Sunday Comics: On the Detroit Tigers’ deafening silence regarding new Navin Field plans
The Detroit Tigers have been strangely silent regarding the latest plans to redevelop their old stomping grounds … If you haven’t already, read our cover story from earlier this year about the volunteers working to preserve the site of the old Tiger Stadium, the Navin Field Grounds Crew, right here.
101 words we’d like to hear less of in 2015
From “amazeballs” to “whatevs” … words that should disappear with 2014.
Café Con Leche is now open on W. Grand Blvd.
Southwest Detroit’s favorite coffee shop, Café Con Leche, is now open in New Center at 2990 W. Grand Blvd. They’ll be open today and tomorrow, 8am-3pm. They’ll be closed on Thursday for the holiday, and plan to reopen Friday, January 2. After that, owner Jordi Carbonell tells MT the New Center location will be open regular…
The other Harbaugh
Whoops! The Detroit Free Press accidentally printed a picture of Jim Harbaugh’s brother above the fold on the front page of their paper this morning alongside a headline that read, “All signs point to Harbaugh at U-M.” They realized their mistake and tweeted out an apology, noting they’d print a picture of Jim Harbaugh, the…
NFL Should Suspend Bully-Boy Suh for Lions’ Playoff Opener at Dallas
When Ndamukong Suh of the Lions was a boy, soccer was his favorite and best sport. Earlier this year, Suh attended the World Cup tournament in Brazil. In his five-year National Football League career, Suh has added more “foot” to American-style football without even kicking the pigskin. Because he booted another foe again Sunday, Suh…
Could racism be in the age of the beholder?
I don’t think there’s ever been a time in the last decade when it’s been this hard to simply live in Detroit without feeling self-conscious about it. Two weeks ago, Detroit News columnist Nolan Finley questioned “where are the black people” in his column. I was invited to comment on it for a radio segment,…
ICYMI: How a white architect is the granddaddy of hip-hop
Back in September, we ran a story about architect and Highland Park native Michael Ford. Ford asserts that the grandfather of hip-hop “came long before the 1970s when DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaattaa were dropping beats on Sedgwick Avenue in the South Bronx.” The whole thing, he says, was inspired by architect LeCorbusier. LeCorbusier, you…
Who’s the Best Dressed Lion?
As the Lions go in to their game v. Green Bay, the team seriously wants to know: Who’s the best-dressed Lion? Check out the five candidates here, and more photos from the road trip (and we think additional candidates) here. Who do you think the winner is? Let us know! ht @dietdrpepper
Here are three things you need to read this Sunday
It’s Sunday, and before the Detroit Lions take on the Green Bay Packers in their regular season finale, you should kick back, grab a cup of coffee, and read something worthwhile. Here are three suggestions to start: “Martin Brest Directed Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run And, Yes, Gigli. Then He Vanished. Why?” by Matt Patches…
Report: Jim Harbaugh will accept University of Michigan coaching job
In recent days, a number of observers have speculated that San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh would take a job as the next coach of the University of Michigan’s football team. If Jason Cole of The Bleacher Report is correct, Ann Arbor should roll out the welcome mats: Two members of the San Francisco 49ers…
ICYMI: The Guardian on Detroit (The Brand)
Some say 2014 was Detroit’s year. You know, being reborn and all. Others say things like “What is important to mention is the way in which profit-making ventures – in some cases the very manufacturing firms that devastated the local economy – seek to exploit the image of de-industrialization, rebrand it as grit and determination,…
Snyder green-lights historically ineffective program to drug test welfare recipients
Welfare recipients in three counties across Michigan may be subjected to drug tests as part of a one-year pilot program created under a law signed Friday by Gov. Rick Snyder. By most accounts, it’s a pointless, ineffective exercise. But in a statement Friday, Snyder contended the $500,000 program would, somehow, “remove the barriers” that keep…
Emagine Canton will screen ‘The Interview’ for free
You may have heard about the controversy surrounding the release of a movie called The Interview. It stars Seth Rogan and James Franco as the pair attempt to assassinate North Korea’s Kim Jong Un with the help of the CIA. Of course, some folks weren’t happy about Hollywood making a film that’s plot surrounds the…
Blues great Alberta Adams dead at 97
Alberta Adams, “the Queen of the Blues,” died early on Christmas in Dearborn of congestive heart failure. She was 97. Fortunately, Brett Callwood had the chance to interview Adams earlier this year. Revisit the piece here.
