love of curation in all forms. Thank you so much for joining us today, Vicki. To start off with, where did you grow up and what brought you to Ann Arbor?
• [00:00:46] VICKI HONEYMAN: I grew up in Detroit, went to Detroit Public Schools and came to Ann Arbor to go to University of Michigan.
• [00:00:54] KATRINA ANBENDER: What did you study?
• [00:00:55] VICKI HONEYMAN: Film.
• [00:00:57] ELIZABETH SMITH: What was your first job in Ann Arbor? Were you working while you were a student or was it after you graduated?
• [00:01:03] VICKI HONEYMAN: I had to work to pay for college. I worked as a ward clerk at the hospital, which was very different from what it is now. It was smallish and they actually had, like, curtained off beds on the ward. I'm just trying to think what other jobs I had. Because mainly I worked at the hospital. I worked at a boutique in town. But mostly I spent my time besides not going to classes, running campus film societies. That's how I kept myself busy.
• [00:01:39] KATRINA ANBENDER: What were the campus film societies? Then what time period was this in?
• [00:01:44] VICKI HONEYMAN: Let me backtrack a little. I started going to films with my brother in Detroit at Wayne Cinema Guild and at Rackham Auditorium, which is where I got my initial education in film. In the classics as they're called now, in Film Noir and French New Wave. My first year of college, I started a film society at the school that I was attending Oakland University, brought Fritz Lang to town and had this really cool thing that I was doing. But at the same time, I was hitchhiking to Ann Arbor, where I was a member of Cinema II and then eventually decided, this is crazy and transferred to Michigan. Then I became the director of Cinema II, which I did throughout college and having a degree in film meant that I was studying film and completely immersed in film as a curator, not as a filmmaker. Then I eventually joined Cinema Guild and then became the director. Cinema Guild was the co-sponsor of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which is how I became involved in the festival.
• [00:02:51] KATRINA ANBENDER: What did being the director of Cinema Guild actually entail?
• [00:02:56] VICKI HONEYMAN: Heading the meetings, cracking the whip so that we could all pay attention to what we were doing, which was selecting the films for the program and then procuring the films and getting the artwork done, making sure that tickets were sold. I was always there and introduced the programs.
• [00:03:17] KATRINA ANBENDER: Where were the films shown in this era?
• [00:03:20] VICKI HONEYMAN: Cinema II was in Auditorium A, Angel Hall, and Cinema Guild was in what was back then called Old A and D, which is now Lorch Hall. Film societies were a huge thing in Ann Arbor on campus back then. There were, like, five different film groups. Very successful. It was a huge part of the university community. Then the university decided they wanted those auditoriums for classrooms. All the film groups disappeared because we had nowhere to exhibit.
• [00:03:55] KATRINA ANBENDER: Was the funding through the tickets?
• [00:03:57] VICKI HONEYMAN: Funding was through ticket sales, and of course, I think we got our auditoriums for free, but I remember every Monday going and handing in the money at some office in LS&A building, and it paid for renting the films because we did have to rent the films, paid for advertising, and any other expenses. None of us got paid.
• [00:04:22] ELIZABETH SMITH: You also worked at the Matrix Theater?
• [00:04:26] VICKI HONEYMAN: Yeah. The Matrix Theater was this little off off off movie theater on William Street in a space that used to be a coffee shop, an old hippie coffee shop, Mark's coffee shop. Matrix Theater was run by these two guys who had a film group on campus. They would show softcore porn films to raise money to fund the Matrix Theater, and I was the manager.
• [00:04:58] ELIZABETH SMITH: How long were you involved?
• [00:05:00] VICKI HONEYMAN: A couple years.
• [00:05:02] ELIZABETH SMITH: Did they have other types of films and performances there?
