Council: Taking the pledge
There is a perfect solution to this uproar over the Pledge of Allegiance, elegant in its simplicity. We should change the words to “One nation, under Dog.” This would satisfy almost everyone. Poor liberals nostalgic for the days when America was a refuge for huddled masses yearning to breathe free would love it. So would…
Sushi, superbly
An element of beauty is part of everything from the marble-topped sushi and yakitori bars to the tatami rooms and conventional tables with settings in shades of blue, green and brown. The full range of Japanese fare offers diners an extensive choice, and service by the courteous, well-dressed staff adds to the stylish feeling of…
Run for the border
Asylum seekers with Canadian dreams queue up in Detroit….
Chrome Flies
While the rest of Detroit does the sweat-soaked garage-rock thing, the Chrome Flies tap into timeless, Beatle-esque songwriting and Stones-y grooves on this debut disc. It’s loftier and tougher territory, but with a lineup that includes local music-biz vets Mike and Andrew Nehra (Second Self, Kid Rock, Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise), it makes sense that…
Metro Times journalists honored
Three Metro Times staff members have received top honors from the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Jack Lessenberry, whose “Politics & Prejudices” column appears weekly in Metro Times, was named Journalist of the Year for 2001. Staff writer Lisa M. Collins was named SPJ’s Young Journalist of the Year. Staff writer Ann…
Minority Report
The report here is good: Tom Cruise in one of the best science-fiction movies in years and definitely the best Philip K. Dick adaptation since Blade Runner (1982). Steven Spielberg gives us a futurist’s view of the logical progression of today’s culture of high-tech marketing and surveillance.
Beliefs & believers
“I’m here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that Islam is not just as good as Christianity. Christianity was founded by the virgin-born Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Islam was founded by Mohammed, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives — and his last one was a 9-year-old girl.” —The Rev. Jerry Vines,…
Return Of Citizen Wayne
Known the world over for his seditious and groundbreaking contributions as chief flamethrower of the incendiary MC5, brother Wayne Kramer has steadily evolved into one of the most important and underrated lyricists and songwriters ever to draw a breath — this after a prolonged and classic battle back from the bottom. Few rock ’n’ roll…
Letters to the Editor
Praise for Vinnie Well, to start with, I know that Brian Smith is an asshole! We went to Harley Fest just to hear Detroit’s own Sponge (Suckerpunch, Metro Times, June 26-July 2) Cheap Trick was great, but we were there to see that arrogant unbearable front man you call Vinnie. Vinnie does know how to…
Out in California
Dave Alvin has been, for some, a hard man to pigeonhole. His résumé includes his founding roots barnstormers the Blasters (recently anthologized on Rhino’s superb two-CD collection Testament ) in the late ’70s. Later, he was a member of both X and that group’s country alter ego, the Knitters. Most recently he’s been a solo…
All hail the Hedgehog
The legend goes like this: One day a young and slender Ron Jeremy was at a summer camp for kids. He bent over to tie his shoe. While bowing down he unwittingly made a discovery that would change his life forever. The boy learned that he was unusually well-endowed. Hung so well, in fact, that…
Universal Truths and Cycles
Guided By Voices Universal Truths and Cycles Matador Superdrag Last Call for Vitriol Arena Rock As tempting as it is to point fingers, it’s unfair and oversimplified to pin the proliferation of indie rock’s boy-clique culture on Guided By Voices. Just because Robert Pollard and his friends didn’t create the straight white world they inhabit,…
July 3-10, 2002
3 WED–6 SAT • MUSIC Reggae Dancehall Weekend Xtravaganza — There could hardly be a more pelvis-inspiring sound than the deep throbbing bass of dancehall reggae in the middle of a humid summer. Detroit’s dancehall nucleus is at Trenchtown, home of this weekend’s "Xtravaganza." The fun starts on Wednesday with King Turbo; Thursday night features…
Punching out pretension
While Frank Capra’s original was a period piece, an updating of this basic story of good triumphing over the malicious could still be effective. But here it’s a vehicle for Adam Sandler, a comic with a small, twitchy talent who seems to have perfected two character modes: wise-ass and remorseful wise-ass.