Merry Christmas from Metro Times!
Merry Christmas, MT Readers! We were thinking of you this morning, when we re-discovered the James Brown classic Christmas album, Funky Christmas. The album features such songs as “Christmas is Love” and “Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto.” It got us moving this morning, so we wanted to let you know about it. Check…
It’s supposed to be snowing not raining this Christmas eve, but whatever here are three great rain songs
Never trust a person who says that they love the rain. That person is either a liar, or they have very strange taste. When it comes to music, however, there are loads of great songs about the rain, probably because it’s the perfect weather to be inside and banging on the piano rather than outside…
Burger Quest: We had an elusive, amazing burger at Honest John’s
Anybody who’s lived in or near Cass Corridor for more than a few minutes probably knows all about Honest John’s — or thinks they do. Long before swanky small plates were being served around the corner at Selden Standard, back when all but a few had written off the area, owner John Thompson staked his…
The Potatoes update experimental punk and slacker bedroom alt-pop
Each great indie band begins their life by announcing who they’re stealing from, which is about all they can do at the start anyway, consciously or otherwise. It can be obscure at the time (almost no one outside Germany remembered Neu when Stereolab started) or not at all (everyone knew the Velvets and Feelies when…
All Dolled Up: Derek John breaks down his ‘Jay Z on a budget’ style
StoreFront Gallery owner and Mary Ann’s Soda founder Derek John likes to describe his style as “Jay Z on a budget.” Like all men all with good fashion sense (including Jay Z), Derek isn’t afraid to pile on the jewelry — he especially likes Shinola accessories and anything from local jewelry line Vagrants and Valentines.…
‘Hot Box’ highlights both the rock side and the weird side of Destroy All Monsters
Destroy All Monsters didn’t just make uncompromising and ridiculously forward-looking, sprawling art music 40 years ago, they were each ridiculously talented visual artists – Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Niagara, and Cary Loren – who went on to different levels of international fame. After Shaw and Kelley moved to California, the band took on the Miller…
Merry Christmas, Detroit
It’s that time of year when we celebrate the birthday of you-know-who, and this year, Detroit, like JC himself, seems to have risen from the dead. The city is out of bankruptcy, with at least enough cash to pay its bills over the next few months or so. There are definitely more street lights on,…
Finding that bottle to uncork doesn’t need to give you a headache
The New Year’s Eve ritual of uncorking a bottle of bubbly for a toast can send the uninitiated on a confounding errand: trying to find a bottle of sparkling wine that will bring midnight smiles to you and your friends. There are seemingly endless varieties of the stuff, at varying prices, and the practice…
DDays: Memorable happenings from 2014
As the year comes to a close, we here at DDays took a few minutes to relive our best, saddest, and most gossipy moments of 2014. Two Become One Earlier this year rumors were flying that Metro Times and rival publication Real Detroit Weekly would be merging. Some believed it while others were skeptical but…
Drink Up
Korbel Sweet Rosé | 11% ABV | $15 Looking for the perfect champagne to toast the New Year with? Korbel, a California champagne, might have just the thing for you. While they have plenty of varieties (brut, natural, extra dry) their Sweet Rosé serves best as an aperitif or with appetizers, which is probably how…
Staying sober — and sane — during the holidays
So, you want to enjoy the holidays sober? Just thinking about being sober this time of year is enough to drive some of us to drink. And no wonder, with all of the stress. It’s certainly easy to drink — often free of charge — with all the holiday parties at your workplace (or better…
Feedback: Conflicting comments
Looking back over the letters received over the course of 2014, we find some interesting incongruities. Enjoy this look back: PLEASE KEEP THE IMPORTANT POLITICAL COVERAGE Please continue focusing on the educational crisis that persists within Detroit. The more our citizens are aware of the issue, the closer we are to changing that system. DUMP…
