Metro Times 02/01/23

We received responses to last week’s cover story by freelancer Eli Day about Detroit’s failure to protect renters.

We need rent control in Detroit. There is no cap on what they can increase at renewal. —@lisa9fromouterspace Instagram

Don’t give [Community Benefits Agreement] to developers who will pull the rug for up underneath our citizens. Make affordable housing actually affordable for Detroiters. Redefine ‘affordable’ and stop allowing them to take tax money while putting 5-10 year caps on how much affordable housing is

made available and for how long before everyone is kicked out and the prices go up! —@gab_bsmooth, Instagram

I’ve lived in a lot of cities in metro Detroit and Detroit over my 30 years of renting and I can tell you, no one evicts faster than Detroit. I thought we had a few months, nope, 72 hours and a dumpster and the popo were at the door. —@ lynxrose1313, Instagram

Reminds me of Cass park apartments when my buddy stuff was thrown in a dumpster with no served evection warning. Spent the night fishing his most prized belongings from a dumpster. —@ cornealious313, Instagram

Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com.

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Photo by Kahn Santori Davison

Yes, a Flint councilwoman called residents ‘janky’ — but not all residents

A VIDEO CIRCULATING on social media this week appears to show Flint City Councilwoman Ladel Lewis calling Flint residents “janky.”

But the clip shared on TikTok and Facebook is an edited version of a longer video that Lewis posted in 2018 in which she sings about Flint residents who didn’t vote being “janky.”

“I have a song on my heart, and I want to sing it,” Lewis says on the full video that she reposted on her Facebook page after Metro Times asked her for a comment.

“This is dedicated to everybody that didn’t vote,” she says before singing, “If you didn’t go vote, you janky, you janky, you janky. Your kids are gonna be janky because you didn’t vote.”

Demolition begins on another large section of Packard Plant

CREWS LAST WEEK began demolishing another large section of the hulking, abandoned Packard Plant on Detroit’s east side after the negligent owner failed to do it himself.

This is the second block-long building that will come down since crews began an emergency demolition of a section of the former auto plant next to an operating business, Display Group, north of Grand Boulevard, in September.

Under the latest demolition project, which has an estimated cost of $1.2 million, crews will raze a section of the plant on Concord Avenue between Palmer and East Grand Boulevard. It’s expected to be complete by March, though the city will salvage a small portion of the building with hopes of finding a developer to reuse it.

“We are truly trying to go from blight to beauty as an administration and a city,” Joshua Roberson, District 5 manager for the Department of Neighborhoods, told reporters last Tuesday.

The building is the last portion owned by the city, which acquired the property in a tax foreclosure.

The rest of the blocks-long, 3.5

million-square-foot plant is owned by Peru-based developer Fernando Palazuelo, who bought the concrete ruins for $405,000 in December 2013 and pledged to turn the plant into a mi ed use space with lofts o ces restaurants, and retailers. The estimated price of the project was $350 million. But since the purchase, Palazuelo has failed to find future tenants for the building and has accumulated nearly $785,000 in unpaid taxes and water fees. He could soon lose ownership rights to more than 30 parcels and buildings at the Packard.

He was ordered to demolish the structure in March 2022 after the city declared the 35-acre plant a public nuisance.

“Every day the Packard Plant sits here in this state is a day this neighborhood cannot move forward,” Mayor Mike Duggan said. “We are deeply appreciative to Gov. Whitmer for the $12 million the state allocated to us late last year that we plan to use to demolish as much of the plant as we can.”

The Packard Plant is the largest abandoned auto plant in the city.

In the early 1900s, the plant, designed by famed architect Albert Kahn, became a proud symbol of Detroit’s industrial rise as it churned out luxury automobiles and decent wages to thousands of workers. It is now one of the largest abandoned auto plants in the world, and has become a lawless wasteland.

The demolition is part of an “aggressive demolition program” to raze abandoned commercial buildings scattered across the city, said LaJuan Counts, director of Detroit’s Demolition Department.

lthough this portion is significant for us, we have a huge commercial endeavor we are undertaking to remove a lot of commercial blight across the city,” Counts said.

Detroit is working with demolition crews to raze about 100 commercial properties citywide, and another 225 commercial properties are being surveyed for potential demolition bids, Counts said.

“It shows our commitment to eliminating blight across the city,” Counts said.

—Steve Neavling

In the edited video, the clip starts with Lewis singing, “Your schools, janky. Your taxes, janky. Your water, janky. If you didn’t go vote, you janky, you janky, you janky.”

ewis was elected to her first term in November 2021 and now serves as vice president of the council. She wasn’t on the council when the video was posted.

“While it was never my intention to offend anyone especially the residents of the 2nd Ward, there is a blatantly obvious and deliberate effort taking place to assault my character and minimize the accomplishments we’ve made in the 2nd ward,” Lewis tells Metro Times. “I will continue to work alongside members of the Flint community committed to strengthening our bonds and improving our city.”

TikTok user JazzDelAnkh reposted the full video after Lewis complained that the original one was edited.

The comments were still negative, with some calling for her to resign or be recalled.

“She’s a traitor to the people she represents,” one person responded.

Another wrote, “The ignorance of this video speaks volumes about councilwoman Lewis, sad sad sad, people deserve better.”

Name-calling is nothing new to the Flint City Council. On Monday, Councilman Eric Mays called other Black council members, including Lewis, “handkerchief-head Negros,” “Uncle Toms,” and “Sambos.”

—Steve Neavling

STEVE NEAVLING

Long-term unemployed Detroiters to get help landing jobs with new federal ‘Jump Start’ program

THE CITY OF Detroit selected 18 community organizations that will assist with a new program aimed at helping long-term unemployed residents land a job.

Through the Jump Start program, the organizations will provide training, mentorship, and other supportive services to residents who have been without employment.

Enrollment began Tuesday.

The program is being funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a $1.9 trillion federal initiative to help local and state governments that have been struggling amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Gene Sterling, ARPA coordinator and a senior advisor to President Joe Biden, joined Mayor Mike Duggan on Friday to discuss the rollout of the program.

Sterling said the program is the first of its kind in the country and could help other cities.

“Mayor Duggan’s Jump Start Initiative to put those who have faced long-term unemployment on a path to a strong, dignified ob is a national model of how to deploy President Biden’s American Rescue Plan to address not only the immediate challenges created by the Pandemic but to ensure a more equitable recovery that leaves no one behind,” Sterling said. “The entire Detroit-At Work Adult Scholarship program is indeed one that President Biden has highlighted as one of the nation’s most innovative, pro-work strategies funded

by the American Rescue Plan to build a larger, more skilled, and more inclusive workforce.”

The program aims to assist at least 1,200 Detroiters with adult basic education and digital literacy, high school or GED completion, occupational or career training, and job searches.

The 18 community groups will be tasked with finding residents who need help and enrolling them in education or training programs. The community groups will be eligible for performancebased incentives of up to $2,200 per participant.

“In the Jump Start Program, participants have a financial incentive to work hard and succeed, and so do the [organizations] that are helping them along the way,” Duggan said. “We really believe that this approach will result in a

lot of Detroiters who had stopped trying to find work getting onto a path to gainful employment that can sustain them. We are deeply appreciative to President Biden for create the ARPA program and making Jump Start possible.”

Duggan plans to reveal how Detroiters can access the assistance during an address at city hall at 7 p.m. on Monday. The address will be live streamed on the city’s website and Facebook page.

“Knowing where to start when you’re ready to get into the job market can be hard, especially for people who have been out of the workforce for a while,” Nicole Sherard-Freeman, who serves as the Mayor’s group executive for Jobs, Economy and Detroit at Work, said.

“To be better at coming alongside our residents, we’re taking communitycentered partnerships to the next

level. stronger financially supported network of community-based grassroots organizations that have long-standing relationships deep in our neighborhoods is the next frontier in getting thousands of Detroiters on the road to a better job or a new career.”

The organizations selected by the city and the districts in which they are located are:

International Institute of Metro Detroit D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7

Vincent Sarah Fisher Center D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7

Focus Hope D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7

Fit4Life Health and Fitness D1, D2

The Open Door COGIC D3

TMI Detroit Inc. D3

Family Assistance for Renaissance Men D3, D4, D5

Alkebu-Lan Village D3, D4, D5

Emerging Industries Training Institute D3, D4, D6

The Black Bottom Group D4

Urge Imprint - Detroit Friends and Family D4, D5

Church of the Messiah Housing D5

Teach Empower Achieve (T.E.A.) D5

Center for Employment Opportunities D5

Spectrum Human Services Inc D5

Detroit Hispanic Development Corp D6

Southwest Detroit Business Association D6

The People’s Action D6, D7

—Steve Neavling

Minimum wage increase blocked by appeals court

A MICHIGAN COURT of Appeals panel delivered bad news to minimum wage workers on Thursday by siding with the former Republican-led Legislature.

The panel ruled that state lawmakers had constitutional authority to weaken a minimum wage law approved by citizens through a petition process.

For now, the ruling blocks the minimum wage from increasing from $10.10 per hour to $13.03 per hour. Tipped minimum wage would have rose to $11.73 an hour.

At issue is a 2018 petition initiative organized by One Fair Wage that sought to raise minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2022 and increase annually with in ation. he coalition collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to force the Legislature to either adopt it or send it to voters in the next general election ballot.

The Republican-led Legislature adopted the bills in September 2018, but quickly weakened the legislation in a controversial switcheroo that landed in court. Under the weakened bills, the minimum wage would increase to $12 by 2030, as long as unemployment is low.

But in July 2022, the Michigan Court of Claims ruled that the Legislature violated the state constitution by weakening the initiatives.

Thursday’s ruling overturns that’s decision.

“Because there are no limita tions with respect to the amendment of initiated laws beyond the initial 40-session day period for legislative action, the Legislature is free to amend laws adopted through the initiative process during the same legislative session,” Court of Appeals Judge Christopher Murray said in the majority opinion.

he plaintiffs which include ne Fair Wage and Mothering Justice, plan to appeal the case to the Michigan Supreme Court.

“We are extremely disappointed by the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision to side with the former Republican-controlled Legislature’s ‘adopt-and-amend’ shenanigans,” Eboni Taylor, executive director of Mothering Justice, said. “The decision, once again, delays a much-needed and deserved pay increase for Michigan workers. This is also a devastating blow to Michiganders that deserve paid sick time. The people of Michigan have long waited for earned paid sick time changes to be actualized. Everyone deserves and needs paid time off to take care of themselves or family members, and our economy will see the benefit of a labor ecosystem that honors this.”

Business and hospitality groups

have opposed increasing Michigan’s minimum wage, saying it would harm small business owners.

