Metro Times 02/07/2024

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Vol. 44 | No. 16 | FEBRUARY 7-13, 2024

EDITORIAL

News & Views

Editor in Chief - Lee DeVito

Feedback ............................... 6

Investigative Reporter - Steve Neavling

News ...................................... 8

Digital Content Editor - Layla McMurtrie

Lapointe............................... 12

Staff Writer - Randiah Camille Green

ADVERTISING Associate Publisher - Jim Cohen Regional Sales Director - Danielle Smith-Elliott

Cover Story

Sales Administration - Kathy Johnson

The Lust Issue...................... 14

Account Manager, Classifieds - Josh Cohen

BUSINESS/OPERATIONS Business Support Specialist - Josh Cohen

What’s Going On

Controller - Kristy Dotson

Things to do this week ........ 23

CREATIVE SERVICES Creative Director - Haimanti Germain Art Director - Evan Sult

Music

Graphic Designer - Aspen Smit

Local Buzz ............................ 26

CIRCULATION Circulation Manager - Annie O’Brien

Food

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Review ................................. 28 Chowhound ......................... 30

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On the cover:

Painting by Sas Christian

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NEWS & VIEWS Feedback We received comments in response to Randiah Camille Green’s cover story last week about the rise of “death doulas.”

KristySue Bishop is amazing. Her honesty and insight is healthy and humorous and healing. So glad she’s being recognized.

—Jessica York, Facebook I am actually a local Death Doula in Hamburg (outside of Ann Arbor). I will attach my website for anyone who may need my services. I also grief coach!

My page is Solace Through Death and my website is solacethroughdeath.com.

—MJ Lucas, Facebook

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We also received comments in response to contributor Veronica Johnson’s obituary for Detroit jazz pianist Charles Boles, who died last month at the age of 91.

Thank for the delightful & accurate obituary of Charles Boles. I met him in the early ’80s when he was the accompanist for the girls dance class at Northern High School (I assume between gigs). We stayed in touch, I heard a few more stories other than you mentioned and he talked to my Wayne State class on occasion. I miss his playing, his stories and his persona.

—Bob Pettapiece, Detroit Comments may be edited for clarity.

Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com.

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Businessman Joel Haashiim announces mayoral candidacy, vows to serve all of Detroit Joel Haashiim devoted

decades behind the scenes trying to uplift Detroit.

Now that he’s retired, the 73-year-old former businessman is ready for the public spotlight.

Haashiim is running for mayor of Detroit in 2025, and his focus is on residents who have been left behind as areas like downtown and Midtown have rebounded.

With 18 grandchildren living in the city, Haashiim has a personal stake in the city’s future.

While some areas of Detroit are getting fancy new lofts, restaurants, and entertainment venues, most neighborhoods are struggling with poverty, high crime, unreliable public transportation, failing schools, a lack of jobs, and a population drain.

“Somebody has to stand up and do the right thing for the people of Detroit,” Haashiim tells Metro Times during a 90-minute interview at a coffee shop in Detroit. “I don’t think we have enough people in office who are courageous enough to stand up for the people. I think they have decided to represent the corporations and the rich.

And obviously they have lost empathy for their communities.”

Haashiim is the second person to announce his candidacy so far. City Council President Mary Sheffield filed her paperwork in August and has already raised more than $80,000.

Mayor Mike Duggan has not yet announced if he plans to run for a fourth term, but some political observers speculate that he’s going to run for governor in 2025.

Haashiim believes Duggan has focused too much on wealthy developers, pointing to the tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives doled out to billionaires like the Ilitch family and Dan Gilbert. Haashiim chuckles at the idea that the incentives trickle down to neighborhoods in need.

“They are practicing Reaganomics on the people, and we will create an economic system from the bottom up and the middle out,” Haashiim says.

“Trickle-down economics have never worked for any community.”

Retired businessman Joel Haashiim is running for mayor of Detroit.

A recent poll shows that a vast majority of Detroiters are tired of wealthy developers getting tax handouts.

Haashiim, who ran a party store and later became a wholesaler, touts his experience working on international trade delegations since the 1980s. The city is too reliant on automakers, Haashiim says, and the key to creating new, good-paying jobs lies in international companies opening up in Detroit.

“I do have the necessary knowledge and information to bring in international companies,” Haashiim says.

With the decline of the auto industry, it has become exceedingly difficult for Detroiters to find jobs that pay well, prompting many residents to leave the city.

Since 2000, Detroit has lost about 295,000 Black residents, or 37.4% of its African American population. No other American city has lost more Black residents.

While Detroit’s white population declined by 44,300 between 2000 and 2010, it has since grown by more than 5,100. Its Hispanic and Asian populations have also grown.

Black people now account for 77.2% of the city’s overall population, compared to 82.2% in 2010, when Detroit had the highest percentage of Black residents in the country.

Many Detroiters are moving to Geor-

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gia, where Haashiim says 1,500 international companies are located.

“We don’t see much of a future with corporate America if our children can’t compete,” Haashiim says. “We need to bring in other sources to have a diverse economy, and we need to bring in international companies.”

Haashiim says Detroit’s leadership has lacked imagination and forethought.

“When you don’t have visionaries in leadership, this is what we get,” Haashiim says. “Every time there is a problem, our leaders take from the taxpayers.

They don’t look for alternative ways to bring in revenue.”

For the past decade, Haashiim has been calling for the creation of a cityrun bank, which could finance the construction of low-income housing, support small businesses, and provide low-interest financing and investments in projects with social benefits.

Cities across the country are beginning to push for the creation of government-owned banks as an alternative to the destructive practices of Wall Street financial institutions.

“It would be a solution to at least 90% of Detroit’s financial issues,” Haashiim says. “Our problem is finding resources to uplift our community.”

Small businesses are the engine of a strong local economy, Haashiim

STEVE NEAVLING

says, and that means “promoting and supporting female, Black, and brown Detroiters.”

“We understand that money has to circulate in the community,” Haashiim says. “Small businesses are the largest employers. We have to empower those businesses in the city of Detroit.”

Haashiim also wants to correct what he sees as injustices against retired city employees who have lost their pensions during the municipal bankruptcy and property owners who have been illegally overtaxed.

“The city should compensate them,” Haashiim says. “That’s something we must address. I have a plan for that.”

Haashiim knows he doesn’t have the name recognition of many politicians in Detroit. But, he says, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t always been fighting for the city or lacks the skills to be an effective, compassionate leader.

“I always liked working behind the scenes,” Haashiim says. “People ask where I’ve been. I’ve been working behind the scenes with a lot of groups and organizations. I wasn’t in front of cameras and microphones. But I have the skills to bring back Detroit and make it a great international city and improve the quality of life for our residents. I think it would be unfair to the city if I didn’t present myself.”

—Steve Neavling

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NEWS & VIEWS Lapointe

Crumbley trial and red-flag laws aim at right targets

By Joe Lapointe

In the blurry video clip from

inside the cop car, Jennifer and James Crumbley sit in the back seat, held there temporarily just hours after their son killed four fellow students and wounded seven other persons in the Oxford High School gun massacre.

On the motion picture — shown at Jennifer’s trial last week in Oakland County Circuit Court — James asks his wife “Why are you in fucking handcuffs?”

Someone she knows appears near the car and she yells repeatedly, “Patrick!

Patrick!”

James, not in cuffs and on her left, tries to calm her.

“Jen, Jen,” he says in a softer tone. “He can’t hear you.”

In the audio background, softly and incongruously, a radio station plays “September,” a disco song by Earth, Wind & Fire from 1978.

“BAH-de-ya — never was a cloudy day …. BAH-de-ya — golden dreams were shiny days … Bah-DOO-doo, bahDOO-doo…”

Just before the cops take Jennifer away, James leans over toward his wife so that the bill of his ball cap nears the dark frames of her glasses.

They kiss.

“Honey, I love you,” he says, “in case anything happens.”

He also warns her not to say anything to police without a lawyer nearby.

Much, of course, has happened since November 30, 2021, involving cops, lawyers, judges, jails, prisons, courts, and guns. Their son, Ethan, pleaded guilty to four murders with his shiny, new, 9mm Sig Sauer and has been sentenced to life in prison without parole, pending appeal.

Testimony ended Friday in Jennifer’s trial on four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Her case will go to the jury Monday morning. Her husband’s trial on the same charges is scheduled to begin in March. Until now, no parents in the United States ever have been charged with such a crime involving an offspring for a gun massacre at a school, despite all those gun massacres at all those schools.

But the Crumbleys are a special case

in several ways. Although Ethan said he heard voices and saw demons, Ethan’s Dad bought Ethan the gun as an early Christmas present and Ethan’s Mom took Ethan to the gun range to practice firing fatal bullets (or “rounds,” as the gun groomers insist on calling them).

If one or both Crumbley parents are found guilty, it will mark progress in the movement toward gun safety, especially in Michigan. Along with extending blame and liability beyond the trigger-puller, one or two more Crumbley convictions would add momentum because they coincide with Michigan’s soon-to-be-enforced “red flag” laws.

Beginning on Feb. 13, judges may take hand-held murder machines away from people like Ethan Crumbley, who spent school time drawing a picture of a bullet-ridden, bleeding corpse, which was shown to his parents just hours before his shooting spree.

The start date is the anniversary of the Michigan State University gun massacre, which took three lives last year.

The Great Lakes State is the 21st state to enact such a law. In addition, Michigan will strengthen background checks, demand safe storage, and limit the ability of domestic abusers to get guns.

Of the red flag law, State Attorney General Dana Nessel told the Detroit News: “It’s not about going out and arresting somebody. It’s simply about removing weapons from somebody who poses a threat or a danger to themselves or others. This is not about locking folks up.”

But, of course, that is how these things will be portrayed among the firearms zealots and culture warriors of the right wing who treat the Second Amendment as if it replaces one of the Ten Commandments, the one that says “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

It used to be, in the aftermath of ritual gun massacres and attempts at common-sense gun legislation, you could count on the National Rifle Association’s knee-jerk propaganda and political war chest to terrify enough voters and intimidate enough Republican politicians to minimize progress.

But the NRA has shot itself in the foot — both feet, in fact —– in recent

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Jennifer Crumbley.

years. Lately, it laid off staff, canceled events, and is fighting lawsuits. Its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, resigned just before a current civil case brought by the state of New York charging the NRA with financial fraud and corruption.

