The Sentinel
If you believe the new thriller The Sentinel, being the president is pretty easy: You write a few speeches, ride around in a limousine all day and pose for photo ops with multi-culti kids. Meanwhile, you’re blissfully unaware that terrorists are planning to take out Air Force One, anti-American protesters are dancing in the streets…
Letters to the Editor
A balanced view of Proof Khary Turner: I just finished reading your article on Proof (“What do we have to prove?” Metro Times, April 19), and I thought it was very well written. I have to admit that when I saw him on the cover, I thought it was going to be a story making…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Let’s put your salary in perspective. If you earn more than $2,182 per year, you’re wealthier than 85 percent of the world’s population. That’s according to globalrichlist.com. Even though you’re pretty well-off, however, I’m going to dare you to ask for more. It’s the perfect astrological phase to do so. The…
An ABC of opera
After stepping out of Michigan Opera Theatre’s winning, million-dollar production of Aida last Saturday night, it’s difficult to remember those first couple of seasons in the Detroit Opera House. When restoration began a decade ago on what was to be the first permanent home for Michigan Opera Theatre, the Opera House’s lovely interior was shrouded…
Sentimental mood
On the day of rapper Proof’s funeral here in Detroit, soul singer Jaguar Wright is audibly sullen. As she talks to Metro Times via phone from her New Jersey home, she fumbles through a pile of old photographs of herself and Proof. She cries intermittently, and comments on the violence that’s plaguing black communities. “When…
Ride on
On April 10, the Ferndale City Council unanimously voted to ask state Rep. Andy Meisner (D-Ferndale) and state Sen. Gilda Jacobs (D-Huntington Woods) for help. Try to stay with us here as we explain. With Ferndale City Manager Tom Barwin among those taking the lead, there’s a push under way to drastically improve mass transit…
In your face about AIDS
This column is in memory of Rodney Dildy, a very close friend who died from AIDS almost 10 years ago. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first recorded case of the disease in America, and I can’t think of a better time to recall the life and death of someone who changed my…
What’s in a name?
When ownership of Detroit’s two daily papers changed last year, the media conglomerates involved agreed on ending The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press joint weekend editions as soon the logistics could be worked out. Both the Freep (sold by Knight Ridder and bought by Gannett) and the News (sold by Gannett and bought by…
My boyfriend’s jealous of my lover
Q: My boyfriend and I have been together for a little more than four years. I love him more than I thought possible. One of the things that makes us so compatible is our similar take on jealousy and fidelity. I’m a bi woman, he’s a straight man. I don’t mind who he sleeps with,…
Fuel for thought
There was some hoopla last week when Gov. Jennifer Granholm participated in a ceremony announcing that a partnership between General Motors and Meijer will bring 20 new ethanol fueling stations to Michigan. They’ll sell E-85, a mixture of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol derived from agricultural products. At first blush, this seems like…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
On solid ground
It’s a quiet evening at the Majestic Theater in Detroit. A handful of twentysomethings lounge at tables, full of beer and idle chatter, but Khalid el-Hakim, VP of Iron Fist Records, prefers to sit alone. He takes slow, calculated sips from an ice-cold glass of water as if he’s been waiting all day to do…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Wide open
In Chicago a few years ago, I worked at an art gallery that had an exhibition of street art. One of the featured works was Detroit’s own Slim’s Bike, a pimped-out bike built up from recycled junk, plastered with photos of kinky ladies, and once ridden around the Cass Corridor by James “Slim” Thompson. The…
Tweak
Grado SR125 headphones Want Miles Davis’ briny forehead secretions to spray all over you? No problem, don the Grado SR125 headphones and spin, say, Sketches of Spain. Want Phil Lynott’s every breath, mouth noise and vox anomaly revealed while his spittle tickles your eyelids? Try these cans with Jailbreak. Want Jeff Tweedy’s reedy drone to…
Upscale downtown
The Woodward is a bit schizophrenic, occupying a niche between upscale and informal — no tablecloths but rather formally attired waitstaff, elegant furnishings but the dozen entrées average about $16. Only the splendid 12-ounce New York strip steak, gently dotted with pepper, cracks the $20 barrier. More unusual is the imaginative, vertically presented braised pork…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
I love the smell of MB68 in the morning! It smells like … victory! Hawthorne Heights — If Only You Were Lonely (Victory) :: If only I were deaf. Measles Mumps Rubella — Fantastic Success (Doubling Cube) :: What do you get when you cross Pere Ubu with Talking Heads? An infectious new strain on…
Electrified addictions, yeah!
