Metro Times 10/26/22

We received responses to Lee DeVito’s story about the multimillion-dollar Eloise Asylum haunted house attraction.

This is supposed to be helping people because a portion of ticket sales go towards a local homeless shelter? They are rightly criticized. Mental health isn’t a joke asylums are not fodder for Halloween scares. Many of these institutions *were* horrible. And many people who were placed in asylums often weren’t “mentally ill” with something like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. They may have been depressed about a particular incident, or menopausal, or they didn’t “fit in” in some way. There were

also orphaned children placed in asylums because there was nowhere else to put them. I think this Halloween attraction does nothing to honor those who were institutionalized and who suffered, it’s just a $ maker with a few bucks thrown to “helping” the unhoused, because the creators know what they’ve drummed up is offensive. There are plenty of unused buildings in Detroit that can be made into a state of the art “haunted house”. But hey, anything for a buck. —Kimberly Dziurman, Facebook

Note: In an effort to steer our coverage to be more local, we have decided to end Jeffrey Billman’s national column Informed Dissent. You can continue reading it in our sister papers Orlando Weekly and Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

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Detroiters slam regulators for lax approach to stinky Stellantis plant

By Steve Neavling

U.S. REP. RASHIDA Tlaib and Detroi ters who live near a stench-emitting Stellantis plant told state regulators last week that a proposed remedy with the automaker does not go far enough to protect residents.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) reached a proposed consent order in September to require Stellan tis to address the nauseating smell that has been wafting from the plant for more than a year.

Earlier this month, EGLE slapped Stellantis with a sixth air quality viola tion notice for “persistent and objec tionable paint/solvent and chemical odors.”

Under the consent order, which is subject to community input, Stel lantis would pay a $63,000 fine, plant 80 trees in a nearby park, and buy a new building management system for Southeast High School.

Stellantis is also installing a regener ative thermal oxidizer (RTO) to destroy hazardous air pollutants.

Tlaib, D-Detroit, and neighbors of the plant on the city’s east side said the order amounts to a slap on the wrist.

Residents want stricter penalties, and some are asking for reimbursements to relocate.

Last Wednesday, Tlaib and impacted residents gathered at a public hearing hosted by EGLE.

“People can’t even go outside just to sit on their porch because they’ll get a headache (or) a nose bleed,” Tlaib said

at the hearing. “It is disgusting.”

Resident Robert Shobe said it should never have gotten to this point.

“In a perfect world this wouldn’t be necessary because all the enti ties involved would have people at the forefront as opposed to money,” Shobe said. “I would like people to understand that our health is being held hostage by this (consent order) process.”

Others called on EGLE to stop allowing polluters to build plants in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

“Sadly, EGLE was warned of the health impacts this plant posed before it granted a single permit for its expan sion,” Andrew Bashi, staff attorney for the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said. “We hope they finally learn a lesson from this – that they can and must prevent communities of color from bearing the dispropor tionate negative impacts of pollution before facilities are built.”

Stellantis invested $1.6 billion into the Mack Engine Complex. which is adjacent to a predominantly Black neighborhood, to build Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs beginning in the sum mer of 2021.

In November 2021 , five residents filed a civil rights complaint against EGLE in for allowing the plant to increase emissions of toxic contami nants. They also allege the state failed to analyze the cumulative impact of air pollution before issuing the emission permits.

Detroit’s Belle Isle Conservatory to close for renovations

By Lee DeVito

AT DETROIT’S BELLE Isle Park, the lush botanical garden at the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory of fers a welcome respite from Michi gan’s cold, bleak winters — but not this year, or the next.

Starting in mid-November, the Conservatory will close until May 2024 to make way for a $10 million project that will update the build ing’s glass and steel dome. So fans of the gardens only have a few more weeks to enjoy them before they close to the public for many months.

The plans were discussed during a Belle Isle Park Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday by Amanda Treadwell, an urban field planner for the Michigan Department of Natu ral Resources Parks and Recreation Division.

“We know it’s a long time, but

there’s a lot of work for them to do there,” Treadwell said.

The project entails replacing glass panels on the dome and cleaning its steel beams, as well as updating the conservatory’s ventilation system.

“It gets really hot in here, espe cially at the top in the summer,” Treadwell said. “So that’ll greatly improve the health of the plants.”

Scaffolding will be constructed in and around the dome, and a temporary second floor will also be installed to protect the plants from damage.

The $10 million project is funded through a $7.5 million grant from President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill, the Ameri can Rescue Plan Act of 2021. It also received a $2.5 million private dona tion, Treadwell said.

Southfield clerk resigns but will face no jail time after tampering with absentee ballots

By Steve Neavling

SOUTHFIELD CITY CLERK

Sherikia L. Hawkins has resigned after pleading no contest to a felony count of misconduct in office for allegedly falsifying elec tion records, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday.

In exchange for the plea, Nes sel’s office dismissed five additional felony counts against Hawkins, who will serve no probation or jail time.

The dismissed charges were felony counts of falsifying returns, forgery of public records, and using a computer to commit a crime. She had faced up to 14 years in prison.

During the November 2018 elec tion, Hawkins is accused of altering information on the number of bal lots cast to cover up for a mistake made by election inspectors. The inspectors placed 193 ballots in the ballot container without first running them through a tabulator, which was then sealed.

As a result, the number of votes shown on the tabulator counter

was 193 fewer than the number of absentee ballots received by the clerk’s office.

Hawkins allegedly removed the 193 names from the list of voters who cast absentee ballots in an at tempt to cover up the mistake.

County election officials spotted the change and alerted authorities.

“I am committed to ensuring the voters of our state can have con fidence in our election process,” Nessel said in a statement. “Elec tion officials, regardless of political party, must uphold the integrity of their position and ensure every vote is accurately counted. Those who abuse that commitment undermine the very foundation of our democ racy.””

Hawkins was charged in Septem ber 2019, and the case wended its way through the court system for three years. An Oakland County Circuit Court judge dismissed four of the six charges. In January 2021, the Michigan Court of Appeals reinstated the charges.

Detroiters ripped off by overin ated property assessments may see relief

By Steve Neavling

MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL

Dana Nessel has agreed to explore whether the city of Detroit can legally provide cash compensation or prop erty tax credits to tens of thousands of Detroiters who were illegally overtaxed by overinflated property assessments.

Activists recently met with Nes sel to urge her to issue an opinion on the legality of the potential remedies after Mayor Mike Duggan’s admin istration claimed state law prohibits the city from compensating residents with cash payments or property tax credits.

“This was a huge win for overtaxed Detroit homeowners,” state Rep. Cyn thia Johnson, D-Detroit, said of Nes sel taking up the issue. “They should not have to fight their city to honestly interpret state law, but when they do, the attorney general should step in.”

Homeowners were overtaxed by more than $600 million. The property tax assessments resulted in as many as 100,000 Detroiters, most of them Black, losing their homes to foreclo sure between 2010 and 2016.

Duggan has admitted that many homeowners received excessive tax bills because their property was assessed at more than 50% of their market value, the limit set by the Michigan Constitution.

The Coalition for Property Tax Justice, a group of advocates for im pacted homeowners, along with the ACLU of Michigan, National Lawyers Guild’s Detroit and Michigan Chap ter, Michigan Poverty Law Program, Detroit Justice Center, and Street Democracy released an opinion on Friday that concluded the city can legally provide cash payments and property tax credits to reimburse homeowners.

Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield, who supports cash payments and property tax credits, said Nessel’s opinion is “critical” to determining how residents can be reimbursed.

“It will allow city council to shape the ordinance to compensate Detroi ters to the fullest extent permitted by

state law,” Sheffield said in a state ment Wednesday.

If Nessel agrees that the remedies are legal, Duggan must then make a decision about how to reimburse impacted residents, said Bernadette Atuahene, a law professor at the Uni versity of Wisconsin Law School who convenes the Coalition for Property Tax Justice.

“If the current administration wants to remove property tax cred its and cash compensation from the menu of options, that’s a political de cision that they must make outright,” Atuahene said. “Mayor Mike Duggan cannot hide behind a faulty inter pretation of state law as a cover for a political decision.”

Another crooked Detroit cop convicted in tow truck bribery scandal

By Steve Neavling

A FORMER DETROIT police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to commit ting bribery in connection with an ongoing investigation into a towing scandal targeting city officials.

Daniel Vickers, 54, of Livonia, faces up to five years in federal prison after admitting he conspired with former Detroit Police Lt. John Fitzgerald Kennedy to steer work to an unidenti fied towing contractor in exchange for money and other valuable items.

“Today’s plea represents our com mitment to holding our law enforce ment officers to the highest standards of integrity and professionalism,” U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison said in a state ment. “Our citizens deserve nothing less.”

Kennedy, who used to be in charge of investigating professional mis conduct in the police department, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in August and is awaiting sentencing.

The pair conspired to commit bribery by getting Kennedy to use his influence as a supervisor to encour age others officers to make referrals to the towing company, even though it wasn’t on the city’s rotation of quali fied towers.

Federal authorities have not public ly identified the tower, whom Vickers called the “Godfather.”

“The actions of these former of ficers are completely unacceptable for a Detroit Police officer,” Detroit

Ethan Crumbley pleads guilty in mass shooting at Oxford High School

By Steve Neavling

ETHAN CRUMBLEY PLEADED guilty Monday to murder and terrorism charges in connection with a mass shooting that killed four students and wounded seven others at Oxford High School.

The 16-year-old faces up to life in prison.

Crumbley pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including terrorism causing death and first-degree murder, during a pretrial hear ing before Oakland County Circuit Judge Kwame Rowe.

Crumbley is due back in court on Feb. 9 for a review hearing. The sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.

Just days before the Nov. 30 massacre, Crumbley’s father bought him a semi-automatic handgun, which he used to open fire on classmates.

Two boys and two girls, between the ages of 14 and 17, were killed, and six other students and a teacher were wounded.

Crumbley was 15 years old at the time of the shooting.

In the aftermath of the shoot ing, several lawsuits were filed against Crumbley, his parents, and school officials.

“Ethan Crumbley’s guilty plea is one small step forward on a long path towards obtaining full justice for our clients,” attorney Ven Johnson, who is representing some of the families in a civil suit, said in a statement. “We will continue to fight until the truth is revealed about what went wrong leading up

Police Chief James White said. “We appreciate U.S. Attorney Ison’s work to rid our city of corruption and will continue to collaborate in any inves tigation of alleged wrongdoing by our officers. It is a top priority of my administration to ensure that Detroit citizens can rely on our officers to act ethically.”

Vickers is the latest former Detroit cop to plead guilty as a result of the FBI’s ongoing investigation, dubbed Operation Northern Hook, that is targeting ties between the towing industry and city officials.