• [00:05:06] VICKI HONEYMAN: We did have live performances. It was a really sweet little space. The kind of dream theater that I always wanted to own myself, but learned that there's no money to be made. I was hired to run the Lyric Theatre in Harbor Springs in 1979. It was going to be their last season. The building then had been sold to the Outfitter. It was a great job. It was a lot of fun. I knew nobody when I moved there, and by the time I left, I was cutting everybody's hair. I was advised by a business owner to just, like, give up this fantasy of owning my own movie theater because clearly, there was no money to be made in it, and just go get your license and start cutting hair. So I went, Oh, okay. [LAUGHTER] That's how things changed for me.
• [00:05:54] KATRINA ANBENDER: Can you tell us about how you got into cutting hair?
• [00:05:58] VICKI HONEYMAN: I have three brothers, and I grew up cutting their hair, and in high school and then in college, I was cutting everyone's hair, and I actually had somebody start paying me so that I could get decent scissors. It's just what my hands do. I don't know why I never intended to do it for a living. I kind of forgot about going back to school and getting a master's degree. I guess my master's was in cutting hair. [LAUGHTER] I've had my business since 1983. I came back from Harbor Springs in 1980, paid my dues, going to Cos school, and never worked in a salon. It's just, like beyond who I am. I started cutting hair in a wonderful space that was a large hippie plant store called Saguaro Plants. There were three of us who cut hair in the back room hidden amongst beautiful plants, huge aviary full of finches and rabbits running around and cats, and it was just a great space. It was a good way for me to build a clientele. They closed, and I eventually opened my space on Ann Street. Vicki's Wash & Wear Haircuts.
• [00:07:09] ELIZABETH SMITH: About how long were you there at the plant store?
• [00:07:11] VICKI HONEYMAN: A couple of years. I built up a clientele large enough that I could go out on my own. I think it was '83 when I started working at Saguaro because it took me a long time to get through Cos school. It was just hellacious. It was just horrible. The school that I went to was part of an academic program for high school kids. I was too old to be with these fighting, bickering young girls, and it was really hard. I had to work at the same time. Where was I working? I've had so many different jobs in this town. Did do you know about that I had a flower cart?
• [00:07:53] KATRINA ANBENDER: No. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:07:56] VICKI HONEYMAN: I have worn many hats in this town. I've done so many things. When I graduated from Michigan, I just got this really dumb job and met this guy. We were together, and we were both really into house plants, especially cactus and succulents and we were able to buy from somebody who had this little business -- his flower cart. He would roll the flower cart out to the corner of East U and South U which back then was actually streets, not a mall and we'd drive into Detroit to the airport every morning to buy flowers, and we sold flowers. I was the hippie flower girl. I did that while also doing Cinema Guild and I also had a job for the newly formed program in film and video studies and the office was my office for Cinema Guild so it all morphed together and I was also working with the film festival because I was part of it through Cinema Guild.
• [00:09:10] ELIZABETH SMITH: Another interest you had was dance. Can you tell us a little bit about the history you have with dance and a little bit about the jitterbug championship?
• [00:09:20] KATRINA ANBENDER: And the classes?
• [00:09:22] VICKI HONEYMAN: Yes. For those of you who don't know what jitterbug is, it's 50s rock and roll referred to as swing. There's a lot of different names depending on what region in the country you learned. My mom sent us to dance school when we were 11 and 12 so that we could be able to dance at Bar Mitzvahs and that's where I learned how to jitterbug. I met the person who became my partner. He came into my office when I was running the program in film and video studies. He wanted to attend the program. That's how we met, and he didn't know anyone in town and I tend to adopt people so I started, taking him around to parties and stuff and immediately we just started dancing together, and we were like bread and butter. People loved it and wanted to learn so we started teaching.
• [00:10:18] ELIZABETH SMITH: Where did the classes take place?