“We are relieved and appreciative of the unanimous ‘Adopt and Amend’ decision out of the Court of Appeals today that will allow Michigan and its 18,000 restaurants and hotels to move forward with greater certainty as to their operating future. Through this ruling, countless restaurants and 50,000 hospitality jobs have been at least temporarily saved,” Michigan Restaurant Lodging Association President CEO Justin Winslow said in a statement. “We are optimistic that the Michigan Supreme Court will recognize the same and allow this industry to redirect its focus to the daunting task of recovering from a pandemic that decimated it so completely.”

—Steve Neavling

COURTESY PHOTO

Slotkin mulls U.S. Senate run

THIRD-TERM U.S. Rep. lissa Slotkin is seriously thinking about running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Debbie Stabenow, who announced earlier this month that she’s retiring at the end of 2024.

he year old olly Democrat met with Stabenow for more than an hour Thursday evening.

t’s an earth uake to have Sen. Stabenow leave Michigan politics. And lots of people are thinking about it Slotkin a former C o cer told BC ews following the meeting. nd ’m definitely seriously thinking about it but ’m not on any timetable. haven’t made any decisions.”

n one of the most e pensive .S. ouse races in the country in ovember Slotkin held onto her seat by beating state Sen. om Barrett R Charlotte

Melba Joyce Boyd is the 2023 Kresge Eminent Artist

AT 72 YEARS old, Detroit poet Melba Joyce Boyd is adding yet another accolade to her 50-year career.

Boyd has been named the 2023 Kresge Eminent Artist, a lifetime achievement for artists that comes with a $50,000 award.

The award-winning poet, essayist, editor biographer and filmmaker has received multiple Library of Michigan otable Book wards a ndependent Publishers Award, and was a finalist for the C mage ward for oetry in but winning the Kresge still feels special.

“The one thing that’s great about this award is that you don’t apply for it,” she said in a press release. “You’re getting real appreciation for your work from people who understand what it means to make work in Detroit. hat’s something special. t’s a reminder and celebration of the culture we have here and the way that it continues.”

Earlier this month Boyd was presented with a surprise Spirit of Detroit ward as she delivered the keynote Martin Luther King Jr. Day address at the Charles . right Museum of frican merican istory.

She has published books including nine collections of her own poetry, and contributed more than essays to anthologies, academic journals, newspapers, and cultural periodicals in the .S. and urope. er poems have been translated into French and German.

er poem this museum was once a dream dedicated to the Charles . right Museum is inscribed in bronze on one of the museum’s walls.

“She’s exactly an eminent artist,” Kresge Eminent Artist selection panelist and interdisciplinary artist Scheherazade ashington arrish said. er words have touched people in Detroit and abroad, and she maintains a love for the craft. One of the ways that love is seen is by her continuing to teach so that the craft and art lives on to inspire others.”

Other panelists that selected Boyd as this year’s Eminent Artist include

associate professor at the College for Creative Studies il shby azz musician and resge minent rtist endell arrison art curator for ayne State niversity and the University of Michigan Grace Serra, and Metro Times writer, photographer and resge rtist ellow Kahn Santori Davison (what up Kahn!)

Previous Kresge Eminent Artist awardees include Charles Mc ee Ruth dler Schnee Marie oo Shirley oodson laymi Dabls Marcus Belgrave, Patricia Terry-Ross, endell arrison Bill arris aomi ong Madgett Dr. loria ouse Bill Rauhauser, Leni Sinclair, and David DiChiera.

—Randiah Camille Green

to . She was first elected in by narrowly defeating two term incumbent Republican Mike Bishop in a district that voted for Donald Trump in .

n a key battleground state the Senate race is expected to be among the most high profile elections ne t year as Democrats seek to maintain control of the upper chamber. Senate Democrats currently have a ma ority.

Stabenow has held the Senate seat since .

f Slotkin runs she’ll likely face tough competition in the primary election. Among her potential contenders, according to political analysts, include Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrest, U.S. Reps. Debbie Dingell and aley Stevens, and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.

—Steve Neavling

Author pens Super Cities! Detroit children’s book

ARCADIA’S SUPER CITIES book series has made a name for itself by putting historical facts from American cities into colorful and descriptive children’s books.

Can’t forget the Motor City. nter author Daralynn alker a children’s book writer known for her Madison Miles riends books. She was tapped by Arcadia to pen the latest edition of the series, Super Cities!

Detroit

t’s kind of like a graphic novel style but it’s a historical book alker says. e talk about Detroit with images we talk about the history of Belle sle how Detroit was

founded monuments in Detroit. t’s a lot of just cool gems and historical facts, but at a third-grade level.”

he book even includes a ow to talk Detroit section with Detroitisms like hat up doe and Coney sland.

alker believes Detroiters of all ages find the book informative and feel a sense of pride as they turn the pages.

[ e’ve had a hand in a lot of the ‘first’ in this country she says. he first paved road was in Detroit. e were the first city to have phone numbers. e were essentially a start up city, a model for other cities.”

alker whose mother worked as a librarian, feels her love for the city that raised and groomed her gives her an advantage and a certain credibility. (She now lives in Atlanta.) went to the schools in Detroit and ’m also a writer for the city of Detroit,” she says. “My characters that write about are all from Detroit and think that makes a difference because that creates another level of authenticity and understanding for the city of Detroit as a whole.”

Super Cities Detroit is released on Feb. by Arcadia.

—Kahn Santori Davison

ERIN KIRKLAND, KRESGE FOUNDATION

Mr. Reporting Live!

Tay Crispyy is posted up on Glendale Street on Detroit’s Westside as the sun sets. It feels like he’s waiting for some unexpected action to happen that only he knows about, but nothing eventful is going on. He’s just hanging with a friend enjoying a not-so-cold Detroit day. He has on a maroon wig (one of many he’s been known to wear), jeans, and a Red Bull “SoundClash” hoodie.

“That was a great experience,” he says regarding SoundClash, an event he recently hosted that featured rappers Larry June and Detroit’s Babyface Ray. “I hosted an event at the El Club, met Drew (Drialo) there, and he hooked it all up for me. It’s about relationships, doing good business, being on time, and doing you. You never know who you can meet.”

Over the last four years, the 28-yearold has evolved and elevated himself into a very original entertainment personality in Detroit. He’s not necessarily a comedian, but he has his own unique comedic swagger that he brings to hosting gigs. And his autoschediastic “reporting live” media-like commentary on Instagram Live has made him a social media favorite.

Tay grew up in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood. He says he bounced around through about a half of dozen high schools until he graduated from Livonia’s Churchill in 2011. He says he had always had a keen sense of humor and a natural magnetic energy when he was in front of crowds.

“I have always been a live person” he says. “I’ve been hosting parties and being around the entertainment scene since I was about 15 or 16 years old.”

By Kahn Santori Davison

One day in 2019 he witnessed a minor car accident on Detroit’s Eastside. Without putting any thought into it, he took out his phone, logged into Instagram live, yelled “Reporting live,” and began doing a fast paced, exaggerated “live on the scene” anchormantype commentary. The video received thousands of views.

Tay knew he was on to something.

“I saw the numbers that I got back, my face wasn’t in the video but the next couple of videos I started putting my face in there,” he says. “That’s how I built my network.”

As the weeks went on Tay found himself “reporting live” at hip-hop video shoots, street car races, and other minor car accidents. In April of 2020, WDIV-TV interviewed him and used his cell phone footage and skit to cover a highschool fight.

His impromptu act goes beyond words and typical mimicking. Once Tay announces “reporting live,” he holds his hand to his ear like he has an invisible earpiece talking to a TV station. Sometimes he even uses an invisible microphone as he delivers his spitfire narrations. Imagine a younger, Black version of Bill Bonds delivering the news like rapper Twista.

“My whole act, everything is really improv, it’s not skited out, some of them are skited out, but it’s mostly all improv. I never want to be too scripted,” he says confidently.

fter the first wave of videos ay started to wear Ron Burgundy-type wigs with a ip to it and ay Crispyy the character was complete.

“The wig makes the brand, so I would say I started using it by my third or fourth video, that’s what built the character,” he says through a laugh.

As his social media numbers went up so did his opportunities. is first Instagram account hit 100,000 followers but has since been hacked and deleted. He took loss in stride and has been busy moving through a very diverse body of work. He’s hosted events at Ace of Spades, Club Fame, sneaker conventions, and the Barcade. He’s also done commentary and advertising work for efty’s Cheesesteak uff Cannabis the Life Medical Center, Foot Locker, Flavor Clothing, and even the Detroit Pistons. “I released the Piston’s schedule this year,” he says. “I broke the news in front of their practice facility.”

Last August, Tay was invited to be a part of Big Sean’s Don Weekend, a block party that featured carnival games, crafts, and other forms of community engagement. Tay participated in the celebrity kickball game, and went into his “reporting live” mode with the rapper post-game. went to the Mary She eld event during that weekend,” he says. “Icewear Vezzo was out there. It was a giveback — clothes, bookbags, and shoes. Mary

She eld told me to come the ne t day and she had a jersey for me.”

In the most unexpected way; Tay has become one of the voices of Detroit. It’s almost like if WorldStarHipHop was a person, it would be Tay.

He sees no limits to where his “Mr. Reporting Live” persona can go, and feels he can make it just as impactful to the world as he has in Detroit. He’s already taken his show on the road, doing “reporting live” skits in Atlanta, Miami, and other cities. He has aspirations of working with celebrities like Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Mike Epps, and DC Young Fly.

His popularity has also surged with teenagers. His schedule stays booked with school gigs, and he feels he has a lot of knowledge and perspective to offer in an entertaining way.

“The dopest thing is seeing fathers walk up with their daughters to take a picture with me,” he says, adding, “I’m inspiring the kids to know that you can still be original. You can do other things other than be a rapper. It’s OK to be a rapper if that’s what you want to do, but I’m showing them it’s OK to act, to be different. f you want to be an entertainer, you can be an entertainer in your own way.”

As of right now Tay is gearing up for latest venture, Reporting Live, a talk show in which he’ll interview a variety of guests while implementing heavy doses of his own comedic swagger.

“You will see business owners, news [reporters], football players, rappers, entrepreneurs, artists, doctors, the youth, and so much motivation,” he says.

Tay Crispyy’s Reporting Live debuts on YouTube on Feb. 1.

How Tay Crispyy took a fender-bender and a wig and became one of Detroit’s most distinctive characters

Social media star Tay Crispyy is launching a new talk show.

KAHN SANTORI DAVISON

WHAT’S GOING ON

Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Be sure to check all venue website before events for latest information. dd your event to our online calendar metrotimes.com dd vent.

Wednesday, Feb. 1

MUSIC

Live/Concert

Angel Olsen & The Big Time Band p.m. Magic Stick oodward ve. Detroit .

Wayward Wednesday p.m. ike Room S. Saginaw ontiac .

SPORTS

Basketball

Little Caesars Arena Detroit istons vs. ashington izards . eb. p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 2

MUSIC

Live/Concert

Dan Bern, Randy Kaplan p.m. ront Street ront St. ake rion

Lotus p.m. arden Bowl oodward Detroit .