Former Detroit City Councilman

to this tragedy, and who, including Crumbley’s parents and multiple Oxford Community Schools employees, could have and should have prevented it.”

In the days before the shooting, school officials failed to intervene despite a pattern of troubling behavior by Crumbley. He told his mother he was seeing demons. A day before the shooting, he was caught at school searching for am munition online. And on the day of the shooting, a teacher spotted an alarming drawing in which he depicted a person who had been shot and the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”

Crumbley’s parents James and Jennifer Crumbley were charged with involuntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial.

Andre Spivey was the first public official to be sentenced to prison for his role in the scandal. Spivey was sen tenced to two years in prison for ac cepting more than $35,000 in bribes.

The FBI also raided the homes and offices of Councilman Scott Benson and former Councilwoman Janeé Ayers in August. They have not yet been charged.

So far, the investigation has led to criminal charges against at least five current and former Detroit cops.

In a previous towing scandal, six Detroit cops were sentenced in an extortion scheme.

MICHIGAN STATE POLICE

NEWS & VIEWS

How the rich and powerful game the meritocracy

By Abdul El-Sayed

Organic chemistry is hard. Anyone who’s ever made it through a premedical curriculum, or perhaps more importantly, did not, can tell you that.

But apparently 82 students who signed a petition against their legend ary organic chemistry professor hadn’t heard. Neither had the administration at New York University who dismissed their professor, Dr. Maitland Jones Jr, who literally wrote the book from which I and so many others studied.

Organic chemistry or “orgo” as it’s reverently called involves the study of how carbon-based molecules are structured, interact, and change. As should be obvious, understand ing the fundamental building blocks of life should be a prerequisite for medical studies. But orgo is often the stumbling block for many aspiring physicians. It’s partly why only 17% of those who start out as premed end up in medical school.

There are real equity issues implicit in so-called “weeder” classes. It’s a

conceit of our ostensibly meritocratic system that every student has an equitable shot at making it to medical school that grit and intellect are the only determinants of who gets in. That ignores huge hurdles facing too many students to simply get into college, let alone to pay for it while they’re there, or to get through weeder courses like orgo. Too often, students from under privileged backgrounds particularly Black and brown students stumble simply because they didn’t have the resources to jump. Universities abso lutely owe it to their students to build the kind of infrastructure to assure that courses like orgo aren’t select ing for the privileged and resourced, rather than the gritty and smart.

But that’s not what happened at NYU. Professor Maitland Jones Jr. was the pioneer in organic chemistry pedagogy. He won teaching awards for rethinking how orgo should be taught from rote memorization to learning the language of the body’s building blocks. His approach meant that

students could apply basic concepts to new questions exactly what doctors have to do every day in clinics and hos pital wards. It even earned him a spot on a list of NYU’s coolest professors.

When the pandemic took a major toll on student learning, professor Jones spent his own money to tape 52 lectures along with his colleagues that, despite his ouster, the university is still using. As professor Jones told The New York Times who broke the story: “In the last two years, [students] fell off a cliff.” But he had started to notice a deterioration in student focus years earlier. “Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote.

Declines in student mental health and ability to focus over the past decade are well documented. The pandemic has added an exclamation point on that trend. Rates of depression, anxiety, and inability to focus have, indeed, skyrocketed. This, too, requires a response from institutions of higher learning investing in robust, consistent mental

health support, for example.

Canning professors is not part of that response. But that’s what NYU decided to do after 82 students signed a petition against professor Jones. Why? Per an email from the director of undergraduate studies to professor Jones, the university would “extend a gentle but firm hand to the students and those who pay the tuition bills.”

NYU understands where they get their money. Their “customers” are “those who pay the tuition bills.”

Rather than meet its obligation to prepare its students through rigorous academic training in their chosen field of study, NYU has decided that the “customer is always right.”

Higher education is at a precipice. As institutions have raised their prices to pay for the accouterments that allow them to compete for scions of America’s wealthiest families, they’ve accelerated a massive student debt cri sis. It has all but made higher educa tion unaffordable for millions of fami lies while stunting their own graduates just as they’re handed their diplomas. But the whole point of getting one of those diplomas is that it’s supposed to certify that you’ve achieved the neces sary standards to receive one. NYU is showing what happens when you sub jugate those standards to the whims of “those who pay tuition bills.”

This isn’t about lifting up those who are struggling because of the challeng ing circumstances from which they came to the university. This is about bringing down the standards for those whose parents expect the university to cater to their children just like they have.

Back in 2019, federal prosecu tors unearthed a massive scandal dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues” through which dozens of parents paid more than $25 million to game the college admissions process. These parents had leveraged their wealth, power, and privilege to earn their mediocre children spots at colleges they probably couldn’t have gotten into on their own merit. The scandal shocked and outraged the country. But it shouldn’t have been that surprising. Rich people using their money, power, and connections to open access to institutions for their children is as old as America. What I worry about here is that institutions are preemptively lowering their standards for these parents now, too.

To appreciate just how dangerous that is, consider this: Would you want a doctor who only had orgo-lite?

Originally published Oct. in The Incision. Get more at abdulelsayed. substack.com.

The Incision

A legendary organic chemistry professor was fired at NYU because his students were struggling with the material. SHUTTERSTOCK

The chains that bind

The chains that bind

By Adam Stanfel

Recorded and released in early 1967, this pleading and plaintive chorus was about a love affair gone wrong, but in the year 2022, it’s more of a love letter to the incredible 60-plusyear singing career of Detroit soul man J.J. Barnes: “Darling your chains of love won’t set me free/ your chains of love won’t let me be.”

Waxed for local indie label Groovesville, “Chains of Love” was the B-side to his break-away Billboard R&B chart single “Baby Please Come Back Home.” Though it wasn’t the side getting airplay in 1967, “Chains of Love” and several of his other singles have endured and experienced rediscovery within subcultures both at home and abroad.

Slim and agile, the silky voiced singer is prepping for a headlining performance on Sunday for the Detroit AGo-Go festival at the St. Regis Hotel Ballroom. It could also be his last.

“I’ll never fully retire, but this might be the last in-person appearance I’ll ever make,” says the nearly 80-years-old Barnes. “I’m almost blind in one eye, I’ve got high blood pressure, and a bad foot. But I’ve still got my piano at home, and I play and write every day.”

Despite managing the typical maladies of a nearoctogenarian, Barnes is sharp-witted and super clean in an all-white outfit and matching white Buffs-style sunglasses.

As a member of an incredible generation of De troiters, Barnes grew up within a fertile music scene that birthed jazz, soul, and rock legends who are now household names the world over. In the 1960s he was signed to both the Stax and Motown record labels, and starting in the 1970s, he enjoyed fame in the U.K., where his records were foundational cornerstones of the country’s northern soul scene. In the early 2000s, Barnes’s music saw another revival via garage rock band the Dirtbombs.

At a sit-down interview conducted days after the federal government announced plans to issue a $105 million dollar grant to Detroit to finance the removal of the sunken I-375 freeway and rebuild part of the city’s former Black Bottom neighborhood, Barnes proudly proclaims, “I was born in Detroit, raised right there in Black Bottom, right off Hastings,” he says, placing a pointed finger upon the table for added em phasis. “I think it’s a great idea to re-raise I-375.”

Jumping back in time to Detroit in the early 1940s, just before that same federal government initiated the Federal-Aid Highway Act that financed the demoli tion of the African-American neighborhood, it was the best of times and the worst of times. The arsenal of democracy was raging. The Rouge steel plant’s blast furnaces roared night and day, barely keeping pace with wartime manufacturing demands. Detroiter Joe Louis was heavyweight champion of the world, and high-class

night clubs like Sunnie Wilson’s Forest Club hosted acts like Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, and Dizzy Gillespie. The good times called, but existing tensions between white and Black migrants, combined with extremely limited and dangerous housing conditions for African Americans in Black Bottom, boiled over into a devas tating riot on June 20, 1943 where, in one weekend, 35 people were killed 25 of whom were Black.

It was into this both prosperous and volatile world that Jimmy “J.J.” Barnes was born to Leroy and Eddie Mae Barnes, née Yelder, on Nov. 30, 1943. “My parents split up early on, and I really didn’t know my mother for the first part of my life,” Barnes says. “The condi tions were rough, and the house on Hastings was always damp. As a child I got pneumonia real bad. My father took me to a woman named Mama Lena who owned a newer home but ran it as a ‘Hoe House’ on the corner of Brush and Forest. He told me later that he took me there expecting me to die, but Mama Lena took me and wrapped me in a blanket and poured oils on me. I started hollering and she said, ‘He’s OK now.’ I got a lot of love from Mama Lena.”

Barnes’s father was a full-time member of the De troit-founded but nationally renowned gospel group the Evangelist Singers. The group, who would later change their name to the Detroiters, released several powerhouse gospel 78 RPM shouters like “Let Jesus Lead You” on Art Rupe’s Los Angeles-based Specialty

Northern soul stalwart J.J. Barnes looks back on his six-decade career ahead of what he says could be his final live performance

By Adam Stanfel

Northern soul stalwart J.J. Barnes looks back on his six-decade career ahead of what he says could be his final live performance

Records. The Detroiters crisscrossed the country playing the gospel circuit with guitar slinger Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Fairfield Four, playing a storming style of hard-shouting, foot-stomping gospel that would influence and inform first-generation rock ’n’ rollers like Little Richard, who released his most famous records on the same Specialty record label. The never-ending touring was great for the group, but, coupled with the poor living conditions at the family home and the deteriorating relationship between his parents, Barnes was left to live with Mama Lena for the first seven years of his life.

“Even though she led that type of life, Mama had me baptized at New Grace Bethel Church on Forest, and she put me in school at Trowbridge Elemen tary,” Barnes says. Seven years passed before Barnes would be reunited with his biological mother. “My mom remarried a man named Earl Williams, and somehow they came and found me,” he says. “They took me, but I didn’t even really know these people at the time.” Though Barnes was uprooted from a loving environment, he quickly grew attached to his musi cally inclined family, which now included a sister with a powerful voice, Ortheia Barnes, and a gospel-singing stepfather who was a member of a popular and long-standing quartet the Cumberland River Singers.

With music all around him, singing was now an integral part of Barnes’s life. At the age of 15, a friend named Johnny Starks helped him land his first profes sional gig in his gospel quartet the Hurricane Travel ers. The Hurricanes were local stalwarts, and just prior to Barnes joining, they waxed their debut 8 record for the wonderfully ramshackle mom and pop Detroit label Fortune Records. The debut disk titled “He’s All I Need” sold well enough to kick-start a career for the group that would last well into the 1990s.

“As I turned 16, I started hearing rock ’n’ roll and R B,” says Barnes. “I heard this new music and wanted to be part of it.”

