MEMORIALIZING HUBIE
We sadly noted the passing of bassist Hubie Crawford a few days ago here in the Blahg. The expressions of condolences since then have been overwhelming, his longtime friend and SBH Trio bandmate Bill Meyer told us in an e-mail. Now we’ve received word on how his various friends are paying homage to him. •…
All smiles
In the world of hip hop, calling someone a clown seems like it would be a major dis. But for Detroit artist DeMarcus Hughes, it’s a compliment. Hughes, 37, aka Smiley the Hip Hop Clown, is a Detroit-based rapper, a G-rated G, an MC whose MO is to strip hip hop of its violent themes…
Enjoy the dark ages
Why a medical growth industry won’t take hold in Michigan.
Night and Day
Wednesday • 7 Michael Chabon HIS LATEST NEW BOOK There are certain clemencies made when you’ve got a prodigious writer — a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer — on your hands. Sure, the poetic prose of Michael Chabon might err on the side of the logorrheic, but it’s a thrill to follow the “caterpillar schemes” woven through…
Courting controversy
They’ve organized a three-hour town hall meeting on a recent Saturday morning at the UAW, several pickets outside of downtown buildings and a series of legal actions in recent months with the same theme: The administrative policies and court orders issued by Wayne County Circuit Court Chief Judge Mary Beth Kelly are hurting the people…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Your speed critic takes a listen to live albums.
Motor City Cribs
The Hifi Handgrenades rock this Ferndale house.
Head Cheese
Five ear-bleeders from the Loudest Band on Earth.
An unfit spouse
A portly partner makes his desire droop.
Acting up
Producers have to hate John Cusack because the acting veteran is terrible at promoting his own movies, even though he takes the time to show up. It doesn’t seem to matter what the subject is, either, since you could be interviewing him about a dark comedy like The Ice Harvest and somehow he’d end up…
Growing green
An ecologically progressive vision for Detroit’s future.
A quiet storm
Detroit has long had a penchant for producing talents who go largely unnoticed … until you suddenly look up one day and see they’ve taken off somewhere else. Think of Amp Fiddler, posters plastered on subway walls in Europe but barely turning an eye at the local dollar store. This could well be the future…
Food Stuff
Bronx cheers, slow readers and game eaters.
Good cause
Sugar Law Center fundraiser is fun with a cause.
Divesting Darfur
If The Devil Came on Horseback was an impassioned plea for the world to do something about the genocide in Sudan, Darfur Now is about people who heeded that call to action. By his own account, Adam Sterling is an unlikely activist, but his story — one of six in the film — is indicative…
The New Kings of Nonfiction
With This American Life, Ira Glass revolutionized radio storytelling with uncanny tales told by way of real people, his own note-perfect interjections and mood-setting music. With this new anthology, he shows his appreciation for print journalists who make the plain old text sing on the page. The subjects range from the exotic (Bill Bruford’s account…
Head tricks
Tim Caldwell is an encyclopedia of cultural references. With all that material mashed in his head, he has developed an uncanny, nearly hysterical ability to leap big from high to low, leveling the playing field between classical painting and pulp fiction. In his latest photo exhibit at Hamtramck’s Café 1923, Caldwell collaborates with good buddy…
Money for Nothing: One Man’s Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions
The fantasy of someday winning the lottery is the ultimate populist pipe dream, but Money for Nothing is the sort of memoir that quells the impulse to engage in the racket. In the 1990s, author Edward Ugel logged two high-pressure stints as a salesman and sales manager for a lump-sum company that purchased annuities —…
Junior’s achievement
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s speech at Wayne State University.