It is alleged that while loyal members paid dues to protect their Second Amendment “rights,” LaPierre used some of their money on $250,000 worth of suits at a Beverly Hills boutique, $38,000 to take his family for a vacation in the Bahamas, and a $10,000 beautician’s bill for his wife.

This from an organization that spent $55 million on politics in 2016, $30 million of it for the election of Donald Trump as president. Might the NRA’s downward-spiral be an opportunity for

OAKLAND COUNTY JAIL/ZUMA PRESS WIRE

gun-safety politicians to score points?

Perhaps. Or, it could be a moment for splinter groups to demand more radical causes, like the abolition of the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or a violent, armed revolution to replace the current government.

In the meantime, we get drama like the Crumbley trial, which you could follow partly on cable TV and partly through the herky-jerky delivery of internet streaming on a computer screen.

What you see and hear is theatrical, but earnest, with honest emotion.

On Thursday morning, for long and painful minutes, a viewer could see and hear the sobbing of the defendant, her lawyer, and even the hard-boiled cop on the witness stand as he described

how living human flesh is maimed by powerful bullets.

The judge called for a recess. The cop also read aloud a page from Ethan’s journal written the night before the attack.

“The shooting is tomorrow,” Ethan wrote. “I’m going to prison for the rest of my life and many people have about one day to live.”

Later in her testimony, Jennifer told the jury “I don’t think I’m a failure as a parent,” and “I wish he would have killed us instead.” She said it with a straight face, in a matter-of-fact way.

Some of her drama is non-verbal. It is one thing to read or hear that a defendant was in restraints. But it leaves a different impression to see Crumbley stand up, get her wrists handcuffed behind her back, and be shackled with a chain to walk away with cops — clinkclink-clink — through the courtroom door.

Her lawyer, Shannon Smith, tried through Crumbley’s testimony and the final summary to portray Crumbley as a hard-working and loving parent with an unruly teenager.

She showed Crumbley’s Facebook photos of her son at Sleeping Bear Dunes and one of him petting a horse and another of him petting a kitten.

She spoke of family camping trips and of renting a houseboat together and driving up to Mackinaw City and cutting down Christmas trees.

At times, it seemed like a script for one of those ads for “Pure Michigan.”

Later, her defense of Crumbley turned cringey at times, as Smith seemed to try to build a sisterhood of harried motherhood that included Crumbley, Smith herself, and — perhaps — one or two mothers on the jury who might identify with and sympathize with Crumbley’s maternal challenges.

After all, a good mother must enforce discipline. The night before the killings, Jennifer testified, she punished her son for bad grades by forbidding him to use his cellphone or his gun at the range.

“Those are his trigger points,” she said.

Smith told the jurors “real life is messy and complicated” and also said that many of the small arguments she’d had with her own kids were the same sort of tiffs that Crumbley and other moms have with their kids.

Crumbley made mistakes, her lawyer acknowledged, but she did her best.

Smith said she herself admits “all my flaws” and “so has Jennifer Crumbley.”

At times, Smith’s tone suggested she was trying to convince herself of this line of logic.

Saying “I am Jennifer Crumbley”

and calling the case “a dangerous one for parents out there,” Smith said kids, especially teens, don’t share everything with their parents and that any parent might be accused of a crime should their child do something unforeseeable.

This may have been a stretch, but it might have been Smith’s best stretch.

Only one juror voting in favor of Crumbley could lead to a hung jury and a mistrial and possible freedom. The parents have been in jail for more than two years because they were deemed a flight risk.

“I’m asking you to find Jennifer Crumbley not guilty not just for Jennifer Crumbley,” Smith said, “but for every mother who is out there, doing the best they can, who could easily be in her shoes … Mrs. Crumbley was, in fact, a hypervigilant mother … she’s not a monster.”

The prosecutors portrayed Mrs. Crumbley in a different light, working into the record references to her extramarital affair and the possibility — judging from her cellphone evidence — that she was prepared to soon add one or more persons to her sexual adventures.

In her closing summation, prosecutor Karen McDonald of Oakland County spoke before a female judge, a female defendant, a female defense attorney, and who knows how many female mothers on the jury.

McDonald said Crumbley showed “consciousness of guilt” by fleeing and hiding out with her husband near downtown Detroit when they knew they were wanted by the law.

McDonald also played her version of the humanity chord by referring to the dead kids by their first names: Tate, Hana, Madisyn, and Justin. And she presented Jennifer Crumbley as a selfish person who cared more about her horses and her boyfriend than she did for her own son.

In that Jennifer met with her husband, her son, and school officials shortly before the massacre, McDonald said of Mrs. Crumbley: “She could have searched the backpack; she could have asked her son where the gun was; she could have locked the ammunition; she could have locked the gun; she could have taken him home; she could have taken him to work … She could have told the school that they just gifted him a gun.”

Therefore, McDonald reasoned, there should be no sympathy for the neglectful mother of a mass killer.

“She sat here and said she wouldn’t do one thing different,” McDonald told the jury. “Find her guilty on four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Thank you.”

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The LUST Issue

ALL EYE S

The sensual portraits of Dirty Show featured artist

SAS CHRISTIAN

BY LEE DEVITO

“It’s basically sexy, big-eyed girls, up to naughty.”

That’s how Sas Christian describes her artwork, which she primarily creates as oil paintings. Christian is the featured artist for this year’s Dirty Show erotic art exhibition, which returns to Detroit’s Russell Industrial Center for back-to-back weekends of, well, plenty of naughty.

A British expat, Christian and her husband Colin recently moved to upstate New York after living in Florida for 30 years. While Christian has never shown in the Dirty Show before, Colin, a sculptor, has, and was the featured artist in 2016 — leading to Dirty Show creator Jerry Vile to extend an invitation to Christian this year.

“Jerry had asked if I’d be interested, and I was like, ‘Hell yeah — gosh, yes, please,’” she says. “And then when he said I’d be the headliner, I was like, ‘Marvelous.’”

What started as a small art show launched by Vile in the year 2000 when he was publishing the now-defunct Detroit-based humor magazine Orbit has since grown into massive event that draws artists the world over. Aside from an exhibition of visual art there’s also burlesque performances, BDSM spanking booths, go-go dancers, and attendees who have become just as much of a part of the show in their own right, donning their finest fetishware for people watching.

While Christian’s doe-eyed muses exude a femme-fatale swagger, the artist approached her craft more prudently.

She says she didn’t start her career as a painter until she was around 30.

“Twinkle,” by Sas Christian, 30”x40”.

“I was a little late to the game,” Christian says. “I’ve always drawn, and I’ve always created paintings and stuff, but I had a huge self-confidence issue. And so that’s why it took me a while.”

In England, Christian studied art in college, with the goal of pursuing a more straight and narrow path. “My parents were very much against me studying art,” she says. “So we kind of went back and forth on it. And they said if I studied graphic design, then I could go.”

She adds, “It was very educational.

And I had a good time — maybe too much of a good time. But what it did was it really did tell me that I really wanted to paint.”

In a way, bad luck helped nudge Christian to follow her dreams. Right after graduation, someone broke into her car and stole her portfolio. Being the dawn of the digital age, all of her samples were hand-made, and she had no copies.

“It taught me a lesson: never leave your entire body of work in your car,” she says ruefully.

She tried to find work in London, but found the competition to be quite fierce. Eventually, she and her husband decided to try to start a new life in the United States, moving to Florida to work in a print shop. Christian also found work as a commercial artist, and she and Colin soon started their own company creating latex fetish clothing.

With a body of work that is undeniably imbued with an erotic charge, we have to ask: was her career in latex an COURTESY SAS CHRISTIAN

inspiration?

Christian pauses to consider the question.

“Most of my work is more emotive and attitude-based,” she says. “But I suppose in that respect, certainly. I mean, my girls are kind of, you know, no-nonsense. They have attitude, and they have opinions. I mean, it’s all read through the eyes. They’ve gone through some shit, and they’re still standing. I like to give them that kind of narrative in the back of my head.”

She adds, “I think everything that I’ve lived and done has contributed to what comes out in my paintings.”

Christian says she first encountered the wide-eyed style made popular by Japanese anime long before it became a global pop culture force when, as a child, she visited a friend’s house. “She was Japanese, and she had a series of collectible dolls that were in anime style, the manga style with the big eyes,” Christian says. “I thought they were absolutely gorgeous.”

But it wasn’t until the “lowbrow” or pop surrealist art movement took off around the turn of the century that Christian truly found her scene. A self-taught painter, she says she found inspiration in the work of Mark Ryden, known as the godfather of pop surrealism, whose oil paintings blended kitsch and fine art. “When I was working as a commercial artist, one of my colleagues brought a magazine called Juxtapoz which at the time was really heavily doing the pop surrealist art,” Christian says. “And they had Mark Ryden in it.

I didn’t even realize you could make a living doing this kind of art, that there was a place for it.”

She adds, “I thought the art scene was either old masters or just stuff that wasn’t of interest to me. And that made

it very exciting for me, because that meant there are places for people like myself.”

Little by little, Christian gained confidence as a painter, doing small gallery shows and selling paintings. She started placing small ads in art magazines, which soon began featuring her work. She eventually started getting invited to show in pop surrealist exhibitions alongside artists like her hero Ryden, which was a huge ego boost.

For the Dirty Show, Christian will exhibit original paintings, around eight high-quality prints of existing paintings, and graphite drawings. While many of the original artworks at the Dirty Show are available for purchase, it also makes items like prints, photos, and drawings available for sale in an on-site print shop at a lower price point for collectors with smaller budgets.

“Personally, I’m one of those people,” Christian says. “If I can get a really nice print by an artist that is a limited edition, I find that really exciting.”

Christian says she and her husband plan to fly into Detroit for the show on Friday and Saturday.

“It really is an honor to be a part of this show and to work with Jerry,” she says. “And I’ve already had a little sneak peek at some of the other artists that are taking part, and the other paintings I’ve seen so far are so wild — outrageous, glorious, absolutely glorious.”

She adds, “I can’t wait to see everybody else’s work. This is the place to see it.”

