The perils of young love
Q: I’m a gay high school sophomore and I’ve had no luck finding other guys. I met a really nice guy on the Internet who wants to help me live out my dreams of being another dude’s sex slave. He’s offered to pick me up after school and take me to his house. He’s 38…
Hip-hoppin’ Kwame
A funny thing happened at 7 a.m. Friday at St. Andrew’s Hall. People showed up. For a hip-hop conference announcement, of all things. Who in the entertainment world is awake at 7 a.m.? Apparently not Eminem, the summit’s star attraction. He’ll sleep through anything. In his absence, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick turned out to announce the…
Son of anti-war
Responses to “Killing fields for couch potatoes” (Metro Times, April 2-8) — a survey of 25 of the best anti-war movies of all time — have been coming in steadily. We all like to watch, even when there’s nothing on. But here are a dozen suggestions from readers and Metro Times staffers that turn watching…
Penguin props
Metro Times readers may not know who Dan Perkins is, but they are certainly familiar with his work. Under the alias Tom Tomorrow, Perkins inks the “This Modern World” cartoon that appears in this and other alternative newspapers each week. We wanted to give a hearty congrats to Dan, who is one of 16 people…
Ashes & lessons
Update: Mayflower Bookstore re-opened in May of 2006. Check out their website to learn more. “When the bookstore was burning, my first thought was how sad it was for the community that lost this library,” storeowner Robert Thibodeau mused the other day. “A library where you didn’t have to buy a thing; you could just…
Hangers-on
Occasionally, one hears about adventurous entrepreneurs who have turned an old warehouse into a hip nightclub or a small factory into a clothing store. The romance of the idea seems to come from the contrast between the hardscrabble nature of the bygone identity and the vitality of the new. The former meat processing supply store…
Serch and destroy
WJLB’s first white DJ in years becomes a force in local hip hop….
Letters to the Editor
The director replies Seven years ago, when pre-production for my feature film Zeitgeist was just starting, I knew there would be a time when the literary aspects of this film would be lost on critics whose puritanical attitudes would effectively prevent them from noticing anything else. I just didn’t think it would happen at Metro…
What now, peaceniks?
Last week, I got several rather silly phone calls and e-mails inviting me to come protest the war, either during the weekend or at some future date. I should have responded by saying I was a bit tied up at present protesting the Chicago Fire and the Johnstown Flood. Hello! Hel-llooo! The War Against Saddam…
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
Occasionally, one hears about adventurous entrepreneurs who have turned an old warehouse into a hip nightclub or a small factory into a clothing store. The romance of the idea seems to come from the contrast between the hardscrabble nature of the bygone identity and the vitality of the new. The former meat processing supply store…
In-form-ed
Two modern sculptors bring up primal forces in their latest work….
Señor smoke
Much of the food here is as good as any other southwest-side restaurant’s, and some of it is head, shoulders and thorax above. The menu ranges from the standard Mexican-joint fare of cheese quesadillas, carne asada, beef tacos, and cheese enchiladas to less common dishes like a whole tilapia, served in the crispy, crusty, down-home…
Goodbye to all that
Perhaps the most underrated element in the theater is set design. A backdrop, in the right hands, is as crucial a character as the lead actor. The Hilberry Theatre’s production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard proves the point. Scenic designer Larry Kaushansky has taken a large piece of drywall, attached a few boxes to it…
Look Alive
Unlike the current crop of right-wing metal hucksters and teen-dream punk upstarts clogging pop charts — whose members would be better suited opening grease factories with theirs foreheads or using their midriffs to start some sort of spare-tire business venture — the Lanternjack on Look Alive does their job. It’s true, the Lanternjack, the most…
Cell phony
Government’s star witness says he’s a scam artist, not a terrorist….
The Best Of The Frost
Three years ago Motor City legends the Frost — guitarists Dick Wagner and Donny Hartman, bassist Gordy Garris and drummer Bobby Riggs — received a “Distinguished Achievement” honor at the annual Detroit Music Awards. Which was appropriate, to say the least. For despite this very publication somewhat mean-spiritedly describing the subsequent onstage Frost reunion (in…
Children’s hour
Talking to your president about war….
Out of it
In the latest film from director Lisa Cholodenko, Sam (Christian Bale) and Alex (Kate Beckinsale) move from Boston to L.A. where they stay with his mother (Frances McDormand), whose house becomes a school for scandalous relationships and the art and science of the transcendental fuck-up.
The end is near … read this quick
Apocalyptic theory for dummies….
House of 1000 Corpses
Geezer: H / Weezer: HHH
Things get r-e-a-l-l-y sick in Rob Zombie’s directorial debut. Working with a story that’s an extreme variation on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a cast of cult figures and B-movie veterans (among them, Karen Black, Sid Haig and Bill Moseley), Zombie lets it all hang out, especially the innards.
April 16-23, 2003
16 WED • ART 101up — First-time gallery owner and newly graduated CCS alumnus Mark Sengbusch has something else in mind when it comes to art exhibition. Displaying 101 of his own paintings per week, for 20 weeks in a row, Sengbusch has taken on the multitask of creating, displaying and promoting all his latest…
Anger Management
Although one might hope from the pairing of Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson that something a little different was afoot, this film has obviously been designed as a typical Sandler vehicle — a series of juvenile jokes haphazardly strung together with large doses of cliché shoved up the cracks in between.
Split decision
Candidate endorsements reflect rift on Detroit Council….
Lilya 4-Ever
Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s documentary film language usually tells mundane and tragic melodramas with an effective understatement and a redemptive denouement. But here, his tale turns into the tragedy of a teenage girl’s white slavery beyond the powers of fairy-tale redemption.
Awards of the State
We know that award shows in general are but a predictable development in the fury of award-giving seeded by the entertainment biz — a growth that now sees thousands of ceremonies worldwide commemorating the accomplishments of everything from soy protein to porn-star orifices. Which brings us to the Detroit Music Awards. Yes, it was a…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Anyone who habitually bestows gifts and blessings on others is a candidate for sainthood. Generosity is one of the greatest virtues. But there is a related quality that surpasses it — the ability to give without any strings attached, without any expectation of being appreciated or praised for one’s largesse. Want…
The War Channel wants you!
Fueled by lusty television ratings of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network intends to launch The War Channel, Metro Times has divined. The War Channel will create its own army of mercenaries composed of trigger-happy veterans of the Iraq campaign, and contract with “freedom-loving regimes everywhere” to “make the world safe for Pax Americana,…
Art and life: grim projections
We should define ourselves through the arts. That’s their purpose. But what happens when art projects an ugly reality — and how do we correct it? The writer has a few suggestions, and will use two current events as examples. 1. Nourish the community … give them hip-hop beef. Three years of friction between Royce…
Render unto Caesar
News Hits recently received an announcement from a group called the National War Tax Resistance Committee, which is urging opponents of the war in Iraq to hit Uncle Sam where it hurts — right in the pocketbook. The group declares that “refusal to pay taxes to finance unjust wars, along with refusal by soldiers to…
The world is watching
Independent rock acts pride their pared-down live performances on the accurate, organic reproduction of sounds on an album. Mainstream bubble-gum giants go to the other extreme — spectacle over substance. The line between Vegas-style, Britney- and Kylie-level entertainment and what can be considered real musical art is growing finer by the minute. Electronic, DJ and…
Projectile project
News Hits recently touched base with our bud Adam Faja, a former Metro Times designer now relocated to the Left Coast. Seems Faja is responsible for hosting a remarkable Web site gallery featuring scores of posters inspired by the war. Our question for Faja: What’s the story? “The idea for this site grew out of…
