Metro Times 02/08/23

NEWS & VIEWS

Who?

—Jim Gilsbach, Facebook

We received responses to last week’s cover story by freelancer Kahn Santori Davison about Detroit influencer Tay Crispyy.

Yayyyy so happy for you Tay Crispyy ... reportin LIVE from DETROIT’S NorfWesEastside.

—Duvall Lewis, Facebook

It’s unsanitary out there folks!

—Heidi Gaines, Facebook

Lol was just thinking the other day I ain’t seen none of his skits in awhile.......damn it say he went to my highschool I ain’t know that.

—Zo Pound, Facebook

If you’re not in the in crowd your not gonna know him don’t worry about it.

—Bobby Whoamack, Facebook

Or y’all can go on Instagram and look up his name Taycrispyy ... better than the actual news to me ... he’s EVERYWHERE.

— Yannaa Lewis, Facebook

Reporting liveeeee from Metro Timesssssssss. “Are We Liveee.”

—@taycrispyy Instagram

Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com.

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Detroit’s BLAC magazine accused of nonpayment, ghosting

The lifestyle and culture publication hasn’t printed since September

BLAC DETROIT MAGAZINE’S website and social media pages have gone cold. Outside of the occasional reshare on the publication’s Instagram story, there hasn’t been any new content produced in the past week.

The desertion of the online publication and social channels follows the abrupt firing of the publication’s editor-in-chief, Darralynn Hutson.

An industry veteran, Hutson served as BLAC ’s editor-in-chief for about five months, having assumed office in October 2022.

On Friday, Jan. 27, Hutson took to LinkedIn to announce not only her firing, but a string of allegations against the company during her short time there.

In the post, Hutson writes that twice

By Alex Washington

she had to pay contributors out of her own pocket just to keep the peace, as she didn’t want to be another Black magazine with a reputation for nonpayment.

“I write this post with a heavy heart stunned and dismayed but was recently abruptly let go from BLAC Magazine, a Detroit-based publication that holds so much amazing history to so many native Detroiters,” Hutson writes. “I had a meeting and offered to be the magazine’s owner since I was doing all of the work and learning of unsavory business practices that were coming to a boil. Unknown to so many, for months, I’ve been the sole creator of content of two editions and often social media and the weekly BLAC Friday to subscribers.”

There’s two publications in the city

of Detroit that are especially coveted among Black Detroiters — Michigan Chronicle and BLAC Detroit. To be frank, for a very long time, those were the only publications where Black Detroiters could see themselves in the pages and in the staff.

In April 2020, Midland native Billy Strawter Jr. purchased BLAC after investing in the magazine for nearly five years. It seemed like a promising new era for the publication, originally founded in 1999 as African American Parent Magazine before changing its name to BLAC (an acronym for “Black Life, Arts & Culture”) during its 10th year in business. At the helm, Strawter expressed ambition to make BLAC a national brand.

“BLAC was a client of my (market-

ing) agency first, and there was an opportunity to become an investor,” he told Midland Daily News in a 2021 interview. “When they decided to sell, they approached me and it just felt like a no-brainer.”

But since Strawter’s acquisition, the publication has been plagued with allegations of non-payment and even litigation. And it hasn’t published a print edition since September.

In an interview with Metro Times, Hutson says she believes Strawter didn’t understand publishing when he acquired BLAC , and that disorganization and lack of communication contributed to the breakdown.

“You have somebody publishing a magazine who has no idea what actually goes into publishing a magazine,”

Several BLAC magazine covers. The publicatione has seen a chaotic run under new owner Billy Strawter Jr.

COURTESY PHOTOS

says Hutson. “It’s great that he wanted to save it, because I think his heart was in the right place, he wanted to save a brand that meant a lot to Detroit, but it was deceitful and malicious — and that was on her end, not him.”

The “her” in question is Victoria Webb, who, according to BLAC ’s website, is the publication’s director of operations. According to her LinkedIn, Webb also serves as president of MILO, the marketing agency founded by Strawter that also handles the creative direction at BLAC

Webb’s name was mentioned by several sources that agreed to speak with Metro Times, who say Strawter had the creative ideas, but Webb was truly the business. Due to signing a nondisclosure agreement upon being hired at BLAC , two sources spoke with Metro Times under anonymity.

“Victoria is silently behind everything. You know how there’s someone behind, like a puppeteer, I would say it’s like that,” says a former BLAC employee who worked at the publication right after Strawter’s acquisition. “Billy doesn’t seem to really move without Victoria’s say-so.”

According to another ex-BLAC employee, Webb often had a lot to say — and most times did so in a belittling manner.

“I left because of her,” says the former staffer. he sent me the rudest email, and Billy didn’t say anything — she’s a terrible person. She’s his boss. Billy runs it, but she’s truly the boss.”

Metro Times reached out to Webb for comment but has not received a response by deadline.

In August 2022, Strawter found himself in Detroit’s 36th District Court as Courtney Wise-Randolph, a former

BLAC freelance writer, filed a civil claim against him for non-payment.

hen I first told him I’d have to take him to court, he owed me more than $3,000. By the time we got to court, it was closer to $1,100,” WiseRandolph says in texts with Metro Times. “He still hasn’t paid the judgment in full, but rather than owe me thousands now, he owes $83.01. For my own sanity, I’m letting it go. I haven’t filed the paperwork to say he’s satisfied the udgment though, because he hasn’t.”

Unpaid invoices and late payments were not limited to BLAC ’s direct employees and freelance reporters. It was also extended to contracted third-party workers.

In June 2020, two months after his acquisition, Strawter hired Kate AbbeyLambertz and Ashley Woods Branch of Detour Detroit to launch and produce BLAC Friday, a custom newsletter that would be published by BLAC and sent to subscribers weekly. (Full disclosure: This reporter worked for BLAC via the Detour partnership at the time, but never experienced issues with nonpayment since payment was through Detour.)

In a statement to Metro Times, Abbey-Lambertz and Woods Branch say their partnership with BLAC ended in January 2022 after issues with invoices and lack of communication with Strawter.

“Detour Detroit entered into a relationship with BLAC Media in June 2020 to launch and produce a custom email newsletter product published by BLAC Detroit,” Abbey-Lambertz and Woods Branch tell Metro Times in a joint statement. “We had a productive and collegial working relationship with BLAC

Shef eld to advocate Cariol’s anti-police brutality ordinance

FOLLOWING THE BRUTAL death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Detroit City ouncil resident ary heffield plans to support an ordinance that would re uire police officers to intervene if another officer is using e cessive force.

In the next couple of weeks, Sheffield’s office tells Metro Times that the council president plans to discuss introducing Cariol’s Law, which would obligate officers to stop police brutality such as the incident that led to Nichols’s death during a Jan. 7 traffic stop in emphis.

he city of uffalo first adopted Cariol’s Law in 2020.

The ordinance is named after Cariol Horne, who was forced out of the Buf-

and the talented, hardworking writers working for the outlet, but experienced multiple instances of late payments and communication issues regarding missing invoices as the relationship progressed.”

Detour officially ended the partnership with BLAC last year as it prepared to merge with Outlier Media.

BLAC ’s track record for not paying its freelancers or employees on time was brought to the attention of Detroit’s chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (Detroit NABJ). After the board was made aware of the allegations and a court case in favor of one contributor, Detroit NABJ emailed a letter to Strawter stating that they will not recommend any reporters work at BLAC until the issue has been resolved. The executive board sent that letter in December and tells Metro Times that it still has not received a response from Strawter or any BLAC representative.

“I think we knew of two cases when we drafted and sent the letter. Since the letter was sent to him, and our closed members page, I have heard of at least two or three similar stories, but we have not heard from him,” says Vincent D. McCraw, president of Detroit NABJ. “Our position is that when people do work for an organization or a news outlet, they deserve to be paid. If their work is not used, they should be paid a kill fee or something. But to just not pay people is not workable. Our position in the letter stands. We’re not going to be recommending people to work for BLAC magazine, we will not change that position.”

Despite conditions and unfair treatment all former employees Metro Times spoke with say they received at BLAC ,

they each say they wanted to put the past behind them for their own mental health and wellness. They have all moved on to other endeavors, each expressing disappointment with this tarnishing of BLAC ’s legacy. For Hutson, her immediate future includes training and mentoring young Black Detroit journalists. She also recently began an apprenticeship for high school students where she teaches them the fundamentals of journalism while showing them how to enter the freelance market and network with others in the industry.

“My dream is bigger than BLAC — that’s what kept me going,” she says. “I’m focused on moving as many kids into the field as I possibly can. hey’re not going to have to figure it out as they go along. I’m going to give them the path, I’m going to give them the route to help them — one person at a time.”

As for BLAC , though emails for comment sent by Metro Times remain unanswered, the outlet recently posted a call for pitches on its LinkedIn page as it acknowledged the structural changes that are happening.

“BLAC is entering a new chapter. While there have been some leadership changes, we remain committed to shining a light on Black Life, Arts & Culture, as we have for 22 years, and addressing issues that are important to our community from our perspective,” a message attributed to Strawter reads. “There are many diverse and brilliant voices and stories yet to come. If you have new business openings, product spotlights, restaurants, musicians, or artists that you would like to see covered, our doors are always open.”

Metro Times reached out to Strawter for comment. He did not respond by deadline.

falo Police Department for trying to stop excessive force.

In addition to establishing a legal re uirement for officers to intervene, the ordinance also protects whistleblower cops, creates a reportable registry, and requires an external investigation and mandated reprimands for abuse or misconduct.

“I pledge to do my part to strengthen our ability as a society to identify and remove officers who violate the rights of the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect, heffield said in a statement. “In that [vein], I will be immediately revisiting passing Cariol’s Law in Detroit to help combat this type of misconduct in our

Police Department.”

heffield called ichols’s death “a tragic reminder that despite the strides we have made with respect to fighting for our humanity as a people, we still have much work to do to en-

sure that Black Lives Matter.”

Following Nichols’s death, Black lawmakers also called on the Michigan Legislature to revive a package of bills intended to curb police brutality.

—Steve Neavling

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backBringmy girl

Orion Story talks

RuPaul’sDragRace and her mother’s suicide ahead of Dirty Show performance

Orion Story was broke and broken when she ew to os ngeles to be on RuPaul’s Drag Race eyond having no money, the rand apids drag ueen was going through withdrawal and dealing with her mother’s suicide. o put it simply, she was straight up unprepared.

e were in uarantine in our hotel rooms for a week before filming and I was so stressed out, she remembers. I had nothing. I was still working on my costumes and wigs in the hotel room and definitely wasn’t as prepared as I could have been, but I did the best I could with what I had.

inning the show would have made for a great story of triumph with the odds so stacked against her, but she got eliminated on the first episode of her season and was brought back for a sec ond chance only to sashay away for good in episode five.

