Metro Times 11/06/24

NEWS & VIEWS

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We received comments in response to last week’s cover story by contributor Erica Hobbs, about Southwest Detroit’s Design Build Green Hub. The project aims to help contractor careers and is run by Detroit Future Ops and AGI Construction, and owned by married couple Luis Ali and Tanya Saldivar-Ali.

Thank you Detroit Metro Times for sharing our story!

—AGI Construction Solutions, Facebook

Love these two ��

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Ayyy! Been watching this from down the street for a while now - it turned out

beautifully!!! Great addition to our lil neighborhood : )

—@callan_vh, Instagram

Landscape architect here: really digging that gravel filled concrete paver design!

—@k8nealkane, Instagram

They are amazing!

—Jacqueline Cuevas, Facebook

FORWARD ✊

—@CHICANOLOGY, X

Flare? Try flair. This is what happens when there is no copy editor. It’s also wrong in the lede. Sigh.

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Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com

NEWS & VIEWS

Tlaib calls U.S. involvement in Israel’s expanding war unconstitutional in letter to Biden

The U.S. government’s involvement in Israel’s expanding war in the Middle East is unconstitutional because it was not authorized by Congress, Democratic U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit and Cori Bush of St. Louis wrote in a strongly worded letter to President Joe Biden on Friday.

“In light of recent regional escalations, including exchanges in hostilities between Israel and Iran and the Israeli government’s ground invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, we are deeply concerned about the increasing role and involvement of the U.S. Armed Forces in expanding wars across the Middle East,” the letter states. “American military involvement in these wars has not been authorized by the United States Congress, as required by the Constitution and U.S. law.”

The letter, signed by progressive Democratic Party allies André Carson

(Indiana), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), and Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), follows the lawmakers’ previous support for the “Ceasefire Now” resolution introduced last year.

“The American people have made it clear that they want to see an immediate ceasefire, an end to these wars, and the return of hostages, not deepening American involvement in potentially endless regional war,” the letter states.

The lawmakers refer to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which limits the president’s power to direct U.S. military actions without congressional approval. The resolution specifies that only Congress can authorize sending U.S. armed forces abroad through a declaration of war or statutory authorization, or in the event of a national emergency resulting from an attack on the U.S.

Under this authority, Congress can also direct the removal of U.S. armed

forces engaged in unauthorized hostilities. The letter’s authors highlight concerns, including U.S. intelligence involvement in locating individuals targeted by Israel in Gaza, U.S. officials’ openness to strikes against Iran, and the increased deployment of American troops in areas of heightened hostility.

“The Executive Branch cannot continue to ignore the law without Congressional intervention,” the letter states. “In the absence of an immediate ceasefire and end of hostilities, Congress retains the right and ability to exercise its Constitutional authority to direct the removal of any and all unauthorized Armed Forces from the region pursuant to Section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution.”

The lawmakers also asked Biden for a detailed account of the U.S. military’s involvement to “command, coordinate, participate in the movement of,

or accompany” Israeli forces in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, the West Bank, Syria, or elsewhere in the Middle East.

The lawmakers are calling for deescalation, saying more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and 90% of the population has been displaced. In Lebanon, Israel killed more than 2,700 people and displaced more than 1.2 million residents, according to the lawmakers.

“These destructive wars must end, as must any unauthorized U.S. involvement in them,” the lawmakers wrote. “Thus, Congress’ involvement and debate are necessary. Every day that passes without a ceasefire produces catastrophic loss of life and threatens further death and destruction. We have an obligation to both the living and the dead to put an immediate end to this devastation.”

—Steve Neavling

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib speaking in Dearborn in February.

SHUTTERSTOCK

Exonerated Detroit men fight to free the wrongfully convicted with new nonprofit

When Mark Craighead and Lamarr Monson were released from prison and exonerated for murders they didn’t commit in Detroit, they pledged to help others who have been wrongfully convicted.

Now the pair, united by a common cause, are raising money for a nonprofit they recently created – Freedom Ain’t Free – to connect innocent people behind bars with attorneys, paralegals, private investigators, firearm experts, and other legal resources.

For now, the attorneys and others are working pro-bono while Craighead and Monson begin raising funds.

“Nobody in the justice system is going to help these guys out,” Craighead tells Metro Times. “If we weren’t doing this, these guys would have no way to get out. These guys have no resources, and many of their families have no money.”

Craighead and Monson both falsely confessed to separate murders after being subjected to aggressive interrogations by now-retired Detroit Detective Barbara Simon, whose coercive tactics were examined in a Metro Times series that launched in August.

They spent a combined 27 years in prison before they were released and

eventually exonerated.

Both filed a lawsuit against Simon and the city. Monson reached an $8.5 million settlement with the city earlier this month, and Craighead’s case is still wending its way through court.

Simon’s actions have cost the city about $25 million in lawsuit settlements so far.

Two of their first clients, Terrill Johnson and Deonte Howard, also say they were victimized by Simon. Johnson was 17 years old when he said Simon detained him and his family without a warrant in 2002. He claims Simon coerced him to falsely confess by making false promises.

Howard was convicted of a 2010 murder after he said witnesses were intimidated and threatened to testify against him at his trial.

Monson says the plan is to expand the nonprofit’s resources as donations increase.

“We’re going to grow organically,” Monson says. “We have a vision to be effective and get guys out and restore their families and be a beacon of light.”

As the nonprofit grows, the pair is going to feature different prisoners on their website and show how much is needed to help each person.

“We are totally transparent about everything,” Craighead says. “People can see where their money is going.”

Eventually they plan to produce podcasts featuring individual prisoners, their stories, and their family members.

Once prisoners are free, the nonprofit plans to help find them housing, work, and even therapy.

On the nonprofit’s advisory board is David Moran, co-founder of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, which helped free Craighead, Monson, and dozens of other wrongfully convicted prisoners.

Craighead and Monson say too many innocent people are behind bars because of the chronic mistreatment of suspects for decades in Detroit. In the 1980s and 1990s, the misconduct among police, especially homicide detectives, was so pervasive and egregious that the U.S. Department of Justice demanded reforms to avoid a costly lawsuit while Duggan was the county prosecutor.

Then in the early 2000s, all of the Wayne County prosecutor’s records were illegally destroyed, making it difficult for inmates to prove their innocence.

“That is hurting so many people that it’s ridiculous,” Craighead says of the destroyed records.

Detroit police also hid exculpatory evidence from prosecutors and defendants. Exculpatory evidence is any information that suggests a defendant is innocent. Defendants who prove that exculpatory evidence was withheld during their trial are entitled to a new one under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brady v. Maryland ruling.

The pair named the nonprofit “Freedom Ain’t Free” because of the way innocent people are railroaded in the justice system.

“‘Freedom ain’t free’ is one of my sayings,” Craighead says. “There is no justice in the justice system. It’s something I learned in prison. Freedom will cost you.”

Now the goal is to help prisoners who can’t afford to prove their innocence.

“You’re keeping the community in danger instead of protecting and serving by falsely imprisoning the wrong person,” Monson says. “The real person is out there. People need to see that this could have been prevented. No one wants to take accountability for their actions.”

Both men have led recent protests, calling on prosecutors and police to investigate Simon and the cases she handled.

—Steve Neavling

Mark Craighead (left) and Lamarr Monson launched Freedom Ain’t Free to help wrongfully imprisoned people.

STEVE NEAVLING

New high-tech venue is headed to Detroit

A company that immerses fans in sports and entertainment viewing events with LED technology announced its fourth U.S. venue is planned for Detroit.

Cosm’s latest location is planned for the Campus Martius area in Detroit through a partnership with Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock real estate arm and local architecture firm Rossetti.

It follows venues in Los Angeles and Dallas, as well as a recently announced location in Atlanta.

The venues use what the company calls “Shared Reality,” including a massive LED dome and an adjacent hi-resolution LED wall to create “an experience that bridges the virtual and physical worlds by merging state-of-the-art visuals with the energy of the crowd, world-class hospitality, and an elevated food and beverage service,” the company says.

“I can’t think of a better place than the Detroit for our 4th Venue,” Cosm’s president and CEO Jeb Terry said in a statement. “Detroit embodies the right mix of sports fandom, enterprising spirit, and energy; and we are honored to be part of the downtown revitalization that Dan Gilbert and his team are driving.”

He added, “Cosm Detroit will be the always-on heartbeat of downtown, offering unparalleled sports and entertainment experiences for Detroiters to share together; honoring the great history of the city while celebrating Detroit today and its incredibly bright future.”

Programming is anticipated to include a slate of live sports as well as arts and culture events like Cirque du Soleil performances and other “immersive” art experiences from the Cosm Studios Creator Program.

According to the company, “Shared Reality is a medium that makes fans feel like they have the best seats in the house even if they are 100s of miles away from the games being played.”

For the World Series, Cosm says it “put fans directly behind home plate, providing the best views of the action as if they were sitting in the ballpark.”

A target opening date has not yet been set.

—Lee

DeVito

Detroit reaches 25,000 trees planted in greening effort

Aiming to bring more green spaces and shade to Detroit neighborhoods, a coalition of local organizations and city leaders celebrated a significant milestone last week by planting the 25,000th tree in two years.

The Detroit Tree Equity Partnership highlighted its efforts to restore the city’s urban tree canopy, improve air quality, and create job opportunities for residents during a ceremony in Bailey Park in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood.