• [00:10:20] VICKI HONEYMAN: At first, we were at Joe's Star Lounge, and we taught thousands of people. We also performed but we had years dancing at Joe's, and my boyfriend at the time, was the piano player and lead singer in the band in town at the time, the Blue Front Persuaders so it all fit together. He would jump offstage and we would dance when they were performing and he would help teach if my dance partner wasn't available. We did that for a number of years. We started going to competitions at the State Fair in Detroit, and we won every year, Michigan State Champion Jitterbugs. We would perform with different bands including a performance that we did on July 4th weekend in Detroit to thousands and thousands of people. It was really just so amazing. One of the times that we performed was with friends of mine who had an alter ego band offshoot of their Bluegrass band. The Bluegrass band was Hot Rize from Boulder, Colorado, and their Alter Ego band was called Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers and they would play jump blues and swing stuff. They were performing at Meadow Brook outside and hired us to perform on stage. As we were coming out, one of the guys in the band introduced Jim Cruz and then Sashay Delmonico and that's where my radio name came from. I've always danced. I studied ballet. I got on pointe in my 30s. I can't really imagine why, how, because I'm really not that good but I did that until I got too busy with other things in my life and eventually wound up with the film festival, just way too busy and after the film festival, shortly after I was diagnosed with breast cancer, so I just stopped doing everything that I used to do. You don't have to make a sad face. I call breast cancer the women's flu and I tell people, don't ever say you're sorry when you hear that, because y'all are going to get some kind of cancer. It's just the way of our bodies. I never used the term fight or battle. I just did what I had to do to get through it. Jim and I still dance together. I love going out dancing. I tried taking a Zumba class. I just wound up jitterbugging. The way ballet is in my bones and my muscle memory, it's ballet and jitterbug and nothing in between.
• [00:12:58] KATRINA ANBENDER: Where do you dance now?
• [00:13:00] VICKI HONEYMAN: Where do I dance at? At Zal Gaz Grotto, which is a really fun place to go dancing or at Live or in people's houses.
• [00:13:08] ELIZABETH SMITH: Do you take classes still or teach any?
• [00:13:09] VICKI HONEYMAN: I just take ballet. I don't teach anymore. Jim decided he didn't want to do it anymore. He really did not like being the center of attention, and I am like, come on, bring it on. I'm very comfortable on stage and to do performance like that, you need to have an audience. We used to perform at the Art Fair. Many years ago, there was a stage called the Graceful Arch, and we were part of that schedule and we'd also always dance with Mr. B.
• [00:13:39] KATRINA ANBENDER: We have mentioned, but we haven't really got into your involvement with the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Can you talk about how that began?
• [00:13:47] VICKI HONEYMAN: The festival was formed by George Manupelli at the School of Art in 1963. As the person who ran Cinema Guild and as a film student, it was a part of my life. I was volunteering and then eventually became a member of the screening committee and became much more involved in the festival. The festival was strictly 16-millimeter film, and every film that was entered into the festival was viewed by a screening committee of seven people on film. We had a projector. That was the technology back then. I had really never thought about being the director of the festival, but after the festival's 25th season, the organization needed a director, and I was asked to do it, and I just said, okay not knowing that it was going to be 14-hour days and that I was going to be paid very very very little.
• [00:14:54] ELIZABETH SMITH: What were your duties once you became the director, and how did they change over time?
• [00:14:59] VICKI HONEYMAN: I did everything.
• [00:14:59] ELIZABETH SMITH: Everything?
• [00:15:00] VICKI HONEYMAN: I didn't have a staff. My staff was made up of student interns. I figured out that I needed help so went to what was then the film and video program to get student interns who would get academic credit for helping me. Their role was all over the place from helping keep track of everything that was coming in with communication to actually being major parts of the people who worked at the festival festival week. What did I do? I put together a screening committee, and I raised all the money, I wrote grants, I fundraised. I would go out of town to get money from organizations. I convinced Lawrence Kasdan and Steven Spielberg to give money to the festival. This was very funny. The festival office was in the back of my haircutting shop on Ann Street. I sent a letter to Steven Spielberg for money, and I got a phone call while I'm cutting hair, and my intern brings me the phone. It's Steven Spielberg's office calling. The secretary or assistant said I'm calling to tell you that Mr. Spielberg has decided not to give money to the Ann Arbor Film Festival and I said -- I'm cutting hair -- I said, excuse me, his first film was shown at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and I will not accept a no. I expect at least $1,500. You talk to Mr. Spielberg and give me a callback. Click. Ten minutes later, we got the money. [LAUGHTER] People say to me, you're so little, but I'm really not. What it entailed to put on an event like the Ann Arbor Film Festival, while you're working on the current season, you're also working on the next season, looking ahead at how you're going to get makers to keep submitting their work. We have a traveling tour, so I would be working on the tour, getting the locations while I'm watching the films every night with my screening committee and raising the money, and doing all the writing and everything else in between. It was exhausting.
