Chapter 1 – Paul
Being a teenager really, really sucks. A good friend helps, though. Curt Waugh explains.
Chips and Salsa
When screaming kids awaken you too early on a Saturday morning, it can ruin your whole day… by Christina Parmelee.
The Old Bats
Randall Garrison takes you to a tough neighborhood where the old and weak fight back.
Summer Fiction Poetry
the african american experience by Ella N. Singer 1 the african american experience is thick like molasses brown and bitter sweet sticks to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter grows tall like a stalk of corn reaching for the delta sun is multilayered woven together in strips like kente cloth is a hodge…
Sphere
One magical night with Thelonious Monk, William Bulkley says, is enough to change everything.
Poetic license
We’re driving down I-75, frantically trying to get to the downtown post office in time to get our income tax returns mailed. This happens every year – we moan, groan, procrastinate and stall, hoping that the longer we wait, the easier the numbers will become. ("That’s what you get for skipping out of high school…
Stealing
A shiny silver Ford Expedition is just asking to be set free – but it’s not as easy as it was in the old days… by Paul L. Bancel.
Wrestling with reform
I’m a six-foot-four, 250-pound ex-Navy SEAL, pro wrestler, radio personality, and film actor … I won’t say absolutely not, but I wouldn’t put any money on there ever being a Jesse "The Prez" Ventura. – Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura Well, I wouldn’t bet my last penny against it, either. Something is happening out there and…
Summer Fiction 1999
Spasms of the word – prosemania – poetry fever: This year’s Metro Times Summer Fiction Issue presents the act of writing as a remedy for whatever has you under its spell. In this our 12th annual (the mojo-potion) edition, we deliver just under a dozen megadoses of vitamin I(magination) culled from 170 living, breathing submissions to…
Surfworthy summer
OK, it’s summer – the season well-known for its car camping, Bomb Pops, marathon Roller Blading sessions, stylish front porch hibachi cookouts and hundreds of other great outdoorsy pursuits. But hey, you’ve got plenty of time for all that … it’s not even August yet. So head back inside. Power up the laptop. Kickstart the…
Arlington Road
When Prof. Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges) lectures about the American Revolution at George Washington University, he isn’t thinking about 200 years ago. His all-too-contemporary class, made even more popular by an intense oratory style used to rile up his complacent students, is about domestic terrorism. Faraday’s passion has personal roots: His FBI agent-wife was killed…
Pitch’d
IN THEIR ZONE ORCHESTRA New York’s Central Park Summerstage is one of those great Big Apple entertainment-cultural freebies. While you couldn’t ask for a more public radio-diverse lineup than African politi-pop king Hugh Masekela and Detroit’s own Innerzone Orchestra, you could ask for a more compatible one, as evidenced by the Masekela fans wondering just…
The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project arrives in town with such a burden of buzz that one fears for the fate of this intriguing and clever little film. The movie has a backstory much larger than itself, one delineated in a Sci-Fi Channel special and elaborated on at the film’s Web site. But if the effectiveness of…
Food stuff
FILM FEASTS A few months ago, I mentioned food in novels. Some readers reminded me not to overlook food scenes in movies. Joanne Mollica recommended Eat Drink Man Woman (1994). Of course, I wouldn’t miss it, or the many other films with wonderful food scenes. As a story about a chef and his three adult…
Muppets From Space
Gonzo is in the midst of an identity crisis. Unlike the majority of Jim Henson’s Muppets, who resemble real animals or exaggerated humans, the oddball Gonzo is in a category by himself. Therein lies the problem. The latest Muppet movie opens with Gonzo’s vivid nightmare of making it to Noah’s ark just before the flood,…
Ask the tube
In his "Living La Vida Loca" video, Ricky Martin frolics with a virtual chorus line of seductive women. Then he steals away to a private room and drizzles massage oil on the tight, bare midsection of a voluptuous model reclined on a bed. At the end of their newest video, all four members of 98…
American Pie
Singer-songwriter Don McLean wants you to know that he had nothing to do with the movie American Pie. Even though he gave permission for the film to use the name of his classic rock standard, it doesn’t even show up on the sound track. And that makes sense because the song is much too poignant…
Wage of politics
Eight months after Detroit voters approved a living wage ordinance for employees of city contractors, the Archer administration hasn’t finalized its enforcement mechanism for it. But for supporters of the living wage referendum drive, the larger question is whether the living wage will be wiped away by state legislation. Voted into law in November, the…
Maniacheist Concept
This three-piece outfit lets the free-jazz flow freely. Sporting a lineup that includes Jason Shearer of Jazzhead, drummer extraordinaire Ben Hall and saxaphone, flute and violin courtesy of Mike Khoury, MC trades improvisatory chop licking and loose and wild call-and-response sound maneuvers.
Cable excess
A Waterford public access cable TV show is going to stay on the air despite hundreds of complaints about the program’s offensive, sophomoric attempts at humor. "I think the show is offensive, but we cannot edit or censor the show due to First Amendment rights," said Waterford Township Supervisor Katherine Innes. As for taking legal…
Tars Tarkas
The recombinant sounds created by Eric Gustafson (of Blue Dog acclaim) and Dean Western (of Larval and many other musical permutations) add an electronic wall of wash to a jazz base. Lovely, entrancing and you can sway to it, too!
High-court high jinks
A judicial campaign finance "reform" plan proposed by the Michigan Supreme Court is being harshly criticized as an incumbent protection plan. The proposal, issued late last month, includes a number of measures that clearly favor Justices Clifford Taylor and Robert Young Jr., says Detroit attorney Richard Skutt, a past president of the Michigan Trial Lawyers…
P.S. I Love You
Continuing the grand and beautiful Detroit pop music anomaly he helped establish as the frontman for Majesty Crush, David Stroughter’s new outfit ups the pop culture factor and maintains the minor key guitar glory.
Simulation, stimulation and emulation
A gentle rain falls on lush vegetation. The night sky peeks through a clearing in the trees. A rumble from an approaching thunderstorm rolls across the distance. "Can I help you?" the waitress asks. In one jolt I’m transported back to the Rainforest Café at Auburn Hills’ Great Lakes Crossing mall. The atmosphere here is…
Prosecution or persecuted?
This past year has changed the way 16-year-old Ryan Lang looks at the criminal justice system. A mason’s apprentice, Lang was recently acquitted in Washtenaw County Circuit Court on a felony riot charge stemming from last year’s Ku Klux Klan rally in downtown Ann Arbor. "That innocent until proven guilty thing isn’t always true," says…
