Metro Times 05/15/2024

NEWS & VIEWS

Detroit police scrutinized for heavy-handed tactics at Cinco de Mayo festival

Detroit police swarmed businesses participating in Detroit’s Cinco de Mayo festival last week, dispersed crowds, and detained at least seven people, prompting one city councilwoman to question whether the actions were “racist” and “xenophobic.”

Witnesses say officers went doorto-door on West Vernor in Southwest Detroit, clearing out restaurants, El Club, sidewalks, and parking lots — and threatening attendees with arrests if they didn’t disperse.

Making matters worse, police are unable to say exactly what precipitated the brazen sweep in the early evening, raising questions about whether the aggressive measures were justified.

By contrast, some pointed to the lack of police activity during the NFL draft in downtown Detroit late last month, when 275,000 fans — predominantly white suburbanites — converged with just two arrests on the first night. Videos showed fans breaching metal security barriers.

Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters is calling on Detroit Police Chief James White to testify about the “seeming inability of DPD to handle

much smaller crowds during Cinco de Mayo activities in Southwest Detroit.”

“The economic damage to businesses and the psychological hurt inflicted upon residents and visitors to Southwest Detroit must be addressed,” Waters said in a statement. “We must ensure that racist xenophobic double standards were not reflected in the early militaristic shutdown of Cinco de Mayo activities.”

While performances were underway at El Club, a popular venue on West Vernor, about 10 cops showed up and demanded that the crowd disperse without any explanation, witnesses said. Once outside, the confused crowd was ordered to flee the area as police blocked the street and went door-to-door, forcing customers and festival-goers to disperse.

Among the crowd was Xavier Cuevas, a freelance videographer and photographer who was capturing the festival activities for El Club.

“The officers were marching down every block, letting people know if they don’t leave, they are going to be arrested,” Cuevas tells Metro Times. “They were hitting every business, telling them

happened. DPD spokesman Sgt. Jordan Hall tells Metro Times that a precinct commander made the call to disperse crowds but didn’t elaborate.

“When I spoke with the precinct commander yesterday, they advised me it was due to what was described as a potential public safety concern and that the precinct commander decided to restrict access to Vernor for vehicular and/or pedestrian traffic,” Hall says. “That was the decision that was made.”

Pressed for more details, Hall responds, “I’m not certain what the public safety concern was.”

Meanwhile, activists, attendees, and business owners are left to wonder why police resorted to force and spoiled an otherwise peaceful, joyous event.

“There were thousands of people freaking out and nervous because there was no explanation,” community activist and comedian Ofeliza MuÑeca Torres Saenz tells Metro Times. “The city has never really supported Southwest in a lot of things. We look good on paper and in photos, but when we are trying to have a good time, they shut us down. They caused panic. They intimidated a peaceful crowd.”

Before police arrived, Torres Saenz says she witnessed no problems.

“They were hating on us,” she says. “They were just trying to create chaos. There was no reason to. There was no violence, no one getting hurt.”

Videos of the police shutdown went viral on social media, prompting outrage, confusion, and even racist rants.

they have to shut down. It escalated very quickly.”

Cuevas says he obeyed police commands as a line of cops pushed the crowd east toward West Grand Boulevard. While he was photographing police from a distance, he says two cops grabbed him and a third handcuffed him. They seized his phone and about $12,000 worth of camera equipment and placed him in a police van with three other people who had been detained.

“At no point was I being disrespectful,” Cuevas, who used to work for Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, says.

Even the police seemed confused about what was going on, Cuevas recalls.

Police drove him and the others to a local precinct before eventually letting them go. At first, police said they were going to keep his belongings as evidence, but they finally returned them.

When he returned to the El Club, people were allowed back in.

“I thought, ‘What was the point?’” Cuevas says. “What did they accomplish?”

Last Monday afternoon, not even Detroit police could explain what had

“What is the arrest charge? Cinco de Mayo-ing while brown??” one person wrote.

Another chimed in, “Seriously DPD. It’s one day ONE DAY a year people celebrate culture, music, good food and much more. If theres no issues why disperse everyone????”

Others were less tolerant and falsely suggested that immigrants must have created a problem.

“Go back to your own country then, don’t come to ours and make a disturbance,” Mageeronald wrote.

Kferrell12 said, “go back home!! Quit breaking the laws in America. Why can’t you eat tacos and behave. You’re a grown up. Gangs!!”

Another suggested more drastic measures against the peaceful festival goers: “Should have used a pavement roller,” Tonyroda6 wrote.

Torres Saenz says the police actions unnecessarily added to the toxic stereotypes. Now she wants to know why DPD acted so aggressively.

“Everybody is really upset,” she says. “This is one of my favorite events. I was really looking forward to it. But why did this happen? Why?”

—Steve Neavling

Detroit Police won’t say why they raided Cinco de Mayo festivities in Southwest Detroit.

XAVIER CUEVAS

Tlaib intensifies anti-genocide message after Israel invades

Rafah

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib slammed her colleagues last Tuesday for continuing to send billions of dollars in aid to Israel after the invasion of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing.

Tlaib condemned her colleagues and President Joe Biden for sending billions in aid “with absolutely no conditions on upholding human rights.”

Fears are mounting that Israel is preparing for a full-scale invasion after its military sent tanks into Rafah and conducted targeted airstrikes in the eastern part of the city last week to establish control over the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt.

“Many of my colleagues are going to express concern and horror at the crimes against humanity that are about to unfold, even though they just voted to send [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu billions more in weapons,” Tlaib said in a lengthy statement. “Do not be misled, they gave their consent for these atrocities, and our country is actively participating in genocide. For months, Netanyahu made his intent to invade Rafah clear, yet the majority of my colleagues and President Biden sent more weapons to enable the massacre.”

The assault on Rafah came despite Biden warning Israel to avoid a full-scale invasion. The assault on the

city threatened to deepen the divide between Biden and Netanhyahu over a potential ceasefire and a strategy to free the hostages held by Hamas.

Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, has been a fierce critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Since the war began, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,500 people.

Despite the disproportionate scale of violence by Israel, Congress and Biden signed off on more than $14 million to the country. More Democrats are now signaling that they won’t support additional money to Israel unless there are conditions, such as preventing civilian deaths in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Tlaib said, the conditions in Gaza are so dire that it has become a “genocide of Palestinians.”

“There is nowhere safe in Gaza,” Tlaib said. “Nearly 80% of the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. There is no feasible evacuation plan, and the Israeli government is only trying to provide a false pretense of safety to try to maintain legal cover at the International Court of Justice.”

The Detroit Democrat said the funding must stop.

“It is now more apparent than ever that we must end all U.S. military funding for the Israeli apartheid regime, and demand that President Biden facilitate an immediate, permanent ceasefire that includes a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the release of all hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians,” Tlaib said.

Tlaib also called on the International Court of Justice to “issue arrest war-

rants Netanhayu and senior Israeli officials to finally hold them accountable for this genocide, as is obviously warranted by these well-documented violations of the Genocide Convention under international law.”

—Steve Neavling

Five15 celebrates 15 years of drag queen bingo with free tickets

When Five15 first opened its doors as a retail store and coffee shop in downtown Royal Oak in 2009, the Detroit area was in a deep economic recession and owner Gary Baglio was trying to come up with ideas to get people in the door.

“One night, I was watching an episode of Sex in the City, and the girls went to a drag queen bingo,” he recalls. “And I thought, ‘Oh my God, that would be so cool.’”

His first show, with the local drag queen Sabin, sold out completely, he says. A month later, so did the second. At first the crowd was mostly from the LGBTQ+ community, but Baglio says soon they were getting bachelorette parties, members of the Red Hat Society, book clubs, and more.

“So we added shows and went to every Saturday night, and then we added a second show on Saturday night, and

then fast forward to today where we do six shows a week,” he says.

Now, Five15 is celebrating 15 years of drag queen bingo with a promotion offering free tickets.

For 24 hours on Wednesday, May 15, all seats purchased for drag queen bingo comedy shows will be available free of charge.

(The store’s original address was 515 S. Washington Ave., and it happened to open on May 15 in what Baglio calls “kind of a weird coincidence.”)

The promotion covers shows through Aug. 24, excluding the popular Sunday brunch buffet shows. No cancellations or modifications are allowed, and a valid credit card is required at the time of reservation; the card will be charged the full amount in the event of a noshow.

The shows feature a drag queen comedian host who lightly roasts the au-

dience. Over the years, it has featured many drag queens who have appeared on the popular RuPaul’s Drag Race, including Ginger Minj, Plane Jane, and Jade Jolie.

Baglio says the shows now draw fans from all across the Detroit area.

“The demographic of my audience is made up of everybody — young, old, Black, white, gay, straight, you name it,” he says. “We have motorcycle clubs and roller derby girls. We’ve had 80th anniversaries here. I could tell you stories, we would be on the phone for two days.”

Metro Times readers voted Five15’s drag queen bingo as “the best group night out” for 15 consecutive years.

“People come here because they’re curious,” Baglio says, adding that the show is all about “humor and laughter and just leaving your stuff at the front door and coming in and everybody’s

the same here.”

The store moved to a bigger location across the street in 2017. Baglio says the city government has been very welcoming.

“They helped us find a space that would be larger and help us get a liquor license that we could afford, because, you know, drag queens just look better with alcohol,” he says.

“It just brings in tons of people to the show, and then they go to the different bars in the area, the different restaurants,” he adds. “It’s bringing over 1,000 people every weekend.”

Baglio believes the event is popular because it’s unpretentious.

“You’re not going to come here and win a million-dollar jackpot,” he says.

“You’re gonna win a mug. But it’s just solid good fun. You will take home a memory that you’ll have forever and probably come back.” —Lee DeVito

U.S. Rashida Tlaib.

Metro Detroit’s first pickleballonly complex opens

You could call it a pickleball paradise.

Bash Pickleball Club in Warren opened what is the first pickleball-only facility in metro Detroit, offering 10 professionalgrade courts under bright lighting, a pro shop, locker rooms, lounge areas, a coffee station with beverages and snacks, and a party room for large gatherings.

Located at 6881 Chicago Rd., the 30,000-square-foot club features openplay, tournaments, coaching for all levels, free lessons for beginners, court reservations, mixers, and skill-based events.

The pro shop is impressive, with dozens of paddles from eight companies, balls, grips, backpacks and apparel.

Pickleball, which is a fun and dynamic hybrid of tennis, ping-pong, and badminton, is the fastest-growing sport in America and attracts players of all ages.

Bash Pickleball Club co-owner Sam Brikho says he and his brother Kevin Brikho decided to open a pickleball complex after falling in love with the game last summer at Borden Park in Rochester Hills. Like many outdoor courts in metro Detroit, they were often full, with people waiting to play.

“I would go almost every day after work, and more and more people would show up,” Brikho tells Metro Times. “All eight courts would be full. I could see that there was a demand for it, and I asked the players where they would play [when the

Christmas carolers accuse city of censorship

Christmas is traditionally a time to wish for “peace on earth, goodwill to men” — but a group of carolers say that the City of Detroit censored them because of their message calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Last Wednesday, members of the Detroit Ceasefire Choir sent a letter to the City of Detroit accusing its hired security guards at Campus Martius Park of kicking them out, in violation of the city’s free speech ordinance.

The thirteen activists gathered at the Christmas tree at Campus Martius on Dec. 30 to sing carols and call for an end

weather got colder], and they all said there really aren’t many places.”

Brikho also said people were looking for organized play so they could compete with others at comparable skill levels.

The Brikho brothers say it wasn’t easy finding a large facility to lease because owners were hesitant to work with a startup company. But then they found their current location, which was originally a former General Motors Plant that later served as a sports storage facility, peanut shop, tennis facility, and volleyball club.

“The landlord here was a pickleball guy, and he wanted it for the community, so he was willing to work with us,” Brikho says.

The club recently featured its first mixer, a popular event at indoor pickleball facilities that allow players to compete against new people and develop new skills. About 100 people turned out for drinks, food, music, and raffle prizes, including two paddles, a backpack, and a private lesson.

“It was such a good turnout,” Brikho says.

The club is open to everyone. Memberships range from $397 to $697 a year. Although paid memberships aren’t required, they provide discounts, advanced bookings to reserve courts, and free entry into open-play.

The club offers three open-play sessions each day from Monday through Friday, and two sessions each on Saturday and Sunday. The cost for open-play without a membership is $12.

Lessons are available for players looking to strengthen their skills. Head coach Dr. Nick Hernandez, a licensed pharmacist who is taking a break from his profession to pursue his pickleball passions, is a friendly, skilled player who won gold

medals in singles, mixed doubles, and men’s doubles at the Royal Oak Classic Pickleball Tournament last year.

