GOT A STORY TIP OR FEEDBACK? tips@metrointhed.com or 313-202-8011
WANT TO ADVERTISE WITH US? QUESTIONS ABOUT CIRCULATION? 313-961-4060
GET SOCIAL: @metrotimes
DETROIT DISTRIBUTION
Detroit Metro Times is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader
Verified Audit Member BIG LOU HOLDINGS
Digital Operations Coordinator - Elizabeth Knapp
Chief Financial Officer - Guillermo Rodriguez
Chief Executive Officer - Chris Keating
National Advertising - Voice Media Group 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com
Feedback NEWS & VIEWS
We received comments in response to Joe Lapointe’s column about ex-DPD Chief James Craig running for mayor.
Nope give it up. Enjoy retirement. Is he Republican is democrat is he independent. He just want power go sat down. Just all over the place. —@kennythebishopmadison, Instagram
Uhhh naw we good —@jessdivine68, Instagram
Calling him popular is a stretch. —@golabki.love, Instagram
Popular with who - MAGA/Nazis? —@clshelto123, Instagram
He was only unpopular after the brainwashed detroiters found out he was a Republican which is ridiculous —@billhosey, Instagram
Craig can take his republican azz to Oakland county. He’s done and gone. We’re Not Going Back.
—@blkmnstyle65, Instagram
He’s not a conservative. He’s a Republican... and he will gleefully comply with the current administrations attempts to crush dissent in all forms if given the power —@detroitgoose.com, Bluesky
Counterpoint: it was never his moment after he ran a corrupt police department that paid out millions in lawsuits after brutalizing innocent citizens and journalists.
—@nzorach.bsky.social, Bluesky
NEWS & VIEWS
‘Tesla Takedown’ aims to peacefully protest ‘robber baron’ Elon Musk
For the past several weeks, demonstrators have gathered outside Troy’s Somerset Collection holding handmade signs with slogans like “DETROIT VS MUSK,” “STOP FUNDING A FASCIST,” and “NO KINGS! NO NAZIS!”
The demonstrations support an international “Tesla Takedown” movement against billionaire Elon Musk and his meddling in politics. They have been held starting at 1 p.m. every Sunday on the sidewalk along Big Beaver Road in front of the mall’s north section, where Musk’s company Tesla has a showroom.
Organizer Hank Kennedy says the protests are meant to hit the electric vehicle automaker CEO where it counts — his enormous wealth.
“In observing the man, I don’t think he has any conscience, so an appeal there would have no effect,” Kennedy tells Metro Times. “But I think he will be forced to respond if his wealth is threatened.”
Valued at some $320 billion, Musk is the wealthiest person in the world and has used his influence to promote right-wing candidates like President Donald Trump. In return, Musk was named head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE,
where he has ordered the firing of tens of thousands of government workers and slashed social welfare programs — moves that have faced immediate backlash.
“By protesting at Tesla, what we hope to do is damage the company’s profitability,” Kennedy says.
The movement urges people to “Sell Your Teslas, Dump Your Stock, Stop Musk Now,” and the boycott could have an impact. Shares of Tesla stocks have plunged some 40% for the year so far, a wipeout of about $530 billion in value. Tesla vehicle sales have also declined worldwide, particularly in Europe. What was once seen as one of the most powerful corporations on the planet suddenly seems vulnerable.
Kennedy says he has been “pleasantly surprised at the turnout” for the Troy protests.
“I didn’t do a whole lot to spread the word,” he says. “I sent it along to friends and family members and some people I knew, and that Sunday, 70 people showed up. I was pretty impressed at that.”
He estimates nearly double that amount showed up the next two weeks.
Certainly, the company’s problems began before the Tesla Takedown. In recent years, celebrities like Jack White
Musk himself.
“He’s just an eminently hateable figure,” Kennedy says. “He spreads these antisemitic conspiracy theories. He hates trans people. He’s anti-union. He reminds me a lot, in fact, of Henry Ford.”
In the 1920s, the Ford Motor Co. founder promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent and the book The International Jew, of which Adolph Hitler was a fan.
Like Ford, Musk also became involved in the media, purchasing the influential social media platform Twitter and turning it into X, a right-wing propaganda machine.
But Kennedy believes Musk is arguably worse than Ford.
“Musk has way more pull with government,” Kennedy says. “Ford would not have gotten along with anyone [in the White House], certainly not [Franklin D.] Roosevelt.”
Kennedy says Musk is “probably the most famous Nazi in the world.”
In January, Musk shocked many when he appeared to make the Nazi salute at a Trump rally. While Musk has claimed the gesture was misinterpreted, the move inspired copycat salutes among other members of the far-right, including former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.
and Sheryl Crow have publicly sold off their Teslas out of a disapproval with Musk’s politics and power. Tesla has also faced widespread product recalls (on Thursday, it announced a recall of more than 46,000 of its Cybertrucks due to shoddy production), lawsuits alleging its much-hyped “Autopilot” feature has caused deadly car crashes, and increased competition in the electric vehicle market. A longtime Tesla investor recently called for Musk to step down, saying his role in the government is distracting him from successfully leading the company.
In a recent appearance on Fox News, Musk appeared frazzled and on the verge of tears when asked how he could possibly manage to lead DOGE and still serve as CEO of Tesla, as well as the rocket company SpaceX, social media platform X, and tech company xAI.
In a sign of desperation, Musk and Trump even held a surreal joint press conference on the White House driveway earlier this month, where Trump purchased a red Tesla Model S and encouraged his supporters to follow suit.
Good luck getting conservatives, who have long been skeptical of EVs, to suddenly trade in their coveted Ford F-150s.
Kennedy believes much of the damage to the Tesla brand has been done by
“He gave out those ‘Sieg Heils’ — I don’t care what anyone else says, that’s what they were,” Kennedy says. “He supported a neo-Nazi political party in Germany, the Alternative for Germany. What he’s doing to what’s left of our welfare and regulatory state … is basically stripping the country for parts in order that the rich might profit at our expense. So I think he’s a robber baron. I think he’s a fascist.”
Musk and Trump have claimed DOGE’s cuts are necessary to combat waste and fraud. However, purging government workers and replacing them with loyalists was a core idea laid forth in Project 2025, the blueprint for an authoritarian government takeover that Trump has tried to distance himself from, and a federal judge recently ruled that DOGE’s actions were “likely” unconstitutional. Critics have also called DOGE a conflict of interest since Musk’s companies are under investigation by multiple federal agencies.
Anger against Musk has even inspired vandalism of Tesla vehicles and dealerships, which Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi have absurdly labeled “domestic terrorism.”
Kennedy believes the “terrorism” accusations are an attempt to chill free speech, but he makes clear that he strongly condemns vandalism and violence.
“Tesla Takedown” protesters gather outside the Somerset Collection in Troy.
PETER WERBE
“I think anything like that would be nothing but counterproductive,” he says. “I don’t want to give them any ammunition … I do my part to make sure that people know we’re there to protest peacefully and to not give Trump or the FBI or whoever any ammunition.”
While the protests have been monitored by mall security as well as the Troy Police Department, there have been no issues so far.
“The only thing they ever said was to make sure that we’re on the sidewalk,” Kennedy says. “I know my rights, so they really didn’t have to tell me that.”
Meanwhile, Kennedy says the response from the public has been “overwhelmingly supportive,” though the protesters have also been heckled by fans of Musk and Trump.
“There have been people who give you the finger, they yell ‘F-you’ out the window,” he says. The only violence
Suspended cop who told protester
to ‘go
back to Mexico’ returns to duty
A Detroit police lieutenant who was suspended last year for making inappropriate remarks at a pro-Palestinian protest has quietly returned to duty, drawing condemnation from a police accountability coalition.
Lt. Brandon Cole — who was removed from active duty in May 2024 after telling a protester to “go back to Mexico” — was reinstated in November and assigned to the Firearms Inventory Unit, with 60 days back pay, DPD confirmed to Metro Times on Thursday.
The Coalition for Police Transparency and Accountability (CPTA) denounced his return, calling it a failure of accountability. His return to duty “is an affront to the principles of accountability and a clear indication that DPD leadership is unwilling to address systemic misconduct in its ranks,” the coalition said in a statement last week.
“Brandon Cole’s reinstatement is not just a personnel decision — it is a declaration that officers who engage in unconstitutional, racial intimidation, and targeted surveillance of activists will face no real consequences,” the coalition continued.
Cole’s suspension last year followed an internal investigation into his conduct at the May 19, 2024, protest outside Detroit’s Huntington Place, where then-President Joe Biden was attending an event by the
he says he has seen so far is somebody throwing a cup of ice at the protesters.
“There was somebody at the last one I nicknamed ‘the secret agent man’ who was covered, I mean, head to toe, with goggles and a mask and a helmet,” Kennedy says. “He was filming us the whole time. I think he was obviously some sort of provocateur who wanted to get something on camera.”
Kennedy adds, “He accused me, personally, of either being paid by somebody or following a script.”
Allegedly, a Cybertruck driver also came to the protest looking for Kennedy when he was not there.
“Somebody told me about it afterwards and said that he asked for me by name and yelled that he hoped that I was getting paid for this,” says Kennedy, who maintains that the protest is a grassroots movement and not ordered or funded by anybody.
The threats against the Tesla protesters come as the Trump administration has also cracked down on demonstrations opposed to Israel’s U.S.-backed attacks in the Middle East, including the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student who was detained last month after leading campus protests in what critics have called a flagrant abuse of government power against free speech and due process. Khalil, a green card holder and expectant father, has not been charged with any crime.
“Am I intimidated? No,” Kennedy says. “Because that’s what it is. I think they want you to feel frightened so that you’ll shut up and be quiet.”
He says he’s emboldened by a recent poll suggesting most Americans now have a negative view of Musk, who has long enjoyed fawning and uncritical coverage in the mainstream media.
Musk has long painted himself as
“green billionaire” savior who aims to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” — a myth that falls apart when he partners with someone like Trump, who has said that climate change is a “hoax.” This has alienated many of Tesla’s typically liberal customers, and cars emblazoned with bumper stickers reading “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy” have become an increasingly common sight.
Kennedy’s next protest is planned for 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 23. Additionally, the Tesla Takedown movement is calling for its “biggest day of action” yet, aiming for 500 demonstrations at Tesla showrooms around the world on Saturday, March 29. More information is available at teslatakedown.com.
“We have a righteous cause,” Kennedy says. “We need to just keep on applying the pressure.”