The Dirty Show runs from 7 p.m.-2 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 9-Saturday, Feb. 10 and Friday, Feb. 16-Saturday, Feb. 17 at the Russell Industrial Center; 1600 Clay St., Detroit; dirtydetroit.com. Tickets are $45-$160. Ages 21+ only.

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The LUST Issue

The most romantic restaurants in metro Detroit Sure, romantic restaurants can be pricey, but you deserve to treat

leiladetroit.com

yourself and your partner sometimes, especially for Valentine’s Day. If you’re having a hard time deciding where to go for dinner for the special day, metro Detroit has lots of romantic spots to choose from. Make a reservation soon and be ready to get dressed up with your first-time or long-time date.

—Metro Times staff

For a fancy romantic experience that serves up Middle Eastern flavors, this is it. Leila pays homage to the owner’s roots in Lebanon, mixing sophistication with old-world hospitality.

Highlands

Barda

400 Renaissance Center, Floor 71, Detroit; 313-877-9090; highlandsdetroit.com

For an amazing view of Detroit, Canada, and the river, this is the place to be. Located on the 71st floor of the Renaissance Center, the sights are breathtaking — but you better not be afraid of heights.

restaurant.

Selden Standard

3921 2nd Ave., Detroit; 313-438-5055; seldenstandard.com

You can never get sick of this restaurant, as it offers a rotating menu with some of the best New American tapas in Detroit, great for an amazing date.

The Whitney

Amore da Roma

This historic mansion in downtown Detroit offers a fine-dining restaurant perfect for a romantic dinner. Plus, it’s got a bar and dessert parlor if you want to extend the date with drinks and treats following your meal.

For those who want a more old-school ambiance alongside their great meal, this spot is for you.

Parc

This restaurant just opened in August 2023 and quickly won Best New Restaurant (Oakland) in our Best of Detroit reader’s poll. The upscale New American food is delicious and the dessert also doesn’t disappoint.

4421 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-832-5700; thewhitney.com

800 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-922-7272; parcdetroit.com

Right in the heart of Campus Martius, Parc offers top-notch food and drinks, as well as ample opportunities for people-watching.

Symposia

1000 Brush St., Detroit; 313-962-9366; symposiadetroit.com

3401 Riopelle, Detroit; 313-831-5940; amoredaroma.com

Coeur

330 W. Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; 248-466-3010; coeurferndale.com

SheWolf

438 Selden St., Detroit; 313-315-3992; shewolfdetroit.com

With a beautiful atmosphere and highend menu options, this Greektown spot is perfect for a fancy date.

Modern Roman cuisine is this restaurant’s primary focus, meshing contemporary Italian food with inspiration from old Rome.

Oak & Reel

Tiliani

In Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction neighborhood, this Italian and seafood spot was named Best Restaurant in Wayne County in our 2023 Best of Detroit reader’s poll. It also offers an underground cocktail bar called The Upright, perfect for heading to a more intimate setting after dinner.

At Tilani, all pasta is made in-house, plus all of the food is halal. One of our food reviews said it was the best restaurant she had been to all of 2023.

2921 E. Grand Blvd., Detroit; 313-270-9600; oakandreel.com

Mabel Gray

23825 John R Rd., Hazel Park; 248-398-4300; mabelgraykitchen.com

With a fresh comfortable atmosphere and a well-crafted menu utilizing fresh ingredients from local farms, you can’t go wrong with this adventurous

1002 S. Military St., Dearborn; 313-444-8889; tiliani.com

Prime + Proper

1145 Griswold St., Detroit; 313-636-3100; primeandproperdetroit.com

The seating in this place is even more luxurious than the food. Prime + Proper is a classic steakhouse that adds modern concepts and elegant hospitality to the experience.

Leila

1245 Griswold St., Detroit; 313-816-8100;

4842 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-952-5182; bardadetroit.com

In an unsuspecting building, Barda brings Argentine cuisine to the city with a fancy twist.

Freya

2929 E. Grand Blvd., Detroit; 313-351-5544; freyadetroit.com

The menu at this unpretentious finedining spot in Milwaukee Junction includes a mix of pescatarian, vegan, and meat options. Plus, the chefs are great, and local art lines the walls. Owner and Executive Chef Doug Hewitt was just nominated for Best Chef in the Great Lakes.

Pop’s For Italian

Mad Nice

4120 Second Ave., Detroit; 313-558-8000; madnicedetroit.com

Just opening in 2023, this spot’s name describes it perfectly. The Italian restaurant is definitely nice, with chic decor and a modern Italian-inspired menu.

Grey Ghost

47 Watson St., Detroit; 313-262-6534; greyghostdetroit.com

Whether you want a burger and fries or more upscale dishes like tuna tartare and duck, Grey Ghost has got it all.

La Feria

4130 Cass Ave., Detroit; 313-285-9081; laferiadetroit.com

This spot, serving up Spanish flavors, was voted Best Tapas in our Best of Detroit reader’s poll. The restaurant also has a wine bar and market located adjacent to the eatery.

Gandy Dancer

401 Depot St., Ann Arbor; 734-769-0592; muer.com/gandy-dancer

280 W. Nine Mile Rd.; 248-268-4806; popsforitalian.com

If your style of romance is wood-fired pizza and handmade pasta, Pop’s is the place for it. Maybe you and your date can even have a Lady and the Tramp moment.

Takoi

2520 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-855-2864; takoidetroit.com

In Corktown, Takoi is known for modern Thai cooking with Michigan seasonality. The space and meal presentation are equally as impressive.

Townhouse

500 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-723-1000; townhousedetroit.com

Located in the heart of downtown Detroit, Townhouse is very fancy, merging culinary tradition with modern innovation. The masterpiece of a building offers a bar and an outdoor terrace.

Basan

2703 Park Ave., Detroit; 313-481-2703; basandetroit.com

Located in the historic Eddystone building near Little Caesars Arena, Basan serves up high-end Japaneseinspired fare.

If you live in Washtenaw County, this is a top choice when it comes to romance, whether it’s a big event or a small dinner. The building is exquisite from the outside, and the inside doesn’t disappoint either, offering elegant decor and tasty menu options.

Prime 29

6545 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield Township; 248-737-7463; prime29steakhouse.com

Voted Best Steakhouse (Oakland) in our 2023 Best of Detroit reader’s poll, you can’t go wrong here. If steak is your ideal idea of a romantic dinner, this is a great option.

The Shelby

607 Shelby St., Detroit; 313-444-6626; shelbydetroit.com

Located downtown in a speakeasy-style former basement bank vault, seats for two at The Shelby’s bar set the stage for a great date night, with polished bar staff who know how to entertain. The chef prepares signature share plates at one end of the bar for a fun experience. If you’re looking to lock someone special up long term, dinner in the actual old vault room should help set the appropriate mood.

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Mon Jin Lau

1515 E. Maple Rd., Troy; 248-689-2332; monjinlau.com

For lovers of Asian cuisine, this spot has got you covered. The waitresses serving in the low-lit dining rooms are gracious, Geisha-elegant, and uniformly gorgeous.

The food is beautiful too, with consistently vibrant and fresh flavors.

The LUST Issue

15 ways to impress your Valentine when you’re broke

Sylvan Table

1819 Inverness St., Sylvan Lake; 248-369-3360; sylvantable.com

Rustic is the best word to describe this upscale restaurant, built from a 300-year-old barn from Maine that was deconstructed and reassembled in Michigan.

Nico & Vali Italian Eatery

744 Wing St., Plymouth.; 734-207-7880; nicoandvali.com

This Plymouth spot has the best martinis, along with great design, great service, and great food.

Bellflower

209 Pearl St., Ypsilanti; bellflowerypsi.com

This spot was voted the Best Restaurant in Washtenaw County in our 2023 Best of Detroit reader’s poll. It’s tucked away, but once you’re inside, the Southern-inspired cuisine and overall vibe of the place will wow you.

Luciano’s Italian Restaurant

39091 Garfield Rd., Clinton Twp.; 586-263-6540; lucianositaliancuisine.com

This family-owned restaurant has been serving Italian fare since 1987.

The Chop House

322 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; 734-669-8826; thechophouserestaurant.com

When it comes to steakhouses, this is one of the best, offering a fancy setting and classic meal options.

Café Cortina

30715 W. 10 Mile Rd., Farmington Hills; 248-474-3033; cafecortina.com

Family owned and operated since 1976, this romantic spot is located in an apple orchard reminiscent of the Italian countryside and serves handmade pasta alongside its own produce.

Blue LLama Jazz Club

314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; 734-372-3200; bluellamaclub.com

This elegant dinner and jazz club features top-notch performances.

Da Francesco’s Ristorante & Bar 49521 Van Dyke Ave., Shelby Township; 586-731-7544; dafrancescos.com

This long-standing Italian restaurant features live entertainment on Thursdays and Fridays.

We’re all struggling financially out here, and then holidays come

around to break the bank even more. Valentine’s Day specifically can be a lot of pressure, especially when many high-end restaurants and events are nowhere near affordable for most people. It doesn’t have to be this stressful though, as there are plenty of things to do in and around Detroit that you and your date can enjoy for cheap. Here are some things to do to impress your Valentine this year, even if you’re broke.

—Layla McMurtrie

Check out new art exhibits

Amazing art is one thing in Detroit that you can see a lot of for free. This coming month, the Carr Center has a few new exhibits opening to the public. You can also head to the Detroit Institute of Arts (free for residents in the tri-county area) or the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit to see world-class art, or drive around and see all the murals in different parts of the city. If you want to make a full day out of art, you could even do all of it.

Try an affordable new local restaurant Over 50 new restaurants opened in metro Detroit in 2023, and there are others where you can have a meal for $10 or less. Whether it’s some burgers or just drinks or a nice dinner, introducing someone to something new always makes for a great experience.

Attend Poetry in the Park’s Valentine’s Day Open Mic

Every Wednesday, the Jewels of Detroit host Poetry in the Park at Rock Local Entertainment Cafe in Highland Park.

Since Valentine’s Day is on a Wednesday this year, the group is making Feb. 14’s event special by adding visual artists and vendors to the mix. Take your date to the event to spit some bars, enjoy the show, or buy some new local artwork. Entry is only $10.

Go on a tour of Detroit’s coffee and tea

If your crush is a coffee addict or a tea lover, they would probably love to try some different cafes in the city that they haven’t been to yet. They may even discover their new favorite drink or spot to work at. If you need some ideas of new places to go, Alba Coffee, Kitab Cafe, CRED Cafe, and Cafe Sous Terre all just opened in the last year.