When the Riverboat Gamblers released Something to Crow About in 2003, they were a bunch of crazies from Texas playing chicken-fried street punk; their MO was self-abuse, volatility and moving too fast for the hangover to catch up. To the Confusion of Our Enemies is another open-throttle, ruckus-raising thrill, but the songwriting is sharper —…
Head Cheese
Tanakh had functioned as a loose collective around founder and vocalist Jesse Poe, the turnover accounting for rangy explorations into pastoral folk, droning psychedelia and strains of Eastern European and Middle Eastern melody. But Poe found a steady group of musicians to work with in 2003, and the result is the studied, beautifully languid Ardent…
Gospel Music
Liner notes could have told you that Sam Cooke is one of the Soul Stirrers heard here and that Wilson Pickett was once a member of the Violinaires. The notes could have expounded on the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet as a link between barbershop quartets and gospel to come. The notes might have pointed to…
Pie in the sky
Have you ever found yourself battling a case of insomnia, hypnotized by the glow of the boob tube, when suddenly you see a commercial for a stage show with a catchy title and a playwright you’ve never heard of? The show appears to involve comedy, about 15 musical numbers, a bit of romance, and a…
Under a Billion Suns
Like crotchety grandfathers, Mudhoney is full of sage advice. Mark Arm’s lyrics are pretty political on Under a Billion Suns, the band’s second effort for Sub Pop since returning to their original label in 2002. But the brothers Mud do the political shuffle like they do everything else — with bludgeoning, cranky glee. “Hard-On for…
Port in a storm
Pat Hartig was reading a Detroit newspaper last November when something caught her eye. An article explaining Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s plan to transfer operation of the city’s half of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel to the privately owned Ambassador Port Co. made passing reference to a contract between the company and the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority. Although…
Devil inside
Documentary filmmakers must dream of a subject as rich in both story and source material as Daniel Johnston. Veteran indie rock fans know Johnston as a guy whose home recordings and fragile, captivating songs fit seamlessly into the DIY, lo-fi ethic of indie music in the late ’80s and early ’90s. But as his life…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 26 Art by Matthew Craven ART Some might describe the work of Hamtramck resident Matthew Craven as trippy water worlds of floating sea creatures. Others might see puffy clouds bloated with feverish swirls of rain. Either way, Craven’s bizarre style comes from incorporating several techniques and media, including yarn stitching and spray paint.…
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia has garnered some criticism for its impressionistic, meditative take on the Chechen war, for not staring directly into the eye of the bloody conflict. But even if the movie existed only to show us the profound, disturbing reality of prepubescent boys living in a society that knows only death, it…
Natalee is dead, and I don’t care
Newspapers are dying the nation over, faster in Detroit than in most places. The Detroit papers, which have less than half the combined circulation they did a few years ago, are still losing a thousand subscribers a month. Serious network news programs are continuing to lose viewers too. That’s sad, up to a point. But…
Don’t Come Knocking
Shepard stars as Howard Spence, a faded matinee idol with a résumé like Randolph Scott and a rap sheet like Russell Crowe. Finding himself in a midlife crisis, he goes AWOL from the set of his latest picture. After stealing a horse and hopping on a bus, Howard finds his way to his mother’s (Eva…
A lesson before dying
The recent funeral services for slain rap artist Deshaun “Proof” Holton had the feel of a hero’s farewell. That is until Proof’s family arrived. As soon as Proof’s mother Sherallene entered the 2,000-seat Fellowship Chapel in Detroit, she eyed the gold casket that contained her son’s body and released a loud cry of hurt that…
Duck Season
First-time writer-director Fernando Eimbcke’s black-and-white film is sparse in style but full of subtle humor and drama, scented with longing for those weekend days full of absolutely nothing to do. Eimbecke’s movie is brilliant not just in its capture of that smell of pre-teen spirit, but for how he recognizes that in the still moments…
Romancing the shtick
With his mess of curls, baby face and wardrobe of mismatched thrift store formal wear, Lance Romance is every bit the street-level showman. He looks as if he could be the director of a guerrilla theater company or a subway busker or a comedian at the DMV. And, in a sense, he’s all of those…
Friends with Money
Director-writer Nicole Holofcener is certainly comfortable in the realm of gal talk and sisterly bonding, having helmed many episodes of Sex and the City and two very good previous features. Her writing is crisp, sharply observed and full of intimacy and funny little nuances, and she’s assembled a terrific cast. The problem is that ultimately…
Art Bar
When I complained about some of the tedious jobs I had as a boy, my mother would tell me, Ted, all work is honorable. In this poem, Don Welch gives us a man who’s been fixing barbed wire fences all his life. At the Edge of Town Hard to know which is more gnarled, the…