In case you aren’t huge fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race like we are, let us catch you up right uick. rion tory was the first ichigan ueen to compete on the iconic reality show for a chance at being crowned merica’s e t rag uperstar. he was on season of the mmy ward winning show.

etting eliminated in the first epi sode is every ueen’s worst nightmare, but rion tory had a feeling she wasn’t actually getting sent home. hen she got harsh criti ues on her final episode and had to go up against the lip sync assassin orgeous, however, she knew her time was up, forreal this time.

I didn’t know orgeous before the show, so I didn’t know what kind of entertainer she was, she remembers.

nd then I saw her practicing in the workroom and I said, h, yeah, I’m going home.’

or someone who was born in rand apids and spent most of their life between the eer ity and nearby pring ake, making it on the show was a dream although a frightening and stressful one.

utting yourself from the middle of nowhere, ichigan, to . . in front of cameras and millions of people, is very nerve racking, she says.

s a teenager, rion tory who’s real name is hance ambert) says she would make her own costumes and style wigs from arty ity.

I guess I was ust subconsciously preparing myself for the show, she says with a laugh. It’s always kind of been there in a way. I have so many pic tures of me when I was with shirts and towels on my head as wigs, and I remember back in the day when I had a cassette player I would perform for my family to ritney pears and come up with my own choreography. hey ust knew I was going to be in show business.

BY RANDIAH CAMILLE GREEN DAVID MARTINEZ

ventually, rion and her mother started watching Drag Race together, and it was her mom who began encouraging her to start doing drag and audition for the show.

It was our thing, she says. e wouldn’t watch it without each other, and she’d always say, I could see you doing that. I could see you going on the show and winning, and being super successful.’ nd I was ust kind of like, yeah, whatever.

ut after her mother’s struggle with bipolar disorder ended in suicide by drug overdose, rion tory started performing drag as a tribute to her.

tory is her mother’s maiden name, and rion ust sounded whimsical in front of it, she says.)

I was actually going to school for audio engineering at the time, but then after my mom passed away, I kind of ust started doing drag), she says. It was a way to feel close to my mom again because every time I would do drag, everyone was like, h my god, you look e actly like your mom.’ hat’s what really started fueling it for me. I’m not, like, a religious person, but I feel like my mom has always been kind of here with me.

he decided to audition for Drag Race and got casted on her first try at years old. he now year old ueen had only been doing drag for about a year and a half at the time, but had already won several pageants and gone on tour.

he says she was also struggling with substance abuse, and knew getting on the show was her last chance to turn her life around.

I needed to make changes in my life and it was now or never, she says. I decided I don’t want to waste any more time. hen I ew out for Drag Race is when I ust stopped everything cold turkey and it was rough.

he adds, he best things that you can do for yourself are when you’re scared. I kind of already knew if I audi tioned, I’d get on, but I also knew that I wasn’t ready for it. till, I don’t regret it because I needed to do it.

atching the show after it aired in anuary , rion tory says she reali ed she was holding back because she wasn’t in the right mindset. n the show, she often seemed da ed and reserved.

uring Drag Race, I had such a huge wall up, she says. specially after my mom died is kind of when I started building these walls. I was suppressing a lot of my emotions during Drag Race I remember having a conversation with e a kye) when we were getting ready in the mirror and I was telling her I hadn’t been able to cry in years. It was hard for me to allow myself to feel emo tions.

he continues, It was a little bit of

me grieving, but it was moreso, h shit, this is happening and I’m doing this because of my mom and I want to make her proud.’ he pressure ust really stressed me out.

ot being as e perienced as the other girls, rion tory still hadn’t figured out who she was, either.

ack home everyone tells you how ama ing and sickening and talented you are, and then you get there and you’re literally competing with the best of the best, she says. hese are really big personalities who have been doing it for a long time and they’ve established brands for themselves.

hen here’s little old me. I didn’t really have a sense of what my brand was, I was ust kind of like, ere I am, and this is my drag.’

ow she understands her purpose on the show wasn’t to win, but to pro cess her grief.

fter filming ended, I was fine and then it started airing and watching it back brought back a lot of negative emotions. I was really depressed, she says. hen you’re watching yourself go through all this emotional baggage in front of millions of people, it’s very overwhelming, but I’m grateful for it. ne of the best things I got from the show was the ability to be myself and ust be free again. atching myself be so guarded has allowed me to drop a lot of walls down and be more open to my emotions not ust the good ones but the bad ones too, because that’s what makes us human.

he adds, I have never felt as happy and free and like myself as I have lately and it’s really all because of Drag Race, honestly.

ow, she confidently describes her style of drag as if you took arbarella and put her on a runway in Sesame Street.

I love very weird and campy art and fashion, but still very vintage glamor, she says. It’s like a good combination of all of that. I love puppets and mak ing puppets and I ust love things that make my neurodivergent brain happy so very bright colors, fun, humor, ust being stupid and allowing myself to get ugly.

he plans on bringing her glamorous comedy to this year’s irty how with all new numbers every night.

I’m definitely planning on turning it out, she says with sass. I’m used to people discounting me, but it doesn’t bother me because I’m cool as fuck and I know I’m the shit.

The Dirty Show runs p.m.-2 a.m. Feb. 10-11 and 18-18 at the Russell Industrial Center; 1600 Clay St., Detroit; see full schedule of events at dirtydetroit.com. Tickets start at $45, ages 21 and older only.

The RAUNCHY WORLD of Mitch O’Connell

The Dirty Show’s featured artist loves all things retro and weird — and titillating

BY LEE DEVITO

As a kid growing up in metro e troit and nn rbor, artist itch ’ onnell fondly recalls family trips to the I , where he would stare in wonder at iego iviera’s murals and catch screenings of monster movies like Dracula and Frankenstein ow based in hicago, ’ onnell turned his childhood appreciation of art and especially all things retro and weird into a career. n illustra tor and fine artist known for ris u de signs, ’ onnell has become a fi ture at etroit’s erotic art festival, the irty how, and this year has been highlight ed as the event’s featured artist.

I’ve always en oyed kitschy, o eat

things, he tells Metro Times. “Nowa days, I’ll go to the ea markets and I’ll post my finds on Instagram, ust look ing for the weird, the surreal, the se ist, the se y, the strange ust things that you look at and wonder how they were ever made in the first place.

’ onnell keeps a at file full of inspiration as we speak by phone, he ri es through a collection of photos of burles ue performer turned actress hesty organ, known for starring in movies like Double Agent 73 . he title is a reference to her natural, inch bust.)

ou have to be sitting when you see it because otherwise you would fall off

you fall on the ground because it’s so just god-awfully bad, but like, badly good,” he says. “But I’m happy those things exist.”

In his own work, O’Connell has arrived at a style that is titillating without being too explicit, drawing from comic books, pin-ups, and circus sideshows. His images have been published in major publications including Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and GQ

O’Connell says he has his mother to thank for setting him on this path.

“My mom probably made me full of myself, because she was always very encouraging and very attering to anything I ever did,” he says, adding, “All I did was draw. There was no backup plan where I’m going to be a fireman or something. and I think that’s helped with a career where you either sink or swim, because you only have one thing going for you.”

Like many kids, O’Connell says he initially had dreams of becoming a comic book illustrator, and honed his skills studying artists like Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluda, and Barry Windsor-Smith. He enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and as a teenager made trips to New York City, cold-calling art directors to show them his portfolio. Eventually, an art director at Heavy Metal magazine liked an image he made enough to put it on the cover — an early lesson that O’Connell could make money doing this.

“She said, ‘Well, we’ll pay you $500 for the cover,’” he recalls. “I was probably 18 at the time, and I said, ‘Fantastic!’ I was beside myself. And then she calmly slowed down and said, ‘No, how we do this is I say $500, you say $1,000, and then we settle at $750.’ So then she said, ‘I’ll pay you $750.’”

O’Connell later transferred to Chicago’s American Academy of Art, but dropped out after three semesters once he started making a steady living with illustration work, landing gigs with publications like Playboy, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times. It was a fast-paced career that O’Connell says taught him even more.

“As an illustrator, I would do whatever the job entailed,” he says. “It was kind of like those words of wisdom that you hear for actors — they ask if you could ride a horse, and you say yes, and then you go learn how to ride a horse. It’s the same thing when people ask, ‘Can you draw this?’”

After years of executing ideas for other people — and as the publishing industry shrunk — O’Connell segued into a fine arts career, doing gallery shows and making prints to sell at pop culture conventions.

“Instead of me waiting for an ideal job that I’m excited to do, I’m pretty much

just drawing what I would love to get as a job, and doing it as a screen print,” he says. Lately, he’s partnered with Chicago’s Screwball Press to make pop-art posters using uorescent inks that glow under black lights, and is also working on making them as classic ocked ’ s style posters.

“It was just like, ‘How can I go over the top, and then go over the top, and over the top,’” he says. “Once you go blacklight, you can’t go back. And once I go ocked I can’t stop from being ocked.

O’Connell has three children, with

the youngest tagging along to pop culture conventions to help him sell merch. He says he’s open with his kids about what he does for a living, which keeps him from drawing anything X-rated. (O’Connell made an exception for a series of comics based on the exploits of ex-President Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels in the style of “Tijuana Bibles,” or pornographic pocket-sized books popular in the early 20th century. “I’m so happy I’m not doing it anymore now, because it really becomes tiresome,” he says with relief.)

“I think they keep me reined in. I don’t

want to draw stuff that I’d be embarrassed to show my own kid,” he says. “So that makes you think harder. like, how can I be more clever, trying to make that same point?”

O’Connell says he made his first appearance in the Dirty Show about a decade ago. For a few years, he curated a mini-exhibition inside the festival called “the Dirty Needle,” a collection of erotic tattoo ash illustrations.

“It’s a wonderful show,” he gushes. “It’s so much fun. It’s my favorite gallery show. You can’t go to a more over-thetop event than the Dirty Show, because everybody’s waving their freak ag. e adds, I’m doing stuff I love. I’m always just trying to share the joy of these crazy images.”

The Dirty Show runs p.m.-2 a.m. Feb. 10-11 and 18-18 at the Russell In dustrial Center; 1600 Clay St., Detroit; see full schedule of events at dirty detroit.com. Tickets start at $45, ages 21 and older only.

Artist Mitch O’Connell is the Dirty Show’s featured artist.