Letters to the Editor
Fall from grace Re: Detroitblogger John’s “Losing grace” (Metro Times, Oct. 31), I attended the closing of St. John’s, and, besides attending a funeral, it was the most difficult event that I have ever been to in my life. In fact, it was a community’s final funeral, and those affected lives will never be the…
Advice for Ms. sex-with-her-ex
Did I miss something here? Nowhere in An Unmarried Woman’s letter did I read anything about how she’s been trying to communicate her needs to boring-in-bed "Mr. Nice Guy." Through the years, I’ve learned to communicate what feels good and when it’s time to refocus attention to other areas of my body. If AUW isn’t…
This old haus
Richter’s Chalet is a throwback to those days before the Food Network, celebrity chefs, Neiman Ranch and Maytag blue cheese allegedly transformed American gourmands into gourmets. And its price structure also recalls another era when two people could enjoy dinner and drinks for $40. German-born Roland Richter Sr. founded his half-timbered restaurant a generation ago,…
Brave and crazy
Session 9 USA Entertainment It’s perplexing how certain films fall through the cracks of the Hollywood distribution machine. Session 9, a deceptive little gem of a horror flick, is one glaring example. The film follows a blue-collar hazmat crew hired to clean up the the Danvers State Insane Asylum — an actual hospital that exists…
Ovenman
When Thinfinger — that’s actually his first name, When — spins pizza for a paycheck and hangs with the skateboard crowd. But he ain’t no Hero Protagonist, and he knows Y.T. would be way too much cyberpunk chica to handle. No, this hapless lead character of Ypsilanti resident Jeff Parker’s new novel, Ovenman, keeps his…
Martian Child
John Cusack stars as hotshot sci-fi author David, who is suddenly struck with massive writer’s block and sent frantically scrambling for meaning after the death of his fiancee. The couple had plans to start a family, so that’s just what he sets out to do, honoring her by adopting the weirdest kid he can find.…
Bowl of Cherries
“My stomach rumbles, not in sympathy with the now distant thunder, but in protest of last night’s dinner: fish rot and scorpion salad, the jail’s blue-plate special,” Judd Breslau writes early on as the penman of Bowl of Cherries. “I hardly have the strength to wave at a buzzing fly. Soon, I console myself, it…
Sleuth
What’s most surprising about the sleek, soulless Sleuth is that director Kenneth Branagh doesn’t trust in the power of two actors to hold an audience’s attention. He’s got Michael Caine and Jude Law firing on all cylinders, yet the first half is overwhelmed by gimmicky camerawork. The 1972 film version of Anthony Shaffer’s play contained…
Mr. Untouchable
American Gangster Nicky Barnes is examined with a mixture of disgust and slack-jawed amazement. Barnes dressed loud, lived large and partied like a rock star, becoming an icon in the community he poisoned and exploited. There’s something dangerous about giving a thug his due.
Bee Movie
For his first major big- or small-screen role since Seinfeld, he has chosen the post-millennial refuge of the damned: The cartoon caricature. Barry B. Benson doesn’t even look like the 53-year-old actor. Not unlike the live-action, skit-based marketing blitz that preceded it, Bee Movie is a desperate, unfocused collection of bits, shtick and the by-now…
The final cut
Director Goran Dukic’s feature debut is an indie like they used to make, back in the days when Jim Jarmusch would grab a few weird-looking bystanders and some borrowed equipment and make a low-key slacker masterpiece like Stranger than Paradise. Wristcutters betrays the influence of Jarmusch not just in its casting of professional hobo Tom…
Concept 1
In 1996, Richie Hawtin, then of Windsor, was among a handful of techno producers attempting to resize the global dance party to fit inside listeners’ heads. Wolfgang Voigt was at it in Cologne, while Berliners Mark Ernestus and Mortitz von Oswald were throwing dirt on the music’s formulaic 4/4 beat with their wide-ranging Basic Channel…
American Gangster
Everything about American Gangster screams “epic.” A swaggering, burly, overstuffed entertainment with aspirations of greatness, American Gangster wants desperately to be a new Godfather, But feels more like a pulpy mash-up of Serpico and Black Caesar — and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. The film is a gritty throwback to the bad old days…
Justus Ex Fide Vivit
This is black metal stripped down to its skeletal essence — bashin’ and thrashin’. But Tangorodrim demonstrates that just because it’s pure doesn’t mean it’s not shit. In fact, the attempts here to be pure give way to boring repetition and horrid, bland ideas. Each track offers a couple of riffs and a drum pattern…
Extra ordinary
There was a collective sigh of disappointment among die-hard fans when the upcoming release of this disc was first announced. After all, late last year, Young made it official — the first in his long-awaited, multidisc Archives box-set series, this one covering 1963-’72, would finally be released in 2007. Fans were even directed to a…