Amazingly, the mailman who delivered to the Barnes’s home also ran a record label. Mailman Fred Brown had recently initiated his Kable and Mickay’s im prints, and knew a good thing when he heard it. While walking his delivery route, Brown overheard the Barnes family singing and harmonizing together. The mail man promptly signed Barnes, his sister Ortheia, and his stepfather’s group to contracts with his company.

The deal marked the end of Barnes’s tenure with the Hurricane Travelers, but success and exciting industry contacts soon followed for the teenage singer. Released in early 1960, Barnes’s first record “Won’t ou Let Me Know” included a who’s who of young studio musi cians. The group — consisting of Benny Benjamin on drums, Joe Hunter on piano, Don Davis on a gnarly lead guitar, and bassist James Jamerson on stand-up acoustic bass — would go on to form the core of the Motown studio band the Funk Brothers.

The disc premiered on Nashville’s seminal radio sta tion WLAC. With its unregulated bazillion-watt radio signal, WLAC’s broadcast reached from Jamaica to Cali fornia to Michigan, so Barnes was nationwide right out

of the gate. The crafty Brown had another promotional trick up his sleeve that also kick-started the career of the then-mostly unknown Martha Reeves. Reeves’s vocal group, who were still calling themselves the Del-Phis, sang backup on Barnes’s disc, and then promptly re corded an answer song, called “I’ll Let ou Know.” In her autobiography Dancing in The Streets, Martha Reeves called it “a fleeting moment of glory now we knew what it felt like to hear ourselves on the radio.”

“The first show I ever did was at the Graystone Ballroom in Detroit at a Frantic Ernie Durham record hop,” says Barnes. “I was there to promote Won’t ou Let Me Know.’” The pioneering radio DJ loved the record and put it into rotation on WJLB. Moreover, he gave the young singer advice about show business.

“That night at the Graystone, I was just so excited,” Barnes says. “I was out in the crowd going crazy, danc ing with all the girls I could. Ernie grabbed me and said, If you are gonna be a star, act like a star ’ He sent me back-stage to get ready and focus on the show.”

Barnes stayed with label owner Brown through 1965. Together they released several more good records, but as gritty R B transitioned into the danceable, pol ished, four-on-the-floor sound recognized as Detroit soul, Barnes moved to a fresh, new label.

Ed Wingate was a large man. Standing over six feet tall and weighing in around 300 pounds, Wingate had the money and the muscle to make noise in Detroit’s soul mu sic industry. Starting in the mid-1940s, the streetwise

Wingate had hustled his way up to the top. In 20 years’ time, Wingate’s diverse business holdings grew to include the prestigious 20 Grand club, a chain of hotels including the infamous Algiers Motel, the still-extant City Cab Com pany, and, importantly for this story, a series of record labels, including Golden World and Ric-Tic.

More than any of those streams of income though, Wingate’s fortune was built upon the street gambling operation known as “The Numbers,” an ubiquitous street lottery that, though illegal, was tremendously popular in mid-century America. In his book Custodians of The Hummingbird, Detroit soul man Al Kent estimates Wingate took in more than $50,000 dollars a day from the Numbers. The speculation is furthered in Bridgett M. Davis’ brilliant book The World Ac cording to Fannie Davis My Mother’s Life in The Detroit Numbers, where she repeats assertions of Wingate’s suprema cy in the Numbers racket by saying, “My momma eventually had several books, up to ten at her height. This was small compared to a major numbers man like Wingate who reportedly made millions a year in his heyday.” Wingate would keep the sorted stacks of money separated into $20,000 bundles, perhaps a nod to, or im petus for, his famous nightclub’s name, stacked to the ceiling in the closets of his Boston-Edison estate. Moreover, his Golden World musical enterprises were successful and second only to Motown in terms of output, Billboard chart success, and monetary gains.

Wingate used a few of those bundles to purchase a building and finance the construction of a custombuilt, state-of-the-art studio at 3246 W. Davison St. in Detroit. Ric-Tic was one of the labels that used the studio, and it’s there that Barnes matured as an artist and began to make musical magic, releasing four 45s. While each is a gem, the third disc, “Real Humdinger,” has, to quote its lyrics, “soul worth its weight in gold.” The classy, pop-inflicted mid-tempo burner is a cor nerstone of the singer’s recorded legacy.

Songwriter Al Kent recalls an inspired session at the Golden World studio. “The spring sun slanted into the hallway,” he says. “The song just seemed to stand on its own two legs and walked off.” When it came time to record the musical backing, the team hired the best in town, but bassist James Jamerson walked in 20 minutes late. When Kent said, “ ou’re late James ”, Jamerson replied with a wry, “And I’m drunk, too ’” Despite the soused bass man, the rhythm section is locked-in and on fire, and the track is an underground Detroit soul classic that still fills dance floors. The record was a big local hit, but the label itself soon became a victim of its own success.

“We didn’t want Wingate to sell out to Berry,” remembers Barnes. Ever the hustler, Wingate had done the unthinkable. By signing talented artists like Edwin Starr, George Clinton’s the Parliaments, the Reflections, and Barnes, and by building a world-class studio, the little-label-that-could on West Davison had succeeded in making the big boys on West Grand more than a little uncomfortable. But more than just recognizing and neutralizing a local artistic threat,

Barnes’s father was a member of the gospel group the Evangelist Singers.

Berry Gordy and his Motown empire were also in need of an additional recording studio to accommodate the onslaught of recording dates they had on the books.

Just 18 months after opening for business, Wingate accepted an offer somewhere around the $1 million dollar mark for his Golden World enterprises. The deal included all the label’s recordings, the studio, and the recording contracts of Starr and Barnes.

“Ed called me into his office, and said, I made a deal with Motown. ou’ll have to deal with them from now on,’” Barnes recalls. “And that was it. I went over there and talked to Motown exec Ralph Seltzer. We made a deal, and right away I started recording for them.”

At the height of his artistic abilities, Barnes was finally and officially in the major leagues.

Recording dates quickly ensued, resulting in storm ing soul stomps of the highest order. But much to Barnes’s dismay, stellar sides like “Show Me the Way” and “Every Time I See ou, I Go Wild” languished on the shelf. The problem was soon made clear to Barnes.

“Eddie Holland came to me and said, I just left a meeting with Berry (Gordy), (Harvey) Fuqua, and Marvin (Gaye),” Barnes recalls. “Marvin is bitching and bitching and just going crazy up there, man.’” Apparently, Gaye felt that Barnes sounded just a little too much like him. “Eddie asked if I could change my style,” he says. “I said, change my style ’ I’ve been sing ing like this all my life ’”

The fact was, neither Barnes nor Motown were ever entirely comfortable with each other. “Not long after that, I was standing by myself on the front porch of Motown and Marvin came up behind me and whis pered in my ear, ou a bad mother fucker’ and then just walked off,” he says. “I didn’t really know how to take that.” Frustrated and uneasy with his surround ings, the singer made his mind up to leave Motown.

As an indicator of his popularity, Barnes’s name was just underneath headliners Martha Reeves and the Vandellas on the Fox Theatre marquee.

“I got a release from Motown, but they got the rights to the things I had recorded for them,” he says. Fortu itously however, just before he left the company, the Motown family provided one parting gift in the form of an assist from Stevie Wonder. “I was in the studio working on my song Baby Please Come Back Home,’” he says. “Stevie Wonder walked in and said, I like that, can I try it ’ I thought Hey, you’re Stevie Wonder. Go ahead ’ He helped me with the changes, and I of fered him a writer’s credit, but he said he didn’t really deserve it and told me to keep it. Stevie said, This is going to be a big hit for you.’ It was like he prophesized it. It turned out to be the biggest hit of my career.”

Barnes walked out of Motown, but some of the best days of his career were ahead. Re-partnering with his old pal Don Davis who now had the Groovesville record label, the two were quick to record and release the Wonder collaboration, which was backed with the Melvin Davis-penned “Chains of Love.” The record hit the streets in early 196 , and it raced up local and Billboard charts. Landing in heavy rotation on the influential and powerful CKLW and WKNR radio sta tions, the exposure landed Barnes on shows with big names like Otis Redding, James Brown, Deon Jackson, and old pal Martha Reeves.

Pulling double occupational duty as a radio DJ and a television host, Rockin’ Robin Seymour had been an on-air personality since the 1940s. By the mid-1960s, Seymour’s raucous and wildly popular daily television

dance show “Swingin’ Time” was an institution with local teenagers. Seymour loved “Baby Please Come Back Home,” and he put the song in heavy rotation on his broadcasts. In the summer of 196 , Seymour scheduled a live concert celebration of his show. As sembling an all-star review of Detroit’s top soul acts, he booked the beautiful Fox Theatre for a ten-day en gagement. As an indicator of his popularity, Seymour put Barnes’s name just underneath headliners Martha Reeves and the Vandellas on the Fox marquee.

July 23, 196 is an unmistakable date in the history of Detroit. As the early hours of a Saturday night spilled over into a Sunday morning, a group of Viet nam veterans and their friends were celebrating their safe return from overseas combat at an illegal afterhours soul club located above the Economy Print ing Company on Twelfth Street. Detroit Police had staked out the party and made their move to clear the club. As they marched people down the stairs and into the street, large crowds gathered around them to protest the arrests. Violence and unrest erupted, and Detroit’s rebellion began.

That Sunday also marked the last day of Seymour’s Swingin’ Time Revue at the Fox. It was a matinee performance, and, without an understanding of exactly what had happened on Twelfth Street and how it would escalate, the show was well underway before the seriousness of the situation was known to Seymour or the performers. “I had just done my show and had come off stage.” Barnes remembers. “Somebody ran into the Fox and was shouting, It’s a riot , it’s a riot ’”

In her autobiography, Reeves relates the irony of singing “Dancing in The Streets” just before event staff waved her off stage and informed her of what was happening. The gig was over. She was then assigned the unenviable task of informing the audience of the

situation and asking them to leave in an orderly fashion.

“After the guy ran into the Fox and yelled at everyone, I went out the side-stage door to see for myself,” Barnes recalls. “People were running wild, breaking windows and grabbing stuff. I went back in, and then I started yelling, ‘It IS a riot!’”

Barnes grabbed his stuff and ran to his car. He considered heading to the Algiers Motel. “It seemed like a quick way to get off the streets,” he says. “Wingate owned it, and we would stay there. When I got there, something told me to just go home. I’m so glad I didn’t stop.”

It was a fortuitous split-second decision. Also on the Swingin’ Time Revue show were fellow Golden World alums the Dramat ics. The 201 Kathryn Bigelow film Detroit depicts the horrific torture members of the group would endure as part of the Algiers motel incident, where three civilians were killed by a riot task force.

“The riot kind of killed the music, or at least it changed it,” Barnes says. “It was a different mood. I had a booking scheduled at the Apollo right after the Fox, but that got canceled.”

