Metro Times 03/20/2024

Photo by Kahn Santori Davison

EMPLOYMENT

Robert Bosch

Senior Software Engineer (MULT POS) (Plymouth, MI). REQS: Bach deg or frgn equiv in Comp Eng, Elec Eng, Mech Eng, Comp Sci or rel fld +5 yrs exp as Assoc SW Eng, SW Eng or other occ inv writing low lvl embedded SW in C. Telecomm: Hybrid (3 days work from home). Apply online at https://www. bosch.us/careers/, search [Senior Software Engineer / REF223958O]

NEWS & VIEWS

Feedback

We got a lot of feedback for Robert Stempkowski’s cover story about the owners of Grosse Pointe’s Sidestreet Diner, whose Irish American roots run deep in Detroit.

Long-time fan, here. All the way back to the original Mack Avenue Diner (before expansion) when we had to wait in line on weekend mornings to get scrumptious potato skillets and omelets. Over the years, Meghan Josefosky became one of my best friends. I came for the food, stayed for the wit (and sarcasm). After Mack Avenue Diner came Meghan (Back on Mack, then 18th Street Deli on Jefferson), finally Sidestreet Diner. Great comfort food, best soups (and chili), and the bestest, weirdest cross-section

of friendly staff. —Glenn Stevens, Facebook

Sidestreet Diner is one of my favorite places to eat. Meghan Josefosky is one of my favorite humans.

—Vic Doucette, Facebook

Vic Doucette, love and miss you friend. And your wonderful bride.

Meghan Josefosky, Facebook

We also got comments in response to our photos from Corktown’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

It was a cold one but a good one.

—Detroit St. Patrick’s Parade, Facebook

Have an opinion? Sure you do! Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com

LLC seeks

NEWS & VIEWS

News Shorts

‘Beauty mall’ opens on the city’s Avenue of Fashion

Detroiter Katrina Belin recently unveiled Pink Diamond Beauty Mall on the city’s Avenue of Fashion, aiming to create a haven where local women can nurture both inner and outer beauty.

The space, located at 17350 Livernois Ave., has been dubbed Michigan’s firstever “beauty mall,” offering an array of services including manicures, facials, massage therapy, and lash extensions, alongside amenities like a mindful meditation room, yoga, reiki, spiritual guidance, and more.

On Thursday, the mall celebrated its launch as a recipient of a Motor City Match grant at a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation. Established in

2015, Motor City Match aims to help start new, permanent businesses and expand existing businesses in Detroit by assisting in their launch and growth process.

Belin says she applied for the award three times before being chosen to receive $50,000 in 2022, which helped her finish renovations to open the space and finally achieve a long-term dream.

With two decades of experience, Belin’s journey in the beauty industry began as a model at 19, later branching into fashion with her own line of jeans.

In 2011, she opened Pink Diamond Couture, a clothing store at Seven Mile and Greenfield. She quickly realized that women who were shopping for outfits for special occasions were also often in need of getting their hair, nails,

businesses.

“A lot of my friends and family initially said that the idea I had should be put somewhere else, possibly Bloomfield or Novi, but I felt like it was very important to have something like this right here in our community,” Belin says. “Livernois was a perfect place. It’s a lot of other African American entrepreneurs over here who are thriving.”

The space needed lots of TLC before being ready to open.

“It had been sitting for about five to seven years, it had a fire in the building so everything was molded and dry rotted out and it just had been vacant for such a long time,” she says. “The process really began with me putting my own funds into it to revitalize it, to try to bring it back to life. We started, it didn’t have electricity, didn’t have floors, ceiling tiles, and things of that nature, so I kind of started from there. I knew since it was such a big building and me paying out of pocket that I was going to have to take it in levels.

Despite these difficulties, Belin pushed through and operated the mall at partial capacity while renovations were in progress. Now, almost all of the offerings are ready to go, including typical salon and day spa services such as cosmetology, manicuring, makeup artistry, and esthetician services for full body waxing and facials.

However, Belin emphasizes that Pink Diamond Beauty Mall does not just focus on outer appearance, but also physical and mental health as well.

“It’s really inner and outer beauty so that women can find healthy perceptions and healthy versions of themselves in and out,” she says. “This place is a safe haven for women to be able to come in and release and relax and kind of just get away from the daily stressors of the world, a place where they can kind of call their own.”

and makeup done. So, in 2013, she opened a mini beauty bar in the back of the boutique.

By 2017, the business was outgrowing its space, and Belin says she always had a big vision of opening a larger-scale beauty business. “I knew that I wanted a safe space for women to come to have everything under one roof,” Belin says.

Once she had her plan down for the beauty mall, Belin says she looked at around 10 to 15 buildings a day for about two months before finding the current property in February 2017.

Belin says she felt that having this space right in the heart of Detroit was important so people in the city have access to somewhere local to keep their “mind, body, and spirit alive” and a space that positively highlights Black

Pink Diamond Beauty Mall also offers memberships where women can have access to a package of special services on a daily basis. Plus, the mall will host quarterly women’s empowerment events and business networking events to uplift women beyond just beauty.

Looking ahead, Belin says she plans to expand the team’s 13-member staff with hires from the local community. She also has the goal to open the mall’s outdoor patio space with hot tubs so that women can come and soak up the sun.

Her long-term vision includes expanding the Pink Diamond Beauty Mall concept to the Lansing or Grand Rapids area, then eventually into other states.

Pink Diamond Beauty Mall is now open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

—Layla McMurtrie

Pink Diamond Beauty Mall celebrates a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. COURTESY PHOTO

Sidewalk Detroit is planting a ‘remediation forest’ to mitigate air pollution

Neighborhood placekeeping nonprofit Sidewalk Detroit is using public art to try and help mitigate air pollution in Detroit’s East Canfield Village.

The organization has commissioned a regenerative installation by New York-based sculptor and activist Jordan Weber that will monitor the levels of volatile organic compounds resulting from the nearby Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant.

The project is being called Detroit Remediation Forest and will include air-purifying trees like pine and cypresses, space for community recreation, and air quality monitors, alongside Weber’s sculpture called “New Forest, Ancient Thrones.” The forest, in collaboration with the Canfield Consortium, will open to the public on May 18 with the unveiling of Weber’s installation.

“We’re honored to realize artist Jordan Weber’s most ambitious public artwork to date,” Sidewalk Detroit founder and director Ryan Myers-Johnson said. “Detroit Remediation Forest was conceived in response to the environmental racism prevalent in Detroit and it speaks to Sidewalk’s core mission of advancing spatial equity through the lens of community vision and restorative power of public art.”

Stellantis’s Mack Assembly Plant, located blocks away from where the Detroit Remediation Forest will be located, has racked up repeated violations for paint and solvent odors over the last several years. Earlier this week, Stellantis agreed to pay a roughly $84,000 fine issued by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) for air quality violations at its Jefferson North Assembly Plant, which is located in the same neighborhood.

“New Forest, Ancient Thrones” will take the shape of crowns honoring two African queens — Queen Idia of Benin and Queen Ranavalona III of Madagascar — for their fight against colonialism. The crowns are also a tribute to Canfield Consortium co-founders Kim and Rhonda Theus and their fight against environmental racism as longtime residents of the neighborhood.

“New Forest, Ancient Thrones” will

serve as the entryway into the Detroit Remediation Forest and an air monitoring system will be installed on the sculpture.

“When one controls the land, one controls the people,” Weber said in a statement. “It is important that my projects help counteract the negative effects of discriminatory urban planning and supremacist constructs in the U.S. through education about environmental apartheid and quantitative change. It has been an honor to work

with Sidewalk Detroit and Canfield Consortium to engage directly with residents and center their growing concerns about their surroundings in this work.”

Additional conifer trees and an elevated walkway will be installed in the Detroit Remediation Forest following the unveiling of Weber’s installation in May. The forest will also be a space for outdoor programming for the students of neighboring Barack Obama Leadership Academy and residents in partner-

ship with Ecology Center, Green Door Initiative, Detroit Tree Equity Partnership, Greening of Detroit.

Placekeeping or placemaking uses art and cultural activities to shape the social and cultural nature of neighborhoods by and for people who live there. Sidewalk Detroit does this through public art and urban greenspace initiatives including the biennial Sidewalk Festival which spreads installations and public performances across the city.

—Randiah Camille Green

Cops used excessive force when they killed a Black man in 2018, jury finds

A jury has awarded $1.5 million to the family of a Black Detroit man killed by two cops on the city’s west side in October 2018.

The jury on Tuesday found that Detroit cops Tyler Nagy and Raul Martinez used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment when they fatally shot Lamont Johnson on the 14000 block of Tireman.

Johnson’s family sued the officers and police department in October 2020, alleging gross negligence, wrongful death, and violations of Johnson’s civil and constitutional rights. Some of those claims were later dismissed.

During the trial, the department’s own police procedures expert said he reviewed video of the shooting and did not see Johnson reach for a gun because the film was too dark.

Police were called to the area at 9 p.m. on Oct. 28, 2018, on a report that Johnson was intoxicated and armed

with a handgun. On a dark street, officers found Johnson standing next to his bike, shined a flashlight in his eyes and shouted, “Hands!”

Less than three seconds later, both officers opened fire on Johnson, who had a handgun in his waistband.

Mark E. Boegehold, an attorney for Johnson’s family, argued that Johnson didn’t have time to reach for the gun.

“We alleged that a reasonable police officer would not have shot him because we didn’t see any movement from Lamont, and there wasn’t enough time for him to reach for a gun – 2.5 seconds is not enough time,” Boegehold tells Metro Times. “What they think they saw was not what happened. That’s what we presented to the jury.”

The officers weren’t accused of intentionally executing Johnson.

The cops said they believed Johnson was reaching for the handgun in his waistband and thought their lives

were in danger, so they fired.

The officers are still on the force, and the shooting prompted the Detroit Police Officers Association union to award them “District Officers of the Year,” claiming Johnson “removed his .32-caliber pistol from his waistband and started to raise it.”

Nagy was promoted to sergeant in December 2022, and the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners unanimously approved the promotion.

In a statement to Metro Times, DPD defended the officers.

“A comprehensive internal investigation into officers’ actions revealed no policy violations,” DPD said.

“Accordingly, the officers continue to work for the DPD. While the Department respects the jurors’ work in this matter, we ultimately disagree with their findings. It is our understanding that the City of Detroit will be appealing this decision.”