—Lee DeVito
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In a widely circulated video, Cole was seen taunting activist Lexis Zeidan, saying, “Why don’t you just go back to Mexico?”
When Zeidan, who is Palestinian American, replied that she was not Mexican, Cole responded, “You were hanging out there and having a good time. Go back and hang out in Mexico where you were at.”
Investigators later determined Cole was referencing Zeidan’s recent vacation, raising concerns that he had been monitoring activists’ social media pages.
At the time, then-DPD Chief James White recommended the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners strip him of his pay.
A few months later, Cole sued the department, alleging wrongful suspension.
In response, DPD defended its decision, saying, “The allegations are baseless, unfounded, and lack any semblance of merit.”
DPD added, “The decision to suspend Lieutenant Cole from duty was based on evidence that he had engaged in biasbased policing tactics and other misconduct during the recent NAACP event. Under no circumstances will such conduct be tolerated by any member of the Department, and this lawsuit will in no way deter the Department from administering appropriate discipline based on all of the facts.”
CPTA says Cole’s history of misconduct extends beyond last year’s incident, pointing to his role in the 2020 Detroit Will Breathe protests, where demonstrators accused him of overseeing mass arrests,
excessive force, and intimidation tactics.
As a result of a police brutality lawsuit, DPD paid the protesters more than $1 million in damages.
“By reinstating Brandon Cole, DPD leadership has reinforced a dangerous precedent: officers who harass and surveil activists, fail to prevent police violence, and engage in discriminatory behavior will evade accountability,” CPTA said. “Even more troubling, Brandon Cole has been reassigned to the Firearms Inventory Unit, where he retains operational responsibilities despite his documented record of misconduct. This is not a consequence — it is a reward.”
The group is calling on city leaders and police commissioners to intervene and remove Cole from the force.
—Steve Neavling
Palestinian American activist Lexis Zeidan.
VIOLA KLOCKO
Ex-Eminem employee charged with selling rapper’s unreleased music
A former employee of Eminem has been charged with selling the rapper’s unreleased music, leading to a federal case involving copyright infringement and theft.
Joseph Strange, 46, of Holly, Michigan, was charged with criminal copyright infringement and interstate transportation of stolen goods, the Justice Department announced.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation alleges Strange, who worked for Eminem from 2007 until his dismissal in 2021, sold unreleased tracks recorded by the rapper. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for copyright infringement, and up to 10 years for transporting stolen goods across state lines.
According to federal prosecutors, the FBI launched an investigation in January after employees at Eminem’s Ferndale-based Effigy Studios noticed a list of the rapper’s unreleased songs circulating online. The list matched a catalog stored on password-protected hard drives at the studio, which were accessible to only a few employees, including Strange, an audio engineer who helped set up and manage the system.
The investigation uncovered that Strange sold the music to a Canadian buyer who raised about $50,000 in Bitcoin with a group of Eminem fans, the Detroit Free Press first reported. Additional buyers told authorities they had purchased songs from Strange,
including one who paid $1,000 for a pair of tracks.
The FBI recovered hard drives from Strange’s home containing thousands of music files, including unreleased Eminem songs, handwritten lyrics, and an unreleased music video stored in a safe.
Authorities were tipped off in part by Eminem’s longtime collaborator Fredwreck, who warned in a since-deleted social media post, “We will find you. Street law will apply.”
A U.K.-based Eminem fan later provided the FBI with chat messages linking Strange to the leaks. The investigation confirmed the stolen songs were in various stages of development and never intended for public release.
Eminem’s team condemned the leak, calling it a serious breach of trust.
“The significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem’s artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated, let alone the enormous financial losses incurred by the many creators and collaborators that deserve protection for their decades of work,” Eminem’s team said in a statement.
“We will continue to take any and all steps necessary to protect Eminem’s art and will stop at nothing to do so.”
Acting U.S. Attorney Julie Beck underscored the importance of protecting intellectual property.
“Protecting intellectual property from thieves is critical in safeguarding the exclusive rights of creators
and protecting their original work from reproduction and distribution by individuals who seek to profit from the creative output of others,” Beck said in a statement.
Cheyvoryea Gibson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, credited collaboration between law enforcement and Eminem’s team for quickly enforcing federal laws.
“This investigation underscores the FBI’s commitment to safeguard-
ing artists’ intellectual property from exploitation by individuals seeking to profit illegally,” Gibson said. “Thanks to the cooperation of Mathers Music Studio, FBI agents from the Oakland County Resident Agency were able to swiftly enforce federal laws and ensure Joseph Strange was held accountable for his actions.”
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Wyse and Alyse Wu.
Steve Neavling
New documentary, investigation revisit 1974 murder of Donald Goines
Fifty years after the unsolved murder of author Donald Goines and his common-law wife in their Highland Park apartment, a film production company is shooting a documentary and launching a new investigation in hopes of uncovering what happened.
The film company, Detroit Son, will explore the life and legacy of Goines, a prolific writer widely credited with shaping the genre of urban fiction. To help reexamine the cold case, Detroit Son has hired locally renowned private investigator and former TV journalist Bill Proctor.
“There has been a lot of speculation about the two individuals who did the shooting and why the shooting took place,” Proctor said. “But this is a cold case that’s never been solved, and now it’s time to get some answers.”
Goines and Sailor were found fatally shot inside their apartment on Oct. 21, 1974. Both had been struck multiple times in the head and chest. Police
received an anonymous tip about the shooting and found Goines in the living room and Sailor in the kitchen. Initial reports indicated there were two male suspects, but no arrests were ever made.
“It’s unfortunate that, 50 years later, we still don’t have the people who did this in jail,” said Donna Sailor, Goines’s daughter who was 2 years old at the time of the shooting. “Hopefully this reward and investigation will help our family not only get answers, but justice. So if you have information, please come forward.”
The documentary aims to spotlight Goines’s influence and complex legacy. Filming will take place in Detroit and Highland Park, and the documentary is expected to be released in spring 2026.
In addition to the renewed investigation and documentary, Detroit Son is offering a $5,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the killers.
Born in Detroit in 1936, Goines
was raised in a middle-class Catholic household and lied about his age to join the Air Force at 15. While serving in the Korean War, he developed a heroin addiction that followed him after his honorable discharge.
To support his addiction, Goines turned to crime, including pimping, robbery, and bootlegging, and he spent time in both state and federal prison. While incarcerated, he began writing fiction inspired by the people and environments around him. After reading Pimp by Iceberg Slim, Goines shifted from writing westerns to gritty street novels, publishing 16 books between 1971 and 1975.
His works — including Dopefiend, Daddy Cool, and the Kenyatta series — became cult classics, especially among incarcerated readers and marginalized communities.
His influence has stretched far beyond literature, with rappers like 2Pac, Nas Jadakiss, and Ludacris referencing
his work in their lyrics. Robert “Tape” Bailey, an executive producer on the documentary, said Goines’s book gave him hope while serving time in prison.
“As someone who grew up on the east side of Detroit, who spent time in prison, who read Goines’s books while I was locked up — these were some of the first books I read in my life,” Bailey said. “These books helped me to know that there was something better for me.”
Executive producer Craig Gore said Goines’s legacy is still underappreciated and his impact has gone largely unnoticed.
“There are many individuals who took a different path after reading a Goines book,” he said.
The documentary is expected to be produced on a $500,000 budget.
Anyone with tips about the 50-year-old murder is urged to call 586-873-1371.
—Steve Neavling
An ex-audio engineer for Eminem leaked tracks in exchange for Bitcoin. SHUTTERSTOCK
EMPLOYMENT
Senior Project Manager, Brose North America, Auburn Hills, MI. Plan, lead, & set project financial & technical milestones & deliverables for N.A. product dvlpmt & series production for door modules & window regulators for current & future projects & to meet pkgg & Product Dvlpmt Process standards. Guide cross functional team of engrs/ planners to meet project deliverables. Perform target cost mgmt, product cost optimization, & technical & financial anlyss to manage & deliver door module & window regulator projects from automot cmpt concept dvlpmt & industrialization to commercialization & continuous improvement throughout product lifecycle. Use CATIA V5 tool to dvlp products & review activities of Project Engr, & use SAP modules to plan financial & technical aspects of projects. Coordinate project targets & Key Performance Indicators w/ Project Controllers to support anlys & calculation of product costs for quotation of acquisition projects. Bachelor, Mechanical, Mechatronic, Industrial, or Automotive Engrg, or related. 60 mos exp as Project Engr, Project Mgr, or related, performing target cost mgmt, product cost optimization, & technical anlyss to deliver door module or window regulator projects from cmpt concept dvlpmt to commercialization, or related. E- mail resume to Jobs@brose.com (Ref#2659-103).
NEWS & VIEWS
Lapointe
Such an interesting time to test a Tesla
By Joe Lapointe
The TV showed President Donald Trump on the White House lawn with his unelected Deputy President Elon Musk.
They were showing off electric vehicles made by Tesla, a Musk car company currently under much criticism. Trump himself bought one, although he often rants against “electric vehicle mandates” and generally rides in the back of a chauffeured limousine.
A few days later, again on TV, we saw scenes of orange flames engulfing a row of new Teslas in a Las Vegas parking lot. So Fox News Channel interviewed the international oligarch Musk, a South African by birth who is said to be the wealthiest person in the world.
Musk’s campaign cash helped Trump regain the White House. Currently, he is Trump’s hatchet man for firing government employees without due process through the recently invented “Department of Government Efficiency.”
Democrats, liberals, progressives and even a few conservative Republicans fear DOGE also could slash entitlements for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Musk spoke while standing in front of the White House.
“I always thought that the left, Democrats, were supposed to be the party of empathy, the party of caring,” Musk told Fox, “and yet they’re burning down cars, they’re fire-bombing dealerships. They’re firing bullets into dealerships. They’re smashing up Teslas.”
Notice the clever conflation of both fact and unproven assumption in Musk’s wild accusation. Because Democrats are among Musk’s many critics, he assumes Democrats (a.k.a. “The Left”) must be the ones attacking Musk’s automotive products to protest his politics.
While that could be, the vandals might also be loyal government workers, unexpectedly fired for no good reason; or maybe they are needy military veterans, wary of Musk’s benefit cuts; or they could be bigots who hate presumably legal immigrants like Musk and fear his Third Reich salute.
They may even see him — in their paranoid, progressive, woke way — as a vandal
from a foreign country, a cosmopolitan globalist bent on reshaping his adopted nation. They may resent his on-stage “humor” of waving a large chain-saw before a cheering, right-wing mob.
