Are ‘bi’ guys telling a lie?
Q: I have recently been exploring my bi side and experimenting with other men. I’ve come to a point of being perfectly comfortable with my sexuality: I’m attracted to both women and men, but I’m predominantly attracted to women. I hate the idea of having to hide this. I’ve read Dossie Easton’s book, The Ethical…
The sports divide
The usual occupant of this space writes, it’s fair to say, like an angry old man. As a man older and possibly angrier than he is, I know two things: 1.) Angry old men have opinions they express freely — and loudly, and 2.) Angry old men generally listen to sports-talk radio. My dad did.…
I ride for Him
On a scorching hot Fourth of July weekend in Davisburg, the air is thick with humidity and the mechanical growl of the 500-some motorcycles roaring into the 4-H fairgrounds. The grounds are filling up with leathery, tattooed dudes decked in Harley vests and handlebar moustaches, biker chicks in skintight jeans and skull-and-crossbones caps, gleaming helmets…
Proactive
Point and dream — Want to live in a more harmonious world? Then check out the premiere of My Brother’s Dream: An American Experience, an independent film shot mostly at Oakland Community College’s Orchard Ridge Campus in Farmington Hills. The project, conceived and produced by college student Michael Ray, involves 19 participants, from different ethnic…
Rappin’ the Word
The controversy over contemporary gospel music sounding “too secular” has existed since legendary singer Mahalia Jackson crossed traditional gospel lines in the 1930s. The Winans, among the world’s most popular gospel singers, have even endured verbal attacks from the conventional church world because their contemporary gospel sound bears a resemblance to R&B. But as today’s…
Letters to the Editor
Kudos for cub Kent Alexander: I found your story (“No more puppetry,” Metro Times, July 6) very interesting. It’s encouraging that a young person such as yourself has ventured beyond the corporate cesspool of today’s punk-metal in favor of an album with substance, such as Metallica’s Master of Puppets. I salute you for working past…
Best in the Midwest
Since the Detroit Institute of Arts is closed for renovations in August, it seems like a good time to get out of the city and check out what’s going on in museums around the Midwest. This season, there are amazing shows at several institutions in the region. So pack some bologna on white bread, get…
Comics
This Modern World Red Meat
In The Flesh
"These people sitting down here in the front must really trust us that we’re not going to jump on them," said Blanche frontman Dan Miller from the stage of Silverlake hipster venue Spaceland. His deadpanned joke was that there’s very little jumping at a Blanche show, especially this one, which capped the Detroit quintet’s monthlong…
Cut to the chase
CUTS, a book of writings by minimalist Carl Andre, is as laconic as the floor-bound reductive sculptures the artist creates. Totaling about 250 pages of Andre texts and covering the period from 1959 through 2004, these “cuts” (short-length rather than feature-length writings) include artist statements, letters, postcards, epigrams, poems and even lengthier dialogues and interviews.…
Some frank talk
This is a meditation on one of the trashiest foods we eat. It’s been called a “nutritional nightmare”; it has been the secret repository of finely ground “lips, snouts and peckers”; it’s sometimes been desecrated, but more often glorified; and it was the iconic inspiration for old blues duo Butterbeans and Suzie’s classic number, “I…
Notes from the underground
Set entirely underground in Budapest’s labyrinthine subway system, Kontroll is a lush and atmospheric existential thriller with a grimy punk sensibility. A grungy charismatic ticket controller battles rival inspectors, hostile scofflaws, and a shadowy serial killer who shoves random passengers into the path of oncoming trains. Director Nimród Antal combines the high gloss of Hollywood…
What If the Labor Movement Dies?
Ten years ago this month, the last great Detroit newspaper strike began. And as you may recall, the unions suffered a massive defeat from which neither they, nor the newspapers, ever recovered. Now things may be about to get much worse. You’d have a hard time discovering this from our local “news” media, but the…
March of the Penguins
In a summer filled with feel-good documentaries, leave it to a group of penguins to steal the show. Luc Jacquet’s documentary follows the annual journey of emperor penguins as they march 70 miles through the unforgiving Antarctic terrain to a remote location to mate. French auteur-writer Jacquet puts a romantic spin on the journey, narrated…
Camp and vamp
Whether in five-inch stilettos or a pair of threadbare Chuck Taylors, lady rockers of Detroit will stand tall this weekend. The Under My Heels festival, celebrating its second year, is a concert co-founded by three of Detroit’s ever-present XX-chromosomed musicians: Alicia Gbur of the Nice Device, Claudia Leo of the Avatars and the Coronados, and…
A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
This documentary about professional bowling follows the 2003 season, including the finals held in metro Detroit’s own Taylor Lanes. Pro bowlers, never having been the world’s sexiest athletes, now try to court the 18- to 35-year-old male demographic, hyping up the sport and playing up lane-side antics like Pete Weber’s signature two-handed "crotch chop" gesture.…
A neighborhood fights back
Warrendale is fighting for its life. No, that’s not quite right. Maybe it would be fairer to say that Warrendale is fighting for its quality of life. It’s not like the area is about to slide off the map — but if it weren’t for the determined efforts of residents who refuse to move or…
Dark Water
Jennifer Connelly gives an impressive performance as an emotionally shattered mother fighting to retain custody of her daughter after a nasty divorce. Forced to move into a sinister tenement, she struggles to make ends meet while contending with her daughter’s sudden preoccupation with a malicious imaginary friend and a strange, relentless leak from the abandoned…