If all goes as planned, the club will expand, with an additional 24,000 square feet available for another six to eight courts. The goal is to build a championship court to lure sanctioned pickleball tournaments to Warren.

“The tournaments are phenomenal,” Hernandez says. “The atmosphere is great. Some of them can get about 1,000 to 2,000 players.”

Brikho says pickleball has become very popular because it brings people together and is easy to learn, but is incredibly difficult to master.

“It’s a very social sport,” Brikho says. “It can be competitive or it can be very friendly. It’s great for all ages. Anyone can learn to play in a couple of hours. Every day there are new people coming in. We make them feel comfortable.”

During a recent open-play, players of various skill levels were there, and they were cordial and welcomed new competi-

tors, making it a fun way to interact with new people.

For newbies, the club offers free lessons to teach the basics of pickleball. The club offers paddles for those who don’t have one.

Once beginners start playing, Brikho knows many of them are going to catch the pickleball craze and return.

Metro Detroit has a few indoor pickleball facilities, but they also share space with other sports. One of premier facilities in the area is Court4, a combo tennispickleball complex in Detroit that is inside a large, well-lit dome.

In Pontiac, more than a dozen indoor pickleball courts are available for open play and reservations at UWM Sport Complex, which also hosts a variety of other sports.

The closest pickleball-only facility to metro Detroit is Ann Arbor’s Wolverine Pickleball, which has beer on tap, 12 indoor courts, and large ceilings with bright lighting.

—Steve Neavling

to Israel’s U.S.-backed violence in Gaza, carrying a banner that read, “Peace and Joy — Ceasefire Now.” Other signs used by the group read “love thy neighbor,” “stop funding genocide,” “permanent ceasefire,” and “end antisemitism and islamophobia.”

The carolers say that they were then ordered to leave by members of Detroit 300 — a “community action group” that the city hired to manage security at the popular downtown park — allegedly because they were “singing about a controversial topic,” according to the letter.

“It was so disappointing to hear that we would be welcome if we were just singing Christmas carols, but couldn’t sing for ceasefire in Palestine,” Detroit Ceasefire Choir member Kim Redigan said in a statement.

The Detroit Ceasefire Choir says it returned on Jan. 5 and was again turned away by security. Both times, it says its

members were peacefully protesting and not blocking traffic.

The letter was sent on behalf of the Detroit Ceasefire Choir by the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative at the University of Michigan Law School (CRLI), which is representing the group. (Full disclosure, the CRLI is also representing Metro Times in a lawsuit requesting data from Michigan State Police.)

“If the First Amendment means anything, it means that people are free to protest in public parks,” Jillian Snyman, a CRLI student attorney, said in a statement. “It is particularly disturbing that our clients were censored when Detroit has already enacted a free speech ordinance that specifically allows protest in Campus Martius.”

That ordinance was enacted in 2015 after the ACLU of Michigan filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Detroit and Detroit 300 for preventing housing

activists from peacefully protesting in Campus Martius Park.

The ordinance allows up to 25 people to assemble at the park without a permit as long as they do not use public amplification devices or demonstrate within ten feet of the park’s outdoor dining area, on the ice rink, on stages, or in tents.

The letter asks the City of Detroit to abide by the free speech ordinance, provide training for Detroit 300 and other security personnel about the ordinance, and publish the free speech rules on signs at Campus Martius and on the Campus Martius website, as well as the names and contact information of City of Detroit and Detroit 300 officials for activists to call in case of problems.

Metro Times sent requests for comment to both the City of Detroit and Detroit 300 but did not receive a response by press time.

—Lee DeVito

Bash Pickleball Club is now open.

STEVE NEAVLING

NEWS & VIEWS

Goofy uniforms are the least of the Tigers’ problems

By Joe Lapointe

Since the start of May, the Tigers have struck out on three figurative pitches.

First, this bedrock American League baseball franchise announced a periodic replacement for its traditional home uniform, interrupting more than a century of elegant uniformity for a mere merchandising gimmick.

Next came a blackout over yet another cable television squabble. This makes the Tigers invisible for a significant portion of their local audience right after hiring a rising star in the TV business to be their play-by-play announcer.

Bracketing these events, they’ve lost seven of nine games through Sunday to flatten out the fizz of their effervescent start and leave them at 20-20 after 40 games, the approximate quarter mark of the season.

For those keeping memories at home, Sparky Anderson’s 1984 Tigers — only 40 years ago — astounded Major League Baseball with a start of 35-5 en route to Detroit’s last World Series championship.

The new, alternate uniforms were worn for the first time on Friday and Saturday nights at Comerica Park when they opened a home stand with the Houston Astros.

Blue and even darker blue are the dominant colors with “MOTOR CITY” in white letters on the front of the shirts and “DETROIT” in white letters on the front of the dark blue caps.

The entire outfit gives the fashion vibe of a police SWAT team. Mostly missing from the jarring, new look is ye olde English “D,” their classic logo for most of their 124 years.

You can find it only in miniature at the top of the road sign on the right sleeve. The road sign looks like a baseball diamond. Its insignia boasts both the number 1 (for Woodward Avenue) and the “313” (of the local telephone area code).

To see all this, you must look only from a certain angle. Yes, it is complicated. Down the side of each leg of the dark blue (almost black) pants are long stripes of light blue that make the trousers look like those worn by marching bands.

On the shirts, the mesh of black tire tracks over a blue background adds a Spider-Man touch to the overall look that is, well, interesting, if a bit busy. They promise to wear these outfits only on Friday night home games this season.

Some local fans remain under the impression the Tigers have never worn any home uniform for an entire season except for the white shirts with the old English “D” on the front. But they wore only “DETROIT” shirts — at home and on the road — in their inaugural season of 1901.

Some current fans might recall the 1960 season, when their home white shirts were graced with a scripted “Tigers” on the front that was underlined. They changed it back to the fancy, current “D” the following season and the home suits have looked basically the same since then.

And a look back through photo archives on the web site MLBCollectors.com shows different versions of the Tigers’ home clothing, particularly in the first half of the 20th Century.

In some years, the home uniforms included pinstripes or a “block” D (different than the “English” font) on the front. Some years had both. In 1927, they replaced the “D” on the front of the shirt with a picture of a tiger.

Their current novelty costumes lack that touch, but they do include extra doodads like a “vehicle identification number” (that recalls World Series championships) and all those racing-stripe accents.

Perhaps these might help fans overlook the advertising clutter beginning to creep

across sports uniforms, including those of the Tigers, who promote Meijer stores on their left sleeves. Before long, most athletes may dress like racecar drivers.

One purist lamenting the current desecration of the Tigers’ home tuxedos is the veteran baseball writer Tyler Kepner, a former New York Times colleague who now writes for The Athletic. He called the new Detroit duds “a monstrosity” and he scolded the Tigers online.

“Not you, Tigers,” Kepner wrote. “Not you, who have the most brilliantly simple, elegant home uniforms. Sigh.”

Another change around the ballpark this season is the hiring of Jason Benetti to announce their games on most telecasts. Quick-minded and witty, Benetti’s commentary is an improvement over the vacuous platitudes heard over most telecasts on Bally Sports Detroit. We’ll see if his edge wears well.

But many fans won’t know because Comcast cable this month dropped Bally, which shows the Red Wings and the Pistons along with the Tigers. Bally says Comcast wants to keep Bally but only on a premium pay tier. Bally wants to stay on basic.

Bally’s parent company, Diamond Sports Group, has entered a calculated bankruptcy because cord-cutters have weakened the “cable bundle” business plan that supported the industry for decades. The business is churning and evolving and soon will be more costly and more confusing for consumers, especially sports fans.

Consider even the small slights, like the

announcement last week by the Tigers that an unidentified television company has suddenly acquired the rights to the Tigers’ game against Toronto on Sunday, May 26, at Comerica Park.

That unnamed television company demanded the game time be moved from 1:40 p.m. in the afternoon to 11:35 a.m. in the morning. That’s almost two hours earlier. How convenient is that for fans who’d hoped to go to church before the game or for the Ontario fans driving across from Canada that morning?

On the American side that day, fans wishing to watch the Tigers and the Blue Jays had better buy either a ticket at the ball yard or pay for the extra TV “tier” or “stream” or “app” that is made available for your purchase on your viewing platform. Or drive across the river to see it on Canadian TV in Windsor.

With three-quarters of the season remaining, there is plenty of time for the Tigers to climb out of their current mediocrity and contend for their first playoff appearance since 2014. All they need is for Tarik Skubal and Riley Greene to keep doing what they’re doing and not change a thing.

Because, eventually, Spencer Torkelson will hit a few more home runs after finally getting one Sunday. And Colt Keith eventually will hit above .200. And so will Javier Baez. And the bullpen will again close out victories. And the in-fielding will steady itself. And the warring TV parties will settle their TV dispute. And, eventually, these curious uniforms may find a safe space in the Comerica closet.

Still lots of time to clean up plenty of messes. MLB

The 2024 Fiction Issue:

Resistance Across Borders

Edited by Bayan Founas and Deputy Editor Drew Philp

Resistance Across Borders: Now and Forever

“Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.”

–bell hooks

If you are reading this you are alive. Somewhere. Breathing. Existing. Resisting. Your very existence is resistance. Right now. Wherever you are. Take a moment and look at yourself from a bird’s eye view. Think about how far you have come to be where you are today. Think about all that you have witnessed in horror and in joy. Think about all that you have failed over and over again and triumphed through this roller coaster we call life. Now consider where you are today because of an ancestor before you. And before them. And before them. Across time and across borders we continue to exist. One generation at a time. One story at a time. What you are doing today is shaping your descendants’ lives and their stories. Your very existence is resistance. And that is the biggest threat of all. When your oppressors tried to detain you, when they tried to expel you, when they tried to enslave you, when they tried to rape you, when they tried to colonize you, when they tried to murder you. They

are threatened by us because we still exist. And as long as you are breathing right now, you are resisting. To my people in Palestine, fighting for your livelihood and land. To my women, fighting for your bodily freedom. To my hijabi sisters, gripping your hijabs from white nationalist yanking fingers. To my Muslim, Arab, Mexican, Black, Brown and Indigenous kin, your very existence is resistance. So take a moment and take a deep breath. Because you have made it so far. From your ancestors, to you, to your descendants. And until we are all free, across all borders, we will not stop using our voice, our words, our art, and our stories to resist. Until then, keep creating. Keep breathing. Keep existing. Keep resisting.

a writer’s woes: i cannot simply write. i cannot sit in solitude and write. i cannot be in nature and write. i cannot write when you ask me to write. i wait for poems to come to me. i must live life. to write life. poems meet me through sisters & students, through dreams & nightmares, through joy & pain, through failures & achievements. the burden of a writer is to write one’s woe’s and to write the world’s woe’s. words are the world’s weight on writer’s shoulders. a writer’s pen is oft heavy with worry, with sorrow, with longing, with hope. when you ask me how do i write. i tell you i can’t. i

don’t know how. but poems visit me sometimes and they write for me. they creep on my skin, seep through my pores, throb at my veins, take control of the pen. they come to tell me eloquent epics. sometimes tragic tales. stories to be read long after we’re gone. these poems will hold us. hold our memory. hold our time on this earth. for who will orate our stories if our own hand does not narrate them. for have you forgotten the pillage of your homeland. the erasure of your ancestor’s history. the burning of our lineage’s libraries. would we have known our people’s stories if it were not for our lyrical legacies, rhythmic records, and gripping griots. our words carry the world’s weight. our words are heavy with our people’s history. our words weep with worry to be long remembered. when they are embalmed in dust, peeking under rubble, hiding from their land’s rapists. our words seek to be saved. our words wail

remember us remember us remember us forevermore!

In solidarity, Bayan Founas

Bayan Founas is an Algerian American writer from Michigan who works in education.

ON THE COVER:

From Detroit to Gaza with Love

Ink on paper. This piece is dedicated to the right to freedom of land, education, and self-determination. Our roots are older than the walls built to keep us back, solidarity is the key to humanity, we are all one people under the same sun. The bottom line is a quote by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: "My freedom is to be, what they don't want me to be."

Chris Gazaleh is a Palestinian American artist from San Francisco and the Detroit area. He works as a muralist and is an advocate for Palestinian human rights. See his work at cgazaleh.com.

The People United Will Never Be Defeated

By Dave Robberts

Sometimes described as a Svengali of the Detroit art scene, Dave Roberts has been an active gallerist and artist in the city for more than four decades. His approach and media are ever evolving but always harkens back to his affiliation with the Abstract Realist group of the mid 1990s.