Eartha Kitten takes the stage

How one Detroit dancer is challenging burlesque norms

If you type “burlesque dancer” into Google, you’ll see several faces are shown in the results: Dita Von Teese, Dixie Evans, Gypsy Rose Lee, Angie Pontani, and Tempest Storm. One thing you’ll notice is that most of the burlesque artists shown in the top results are white women, and there’s only one Black woman shown among the group — Josephine Baker.

In Michigan, the burlesque community can look the same as those Google search results, with predominantly nonBlack performers on the marquee and iers for those seductive showcases.

Enter Eartha Kitten, a Black, curvy burlesque artist who grew up splitting her time between Detroit and Southfield. he noticed some showcases were only hiring one or two carefully selected non-white performers, so when she began to produce her own burlesque

BY ALEX WASHINGTON

shows, she moved with intention. he first show that I produced, it was a 90% Black cast, and that was very intentional, because I want you all to know that we’re here, we’re not going anywhere, she says. nd if I can find a way to make my show this diverse, and it was my first one, you really don’t have any excuse. There’s a reason why when Black people come to burlesque shows, they’re so excited to see a Black performer, period. It doesn’t matter the size or what they’re doing, it’s like they’re just ready to see a Black person because they want to see themselves represented.”

Eartha Kitten is no stranger to the stage. Long before she was doing sultry stage shows, Kitten was a theater student. he oined a film club in middle school, which helped grow her interest in theatrical arts, and by high school,

she had joined the theater club there. I went to outhfield athrup igh School, and I started doing theater there and took it extremely seriously,” she says. “That was what I wanted to do with my life — I was going to just either teach theater or become a super efficient stage manager. That was the path that I thought my life was gonna take.”

She adds, “I was a theater nerd. I definitely remember being the one who was like, crying if a scene didn’t go the right way. Mind you, I wasn’t on stage, I was the student director, but I was just so detail-oriented and wanted it to go as smoothly as possible.”

Eartha Kitten’s journey into burlesque began in 2017, when she attended Speakeasy Sunday, a burlesque show at liff ell’s produced by olly Hock. Kitten went to the show to support a friend who began their burlesque

ourney. It was her first time attending a show, and she wasn’t sure what to expect, but she says the feeling of seeing the costumes and performances reminded her of the theater, and gave her that same feeling that plays and musicals did.

“I didn’t know what I was going to see. he first act comes out, and in burlesque we go down to pasties, and the first time it happened, I was like, kind of taken aback. I was like, ‘Oh, OK, so we’re seeing boobs and butt all night,’” Kitten says. “By the end of that show, I was hooked. It was like I was e periencing theater for the first time again, I just wanted to soak it all in. It just grabbed me, and it kind of awoke that creativity that was always there, but I never had a chance to express it. After I saw it enough times, I was like, ‘No, I know that I want to do this,’ so I put it into motion.”

By the end of 2018, Eartha Kitten began performing as a burlesque artist, and began to make a name for herself the following year. During that time, as Kitten is growing herself as an artist and navigating the world of burlesque, she did have moments where she compared herself to her thinner, non-Black, more experienced counterparts. She says really learning herself as an artist, and being honest about who she was and what she represented, really helped give her the strength and focus to continue to learn and practice the craft.

“I’m not going to be Dita Von Teese, ever. I’m not going to be XYZ, skinny, white, more dance-capable, or whatever-capable,” Kitten says. “I could spend all this time comparing myself to these people, and pointing out everything they are, that I’m not. Or I can understand that I am somebody who needs to be seen a little bit more, and needs to revel in the fact that as a fat, Black dancer from Detroit, I need to be just as much in love with my body as everyone else can be.”

Despite the challenges, Kitten says she has gained a lot from doing burlesque. One of the things she loves most about the art is how femmeforward the setting is. She says while anyone can do burlesque, she appreciates the artform that allows women to succeed and take the lead. She also says she’s personally grown in ways since taking the stage nearly five years ago.

I’m a totally different person, confidence wise, and advocating for myself wise, than I was before I even started going to burlesque shows,” Kitten says. “I dress a lot better now, I dress for my body because I really like my body, so I actually wear things that look really good on me.”

Eartha Kitten says becoming a burlesque performer taught her to love herself.

Sex sells

After 30 years, Lover’s Lane still keeps things spicy

Walk into a Lover’s Lane store these days, and you’ll find plenty of the lingerie the sex shops are known for — along with high heels, dildos, vibrators, ropes, handcuffs, nipple clamps, ball gags, chastity cages, riding crops, and cock rings. The stores also sell greeting cards — and lubrication. “We’re lube central,” co-founder and vice president ichael llmond says. e sell a shitload of lube.”

In recent years, Lover’s Lane has e panded into offering products like smartphone controlled se toys.

“High-tech’s where it’s at right now, baby llmond says. ou know, you and your lover can be on two sides of the world, and he’s controlling your toy, or she’s controlling your toy. We’ve got toys for boys and toys for girls.”

he lymouth based chain celebrated its th anniversary in ecember, and llmond says much has changed since the company opened its first store.

“When we opened, there were still all the peep shops with adult videos and viewing booths all over the place,” he says. o we were an anomaly. hile other sex shops could have “dirty” reputations, lmond says, over’s ane aimed to normali e the e perience by opening well-lit stores in suburban shopping malls.

llmond says he was inspired by his sister, who had spent a decade hosting home lingerie parties where women could buy sexy underwear in the comfort of their own homes. he first

BY LEE DEVITO

Lover’s Lane store opened at Ford and Wayne Roads in Westland, and within a year the company added locations in Roseville and Pontiac.

e never looked back, llmond says. “We opened three stores a year for easily a do en years.

He says the chain now has nearly 40 stores across the Midwest, with the Chicago area serving as its largest market and metro etroit the second largest. In 2021, Lover’s Lane expanded into the leveland market, ac uiring a similar chain called mbiance.

llmond says over the years, the company has faced plenty of opposition when it opened new stores, though he says its most recent lymouth location got the least amount of pushback. he chain closed its original Westland store last year when it opened the nearby lymouth store its distribution center and corporate head uarters are also in lymouth.)

“A lot of people want to put us into the bucket that we’re an adult store,” llmond says. e don’t generally meet the threshold of being an adult store. We don’t sell or rent pornography.”

It probably also helps that the store has marketed itself over the years with the wholesome sounding motto couples that play together stay together,” shortened in recent years to “play together, stay together.”

llmond says he sees the company’s sales oor staff as not ust salespeople but couples counselors.

heir ob title is romance special-

ist,’ so they’re trained in how to listen to customers, he says. e hear more than a doctor will hear most of the time, when it comes to issues, or problems, or how-tos. A lot of things we do help our customers with their relationships.

He adds, “We pride ourselves on that they’re very approachable. They listen and they direct you to what you need, or what you’re trying to achieve.”

llmond says that the company has benefited from various pop culture moments throughout the years, including media that discuss se ual topics like Sex and the City and 50 Shades of Grey I mean, you couldn’t walk through an airport and go by a newsstand without seeing a pile of those books, llmond says. “That really lit up our sales.”

e adds, eople are more open minded now.

During the business shutdowns spurred by the I pandemic, the company used the downtime as an opportunity to update its online shopping e perience and implement a curbside pickup system, which customers have appreciated for its convenience and privacy.

“It cost us a lot, but it really pays dividends, llmond says. e adds that the company has en oyed steady growth in the aftermath of the pandemic.

“People are getting back in tune with their relationships,” he says. “People are traveling less, dining out less. COVID gave very few options for entertainment. e became benefactors of that.”

llmond says that sales tend to be driven by holidays like hristmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Sweetest Day, even a little bit of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, birthdays, and anniversaries, he says), and the lingerie displayed on manne uins in the stores’ windows is updated each season to keep things fresh. he company is also on constant lookout for the latest trends.

“Now that we’re 30 years old, it’s a struggle to keep it fresh, ust like any relationship!” he says. “We’re doing our best.”

llmond says the stores are also a favorite destination for new lovebirds. he first time a couple comes to Lover’s Lane, you can tell because they’re giggling,” he says. “It’s a fun environment to e perience, especially if it’s your first trip. fter a while you get used to it. our barriers come down, you know the salespeople are approachable. he company also has a re uent over loyalty program that offers discounts and coupons on birthdays and anniversaries.

llmond says the company offers competitive benefits to its workers, and many tend to stay for many years. egan atterfield, a district sales manager who handles the ichigan market, has been with the company for multiple stints since its early years, starting in metro etroit and eventually moving to the Virgin Islands to help run a former outpost on aint homas. fter that store closed, atterfield knew she wanted to stay with the company.

hen I moved back to ichigan, it was my first call, she says. I wanted to come back to a company that I love.

atterfield says she first took the ob as a young woman because she thought it would be a fun place to work. She says the good the company does has caused her to stay.

or me personally, I ust love the company, she says. I love what we stand for. I love the fact that we’re all about love, whether it’s love with a partner, whether it’s love for yourself.”

She says she has seen the culture around talking about sex change since she has started at Lover’s Lane.

I definitely think that se ual health and wellness is more of a conversation now than it used to be,” she says. “I don’t think that it is taboo, and it’s OK to talk about sexual health and wellness. It’s actually not ust , but it’s healthy.”

More information is available at loverslane.com.

COURTESY PHOTO

Sex shop chain Lover’s Lane recently opened its latest Michigan store in Plymouth.

WHAT’S GOING ON

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

Thursday, Feb. 9

MUSIC

Live/Concert

Dan Rodriguez 8:30 p.m.; 20 Front Street, 20 Front St., Lake Orion; $30.

HomeGrown Sounds presents Frank and Cora + Ben Traverse 6 p.m.; HomeGrown Brewing Co., 28 N. Washington St., Oxford; $15-$20.

Kofi Baker’s Cream Faith 7-11:30 p.m.; The Parliament Room at Otus Supply, 345 E Nine Mile Rd., Ferndale; $15. Maysa 8 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $44-$57.

Orianthi 6 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $25.

Within Destruction 6 p.m.; Sanctuary etroit, aniff t., amtramck $15.

Dan Rodriguez 8:30 p.m.; 20 Front Street, 20 Front St., Lake Orion; $30.

SPORTS Hockey

Little Caesars Arena Detroit Red Wings vs. Calgary Flames $55-$295.25 Feb. 9, 7 p.m.

Friday, Feb. 10

Live/Concert

Dan Rodriguez 8:30 p.m.; 20 Front Street, 20 Front St., Lake Orion; $30.

Second Fridays Jazz Music

Series ft. Sky Covington 7-11 p.m.; Psychedelic Healing Shack and Vegetarian Cafe, 18700 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $25.

Brother Cane 7 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $140.

Cassian 9 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $15.

DARUDE 9:30 p.m.; Elektricity Nightclub, 15 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac; $20. Hotel California (Eagles Tribute) 8 p.m.; McMorran Place, 701 McMorran Blvd., Port Huron; $32-$35.