When I reached the Tesla showroom in Troy’s Somerset Collection mall last week, I noticed no demonstrators or vandals — and hardly any cars. There were two Teslas indoors for what used to be called tirekicking and a few outdoors for test drives.
Greeting me was a young, enthusiastic salesman named Adrian, who told me business was good.
“Sold five last week,” he said.
Why, you might ask, would a skeptical liberal like me shop for a controversial car like a Tesla with so many other brands — electric and gasoline-powered — to choose from? It just seemed fair. I am in the market for a new car, preferably a midsize sedan that doesn’t guzzle gasoline.
So I wanted to do my homework. I will probably shop a half-dozen brands and take a few test drives. It seemed logical to begin with one of the moment’s most-discussed vehicles. If you are car-shopping and column-writing in Detroit, Tesla checks a lot of boxes.
I explained this to Adrian, who swung the car out onto the roads around the mall. After telling me it could accelerate 0-to-60 miles per hour in less than five seconds, he proved it at the change of a traffic light from red to green.
The car jumped forward with a hop
that felt like a ride at an amusement park or the takeoff of an airplane. I could not deny the tingle in my gut. I noticed my salesman looking for my reaction.
“This is a man’s toy, as well as a car,” Adrian said, with a smile and a nod. “Once you get into a Tesla, it’s kind of hard to get out.” (And I thought to myself: Good thing they didn’t have this technology in my first car, a 1965 Corvair I bought used for $500).
We discussed mileage range (300 to 363 miles per battery charge, he said) and various methods of charging. In response to my question, my salesman told me this Tesla uses eight television cameras to find blind spots and avoid crashes.
And Adrian added the car had only 20 moving parts compared to 2,000 in a gasoline car. He said all parts of this Tesla were manufactured and assembled in Fremont, California, and Austin, Texas.
We did not discuss how Tesla’s stock price has fallen by half recently or how Tesla’s Cybertrucks are being recalled because a glued panel might fly loose and cause crashes. (I was shopping its smaller sibling, labeled a compact.)
We did not discuss how Musk’s investments in places like China could create conflicts of interest as his political footprint grows. And we did not discuss how Trump’s determination to roll back environmental rules will damage demand for cleaner cars and hurt their resale value.
After our ride, Adrian showed me how
the car “thinks for itself” by backing into a narrow parking space automatically without the driver even touching the wheel. He showed me not only the rear trunk but also the front “frunk.”
Voila! Front storage like my 1974 VW Beetle ($2,500 then), my first new car. Tesla’s battery, he said, is hidden beneath the undercarriage — well-balanced and a hedge, he said, against rollovers.
Adrian told me he could “get me into” this stealth gray Tesla 2025 Model 3 for $39,540, with the tax credit incentive that Trump — perhaps paradoxically — is trying to kill. Or, I could lease the same car for 24 months for $1,000 down, $3,000 at signing and a fee of $350 per month.
“What’s not to love about this vehicle?” Adrian asked.
As we know around Detroit, Musk is not the first auto tycoon to swerve outside his lane into politics and culture wars. The original Henry Ford — brilliant at manufacturing automobiles — tried to end World War I on a “Peace Ship”; ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate from Michigan; and backed antisemitic publications.
Tesla is a different kind of car and Musk is a different type of tycoon but he, too, is megalomaniacal. His rise to power is an example of what happens when wealth brazenly buys into government power to reshape a culture.
Musk makes an appealing product amid appalling politics; my car shopping will continue.
Car-guy Elon Musk swerves way out of his lane.
“We
In an email to the University of Michigan (U-M) Faculty Senate, Faculty Senate Chair and Professor at Stamps School of Art Rebekah Modrak alleges that academic deans at U-M schools were recently requested “to create lists of employees who work in DEI-related positions and to estimate what percentage of their work fell into one of four categories.” Deans were apparently given 48 hours to complete the lists, which were due Feb. 14.
The due date indicates that the request for lists of employees in roles related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was issued prior to President Donald Trump’s own Feb. 14 memo, which warned U.S. schools they could lose federal funding for failing to elimi-
nate diversity initiatives.
The request for lists of employees appears to have originated with the U-M Board of Regents, which did not respond to requests for comment on this article.
In a call with the Metro Times, Modrak said it was unclear whether the lists affected U-M faculty, staff, or both. She said it was also unclear whether individuals whose names had been included on the lists had been informed of that fact. It’s likewise unclear how the information will be used and with whom it will be shared, though Modrak said she had repeatedly requested clarity regarding these issues from U-M President Santa Ono and Provost Laurie McCauley.
According to an anonymous source in the administration, the names of employees doing DEI work will not be shared with U-M regents, but this information has not been confirmed either by Provost McCauley or other university officials.
Publicly, several regents, including Jordan Acker and Sarah Hubbard, have called for DEI programs at U-M to be dismantled; Acker has also made statements to the press conflating DEI with antisemitism.
In a prepared statement, university spokesperson Kay Jarvis of the U-M Office of Public Affairs said, “The University of Michigan is carefully reviewing executive orders and other federal guidance to understand their
implications.” Jarvis added only, “Earlier this month, the university’s executive vice presidents asked deans, dean-level directors and executive officers to provide information related to staffing.”
Representatives from the Office of Public Affairs declined to provide further comment.
Modrak was originally approached by four executive officers who first informed her of the regents’ request for lists of employees in DEI roles; those executive officers asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal.
Modrak told the Metro Times that she felt compelled to send the email to the Faculty Senate after sharing what she’d learned with a colleague
work in a school that professes itself as a place where we promote diversity, equity and inclusion,” says U-M professor Rogério Pinto.
at the U-M Law School, who told her, “The Faculty Senate cannot sit on this. That information needs to be shared with the faculty.”
“My goal is to share information with the [U-M] faculty so that they know things that are happening, and so that they can then speak up, if they choose to, and ask questions,” Modrak said.
In her email to the Faculty Senate,
Modrak, who is the author of Trouble in Censorville: The Far Right’s Assault on Public Education — and the Teachers Who Are Fighting Back, writes that “Under McCarthyism, such lists were requested under the guise of ‘protecting the nation from subversives or communists.’”
Over the phone, Modrak mentioned the three U-M faculty members forced to testify before
email. He still isn’t sure if his own name has been included on a list and, when he asked administrators at the School of Social Work, he was told only that the names of individuals involved in DEI work are already freely available as a matter of public record.
DEI-related activities aren’t formally included among Pinto’s job responsibilities. But he believes that the principles underlying DEI are “inextricably connected to social work research, practice, and teaching,” whether or not the acronym itself is present.
“We work in a school that professes itself as a place where we promote diversity, equity and inclusion,” Pinto says. In that sense, “All of our names should be [on the list].”
Modrak wants to know how the university is “defining who’s doing DEI work.”
“Technically, we’re all doing DEI work,” she told the Metro Times “When I teach a class and I make sure that the artists that I’m showing are representing many different perspectives and cultures and races and genders and so on — I’m doing DEI work.”
SHUTTERSTOCK
the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954. All three refused to answer questions. All three were suspended from the university; while Clement Markert was eventually reinstated, Chandler Davis and Mark Nickerson were dismissed from their positions. An annual lecture is now held in their names.
“They had a huge impact on the culture of the university,” Modrak said. “For decades afterwards, [U-M] became a place where people did not trust their colleagues, where people were hesitant to publish research or to put forward statements that took risks… But,” she adds, “the impact to those two individuals, of course, was the really devastating thing.”
Faculty at U-M have directly witnessed “the making of lists, and faculty being put on lists,” and those lists “leading to their firing,” Modrak said.
“It’s scary and it’s career-ending for some people. That’s a history that we’re aware of here.”
This sentiment was echoed by Berit Ingersoll-Dayton Collegiate Professor of Social Work Rogério Pinto, who says he first learned of the request for lists of employees in DEI roles when he received Modrak’s Faculty Senate
Modrak’s email was distributed to the entire Faculty Senate, which includes approximately 7,600 tenuretrack lecturers, clinical researchers, librarians, archivists, and curators; she also forwarded it to the president of the Central Student Government and shared it with staff. Near the end of her email, she invited other faculty to join her in requesting that President Ono and Provost McCauley deidentify the lists. Faculty were invited to cc the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs (SACUA, the executive branch of the Faculty Senate) on these messages. Modrak says SACUA has since received several dozen messages expressing “concern about the lack of clarity about how these lists will be used.”
U-M is currently one of more than 50 universities under investigation for alleged racial discrimination that, according to Trump’s officials, excludes white and Asian American students.
Moving forward, Modrak said she’d like to see President Ono, Provost McCauley, and other university officials “be more candid with faculty governance about what is happening.”
The lack of transparency, Modrak said, has only added to what she described as a “culture of retaliation from the federal government.”
“I’m hoping that [U-M officials are] a little bit more thoughtful going forward about protecting employees at the University,” Modrak said.
The Michigan Daily, May 11, 1954. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY
DOORS@8P/$5COVER
Coming Up: 4/05 Dependably Ratchet (DJ’s/DANCE) 4/11 J Michael & the Heavy Burden/BMcC Jamboree/ Dave Tonnies
4/12 DIVAS vs. DIVAS (monthly dance party) 4/18 Castle Black(NYC)/Sound of the Shell/ Sonic Smut/Cherry Drop 4/19 DANNY OVERSTREET DAY
4/25 Vlad’s Skeletal Circus/Living Ai/ Lonesome Skeleton Band
4/26 FOOL SCHOOL pres. “Sally Jenny Donahue” 5/02 Vultures of Culture/Funderbird/3148s
5/03 Sudden Death Syndrome/Yeddie/Scum Queens 5/04 MUTT MEETUP
5/04 PATIO OPENING PARTY w/ Howard Glazier Book Your Parties: theoldmiamibarevents@gmail.com Old Miami T-shirts & Hoodies for Sale!
WHAT’S GOING ON
Ottawa Senators at Detroit Red Wings
The month of March hasn’t exactly gone as planned for the Red Wings. In fact, the last several Marches have been rough for the Wings, as fans have seen losing streaks down the stretch derail playoff hopes for now the third consecutive season. But the Wings are yet to have been mathematically eliminated, and though this roller coaster of a season has reached its first nadir under Todd McLellan, the team has ripped off two separate seven game winning streaks since his midseason hiring. There’s some precedent here of a team that can really stack up wins when it gets rolling. Alex DeBrincat
and Patrick Kane have stayed hot despite the team’s losing ways. There are some silver linings — we just hope they figure it out before it’s too late.