The partnership, which has an ambitious goal of planting 75,000 trees by 2027, is made up of the Greening of Detroit, DTE Energy, and the city of Detroit.

Leaders say the recent milestone underscores a commitment to environmental revitalization and community health through urban forestry.

The ceremony brought together leaders including U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Mayor Mike Duggan, DTE Chairman Jerry Norcia, Bailey Park Neighborhood Development Corporation Founder Katrina Watkins, and Greening of Detroit President Lionel Bradford, who spoke to the transformative impact of urban forestry both in environmental benefits and commu-

nity empowerment.

Stabenow, who chairs the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, highlighted federal support from the Inflation Reduction Act, saying, “I have worked to bring $1.5 billion into urban communities,” adding, “In Michigan, Greening of Detroit is the forestry leader and there are now 11 additional projects that are now being funded.”

The partnership’s reach extends beyond just planting trees, Bradford said.

“Since 2022, our coalition has planted 25,000 trees, trained 348 Detroit residents, and employed 48 graduates as tree artisans,” Bradford said. “As Mayor Duggan says, we are truly transforming blight into beauty in Detroit.”

Duggan said Detroiters are increasingly enthusiastic about tree planting.

“Five or six years ago, if I was talking about trees, people would ask about removing dead ones,” Duggan said.

“More than 7.000 dead trees have been removed and now 25,000 new trees are in the ground. Detroit residents are now asking me where they can get the new trees.”

For Norcia, the trees represent a long-term investment in Detroit’s future.

“These 25,000 trees are improving lives by capturing carbon, bettering our climate and cooling temperatures in the heat of the summer,” Norcia said. “The trees we’ve planted today in this park will help cool the children who play here in the future with lots of shade.”

Watkins discussed the impact on historically under-resourced areas like McDougall-Hunt.

“Neighborhoods like McDougallHunt have a lack of tree and park equity,” Watkins said. “We are inspiring our residents today by celebrating the planting of the milestone 25,000th tree right here in our neighborhood.”

The Detroit Tree Equity Partnership also emphasizes community collaboration. Detroit Future City, a think tank dedicated to creating a more equitable city, worked closely with Arboretum Detroit and the Bailey Park Neighborhood Development Corporation to create a model for engaging residents in neighborhood-scale forestry planning.

“We know that having a healthy, well-maintained tree canopy improves quality of life for Detroiters, and contributes to climate resiliency, health, and economic equity,” Detroit Future City CEO Anika Goss said. “Detroit Future City’s effort was focused on deeply engaging residents to identify the places where they wanted to see trees planted in their neighborhoods.”

—Steve Neavling

The Detroit Tree Equity Partnership has a goal of planting 75,000 trees by 2027. COURTESY OF GREENING OF DETROIT

NEWS & VIEWS

Glamorous, bicoastal World Series falls flat

By Joe Lapointe

In anticipation of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, I finally read Roger Kahn’s classic baseball book The Boys of Summer. It chronicles, in part, the Dodgers’ 1952 season that ended with New York beating Brooklyn in a seven-game World Series.

With Jackie Robinson, Joe Black, Roy Campanella, and others, that generation of Dodgers racially integrated Major League Baseball as the culture of the National Pastime changed in many ways. And the book also explores the mixed fortunes of those Brooklyn stars after retirement.

Among the poignant paragraphs in a sentimental saga are those about ex-Dodger Carl Furillo, employed in the early 1970s to install elevator doors in the Twin Towers under construction in New York. (The book was published in 1972.)

Kahn interviews Furillo at the job site of the skyscraper, “the World Trade Center, rising bright, massive, inhuman, at the foot of Manhattan Island.” One Kahn observation is weirdly and unintentionally prophetic.

“One tower of the World Trade Center had been topped and sheathed,” Kahn writes. “An aluminum hulk against the sky. The other tower still showed girders . . . the sprawling site had acquired the scarred desolation that comes with construction or with aerial bombardment.”

As we know, neither the Twin Towers of Manhattan nor Ebbets Field of Brooklyn still stand. But the Dodgers survived and thrived after moving to sunny Los Angeles in 1958. This year, by demolishing the Yankees in five games, the Dodgers took their eighth title, all but one since changing coasts.

To compare and contrast these distinctly different eras, I divided my time between this year’s Series telecasts on Fox and two surviving telecasts of the 1952 Series on NBC, both in Brooklyn. They were recorded on kinescope film.

Viewing them now is startling. First, there’s the difference between black-andwhite television of the mid-20th Century and the color, high-definition telecasts of the early 21st. More cameras and better closeups now. And no replays then. Other differences are more subtle.

For instance: Some players in the ’52 Series still left their gloves on the grass between innings. Their baggy uniforms lacked today’s sleek tailoring and lighter fabrics. If batters wore head protection, it must have been the old, hard “shells” beneath cloth caps.

When Mickey Mantle of the Yankees hits a home run in Game 6, he sprints around the Flatbush infield at nearly a full trot with none of the preening we see today. But, in other ways, you realize that, in baseball, the more things change, the more they stay the same, or at least return to old ways.

For instance: In the ’52 Series, the pace of the games is brisk. Batters rarely leave the box, and only briefly. Pitchers deal every 10 to 15 seconds. Hard grounders break through the infield because the fielders aren’t bunched into a one-sided, defensive shift.

Mercifully, 21st-Century baseball recently legislated against the shift. And, by instituting a pitch clock, it has restored the tempo to almost what it was in 1952 before the pitcher/batter delays of recent decades. What’s old is new. Back to the future, or at least to the present.

In addition, the old films provide spiritual time travel back to a different era, the last months of the Truman administration, when games were played in the afternoons, not at night. And 1952 was the final season of a 16-team major league configuration that had not changed for 50 years.

Immediately afterward, the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee; then the Athletics moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City; then the Browns moved from St. Louis to Baltimore and became the Orioles; and then the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco while the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

Later decades brought expansion, expanded playoffs, artificial turf, covered stadiums, and announcers like John Smoltz of Fox who knows a great deal about baseball but talks so much he doesn’t let the game breathe. You notice this in contrast to Red Barber and Mel Allen, who announced the Series in ’52. Instead of conversing with each other, the way announcers do now, Barber and

Allen speak directly to the viewer, rarely interrupting or bantering. Their measured silences between pitches allow ambient crowd sounds to be audible without jolts of “walk-up music” or loud blasts of artificial, recorded noise.

Another comforting aspect about watching two eras simultaneously is to see the uniforms, with team logos across the front of the shirts. Even 72 years later, the designs are identical:

The cursive, blue “Dodgers” on their white home laundry with the red numerals right above the heart. (Even in black and white, you can tell it’s red). The Yankees in their road grays with “NEW” on one side of the buttons and “YORK” on the other. Then, as now, no names on their backs.

And what would Kahn’s Boys of Summer think of the 2024 Series and its TV presentation?

Would “Dem Bums” of Brooklyn — who integrated baseball — be surprised that the Dodgers were led this season by Japanese stars like Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and that many stars on many teams are Latin American?

Would they have appreciated pregame rap performances from Ice Cube in L.A. and Fat Joe in N.Y.? They might have chuckled knowingly when two Yankee Stadium fans were ejected from their front-row seats after strong-arming a foul ball catch from the glove of Dodgers’ right fielder Mookie Betts.

Perhaps they’d be puzzled by the gambling commercials and the three-minute breaks between half-innings. They might’ve been disappointed that the marquee matchup between Ohtani and Aaron Judge of the Yankees fell flat due to Ohtani’s shoulder injury and Judge’s extraordinary slump.

Judge’s drought ended early in the final game with a home run and a brilliant, crashing catch against the centerfield wall. But Judge’s gruesome error in the fifth set up two more atrocious fielding plays by teammates in the same inning as the Yankees squandered a 5-0 lead and fell into a 5-5 tie.

Even though the Yankees later took a 6-5 lead, their bullpen couldn’t hold it and the Dodgers — clearly the best team, sometimes by default — won, 7-6, to clinch the championship.

In retrospect, Los Angeles really clinched it in Game 1, in Chavez Ravine, when Freddie Freeman of the Dodgers — a 35-year-old star hobbled by an injured ankle — hit a grand-slam home run with two outs in the 10th inning to give the Dodgers a come-from-behind, 6-3 victory that prophesied the whole shebang. Due to more homers and other heroics, Freeman went on to become Most Valuable Player and the casting was appropriately Hollywood: a melodicallynamed, strong-featured guy whose made-for-the-screen face looks like a lead actor in an action-adventure movie.

In Yankee Stadium itself, the cameras showed fan-held signs that said “Freddie, Please Stop” and “Enough Already, Freddie.” Oh, and, behind his back, baseball people whisper that Freeman is one of the nicest guys in the sport. And his three-year-old son, Maximus, recently survived a dangerous disease.

Enough plot points? In the baseball summer of 2096 — 72 seasons from now — fans can look back at primitive telecasts of the 2024 Series and marvel at how this timeless game charms us over the years, decades and centuries with legends and lore of storybook heroes like Freddie Freakin’ Freeman.

Time-travel lifts the baseball spirit. AP PHOTO

WHAT IS PROPERTY SPECULATION — AND WHO’S DOING IT IN DETROIT?

SPECULATORS, WORKING AT LA RGE SCALES, HAVE RESHAPED DETROIT’S NEIGHBORHOODS THROUGH NEGLECT

By Aaron Mondry, Outlier Media

This story was originally published by Outlier Media.