—Steve Neavling

A rendering of Detroit Remediation Forest and Jordan Weber’s “New Forest, Ancient Thrones” installation. COURTESY OF SIDEWALK DETROIT

Mobile health unit offers free long COVID screening

At least one in five people who have had COVID-19 will develop what is known as “long COVID,” characterized by signs, symptoms, and conditions that continue or well after a COVID-19 infection. According to officials, Detroit has the second highest rate of long COVID in the nation, with over 25% of adults who had COVID-19 reporting long-term symptoms.

In response, a new no-cost mobile health unit is working to provide metro Detroiters with screening for the condition, intending to gather research on long COVID’s effects and bridge the gap to healthcare access in marginalized communities.

On Friday, declared Long COVID Awareness Day, Michigan Speaker of the House Joe Tate, Michigan Rep. Tyrone Carter, health experts, and community members gathered for an event highlighting the first-of-itskind CT chest screening program.

The unit was created about a year ago through a partnership between Moderna, Team Wellness Center, People.Health, and other local community organizations.

“Some of our locations service some of the most vulnerable communities in the whole state,” Dani Hourani, Director of Team Wellness Center, said. “It’s very important for us that we are able to bring them resources that they otherwise would not have.”

So far, the screenings have not only helped the impact of long COVID but also been able to detect non-COVIDrelated illnesses including cancer. Plus, the team has connected patients with further care and testing when needed.

“Whether you’re in Detroit or rural areas, bringing healthcare access directly to the community and partnering with organizations that have that trust with community members is critical,” Tate said at the Friday event. “We still have more work to do to make sure that we lessen the impact of COVID on this community.”

Anyone over 18 who has had COVID-19 and is still experiencing difficulty breathing or other symptoms is encouraged to get scanned. People can fill out a form at People.Health to schedule an appointment.

Warren Police Department probed for alleged offer to hide misconduct investigation

A state agency is investigating the Warren Police Department over an email that suggests the city offered to hide the details of an internal affairs investigation if a top-ranking official agreed to resign.

The email, obtained by Metro Times, raises serious questions about the police department’s willingness to follow a 2017 law intended to crack down on wandering cops, or officers who move from department to department amid allegations of misconduct.

In August 2018, less than a year after the new law went into effect, city attorney Raechel M. Badalamenti said the police department would not finish its investigation and offered to keep “the entire original file” in her law office if then-Deputy Police Commissioner Matt Nichols resigned.

By doing so, Nichols would have an easier time finding another job at a police department, even though he was accused of punching a suspect who was in custody. By moving the report to a law office and declining to finish the investigation, police departments

considering hiring Nichols would not be privy to the information.

The email suggested that thenWarren Police Commissioner William Dwyer was behind the offer.

Nichols, who claims in a subsequent federal lawsuit that he was unlawfully pushed out of the department based on sham allegations, says he didn’t accept the offer because it was illegal.

“I didn’t want to be a participant in violating a state law,” Nichols tells Metro Times. “They were inviting me to violate the law.”

The Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES), the state agency responsible for regulating police, confirmed it is investigating the email.

MCOLES is also investigating claims that Dwyer falsely told the agency that another officer, Robert Priest, retired in “good standing,” even though he was under investigation.

Priest ended up getting another police job in Romeo, where he was fired after pulling over Nichols as part of a “special project” in February 2022, lead-

ing to a lawsuit.

Nichols claims Priest was out to get him because Nichols played a role in denying Priest a promotion to the rank of lieutenant.

Both departments failed to comply with the 2017 wandering cops law.

Dwyer was fired after the story went to press.

On the day of his termination, newly elected Warren Mayor Lori Stone said she “is separating his duties as Police Commissioner” because their “viewpoints on hiring no longer aligned.”

Nichols’s attorney Jamil Akhtar says he released the email to show that Warren has a history of covering up for cops accused of wrongdoing.

“I don’t want this to be swept under the rug,” Akhtar tells Metro Times Nichols was eventually fired in June 2019 after refusing to take the deal, prompting a lawsuit that alleges Dwyer embellished allegations against Nichols because he wanted a different deputy commissioner.

Macomb County prosecutors declined to charge Nichols, and the

alleged victim initially denied he was assaulted.

The case is ongoing in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In an interview with Metro Times, Dwyer rejects the notion that he or Badalamenti would have extended the offer, despite the email indicating otherwise.

“I personally would never have agreed to that,” Dwyer says. “I don’t think Badalamenti would either. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

In the email, Badalamenti calls the arrangement Dwyer’s “agreement.”

“Commissioner very much wants to get this investigation wrapped up one way or the other very quickly so I must stress that his agreement that I hold off on a report is a very short one,” Badalamenti says.

Nichols contends the email, combined with the other MCOLES investigation, shows that Warren police, under the leadership of Dwyer, has demonstrated “a pattern and practice of doing things illegally.”

The wandering cops law is important, Nichols says, because it’s intended to prevent bad officers from bouncing from department to department.

—Steve Neavling

—Layla McMurtrie Detroit has one of the highest rates of “long COVID” in the U.S. COURTESY PHOTO

NEWS & VIEWS

Lapointe

Sportscaster Ron

Cameron was one of a kind

By Joe Lapointe

I first met Ron Cameron on Opening Day of the 1967 baseball season when I worked as a “badge boy” usher at Tiger Stadium.

Unescorted, Cameron sat down in an empty, wooden, green-painted chair in my reserved section in the upper deck on the first-base side of the home-plate backstop. At age 15, I held power and responsibility on the aisle between Sections 22 and 23.

“May I see your ticket?” I asked Cameron.

“I don’t need a ticket,” Cameron explained to me, with a smile. “I’m always here.”

And Cameron remained here — and there, and everywhere — on the Detroit sports scene for decades, a populist fanjournalist who worked in radio, television, and print as an eccentric commentator and singular presence.

Ron always wanted to be in the know, to be in with the “in-crowd,” to be the first to learn and spread the latest news, rumors, and gossip. His old friends called him “Scoop.” And — on a Red Wings radio broadcast late last month — I first heard the sad scoop that Cameron had died at age 79.

They found him in his motel room in Warren. The cause has not yet been announced. No foul play is suspected. Until his death, Ron was “always here,” at Tiger Stadium, Olympia Stadium, Cobo Arena, the Silverdome, Joe Louis Arena, the Palace, Ford Field, Comerica Park, and Little Caesars Arena.

Cameron once told me he shook hands with Tigers legend Ty Cobb in front of Briggs Stadium in 1960. In that Cobb was Detroit’s most famous former athlete at the time and Cameron would eventually become a Detroit sports figure of a certain kind, Ron no doubt must have assumed Ty wanted to meet him.

You want a Ron Cameron anecdote? Here’s one. We were riding westbound in a black 1967 Mercury Cougar on the Edsel Ford freeway late in the 1960s. I was in the front passenger seat. Cameron and my brother were in the back seat.

None of us wore seat belts. Ron and I

began to argue about something stupid, no doubt regarding sports, because Cameron never, ever thought of anything but sports. In his diplomatic manner, Ron sucker-punched me in the back of the head. I swung back.

Our driver quickly requested that we cease and desist, in that the vehicle remained in motion at high speed. Like a linesman at a hockey game, my brother

broke up the fight.

And I’m one of the people who really liked Ron Cameron. Not everyone did. He came up the hard way. He rarely mentioned any family ties. No one taught him the social graces. He had many rough edges in grooming, eating habits, and debate manners. He lacked subtlety.

But he persisted and drew grudging respect around sports. Another journalist

who liked Cameron was Bob Page, who co-hosted a TV talk show with him and tried to balance Cameron’s bleacher-bum perspective with a more polished and professional presentation.

“A very TOUGH life,” Page said of Cameron in a post on social media.

“[Ron] never knew his dad, thrown out of the house by his … mother at 15 to fend for himself on the streets of Detroit!

A 1979 ad for Ron Cameron’s WXYZ radio show.

JAMIE, FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

“If Taylor Swift knocked on his door and said ‘I’m lonely, can I spend the night?’ Ron would say ‘I’ve got to go to a Piston game.’”

He never attended a day of high school. No matter what anyone thought of Ron Cameron, it was amazing what he was still able to accomplish!”

Ron always had big plans of what he would accomplish next. He first wanted to be an umpire, but that didn’t work out. However, he did befriend major-league umpires, driving them to and from their hotels and the airport, a major favor back when their regular pay was skimpy.

Because he was inclined to support authority figures in sports, Cameron constantly defended umpires, referees, and other game officials. In the late 1970s, during a Red Wings game at Olympia, the organist taunted the three officials by playing “Three Blind Mice” after a disputed call.

That was back when arenas were not bombarded with recorded noise before every faceoff. Sitting in the press box, Cameron charged from his chair toward the organist to berate him. The public relations director of the Wings intervened and ejected Cameron.

He pointed toward the organist and explained to Cameron: “I need him. I don’t need you.”

At the ballpark — when I was a teenage usher, before becoming a sports writer — Cameron was the first person I ever knew who owned a boom box radio. It was huge, but it wasn’t for playing mixtapes of rap recordings.

Ron would lug it around on his shoulder in those days long before the internet and cable TV so he could tune in games and sports reports from all over the country. If a fan heckled an umpire, Cameron would turn around and threaten to hit the fan with his big radio.

Quite a metaphor for the guy who later pioneered no-punches-pulled, sports talk radio in Detroit. We ushers who liked Ron would have to explain again to him that the hecklers — even if they were wrong — were paying customers and Ron was not a paying customer.

He had no known life outside of sports except for restaurants he was always opening and closing. Sometimes, he’d broadcast radio shows from restaurants

at lunch hour and read his hand-written commercials about “roaches, rats, and bugs” that his exterminator sponsor could kill.

One of the restaurant owners had to gently ask Ron not to read such stuff in a dining room while people were eating. It had not occurred to Cameron that these things should not go together. And he didn’t like being corrected.

“Ron had a temper,” said Greg Innis, the Red Wings statistician and historian who looked out for Cameron and remained a loyal friend. “He’d fly off the handle.”

As with all of Cameron’s friends, Innis cannot recall seeing Cameron outside the milieu of sports, radio, TV, hotel rooms, and restaurants.

“He didn’t have a personal life,” Innis said. “If Taylor Swift knocked on his door and said ‘I’m lonely, can I spend the night?’ Ron would say ‘I’ve got to go to a Piston game.’”

He preferred to live in motels. He never forgot a favor, or forgave a grudge. Ron stayed close to Denny McLain, the Tigers pitcher who fell into crime and hard times after a short but brilliant career. McLain was one of Cameron’s last radio guests.