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See a comedy show

Laughing together always makes for a great date and going to a local comedy show is sure to make that happen. On Feb. 14, Bill Bushart will be at Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle for a Valentine’s Stand-up Special. Entry is just $15. Plus, Planet Ant’s weekly Hip-Prov is also happening the night of Valentine’s Day. Entry is $10.

Visit bookstores

If you and your lover are bookworms, there are many great spots in the city to check out with affordable options.

For four floors of marvels, you can visit Next Chapter Books in Detroit’s Morningside neighborhood for a mix of new and used options in a small welcoming environment.

Imperial Presents: Everybody Loves Tacos!

From noon-11 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, this Ferndale taco spot is hosting a special event with people’s favorite food and cocktail items from over the years, as well as regular menu options.

Entry is free on a first come-first serve basis. Tacos range from $3.75-$5 and the most expensive menu item are the nachos at $11.

Play games at the Monroe Street Midway

In Downtown Detroit, the Monroe Street Midway offers mini golf, bumper cars, and more that you and your date can play for free or super cheap.

Plus, Campus Martius is just a short walk away if you also want to add ice skating to the mix.

Kids Valentines Pop-up Market

If your Valentine this year is your kids, take them to this children’s market at Southwest Detroit community space

Vámonos. If your child is a budding entrepreneur, they can sell their work at the market. The opportunity was created to give kids a space to boost their self-esteem and sell products for Valentine’s Day, so buy something to support them too. Vámonos is accepting kid vendors until Feb. 5 for the event on Feb. 10 from 1-5 p.m.

See a movie at the FordWyoming drive-in

For a classic date that has been a metro Detroit tradition since 1950, bring your boo to the drive-in and cuddle up for a movie. The price is $28 per car. If you go on a double date with another couple and split the price, this activity could be even cheaper.

Take a romantic walk

Metro Detroit has a number of great hiking trails, and even when it’s a little chilly outside, taking a hike is a great way to connect with someone.

Go to an arcade bar

As long as you don’t buy too many drinks, hitting a bar that also has games is a fun way to enjoy a date and maybe engage in some lighthearted competition too. There are lots of options in Detroit such as Checker Bar, The Yard, Barcade, and more.

Handcraft them a gift

Buying presents from anywhere can be expensive and not always meaningful. Crafting something yourself however, whether it’s just a cute card or a crocheted accessory, will always be impressive.

Thrift store date

Shopping at second-hand stores is always a way to have fun and get new clothes at a reasonable price. Go with your date and pick out some fits for each other. See our list of must-visit metro Detroit vintage and thrift stores for some ideas on where to go.

Stay home and cook dinner When all else fails, or if going out is just not your forte, cooking a nice dinner for your date is the best.

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

MUSIC

Wednesday, Feb. 7 berlioz 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $35.

Frost Children, MSPAINT 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.

Gold Necklace, Moondough, Lobby Boxer, Sincerely 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.

Wolves of Glendale, SUMPP 8 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $18.

Woodbridge Pub & The Preservation of Jazz Presents Just Jazz & Blues Every Wednesday Night 7-11 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; no cover.

Thursday, Feb. 8 Candlelight: Aretha Franklin & the Sound Of the Sixties 6:30-8:30 & 8:45-10:45 p.m.; The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms; $40.

Mom Rock, Cascade Riot, The Antibuddies 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $12.

Raheem DeVaughn 8 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $45-$57.

Siena Liggins, Daisha McBride 8 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $15.

The 80’s Club: A Flock Of Seagulls, Men Without Hats & Spoons 8 pm; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $28-$73.

Trey McLaughlin and The Sounds of Zamar 7:30-9:30 p.m.; The Whiting, 1241 E. Kearsley St., Flint; $17 - $62.

Friday, Feb. 9 Candlelight: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac 6-8 & 8:30-10:30 p.m.; The Detroit Masonic Temple, 500 Temple Street, Detroit; $27.

Escuela Grind, Take Offense, Brat, Bonginator, Self Absorbed 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St.,

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

Hamtramck; $18.

Detroit; $10-$20.

Glenn Hughes, Enuff Z’Nuff, Bad Marriage 7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $30.

Slick Rick: An Evening Of Story Telling 8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $25-$150.

Holding Absence, Casey, Capstan, Acres 6 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $20.

L.A. GUNS 6 p.m.; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $25.

VanHalentine’s Day XIII with Panama and the Beggars 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $22.

The Feisty Birds 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $10.

The Motown Sounds Of Touch 7:30 p.m.; Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts, 12 N. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $34-$69.

One Love Reggae Band Bob Marley birthday tribute with DJ Sci-Fi Deluxx 8 p.m.-midnight; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Valentine’s Soul Jam with Russell Thompkins Jr. and The New Stylistics, Heatwave, Bloodstone, Enchantment, and The Intruders 7 p.m.; Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $59-$250.

Saturday, Feb. 10

Sunday, Feb. 11

3d Invisibles, Carjack. , DJ Danny Kroha 9 p.m.-12:30 a.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Music of Gideon Klein, Hans Krása and More 3-5 p.m.; Scarab Club, 217 Farnsworth St., Detroit; $30 at the door, $25 in advance, $10 for students.

80s throwback with Detroit legends Heaven’s Wish, Devils Child - The Music of Judas Priest and Chit 6 p.m.; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $15-$25.

Tusk 8 p.m.; Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts, 12 N. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $25-$55.

Captain Fantastic, the ultimate tribute to Elton John 7-11 p.m.; Diesel Concert Lounge, 33151 23 Mile Road, Chesterfield; $25.

Desmond Jones, Act Casual Live at Tangent Gallery 6 p.m.; Tangent Gallery & Hastings Street Ballroom, 715 E. Milwaukee Ave., Detroit; $15.

Jackson Dean, Dee White, Grace Tyler 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

Led Zeppelin 2, Powerage (AC/ DC tribute), TNT (Ted Nugent tribute) 7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15-$150.

Luxury Live Entertainment Presents An Evening with Fares Karam - Arabian Nights 9 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $95-$500.

MEGA 80s 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.

Renee Blair: Nashville Hits the Roof! 8 p.m.; Tin Roof, 47 E. Adams Ave., Detroit; no cover.

Monday, Feb. 12 The Satin Doll Revue (Black History Month Special Presentation) 6-10 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; $30-$40.

Vader, Origin, Inhuman Condition, Nethergate, Throne 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $25.

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

Tuesday, Feb. 13 Briston Maroney: Ultrapure Tour, Phoebe Go 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.

THEATER Performance Detroit Repertory Theatre August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come And Gone. $25-$30. Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 & 8 p.m.; and Sundays, 2 p.m.

Flint Repertory Theatre Into the Side of a Hill. $10-$27. Wednesday, 2-4 p.m.; Thursday, 7-9 p.m.; Friday, 8-10 p.m., Saturday, 8-10 p.m.; and Sunday, 2-4 p.m.

PLANET ANT THEATRE Everyone Loves Dick (The Authorized Biography of Dick Ripper). Written, directed, and performed by Las Vegas playwright Ernest Hemmings. $20. Thursday.

Planet Ant Theatre STUPOR: Disappearing Act & My Secret Sickness. The release event for the new issue of the longest running zine in Detroit, STUPOR. $20-$40. Friday, 9-10:30 p.m., and Saturday, 9-10:30 p.m.

Musical Wicked. $59-$179. Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, 7:30 p.m., Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 2 & 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1, 6:30 & 7:30 p.m.; and Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.; Detroit Opera House, 1526 Broadway St., Detroit.

ARTS Performance art Cranbrook Art Museum Flesh Tones: Soundscape with Huey Mnemonic and Ash Arder. No cover. Saturday, 3-4 p.m.

Art Exhibition Color & Ink Studio Footprints in Ink: Kyla Fischer and Zach Curtis. No cover.

Fridays, 5-8 p.m.; Saturdays, noon-3 p.m.; and Sundays, noon-3 p.m.

Daley, LeRonelle 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $30-$80.

New Dodge Lounge Curated by Disco Walls: The Non-Toxic Masculinity Series - JeRon Bransen Strozier. No cover.

Thursday, 6-9 p.m.

Danny Kroha: Alpino Roots Cellar Music Series 6:30-8 p.m.; Alpino, 1426 Bagley St., Detroit; $10.

Playground Detroit Stripped: Brandon Altman Solo Exhibition opening reception. No cover. Saturday, 6-9 p.m.

Elyanna 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $24.50.

Russell Industrial ComplexExhibition Center Dirty Show 24 - International Erotic Art Exhibition $45.

Friday, 7 p.m.-2 a.m., and Saturday, 7 p.m.-2 a.m.

Return of The Bloody Valentine: Black Jake & the Carnies, Cowgirl 7 p.m.; Regal Beagle, 817 E. Michigan Ave., Ypsilanti; $10.

Neck Deep, Drain, Bearings, Higher Power 6 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $39.50-$59.50.

San Pacho, Dino, Food Fight 9 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave.,

DJ/Dance

The Congregation Detroit Ray Gray art exhibition and reception. No cover. Saturday, 3-5 p.m.

metrotimes.com | February 7-13, 2024 23

Continuing This Week PARC Art Gallery The Art and Soul Exhibit & Sale. No cover. Through March 4.

Stamelos Gallery Center, UMDearborn Andy T’s Urban Vision 2001-2024. No cover. Mondays-Fridays, Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

FILM Screening Motor City Cinema Society Frankie & Johnny (1991). $5. Monday, 6:30 p.m.

Reware Vintage Purple Rain VHS Movie Night. 7 p.m. shop & mingle, 8 p.m. movie starts. BYO drinks, seat, and a friend. Friday, 7-11 p.m.

COMEDY Improv Go Comedy! Improv Theater Pandemonia The All-Star Showdown. Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. $25.

Planet Ant Theatre Ants In The Hall present Hot For Hamtown: An Original Noir Comedy. $20-$40. Friday, 7-8:30 p.m. and Saturday, 7-8:30 p.m.

Stand-up Emerald Theatre Sparkle Network’s Heartbreakers 11th Comedy Event. $30+.

Saturday, 7-11 p.m.