NITE LITE with DJ POWDRBLU p.m. Bowlero anes ounge

Coolidge wy. Royal ak

ART

Artist talk

Kristina Wong - Artistic Activism: Creating Social Change eb. p.m. Michigan heater . iberty St. nn rbor ree stamps.umich.edu events kristina wong.

Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) ctivation Bree ant s part of the artist’s vision e perimental musician aul Darnell live scores gant’s multichannel video installation, creating a ‘soundtrack’ in real time. Suggested Donation eb. p.m.

Friday, Feb. 3

MUSIC

Live/Concert

Adam Melchor p.m. Magic Stick oodward ve. Detroit .

Hollywood Casino @ Greektown

Present Macy Gray p.m. he Music all Madison ve. Detroit

Intocable p.m. Royal ak Music heatre . ourth St. Royal ak

Jeffrey Osborne p.m. Sound Board rand River ve. Detroit .

Lauren Watkins p.m. in Roof Detroit dams ve. Detroit.

OCEAN ABOVE p.m. a.m. Bowlero anes ounge Coolidge wy. Royal ak R .

Parker McCollum p.m. he illmore oodward ve. Detroit . . .

Phillip-Michael Scales p.m. tus Supply . ine Mile Rd. erndale .

Planet D Celebrates New CD at Cliff Bell’s! p.m. Cliff Bell’s ark ve. Detroit .

The Tea Party p.m. Caesars alace indsor ugustus Ballroom . Riverside Dr. indsor .

The Trews p.m. he Shelter . Congress St. Detroit .

Weed Demon, Temple of the Fuzz Witch, Solar Monolith p.m. Sanctuary Detroit Caniff amtramck .

THEATER

Performance

Baldwin Theatre Stagecrafters presents Clue. .

Meadow Brook Theatre Birthday Club. . eb. p.m. eb. p.m. eb. p.m. eb. p.m. and eb. p.m.

Rosedale Community Players The ame’s foot. eb. p.m. eb. p.m. and eb. p.m.

Theatre NOVA he anguage rchive by ulia Cho eorge. eb. .

Musical

Beetlejuice (Touring) eb. p.m. eb. p.m. eb. p.m. eb. p.m. eb. p.m. and eb. p.m. Cadillac Cafe Broadway Detroit .

COMEDY

Improv Go Comedy! Improv Theater ll

Star Showdown p.m.

Stand-up Opening

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant my Miller. nline

February 1-7, 2023 | metrotimes.com

Movement fest announces initial 2023 lineup

MOVEMENT MUSIC FESTIVAL is set to return to Detroit’s Hart laza Memorial Day weekend and on hursday organizer a ahau announced a teaser lineup to whet the appetites of electronic music fans everywhere.

s usual the lineup includes a mi of artists spanning eras and genres, from Underworld, a seminal . . group formed in to the newest rising stars.

Since its inception Movement has been deeply dedicated to bringing a completely original e perience to Detroit, with a focus on showcasing authentic and diverse lineups that provide an e perience that is purely about the music and culture a ahau said in a statement.

Headliners include Underworld and Belgian techno D Charlotte de itte. f course since Detroit

Door eb. p.m. and eb. p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Comedian Matt Braunger with ate Brindle and Simon Carlson. . eb. p.m. eb. p.m. and eb. p.m.

Continuing is Week Stand-up

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant he Sh t Show pen Mic. p.m.

ART

Art ExhibitionOpening

Ann Arbor Art Center nergy ransfer opening reception. eb. p.m.

is the techno capital of the world the lineup also features plenty of homegrown talent, including acts like Moodymann making his first performance at the festival in a decade Robert ood Carl Craig and D Min . ther highlights include Canada’s Caribou ew ork’s ouie ega and enny Dope as Masters t ork Chicago’s reen elvet the . .’s Surgeon and a b b set from ustralian producer Dom Dolla and breakout Chicago house star ohn Summit.

irst time performers at the fest include Swedish born producer D Seinfeld the . .’s S Brooklyn based electronic music producer and vocalist la Minus taly’s iorgia ngiuli and Berlin based producer SD and D S D .

—Lee DeVito

The festival is scheduled for Saturday, May 27-Monday, May 29. Tickets are on sale now; more information is available at move mentfestival.com.

FUN

The Old Miami he nd nnual Bar y wards hosted by immy Doom. he reatest Bar ight of e’ll be roasting our regulars for keeping us open for years. . eb. p.m.

LITERARY EVENT

Books

Michigan Theater cclaimed Detroit rock ournalist ary raff will be signing copies of his new book Alice Cooper @ 75 riday eb. at the Michigan heater . iberty nn rbor. Doors open at p.m. for book signing followed at by a pre screening discussion with raff and Rob Reinhart before a showing

KATIE LASKOWSKA

of the documentary Super Duper Alice Cooper at . eb. p.m.

SPORTS Basketball

Little Caesars Arena Detroit istons vs. Charlotte ornets . eb. p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 4

MUSIC Live/Concert

Planet D Celebrates New CD at Cliff Bell’s! p.m. Cliff Bell’s ark ve. Detroit .

AIC and Tool Tributes: Dirt and ReTooLed Heat up February pm Diesel Concert ounge Mile Rd. Chesterfield .

Air Supply p.m. M M rand Detroit hird St. Detroit Starting at .

Fitz And The Tantrums p.m. Saint ndrew’s all . Congress St. Detroit . .

Greater Alexander p.m. he awk armington ills Community Center welve Mile Road armington ills in advance at the door.

Isaac Castor & Foul Mouth p.m. a.m. he ld Miami Cass ve. Detroit .

John Waite p.m. McMorran lace McMorran Blvd. ort uron .

THE LEGENDARY ULTIMATE

OVATION + DJ STADHU p.m. a.m. Bowlero anes ounge Coolidge wy. Royal ak R . Nate Fredrick and The Wholesome Boys WSG Ohly pm ront Street ront St. ake rion .

A Night of Electric Love: Birjy, Ki5, Mirror Monster pm Berkley Coffee ak ark Dry est Mile Rd. ak ark suggested.

Planet D Celebrates New CD at Cliff Bell’s! pm Cliff Bell’s ark ve. Detroit .

Raputa - J Geils Tribute, Petty Thieves - Tom Petty Tribute, URGENT - Foreigner Tribute pm he oken ounge oy Rd. estland .

Scapegoat (record release show) p.m. Sanctuary Detroit Caniff amtramck .

DJ/Dance

SIDEPIECE: Kiss & Tell Third Base Tour eb. p.m. a.m. Russell ndustrial Comple hibition Center Clay Street Detroit .

Local buzz

By Broccoli and Joe Zimmer

Welcome to a new column about Detroit’s music scene. ot a tip it us up at music metrotimes.com

Two turntables and a microphone (and live keys) Everyone knows the weekend really starts on Thursday night or maybe it’s that Detroit has too much local talent to fit neatly into the weekend. ither way ebruary is off to a strong start with a record release show for Isaac Prieto’s Detroit Sound Odyssey label this hursday eb. at Spot ite. he latest from rieto features four tracks recorded in collaboration with a few of his local contemporaries including Javonntte, who will perform on keys and vocals alongside rieto for a hybrid D live house set. hese sets from rieto and avonntte take all the soul and funk that make Detroit-style house great, and show a little bit of how the sausage gets made. pect consistent, danceable bass lines from the decks and energetic life a rming improvised keyboard lines from the maestro avonntte. he Better Together is available for pre order on rieto’s Bandcamp and all preview snippets are on the Detroit inyl Room page on Soundcloud. his is a free event with vinyl of course available for sale onsight in the Spot ite Records shop.

—Joe

Zimmer

Mexico’s evil pop diva touches down Regular readers of this column will find Vinny Moonshine familiar — we covered his release show late last year, and his record Mass Extinction Fairy Tale was one of my favorites. Haute to Death is also no stranger to this publication, so when these two join forces for one night at UFO Factory, you can e pect a real treat. his Saturday eb. 4, these creative forces are hosting the self proclaimed evil pop diva Selma Oxor for a night of cavernous dark pop music. ’m imagining the vibe will be something akin to the prolific Something Cold parties darkwave coldwave lots of synth. ou can check out or’s recordings on Bandcamp as well to get a taste of their catacomb pop glamor. Pablo R. Ruiz will also close out the evening, adding a blend of crunchy, e perimental techno to the mi for the all nighters. Doors are at p.m. cover is .

—Joe Zimmer

Red Bull’s Heavy Metal coming to Hart Plaza Detroit is a hidden gem in the world of action sports. Over the years we’ve seen some major brands take notice, including House of ans Detroit in which featured a massive installation of music shows and e plored the mutli facteted aspects of skateboarding culture. This year, Red Bull is coming to Hart laza on Saturday eb. for Heavy Metal a single day street snow-

board contest that features the most progressive rail riding in the world. ith over of the world’s top snowboarders descending on Detroit for a competition unlike any other the worlds of snowboarding, music, and art will combine to form what will surely be an epic event to celebrate the peak of winter.

—Broccoli

Terrance Parker takes over the Stick: The Magic Stick was once the home to many legendary performances in the Detroit rock ’n’ roll scene before rebranding as opulu for a brief period of time in . he room underwent a total rebrand during that period and established a focus on dance music that still continues to this day. he venue mostly books talent in the realms of tech house and EDM, but on Saturday eb. they’re bringing legendary producer and D Terrence Parker to the stage, giving fans the opportunity to e perience a classic style of dance music in a modern, state of the art space. he pool table in the back is broken, sadly, so don’t even try but you could always pregame with a little bowling down at Garden Bowl or with some pizza at Sgt. Pepperoni’s. ickets available on the Ma estic heatre comple website.

—Broccoli

Got a tip on Detroit’s music scene? Hit us up at music@metrotimes.com!

Red Bull’s “Heavy Metal” snowboard event heads to Detroit. EMILY TIDWELL / RED BULL CONTENT POOL

MUSIC

Dive bar soul

Phillip-Michael Scales brings his bluesy indie rock to Ferndale’s Otus Supply

Growing up in metro Detroit, singer-songwriter Phillip-Michael Scales had plenty of local musical in uences to draw from, from the Motown his parents listened to in the house to buzzy rock ’n’ roll bands like the White Stripes, the Sights, and the Von Bondies, in addition to more typical teenage fare of the era like national acts Fall Out Boy, Weezer, and Bright Eyes. But thanks to a connection made through his aunt, he also grew up in the musical shadow of no less than the King of Blues, B.B. King — or “Uncle B” as Scales says he simply called him as a child.

When he took up the guitar at age 13, Scales says he felt somewhat intimidated to play the blues due to King’s scorching guitar solos. “I didn’t want to compete with that,” Scales tells Metro Times. That changed somewhat after King died in 2015. “Once he passed away, it was one of those things where I wanted to incorporate a little bit more of that blues element,” he says.