The fiction issue is a collaboration with Kresge Arts in Detroit to elevate local artists. Artist fees were provided by Kresge Arts in Detroit, a program funded by The Kresge Foundation and administered by the College for Creative Studies. Bayan Founas is this year’s editor and Drew Philp is the deputy editor. Chris Gazaleh is the cover artist.

If Not

By Noor Hindi

If not the screams of our mothers, disrupting the clouds If not her hands If not our trauma sold to the white gaze If not the palm trees drizzled in blood If not the sky pissing in panic If not our children If not our children If not the graves If not the bombs pulverizing the land If not the suits If not the silence If not a solution If not the cats, scurrying away If not the rubble If not the tears If not the names If not your empty land acknowledgments If not a genocide If not Shereen If not the bullets if not the prisons If not the news not breaking you If not our men If not the blockade If not our children If not our children If not our children

then nevermind your future.

Our mothers knit scarves out of our flesh —

Our children live forever —

Our voices language beyond the graves —

Our fathers slip tenderness into our palms —

Our shoulder blades become wings —

Palestine will live

Yaba I’m telling you Palestine will live It is alive Yaba

You can turn off the news to listen to the birds

Each song is a song of resistance

Each chirp a call for joy Yaba It is written because I am writing it so:

We will find that fig tree you dream of —

We will smash the fruit between our teeth —

We will not mistake its sweetness for blood.

Noor Hindi is a Palestinian American poet living in Dearborn.

And Our City Was Ours

By Nandi Comer

And when the Outers left there was so much space. We took to our parking lots, our downtown plazas.

Some of us drank their wine and sat in their cafes without fear or the cold blue watch. We cruised our island,

perched barefoot on our stone whitewashed bridge. Without the Outers designing their cul-de-sacs or plowing up our lots, or tearing down our houses, we tricked out our cars, confetti lit our bikes and blasted

Blade Icewood from our kitchen windows. And yes, we still slept uncomfortably bent around the lumps of our mattresses. We awoke in the same nightmare sweat, and reached

for one another’s thighs in our darkness Who knew there was another kind of sleep?

The Outers had mythologized our city, a theater of tragedy. No one told us it called for sadness. Without them

we licked sauce from our fingers. While they screamed about war, and loss and stolen Amazon boxes

we contented ourselves with dance battles. We laughed at the Outers

and their ill-preparedness for drought. We

Improv I

By Jenna Hamed

Typewritten text inkjet printed on paper.

This piece was improvisationally assembled to be instructional, interactive, and sung aloud.

Jenna Hamed is an artist and art worker with roots in metro Detroit and Jerusalem, Palestine.

didn’t clock in at work. We made each other gifts of vegetable bundles and lavender oil. We did not serve the Outers. We returned to our river. We left our houses

and threw white parties in our black, black, black as asphalt streets

Nandi Comer is the Michigan Poet Laureate, an award-winning writer and Detroiter.

Color Me Bad

By Claretha “Peace” Bell

Loose me to a white world canvas

Gather up the coloring for the portrait of change

Watch me splatter this regal across the diaspora

Introduce a standard of beauty

That always was Normalize a culture of being at liberty to liven up this place

No longer blind to privilege I belong here

Long before you didn’t notice

Stage me for the strength in my legs

For the life in my victory lap

The hope in my heavy leaden eyes

That my body language reaches cross cultural barriers

That I am spotlight in this war house

For all we wanted

Was to click our heels be a land of sweet home

Less artifact of hostile environment

Convince a world that I am not void of that spark

Bouquet of our Struggle

Jenin Yaseen (sr7aneh)

This piece consists of figures like Razan Al-Najjar, a paramedic that was murdered in Gaza during the Right of Return March, my great grandmother who dedicated her life towards tending our land in Palestine, and a resistance fighter. Flowers are not only beautiful but they’re symbolic, and can add so much meaning into art. The flowers in this piece symbolize the different roles we play in the Palestinian struggle. Pink roses symbolize appreciation and adoration. Roses don’t bloom long, but are comforting and give people a sense of happiness. Pansies symbolize resilience, they seem delicate but are tough and can

withstand any person stepping on them. Pansies are the only flower to bloom in the snow to the fall. Sunflowers are tough and stand tall. They don’t bloom for long, but they’re beautiful and carry a strong presence. They symbolize pride, dedication, loyalty, and are very resourceful. Poppies, the national flower of Palestine, every color in the poppy is in the Palestinian Flag. Poppies symbolize hope and perseverance. Culturally they serve as a reminder of those we lost by the hands of our occupiers. They radiate our land and remind us of our connection to our home.

Jenin Yaseen is a Palestinian artist based in Dearborn. Nablus, her hometown, had taught her the significance of making art for the sake of life.

That creates depth and dimension

Visible to the naked eye

Tell me you see me

In my glory

Beyond my pigment

Illuminate the weapon of grace I carry on my battlefield

For all we wanted was a choice to be an elegant statement Amidst the silencing

A dance of Jubilee

In the resistance

A bright morning sun

Trespassing the color lines For all we wanted

Was to take a fresh breath in polluted air

To Linger

To smile for the world

Not just for the camera

For independence to be photogenic

Develop a positive relationship between the Black and white negative

Between the privilege and the powerful

The happy and the heartbroken

For all we wanted was

To be free from want

Of what was already ours

To be possible

To be young

To capture the strength of woman

Unbound

Disguise heaven in a blue dress

To be what our nature demands

For our soul to come thru the picture

speak more than a thousands of words

But millions of stories

To simply, document a gorgeous distraction

In a world of unpretty

Peace is a National Spoken Word Artist and Writer-in-Residence for InsideOut Literary Arts.

Invalid Invalid

By Eli Underwood

The pencil must be razor sharp or it’s too hard to push. The pen must be very sharp and fluid also, or it will be a mess. Not too fluid though, or it will be a mess. Since when

did I need special conditions to exist? Levees don’t collapse in a day, it takes many days that seem fine while underneath the ramparts are slipping. Sifted right through the body of my being, health did. For the longest time

you live like you’ll never die and then like you will. Maybe it’s better to just keep running except I want to float. Life is bigger

By Hawwa Youngmark, aka HawwaBe

When presented with the theme “resistance across borders,” I reflected on the sometimes hopeless feeling I can have around resistance. How can I, someone so random and so far away, make a difference in a cause? But something my dad taught

and smaller than imagined. Nowhere, nothing, everywhere, everything – pain oppresses the light, rest is my resistance. All we can do is what we can with the hand we’re dealt. My ancestors, spirits, guides and ghosts — drumming their fingers, cracking bones, waving dandelion fluff — have always given me enough but just. That used to feel

me is that no resistance is futile. No matter how small, any effort makes a difference. So, I look at my capabilities and assess what I can do where I’m at with what I got. And I remember the power of visual language and being blessed with the skill to draw and tell stories through art. I can create flyers, I can create protest images, I can wheat-paste across my city. I can spread a message.

luxurious but now, scant. Is care ever as prolific as we wish? My words are dull, this poem ordinary, nothing I say will make anyone love me, not with this illness. Special things elude me and special is ubiquitous. Listen —

conditions have never been worse, why try to understand? It’s not like I ever quit. Pull my hair back, clean

So, I choose to wield the power I have in my pen to accompany my voice. And with that voice, I shout to the rooftops, “FREE PALESTINE! ”

Hawwa (they/she) is a Black Muslim cartoonist from North Minneapolis and co-founder of the Black Indie Comix Cub.

the altar, refresh the offerings, please them. Fickle, steadfast, stingy, generous — no matter. You get what you get, be glad or at least grateful. It doesn’t matter that you’re so sick you fall down. Your survival is holy, the burden clears a path —

Eli (Elizabeth) Underwood is currently seeking a publisher for their memoir of leading Cass Corridor band Cathouse through Detroit’s ’80s and ’90s rock ’n’ roll scene.

I Hear the Call

By Adam Tlaib

I hear the call of resistance echoing through the fissures of American cities’ cracked pavements as Black and Brown people march hand in hand against frequent police brutality, where hope’s concrete rose blooms amidst the ashes of hate.

I hear that same call in Palestine when the same nation that trains American police burns a Palestinian grandmother’s ancient olive farm that’s stood from

the fall of Rome to today, where olives defiantly thrive despite the flame’s greedy embrace.

I hear that same call in America once more as the same bulldozers that destroy homes in Palestine to build settlements then destroy Native American land to build pipelines, where people line up together to protect their homes from impending doom.

I hear that same call of resistance in the Congo as big corporations come in and take adults and young children to unsafe mines without an ounce of remorse for the daily deaths and painful pay, where people unveil the tape, revealing the massacre to a world that seeks to bury truth’s light.

I hear that same call in Yemen as people become greedy and begin bombing the land to allow their goods to come through and to make a profit at the cost of life, where people block the weapons of war from murdering another people and despite those same weapons bombing their homes, they still offered help in a world of ignorance.

I hear that same call of resistance in Xinjiang as the Uygur people are placed into internment camps and have their culture erased, where defiant people flood the streets, facing tear gas and batons with unwavering resolve, they still see light through the darkness.

I hear that same call on America’s southern border where migrants are rounded up and sent to internment camps to be held in tents and not homes in the hostile heat of the day and the frightful and frozen bitter nights, where people are housing them even when the government deems them “illegal.”

I hear that same call of resistance in Iran where women and girls are treated like property and freedom of expression is an act of treason punishable by death, where people still march through the streets and share their voices online in the hope that their fellow countrymen and the world hear their cry.

I hear that same call from journalists all over the world from Julian Assange on trial in America to Evan Gershkovich in Russia both charged with the crime of curiosity, where their journalism still shines bright even when governments attempt to block the light.

I hear that same call of resistance from the emptiness of Tiananmen Square and the sense of dread and fear in Hong Kong, where despite the rusty prison bars, the window of the outside

: : Porosity place : : boycott border : :

By Kamelya Youssef

Mixed media poem using ink brush pen and graphic type.

reveals a road to freedom someday.

I hear that same call on American college campuses where American youth were assaulted and arrested for speaking up against injustice from Vietnam to the Gaza Genocide, where lawyers have heard their cry and hope endures that freedom of speech will be restored.

Kamelya Omayma Youssef is a writer, teacher, literary worker, and author of A book with a hole in it (Wendy’s Subway 2022) and lives between metro Detroit and NYC.

From China to America, everyday people are put on blacklists and surveilled for standing up for truth and justice and for continuing their constant calls of resistance.

Though the call for resistance has been silenced by powerful governments and corporations, regular people continue it despite being silenced.

The call of resistance never ends and as the calls around the world unite, the call will be so loud that no one can silence it.

Adam Tlaib is a member of The School at Marygrove’s high school graduating class of 2024 and in his free time he likes to read and write fictional novels.

THE LEAVES CHANGE COLOR DURING CAMPAIGN SEASON

By Darius Simpson

following Lumumba’s assassination exploitation of the Congo went on undeterred by democratic facade neo-colonial puppets with european spines to neutralize the Black Liberation Army we were g(r)ifted with Black aesthetics Black mayors and Black billionaires they offer intersectional excuses for blood splatter murals downtown pigs kept their mercenary commissions under the guise of cultural progress New Afrikan Independence is shrouded in ahistorical attachment to race the pot called the kettle African the kettle joined the military to prove its loyalty to the president in other news a leaf is still a leaf falls eventually as all empires do if i continue the chores my ancestors set one day i’ll leap into piles of dried legislation or teach that aspiration to my young before passing them the torch and gasoline the more regimes change the less we remember there’s an enemy camouflaging in the branches

Darius Simpson is a New Afrikan writer and performer from Akron, Ohio who believes in the dissolution of empire and the liberation of all oppressed people by any means available.

namesake

By Marcus Elliot

before I knew your name i found something a sorrow that draws me close a cherished ache nestled within my chest i pray it never leaves it serves as a compass leading me towards a place that seems to resonate with the source of this ache a place that was once nameless please do not take this away it provides solace for in this pain lies the proof of belonging a testament to home my namesake

Multifaceted saxophonist and composer Marcus Elliot has emerged as one of the leading voices of the Detroit music scene.

Al-Falaq1

By Wafaa Mustafa

When the child’s logos pluralizes silence as a poetics, you, like Shurooq2, remember anything is –nothing, also.

& when rosily you brine in mangoes and the heart’s sweet-sour vortex, you think neither this, nor that, but everything –is a spider spinning caution to a bird.

& when the synaptic denouement frays the oculus of memory, history by any other metaphor becomes –red and redundant.