Barnes had really excelled in the upbeat, major-key dance-crazed world of mid-’60s soul, but in the book Detroit 6 The ear That Changed Soul, Scottish author Stuart Cosgrove details how political movements, LSD, and heavy, psychedelic-soul music moved in and changed popular music culture. Despite a brief tenure with Stax records in Memphis, the late ’60s and early ’70s were a little slow for Barnes.

But over in the U.K., a new dance craze was happening. In the bestselling music book Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, authors Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton describe the U.K.’s northern soul scene as “the first rave culture.” The scene started in the early 1970s with a series of clubs and obsessive DJs in the north of England. Though the energetic music they loved was already a few years old when they began to rediscover and reintroduce it to a new audience, the propul sive rhythms and positive message of the American music garnered a rabid cult following. They threw wild all-night parties in places like the Wigan Casino, which was similar in construction to Detroit’s Grande Ballroom. oung Brits, turned on by the danceable sound of mid-’60s Detroit and a huge supply of am phetamines, crowded into clubs to dance to soul 45s until daylight.

“Edwin Starr first told me about northern soul,” Barnes says. Starr told him “Humdinger” was so hot over there, that “they make me sing it,” Barnes recalls.

“I got my first passport in 19 3 and flew right over to a sold-out show at the 100 Club in London,” Barnes says. “I wore out three passports going over to the U.K.” In the U.K., Starr was living large in a castle. “I mean a real deal castle!” Barnes recalls. “He had a four-car garage that was always full. He used to store a car for Junior Walker. I loved staying there when I went over, it was unreal.”

Always on the hunt for new-to-them sounds, the northern soul DJs mined the depths of Detroit’s indie-underground labels like Ric-Tic, and “Real

Humdinger” was on the top of their playlists. The song enjoyed such a resurgence in popularity that Gordy and Tamla-Motown, who still owned the Ric-Tic masters from the Wingate deal, reissued the song to meet demand for the disc. Barnes finally had a record on Motown, regardless of how Marvin Gaye felt about it.

The obsessive partiers in the north of England kept Barnes flying back and forth overseas through the ’70s and ’80s, but he wasn’t done at home. Released in 1977, the record “The Erroll Flynn” was a nod to Detroit street gang the Erroll Flynns. The gang was a notorious but fashionable and party-centric group whose most infamous exploit involved sticking-up the entire audience of a Kool and the Gang concert at Detroit’s Cobo Hall on Aug. 15, 19 6.

“I saw this gang runnin’ around the hood,” Barnes says, laughing. “I wasn’t in the gang, but they did this dance with their hands in the air, and it looked great.” The dance was, in fact, an intentional means of selfidentification for the gang. A trained eye could identify the various sects by the varied dance moves. Eventual ly the dance would morph into and influence the now celebrated regional dance culture known as “jit.”

Barnes’s song was a little watered-down disco, but

the street origins of the lyrics, “you know this dance came from Detroit,” are a lot of fun many years later. “I took the song to Nat Morris on the television show The Scene, and he said, ‘It’s gonna cause a con troversy,’ but we put the record out and it did OK,” he says.

Fast-forward to the early aughts, and Detroit’s Cass Corridor is alive with cheap Pabst, expensive Diesel jeans, and vintage fuzz pedals. An ex-drag show bar-turned-al ternative music and performing arts space called the Gold Dollar helped to launch a revitalized sound in rock music. The so-called “garage rock” movement and its emphasis on energy and the youthful ideal ism of danceable, pre-Cream rock ’n’ roll had many area bands back to kicking out the party jams. Many bands were formed, some signed deals, and at least one went on to win multiple Grammy awards.

At the top of the heap of notable bands was a supergroup called the Dirtbombs, whose super cool, sunglass-wearing, guitar-playing frontman Mick Collins had always been obsessed with music, growing up in a household with a large record collection. Stuffed into one of the boxes in the basement was a copy of Barnes’s “Baby Please Come Back Home,” with the B-side “Chains of Love,” and its rock-ready riff.

“I’ve had that 45 my whole life,” Collins tells Metro Times . “One of my sisters prob ably bought it, right when it came out, and over time, it made its way into the base ment with the rest of the records no one wanted anymore, until I came along.”

Collins says he forgot all about the single until his friend and Gories bandmate Danny Kroha bought it at a record fair, inspiring him to go home and reappraise it.

“I can’t remember when I made the decision to re cord it,” Collins says. “I probably thought about cover ing the A-side, then flipped it just ’cause I hadn’t heard it in a while. No idea. But the next thing I remember is laying the guitar part.”

He adds, “We knew we had a winner.”

Released in 2001, the Dirtbombs’ Ultraglide in Black was the band’s magnum opus, a collection of largely covers reworked as rock songs. It reached large international audiences and sent the band jet-setting to and from Europe and beyond. Its opening track chimed a familiar flattened third. In the hands of Col lins, his guitar, and a cranked-up fuzz pedal, Melvin Davis’s old intro piano riff to “Chains of Love” sounded the clarion call to rockers world-wide who were seek ing more soul and honest-to-goodness fun than what bands like Limp Bizkit and the Woodstock ’99 era of toxic rock had been offering.

The song became a fixture in the Dirtbombs’ rau cous live sets. “I frequently think about retiring it, but in reality I know better it’s one of our trademark songs and it isn’t going anywhere,” Collins says. “As long as people want to hear the Dirtbombs, they’re gonna hear ‘Chains Of Love.’”

“‘Chains of Love’ is probably the song I’ve played live most often in my life,” Dirtbombs drummer and

PHOTO: DOUG COOMBE

Detroit rock band the Dirtbombs revived Barnes’s “Chains of Love.”

Third Man Records co-founder Ben Blackwell says. “I’m just forever grateful to have played a small part in continuing the Detroit legend for future genera tions to explore.”

A few years after its release, the Dirtbombs’ rol licking rendition of “Chains” caught the attention of renowned painter and art-house film maker Julian Schnabel, who featured the song prominently in his 200 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The film, which received four Oscar nominations and a Cannes Festival Best Director award, is an adaption of a novel written by a Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French editor of Elle magazine who had suffered a massive stroke and had become almost completely paralyzed, and dictated the sometimes-whimsical book to a ghostwriter using a series of eye-blinks. Incredibly, Bauby died two days after the novel’s publication.

The lively and relentless energy of the Dirtbombs arrangement of “Chains of Love” was a perfect fit for the film, which celebrated life down to its smallest sensations. “I kind of wish they had used my version,” laughs Barnes. “But I talked to the band on the phone just before they went overseas with it, they were cool, and their take is great. I still get paid a little from it.”

According to Barnes, “My biggest fans are in Europe.”

Enter one energetic Englishman named Phil Dick. In an interview conducted via email, the Leeds, England, native exudes praise. “J.J. Barnes is one of the most beloved artists on the U.K. northern soul scene,”

PHOTO: ADAM STANFEL

Dick says. “His performance at the Ric-Tic Revue in Hinckley, Leicestershire, is still spoken in reverential terms some 40 years after it happened. His vocal deliv ery just struck a chord with us kids up north.”

Dick is the organizer of an incredible local-but-notlocal music festival called Detroit-A-Go-Go. Though staged locally, it is organized and attended almost entirely by people from the United Kingdom. From overseas, Dick and his team book a week’s worth of musical events in Detroit. Then, in an incredible show of fandom, planeloads of his U.K. “Soulie” friends fly into Detroit, rent out a large portion of the St. Regis Hotel, and throw one hell of a soulful party.

The event brings English northern soul fans to their mecca, showcasing DJs playing coveted Detroit 45s to a busy dancefloor, a big list of revered singers, a full backing band, and a gala ball at Gordy’s former manse in Boston-Edison.

It could also be the end of an era.

“As of now, this is going to be the last Detroit-AGo-Go,” says Dick. Given the difficulty and expense of organizing the event from Leeds, the finality of this year’s festival is reasonable enough; still, the conclu sion of the concert will be a loss locally as it has offered performers a chance to reach a core part of their U.K. audience without leaving their hometown.

“Phil brings his own crowd with him; he doesn’t

really need to rely on Detroit crowds,” says Barnes. As he is nearing 80 and local gigs don’t come knocking very often, the veteran performer has decided that this final A-Go-Go will be his last live performance too. His previous performances have been electrifying. His voice is still strong, like silk dragged across just enough gravel. His version of the underground soul classic “Our Love Is in The Pocket” will be on the set list, and it’s a showstopper.

Also on the show are Motown alums Kim Weston, Carolyn Crawford, and the Contours. But the Brits reserved that headlining slot on Sunday, the last night of the last A-Go-Go, for J.J. Barnes.

It will be a special performance celebrating a long career. From Black Bottom storefront churches with the Hurricane Travelers to the Cannes Film Festival in France with the Dirtbombs, the chains that bind the man to his music have created a worthy body of work and a deeply Detroit musical story.

J.J. Barnes will perform as part of Detroit-A-Go-Go on Sunday, Oct. 30 at the Hotel St. Regis Ballroom; 3071 West Grand Blvd., Detroit; 313-873-3000; hotelstreg isdetroit.com. Music starts at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 on Sunday. The Detroit A-Go-Go festival starts Wednesday, Oct. 26; see detroitagogo.com for more information, including hotel packages.

Special thanks to Michael Hurtt and Mike Dutkewych for their assistance with this article.

J.J. Barnes performs at Detroit A-Go-Go.

WHAT’S GOING ON

From a.m.-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 26 at Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts; 350 Madison St., Detroit; tedxdetroit.com. Tickets are $100.

WED, 10/26

TEDxDetroit

TEDx is returning to Detroit, taking center stage at the Music Hall Center for Performing Arts with a roster in cludes some familiar faces. Confirmed speakers include Rochelle Riley, former Detroit Free Press columnist and the City of Detroit’s current Direc tor of Arts and Culture; Sarah Welch, head chef at Marrow and a Top Chef contestant; Swamy Kotagiri, CEO of Magna International; and Benji Rosenzweig, a father of a special-needs daughter who will speak on how nonverbal communication is enhanced through music.

The TEDx series first came to Detroit back in 2009, and has since featured more than 250 innovators, educators, filmmakers, and more.

“The team is thrilled to be bring ing TEDx back to Detroit for the 14th time. Every year we fill the stage with innovators, motivators and ‘do great ers’ who make us all proud to call this area home,” TEDxDetroit executive producer and community director Terry Bean said in a press release. “We have another stellar slate of presenters who will show the diversity, creativity and leadership of Detroit, and I can’t wait for October 26th at the Music Hall.”