“I think it’s sort of like, you want to honor the legacy of those who came before you,” he adds. “And he was always encouraging me and always looking out for me. But also, I don’t think that as a kid, you have a very concrete understanding of the blues. The older you get, the harder those songs hit — life

By Lee DeVito

comes at you hard.” Scales says he also came to identify with blues music as a Black man. “I think it was a lot easier to find my story in the blues now he says.

Scales readily admits he’s no B.B. King. “You know, you’re not gonna come to my show and hear guitarslinging, crazy solos and all that sort of stuff he says. think for me the songwriting piece [of the blues] was really big. I think the integral thing to me is conveying a feeling to someone else.”

Scales calls his bluesy take on indie rock “dive bar soul,” and it’s getting him noticed. Last year, he was asked to perform as a musical guest on the final season of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, with the host introducing Scales by saying, “When I heard this song, I wanted to share it with all of you.”

“Apparently Ellen heard the song and requested for me to be on. I still get chills thinking about it,” Scales says, adding, “I think it’s easy as a musician to become jaded and think, ‘Well, somebody must have known somebody who knew somebody.’ I didn’t hear any story other than, ‘Your song was on the radio, Ellen loved it, and wanted you to come perform it.’”

After attending Boston’s Berklee College of Music to study music business, Scales moved to Chicago for a time,

before brie y returning to Michigan followed by stints in Los Angeles and Chicago again. For the past three and a half years, he’s called Nashville home — joining other Music City-via-Motor City transplants like the White Stripes’ Jack White and indie rock singer-songwriter Michigander.

Scales says that he has found a supportive community in Nashville, despite its reputation as the Country Music Capital. “The community element is really huge in a way that I haven’t seen in another city,” he says. “Here, it just sort of seems like there’s a lot of welcoming with open arms.”

He adds, “I would say that Nashville is a songwriting town. You’ve always had people sort of come in and out of Nashville, or come to write with people in Nashville. ... I feel like people come to Nashville to write songs.”

Scales released an LP, SinnerSongwriter, in 2021, and last week he dropped a new single, “Better Than ou a Motown in ected track that Scales says is his first song to incorporate horns.

“It almost sounds a little bit like a modern Motown tune,” Scales says.

“I wanted to write a song that was about, like, a deeply satisfying love... the lyrics are talking about, ‘You

hear me out even when you know I’m wrong/ You hold me down when my perspective’s gone.”

Scales says he plans to continue to record and self-release music as singles. “The fun thing about singles is you get a chance to sort of e plore the different sounds,” he says. He says he also plans to try and hit the road as much as possible in 2023 — which includes a stop at Ferndale’s Otus Supply on Friday.

It’s a hometown gig of sorts — Scales grew up in est Bloomfield but Scales says he plans to continue to call Nashville home. It probably helps that he’s not trying to break into Nashville’s country scene. “I think that a reason that I’m doing well here is that I’m kind of out of that lane,” he says. “So there’s less tra c where ’m at in the rock ’n’ roll soul world.”

Still he says he is certainly in uenced by his time in the city.

“Nashville has demanded that I up my songwriting, and up my production and all that stuff he says adding “Just having been here, I have grown so much.”

Phillip-Michael Scales performs at p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3 at Otus Supply; 345 E. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; 248-2916160; otussupply.com; $15.

Phillip-Michael Scales.

MICHAEL WEBDELL

EMPLOYMENT

SYSTEM APPLICATION ENGINEER, Plastic Omnium Auto Inergy, Troy, MI. Plan & lead Selective Catalytic

Reduction (SCR) Controlled System

truck & SUV projects incl. AdBlue Delivery Module (ADM), injection molded & blow molded tanks, heat shields, & embedded Electronic Control Unit (ECU). Perform & give technical direction to team to, engineer, design, develop, validate, calibrate & release, & assure strategic direction according to regulatory reqmts, of U.S. & Canada full size truck & SUV SCR aftertreatment systems incl ADM, according to vehicle prgrm timing reqmts, & aligned to meet performance, cost, quality, safety (FMVSS) emissions (EPA & CARB) & strict technical & regional reqmts & standards, using IBM DOORS/ RTC, Teamcenter, InPro, Diadem, Simulink, CANalyzer/CANape tools.

Calibrate SCR Controlled Systems on test bench & in vehicle & use data to create calibration subset for each level required by calibration development standard process at 50%/65%/100% levels. Required travel to support SCR

Controlled System testing & validation

field trips for high altitude, hot & cold weather testing in MI/ON/CO/ Death Valley CA, ~6 wks P/A. Master, Electrical, Electronics, or Mechatronics

Engrg or related. 12 mos exp as Engineer, validating & calibrating passenger vehicle SCR aftertreatment systems, & aligned to meet performance, safety, & emissions reqmts or standards, using DOORS, Teamcenter, & CANape tools, or related. Mail resume to Ref#1552, POAI, Human Resources, 2710 Bellingham Dr., Troy, MI 48083.

Fri 02/03

old miami’s 43rd birthday! COME CELEBRATE WITH US!!

2nd annual barfly awards hosted by jimmy doom votE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BARFLY TODAY!

Doors@9pm/$5 Cover Happy Birthday, TIFFANY!

Sat 02/04

RABBIT HOLE 2 FOUL MOUTH/ISAAC CASTOR ALBUM RELEASE PARTY FEAT. BOOG BROWN/DANGO FORLAINE/2 DOOR COUPE/ NOVELESS & HIR-O/SAME BE YOURSELF/RONNIE ALPHA SOUNDS BY SIMPLE CUTS HOSTED BY PAT313

Doors@7pm/$10 Cover Happy Birthday, IAN KUJAWA!

Mon 02/06

FREE POOL ALL DAY

Tues 02/07

B.Y.O.R. BRING YOUR OWN RECORDS (WEEKLY)

Open Decks @9pm/NO COVER

Coming Up:

02/10 ROB ZINCK AND THE COLLABORATORS/ JETA/BEND

02/11 annual validtines show (hip-hop)

02/17 MELBEATZ/SMITH & RECKLESS/ DROP CATCH/DJ FOOD FIGHT

02/18 BANGERS & JAMS (MONTHLY)

02/24 FUNK NIGHT (MONTHLY)

02/25 HUSH X BOBBY J FROM ROCKAWAY/ ISAAC CASTOR/QUEST MCODY

03/26 NAIN ROUGE PARADE PARTY W/ BANGERZ & JAMZ

JELLO SHOTS always $1 Old Miami tees & hoodies available for purchase!

MUSIC

Happy birthday, Alice Cooper

Detroit journalist Gary Graff releases Alice Cooper @ 75, an unauthorized bio of the Godfather of Shock Rock

The name of the extraordinary new book is Alice Cooper @ 75. The question you’re asking: why would Detroit’s own shock-rock originator, who’s still performing and cutting off his head in arenas and stadiums around the world, want to call attention to his 75th birthday this Friday with a big splashy book?

The answer: he didn’t. “It isn’t an authorized biography,” says Detroit’s own ary raff who crafted the words that connect 75 key events in Cooper’s life and career with a dazzling array of concert and candid photos, album covers, a gatefold timeline, and two pullout posters. “Alice and his camp had nothing to do with it, other than being remotely encouraging and helping when I needed a fact check here or there,” he says. “Otherwise, it’s not theirs. And when it’s not theirs, they don’t get involved which is fine. Besides it’s not like his turning is a news ash.

he book o cially released uesday is the third in a series of illustrated

By Jim McFarlin

biographies celebrating rock ’n’ roll immortals on their platinum birthdays, preceded by Bowie @ 75 and Elton John @ 75 . t’s also the third book raff has done with this publishing house, following Neil Young: Long May You Run and Rock ’n’ Roll Myths: The True Stories Behind the Most Infamous Legends, both co-authored with Daniel Durchholz.

“For this series they really are trying to pair the right people with the projects, people who have a real background with a specific artist e plains raff who will sign copies of Alice Cooper @ 75 Friday night at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor before a screening of documentary Super Duper Alice Cooper. So the Bowie and lton books for e ample were both done by British authors. They came to me because of the Detroit connection.”

It’s hard to imagine they could have made a better choice. Not only has raff been chronicling the rock ’n’ roll vagaries of Detroit since

but he also has maintained a personal relationship with the man born here as Vincent Damon Furnier for over 35 years.

t started in ’ with the comeback ‘The Nightmare Returns’ tour, after spending a few years finally getting clean and sober raff relates. f you remember, they started the comeback in Michigan. He did a series of four shows in smaller markets like Saginaw and Kalamazoo, culminating in two shows at Joe Louis Arena, one of which was broadcast on MTV as a Halloween special. hat’s when first got to meet him spend significant time with him start the connection. So from ’ on it’s been talking to him at least once a year, sometimes two or three times, about specific pro ects or a concert coming to town. Or sometimes, just for the hell of it.”

raff moderated Cooper’s session at the Motor City Comic Con last October. He has even played rounds of golf, Cooper’s all-consuming passion

when not onstage, alongside him. “It’s a very pleasant experience because he’s a great conversationalist and a tremendous golfer he says. But talk about ‘we are not worthy.’ I’m just trying to keep my ball going in the right direction.”

He doesn’t recall anything particularly surprising him during his intense research and writing of the text, but raff says the e perience did refresh his memory about the impact of Alice Cooper’s career.

“A lot of things I remembered that I had forgotten says raff. he idea is this is your Alice Cooper primer. It’s set up in such a way that it’s what I call a ‘needle drop ’ you can stick your finger in at any point in the book, open it up and there’s a self-contained chapter there. But if you read it from front to back it’s still a nice, linear biography about him.”

And what a biography it is. “You know, Alice’s great saying, the mantra that he says very frequently, is, ‘We were the stake in the heart of the love

COURTESY PHOTO

generation.’ That’s what got me in. Not that I was anti-hippie myself. I got into music because I had a brother who was a hippie. But lice Cooper was part of the counterculture to the counterculture.”

And that was mighty attractive to a whole generation of young music lovers like a teenage ary raff. e was an act that my parents, and even my older brother didn’t like, so great. He can be mine raff remembers. think a lot of people felt that way. Here was the next wave, a wave the youth of that particular era could make their own. Alice Cooper was certainly a rebellion, but I also felt he was more of an alternative. He wasn’t the Beatles or the Stones or the ardbirds or Cream. lice was one of the first bands that a generation of kids in the early ’70s could make their own.”

Yet even in the ’70s, when Cooper was choking chickens and chopping up baby dolls onstage and being boycotted as the embodiment of everything wrong with rock ’n’ roll raff says he was making some very wise moves.