Even after his prime on WXYZ (1270-AM) radio and local TV in the years around 1980, Cameron remained ambitious for adventures beyond Detroit and media roles. He dreamed of moving to California or Florida to run a minorleague baseball or hockey team.

But those things somehow never seemed to work out and Cameron always bounced back to Detroit. His last radio gig was on WPON (1460-AM) in Walled Lake, a faint signal where he sold his own commercial time in a barter arrangement that allowed him to continue his handto-mouth lifestyle.

Toward the end of his life, there was more than a little pathos to Ron’s circumstances, but he never sought sympathy for himself. I saw him at a Pistons game at the LCA a few years back and asked how he was doing.

“Just had brain surgery!” Cameron said, pointing to a bandage on his head. He smiled as he said it, as if discussing traffic on the way to the game. No doubt, we both thought of follow-up wisecracks, but we bit our tongues, rare for both of us.

On and off the air, he spoke in short bursts of words and his voice chirped high and shrill when he was emotional, which was often. Innis does a warm and wonderful impression; let’s hope it endures. Cameron’s positive relentlessness was something Innis and other friends of Ron will always fondly recall.

“Ron was bound and determined to be successful in the one interest he had in life,” Innis said. “He worked.”

Detroit’s reigning queen of hip-hop talks embracing motherhood for a second time, her new album, acting, and her legacy

By Kahn Santori Davison

The vibe is a perfect combination of comfy cool and fun inside Detroit’s MGM Grand casino hotel. Rapper Kash Doll and a few members of her glam team — Chanel, Chaniece, and Dr. Carnisha — are in a suite on the 17th floor prepping her for an early morning photoshoot. She’s seated in a white robe looking at the city’s skyline while Chaniece uses various makeup brushes and sponges to create the desired look. But Kash Doll’s yawns between her smiles tells the tale of a woman who’s more tired than she’s letting on.

The previous night was a good one: R&B crooner Trey Songz surprised a packed house at Little Caesars Arena when he brought her on stage to perform during his performance. But more significantly, Kash Doll is six months pregnant, and glamming up after rocking the stage the night before is hitting different.

Once finished, Dr. Carnisha (yes, she’s a real doctor) drapes Kash Doll’s body with a full-length black and white fur coat and Chanel places a black Detroit Pistons snapback on her head. Kash looks in the mirror, and pulls a snapback down a bit over her forehead.

She’s ready.

At this point Kash Doll has been Detroit’s reigning queen of hip-hop for so long that it’s hard to remember a time when she wasn’t. Outside of fellow emcee DeJ Loaf, no other woman emcee born and raised from Detroit has made the impact in hip-hop or achieved the celebrity status that she has. Born Arkeisha Knight, the Detroit westside native burst onto the scene in 2015 with more ferocity than her male counterparts and a heavy dose of raw sex appeal.

She officially kicked the door in with the release of her 2015 mixtape Keisha vs. Kash Doll. Tracks like “Cheap Shit” and “So Crazy” were bass-heavy Detroit bangers perfect for the club or cruising. She followed that up the next year with the mixtape Trapped in the Dollhouse that featured the viral single “Run Me My Money.”

Kash was bold, brash, lyrical, and flexed a Detroit sexiness never seen before in hip-hop, earning reverence from both the fellas and ladies alike. Almost instantaneously heavyweights like Drake, Rick Ross, and Big Sean became fans, and the legend of Kash Doll had begun.

But despite how effortlessly her rise seemed, the early years were a tough grind. She still had to claw and scrape to earn her respect from the industry. Hip-hop is a crowded space, and she wanted to make sure she was being heard.

“It was just about growing tough skin, learning how to

ignore negativity,” she says. “Supporting myself financially because it wasn’t as much money as it is now, and staying consistent and believing in myself.”

She drove her boss bitch mentality into 2018 like an SRT on the Lodge freeway as she released two highly applauded projects: Brat Mail and The Vault. Her single “Check” was a women’s anthem. A year later her album Stacked dropped and has been her most successful to date. Featuring big names like 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne, Trey Songz, and Summer Walker, it debuted at No. 76 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reached No. 14 on Billboard’s “Rap Album Sales” chart.

In 2023 she was one of a dozen women emcees that were highlighted on the Netflix docuseries Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop, co-produced and directed by Detroit native dream hampton.

“They let us know they were doing a series and they wanted all the female rappers in each region,” she says. “And of course for the Midwest they reached out to Kash Doll.”

There are now more women across the country making significant impacts on hip-hop than ever before. Kash Doll feels this has more to do with the talent of the artist than industry gatekeepers pulling strings.

“I don’t think it was so much of the industry allowing women,” she says. “I just think the internet is so big and powerful that it’s nothing they can do about it. Because you can have a career on the internet. It doesn’t have to just be in the industry. And you can’t deny it.”

She adds, “I love all the women rappers, but I do wish it was more serious rappers than just like people just doing it because they cute and have a following.”

Throughout the years Kash has also carved out a space for herself in the world of acting. She’s appeared in the TV series Empire on Fox and BMF on Starz, as well as indie film projects I Got the Hook-Up 2 by rapper Master P and Buffed Up!: The Movie. (Logline: “Believing that all it takes to score with the ladies is a pair of Cartier frames, three college students hustle for the money, no matter the cost.”)

“I enjoy acting, acting is so much fun,” she says. “And it’s so, I don’t know, I have way more stability when I’m acting than when I’m rapping.”

When asked how working on an album compares to acting, Kash says, “It’s harder to be in album mode because when you’re in album mode you have to really be in a creative space of writing music and picking beats. It takes up a lot of your time. Compared to acting, it’s already scripted, you don’t have to come up with the script. You just have to

Kash Doll bares it all.

KAHN SANTORI DAVISON

embody who you’re playing and then you get to sit still.”

For the first two seasons of the BMF, based on Detroit’s real-life Black Mafia Family, she played the role of Monique, a love interest of the main character Meech. She was the only cast member who was born in Detroit and added a layer of authenticity to the show. Her character was written out at the end of season two.

“I knew before it even started I was going to pass away because the lady I played, she really passed in real life,” Kash says of her BMF role. “I wasn’t disappointed but I didn’t want it to end, of course.”

However, Kash Doll will be appearing in an episode of Diarra in Detroit airing on BET beginning March 21. The series is created, produced and stars Diarra Kilpatrick, half-sister of ex-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and is billed as a dark comedy about a divorcing school teacher whose refusal to believe she’s been ghosted by her rebound Tinder date “pulls her into a decades-old mystery involving the Detroit underworld.”

In September 2021, Kash Doll posted on her Instagram account that she was expecting her first child, with Atlanta rapper Tracy T. On Jan. 6, 2022, she gave birth to a boy she named Kashton. For Kash Doll, motherhood has been transformative and enlightening. She says she’s become much more conscious of the impact of her career moves, her content, and how she manages her time.

“When I first laid eyes on Kashton, everything I had from that day on was different,” she says. “That little boy means the world to me. I don’t know what I was doing before him. And it’s like it makes my life more intentional because like now when I’m doing things, it needs to make sense. I’m not just doing things just because. I’m not fucking off my time just because. Time is so valuable now because I’d rather be with him.”

Recently she announced that she was pregnant with her second child due this June, and says she still has the same maternal anticipation that she had the first time around. She says she’s looking forward to Kashton being a big brother.

“I’m still embracing it, it’s just that this pregnancy is way worse than the first one,” she says. “[The baby]’s kicking my butt. My body is sore, I feel my stomach stretching this time. I be sleepy, [the baby] doing me dirty,” she says through a soft laugh.

In February of 2023 Kash released Back on Dexter, an 11-track project part of DJ Drama’s legendary “Gangsta Grillz” mixtape series. The project was

her proverbial “I’m back” moment as it was her first full release in four years. Back on Dexter was one of the best projects to drop in 2023 and Kash calls the project her favorite.

“Because I was coming out of postpartum, I kinda just got in that bag and started working, doing me again, and it took a lot of strength,” she says. “I worked with Joseph McFashion. It was a Detroit project, I worked with all the Detroit rappers and everybody just came together. I was very proud of that.”

The most notable track on the album was the bombastic “Oh Boy,” a Detroit posse cut that barrows its keys and bassline from the Eastside Chedda Boys song of the same name that was recorded 20 years ago. Along with Kash Doll, Baby Money, Skilla Baby, Cash Kidd, RiskTaker D-Boy, and DJBJ 3525 are all featured.

“My friend group compared to yours is different kind of bitches,” Kash Doll raps at the start of the track. “It’s two types, one who talk money and who get it.”

“I know I had that feeling when I recorded it,” she says. “That’s one of the first ones I recorded, I was so excited when I heard the beat. The beat is so familiar from the Chedda Boys. I grew up on that beat so I was like, ‘Man, I wanna hop on this.’”

“Oh Boy” is simultaneously an ode to

“I can say it’s a full body of work,” she says. “I feel like every song is a single. Every song should chart. Every song is huge. Every song is meaningful. It’s a representation of who I am today as a woman.”

She says her recording process hasn’t changed much over the years. She still writes, doesn’t punch in much, and will record as many takes as needed to get the song right. The biggest change has been her intentionality toward her bars and subject matter.

“It’s more grown,” she says. “It’s like I’m not as reckless as hell on a track because that’s how I’m feeling at the time. As I’ve grown as a person my music has grown with me. You know how as you grow as a person and everything around you and with you grows? So I just think it’s growth with me, but I’m still the same OG.”

This past December Kash announced she was joining the controversial web platform OnlyFans to share “unreleased content” — but not the x-rated material the site is known for. So far, Kash Doll has used it to share music clips and candid behind-the-scenes videos, and says she wants to monetize more of her content in a way that’s no different than yesteryear when fans had to purchase posters, magazines, and albums of their favorite artists.

street artists of Detroit’s hip-hop past, but also the best representation of Detroit hip-hop’s present. Over the past four years Detroit emcees like Icewear Vezzo, Tee Grizzley, Veeze, Babyface Ray, and 42 Dugg have graced national magazine covers, charted on Billboard, been nominated for awards, and have signed major label record deals. This current wave of Detroit hip-hop has been very influential and the artists are gaining notoriety and capitalizing.

“I’m so happy for everybody, I’m so proud,” Kash Doll says. “Those are all my brothers. Those are the bros. Detroit needed that. Before that there was no one that was really into street music … just real street shit. People are getting to see the real streets of the D.”

Over the last few months Kash has dropped “The Big 1,” Fawk Em,” and the impressive “Power” freestyle in which she raps, “Postin’ multiple pics with your one wrap/ Well, ain’t that a bitch? You was pandemic rich/ That’s why you screaming, ‘Bring Trump back.’”