• [00:17:36] ELIZABETH SMITH: Was this all year round that you were working on it?
• [00:17:38] VICKI HONEYMAN: I would have two months off. All the grants were due May 1st so I'd get the grants in the mail, and I'd hop on a plane and go down to New Orleans to Jazz Fest and dance.
• [00:17:51] KATRINA ANBENDER: During this time, you were also cutting hair?
• [00:17:55] VICKI HONEYMAN: Oh yeah. [LAUGHTER] Bob Edwards was a NPR broadcaster, and one morning, I knew this was happening. I woke up to hearing Bob Edwards say If you're entering your film in the Ann Arbor Film Festival, it first has to pass through Vicki's Wash and Wear Haircuts to get to the office, which just horrified me because I did not want filmmakers to know because, of course, they're going to worry about hair getting on their film and I also didn't want them to know that I wasn't completely dedicated to their every need. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:18:30] KATRINA ANBENDER: The Ann Arbor Film Festival is obviously known for its experimental nature. Is that something that you were always drawn toward?
• [00:18:37] VICKI HONEYMAN: Well, I was drawn to the ingenuity, the creativity, people using film to express themselves either as just like pouring out their hearts or hysterically funny or making incredible animated films or documentaries around the world of fascinating subjects. I started going to Europe to attend festivals like Ann Arbor so that I could get filmmakers from Europe to start entering our festival, which really changed our whole everything because we became an internationally recognized festival. I felt really proud of myself, proud of the work that I did to make that happen. Our tagline, I'm not sure if it still is, I'm not involved in the festival anymore, our tag line was Ann Arbor Film Festival, the longest running independent experimental film festival in the United States. Experimental, yes. I love experimental film. It's like looking at moving paintings, and the difference between each film is just like the difference between walking into a museum or gallery and seeing a whole group of different kinds of artwork. After being pretty well educated in the history of film and the important makers and having brought filmmakers to Ann Arbor, I grew to really be wowed by the creativity. I used that word already. But really, it was such an eye opener for me. I never really thought about doing it myself, I just really love the curation part of it. For me, programming is the festival. The way you share with the audience, the body of work that we're presenting for the festival week is just like doing radio, just like anything I do. My job at Literati, it's all curation is what I really love to do, and that was true with my store as well.
• [00:20:55] ELIZABETH SMITH: Before we move on to other things like your store and WCBN, I just wanted to ask if you could talk a little bit about some of the people at the festival you worked with, like George Manupelli who you mentioned.
• [00:21:05] VICKI HONEYMAN: Woody Sempliner is who I worked directly with. George, I had to work with George because I handled the cash, and he would want me to give him the cash to buy beer, and I'd say, no, we're going to pay our bills. It wasn't really funny, but it's funny now. But George, he's brilliant. He didn't start the festival with the intention of it lasting well into 60 years. And maybe he told me he was proud of me, I don't know. But I know that the work that I did is why the festival still is what it is and a much different festival because it's more of a media festival, because it's not about 16 millimeter film anymore. I left because my board wanted me to start including video, digital work. I love the film image, and it's what I knew, it's what I love. I felt it was time for someone younger than me to take over if that's what they wanted to do with the festival. I worked with Woody initially because I joined the screening committee. He is a really brilliant man who knows the work better than anybody I'd ever met. He still is involved in the festival as a screener. I tried doing it. I just don't have enough time. Woody was never given the title director, but he definitely was the director because George pretty much had gone into the corner and was doing his own thing and having Woody just take care of everything.