The Fillmore Matt Rife: ProbleMATTic World Tour. $52.50-$88. Friday, 7 & 10 p.m. and Saturday, 7 & 10 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Steven Rogers with Keith Lanart and Dan Brittain. $20-$25. Feb. 8, 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 9, 7:15 p.m. ; Feb. 9, 9:45 p.m.; Feb. 10, 7 p.m. & 9:30 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. $5 suggested donation. Fridays, Saturdays, 11 p.m.-1:30 am.

MISC. Singles event Black Cat Beanery Expedating Speed Dating [30-45] with Cats. All cats are available for adoption. $39. Thursday, 6-7:30 p.m.

Go green: The Cranbrook House & Gardens Winter Houseplant Sale.

ERIC FRANCHY/CRANBROOK HOUSE & GARDENS

Critics’ picks Cranbrook House & Gardens Winter Houseplant Sale

PLANTS: If your home is in need of a more lively ambiance, you need more houseplants — and the Cranbrook House & Gardens Winter Houseplant Sale is where you can get them. The event is happening for the ninth year in a row at Cranbrook’s Conservatory Greenhouse, which was built in 1950 and features habitats for tropical plants and orchids, among others. At this upcoming sale, you can pick up begonias, bromeliads, calathea, dish gardens, monstera, orchids, peperomia, purple hearts, succulents, cacti, and more.

House plants can improve the wellbeing of people who care for them — plus, the plant sales will help support improvements to the greenhouse and other general operations at Cranbrook House & Gardens.

—Layla McMurtrie Members of the gardens get early access to the plants from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 8, while the sale opens to the public from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 9 and 10 a.m.-2 p.m on Saturday, Feb. 10; Cranbrook House & Gardens; 380 Lone Pine Road, Bloomfield Hills; housegardens.cranbrook.edu. No cover.

24 February 7-13, 2024 | metrotimes.com

A Real Arab Blueprint (A.R.A.B.)

Ray Gray art exhibition and reception

Starts at 9 p.m., Saturday Feb. 10; Spot Lite 2905 Beaufait, Detroit; spotlitedetroit.com; $22

From 3-5 p.m. on Saturday Feb. 10; The Congregation, 9321 Rosa Parks Blvd., Detroit; 313-307-5518; thecongregationdetroit.com. No cover.

MUSIC: Eastside Detroit hangout Spot Lite is hosting a night of solidarity for Palestine with some good music. On Saturday, American-born Palestinian DJ Maher Daniel, who is based in Barcelona, will play Spot Lite for the return of the “A Real Arab Blueprint” (A.R.A.B.) series. Spot Lite resident DJ Aboudi Issa and a live set by Detroit-based DJ Salar Ansari round out the lineup. A Real Arab Blueprint is a contemporary art series representing the diversity of the Arab diaspora started by Spot Lite owner Roula David and Noura Ballot in 2021. The year-long series had several installments focused on music, spoken word, film, media, and visual art. A portion of the proceeds from the event will go to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund; more than 27,000 Palestinians have been reported dead as Israel continues to wage its war on Gaza, and more than 80% of its 2.3 million residents have been displaced.

—Randiah Camille Green

ARTS: In 1973, Ray Gray, then a promising 21-year-old boxer and four-time Golden Gloves boxing champ, was convicted in the shooting death of 23-year-old Army veteran Reuben Bryant during a robbery on Detroit’s west side — a crime he and his supporters have long maintained he did not commit, due to a lack of physical evidence.

While behind bars, Gray developed a talent for painting, and his surreal images — which mix realistic techniques with fantastical scenes, and are often imbued with a sense of peace — helped him cope with the wrongful imprisonment. After Metro Times reported on his case and following a plea deal with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office, Gray was released in 2021 after nearly 50 years.

He will celebrate his new life as an artist with an exhibition and reception on Saturday at The Congregation coffee shop in Detroit.

—Lee DeVito

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MUSIC ALL OF YOUR TEAMS PLAYING ON OUR BIG SCREENS!

Fri 2/09

THE DECARLO FAMILY/ DANG QUIXOTE/THE PROBLEM (post-punk/pop/rock) Doors@9p/$5cover

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GARRETT PASSIAK! Sat 2/10

VALIDTINES DAY 7 FEAT. VALID/WUZEE/PIERRE ANTHONY/ DE SHAE B./HUSH/LIVE BEATS SET

BY SIMPLE CUTS HOSTED BY ELLIE // DJ HEAD & JMAC

The Spin Inc. lab at Detroit’s Alkebu-Lan Village.

Doors@9p/$10cover

Local Buzz

Sun 2/11

Detroit’s Spin Inc. finds new home

EATS BY MIZZ RUTH’S GRILL@7P MODELO & HENNESSY PROMOS! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTINA SKOP! JOIN US FOR SUPER BOWL LVIII KICKOFF@6:30P Mon 2/12

FREE POOL ALL DAY Tues 2/13

B. Y. O. R. BRING YOUR OWN RECORDS (WEEKLY) Open Decks@8PM NO COVER IG: @byor_tuesdays_old_miami

Coming Up:

2/16 djkage & FRIENDS 2/17 BANGERZ & JAMZ (monthly dance party) 2/24 Phossils/Intent accident/ A Death Cinematic/Andre Foisy/ Steve Fors 2/25 ABRACADABRA 2024: Strange Magic/Doubt It/Wounded Touch/ Cyanide/Muddhouse/Pepper&The Heavy Boys & MORE 3/01 Dom Shbeats/Greyhound/ Sean Monaghan/Woof/Lucy V 3/08 STRICTLY FINE/ Tree No Leaves 3/15 Mammon/Something Is Waiting(chi)/Gator Pit 3/16 3rd Annual Barfly Awards!

VOTE NOW@the bar!

Book Your Parties at The Old Miami Email us: theoldmiamibarevents@gmail.com

Since 2015, Spin Inc. has inspired local youth by teaching the fundamentals of electronic music production and DJing.

The nonprofit was founded by Ron Johnson, a military veteran who was introduced to DJing by his cousin.

“I started DJing back in the ’80s,” Johnson says. “My cousin was in the military at the time, he got hurt at the Beirut bombings and he came back home paralyzed. What he brought back home with him from Germany was a Technics turntable and a mixer.”

Johnson developed a passion for music, and over time he began to feel dismayed at some of the negative content in hip-hop. He wanted to bring back an edutainment form of teaching music to youth and a way to spark musical expression — without glorifying the street themes constantly highlighted in today’s music.

“I was at Jam Master’s school, Scratch Academy. I heard one of the children say, ‘This saved my life,’” he says. “I was like, ‘I have to bring this back to Detroit.’”

The nonprofit established a partnership with the Detroit Institute of Music Education (DIME) and was able to utilize their facilities to host “Spinmaster 101” workshops on beat production featuring heavyweights such as Detroit techno pioneer Juan Atkins. Students were able to learn on software and hardware courtesy of manufacturers Ableton and Native Instruments.

However, like other organizations

26 February 7-13, 2024 | metrotimes.com

Spin Inc. was forced to make a pivot during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

They hosted online workshops, but were unable to return to DIME after the pandemic.

“When DIME closed from COVID, it never recovered,” Johnson says. “We were displaced.”

Spin Inc. has since moved into a space within Alkebu-Lan Village on the east side. Alkebu-Lan has been a Detroit institution for four decades, offering equal amounts of educational and cultural programs. Spin Inc. has had a relationship with Alkebu-Lan since 2016.

“They actually had a computer lab that wasn’t being utilized. I brought my own computers, we cleared the room out, and redid it,” he says.

The lab will have turntables where students will learn how to spin vinyl, use the Melodics app for finger drumming, and music production using Ableton and Maschine. 7 Mile Radio will also offer classes in podcasting.

Johnson also sees the move to AlkebuLan as the perfect fit due to its history and its location.

“The advantages are we’re right in the neighborhood, right where it’s needed, not downtown,” he says. “We got a grant from the state through Pop Solutions to be able to teach the children for free for a whole year.”

Spin Inc.’s inaugural event at AlkebuLan Village will be “Dilla Family Day,” a family-friendly day of education and fun that also celebrates the legacy of Detroit

COURTESY PHOTO

producer James “J Dilla” Yancey. The event is planned for Saturday, Feb. 10, the same day Dilla passed away in 2006 at age 32 following a battle with a rare blood disease. The event will feature workshops on mental health, social media balance and conflict resolution, a presentation from filmmaker Amadeuz Christ, and plenty of music demos and tutorials. Spin Inc. also plans on releasing a catalog of all courses available as early as March 1.

“Children need programming like this to keep their interest and to teach them about music,” Johnson says.

Alkebu-Lan Village is located at 7701 Harper Ave. in Detroit.

—Kahn Santori Davison

Icewear Vezzo gives free bus rides Detroit hip-hop artist Icewear Vezzo celebrated the release of his anticipated new album Live from the 6 by providing free bus service via DDOT for the entire Six Mile route (East and West McNichols) from 6 a.m.-6 p.m. last Friday.

“Six Mile is where he grew up and anything he can do to encourage, motivate, and create ease for his community, he will do it,” says Vezzo’s longtime manager Chanel Domonique.

“Providing a ride to school, work, or just an errand for Detroiters made perfect sense.”

Live From The 6 is out now on Iced Up Records and is Vezzo’s first album since 2022’s Paint the City. It features guest appearances from Grammy-nominated rap star DaBaby, fellow Detroiter Babyface Ray, 2023 XXL Freshman Luh Tyler, and YTB Fatt.

—Kahn Santori Davison

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FOOD

Chef Shinya Hirakawa appeals to local palates with his Detroit Sushi.

TOM PERKINS

Detroit-style sushi?

By Tom Perkins

Detroit Sushi 3800 Woodward Ave., Detroit (inside Hammer & Nail) detroitsushi.com 313-474-3477 $9-$25 for rolls

Did you know there’s Detroitstyle sushi? Neither did I, but it’s a thing, as Detroit Sushi chef Shinya Hirakawa explained to me in a recent history lesson on our region’s rolls.

Many of the first sushi chefs to immigrate to the Detroit area around 50 years ago were from Kyoto in western Japan, Hirakawa says. Fish have to be brought to the landlocked Kyoto from the coast about 30 miles away, so in the age before refrigeration and rapid transportation, the product wasn’t quite as fresh.

