Times that try men’s souls
The country is falling apart, the state of Michigan’s falling apart and the city of Detroit is in the worst shape of all. And your leaders and your media are doing their best to keep you from paying attention. It’s working amazingly well. We’re engaged in a war we cannot win with a foe we…
Proactive
Serious play time — Want to experience some interesting theater and help a good cause at the same time? If so, you’re in luck. A new theater company in the metro area, Who Wants Cake?, will be staging a production of the The Normal Heart. Written by Larry Kramer, the play, according to the press…
Media Blackout
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire The MB38 Team! • Xiu Xiu — La Forêt (5RC) :: Proof positive that you can suck and blow at the same time. Speaking of which … • Michael Jacksoff — Off The Wall…
Letters to the Editor
No faith in Handyside Re: Chris Handyside’s review of the White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan, “Yo, Jack” (Metro Times, June 8), doesn’t Chris Handyside realize — as the “author” of an unauthorized biography on Jack and Meg White, a piece full of conjecture, assumptions and impressions presented as “fact” by him — that his…
Down and dirty
When the Dirty Dozen Brass Band was founded in 1977, co-founder and baritone saxophonist Roger Lewis says he had a premonition. “I saw a vision: If we kept on doing what we were doing that we would be going all over the world with this band.” That vision has come to pass. The Dirty Dozen…
Comics
This Modern World Red Meat Comix
In The Flesh
Get Up Kids, June 11, Majestic Theatre A live show haiku! Swamps of mawkish youth, "Stay gold pony boy," Now cleansed of the Get Up Kids. Dustin Walsh writes about music for Metro Times. Send comments to letters@metrotimes.com
This is not America
For some time now, I’ve been feeling very anti-American, and guilty for it. I’ve always loved my country, but now instead of loving it for what it is, it’s for what it was. But I came to a kind of detente with the guilt in the last few days. How can I feel at all…
12″ pop shots
Not generally known as a mixtape DJ, Benny Ben comes clean on his first offering of soul with 22 summer jams that every hip-hop head needs to own. Local joints include One Be Lo’s “Axis” and Finale and S-Type’s “Soul For Your Stereo,” which offers probably the best beat and lyrics on the comp. Other…
Playing it back
The piano lounge is where Robin Meloy Goldsby has spent most of her career, tinkling away at Cole Porter standards and taking requests from show tune-obsessed drunks. Her memoir Piano Girl is exuberant, keen and at times really funny. Goldsby, the daughter of a professional drummer, fell into her first gig by accident. She was…
Not your grandma’s sweater
Julie Patra pulls out a handful of yarn the shade of ’70s shag-green carpet. It was left over from her grandmother’s collection of yarns, and Patra plans to turn it into a half-sweater that ends above the navel — a stylish creation topped with puffy, three-quarters sleeves. Last Christmas, the Wayne State University student knit…
A Triple Crown sampler
"Who the fuck is this Titus nigga?" As the summer of ’89 neared, Dink gathered his executive branch together to discuss how they were going to rid themselves of an infringing competitor. "All I keep hearing is Titus this and Titus that. Somebody tell me something." Dink was raving mad at this point. It took…
Sweet & savory
The shop combines breads and an array of fancy pastries sold at the counter, with a short menu of crêpes, sandwiches and salads served at glass-topped tables. It opens for breakfast and stays open until midnight on weekends for the post-movie crowd across the street at the Uptown Palladium 12. Cannella uses sturdy No. 6…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): There are several ways to break an egg. You can knock it against the edge of a pan or strike it with a knife. You can squeeze it hard enough to crack it or hurl it at a disgusting politician. Professional Easter egg painters pierce both ends of it with a…
Sit & spin
Upon first listen of the Muggs self-titled debut album, which is out this week on Times Beach, one might think them better suited sharing some Motor Speedway Super Jam bill with pre-chub ZZ Top, pro-chub Mountain, the James Gang, and opener Black Oak Arkansas. We can imagine 15,000 hand-hoisted lighter flashes and scads of halter…
Smart and sprawling