All of these are preludes to her album dropping in May, which she feels will be her best and most mature album to date. Kash is making it a point to steer herself away from what she calls “microwaveable music,” saying she’s taken her time with this album and wants the songs to have real staying power and not hit and then recede like TikTok trends.

“Because everything is free these days, when you are on social media you can just see what everyone is doing and back in the day it wasn’t like that,” she says. “You had to pay to see artists.”

In between motherhood, acting, and music, Kash has very quietly embraced her charitable side. She’s been sponsoring high school girls’ prom expenses by paying for their dresses, hair, makeup, shoes, and transportation. She also provides financial assistance to impoverished new mothers by purchasing diapers, pacifiers, bottles, clothes, milk, and other needs.

“I’ve been doing it out of pocket, just myself for years,” she says. “I just officially started my organization a few weeks ago. It’s called the ‘Fairy Boss Muda.’”

The rest of Kash Doll’s 2024 has been scheduled: drop the album in May, have the baby in June, take two months to rest, and start touring in September. She says her village will make sure she’s able to be a present mom while touring so there won’t be any long absences between her and her children. When I ask her what she wants her legacy to be, she takes a short pause and says, “A beautiful Black woman with a darker skin tone that still looks good, still got that recognition, that gave back, that uplifted women. A woman that does everything as far as having a man, kids, a career, and still kept herself together.”

Kash Doll performing at 313 Day 2023.

KAHN SANTORI DAVISON

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, March 20

Flute & Strings Around the World 7-8:30 p.m.; Southfield Parks & Recreation, Southfield, Southfield; $10-15.

Funky Rivertown Festival 7:30 p.m.; Riverside Arts Center, 76 N. Huron St., Ypsilanti; $10-$60.

Health, Pixel Grip, King Yosef 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $25-$65.

Koyo, Anxious, One Step Closer 6 p.m.; Edgemen, 19757 15 Mile Rd., Clinton Twp; $25.

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, March 21

49 Winchester, Philip Bowen 7 p.m.; Majestic Theatre, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20.

Cece Winans - the Goodness Tour 7 p.m.; Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $35-$150.

Funky Rivertown Festival 7:30 p.m.; Riverside Arts Center, 76 N. Huron St., Ypsilanti; $10-$60.

Marshall Crenshaw 7:30-9 p.m.; Mt. Brighton, 4141 Bauer Rd., Brighton; $35.

Reaping Asmodeia, Phyrxian Sun, Darkeater, Hellstuff 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.

Friday, March 22

Funky Rivertown Festival 7:30 p.m.; Riverside Arts Center, 76 N. Huron St., Ypsilanti; $10-$60.

Stoop Lee, Ally Evenson, Curtis Roach, Na Bonsai 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20. Broadway Rave (18+) 8:30 pm; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $13-$23.

For The Fallen Dreams, Elijah, Versus Me, The Harbor Divide 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $18.

FSPA Faculty Concert Series

7-8:30 p.m.; FIM McArthur Recital Hall, 1025 E. Kearsley St., Flint; no cover with registration.

Funky Rivertown Festival 7:30 p.m.; Riverside Arts Center, 76 N. Huron St., Ypsilanti; $10-$60.

Laveda, Twin Deer 7 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $15.

The Louie Lee Show, Glenbrooke 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25-$45.

One for the Foxes 7:30-9 pm; The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Dr., Grosse Pointe Farms; $15-$45.

Queen of the Night: A Tribute to Whitney Houston 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $23-$73.

The Reefermen, DJ Sanford 9 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; o cover.

Ryan Jay & The Wrecking Krew, Julia Rose 8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $10-$80.

Two for the Show: A Tribute to Bon Jovi and Journey 8 p.m.; The Capitol Theatre, 140 E. Second St., Flint; $20-$65.

Saturday, March 23

Babytron 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $23-$63.

Between the Buried and Me, The Acacia Strain 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $27.50.

Billy Davis Rhythm Machine, DJ Tony Drake 8 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Brit Floyd 7:30 p.m.; Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $34.50-$94.50.

Everclear 8 p.m.; FIM Capitol Theatre, 140 E. 2nd St., Flint; $45-$240.

From Broadway to Hollywood (A2SO Pops) 8-10 p.m.; Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty St., Ann Arbor; $10-40.

Funky Rivertown Festival 2 p.m.; Riverside Arts Center, 76 N. Huron St., Ypsilanti; $10-$60.

Gimme Gimme Disco (18+) 8:30 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $13-$23.

Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan 7:30 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $49.50-$199.50.

Radio Pirate DJ, Atavan, Vena Morris, Copneconic 7 p.m.; Pike

Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

Red Hot Chilli Pipers 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $35-$75.

Saddle Up Country Dance Party

8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $15. The 16th Annual Motor City Blues Festival: Tucka, King George, Pokey Bear, Theodis Ealey, J-Wonn, West Love 7 p.m.; Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $59-$175.

Think Floyd USA (Pink Floyd tribute) 8 p.m.; Emerald Theatre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $25-$220.

VomBom, Blood Rune Sigil, Sonic Smut 7 p.m.; Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit; $10.

DJ/Dance

Ace Bastet: Night Fever @ Willis Show Bar 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.; Willis Show Bar, 4156 Third St., Detroit; $0 advance, $15 day of show.

888Lambchop: Late Night Fever

@ Willis Show Bar 11 p.m.-2 a.m.; Willis Show Bar, 4156 Third St., Detroit; $5.

Sunday, March 24

Colin Hay 7 pm; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $44.50-$84.50.

Eslabón Armado en Detroit 7 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $60-$300.

General 11, Storm Theory, User927, Hiding Salem, Ashes of War, Life of Suppression, Heat Above 5 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $12.

Sunday Ska Matinee: The Abruptors, The Dirty Notion, K Man & the 45s, The Write Ups 2-6 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Monday, March 25

Mahalia, Alicia Creti 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $27.50.

DJ/Dance

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

Tuesday, March 26

Excision, ATLiens, Ray Volpe, LAYZ, Emorfik 6 p.m.; Masonic Temple, 500 Temple St., Detroit; $100. Loving, Fog Lake 6 p.m.; Pike Room,

1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $20.

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

Samantha Fish, JD Simo 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $27.50.

DJ/Dance

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

THEATER

Performance

Flint Repertory Theatre Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf; $10-$27; Friday, 7-9 p.m.; Saturday, 7-9 p.m.; Sunday, 2-4 p.m.

Matrix Theatre Company Material Advantage; $20-$25 Fridays, Saturdays, 8-10:30 p.m.; Sundays, 3-5:30 p.m.

Meadow Brook Theatre Native Gardens; $43; Wednesday, 8 p.m.; Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 6 p.m.; Sunday, 2 & 6:30 p.m.

Planet Ant Theatre A Gooder Grief; $20; Friday 7 pm and Saturday 7 pm.

Play House Will You Miss Me?; $10-40; Thursday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Friday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Saturday, 7:30-9 p.m.

Game show

Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom The Price Is Right Live - On Stage; $33-$43; Saturday, 8 p.m., and Sunday, 2 & 8 p.m. Detroit Public Theatre Clyde’s; $47; Sunday, 1 p.m.

Musical

Fisher Theatre - Detroit The Cher Show; 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 p.m.

Je’caryous Johnson Present: Super Freak: The Rick James Story Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 3 & 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 & 7:30 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $49.75-$99.75.

COMEDY

Improv

Go Comedy! Improv Theater Pandemonia The All-Star Showdown; $20; Fridays, Saturdays, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.

Stand-up

Andiamo Celebrity Showroom: Bobby Collins, Mike Marino; $35-$79; Friday, 8 p.m.

Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts South Asian Queens of Comedy; $35-$100; Saturday, 7 p.m.

Fox Theatre Ali Wong Live; $39.50$159.50; Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.

Magic Stick Ismo: Watch Your Language Tour; $27.50; Friday, 7 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle T.J. Miller; $45; Thursday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Friday, 7:15-8:45 & 9:45-11:15 p.m.; Saturday, 7-8:30 & 9:30-11 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Dave Nihill; $25; Tuesday, 7-8:30 p.m.

The Capitol Theatre Homegrown Comedy with Jen Kober; $20-$55; Thursday, 7-8 p.m.

Ypsi Alehouse Johanna Medranda; $10; Monday, 7:30-9:30 p.m.

FILM

Screening

Motor City Cinema Society

Superman Part 2 (Extended TV version); Monday, 6:30 p.m.

Film festival

The Riviera Cinema Greater Farmington Film Festival; $7; Thursday, 4-9 p.m.; Friday, 7-11 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.11 p.m.; Sunday, 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m.

ARTS

Art exhibition

Stamelos Gallery Center, UMDearborn Andy T’s Urban Vision 20012024; free to the public Mondays-Fridays, Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Artist talk

Public Lecture: Tuesday, 6-7:30 p.m.; Cranbrook Art Museum, 39221 N. Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills; no cover.

Public Lecture: Yuri Suzuki

Thursday, 6-7:30 p.m.; Cranbrook Art Museum, 39221 N. Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills; no cover.

Dance

Detroit Opera House Batsheva Dance Company co-presentation with University Musical Society (UMS); Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, 2:30 p.m.

Tuesday 7:30-9 pm.

Misc.

Needle Felting Art Night Make your own artwork on a small embroidery

March 20-26, 2024

Tamponpalooza

CHARITY: Although Ken Brass is not a woman, the local community organizer started Tamponpalooza to collect feminine hygiene and hair care products for homeless and lowincome women and girls. Since its first event in 2015, it has continued to grow with more donations and new sponsors each year. The event showcases women in various ways, featuring local women poets, singers, illustrators, and more. Among others, the upcoming event will include performances by Ari B, Beezy Brown, Bella Sweets, Chani the Hippie, Lucy Ghavalli, P Tha Poet, and Vee Marie. Plus, the night will be hosted by Detroit musician Kay Bae and radio host Melody Freshh. There will also be vendors selling an array of food, art, and handmade products. Admission to Tamponpalooza is free with the donation of essential items such as pads, tampons, hair brushes, shampoo, conditioner, undergarments, purses, diva cups, soap, body spray, and other basic supplies crucial for women’s well-being. All proceeds support various shelters across metro Detroit, including the Detroit Rescue Mission, Alternative for Girls, South Oakland Shelter, and Creating Op -

on my heart to give more to women.” The show will feature designers Arte de la Moda, 1derful, Oddity Collection, Daisy lane, Pink Sand, DE.NĀJIA,Vandalism, Beast Original, and Couture Culture. The show’s being produced by Codex, Xonnectwitlo, Taylorlang, and HRVST SZN, and Mumphord says everyone that has a major part in the show is a woman and women will be honored throughout the entire show. The show is also being supported by Girl, You Are Enough, a fund Mumphord started as a way to provide resources to organizations that provide support to women. “It’s going to be like a 007 theme,” she says. “It’s going to be a vibe. The moment they walk in they’re going to feel like they’re somewhere else. The experience is going to be phenomenal. They’re going to see Detroit’s culture, the vibe, the energy.”