1 Al-Falaq or in Arabic, , translates to The Daybreak and is the 113th chapter of the Quran invoking the God of Dawn to protect the spirit from prevailing darknesses and hidden malevolence.

2 Shurooq or in Arabic, , translates to Sunrise and is an appellation for One who Rises

& when only ruins can express a fact completely3 do you get the lullaby, the ritual, the promise –that song which weighs peripheries in stops and spirants like the prophet.

& when rigorously you sleep from the condition of thus –your grief rehabilitates in a metaphysician’s halfway house.

& when paranoia declares anything, anybody: a pilgrimage, a maxim, or just psychic excess in the velvet of consonance –you blur like the Sharqi4 horizon.

Then in the conference of that immediacy, the sky’s lapis knots your opalian eye to its All and lineates the unfathomable on each end of yours and the child’s essence.

3 A quote from architect Aldo Rossi on designing the San Cataldo Cemetery.

4 Adjectival to Shurooq and the sunrise, Sharqi, or in Arabic, شرقي, translates to Eastern and is the name of seasonal high winds that cause sandstorms across the gulf region annually.

Wafaa Mustafa is an Iraqi poet from Dearborn and a teaching artist with InsideOut Literary Arts, Citywide Poets, and the Arab American National Museum’s Teen Writing Fellowship.

By Hadassah GreenSky

Waawiyaatanong, where the curved shores meet, otherwise known as Detroit. This place has been a sacred meeting point since the start of this world. In the Mide Lodge migration story, the Anishinaabek migrated from the Eastern sea-

board, through Quebec and Niagara Falls and into Detroit.

Hadassah GreenSky, Waganakising Odawa from Detroit. They are a musician, activist, community organizer, curator, cultural worker, indigenous futurist working as a visual and music artist, dancer, bead artist, seamstress, graphic designer, photographer, videographer, and model.

Waawiyaatanong: From the Ashes, She Rises

My Daughters’ Chants

By Ghassan Zeineddine

December 16, 2023. My wife, Rana, and our two daughters have gathered with dozens of others in Market Square Park in Cleveland for the demonstration, our first one as a family. It’s cold and windy, the gray sky fading into dusk. A middle-aged man with a keffiyeh wrapped around his neck waves a Palestinian flag from a long, extended pole. Palestinian flags ripple in every corner of the square. I see many fellow Arab Americans, but also others who wear keffiyehs and carry signs that read: “Free Palestine” and “Ceasefire Now!” One says: “Korea Stands with Palestine.” A helicopter hovers overhead.

We recently moved to Ohio for my new job. We used to live in the Detroit metropolitan area, which has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the country. It’s comforting to hear the sound of Arabic again among so many people.

Our daughters sit in a double stroller. Alma is three years old, Mira twenty months. They’re snuggled in their winter coats, hoodies over their heads. I remember when my father took me and my older sister to our first demonstration. It was in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1995; I was fifteen. There were approximately fifty protesters. We marched in front of the White House, demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. People waved Palestinian and Lebanese flags and held up signs. My father, sister, and I had come empty handed. But we chanted revolutionary slogans along with the others.

As I look over the gathering in the square, I notice a white man with a thick beard dressed as a crusader, a sword clasped to his waist. He’s in chainmail and wears a cloak with a red cross. He walks around the edges of the crowd with his hands clasped behind his back, smirking. I worry that he’s armed with a gun.

It’s been over two months since the attacks of October 7 and Israel’s continuing bombardment of Gaza. According to the Palestinian health ministry, close to twenty thousand Palestinians have been killed, the majority women and children. This number doesn’t account for all those buried under the rubble.

The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, told reporters that Gaza has become a “graveyard for children.”

It’s the children I keep thinking about the most, how innocent they are, and how they don’t deserve to live in fear or be killed. I’ve seen the haunting videos and images on social media and

Arabic news outlets of children being removed from the rubble, their bodies crushed; injured children in hospitals, their heads and limbs bandaged. What horrifies me the most are the videos of children in fear — they literally tremble with fear. In one, a boy, maybe seven or eight, wearing a backpack, keeps pacing his apartment hallway, telling his parents repeatedly, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” In another, children write their names on the inside of their forearms in permanent black ink markers so that in the event they are killed, their bodies can be identified.

At home I smother Alma and Mira with kisses and hugs. When I hold them in my arms, I press them to my chest, as if I’m afraid to lose them. As if they could be killed and these are our last moments together. When they laugh, I’m filled with gratitude that they’re safe, something that I wish I could say for all the children of Gaza.

One of the organizers of the demonstration, a young man in a knitted cap, strides atop a concrete platform, grabs a mic, and chants, “Free, free Palestine!” Rana and I repeat after him, joining the chorus. Alma and Mira remain silent, taking in their surroundings. Two speakers, one a Palestinian American and the other a representative from Jewish Voice for Peace, give speeches. I keep watch for the crusader. I spot him across the square, his hands still clasped behind his back.

The organizer in the knitted cap takes back the mic and shouts, “Free, free Palestine!”

This time, Alma repeats after him. Mira doesn’t react. Mira’s only words are “Mama,” “Baba,” and “Ma” for “Alma.”

The sky darkens and streetlights turn on. The plan is to march to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, which is home to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The demonstration organizers place baby-like dummies wrapped in white sheets stained with fake blood on the platform and ask for volunteers to carry them.

We leave Market Square Park, cross Hope Memorial Bridge, take a left on Ontario Avenue, and arrive at the stadium. We are escorted by a caravan of police cars. As we chant a protester beats on her drum in the back of the procession. Every now and then, I hear Alma’s soft voice as she makes the call for freedom. Mira is sound asleep. Outside the stadium, we listen to more speeches, and then retrace our steps. The crusader stalks us the entire time.

In the weeks that follow, as Alma plays with her toys, I occasionally hear her say, “Free, free Palestine.” She says it not as a chant, but as a melodious line to a song.

*

Four months later. Half a year of unspeakable horror. More than thirty-four thousand Palestinians have been killed. Most Gazans have been displaced and are surviving in appalling conditions. The Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid is starving children to death. Famine is imminent. The other night I woke up from a nightmare: I was tasked with caring for my cousin’s newborn baby boy; when I held him, his body was cold and limp.

One afternoon in March, on a walk in the town square where we live, Rana and our daughters come across a group of college students chanting, “Free, free Palestine.” Alma is now three and seven months old. Mira is just over two.

Later that day, at home, Mira says, “Fee, fee tine.”

Ghassan Zeineddine is the author of the story collection Dearborn and co-author of the creative nonfiction anthology Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging

FIDA'I

By

Edward Salem West Bank, 2002

Military jeep lights whirl orange in the night. Neon buzzes over an empty arcade. Stray dogs scatter. I stretch out at my family’s farthest olive grove, the ground cool on my back. I turn my face into crumbs of dirt. I smell the earth, and make myself smell of it. In the night-black hills, I take off all of my clothes and let the air stroke my ass, pressing my body against bark until my skin begins to itch. I pluck an olive and punt it toward the dark hills dusted with light—Palestinian villages, gold clusters nestled in the night. When the terrain before me ignites in a barrel of cold light, I see the fortified settlement behind curlicued concertina, their screened windows— orange or gold; dim or bright. I gauge the distance between us and I run, the soil shining in the light sweeping the land. When I’m close, I crouch low. I crawl. I lie flat on my stomach and inch forward on my forearms like a sneaking soldier, dragging my naked body toward them, breathing the soil and the stones.

Originally published in Poet Lore, Volume 116 3/4, Winter/Spring 2022. Edward

Salem is the author of Monk Fruit (Nightboat Books, 2025) and the co-founder of City of Asylum/Detroit.

The Year of the Bird

By Dave Mesrey

June 28, 1976

The two boys, one Arab, one Black, hopped onboard the Cadillac-Harper and took their seats in back of the bus. Eddie had about a buck left in change. Pookie didn’t have a dime.

Gus the dancing hot-dog vendor sat behind the driver, hunched under an invisible punch, mumbling to himself and fumbling with a rumpled lunch bag.

Herbie the dancing groundskeeper sat across the bus from Gus, staring at his feet and dreaming of a clean sweep. To his right sat the elegant Mr. Cooper, his nose buried in the morning paper.

Herbie leaned over and nudged Mr. Cooper.

“Bird on the hill tonight!”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Cooper. “Bird’s the word!”

“You think it’ll sell out?”

“I dunno, got my ticket yesterday.”

“Shit, Goose, you shouldn’t have to buy no ticket!”

The bus rolled to a stop in front of Harpos, and up jumped Hamtramck Ike.

Mr. Cooper looked back at Herbie and said, “I used to get in free when Billy Martin was coaching.”

“Man, fuck Billy Martin!” said Ike as he dropped his fare in the farebox. He glanced over at the boys and laughed.

“Excuse my language.”

Ike, like Mr. Cooper, was an old ballplayer. Said he had a cup of coffee with the Tigers.

Mr. Cooper (the men all called him Goose) used to pitch for the Detroit Stars.

“What’s goin’ on, Ike?”

“Same shit, different day,” he said. “What’s new with you, Goose?”

“I’mma see if we beat these damn Yankees tonight.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Ike said. “Who pitchin’ for them motherfuckers?”

“Holtzman,” said Gus.

“Holtzman?” said Ike as he turned to look at the ol’ pugilist. “Man, he ain’t shit — I hit Holtzman all day!”

Herbie busted out laughing as Ike spun around and feigned offense.

“What’s happenin’ brother?” said Ike, laughing at himself again.

“Just gettin’ ready to do my thang,” Herbie said.

“You better be ready,” said Ike as he

took a seat behind Dancin’ Gus. “Them cameras gone find you tonight.”

Pookie leaned over to Eddie and whispered, “Did they say The Bird’s pitchin’ tonight?”

“I think so,” Eddie said.

The boys looked at each other in wide-eyed wonder.

The Bird.

“How far this bus go?”

“Downtown, I guess,” Eddie said. “Maybe we can transfer …”

But to what bus, Eddie didn’t know. He and his father always used to drive to Tiger Stadium in the old Ford Maverick — until that fateful day in the bleachers. Eddie hadn’t been back since.

As the bus approached the YMCA, the boys looked at each other, but neither one rang the bell. This was their stop, but they kept on riding as the bus turned onto Cadillac Boulevard.

Back at the front of the bus, Mr. Cooper pulled an apple out of his bag and glanced at the driver, but thought twice about taking a bite. He leaned forward in his seat and started tossing the apple in the air like a baseball, his long, black fingers twirling it like he was Satchel Paige.

Herbie stood up in the aisle to stretch his legs.

“Hey, Herb!” Ike said. “What’s the Bird man gonna tell the ball tonight?”

Herbie snatched Mr. Cooper’s apple out of the air, leaned forward at the waist, and held the ripened fruit to his face.

“Stay low!” he told the apple.

Gus let out a raspy, punch-drunk laugh that emanated from his flattened nose, trying his best to forget about Ducky Dietz.

Mr. Cooper laughed, too, and snatched his apple back.

As the bus turned onto Jefferson and rumbled its way downtown, past the smokestacks and the Uniroyal plant and the shiny new Renaissance Center, Gus adjusted his Hygrade hat and fastened a pin to his shirt.

Ball Park Franks, it said. They plump when you cook ’em.

The bus pulled in to Cadillac Square around six o’clock, first pitch still a couple hours away.

Eddie and Pookie hopped off the bus and followed Gus across the street to Michigan Avenue, where the men waited to catch a transfer to Corktown.

Eddie could see the light towers of Tiger Stadium looming in the distance, the same towers where Reggie Jackson hit his home run back in ’71. Eddie

thought back to all the times his father brought him there, to all the days they sat in the green seats behind the green bullpen, or in the green bleachers underneath the green overhang, staring out at the echoing green.

Just then Eddie saw the lights in the towers power on. The ballpark pulled at him like a magnet.

“C’mon,” Eddie said as he motioned toward the stadium.

“Hold up!” Pookie said. “How we gonna get in, man? We ain’t got no tickets.”

“I dunno,” Eddie said. “We’ll think of somethin’.”

“Man, we don’t even have money for the bus ride home!”

Eddie shrugged. He didn’t know what to tell Pookie, and he didn’t wanna go home. All he knew is that The Bird was pitching tonight, and this might be their only chance to see him.

“C’mon, Pook!” Eddie pleaded. Pookie let out a sigh and started the long slog to Corktown.

As the boys crossed over the Lodge Freeway, they began to smell the smells that emanate from Tiger Stadium. The popcorn and the peanuts. The hot dogs and the beer. The cigarettes, the cigars, and the piss.

