Needle-point balance
When Kevin Elliott Thompson practices acupuncture, he begins by looking at his client’s tongue. "If the tongue is moist or dry, if it’s bright or dull, pink or red, it tells me about dampness and heat, deficiency and excess," he explains. "I want to know where the disharmony is coming from." The tongue gives information…
DJ Art “Pumpin'” Payne
A long time Detroit favorite, Art “Pumpin'” Payne also writes a popular column for internationally known Dance Music Authority magazine.
Not so alternative anymore
Sharon Crump picks up a bottle marked "E 400" from the drugstore shelf. "I just polished off a bottle of these," she tells Carol Hitchcock of Southfield, who is clutching a bottle marked "Mega-Energy," a concoction of more than a dozen herbs and other natural helpers in pill form. "I take everything you can imagine,"…
DJ Dan
Founder of LIFE Productions, DJ Dan spins latin freestyle and bass.
Alternative health
In this special MT issue, our writers look at some of the complementary alternative therapies out there. We’ll guide you through finding the practices that might work for you, and show you how some have worked for others. We don’t have all the answers — nobody does. This section is meant to start you on…
Proof
Proof is the winner of the 1999 Source Magazine “Unsigned Hype” contest. He’s considered to be one of the top freestyle rappers in the country.
Swat go the cops
Every day in Detroit two or three people, on average, file a complaint with the Board of Police Commissioners, an independent committee of civilians and police officers that monitors the city’s police department. While most complaints allege only verbal abuse or improper procedure, about 12 percent – around 110 a year – are complaints of…
Outsource discourse
After a springtime skirmish in the media with General Motors execs over a new manufacturing method called "modular assembly," United Auto Workers President Steve Yokich finally pronounced the issue "dead." Despite Yokich’s obituary, the issue is very much alive and, according to industry observers, will be a key subject as GM negotiates contracts with the…
Satan’s apprentice
How I learned the heart of rock ‘n’ roll darkness lies at the bottom of a $7 cup of beer….
Roadkill on your plates
When the Sierra Club noticed that a "white-tailed deer" license plate bill recently passed by the state House would raise money only to clean up roadkill, club leaders held a contest to find a more appropriate design. Winners included a depiction of a bulldozer pushing a dead deer from the road, and a photograph of…
To your health
Empty margarita glasses lie overturned on the floor. A loud thump-thump-thump, like a sport utility vehicle playing Goldie’s latest drum ’n’ bass CD, sounds in my head. The sulfurous scent of launched bottle rockets hangs in the air. My tongue feels like a damp beach towel that’s been left in the trunk of the car…
DJ Carl the Invisible Man
Perhaps the busiest DJ in Detroit, there’s a good chance you can catch DJ Carl on just about any night of the week (try Cafe Mahagony, Billiard Gallery, etc).
Happy fiscal year!
Well, hope you have been partying away in preparation for the millennium moment that really matters. Yessiree, Bob, or Betty, depending on your gender standpoint, we are on the cusp of … the first fiscal year of the new epoch! That’s right. The common herd may celebrate its millennium New Year’s Eve, at least until…
Gore Gore Girls
For a city with such a macho musical rep, Detroit, thankfully, has never had a shortage of estrogen invigorating the musical bloodstream. Likewise, punk, and even garage rock have, by their nature, been pretty egalitarian (you know, relative to metal, I suppose). Into this context strut Detroit’s Gore Gore Girls who, simply, whup ass. A…
Emulation nation
My teenage dream has finally come true: I can play every single video game ever made. For free. At home. OK, maybe not every single game. But certainly the vast majority of the ones that truly matter: those colorful refrigerator-sized beasts that graced malls, convenience stores and roller rinks in the ’70s and ’80s. Wonderful…
Beer batter and beans
Our reviewer feels that a more standard menu, with no pretensions at more than top-end bar food, might be the prescription for the Copper Canyon Brewery. The menu encompasses everything from the cheese sticks/onion rings/wings type of fare through pizza and burgers to filet mignon and angel hair pasta. Forget the yuppified, our reviewer prescribes,…
Pitch’d
Channel Zero The "Detroit Technology" radio show, that impossibly cool joint venture between Record Time, Planet E, Made In Detroit and theplayground.com, proved to be too impossibly cool and is now kaput. While insiders say the late-night mix show was never quite given its due by host station 89X – buried on the schedule after…