—Kahn Santori Davison

Veni Vidi Vici starts at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 24; Garden Theater, 3929 Woodward Ave, Detroit; 313-832-0888; thegardendetroit.com. Tickets are #35-$350.

Street Beet pop-up and cookbook release

portunities To Succeed.

—Layla McMurtrie

From 7-11 p.m. on Saturday, March 23; The D Loft; 9427 Joseph Campau, Hamtramck; thedloft.com. No cover with donated item, $10 without.

Veni Vidi Vici fashion show

FASHION: Much like Detroit’s hip-hop sound, its fashion scene has gone from niche to one of the most influential in the country. Go to any hip-hop concert or NBA games and you’ll see athletes and fans alike sporting Three Thirteen jackets and carrying Glam-Aholic bags. Enter Darylynn Mumphord, a 15-year mainstay on Detroit’s fashion scene who’s hosting a fashion event dubbed Veni Vidi Vici (Latin for “I came, I saw, I won”). The event is set to feature hiphop performances by Natasia, Lana Ladonna, Baby Money, and Skilla Baby. “It’s women’s month and as a woman I just want to show love to the women that don’t feel like they’re being loved,” Mumphord says.

“Especially as an entrepreneur, we work so hard behind the scenes and I know how that feels. So it was just

BOOKS: We’ve been anticipating the release of defunct vegan popup Street Beet’s cookbook since co-founder Nina Paletta told us it was in the works last month. Nostalgic Vegan: The Street Beet Cookbook is finally available for pre-order and, not only that, Paletta and fellow Street Beet chef Meghan Shaw are celebrating with a two-night popup at Bunny Bunny, where Street Beet will be slinging some of the vegan eats that garnered it a cult following. The book has more than 50 plant-based and gluten-free recipes, including the “Taco Hell” Crunchwraps with walnut taco meat and crunchy “fake chicken” sandwiches. It also has nostalgic photos from Street Beet’s four years working as a pop-up out of 3rd Street Bar. Paletta previously told Metro Times that she and Shaw decided to shut down Street Beet in 2022 because they were ready to take their own separate paths. “The restaurant industry is a very stressful place and we just really needed to take time away from Street Beet,” she says.

—Randiah Camille Green

From 5-10 p.m. on Monday, March 25-Tuesday, March 26; Bunny Bunny, 1454 Gratiot Ave., Detroit; bunnybunnydetroit.com. No cover.

One of Street Beet’s “fake chicken” sandwiches. COURTESY PHOTO

MUSIC

The Louie Lee Show

This local act is turning heads with his made-in-Michigan ‘Country Hop and Roll’ sound

By Lee DeVito

Kid Rock boasted that he could take Southern rock and mix it with hip-hop. Fellow metro Detroit artist Louie Lee has tweaked the formula somewhat into what he calls “Country Hop and Roll” — and unlike Robert Ritchie he actually grew up in a trailer park.

It seems to be working. Although Lee says the project has only existed in earnest for only the past year and a half or so, he has cultivated a following on TikTok by posting video clips and releasing new singles at a rapid clip. Last week, he took his act on the road to the South by Southwest festival in Texas, and on Friday, he’ll perform a hometown show at Ferndale’s Magic Bag.

Lee says he grew up listening to Motor City artists like Kid Rock and Eminem, as well as lots of grunge and alternative rock. But he says that being raised here cultivated his omnivorous music tastes.

“Growing up in metro Detroit, how can you not like techno music?” he says. “How do you not like house music? How do you not like Motown music? How do you not like hair metal bands? How do you not like J Dilla?”

An example of his “Country Hop and Roll” sound is recent single “On the Floor (Yippee Ki Yay),” which mixes a heavy bassline, nü-metal guitar bursts, a trap beat, and a banjo.

“They said I wouldn’t do it but I’m doing me again,” he sings.

He says the song began as an idea he got while driving around in his truck. “It’s country because it’s me and the way I rap and sing as a country singer, but I don’t want it to all be just traditional country,” he says. “I have those songs, of course, too. ... I’ve been in the studio nonstop just working.”

Lee says he started pursuing a more country sound amid the isolation of the 2020 pandemic. “This whole project started out of, like, grief, man, for real,” he says. “It was therapy. It was during COVID. Everything was tough.”He lost four of his grandparents in the span of months. Then, around Thanksgiving of that year, a close friend died in his sleep of complications from COVID-19. He was only 37. “I was so distraught from that,” Lee says. “I was just looking to make some music as an outlet.”Lee, whose real name is Lewis Lee Hensley, says he decided to write countryflavored songs because his grandfather always wanted him to be a country singer. His friends already called him Louie, so his wife suggested he create an alter ego.

The first song he released was a downtempo track called “Tailgate

Blues” in 2021. “I created it with no intention to have anybody like it, no fans, nothing,” he says. “I just wanted to put it out there.”

More followed, including a “country hop and roll” cover of Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” and an original called “Champagne in a Plastic Cup.”

“The whole idea of the song is my girl is the finest Champagne in a plastic cup,” he says, “Even when she’s at home with no makeup on, and just in her sweats, she’s still the baddest in the room.”

He adds, “I like having the humor in it, because I don’t want to take myself so seriously anymore. … I was that kid that didn’t have the privilege to go away to college or anything like that, you know, so I knew that I had to get by with my charisma and my work ethic.”

Lee says the project was also inspired by his struggles to make it in the music

industry, especially advice he got to “stay in your lane.”

He had been pursuing a career in music ever since he and some friends played in his middle school talent show. “Music was always the dream, because I always loved entertaining people and making people feel good,” he says. “I think I learned that later in life. It probably stemmed through my own traumas, even as a child, my own issues with divorced parents and all that stuff, wanting validation, wanting attention.”

For a time, he moved to California, playing guitar in alternative rock bands, touring in a van, and opening for acts like Sugarcult. At a certain point he decided to move back to Michigan, working construction jobs and trying to figure out what to do with his life.

A chance meeting with Grammy-

Louie Lee performs at Ferndale’s Magic Bag on Friday, March 22.

COURTESY PHOTO

winning producer Chuck Alkazian (Madonna, Royce da 5’9”, Pop Evil) at a Guitar Center store when he was 23 rekindled his drive, leading to him to record a demo with Alkazian.

He eventually found a gig playing in a cover band that largely performed at corporate events, but he put his own music on hold.

“I think that’s kind of why I got so burnt out as an original artist in the first place early on in my career and went to the covers,” he says. “I went to the covers because I still wanted to be able to perform and sing.”

The cover band was still an important part of his development, he says. “I learned how to be a stage performer, I learned how to be a frontman, I learned how to entertain people from those experiences,” he says. “So I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”

It also inspired him to up the ante for his stage production for Louie Lee, and his live show features high-tech flourishes appropriated from EDM and hip-hop acts including a video backdrop and smoke machines. (“This is an arena show,” he claims.)

He’s making a big push at a time when country music seems poised to be bigger than ever, following the success of crossover acts like Jelly Roll and Morgan Wallen and with pop stars like Beyoncé and Lana Del Rey gearing up to release country music-inspired records.

“I was the little kid in mom’s minivan singing Shania Twain at the top of my lungs, you know, singing Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw,” Lee says. “I think everybody has been influenced by some of it, but just maybe it wasn’t the cool thing.”

Lee says he’s not worried about being perceived as authentic.

“If you Google the definition of country music, it tells you the use of real instruments, these kinds of instruments,” he says. “Well, guess what? All those instruments are on a Louie Lee record. Is there authenticity in the storytelling? Yup. I’m not making it up. I’m telling you my truth. That’s pretty country to me. I live on a dirt road… I grew up in a trailer park… I drive a truck... I like beer… I have a Stetson hat. Like, what else can I do? I’m never gonna be country enough. I’m not gonna be Garth Brooks country, right, but that’s OK. There’s already Garth Brooks. I’m not going to be George Strait. I’m just gonna be Louie Lee from Detroit, period.”

Louie Lee performs with Gleenbrooke and other special guests on Friday, March 22 at the Magic Bag; 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; 248-544-1991; themagicbag.com. Doors at 7 p.m. Tickets start at $25.

CONGRATS TO OUR 2024 ANNUAL BARFLY AWARD WINNERS!

Thurs 3/21

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NELLY & TATIANA!

Fri 3/22

CRAIG BROWN BAND/MATTHEW TEARDROP/HILL KILLER (country rock/experimental/ alt-pop)

Doors@9p/$5cover HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DANNY RIEF & ARIEL ALESNA!

Sat 3/23

SEAHAG/PERMANENTLY PISSED/EKG (punk/hardcore)

Doors@9p/$5cover

Sun 3/24

MARCHE DU NAIN ROUGE AFTER PARTY W/ HOUSE DJ’S BANGERZ & JAMZ

Doors@1-6pm/$10cover HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DENA WALKER!

Mon 3/25

FREE POOL ALL DAY

Tues 3/26

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

Open Decks@8PM NO COVER IG: @byor_tuesdays_old_miami

Coming Up:

3/30 Matt Smiley’s Birthday Bash

4/05 DJ Skeez & Friends

4/05 TIGERS OPENING DAY!

4/06 The End of Ends/Hiding Salem/ Second Hand Drugs/Belling The Tiger

4/12 DEATH CAT/Come Out Fighting / Idiot Kids

4/13 BANGERZ & JAMZ (monthly)

4/19 DANNY OVERSTREET’S BDAY!

4/20 Nine90/Spur Tongue/ Narc Out The Reds

Book Your Parties at The Old Miami

Email us: theoldmiamibarevents@gmail.com

FOOD

Chowhound

Excuses, excuses

By Robert Stempkowski

Chowhound is a weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: eat@metrotimes.com.

A mind-boggling amount of professional productivity was likely lost come Monday morning after St. Paddy’s Day. Absenteeism from workplaces, one presumes, was epidemic. Mass hangover-itis was surely the culprit, though a vast majority of its sufferers likely made-up other stories to cover their drunk-sick asses. Unless you’re your own boss, you’ve someone to report to when you decide to call off, and telling them you’re suffering the predictable effects of an Irish Car Bomb, green beer, weed, and Godknows-what-else bender just doesn’t seem like the way to go.