Pookie trudged on toward Trumbull

as Eddie picked up the pace. At Eighth Street the music took hold, and they could hear the final round of the Motown sound blasting from the bars and the cars.

The transfer bus caught up with the boys and coasted to a stop at Tenth Street. Gus rolled out in his vendor splendor and ambled out onto the avenue. Then came Herbie and Goose and Ike.

Inside the stadium, Mark Fidrych poked his head out of the dugout and blew one last bubble as big as his boyish face. He tossed out his gum, slipped off his jacket, and began to jog headlong out onto the warning track and into the electric night, his colossal curls cascading from under his cap.

Out on Trumbull Avenue, Pookie and Eddie wandered around the hallowed ground, wild-eyed and wistful and wired, studying the ushers and the turnstiles and the passageways, their eyes darting in every direction, trying to find a way to get inside the ballpark and catch a glimpse of the man they call The Bird.

SPJ Award–winning Syrian-American writer Dave Mesrey is a longtime contributor to the Detroit Metro Times; read more

In the cage of manhood, how you suffer, you broken little boys

By Eric Froh

Film still, work in progress.

Eric Froh, b. 1986, has been a sculptor in Detroit for more than 15 years.

WHAT’S GOING ON

Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Be sure to check venue website before events for latest information. Add your event to our online calendar: metrotimes.com/ AddEvent.

MUSIC

Wednesday, May 15

Bonginator, Self Absorbed, Excremental Scaphism, Decedent 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.

Jazz & Cocktails ft. Jerome Clark Trio Hosted By Sky Covington 7- p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; $20.

Jeff Bernat, Braxton Cook 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

Joyner Lucas 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $33-$63.

RIDE, Knifeplay 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $32.50. Say Anything, AJJ, Greet Death 6:30 p.m.; Masonic Temple Theatre, 500 Temple St., Detroit; $36.50-$40.

Thursday, May 16

Holly Humberstone, Carol Ades 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

Internal Bleeding, Mutilatred, Cenotaph, Throne 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $18. Emery, The Almost, Bad Luck 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $30.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Spoon Benders 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $22.50-$25. TLC, C+C Music Factory 8 p.m.; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $43-$128.

Vukovi, Calva Louise 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $16.

Friday, May 17

Adam Doleac 7 p.m.; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $20.

All Over The Shop, David Bierman Overdrive (DBO), DJ Sanford 9 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover. Chaos & Carnage 2024: Cattle Decapitation, Carnifex, Rivers of Nihil, Humanity’s Last Breath,

The Zenith Passage, Vitriol, Face Yourself, The Convalescence, Convulsis, Darkeater, Decedent, Gravebloom, Hate Unbound, Living Dissection, Nethergate, Redlord, Temple Of The Fuzz Witch 4 p.m.; The Crofoot Complex, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $30.

Crazy & the Brains 7 p.m.; Small’s, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck; $17.

Stupify (Disturbed tribute), Generation Day (Godsmack tribute)

7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15-$80.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra presents Disco Fever 10:45 a.m.; Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $24+.

FSPA Faculty Concert Series

7-8:30 p.m.; FIM McArthur Recital Hall, 1025 E Kearsley Street, Flint; no cover with registration.

It Dies Today (20th Anniversary of The Caitiff Choir) 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $25.

They Might Be Giants 8 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $39.50-$75.

Orchestral Rendition of Dr. Dre’s 2001 7 p.m.; Harpos, 14238 Harper Ave, Detroit;

The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band 8 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $50-$89.

Theory Of A Deadman, Billy Raffoul 8 p.m.; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $33-$78.

Yellow Days, The Jack Moves 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $26.

Saturday, May 18

Detroit Symphony Orchestra presents Disco Fever 8 p.m.; Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $24+.

They Might Be Giants 7 p.m.; Majestic Theatre, 4140 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $39.50.

Angel Of Mars, Knuckle Dragger, Solar Monolith 8 p.m.; Outer Limits Lounge, 5507 Caniff St., Detroit; $10. Architects, Of Mice & Men, While She Sleeps 6 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $37.50-$64.50.

Carley Lusk, Sounds Like Otto, Me & Mad, Novelty Songs 7:30

p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $10.

Chase Huglin, Darcy Moran, Bogues, Star Student, Olivia Dellorso 7 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

City Lights Chorus 2024 Spring Concert - Take a Look at Us Now 3:30-5:30 p.m.; Hilltop Church of the Nazarene, 21260 Haggerty Rd., Northville; $20.

Country Hoedown Tour Powered by Faster Horses Festival 8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $15.

Mike Ward Trio, Jason Dennie 8-10 pm; Wiltsie’s, 21 North Main Street, Clarkston; $15-$25.

Double Feature Night featuring Jason Dennie and Mike Ward Trio 8 p.m.; Wiltsie’s at the Honeycomb, 4 South Main Street, City of the Village of Clarkston; $15-25.

Fleshwater, Modern Color, 9Million 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck.

Hollywood Casino @ Greektown Present Morris Day & The Time 8 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $25-$65.

Los Huracanes del Norte: Gran Bailazo at The Russell 8 p.m.; The Russell; 1600 Clay St., Detroit; $60-$300. The Smiths United, Playground Twist, Psycho Candy 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25.

Megan Thee Stallion, GloRilla 7 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $39.50-$249.50.

They Might Be Giants 8 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $39.50-$75.

SiM, Fame On Fire, Within Destruction, Crystak Lake 6 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $29.50.

Sons of the Never Wrong, Katie Dahl 7:30 p.m.; MAMA’s Coffeehouse at the Birmingham Unitarian Church, 38651 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills; $17 ($15 student/senior).

The Ultimate Doors (The Doors tribute), the Hideaways 7 p.m.; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $18.

Ultimate Ovation, DJ BForeman 9-11:30 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Violent Femmes 7 p.m.; Cathedral Theatre at the Masonic Temple, 500 Temple St., Detroit; $39-$80. DJ/Dance

Cosmic Groove: an Odyssey of Art and Sound in Detroit noon-4 p.m.; Ideation Orange, 420 W. Nine Mile Rd., Hazel Park; $15 suggested donation. Marvel Years & Phyphr 8 p.m.; Tangent Gallery & Hastings Street Ballroom, 715 E. Milwaukee Ave., Detroit; $20.

Sunday, May 19

Detroit Symphony Orchestra presents Disco Fever 3 p.m.; Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $24+.

Altars, Artificial Brain, Goetia, Archthrone 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $20.

ANGEL 6:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $20-$120.

Dixon’s Violin 7:45 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $25. Kumar Sanu & Sadhana Sargam 7 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $59-$300.

Shordie Shordie 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $18-$70. Spring Kick-Off Car Show & BBQ 11 a.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; no cover.

The Inspector Cluzo, the Messenger Birds 7 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

Monday, May 20

The Amity Affliction, Currents, Dying Wish, Mugshot 5:30 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $32.99-$57.50.

UADA, Stabbing, Bewitcher, Upon Stone 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $20. DJ/Dance

Adult Skate Night 8:30-11 p.m.; Lexus Velodrome, 601 Mack Ave., Detroit; $5.

Tuesday, May 21

DSO at St Hedwig Church! 7-8 p.m.; St. Hedwig’s Church, 3245 Junction St., Detroit; no cover.

Gary Clark Jr., Abraham Alexander 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $47.50-$97.50.

Heart, Cheap Trick 8 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $30-$164.50.

In Flames, Gatecreeper, Creeping Death 6 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $33.

Lords of Acid 6:30 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $32.

Tim Kaiser, Dr. Pete Larson 7 p.m.; Entropy Studios, 25908 W. Six Mile Rd., Redford; $10.

DJ/Dance

B.Y.O.R Bring Your Own Records Night 9 p.m.-midnight; The Old Miami, 3930 Cass Ave., Detroit; no cover.

THEATER

Performance

Detroit Film Theatre (DFT) Yellow Brick Ballads: Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, a concert fusing jazz, gospel, techno, and pop in a dazzling journey of growth, hope, and friendship; $10-25 Friday, 7 p.m.

Detroit Public Theatre Clyde’s; $47; Through June 2, see full schedule at detroitpublictheatre.org.

Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts What’s a Man to Do; $35-$65; Saturday, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Plowshares Theatre The House

That Will Not Stand; $15-$49; Thursday, 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Friday, 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Saturday, 8-10 p.m.; and Sunday, 2-4 p.m.

The Back Office Studio Lee’s Grand Tiki; $15 general, $12 student; Friday, 8-10 p.m.; Saturday, 8-10 p.m.; and Sunday, 2-4 p.m.

Musical

The Berman Center for the Performing Arts A Taste of Ireland - The Irish Music & Dance Sensation; $45-$65; Wednesday, 7:30-9:20 p.m.

Meadow Brook Theatre Route 66; $43; Wednesday, 2 & 8 p.m.; Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 & 8 p.m., and Sunday, 2 p.m.

Ridgedale Playhouse It Shoulda Been You by Brian Hargrove; $18-$20; Friday, 8-10 p.m.; Saturday, 8-10 p.m.; and Sunday, 2-4 p.m.

COMEDY

Improv

Go Comedy! Improv Theater Pandemonia The All-Star Showdown; $25; Fridays, Saturdays.

Stand-up

The Fillmore Patton Oswalt: Effervescent; $47.50-$93; Saturday, 7 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Kristen Key; $30; 7:30 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle

Brent Terhune; $25; Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, 7:15 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.; Saturday, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Jeff Leeson; $25; Sunday, 7 p.m.

Critic’s pick

Motor City Comic Con

FUN: Since 1989, Michigan’s Motor City Comic Con has celebrated all things pop culture, and has long been one of the largest conventions in the Midwest. In 2022, the event went back to being held twice a year, now taking place at Novi’s Suburban Collection Showplace in the spring and the fall.

This year’s spring edition, set for May 17-19, will feature some of the biggest actors from television, movies, and streaming platforms, along with artists, writers, and comic book creators. Along with various panel discussions and special events, celebrity and comic guests will sign autographs and hold photo opportunities for an extra cost.

Motor City Comic Con’s celebrity guests include actors Shameik Moore (Miles Morales of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants), Charlie Hunnam (Jax Teller from Sons of Anarchy), and William Shatner (Captain James Tiberius Kirk from Star Trek), as well as WWE wrestlers Ron Simmons and Lex Luger.

Comic book guests at Motor City Comic Con will include creators known for work with Marvel, DC’s Batman,

Planet Ant Black Box Bad Bitch Brunch — Detroit Women of Comedy Festival; $20; Saturday; noon-2 p.m.

Sound Board Luenell, Finesse Mitchell; $39-$53; Thursday, 8 p.m.

Continuing This Week Stand-up

Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy FREE Mondays, 8 pm.

Fox Theatre We Them One’s Comedy Tour with Mike Epps, DC Young Fly, Chico Bean, Karlous Miller, Lil Duval, Mojo

30 May 15-21, 2024 | metrotimes.com

SpongeBob SquarePants, Paw Patrol, Sherlock Holmes, and more.

Aside from meeting hot guests, attendees can also participate in numerous attractions during the three-day convention. Some unique happenings this year include a Star Wars storytime, anime screenings, cosplay and drawing contests, trivia sessions, art classes for children, and more.

In addition, artists, writers, and illustrators will be featured throughout an Artist Alley. Plus, there will be crafters selling gifts, crafts, and replicas, as well as some of the largest comic book and multimedia dealers from across the country offering a variety of merchandise including comics, toys, art, unique jewelry, clothing, and memorabilia.

Tickets for Motor City Comic Con can be purchased online at motorcitycomiccon.com.

—Layla McMurtrie

From Friday, May 17-Sunday, May 19; Suburban Collection Showcase, 46100 Grand River Ave., Novi; see motorcitycomiccon.com for full schedule. Tickets are $30-$259.

Brookzz and Moneybag Mafia; $75.50$249.50; Saturday, 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.

ARTS

Opening

LITERARY

ebrating the Detroit Metro Times

Issue in collaboration with Kresge Arts in Detroit, with the theme of “Resistance Across Borders.” The Fiction Issue hits newsstands May 15. Saturday, 4-6 p.m.

CAVE Open Studios with Frank Lepkowski, Abigail Rist, Mitch VanAcker, Gabrielle Soltis, Dylan Spaysky, Samuel Albaugh, Emily Fisher, Jarvi Kononen, Manal Shoukair, Ardele Monk, Alorē Niemi, and Suzy Poling; Friday, 5-9 p.m. Color & Ink Studio BIG INK 2024; no cover; Saturday, 1-4 p.m. and Sunday 1-4

JOSH JUSTICE

Motor City Comic Con is happening May 17-19.