Property speculators have wreaked havoc on Detroit over the last decade. Some of the effects are easy to see: blighted properties that fall apart bit by bit for years. Some are easy to feel: historic buildings that sit vacant. Others are easy to measure, like lost tax revenue and publicly funded demolitions on a scale unrivaled anywhere else in the country. Property speculation was easiest in the years following the housing market collapse, when Wayne County was auctioning off thousands of tax-foreclosed properties a year for very low prices. Property values have shot up in the last few years, as well as the cost of buying at the tax auction, and some of those who bought property when it was cheap might be ready to sell. But does simply trying to profit off buying and selling property in the city make somebody a speculator?

What is a property speculator?

Speculators anticipate development hotspots and buy up property ahead of a boom.

Once they’ve acquired a property, they typically avoid any further investment or upkeep. Not because they can’t, but because they choose not to. Roofs collapse, thieves strip items of value, property taxes go unpaid.

Speculators can be easy to spot in public records: Many of the same owners’ properties show up repeatedly in the city’s blight ticket database or the Wayne County tax auction — like Matthew Tatarian, who owns hundreds of properties in Detroit. He’s racked up 491 blight tickets since 2005, and the city sued him in 2016 for more than $116,000 in unpaid taxes. Or “blight king” Ernest Karr, who at one point owed more than $1.1 million in tickets to the city.

Property owners who ignore their investments don’t need big portfolios to cause trouble in a neighborhood. But for this series, we’re taking the

lead of Property Praxis, a research project that catalogs speculation in Detroit and a partner in our reporting. They define speculators as owners with at least 10 properties.

Speculators control an enormous share of Detroit’s real estate: Around 20% of properties since the early 2010s, according to experts.

Eric Seymour, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who studies Detroit speculation, said that percentage is very high among U.S. cities.

“Speculation is often correlated with historical processes like racial disinvestment and segregation,” he said. “Detroit is such a highly segregated, racialized place, which is one reason why there’s so much of it.”

In the coming weeks and months, Outlier Media will publish a series of stories on speculators and their impact on Detroit. We’ll examine how they hide their identities, their business models, how their portfolios have changed over time and their impact on neighborhoods — starting with a profile of Dennis Kefallinos.

If speculators have impacted you or your neighborhood, we want to hear from you. Email reporter Aaron Mondry at aaron@outliermedia.org, or give him a call at 313-403-7221.

Outlier Media’s free weekly newsletters bring our accountability and service journalism straight to your inbox, connecting you to culture, commaunity and civic life in Detroit.

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The Goeschel Building on Gratiot Avenue is one of many vacant buildings owned by Dennis Kefallinos.

CYDNI ELLEDGE/OUTLIER MEDIA

DETROIT’S MOST NOTORIOUS SPECULATOR

Wayne State University was looking for a buyer for its shuttered Shapero Hall near downtown in 2007. The brick building from the 1950s once housed the university’s pharmacy program, but had been vacant for years. The school was eager to sell to a developer who would save it.

Up stepped Dennis Kefallinos — a surprising suitor. He had converted some defunct warehouses into apartment buildings but left a lot of his properties empty, seeming to wait for something to happen to them rather than investing enough to reopen them.

Kefallinos said he wanted to save Shapero Hall. He told Crain’s Detroit Business he was considering a mixed-use development of apartments and groundfloor retail.

“This is a really unique building,” he said. “I didn’t want to see it demolished.”

He bought the building and land in Lafayette Park that year for $2.3 million.

Shapero Hall was demolished 11 years later. Developers knocked it down to build apartments and condos.

Kefallinos made out handsomely. The developers paid him $16 million for the building in 2018. One Detroit journalist called it a “property speculation

home run.” Shapero Hall sat vacant and unused during the time he owned it with no obvious signs of improvement. He paid no more than $300,000 in taxes on the property.

Kefallinos has cost the city and other developers a lot of money using a simple playbook: Buy many properties, pay very little, invest even less.

He may be one of the most wellknown speculators in Detroit, but he’s hardly alone. Tax overassessments by the city and no-holds-barred policies by Wayne County contributed to the foreclosure of tens of thousands of Detroit properties, which were sold at bargainbasement prices to basically anybody. Speculators bought up an estimated 90% of these properties between 2005-2015.

Plenty of real estate speculators and landlords hide behind lawyers or use registering services to file limited liability companies for them. But Kefallinos largely operates in the open, putting his own or relatives’ names on paperwork for the several dozen limited liability companies he uses to hold properties. There have historically been few consequences for speculating on real estate in Detroit. The city has collected less than half the fines on blight tickets

operations, says his boss is not a speculator. He said Kefallinos is investing more in his buildings than if they were in the hands of the city or another owner.

“We’re not just sitting on these buildings,” Matsamakis said. “You might not be able to see it in one big development, but every one of Dennis’ buildings is getting — even if it’s a little attention — more than it’s received in the last 20 years.”

Some of Kefallinos’ most well-known properties include the Russell Industrial Center, Michigan Building and Theater, Goeschel Building, Roosevelt Hotel and Brooklyn Lofts.

Eric Hergenreder blogs about Detroit’s historic buildings — including many owned by Kefallinos. He said some of Kefallinos’ buildings are secured, some aren’t.

“He appears to do just enough to ensure that his buildings aren’t razed,” Hergenreder said. “When he’s threatened with demolition, the relevant properties typically see work to bring them off the brink of the wrecking ball, but not much more.”

Outlier Media identified 292 Detroit properties in the public record owned by Kefallinos at the time of publication using property data from Regrid and the Wayne County Register of Deeds. Around half are vacant lots or surface parking lots.

We could only confirm that 19 properties, or a little more than 6% of his portfolio, are occupied.

it’s issued since 2018. At the same time, it has rewarded bad actors with generous deals to facilitate development. The county treasurer’s office, meanwhile, let those in violation of its own rules continue to buy property at the annual foreclosure auction.

Including Kefallinos. He bought more than a third of his current portfolio at the auction, according to data from Regrid, and continues to make deals there. He spent $425,083 on nine properties in the 2022 auction, despite owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes and unpaid blight tickets.

The scale at which speculators have been able to operate in Detroit — and the effects on neighborhoods, families and the real estate market — is difficult to overstate. Detroit has paid the price for speculators’ mostly unchecked activity in lost tax revenue, dilapidated properties that require taxpayer-funded demolition, and huge swaths of the city pockmarked with blight or vacant land. By hoarding real estate, speculators also prevented other people from developing those properties.

Kefallinos declined Outlier Media’s interview requests. Niko Matsamakis, general manager for Kefallinos’ business

Debris has fallen onto the street at his properties. He’s racked up 3,440 blight tickets in the last two decades and owes more than $550,000 in unpaid fees to the city. Nearly a third of those violations are for failing to obtain a certificate of compliance or register properties with the city. Hundreds more are for excessive weeds, rodents, bulk waste and unsafe property conditions that make buildings “unfit for human occupancy.”

Matsamakis said Kefallinos is currently challenging hundreds of thousands of dollars in blight tickets for issues they say have already been corrected.

Kefallinos has largely avoided consequences, although the city has initiated more lawsuits against negligent property owners in recent years — including several against Kefallinos.

Detroit is suing Kefallinos to push him to demolish or repair at least 14 of his properties. They include the historic Michigan Building and Theater downtown. The city claims in a lawsuit that parts of the building’s exterior collapsed onto the street, “threatening the safety of pedestrians.”

“Mr. Kefallinos has not met the minimum standards,” Detroit’s Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett told Outlier. “It’s a public nuisance.”

An abandoned industrial building on East Ferry Street, which Kefallinos bought at the 2022 tax auction for $325,000. CYDNI ELLEDGE/OUTLIER MEDIA

Immigrant success story

Dennis, born Dionysus, told the Detroit Free Press in a 1986 profile that he emigrated from Greece to the U.S. when he was 14 years old. He said he worked seven days a week as a busboy, dishwasher and waiter, saving enough money in just six years to start his own restaurant.

Kefallinos opened Niki’s in Greektown in 1981. Soon after, he started buying up real estate and hasn’t stopped. He bought his Grosse Pointe Farms home in 1998, which tax records suggest is now worth more than $1 million.

The largest and most profitable property in his portfolio is the Russell Industrial Center, which he bought in 2003. The approximately 1-million-square-foot former factory hosts studio space for artists and small businesses.

Kefallinos has a particular penchant for industrial-to-loft conversions and owns 10 such buildings. He said in an interview with Model D in 2010 that he often buys buildings without a plan for what he wants to do with them.

He’s floated plenty of development ideas over the years. He said he wanted to turn the gutted Michigan Theater into an event space, bring back the long-abandoned Roosevelt Hotel, create microapartments downtown, redevelop an old slaughterhouse in Eastern Market and turn a disused school into apartments.

Like the redevelopment of Shapero Hall, he has yet to finish — or, in some cases, start — these projects.

He may not have done much development over the years, but he’s flipped plenty of properties.

He sold the former American Hotel for $2.1 million, the S.S. Kresge Building for about $2.7 million, another loft building in Harmonie Park for roughly $5.9 million, the Harvard Square Apartments for almost $6.3 million, the former Southwest Detroit Hospital for $6.5 million, two extremely desirable downtown buildings to Bedrock Detroit for undisclosed amounts and Shapero Hall for $16 million.

These big-ticket sales represent a tiny percentage of the properties he’s bought and sold. He owns nearly 300 properties today but claimed to own 400 in 2008.