—AlexWashington

FRI-SAT 10/28-10/29

The Official Maxim Halloween Takeover

Detroit electronic music pioneer Kevin Saunderson has been announced as the special guest DJ for Maxim magazine’s inaugural Halloween party at The Morrie’s Royal and Birmingham locations. The influential producer, known as one-third of the Belleville Three and one-half of Chicago house sensation Inner City, will perform on Friday at The Morrie Royal Oak, while DJ Glo Up Jake will perform at The Morrie Birmingham. On Saturday, L.A.-based duo Party Shirt will hold it down in Royal Oak while Canadian DJ Murda Beatz will perform in Birmingham. Both parties also feature a costume contest with a $1,000 prize each night at both locations. (Plus, since it’s Maxim, there will be models; if you think you have what it takes to work the red carpet, the party is seeking fresh faces. You can ap ply at vipnightlife.com/casting.)

—LeeDeVito

Starts at p. m. Friday, Oct. 28 and Saturday, Oct. 29 at The Morrie; 511 S. Main St., Royal Oak and 260 N. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; detroitnightlife.com. Tickets are $40. Ages 21 and older only.

LOCAL BUZZ

By Broccoli and Joe Zimmer

Welcome to a new column about Detroit’s music scene. Got a tip? Hit us up at music@metrotimes.com!

The Stools and the Toeheads drop split LP:

Two of Detroit’s best dive bar rippers have joined forces once again for Watch it Die, a 10-track split LP that kicks you in the face and then hands you a beer after. Recorded and mixed at the Russell Industrial Center by Cameron Frank and mastered by Caufield Schnug at Melody Men Mastering, the record showcases these bands doing what they do best: high-octane slappers full of blood, sweat, and a healthy bit of distortion. Both groups have had a hell of a run in 2022, and we’re stoked to see what comes next.

Theo Parrish gets DJ-Kicks treatment:

Real recognizes real. DJ-Kicks, the legendary DJ mix and com pilation series on !K7 records, finally hits up the equally leg endary Theo Parrish. One of the foundational artists in Detroit’s last 25 years of electronic music production, Parrish takes an ambitious approach to his DJKicks mix. Every artist featured on the compilation is local, and every piece of music is previ ously unreleased, creating the first ever all-exclusive entry into the esteemed series. Local features include De’Sean Jones, Ian Fink, KESSWA, Whodat, Sterling Toles… the list goes on. Rooted in Parrish’s signature mix of downtempo house, with flourishes of jazz, the compila

tion is an essential snapshot of the city’s current talent.

Report from the pit:

Since the early 2000s, west coast punk band the Bronx has delivered music that is both riotous and thoughtful. Joining forces with Australian “shed rock” band the Chats, their coheadlining tour recently made a stop at El Club in Detroit with support from New York’s Drug Church and Austin, Texas-based Smog. From the first note that was played, the pit was filled with slam-dancing, crowdsurfing, and a medley of fans throttling their vocal chords to match the energy of the bands on stage. Plus, the Chats did a pretty remarkable cover of Kiss’s “Rock and Roll All Nite,” so that was pretty cool.

That new Neu:

Here comes fresh, hot, and dreamy sounds, with a tinge of indie folk, from fresh, hot, and new band on the block Neu Blume. Folks might recognize band member Mo Neuharth from her popular design and print work as Art Problems, or her and bandmate Colson Miller’s previous musical outfit, the noisier Nanami Ozone. Neu Blume released their minialbum Softer Vessel in September and have had a successful year playing live, opening for acts like Bonny Doon, Squirrel Flower, and most recently Julia Shapiro (Chastity Belt), sharing a bill with Detroit’s Deadbeat Beat. Recommended if you like: any of the acts they opened for, Mazzy Star, slowcore, lyrically-driven songs that are nostalgic while not being too depressing.

Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. See venue websites for information on COVID-19 policies.

Kevin Saunderson will perform a DJ set at the Morrie Royal Oak on Friday as part of the Maxim Halloween Takeover.

COURTESY PHOTO

Colson Miller and Mo Neuharth

Nanami Ozone have formed a new project, Neu Blume. COURTESY PHOTO

EMPLOYMENT

DESIGN ENGINEER, Brose North America, Auburn Hills, MI. Engineer, design & develop ICE passenger vehicle & BEV mechatronic drives & actuator syss &cmpnts, incl. oil/coolant pumps, Cooling Fan Module (CFM) & power steering, for OEM vehicle maker prgrms, for US/global markets. Evaluate performance of evolved pump elements such as Gerotor, spur gears & centrifugal pumps, using Pumplinx, to predict flow, pressure, & efficiency of pump element. Formalize concept designs for condenser radiator fan module (CRFM) integrated into customer packaging & adhere to product qlty, durability & cost performance targets. Release production tooling for fans, shrouds & heat exchangers for CFM syss. Validate CFM/CRFM airflow & acoustics targets such as flow, pressure, overall acoustics sound pressure level & tonal peaks as established by OEM customers for psgr vehicle applications. Provide engrg guidance to designers in NA region to meet production intent in CAD & assure design maturity levels to meet customer & internal development milestones. Perform FEA to ensure products meet specified structural targets, using Ansys & native CATIA CAD. Master, Mechanical, Automotive or Aerospace Engineering. 2 mos exp as Engineer or Intern, performing Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation of vehicle pumps, or related. Mail resume to Ref#605-205, Brose, Human Resources, 3933 Automation Ave, Auburn Hills, MI 48326.

Friday 10/28

Happy Birthday Nick Mansfield! FUNK NIGHT (Monthly) DEON JAMAR/ SOUL CONTROLLER/ E.K. ON CONGAS Doors@9pm/ $5 Cover TOPP DOGG GRILL @7pm

Saturday 10/29

Happy Birthday Rich Lhota! A HEAVY HALLOWEEN PARTY POSSESSION 1981/

FEAST FOR CROWS/ HU-MID/ METH STAIN/

MIAMI COSTUME

AT MIDNIGHT

TAROT READINGS by

Sunday

Elevating metro Detroit’s sushi game

By Tom Perkins

Try to find a sushi roll in metro Detroit that’s richer and more umamipacked than Tiger Lily’s Shikotsu. Chef Chris Vasquez rolls and tops it with A5 wagyu beef, cucumber, mar row butter, fried shallots, scallion, spicy garlic sauce, and egg yolk. It might also be hard to find a better pre sentation. The name “Shikotsu” was taken from an anime character and means “hollow,” and a server positions a big, halved bone that’s hollowed out except for marrow, brown butter, and miso above the roll. The bone is hit with a torch and the mix drizzles on the roll, intensifying the already heavy umami, imparting a sweet dimen sion, and adding a nuttiness from the brown butter. Cucumber and citrus from yuzu counterbalances the roll’s heaviness.

Tiger Lily’s shima sugi makes a simi larly dramatic entrance in a covered bowl with smoking sakura powder and wood chips that imparts a fragrance on the striped jack, or aji, which is adorned with shallot and wa yakumi, a simple-but-deep blend of shiso, myoga, chives, scallions, and ginger.

Sometimes, these kinds of overthe-top productions can feel a bit like flashy wheelies that, in the end, lack substance, but that’s not the case at Tiger Lily. The food lives up to the bold, colorful presentation’s hype. A meal here is a journey through a galaxy

of big and bright flavors, contrasting textures, and heavy doses of umami.

The shima sugi was a dish served at Momotaro, a venerated Chicago Japanese restaurant at which Vasquez worked prior to returning to metro Detroit, where he grew up. Vasquez was tapped by Hometown Restaurant Group, which also owns neighboring Public House and One Eyed Betty’s, to helm Tiger Lily’s kitchen, who poached sushi chef Ivan Dalou from Brimingham’s Adachi, and they put in place a solid crew.

The akami to toro is anchored by Bluefina brand tuna akami. The sus tainably farmed tuna company owns millions of acres in the Pacific Ocean, and Vasquez says their akami is less metallic than wild caught tuna, with more umami. The flavor is clean and glossy, and the addition of fatty otoro adds another layer and intensifies the akami’s umami, while sesame oil and chives round out the package.

The Mangekyou roll also derives its name from an anime character and the word means “kaleidoscope”, which explains the Gaudi-like crispy lotus root wheels crowning the package. The lotus provides a crunch in a roll stuffed with leaner big eye tuna and cucumber, and topped with tartare made with the pieces of otoro tuna that couldn’t be used in other dishes. The tart and tangy ponzu delivers another bump of flavor.

Among the best plates was the hamachi kama, or grilled yellowtail tuna collar. It’s another that Vasquez brought from Momotaro and he says is a bit of a polarizing dish among customers and in the kitchen, though I fall on the side that loves it. The collar is a fatty, flavorful, slightly rich cut that’s pulled from behind the gills. The slightly smoky fish is par tially blanketed with a pink and white checker-triangle of watermelon radish pickled in a fish stock that provides a dashi-umami component, and a sweet pickled daikon. Together, the pickles beautifully contrast the fish in color, texture, and flavor, and the sweet acid ity cuts right through the glorious tuna fat. But the glory is in short supply Tiger Lily goes through 10-15 hamachi weekly, and that’s how many collars it has to make the dish.

Vasquez’s beef tataki holds a little extra meaning to him because it’s a riff on a dish he learned to make while cutting his teeth at an izakaya in Can ton many years ago. The plate comes with raw spinalis, a cut near the spine that is heavily marbled, and extra toothsome and beefy. It’s comple mented with asian pear, ginger ponzu, and fried garlic.

The aji nigiri, or horse mackerel, is a fishy fish with a strong flavor, so be ware as it was a little much for us. It’s salt-cured and very quickly brined be

Tiger Lily

231 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale 248-733-4905

tigerlilyferndale.com $14-$36 for sushi rolls Wheelchair accessible

fore arriving with mint oroshi daikon.

So many sushi restaurants are con tent with a yellowtail sashimi that’s simply the fish laid out with ponzu, Vasquez says, so he aimed to do more. His small folds of yellowtail tail are done with dried Japanese plum and shiso leaf that imparts a tart dimen sion. The fish is arranged with dollops of avocado mousse, soft dragon fruit seed cubes, and pickled watermelon radish along with the requisite puddle of ponzu. Mixing it all together into a bite creates a swirl of bright flavors and contrasting textures sweet, tart, salty, sour, and more. It was a fine cap to the meal.

Tiger Lily serves the excellent Funa guchi sake, one of few metro Detroit restaurants to do so, but the way to go is the sake flights. The restaurant’s interior offers a clean, hip atmosphere, and there’s a “secret” tiki bar attached that one enters through a door inside Tiger Lily. The spot is a must-hit this winter.

Among the best plates at Tiger Lily is the hamachi kama, or grilled yellowtail tuna collar.

TOM PERKINS

Detroit Institute of Bagels plots comeback

By Randiah Camille Green

TWO YEARS AFTER closing its original shop, Detroit Institute of Bagels is coming back with a fresh loca tion in Core City.