EMPLOYMENT

Project Manager - Closure Systems, Brose North America, Auburn Hills, MI. Plan, manage, & coordinate series production projects incl. validation of product designs & engrg change mgmt for mechatronic psgr vehicle front & rear side door & swing gate door closure syss (incl. e-latches, e-latch electronic control unit, & crash brackets) & dvlpmt projects (quotation, dvlpmt, validation, rampup, launch, series production) for mechatronic closure syss, to be produced at plants in N.A. Plan, lead, & set project financial & technical milestones & deliverables for N.A. product dvlpmt & series production for mechatronic front & rear side door & swing gate door closure syss covering 2015 to 2029 & beyond projects & to meet packaging & Product Dvlpmt Process standards. Guide cross functional team w/ Project & Industrial Engrs, Qlty & Logistics Planners, & Project Controller to meet project’s deliverables. Perform target cost mgmt, product cost optimization, & financial anlyses to manage & deliver projects from automot cmpt concept dvlpmt & industrialization to commercialization & continuous improvement throughout product lifecycle. Bachelor, Mechanical Engrg, Mechatronics Engrg, or related. 48 mos’ ex as Project Mgr, Program Mgr, Key Account Mgr, or related, planning & coordinating dvlpmt projects (dvlpmt, launch, series production) for mechatronic closure or door syss, to be produced at plants, or related. E-mail resume to Jobs@brose.com (Ref#2376-106).

EMPLOYMENT

Senior Account Manager, Brose North America, Auburn Hills, MI. Act as main point of contact for sales contracts, product prices, & product, prototype & tooling costing negotiations with U.S.-based OEM vehicle maker Buyers & OEM N.A. plants for closure syss (incl. side door, drop/liftgate, & swing gate closure syss (incl. e-latches) business unit, for psgr, cargo, & comml vehicles & assembled in U.S. & N.A. region. Perform closure syss sales planning & product statistical anlys of N.A. mkt w/ 1-yr detailed & 5-yr estimated OEM customer vehicle production volumes, & identify estimated product sales revenues by side door, drop/liftgate, & swing gate door (for e- & mechanical latches) closure syss in N.A. region. Perform competitor planning incl. benchmark anlys of competitor closure syss (price, tooling, capacity, qlty, mfg footprints) to identify potential customer prgms. Define final closure syss product price based on evaluation of overhead (SG& A & profit) & production costs to build products incl. cmpts, logistics, production, & raw materials. Associate, Any technology, engrg, or business field of study, or related. 48 mos’ exp as Key Account Mgr, Key Account Mgr Leader, Senior Account Mgr, or related, acting as point of contact for sales contracts, product prices, & product, prototype & tooling costing negotiations with OEM vehicle maker Buyers, for closure sys, door module, or door sys business unit, or related. E-mail resume to Jobs@brose.com (Ref#3310).

MUSIC

Just for fun

Detroit’s Slum Village returns with upbeat LP

By Biba Adams

There are few artists that exemplify the spirit of Detroit: Motown… Eminem… and Slum Village.

The legendary hip-hop group gave us the gift of J Dilla, Baatin, and a cache of hit songs and anthems. Earlier this month, SV released a new discoinspired album aptly titled F.U.N

It’s the first LP from the group in nearly a decade, and it fits the musical landscape with an upbeat sound that is perfect for a summer in Detroit.

Young R.J., who is the primary producer on the album, says that he came up with an idea to go in a direction that many rappers haven’t touched on.

“So once we kind of set the direction, then the rest was just about getting the right beats, which really wasn’t hard,” R.J. says. “Some of them we already had in the cut. And some of them, you know, we had to craft from scratch. And then the rest was just putting songs together. So it was pretty simple, to be honest.”

Blending the nostalgic grooves of disco with jazz and modern hip-hop sensibilities, the album reflects Slum

Village’s evolution over the years while paying homage to their origins with fresh new energy. The bold title underscores their unapologetic approach.

“Sometimes, people put too many rules on music,” founding member T3 says. “Without sounding cliche, we wanted to just have fun with it. So, in three words: ‘Fuck U Ni**as.’”

With the help from star-studded guest features, including Eric Roberson, Robert Glasper, Cordae, Karriem Riggins, and more, F.U.N. delivers a dynamic listening experience that pushes boundaries and serves as a testament to the power of experimentation and creativity in modern music. This one is for the day-one Slum fans and contemporary music enthusiasts alike.

The group, which has undergone several iterations, is finding its own lane again as a duo. (Dilla died in 2006, and Baatin in 2009.) Having changed members numerous times, they explain that their legacy remains in the forefront of their minds. “Well, we think as legacy, the first thing is that we set our own

path, and we made a way when it really wasn’t a lot of opportunities for the hip-hop groups at that time to come out of [Detroit] and become a national group,” says T3.

“So that’s one thing we did, as far as upholding the legacy, and at every show we do, we always do kind of, you know, a small ceremony for Dilla and Baatin because without them, we definitely wouldn’t be here,” says T3. “I know I wouldn’t be here. So we always uphold that legacy, as well. And, we always represent Detroit… So we just bring all that together, you know what I’m saying? We just happy to be able to still do what we do, and make a living. And people just really support us. So you know, that’s a blessing in itself.”

Having been one of the earliest rap groups signed to a major label, the rappers are energized by the current success of the city’s artists. “I don’t want to say Detroit is coming up, I want to say we’ve arrived and now it’s a different appreciation for what Detroit brings, which is the newer generation and the

fact that we always try to be different as a city from the production style to the flows and now we are influencing the rest of the music business,” R.J. says. “And you know, that’s super dope.”

The group consistently tours in Europe, noting that European fans are die-hard rap fans and their audience is also getting younger. “We are seeing 20-somethings all the way up to middle aged fans,” says T3, adding, “That’s encouraging.”

Touring is one thing that kept the group from recording. “It’s also that sometimes you get bored with music and doing the same thing over and over again,” T3 explains. “But this time, we decided to please ourselves first.”

F.U.N. will also please any die-hard Slum Village fan and bring some new ones into the fold.

“We want people to enjoy it,” T3 says. “It’s an enjoyable album. And we definitely have fun, which is in the title. And that’s it, you know what I’m saying? Slum Village is here to keep the legacy going and make great memories.”

Slum Village is now the duo of T3 and Young RJ.

FRANKIE FULTZ

MUSIC

A bombastic black sheep

High on Fire’s Matt Pike is the Motor City’s heavy metal madman

By Timothy J. Seppala

Matt Pike’s reputation precedes him.

The shirtless guitarist has kicked around the heavy metal scene for over three decades. First in Sleep, the early ’90s stoner outfit that took the joint Black Sabbath lit with “Sweet Leaf” and ran with it until their label refused to release an hour-long one-song album about a weed pilgrimage to the riff-filled lands, essentially ending the band. Then, as frontman for High on Fire, the aggressive, Motörhead-ish power trio he subsequently formed, marking a shift from marijuana worship to more out-there lyrical topics.

High on Fire has since won a Grammy. And Sleep reformed to considerable acclaim, with Third Man pressing massive marijuana leaves into special edition vinyl being a new high point for the band. Before all that, Pike was just another kid from Southfield. You can catch him alongside bassist Jeff Matz and drummer Coady Willis when High on Fire headlines the Magic Stick this Friday in support of their latest behemoth, Cometh the Storm

Calling from a North Carolina tour stop, Pike is running low on rest but excited to talk about growing up in Detroit and his many return trips.

Like the time he put a $10,000 deposit down on a ’64 Pontiac GTO and test drove it all day, pulling wheelies and doing donuts on Woodward Avenue in front of the Majestic complex.

“No cops came, they didn’t give a shit,” he says with a hyena’s infectious dry laugh.

He didn’t buy it, and later picked up a ’78 El Camino. “My family would call me a traitor because they’re all Ford people. I’m the black sheep. I always have been.”

Pike’s singing voice sounds like throwing a belt sander into a cement mixer. His speaking voice? That’s more along the lines of someone who’s gargled with chaw spit, rock salt, and razor blades twice a day for decades. Despite all that, Pike’s pangs of nostalgia shine through during our conversation.

He was born in 1972 and, like many

Detroiters, his family worked in the auto industry. His grandpa was “a staple” at Ford, where his father also worked. When Pike was 4, his dad packed the family up for Boston to pursue an engineering degree at Harvard.

He’d spend summers on the shores of Lake Huron at his grandparents’ cottage in Caseville, doing typical kid stuff: shooting his BB gun, catching toads and carp, skipping rocks on the Great Lake. These days he calls Oregon home, where he splits an apartment with artist Jordan Barlow.

Pike recently returned to Detroit to watch stacks of Sleep records get pressed at Third Man. Sleep is a ’70s throwback band, which he cites as the reason Jack White approached the trio. “It was a match made in heaven,” given the mutual affinity for vinyl, he says. With Third Man, Sleep found new life. Fans line up around the Cass Corridor retail spot whenever there’s a vinyl drop.

Sleep also commands the biggest paydays of all Pike’s projects. So much so that it took precedence over High on Fire for a handful of years following Sleep’s surprise comeback album, 2018’s Third Man release The Sciences.

“Sleep is like its own economy,” Pike says. “That band sells a shit-ton of merch, even if it’s not active.”

That’s a boon for Pike considering financial stability seems like it’s always been a pipe dream for the career musician. His lack of attention to High on Fire, however, wasn’t without casualty. Following the Grammy win for 2018’s blistering ode to Motörhead’s late Lemmy Kilmister, Electric Messiah, founding drummer Des Kensel parted ways after two decades. In 2021, Kensel was replaced by Willis (Melvins, Big Business).

Six years between High on Fire records and one global pandemic later, Pike still struggles to get by. He’s released a solo project, toured with Sleep, reissued and remastered old albums, and sold Sleep test pressings on Instagram to make rent — anything he can do to survive. He’s started drawing and painting, taking commissions from friends to subsidize

his music career.

“I didn’t expect that,” he says. “It’s kind of funny because [the art] is so 11th grade tweaker metal,” he says laughing that raspy laugh again. Depending on supplies and shipping he charges between $150 and $300 per piece.

When I ask if the economics of metal aren’t sustainable, I couldn’t have predicted his response. As I do with most musician interviews, I’d hoped to address Pike’s career and financial realities, his relationship with the Motor City, and maybe get a look into the creative process for my favorite songs.

But this is where his reputation as a conspiracy theorist came to the forefront, from his fascination with cryptids like Bigfoot and Michigan’s Dogman, to the stuff you see on Ancient Aliens. I’ve read NPR’s massive 2022 profile of Pike and his mish-mash of contradictory beliefs that’d make Dale Gribble choke on his cigarettes. I just didn’t expect those to come up during our 25-minute call.

“It’s the United States economics and it’s not fucking sustainable,” he says. “No one can pay their rent, no one can make their credit card payments, no one’s paying auto loans.”

By his estimate, he’ll see the fruits of the latest album cycle once he’s a little further into this tour.

“I’m behind on bills just like everyone else,” he says. “I’m just a fucking regular guy until I get on stage.”

There are plenty of valid targets here. Like the unfortunate timing of starting a heavy band in the wake of nü-metal and Napster. Spotify and LiveNation make it close to impossible for artists outside the mainstream to earn a living wage, too.

According to a recent Billboard report, the former is on track to pay songwriters $150 million less in royalties next year once the dust settles on its new pricing scheme. Pike’s sights are set somewhere different.

“Bidenomics... it’s pretty much like everybody needs to get no-lube ass-fucked by a huge brick. [President Joe Biden]’s got a face and a name, but it’s not him, it’s corporate... it’s the globalists, dude. It’s the fucking World Economic Forum… Motherfuckers who do not give a fuck if you’re fucked.”

But he adds quickly: “I don’t want to get too political.”

I mentioned I wasn’t looking forward to voting this November because there were no good choices on the ballot. He isn’t even sure the election will actually happen.

“I think they’re gonna assassinate both of them. And then try to get the crying side on Biden’s side. I think they’re gonna assassinate Trump, and Elon Musk is gonna put him back together like the Bionic Man. It’s biblical. When I see that, then I’ll know he’s an antichrist.”

It’s hard not to laugh at the absurdity of this response. Pike even seems to realize how outlandish it sounds. It’s the most unhinged thing I’ve heard anyone say in my 16 years in journalism.