Hot Shotz: Selden Standard’s Rudy Leon whips us up a Fortunella Fizz
Selden Standard was open for just a month when we stopped in to meet with Rudy Leon, the establishment’s bar manager. Though it was lunchtime, it was pretty well packed inside, and we couldn’t help but order up some lunch while we waited for Leon to shirk his duties for a few minutes to mix…
Flipping through records at Ann Arbor’s Underground Sounds
For years, Underground Sounds owner Matt Bradish has been fulfilling music lovers across metro Detroit with whatever their needs may be. Situated along a busy stretch of Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor, Underground Sounds features a vast selection of garage, classic rock ‘n’ roll, punk, indie rock, hardcore, and more. Unlike the majority of…
Toast the town: Our picks for Detroit-area New Year’s Eve 2014 Champagne toasts
Whether they’re having the requisite complimentary champagne toast (or maybe they’re switching out to bubbly for High Life) and party favors or a special DJ, or just celebrating a little bigger and better than the other 364 nights of the year, these bars have something special planned for New Year’s Eve. (Toast) Albert’s on the…
Detail: Earth’s ‘The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull’
The fifth release from Olympia Washington’s Earth, the album title points to a biblical phrase, tongue in cheek or not. Earth’s Dylan Carlson, a close friend of Kurt Cobain’s, sort of fell off the face of the earth following the Nirvana frontman’s tragic death in 1994, before returning in the early 2000s. But unlike the…
After 8 years on the sidelines, Tylonn J. Sawyer has emerged
Tylonn J. Sawyer is as clean and straightforward as you get in the art world. He’s in the midst of juggling numerous projects, but you won’t find a method to his madness because there is no madness. His tongue speaks the King’s English better than most philosophy teachers as he talks art and culture. “I’m…
Powdered alcohol controversy proves America too trigger happy when it comes to banning new things
As Americans, we’re slow learners. But we’re getting there. After decades of agitation, alcohol was successfully prohibited in 1919, and it took us almost 15 years to learn that blanket bans are probably not a good idea. Four years after repeal, in 1937, we made marijuana illegal, and only now are we beginning to extricate…
Savage Love: Advice for the lonely
Q: I’m a short guy and I need advice. I don’t want a small paragraph’s worth of advice, like you gave “Below Their League” a few years ago. I need advice beyond “Women like men taller than them, get over it!” I get it. I’m short (5-foot-2), and most women are taller than me. And…
2015 New Year’s Eve guide
It’s time to nail down those plans for “amateur night,” aka New Year’s Eve, the time when we ring out the past and make resolutions for the future. We’ve got you covered, with ways to focus on the fun, a guide to the biggest parties, and where to hoist that bubbly at midnight. Hello, 2015!…
Face Time: Ken Cockrel Jr. responds to Detroit Future City’s criticisms
We dropped by the Detroit Future City’s implementation office to chat with Ken Cockrel Jr., the executive director, about the think tank’s proposed 50-year framework of ideas and some of the criticism the group has faced. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Metro Times: What’s Detroit Future City’s relationship with the mayor…
Raise the Bar: Catch a game at Coaches Corner
Located on Centre Street appropriately two blocks from Comerica Park and Ford Field is Coaches Corner. As its name might suggest, Coaches is a straight-up sports bar and grill, with a bunch of Detroit, as well as Michigan college, memorabilia decorating the inside of this huge wooden-clad lodge-looking spot. With sports tuned televisions surrounding the…
‘The Gambler’ remake lacks the original’s depth and darkness
The Gambler | C+ God bless John Goodman. The man is a force of nature. In a film filled with decent to very good actors (some wasted in their roles) Goodman muscles his way onto the screen and creates a character that’s funny, scary, and, yes, unabashedly cartoonish. He’s the only one who seems to…