Big Daddy
This comedy is two Hooters jokes away from being a complete waste. And that isn’t saying much. Picture Adam Sandler as Sonny Koufax, a 30-something law school casualty who pays for his Sharper Image slum apartment with money he won in a lawsuit after a taxi ran over his foot. His only friend is the…
Food stuff
RECIPE FOR BEAUTY Women today have many different makeup products to help keep our youthful appearance and make us beautiful. But while some of our beauty secrets might come from the cosmetics counter, others can come from the pantry. Women have used food to maintain or improve their appearance throughout history. Sometimes, eating special foods…
Tarzan
There’s no doubt about it, Disney animated features have particular formulas, and Tarzan features them all. A swift blend of action, comedy and romance, Tarzan also features musical set pieces, wisecracking animal companions, an irredeemable villain, the death of a parent and, of course, big life lessons about tolerance and ecology. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ World…
Manroot
Four guys in khaki pants lounge on expensive living room furniture telling bad jokes and sharing more effective ways to pick up women. Add the English bulldog mascot, Knuckles, and this might just be another Superbowl party that ran out of beer. That is, until the prancing lingerie models appear as a warm-up for advice…
South Park: bigger, Longer & Uncut
For grown-up animaniacs, South Park is an antidote to both Disney’s creatively gutted attempts at realism and the one-size-fits-all happy ending. But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy pill to swallow. Contrary to ad promises, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were forced to cut scenes from this bigger, longer movie in order…
Hemp for health
Over the centuries, hemp seeds and their oil have been recognized by various cultures as an effective herbal treatment for a variety of ailments, from constipation to PMS. Today, research shows that hemp seed oil can have therapeutic benefits, including possibly reducing heart disease and cholesterol. "Hemp seed oil is starting to take its place…
Head Turnin’ Floor Burnin’
Call ’em retro, call ’em rock-no, call ’em born-again ravers, call ’em whatever, because the sad but glorious truth is that the Chemical Brothers are all these (and all that) on this, their third full-length. Beginning with the electro short-circuiting-robot funk of "Music: Response" and moving right into the hard, dusted 909 drums of "Under…
Learning to let go
When Healing Touch practitioner Suzanne Skowronski got through with me, I felt just as nurtured, relaxed and energized as I’ve ever felt after a professional massage. Yet Skowronski, who practices at the Thea Bowman Nurse-Managed Center in Highland Park, had barely touched me. Instead, Skowronski works with the energy fields that surround each person, to…
Breaking Eggs
It is impossible to go anywhere today in Brazil without hearing the music of Carlinhos Brown. He describes himself as a workaholic – if you call singing, drumming, composing and dancing "work." He is so prolific that if you had to compare him to an American, only one "name" really comes to mind: the artist…
The many alternatives
Here is a selection of alternative and complementary therapies that have risen to some degree of popularity in this country. As with all systems of medicine, whether they are useful or not is up to you to decide. Acupuncture: Chinese and Japanese practice in which tiny, fine needles are inserted at various points on the…
The Ruler’s Back
The impending release of Slick Rick’s first album in six years called for preparation. It meant diggin’ in the crates and reviewing dusty cassette copies of The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, The Ruler’s Back and even Behind Bars. It was remedial Rick – "Slick 101," if you will. In an age when rap music…
The natural path
When it comes to alternative medicine, a healthy dose of skepticism may be just what the shaman ordered. Now, I’m not certain whether I’m a card-carrying skeptic. Like many, I’ve stumbled my way through the maze of herbal remedies. Yes, I have a bottle of gingko biloba in the refrigerator. I probably took some, then…
It’s Just That Easy
Here’s one for all those rebellious sorts who have a healthy appetite for avant-garde/conceptual protest. Negativland hails from San Francisco and is probably better known for getting sued by U2 than it is for its many editions of subversive sonic collages. On The ABC’s of Anarchism Negativland joins forces with those pop-punk agitators from England,…