Noah Kahan: The Stick Season 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $29.50-$55.

Casket Lottery, Taking Meds, Up All Hours 6:30 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit,

aniff, amtramck .

The Reefermen 30 Years All Star Reunion with Shadow Show 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25.

Washed Out (DJ Set) 9 p.m.; Leland City Club, 400 Bagley St., Detroit; $20.

COMEDY

Improv

Go Comedy! Improv Theater AllStar Showdown. $20. Every other Friday, 8 & 10 p.m.; $20 8 & 10 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant Robert Kelly Live. $20 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. $20 advance / $25 door. MGM Grand Detroit Marlon Wayans Starting at $59. 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant The Sh*t Show Open Mic. 11 p.m..

DANCE

Dance performance

Performance Studio Theatre Black Scholars in Dance presents An Evening for Sarah, a concert in honor of the civil rights activist and survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Sarah Collins Rudolph. 7 p.m.

SPORTS

Basketball

Little Caesars Arena Detroit Pistons vs. San Antonio Spurs $24-$2,215.50. 7 p.m.

MUSIC

Saturday, Feb. 11

Live/Concert

Captain Fantastic - A Tribute to Elton John 7 p.m.; Diesel Concert ounge, ile d., hesterfield $20.

CRAZY BABIES: Ozzy Tribute / POWERAGE - AC/DC Tribute / CHIT 7 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15.

Fantasia & Joe 8 p.m.; Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $59-$250. Honeycomb and Jason Leech at Tangent Gallery 8 p.m.; Tangent Gallery & Hastings Street Ballroom, 715 E. Milwaukee Ave., Detroit; $20.

Jim McCarty & Mystery Train

Live in Concert 8-11 p.m.; Gray’s Opera House, 231 N. Main St., Romeo; $12. Laura Rain and the Caesars 8-11 p.m.; Cornerstone Village Bar & Grille,

Beyoncé is bringing Renaissance to Detroit

WHO RUN THE world? Beyoncé.

Beyoncé announced last week that she’s taking her highly acclaimed Renaissance album on a worldwide tour that will stop in Detroit on July 26 at Ford Field.

We can and will get it tatted if we want to but can’t promise that we won’t hurt nobody.

The “Renaissance World Tour” kicks off in ay in tockholm, Sweden, and makes its way through Europe and the U.S. before wrapping up in July in Philadelphia,

17315 Mack Ave., Detroit; 15$.

Mitchell Tenpenny 8 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $30-$75.

Mouth for War, No Cure, Loose Cannon 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 aniff t., amtramck .

One Ton Trolley WSG John Gerrometta 8 p.m.; 20 Front Street, 20 Front St., Lake Orion; $15.

Painfully 90’s 7-11:30 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $12-15.

Strange Waves — an alternative dance party 9 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $3.

The Taylor Party: A Taylor Swift Night (18+) 8 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $15.

Francois K 9 p.m.; Marble Bar, 1501 Holden St., Detroit; $20.

Intangible Soundworks with Terrence Parker, Jessi Kay, and DJ MoReese 9 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $15.

Late Night @ Willis Show Bar 10 p.m.; Willis Show Bar, 4156 Third St., Detroit; $5.

according to dates posted on the singer’s website.

Beyoncé’s 2022 Renaissance album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 albums list. It’s a danceable vogue album celebrating queer culture with bangers like “Alien Superstar,” “Break My Soul,” and uff It.

Bey’s last Detroit performance was in 2018 with her husband Jay-Z. Her last solo show in the city was at Ford Field in 2016.

—Randiah Camille Green

THEATER Performance

The Music Box Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Open Book Theatre Company Nollywood Dreams. $30.

Tipping Point Theatre Loy A. Webb’s The Light. $28-$48.

COMEDY Improv

Go Comedy! Improv Theater AllStar Showdown. $20 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant 8:30 p.m. $15.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant The Sh*t Show Open Mic. 11 p.m.

ART

Russell Industrial ComplexExhibition Center Dirty Show. $45. 7 p.m.

SPORTS Hockey

Little Caesars Arena Duel In The D $69-$355.25 noon.; $25-$65 8 p.m.

SHUTTERSTOCK

MUSIC

Sunday, Feb. 12

Live/Concert

Precordial Thump, Backstabber, Splinters, Mass Death, Yaksaw 7 p.m. anctuary etroit, aniff t., Hamtramck; $10.

Sunday Jam Sessions Hosted by Sky Covington & Friends 8 p.m.-midnight; Woodbridge Pub, 5169 Trumbull St., Detroit; Donation.

COMEDY

Improv

Go Comedy! Improv Theater Fresh Sauce. $10. 7 p.m.

MUSIC

Monday, Feb. 13

Live/Concert

Token 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $22.50.

THEATER

Performance

Theatre NOVA “The Language Archive” by Julia Cho. Feb. 26.

Stand-up

Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy. 8 p.m. Free.

Tuesday, Feb. 14

MUSIC

Live/Concert

Alter Bridge - Pawns & Kings

Tour 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $29.50-$75.

Rookie Of The Year with Cedars, City Under Siege and Mighty Vices 6:30 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

THEATER

Musical

Jagged Little Pill (Touring) 8 p.m.; Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd, Detroit; $39-$13.

COMEDY

Standup

Go Comedy! Improv Theater

XOXOXO: The Valentine Comedy Extravaganza: A one-night-only variety show. With stand-up comedy from Sam Rager. $14. 8-9:15 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle Bill Bushart’s Valentine Stand-up Special. With Danielle Bentzley, Tim Reabur, Mary Spencer, Melanie Hearn, Noah Chapp, Carl Johnson, Richard Mathis $10. 7:30-9 p.m.

Local buzz

By Broccoli and

sion to the evening. This is sure to be a hot ticket, so we recommend buying tickets ahead of time via Paxahau.

—Joe Zimmer

band is a can’t-miss.

—Joe Zimmer

FULLBODYDURAG keeps it

Detroit love is real love: “Detroit Love” is a nearly 10-year-old concept from Carl Craig, “designed to bring together and support the sounds of Detroit and take a little of the techno brotherhood to clubs and festivals the world over,” according to the artist. Since its inception, Craig has taken the party on tour to nearly every corner of the globe, bringing along with him fellow innovators like Moodymann, Juan Atkins, Stacey ullen, and eff ills. his aturday, Feb. 11, Craig will return to Detroit Love’s homebase TV Lounge for an extra lovely night, with special guest DJ Seth Troxler. Troxler needs little introduction after coming up in the local rave scene of the late ’90s and early ’00s, running his own record labels and touring internationally. Expect him to play an inventive and playful mix of Detroit and Chicago’s signature electronic sounds. Local support from Erno and Father Dukes will add an extra dose of pas -

Debut EP from Day Residue: The DIY-punk label Painters Tapes, as the name implies, releases EPs and compilations on cassette from a bevy of hard rock and experimental synth and punk acts. The roster includes a mix of local but also international acts, with a healthy output of releasing new tapes nearly every month. Most recently, punk noisemakers Day Residue released their debut, selftitled EP on a run of 100 tapes. Last year, the band grew a reputation for their blistering live performances, sharing bills with local DIY luminaries like Tyvek, Deadbeat Beat, Milk Bath, and more. The 5-song EP rips, shreds, and hits you right between the eyes, with memorable lyrics and clamoring yet melodic guitar lines indebted to the great garage-punk lineage for which Detroit is known. Tapes and digital copies are available for purchase via Painters Tapes’ Bandcamp, or Day Residue’s Bandcamp pages. Keep an eye out for their next show — this

FXHE: FXHE records has been home to Omar S’s prolific output for the last two decades, with other artists appearing seldomly. However, in recent years the label has been shining a light more on the new avor coming out of Detroit’s underground. A fresh generation of musicians and DJs who are certainly inspired by Omar’s DIY spirit and no-fucks-given attitude, but also take inspiration from the likes of ghettotech, Chicago footwork, Jersey club, and experimental hip-hop. This column’s favorite Hi Tech are a great example, as well as sultry singer SuperCoolWicked and cold-wave punk act Decliner

The label’s latest release comes from producer FULLBODYDURAG with the song “She’s Gotta Attitude.”

The track is quick and to the point, and evidence of more greatness to come out of this fertile underground scene. Follow FXHE records for more throughout this year — I know I will be. You can stream “She’s Gotta Attitude” everywhere, and buy it via Omar S/FXHE’s Bandcamp page.

—Joe Zimmer

Joe Zimmer

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

Day Residue. TAYLOR LYNN WILDER

MUSIC

‘It’s spiritual’ Singer

Dominique Mary Davis stays rooted in her element

By Kahn Santori Davison

Dominique Mary Davis is halfway through her set at Willis Show Bar in Detroit’s Midtown on a recent cold winter night. She smiles, she sings, and she laughs. She then begins to talk to the crowd about a former love interest.

“You know how you date somebody you know you shouldn’t be dating, but do it anyway?” she says. “That’s what this song ‘Dangerous Man’ is about.”

Her small talk is cute and overwhelmingly likable. There’s an easy energy and commonality in her stage presence that draws the audience in. Davis released “Dangerous Man” more than a year ago, and it has become one of her most popular and requested songs.

“It’s about a guy I was in a situationship with that really just wasn’t supposed to be there, but it still was enticing because it was one of those, ‘it felt right but it felt wrong,’ and all that,” she says days later, sitting in an Hamtramck apartment. “I had to write about him. I write about all my experiences, so he had to get a song and it just happened to be everybody’s favorite song. He was a great guy, he taught me a few things, but it was very short-lived and it was very unnecessary,” she adds through a laugh.

Davis was born in Columbia, South Carolina, but moved to Hamtramck when she was three. er musical in uences came from all directions; her mother loved gospel and R&B, and her father was a heavy neo soul fan. She says she fell in love with singing around the same time she learned to read and write.

“I had my revelation early, I knew this is what I was meant to be,” she says. “I’m here to sing, I’m here to write music, I’m here to connect through music.”

Hamtramck has also made an impact on her music and played a significant role in her development.

“I’ve had the opportunity to experience the world’s music right here,” she says. “Growing up when we did, talent shows at the school, they were multicultural shows. You got to listen to what the Bengali kids were doing, I had my crowd, and then you got to listen

to what Bosnian kids were doing, you got to see the dances, taste the food. It gave me sonically a wider range of what sounds good.”