“What often gets obscured in the Alice Cooper legend and imagery is that he and his band, especially the band he had during the ’70s, wrote really good songs he notes. ‘ ’m ighteen’ and ‘School’s Out,’ those are enduring anthems. We’ll hear those songs forever.

“Plus, he had the good sense to cross over into other elements of society and pop culture beyond the rock ’n’ roll world. While people were going crazy over Alice Cooper getting his head cut off onstage he was on Hollywood Squares. He was on The Muppet Show. Wayne’s World in the ’90s brought him back in a big way. He’s done commercials for Progressive Insurance, Callaway Golf, Staples. That’s my favorite part about him, that he shows up in places you never expect him to be. And being raised in Detroit helped give Alice some of his creative and artistic sensibilities, as well as his work ethic. He grew up on Soupy Sales, that kind of showmanship. He realized it was all just entertainment, and he’s an entertainer. He’s out here in our world, not just on rock radio.”

You could say the same about Gary raff. fter cementing his reputation here for years as rock critic for the Detroit Free Press, he now currently works for Billboard magazine, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Media News Group (including The Oakland Press, Macomb Daily and Royal Oak Daily Tribune), Guitar Player, ultimateclassicrock.com, Music Connection, VenuesNow, the United Stations Radio Network and, occasionally, Rolling Stone. He’s also the founder and creative force behind the annual Detroit Music Awards. The old saying goes that if you want some -

thing done ask a busy person, but when the publishers of Alice Cooper @ 75 told raff they needed his entire chapter manuscript written and submitted in e mont s or less, he had to tell them… yes?

“It was tight,” he acknowledges. nd got C D during it too. But the good news for this project was that had so much first person material with lice. But guess ’m e cient. Because kept up with all my shows during that time, too. We even binged occasionally. But yeah ’m ust kind of wired to be productive.”

While Cooper won’t be at the Michigan Theater — “He’ll be there in spirit, on the big screen raff notes his continuing presence around the world could indirectly help promote the book. “He’ll be on tour playing stadiums with Def Leppard and Motley Crüe this year says raff. nother tour in the spring and summer in urope ustralia. He’s still very much active. And

I think there’s a convincing case to be made that Alice is performing at a higher level now than he ever has. Now his shows are very professional, very slick in a blood-soaked stage kind of way.

I think he enjoys being Alice Cooper more than he ever has now that he can separate the character from the man.” On Monday, as this story was going to press, Cooper announced a joint tour with fellow shock rocker Rob Zombie, which makes a stop at Pine Knob Music Theatre on Sept. 5.

What’s more, “The last time I talked to him he told me he has three albums in the works, one we’ll probably hear this year (as a followup to his surprising Detroit Stories).” That’s not the only thing raff wants to hear from Cooper and his camp.

“I would be very surprised if they didn’t like the book,” he says. “Or if they found something objectionable. Alice is an open book. The worst parts of his life he’s revealed many times over.”

He adds, “He is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Super smart, very spiritual. One of the things I respect about him most is that he walks his walk louder than he talks his talk. He’s living his life and his faith without having to be celebrated for that. And I think that’s commendable.”

Acclaimed Detroit rock journalist Gary r ff ill e si nin co ies o is ne book, Alice Cooper @ 75, Friday, Feb. 3, at the Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty, Ann Arbor. Doors open at p.m. for book signing, followed at 7:30 by a prescreenin discussion it r ff nd o Reinhart before a showing of the 2014 documentary Super Duper Alice Cooper at 8. See michtheater.org for tickets and information.

FOOD

Bohemian rhapsody

By Jane Slaughter

Bohemia, which since May has operated in the same Royal Oak building and under the same ownership as Pearl’s Deep Dive and Pinky’s Rooftop, is a riot of décor, with lots of greenery, a brass swan, a shelf-full of eclectic rhinos, Thai wood carvings covering one wall, and a vertiginous tower of black-and-white squares. Among all this more-is-more, it seems an afterthought that the cuisine would lean Israeli. The name, according to owner Adam Merkel of Adam Merkel Restaurants, refers to “an era where anything goes.”

That said, the menu has a mostly Middle Eastern feel, though it includes pork ribs. The two items least likely to be found elsewhere, in Lebanese or other Arab restaurants — at least under those names — are salatim and laffa.

Salatim is an excellent way to start your meal, an Israeli custom of putting out a generous assortment of simple starters. At Bohemia, choose three or six from kale apple tabbouleh, beet tahina, tzatziki, muhammara, labneh, and Moroccan carrots. My favorite was the muhammara, a smoky dip of walnut and roasted red peppers. The beets are intense and the excellent carrots

are firm and cumin y one of the best preparations for carrots. Beside these, the fresh tabbouleh, plain labneh, and savory tzatziki are good counterpoints and resting places.

affa is a bread originated by ra i Jews who then emigrated to Israel, cooked in a wood or coal fired oven. It ferments longer than pita, it’s thicker and chewier, it doesn’t have a pocket, and I would say it’s a bit more interesting (unless your pita is coming warm straight from the oven). Bohemia dresses its laffa with olive oil and za’atar and it’s terrific for scooping the salatim.

The rest of the menu is a list of mezze — some of which are big enough for an entrée — kabobs, and three higherpriced mains (branzino, lamb chops, and a whole fish of the day .

I liked most of Bohemia’s dishes. The baby arugula salad was a standout, with pistachios, wedges of blood orange, goat cheese, and some scattered dates. Likewise a huge plate of fried cauli ower ust tender enough and enlivened with mint labneh, chiles, raisins, and pine nuts. Ribeye kabobs were whole chunks of beef, charred perfectly and served medium rare as requested. They went well

with Israeli potatoes — a big plate of skins-on shards, with mint, basil, lots of pistachios, and date syrup, the latter surprisingly unsweet. But $13 is a lot for potatoes.

Lamb kafta kabobs too were well spiced, and roasted eggplant dip, what we usually know as baba ghanou was garlicky and dressed up with labneh, pomegranate pips, balsamic glaze, and pine nuts. I’m a big fan of baba ghanou and the eggplant shone through less than usual in this version, but the other avors and crunches made up for it.

Halloumi was buttery, and rubbery as usual, enhanced with berries and apples. Scallop ceviche (another perennial favorite of mine) was less successful, too smothered with lemon and pickled carrots. Dry rubbed ribs could have been more tender, but their sauce, which tasted of pomegranate, was interesting. Chicken kabobs, though they had a good charred avor were ust too dry and tough. carrot mezze, on the other hand, needed more cooking. e want them firm but not absolutely crunchy. (See the cauliower mezze for how to do this right.

The most disappointing dish — though I should have known — was a huge pasta mezze called chicken sugo. I knew “sugo” was Italian for sauce, but I looked it up when I got home: “a basic red sauce,” and not interesting, despite feta and olives. I’d ordered

Bohemia

100 S. Main St., Royal Oak eatatbohemia.com

Starters $11-$18, mezze $13-$18, kabobs $18-$24

it for the charred lemons but saw no sign of them. You don’t order pasta in a Middle Eastern restaurant, lesson learned once more.

For dessert only carrot cake was on offer one night and it was with large nuts and a cloud of whipped cream cheese frosting, more of a spice cake than a carrot cake.

Bohemia has a short list of beers and wines by the glass and a long reserve list of wine by the bottle. I tried the Dancing Raspberries cocktail because the server said it was made with dry ice, besides St. Germain and Prosecco. I remembered too late that I don’t really like St. ermain the elder ower liqueur, but plenty of people do, and it’s fun to watch the clouds of fog in your glass, which last quite a while.

A friend ordered the Train to Marrakesh because it includes mezcal; to me mezcal still tastes like gasoline, despite years of annual visits to Oaxaca, where it’s as ubiquitous as water. In any case, the taste of the mezcal was overshadowed by the uice of prickly pear (nopal) and plenty of agave: pink and sweet. The bar makes all purées and uices for its drinks from scratch.

Bohemia’s menu has a mostly Middle Eastern feel, including some Israeli dishes.

COURTESY PHOTO

Detroit City Distillery surprise releases Hometown

Horseradish Vodka

THERE’S A HOT new vodka in town.

Ahead of the release of its highly anticipated Paczki Day Vodka, Detroit City Distillery has announced a new limited-edition “Hometown Horseradish Vodka” to go with it.

It’s made from raw horseradish and 100% Michigan corn vodka. The company says it “packs a serious kick” and is “perfect for making the ultimate Bloody Mary.”

“Every year when we release Paczki Day Vodka, we try to create an amazing experience for our fans and reward them with something new,” Detroit City Distillery co-owner Michael Forsyth said in a statement.

“This year’s big surprise is Hometown Horseradish Vodka. We called it ‘Hometown Horseradish’ because we always associate horseradish with special family dinners and with recipes passed down for generations. It reminds you of home and where you come from. In addition to having a

solid kick, it might be the smoothest vodka we’ve ever made.”

Bottles are $35. The vodka will be released at a.m. on Friday, Feb. 3, alongside the Paczki Day Vodka, as well as ready-to-drink Bloody Marys, cocktails, and limited edition merch. It can be ordered online at detroitcitydistillery.com and available for pickup starting at p.m. the same day at Detroit City Distillery’s Eastern Market tasting room located at 2462 Riopelle St. during. vodka release party.

Mark your calendars for Oberon Day

OK WINTER, WE’VE had enough of your wild weather and are ready for summer. We’ll still have to wait for the sunshine, but Oberon Day at least gives us something to look forward to.

Bell’s Brewery announced on Monday that Oberon Day will be March this year. s Michigan’s uno cial start of summer Oberon Day brings porch hangs with your friends, sipping on the citrusy sunshine in a can.

beron Day when the beer is o cially available for the season, will be celebrated with a “Camp Oberon” launch party at Bell’s Brewery’s Eccentric Cafe in Kalamazoo.

The event will be full of food, games, live music by May Erlewine The Motivations and Great Lakes Brass, and (of course) beer starting at a.m. when the first keg is tapped. For more info, see bellsbeer.com.

—Randiah Camille Green

Blitzen’s on Bagley is now Vixen’s on Bagley

BLITZEN’S ON BAGLEY, the Christmas holiday pop-up bar in Southwest Detroit, is no more. Now it’s Vixen’s on Bagley, a Valentine’s Daythemed bar with pink decorations.

Located at 2545 Bagley St., Vixen’s on Bagley will feature seasonal drinks and treats like “love potions,” red velvet cake, tiramisu, hot chocolate, and food from neighboring Goblin Sushi.

Vixen’s will host special events like a galentine’s gathering, and singles’ night with speed dating.

The space is operated by Ownerin-Laws Hospitality, which also owns Green Dot Stables, Johnny Noodle ing ellow ight Coffee and oblin Sushi.

Like its popular Paczki Day Vodka, the company expects its Hometown Horseradish Vodka to quickly sell out.