To account for this, Kyoto’s sushi chefs slightly sweetened their rolls, using a sweeter vinegar and soy sauce than what can be found in saltier counterparts in cities like Tokyo. The upper

Midwest palate approves of this subtlebut-important difference, Hirakawa says, and he upholds that tradition at Detroit Sushi. And with a few notable exceptions, the rolls on the menu are fairly straightforward, and sushi to which local tastes are accustomed.

The restaurant is located inside Midtown’s Hammer & Nail, which is focused on craft cocktails, but the Roxbury Group ownership felt it needed a food component that didn’t require an exhaust system. Sushi is about the best one can do for ventless cooking, and it fills as a bit of a gap as there is a dearth of worthwhile sushi in the area.

Hirakawa is a strong pick to helm the operation as a veteran of Royal Oak’s Ronin and Noble Fish in Clawson. In his new position, he is a one-man show — chef, prepper, and dishwasher.

Hirakawa notes his use of higherquality ingredients, like rice imported from Japan that he cooks in alkaline water to keep it moist. In his excellent Crab California roll, he uses real snow crab instead of the artificial crab meat

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most shops employ. His soy sauce is higher-end and gluten free, ditto for his sushi vinegar.

Among the best of Detroit Sushi’s roster is the Mexico City Roll with shrimp, pickled jalapeño, cilantro, and avocado, which Hirakawa says is a play on a more common version of the roll made with tuna. It works, with the acidicsalty-sweet components reminiscent of shrimp ceviche in sushi form.

The nigiri is also solid with luscious, full-flavored salmon, and bluefin tuna that is fatty and rich. Detroit Sushi sources fish from True World, which ships its seafood direct to Michigan instead of via Chicago, as is common with many other distributors.

Hirakawa likens his Rainbow Roll’s heft to a Detroit-style pizza one would get at Loui’s in Hazel Park, or a sandwich at Zingerman’s. It’s a big boy at a higher price point ($25) with four kinds of fish rolled with the package. Michiganders appreciate that kind of “fat stack” approach, Hirakawa says, and there’s bang for the buck.

Similarly, among the most popular items is the Roma Roll, which Hirakawa surmises owes to its inclusion of two sauces — mayo and teriyaki. Its hint of smokiness comes from seared tuna across the top, and the roll holds shrimp, avocado, and cucumber that provides some needed crunch. The roll, he notes, was invented at Troy’s Cafe Sushi, sold under a different name at Ronin, and he sees himself upholding a local tradition by including it at Detroit Sushi.

The most pleasant surprise is the Asparagus Truffle Roll, for which Hirakawa uses a truffle soy sauce and truffle powder, which packs a heavy umami punch. The Inside Out Tekka Roll is solid, and the Sunomono salad sings with bouncy wood ear mushrooms, cucumber, and ginger in a sweet sushi vinegar.

Hammer & Nail’s cocktails deserve their own full review, but each is excellent, and the restaurant is about to introduce a happy hour with $5 rolls and Valentine’s Day specials.

metrotimes.com | February 7-13, 2024 29

FOOD Chowhound

Fine dining’s uncertain prognosis

By Robert Stempkowski

The first words out of Charlie Trotter’s mouth on the night I met him lost me completely: “This is a study in Axis venison,” he led right in after his introduction, focusing me and a clutch of co-workers on a plate of perfectly pink and exotic deer tenderloin. Trotter — a pantheon name among America’s all-time chef greats — had come to my workplace in Phoenix (a French fine dining palace) to participate in a fancy-schmancy dinner celebrating some of his contemporaries’ culinary celebrity. In the moment, Chef Trotter was conducting his part of pre-service; enlightening our service team on every aspect of the dish he was preparing for the evening’s extravaganza, and making his creation sound like a science project in the process. As he broke its elements down into almost molecular components, I marveled sarcastically to myself over how out-there over food this guy was.

But that was Trotter. In those days, I had no idea who he was, or what cuisine on his level could rise to.

Last week and 30-plus years later, after reading an over-analyzing piece of advertorial tripe on a local fine dining destination, it occurred to me how the real high-end of the restaurant industry is getting about as long in the tooth as the glossy, shrinking city magazines making long-winded, Trotter-esque efforts to cover it for their high society, dwindled readerships and ad revenues. Catering to a thin-slivered demographic of silver spoon appetites for the most part, fine dining’s piece of the consumer popularity pie is wafer-thin. It’s no wonder why, since it offers what so few customers are currently buying into with their restaurant-going routines.

According to numbers provided by Brizo FoodMetrics, an online food industry market analysis service, less than 1% of restaurants across the U.S. and Canada are currently operating under the auspices of fine dining (price-fixed, chef’s tasting menus, wine pairings, etc.). Post-pandemic, 60% employ quick-service business models, while nearly 90% of all restaurant commerce

Since its launch last spring, Corktown’s Alpino seems to be setting an admirably high but eminently approachable new standard.

COURTESY PHOTO

is considered “inexpensive” compared to fine dining, by Brizo’s calculus.

Even so, don’t count me as someone who can’t appreciate the value in being treated to fine food and service. The opposite is true. The fact is, I made my living in fine dining for years. From my early ’90s exposure to Chef Trotter, I went on to serve under such ultrahigh-caliber chefs as Christopher Gross, Michael De Maria, Ercolino Crugnale, Bradford Thompson, and Kevin Binkley in the luxe Scottsdale-Phoenix market.

I seared foie gras just so in Crugnale’s kitchen, shaved white truffles in Mary Elaine’s five-diamond (AAA), fivestar (Mobil) dining room while Chef Thompson waited for me at the kitchen door to re-weigh them afterward on a gram scale and measure my accuracy in portioning out so precious and pricy a delicacy, and I bought bottles for Binkley’s wine cellar at wholesale prices that exceeded by a decimal digit or two what the vast majority of us would be willing to spend retail on wine-loving best friends and family. More simply put, I’ve been there, done that, and made bank among the best of them. I’ve certainly no bone to pick with the food and beverage elite by those standards. I just think the days of prandial grandiosity are all but gone, and places where waist-coated “waiters” plunk-down unpriced menus and purse stools for the ladies and other frilly pretenses of such like are way past passe. Service elegance isn’t showcased

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only through extravagance. Most gracious food hospitality isn’t exclusive to fusty-feeling dining rooms dusted in finery. Gag us with that old silver spoon already. Enough’s enough.

While I’d be wrong to declare fine dining dead, it’s time to at least start considering its probable, conceptual successors. Instead of predicting what will or won’t replace the current highend vanguard, let me point to a specific business model performing most promisingly as a blueprint example of what future success in the upper tier, full-service segment of the industry might look like.

Since its launch last spring, Corktown’s Alpino seems to be setting an admirably high but eminently approachable new standard. The interior ambiance is getaway seductive as all get-out, transporting visitors to a virtual, Tyrolean lodge retreat high on some Alpine ledge one might wish never to come back down from once there. Offering a lofty yet laid-back experience fit for even the most worldly and well-traveled of epicurean seekers, Alpino’s food and beverage menu proffers its paean to such pleasures for a relative song. Sipping crisp, accessibly-priced wines from the Alsace, Swirling Swiss fondue ($36) silked in cheeses elementally milked from mountain goats and cattle, and popping melt-in-your-mouth charcuterie meats cured far down-slope in Germany and Italy ($18), savvy proprietor

David Richter’s guests sample something truly authentic, intentional, and broadly affordable, which seems right on target with the trajectory this writer sees “finer” but not fussy-fine dining taking into the near future. From now on, let’s slice far less caviar from the bellies of sturgeon mommas just for the sake of some expensive indulgence.

As for me, I’ll be having more of Alpino’s sustainably harvested Arctic Char at $34, Rye flour-crusted with mustard. And at $24, an all at once sophisticated and simple crock of grilled sausage simmered in a lightly-buttered onion and garlic broth (Diots Au Vin Blanc) buys me a quick ticket back into the old world kitchen my European grandmother once cooked in for me and mine, as does a priced-right and pickled Gurkensalat ($16) that harks back a similar kind of puckery summer cucumber salad she made. And from either the deeply resonating music library Richter pipes through the restaurant’s crystal-clear sound system or the eclectic live acts he hires to perform something apropos of metro Detroit zeitgeist, Alpino is delivering something that appears the package of what will play well to discriminating crowds of food entertainment enthusiasts for the foreseeable future.

Wherever you are, Chef Trotter, rest assured in the fine dining flame you certainly helped keep burning brightly. But now, I picture that torch passing.

metrotimes.com | February 7-13, 2024 31

CULTURE

Emerging artist Terrell Anglin uses wood burning and mixed media techniques to connect the past and present of the African American experience.

Arts spotlight

This self-guided tour stretches across over 20 galleries events throughout Black History Month

By Randiah Camille Green

Here at Metro Times, we are

always giving Black artists and galleries their flowers no matter the time of year.

But it’s Black History Month and the Black art community in Detroit is more lit than usual with the return of Sacred Spaces.

Sacred Spaces is a self-guided tour of Black-owned galleries and art spaces with nearly 70 Black artists participating in over 10 month-long exhibits.

The initiative debuted in 2023 spearheaded by Irwin House Gallery and Norwest Gallery of Art in partnership with Detroit’s Office of Arts, Culture & Entrepreneurship. While Detroit ACE is not involved this year, the event has spread to around 20 art spaces randing from traditional galleries like The Carr Center to retail spaces like Brix Wine.

Irwin House Director Misha McGlown says Detroit’s vast number of Black art spaces is rare compared to other cities like New York.

“I’m in New York. I’m back and forth between here and Harlem. You don’t see this many Black art spaces anywhere,” she says. “I could count maybe four in New York, so we really have something special and powerful that I hope we’ll continue to build on.”

She adds, “I don’t see this kind of cohesion between the artists and art spaces anywhere else either. Detroit is an exciting place for the arts and I’m honored to be part of this whole ecosystem. I am hoping that the world sees us. This is for us, but also for everybody to see us.”