—Josh Cohen
Starts 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 27; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; ticketmaster.com. Tickets start at $41.
Holland
West Michigan’s scenic Holland, Michigan — home of the idyllic Tulip Time festival — is the setting of a new thriller starring Nicole Kidman. Titled Holland, the film
premiered at the South by Southwest Festival and will be available to stream on Amazon Prime starting on Thursday. “In this wildly unpredictable thriller, Nicole Kidman is the meticulous Nancy Vandergroot, a teacher and homemaker whose picture-perfect life with her community pillar husband [Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen] and son [Jude Hill] in tulip-filled Holland, Michigan tumbles into a twisted tale,” the film’s official synopsis reads. “Nancy and her friendly colleague [Gael García Bernal] become suspicious of a secret, only to discover nothing in their lives is what it seems.” That description and the trailer seem to suggest something like The Stepford
Wives, the 2004 sci-fi black comedy also starring Kidman, or perhaps more recently 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling. Both took place in suburban settings that were not what they appeared to be on the outside. We guess we’ll just have to wait and see. The film is the sophomore effort by director Mimi Cave, following her 2022 cannibal horror film Fresh. It was first announced in 2013 as Holland, Michigan with director Errol Morris attached to the project and Naomi Watts and Bryan Cranston attached to star.
—Lee DeVito Available to stream via Amazon Prime on Thursday, March 27.
Cleveland Cavaliers at Detroit Pistons
While the Cleveland Cavaliers likely have the 1 seed in the East wrapped up, one couldn’t blame them for looking over their shoulder after they were hit with a rare spat of losses on their west coast trip. Donovan Mitchell and company will be motivated to right the ship as they look towards a deep playoff run. Cade Cunningham faces off against fellow 2021 top pick Evan Mobley, and while the debate surrounding whether the Pistons took the right guy has finally laid to rest, Mobley’s still presents matchup problems for the Pistons. Mobley put up a 30/9/7 slash line in Cleveland’s 118-115 win in Detroit back in February that Detroit fans will remember ended in heartbreaking fashion on a Darius Garland buzzer beater from the logo. Friday’s match is also Pride Night at LCA, and there is a Pistons Pride jersey and fanny pack giveaway, and a pride-themed halftime show.
—Josh Cohen
Starts 7 p.m. on Friday, March 28;
The Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Ave., Detroit; ticketmaster.com. Tickets start at $50.
DJ House Shoes
50th Birthday
Known both for his penchant for comfy footwear as well as serving as the “Ambassador of Detroit HipHop,” House Shoes (aka Michael Buchanan) is an influential DJ and producer from Detroit beloved the world over for his work with the likes of J Dilla, Proof, Elzhi, Danny Brown, and others; folks around here might even remember him from his longtime residency at Saint Andrew’s Hall or from slinging records at at Melodies & Memories. Now based in Los Angeles, House Shoes will be celebrated in the Motor City for his big 50th birthday bash. Set for the Norwood Theatre on Saturday, the event will to feature special guests from the rap world including Phat Kat, Guilty Simpson, Marv Won, Fatt Father, Big Tone, Boog Brown, Black Milk, Fat Ray, Stretch Money, and members of D12, among others. “This event is more than a birthday party,” organizers say, “it’s a tribute to an icon whose contributions continue to shape the sound and soul of hip-hop.”
—Lee
DeVito
Starts at 10 p.m. on Saturday, March 29; The Norwood, 6531 Woodward Ave., Detroit; eventbrite.com. Tickets are $20-$40.
Museum of Divine Art
Designer Darylynn Mumphord is hosting an event that brings together fashion, philanthropy, and advocacy. The founder of Dream Rich and Arte de la Moda, Mumphord has spent a decade promoting Detroit’s fashion scene, empowering creatives, and managing Detroit hip-hop artist Baby
impact beyond music and fashion by launching “I’m Not Different,” a movement dedicated to supporting people with epilepsy. “It’s literally the last 10 years of everything I’ve done,” Mumphord says. “It’s a fashion show but it’s a celebration of the last 10 years.” Mumphord says she had epilepsy, though she hasn’t had a seizure since 2019. “I started my brand when I couldn’t graduate with my friends,” she says, adding, “I’m here to motivate, reassure, and tell people they’re not different.” The “Museum of Divine Art” will feature art, a fashion show, and appearances (and possible performances) by Baby Money, Lana LaDonna, and others. Mumphord says 50% of event proceeds will go
toward education, medical support, and community resources for epilepsy awareness.
—Kahn Santori Davison
Starts at 8 p.m. on Sunday, March 30; Hotel Saint Regis, 3071 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit; eventnoire.com. Tickets are $40 general admission and $60 VIP.
Ann Arbor Film Festival
North America’s oldest experimental film festival returns to Michigan Theater in downtown Ann Arbor all week and weekend, with tickets available for individual movies as well as weekend and full festival pass options. We’re particularly looking forward to
SELECTIONS
Saturday’s screening of Devo, a look at the rise to popularity of “a rare band founded by a philosophy; a Dada experiment of high art meets low, hellbent on infiltrating American popular culture.” The documentary delves into Devo’s origins in campus unrest — Devo was at Kent State in 1970 and founding member Jerry Casale was friends with two of the slain student protesters — making its inclusion in the festival particularly timely.
—Josh Cohen
Festival runs through Sunday; Devo event starts 5:30 p.m. on Saturday; Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty St., Ann Arbor; aafilmfest.org. Tickets start at $14.
DJ House Shoes is turning 50.
OBNW / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
WHAT’S GOING ON CONTD
Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Be sure to check venue websites before all events for the latest information. Add your event to our online calendar: metrotimes.com/AddEvent.
MUSIC
Wednesday, March 26
Live/Concert
CLASSIC LOUNGE SOUNDS w/ KESHTKAR & CO. 8-11 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.
Matt Larusso Trio and guests 8-11 p.m.; Northern Lights Lounge, 660 W. Baltimore St., Detroit; no cover.
Whitechapel, Brand of Sacrifice, 200 Stab Wounds, Alluvial 5:30 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $27.50.
DJ/Dance
Nightcap Detroit 11 p.m.-2 a.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit. Planet Funk 7-10 p.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit.
Steal From Self-Scan Tour *Babies R Stupid* 10 pm-2 am; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit; $10.
Thursday, March 27
Live/Concert
Ben Böhmer 7 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $30-$35.
Nicotine Dolls, Wic Whitney 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.
Smokey Robinson 8 p.m.; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $53-$118.
The Decibel Magazine Tour 2025: Mayhem, Mortiis, Imperial Triumphant, New Skeletal Faces 5:30 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $27.50-$77.50.
DJ/Dance
Curated Cool 7-10 p.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit.
The Juice 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit; $10.
The Queers, Middle Out, B-Plot, The Black List 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $20.
Tommy Richman, mynameisntjmack 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.
YYNOT (Rush tribute) 8 p.m.; Emerald Theatre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $20-$220.
Wisher, Defect, DJ Chadwick 9 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover. DJ/Dance
Kraftwerk 7 p.m.; Cathedral Theatre at the Masonic Temple, 500 Temple St., Detroit; $99-$297.
Sun Factor 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit; $10.
Saturday, March 29
Live/Concert
Billy Joel & Stevie Nicks 7 p.m.; Ford Field, 2000 Brush St., Detroit; $59.50-$349.50.
House Shoes 50th Birthday Celebration 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; The Norwood, 6531 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20-$45. Elspeth Tremblay & The Treat-
ment EP release party, Detroit Party Marching Band, Elephant Den 10 p.m.-1 a.m.; The Old Miami, 3930 Cass Ave., Detroit; $5. Faded, Wanted, Portal 27, Echoes of Eon 7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15.
Hollywood Nights (Bob Seger tribute) 8 p.m.; Emerald Theatre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $25-$250.
In An Unknown Hand: Treble Music from Anonymous Manuscripts 7 p.m.; Christ Church-Detroit, 960 E. Jefferson, Detroit; $25 ($10 student).
Magic Bag Presents: MEGA 80s 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.
The Miracles featuring Sydney Justin 7:30 p.m.; Macomb Center, 44575 Garfield Rd Building M, Clinton Twp.; $50.
Raising the Dead (Grateful Dead tribute) 7-10:30 p.m.; The HUB Stadium, 44325 W 12 Mile Rd Unit H-160, Novi; 25-120.
ShamRock Jazz Orchestra 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $35-$55.
The 17th Annual Motor City Blues Festival: King George, Tucka, Pokey Bear, J-Wonn, West Love, Ronnie Bell 7 p.m.; Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $59-$250.
The Danger of Falling, Earth & Elsewhere, Mafia Birdhouse, Vexatious 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.
The Taxpayers, Rent Strike, Ellyeahdehd, Isaak and the Holy Guitar 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $30.
The War and Treaty, Tiera Kennedy 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $28.
Tino G.’s Dumpster Machine, DJ Lady Witch 9 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.
DJ/Dance
Detroit Techno Militia 10 p.m.-2 a.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit; $10.
One More Time: (Daft Punk tribute), Drop Catch, Soular Spice 9 p.m.; Tuxedo Detroit, 11745 Woodward Ave., Highland Park; $25-$40.
Saturday Grind 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit.
Sunday, March 30 Live/Concert
Anberlin, Copeland, Madina Lake 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $30-$70.
Dave Bennett Winter Brunch Series: Dave Bennett Band 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.; The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms; $35-$95.
Ferndale Community Concert Band Celebrates 10th Anniversary at Orchestra Hall 3-5 p.m.; Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit.
Hip Hop and R & B Bingo 8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $40. Meshuggah, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass 6 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $49.50-$89.50.
Phil Ogilvie’s Rhythm Kings 5-8 p.m.; Zal Gaz Grotto Club, 2070 W. Stadium Blvd., Ann Arbor; No Cover (tip jar for the band).
Sarah and the Sundays, The Slaps 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $22. DJ/Dance
SPKR Brunch 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River, Detroit. Karaoke
Sunday Karaoke in the Lounge 5-9 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.
Monday, March 31
Live/Concert
Dinah Washington Tribute featuring Nina Simone Neal 7-10 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; $35.
Magic Bag Presents: The Rocket Summer, Mae 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $97. Nettspend, XAVIERSOBASED 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $35.