Well, not fresh in the sense that it’s completely new. Detroit Institute of Bagels owner Ben Newman confirmed to Metro Times the shop is reopening in the former Ochre Bakery at 4884 Grand River Ave.

Ochre Bakery closed its doors in May, along with next-door neighbors Astro Coffee.

“Originally I thought [the cafe] was something of the past, but it did feel like I had some unfinished business,” Newman says. “I think that I was missing the opportunity to use food to connect with people. I’m personally somewhat introverted but even for an introvert the amount of isolation dur ing the pandemic makes you miss those social interactions.”

Newman tells us he’s aiming for a soft opening with coffee, bagels, and cream cheese on offer near the end of the year or the beginning of 2023. The breakfast sandwiches will come later along with new Jewish deli staples like house-made challah, rye bread, matzo

ball soup, and pastrami sandwiches.

“In a way, the Jewish deli classics are something people see as comfort food whether they are Jewish or not, and being able to provide that is something I found a renewed passion for,” he says. “Ochre had a bread oven which is differ ent than a bagel oven, so we’ll be able to make challah and rye bread in house.”

Detroit Institute of Bagels was actu ally planning a building expansion when the Corktown cafe closed in 2020, Newman says. But then the pandemic hit and, well, you know the rest.

“We were working on an expansion for two years to ramp up production and provide the new menu items and we got that permit in March of 2020 to start building,” he says. “We had taken out a $1 million loan and originally I had opti mism but it became clear that building a giant space and taking out a huge note on that space wasn’t a great idea.”

He adds, “Then there were some personal things like having my first kid and my priorities had changed. Now that things have settled back in and we’ve had some time to strategize for what this new world looks like, I hope we can not just exist but thrive.”

Comfort food ghost kitchen Vegan vs Fries lands in Detroit

BEING VEGAN DOESN’T always necessarily equate to eating healthy, and Vegan vs Fries knows it.

The Black-owned ghost kitchen serves dishes like plant-based carne asada fries and “hella big” burritos that are now available for delivery in Detroit.

Vegan vs Fries is an offshoot of Man vs Fries, a popular comfort food con cept rooted in Oakland, California.

Owner and CEO William Bonhorst says he launched Vegan vs Fries in October following customer requests for plant-based versions of the glutton ous grub.

Detroit is the second city where the vegan kitchen is available following Atlanta, and Bonhorst is gearing up to spread to a total of 20 cities.

“Detroit had one of the strongest voices for vegan comfort food, so we delivered,” he tells Metro Times via email.

The kitchen’s “Asada Fries” are made with straight or curly french fries topped with Impossible Asada or fajita veggies and options like guacamole and Takis Fuego.

Burrito options include the “Cow girl Burrito” stuffed with Impossible Asada, fries, beer-battered onion rings, cheese, and bbq sauce, or the “SoCal” with Takis Fuego, guacamole, Impossi ble Asada, or veggies, and secret sauce.

If there’s still room in your stomach after all that, there’s also deep-fried

Double Stuf Oreos with powdered sugar and chocolate sauce for dessert.

“Vegan vs Fries is vegan comfort food that doesn’t lack any elements of comfort food,” Bonhorst says. “It’s hella big burritos, hella flavor, and hella fries, all plant-based everything ”

For now, Vegan vs Fries is available for delivery in Detroit via GrubHub, Doordash, UberEats, and Postmates from 12 30 p.m. daily until they sell out.

Bonhorst says the goal is to transi tion to a permanent, physical location if there’s enough interest.

He plans to bring Vegan vs Fries to Phoenix, Tempe, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Washington D.C., Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Houston, St. Paul, Minne apolis, Nashville, New ork City, New Jersey, Philly, Portland, San Diego, San Antonio, and Seattle.

“I want Vegan vs. Fries to be the maximum version of the french fry,” he says. “For far too long, the french fry has been the side piece in every culinary relationship. It’s never been the main course and just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean you can’t splurge. The world is serious enough, I aim to add a little joy back with Vegan vs Fries.”

He also really likes using the word hella.

For more information, see veganvsfries.com.

—RandiahCamilleGreen

Detroit Institute of Bagels is heading to the former Ochre Bakery space.

ROB WIDDIS

SHUTTERSTOCK

Recreational cannabis businesses are closer than ever to opening in Detroit

By Steve Neavling

THE CITY OF Detroit is getting closer to welcoming its first recreation al marijuana businesses.

The Detroit City Council selected a Clinton Township-based law firm on Tuesday to score license applications. Kirk, Huth, Lange and Badalamenti PLC will grade adult-use cannabis license applications through June 2024 for a fee of $350,000.

The city’s Civil Rights, Inclusion and Opportunity Department (CRIO), which is handling the licensing pro cess, picked the firm.

“Our firm appreciates the vote of

confidence from the Mayor Duggan and the Detroit City Council,” Huth said in a statement to Metro Times “All worked hard to draft an Ordinance that gives Detroiters an opportunity to participate in the cannabis industry. We will ensure their goal is met.”

The city will initially issue up to 60 cannabis licenses, with 100 more to be awarded in a second and third phase at a later date. Of the 60, about 20 will go to social equity applicants, who must live in a city that was disproportion ately impacted by the war on drugs.

The licenses are a long time coming.

While the sale of recreational mari juana in Michigan began in December 2019, the Detroit City Council post poned issuing licenses until it could create an ordinance to make it easier for Detroiters to join the industry.

What followed were several lawsuits and two separate ordinances, one of which was struck down in court in June 2021 because it gave licensing preferences to Detroiters.

The city’s second ordinance, which offers two tracks for licenses so that “equity” and “non-equity” applicants aren’t competing with each other, led to two lawsuitsbecause the city pro hibited medical cannabis dispensaries from getting a recreational license until 202 .

In August, a judge dismissed the two lawsuits.

In all, the city ordinance calls for awarding licenses to up to 100 dispensaries, 30 micro businesses, and 30 consumption lounges. Half of the licenses would go to social equity applicants.

The city will begin issuing licenses once the applications are scored by Kirk, Huth, Lange and Badalamenti PLC.

But the new cannabis businesses will face a harsh environment. Due to oversaturation in the market, can nabis prices have plummeted, causing some businesses to permanently close their doors.

Now lobbyists for some of the state’s largest cannabis operations are calling on lawmakers to impose a moratorium on new cannabis growers to help prevent prices from continu ing to fall.

Cookies dispensary headed to Grand Rapids

By Lee DeVito

CALIFORNIA RAPPER BERNER

is opening a fourth Cookies-branded dispensary in Michigan, which he has called one of his favorite cannabis markets in the U.S.

Slated to open in late November, the new Cookies joins others loca tions in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Ka lamazoo, though the 3,000-squarefoot Grand Rapids location will offer the widest selection of products in the state, the company says.

“Michigan is one of my favorite cannabis markets in the country be cause of the community’s apprecia tion for high-quality herb and hash,” said Berner, Cookies co-founder and CEO, in a statement. “Our Michigan customers are loyal and they can expect an evolving menu that will

spoil the lungs of smokers and con noisseurs.”

The store will be located at 330 Ann St. NW, Grand Rapids, through a partnership with Ferndale-based NO .

“Cookies is one of the most wellrespected cannabis brands in the world and NO is proud to bring the largest selection of Cookies’ proprietary genetics and world-class products to Grand Rapids,” NO CEO and founder Tommy Nafso said in a statement. “NO is brewing something special in Michigan and this partnership with Cookies drasti cally increases access to top-shelf cannabis in Grand Rapids’ thriving cannabis community.”

The store will offer Cookies’

Biden announces major federal cannabis reform

By Lee DeVito

FINALLY, THE BIDEN administra tion appears to be moving toward major federal cannabis reform.

In a surprise announcement made on Twitter earlier this month, President Joe Biden announced a series of sweeping cannabis reforms, including pardon ing all prior offenses for possession and calling on state governors to do the same.

“As I’ve said before, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said on Twitter. “To day, I’m taking steps to end our failed approach.”

In a series of follow-up tweets, Biden said those steps will include pardoning all prior federal offenses for possession.

“There are thousands of people who were previously convicted of simple pos session who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result,” he said. “My pardon will remove this burden.”

Biden also called on Department of Health and Human Services secre tary avier Becerra and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into rescheduling cannabis under federal law. Cannabis is currently considered a Schedule 1 drug, which makes it illegal to transport across state lines, limits scien tific research, and prevents banks from working with cannabis businesses.

“We classify marijuana at the same level as heroin and more serious than fentanyl,” Biden said. “It makes no sense.”

He also called on limitations on traf ficking, marketing, and underage sales of cannabis.

He said the decision was made to rem edy the effects of the racist war on drugs.

eponymous products, including its Lemonnade, Runtz, Powerzzzup Genetics, Minntz, and Grandiflora product lines.

The Cookies stores are also known for their branded streetwear, and the company says the Grand Rapids store will have an apparel line unique to Grand Rapids.

As part of its commitment to racial justice, the company says it will hire a minimum of 25% of employees for for the store from Grand Rapids Neighborhoods of Focus, 1 census tracts that the city has determined suffer as a result of systemic and historic inequities.

More information is available at noxx.com.

“Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives for conduct that is legal in many states,” he said. “That’s before you address the clear racial disparities around prosecu tion and conviction. Today, we begin to right these wrongs.”

The announcement, made weeks ahead of the midterm elections, is an about-face for the administration. Earlier this year, the White House signaled that it would not make a cannabis reform announcement before the midterms. And last year, it was revealed that the Biden administration had been purging staff for past cannabis use, in even states where cannabis use is legal.

Last year, a Gallup poll found that 68% of Americans support legalizing can nabis, a record high.

CULTURE

Meet us at the trap

Detroit yoga instructor makes a name for himself doing ‘Trap Yoga,’ and it’s actually not as strange as it sounds

By Randiah Camille Green

A stereotypical joke was the catalyst for 36-year-old Jamel Randall’s “trap yoga” business.

“No rap music, Jamel,” the Detroit native remembers being told when he was training to become a yoga teacher. He wasn’t offended by the notion that he, the only Black male in the class, would play rap music, but he did wonder what would be so wrong about rap music in a yoga class.

“It caught me off guard because I wasn’t even thinking about using a rap song,” he says. “But over time I started thinking about it, like, why not rap music, and why wasn’t I thinking about it when I know that’s when I listen to? That gave me a reality check right there, and I said to myself, if I

ever do this, I’ll never work for any body else.”

He adds, “I’m gonna do it in my own space so I can do what I wanna do. Imma play all the cuss words and everything so that people can start to realize who we are instead of buttering everything up.”

That’s exactly what he did. Randall is the owner and head teacher of De troit’s Trap Yoga and Massage Studio at 3179 Franklin St. Randall has made a name for himself by playing rap music during his classes, garnering popular ity around the city.