Pike’s economic

hardships made their way onto Cometh the Storm, High on Fire’s ninth studio effort. All the darkness he was feeling as the world closed in around him resulted in what could be the heaviest album in the band’s storied catalog. And it all came together relatively quickly. Lyrics and vocals for

Matt Pike of High on Fire performs Friday at the Magic Stick. TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA

the album’s pummeling third track, “Trismegestus,” only took him ten minutes for instance.

“It just came out,” Pike explains. He’s always mined fantasy and ancient religions for inspiration. This song is no different, covering everything from Osiris to Hermes’s journey for knowledge.

“I feel like it was a little more divine. Given to me, rather than me thinking too much,” he says.

“I’m really fast at writing poetic, weird, dark esoteric shit. It’s probably my upbringing because I’m from Detroit,” he adds with an audible grin.

For him, what makes a Detroit show special is the people. Motown’s industrial backbone, much like Chicago or Cleveland, lends itself to the release offered by live music he says. Especially metal.

“Those blue-collar towns, people work harder and get crazier enjoying the music — they throw down and let all their frustrations from the fuckin’ factory out,” he says.

Sleep is a theater band, whereas High on Fire has largely made a career playing clubs and festivals. High on Fire’s most recent local show was at the Majestic in 2019. It didn’t hit capacity, but there was a healthy crowd of metalheads. Before that were sold-out shows at the Loving Touch in 2015 and the Crofoot Ballroom two years earlier.

When I saw them in 2021, it was hellacious back-to-back shows at Manhattan’s 700-seat Le Poisson Rouge — among the first with new drummer Willis. The Magic Stick holds a few hundred less.

“We thrive in that [club] environment,” Pike says. “We’re from the punk scene.”

While seeing such an act play such small venues is amazing for fans, it’s not the easiest way to make a living. Especially if you’re well beyond your 20s when you can afford to pursue what makes you happy versus what makes you money. High on Fire’s biggest gig — opening for Metallica’s 2010 two-week European stadium run — was an anomaly. Everyone in the band has at least one other project to keep themselves afloat.

I asked about what he still wants to accomplish professionally given everything he’s endured. Pike surprised me again, his answer relatable and wistful.

“I want to dig myself out of debt, and I want the fucking world to get fixed,” he laments. “The place fucking sucks right now. I want people to go back to when I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s. When kids could stay out until past when the lights come on. I just wish my childhood was still around for the kids nowadays.”

High on Fire performs with Zeta and High Command on Friday, May 17; the Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313833-9700; majesticdetroit.com. Tickets are $25 advance, $30 day of show.

Wed 5/15

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TIM SMITH!

Fri 5/17

SUEDE BRAIN/A RUEFUL NOISE/ BLASTY’S BACKROAD (rock/blues/indie) Doors@9p/$5cover

Sat 5/18

ARMED FORCES DAY!

THE HOURLIES/CHERRY DROP/ PINK SPIT (garage/rock/punk) Doors@9p/$5cover

Sun 5/19

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEVONN BELK!

Mon 5/20

FREE POOL ALL DAY

MOVEMENT WEEKEND LINEUP:

5/24 TECHNO CHRISTMAS w/ Nick Speed, feat. Sheefy McFly (Album Release),

DJ DON Q, DJ CLENT

5/25 AUTOMATE: DISKULL w/ Knifehouse/Werkout Plan/Aramis

5/26 3RD ANNUAL DETROIT PARTY

ON THE PATIO W/ TONY NOVA & MORE feat. music/art/dance/food/tarot

5/27 MEMORIAL DAY! OPEN@NOON

Coming Up:

5/30 WDET’S WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT DETROIT? (SEE WDET.ORG)

5/31 SEATBELTS/STOMP ROCKETS/ HYDROGEN JUKEBOX

6/01 BILLY BRANT & THE SUGAREES/ CHRIS DEGNORE & THE GARY JANES

6/07 ‘PARTYUP 3’ PRINCE’S BIRTHDAY DANCE PARTY

6/22 HOWDY FEST 3

Book Your Parties: theoldmiamibarevents@gmail.com

Miami T-shirts & Hoodies

FOOD

High-end Modern Mexican eatery spices up Cass Corridor

By Steve Neavling

A long-abandoned building in the Cass Corridor is now a high-end Modern Mexican eatery serving the traditional flavors of Mexico City and Oaxaca.

Vecino, which means “neighbor” in Spanish, opened on April 19 and is unlike anything in metro Detroit.

Using organic, heirloom corn from Mexico, Vecino makes tortillas, quesadillas, tostadas, sope, and tlayuda through a centuries-old process known as nixtamalization. The result is soft, warm, tender, and flavorful dough.

The menu focuses on seasonal, Michigan ingredients, sourced from local farmers, with the spices and flavors of Mexico. It features bone-in ribeye steak, red snapper, chicken, and vegetables cooked in the kitchen’s wood-fire hearth. Guests also can share carefully prepared plates that include seafood options, mesquite beets, duck confit, and fresh fruit.

The bar features an eclectic collection of agave-based spirits, including small-batch and artisanal tequilas,

wine from Mexico and other Spanishspeaking countries, and plenty of nonalcoholic options.

The kitchen is led by executive chef Ricardo Mojica, a Michigan native who previously worked at Sava’s in Ann Arbor and was the youngest head chef in the history of the nationwide chain P.F. Chang’s when he was 19.

He’s joined by head chef Stephanie Duran, a Culinary Institute of America alum who hails from Texas and cooked at several renowned restaurants in Mexico City and Chicago.

Co-owners Adriana Jimenez and her husband Lukasz Wietrzynski dreamed up the restaurant in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic put their plans on hold. They had grown bored with their jobs — Wietrzynski was an attorney and Jimenez worked at Industrial Automation — and wanted to do something new and exciting while they’re still young.

Jimenez, a Mexico City native, grew up around restaurants. Her parents owned two Mexican eateries in Water-

ford and Highland.

“My parents would pick us up from school and we’d go straight to the restaurant, do our homework there and fall asleep there and wake up at home,” Jimenez tells Metro Times. “It was pretty tough on us, but if my parents didn’t have the restaurants, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do well in life.”

When the couple was searching for a location for their restaurant, they were enamored with their current spot — a corner building on Third and Alexandrine that was built in 1926 and once served as a grocery store and later a pharmacy. The building was missing windows and a roof, but they could see the potential.

“We fell in love with the building,” Jimenez says. “We wanted a corner building. We picked the most difficult building, but we were in love with it.”

They teamed up with Detroit-based designer Colin Tury, who also has a stake in the restaurant.

Inspired by the ambience of restau-

rants in Mexico City, the minimalist interior is warm and inviting, with earthy tones, terracotta, ceramic tiles, and hand-blown glass light fixtures hanging from the high, angled ceiling. They used local companies, including Donut Shop for the bar stools and custom hooks, and GANAS Manufacturing for the custom millwork and fixtures.

The restaurant seats 66 people and includes a bar with space for an additional 16 people.

Vecino is the fifth fine-dining restaurant to open in a section of the Cass Corridor that had long been vacant and blighted. The others are Selden Standard, SheWolf, Mad Nice, and Vigilante Kitchen and Bar, which is being reimagined.

On a recent weekend, a severalhundred-thousand-dollar McLaren was parked outside Vecino.

“Never thought I’d see that here,” a man said as he walked by.

Vecino is located at 4100 Third St., Detroit. More information is available at vecinodetroit.com.

Bites

Vecino brings traditional flavors of Mexico City to Detroit.

STEVE NEAVLING

CULTURE

Arts spotlight

Botanical artist Lisa Waud trades flowers for upcycled objects in new installation

By Randiah Camille Green

It’s the year 2222 and there are no more forests left on Earth. Human beings have polluted the planet into oblivion and decimated the forest floor, chopping down trees to make cheap furniture and other unnecessary junk. Desperate for fresh oxygen, the chirp of birdsong from the canopy, and the smell of rain on moss, people flock instead to Detroit’s Memory Forest

You’ll have to use your imagination to envision this unnatural future but Lisa Waud has a few tricks up her sleeve that make her latest installation, Memory Forest, believable. In Memory Forest , the Detroit-based botanical installation artist uses tree branch cuttings, plastic flowers, cardboard boxes, and whatever else she could find in her garage to build the forest of a desolate future. It’s the first installation of a three-part series during her six-month residency in Milwaukee Junction’s Boyer Campbell Building.

The faint smell of charred wood warms the space like it’s being heated with a woodstove. As background music plays gently — falling between soothing ethereal sounds and the part in a horror movie when shit is about to get weird — I feel a mix of relaxation and impending doom.

“What if we’re in the future and there’s no more forests, and we need to build one from our best recollection? Will this do?” she asks adding, “It’s like dread, but make it colorful. I like to call it a technicolor dystopia.”

Pointy tree of heaven branches painted neon green, baby blue, and pastel pink jut out of wooden planks on the ground. Nearby, neon “moss” creeps up stacks of cardboard boxes resembling thick tree stumps. Plastic flowers hang upside down on a wall of chicken wire that Waud calls the “Inverted Meadow.”

“I was just really enjoying getting everything wrong,” she says when I ask why the meadow is inverted.

Before pursuing art full time, Waud worked as a florist and professional gardener for 12 years. She opened her former houseplant store Pot+Box in Detroit’s Fisher Building in late 2017. She produced her first large scale installation — an abandoned house in Hamtramck that she filled with living plants and flowers called Flower House — in 2015.

“I was absolutely hooked on large scale installations,” she says. “It took a few years, but eventually I made the decision to close my business and focus on art full time… in my art practice, I primarily use plants and flowers to create large-scale installations but in this one I really tried to focus on using materials that are recycled and can be recycled. I gathered all the inventory that I still have from the flower shop and gave myself the restriction of only using them.”

Memory Forest differs from Waud’s previous installations like Flower House and 2021’s aptly-named Party Store where she filled an abandoned party store with flowers. One of the only natural materials she uses here are branches spiraling down a slide suspended in the middle of the room and stretching toward the ceiling, like children’s fingers grasping for summer sun. Just watch out for their thorns.

Garden fencing remnants shaped like arrows stick out of milk crates like guardians trying to protect what’s already been lost.

“There’s a British artist who passed away recently, Phyllida Barlow, and she does a lot of work with very unfinished, very visible, not polished structures,” Waud explains. “I was really interested to experiment with that, coming from being a florist where things have to be absolutely perfect and show ready. It feels very cathartic for me to make a mess of things.”

Waud encourages people to bring lunch and drinks and have a picnic at

Memory Forest , which she hopes offers them a “pause button” from their daily lives.

“There’s a lot of metaphors in the plant world and I think that’s why the work I do resonates with people… almost everyone has a relationship with plants,” she says. “While Memory Forest looks a lot different from my usual work, there’s a lot of natural materials and colors here. I think it can still offer that same pause button through the structure of a forest and kind of bringing together synthetic and natural materials together in that context.”

Memory Forest is on view until May 17 in the Boyer Campbell Building at 6532 St. Antoine St.

The second part in Waud’s series, Petrichor, will see the building’s floor covered completely in living grass for a limited run from May 13 to June 2. “Petrichor” is the word for that earthy smell when rain hits dry soil, which Waud is hoping to recreate.

“I’m really interested in messing with people and making them feel like they’re outside when they’re inside,” she says.

The final installation, Portrait, will allow visitors to be crowned with 25-foot-tall floral headdress suspended from the ceiling on June 28 and 29.

More information is available at lisawaud.com.

Lisa Waud’s Memory Forest is on view until May 17.

EE BERGER

CULTURE

Savage Love

Frozen

By Dan Savage

: Q I’m a 40-year-old woman, he’s a 35-year-old man, we’ve been together for fifteen years. We met young, and I was his first serious partner. In the beginning, sex was fun, but I’ve never had an orgasm with anyone, ever. We had a ton of other things in common and we stayed together because it mostly worked. Fifteen years later, I have two big issues: I can’t orgasm — that’s issue number one — and even if I could accept that, the sex I have with my partner is unsatisfying and has been for years. He’s a caring partner, but he’s not good in bed. My attempts to explain to him what gets me excited were ignored. When he’s unsure, he gets quiet and retreats. When I finally told him I couldn’t keep having unsatisfying sex, his selfesteem in bed was completely destroyed. Now we don’t have sex at all. Neither of us wants to end the relationship. We still cuddle, and we’re a great team. We have shared hobbies that take up 95% of our time (mountain sports), no kids (by choice), a decent income (finally!), and an otherwise rewarding life. We’ve also never demanded monogamy from each other but living in a small town in rural Canada makes seeking out others extremely complicated. I sometimes wonder if exploring my sexuality with someone else — maybe even a woman (I’m pretty sure I’m bi) — might help me get my playfulness back and inspire me to try again with my partner. We talk about these things very openly, so it wouldn’t be cheating. Has that ever worked?

