Screwed in the head
Dear Readers: A few weeks back, Laughing at Myself Now suggested that I ask my readers to send in letters detailing their childhood misconceptions about sex. It sounded like a good way to lighten my workload, allowing me to get out of the office and enjoy some of this global warming stuff I’ve been hearing…
Gimme Some Action
The Denizens “Danger in Disneyland” b/w “It’s Gotta Be Her,” “I Know You Hate Me” Young Soul Rebels The severe lack of competent and ambitious local Detroit record labels supporting the initial wave of punk rock means that only now, a quarter of a century later, do we get to hear the best Detroit…
N&D Center
Saturday • 28 Basic Orienteering ISSUES & LEARNING Don’t know which way is north? Have you ever found yourself pricing out DPS systems out of mortal fear that you will someday get completely lost? Worry no more. Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority is offering a class called Basic Orienteering that will teach folks how to find the…
“Danger in Disneyland” b/w “It’s Gotta Be Her,” “I Know You Hate Me”
The Ramrods Gimme Some Action Young Soul Rebels The severe lack of competent and ambitious local Detroit record labels supporting the initial wave of punk rock means that only now, a quarter of a century later, do we get to hear the best Detroit had to offer back then. The Ramrods are the name…
Further misconceptions
When I was in second grade, I used to sneak away during recess with one of the other boys and we would fool around in the tall grass at the edge of the playground. We pulled our pants down around our ankles and rubbed our tiny erections together. I remember him always on top, and…
Hollywood Potato Chips
Ranking right up there with the Arrogant Worms, these thrash punkers are one of North America’s greatest satirical groups. But then again, with song titles like “Don’t Make Me Get My Fat Lazy Ass Off The Couch” and “Christian Or Canadian” (lyrics available upon request), how can they not be? Not only is their logo…
Battle fatigue
With a subject as hoary as “the folly of war,” you might think it a cakewalk for the Planet Ant Improv Colony to squeeze something fresh and funny and relevant from it. In their latest comedy show, a sketch revue titled Detour of Duty, performances poke fun at war re-enactors, an armless and legless veteran…
High Dials
At what point does the Beatles’ influence stop becoming a reference point and just become a given? Revolver is the first thing that rushes to mind when listening to (and looking at) High Dials’ Fields in Glass EP. But then you remember Jet’s shitty album cover and all the other bands who’ve already nicked the…
Sin-o-matic
The year was 1977. It took a jaunt in a borrowed jalopy out to Dearborn to find a record store savvy enough to stock the expanding catalog of punk rock 45s creeping out of New York City and the UK. In was then and there that all indicators pointed to a new sonic plateau for…
Blunt Raps
Thankfully, producer Iggy Ignotius and part-time Abolitionist crew standouts Tenacity and SA, know how to hold down an album, and keep hip hop progressive. From the first eight bars, this album attempts to chart a new course for Michigan’s underground sound. The surprisingly ill Micro-Korg effects and bugged-out electronic beats being rapped over by Tenacity…
The blog of war
Like the history that he teaches, Juan Cole’s emergence as a 21st century media phenomenon is the product of convergence. Geopolitics and technology and professional pursuits have combined to transform a once-obscure university professor into an analyst hundreds of thousands of people are turning to as an alternative source of information regarding the war in…
Sci-fi sex
A detective tale set in future where genetic engineering has led to a state of quiet totalitarianism, and where a paramount concern of the state is the prevention of accidental “couplings” of lab-bred people whose genetic profiles may be too similar. Tim Robbins is the private eye and Samantha Morton is the love interest in…
The Republicans are coming
Something has to be wrong with our brain waves. My theory is that space aliens have poisoned the nation’s water supply. Why? Well, think of it: For one thing, next week’s Republican National Convention should be the most exciting one in memory. Their sitting president is not only the biggest threat to freedom and the…
Divan
This charming documentary takes us on a quixotic quest to Hungary in search of a sentimental family divan (sofa), and throws us into a tale of a young woman who has strayed from her Hasidic Jewish Brooklyn roots. It’s both a well-crafted home movie and a good-natured examination of identity, socialization and related issues.
