First-time bummer
Q: I lost my virginity last night. I’m a straight male in my early 30s, so it was about time. It wasn’t awkward, and we had a good time. However, I didn’t climax during sex, which is a result of years of death-grip masturbation. (Thanks for the warning, Dan. I’m sorry I didn’t heed it.)…
Lottery Ticket
Onetime novelty rapper-turned-actor Bow Wow (no need for the “Lil” anymore) stars as a nice, honest kid in an Atlanta housing project who buys a lotto ticket on a whim, only to win the mega-millions powerball jackpot. Suddenly blessed with huge Jed Clampett screw-you money, our hero must keep his head together and keep this…
Makin’ the local scene
Ted Raimi is feeling homesick, and more than a bit envious. "I’m really jealous that there’s so much production going on there," the Royal Oak native says by phone from California, where he moved in 1989 and carried on the family honor by carving out a laudable career as an actor, director and writer. "I’m…
Nanny McPhee Returns
If there’s one thing this sequel to the 2005 charmer brings, it’s lots of poop. And burps. And quarreling kids. Set in the bucolic British countryside, some 70 or so years after the first film, the anti-Poppins governess drops in just as young mum Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is about to come undone. See, her…
Arts, Beats and Ammo
"… It is important to recognize that … the right to keep and bear arms is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for any purpose." —Guess who OK, now — which American-hating creep would write something as anti-Second Amendment as those words above? Vladimir Lenin? Some…
Hot stuff
The stars are the meats, of course, and Rub does better on those that on its sides. Fabulously tasty is an appetizer of “pig wings,” though they come with the sauce cooked on instead of letting the diner choose. These petite pieces are braised shanks, with a slightly crisp exterior and a bit of maple…
Searching for Kesler!
"Man, walking here was a bad idea," I say to myself, as my sweat makes a mockery of my shirt. I’m trekking from the MT offices to Comerica Park, but I don’t really know where to go. So I walk the perimeter of the ballpark searching for a tour bus emblazoned with images of hockey…
Black City
Matthew Dear has been, from the beginning, Ghostly International’s most ambitious artist, the Ann Arbor-originated label’s franchise player. Since 1999’s "Hands up for Detroit" debut single, he’s remained restless and hungry, pushing the production envelope into techno, house, electro-pop, art-rock and singer-songwriter territories. Dear has turned out music under his own name and the noms-de-plume…
Two-drink minimum
Sometimes in the wild and hairy world of rock ‘n’ roll, following rules pays off. Case in point: Ann Arbor-based quintet Drunken Barn Dance. The group was conceived initially as a solo vehicle by songwriter-by-night/attorney-by-day Scott Sellwood (who many will remember as the former keyboardist for the great Saturday Looks Good to Me). Drunken Barn…
The Orchard
It’s not totally fair to call the Syracuse-based chamber-pop group Ra Ra Riot a junior Arcade Fire. For one thing, there are only five people in Ra Ra Riot. For another, they don’t aim quite as big as the way more popular Canadian collective. And that’s often a good thing. Without Win Butler’s arena-size anthems…
Rock wall
You need only look at the magnitude of work they’ve done for Jack White’s Dead Weather — which includes set design, posters and a deck of cards, to get a sense of their regard. Their commissions for the Alamo Draft House don’t hurt either. We’re talking about Silent Giants, which is Chris Everhart and Ed…
Sugar
Dead Confederate rose from the ashes of the jam-oriented Red Belly Band on their 2008 debut, Wrecking Ball, where they pursued a sweltering neo-psych throb in songs that stretched into extended, distortion-drenched vamps that bared traces of the Allman Brothers’ jammy theatrics. Some of that old thud is evident on the band’s follow-up album —…
Some campus essentials
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY Bureau of Urban Living 460 W. Canfield St., Detroit; 313-833-9336 Located on the ground floor of the Canfield Lofts in midtown Detroit, Bureau of Urban Living calls itself a "modern-day urban general store." Wayne State students and staff looking to garnish a new dorm room or apartment will find stylish decorum ranging…
Tomorrow Morning
It’s harder to write happy than unhappy. That’s the problem with the final album in Eels’ trilogy about dissolution, heartbreak and redemption that was released over the past 14 months. Misanthropic frontman Mark Oliver Everett, who’s built his entire career around dispirited paeans, simply isn’t equipped for the task. Most Eels albums focus on Everett’s…
Letters to the Editor
Do I hear three? I read with great interest the article, "One cheer for Obama" (Aug. 18), and I have to respectfully disagree with Jack Lessenberry. I say two cheers for Obama. The worst thing President Obama could have done was cater to the wishes of U.S. Republican Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Jim Bunning…
Warp Riders
Austin metal band the Sword has always had great riffs, but the execution was usually more about passion, not precision. Until now. On Sword’s third album, the band tightens its game. The most immediate change involves frontman J.D. Cronise, who has learned how to sing. Warp Riders is a sci-fi concept record — at least…
Glow job
Readers of this column have figured out by now that there ain’t no nuclear physicists manning the desks here at News Hits central. And usually that doesn’t much matter. It does, however, make a difference this week, because at least an associate’s degree in radiology might help us sort through the isotopes of an issue…
Dark Night of the Soul
Whether it’s a long-shelved work like Smile or an album that a label refuses to release like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, audiences often romanticize records that take a while to reach their ears. As silly as that can be, it’s understandable: In an age when music feels increasingly disposable, albums held up by creative genius or…
Metro Retro
24 years ago in Metro Times: MT interviews the most powerful woman in Detroit you’ve never heard of: Dorothy Brodie, who holds the undeniably long title of executive assistant to the mayor for federal regulations. Translated, this means that Brodie is Mayor Coleman Young’s lobbyist to the Reagan administration, and it is her doing that…
How green is my campus?