‘In the pen with the old dogs’

Matsamakis said most people, especially the city, have Kefallinos all wrong. He described his boss as passionate about Detroit and saving its historic architecture.

“Dennis has been working every day in the city for 50 years now,” he said. “Every dollar he makes in the city of Detroit gets reinvested into the city of Detroit. And all of his developments have been self-funded. Nothing ever comes from taxpayers.”

Matsamakis said he has been trying

to professionalize, streamline and move projects along for his 69-year-old boss. He admitted that in the past, Kefallinos might not have gone about development in the best way, cutting corners or “ruffling some feathers.” But that’s been slowly changing since he started working for the property tycoon in 2020, when Matsamakis was 25.

“It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks,” he said. “And I’m in the pen with the old dogs.”

Matsamakis cited two reasons for Kefallinos’ unfinished projects. One is the COVID-19 pandemic, which hurt cash flow from his rental projects. The other is that the city keeps getting in Kefallinos’ way with what he describes as frivolous blight tickets, demolition orders and lawsuits. He thinks the city doesn’t want them to succeed so that it can point to Kefallinos as “public enemy No. 1.”

“The city is spreading us thin,” Matsamakis said, “making us show up to this building or that building to address a dangerous condition that might have existed 10 years ago but doesn’t today. And then they’re still trying to demolish it, which requires us to file a lawsuit to stop it.”

They’re still managing to move projects along, he said.

One of the active projects is a former cold storage facility in Corktown. He said they plan to lease the first two floors to retail and small business tenants, and hope to be ready by next summer.

Another is the former slaughterhouse in Eastern Market that’s nearly ready to open as a bar.

Matsamakis couldn’t say how much these projects cost, saying the work is done piecemeal when there’s solid cash flow.

“There’s not necessarily a set budget,” he said. “That’s another big hurdle I’m trying to overcome.”

He cited a long list of extenuating circumstances for why other projects remain unfinished.

Kefallinos pulled permits for redeveloping Shapero Hall around 2013, but then it caught fire. He planned to redevelop the Southwest Detroit Hospital into a kind of shopping mall when the city suddenly put it on the demolition list. He started on the Roosevelt Hotel until a water main break last year flooded the basement. The Corktown building required a number of alterations to the architectural drawings and permits.

Matsamakis hopes Kefallinos’ reputation will change as more new developments open. But he stressed patience, saying these projects take time because of the older buildings he prefers working with.

“The buildings that he buys come with issues,” he said.

Frustrated tenants

Kefallinos’ tenants at one of his few occupied buildings are skeptical that their landlord will come through with promised improvements, considering how little has been done where they rent.

Renters at the Russell Industrial Center have long complained about poor conditions and mismanagement of the sprawling complex. In 2017, the city abruptly closed the Russell over safety concerns and repeated building code violations. It reopened two weeks later after Kefallinos began emergency repairs.

Current tenants say the situation is more or less the same.

Karen Sepanski is a multimedia artist who’s been a tenant at the Russell since 2019. She said management is almost nonexistent and complained about lax security, excruciatingly slow repairs, malfunctioning elevators and an absence of janitorial services. Meanwhile, she’s been hit with several rent increases.

“As far as I can tell, there’s never been any maintenance at this place, ever, by anyone,” Sepanski said.

Sepanski needed a space large enough to accommodate all her supplies. She felt like the Russell was her only option, even though she was aware of its reputation.

At $795 a month in rent, she’s not sure it’s worth it. But she also feels stuck.

“If I could move out, I would,” Sepanski said. “But I’d have to unload a lot of stuff first.”

Matsamakis said the closure of the Russell in 2017, even though temporary, hurt its community. Many artists left, and management replaced them with what Matsamakis calls less desirable tenants who didn’t have the same level of respect for the building and its culture.

“The Russell was an artists-driven community,” he said. “That’s changed a lot, and we’re trying to bring it back.”

Matsamakis added that rent and utility increases have been necessary to keep the Russell afloat.

Fed up

The city has begun to lose patience with property owners it considers negligent. Last year, it hit four of Kefallinos’ buildings with nuisance lawsuits and added the Michigan Building to that list earlier this year.

“The City of Detroit has been struggling for decades to deal with owners like Mr. Kefallinos who allow their properties to deteriorate,” Mallett said. “We cannot simply give these owners perpetual permission to violate the law.”

When Kefallinos bought the Michigan Building in 2014, he said he was excited to redevelop the theater.

“I want to restore it back to what it was,” Kefallinos told Crain’s at the time. “I’m not going to cut corners on the lighting, for example.”

Today, it’s a parking garage, albeit a rather unique one. A city inspector cited in the lawsuit said it’s in “an advanced state of disrepair ... such that it presents a fire, safety and health hazard, and shows signs of deteriorated interior and exterior structural condition.”

Matsamakis said the city presented no evidence that pieces of the building’s facade fell onto the street. He said the interior is secured and in good condition.

The city’s strategy may be bearing some fruit. Earlier this year, Kefallinos sold the Southwest Detroit Hospital to Detroit City FC, which plans to build a soccer stadium. He let the former Civic Theater fall into tax foreclosure. The Corktown cold storage building is currently being redeveloped, though Matsamakis said they pulled permits two years before the lawsuit.

“This all takes a very long time,” Mallett said. “It’s a very complicated process and people take full advantage of all of the rules in order to make sure they don’t invest in their properties.”

Niko Matsamakis says the COVID-19 pandemic and lawsuits from the city have slowed developments.

AARON MONDRY/OUTLIER MEDIA

DETROIT SPECULATORS HIDE THEIR IDENTITIES TO AVOID SCRUTINY — AND IT’S PERFECTLY LEGAL

Susan Newell remembers how her Detroit neighborhood emptied out seemingly overnight following the 2008 housing crash. Neighbors in Morningside, where she’s lived for more than 40 years, were forced out because they couldn’t pay their mortgage or tax bill. Absentee owners swooped in, bought houses for pennies on the dollar, then left them to rot. Newell said at one point, only 8 out of 20 homes on her block were occupied.

“It was like a tsunami without the water,” she said.

Since then, she’s worked with her remaining neighbors to try and hold negligent property owners accountable. They’ve had some success pressuring local owners to clean up their properties. But they often encounter others who hide their identities and are seemingly impossible to get in touch with.

“It can be very difficult to identify owners in some cases,” she said. “You have to go to a number of different websites to maybe find a name and address. With out-of-state investors, we just kept hitting dead ends.”

It’s incredibly easy for property owners to shield their identities. All you need is $50. That’s what it costs in Michigan to set up a limited liability company, or LLC. It’s perfectly legal and extremely common: A review of city parcel data suggests LLCs own more than 20% of properties in Detroit.

What Newell and many other Detroiters know too well is that the anonymity this structure affords makes it difficult to hold bad actors responsible when they neglect their properties, ignore blight tickets, skip tax payments or evict tenants. But there appears to be little appetite on the part of policymakers to require better transparency.

Some owners use dozens or hundreds of LLCs with someone else’s name on the paperwork to buy and sell real estate. Joshua Akers, a former assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who studied speculation in Detroit, explained that it’s trivially easy to create a new LLC, and therefore, a new identity.

“You’re essentially considered a new person under the law,” he said.

Real estate attorneys, registering services or other LLCs can sign these

LLCs and the ease of setting one up enables speculators in Detroit to acquire and manage multiple properties while keeping ownership details concealed

documents on the owner’s behalf. They don’t even have to be real people, because the state isn’t checking.

“LARA does not have authority to require additional documentation, such as identity verification, to be submitted with (the paperwork),” said Abby Rubley, a spokesperson for the state’s Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Department.

Alex Hill, an adjunct professor at Wayne State University and the founder of mapping project Detroitography, says it’s “critical” to know who these owners are — and the extent of property speculation in the city.

“People want to be able to find out who’s causing the blight and decay on their streets that is scooping up all the public dollars for demolition, rather than other purposes,” Hill said.

Under the radar

LLCs make sense when multiple people have a stake in a business or, as the name suggests, to limit personal liability.

But property speculators in particular, many of whom dodge responsibility for upkeep or taxes, appear to favor the arrangement. And trying to discern the ownership of properties can be like Russian nesting dolls — with investors creating LLCs within LLCs and trading properties between those companies.

Take Nisus Real Estate LLC. The company claims on its website to be

the “Detroit Rental Investment Hub,” offering high returns on real estate for international investors. It’s listed as the agent name for Domus Property Management LLC, which in turn is listed as the resident agent for 59 different LLCs that hold 164 Detroit properties.

The companies have accumulated at least 64 blight tickets since 2021, filed dozens of evictions and are currently delinquent on taxes for 13 properties.

But it’s impossible to know who’s behind Nisus using information in the public record. The company’s listed address is a UPS store in Birmingham. Messages left with a phone number and email address listed on the company’s website went unanswered.

Detroit’s regulations about who can buy and sell real estate are almost entirely nonexistent. The Mayor’s Office did respond to a request for comment about whether the lack of corporate transparency is a problem for the city.

The Wayne County Treasurer’s Office claims that owners who are delinquent on taxes or have unpaid blight violations cannot buy property at the annual tax foreclosure auction. However, it doesn’t enforce those rules.

Rubley said the only jurisdiction in the United States that currently requires companies to submit ownership information is Washington, D.C.

But a federal law may soon change business filing requirements. Congress

passed the Corporate Transparency Act in 2021 to curb tax fraud and money laundering. It requires anyone with an ownership stake in an LLC to report their name and address by the end of the year if legal challenges don’t keep it from going into effect.