Open Mic : Art in a Fly Space 7-10 p.m.; Detroit Shipping Company, 474 Peterboro St., Detroit; no cover.
Tuesday Karaoke in the Lounge 8 p.m.-midnight; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.
THEATER
Performance
Andiamo Celebrity Showroom
The Barricade Boys; $35-$65; Friday, 8 p.m.
Birmingham Village Players Steel Magnolias. Truvy is the owner of Truvy’s Beauty Spot where six women from a small town gather to share their laughter, tears, and friendship. $30; Thursday, 8-10 p.m.; Friday, noon-10 p.m.; Saturday, noon-10 p.m.; and Sunday, noon-4 p.m.
FIM Elgood Theatre A Driving Beat by Jordan Ramirez. Puckett Mateo, a 14-year-old boy with brown skin, ad Diane, his white adoptive mother, take a road trip from their home in Ohio to his birthplace in San Diego. Throughout the journey, they are forced to reconcile their differing identities and what it means to be a family. Developed in Flint Rep’s 2023 New Works Festival. $27, Genesee County residents save 30%; Wednesday, 10 a.m.; Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, 2 p.m.
Tipping Point Theatre English by Sanaz Toossi. In an Iranian classroom for adult English learners, the teacher, Marjan, leads four students through a linguistic playground as they prepare for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam. Their dreams, frustrations and secrets come to the forefront. Will “English only” expand or limit what they truly want to say? This comic and heartfelt play about language and identity won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. “A rich new play … both contemplative and comic” declares The New York Times. $25$55; Wednesday, 2-3:30 p.m.; Thursday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Friday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Saturday, 7:30-9 p.m.; and Sunday, 2-3:30 p.m.
Musical
Fisher Theatre - Detroit The Book of Mormon (touring); Tuesday, April 1, 7:30 p.m.
Meadow Brook Theatre Vanities: The Musical; $46; Wednesday, 8 p.m.; Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. and 8 pm; and Sunday, 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Go Comedy! Improv Theater Go Comedy! All-Star Showdown; $25; Fridays, Saturdays.
Planet Ant Black Box Dress Rehearsal. The stage is set, the costumes are ready — but when the lead actor quits the night before opening, chaos takes center stage. Each night, a surprise guest takes on the lead role with no script, no rehearsal, and no clue what’s coming next. As the cast scrambles to keep the show together, the audience becomes part of the unpredictable, fast-paced fun. Written and directed by Robyn Whitelaw, Dress Rehearsal is a must-see for fans of improv, interactive theater, and big laughs. $30 online or $35 door; Fridays, Saturdays, 8-9:15 p.m. and Sunday, 3-4:15 p.m.
Stand-up
Detroit House of Comedy Detroit
Roasts Everybody. See ten comedic competitors go head to head in an epic roast battle right in the heart of Detroit. You’ll see the best talent in the city laugh, cry, and above all else: show no mercy! $20; Thursday , 8-9:30 p.m.
The Fillmore Nurse John: The Short Staffed Tour; $37-$57; Thursday, 6 p.m.
Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle
John Caparulo. $30; Thursday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Friday, 7:15-8:45 p.m. and 9:45-11:15 p.m.; and Saturday, 7-8:30 p.m. and 9:3011 p.m.
Continuing This Week Stand-up
Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy FREE Mondays, 8 p.m.
The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant The Sh*t Show Open Mic. Doors open at 8:30 p.m. and the show begins at 9 p.m. The evening always ends with karaoke in the attached Ghost Light Bar. Doors and sign up 8:30 p.m., show at 9 p.m. $5 suggested donation.
The Independent Comedy Club
HEAVY FLOW: a night of DIRTY JOKES. From the producers of Honorary Men-
tions Comedy and The Independent Comedy Club, we bring you HEAVY FLOW: a night of DIRTY JOKES — four of Michigan’s dirtiest comics perform a monthly stand up comedy show! We invite you to join us for a filthy time with an open mind and an open mouth! FOR LAUGHTER. You perv! Featuring four of Michigan’s dirtiest! Plus, 2-3 fresh faces per month. Hosted by Johanna Medranda. Doors at 8:30 p.m. $20 advance, $25 at the door. Saturday, 9-10:30 p.m.
DANCE
Dance performance
The Music Hall Grand Kyiv Ballet: Swan Lake; $50-$85; Sunday, 7 p.m.
Dance lessons
Diamondback Music Hall Wednesday Line Dancing Lessons with Amanda and Ashley! You don’t need any prior experience — just bring your enthusiasm and get ready to have a blast. This class is perfect for everyone, whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, or advanced dancer. All ages welcome (under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian). $10 advance, $15 at the door. Wednesdays, 6:30-10 p.m.
Film Festival
Michigan Theater 63rd Ann Arbor Film Festival. Founded in 1963, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest independent and experimental film festival in North America. The week-long event is dedicated to promoting bold, visionary filmmakers through the advancement of film and new media art, and engaging communities with remarkable cinematic experiences. The 63rd AAFF will be a hybrid event, with online and in-person options for attendees. Online passes will allow access to most in-competition films and juror programs as well as an online film forum and filmmaker interviews. For more information, see aafilmfest.org. $65-$200; through Sunday.
ART
Photography
Brewed in Monochrome Black and white photography by Kenny Karpov, Evan Hutchings, Scott Millington, Sal Rodriguez, Rose Catherine Hohl, Jon Sniezek. Friday, 7-10 p.m.; Spkr Box, 200 Grand River Ave., Detroit. Artist talk
Public Lecture: Mike Cloud
Mike Cloud is a painter and serves as an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Art, Theory, and Practice at Northwestern University in Illinois. His artistic
practice encompasses the expanded field of painting and image-making. He dissects photographic and painterly forms, scrambling text and re-aligning content to produce new breaks in legibility and new understandings. Thursday, 6-7:30 p.m.; Cranbrook Art Museum, 39221 N. Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills; no cover.
Performance art
They Say The Murder Mystery Co’s Dinner Theater Show by Scott Cramton. A thrilling mystery experience where every clue brings you closer to the truth (or deeper into suspicion). Mingle with intriguing suspects, uncover shocking secrets, and savor a mouthwatering three-course meal. But watch out! You could end up as the cold-blooded killer! Don’t miss this unforgettable evening of suspense and laughter. Grab your tickets now! $69; Friday, 7-9:30 p.m.
Art Exhibition
Coup D’état Bill Rauhauser: A Retrospective. A special exhibition celebrating the life and work of the late Bill Rauhauser, one of Detroit’s most revered photographers. The retrospective will open on Saturday, March 29th from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Coup D’etat located inside the Lantern Building in Detroit, Michigan’s newest cultural corridor “Little Village.” This exhibition is a partnership between Coup D’état and The Hill Gallery, showcasing Rauhauser’s iconic photographs that captured the soul and spirit of Detroit. Rauhauser, who was affectionately known as “The Dean of Detroit Photography,” spent decades documenting the vibrant streets of Detroit and its people, influencing generations of photographers and shaping the city’s photographic community. A recipient of the prestigious Kresge Eminent Artist Award, Rauhauser’s work reflected the raw humanity of the city as it underwent social and industrial changes, particularly from the 1950s to the 1970s. Through his lens, Rauhauser immortalized the lives of everyday Detroiters, capturing the rhythm and life of the city. In addition to his photographic legacy, Rauhauser was a tireless educator and mentor, introducing photography as a powerful art form to the local community.
Middle Space SECURITIES solo exhibition by Jaime Pattison. The constructed paintings draw on various historical financial institutions in the Midwest, U.S. namely: Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Floor, (Art Institute of Chicago) and the State Savings Bank in Detroit. While the frame supports of the paintings are 3D printed, the screen-like representations alternate between machine construction and hand construction, pursuing questions of authorship and mediation.
FOOD
Bites
Detroit’s first Black-owned brewery to open
A new business that bills itself as Detroit’s first Black-owned brewery is opening in Midtown.
Founded by U.S. Air Force veteran Evan Fay, Roar Brewing Co. hosted a soft launch in the former Nain Rouge Brewery space at 666 Selden St. on Sunday, March 23 — ironically the day of this year’s Marche du Nain Rouge parade, a tribute to the folkloric “red dwarf” said to have cursed the city.
According to a press release, “The rebrand represents a shift away from the legend of misfortune toward a message of power, unity, and celebration.”
The brewery says it expects to have its grand opening later this summer.
Fay said he took inspiration from the “roar” of fans of Detroit’s sports teams and live music, as well as the sounds of its muscle cars and even “the supersonic roar of F-22 fighter jets.”
“We wanted to build a brewery that captures that energy, where people feel at home, where craft beer is fun and approachable, and where the community can come together and celebrate,” Fay said in a statement.
Fay is also the owner of Café Noir and the Chloë Monroe Galleries in Detroit’s North End neighborhood. He says he first experienced craft beer culture in Fort Collins, Colorado.
“When I was in the military and stationed in Wyoming, I would visit breweries in Fort Collins, and I realized they weren’t just places to grab a drink — they were community hubs,” Fay said.
To that end, he wants Roar Brewing Co. to host watch parties for Detroit sports, as well as live music, karaoke, and other social gatherings.
But the heart of any brewery is its beer, and Fay says he aims to keep it simple.
“We’re not trying to be everything to everyone, but we want our beer to be accessible and easy to enjoy,” Fay said. “Our flagship beer will be a Honey Oat Stout. Beyond that, we’ll have a Roar Pilsner, Roar Wheat Beer, Roar Saison... nothing overcomplicated, just really great beer.”
The brewery also plans to host tours to “introduce visitors to the brewing process, Detroit’s beer history, and Roar Brewing’s unique approach.”
An outdoor patio and three-and-ahalf-seasons room will provide additional seating in the warmer months.
According to the company, Blackowned breweries make up less than 1% of all U.S. breweries. Roar Brewing Co. says it worked with the National Black Brewers Association as well as other breweries for help setting up shop.
“There’s a great ecosystem in Detroit to support small businesses, but in craft brewing, there aren’t as many direct pathways,” Fay said. “Typically, you turn to people in your community who have done it before, but with no Black-owned breweries in the city, we had to look outside our immediate circles for guidance.”
Fay hopes other aspiring brewers from different backgrounds will follow his lead.
“I think over time, the industry will become more diverse,” he said. “The challenge is that for a lot of Black entrepreneurs, luxury industries like craft beer haven’t been a priority because people are often focused on essentials first. But we want to change that by making craft beer a space that is inviting, exciting, and approachable.”