Tripping into the void
This brisk summer evening finds me driving southbound at 90 miles per hour on I-75, unaware of the gathering speed of my four-door Saturn. Flashing lights in my rearview mirror. A police officer with a crew cut. Shit. Pulled over for speeding, the fuzz says. Blame it on Aquarius Void. Warning: Listening to Aquarius Void…
She Hate Me
A young corporate exec blows the whistle on his unethical employer (a pharmaceutical firm working on an AIDS vaccine, no less), finds himself pink-slipped and discovers a new line of work as a stud for lesbians (beginning with his ex-girlfriend, no less). Does this sound like director Spike Lee once again packing a film with…
And the winners are…
A whole lot of untimely death, vengeance and human failure is on the minds of metro Detroiters — that is, if one is to judge common persuasion by reading the 201 entries to Metro Times’ annual fiction and poetry contest. Reading the entries was a somewhat maudlin experience. There are a lot of writers out…
Intimate Strangers
A woman seeking a psychiatrist’s office accidentally ends up sharing her tale of marital strife, emotional abuse and dreamed-of escapes with an accountant. With each visit, the accountant’s affection for her deepens. Eventually wise to his deception, she begins her own. Depending on your point of view, the inconclusive ending is either poetic or a…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Last June, a rickety raft carrying 42 destitute African refugees washed ashore on a posh nude beach in Spain. Visualize that scene, Aries. It will serve as an apt metaphor for your life in the coming week. A forlorn, vulnerable part of your life will come face to face with a…
BestofBallot
What’s best about Detroit? Loyal readers, we humbly request your help in ferreting out the best places to wine and dine, the places that define what is great about being in metro Detroit in 2004. The results of this poll will be reported in our Sept. 29 issue. And there’s something in it for you…
Zhou Yu’s Train
Everything in this Chinese puzzle of a romance, co-written and directed by Sun Zhou, seems to be devised to distract you from the essential corniness of the story. And it’s not a very good puzzle either. Starring the great Gong Li, star of Raise the Red Lantern.
Dim sum, anyone?
On a recent Sunday around noon there was a long line of mostly Chinese people — a very good sign — waiting to get into West Bloomfield’s Shangri-La for dim sum. The lines found every weekend at Shangri-La and at Windsor’s Wah Court are testimonials to the high quality of food found at these dim…
Get yer ya-ya’s out!
Street buzz says that the hottest punk rock reunion ticket in months is happening at the Stick this Saturday. Yes, the storied Ramrods — a band that imploded before the scene-defining venue Bookies had even fired up — are taking the stage. “The tree fell in the forest 27 years ago and it took until…
Without a Paddle
This is a guy flick, in the “burp, scratch and pat your buddy on the back” sense, from director Steven Brill, whose credits include Little Nicky and Mr. Deeds. Three old friends (Dax Shepard, Matthew Lillard and Seth Green) take off on a quest to find a thief’s booty in the backwoods. They brave yokels,…
Fiction winners
First Place Patrick Dostine, Harper Woods Killing Time My Uncle Albert and my dad announced we were going to the dump. So my cousin, my brother and I raced back to the cottages to get our pellet guns. The three of us hopped into the back of my uncle’s big pickup next to the garbage…
Secret revelations
News Hits would not call it a riveting summer read. But the recent 155-page report issued by the 9/11 commission sure piqued our interest. Of particular note is the chapter devoted to Global Relief Foundation (GRF) — a Chicago-based Islamic charity that was shut down soon after the Sept. 11 attacks — which was co-founded…
Flash fiction
The Sad Little Pen (As Told by a Jerk) A. Zayne Tawil, Livonia, 1st place The thousand-dollar fountain pen was beautiful and dignified, but he never got to write anything. His owner wanted to protect his investment, so he kept the fountain pen locked in a shiny glass box and never let him anywhere near…
WDTR is no more
Detroit Public Schools’ plan to lease management of the radio station it has owned and operated since 1948 has protesters mobilized to meet school honcho Kenneth Burnley and other administrators outside after school (so to speak). Last Friday, protesters gathered at the former WDTR-FM — now renamed WRCJ-FM (90.9) and slated to be leased to…
Detroit poetry
Empty Structures Anne M. Rashid, Detroit, 1st place When there is nothing left of this city that you remember, write it down. Pick up the pieces of old Hudson’s, the last department store on Woodward, the chandeliers that hung over the perfume counters, the intricate railings that took you from one level to the next.…
Blighted block
You’d think A.S.S. stands for, say, Detroit Police Abandoned Section Squad rather than Abandoned Structure Squad, judging by the reception on the 5900 block of Marlborough on Detroit’s far East Side. Folks A.S.S. hails on the street are curiously suspicious of outsiders with cameras and questions. One woman waves us away while getting into a…
Sister act
According to Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on earth. She was graced with many virtues and talents; her name translates to “all-gifted.” When she was presented to her male counterpart, Epimetheus, as a gift, her new companion had a jar (some versions refer to it as a box) in his possession that contained…
Letters to the Editor
A peripheral vision Re: “A case against sprawl” (Metro Times, Aug. 18), as a middle-class, white, middle-aged man living in Oakland County, I find it hard for anyone to fault the “build and abandon” pattern. I have three children (18 and twin 6-year-olds) that have attended Waterford Public Schools. I would like to ask parents…
A hero for Sudan?
What the Sudan needs is a Nelson Mandela. If the crisis in that country is ever to attract the same level of outrage and righteous indignation — and media attention — that South Africa received from the United States during the declining years of the apartheid regime, we’ll need a media hero, preferably accompanied by…
