Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Get used to the fact that you’re going to feel good about your life and bad about your life maybe eight times a day every day," advises healer Carolyn Myss, "and clear about your life and confused about your life 25 times a day. Your journey is to get to the…
Aloof about the loaf
Q: I am a 26-year-old gay guy with a strange fetish. Mine feels like it’s the strangest one out there because I’ve never read anything about it anywhere. Consequently, I’ve always felt embarrassed and ashamed. Even before I was consciously aware of my attractions to guys, I’ve been aroused by bread. My sexual attraction to…
Taste the Big Easy
Jambalaya, crawfish pie, filé gumbo Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou. These words — immortalized by Hank Williams Sr. in the tune “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” — conjure up the flavors of the title dish, a Louisiana favorite. Many cultures have indigenous rice dishes: fried rice in China, risotto in…
Bank shot
The front-page headline of the March 7, 1970, edition of the Michigan Chronicle blared the pitiful news: “POPULAR SINGER SHOT TO DEATH.” Two weeks after the murder, the brightest names in soul music gathered on Detroit’s West Side to grieve the death of one of their most respected peers, Darrell Banks. Cut to 2003: Banks’…
How I spent my summer tour
Ricky Phillips (aka Ricky Rat) is an ace guitarist in the Mick Ronson/Johnny Thunders mold who spent 15 years in the trenches with the Motor City’s Trash Brats. Rat’s been touring with Texas Terri Bomb, a chick who’s been dubbed the female Iggy in press around the world. And she is sorta like Iggy —…
A case against sprawl
Paul Tait makes an unlikely target for critics who say out-of-step leadership seems determined to bleed southeast Michigan’s central cities dry while shoveling wads of taxpayer cash into the sprawling suburbs. Since 1972, when he was 25 years old, Tait’s sole employer has been the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, a little-known but immensely influential…
Harder and harder
It’s an oddly cool Thursday evening in Ferndale, and Wendy Case, dressed casually in a blue T-shirt, black jeans and brown clogs, is sipping wine on the enclosed back porch. Her patented blond-to-russet mane stops at her shoulders; her sharp-boned features and lithe frame are softened by graceful curves; she looks smaller in person, almost…
Roses, revolution & Dudley Randall
It is a “marvel,” a “curious thing,” wrote the Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, “to make a poet black, and bid him sing!” Like all good poets, Cullen twines strands of meaning. But in the literal sense, he was hardly visionary. In a typical week, metro Detroit hosts, for instance, any number of poetry forums…
Sanctuary for the lost
Like many runaways, Dee’s childhood left much to be desired. When you ask the Detroit 19-year-old about her father, she says, “What father?” Her mother wasn’t much of a permanent fixture either. Dee spent most of her life in foster care — in her case a sentence of alienation and abuse. “I went through a…
N&D Center
Wednesday • 18 Bob Marley Roots Rock Reggae Festival MUSIC Though the music world suffered an enormous loss with the untimely death of legendary reggae artist Bob Marley in 1981, his legacy continues through the hearts, minds and voices of his talented progeny. In honor of their famous father, reggae outfit the Marley Brothers (Ziggy,…
Jamming for Teddy
The Detroit jazz community, so tremendously rich in talent, has suffered several losses in recent years, most recently with the death of bassist Ray McKinney. The passing of these brilliant torches only makes the city’s living legends that much more precious. One of those legends is Teddy Harris Jr., who experienced a jazz epiphany at…
Gay rights and wrongs
Suppose I lusted after a cute young girl and was able to get Wayne State University to put her on the journalism (i.e. taxpayer-funded) payroll at a big salary, even though she knew nothing about journalism or teaching. Eventually, after either getting tired of my chasing her around the table, or because she was tired…
Demolition daze
Detroit preservationists claim the city didn’t play fair when it decided in May to demolish the former Statler-Hilton Hotel located downtown on Washington Boulevard. Earlier this month, the nonprofit group Friends of the Book-Cadillac requested that the Wayne County Circuit Court review the legality of a May decision by the city’s Historic District Commission allowing…
One more round?
Considering derelict structures of Detroit, Geoff Dyer, author of Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, wrote, “even though these buildings have been abandoned, even though they were no longer fit for business, habitation, or anything else, still they did not physically collapse. Until they’re laid low by dynamite or wrecking balls…
Punk the vote
News Hits dusted off our black spiked dog collar and headed out to the Pontiac Silverdome last Sunday for the Detroit stop of the 10th annual Warped Tour. A nationwide tour featuring dozens of punk bands and a handful of extreme sports demos, this daylong gala is normally a magnet for the masses of disaffected,…
Axing for more
Best known these days as Detroit’s pre-eminent X-rated spoken-word poet, the raunchy and raucous Jimmy Doom will be reuniting with his old band, the Almighty Lumberjacks of Death, this Friday at Alvin’s, after an approximate 11-year hiatus. The seeds for the reunion were sown a scant few months ago, when a distributor in San Diego…
Undergroundlings
“The revoluuuu-tion is expensive,” coughs a nervous-looking Steven Van Zandt in the early hours of his much-feted outdoor garage rock music festival on New York City’s Randall’s Island. He looks nervous because he’s already experienced major malfunctions. Little Steven’s Underground Garage — which spun off from the E-Streeter-turned-HBO wise guy’s syndicated radio show — was…
Letters to the Editor
Edited, out I am deeply troubled to learn of editor Jeremy Voas’ dismissal from Metro Times (“Canned Voas,” Metro Times, Aug. 11). During the last five years I’ve known the publication from a variety of perspectives. When I moved to Detroit after college, I was a reader. When I took my first “real” job at…
Soul elegance
Quality soul food in an elegant supper club setting downtown. Highlights on the menu include ribs, chicken-fried steak, buttermilk-battered catfish and meatloaf. There is a Cajun presence as well, with specialties like a richly textured Creole gumbo, Po’Boys and Chicken Voodoo.
Let’s Make Our Descent
The difference between great and bad psychedelia? Great psychedelia always sounds like someone has slipped you a mickey — bad psychedelia sounds like it’s the band that’s drinking out of the wrong glass. It’s the subtle shade of difference between The Easybeats and Lothar and the Hand People, the difference between the first half of…
Resolution
How can you not love a band that subliminally embeds a picture of a naked woman into the front cover of their new album? Now that I’ve got your attention, lemme tell ya that the BoDeans’ Resolution is nothing short of extraordinary. I mean, how often do you hear a new album by a band…
A good week
Documentary of a five-day train ride/multi-concert swing through Canada featuring bands like the Grateful Dead, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Buddy Guy and Janis Joplin, who died shortly after filming was completed. The music is showcased in a refreshingly unslick, unpretentious fashion.
Garden State
Written, directed by and starring Zach Braff from TV’s scrubs, this film boasts a quirky, wry and sometimes warped humor. It’s somewhat sentimental, but blissfully free of the omnipresent slapstick and bathroom humor that’s stinking up studio comedies of late.
Distant
A sympathetic tale about two people in Istanbul who can’t connect to each other — or anyone else for that matter. Beautifully filmed in a pensive navel-gazing style that will either drive you mad with boredom or suck you into its meditative groove.
Alien vs. Predator
If you’re looking for a movie that makes sense and has something to do with the original films and isn’t just a complete pile of shit … you’re in the wrong place, pal.
Crimson Gold
A collaborative work from two heavy-hitters of contemporary Iranian cinema, the script was inspired by a real event. An intense telling of a thief’s story, it offers a gripping expose of class prejudice and police-state oppression.