How important are sustainability practices and environmental policies at a particular college or university to prospective students? Well, if you believe the folks at the Princeton Review, the answer often is: very important. For 19 years, the Princeton Review — those good folks who help you prep for the SAT and other such tests —…
Farewell
French filmmaker Christian Carion (Joyeux Noel) filled his lead roles with a pair of celebrated directors and the result is far from gimmicky. Instead Frenchman Guillaume Canet (Tell No One) and Serbian Emir Kusturica (Underground) give heartfelt and engaging performances that underline the grudging then growing friendship of two very different men. With the sensibilities…
A season in Detroit
Ashlee Stratakis grew up on the Dearborn-Detroit border and moved to the Dearborn side so, she says, "I wouldn’t have to go to Detroit Public Schools." Dwayne Riley was raised on the city’s west side near Joy and Wyoming. While his grandmother "used to tell stories about the riots and things like that," he says…
College Guide 2010
How green is my campus? by Metro Times staff Student dispatches from five area universities that gauge the new ‘greening’ Add it up by Sallyann Price Biker speed has come a long way … A season in Detroit by Simone Landon And no, it’s not about people coming to ‘save’ the city Roads less traveled…
King Hong Kong
A young family in Macau is ruthlessly gunned down at home by a squad of hit men, leaving three dead, including children. Though critically wounded, the mother survives and leaves her grieving dad just enough information to begin hunting the killers in Hong Kong. Star Johnny Hallyday has had a long and varied career, though…
Farewell to arms
My platoon was under heavy machine-gun fire coming from across the Euphrates River. We ducked into ditches along a paved road that led to the Highway 8 bridge we were to secure. Right then, however, we were pinned down, and without the bridge, there would be no way of securing As Samawah, the small southern…
Night and Day
THURSDAY AUGUST 26 Louis SOUND FOR SILENCE The New Yorker recently dropped by a studio where Wynton Marsalis, his all-star 10-piece band and classical pianist Cecile Licad were recording a CD of the music that they’ll be playing live only in Detroit and four other cities. It’s the accompaniment to a silent movie, Louis, by…
Mao’s Last Dancer
Bruce Beresford indulges in the genre’s worst clichés. An unabashed humanist, the veteran Aussie director’s filmography is a hit-and-miss litany of well-meaning films that tackle cross-cultural connections. His career has simmered into under-the-radar efforts, few of which have brought him notice. This ham-handed tale of Chinese ballet star Li Cunxin will do little to critically…
Down on the corner
His barbecue stand is stocked with two grills, a hot dog cart and a group of men who seat themselves at his side every day. Charles Gaither can be found on the corner of East McNichols and Hoover six days a week, from just before lunch until the sun sinks away, standing over two barrel…
Roads less traveled
Growing up in metro Detroit, my parents always told me that smart girls can go to college wherever they want. I was encouraged to work hard and dream big. So after graduating with honors from a suburban private school, I matriculated to another private school, this one in Chicago. My college life consists of studying…
Radio, Radio
Scan the low end of the radio dial on a typical Tuesday night and this is what you might hear: At CJAM (99.1 FM), a man with a Southern drawl gives a "big howdy to Lollipop, Oliver and Flopsy" before introducing the "first bona fide rock ‘n’ roll song recorded" — Ike Turner’s "Rocket 88"…
Less than ten
Abe’s Coney Island 402 W. Michigan Ave., Ypsilanti; 734-448-5200: This popular after-bar stop has a kind of self-deprecating humor, billing itself as "Ypsilanti’s finest four-star coney dog, steak-and-egg joint." Whether you’re stopping in for eggs over easy with hash browns "burned" in the morning, or sopping up booze and making ironic jukebox selections at 3…
Add it up
The speed-freak coed has long been an established archetype in the social stratification of college campuses, right up there alongside white kids with dreads and Pabst-swilling hipsters. Wide-eyed, jittery and acutely productive, you can spot them in libraries during midterms and finals, with their books, laptops and pill bottles shuffling, tapping and clinking in concert.…
Diary of a schoolgirl
I’ve taken an SAT prep course, six practice SATs, an ACT prep class, six practice ACTs, three actual ACTs, and an MME. I’ve visited nine colleges and have plans to visit three more. I’m taking two AP classes next year and have 22 honors credits. I’m a typical 17-year-old high school girl, and I’m stressing…
Food Stuff
How green was my alley — Though not strictly a culinary phenomenon, we note with interest the new "green alley" built behind Motor City Brewing Works. As midtown tipplers know, that trip from the Bronx to Motor City can be a dreary trip around a big, fenced-in parking lot. But a brand-new byway now connects…
The Switch
Stars Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston lack serious romantic chemistry, but they do create mild comedic sparks together and make for a believably warm pair of best pals. Aniston’s perpetually single gal Kassie is smart, gorgeous, loving, and — due to fractured-mirror rom-com logic — she’s totally unable to score the right man. Meanwhile, Bateman’s…