Holiday film roundup: A look at three of the holiday season’s biggest flicks
’Tis the season for lots of big-profile movies, so we’re rounding up short reviews on the biggies. UNBROKEN | C+ Let’s dispense with the Angelina-Jolie-got-robbed narrative. Her well-intentioned, handsomely mounted, and frustratingly redundant ode to suffering and patriotic heroism is as old-school and predictable as it gets. If a movie could have a jutting jaw…
Ritual Howls treat their band like an art collective
We caught up with local buzz band Rituals Howls, since they’re performing at one of the hottest New Year’s Eve events in town (UFO Factory, supporting Shigeto and Jamaican Queens). The trio’s music is dark and deeply poetic, and references a lot of 1980s music without sounding dated or trendy. They just released their second…
‘Pingree’ is a little dog with a lot to say about Detroit
When he’s not working as production manager at printmakers 1XRUN or working as a freelance designer, Michael Burdick writes and illustrates a comic strip about former Detroit Mayor Hazen S. Pingree reincarnated as a stray dog. With Pingree: Detroit’s Best Friend, Burdick (full disclosure: a former classmate of ours) tackles a variety of issues —…
Playlist: Music for a new year
The holidays can be so relentlessly and overpoweringly cheesy, especially when it comes to the music we’re all forced to endure in checkout lines, doctor’s offices, and even at the paint store. Here we are and the holidays are almost over. And what, you’ve got “Auld Lang Syne,” which isn’t even in English — and…
How to have the best New Year’s Eve yet
We here at MT take our New Year’s Eves seriously. And that means we’ve been through enough of them to know that without proper preparation, NYE can totally blow. Through trial and error we’ve discovered some simple tips that have made our New Year’s Eves much better — we wish someone had shared this list…
Eating sloppy joes at Hazel Park Raceway with Jimmy Doom
Local actor and spoken word performer Jimmy Doom is, to say the least, an interesting guy. I remember him from my teenage years in the 1980s, back when he was a punk with a 12-inch mohawk and a shit-eating grin. I ran into him years later at Gusoline Alley, when he was channeling Don Rickles…
Ask a Juggalo: Do you guys hate Eminem?
Q: Don’t Juggalos hate Eminem? A: To be honest with you, once upon a time that was something very real and very serious, especially the late ’90s. Basically, it was just Eminem being very jealous of the clowns, who, in his opinion, were far less talented than he. But that’s a matter of opinion, brother,…
Trinosophes is a wise choice
I’ve bumped into a couple of people recently who are working their dream jobs (MT contributor Curt Guyette is one of them). It’s a kick to bask in their contentment, and even more so when their job helps make the rest of us happy. Opening Trinosophes, the gallery, performance, and café space by Eastern Market,…
Stir it up: A big year for Detroit
It’s been an unusual year for Detroiters. Things were bad in many ways, in novel and historic ways. It may have been a banner year for just how bad things can get. Detroit started the year under a cloud — well at least under emergency manager Kevyn Orr. We were also in the midst of…
Horoscopes (Dec. 24-30)
ARIES: March 21 – April 20 You don’t need to worry so much about where your strength lies. You have more than enough strength. The bigger problem seems to lie in what you do with it. I say this because many of you give it all away, and this gets to be a problem when…
Higher Ground: Baby, no means no
Baby, you know this song, performed by the greats from Louis and Ella to Nina to Mariah to Tony Bennett and Michael Bublé. Even Will Farrell took his turn with it. It’s a duet between a man and a woman, originally written as “Wolf” and “Mouse” in 1944, by Frank Loesser. The “Mouse” wants to…
Our 2015 Detroit New Year’s Eve party guide
— Big Bashes The Palazzo Grande This Italian banquet hall promises an intimate countdown to 2015 with special hors d’oeuvres like calamari and arancini Italian rice balls and a plated dinner of filet mignon and stuffed chicken florentine. Tickets come with a premium bar and since you’ll be dancing off your caloric intake from dinner,…