More information is available at roar.beer.
Detroit ranked No. 4 U.S. pizza city
Detroit has been named one of the top five “pizza cities” in the U.S.
The Motor City came in fourth place in a tie with Buffalo, New York — behind Rochester (New York), Philadelphia, and Boston, but ahead of other notable pizza capitals like New Haven, Connecticut (No. 6); Chicago (No. 10); and even the mighty New York City (No. 8).
That’s according to Clever Real Estate, which published its 2025 “Pizza Cities” rankings.
The real estate advice service evaluated 100 of the largest cities in the U.S. on factors including the number of pizzerias per capita, the average price of large cheese and pepperoni pizzas on thousands of menus (compared to local incomes), a “Pizza Passion Score” based on Google searches related to pizza in various markets, and “the city’s perceived pizza quality, as measured by a poll of 2,000 Americans.”
Of Detroit’s “Pizza Passion” score of 80.6 out of 100, Clever Real Estate says: “That can be explained in part by Detroit pizza’s rise into the national spotlight in recent years. The thick, chewy, rectangular pies are cooked in high-sided pans like the type once designed as a parts tray for the auto industry. Sauce is applied in dollops or stripes, and cheese spread to the edge of the crust helps create a crispy, lacy texture.”
The report also noted that a typical large cheese pizza in Detroit is more affordable than average ($16.25 vs. $18.02), as well as large pepperoni pies ($17.86 vs. $20.42).
Detroit ranked low, however, when it comes to pizzerias per capita, with only 6.8 per 100,000 residents — half the national average of 12.4. Detroit was ranked No. 1 pizza city by Clever Real estate in 2022 and 2023.
—Lee DeVito
Evan Fay of Detroit’s Roar Brewing Co.
COURTESY PHOTO
CULTURE
Film
So bad it’s… bad
By Jared Rasic, Last Word Features
In the Lost Lands
Rated:
Run-time:
I love bad movies — movies made with such lack of skill, guile, or just basic filmmaking talent that what you’re watching becomes feverishly entertaining in spite of itself. With a few friends and maybe 10-14 beverages, the film transcends its own limitations and achieves something only the very best schlock ever really accomplishes: it becomes eternal. Look at movies like The Room, The Wicker Man, Birdemic, Troll 2, and a smattering of other cult classics to really see how wildly entertaining truly awful movies can be.
Paul W.S. Anderson is the reigning king of directing mid-budget trash. His movies are so terrible and so entertaining at the same time that I catch everything he makes, opening weekend, just in case he accidentally knocks out another cult classic. Over his threedecade career, Anderson has made a British nihilist neo-noir with $hopping, the sci-fi horror cult classic Event Horizon, Alien vs. Predator, the goofiest Mortal Kombat movie, the hilariously self-serious Kurt Russell action movie Soldier, Jason Statham’s Death Race, Jon Snow’s Pompeii, and seven movies
with his wife, the great Milla Jovovich, including four Resident Evils, The Three Musketeers, Monster Hunter, and his new magnum opus, In the Lost Lands.
To this day, Event Horizon and the OG Resident Evil are movies that I unapologetically and unironically love. I genuinely want Anderson to find that perfect symbiosis again of a bonkers script and high octane filmmaking that actually congeals into something great (or at least insanely entertaining) — movies we can laugh with and not at all. In the Lost Lands is not that movie.
As much as I love Jovovich and, more or less, the Resident Evil franchise, it’s hard not to feel like she’s slumming in Anderson’s movies. While her character, Alice, in the R.E. movies is super iconic, her character Alys (pronounced like Alice… good work writers) in In the Lost Lands is immediately forgettable. Her full name is Gray Alys and she’s a witch in a post-apocalyptic America who teams up with a tracker named Boyce (played by the never worse Dave Bautista) after she’s hired by the Queen (?) to find her the ability to change into a werewolf.
Yes, that’s actually the story, which is insane and fun. I’m on board for Jovovich and Baustista (primarily on horseback) hunting a werewolf across the ruinous wasteland of an America
filled with, I kid you not, demons, ghouls, two-headed snakes, a psychotic religious order, and some straight-up magic right out of Final Fantasy. But, as is the case with most of the oeuvre of P.W.S.A., the description is way more fun than the movie itself.
Also, I’m not sure there is a single real set in the entire film. The color grading is so over-saturated you can visualize the panicking cinematographer and special effects team compensating for a budget that does not equal the director’s vision. Anderson is trying to make a post-apocalyptic western here. He wants endless vistas of crumbled ruins with the moonlit silhouettes of Jovovich and Bautista creating instantly appealing iconography. Instead, viewers get underlit and muddy sequences of two deeply talented and palpably struggling performers emoting in front of almost entirely computer-generated backgrounds that look like they were pulled directly from a decade-old video game.
Based on a short story by George R.R. Martin, I’m not sure what I really expected from In the Lost Lands. I love Bautista and Jovovich and figured they would elevate whatever ridiculousness Anderson created, but they just look lost, confused and a little pissed off. I know Bautista is trying to transition
into being taken more seriously as an actor and I really hope this role doesn’t set him back. He carries so much soul in his voice and pain in his eyes that whenever he’s given a piece of dialogue like “That bitch killed my snake,” he just seems depressed.
Jovovich needs to sit down with Anderson and have a real discussion about what he wants to achieve as a filmmaker. Make no mistake, this movie is going to flop, miserably. The only other person in the auditorium during this showing was a theater employee (and I’m not even sure if he was awake). I know Jovovich is Anderson’s muse, but he needs to craft something worthy of her talent and screen presence. He’s letting her down and, as a diehard fan of Jovovich he’s letting me down, too. Anderson has to find his passion again. Either he needs to seek out a story that truly inspires him or find a budget that allows him to achieve his goofy vision without compromise. The concept of a post-apocalyptic spaghetti western is a solid one and a badass movie can surely be made in that specific genre. This ain’t it. Not even close. As much as I love a bad movie, this is just too much. You broke me, Anderson.
Grade: F
Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista star in this disappointing film.
VERTICAL ENTERTAINMENT
WEED
The Straight Dope Cannabis beverages could be the future of social drinking in Michigan
By Steve Neavling
Welcome to The Straight Dope, our weekly series that explores the best cannabis products in Michigan.
People are getting tired of booze –the hangovers, the regrets, the impact on their health.
As the demand for alcohol alternatives grows, THC beverages are gaining popularity nationwide, popping up in restaurants, grocery stores, smoke shops, convenience stores, and even on tap at bars. Once confined to regulated cannabis dispensaries, hemp-derived THC drinks are now widely available in states embracing the trend.
But so far, Michigan is not among them. Not yet, anyway.
Green Street Beverages, a Bostonbased company behind THC drink brands Hi*AF, HiTide, and Boundary Waters, is hoping to carve out a foothold in the state. While Michigan law prohibits the sale of marijuanaderived THC drinks in public venues like bars and restaurants, the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp and its derivatives, provides a legal pathway for hemp-based THC beverages in those businesses. Some call it a loophole.
Michigan’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA) strictly limits the sale of marijuana-derived THC drinks to licensed dispensaries, meaning consumers can’t legally sip a THC seltzer at a bar or order a cannabis-infused cocktail at a restaurant.
But hemp-derived THC drinks fall into a different category. Thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill, these beverages are not classified as marijuana products. This allows them to be sold at grocery stores, bars, and gas stations in states that have not explicitly banned hempderived THC beverages.
Because Michigan has not passed laws specifically prohibiting hempderived THC drinks, companies like Green Street Beverages see an opportunity to operate outside of the state’s tightly regulated cannabis industry. In fact, the company already ships its products across the country, including Michigan, through online sales. Green Street Beverages says it expects to be in 12 states by the second quarter of this year.
In states like Minnesota and North Carolina, hemp-derived THC beverages
Whatever the case, consumers are also driving the rapid expansion of the THC beverage market. Gen Z and millennials, in particular, are drinking less alcohol, and hemp-derived drinks offer a way to unwind without the hangovers and high calorie counts of traditional boozes.
Green Street’s lineup, which includes citrusy Hi*AF Orange Lift, lemoninfused Huckleberry Boundary Waters, and HiTide Craft THC Margaritas, is designed to deliver a consistent, relatively low-dose THC experience. Each can has between 3 and 10 milligrams of THC, depending on the drink you choose, compared to as many as 200 milligrams of THC in beverages sold at dispensaries in Michigan. The goal is to give consumers a relaxed, social buzz without overindulgence or the anxiety that comes with too much THC.
“There is a shift in the way people are socializing,” Shea Coakley, CEO of Green Street Beverages, says. “With beverages, this is the first avenue that can really reach the mass market. It doesn’t involve smoking, which we all know is bad for you. Drinks are inherently sociable. You get together, you have some coffee, some wine, or a few beers. It allows consumers to experience THC in a way that is super comfortable.”
The regulated market
have taken off, with some bars and restaurants offering them as an alternative to alcohol. Without the restrictions of liquor licenses or state cannabis laws, hemp-derived drinks have already become a multimillion-dollar industry.
For those beverage makers, the advantages are even greater. Unlike cannabis companies that face heavy taxes, banking restrictions, and strict regulations, hemp-derived THC beverage makers operate with far more flexibility. They don’t need a dispensary license, don’t have the same advertising limitations, and can distribute their products through traditional retail channels. They also aren’t subject to Michigan’s 10% excise tax, like regulated adult-use cannabis.
“There is a monstrous amount of THC beverages in liquor stores now,” Jarrod Jordan, chief marketing officer for Green Street Beverages, tells me. “It has definitely taken off more than expected.”
But beverage makers in the regulated recreational market say the hemp-derived drinks are inconsistent, mild, and poorly regulated.
Although bars and restaurants in Michigan don’t offer THC-infused beverages, the drinks have become increasingly popular at dispensaries statewide, and they’re far more regulated and have a wider array of potencies.
One of the statewide leaders in marijuana-infused THC beverages is Pleasantrees, which began selling the drinks in January 2023. Since then, its five dispensaries have sold about 100,000 units of THC drinks, according to Sarah Waldrop, marketing director for Emerald Brands, a vertically integrated company that includes Pleasantrees. Between 2023 and 2024, beverage sales increased 34% at Pleasantrees’ dispensaries, Waldrop tells me.