Over the summer Randall hosted a “Yin Nights” series downtown at the Spirit of Detroit Plaza that saw around 100 people, most of them Black, prac

ticing yoga between Jefferson Avenue and Larned Street. Nearly 1000 people attended his “Trapchella” event, a day of meditation and yoga in partnership with the City of Detroit.

Now his studio is gearing up for an Immersive Van Gogh Yoga series that runs every Sunday from Oct. 30 to Nov. 26.

“I never make it ridiculous,” he notes. “It’s never doing this crazy, ‘OK touch your head and twerk this and twerk that.’ I never have ‘bitch, fuck, fuck, fuck this shit’ and all that stuff coming right at you. It’s strate gic. What I want to do is wow people where they come in and they like dang, the music. Then they’re like dang, the practice like, I actually did yoga.”

When we attend Randall’s Ashtanga Remix class on a quiet Friday morn ing, it’s a fairly traditional flow aside from the Cardi B in the background.

Chainz played as we moved through Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) A. Nipsey Hustle rapped “I been grindin’ all my life” during Surya Namaskar B.

We inhaled into upward facing dog, exhaled into downward facing dog, and held the pose to Swag Surfin’ by F.L.Y.

Aside from Randall just playing whatever he wants to listen to, the music is a gimmick of sorts one that he uses to draw in a community of Black folks who may not be interested in practicing yoga otherwise.

But once they’re in the studio, they

Trap Yoga and Massage Studio owner Jamel Randall.

COURTESY PHOTO

get the benefits of a mindful and in tentional meditation practice.

“People get to do yoga to trap music and that makes them feel lighter already, because they think, ‘Well, he can’t be that serious if he’s teaching trap yoga,’” he says. “Then they come in like man, ‘He’s talking about breath, he’s talking about the movement, he named the poses.’ And then at the end of class, I can have a conversation with you and tell you what you were expe riencing. That part is where I get ’em and they start to like me. The curiosity is the trap, but the teaching is what holds them.”

Randall doesn’t just want his stu dents to shake their asses to rap music in a yoga class he wants them to learn the tenets of yoga like observing the thoughts and meeting discomfort.

“So many people feel discomfort and the first thing they do is pull back and pull away because they don’t like it,” he says. “As we all know, in order to reach new heights, you have to have some level of discomfort, so teach ing people to realize it and breathe through it on the mat prepares you for uncomfortable situations off the mat.”

Randall first became interested in yoga after suffering a back injury in the gym. He took a yoga class at Lifetime Fitness after a friend recom mended it, and was hooked on the first try because “everyone looked sweet.” So he applied for teacher train ing with Jonny Kest in Birmingham.

Randall lied on his application and said he had been practicing yoga for years, but his cover was blown about two weeks into the training when it became clear he didn’t even know what downward facing dog was.

Kest waived any remaining fees for Randall’s training.

“Later on that evening his assistant emailed me and she said, ‘Jonny says that you can be a vessel to a commu nity that he can’t reach and he wants payments to be the last thing you have to worry about,’” he recalls. “I don’t know if he’s ever done that for anybody, but I made a commitment to really dive into the practice after that.”

Randall started going to Kest’s studio every day at 5:30 a.m. for his “follow the yogi” meditation. After he finished his first 200-hour training, the minimum you need to become a certified yoga instructor, he took it a second time, then went on to get a 300-hour certification. He later trained with David Williams, who is credited with bringing Ashtanga yoga to the U.S., and started his own practice.

Before the Yin Nights and Immersive Van Gogh Yoga, Randall was hosting monthly Trap Sunday popups around

the city in 2018. Before that, he had a small space in Lathrup Village where he would do massages and his own “follow the yogi” meditation sessions.

“The first Trap Sunday I had about 40 people, and then I got as many as like 100 people and it stayed at 100 consistently,” he says. “Then I ran into Jonny again and he’s like, ‘Man I’ve been hearing about you and you’re do ing really good. Have you started doing yoga teacher trainings yet? That’s how you build your following.’”

Randall took his teacher’s advice and has since trained around 100 yoga teachers to date. He opened his Trap Yoga and Massage Studio in 2021 and developed his own teaching method — unsurprisingly called “TRAP,” which stands for trust, reveal, accept, and patience.

He says the idea of non-attachment is what got him hooked on yoga. He had gotten into working out in the first place as a way to distract himself from his parent’s death.

“My parents both passed right before then about eight or nine months apart from each other,” he says. “When I got into yoga I went in for the physical aspect of it, but we gave up a lot of things for training, like sex, alcohol, drugs, meat, basically taking on this pure lifestyle. I was 23 at the time and it’s like, ‘Why would I try to do that?’ But I realized I was throwing stuff on top of me and what I really needed to do was take stuff off of me. So once I saw the power in non-attachment, letting go, and revealing my story in yoga teacher training, I could be vulnerable.”

He adds, “Being vulnerable was one of the keys toward liberating myself mentally.”

On most days, you can find Randall at the studio at 6:30 a.m. for his mindful meditation sessions. Other classes include Soulful Trap n’ Flow, Trap YinYasa, and Yoga Basics.

He says the most important thing is to show people that practicing yoga doesn’t somehow elevate you to monk status, and you can still be a normal person.

“Jonny taught me that. He would come in and say, ‘Jamel, did you watch Lebron James last night?’ Hell, yeah I watched Lebron James!” he says. “You get so many people who take this su perficial liking to yoga and they make it a new label and say they’re enlight ened to make themselves better than you. They say, ‘Oh, I went through yoga teacher training and I’m a yogi now,’ and it’s like damn, I was hoping that you were just human.”

Randall is working on his first book, titled Trapped… The Way Out is Within, to be released in January of 2023.

CULTURE

When class unrest brews at sea

By George Elkind

Picture the often sly class commentary in Titanic but with its sincere melodramatics supplanted by a louder version of the same and you’ll have a rough sense of what Triangle of Sadness is like. Writer and direc tor Ruben Östlund delivers arthouse spectacle and social satire with a sense of commitment but no real agility, allegorizing neoliberal class dynamics with the ship’s societal microcosm encompassing a damning spread of practices running from warmongering to cajoling service staff and promoting a vapidly classist influencer culture. The film’s conclusions are hard to argue with but rarely too surprising, skewer ing easy targets (as did the Swedish di rector’s last film, The Square) in a manner enlivened more by commitment to each bit than the insights embedded within them. Still, Triangle’s cynicial gaze captures some crucial piece of being alive and observant of one’s sur roundings right now. Sometimes, in life as in art, the upshots are both damned and destined to be obvious.

Situating a well-heeled crew of international travelers on a cruise ship bound for parts unstated, Triangle ben-

efits from a canny range of character actors and bits of slapstick ingenuity which enliven it from scene to scene.

Östlund, speaking through both dia logue and situation with blunt, bullish confidence informed by the convic tion that the film’s often easy satire is nonetheless right, manages to make its comedy work even as it elbows its way through purposefully stiff, ungainly scenes. The film’s ad campaigners are shallow, sure, but did you know that beauty culture is also white suprema cist? Can you believe how far entitled white women will go to subjugate service workers? Conclusions which may be more novel to arthouse audiences in Sweden or France (where the movie won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize) are liable, it seems, to feel more obvious (whether for being seen here, or by me) in a domestic context.

But that doesn’t exactly halt the comic bits from playing, or from notching together into a tidily linked chain benefitting from a clear metaphorical throughline.

It’s Östlund’s bullishness and de liberation and his thoroughgoing sense of commitment that provide

Triangle with something approach ing transgression. Allegorizing class stratification, and especially the up per crust’s self-interested neglect of responsibility, the film’s small world churns and shakes to examine the ef fects of their political and interpersonal tendencies on the whole of society.

These explorations mostly take the form of absurdist set-pieces ranging from slapstick to comedies of manners, ones I don’t wish to spoil. That said, I can point to the film’s poster (which highlights an elaborate seasickness/ puking gag) and the trailer (which fea tures plenty of maniacal scenes of eager class performance). Each occurs within a moderated world of even, flattering lighting, of beachy blues and tans, of people young and beautiful enough to garner the worshipful servitude of others and/or rich enough to buy the very same. If the milieu seems too easy a target (as was often suggested of the art gallery world in The Square), the film’s petty rich too grotesque in their excesses and insecurities, then it’s hard to imagine how they might be both convincing and any other way when looking at the world around us.

Falling closer to Parasite than, say, the botched and hand-wringing political satire of Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, Triangle of Sadness is chillier than either of them, treating its characters as experimental subjects we look in on from outside. At the same time thanks to their performances, which occur along a shared, somewhat flat

Triangle of Sadness

Rated: R

Run-time: 149 minutes

tened comic register they all seem equally capable of wrongdoing as in Parasite, the film’s more working-class characters prove no real exception.

As a matter of obvious course and inevitable comic escalation, Triangle’s carefully ordered world comes to be eventually disrupted, giving Östlund an opportunity to test the endurance of the structures he’s less laid bare than regarded plainly: in their default, naked state. Without saying too much, it’s at this point that the film invites — really, necessitates the imposition of his imagination, requiring him to look at the way class realities and resentments come to be imbibed and maintained by characters from the film’s full variety of social strata. In his best scenes, Östlund’s work comes from pressing each point, pushing through and past the realm of the obvious to places where the unexpected can and must occur. But it’s chiefly here, in the film’s second half, that these scenes become unex pected not only on the level of scene work or event but of social implication, pointing to realities and dynamics not possible in the film’s first stretch. And that’s no coincidence, for it’s here that the film’s allegory becomes forwardlooking, attempting to imagine a future after a rupture in its compact social world, with implications for the cor responding one its viewers inhabit.

In moving to this more specula tive place, Östlund’s satire arrives on ground that’s risky for its suggestions becoming arguable, energized by adhering less to the observable and politically obvious. But with these risks come drawbacks: scenes move at times (as throughout) with a dramatic logic that’s more engaging than their suggested points others feel compara tively rich in psychological insight or social implication. But it’s an improve ment anyway to see the film ask ques tions to which it doesn’t always know the answer, even if it managed to be funny enough to be worth its running time.

By its finish, Triangle of Sadness’s bluntness transforms itself into an avenue to more compelling, less facile questions than it asked closer to its start, more reliable throughout as a fount of commentary than of social comment. In a time of what feels like increasingly prevalent crassness, it’s of ten tough when remarking on it as is plainly visible here to do more than state the obvious. We’re lucky Triangle gets to that place at all.

Writer and director Ruben Östlund delivers arthouse spectacle and social satire with a sense of commitment but no real agility.

COURTESY PHOTO

CULTURE

Savage Love

Quickies

By Dan Savage

There is more to this week’s Savage Love. To read the entire column, go to Savage.Love.