• [00:22:55] ELIZABETH SMITH: Do you remember anything from your predecessor, Ruth Bradley?
• [00:22:58] VICKI HONEYMAN: Oh, yeah. Ruth is very knowledgeable. Her dissertation was on the first 20 years of the Ann Arbor Film Festival. It never occurred to me to do a dissertation on the next 20 years. I really should have because I left after the 40th. Ruth, like Woody, like myself and all the people who were on the screening committee, just huge fans of the work. Part of what I felt was important, and what I'm good at is remembering the work, remembering the makers. Somebody would submit their new work and I could tell the screening committee everything they'd ever entered in the festival before, whether or not they'd awarded whether or not they went on tour. My brain just works that way. Of course, Woody and Ruth are the same way. You have to be in order to have that kind of context with the work and the makers, because the festival really is about the makers.
• [00:23:54] KATRINA ANBENDER: When did you start your business Heavenly Metal, and how did that begin?
• [00:24:00] VICKI HONEYMAN: The festival office was in my haircutting space and took up a lot of space. When I left the festival and moved everything out, I suddenly had a completely empty room, and kind of like an empty, not an empty life. I'm always busy. As you can obviously tell, I don't sit around doing nothing. I had all this time and space in my life and in my head and a neighbor where my hair cutting shop was located asked me to go to a little trade show with her. I saw in one of the showrooms this artwork that my mom and my sister-in-law and I had been collecting for years, recycled metal artwork made by Kathryn Arnett, who was at the time, very, very renowned because nobody else was doing that. She just created this really cool thing, and recycling. I called my mom and I said, "So what do you think? Do you think I should place an order and sell this in my new empty space?" She said, "Well, as long as you sell it all." So I placed an order. Did I sell it all? I gave a lot away to my mom and my sister-in-law and kept a lot and realized, this could be cool. I'd always had this fantasy of having a gallery. My mom and sister-in-law and I always were shoppers. We loved going into galleries. My parents lived in Sarasota, and there were a lot of great places to shop at the time. I just thought, I guess I should do this. Little did I know you have to have a bundle of money in the bank to do this. I was just clueless, like what I'd always done, just find my way, bump into something, and there I am. This is the next thing I'm doing like jitterbug, because I met Jim, the film festival because I was involved in it. They needed a director. Okay, sure. Without really thinking the impact of how is this going to get me to be able to retire when I'm 70 with a good pension. I placed that order, and then I realized, well, if you can have this, you need some more stuff. I brought in some more stuff, which was also made from recycled metal and got together with some friends of mine for dinner and said, hey, I guess I have a store now. We need to come up with a name. Will you help me come up with the name? That's where the name Heavenly Metal came from, which was pretty cool because I did wind up finding a lot of really great recycled metal artwork to build on. I filled my space, and then I started going to trade shows in New York and Chicago to buy more stuff, of course, not knowing that you need to have a bundle of money in the bank in order to do what I was doing. At the same time, I needed a new pair of used cowboy boots. I would go on eBay and bid on cowboy boots, and if they didn't fit, I would just sell them in the store. I happened to win a bid for 100 pairs of used cowboy boots for $400, and it was crazy because all of a sudden, oh, my God, I'm going to have all these cowboy boots. There's bound to be one pair that fits me and maybe they'll be green. I make arrangements to have them shipped because it's a big deal, they're very heavy. The day that they were being picked up by the shipper, I got a phone call from the person who I won the sale from, and she said, "I'm really sorry, but I was out of the warehouse when the shipper came and my employees gave him all the cowboy boots I had in the warehouse, so you will be receiving like 400 pairs of cowboy boots." [LAUGHTER] I said, "Wow, I can handle this." Actually, I just am back to work after two years of not working because of breast cancer treatment, so this could really help me a lot. I wound up making like eight grand. They came, I cleaned them up. I had every inch covered, cowboy boots lined up everywhere, put it on Facebook, and people came from everywhere to buy used cowboy boots from me. It was really crazy. My landlord, his favorite thing about me, he was always saying, "The cowboy boots, the cowboy boots." [LAUGHTER] Because I had all these cowboy boots I thought, well, maybe I should bring in some clothing that goes with the cowboy boots. That's where I started doing apparel. Then if you're doing apparel, you need accessories. It just started mushrooming into this what was a beautiful store, but I did not have the finances. But I did it for 18 years. I wound up moving around the corner into the larger space and lost my shirt.