Davis graduated from high school in 2014, and later enrolled at Wayne State University, majoring in business. She happily picked up singing gigs on the side and as time went by, school credits took a backseat to open mics, singing covers, and the overall effort she was putting into music. he was offered stage time at different events for astern Market, she performed at a Democratic arty efferson ackson inner, and even sang the national anthem for newly sworn-in American citizens at Hamtramck’s Polish National Alliance Hall. By 2017, she decided it was time to start recording and releasing music.

“It started naturally,” she says. “I knew a friend that maybe knew how to record and had a little set-up. We were in the back of my apartment, super hot, and we were sweating bullets, but we made a few tracks and I put them on SoundCloud.”

She released the Troubled Waters in 2017 as more of a way to get her feet wet within the recording music process. In 2020 she followed it up with the soulful Elements, a seven-song musical odyssey that encompasses all the transparent parts of her spirit, perspective, and her experiences.

“A motherless child/ I’m too good for this 9 to 5/ I’m better than wanting to die/ I’m over so over his cries/ I don’t know if they are my friends or/ Are they just playing me,” she sings in the opening track, “Scorpio Sun.”

“Elements is a pandemic baby,” she says. “It’s about the elements of how I came to be. he first song corpio Sun’; that’s my sign. ‘Libra Moon,’ ‘Leo Rising’ — there’s a song about my family on there. I’m literally giving everyone their own little shoutout: the way I love, the way I move, the way I see, just the elements.”

Her next project was Rooted, a very concise but powerful four track in which Davis musically continues her self e ploration. er ow and singing live in a unique space between SZA and India.Arie. “Wants Needs” is

her declaration of what she wants from love and in ontrol, her ow is more poetically hip-hop. “Needed something from my soul/ something that I can pack up with me and go somewhere,” she sings.

“Rooted is a beautiful project,” she says. “It’s my musical experience of opening my root chakra. It’s spiritual. We have seven chakras. My experience is understanding how to root myself. It also talks about the guy that made me want to figure out where I’m rooted and what’s going on. My favorite song is ‘Headphones.’ It’s my ode to music. It’s really just me [saying] that is always going to be this right here. At the end of the day, I’m rooted for music.”

As Davis continues to emerge as a woman, so does her style, approach, and aspirations. The things she wants from music are constantly evolving because she’s committed herself to a spiritual path of self-enlightenment. She promises she’s going to go back to Wayne State to get her business

degree, because she wants to fully comprehend and be in control of all aspects of her career on and behind the mic. As she grows as a person, so does her music.

“I’m more mature, I understand patience a lot more than I did before,” she says. “I have been able to let go of wanting everything to be perfect because it isn’t. This Dom is able to adapt faster than she used to. This Dom is more passionate about the sound more than anything. At any point that it becomes more about anything else than the music, this Dom wants no parts.”

You can catch Dominique Mary Davis perform at 10 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11 at Billy’s Lounge; 1437 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids; 616-459-5757; billyslounge.com; tickets are $10. She is also scheduled to perform Friday, Feb. 24 (time TBA) at Tuxedo Bar 11745 Woodward Ave., Highland Park; 11745tuxedo. com; no cover.

KAHN SANTORI DAVISON

A surprisingly lovely fried chicken chain

I hesitated when I saw the name of this place — it sounded ripe for misogyny and bad jokes. But au contraire: whoever is writing copy for the Ex-Wife actually seems pretty fond of owner llie . allad’s former ame (if such a person exists in fact and not just in legend).

Signs in the restaurant proclaim “Can’t Live Without the Chick” and “Ex Knows Best.” The website says, “It’s so good you won’t want to split.” The logo shows a comely woman in a chef’s hat. he signs, the seats, and the staff’s shirts are all pink. We have Rebound Sauce, Love Me Tenders, a Heartbreaker salad, a kids’ section called Child Support, and just one dish that sounds resentful: Cole-Hearted Slaw.

So women, whatever their marital status, can feel comfortable at the amous hicken. In fact, the staff is exceptionally outgoing and cheerful, especially for behind-the-counter workers. Twice they gave us free fries and I ust figured out this minute why those are called Freedom Fries. Yet another divorce joke.

This is not fast food; your sandwich-

By Jane Slaughter

es and salads are made to order. The breasts that go into the sandwiches (it’s all halal white meat) are brined at least 12 hours in a buttermilk mixture, dipped in a fry batter, and pressurecooked.

The spot serves the Hot Chick (customers’ favorite), the Wild Chick, the Boujee Chick, and the Mellow Chick, as well as the Basic Chick with Rebound Sauce. Each comes with its own sauce, whose ingredients are proprietary. Portions are large and juicy, with an appropriate amount of breading.

Of these my favorite too was the Hot Chick, which is spicy but not crazily so, with the Ex-wife’s version of Nashville hot sauce. It comes with slaw and bread-and-butter pickles, so it’s the most Southern. The Boujee is a tiny bit sweet because of the miso honey butter, and dill pickle is prominent. The pickle avor is even more prominent in the Mellow Chick, where the fried green tomato was a great idea, but I couldn’t taste it. The Wild Chick will be your favorite if you like barbecue sauce; the Vidalia onion is a plus and it also includes cheddar and Alabama

white sauce, also a secret recipe.

When I visited, the Heartbreaker salad was not available but it sounds like the Ex-Wife’s company salad: a housemade red-wine vinaigrette on hearts of romaine, pumpkin seeds, quinoa, dried currants, and Parmesan. Not so much the House Wife salad, much more ordinary with iceberg, cheddar, and ranch.

The only drink besides pop is a house-made strawberry lemonade that I can’t recommend: a pinky brown, it tastes of neither of its fruits.

Mackin & Cheese (mackin: “romantic play activity that includes kissing and loving caress ) is fine if not outstanding. It uses a blend of pepper jack, cheddar, and Boursin. The crisp fries are crinkle-cut and do taste like potato, which as you know does not always happen. Once again the spice mix used for dusting is a secret.

Vegan nuggets are made from cauli ower.

For dessert, when I opened the packaging on the strawberry cheesecake — more pink — I got a waft of chemical smell. But on tasting, it

Ex-Wife’s Famous Chicken

22444 Ford Rd., Dearborn Heights

313-880-1180

exwifesfamouschicken.com

Sandwiches $9.50, tenders 2 for $7, salads $8-$10

turned out to be good and creamy; it’s ust more of a red pop avor than a strawberry avor. I preferred the chocolate chip cookie, which is chock full of chunks with a tiny bit of salt. “Cluckin’ best I ever had,” says the wrapper.

There’s a patio right on Ford Road, for when it’s warm enough to go outside again, and there’s another Ex-Wife’s Famous Chicken in Battle Creek, with a third recently opening in Warren, at 32187 Van Dyke Ave. The chain is spreading the love: additional locations are planned for Plymouth, hesterfield, estland, owell, ansing, and Grand Rapids.

Hot Chick with tenders.

COURTESY PHOTO

Detroit’s historic GAR Building to become steakhouse and event space

DETROIT’S GRAND ARMY of the Republic Building has a buyer.

est loomfield based management company Barbat Holdings has pur chased the historic GAR Building, ac cording to an announcement last week.

The company plans to turn the castle like building at rand iver ve. into a steakhouse and event space that will span the building’s five oors. It’s slated to open later this spring and will be operated by the company’s hospitality division, rime oncepts Detroit.

“The new steakhouse concept and event space has been in the works for more than three years,” said Stolion iti, director of operations at rime oncepts etroit, in a media release. “We look forward to sharing this con cept with Detroit and the surrounding community.”

he , s uare foot uild ing was constructed in as a place for ivil ar veterans to gather. It un derwent e tensive renovations between and by brothers om and avid arleton, and ean mery.

“Situated in the heart of the District etroit and rand ircus ark, the GAR Building has been an icon since opening in the late s, oe arbat, chairman and of arbat old ings, said in the release. “We plan to allocate space for a public memorial room that will display many artifacts

Olga’s Kitchen is selling Snackersavored chicken wings

GOING TO OLGA’S Kitchen and not getting an order of Snackers is like going to the beach and not taking a swim. And now there’s a new way to enjoy them.

he metro etroit born chain has announced new additions to its menu, which includes a new spin on its staple item nackers avored chicken wings.

“ lga’s nackers have been a fan favorite menu item for decades and we’re thrilled to take the cravable seasoning fans know and love and add them to wings for a whole new way to en oy a signature lga’s avor, Tom Ruddy, director of culinary and purchasing at lga’s itchen, said in a press release. “Being a more than year old brand, we’re proud of our rich, entrepreneurial history and are embracing the same spirit of innova tion our founder lga had with the new items we’re introducing to our guests.”

that have been left behind to ensure that the building’s historic character is preserved and highlighted. ur team is honored to add this historic landmark to our portfolio of properties.”

The Barbat Holdings portfolio also includes the former Briggs Hotel, the abriel ichard and hilip eudeck buildings, and the ichigan riental heater, which houses an sian res taurant etroit.

Alex Farhat, who leads the culinary

team at etroit, will come on board as e ecutive chef for the new steakhouse alongside general manager and operating partner Alec Kanno. he building previously housed the restaurants arks ec iner and e public, as well as offices for the creative studio indfield. It was listed for sale in .

—Randiah Camille Green

For more info, see barbatholdings.com.

The wings will come in three avors angy , weet oney Sriracha, and Signature Snacker Sea soning. he small platter serves people and allows two avor options while the large platter serves and allows for three avor options.

lso new to the lga’s itchen menu are Brussels sprouts, a Loaded ummus owl, and ower owl.

High-end Korean steakhouse announced for Sakura Novi development

A KOREAN STEAKHOUSE has oined an sian themed mi ed use development in ovi that bills itself as ichigan’s first. ast week, the developers an nounced that the ancing ine Korean Steakhouse is the lat est tenant for the akura ovi project.

he high end restaurant is owned by even ork Inc., which owns other Asian restaurants in metro Detroit including Kimchi o , ae ang eum, omo ushi, he eoul, lue ish sian ui sine, and Mama Satto.

he akura ovi pro ect has a lot of energy and excitement,” owner Min Kyu Kim said in a

statement. “It was the perfect partnership to bring a modern Ko rean e perience into ichi gan. he ancing ine pro ect will be a new and approachable luxury concept for customers. An inclu sive restaurant for the community that does not compromise on taste or experience.”

he akura ovi development is also slated to include high end retail shops and services, town home apartments, and a apanese themed garden with a pond and a public plaza for community events.

It includes a collection of other Asian restaurants that represent a variety of cuisines, including su

—Alex Washington

shi, hot pots, poke, and a bakery. “The goal to bring together authentic complementary avors and cuisines by uality operators is worth the e tra effort and time re uired and makes akura ovi a superb choice for all foodies in the metro etroit area, said devel oper hilip im.

The project is expected to break ground in the spring. An opening date was not announced.