:Q Can someone be both homosexual and asexual? I can’t wrap my brain around this one.

A: Sure, a person can be asexual while also being homosexual… because asexuality is a spectrum, and that spec trum is broad and vast and includes people who experience sexual attrac tion and sometimes choose to act on their sexual attraction. Basically, some asexual guys want boyfriends but don’t wanna fuck ‘em at all, other asexual guys want boyfriends but don’t wanna fuck ‘em much. It’s really not that confusing… unless you happen to be dating a guy who either doesn’t know he’s asexual or knows it and hasn’t told you, in which case you’re likely to be as confused as you are frustrated.

:Q I’m a recently divorced 53-year-old bi-curious woman living on the East Coast. I was with my ex for most of my life and he never mentioned this, but since I have begun dating, each new partner has told me how tight I am. You would think this was a good thing! I recently began dating a man who says he loves how tight I am. However, he also says it is making him come quickly. His marriage recently ended too, so he hasn’t had a lot of sexual experience either. So, I don’t know if he just comes quickly or if it’s because of me. Do you have any suggestions?

A: Maybe it’s you maybe it’s that you’re tight (which most men regard as a good thing) or maybe he’s a premature ejaculator and he’d rather blame you than admit to it. Either way, don’t let him stick his dick in you until after he’s made you come at least once.

:Q Why do all the gay guys in my age group — guys I like — not want me? And why do only a few men above my age group — guys I also like — want me?

A: It’s a mystery a mystery best pondered sitting on the dick of an older guy who wanted you and got you.

:Q Any tips for safe sex during threesomes? Thinking about having a MFF threesome!

A: There’s no such thing as safe sex, there’s only safer sex. To be com pletely safe, skip the threesome, stay home, and take a nice, long, relaxing bath instead. Or not. According to the CDC, every year a quarter of a mil lion people wind up in the emergency room after a fall in the bathroom and thousands more never make it to the ER because they DIED naked, wet, and alone after falling out of their tubs. Meanwhile, fewer than 50,000 people are diagnosed with primary and secondary syphilis annually. So, you’re probably safer at that three some provided you don’t shower before or after it. Or ever again. (Full disclosure: Almost 700,000 people got gonorrhea in 2020 and 1.5 million people got chlamydia.)

As for making the sex safer, get test ed, share your STI statuses, and use condoms. (Condoms, when correctly used, will protect you from syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV, and preg nancy.) Basically, follow the same riskreduction strategies you would follow for a twosome with one addition: if M wants to fuck both Fs, he needs to change condoms each time he swaps holes. And to make your threesome emotionally safer, all three of you should be clear about what you do and don’t want, and everyone should agree out loud that if someone feels left out, unsafe, or uncomfortable, they can call a timeout without the other two pouting about it.

:Q Newly non-monogamous and dating after 16 years of monogamy. How to lighten the “let down” feeling when a date I’ve been looking forward to is over and I have to go back to my “regular” life?

A: Your marriage, aka your “regular” life, will fall apart if fun (going out, doing things, having adventures) is reserved for dates and stress (paying bills, doing chores, raising kids) is reserved for your spouse. New-relationshipenergy-infused dates are effortless fun (usually), whereas keeping things fun with a spouse requires thought, effort, and MDMA.

:

Q You always say that a new dad has to be willing to go with little or no sex for a long time and can’t bring up nonmonogamy. Does the same go for the mom if she’s the one who wants it more?

A: Women who’ve just given birth are usually less interested in (or capable of) sex for all the obvious reasons (physical trauma, physical exhaustion, emotional exhaustion), but studies have shown that men’s testosterone levels dip after becoming fathers, which can tank their libidos. Regardless of who wants it more, the best time for two people to discuss non-monogamy is BEFORE they’ve scrambled their DNA together, not after. If you didn’t have that conver sation before becoming parents, you should wait a year at least before bringing it up.

:Q In college my boyfriend found out his girlfriend was cheating on him with a friend. He told his friend he didn’t care, since he was planning to break up with his girlfriend at the end of the semester, and they both kept fucking her. She didn’t know they both knew. What she did was wrong (cheating), but I think my boyfriend and his friend did something worse, as she didn’t know she was being “shared” like this. How do I get my boyfriend to understand?

A: Sharing your boyfriend…

Go to Savage.Love to read the rest.

Ask: questions@savagelove.net. Listen to Dan on the Savage Lovecast. Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

Of all the rich philanthropists in the world, Aries author MacKenzie Scott is the most generous. During a recent 12-month period, she gave away $8.5 billion. Her focus is on crucial issues: racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights, pandemic relief, upholding and pro moting democracy, and addressing the climate emergency. She disburses her donations quickly and without strings attached, and prefers to avoid hoopla and ego aggrandizement. I suggest we make her your inspirational role model in the coming weeks. May she motivate you to gleefully share your unique gifts and blessings. I think you will reap selfish benefits by exploring the perks of generosity. Halloween costume sug gestion: philanthropist, Santa Claus, compassion freak.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

What animal best represents your soul? Which species do you love the most? Now would be a good time to try this imaginative exercise. ou’re in a phase when you’ll thrive by nurtur ing your inner wild thing. ou will give yourself blessings by stoking your creature intelligence. All of us are part-

beast, and this is your special time to foster the beauty of your beast. Hallow een costume suggestion: your favorite animal or the animal that symbolizes your soul.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

During the tyrannical reign of Spain’s fascist government in the 1930s, Gemini poet Federico García Lorca cre atively resisted and revolted with great courage. One critic said Lorca “was all freedom inside, abandon and wildness. A tulip, growing at the foot of a concrete bulwark.” I invite you to be inspired by Lorca’s untamed, heartfelt beauty in the coming weeks, Gemini. It’s a favorable time to rebel with exuberance against the thing that bothers you most, wheth er that’s bigotry, injustice, misogyny, creeping authoritarianism, or anything else. Halloween costume suggestion: a high-spirited protestor.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

If the trickster god Mercury gave you permission to do one mischievous thing today and a naughty thing tomor row and a rascally thing two days from now, what would you choose? Now is the perfect time for you Cancerians to engage in roguish, playful, puckish actions. ou are especially likely to get away with them, karma-free — and probably even benefit from them — especially if they are motivated by love. Are you interested in taking advantage of this weird grace period? Halloween costume suggestion prankster, joker, fairy, elf.

LEO: July 23 – August 22

How can a once great country have a meaningless monarch last 70 years, but can’t keep a Prime Minister longer than it takes me to eat all my Halloween candy??

Everyone’s mind constantly chatters with agitated fervor—what I call the ever-flickering flux. We might as well accept this as a fundamental element of being human. It’s a main feature, not a bug. et there are ways to tone down the inner commotion. Meditation can help. Communing with nature often works. Doing housework sometimes quells the clamor for me. The good news for you, Leo, is that you’re in a phase when it should be easier than usual to cultivate mental calm. Halloween costume suggestion: meditation champion; tranquility su perstar gold medalist in the relaxation tournament.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

ANSWER: BEGINS WITH B, END WITH EXIT.

“Education is an admirable thing,” said author Oscar Wilde. “But it is well to remember that nothing worth know ing can be taught.” What That’s an ex asperating theory. I don’t like it. In fact, I protest it. I reject it. I am especially opposed to it right now as I contem plate your enhanced power to learn amazing lessons and useful knowledge

will make you extra smart and respon sive to the transformations unfolding in your waking life. Halloween costume suggestion: dancing sleepwalker; snooz ing genius; angel banishing a night mare; fantastic dream creature.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

JAMES NOELLERT

and life-changing wisdom. So here’s my message for you, Virgo: What Oscar Wilde said DOES NOT APPL to you these days. Now get out there and soak up all the inspiring teachings that are available to you. Halloween costume suggestion: top student.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

To celebrate Halloween, I suggest you costume yourself as a character you were in a past life. A jeweler in first-cen tury Rome? A midwife in 11th-century China? A salt trader in 14th-century Timbuktu If you don’t have any intu itions about your past lives, be playful and invent one. Who knows ou might make an accurate guess. Why am I invit ing you to try this fun exercise Because now is an excellent time to re-access resources and powers and potentials you possessed long ago — even as far back as your previous incarnations.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21

I guess it would be difficult to create a practical snake costume for Halloween. How would you move around ou’d have to slither across the floor and the ground everywhere you go. So maybe instead you could be a snake priest or snake priestess — a magic conjurer wearing snake-themed jewelry and clothes and crown. Maybe your wand could be a caduceus. I’m nudging you in this direction because I think you will benefit from embodying the mythic attributes of a snake. As you know, the creature sheds its old skin to let new skin emerge. That’s a perfect symbol for rebirth, fertility, transforma tion, and healing. I’d love those themes to be your specialties in the coming weeks.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

“I need my sleep,” proclaimed Sagittarian comedian Bill Hicks. “I need about eight hours a day and about ten at night.” I don’t think you will need as much slumber as Hicks in the coming nights, Sagittarius. On the other hand, I hope you won’t scrimp on your travels in the land of dreams. our decisions in the waking world will improve as you give yourself maximum rest. The teach ings you will be given while dreaming

Recently, my mom told me my dad only spoke the Slovakian language, never English, until he started first grade in a school near Detroit, Michi gan. Both of his parents had grown up in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but immigrated to the United States in their youth. When I related this story to my Slovakian cousin Robert Bre ny, he as sured me it’s not true. He met my dad’s mother several times, and he says she could not speak Slovakian. He thinks she was Hungarian, in fact. So it’s un likely my dad spoke Slovakian as a child. I guess all families have odd secrets and mysteries and illusions, and this is one of mine. How about you, Capricorn I’m happy to say that the coming months will be a favorable time to dig down to the roots of your family’s secrets and mysteries and illusions. Get started! Halloween costume suggestion: your most fascinating ancestor.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

My Aquarian friend Allie told me, “If a demon turned me into a monster who had to devour human beings to get my necessary protein, I would only eat evil billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.” What about you, Aquarius? If you woke up one morning and found you had transformed into a giant wolf-dragon that ate people, who would you put on your menu? I think it’s a good time to meditate on this hypothetical question. ou’re primed to activate more ferocity as you decide how you want to fight the world’s evil in the months and years to come. Hal loween costume suggestion: a giant wolf-dragon that eats bad people.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

Do you value the feeling of wild ness Is that an experience you seek and cultivate? If so, what conditions rouse it? How does it feel? When it visits you, does it have a healthy impact? Are you motivated by your pleasurable brushes with wildness to reconfigure the unsatisfying and unwild parts of your life? These are questions I hope you will contemplate in the coming weeks. The astrological omens suggest you have more power than usual to access wild ness. Halloween costume suggestion: whatever makes you feel wild.

Thisweek’shomework: Here’s another Halloween costume suggestion — be the opposite of yourself.

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