The company has also announced a series of events at the tasting room. Aside from the vodka release party on Feb. 3, it will also host a Polish Bloody Brunch with Pietrzyk Pierogi from noon-3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12, as well as a free Paczki Party from 10 a.m.-11 p.m on Saturday, Feb. 18 with food and live music.

—Lee DeVito

“We want Vixen’s to be a place for Detroiters to celebrate love and the long winter nights,” owner Christine Driscoll said in a media release. hether you’re ying solo or out with your partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, platonic person, or someone you met last night, we are inviting you to come on over to Vixen’s to enjoy. It is winter in Michigan and Detroiters deserve a place to get cozy and let loose.”

Hours are 4-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and until midnight Friday and Saturday. The pop-up will be open until the end of February.

R representative confirmed via email the plan is to keep changing the theme of the Bagley space seasonally. So come Halloween, we guess we’ll be seeing Morticia’s on Bagley with spooky drinks.

More information is available at vixensonbagley.com.

—Randiah Camille Green

Looks like Rose’s Fine Food isn’t for sale after all

EASTSIDE DETROIT DINER Rose’s Fine Food and Wine was listed for sale back in September. But owner Molly Mitchell has since changed her mind.

he beloved efferson venue brunch spot is o cially off the market.

Mitchell told Crain’s Detroit Business she initially decided to sell Rose’s due to “the severe mental health toll caused by running a restaurant (or really doing anything) these past 3 years. I needed a change.”

That change will come in the form of a new cooking school and apprentice-

ship program Mitchell plans to add in the spring called Rose’s Kitchen Garden School.

The 12-week apprenticeship program will teach Detroit youths between the ages of 16 and 21 things like fermenting, baking, cultural food history, and business classes, Crain’s reports.

he diner is also offering classes like cake decorating, and paczki-making.

Rose’s Fine Food and Wine is located at . efferson e. etroit roses ne ood.com.

—Randiah Camille Green

COURTESY PHOTO

WEED

One Hitters

Michigan’s largest cannabis dispensary is opening in a former Mexican restaurant

A former Don Pablo’s Mexican restaurant in Battle Creek that has been vacant for nine years will soon be reborn as Michigan’s largest cannabis dispensary.

Pure Roots is behind the $5.6 million development, which sees the former restaurant at 5805 Beckley Rd. transformed into a state-of-the-art, 8,000-square-foot dispensary.

“It was a complete interior gut and renovation,” says Reni George, Pure Roots’ vice president of governmental affairs. magine freezers and all kinds of restaurant equipment. In the underground, plumbing, electrical — everything was a complete gut. We had to do all new landscaping, all new sprinkler systems. There isn’t a facet of the building that we haven’t touched, other than the e ternal brick and fi ing a couple holes.”

George points out that the store, which is licensed for adult-use sales for anyone 21 or older with a valid ID, is the only cannabis dispensary located on an outlot of an active shopping mall. The Pure Roots dispensary is on the

By Lee DeVito

outskirts of the Lakeview Square Mall property, which George says is symbolic of the mainstreaming of cannabis in Michigan.

“We feel that there are wonderful clients and patients that use cannabis for recreational and medical use, and are effectively represented by a real estate footprint of this size he says. his is more akin to the normalization of cannabis use as a part of daily, normal, high-functioning individuals. The old [characterization of people who use and can’t function was based on falsehoods and mischaracterization by the war on drugs.”

George describes Pure Roots dispensaries as having a “high apothecary style” driven by technology. New customers take a survey on an iPad asking them uestions about desired effects and frequency of use. Then a knowledgeable budtender gives them a guided tour of the store oor asking additional uestions and providing consultation.

“We want to provide a consistent, easy experience for people,” George says. “We always say, ‘Hey, what do you

want to feel?’ It’s kind of guided to that level.”

he store’s products are categorized by desired effects including Rest Relief Revive and Re ect. hey’re also sold in prepackaged boxes with a de humidification packet which the company says delivers long-lasting potency aroma and avor.

The company also says its products are free of remediation chemicals other makers use to pass state-regulated testing. It also focuses on educating customers about terpenes found in its products, or essential oils present in various strains that impact the effects they will have on users.

Most people understand cannabis strains as being categorized as a sativa known as uppers, or indica, known as downers, or a hybrid of the two. But George says it’s important for consumers to start understanding which terpene profiles they prefer.

“Where the previous nomenclature was hybrid or indica that categorization doesn’t give the consumer a consistent experience,” George says.

The stores also use kiosks for contactless payments, which George says is both a way to prevent theft and also streamline costs at a time when the price of cannabis in Michigan has been dropping, cutting into the bottom line of cannabis companies.

George says the store will employ around 10 people.

Pure Roots also plans to soon launch a mobile app where customers can order products online for delivery, and get updates on when they’re scheduled to arrive, much like Uber.

The dispensary opens to the public on Wednesday, Feb. 1 and will celebrate a grand opening party starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11.

It’s the company’s fourth location, following stores in Ann Arbor, Center Line, and Lansing. George says the company is licensed for seven more dispensaries in Michigan, with plans to open in Muskegon alamazoo and Bedford Township.

More information is available at pureroots.com.

Pure Roots describes its dispensaries as having a “high apothecary style” driven by technology.

COURTESY PHOTO

CULTURE

Turning a page Breeda Kelly Miller turns experience caring for ailing mother into a poignant one-woman play

By Jim McFarlin

No matter how old — or young — you are, there is one life event you will face as surely as that death and taxes thing: at some point you will need to care for an infirm parent or relative or make arrangements to have them cared for.

It happened to Breeda Kelly Miller, when her aging mother Mary Kelly became too feeble to live on her own. Without hesitation, after consulting with her husband James, she moved her mother into their home with their three children, where Mary lived for six years before passing away in 2011 at the age of 86.

Miller calls herself “an accidental caregiver. didn’t know what was doing she recalls. “I had no training, no medical background. didn’t know what didn’t know. had become a member of the ‘Sandwich Generation,’ caring for a parent at the same time was caring for my kids. ll knew was loved my mother she was beginning to show signs of dementia, and knew she couldn’t live on her own any longer.”

Miller wasn’t prepared for the feelings of exhaustion, isolation, and frustration that come with full-time caregiving, nor the guilt she experienced whenever she did things for herself. Now, years later, she has turned that stress into success as an actor and first time playwright. he incoln ark native returns Downriver Sunday night to present her award-winning, one-woman production Mrs. Kelly’s Journey Home at p.m. at the renton illage heater with all proceeds going to benefit the rosse le istorical Society.

Miller is no stranger to the stage. At 17 she won an acting scholarship to Michigan State niversity but didn’t think was willing to pay the price to go to ew ork or L.A.,” she remembers. “So I transferred to the niversity of Detroit and ma ored in radio and television.” Even so, it’s fair to say writing a 90-minute, two-act play wasn’t prominent on Miller’s bucket list.

“Never crossed my mind,” Miller says. “I tell people that writing a play for the first time was not unlike my caregiving e perience didn’t know what didn’t know but knew needed to find help.

elp came in the form of Brian Co the noted Ann Arbor area playwright and director. A mutual friend suggested the two should meet and Co invited Miller

to take part in one of the storytelling events he produces in ashtenaw County. Using one of the myriad photos she had placed into an album to help spur her mother’s memory as a backdrop she told a 10-minute story about Mary Miller’s last days that resonated with the audience, featured nationally on The Moth Story Hour on NPR.

Sometime later as Co recalls it he and Miller were sitting on her front porch going over the photo album. Every picture told a story, and Miller was regaling him with the tales each image inspired. Finally he turned to her and said, “I have three words for you.”

She feared those words were, “Please shut up.”

Instead, he suggested, “One woman show.”

t was a no brainer Co says because she has the three key components. She has the photographs, which I believe are visually riveting. She has the personality, the chops, to hold an audience for 90 minutes. Few people do; she does. And she has the stories, and they are great stories. What’s more, she has a fourth element, very une pected her mother. er mother is such a powerful presence that I really believe, even though I’m closely connected with the show, that by the end you come away loving Mary elly. ou think ‘ really would have liked that woman.’

Mrs. Kelly’s Journey Home went through 10 rewrites — that’s not a misprint — before it premiered in October 2021 at the rthur Miller heatre on the niversity

of Michigan campus. he play is e ual parts heartwarming heartbreaking and hilarious. As one critic wrote of that opening night, Mrs. Kelly’s Journey Home, as brilliantly depicted by Breeda Kelly Miller…is everything you could hope for: funny, touching, emotional, poignant and absolutely riveting.”

With no costume changes, only vocal in ections and shifts in posture Miller portrays four characters onstage: her mother (with a lilting Irish accent); her father om Mary’s beloved .S. neighbor irginia ilson and herself. he first act depicts Mary’s reluctant relocation from her native reland to merica when om decided to move his family and she had no say in the matter.

he second act recalls her slow but steady mental decline, where she insists she has two daughters: the “Good Breeda” — who was supposed to be named Brenda before she got creative, the play reveals and Bad Breeda. he production won the 2021-22 Wilde Award from EncoreMichigan for Best One-Person Show.

Miller, who also has become a nationally recognized speaker on the sub ect of caregiving and the author of two books on the sub ect Take a Break Before You Break: 52 Practical Self-Care Tips, and The re i er offee re reckons she has performed Mrs. Kelly’s Journey Home 15 times leading up to Sunday’s renton staging. t’s the first stop on what she’s okingly calling “the tour:” through word of mouth and her own pleasant persistence she has booked upcoming shows in ero Beach

and ampa la. Chicago in March in advance of St. atrick’s Day and Duluth Ga., near Atlanta.

She’s also taking the show to reland Sept. 20-29 part of a group tour trip she’s organizing to the Emerald Isle. See breedamiller.com for details.)

’m doing all the bookings myself she says. “When people say, ‘We want you to come,’ I say to them, ‘We need two things: we need a theater, and we need a local nonprofit organization to partner with and receive the proceeds. Because I’m not famous, the play’s not famous, but people will come out for something that’s supporting an organization they know and love. So that’s how ’m breaking the ice.

Now 64, Miller says she can’t imagine the show ever becoming boring or perfunctory from her standpoint.

“Oh, God, no,” she says. “In fact, it’s gotten so much better. Because instead of worrying about my memory or the script or the stage directions, I am now so comfortable with the text and the pacing and where the laughs are that ust have so much fun. And the audience reaction show after show it ust lights me up.

She plans to celebrate Mrs. elly’s ourney home as long as she’s able. t’s not like I’m going to age out of the role, right?” she says with a laugh. nother side benefit is that I realized I needed to have the mental and physical stamina to do this. So in the past six months I have lost 45 pounds and walk religiously at least three miles every day. he beauty of it is as ’m walking ’m running over all my lines because I need to study anyway. So it’s a win-win.

nd when ’m sitting backstage waiting to go on all by my lonesome take that time and ust summon my mom and dad to be with me Miller says. nd know that they are present with me on the stage. hey’re delighted and they won’t let me fail. So it’s a ‘one woman show’ technically, but they’re up there.”