Thanks to metro Detroit’s auto industry, ovi has seen a boom in its Asian population in recent decades, particularly people from apan earning it the nickname “Little Tokyo.”

—Lee DeVito

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Building in 2010.

ALBERT DUCE, WIKIMEDIA CREATIVE COMMONS

WEED

Cannabis delivery drivers keep getting robbed

AN ALARMING NUMBER of canna bis delivery drivers are getting assaulted in ichigan, state regulators warned.

In a si week period between e cember and anuary, delivery drivers were robbed, according to the ichigan annabis egulatory gency ).

In some of the cases, armed robbers assaulted the drivers and stole their cars. he robberies took place in etroit, erndale, amtramck, a el ark, ti ca, psilanti, nn rbor, and ansing. nder administrative rules, licensees and applicants must notify the and local law enforcement within hours of a robbery.

he increase in robberies came at a time when dispensaries are reporting record sales.

In ecember, licensed cannabis sales hit a record . million in ichigan.

Legalizing cannabis reduces opioid prescriptions, study shows

STATES THAT HAVE legalized adult use mari uana have a significant reduction in pharmacy based codeine prescriptions, a new study shows. he study was published an. in the Journal of Health Economics

sing data from the federal rug nforcement dministration, which tracks controlled substances across the . ., the study looked at states that had legali ed adult use cannabis between and . esearchers found that there was a reduc tion in pharmacy based distribution of codeine and after four years many states e perienced as much as a reduction.

odeine is an opioid, and prescrip tion opioids contribute to more than , overdose . . deaths annu ally. ut codeine is ust one such opioid prescription, and the study found that mari uana legali ation had minimal impact on distribution of other opioids such as o ycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine in any setting. lus, mari uana legali ation did not have an impact on hospital distribution of codeine.

esearchers speculated that the pharmacy based reduction is be cause codeine is a weaker opioid with a high potential for addiction. ince cannabis, like codeine, can help reduce chronic pain, its legali ation can shift consumers away from opi oid misuse and toward cannabis.

reduction in the misuse of opi

oids will save lives, says hyam a man, a doctoral candidate at ornell niversity and lead author of the study. ur research indicated that recreational cannabis laws substan tially reduce distribution of codeine to pharmacies, an overlooked poten tial benefit to legali ing recreational cannabis use.

he study further confirms what other studies have found, that given the option, patients will often substi tute mari uana for opioid painkillers. In , the Journal of Pain came to this conclusion using online surveys submitted by adult cannabis us ers. hen survey respondents were asked why they’d made the change, they cited fewer adverse side effects and more success managing symp toms.

Harm Reduction Journal published a similar study in that was based on a survey of , anadian adult use mari uana users.

his study is uni ue since it uses data instead of survey respon dents. he data shows endpoint distribution of controlled substances so whether the drugs ended up at a pharmacy, a hospital, a specialist, or a narcotic treatment program. he authors believe this is the first study of its kind to use the data in this way.

s of ovember , states have legali ed adult use mari uana, including ichigan.

version of this story was originally published by our sister paper, the St. Louis Riverfront Times.

—Rosalind Early

In ovember, the warned about a pattern of break ins at dispensaries in llegan, arry, an uren, alama oo, alhoun, errien, ass, t. oseph, and ranch counties. ma orities of the break ins occurred when the busi nesses were closed, between midnight and a.m.

—Steve Neavling

Corktown has a new adult-use dispensary

NOW THAT DETROIT finally al lowed licensed recreational cannabis sales last month, its orktown neigh borhood has a new adult use dispen sary.

iberty annabis, located at osa arks lvd., has now been of ficially licensed for adult use sales. hat means anyone age and older with a valid I can purchase cannabis there.

reviously, iberty annabis served medical mari uana card holders only. It has operated since in the former otani dispensary, a medical mari uana provisioning center co owned by e o etroit morning anchor n unette amison arfoh, aka .

he people of etroit deserve access to the highest uality cannabis whether they are a patient or a consumer, so we’re e cited to e pand access to serve both with a new adult use license for our provisioning center in etroit, said u homas, of parent company orth orktown egacy, who a press release describes as a th generation

etroiter. he bustling neighborhood of orktown is lively, trendy, and has a uni ue identity and charm. It’s been the perfect location for iberty annabis and we now look forward to welcoming a new set of customers into the store.

Initial store hours are a.m. p.m. onday and ednesday aturday and noon p.m. on unday.

he company says last year, it part nered with nonprofits and organi a tions across metro etroit, including the otor ity akeover, leaners ommunity ood ank, local shelters, neighborhood cleanups, and food drives.

hile other communities across ichigan have allowed adult use can nabis sales since , etroit’s have been held up by years of legal wran gling. he first of them finally opened in anuary.

ther etroit adult use dispensaries include ouse of ank, a ut, and loud annabis.

—Lee DeVito

SHUTTERSTOCK

A jewel of a production

You should see ‘Gem of the Ocean’ at the Detroit Repertory Theatre

By Randiah Camille Green

In the center of the world lies a city made entirely of bones. Here, you can get your soul washed, as long as you’re willing to confront your past and admit your wrongdoings.

It’s 1904 in Philadelphia in August Wilson’s Black American classic play Gem of the Ocean, where a young man named Citizen Barlow has come up from Alabama to get right with himself. He’s been told Aunt Ester, a curious 285-year-old healer, can “wash” his soul so he can start the new life he’s desperately searching for.

While staying in her home, he meets Aunt Ester’s protégé Black Mary, Solly Two Kings, and Eli, who helped enslaved people escape to Canada on the Underground Railroad, as well as a white ally named Selig. But the cleansing he’s expecting from Aunt Ester isn’t simple. He must ride

a boat, The Gem of the Ocean, to the City of Bones where the inhabitants’ mouths are on fire with song.

The play is being put on by the Detroit Repertory Theatre through March 5. Surprisingly, for a play written in 2003 by one of Black America’s most celebrated playwrights, this production marks Gem’s Michigan professional debut.

Madelyn Porter shines as Aunt Ester. She is Aunt Ester — a brilliant elderly woman who doesn’t look almost 300 years old, but whose presence feels ancient and otherworldly. She’s like a sage, who makes us believe she really can wash Citizen Barlow’s soul, and ours too.

Hugh M. Duneghy II is a natural as Eli, whose cool and collected manner warms the stage, and David W. Skillman embodies Solly as a captivating

storyteller.

These are theater veterans with a combined experience of over 40 years.

The only small dimmer on the opening night of the play was Domonique Byrd’s tendency to overact. Byrd made her professional acting debut as Black Mary, whose sometimes obedient demeanor can get washed out in the play.

It felt like Byrd overcompensated instead of leaning into Black Mary’s strength — her mysterious and collected nature.

In Byrd’s defense, performing alongside such well-seasoned actors can e pose even the tiniest aws. ut we’re excited to see how this young actor and recent graduate of the Rep’s Actors Workshop will grow.

Having such exceptional writing to work with can either be an easy job or

make it easier to let down audiences who are familiar with the work and have high expectations. But the actors in this production bring an unexpected sense of humor to the stage.

hen lack ary finally stands up to Aunt Ester’s nagging hypercriticism of her every move, the old lady retorts, “What took you so long?” In the book, it felt like a beautiful moment of blossoming for Black Mary that Aunt Ester in her all-knowing wisdom had been waiting for all along. At the Rep, Porter delivers the line with a quirkiness that makes the audience laugh.

There are several subtle (and some not-so-subtle) lessons to learn from this sensational piece of theater.

The characters are trying to navigate a post-slavery world that still feels like enslavement. Black workers are being exploited at the local mill with low wages and long hours while an ncle om police officer named Caesar (who’s also Black Mary’s brother) evicts tenants from his boarding house with zero regard for their humanity.

We’ve heard this story before, and are still hearing it today.

Whether Aunt Ester actually has any spiritual healing powers depends on what you believe. Is her power to guide people into the spirit realm or to help them realize no one can heal them but themselves?

In another humorous moment that could have been played straight while delivering this message, Aunt Ester gives Citizen an origami “boat” that will take him to the City of Bones. When she asks, “Do you believe you can ride this boat to the City of Bones?”, jøn kent, who plays Citizen Barlow, says, “This is just a piece of paper.”

It is. So is money, but that doesn’t stop us from attaching meaning and power to it. This idea of assigning and releasing meaning to something as simple as a piece of paper recurs in the play. When Caesar, played by Dan Johnson, comes to arrest Aunt Ester for harboring fugitives, she tells him his arrest warrant is worthless because it’s also just paper, the same as the bill of sale for her as a young girl when she was a slave.

Things only have true power and meaning if we allow them.

Also, if you go see the show, (and you should) don’t be that jerk who doesn’t turn their phone off despite signs literally everywhere telling you to do so.

Gem of the Ocean is on at the Detroit Repertory Theatre until March 5; 13103 Woodrow Wilson St., Detroit; detroi treptheatre.com.

jøn kent (left) as Citizen Barlow and Madelyn Porter (right) as Aunt Ester in Gem of the Ocean. DETROIT REPERTORY THEATRE

CULTURE

Illustrator nails satire with comics about life in Detroit

By Randiah Camille Green

While Metro Times was getting ready to publish last week’s cover story about Detroit’s history of evicting Black residents, local illustra tor “Darklord” Escada Gordon was experiencing something similar.

The owners of a rent-to-buy home his mother had been renting decided they no longer wanted to sell the house, despite the artist and his mom coming out of pocket for extensive repairs.

“It was a whole struggle. My mom ended up passing away and I ended up taking over the house and paying the bills, the rent, and all that stuff, he tells Metro Times over the phone. “A lot of the things in the house the property management company wouldn’t fi themselves. y mom and me, we paid electricians, plumbers, we did renovations on the home, and it was just a whole situation… Then they were like, ‘We don’t even want any more money from you, we just want the property.’”

So he did what any scrappy artist with an Instagram following would do. He made a satirical comic, in this case depicting himself reading an is sue of Metro Times with a front-page headline that says “They Tryna Move My People Out.”

hen people first started tagging our @metrotimes account in response to ordon’s comic about gentrification on social media, we weren’t sure if he was throwing shade or commending us for our cover story. But the artist clarifies he ust wanted to bring atten tion to an issue that he and many of his friends have experienced.

“I literally didn’t even know you guys made an article talking about the evictions of Black people from their homes, it was just a conversation I was having with my associates and I’m

like, it’s kind of crazy that this is going on right now,” he says. “I mean, when I made that comic of my situation, it was like, dang, they didn’t want money, they just wanted to put us out of the house, and that’s nuts. They don’t care if you don’t have any place to go or anything, they’re just trying to get us out of here.”