On any workday immediately following a holiday especially notorious for overindulgence, extra careful consideration must be given to the lie one attempts to tell in exchange for a pass on putting in an honest day’s work afterward. Shell-shocked and left standing in the post-pandemic’s staffing rubble, many employers have become bitterly cynical and defensive. Feeble attempts at citing symptoms we say we’ve come down with in the hope of sounding contagion alarms are likely to be met with learned responses that could cost us dearly in enforced, extended absences and/or reasonable requests that we provide medical documentation supporting our claims prior to returning to gainful employment. Calling out with COVID-y symptoms these days could ultimately cost one a week’s wages and the price of a PA’s note from that entirely unnecessary Urgent Care appointment you had to make to call your boss’s calling bullshit on your bullshit sick call.

Instead, if you’re going to insist you’ve suddenly found yourself in no condition to come in to work on, say, the day after Memorial Day, or July 5, January 1, and the like, I suggest getting more gastrointestinally creative. I’ve got two words for you to remember in such circumstances: rectal secretions. The next time you feel the need to plead physical infirmity as a made-up excuse for missing work, tell your supervisor

you’re suffering from an oozing from the one orifice no one in this world wants anything to do with other than their own, far more often than not.

So, phone in and claim you woke up, went to the bathroom, and found blood in your stool.

Before anyone starts chiming in to castigate me for making so repugnant and repulsively specific a suggestion, let me say just two more things in my defense: This is not something I dreamed up on my own, and it worked really well once when I actually tried it myself.

Remember Mad TV? Airing for fourteen seasons until 2016, the Mad magazine-based show spoofed every corner of American culture. No topic was too taboo, and in one episode, the subject of calling in sick from work was tackled in a skit that put some of our most go-to excuses to music. With a band striking up a sing-a-long kind of tune, three performers marched out onto a stage, each with telephones they started taking turns phoning in phony illnesses to.

“I woke up today looking chalky and gray,” the first sang to that effect.

“I won’t be in. I’ve got hives on my skin,” the second sounded off. And so it went for a few rounds, with three Mad tenors belting out the same old excuses we’ve all made to take a “sick” day off. The third guy ultimately brought down the house with one malady nobody, apparently, had either heard or used before, myself included.

“I can’t come to work I’ve got blood in my stool!” he belted before breaking character and laughing out loud. I just saw it as funny at first. Then I thought, hmmm.

Sure enough, maybe a month or so after that show, I found myself yet again unmotivated to work one of my waiter shifts. Having already fabricated a few reasons not to come in over the course of my short tenure where I’d been employed at the time, I pondered what extenuating circumstances might remain plausible to my manager, Pat. I’d previously told her falsely that a close aunt had died, the same one I’d killedoff a year or so prior when I’d served elsewhere, as part of a ruse to play hooky and enjoy an impromptu weekend in

San Diego. After claiming my intentions to catch a flight home to Detroit (from Phoenix) to attend her October funeral, suspicions were raised which ultimately resulted in my firing after I returned to duty with a sunburn three days later. I vowed to get smarter with my deceptions after that.

“Pat, it’s Robert,” I tried to sound appropriately uncomfortable and upset when she answered my call. “I think I have a problem.”

“What’s up?” She sounded busy and maybe a bit skeptical.

“I woke up this morning, went to the bathroom, and found blood in my stool.”

Silence. I instantly felt found-out. She’d seen the show, was my next thought. I was sure of it.

“Robert, you need to get to a doctor immediately or just go to an emergency room.” Pat broke back in, sounding seriously concerned all of a sudden. “That is not something that should be

happening. Go. Just let me know when you know something.”

“I will, Pat. I better go. I’ll let you know.”

I took the next two days off, getting stoned and staying indoors while trying to figure out what to say when I returned to work. I’d learned a little about rectal polyps and anal fissures by that point in my life, so I arrived ready to blame the whole fictitious episode on the latter when I reported back three days later. But Pat just asked me how I was and never said another word after I assured her I was good to go.

From sickness and car trouble to court appearances and child care issues, there are only so many cards to play in the liar’s poker game of excusemaking for missing work when we’re too lazy, hungover, or whatever to get out of bed and head in.

But that butt thing is an ace in the hole.

When lying about skipping work, it helps to keep a poker face. SHUTTERSTOCK

CULTURE

Arts spotlight

Hygienic Dress League is creating a new social media platform for collectors to buy directly from local artists

By Randiah Camille Green

The last time we spoke with artistic husband-and-wife duo Dorota and Steve Coy, better known as the pair behind the Hygienic Dress League, they were deep into the NFT craze. Now they’re working on a new way to leverage technology with an app that puts more money into artists’ pockets.

ArtClvb is a social media platform and marketplace app that would allow artists to sell their work directly to collectors and eliminate the need for emerging artists to have gallery representation. While most galleries take 40-50% of profit from art sales, Dorota says ArtClvb would only take 15%.

Chris Kaufman, the co-founder and former chief creative officer of StockX, a Detroit-based online marketplace for sneakerheads, is another ArtClvb co-founder.

“Galleries, traditionally, their overhead is much higher,” Dorota tells

Metro Times. “Steve and I, we’re artists as well and it’s hard to put your heart and soul into something and not get as much out of it. So we thought, can we change the model a little bit where the artists make most of the money since they created the work? Could that work?”

She adds, “The art world overall is kind of broken the way it functions because artists are relying upon galleries. Galleries build artists [up] to get to a certain level. Museums play a big part in the ecosystem as well of how artists get picked in relation to the galleries that they work with. So it’s complicated, and 99% of the artists don’t make it to that level… The art market only works for the 1% on top.”

Artists would upload their work to the ArtClvb app for collectors to purchase. The plan is also to give the artists 5% in royalties from any resales done

across 19 locations in Detroit. Upon signing up (for free) participants received a map of all the open studios where they can visit the artists and buy their work at special in-studio-only prices.

“I am always intrigued by folks who are attempting to make a change they feel is needed,” says participating artist Cyrah Dardas. “I like that ArtClvb is made for artists by artists to create a new solution to how people can connect authentically with artists and makers, learn more about their practice and all of its intricacies, and possibly support that artist’s craft.”

Fellow Studio Deals artist Martyna Alexander adds, “It’s important to have open studio events like this so artists can form personal connections with people interested in their work, invite people into their space to see their practice firsthand, and obviously have a way to sell work that might not fit in the exhibition space, like smaller series and experiments. Social media is a great way to share what you’re working on but seeing art in person is the only way to truly know a piece.”

Other participating artists included Gretchen Adel, Justin Bean, Habacuc S. Bessiake, Kaleigh Blevins, Dustin Cook, Caroline Delgiudice, Sam Dienst, Kaysi Grimes, Erik Handerson, Ryan Herberholz, Scott Hocking, Nick Jaskey, Barber Kennedy, Steve Kuypers, Ivan Montoya, Emillia Nawrocki, Jaime Pattison, Michael Polakowski, Sarah Rice, Michael Ross, Emily Schnellbacher, Rosie Sharp, Phillip Simpson, John Sippel, India Solomon, Oshun Williams, and Sophia Wojnovich.

Dorota wants ArtClvb to be a place that not only connects emerging and mid-career artists with collectors, but makes collecting art more accessible and affordable.

through the app.

“Artists are the only creatives that don’t receive royalties,” Dorota says. “Musicians receive royalties. Writers receive royalties. But artists do not. So we were really interested in changing that.”

ArtClvb is still in the beta phase and the full version is expected to be available later this year. Development is estimated to cost over $1 million, according to Dorota. So far they have secured grant funding through Detroit’s TechTown and other organizations, but there’s still a lot left to go.

For now, to add an in-person layer to the social platform, the Coys are hosting an event series called Studio Deals where collectors can tour participating artists’ studios and get a behind-thescenes look at their creative process.

On Saturday, ArtClvb held its third Open Studios event with 30 artists

“Sometimes I go into a gallery and it’s very intimidating to ask prices, because you just assume, ‘I can’t afford it,’” she says. “We’re trying to break that model down so that it creates more transparency and it’s more democratic. We want everyone to experience going to our events. There’s something for everyone in our club.”

For now they plan to do Studio Deals events every three months or so and then eventually expand to monthly.

“It’s been really successful and it’s so nice to send artists 85% of the money that they earned,” Dorota says. “We hope to continue every month where it’s like, it’s Studio Deals Saturday and people just automatically will know what to do, and then they can look at the map to see who’s participating.”

For more information about ArtClvb, see artclvb.xyz.

Studio Deals participating artist Dustin Cook. COURTESY PHOTO

CULTURE

Film

Second to nun

By Craig D. Lindsey

Immaculate

Rated: R

Run-time: 89 minutes

The Sydney Sweeney train keeps chugging along, as the actress takes command of the box office one movie genre at a time. Anyone But You, the silly Much Ado About Nothing redo she did with that pretty boy from Top Gun: Maverick, shocked the hell out of everyone by making more than $200 million worldwide. What wasn’t shocking was how much Madame Web, the sisterly superhero movie she co-starred in with Dakota Johnson, was reviled by critics and audiences. (It wasn’t her fault; it was another installment of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, in which a studio stubbornly continues to keep a comic-book franchise going by just doing half-assed origin stories about the antiheroes.)

This month’s Sydney Sweeney movie has her stepping away from the audience-friendly confines of romcoms and action blockbusters and

diving deep into some gory, ghoulish, R-rated shit with Immaculate. Sweeney gets chaste as hell as Sister Cecilia, an aspiring American nun who arrives in a convent in the Italian countryside. Even before she gets the hang of things, our virginal heroine soon discovers she will be the mother of an immaculately conceived child.

Clocking in at 89 minutes — for which I am downright appreciative — Immaculate gets the down-and-dirty danger going at a pleasantly swift pace. Sweeney (who also serves as a producer) and director Michael Mohan (who also directed her in the Amazon Prime erotic thriller The Voyeurs) continue their union as a director-star team out to make 21st-century exploitation thrillers. Using a script from first-time screenwriter Andrew Lobel, they create a nasty, nutty addition to the nunsploitation genre.