Mrs. elly’s ourney ome, written and er ormed reed ell iller ill e st ed t .m. Sund e . t t e Trenton Village Theater, 2447 West Jef ferson Ave., Trenton. All event proceeds to ene t t e rosse le istoric l Societ . See reed miller.com or c ll for more information.

When her mother got dementia, Miller used photos to help spur her memory.

COURTESY PHOTO

CULTURE

Thinking “most valued customer” is the name of a previous civilization, the future man builds a museum of the artifacts he uncovers. This is where the e perience transitions from film to performance art, as visitors are led on a museum tour in a space hidden within the store.

ith no understanding of what the trash would have been used for, the “museum” labels plastic lighters as funeral urns, and swizzle sticks are thought to be talismans. Those little plastic tables that come on top of your pizza are labeled as “sexual devices.” started thinking this stuff isn’t going to decompose. Someone could find it and completely misinterpret what it is rohardt says about the film and museum. “Like, why would we make so much of it and make it last so long if it was meaningless So maybe they would think that it had an incredible amount of meaning and then put it in a museum. Then, thinking about whose trash it was, I wanted it to be someone who worked in a museum, but not an obvious choice of someone who would be considered an important person in the past.”

hile the e perience can feel a bit heavy-handed in the way that absurdist work presents itself as over-the-top, Frohardt says her goal isn’t to shame anyone about their plastic use.

Part-mockumentary, full-on dystopia

Brooklyn artist brings absurdist ‘Plastic Bag Store’ installation to Ann Arbor

By Randiah Camille Green

Brightly colored produce

made of plastic line neat grocery store shelves. The bakery’s special is tarts topped with bottle caps, and the cereal aisle is filled with Shredded aste ucky Shards and Caps ’ Such.

It doesn’t sound very appetizing, and it’s not supposed to be. This supermarket is an art installation called The Plas tic Bag Store hosted by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

It’s the work of Brooklyn-based artist Robin Frohardt, who has meticulously crafted every section of the store out of plastic bags in a satirical commentary on excessive packaging.

“I have always been kind of environmentally minded, but just being in a grocery store and watching someone bag and double bag all my groceries that were already inside of bags, inside

of boxes, inside of bags, I realized this is pretty obscene,” Frohardt tells Metro Times. “I thought it’d be funny to make a grocery store that just sold packaging, just sort of highlighting the ridiculousness of it.”

The store, with its made-up products like Plastic Dew, Baygo Redbag (yeah that’s a knock at Faygo), and Uncle Bags rice, is only half the installation, however.

It morphs into a performance art piece with a mockumentary film screening and a museum of plastic artifacts during special time slots. he film starts in ancient reece where disposable vases were invented as the original single-use water bottles. After realizing the devastating environmental impacts of plastic the reeks decide to warn future generations

against plastic bottles by inscribing their story onto vases.

Cut to the year and a custodian named Helen is working at a museum where the vases are on display. After picking up plastic bags and bottles that have been carelessly discarded, she writes a message on a receipt about how we’ve screwed up the environment, and puts it in a plastic bottle.

She figures since it’ll take appro imately years for the plastic bottle to decompose, that the message will eventually be discovered in the future. And she’s right, except when a man does find the C S receipt in a bottle — in a frozen future where the only food is cockroaches and ellyfish her handwriting has completely faded. The only thing that remains is “most valued customer” at the bottom.

’m definitely not interested in making this about our own personal plastic consumption, or just being like, ‘you should all carry your water bottle, shame on you,’” she says. “That’s why the show element is really important to me and the story because it adds some depth of understanding to the complexity of the issue more than just some diatribe on anti plastic. t’s definitely going to be on the corporations that are creating all this stuff to stop because often, then there’s no alternative or affordable option.”

Frohardt, who has a background in theater, premiered The Plastic Bag Store in ew ork in . he show has since traveled to ustin Chicago Los Angeles, and Adelaide, Australia, before ending up in Ann Arbor.

She adds ’m trying to call out what’s in the grocery store more than what you take away from the grocery store. I’m not trying to tell people what to do or to think, but I hope that I pile on enough layers to at least keep you thinking about it for a while.”

he lastic Bag Store installation is at the 777 Building at 777 E. Eisenhower Pkwy., Ann Arbor until Feb. 5. Performances are Wednesdays and Sundays, and advance tickets are required. For more info, see ums.org.

Brooklyn-based artist Robin Frohardt. She made the “Baygo Redbag” pop especially for the Ann Arbor performance of The Plastic Bag Store. RANDIAH CAMILLE GREEN

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Rated: PG-13

Run-time: 146 minutes

what’s needed is the time and space a limited series provides. It could easily be arranged by decade, but I’d lean toward centering around certain eras in her life and career.

The limits of the biopic

By Maurice Tracy

The primary accomplishment Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody makes is a successful argument that we must abandon the idea that movie biopics are the best vehicles to tell someone’s life story.

hose life can successfully fit into 90 minutes, 120 minutes, or even 180 minutes? And to think one can manage to tell the life story of someone as enigmatic and complicated as Whitney Houston’s in one movie is ludicrous. But try they did and the result is a film that simultaneously doesn’t tell you enough about Nippy but tells you so much about what we already know — and it still manages to do only the CliffsNotes. Out of all the pop stars we have had and lost, her legacy is possibly the most intertwined with tarnish and sadness. Of her contemporaries, her career is the one most linked with scandal and a hint of not just loss but failure. Given that the film is a course correction of sorts, but even in that regard it comes up short in some ways.

Oddly, despite the highlights, I’m not sure the film did a great ob of showing you just how huge Houston was. She, not Madonna, left the ’80s as the best-selling woman artist of that decade; she, not Madonna or Mariah, managed to become a legit movie star; she is a woman whose career at one time Madonna envied to the point that while, feeling sorry for herself, she called Whitney “horribly mediocre” and then compared herself to Black people while completely unironically

not recognizing the hoops Whitney had to go through to be who she was — demands not put on Madonna because she is white. And to be clear, while some of the material was mediocre and even generic, Whitney never was — see her singing “Saving All My Love for You” in Japan; the things she does with her voice is astounding, and then you realize she is just standing there. She was a Black merican woman who ew too high, was too perfect — so when she proved to be too human, the fall was steep indeed. The paparazzi that hounded her became more ravenous, the light became even brighter and more blinding.

Say the name “Whitney Houston” and for many, drugs come up rather quickly, followed by sound bites: “show me the receipt,” or the ever-popular “crack is whack.” Left out is that she also mentions crack being cheap, which highlighted a savvy intelligence Whitney had; every Black person knows a dog whistle when it’s blown. Yes, she said crack is whack, but she was a Black woman struggling coming off reports that she had died, the ridicule of millions, and sitting across from a white woman who was about to ask her about crack — a drug with racial and economic connotations. She may have not been ready to be publicly honest but she was also strong enough to not allow people to reduce her to a racist stereotype or punchline. I honestly can’t think of too many celebrities who the media and the world has been harsher

to. Prince, Judy, Janis, Kurt, and others all struggled with addiction, but few of them have been, if not reduced to, then so intimately linked with their struggles. Few were so publicly hounded and ridiculed while they were struggling. Imagine being a person struggling with addiction, turning on the television, and you see people laugh at you. Imagine paying a price of being considered a sellout only to be abandoned by the very people you allegedly sold out for. (There is a way in popular culture that Whitney Houston’s struggles have been linked to Black people — we didn’t love her enough; we booed her at the Soul Train Music Awards; we derided her music. What is left out is that we stayed. We showed up to watch her exhale, we witnessed her usher in the new generation of Pop-R&B stars; we caught the spirit with her; we were with her when she said it wasn’t right but it would be okay, we were there before the Thunderpuss remix — but that is often left out of the discussion, as is white audiences’ abandonment of Whitney Houston once she was no longer perfect.)

The problem is we still have to imagine what the emotional contours of this woman were because instead of a film using imagination to e plore the interiority of one of the most important artists of the last century, we got a highlights reel due to the constraints of time and convention. To tell the story of someone like Whitney Houston what is beyond the scope of one movie;

he saving grace of the film was Naomi Ackie’s performance, especially when she’s singing home at the end. I always believed that Whitney was aware of what happened to her voice and that, more than anything, is what broke her. So when they showed that scene — her wanting to go back, but realizing she can’t — that was devastating. The loss of her voice just feels so cruel. This is the power of imagination. he best parts of the film are the moments when the creators had to rely upon their imagination of what Whitney’s life was like: her love for Robyn Crawford and their relationship; her miscarriage her final moments.

But as good as ckie was the final moments of the film for anyone who has seen the 1994 American Music Awards love medley only highlights the distance between her and Whitney, which is to say the distance between us mere mortals and the supernova that was Whitney Houston. I understand the urge and desire the entire film builds to it. t was very Lady Sings the Blues and showy, but what was needed was the What’s Love Got to Do With It? approach where the film a ina urner biopic and the brilliant Angela Bassett cede the remaining space and time to the actual star. It should have shown Whitney being Whitney, performing the medley herself: a simple black dress, a french bun ’90s style, her entire air evoking opera fitting as she slides into oves You Porgy,” then launches into “And I m elling ou and finishes with Have Nothing,” sweat on her face, but her eyes — have you ever looked at hitney ouston’s eyes as she finishes a song? Her eyes say it all: that she was doing exactly what she was meant to do in this world. Try singing along with her in the way she does, giving it everything you have. It is exhausting. And she made it look easy and feel like nothing else in the world existed for those 10 minutes but her; she made the world stop by just standing in front of the mic and opening her mouth. This, somehow, was what the movie missed; Whitney Houston was not just a pop star, she was a miracle.

Naomi Ackie as Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody

COURTESY PHOTO

Savage Love

Quickies

By Dan Savage

: Q nc s oot etis nd e tes it. n ou tell im it s rmless nd immut le

: A Harmless! Immutable! Also, we’re living in the golden age of foot-fetishist representation — from the conniving, murderous, unctuous Ser Larys Strong

on HBO’s ouse o t e r on (prestige television!) to the sweet, goofy, traumatized Jimmy on TLC’s nor (trash television!), guys with a thing for feet are suddenly all over our screens. And as kinks go, there are far… well, I don’t want to say orse fetishes. Let’s just say there are fetishes that are far harder to explain, far riskier to attempt, and that a vanilla partner is far less likely to happily indulge you in.

: Q ould ou cont ct n e ter e r to s o t e re

: A Depends on the ex, depends on the breakup, and depends on where we left things. If the ex was a genuinely nice person that I liked, I might be inclined to reach out. If I experienced the breakup as amicable nd e e er re son to elie e m e did too, I might be inclined to reach out. And if the last time we talked we both said we would be open to being friends in the future, I might be inclined to reach out.