Given the timing, we’re not sure if we completely buy that Gordon didn’t know about our article, but it is un fortunately a relatable situation for far too many Detroiters.

Gordon has been making comics and animation professionally since around 2014, though he says he’s been an artist and musician since he was 5. His cartoons are usually no-holdsbarred satire on current events or life in Detroit. Their over-the-top nature and unbridled honesty are what makes them so funny.

One of his comics shows an an noyed office worker returning to work after a weekend at Movement Music estival with a coffee cup that says “just another nigga in the system.” His alien cyborg-looking boss says, “Did you enjoy yourself at Movement Michael…? I hope so… I really do, Mi chael… but now it’s time for you to get back out there with a working smile.”

Another one about gun control depicts toddlers in a gun shop with the owner obnoxiously telling them “you kids gonna need some protection out there, I hear they’re shootin’ up the schools!” One of our favorites by Gordon pokes fun at Detroit’s pot holes as two kids stare down a gaping hole so big they can see China on the other side.

“FUCK DETROIT ROADS… still,” the artist writes in an Instagram caption. “imma keep making a push with my Detroit based comics to get

these dangerous Detroit potholes fi ed cause it’s getting to the point we got mini Grand Canyons just sitting on the block chilling, Mike Duggan or somebody better make a move and stop fi ing our roads with coffee beans.”

Gordon says he sees himself as a journalist of sorts.

“I look for stories and things that are going on currently,” he says, add ing about the pothole comic, “I have a real big beef with the potholes in Detroit so I was like man, I want to make something that’s relatable.”

His Movement comic was featured on Adult Swim’s Black History Month tribute showcasing the work of Black cartoonists last year. Gordon has also done mural work for JARS Cannabis and the Detroit Pistons, as well as lo gos for several brands and musicians.

e says some brands find his work “controversial” and have reservations about working with him, however. One such “controversial” comic is called “Detroit Niggas in Paris” fol lowing the Detroit Pistons’ visit to France earlier this year.

“For me, I’m like, it’s the truth and

it’s funny,” the lifelong Detroiter says, unbothered.

He says his next project is a fulllength comic book featuring DJ Pooh, the screenwriter and producer who cowrote the movie Friday with Ice Cube.

“It’ll be DJ Pooh quantum-leaping through all these random Ice Cube movie plots like Friday Are We There Yet and All About the Benjamins,” Gordon explains.

That comic will take at least another year to complete, but Gordon’s work will be featured in an “unconventional fine art show at ontiac’s allery in February. The artist has previously exhibited abstract illustrations at De troit’s Irwin House Gallery.

Where to see his work: You can keep up with “Darklord” Escada Gordon on Instagram at @darklord_escada. His work will be in an upcoming group show at Gallery 46 from Feb. 12-28 at Gallery 46; 46 N. Saginaw St., Pontiac; gallery46.org.

Got someone in mind you think deserves the spotlight? Hit us up at arts@metrotimes.com.

When ‘Darklord’ Escada Gordon spoofed Metro Times, we weren’t sure if he was being a hater or praising us

Hey, that’s us. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

CULTURE

Indie horror ick is a surreal hit

By Konstantina Buhalis

Inspired by childhood fright, e perimental horror film

Skinamarink reminds us why we fear the dark. Shot on a relative shoestring

, budget, the film was an unlikely favorite at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, and despite being leaked online, it has grossed more than $1.5 million during its limited theatrical release. Critics and viewers have been fascinated with the film, and people on social media have been analyzing the film day and night. It hits the horror focused streaming service Shudder on Thursday.

he film takes place in in a house that is familiar and nostalgic, with wood paneling and fi tures standard in many Midwest homes, lulling viewers into false security. Then, every parent’s worst nightmare: four-yearold Kevin (Lucas Paul) falls down the stairs. We hear the scream and cry of an injured toddler, followed by his father’s voice overheard on the phone talking to an unknown person, assuring that the boy is OK. According to his sister, Kaylee (Dali Rose), Kevin had fallen due to a sleepwalking incident, and that’s the last we hear and see until the pair wake up to find their father oss aul) has vanished. Mom (Jamie Hill) is nowhere to be seen, and soon the children find their home no longer has any doors or windows. rom there, the film follows the children trying to make sense of the nightmare.

Skinamarink is the feature directorial debut of Kyle Edward Ball, who made a name for himself running a YouTube channel called Bitesized Nightmares where he would create and direct short films based on the fears of commenters.

he film’s e ecutive producer is onathan Barkan, an Ann Arbor native who helped with distribution.

While Barkan wasn’t involved in the writing process, he tells Metro Times that he was familiar with Ball’s work.

“Kyle is a really fascinating and e citing filmmaker, and what he did to kind of hone his craft and to get a lot of experience is he asked people, ‘What scared you when you were a child? What was your childhood fear?’” Barkan says. “He would make these short films ust to kind of practice and get an understanding of how to frame shots, how to light things, find out what are the things that he could get away with.

As he started getting more and more feedback from people, and more people sharing their childhood nightmares, he began to notice a pattern, and began to notice that there were kind of these thematic similarities in what scared people when they were young.”

nlike traditional horror films, Skinamarink leaves watchers literally in the dark, eschewing adult logic and a plot for more of an surreal approach as the children explore the spooky house. nce the kids find their way to the living room, they find toys stuck to

the ceiling; in the bathroom, the toilet’s disappeared, and cartoons are always playing on the VCR.

There’s a primal fear, an uneasiness that follows throughout the film. n adult can reason that our eyes play tricks in the dark, but interacting with a house when you’re only three feet tall is the ultimate childhood terror, and when your parents can’t be found to protect you, the darkness can consume a child’s mind. Skinamarink is so minimal that the viewer’s eyes dart back and forth to find something lurking in the shadows, while the sound feels like auditory hallucinations of whispers and cartoon songs, disorienting and confusing.

atching the film might feel like a chore to some — it’s nearly two hours long — but it’s easy to lose yourself in it if you’re willing to allow it to have power over you. rom a first person point of view, rounding every corner becomes a mental gamble of what might be seen on the other side. While it’s scarce on jumpscares, the few involved hit, especially with much of the film being almost uneventful in many ways. By the midway mark, your skin feels as if it’s crawling in anticipation of something, anything, to happen — while also being conscious that whatever happens to these children will manifest the fear you’ve created in your mind.

“As we grow older, our fears become more complicated, they become more nuanced,” Barkan says. “You know, it’s,

Skinamarink

Rated: Not rated Run-time: 100 minutes

‘I’m no longer as scared of something chasing me up the stairs,’ it’s falling down the stairs and getting a medical bill. But when we open ourselves up and kind of face our inner child and give ourselves into that aspect of ourselves, that’s when yle’s films really hit a nerve and have the power to just terrify in a way that many of us haven’t felt since we were, you know, really, really young.”

Skinnamarink isn’t ust a film to watch it’s a film to e perience in the dark, to enter the deepest recesses of your mind and explore what you thought you had forgotten. It asks audiences to dig into their childhood and find the defining moments of literal or perceived abandonment, becoming an examination of youth through a lack of autonomy.

“We have to be open to engaging within its rules,” Barkan says. “I think it really does come back to are we, the audience, secure enough of our growth and our maturity, to allow ourselves to slip back to being a child and recognize what that says about ourselves.”

uring the film’s limited theatrical run, it got a screening at Ann Arbor’s State Theatre, where Barkan had previously organized Three Corpse Circus, a festival for short horror films. e says he was proud to see the theater’s marquee proclaim: “THE VIRAL PHENOMENON NOW PLAYING.”

“I just like, ‘What is going on?’” he says. “It’s an unbelievable feeling.”

Barkan laments the disappearance of small, independent theaters where audiences can en oy e perimental films like Skinamarink as multiplexes remain fi ated on predictable, big budget entertainment, but he’s hopeful it can show the viability of indie cinema.

“I think it’s up to the independent theaters to create experiences that the mainstream cinemas would never touch with a 20-foot pole,” he says. “I don’t think Skinamarink will ignite an interest in independent cinema — I think cinemas as a whole, whether they are mainstream or independent art house theaters, are going to look at something like Skinamarink with an open mind and see that financially there is something that can be gained here.”

Barksan says it’s best for audiences to sit back and let themselves get lost in the film.

“If you allow yourself to become hypnotized by what it’s doing, you will come out of it with a strong reaction,” he says. “Let the art impact you.”

The stars of horror flick Skinamarink are a young brother and sister.

BAYVIEW ENTERTAINMENT

CULTURE

Savage Love

Dom Vibes

By Dan Savage

I’m away this week. Please enjoy this column from July of 2019.

: Q I’m a womanwho married young (21) and I’ve been with my husband for seven years. Within the last year, I’ve realized that my falling libido prob ably comes from the fact that I am not turned-on by our boring vanilla sex routine. et so little ul llment t at I’d rather not even do it. I’ve tried talk ing to him, but he says he prefers sex without foreplay or a lot of “compli cated stuff. ad some reat casual sex before we met but it turns out I’m into BDSM, which I found out when I recently ad a s ort affair. e ept t e secret and guilt to myself, but I have told my husband I’m into BDSM. He wants to make me happy, but I can tell he isn’t turned on doing these things. He denies it, because he’s just happy to have sex at all, but a butt plug and a slap on the ass does not a Dom make. I’ve tried to ask him if we can open up our relationship so that I can live out my fantasies. I would like to go to a BDSM club and he isn’t interested at all. He was very upset and said he’s afraid of losing me if we go. He also felt like I was giving him an ultimatum. But I told him he was allowed to say no, and that I wouldn’t leave if he did.

When I was younger, I thought there was something wrong with me because everyone else wanted monogamy, but it never seemed important to me. I’m not a jealous person and I wouldn’t mind if he had sex with other people. In fact, the thought of it turns me on but he says he isn’t interested. I know he loves me, and I love him. At this point my only solution has been to suppress this urge to have BDSM sex, but I don’t know if it is a good long-term solution. What should I do? Keep my fantasies to mysel a e anot er affair or ask him to have an open relationship again? We have a 3-year-old daughter, so I have to make our relationship work.

—Want The Hard Truth

: A Two quick points before I bring out the big guns: First, marrying young is a bad idea. The younger two

people are when they marry, according to a mountain of research, the likelier they are to divorce. It makes intuitive sense: the rational part of the brain — the prefrontal cortex — isn’t fully formed until we’re 25. We shouldn’t be picking out wallpaper in our early twenties, WTHT, much less life partners. And second, basic sexual compatibility (BSC) is crucial to the success of sexually exclusive relationships and it’s a bad idea to scramble your DNA together with someone else’s before BSC has been established.

