Alternative exhaust
Rockstar Games always seems to focus on the less legit, the more illegal. With “Smuggler’s Run,” the title vomits the entire plot. You are a member an international ring of smugglers, destined to evade authorities and transport highly criminal cargo. (Unfortunately, like Pulp Fiction’s glowing briefcase, the contents of such naughty packages remain mysterious.) However,…
Jackson falls to earth
Jesse Jackson shows that he’s more than just a little human with his foolin’ around – much to the disappointment of his supporters.
Back to basics
Several months ago I walked into the Del Rio and was greeted by women. Not unusual — except that these particular women towered over me — shining stainless steel Amazons. I had unwittingly stumbled into one of the many art exhibits that rotate through the Del Rio bar every month or so. This particular display…
Brother Bill
The African-American community understood Bill Clinton, and that’s why they forgave his rascally behavior….
Unfriendlys
With a punk pilot light heating a sped-up, revved-up Detroit rock sound, The Unfriendlys owe as much to Devil’s Night ghouls as they do to the invention of the combustion engine. Teetering between glam, gore and gutter in the style department, you won’t mistake the message in the band’s blistering, disorienting sound. These guys are…
The hustler
Bill Clinton is no gentleman; he and his liberal compatriots helped carry the feminist revolution to its sour and debased con…
Steak on the grille
Once you locate the Greektown Casino’s top-drawer venue, the atmosphere is reasonably well-to-do. The Grille is mostly a steakhouse, with Caesar salad, baked potatoes, shrimp cocktail and other traditional dishes — plus spring rolls and a Middle Eastern sampler.
Role over
How did Bill Clinton fail us as a role model? Let us count the ways.
Alternative exhaust
Rockstar Games always seems to focus on the less legit, the more illegal. With “Smuggler’s Run,” the title vomits the entire plot. You are a member an international ring of smugglers, destined to evade authorities and transport highly criminal cargo. (Unfortunately, like Pulp Fiction’s glowing briefcase, the contents of such naughty packages remain mysterious.) However,…
Hey, good lookin’
Lemberg Gallery brings larger-than-life art back to Woodward Avenue…
A Detroit thing
Stewart Francke has changed his spots. Sort of. On the one hand, the singer-songwriter has shed the mantle he’s worn so long for some new duds. On the other hand, any baby boomer born and raised in Detroit is never more than a half-step away from Motown. That’s what Francke has given us: A Motown…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You Aries folks often have the vision and drive necessary to launch innovations, but are not as skilled in bringing them to completion. Often it’s because you’re so fixated on your great ideas that you neglect to work on your people skills. While you may inspire followers in the early going,…
American spawn
Tube wars: Duke Ellington vs. John Ashcroft
Chamber Jazz Champs
A true downtown (that’s NYC, natch) aesthete, trumpeter Dave Douglas connects modern improvisation and modern composition like they were just made to walk hand in hand. And maybe they were. In 2001, it’s no big deal to link the jazz dive and the recital hall, blending the lessons learned from street-corner gigging with a studious…
Room with a view
Q: I live on the third floor of an apartment building. I usually walk around in my panties and bra. Recently, when I was in my kitchen, I noticed the curtains move on the apartment next door. When I realized someone was watching me, my nipples got very hard and I immediately got horny. I…
The chromatic condition
DAM and Revolution resolve to color or not….
Ladyman nonballads
It’s all wink-wink, nudge-nudge, boys’ club-style at the top of the pops these days, what with Eminem’s violent verses and Limp Bizkit’s he-man machismo earning Grammy nods and money wads faster than their defenders can feebly say “artistic freedom.” Musical misogyny certainly isn’t new, but it’s no less disturbing that recently there’s been an increasingly…
Best of Detroit 2001 ballot
Nobody rests until we know the best….
Stoned
Industry players and watchers look for the “next big thing” from Detroit (so many to choose from!) … An alternateen flashback watching Odd Man Out and friends at the Magic Stick … Upcoming show news & much more.
Modern memory
The first movement of “Century Rolls,” John Adams’ new concerto for piano, starts like a wind-up machine. Delicately clinking and squeaking in syncopation, it sounds as if two American musical inventions, minimalism and jazz, came together to make a music box. Though the jazz is of the George Gershwin variety, its giddy energy takes us…
The future is now
Let’s take a peek and see what the coming year on the Web might bring. If 2000 is any indication, 2001 might be even more chaotic and unpredictable.
Bushisms
Bush inaugural protestors give good signage….
Rocket riddims
Wading through Lee Perry’s sea of a discography is a bit daunting. You have to put in a few laps, taking the hits with the misses, mostly because of all the tapes floating around and landing in the wrong hands. So when Techno Party with its butchered, pixely, PhotoShop cover found its way to my…
Striking out
After the longest, most expensive newspaper strike in U.S. history, the Detroit dailies and their unions were wounded. Are there lessons here?