Many of those drinks were made inhouse in Mount Clemens by Emerald Canning Partners, a beverage production company that is a joint venture with Pleasantrees and beverage maker Andrew Blake of Armada-based Blake’s Hard Cider. Emerald Canning stands out because its employees have dozens of combined years in the beverage industry, long before weed-infused drinks ever hit the market.
“We are beverage people,” Matt McAlpine, president of Emerald Canning Partners, tells me. “This facility was designed, built, and now operated by beverage people. That’s what sets us
Pleasantrees has a large selection of THC beverages at its five dispensaries.
COURTESY PHOTO
apart. You know what you’re going to get when you come to a manufacturer like this. We’re beverage professionals who have done this for years. Quality is everything to us.”
Sales of Emerald Canning’s beverages rose 277% in the past year, according to the company.
Among their offerings are seltzers, teas, and syrups. THC levels range from 5 to 200 milligrams.
Unlike hemp-derived drinks, which often face little oversight, marijuanainfused beverages sold at dispensaries are subject to strict testing, labeling, and potency standards set by Michigan’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency. Consumers also know exactly how much THC they’re getting. That level of transparency and oversight has helped brands like Pleasantrees build a loyal customer base that comes back for the consistency and quality of the beverages, McAlpine says.
The hemp-derived THC drinks, he argues, are bad for the growing industry because the lack of standards creates inconsistencies and potential health hazards. He says his team tested more than 50 hemp-derived THC drinks, “and not a single one would have passed Michigan’s regulations.” Some exceeded the state’s THC limits, while others had much less THC than advertised, he says. His team also found microbial contamination that can come from unclean equipment, poor storage conditions, or low-quality ingredients.
“It’s a massive concern for us as a beverage company that there is that much bad product out there, providing poor consumer experiences or poor consistency, and they’re not tested, and they’re getting shipped right to your door,” McAlpine says.
He adds, “They need to be banished. Right now it’s the absolute wild west.”
Over the past two years, Pleasantrees has highlighted its THC beverages as part of its Dry January campaign aimed at encouraging people to swap alcohol for cannabis. The campaign includes deals and recipes for THC cocktails such as strawberry watermelon mojitos, spicy margaritas, and orange creamsicles.
THC beverage companies believe there is a ton of potential for even stronger growth, despite the expanding reach of hemp-derived beverage makers.
“The cannabis consumer is used to very flavorful, sugary, high-dose beverages. In the Michigan market, that is what the consumer is looking for,” Waldrop says. “That being said, there’s still a massive opportunity to grab the mass market consumer who is not necessarily following the cannabis market but is very much interested in the massive
surge of these beverages.”
Like the hemp-derived THC drink companies, the licensed recreational cannabis businesses are hoping lawmakers eventually allow their drinks in bars, restaurants, and even professional sporting events.
“It would be incredible to go to a Tigers game and be able to drink a 5 or 10 milligram THC beverage,” McAlpine says. “You’re not going to have a fight in the parking lot or the tailgate after. You’re going to have better nachos and barbecue.”
The straight dope
I sampled THC drinks from Pleasantrees and Green Street Beverages. I’d never tried a THC drink before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Both offered delicious beverages that hit me with a high within 10 minutes of taking the first sip. I was expecting the delayed onset that typically comes with edibles.
What I found were highs that felt soothing, social, and manageable — something you could enjoy during a backyard barbecue or a night out with friends.
My favorite was the 30-milligram THC Peach Pleasantea from Pleasentrees. It reminded me of the fruity tea I grew up drinking in the summer. Not only was it full of flavor, but it packed a punch. I felt buzzed, relaxed, and even a little energized. It was the kind of high that lifts you up without knocking you over.
If you want something even stronger, Pleasantrees offers beverages with up to 200 milligrams of THC.
I also enjoyed Green Street Beverages’ Hi*AF lineup, especially the Orange Lift, a hemp-derived seltzer with 10 milligrams of THC. The high was more mellow, but it was still noticeable. It left me feeling cheerful and talkative.
Without weighing in on the broader debate over regulation, I was impressed with both companies’ offerings. While I can’t speak for every hemp-derived THC drink on the market, Green Street Beverages appears to be doing it right.
Whatever the source — hemp or marijuana — there’s no question these drinks have a place in our social landscape. I’d love to see them at bars, restaurants, and sporting events across Michigan. But it will take action from lawmakers first.
One thing is clear: Many of us are ready to leave booze behind, and we should be able to enjoy a THC drink at establishments that sell alcohol.
If you want us to sample your cannabis products, send us an email at steve@metrointhed.com.
CULTURE
Savage Love Come and Go
By Dan Savage
: Q I have a problem that I’m not sure can be solved. I’m a single gay man who hasn’t touched anybody for sixteen years. Yes, you read that right: I haven’t touched another person for sixteen years. Sit with that for a couple of moments. Most people don’t believe me. I did something stupid in 1998 and had sex in a hot tub. I ended up having surgery because of an infection and ever since when I ejaculate, what comes out is a combination of sperm and urine because an internal flap no longer closes to stop the urine. The urologist and my surgeon said there was nothing they could do to fix the problem. I did not realize that sex in a hot tub was an extremely risky sexual activity. (You should warn people.) Men find this absolutely disgusting. I can’t repeat some of the things I have been told when I’m trying to be honest with a partner. What advice or suggestions do you have to explain this to potential partners even though I’ve said I want to please them only. Please give me some help as to what to say. Any advice helps.
—Canadian Urgently Missing Sex
A: Having sex in a hot tub — having penetrative sex in a hot tub — is riskier than having sex on dry land or damp mattress or hard countertop. Heavily chlorinated water dries out sensitive tissues, making abrasions and STI transmission more likely, and water containing potentially harmful bacteria can be forced into the urethra during intercourse, heightening the risk of urinary tract infections in both men and women. (Best practices: get horny in a hot tub, get out to fuck, get back in when you’re done.)
With that warning out of the way, CUMS, can I ask when you last spoke to a doctor about your condition?
The “little flap” that contracts during ejaculation — preventing semen from shooting into the bladder and/or urine from exiting the body with semen — is called the internal urethral sphincter. While artificial urinary sphincters have been available for more than fifty years, the doctors you saw back in 1998 might not have been aware of them. (According to the Mayo Clinic, many doctors today aren’t aware of them.) It’s also possible you weren’t a good candidate for the artificial urinary sphincters available in 1998, CUMS, but these devices have gotten smaller (and the surgery has gotten less invasive) over the last three decades, and you might be a good candidate for a new model. You should make an appointment to see a specialist and talk about your condition.
While you wait for that appointment,
CUMS, you also might wanna seek out different kinds of gay and bi men, online and off. There are lots of queer men out there into “no recip” oral. If you were to meet up with a guy who just wanted to get serviced — if you hooked up with a guy who wanted to get head without having to reciprocate — you wouldn’t have to mention your condition in advance of your first meeting; since you won’t be coming on, in, or near him, he doesn’t need to know that your ejaculate comes mixed with piss.
There are also plenty of guys out there who are into piss, and if I were to biohazard a guess, CUMS, I’d say a statistically significant percentage of those guys would view your condition not as a tragic defect, but as an exciting superpower. Leading with this fact about yourself on kink or kink-friendly hookup sites might attract so much positive attention, CUMS, that you don’t wanna get an artificial urinary sphincter after all.
: Q I am a pansexual non-binary FTM. I am able to have two types of orgasms. One is a squirty juicy wet orgasm and the other is a full body orgasm that makes my clit throb. Squirty orgasms come easy and often but I’ve only experienced the clit throbbers during solo play with two exceptions: only my ex-wife could give me this kind of climax until I met a guy on Grindr. I update my Grindr profile depending on what I’m looking for on any particular night, and on the night I met this Grindr guy I was only looking to be eaten out. I arrived at his place and he got down to business immediately. He was patient, he was deliberate, he was rough, and it was… WOW! I had a rare, full-body, clit-throbbing orgasm! It was amazing. Then, as I was leaving, I saw the Trump flag hanging in his room. It was hanging on the wall directly behind me and I did not see it I could not see it — while I was being eaten out. It was a Trump 2016 flag — not that it matters. (A Trump flag is a Trump flag.) So, what do I do? I suppose I can do nothing and just never meet up with the guy again, but what do I do about my conscience?
—Feeling Low About Grindr Situation
P.S. We exchanged phone numbers before I saw the flag.
A: You may have accidentally discovered a new way for people into ruined orgasms to get their kink on, FLAGS: strategically positioned Trump flags. I don’t think it matters whether they’re Trump 2016, 2020, 2024 or 2028 flags, the effect will be the same: a post-nut yuck powerful enough to ruin whatever yum came first.
For the sake of your conscience, FLAGS, send a text to the Trump supporter that says something like this: “None of that would have happened — I would never have let you go down on me — if I’d seen that Trump flag on your wall before we got started.” Then take a screenshot of his Grindr profile, if you can still see it, and share it — privately — with other trans men you know personally, FLAGS,
so they don’t wind up having the same jump scare you did. Then block his phone number and block him on Grindr.
P.S. Next time you show up in a strange man’s apartment for no-recip oral, FLAGS, do a quick 360-degree turn — a little pirouette before he drops to his knees.
P.P.S. There’s no need to steal Trump flags to ruin orgasms. There are plenty in the trash already, deposited there by Americans — not our best — who already regret voting for Trump.
: Q My husband’s best friend turned into one of my best friends. This best friend of ours recently started dating a woman. We were supportive of their relationship at first, even though he was joining as the third guy in a polyamory relationship. After a few months, their relationship went from polyamorous to monogamous. Our friend met his new girlfriend’s kid very early in the relationship, even spending the night after only knowing this woman for a couple of months. Within six months of dating, they shared the kid’s toothbrush on a vacation. They didn’t say they boiled the toothbrush or took any measures to clean the toothbrush until weeks later when they were pressed on it. This is when we started to distance ourselves because we felt this behavior showed a lack of respect for this child. We had a severe falling out due to this. Now they are engaged, and it raises even more concerns for us. How do we proceed? Should we stop even wanting to reconcile? Should we try to be the voice of reason about oral hygiene?
—Unhygienic Gross Humans
A: While I got letters about grosser things this week, yours was the most surprising letter that came in the mail for two reasons: first, that your friend would tell you about using this child’s toothbrush on vacation and, second, that you would write to me — a sexadvice columnist — about your friend using this child’s toothbrush.