Despite the fact that this Italian film is six hours long, it’s wholly accessible: a family saga in the same vein as American miniseries, and novelistic in scope with a wide range of characters, emotional incidents and intriguing plot complications. For its run at the Maple Art Theatre, the film will be divided into two…
Art Bar
Stacks of wax — Metro Times columnist and longtime freelancer Carleton Gholz has created DEMA, a Detroit electronic music archive, as part of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection at the Detroit Public Library. The Hackley Collection, established in 1943, is dedicated to African-Americans in the performing arts. The electronic music archive will feature vertical files…
Night and Day
Wednesday • June 22 Chick Corea and Touchstone MUSIC Renowned jazz pianist Chick Corea’s 40-year career is impressive enough, but when he blasts into Ann Arbor this weekend, there are even more reasons to pay attention. With flutist-saxophonist Jorge Pardo and a couple other recruits from flamenco wizard Paco de Lucia’s band in tow, Corea’s…
Howl’s Moving Castle
After the near perfection of his last film, Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki delivers another animated marvel filled with dazzling imagery and imaginative set pieces. Too bad the script is such a mess. A young girl, magically transformed into a 90-year-old woman, seeks help from the mysterious Howl, a handsome magician with mystical problems of his…
Brothers’ keepers
Erik and Israel Nordin, the brothers who own the award-winning custom furniture studio Detroit Design Center, located downtown on Michigan Avenue, have recently installed their latest art piece at the Greektown restaurant Mosaic (opening soon on the corner of Beaubien and Monroe streets). Specializing in metalwork, glassblowing and woodwork for commercial and residential spaces —…
Dangerous illusions
Mohamed Abdulla saw a pack of journalists gathering outside his Dearborn business on the morning of Dec. 18, 2002, and thought it a good sign. A month earlier the Dix Avenue shop where Abdulla and his family peddle cell phones, rent post office boxes, transfer money and make shipments overseas had been robbed and an…
King of the Corner
Character actor Peter Riegert offers up a modest, if somewhat haphazard, feature length directorial debut that capitalizes on his strengths as a performer but, like most supporting roles, falls victim to irrelevancy. Overcome by midlife malaise, an aging salesman’s behavior becomes more and more erratic, leading him into comically self-destructive adventures. Riegert is terrific and…
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
The role of hip-hop jester has always been a precarious one. Think of it: You’re the Flava Flav of your crew, the in-house comic relief, or hype man at best. Fans and listeners rarely figure you to be a bona fide emcee — there’s a certain lack of respect. D12’s resident weirdo Rufus “Bizarre” Johnson…
‘Hey baby’ this
Finally, warm weather has arrived; the flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, the natives are out frolicking … and as I’m strolling down Lafayette one bright sunny Partridge Family kind of day, my revelry is sharply interrupted with: “Hey baby, shake that ass, ooh, uh-huh, yeah!” … uttered by a man hanging out of…
The Holy Girl
Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel’s latest film is clearly influenced by the work Pedro Almodóvar (who’s an executive producer for this film). However, it boasts a dizzy, dreamlike quality that leaves the audience disoriented and, unfortunately, emotionally unmoved, in this story of a twisted love triangle involving mother and daughter.
American Life in Poetry
Perhaps your family passes on the names of loved ones to subsequent generations. This poem by Andrei Guruianu speaks to the loving and humbling nature of sharing another’s name. Grandfather Dead before I came into this world, grandfather, I carry your name, yet I’ve never met you. I hear my name, and know that somehow…
Head Cheese
Two years ago we predicted that then-unknown Detroit quintet the Rioteers would land a major-label record deal and write a WB sitcom theme. We also pointed out that few people actually care about true power pop. Turns out we were wrong and right. The Rioteers are still unknown. The Rioteers, you see, merit the sugary…
Saving Face
The only saving grace about this Chinese lesbian romantic comedy is the sight of two silky-haired young women making out. Unfortunately, these scenes are not shown often enough; instead, the film delivers a stream of clichés about Chinese-Americans.
