Every day I drive through a time loop called East Fremont Street. I want to be clear that this is not the newly branded Fremont East, denoted with fancy monument signs and the fire of ex-Burning Man sculptures. This is the Fremont that time forgot – a dozen or so blocks that take a hard left from quirky right into lonely and brutal. This is not the place of downtown developer plots or nostalgia fever-dreams. This is the place where dreams go to die – and then come back from the dead.

Zombie row.

Having spent my childhood ambling about in a dozen or so states and almost two-dozen cities – from the shadow of the St. Louis Arch to the wilds of Sarah Palin country – I’ve seen towns on every part of the bell curve. Of course, you want to find yourself on the rising side of a…