New York passed its own transparency law to enhance the federal act. It originally set out to create a public database of companies and their owners, but Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a watered-down version earlier this year, making the information confidential to everyone except the owner and law enforcement.

Connecting the dots

Akers and Hill have worked to catalog the extent of property speculation in Detroit through their Property Praxis project. Unmasking the owners behind companies is painstaking work, involving hundreds of hours combing through state licensing paperwork and other sources. They estimate they’ve identified owners for about 90% of the companies holding property in Detroit. But many still slip through the cracks.

“If a property owner doesn’t want to be found, then it’s actually pretty easy,” Akers said. “There are many trails that die at P.O. Boxes in UPS stores in the Upper Peninsula.”

Akers and Hill have had to rely on lawsuits, city documents and even LinkedIn to piece together what sometimes amounts to an educated guess.

“The intention is to capture as many as we can, as best as we can,” Hill said. “And this gets us to our best possible data set given the limitations.”

The researchers took a break from the project in 2020, but Hill and another researcher restarted it earlier this year. He hopes to publish data through 2023 by the end of this year.

A tool like Property Praxis could be incredibly useful for the residents of Morningside, where speculative properties frequently change hands, according to Susan Newell.

“It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole,” she said. “The housing market is very fluid here, so it’s hard to know who the real problem owners are.”

—Aaron Mondry

CYDNI ELLEDGE/OUTLIER MEDIA

WHAT’S GOING ON

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

MUSIC

Wednesday, Nov. 6

Live/Concert

Chase Atlantic, 24kgoldn 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $35.50-$75.50.

Death From Above 1979, Teen Mortgage 7 p.m.; Majestic Theatre, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $32.50.

Jelly Roll, ERNEST, Shaboozey, Allie Colleen 7 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $39.50-$189.50.

Matt Lorusso Trio & Special Guests 8-11 p.m.; Northern Lights Lounge, 660 W. Baltimore St., Detroit; no cover.

This Will Destroy You, Wailin Storms, Sunlight Ascending 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $20. Karaoke

Offbeat KARAOKE with Robby Rob 9 p.m.; Third Street Detroit, 4626 Third St., Detroit; no cover.

Thursday, Nov. 7

Live/Concert

Bar Stool Preachers, Bite Me Bambi, The Boy Detective 7 p.m.; Small’s, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck; $15.

Cold War Kids, Husbands 7 p.m.; Majestic Theatre, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $34.50.

Elle King 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $32.50-$85.

Lauren Sanderson, Kami Kehoe 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $23-$100.

LL7 Latin Jazz - Jazz in the Streets of Old Detroit 6 p.m.; Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $40. Karaoke

DARE-U-OKE 9 p.m.-midnight; Northern Lights Lounge, 660 W. Baltimore St., Detroit; no cover.

Drag Queen Karaoke 8 p.m.-2 a.m.; Woodward Avenue Brewers, 22646 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; no cover.

Friday, Nov. 8

Live/Concert

AUDIO/VISUAL 01: AZURA, Street Pattern, Soup, SIIDZ 8 p.m.-midnight; Spread Art, 5141 Rosa Parks Blvd., Detroit; no cover with RSVP. Daves Highway - Nashville Hits the Roof! 8 p.m.; Tin Roof, 47 E. Adams Ave., Detroit; no cover.

ELSIE BINX, Sound of the Shell, Icarus Fell, Living at 7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $10.

Forever Foo (Foo Fighters tribute), Morning Glory (Oasis tribute), Driver 8 (R.E.M. trubute) 7 p.m.-midnight; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $20.

Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens: American Railroad 7:30 p.m.; Hill Auditorium, 825 N. University Ave., Ann Arbor; $17-$108.

Jacob Bryant 8 p.m.; Brighton Center for the Performing Arts, 7878 Brighton Rd., Brighton; $25-$35.

Lil Darkie 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $37.50-$63.

Michigander, Cece Coakley 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $20.

Sweet 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $25-$59.

Veteran’s Day Concert with Heather Buchanan and Tracy Kash 6:30-8:30 p.m.; Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit; no cover. DJ/Dance

Ann Arbor Ecstatic Dance second Friday of every month, 7:30-10:30 p.m.; Ringstar Studio, 3907 Varsity Dr., Ann Arbor; $25-40 ($5 discount for cash).

Space 92, Raedy Lex, Metawav., Lumix 9 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20-$25. SVDDEN DEATH, KILL SAFARI (Bro Safari x Kill The Noise), YVM3, PYKE, BEJALVIN, REDDER, SPASS, ACTUAL TRENCH DAD, DEMISE, TRXXED, TVYTR B2B DEATHRAE 8 p.m.; Russell Industrial Complex-Exhibition Center, 1600 Clay St., Detroit; $40. Karaoke

Emo Night Karaoke 8 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.

24 November 6-12, 2024 | metrotimes.com

Saturday, Nov. 9

Live/Concert

51st annual Tin Whistle Concert: Wilson Thicket, Tom Bowes, Evie Boss 2-4:15 p.m.; University Presbyterian Church, 1385 S. Adams Rd., Rochester Hills; $20.

Broadside, Bearings 6 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $22.

Chat Pile, Agriculture, Traindodge 7 p.m.; Majestic Theatre, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $24.50-$49.50. Chicago 8 p.m.; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $43.12-$128.12.

Derek St. Holmes (the originak singer for the Ted Nugent Band), Marz Radio, Horse Cave Trio, Jim McCarty 7-11 p.m.; Diesel Concert Lounge, 33151 23 Mile Road, Chesterfield; $25-$45.

Dudes Do Dan in the ‘Dotte (Steely Dan tribute) 7-10:30 p.m.; VFW Post 1136, 633 Ford Avenue, Wyandotte; $15.

Fangirl Fantasy: Taylor Swift vs Harry Styles 8 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

The Flashback Bash! 8 p.m.-midnight; Cadieux Café, 4300 Cadieux Rd., Detroit; $10.

Forever Seger (Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band tribute) 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $35-$65.

Icons & Anthems: Elgar & The Blue Danube 7:30-10 p.m.; The Whiting, 1241 E. Kearsley St., Flint; $18. Kickstand Productions Presents HARBOUR 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $22.

Makari, Origami Button, Scro, Pharaohs, Saving Throw 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $20.

MIX MASTER MIKE: Diamondback Music Hall One Year Anniversary 8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $40-$50.

National Arab Orchestra 8 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $50-$150.

Terry Lee Goffee (Johnny Cash trubute) 8 p.m.; Emerald Theatre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $15-$200.

The Black Dahlia Murder, Dying Fetus, Spite, Angelmaker, Vomit

Forth 5:30 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $35-$79.50.

The Creeping Chaos, Massagua, Concrete Angels, Going Nowehere, Sonic Smut 7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15.

Matt Doyle 6:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.; Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, 3711 Woodward Avenue, Detroit; $60. Yoke Lore, Runner 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $30.

DJ/Dance

Disco Diwali: Surab Deb, DNaitiv 6-11 p.m.; Shankar Distillers, 1030 Chicago Rd, Troy; $30.

Tape B, VCTRE B2B OkayJake, STVSH, Dennett, Mistah Dill 8 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $30.

SABAI, WITH LØVE, P Rose 9 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $25.

Sunday, Nov. 10

Live/Concert

Disney Jr. Live: Let’s Play noon and 4 p.m.; Fisher Theatre - Detroit, 3011 West Grand & Fisher, Detroit; $46-$91. Escher Quartet 4 p.m.; Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor; $38-$58.

ian 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25. Into the Shadows: An Evening of Chamber Music 7-9 p.m.; The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms; $10-$15.

McAllister & Vieaux 3-5 p.m.; Royal Oak First United Methodist Church, 320 W. Seventh Street, Royal Oak; $30. Millington 8 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

Ocie Elliott, The Bones of J.R. Jones 7 pm; Majestic Theatre, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $29.50. W.A.S.P., Armored Saint 6 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $39.50-$79.50.

Monday, Nov. 11

Live/Concert

Curtis Mayfield Tribute with Level Rizon 7-10 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; $35. Latto, Mariah the Scientist, KARRAHBOOO 8 p.m.; Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $39.50$79.50.

DJ/Dance

Adult Skate Night 8:30-11 p.m.; Lex-

Critic’s Pick

Motor City Comic Con

Michigan’s largest pop culture event returns. First launched in 1989, the annual Motor City Comic Con is headed to Novi’s Suburban Collection Showplace for a weekend filled with celebrity meet-and-greets, photo ops, and panels featuring stars like John Cusack (Grosse Pointe Blank), Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and Priscilla Presley (Dallas). Meanwhile, comic book fans can dive into Artist Alley, with legendary creators like David Finch (Batman: The Dark Knight), Charles Soule (Death of Wolverine), and Frank Cho (Liberty Meadows). There are also cosplay contests, gaming tournaments, a horror escape room, Q&As, children’s story time, and more.

—Lee DeVito

From Friday, Nov. 8-Sunday, Nov. 10 at the Suburban Collection Showplace; 46100 Grand River Ave., Novi. Tickets range from $10 for children day passes to $249 for VIP Fan Passes.

us Velodrome, 601 Mack Ave., Detroit; $5. Tuesday, Nov. 12

Live/Concert

City and Colour, Pedro the Lion 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $40.50-$86.