Anonymous
Falsely arrested retiree receives large settlement from city….
Poppin’ wheelies
It was fairly common for an early Small Brown Bike live show to include friendly heckles of “you need more Hot Water Music or Jawbreaker in the monitors.” Given that its use of raspy vocal shouts and driven personal pop are obvious nods to those aforementioned groundbreakers, the Bike has held its own style of…
Exercising freedom
The ancient fight for spiritual freedom has taken a new twist in the era of the dot-com. Falun Gong practitioners around the world have organized to protest China’s suppression of this meditative spiritual movement.
Wells of frustration
Public opposition to Romulus waste wells ignored….
Smash-mouth noir
Director Guy Ritchie’s violent, witty caper set in London’s underworld lets loose a visual assault — with Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina, Vinnie Jones and Benicio Del Toro as tough men on a collision course with a diamond and each other.
Down there
The Vagina Monologues use cunning linguistics to free the flow of taboo discourse….
Peerless pays up
Class action suit settled against Peerless Metal….
The Pledge
Director Sean Penn documents a man in the midst of an emotional meltdown. Adapted from Friedrich Durrenmatt’s novel, The Pledge stars Jack Nicholson in a beautiful, nuanced performance as a retired homicide detective — with Benicio Del Toro and Robin Wright Penn.
Brutally funny
Writer-director Guy Ritchie discusses the London underworld depicted in his new film Snatch … where a hard man is good to find.
All aboard
Public input requested for metro-Detroit transit plan….
Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s classic tragedy impresses on a grand scale. Originally released in 1985, this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear observes the dangerous squabbles within a powerful family and then withdraws to a godlike vantage point to watch the resulting carnage.
Letters to the Editor
Starter home? Come on, Lessenberry! You must have some wires crossed to talk about your fine street, wonderful neighborhood and school, and then imply that Detroit doesn’t measure up because it lacks the ability to tax your safe, liberal, comfortable ass ("They don’t want you to ask," MT, Jan. 10-16). Become a radical like St.…
Cars R ours
A collection of automotive-themed products inspired by Detroit’s annual auto show….
Shadow of the Vampire
By creating facsimiles of scenes from Murnau’s Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horrors, director E. Elias Merhige ironically makes his film a dramatic "re-enactment" of fictionalized events — with John Malkovich as Murnau and Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck the vampire.
Baby Bush and the ACLU
After listening to that excruciating inaugural address, now it’s time for the real scary stuff. The ACLU is ready to protect your freedoms, whether you consider yourself “liberal” or “conservative” politically.
Rage against the bread machine
If you can operate a bread machine, then you are more than capable of carrying out the traditional bread-baking process, which allows you to produce a wider variety of bread textures. It’s also a lot more fun.
Place Vendôme
Nicole Garcia’s film, a story of duplicity among gem dealers, offers no suspense and a is a psychological study which refuses to probe. What it does offer is a star vehicle for Catherine Deneuve, watchable but dreary and hinged on the legend of her abiding elegance.
Crankiness, couture and craziness
Nice folks and mean jokes at the Gold Dollar … Liquor and fashion mix it up at the Absolut Couture show at the Majestic … & Steven Sowers promises that his new bar Radar is really gonna open soon.
Freedom of absurdity
This column is responsible for considering absurd and/or cool consumer-related information. And after enjoying one young man’s artistic Web site, www.explodingdog.com, it may be hard to discern what price you’ll have to pay for this free visual amusement. On the site, Sam Brown, of Connecticut, showcases a comic strip of word-picture associations. He features stick-figure…
Touch your soles
Nike Shox are the athletic fashion rage. The latest b-ball/running shoe features accordionlike, "boing, boing" springy balls bridging the double soles of the shoe. Technically, Tigger’s got a real race now: Nike’s aerospace-inspired engineers created the shoe for basketball’s Vince Carter, inspired by a vision of trampolines. The synthetic leather interior packs the foot tight…
Ring cycle
Harry Potter ain’t got nothin’ on J. R. R. Tolkien’s cult literary classic of good vs. evil, The Lord of the Rings. And if you dare need proof, just check out www.lordoftherings.net, the Web site for the New Line Cinema trilogy of films, to be produced this year. The first film, The Fellowship of the…
Couched in the truth
What on earth makes the corporate suits of Gardner White think we want Bill Bonds to sell us a couch? What made the furniture company think the sight of Bill Bonds in a steel gray suit and hair-hat would call up visions of fun family gatherings? In the locally aired television commercial, Bonds sits confidently…