Participating locations are Arts Extended, The Carr Center, The Fel’le Gallery, Design Studio 6, Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club, Jo’s Gallery, Harper Galleries of Art & Interiors, Irwin House Global Art Center & Gallery, Liberal Arts Gallery, MAC Galleries, Mack Alive, NCA Gallery, Norwest Gallery, Dabl’s MBAD African Bead Museum,

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Nicolena Creates, Finite Gallery, the Amber Collective at Jo’s Gallery Café, BRIX Wine, and Sherry Arts at Wayne County Community College’s Ford and Downtown campuses.

Some highlights include the first solo show of emerging artist Terrell Anglin who uses wood burning and mixed media techniques to connect the past and present of the African American experience. His show, ON FIRE opens at Irwin House on Thursday, February 8. There’s also a performance by the Mirrored Glass Harp Trio — Ahya Simone, Anjel Mantel, and Ackeem Salmon — at Irwin House on February 17.

Liberal Arts Gallery is hosting an exhibit curated by Detroit-based painter Oshun Williams called Something to Prove featuring Phil Simpson, Joe Cazeno III, Tzu Pore, Miriam Uhura, Ruby Flwrs, Dominick Lemonious, and Jonathan Kimble. The Carr Center will host two group shows for Sacred Spaces:

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BLACK, an acronym for “A Built Language Across Culture and Knowledge,” and As I See, which focuses on artists aged 30-60 exploring the demarcation of age and time.

There will also be a two-night gallery crawl hosted by The Love Experience.

For McGlown, Detroit is in a special position to be able to uplift Black art as a majority Black city with relatively affordable retail space, although that landscape is changing with gentrification.

“These opportunities and these spaces are fleeting,” she says. “We see the landscape changing before our eyes and we see the acquisition of property getting more difficult and elusive for the average person. So it’s important to hold onto what we have and for those of us who can to create, provide, and share these spaces with our communities. I feel like we have a responsibility to do that.

That’s why it’s ‘Sacred Spaces.’ These spaces that are ours, that we can come into and express ourselves are sacred.”

Sacred Spaces will culminate in a public reception with the participating artists and venues on February 29. The location has yet to be determined, but updates will be posted on sacredspacestourdetroit.com. A full list of exhibits is available online.

Sacred Spaces is supported by NASPDetroit, Rolling Out, and Steed Society Art.

metrotimes.com | February 7-13, 2024 33

CULTURE

Dua Lipa (with Henry Cavill) makes the most of her glorified cameo.

PETER MOUNTAIN/UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Film

A waste of starpower

By Craig D. Lindsey

Argylle Rated: PG-13 Run-time: 139 minutes

Argylle gives us something we really don’t need right now: another exhausting, long-ass Matthew Vaughn movie.

The British filmmaker/Guy Ritchie collaborator/husband of Claudia Schiffer has always had trouble deleting scenes from his lengthy genre spectaculars. Even his most elaborately entertaining flicks, like his fairy-tale rom-com Stardust or his 007 send-up/ comic-book adaptation Kingsman: The Secret Service, could’ve been brisk, fun rides if dude just shaved off a half-hour of footage. It’s a shame DVDs and Blurays aren’t big deals anymore; he could just dump the scenes he hated parting

with in the special features section.

Clocking in at 139 minutes, Argylle has Vaughn on another espionage romp. The man has been leaning hard into the spy genre as of late, turning Kingsman into a full-fledged movie franchise (complete with an inferior sequel and a prequel that flopped because of freakin’ COVID), and Argylle appears to be the starting point for another spy-covered universe.

We got shapely nepo baby Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway, a neurotic, introverted spy novelist who only has time for two things: her work and her cat, Alfie. She’s having a hard time wrapping up the fifth installment in her Argylle saga, where the dashing, titular superagent (Henry Cavill — who else?) and his beefy sidekick (a surprisingly underused John Cena) go around the world taking out terrorists (the opening

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minutes has pop queen Dua Lipa doing a glorified cameo as a slinky, lethal baddie) and rogue syndicates.

Elly gets reluctantly roped into a mission when she meets Aiden (Sam Rockwell), an eccentric-but-effective operative who informs her that her novels have been predicting the covert actions of an actual evil spy organization (led by a cartoonishly diabolical Bryan Cranston) — and he needs her to come up with an ending to see what they’ll do next.

With Argylle, Vaughn has made a madcap spy spectacle that you could watch with your parents. Whereas the Kingsman movies were gleefully vulgar and violent, the blood and gore doesn’t flow as freely in this flick. It’s like Vaughn made an action comedy for all those who grew up playing Mortal Kombat with the “No Blood” option

faithfully enabled.

But toned-down violence isn’t what makes Argylle so damn frustrating.

Vaughn and actor/screenwriter Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman) patch together a convoluted comic thriller where, if you’ve seen any spy flick of the past 30 years, you see all the twists coming. I could literally list all the movies this flick bites heavily from (including a successful blockbuster franchise starring someone Howard once did a Clint Eastwood movie with). But that would kinda let the cat out the bag — a figure of speech Vaughn literally materializes onscreen, as Howard spends most of her screen time schlepping her pet around in a ventilated backpack. Along with the fact that Howard resembles the redheaded author Taylor Swift played in her “All Too Well” short film/ magnum opus, this has Swifties believing their queen secretly wrote the film.

(If that’s true, then where are the shitty exes?)

With the unlikely pairing of Howard and Rockwell carrying most of the movie, I get a sense Vaughn wanted to do a jet-setting spy adventure starring average-looking, middle-aged folk.

(Those Red movies already beat him to the punch.) It’s a sight even Howard’s protagonist has trouble swallowing, as she constantly pictures Cavill’s foxy agent taking the place of Rockwell’s schlubby spy during fight scenes (which for some reason are annoyingly set to classic disco tunes). Rockwell certainly plays up his role as a veteran badass who’s officially too old for the shit. One scene that definitely hit home for me has Rockwell trying to reach for a live grenade after he throws his back out fighting with an assassin.

(Thankfully, the grenade blast fixes his back.)

Howard and Rockwell also play the only characters Vaughn and Fuchs bothered to fully flesh out. It’s kinda crazy how, for a movie with literally so much time to kill, they round up a lot of big names to play undeveloped characters. They waste so many charismatic performers, and that includes Catherine O’Hara as Conway’s meddlesome mom, Ariana DuBose as a tech whiz in the Argylle universe, and Samuel L. Jackson as the Man with All the Answers.

By the time you get to the elongated, heavily packed climax, which includes deadly ice skating and a corny-but-colorful dance sequence/shootout, you’ll most likely be worn out by Argylle’s silly spy shenanigans. Of course, there’s a mid-credits sequence that sets up the next chapter. But considering how long and derivative this volume is, I have a feeling most moviegoers may close the book on Argylle.

metrotimes.com | February 7-13, 2024 35

CULTURE Savage Love Obsessed

By Dan Savage

Q:

A therapist suggested I might have “Relationship OCD,” which is OCD with the obsessions and compulsions focusing on romantic relationships. While I haven’t been formally diagnosed, it rings true to me. As soon as I get close to someone, I experience so much anxiety.

If I kissed a partner and they kissed me in a way I didn’t like, I would think, “Why didn’t you like that? Maybe you don’t really love them. Maybe you don’t even like people of this gender. Maybe you’re lying to yourself.” And before I know it, I’m spinning out of control and panicking.

When I’m single, I never have thoughts like this.

I was in a four-year relationship that just ended. While I’m sad it ended, I understand why it needed to and I’m trying to move forward. However, I’m stuck

on the impact my obsessions had on our sex life. In the first two-to-three years I didn’t have these obsessions, but during the last one I started to experience such bad anxiety that I couldn’t enjoy sex.

It was devastating. Perhaps foolishly, I viewed this person as the exception to my obsessive thinking, but it seems like as the stakes in the relationship heightened, so did my obsessive thoughts.

I’m single again now, and I learned a valuable lesson from this relationship: no matter what relationship I’m in or how much I love my partner, I will have these obsessive thoughts. I’m in therapy, and I would like to have a long-term relationship with someone that includes living together, traveling together, and maybe even having kids together. But I find it hard to work on my issue when I’m NOT in a relationship. Is there anything I can do right now, while I’m single, that will help me in my next relationship?

—Sad That Relationship Elevates Stress Symptoms

A: I shared your question with Sheva

Rajaee, a licensed marriage and family therapist, author, and public speaker.

The founder and director of the Center for Anxiety and OCD, Rajaee wrote the book — the literal book — on relationship OCD: Relationship OCD: A CBTBased Guide to Move Beyond Obsessive Doubt, Anxiety & Fear of Commitment in Romantic Relationships.

“Part of what makes relationship OCD (ROCD) so painful and damaging is that these incessant doubts seep into every corner of our relationships,” said Rajaee.

“And cruelly, it’s loudest in our most viable relationships. ROCD doesn’t care about your summer fling with an expiration date. Nope! ROCD is coming for the relationship with actual legs.”

Basically, STRESS, your ROCD is going to lay more or less dormant when you’re seeing someone you can’t see yourself with long-term. That summer fling is gonna end with the summer, and the potential downside of picking the wrong person for that summer fling are minimal. But the moment you realize you’re seeing someone you might actually fall in love with — the moment you start picturing a future that includes marriage and kids — the stakes shoot through the roof.

“When the love ‘risk’ is higher, the greater the chance the psychological defenses of someone suffering from ROCD will try to keep them safe by pointing out perceived flaws and incompatibilities,” said Rajaee. “ROCD is a misguided attempt to keep you safe by keeping you separate and what STRESS

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describes — what she just went through — is a textbook example of relationship OCD. It’s the spiraling nature of worries that take small imperfections or incompatibilities (‘I don’t love the way they kiss’) and blows them up to worstcase outcomes (‘I’m lying to myself and to them’).”

So, can a person work on their ROCD when they’re not in a relationship and/ or they’re enjoying the kind of casual connection — summer flings, vacation fucks, sex friends — that don’t trigger their ROCD? “Yes and no,” said Rajaee. “STRESS can work on anxiety in general, practicing riding waves of discomfort and even panic without getting caught up in the scare stories. She can examine her expectations of love and relationships and practice exposure therapy, so that when these thoughts surface in her next good relationship — as they likely will — she’ll have a solid strategy to address them.”

But the most important work — the work that will help you contain and control your ROCD — can only be done during one of those high-stakes relationships.