Global Sunsets, Blackman & Arnold Trio 7-10 p.m.; Northern Lights Lounge, 660 W. Baltimore St., Detroit; no cover.

Mike Ward 6:30-7:30 p.m.; Alpino, 1426 Bagley St, Detroit; $10.

TENDER, White China 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20.

DJ/Dance

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

Karaoke

Open Mic : Art in a Fly Space

Planets; Thursday, Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Nov. 8 p.m.; and Saturday, 8 p.m.

Planet Ant Black Box True West by Sam Shepard. $25 advance, $30 day of show. Fridays, Saturdays, 8-9:30 p.m. and Sundays, 3-4:30 p.m.

Rosedale Community Players Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner by Todd Kreidler. $18; Fridays, Saturdays, 8-10 p.m.

Musical

Birmingham Village Players Next to Normal. $30; Thursday, 8-11 p.m.; Friday, 8-11 p.m.; Saturday, 8-11 p.m.; Sunday, 2-5 p.m.

Fox Theatre Elf the Musical. $25-$90; Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m., 3 p.m., 8 p.m.; Sunday, 1:30 p.m.

COMEDY

Improv

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

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Detroit to LA Comedy Challenge SemiFinals. $10; Tuesday, 7:30-9 p.m. Stand-up

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Pauly Shore. $35; Friday, 7:15 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.; Saturday, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 p.m.

Sound Board DeRay Davis : Apologies in Advance Tour. $43-$55; Friday, 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club INDIEx: A PowerPoint guided comedy show with Scott Sviland, Bart Dangus, Jacob Russell, Kesha No “i”, Jon Ruggiero, Miky Burch. $10 advance, $15 day of show; Thursday, 9-10:30 p.m.

tus Ballroom Derek Hough: Dance For The Holidays. $33-$88; Sunday, 8 p.m.

Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts World Ballet Company: Swan Lake. $37-$87; Friday, 7 p.m.

The Music Hall World Ballet Company: Swan Lake. $45-$95; Sunday, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.

FILM

Screening

215 West Ballerina Boys, the inspiring recent documentary about Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, followed by a Q&A with Martie Barylick, one of the film’s co-producers and co-directors. No cover, Friday, 7-10 p.m.

Emagine Novi Jurassic Park Q&A with Wayne Knight; $40; Friday, 8 p.m.

A Nightmare on Elm Street with Robert Englund; $40; Saturday, 8 p.m.

ARTS

Artist talk

Conversation on Exploring

Acrylics Join artist Valerie Allen for a conversation about the versatile world of acrylics and art materials from Golden Artist Supplies. Learn about textures using pastes and gels, the new and innovative concepts available for artists today, and create a hands-on acrylic project. The event is free, but space is limited and you must register. Sunday, 1-2:30 p.m.; Color & Ink Studio, 20919 John R Rd., Hazel Park.

Performance art

7-10 pm; Detroit Shipping Company, 474 Peterboro St., Detroit; no cover.

THEATER

Performance

Little Caesars Arena Shoresy Fall Classic: Shoresy cast members Jared Keeso (Shoresy), Terry Ryan (Hitch), Jonathan Diaby (Dolo), Andrew Antsanen (Goody), Jon Mirasty (Jim #1), Brandon Nolan (Jim #2), Jordan Nolan (Jim #3), Max Bouffard (JJ Frankie JJ), and Jacob Smith (Fish) will lace up their skates to compete against a lineup of NHL alumni in dynamic hockey games, with a portion of proceeds benefiting local charities. $40.50-$100.50; Monday, 7 p.m.

Matrix Theatre Company Grounded by George Brant. $20-$25; Saturday, Nov. 9, 8-9:30 p.m. and Sunday, 3-5 p.m.

Max M. Fisher Music Center Detroit Symphony Orchestra with the

Continuing this week stand-up

Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy FREE Mondays, 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant Tonight vs Everybody: Open Mic Comedy. $5 suggested donation; Fridays, Saturdays, 11 p.m.-1:30 a.m.

Supernatural Brewing and Spirits $10; Pub Club Members get first drink included! Thursday, 7-9 p.m.

Detroit Shipping Company 313 Comedy Show. No cover; Sundays, 7-8:30 p.m.

Podcast

Detroit Masonic Temple Library Killers of Kill Tony. $30-$265; Saturday, 5:30 p.m.

Saint Andrew’s Hall The Viral Podcast Live. $35-$45; Monday, 6:30 p.m.

DANCE

Caesars Palace Windsor - Augus-

Cranbrook Art Museum Plucking Performance: Gretchen Gonzales Davidson, David Hurley & Chris Peters (Battle Elf) Join us for a performance as a part of “Subtleism: Neha Vedpathak with Agnes Martin.” Vedpathak’s process of “plucking,” a meditative technique that transforms paper, echoes the plucking method used in stringed instruments. The “Plucking” series invites artists to create acoustic, durational soundscapes, allowing audiences to come and go freely. The first performance will guide listeners on a cosmic journey through guitar meditations and rhythmic percussion. This is a durational performance, arrive anytime between 1-4 p.m. No cover with museum admission. Saturday, 1-4 p.m.

Art exhibition opening College for Creative Studies, A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education Fiber Flux Exhibition This inspiring exhibition pays homage to the innovative spirit and boundless creativity of educators across the Midwest. Friday, 4-7 p.m. No cover.

COURTESY PHOTO

MUSIC

‘It’s all science to me’ The uncompromising sound of Samuel Shabazz

By Kahn Santori Davison

After-hours inside the Fisher Building feels like the movie Night at the Museum. There’s no show tonight so shops are closed, security guards are bored, and the birds painted between the marble and granite feel like they could be ready to come alive at any time.

Hip-hop artist Samuel Shabazz is here with his manager and friend Diego, dressed in a black hoodie, shorts, and Detroit Air Jordan 2s. They’re talking sales, streams, and how Shabazz’s 2021 track “Houston Babies” has over a million YouTube views without even being on Apple Music or Spotify. “We really need to put that on DSPs, it will probably do a million more,” Shabazz says.

Shabazz has evolved into one of Detroit’s most talented and versatile artists. On any given track he can go from being a Detroit Dom Kennedy to a trap T-Pain. He essentially grew up in the business as his dad was Uncle Sam, a Detroit-born crooner who was the first artist signed to Boyz II Men’s Stonecreek Records. In 1997, Uncle Sam’s self-titled album went gold on the success of his platinum single “I Don’t Ever Want To See You Again.” As a 5-year-old, Shabazz toured with his dad and got an early taste of the music business.

“I would introduce him to 20,000 people,” he recalls. “They were yelling my name back to me: ‘When I say Uncle, y’all say Sam.’ It’s a lot of memories I got from there.”

The experience was enough to spark his interest in music and within a few years he was taking pen to pad.

“I just started falling in love with music and I was just trying to figure out how I was going to make music,” he says. “I didn’t know if I was going to sing or rap, I didn’t know how I was going to do it. But when I turned 8, I wrote my first rap. Me and Diego in the classroom, we wrote our first rap.”

Shabazz grew up on the west side of Detroit but went to high school in Douglasville, Georgia, a Black suburb outside of Atlanta. It was the late 2000s: Jeezy, T.I, and Gucci Mane were making Atlanta trap the new face of hip-hop, while Big Sean, Team Eastside, and Doughboyz Cashout reigned supreme in

Detroit. By this time Shabazz had picked up the moniker Prince of the D and enrolled in Full Sail University, where he obtained a bachelor of science in audio arts. The added skillset allowed Shabazz to take full control over his sound and saved him a few dollars because he didn’t need anyone to master his albums. “I don’t produce but I do mix and engineer my own music,” he adds.

By 2014 Shabazz had released a halfdozen projects on his Bandcamp page. Although many of them stayed below the radar, 2012’s Everything is Evarything and 2014’s Never Die Alive both stood out and helped Shabazz grow his following. Shortly after, he met Detroit emcee and Team Eastside alum Babyface Ray through Diego.

“We seen each other in passing a couple of times, and one day we officially got in the studio together and made music and never stopped, really,” Shabazz says.

The duo released #FreeDiego in 2016, and soon after Shabazz dropped Walk on Water, a project he refers to as his “first non-ghetto album.” Earlier this summer, Shabazz signed a record deal with Babyface Ray’s Wavy Gang imprint, a partnership that Ray has with Empire.

“Ray started his label and I wanted to be a part of it and make sure everything just started off well,” Shabazz says. “I know that’s a whole different hat he’s putting on. I wanted to try and make it easier for all of us to an extent.”

In June, Shabazz released PLANEBOY, his most acclaimed album to date.

On its track “Life Gets Hard,” Shabazz is in his lyrical trap bag as he raps, “When nights get hard, that’s when I see the moon the most/ Make it look easy like I breed, the central score/ One false move and we gon’ take it coast to coast/ Blew past niggas, brodie used to play the blow.”

On tracks like “Say Yes” and “Pull Me Back,” Shabazz leans on heavily synthesized vocals over soulful R&B production. “That’s Dre Butterz, most of that,” Shabazz says. “I heard Dre Butterz’s ‘Pull Me Back’ and I stopped the presses — like pull this song up, I gotta fit my way in there.”

When in the studio Shabazz punches in his bars after letting the beat talk to

him a bit. He has a firm grasp of what his sound is, and the consistency shows across his body of work. Even though Shabazz uses multiple producers, he maintains his same sonic presence, and there’s a strong melodic groove that exists in his projects that’s unique to him.

