Are we ready for democracy?
Someone asked me recently whether I thought Russia was ready for democracy. That’s an interesting question, one that we might be able to answer if democracy was working in the U.S. of A. these days. Here’s one sample to take back to the lab: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, member of Congress for a district centered in…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Still wanted?
Marietta, Ga., says Reginald “Motsi Ski” Abrams, is a nice place to raise a family. The founder of Detroit’s Most Wanted, a rap trio that helped usher in Detroit’s first generation of hip hop in the late ’80s and early ’90s, lives there, in a house with a quarter-mile-long driveway. You don’t have to ask,…
Fight back
It’s been nearly seven years since Fight Club left its trail of blood and spit in middle-American theaters, but with each passing year, it seems more like an eon. After 9/11, the "war on terror," a few cataclysmic natural disasters, six years of Bush II and six seasons of Fear Factor, director David Fincher’s apocalyptic…
Hang it over
The average person might think 130 acts performing on five stages over three days — more than 36 hours of music — is more than enough. But “enough” doesn’t fly when one of the world’s largest electronic music festivals is in town. More is what Detroiters and other fans of these sounds want, and more…
The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown’s bestseller-that-won’t-quit has kept readers engaged for so long because it’s a juicy little pop thriller seductively packaged with a (very) thin veneer of intellectualism, mythology, archaeology and religious symbolism. Plus, religious controversy is always reliable for a hefty boost in sales. Somehow, director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman forgot the juicy thriller…
Pretty vacant
Motorists careening down this stretch of West Grand Boulevard between Milford Street and Moore Place would scarcely notice it. Even bicyclists would be too busy dodging busted wine bottles and sharp gravel to realize what’s there. But maybe if you were on foot, slowly cutting through empty lots to get to Vinewood, you’d look past…
Over the Hedge
The villain in the new Dreamworks animated flick is a modern-day Cruella De Vil: a gourmet-coffee-guzzling, SUV-driving, chattering homeowners’ association president who, with cell phone glued to ear, is out to eradicate the woodland creatures encroaching on her little corner of suburbia. Could Over the Hedge be the first animated kiddie flick endorsed by the…
A day in May
You’ve got an extra day to kick back and simply exhale. Maybe you’ll indulge in the highly underrated activity of doing nothing, or maybe you’ll be spin-dancing at Hart Plaza. Maybe you plan to split Dodge. If you need more help, we suggest: Thursday, May 25-Monday, May 29, Wyandotte Spring Fling (downtown Wyandotte, visit Wyandotte.net):…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Donald Rumsfeld never listens to anything except the voices inside his own head," wrote San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll. Though this is an unfortunate situation, given the fact that the U.S. Secretary of Defense has so much power over others, it is not all that uncommon. From time to time,…
Letters to the Editor
Name that tune Thanks for Brian Smith’s enjoyable “Out of the Groove” (Metro Times, May 10). Having worked for Dearborn Music, Record Time, Desirable Discs, Melodies and Memories, and Harmony House, I have to say that I still firmly believe that, aside from the used LPs and CDs the indie stores stock, the knowledgeable employees…
A mural’s moral for Detroit
When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe it. I’d hardly lived a sheltered life, and definitely was no stranger to racism, but still. … There’s something about the Birwood Wall and its history that just kind of knocked me upside the head. You mean an actual wall was built right here in a Detroit…
Art Bar
Torn down — Maurice Greenia Jr. is a local “poetician” with lots to say about the city in both pen and paint. So make time in these next few weeks to check out his latest exhibition: Drawing on the Hudson Building 1996-1997. It’s a show of photographs and other materials related to the artist’s renegade…
Summer’s TV eye
Maybe one reason May is called “sweeps” month is because old diehards that have outlived their usefulness are pushed under the carpet to make room for promising new hopefuls. It’s the month when TV seasons end, long-running series conclude, and the major networks unveil their upcoming fall schedules. It also used to signal the kind…
Well-oiled irony
Cash-strapped cities need energy, and it’s Hugo Chávez to the rescue.
The battle of the bridge
Driving his red SUV through southwest Detroit’s Delray neighborhood, John Nagy points to the bright spots of a few new housing developments springing up. But he also makes note of the red dust that belches from a nearby foundry and covers many of the houses. He rolls past the old Fisher Body plant, abandoned by…
Low-speed pursuit
Are Detroit police dragging their feet on investigating alleged assaults of Greektown homeless?
Hit repeat, ignore
Welcome to the First Annual “Detroit Music Awards” Awards, honoring the annual ceremony that’s known far and wide for its unbridled backslaps (self or otherwise) and a suffocatingly compartmentalized view of “important” local music. Last Thursday’s DMAs, brought to us by the Motor City Music Foundation, were dubbed “one more night of your life that…
Movement ’06 drive-bys
The Orb The Ether: Founding members Dr. Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty (the KLF) plus a cast of interchangeable UK acid-house heads formed the first ambient supergroup in the late 1980s. Thomas Fehlmann (Palais Schaumburg) joined the group later; Paterson and Fehlmann anchor the current lineup. Why you should care: If you didn’t believe ambient…
Head cheese
Mary Timony helped define the thorny detachment of ’90s indie rock with her band Helium, and as a solo artist she has continued to explore skewed love stories and treble-kick guitar lines. Here are her monomanias, from a Sunshine State of mind: 5. Blowfly in Ft. Lauderdale: In the 1970s, Blowfly was part of the…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
The big brawl
At a cozy table at the Don Shula’s Steak House inside the Troy Marriott sits a hulking, impressively muscled man with exceptional table manners. The collar on his oversized hot pink polo shirt is tipped rakishly northward, a la Tom Cruise in Risky Business. His name is Sidney “Dr. Love” Carty — a 6-foot-5-inch, 331-pound…
Caring boyfriend drops the A-bomb
Q: I am a 22-year-old female with a wonderful, caring, 21-year-old boyfriend. Though I have slept with more people, none of my long-term relationships has lasted as long as his single previous relationship (we have been dating for nine months). I felt very grounded and secure in our relationship, and ready to try new things…
Down-home modern
It was the first time for many Detroiters, and most of America: lithe young dancers performing modern moves with a difference. Their hips and shoulders had an attitude out of the deep South, the ghetto or a smoky late-night club, but definitely not a dance studio. The year was 1968, the Alvin Ailey American Dance…
DEMF v.7
For 2006 it’s dubbed Movement: Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival, and it’s (deservedly) curated by Ferndale-based Paxahau Promotions Group. But whatever the moniker (DEMF, Fuse-In, etc.), the seventh annual throwdown of sound has become a Memorial Day weekend tradition, and a destination event for electronic music artists, fans and hangers-on from the world over. As the…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 24 Biz Markie MUSIC He’s been called “the Clown Prince of Hip Hop,” but Biz Markie has worn scads of hats. He spent the early ’80s as a beatboxer for MC Shan and Roxanne Shante, and by 1988 he had minor hits with such juvie-ready ditties as “Pickin’ Boogers” and “Vapors.” The less-retarded-than-Wesley-Willis-but-just-as-weird-to-look-at…