“In STRESS’s case, this means opening herself to sex, love, and connection and then working through near-crippling anxiety while trying to maintain a healthy relationship,” Rajaee, “and that’s guaranteed to introduce some conflict into her next partnership. But I want her to know that it’s possible to do this and that I see it done — and done successfully — all the time. In fact, for many of my clients, doing this work brings them closer together.”

The Center for Anxiety and OCD’s website is caocd.com. The Center is on Instagram and Threads @theshrinkwrap.

Q: I have a partner of sorts and it’s

complicated. He’s married. From the sound of things, they tried marriage counseling, it didn’t work, and it sounds like they’re just companionate. So, no sex for him at home anymore. Lots of other issues. It sounds like they’re waiting for kids to grow up before they divorce. We have an anniversary of sorts coming up, and I’d like him to celebrate it with me in some way. But it’s tricky because it falls on Valentine’s Day. Even if he and his wife are not close anymore, I’m sure she’s going to expect him to spend that day with her. I don’t expect him to spend that time with me, but what can we do to celebrate without making it awkward?

And how should I view it if he doesn’t remember/doesn’t acknowledge the anniversary? I mean, do anniversaries even matter?

—Complicated Partner Of Sorts

A: It may sound like their marriage

is companionate and it may sound like they’re not fucking and it may sound like they’re gonna divorce when their kids are grown because all of those things are true. Or those are the sounds your partner of sorts (POS) thinks you wanna hear and that’s why he’s making them.

Look, cheaters aren’t the most reliable narrators; and while cheaters are often honest with their affair partners — or more honest with their affair partners than they are with their spouses —there’s no way to verify whether the sounds your POS is making without talking to his wife, CPOS, which you can’t do. (Of course, you can talk to his wife; lots of affair partners have talked to the wronged spouse. But to do that you would have to betray your affair partner — ironically — and that betrayal is guaranteed to end your relationship but not their marriage.

Ending an affair is easier than ending a marriage.)

Anyway, CPOS, you know what you signed up for. Your POS can’t slip out on Valentine’s Day without raising questions he and his wife aren’t ready to confront. Even if they’re not doing anything special on the day, even if they’re not gonna fuck for old time’s sake, even if she drinks her morning coffee out of a “Toly AF” mug (coming soon!), expecting to spend time with your married POS on Valentine’s Day doesn’t fall into the “reasonable expectation” category. So, how about you celebrate your anniversary-of-sorts a week early or celebrate your anniversary-ofsorts a week late or celebrate your halfanniversary-of-sorts on the fourteenth of August. St. Maximilian, whose feast day is August 14, isn’t as sexy as St. Valentine — Maximilian is the patron saint of drug addicts, journalists, and prisoners; Valentine is the patron saint of lovers, epileptics, and beekeepers — but Maximilian can tide you over until Valentine is all yours.

Got problems? Yes, you do. Send your question to mailbox@savage.love!

Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.

Love.

metrotimes.com | February 7-13, 2024 37

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny ARIES: March 21 – April 19 In honor of the Valentine season, and in accordance with astrological omens, I offer you a love letter from an unpublished novel by an Aries friend.

Consider saying something similar to a person who would be thrilled to hear it. Here it is. “We will seize the sexiest joy we can conjure. We will turn each other into boisterous deities in quest of liberation from all unnecessary limitations. We will tenderly shock each other with mysterious epiphanies and rivers of bliss. ‘Wild’ will be too mild a word for the awakenings we provoke in each other’s futures.”

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20 “The greater the fool, the better the dancer.” Composer Theodore Hook said that. Poet Edwin Denby agreed.

He said, “There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.” Choreographer Martha Graham added, “Dance is the hidden

Happy Valentine’s Day, give your Valentine: flowers, chocolate, yummy food and booze. everybody loves at least three out of the four… if they don’t, find another.

LONELY

HEARTS WELCOME

language of the soul of the body.” I bring these thoughts to your attention because the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to get freer, more sensuous, and more unconstrained. Dancing your inhibitions into oblivion will be an excellent way to pursue these goals. So will doing everything with a dancer’s abandon, including love-making.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20 Years ago, salon.com asked various critics to name the most preposterous sex scene to appear in a recently published novel. I was honored that one of the vignettes selected was from my book The Televisionary Oracle. As I read the critic’s review of my wild, funny, and crazy erotic story, I realized he was a pedantic macho prude who thought sex isn’t sex unless it’s dead serious and joylessly intense. The characters of mine he regarded as preposterous were in fact playing, laughing, and having goofy fun. In the spirit of my novel’s kooky lovers and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to pursue uproarious amusement while enjoying the arts of intimacy — both in and out of bed. (P.S.: Playwright Rose Franken said, “Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.”)

CANCER: June 21 – July 22 A psychic told me that in one of my past lives, I was Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome.

It’s an intriguing theory that could help explain why my horoscopes are popular in Italy. What about you, my fellow Cancerian? Is there an aspect of your reincarnational history that aids your current destiny? Or are there past events in your current life that are becoming more influential? The coming weeks will be a good time to meditate on these possibilities. While you ruminate on your history, check in with the spirits of your ancestors and departed allies to see if they have any inspirational messages for you.

LEO: July 23 – August 22 Kevin Kelly wrote the book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. There he observes, “Listening well is a superpower.

While listening to someone you love, keep asking them ‘Is there more?’ until there is no more.” Dear Leo, this is excellent advice for you in the coming weeks. I urge you to specialize in gathering the deep revelations of those you

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care for. Opening yourself to them in unprecedented ways will boost your soul power and enrich your wisdom.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22 Imagine you are walking on a hill at night. You are headed to meet a person you adore, who awaits you with champagne and chocolate. The weather is balmy. The moon is full.

You are singing songs you both love, announcing your arrival. The songs tell stories about how much you two love to yearn for each other and how much you love quenching your yearning. When you arrive, dear Virgo, what will you tell your beloved to make them feel supremely understood and appreciated?

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22 Has your approach to togetherness become infused with habit or numbness? When was the last time you got extravagant for the sake of love? Has it been a while since you tried a daring romantic move or two? I bring these questions to your attention, Libra, because now is an excellent time to rev up your imagination as you upgrade intimacy, companionship, and collaboration. I hope you will authorize your fantasy life to be lush, unruly, and experimental. Spur yourself to dream up departures from routine that intrigue your close allies.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21: Author W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) testified, “My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world with surprise and horror.”

Is that true about you, Scorpio? Even if it is, I’m guessing the horrifying aspects will be nonexistent in the coming weeks. There may be surprises, yes.

There may be entertaining interludes.

But from what I can tell, everything will at least be educational and colorful. What are your most exotic erotic fantasies? Now is a good time to ask a willing partner to explore them with grace and good humor.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21 The Valentine season is looming, and many of us are receptive to advice about togetherness. I’ll offer some principles that I believe are essential to you Sagittarians as you nourish ALL your close relationships, including your romantic bonds. They are from novelist Graham Joyce. He wrote, “Two people in love don’t make a hive mind.

Neither should they want to be a hive mind, to think the same, to know the same. It’s about being separate and still loving each other, being distinct from each other. One is the violin string, one is the bow.”

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19 Lately, I have been intoxicated a lot. Not because I’ve ingested drugs and alcohol. Not because I have been doing three-hour meditations or studying sacred texts. I’ve felt so wildly free and euphoric because life has been dismantling some of my fears.

Once it happened when my psychotherapist spoke just the right curative words at a pivotal moment in our session. Another time, I came upon a very large hare while strolling in the woods and had an epiphany about how to heal a painful trauma in my past. On another occasion, I dreamed of a priestess doing a banishing ritual to exorcize my abandonment fears.

There were three other similar events, as well. I bring this to your attention because I suspect you may soon also get intoxicated through the loss of fears.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18 Reading through the annals of famous authors’ quotes about love, I’m horrified by the relentlessness of their sour assessments. “Love is merely a madness,” wrote Shakespeare.

“Whoever is not jealous is not in love,” said St. Augustine. “General incivility is the very essence of love,” declared Jane Austen. “It is impossible to love and be wise,” moaned Francis Bacon.

“Real love always has something hidden — some loss or boredom or tiny hate,” says Andrew Sean Greer. I am allergic to all that dour noise! Personally, I have been entangled in a lot of romantic love during my time on Earth, and most of it has been interesting, educational, and therapeutic. I am deeply grateful for ALL of it, even the heartbreaks. Any wisdom I have developed owes a great debt to my lovers. What about you, Aquarius? Where do you stand on these issues? I suspect the coming months will provide you with ample reasons to embrace my attitudes.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20 Have you discovered all there is to know about your sexual feelings and proclivities? Have you come to a complete understanding of what turns you on and how you might express it? I hope your answer to those questions is “no,” Pisces. In my view, all of us should keep evolving our relationship with eros. There is always more to discover and explore about the mysteries of our desires. Always more to learn about what excites and inspires us. The coming days will be an excellent time for you to enjoy this research.

Homework: Make a vow to express more love in a way that’s fun for you.

EMPLOYMENT

SERVICES

SERVICES

Civil Engineer (Detroit, MI) Dsgn, Dvlp & maintain construction projects; Examine the test results for soil, concrete, asphalt & other materials for suitability in construction of large buildings & highways; Estimate project costs; Modify dsgns & test new dsgn; Conduct On-site tech’l & Quality Inspections; Dvlp & Implmt safety standard procedure. Reqd: B.S. in Civil Engg or foreign equiv & 6 months of exp w/ construction projects. Use of AutoCAD, 3D Max Dsgn & Primavera P6. Send resume to HR; LGC Global Inc, 7310 Woodward Ave, Ste 500, Detroit, MI 48202.

MASSAGE

WANTED

RELAXING NURU MASSAGE

MEN’S SPORT WATCHES WANTED

SERVICES WINDOWS

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CABLE

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CABLE

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HOME IMPROVEMENT

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AUTOMOTIVE

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MEDICAL

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ADULT ADULT ENTERTAINMENT

HIRING SEXY WOMEN!!!

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HOME IMPROVEMENT

BATH & SHOWER UPDATES

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Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available.

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HOME IMPROVEMENT

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INTERNET

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MEDICAL

VIAGRA & CIALIS ALTERNATIVE PILLS $99/50 Pills Promo Bundle. Bundled network of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra alternative products for a 50 pill for $99 promotion.

Call 888-531-1192.

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