“I’m really into my sound heavily, so I really listen to every song from beginning to end,” he says. “And I listen if the next song goes into the next song sonically.”

Because Shabazz has nearly three dozen projects accessible on multiple platforms, his progression can be heard. In an era where many artists remove their early projects, Shabazz is comfortable with his musical story being told. “Beats got better, rapping got better, I got better at song structure, singing songs, just learning from my mistakes … it’s all science to me,” he adds.

Outside of releasing music Shabazz dropped a freestyle on On The Radar, gave a tight performance on In The Field, toured with Babyface Ray and Jack Harlow on the “Creme de la Creme” tour, and was one of the main openers on last year’s “Courtesy of the Mob” tour with Ray. “I was opening that one up, I was doing a job every night to make sure everyone was ready to get it going,” he says. Shabazz is a testament to staying the

course. His discography and consistency can be attributed to this love of music more than him chasing notoriety and sales. “It was never for me to gain the world, it was for me to give something to the world,” he says. He cites a brief moment in 2019 in which he thought about giving up on music but quickly changed his mind and pushed through it. His journey has made him more thankful than regretful. “I don’t really regret nothing,” he says. “It’s nothing I can take back or switch up. I appreciate every lesson when they come because everything be necessary for the time.”

Moving forward, Shabazz plans on doubling the size of his discography. There are more singles and visuals from PLANEBOY he plans to drop along with another mixtape or album before year’s end. For the last four years Detroit has had one of the hottest hip-hop scenes in the country, but as more artists enter the playing field, Shabazz believes his authenticity will stand tall and allow him to hit the next level of his career.

“I don’t compromise,” he says. “It’s honesty for them. Like truthful music. I talk about stuff that people don’t get to talk about, even to the women or to their friends. I say stuff people are thinking. They can tell I still care to make good songs.”

Samuel Shabazz.

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FOOD

This stuffed shawarma pizza is a must-try

By Tom Perkins

Tania’s Pizza

3204 Crooks Rd., Royal Oak 248-288-4774

taniaspizza.com

Wheelchair accessible

For decades — decades —

Tania’s Pizza in a Royal Oak party store has quietly assembled one of metro Detroit’s top pizzas, becoming something of an institution for its incredible stuffed pies.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kebab, a carryout restaurant in a Berkeley Mobil gas station, grew in recent decades to become a nationally lauded shawarma spot, which largely owed to the work of its chef, Kal Al-Amara. He now runs the awesome Kal’s Lunch Bowl in Royal Oak.

Folks, the universe has smiled upon us: the two restaurants at the top of Detroit’s shawarma and pizza games have teamed up, creating a dish that deserves to be in the region’s best slice conversation — the stuffed shawarma pizza. Kal’s makes the chicken or beef shawarma, and Tania’s stuffs it between its garlic-butter crusts with a

combo garlic-red sauce and pickles in the chicken pie, or, in the beef version, garlic-red sauce, onion, tomatoes, and beets.

The Tania’s-Kal’s stuffed shawarma pizza ascends to the same high echelon of Detroit slices as all the kings — the Salami Kilpatrick from Pie-Sci, anything from Loui’s, the eponymous pizza from Supino, and the dill pickle soup pizza from HenriettaHaus. That’s high praise.

Like several of the pizzas on that list, it’s only available from time to time, so you’re going to want to call Tania’s for availability, or visit Kal’s in the Royal Oak Farmers Market on Saturdays, when slices are often available.

For those who aren’t familiar with the duo, Tania’s is about to celebrate its 38th birthday, and is helmed by brother and sister Amos Sheena and Tania Nonah, and her husband. As Sheena tells the story, their dad was in between jobs, delivering pizza for Domino’s when the party store less than a mile from their house went up for sale.

He knew the convenience store biz so he bought it. The family is Chal-

dean, or Iraqi Christian, and they loved a portable dish like a meat pie, Sheena explained, and they loved pizza, so the stuffed pizza concept was born.

A double crust runs the risk of drowning out the filling, but Tania’s beats that pitfall with a buttery garlic crust that enhances what’s sandwiched inside. Moreover, they cram so much cheese, sauce, and other toppings in that it practically demands two crusts. It also makes for a hefty pie. For reference, I can finish three slices of Loui’s Detroit-style pizza. Tania’s stopped me at two-and-a-half slices.

The shop is in a neighborhood in Royal Oak, and it seems everyone who grew up in the area who ate pizza knows and loves it. Sheena says folks who have moved away come back to town to visit and make Tania’s their first stop from the airport.

The shop has always toyed with inventive toppings — at times making everything from coney dog to Thanksgiving dinner pizzas, so when Sheena’s cousin’s husband, Al-Amara, opened Kal’s, a shawarma pie was a natural fit.

For those unfamiliar with Kal’s, Al-

Amara grew Mr. Kebab in the Mobil at 12 Mile and Collidge roads until June 2020 when he decided to retire. But he was soon cajoled back into the mix by noted Royal Oak restaurateur Seymour Shwartz, and Kal’s is now humming out of an unassuming carryout window at the Royal Oak Farmers Market, though, unlike the market, it’s open seven days per week.

The pies’ red sauce-garlic sauce is bright and fragrant, there’s definitely synergy in the garlic and pizza sauce, which makes sense. Pickles and red sauce seemed like an odd combination but look it works, perhaps because Middle Eastern pickles are a bit different from U.S.-style. One can also get the pizzas with just garlic sauce, though that really misses out on a dimension.

Tania’s stuffs an enormous amount of chicken or beef into the pie, which Al-Amara says is staying with tradition — Middle Eastern restaurants are known for their abundant plates.

The pizza is not on the menu at either restaurant, but instead is more of a special run from time to time, so call ahead if you’re looking for one.

Tania’s-Kal’s stuffed shawarma pizza enters Detroit’s best slice conversation.

TOM PERKINS

CULTURE

Savage Love Quickies

By Dan Savage

: Q 1. This debate is raging again, Dan, and we need you to issue a ruling: Do straight women belong in gay bars?

A: Some (straight women, gay bars), not all (straight women, gay bars).

: Q 2. Why do men keep ghosting me after sex? I’m a 25-year-old woman.

A: No clue. You could’ve had a string of bad luck — and fucked half a dozen (or more) shitty guys in a row — or it could be something you’re doing wrong. Even if you don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, once you’ve noticed a pattern of behavior and/or results that makes you unhappy, it’s a good idea to make some changes. Make an effort to meet different kinds of guys in different kinds of ways, slow your roll/slow your hole, and take some time along the way to engage in constructive introspection and make further changes/course corrections, as needed.

: Q How do I stop people from falling in love with me when they meet me?

A: Put that MAGA hat on.

: Q Do all straight men secretly want something up the ass?

A: Considering that not all gay men want something up the ass — not tongues, not dicks, not toys — I feel pretty confident saying not all straight men want something up the ass. What’s different now is that straight men who do want something up their asses are less likely to feel shame and more likely to ask people randos, FWBs, sex workers, romantic partners, spouses, etc. — to put something up their asses.

: Q How do you stop wanting what you can’t have?

A: By focusing on something you can actually get — or someone you can actually get — and then willing yourself to believe you wanted this other something/someone as much or more than you wanted the something/someone you couldn’t have.

: Q How do I stay GGG even though I hate

getting any kind of hair — including mine in my mouth? The longer the hair, the worse it feels!

A: Three options come to mind: seek out sex partners with alopecia; keep a hair clipper in on bathroom sink and tell new sex partners a quick trim gets them oral; or make a kinky virtue of irrational hangup and actively pursue perverts who get off on being ordered to keep their bodies hairless.

: Q Are friends of exes or exes of friends always off limits?

A: No and no — and since anyone who believes they can declare exes or friends off limits needs to learn that they don’t actually have the power to do that, you’re doing people like that a favor when you fuck their friends and exes.

: Q Is it OK to set up an online dating profile just to see what’s out there?

A: It is — but going places and doing things, e.g., joining and volunteering and partying, remains the single best way to see what’s out there.

: Q My wife lost all interest in sex ten years ago but insists I remain monogamous. Arguments often end with her angrily saying, “No one owes you sex.” What can I say in response to that?

A: “No one owes you celibacy.”

: Q How do you discreetly sniff an uncut cock? Dick cheese is awful.

A: When someone says, “I wanna inhale your cock,” it’s typically not meant literally. (No one wants to aspirate a dick.) Another expression that usually isn’t meant literally: “Passing the smell test.” But if you’re gonna be face down in someone’s crotch, you’re gonna inhale at some point... so, why not inhale right away? And if someone fails that smell test, tell them to go jump in the shower — unless you consider showing up with a dirty dick in the first place to be disqualifying, in which case you can and should tell them to take their dirty dick elsewhere.

: Q 11. Just went exclusive with a new partner last night and this morning an old sexy fling hit me up. For fuck’s sake! What do I do?

A: If a single text message from a longago fling was all it took to make you regret going exclusive with your new partner last night… it was quite obviously a mistake to go exclusive with your new partner at all.

: Q 12. What websites should I use to post my foot photos to make $$$?

A: “I’ve done it — I’ve sold some foot pics — and there can be some money in it,” said Tyler Tanner, who has been creating, sharing, and monetizing his adult content online for three years. “The best places to post foot photos would be OnlyFans and maybe Feetfinder. But whether you make money or not really depends on how good you are at marketing, just like any other product!”

Tyler Tanner is on Instagram and YouTube @TylerTannerX.