You don’t have to be a diehard fan of Italian horror to know that everyone involved in this is clearly getting their giallo on. (Even composer Will Bates goes all Ennio Morricone in the score,

throwing in full-bodied but foreboding harpsichords and church organs.) Sweeney’s sister-in-trouble is surrounded by supporting characters you’d regularly find in a sordid scarefest set in Dario Argento country. There’s the studly but shady father (Alvaro Morte); Cecilia’s fellow sister and confidant (Benedetta Porcaroli), who immediately starts getting suspicious; the staunch sister (Simona Tabasco) who keeps looking at Cecilia sideways. We also got a crew of masked nuns with holes in their hands, slinking around and making sure secrets stay hidden by taking out those who wanna break out and talk.

Immaculate unfortunately doesn’t indulge in any kinky, erotic freakiness (although we do get titillating shots of Sweeney and Tabasco wearing sheer nightgowns and bathing in a hugeass tub). The movie makes up for it with wall-to-wall macabre madness. It seems like the sort of batshit psychothriller Lucio Fulci used to drop all the time in the ’70s. I’m surprised there isn’t a scene — a Fulci staple — where

a dummy that’s supposed to be one of the characters falls off a cliff, getting facially fucked up by jagged rocks all the way down.

It’s kinda fascinating, even admirable, seeing Sweeney and company make a horror flick that proudly embraces its lurid lunacy. Even when the story goes down predictable avenues, Mohan still keeps everything creepy and suspenseful. And I must say Sweeney has the whole babe-in-the-woods thing down pat. Her protagonist comes into this clueless, goes through several stages of hell, and eventually chooses violence in the chaotic climax — and that’s even before she gives birth to the supposed second coming of Jesus. (Yeah, that scene is bonkers!)

Considering how Sweeney literally ends up bloody and screaming, I’m deeply impressed that this actress — who’s consistently objectified online since her role as Cassie on Euphoria — is ready and willing to freak out audiences with Immaculate, and look like a gotdamn mess in the process. Sweeney may be a movie star after all.

Sydney Sweeney shows her star power in Immaculate, a batshit psycho-thriller just like they used to make.

COURTESY OF NEON

CULTURE

Savage Love

Dom and Dommer

By Dan Savage

: Q I’m having a weird reaction to someone I’m involved with. I find myself wanting to punish him for the slightest transgressions and scold him or give him the silent treatment until he apologizes. The poor guy hasn’t done anything very wrong — nothing wrong wrong — he’s just failed to meet my unreasonably high expectations for him. To make matters worse, we seem to have fallen into some sort of roleplay, verbally at least, where I order him around. He seems to want me to punish him and give him orders and I’m doing both, but I’ve never been a Dom or had a sub or whatever it is we’re doing. Honestly, I’m confused about what we’re doing but he seems to be inviting it somehow. How do I navigate this?

—Problems Understanding Nuances In Situationship Here

A: “This situation reminds Me of the kinkster classic Secretary,” said The Funny Dom. “It’s a fascinating look at a Dom and a sub who don’t fully understand their identities or how to pursue the dynamic functionally. It’s sweet and hot watching Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader fall into a problematic spanking scene, but in real life we know better.”

The Funny Dom is the pen name of a 44-year-old Daddy based in Melbourne, Australia. A long-time kink practitioner and educator, The Funny Dom has been “holding light-hearted (but stern!) space” for Doms, subs, and switches online since the start of the pandemic.

“It sounds like these two have developed a kind of Dom/sub dynamic,” said TheFriendlyDom. “PUNISH should think of it like a particular kind of dance they’re both loosely following. And while it’s all well and good for her to say he’s inviting it, it takes two to tango.”

Maybe your boyfriend already knew he was a sub when you met and he’s subtly training you to dominate him — by rewarding the punishing behaviors he wants to see from you. I’m guessing your boyfriend is just as confused about the dynamic

you’ve stumbled into as a couple. But since you seem to enjoy punishing him, PUNISH, and since your boyfriend seems to enjoy being punished by you, this sounds less like a problem and more like the beginning of a beautiful (and very hot) relationship.

“It’s obvious from the way PUNISH and her boyfriend respond to each other’s behavior that D/s resonates for both of them,” said TheFunnyDom. “They have a real opportunity here to explore a big juicy part of their identities. But to take those steps, they need to have a conversation about the moves they’ve both been pulling — and what those moves mean to them — and then discuss whether they’d like to pursue this dynamic further. And if so, how they can pursue it mindfully.”

One of you needs to say, “Hey, what are we doing here?”, and since you’re the one who wrote to me first, PUNISH, I think you’re the one who needs to say it. And if you’re concerned about where this is heading — if you’re worried about this dynamic escalating in ways that make you feel uncomfortable about your actions identifying what it is you’re doing and will help contain it. Right now, PUNISH, you’re punishing your boyfriend and kindasorta hoping he likes it as much as you think he does; once you’ve talked about it, you’ll be able to punish your boyfriend confident that likes what you’re doing. And remember: this conversation isn’t just about identifying your boyfriend’s limits as a sub, PUNISH, it’s also about identifying your limits as a Dom.

“To start the conversation they can watch a decent kinky movie together,” said The Funny Dom, “something like Secretary or Love & Leashes — a much less problematic and even sweet depiction of a male sub dynamic — and then talk about what they liked, what they didn’t like, and what, if anything, reflected what’s happening between them. They can also grab a how-to book — and there are many — and look for a kink class or workshop to attend together and independently.”

One how-to book you might want to pick up and read with the boyfriend: The Funny Dom’s Guide to Kink (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2), which is available now.

“PUNISH and her boyfriend — really, all couples who interested in kink need to remember that kink is a big, big, hot, transformative, messy, wonderful adventure,” said The Funny

Dom, “and it shouldn’t be done in a non-conscious vacuum, folks.”

In other words, PUNISH, you gotta talk about it. Or as we like to say here at Savage Love, Inc., you gotta use your words

: Q Cis-het dude here in my 30s. I’ve had to spend several multi-month periods away from my wife over the last couple years for work. During the last long separation, I started writing letters — long letters, horny letters, emotional letters, and lots of smut. I sent notebooks filled with horny letters and erotic short stories, drawings, and elaborate choose-yourown-adventure-style pieces. I let her in on some of my kinks. (I know, Dan: I should’ve done this when we first started dating but I wasn’t listening to the Lovecast then.) As it turns out, she’s pretty vanilla and she asked me to pull back on the kink. Since the letters and stories were gifts, I obliged. I’m not great at talking about my feelings and desires but I can write them down. Not everything was horny

I sent love letters, not just lust letters — but I never get much of a response. For example, I wrote her an “ice cream menu” with codes aligning with different themes and kinks. The idea was that she could pick what she wanted to read in future notebooks. I got a couple requests, but she never used the menu system, let alone asked for “lavender honeycomb” or “mint chocolate chip” options. (Yes, vanilla was also on the menu!)

I guess the issue here is that I feel like I’m not getting much back. Are these projects worth pursuing?

Should I put my kinks (mostly subby stuff with me as the sub) back in my stories or does that come across like I’m trying to pressure her? We’re going to be back together full-time for the next couple years. I love the heck out of this woman — that’s why I married her — but it doesn’t feel good to be the unreciprocated lust letter writer. —Boy Overconfidently Oversharing Kink Stories

A: “First of all, one cis-het bloke to another, a big bloody well done on the beautiful and creative outlet BOOKS found and explored and here’s to making space for sharing, vulnerability, and playful kinky discussions,” said The Funny Dom. “Our fellow cishet blokes could do with more of this. Unfortunately, I’m thinking BOOKS’s transformation from a not-verycomfortable-speaking-about-feelingsand-desires guy to something like a coked-up-Aaron-Sorkin-like pen pal may have overwhelmed his partner.”

You say it wasn’t your intent to make your wife feel pressured — not pressured respond in kind, not pressured to embrace your kinks — but it sounds like she feels pressured, BOOKS, and it sounds like you actually are disappointed she hasn’t responded in kind and embraced your kinks.

“I totally understand that BOOKS is feeling a little underwhelmed by the lack of reciprocation here,” said The Funny Dom. “That’s only human. But he’s gotta remember that no one asked him to cook this five-course meal. Before anyone does something like that for you, you gotta discuss

tastes, appetites, and menu options before playing chef. Kink-dynamic wise, sending someone smut and possible scenarios for play that place your partner in the Dominant role — without clearly ascertaining whether that’s who they are or what they want — is a form of manipulation you often see in relationships that have been essentially vanilla but now one person wants to explore kink.”

Needless to say, it’s not a recipe for success. So, what can you do?

“BOOKS shouldn’t put the pen down,” said The Friendly Dom, “but he should keep the writing for himself — start an anonymous blog or write for a smut lit erotica type platform — and then, when he’s home, have a face-to-face conversation with his partner how he’s feeling and, most importantly, how she’s feeling and whether she wants to explore any of this at all. And if not, well, BOOKS needs to take that into account before spending the next umpteen years together. Fundamental kink compatibility is not like simply going for different footy team. It’s bloody vital to a functional relationship.”

Follow The Funny Dom on Instagram and Threads @thefunnydomreturns. The Funny Dom is available for one-on-one online coaching sessions with couples and individuals.

: Q My last relationship collapsed because my ex-boyfriend needed a sexual performance I couldn’t deliver. Everything else was spectacular, and we really did love each other, but I’m one of those rare gay men who insists on monogamy. (We do exist, Dan.) Which means I couldn’t agree to him exploring domination and degradation with other men. We had excellent vanilla sex (both vers) and he said he was satisfied but he kept asking for my permission to get dominated by other men. I felt I had no other option than to end our relationship. I read your column and listen to your show, Dan, so I know my ex-boyfriend didn’t choose his kinks to sabotage our relationship. I did, however, hope that exploring them though porn and fantasy would be enough for him, but it sadly wasn’t. It’s two years after the breakup and I am happy to report that we are friends. He’s been seeing someone for six months and it’s getting serious, and his new boyfriend dominates and degrades him in ways I simply could not because I loved him too much to do things like that. I still have love for

my ex and want what’s best for him and it’s very hard for me to interact with his new boyfriend knowing how he treats my ex. It has been hard for me to see their relationship as a loving or healthy one. Do I say something to my ex? I want to start by saying, “I’m happy for you, but….” But what comes after the “but”?

—The Loving Vanilla Ex

A: Here’s what you say to your ex: “I’m happy for you.” No “but,” just a period.

Zooming out: BDSM and Dom/sub dynamics don’t do anything for you. (And by, “don’t do anything for you,” I mean, “they don’t make your dick hard.”) So, it’s not that you couldn’t do these things with your ex because you loved him too much to dominate or degrade him — it’s not that you’re too loving and virtuous for that shit — it’s that you don’t wanna to do these things with anybody because those things don’t make your dick hard.