Green (and gold) thumb
Jim Inglehart jingles as he walks. A set of keys dangling from belt loops on each hip. His white knee-high socks nearly meet his green-belted shorts; a baseball cap covers his wavy mane of graying hair and shades his blue eyes. Leather boots carry Inglehart across Wayne State University’s campus on a blistering summer day.…
To Kill A Mockingbird
Combining the talents of Gregory Peck and the trials of a small Southern town, the transcendent 1962 classic is part childhood adventure and part courtroom drama; it proved to be a shining paradigm of honor and virtue in the racially turbulent atmosphere of the ’60s. Showing July 7 and 9 at the Michigan Theater in…
Pahl’s boutique
‘The caveman of basement, highbrow music.’…
Second Skin
A soap opera redeemed by its three stars, Second Skin, a Spanish film set in modern-day Madrid, has one of those stories that squeezes as much anguish as possible out of its simple premise. Alberto (Jordi Molla, last seen as Johnny Depp’s unstable drug-dealing partner in Blow) is a successful aeronautics engineer. He has a…
Farewell, Ann Landers
Q: So, Dan, where were you when you heard that Ann Landers was dead? —Morbid Curiosity A: I was afraid someone would ask me that. Intending no disrespect, I share the following information with my readers only because it’s God’s own truth: I was sitting on the toilet reading David Brock’s Blinded By the Right…
Whack a PAC
Personal political action committees become a burgeoning trend…
Hey Arnold! The Movie
This weak adventure insipidly caricatures characters and plots of 30 years of pop culture. It’s mostly as flat as its old-school 2-D animation and rolls by at the residential speed limit with only a meager handful of laughs and thrills along the way.
Bound to please
Q: My husband and I, both in our 30s, have been playing around with bondage for several years. It is always my husband who is tied up, spread-eagled on the bed, for three or four hours. He regrets having me untie him when our game is over, saying he wants to remain helpless a lot…
They doth protest
Three Arab-Americans charged with protesting without a permit…
Music For Desserts
Imagine American composer-multi-instrumentalist Frank Pahl and the French team of Francoise & Christophe Petchanatz (who perform together as Klimperei) as a trio of musical puppeteers with a diminutive army of self-playing, toy-box instruments. The laundry list of gizmos brought together by the transcontinental trio for its sweetly-titled collaboration, Music For Desserts is a who’s who…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): It’s time to inventory how available and inviting you make yourself. Do you face sideways when you greet people, offering monotone hellos with neutral body language? Or is your entire presence a whoosh of welcome? Are there piles of junk next to the main door of your home? Or have you…
Veggie envy
Nasty competition between sandwich shops sparks threats of new lawsuit…
Shock the bad boy
Bill Laimbeer is haunting the halls of the Palace of Auburn Hills. Again. Following a triumphant return to his old digs as George Blaha’s play-by-play sidekick for the Pistons last season, Laimbeer was named the new coach of the Shock, Detroit’s WNBA team, on June 19. Yep, the man who once held court as Bad…
TV nation
Can voters make informed decisions from watching campaign commercials?
Stuffing your self-esteem
Bill Cosby may be famous for a few other minor things, but I think what truly made him a star was a bit he did in a comedy routine about cocaine. As I remember the line, people who liked to partake of the drug would tell him it intensifies their personality. “Yes,” he would say,…
Arden Arms
Abandoned house of the week – 7/03/02
Broken beat bypass
Recloose trades Detroit for kiwis, sheep and modest fame….
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
Nestled in the historic Arden Park neighborhood is a house that is not only a blight to the otherwise well-groomed area, but is also a missed opportunity. As the Abandoned Shelter Squad (ASS) surveyed 500 Arden Park Blvd., at the corner of Brush, visions of grandeur filled our imaginations. For starters, replacing the “Stop Halloween…
Aluminum
Cooling our jets with the ‘modern miracle.’…
Red wine and amphetamines
The Buff Medways and the Von Bondies May 17, The Boston Arms Tufnell Park, London 12:30 p.m.: Okey-doke. The Von Bondies are playing with garage godfather Billy Childish (in his incarnation as The Buff Medways), and the gig is right down the street. Of course, the show is going to be ridiculously oversubscribed and the…