For the record, UGH, I agree that introducing a child to a new partner after two months is inadvisable — which is why I’ve always advised against it — and using someone else’s toothbrush on vacation because you forgot your own is equal parts gross and unnecessary. Most hotels make disposable toothbrushes available to guests who forgot their own, UGH, and even if your friend and his girlfriend weren’t at a hotel that offered toothbrushes, they could’ve gone without brushing their teeth for a single night and gotten new toothbrushes for themselves at the nearest pharmacy or truck stop in the morning.
To be perfectly honest, UGH, I don’t really care whether you reconcile with your friend or not, just please spare me from any and all updates about your friend’s oral hygiene going forward.
: Q I am a proud kinkster in a city with a vibrant kink community, but I am worried that my community doesn’t know how quickly it could find itself at risk. I see friends grandstanding online about crackdowns on poppers, while ignoring broader attacks by the Trump administration on fundamental rights. I un-
derstand the former makes for a better social media post, but with the government deporting legal residents who were not accused of crimes, performing armed takeovers of private entities, and scapegoating trans people, we have more to worry about than poppers. How long before Folsom attendees face legal jeopardy for public indecency? Democrats can barely stand up for Social Security. What makes us think they’ll go to bat for kinksters? Am I wrong in thinking queer and kink organizations need to be sounding the alarm?
—Rights Under More Pressure
A: Both houses of Congress, private universities, powerful law firms, professional baseball — the list of groups that have caved to Trump grows longer every day. So, I don’t think the organizers of gay fetish events like Folsom or Darklands (or straight ones like DomCon or RopeCraft for that matter) have the power to stop Trump. If there’s a silver lining here, RUMP, it may be the huge numbers of kinky people who didn’t feel like they needed to hide over the last couple of decades. If you can’t hide, you have to fight… and with the receipts already out there social media posts, personal ads, gear purchases) — there’s no hiding now.
Here’s the single most important thing organizers of kink events can do: keep organizing great events that bring even more people out. Events help create community which is a good thing unto itself — but they also create opportunities for activists to inform, organize, and activate people they might not be able to reach otherwise, which is absolutely crucial at a moment like this. (A tip for activists: DO NOT treat people having fun at fetish events or parties like they’re doing something wrong. If you want people to show up at your demonstration — or call their members of Congress or raise money for abortion funds or defend their undocumented neighbors — don’t tell them they have to pick between the party where you found them and demo where you want them. Scolds drive people away from movements, they don’t bring them in.)
Speaking of protests: The protests at Tesla dealerships have been fun, effective, and cathartic —as Tesla’s cratering stock price and Trump’s pathetic Tesla infomercial at the White House both demonstrate — and there are nationwide protests scheduled for April 5. For more information (and to find out about your local demo) go to HandsOff2025!
P.S. Please don’t vandalize Teslas. Trump’s DOJ is throwing the book at people who vandalize Teslas — and it turns out Elon Musk’s shitty cars are self-vandalizing, as we learned last week when every single Tesla Cybertruck ever sold was recalled after pieces of them kept falling off. So, there’s no need to risk being sent to a prison in El Salvador when you see Incel Caminos parked on your block. Give Elon’s shitty cars a minute and they’ll fall apart on their own.
Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love! Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan! Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love
CULTURE Free Will Astrology
By Rob Brezsny
ARIES: March 21 – April 19
Ancient Rome’s emperor Julius Caesar undertook a radical move to fix the calendar, which had become increasingly inaccurate as the centuries passed. He added three months to the year 46 BCE, which as a result was 445 days long. I’m thinking that 2025 might seem equally long for you, Aries. Your destiny may feel like it’s taking forever to unfold. APRIL FOOL! I totally lied. In fact, I think 2025 will be one of your briskest, crispest years ever. Your adventures will be spiced with alacrity. Your efforts will be efficient and expeditious. You may sometimes be amazed at how swiftly progress unfolds.
TAURUS: April 20 – May 20
Guilt and fear are always useless distractions from what’s really happening. Right? APRIL FOOL! The fact is that on rare occasions, being anxious can motivate you to escape from situations that your logical mind says are tolerable. And guilt may compel you to take the
right action when nothing else will. This is one time when your guilt and fear can be valuable assets.
GEMINI: May 21 – June 20
The German word Flüsterwitze means “whisper jokes.” These jests make taboo references and need to be delivered with utmost discretion. They may include the mockery of authority figures. Dear Gemini, I recommend that you suppress your wicked satire and uproarious sarcasm for a while and stick to whisper jokes. APRIL FOOL! I lied. The truth is that the world needs your outspokenness. Your ability to call out hypocrisies and expose corruption — especially with humor and wit — will keep everyone as honest as they need to be.
CANCER: June 21 – July 22
In the lead-up to the Paris-hosted 2024 Summer Olympics, the iconic Eiffel Tower was repainted gold. This was a departure from tradition, as the usual colors had been brown on the bottom and red on the top. The $60-million job took 25 painters 18 months. I recommend that you undertake an equally monumental task in the coming months, Cancerian. APRIL FOOL! I lied. In fact, I do hope you undertake a monumental task — but one that’s more substantive than changing the surfaces of things. Like revisioning your life story, for example — reinterpreting your past and changing the way it informs your future. I think you are ready to purge inessential elements and exorcize old ghosts as you prepare for a re-launch around your birthday.
LEO: July 23 – August 22
When I worked on the Duke University grounds crew years ago, I did the work I was assigned as quickly as possible. Then I would hide in the bushes, taking unauthorized breaks for an hour or two, so I could read books I loved. Was that unethical? Maybe. But the fact is, I would never have been able to complete my assigned tasks unless I allowed myself relaxation retreats. If there is an equivalent situation in your life, Leo, I urge you to do as I did. APRIL FOOL! I half-lied. The truth is that I think you should be a little less extravagant than I was — but only a little — as you create the spaciousness and slack you need.
VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22
In his film Fitzcarraldo, Virgo director Werner Herzog tells an epic story. It includes the task of hauling a 320-ton steamship up a hill and over land, moving it from one river to another.
Herzog could have relied on special effects to simulate this almost impossible project, but he didn’t. With a system of pulleys and a potent labor force, he made it happen. I urge you to try your equivalent of Herzog’s heroic conquest, Virgo. You will be able to summon more power and help than you can imagine. APRIL FOOL! I half-lied. While it’s true that you will be able to summon more power and help than you can imagine, I still think you should at least partially rely on the equivalent of special effects.
LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22
Researchers discovered that Egyptian fruit bats engage in extensive communication with each other while nesting in their roosts. Surprisingly, they talk about their problems a lot. In fact, they quarrel 60% of the time. Areas of disagreement include food allocation, positions within the sleep cluster, and males initiating unwanted mating moves. Let’s make these bats your power creatures. The astrological omens say it’s time for you to argue more than you have ever argued. APRIL FOOL! I was not entirely truthful. The coming weeks will be a good time to address disagreements and settle disputes, but hopefully through graceful means, not bitter arguing.
SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21:
Unlike many modern poets, Scorpio-born Alice Notley rejects the notion that she must be part of any poetic lineage. She aspires “to establish or continue no tradition except one that literally can’t exist — the celebration of the singular thought sung at a particular instant in a unique voice.” She has also written, “It’s necessary to maintain a state of disobedience against everything.” She describes her work as “an immense act of rebellion against dominant social forces.” I invite you to enjoy your own version of a Notley-like phase, Scorpio. APRIL FOOL! I lied. In fact, I encourage you to enjoy a Notley-like phase beginning May 1. But for now, I invite you to be extra attentive in cultivating all the ways you can benefit from honoring your similarities and connections with others.
SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21
The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is a standardized test that many
American high school students take to prove their worth to colleges. The highest possible score is achieved by fewer than 1% of test-takers. We might imagine that earning such a premium grade must guarantee admission to any school, but it doesn›t. During one five-year period, for example, Stanford University rejected 69% of applicants with the highest possible score. I’m sorry to predict that a comparable experience might be ahead for you, Sagittarius. Even if you are your best and brightest self, you may be denied your rightful reward. APRIL FOOL! I totally lied. Here’s my real, true prediction: In the coming weeks, I believe you will be your best and brightest self — and will win your rightful reward.
CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19
The visible part of an iceberg is typically just 10% of its total size. Most is hidden beneath the sea’s surface. References to “the tip of the iceberg” have become a staple metaphor in many cultures, signifying situations that are not what they seem. Of all the zodiac tribes, Scorpios are renowned for their expertise in discerning concealed agendas and missing information. The rest of us tend to be far less skillful. APRIL FOOL! I fibbed. These days, you Capricorns are even more talented than Scorpios at looking beyond the obvious and becoming aware of the concealed roots and full context.
AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18
In the coming weeks, I advise you to be like the 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson. She lived in quiet seclusion, corresponding through letters instead of socializing. She seemed content to write her poems all alone in her home and be unconcerned about trying to get them published. APRIL FOOL! I lied. Here’s my real horoscope: Now is a highly favorable time for you to shmooze with intensity at a wide range of social occasions, both to get all the educational prods you need and to advance your ambitions.
PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20
Some systems and situations improve and thrive in response to stress and errors. Indeed, some things need strain or irregularity to be fully healthy. For example, human bodies require a certain amount of stress to develop a resistance to infection. In reading the astrological omens, I conclude you now need stimulation like that. APRIL FOOL! I lied. Here’s the truth: August of 2025 will be a great time for you to harvest the benefits of benevolent stress. But for now, your forte will be the capacity to avoid and resist stress, confusion, and errors.
Homework: What’s the best prank you could perform on yourself?
JAMES NOELLERT
A crappy couple, looking for a crappy car, in town from some dump in Wisconsin, with dude soiling himself outdoors next to the bar…all before
SERVICES
MASSAGE RELAXING NURU MASSAGE for the quarantine must not be sick. Must be clean and wear mask. Outcalls only incalls are at your cost Hey I’m here to help. This is Candy melt in your mouth so try my massages they’re sweet as can be!!! (734) 596-1376
WINDOWS
BEAUTIFY YOUR HOME with energy efficient new windows! They will increase your home’s value & decrease your energy bills. Replace all or a few! Call now to get your free, no-obligation quote. 844-335-2217.
INCREASE AGAIN?
ADULT
Switch To DIRECTV & Save + get a $100 visa gift card! Get More Channels For Less Money.Restrictions apply. Call Now! 877-693-0625 ADULT ENTERTAINMENT HIRING SEXY WOMEN!!! Hiring sexy women (& men). Highly Paid Magazine, Web, and Movie/TV work. no experience needed, all sizes accepted. 313-289-2008.