GWAR vs. the Beach Boys
For a good number of you, Prince and the Pauper fantasies go no further than switching places with Nick Lachey so you can shtup his wife while he trashes your day job like it’s a second singing career. But let’s be altruistic with our “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” imaginings and consider two bands that might…
Poster child
It’s wise to avoid words like “masterpiece” and “tour de force” when commenting on rock ’n’ roll poster art. Hyperbole, after all, can be a turd in the punchbowl when it comes to nostalgia. But in the rare instance that a graphic artist’s work is as accessible, seminal and immediately identifiable as Gary Grimshaw’s, then…
American grrrls
Here’s the drama you’ve been craving. After rising out of riot grrrl rage, creating six albums of lithe and literate somewhere-punk music, and rightfully ignoring reams of apologist rock crit hot air, Sleater-Kinney — the veterans — have made a transitional album. Here, Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss want more than the primal…
Adults’ advice on growing up gay
Dear Readers: Just in time for Gay Pride, advice for 15-year-old fags and dykes from grown-up gays and lesbians. Three words: High school ends. No matter how much life sucks right now, it will get better. It’ll never be all rainbows and happiness, but some day you’ll know, your family will know, your friends will…
Housing deadbeats
It’s already been reported elsewhere that the Detroit Housing Commission owes the city $18 million, and that the city is unlikely to ever see that money. Blood from a turnip and all that. But City Council Fiscal Analyst Irvin Corley Jr. says the commission owes the city another $4 million that no one’s yet talking…
Lucero
After Memphis quartet Lucero’s third album, 2003’s That Much Further West, was hailed by the press (Rolling Stone dubbed it “the country album the Replacements never made”), the proverbial breakthrough seemed imminent. Alas, a label collapse and sundry business problems conspired against it. Licking its wounds, the quartet hunkered down and hooked up with fellow…
Detroit class
With the wax and wane of activity in Detroit’s art scene, it’s nice to hear a success story. At 33, native Detroiter Hilary Harkness has become an important and successful artist living and working in New York City. Her drawings and paintings— which populate submarines, factories and battleships with an all-female cast that works, fights,…
Bitter pill
State reps on both sides of the aisle are writing out prescriptions for change that could bring an end to Michigan’s draconian laws granting immunity to the drug industry. Under current Michigan law, residents cannot sue any pharmaceutical company whose drug has been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Michigan is the only…
The Great Rock and Roll Swindle
Given its guttersnipe handle, you might expect to hear Johnny Rotten’s cheeky parting shot, “Ever feel like you’ve been cheated?” somewhere in this 1979 Sex Pistols swan song. Well, you don’t, since including any part of the band’s shambling final show in San Francisco would be tantamount to a confession from mis-manager Malcolm McLaren that…
The reel thing
For 18 years, P.O.V. (Point of View) films has been premiering contemporary independent documentaries on PBS. This season, there’s a great range of films not to be missed. Here are the highlights: June 28 Big Enough, by Jan Krawitz, is a follow-up to her 1982 film Little People, a documentary about youth affected with…
Winning words
Metro Times just brought home two awards in a contest put on by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a trade organization created many years ago by rags like the one being held this very moment in your grimy paws. Not to go bruising our back with self-congratulatory slaps, but bringing home a trophy from the…
More adults’ advice on growing up gay
What I wish I had known at 15 that I know now is that there are ways of approaching bondage and kink that could be loving, nurturing and healthy — a matter of trust and affection. It took me many years to find that the things (bondage, SM) which attracted me so much back then,…
Going Downing
Last week, U.S. Rep. John Conyers held a forum in D.C. on the infamous Downing Street Memo. (If you don’t know what it is by now, just go away.) Some of the best testimony at that event came from someone who wasn’t there. We’re talking about journalist Greg Palast, who couldn’t attend, but nonetheless submitted…