And with that out of the way…

“WTHT might be surprised to hear she is just a normal woman being a normal woman,” said Wednesday Martin, New York Times best-selling author, cultural critic, and researcher. “Like a normal human woman, she is bored after seven years of monogamous sex that isn’t even her kind of sex.” You mentioned that you used to feel like there was something wrong with you, WTHT, but just in case you have any lingering “what’s wrong with me?!?” feelings, you’re gonna want to read Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and n delity s ron and o t e e Science Can Set Us Free, Martin’s most recent book.

“We know from recent longitudinal studies from Germany, Finland, the US, the UK, and Canada that among women only, relationship duration and living together predict lower desire/ boredom,” said Martin. “In fact, the Finnish study found that even when they had more/better orgasms, women in monogamous relationships of several years’ duration reported low desire.” A straight man’s desire for his long-term, live-in female partner also decreases over time, but not as dramatically as a woman’s does.

“Contrary to what we’ve been taught, monogamy kills it for women, in the aggregate, more than it does for men,” said Martin.

So, that’s what we know now — that’s what the research shows — but most advice professionals, from the lowliest advice columnist to the most exalted daytime talk show host, have chosen to ignore the research or are unaware of it. So, they continue to tell unhappily sexless couples that they’re either doing something wrong or that their relationship is broken. If he would just do his fair share of the housework or if she would just

have a glass or two of wine — or pop a “female Viagra,” if big pharma could come up with one that works, which (spoiler alert) they haven’t and most likely never will — they’d be fucking like they did the night they met. This advice not only isn’t helpful, it’s harmful he does more housework, she drinks more wine, nothing changes, and the couple feels like there’s something wrong with them. In reality, nothing’s wrong. It’s not about a more equitable division of housework (always good!) or drinking more wine (sometimes good but not always), it’s about the desire for novelty, variety, and adventure. Those are things a couple can build into their monogamous relationship, WTHT, but they not if they’re only being told that dishes are the problem and/or wine is the solution.

So, the big issue here is that you’re bored, WTHT. No foreplay? Nothing complicated? Even if you were 100 percent vanilla, that shit would get tedious after a few years. Or minutes. After risking your marriage to treat your boredom with an affair), you asked your husband to shake things up to fight se ual boredom with you — by incorporating BDSM into your sex life, by going to BDSM clubs, and by at least considering the possibility of opening up your marriage. (Ethically this time!) And while he’s made a small effort where is concerned (butt plugs, slapping your ass), your husband ruled out BDSM clubs and openness. But since he’s only going through the BDSM motions because he’s just “happy to have sex at all,” what he is doing isn’t working for you.

At bottom, WTHT, what you’re saying — to me, not your husband — is that you’re gonna need to do BDSM with other people if your husband doesn’t get better at it, which is something he might learn to do at those BDSM club he refuses to go to. Which means he has it backwards: he risks losing you if he doesn’t go.

“She once put her marriage at risk

to get BDSM,” said Martin. “WTHT’s husband doesn’t need to know about the affair, in my view, and he doesn’t need to become the world’s best Dom. But he owes her acknowledgment that her desires matter. Get to that baseline, and other things tend to fall into place more easily. The discussion about monogamy becomes easier. The discussion about needing to be topped becomes easier. Working out a solution becomes easier.”

I’m not suggesting that an open relationship is the solution for every bored couple, and neither is Martin. There are lots of legitimate reasons why two people might prefer for their relationship to be, remain, or become monogamous. But two people who commit to being sexually exclusive for the rest of their lives and also want to maintain a satisfying sex life — and, open or closed, couples with satisfying sex lives are likelier to stay together — need to recognize boredom as their mortal enemy. And while the decision should be mutual, and while ultimatum is a scary word, bringing in reinforcements isn’t just the best way to fight boredom in some instances, there are times when it’s the only way to save a relationship.

That said, a couple of weeks back I told a frustrated husband that his cuckolding kink may have to be put on the back burner while his children are young. The same goes for you, WTHT. But at the very least your husband has to recognize the validity of your desires and could put more effort into pleasing you.

“In straight culture, people tend to define se as intercourse, because intercourse is what gets men off, and we still privilege male pleasure,” said Martin. “But seen through a lens of parity, what WTHT wants is not ‘foreplay’ or complicated stuff.’ It’s se , and the sooner her husband lets go of this intercourse sex fetish of his and acknowledges that her pleasure matters as much as his does, the sooner he’ll be a real partner to his wife.”

For the record: a relationship doesn’t have to be open to be exciting, BDSM doesn’t have to be complicated to be satisfying, and date night doesn’t have to mean dinner and a movie. Date night can mean a visit to a BDSM club where your husband can learn, through observation alone (at least for now), how to be a better Dom for you.

ou can nd ednesday artin on Twitter @WednesdayMartin. You can nd er boo s blo posts ideos and more at wednesdaymartin.com.

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CULTURE Free Will Astrology

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

During my quest for advice that might be helpful to your love life, I plucked these words of wisdom from author Sam Kean: “Books about relationship talk about how to ‘get’ the love you need, how to ‘keep’ love, and so on. But the right question to ask is, ‘How do I become a more loving human being?’” In other words, Aries, here’s a prime way to enhance your love life: Be less focused on what others can give you and more focused on what you can give to others. Amazingly, that’s likely to bring you all the love you want.

TAURUS: April 20 May 20

You have the potential to become even more skilled at the arts of kissing and cuddling and boinking than you already are. How? Here are some possibilities. 1. Explore fun experiments that will transcend your reliable old approaches to kissing and cuddling and boinking. 2. Read books to open your mind. I like Margot Anand’s The New Art of Sexual Ecstasy. 3. Ask your partner(s) to teach you everything about what turns them on. 4. Invite your subconscious mind to give you dreams at night that involve kissing

and cuddling and boinking. 5. Ask your lover(s) to laugh and play and joke as you kiss and cuddle and boink.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

You are an Italian wolf searching for food in the Apennine Mountains. You’re a red-crowned crane nesting in a wetland in the Eastern Hokkaido region of Japan. You’re an olive tree thriving in a salt marsh in southern France, and you’re a painted turtle basking in a pool of sunlight on a beach adjoining Lake Michigan. And much, much more. What I’m trying to tell you, Gemini, is that your capacity to empathize is extra strong right now. Your smart heart should be so curious and open that you will naturally feel an instinctual bond with many life forms, including a wide array of interesting humans. If you’re brave, you will allow your mind to expand to experience telepathic powers. You will have an unprecedented knack for connecting with simpatico souls.

CANCER: June 21 July 22

My Cancerian friend Juma says, “We have two choices at all times: creation or destruction. Love creates and everything else destroys.” Do you agree? She’s not just talking about romantic love, but rather love in all forms, from the urge to help a friend, to the longing to seek justice for the dispossessed, to the compassion we feel for our descendants. During the next three weeks, your assignment is to explore every nuance of love as you experiment with the following hypothesis: To create the most interesting and creative life for yourself, put love at the heart of everything you do.

LEO: July 23 – August 22

JAMES NOELLERT

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

Borrowing the words of poet

Oriah from her book The Dance: Moving to the Deep Rhythms of Your Life, I’ve prepared a love note for you to use as your own this Valentine season. Feel free to give these words to the person whose destiny needs to be woven more closely together with yours. Oriah writes, “Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be someday. Show me you can risk being at peace with the way things are right now. Show me how you follow your deepest desires, spiraling down into the ache within the ache. Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.”

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

By Rob Brezsny

help them reveal the greatest version of themselves.” That’s always good advice, but I believe it should be your inspirational axiom in the coming weeks. More than ever, you now have the potential to forever transform your approach to relationships. You can shift away from wanting your allies to be different from what they are and make a strong push to love them just as they are.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

I analyzed the astrological omens. Then I scoured the internet, browsed through 22 books of love poetry, and summoned memories of my best experiences of intimacy. These exhaustive efforts inspired me to find the words of wisdom that are most important for you to hear right now. They are from poet Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell): “For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.”

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

Yes we will have the game on… It should be a Super Duper LVII at that; however, we shouldn’t be to crowded, mainly because we are not a sports bar with 300 plasma TV’s scattered throughout. Cheers!!

I hope you get ample chances to enjoy deep soul kisses in the coming weeks. Not just perfunctory lip-to-lip smooches and pecks on the cheeks, but full-on intimate sensual exchanges. Why do I recommend this? How could the planetary positions be interpreted to encourage a specific expression of romantic feeling? I’ll tell you, Leo: The heavenly omens suggest you will benefit from e ploring the frontiers of wild affection. ou need the extra sweet, intensely personal communion that comes best from the uninhibited mouth-to-mouth form of tender sharing. Here’s what Leo poet Diane di Prima said: “There are as many kinds of kisses as there are people on earth, as there are permutations and combinations of those people. No two people kiss alike — no two people fuck alike — but somehow the kiss is more personal, more individualized than the fuck.”

Libran author Walter Lippman wrote, “The emotion of love is not selfsustaining; it endures only when lovers love many things together, and not merely each other.” That’s great advice for you during the coming months. I suggest that you and your allies — not just your romantic partners, but also your close companions — come up with collaborative projects that inspire you to love many things together. Have fun exploring and researching subjects that excite and awaken and enrich both of you.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21:

Scorpio writer Paul Valéry wrote, “It would be impossible to love anyone or anything one knew completely. Love is directed towards what lies hidden in its object.” My challenge to you, Scorpio, is to test this hypothesis. Do what you can to gain more in-depth knowledge of the people and animals and things you love. Uncover at least some of what’s hidden. All the while, monitor yourself to determine how your research affects your affection and care. Contrary to what Valéry said, I’m guessing this will enhance and exalt your love.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 Dec. 21

In his book Unapologetically You, motivational speaker Steve Maraboli writes, I find the best way to love someone is not to change them, but instead,

To get the most out of upcoming opportunities for intimacy, intensify your attunement to and reverence for your emotions. Why? As quick and clever as your mind can be, sometimes it neglects to thoroughly check in with your heart. And I want your heart to be wildly available when you get ripe chances to open up and deepen your alliances. Study these words from psychologist Carl Jung: “We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.”

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

“In love there are no vacations. Love has to be lived fully with its boredom and all that. uthor and filmmaker Marguerite Duras made that observation, and now I convey it to you — just in time for a phase of your astrological cycle when boredom and apathy could and should evolve into renewed interest and revitalized passion. But there is a caveat: If you want the interest and passion to rise and surge, you will have to face the boredom and apathy; you must accept them as genuine aspects of your relationship; you will have to cultivate an amused tolerance of them. Only then will they burst in full glory into renewed interest and revitalized passion.

Here’s the homework: Name one thing you could do to express your love more practically.

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