Now, I’m gonna assume that like most vanilla vers gay men, TLVE, ass fucking makes your dick hard and ass fucking in the context of an intimate relationship feels loving and healthy. But let’s say you weren’t into ass fucking and someone decided to fuck your ass anyway. You wouldn’t experience ass fucking under those circumstances as loving; you would experience ass fucking under those circumstances as violence. Well, just as you’re capable of experiencing ass fucking as a loving act because you love having your ass fucked by someone who loves you, your ex-boyfriend is capable of experiencing domination and degradation as a loving act because he loves being dominated and degraded by someone who loves him.

Consensual BDSM, Dom/sub play, erotic humiliation: not for you, you don’t get it, you don’t have to do it. But hundreds of millions of straight people — maybe even billions — don’t see how one man fucking another man in the ass could ever be a loving act. They don’t get it. And luckily for you, straight people — the ones who don’t get it (#NotAllStraightPeople) — don’t get to tell you how you’re allowed to love your next boyfriend, TLVE, and you don’t get to tell your ex-boyfriend how he’s allowed to love his current boyfriend.

Got problems? Yes, you do. Send your question to mailbox@savage.love! Podcasts, columns, and more at Savage.Love.

CULTURE

Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

I suspect you will soon have far more beginners’ luck than you ever thought possible. For best results — to generate even more wildly abundant torrents of good luck — you could adopt what Zen Buddhists called “beginner’s mind.” That means gazing upon everyone and everything as if encountering it for the first time. Here are other qualities I expect to be flowing freely through you in the coming weeks: spontaneity, curiosity, innocence, candor, and unpredictability. To the degree that you cultivate these states, you will invite even more beginner’s luck into your life.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

Taurus artist Salvador Dali was prone to exaggerate for dramatic effect. We should remember that as we read his quote: “Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: Rationalize them;

understand them thoroughly.” While that eccentric advice may not always be 100-percent accurate or useful, I think it will be true and helpful for you in the coming weeks. Have maximum fun making sacred mistakes, Taurus! Learn all you can from them. Use them to improve your life.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

The professional fun advisors here at Free Will Astrology International Headquarters have concluded that your Party Hardy Potential Rating for the coming weeks is 9.8 (out of 10). In fact, this may be the Party Hardy Phase of the Year for you. You could gather the benefits of maximum revelry and conviviality with minimal side effects. Here’s a meditation to get you in the right mood: Imagine mixing business and pleasure with such panache that they blend into a gleeful, fruitful synergy.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

or find a waterfall. Stand with your legs apart and arms spread out as you turn your face up toward the falling moisture. As you drink it in, tell yourself you will be extra fluid and flowing in the coming weeks. Promise yourself you will stimulate and treasure succulent feelings. You will cultivate the sensation that everything you need is streaming in your direction.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

You are gliding into the climax of your re-education about togetherness, intimacy, and collaboration. The lessons you’ve been learning have deepened your reservoir of wisdom about the nature of love. And in the coming weeks, even further teachings will arrive; even more openings and invitations will be available. You will be offered the chance to earn what could in effect be a master›s degree in relationships. It’ll be challenging work, but rewarding and interesting. Do as best as you can. Don’t demand perfection from yourself or anyone else.

adventures, and great art and music. The coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to cultivate this skill.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

I’m perplexed by spiritual teachers who fanatically preach the doctrine that we should BE HERE NOW as much as possible. Living with full enjoyment in the present moment is a valuable practice, but dismissing or demeaning the past is shortsighted. Our lives are forged from our histories. We should revere the stories we are made of, visit them regularly, and keep learning from them. Keep this in mind, Capricorn. It’s an excellent time to heal your memories and to be healed by them. Cultivate deep gratitude for your past as you give the old days all your love. Enjoy this quote from novelist Gregory Maguire: “Memory is part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our heart pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work, too: it keeps us who we are.”

I

Cancerian author and psychotherapist Virginia Satir (1916–1988) was renowned as the “Mother of Family Therapy.” Her research led her to conclude, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” That 12-hug recommendation seems daunting to achieve, but I hope you will strive for it in the coming weeks. You are in a phase when maximum growth is possible — and pushing to the frontiers of hugging will help you activate the full potential. (P.S.: Don’t force anyone to hug you. Make sure it’s consensual.)

LEO: July 23 – August 22

Have you been genuinely amazed anytime recently? Have you done something truly amazing? If not, it’s time to play catch-up. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you need and deserve exciting adventures that boggle your soul in all the best ways. You should be wandering out on the frontiers and tracking down provocative mysteries. You could grow even smarter than you already are if you expose yourself to challenges that will amaze you and inspire you to be amazing.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

NO, WE HAVEDON’T MECHANICALA BULL

I invite you to perform a magic spell that will help prepare you for the rich, slippery soul work you have ahead of you. I’ll offer a suggestion, but feel free to compose your own ritual. First, go outside where it’s raining or misting,

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21:

Now is not a favorable phase to gamble on unknown entities. Nor should you allow seemingly well-meaning people to transgress your boundaries. Another Big No: Don’t heed the advice of fear-mongers or nagging scolds, whether they’re inside or outside your head. On the other hand, dear Scorpio, the coming weeks will be an excellent time for the following actions. 1. Phase out attachments to alliances and love interests that have exhausted their possibilities. 2. Seek the necessary resources to transform or outgrow a frustrating fact about your life. 3. Name truths that other people seem intent on ignoring and avoiding. 4. Conjure simple, small, slow, practical magic to make simple, small, slow, practical progress.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

Falling in love is fun! It’s also exciting, enriching, inspiring, transformative, world-shaking, and educational. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could keep falling in love anew three or four times a year for as long as we live? We might always be our best selves, showing our most creative and generous sides, continually expanding our power to express our soulful intelligence. Alas, it’s not practical or realistic to always be falling in love with another new person. Here’s a possible alternative: What if we enlarged our understanding of what we could fall in love with? Maybe we would become perpetually infatuated with brilliant teachings, magical places, high

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

Controversial author William S. Burroughs was a rough, tough troublemaker. But he had some wisdom that will soon be extra useful for you. He said that love is the best natural painkiller available. I bring this to your attention not because I believe you will experience more pain than the rest of us in the coming months. Rather, I am predicting you will have extra power to alleviate your pain — especially when you raise your capacity to give and receive love.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

The planet Saturn entered Pisces in March 2023 and won’t depart for good until February 2026. Is that a bad thing or good thing for you Pisceans? Some astrologers might say you are in a challenging time when you must make cutbacks and take on increased responsibility. I have a different perspective. I believe this is a phase when you can get closer than ever before to knowing exactly what you want and how to accomplish what you want. In my view, you are being called to shed secondary wishes that distract you from your life’s central goals. I see this period as a homecoming — your invitation to glide into robust alignment with your soul’s code.

Homework: Meditate on “creative destruction.” How could you generate benefits by getting rid of burdens?

EMPLOYMENT

Ally Bank seeking Fellow - Cyber Security Engineer in Detroit, Michigan. Dvlp, implmt, & support a wide range of critical security controls at Ally. Work w/ security engineers to deploy, sustain & monitor tech’l controls & tools to meet specific security reqmts, & help w/ defining processes to ensure that security configurations & tools are maintained. May telecommute. Reqs: Bach’s deg, or the foreign equiv, in Comp Sci, Info Systems, or closely related. 5 yrs postbaccalaureate progressive exp in the job offered or closely related, & exp w/: Application Dvlpmt; Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) processes & automation tools; Process Automation & Streamlining; Solutions Architecture & Dsgn. Salary Range: $190,190 to $235,000. Email resume w/ reference no. J-L-572076 to recruitment@ally.com. Equal Opportunity Employer.

SERVICES

HOME IMPROVEMENT BATH & SHOWER UPDATES in as little as ONE DAY!

Affordable prices - No payments for 18 months!

Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available. Call 1-866-370-2939

HOME IMPROVEMENT NEVER PAY FOR COVERED HOME REPAIR AGAIN!

Complete Care Home

Warranty COVERS ALL MAJOR SYSTEMS AND APPLIANCES. 30 DAY RISK FREE. $200.00 OFF + 2 FREE Months! 1-877-434-4845

AUTOMOTIVE CASH FOR CARS

We buy all cars! Junk, high-end, totaled – it doesn’t matter! Get free towing and same day cash!

NEWER MODELS too!

1-866-535-9689

MEDICAL DIAGNOSED WITH LUNG CANCER?

You may qualify for a substantial cash awardeven with smoking history. NO obligation!

We’ve recovered millions.

Let us help!! Call 24/7, 1-888-376-0595

SERVICES SERVICES

MASSAGE RELAXING NURU MASSAGE for the quarantine must not be sick. Must be clean and wear mask. Outcalls only incalls are at your cost Hey I’m here to help. This is Candy melt in your mouth so try my massages they’re sweet as can be!!! (734) 596-1376

INTERNET SPECTRUM INTERNET AS LOW AS $29.99

Call to see if you qualify for ACP and free internet. No Credit Check. Call Now! 833-955-0905.

HOME IMPROVEMENT GUTTER GUARDS AND REPLACEMENT GUTTERS INBOUND

Never clean your gutters again! Affordable, professionally installed gutter guards protect your gutters and home from debris and leaves forever! For a FREE Quote call: 844-499-0277.

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.

AUTOMOTIVE CARS FOR KIDS DONATIONS

DONATE YOUR VEHICLE to fund the search for missing children. FAST FREE PICKUP. 24 hour response. Running or not.

Maximum Tax Deduction and No Emission Test Required!

Call 24/7: 877-266-0681.

HOME IMPROVEMENT

BCI - WALK-IN TUBS ON SALE

BCI Walk In Tubs are now on SALE! Be one of the first 50 callers and save $1,500! CALL 844-514-0123 for a free in-home consultation.

WANTED MEN’S SPORT WATCHES WANTED

Advertiser is looking to buy men’s sport watches. Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Here, Daytona, GMT, Submariner and Speedmaster. The Advertiser pays cash for qualified watches. Call 888-320-1052.

ADULT

ADULT ENTERTAINMENT HIRING SEXY WOMEN!!!

Hiring sexy women (& men). Highly Paid Magazine, Web, and Movie/TV work. no experience needed, all sizes accepted. 313-289-2008.

ADULT ENTERTAINMENT

CHEAP PHONE SEX

800-321-6767

99 cents per minute PhoneSexLady.com

ESCORT STRAP ON QUEEN

Naturally dominant you should have a love & fetish for chocolate pie. Fetish fantasies a guarantee submissive visitor.

Therapeutic massage 248-894-2700