Out of the past
While the local media scrambled in the wake of the recent five-alarm fire on Detroit’s Piquette Street to identify the industrial complex that burned down, Detroit artists Scott Hocking and Clinton Snider knew right away it was the old Studebaker plant. They’d been in abandoned parts of it just days before foraging for artifacts in…
Home team advantage
Until 1999, people working for the city of Detroit were required to live here. In the six years since the state Legislature outlawed such requirements, about 25 percent of the city’s 18,000 employees have moved out of town. But when the subject was brought before Detroit’s City Council, it was the racial makeup of a…
Undead
War of the Worlds isn’t the only alien invasion flick in theaters right now. This scruffy sci-fi-horror-comedy hybrid made in 2003 hails from Australia, stealing ideas from the best: Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson. Although it was made for a fraction of what was spent on Tom Cruise’s wardrobe alone, Undead boasts an impressive…
Art of glass
If you walk through the high brick archway that serves as the entrance to the crafts area at Dearborn’s Greenfield Village, the long red-brick building in the distance looks as it has since it was built in 1930 — a working glass plant with five or six glassblowers creating early American-style glassware. But when the…
Rate-A-Record: Boo-hiss
The Rate-A-Record thing we did last month went so swimmingly, and reader response was so huge, that we decided to do another. Hell, it’ll probably be a regular feature. This month’s guest reviewers are Porchsleeper guitarist-singers Brian Raleigh and Derek Vertin, a couple of homespun dudes who’ve sided with each other since childhood. Their closeness…
Fantastic Four
The latest Marvel comic book to go through the Hollywood meat grinder, this adaptation is short on action and long on pointless superhero bickering. Fantastic Four borrows heavily from the Spider-Man and X-Men movies, but still fails to create a group of sympathetic heroes, or even an effectively evil nemesis.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Always star in your own movie," said novelist Ken Kesey. In other words, don’t let some charismatic authority or well-meaning companion play the lead role in your great adventure; don’t be a supporting actor or actress who only indirectly advances the plot of your life story. This is an ideal time…
Night and Day
Thursday • 14 Fundraiser for Garth Girard FUNDRAISER/MUSIC Fans of hometown rockers American Mars know that a show from these guys is always a fun ride, but, sadly, the fun has been interrupted. Garth Girard, bass player for the band, was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. Friends of Girard have organized a fundraiser to help…
Chef knows best
With most entrees priced at less than $20, including a choice of soup or a lovely house salad garnished with dried cherries and pine nuts, the menu includes both old favorites, as well as some very unusual dishes, all presented with a sophisticated flair.
Ring my Belgrade
European tours for the Dirtbombs have recently become somewhat draining with more responsibility and paperwork. But our latest trip was an exception. Besides a four-day jag at a Barcelona oceanfront hotel that found us rocking the shit out of a couple thousand Spaniards, we (Mick, Pat, Troy, Ko and myself) were all excited and nervous…
Head Cheese
It’s been 17 years since Dinosaur Jr.’s genre-defining single, “Freak Scene,” came out. Absolutely infectious, it’s the hidden link between Hüsker Dü’s post-punk crush and Nirvana’s pop squall. Its conceit epitomized the blithesome nature of alt-rock before anyone ever imagined making money at it. We recently talked with bassist Lou Barlow outside a North Carolina…
Art Bar
American Life in Poetry by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate Many of us are collectors, attaching special meaning to the inanimate objects we acquire. Here, Texas poet Janet McCann gives us insight into the significance of one woman’s collection. The abundance and variety of detail suggest the clutter of such a life. The Woman Who…
Sorry, sorry sight
It’s a dismal scene. Many windows are broken, with glass shards littering the hallways beneath. Some doors leading inside are missing locks. Recently, a car crashed into the side of a perimeter brick wall, caving part of it in. Young children tool around on bicycles, meanwhile, as residents sit by and stare impassively. Welcome to…
Kitchen folk
It may be difficult to see the shape of Detroit when you’re living here, but it’s pretty nice to know that in such culturally diverse places as Geneva, Utrecht, Barcelona and Bangkok, local people are getting to know where and how we really live. We can thank young artists Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas for…
Contract conflict
It’s good to have friends in high places. It’s especially good if that friend is Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and you hope to get a contract with the city’s Water and Sewerage Department. Why “especially good,” you might ask? Because more than 25 years ago, after the city repeatedly failed to comply with sewage treatment…
Get your multiculturalism on, baby
This year’s 13th annual Concert of Colors once again features musical powerhouses from around the world for good times with a higher purpose. “The real aim is to bring together people of different backgrounds and different cultures to enjoy the vast variety of music and culture that we all have — in an atmosphere in…
God’s (re)calling
After failing the first time out, the Troy Committee to Protect Free Speech last week won approval of the language in recall petitions that will now be circulated as part of the group’s attempt to recall Mayor Louise Schilling and Mayor Pro Tem Robin Beltramini. Schilling and Beltramini are being targeted for ouster because they…