: Q re ou e erienced it c stit

: A I have tried on a cock cage — once a philosopher — but the idea of having my cock locked up for an extended period of time doesn’t appeal to me.

: Q s se tin re l se or mutu l m s tur tion s se it n c t ot re l se or m stur tion

: A The American Psychological Association defines mutual masturbation as a se ual activity in which two individuals stimul te e c ot er s enit ls at the same time for the purpose of sexual gratification. mphasis added for well emphasis.) Since you can’t touch someone’s else junk via sext message, sexting wouldn’t count as mutual masturbation. It’s a shared erotic experience, and one many people in monogamous relationships would consider cheating, but it’s not a sex act. And while you can certainly stimulate your own genitals as you swap messages with an AI chatbot, that’s not fucking. That’s typing.

: Q o do et m li ido c e lost it to SS s nd oredom.

: A Talk to your doctor about adjusting your meds — advocate for your own libido — and then talk to your partner about breaking out of your sexual rut(s). If you’re always having sex with the same person, in the same place, at the same time, and in the same way, try having sex with someone else, some -

place else, at some other time, and in some other way. If you aren’t allowed to have sex with anyone else, then have sex someplace else, at some other time, and in some other way with your partner. And if the only person you’re allowed to have sex with (or want to have sex with) isn’t willing to give other places, times, and ways a try, well, breakups are never boring.

: Q o does one nd s ce or m s tur tion en li in to et er it er little lone time

: A One takes long showers, one gets up early or goes to bed late, one seizes opportunities as they present themselves, e.g., partner has a doctor’s appointment, partner is out with friends, partner is locked in the storage unit in the basement.

: Q S e in o u et ces o is our orite ctu l u et

: A My ideal man has always been Janice from the Muppets — no lipstick, less mascara, and a very big dick.

: Q t c n s ould e r to etis rt i le t er l te ren t m t in s

: A Check if the fetish party you’re planning to attend has a dress code. Some require a certain kind of fetish attire (usually leather and/or latex), but these days most fetish parties are open to any kind of fetish attire. You’ll see people at fetish parties in leather and latex, of course, but you’ll also see people in zentai suits, wrestling singlets, jockstraps, canvas straightjackets, fursuits, or nothing at all.

: Q t is t e est to meet i cis omen in s it men o nt to oo u

: A There are apps for that.

: Q S oes or oots

: A Wearing? Shoes. Licking? Boots.

: Q e t o riends o te e c ot er. eit er no s m riends it t e ot er. t do do

: A Whatever you’ve been doing, I guess, seeing as you’ve managed to be friends with both without either finding out. Alternatively, you could tell them both and watch what happens. If one issues an ultimatum (you can’t be friends with both of us, you have to pick, etc.), you should definitely end your friendship — with the person who issued the ultimatum. If they both issue ultimatums, go make new and better friends.

: Q o do co e it eelin ostr ci ed rom m loc l in communit due to some un ir ccus tions

: A Get input from people who know you and may have observed your interactions at kink events and/or with your past partner(s), learn from your mistakes (if any), make amends (if possible), and get help (if necessary). And if you’re still not welcome in your local kink community you’ll have to find or create a new one.

: Q m eelin er eird out tr ns omen e lorin t m ons it suc onder eelin t t s t en me off u rd.

: A We got used to having a King of ngland who once e plored through fantasy and, for all we know, through roleplay — being his then-mistress’s tampon. How did we all manage do that? Well, we tried not to think about it; and when that failed (when certain prestige dramas reminded us), we tried to remember that it’s none of our business. You can get used to trans women exploring tampons the same way: try think about it and if you find yourself thinking about it despite your best efforts… remind yourself that it’s none of your business.

: Q n someone e d t cuddlin

: A Yes.

: Q s it ossi le to turn someone

: A No.

: Q s m rri e ort it

: A Yes and no.

: Q to s nd ottoms n ture or nurture

: A Some gay men really, really wanna bottom but can’t because bottoming — being the one getting fucked during anal intercourse — just doesn’t work for them; there’s just some physiological thing that prevents them from getting fucked. That’s nature. Some gay men don’t wanna bottom because it conicts with their self conception the person they see themselves as—and some gay men don’t want to top for the same reason. That’s nurture. And some people are versatile, of course, and some — sides — aren’t interested in topping or bottoming, at least when it comes to anal sex.

Send our urnin uestions to m il o @s e.lo e. odc sts columns nd more t S e. o e

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

ARIES: March 21 – April 19 heoretically you could offer to help a person who doesn’t like you. You could bring a gourmet vegan meal to a meat-eater or pay a compliment to a bigot. I suppose you could even sing beautiful love songs to annoyed passersby or recite passages from great literature to an eight-year-old immersed in his video game. But there are better ways to express your talents and dispense your gifts — especially now, when it›s crucial for your long-term mental health that you offer your blessings to recipients who will use them best and appreciate them most.

TAURUS: April 20 May 20

In esoteric astrology, Taurus rules the third eye. Poetically speaking, this is a subtle organ of perception, a sixth sense that sees through mere appearances and discerns the secret or hidden nature of things. Some people are surprised to learn about this theory. Doesn’t traditional astrology say that you Bulls are sober and well-grounded? Here’s the bigger view: The penetrating vision of an evolved Taurus is potent because it peels away superficial truths and uncovers deeper truths. Would you

like to tap into more of this potential superpower? The coming weeks will be a good time to do so.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

The ingredient you would need to fulfill the ne t stage of a fun dream is behind door #1. Behind door #2 is a vision of a creative twist you could do but haven›t managed yet. Behind door #3 is a clue that might help you achieve more disciplined freedom than you›ve known before. Do you think I›m exaggerating? I›m not. Here’s the catch: You may be able to open only one door before the magic spell wears off unless you enlist the services of a consultant, ally, witch, or guardian angel to help you bargain with fate to provide even more of the luck that may be available.

CANCER: June 21 July 22

I trust you are mostly ready for the educational adventures and experiments that are possible. The uncertainties that accompany them, whether real or imagined, will bring out the best in you. For optimal results, you should apply your nighttime thinking to daytime activities, and vice versa. Wiggle free of responsibilities unless they teach you noble truths. nd finally summon the intuitive powers that will sustain you and guide you through the brilliant shadow initiations. (P.S.: Take the wildest rides you dare as long as they are safe.)

LEO: July 23 – August 22

Fate has decreed, “Leos must be wanderers for a while.” You are under no obligation to obey this mandate, of course. Theoretically, you could resist it. But if you do indeed rebel, be sure your willpower is very strong. You will get away with outsmarting or revising fate only if your discipline is fierce and your determination is intense. OK? So let’s imagine that you will indeed bend fate’s decree to suit your needs. What would that look like? Here’s one possibility: The “wandering” you undertake can be done in the name of focused exploration rather than aimless meandering.

If the groundhog rises and exits his tomb to see his shadow, the sun will go black. It will rain mackerel, it will rain trout and the first born of every family shall be in peril, day after day after day, until Phil Connors finally gets his shit together. Don’t drink angry!!

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

I wish I could help you understand and manage a situation that has confused you. I’d love to bolster your strength to deal with substitutes that have been dissipating your commitment to the Real Things. In a perfect world, I could emancipate you from yearnings that are out of sync with your highest good. And maybe I’d be able to teach you to dissolve a habit that has weakened your willpower. And why can’t I be of full service to you in these ways? Because, according to my assessment, you have not completely acknowledged your need for this help.

JAMES NOELLERT

So neither I nor anyone else can provide it. But now that you›ve read this horoscope, I’m hoping you will make yourself more receptive to the necessary support and favors and relief.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22 can’t definitively predict you will receive an in u of cash in the next three weeks. It’s possible, though. And I’m not able to guarantee you’ll be the beneficiary of free lunches and unexpected gifts. But who knows? They could very well appear. Torrents of praise and appreciation may ow too, though trickles are more likely. And there is a small chance of solicitous gestures coming your way from sexy angels and cute maestros. What I can promise you for sure, however, are fresh eruptions of savvy in your brain and sagacity in your heart. Here’s your keynote, as expressed by the Queen of Sheba 700 years ago: “Wisdom is sweeter than honey, brings more joy than wine, illumines more than the sun, is more precious than jewels.”

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21: Your assignment, Scorpio, is to cultivate a closer relationship with the cells that comprise your body. They are alive! Speak to them as you would to a beloved child or animal. In your meditations and fantasies, bless them with tender wishes. Let them know how grateful you are for the grand collaboration you have going and affectionately urge them to do what’s best for all concerned. For you Scorpios, February is Love and Care for Your Inner Creatures Month.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 Dec. 21

Revamped and refurbished things are coming back for another look. Retreads and redemption-seekers are headed in your direction. I think you should consider giving them an audience. They are likely to be more fun or interesting or useful during their second time around. Dear Sagittarius, I suspect that the imminent future may also invite you to consider the possibility of accepting stand-ins and substitutes and imitators. They may turn out to be better than the so-called

By Rob Brezsny

real things they replace. In conclusion, be receptive to Plan Bs, second choices, and alternate routes. They could lead you to the exact opportunities you didn›t know you needed.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

Author Neil Gaiman declared, “I’ve never known anyone who was what he or she seemed.” While that may be generally accurate, it will be far less true about you Capricorns in the coming weeks. By my astrological reckoning, you will be very close to what you seem to be. The harmony between your deep inner self and your outer persona will be at record-breaking levels. No one will have to wonder if they must be wary of hidden agendas lurking below your surface. Everyone can be confident that what they see in you is what they will get from you. This is an amazing accomplishment! Congrats!

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

“I want to raise up the magic world all round me and live strongly and quietly there,” wrote Aquarian author Virginia Woolf in her diary. What do you think she meant by “raise up the magic world all round me”? More importantly, how would you raise up the magic world around you Meditate fiercely and generously on that tantalizing project. The coming weeks will be an ideal time to attend to such a wondrous possibility. You now have extra power to conjure up healing, protection, inspiration, and mojo for yourself.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

Before going to sleep, I asked my subconscious mind to bring a dream that would be helpful for you. Here’s what it gave me: In my dream, I was reading a comic book titled Zoe Stardust Quells Her Demon. On the first page oe was facing a purple monster whose body was beastly but whose face looked a bit like hers. On page two the monster chased oe down the street but oe escaped. n the third scene, the monster was alone, licking its fur. n the fourth scene oe sneaked up behind the monster and shot it with a blow dart that delivered a sedative, knocking it unconscious. In the final panel oe had arranged for the monster to be transported to a lush uninhabited island where it could enjoy its life without bothering her. Now here›s my dream interpretation, Pisces: Don›t directly confront your inner foe or nagging demon. Approach stealthily and render it inert. Then banish it from your sphere, preferably forever.

Here’s the homework: Give a blessing to someone that you would like to receive yourself.

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