• [00:29:26] ELIZABETH SMITH: Did you get a pair of cowboy boots that fit you?
• [00:29:29] VICKI HONEYMAN: No.
• [00:29:29] ELIZABETH SMITH: Oh, my God. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:29:30] VICKI HONEYMAN: But everybody else did. I had several men who came in. They'd come in every week or so to see what was left. I finally got down to like 20 pairs or something like that, and I donated them to the church that has the breakfast program, because I just like, I need these out of my life. I'm done. They put them all up on the stage and said, "These are a donation from Vicki Honeyman, go, get yourself a pair of boots." I did have some people on the street thank me for that.
• [00:30:06] KATRINA ANBENDER: You have said that you are always keeping yourself busy. What are you doing today? What are the various hats that you wear now?
• [00:30:15] VICKI HONEYMAN: First of all, I always cut hair. I had my space on Ann Street, the front room. I still cut hair in the corner and then filled up the space, the two rooms with goods.
• [00:30:28] VICKI HONEYMAN: Then eventually moved around the corner and then put my little haircutting shop in the corner. It was beautiful. It was a really gorgeous store. I'm proud for that. I miss getting really great new things for myself, and I miss working with wonderful shoppers. I had a great clientele. It was beautiful, but that doesn't pay the bills. When I closed, I realized, well, Oh, my God, where am I going to cut hair? I can't work in a salon. That's just not me. I started thinking, scratching my head, Oh, my God, maybe someone on my street has a garage that I can convert into my workspace. Then a light bulb went off and I went, Vicki, you have a garden shed and it's full of stuff you don't need. Clean out the garden shed, gut it, and turn it into a haircutting shop, which is what I did. The city, great. I gave them very clear plans and did everything I said I would do, and so I moved home. I have this really sweet little space where I cut hair, Tuesdays and Thursdays all day and Friday, Saturday morning. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I go to Literati bookstore, where I'm a sideline buyer, which means that I don't buy books. I buy the other things in the store, the kids toys, paper products, jigsaw puzzles, gifty things. I work three afternoons a week restocking and opening deliveries and merchandising, and getting my ya yas, doing what I love doing. And I'm good at. My mom, she was a great designer, and I got that from her. So I work six days a week. I also go to ballet class twice a week, and then I prepare for my two radio shows at WCBN. I read a lot. When I say I read a lot, I can do a new book every two and half days, and I write book reviews, which I never knew I enjoyed doing, but I really enjoy writing book reviews, which is part of our job at Literati is to encourage people to buy books.
• [00:32:42] KATRINA ANBENDER: When did you become involved with WCBN?
• [00:32:46] VICKI HONEYMAN: Part of my role as Director of The Ann Arbor Film Festival was to be the voice of the festival. I did a lot of promotion on radio, TV. I'd get hired to show a program of film, and talk about it. But I also was the person on stage. Many times when I would get offstage, the stage had behind the curtain would say, God, you've got a great voice for radio. You should do radio. In 1990, I really needed to get out of my house. I thought, wow, I love WCBN. I want to do radio, so I got myself licensed, which you have to jump through some hoops to get your license because we have to meet FCC requirements. My first show was midnight to three Saturday nights, and it was just fabulous because it was just another form of curating. Programming music that I love. That first show that I did at about 2:15 in the morning, I would play an opera aria and then segue it with Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth every week, and taxi drivers loved it. [LAUGHTER] I've done a lot of different shows at CBN, and I had breaks from when I had cancer. I got very sick, and I couldn't be around people. Anyway, so I've been a part of the station. I didn't use the name Sashay Delmonico for a few years. But once I started using it, once it clicked like, yeah, this is great. That became my identity.