About never having an orgasm: it’s not just him. Nothing I’ve ever tried — toys, masturbation, different toys, more masturbation, pot, alcohol, porn has helped. I just can’t come. Arousal builds then abruptly ends before I come. People say, “just masturbate more,” but I’ve been doing that for years and nothing changes. I’m pretty frustrated and wondering if I should just give up. But if I break up with my partner over this and I can’t orgasm with the next person I fall for, what was the point of breaking up? Years ago, I had a super-hot summer fling with a very attractive guy which my partner knew about and encouraged me to enjoy and still zero

orgasms. Am I just broken? Has anyone who never orgasmed finally achieved one? What worked?

—Sadness Over This Inability Ruining Entire Days

A: “Pleasure is why people are motivated to have sex,” said Dr. Lori Brotto, a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of British Columbia. “When pleasure is absent, it’s not surprising that motivation and desire fade.”

Now, it’s certainly possible to have a pleasurable sexual experience without coming — because of course it is — but if you never come and the sex isn’t very pleasurable and your partner doesn’t listen when you suggest ways to make sex slightly more pleasurable, sooner or later you’re gonna give up or blow up. But even if you decide to give up on sex — at least for now, at least with your long-term partner — Dr. Brotto, who is also a sex researcher and sex therapist, doesn’t want you to give up on orgasms.

“Most people assigned female at birth who cannot reach orgasm during insertive vaginal sex — 80% of females but most can reach orgasm on their own during clitoral stimulation,” said Dr. Brotto. “SOTIRED mentions needing her mind needing to be very present, which is not only normal but required for high arousal and orgasm in females. Thus, having her mind ‘totally there’ is an excellent skill, and I’d encourage her to build on that.”

Now, Dr. Brotto isn’t just telling you to “masturbate more,” SOTIRED, she’s telling you not to give up.

“But if, despite experimenting with all types of stimulation and focusing her mind on sensations in the present moment, SOTIRED still isn’t reaching orgasm during masturbation, more may be going on,” said Dr. Brotto. “I would want to rule out any physical causes like vulvo-vaginal pain, skin dermatoses, nerve damage from an injury, diabetes, or neurological issues. I’d also ask a physician to review the medications she’s on — and was on previously to see whether there’s something pharmacological blocking climax.”

As for your partner, SOTIRED, Dr. Brotto thinks you should see a sex therapist.

“A good sex therapist can reframe ‘working on it’ in a pleasure-focused way,” said Dr. Brotto. “And a therapist could perhaps convey to SOTIRED’s partner that learning to give his partner pleasure will directly benefit him as well. And since many sex therapists

offer virtual appointments, living in a small town is no problem.”

And now, at the risk of making myself deeply unpopular in the comment thread this week, I rise in defense of your dense partner.

If you pulled your punches when you tried to talk to him about your dissatisfaction… if you prioritized your male partner’s ego over advocating for your own pleasure because that’s what cis women are socialized to do… your partner may not have known you were this unhappy. If you were gentle and opaque, SOTIRED, if you said something like, “Things are great! But this [small change, vibe shift, sex act] would make things even better,” he may have come away from those conversations thinking, “Hey, things are great,” not because he’s an insensitive asshole, SOTIRED, but because he was socialized as a cis man. Many cis women (and most gay men!) will find the tiniest criticism under a mountain of compliments (find it and obsess over it); many cis men (and some gay men!) will entirely miss the mountain of criticism because they can’t take their eyes off the single, half-hearted compliment perched on top.

Being confronted by a deeply dissatisfied romantic partner — being told you suck at sex by the person you’ve been having sex with most of your adult life — won’t leave a scratch on a selfish asshole who couldn’t care less about his partner’s pleasure, SOTIRED, but it has the power to devastate a decent person who was too dense to hear what you were trying to say. So, the fact that your partner was hurt when you finally blew up is a good sign. Which is a very long way of saying I agree with Dr. Brotto about seeing a sex therapist and giving your partner a chance to make the sex work.

And don’t lose hope — for yourself as an individual, SOTIRED, or for you and your partner as a couple.

“People can experience orgasm after years, even decades, of not being able to orgasm,” said Dr. Brotto. “But the key ingredients to getting there are 1. knowing what the inhibitors are and how they’re getting in the way, 2. being open to experimenting with a variety of new types of stimulation, including ones you hadn’t considered before, and 3. working with a skilled sex therapist. And if a partner is relevant to this equation, having a partner who is focused on prioritizing your pleasure without guilt or shame is quite important too.”

Finally, SOTIRED, sometimes people will say, “I feel so safe with my partner I don’t understand why the sex isn’t working?” Well, sometimes the sex isn’t working because things feel too safe. Stepping outside your comfort zones

together — taking risks together — can make sex feel dangerous and exciting and chaotic again. Deciding to get sex elsewhere could be exciting, but you risk putting more distance between you and your partner. That said, deciding to wait until you’re finally having good sex with your partner isn’t without risk. If leaving your partner is the only way to have sex you’re actually excited about, SOTIRED, that incentivizes leaving your partner. And you may find, as so many other open couples have, that getting out there and fucking other people — having sexual adventures together or on your own — will make you wanna fuck each other again until you’ve given it a try.

P.S. Some recommended reading from Dr. Brotto for SOTIRED and other women facing similar struggles: Becoming Cliterate by Laurie Mintz and Becoming Orgasmic by Julia Heiman. “These step-by-step guides towards finding pleasure consider all the inhibitors and facilitators along the way,” said Dr. Brotto.

P.P.S. Dr. Brotto is too modest to recommend her own excellent book, so I’ll have to do it: Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire has helped countless women find their way — or find their way back — to pleasurable sex.

Follow Dr. Lori Brotto on Threads and Twitter @DrLoriBrotto. To learn more about her research, her public speaking, and her books, go to loribrotto.com.

: Q I was chatting with a couple of friends and the topic turned to clearing out a loved one’s belongings after they’ve passed away and some of the interesting, strange, or inexplicable belongings we found. One said that, while cleaning out her father’s place she found — amongst other sex items — a metal butt plug in his freezer. None of us had an explanation as to why and I just threw out that maybe he was freezing it to kill the bacteria. That seemed to satisfy them, but the truth is I don’t know; I was just riffing. It seems to me washing it or wiping it with alcohol would be just as, if not more, effective and I’m not sure if freezing it would even work. So, I’m turning to you. Do you have any idea(s) about why a guy would keep his metal butt plug in a freezer? Is there some kink associated with putting an ice-cold butt plug up your rectum? It seems like it would do some damage; that scene in A Christmas Story to mind.

—Perplexed By Frozen Treat

Read the full column online at savage. love. Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love!

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

Polish-born author Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) didn’t begin to speak English until he was 21 years old. At 25, his writing in that language was still stiff and stilted. Yet during the next 40-plus years, he employed his adopted tongue to write 19 novels, numerous short stories, and several other books. Today he is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. You may not embark on an equally spectacular growth period in the coming months, Aries. But you do have extra power to begin mastering a skill or subject that could ultimately be crucial to your life story. Be inspired by Conrad’s magnificent accomplishments.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

Hypothetically, you could learn to give a stirring rendering of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 on a slide whistle. Or you could perform the “To

be or not to be” soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet for an audience of pigeons that aren’t even paying attention. Theoretically, you could pour out your adoration to an unattainable celebrity or give a big tip to a waiter who provided mediocre service or do your finest singing at a karaoke bar with two people in the audience. But I hope you will offer your skills and gifts with more discernment and panache, Taurus — especially these days. Don’t offer yourself carelessly. Give your blessings only to people who deeply appreciate them.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

When I lived in San Francisco in 1995, thieves stole my Chevy Malibu. It was during the celebratory mayhem that swept the city following the local football team’s Super Bowl victory. Cops miraculously recovered my car, but it had been irrevocably damaged in one specific way: It could no longer drive in reverse. Since I couldn’t afford a new vehicle, I kept it for the next two years, carefully avoiding situations when I would need to go backward. It was a perfect metaphor for my life in those days. Now I’m suggesting you consider adopting it for yours. From what I can discern, there will be no turning around anytime soon. Don’t look back. Onward to the future!

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

most beautiful aspects of masculinity. Plus, my feminist principles have been ripening and growing stronger for many years. With that as our background, I encourage you to spend the coming weeks upgrading your own relationship to the masculine archetype, no matter which of the 77 genders you might be. I see this as an excellent time for you to take practical measures to get the very best male influences in your life.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

Now that your mind, your heart, and your world have opened wider than you imagined possible, try to anticipate how they might close down if you’re not always as bold and brave as you have been in recent months. Then sign a contract with yourself, promising that you will not permit your mind, your heart, and your world to shrink or narrow. If you proactively heal your fears before they break out, maybe they won’t break out. (P.S.: I will acknowledge that there may eventually be a bit of contraction you should allow to fully integrate the changes — but only a bit.)

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

shed qualities you don’t like and keep just the good parts? If so, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to drop this fantasy. In its place, I advise you to go through whatever mental gymnastics are necessary as you come to accept and love them exactly as they are. If you can manage that, there will be a bonus development: You will be more inclined to accept and love yourself exactly as you are.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

I brazenly predict that in the next 11 months, you will get closer than ever before to doing your dream job. Because of your clear intentions, your diligent pragmatism, and the Fates’ grace, life will present you with good opportunities to earn money by doing what you love and providing an excellent service to your fellow creatures. But I’m not necessarily saying everything will unfold with perfection. And I am a bit afraid that you will fail to capitalize on your chances by being too insistent on perfection. Please assuage my doubts, Capricorn! Welcome imperfect but interesting progress.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

Wine stroll, not stagger, through the friendly tree lined streets of Royal Oak. And remember no matter how much red one may quaff, only cross on the green; otherwise, you may have a limp or worse for next year.

Cancerian basketball coach Tara VanDerveer is in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She won more games than anyone else in the sport. Here’s one aspect of her approach to coaching. She says that the greatest players “have a screw loose” — and she regards that as a very good thing. I take her to mean that the superstars are eccentric, zealous, unruly, and daring. They don’t conform to normal theories about how to succeed. They have a wild originality and fanatical drive for excellence. If you might ever be interested in exploring the possible advantages of having a screw loose for the sake of your ambitions, the coming months will be one of the best times ever.

LEO: July 23 – August 22

Am I one of your father figures, uncle figures, or brother figures? I hope so! I have worked hard to purge the toxic aspects of masculinity that I inherited from my culture. And I have diligently and gleefully cultivated the

I would love you to cultivate connections with characters who can give you shimmery secrets and scintillating stories you need to hear. In my astrological opinion, you are in a phase when you require more fascination, amazement, and intrigue than usual. If love and sex are included in the exchange, so much the better — but they are not mandatory elements in your assignment. The main thing is this: For the sake of your mental, physical, and spiritual health, you must get your limitations dissolved, your understanding of reality enriched, and your vision of the future expanded.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21:

Scorpio writer Andrew Solomon made a very Scorpionic comment when he wrote, “We all have our darkness, and the trick is making something exalted of it.” Of all the signs of the zodiac, you have the greatest potential to accomplish this heroic transmutation — and to do it with panache, artistry, and even tenderness. I trust you are ready for another few rounds of your mysterious specialty. The people in your life would benefit from it almost as much as you.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

Have you been nursing the hope that someday you will retrain your loved ones? That you will change them in ways that make them act more sensibly? That you will convince them to

In his book Ambivalent Zen, Lawrence Shainberg mourns that even while meditating, his mind is always fleeing from the present moment — forever “lurching towards the future or clinging to the past.” I don’t agree that this is a terrible thing. In fact, it’s a consummately human characteristic. Why demonize and deride it? But I can also see the value of spending quality time in the here and now — enjoying each new unpredictable moment without compulsively referencing it to other times and places. I bring this up, Aquarius, because I believe that in the coming weeks, you can enjoy far more free time in the rich and resonant present than is normally possible for you. Make “BE HERE NOW” your gentle, relaxing battle cry.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

Two-thirds of us claim to have had a paranormal encounter. One-fourth say they can telepathically sense other people’s emotions. One-fifth have had conversations with the spirits of the dead. As you might guess, the percentage of Pisceans in each category is higher than all the rest of the zodiac signs. And I suspect that number will be even more elevated than usual in the coming weeks. I hope you love spooky fun and uncanny mysteries and semi-miraculous epiphanies! Here they come.

Homework: I dare you to utterly renounce and dispose of a resentment you’ve held onto for a while.

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