: Q 13. How admirable is it to work as a fetish porn star in 2024?

A: A fetish porn star — or a humble porn content creator — is more admirable than a rightwing standup comic.

: Q 14. How to keep the sex life alive on the long, hard road to conceiving with infertility issues?

A: If you’ve been trying to conceive the old-fashioned way for a while, vaginal intercourse may feel like a chore. If you’ve moved on to fertility treatments like IUI or IVF, vaginal intercourse — at least for the moment — may symbolize of your failure to conceive without assistance. My advice: take PIV off the menu and enjoy other kinds of sex that symbolize (and provide) pure pleasure, i.e., oral sex, mutual masturbation, frottage, anal play (if you’re into that), etc.

: Q I’ve always wanted a straight man to use me as the faggot I’m meant to be used as. I wanna beg him to stop and for him to just get rougher the more I beg. I’m done when he says I’m done.

A: Thanks for sharing — and since very few actual straight men would ever wanna use you the way you describe wanting to be used, you can jack off all you want about this CNC scene, secure in the knowledge that it’s never gonna happen.

: Q A friend drunkenly confessed having feelings for me. This person happens to be a close childhood friend’s ex-partner. We actually met through my childhood friend. Part of me feels giddy about this confession (I like this person!), but I would never want to hurt or betray my childhood friend. Should I tell my childhood friend what happened and seek their blessing? Or should I distance myself from the friend that confessed feelings?

A: If you wanna date this person, you should date this person. You should give your close childhood friend a heads up as a courtesy — but your childhood friend doesn’t have a veto and, if they’re a

good friend, they won’t want a veto.

: Q What’s the best way to find a loaf of gay bread and make a fuck sandwich? Gay guy here who wants to be the meat in one.

A: My single gay friends are constantly complaining to me — of all people — that they never meet single-and-available guys online or out in the bars. All they’re meeting are partnered guys in open relationships and/or couples seeking thirds for an evening, a weekend, or a lifetime. So, finding that loaf of gay bread — finding a gay couple seeking meat — shouldn’t be that hard. Get on the apps, go the bars.

: Q His libido is much lower than mine. Could this work over the long term? I feel rejected.

A: If what you were feeling was deprived, opening the relationship up could resolve those feelings, since being with your partner wouldn’t mean being deprived of sex, allowing the relationship — barring other issues — to work over the long term. But if what you’re feeling is rejected, opening things up is unlikely to make you feel better in the short or long term, since your primary partner wouldn’t be any more interested in fucking you than they already are.

: Q I’m a 35-year-old married transgender man. I started my transition when I was in my 20s. My wife is 100% straight. I’ve recently started being open about being queer and being attracted to men. As I get older, I keep finding myself longing to fuck a cis man. At times it’s the only thought that gets me turned on. I’ve been married for ten years. My wife is pretty uptight. Open relationships and ENM is NOT an option. What do I do? Suck it up?

A: You have exactly three options: honor the monogamous commitment you made (and suck it the fuck up), dishonor the monogamous commitment you made (and risk getting caught), or issue an ultimatum and demand some degree of openness (and risk getting divorced). I wish there were another option — people write every day hoping that I’ll find a magical fourth option that doesn’t involve going without, becoming a cheating piece of shit, or issuing painful ultimatums that could blow up their marriages — but there are only these three options.

Read the full column online at savage. love.

Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love! Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan! Podcasts, columns, and more at Savage. Love.

CULTURE

Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

I rarely recommend acquisitive behavior. But my analysis of the astrological omens tells me you now have cosmic authorization to indulge in a sublime version of voracity. We might also refer to it as a license to practice a spiritually correct variety of greed. Here’s the fine print: You should NOT interpret this as permission to amass materialistic treasures and status symbols. Instead, the things you gather will be rich feelings, encounters with inspiring beauty, epiphanies about your divine purpose, and exquisite states of consciousness. You can also ask for and receive colossal supplies of love and affection.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

The last time I ate a hamburger was in 1994. I doubt I will ever eat another. Why? The taste is not enjoyable to me, and no matter how well I chew it, my stomach always rebels.

There’s an additional problem: For several reasons, cattle farming is a significant factor causing the climate crisis. I would rather not contribute to that decimation. Does my attitude toward hamburgers mean I am a judgmental, close-minded zealot? No, it doesn›t. I don’t proselytize to those who relish burgers, especially if they take other measures to reduce their carbon footprint. In this horoscope, dear Taurus, I am illustrating an approach I hope you will cultivate in the coming weeks. Be extra zealously devoted to your ideals and proclivities without condemning and dismissing those who don’t share them.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

tions, I’m pleased to tell you that the coming months should bring remedies. Life will be conspiring with you to help spread your influence and boost your clout.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

I wish it were true that the forces of darkness are lined up in opposition to the forces of light. Life would be so much easier for you. But I’m afraid it’s not that simple and clear. In my view, a more accurate metaphor might be that the energies of smokey gray are squaring off with the energies of dusky beige. Each side has a touch of both wrongness and rightness, a bit of ugliness and beauty. So what is the most honorable role you can play in this showdown? My suggestion is to develop a third side, an alternate way.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

have become bestselling hit tunes. But he had a rough start in his craft. The first song he ever wrote was “Surfin.” He submitted it to fulfill an assignment in his high school music class, but his teacher gave it an F, the lowest possible grade. Fifty-eight years later, Wilson returned to the school for a visit, and the new principal changed his original grade to an A. I foresee a comparable event occurring in your life sometime soon: a vindication, restitution, or reparation.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

There are numerous approaches to getting good results from meditation. One is to sit silently and still in a tranquil sanctuary. Another is to lie on the ground under a dark sky and beseech the stars to bestow inspiration. One of my personal favorites is to sing rowdy hymns to birds, insects, and trees while hiking vigorously in nature. How many other varieties can you imagine, Gemini? The coming weeks will be a favorable time to develop and expand your meditation skills. Here’s a key consideration: How can you achieve maximum fun while meditating? I recommend you free your mind to experiment with a host of interesting approaches.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

Happy Veteran’s Day (Remembrance Day for our Allied brethren) to all that served, especially those that got shot at and shot back. Your service is forever appreciated. 11TH HOUR 11TH DAY 11TH MONTH

If there was ever an appropriate time for you to indulge in creatively rowdy thoughts and inspirationally unruly behavior, it would be now. Life is giving you license to de-emphasize decorum and formalities — and to emphasize boisterous enthusiasm and plucky adventures. For the sake of your mental health, I believe you need to engage in experimental improvisations that include maverick expressions. What areas of your life need liberation? What feelings need to be released from their constraints? What worn-out old theories and opinions should be abandoned?

LEO: July 23 – August 22

Are your talents even slightly underrated and overlooked by others, Leo? Have your gifts received less than the full appreciation they deserve? Could you be of greater service and inspiration to your fellow humans if only your offerings were better known? If you answered yes to any of those ques -

In the early part of his career, Libran author Mario Puzo wrote short stories and novels, but never a screenplay. At age 49, he was asked by director Francis Ford Coppola to co-write the script for the film The Godfather. It turned out to be a sensational rookie effort. He was ultimately awarded an Academy Award for it, and later garnered another Oscar for his screenplay for The Godfather Part II It was only then that Puzo realized he had found his calling and decided he should study the art of screenwriting. In the first chapter of the first book he bought about the subject, he read with great amusement that the ideal screenplay was the one by Mario Puzo for The Godfather. I bring this story to your attention, Libra, because you are approaching a time with resemblances to Puzo’s situation before Coppola solicited his work. Trust your rookie instincts!

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21:

In the life cycle of a butterfly, the earliest stages are larva and pupa. As a larva, the future beauty crawls around as a caterpillar, cramming itself with nutritive substance. After it transitions into the pupa state, it’s inert for a while, working on the inside of its cocoon to transform itself into its ultimate form. I don’t want to be too literal about the comparison, but my sense is that your time as a larva will last another two months, whereupon you will begin your pupa phase. When will you emerge as a winged creature? It depends on how earnestly you work as a pupa, but I expect no later than March 2025.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

Brian Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys, is one of the most innovative and imaginative songwriters ever. Many of his compositions

Earlier this year, 79-year-old rock singer Rod Stewart performed his greatest hits during a multi-city tour in many countries. “I shall never retire!” he proclaimed. Can you guess what astrological sign he is? Capricorn, of course. Many members of your tribe age very well, displaying stamina and vitality into later life. I bring this to your attention because I think you are close to discovering new secrets and tricks that will serve you well as you ripen. Here are some meditations that might be helpful: 1. What haven’t you been ready to do before, but might be soon? 2. What fun things would you love to be doing years from now, and how could you seed their future growth?

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

Scientists have discovered the fossil remains of over 700 dinosaur species buried underground. But the experts agree there are many more down there. Previously unknown species are still being unearthed every year. Let’s use these facts as a metaphor for your life in the coming months. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you could learn a host of fresh truths about your history. You may have imagined that your past is finished and finalized, but it’s not. I encourage you to have fun hunting for revelations and investigations that will transform the story of your life.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

You haven’t fully tapped into all of your vast potentials, Pisces. Latent talents and aptitudes within you may still be at least partially dormant. It’s even possible that some of your future powers are so foreign to your self-concept that they will feel like magic when they finally come into full expression. Now here’s the very good news: The coming months will be an excellent time to figure out what you need to do to express a more complete version of yourself.

Homework: Maybe it would be beneficial to narrow your range of choices in one area of your life. Testify!

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