• [00:34:24] KATRINA ANBENDER: You have been involved in a lot of different arts and arts programming in Ann Arbor. What are your thoughts about the state of arts in Ann Arbor today, and what challenges do you see the city grappling with?
• [00:34:37] VICKI HONEYMAN: I don't see the city grappling with it. I see the artist grappling with it. The city has not provided artist space for artists. It's horrible. Some of us would go meet with the Mayor, Mayor Hieftje, begging him to turn 415 West Washington into an artist space. It was perfect. It's before the building really became so rundown that they just turned their backs on it. It was the perfect space. Before the new Y was built across the street on Washington was small industrial space that was all artist studios, dance studios. When the Y bought that lot, all those artists had nowhere to go. The city has done a huge disservice to artists. Without artists, we're boring. Our city has been taken over by corporate America. And small galleries, it's hard to pay rent in this town. Small galleries have disappeared, stores like mine that my rent was reasonable. It was really that you have to have a shopping base, and Ann Arbor is not a great town for shopping because we're not a tourist town. Ann Arbor also used to be a great community for dancing. There were a lot of dance studios. There were a lot of dance venues. There could be venues now that I don't know about because I'm not of the younger generation anymore. But it's just not the same, and it could be a lack of interest. I doubt that because who doesn't want to go out dancing? I see places like Bill's Beer Garden and the Beer Grotto across the street, kitty-corner packed full of people drinking beer. That's cool. That's not what we did back then. We went dancing, and I lived close to Main Street, so I would go home between bars and change outfits.
• [00:36:40] KATRINA ANBENDER: What were the bars that you would dance at then?
• [00:36:42] VICKI HONEYMAN: The Blind Pig was a wonderful space for live music down in the basement. The Blind Pig that's there now is not what used to be there. It's a totally different venue. It was small and cozy. Weren't really supposed to be dancing there, but we'd go off. Mr Flood's party, Joe's Star Lounge, especially Rick's American Cafe. Just as there were many places to go see movies, there were many places to go dancing. There are also many small independently owned stores. Just Ann Arbor was a cool little hippie haven. People think that it is now, but it's not. That's gone. That Ann Arbor is gone, being taken over by high rises and corporate America.
• [00:37:32] KATRINA ANBENDER: What are you most proud of?
• [00:37:34] VICKI HONEYMAN: First of all, I'm proud of myself for continuing to adopt people and be nice to people. I think it's really important to be accepting, and that's what living here has allowed me to do. I was like that in Detroit. If there was somebody in school who nobody would talk to I was the person who would adopt them. I'm proud of what I did for the film festival. I'm proud that Leslie Raymond has carried the torch far beyond what I was able to do, but I was able to do what I did, given that computers were still new. We didn't have phones that made movies. It was just a whole different time, and I'm really proud of how I took an event that was failing to making it into an internationally recognized event. I'm proud of having given myself the opportunity to sort of fulfill my dream of having a gallery with my store. It's just silly that I've done so many things. I have a wonderful group of friends of all ages, who are part of all of that. I guess I'm also proud that I have such a strong backbone of friendships, and I know there are people who don't know how to do that. I can't imagine not having the relationships that I have with so many people in this community. And I love doing radio. I absolutely love doing radio. I love when I'm talking to somebody on the street and somebody walks by and goes, you're Sashay Delmonico. [LAUGHTER]. In fact, here at the library at this branch, I was checking out recently, and I looked at the librarian, the clerk behind the counter, and I said, Gosh, I think we've met somewhere. You look so familiar. He said, I don't think so, but you're Sashay Delmonico. [LAUGHTER] I love your radio shows. I could say that I'm proud of having created this really fun identity, and I love music and I love sharing that love. Again, I love curating. It's an honor.
• [00:40:14] KATRINA ANBENDER: Thank you so much for being here today.
• [00:40:16] VICKI HONEYMAN: You're welcome.
• [00:40:17] ELIZABETH SMITH: Thank you. AADL Talks To is a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.