metrotimes.com | March 23-29, 2022
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NEWS & VIEWS
Feedback
Readers respond to the Foilies, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Sunshine Week awards for the worst in government transparency.
I’m wondering if anyone will ever be held accountable ? We literally NEVER see football numbers when CEOs get arrested (if ever) but there’s people doing 40 years over weed. C’mon now. Or politicians ... they never seem to be held accountable to anyone ever. —@magneticpolyester, Instagram Because transparency is a good thing? For who? Given that open government is endorsed by Bezos and funded by Koch, Scaifes, big oil, etc., does it really work the
way you’re thinking? Academics are very strong on this: they claim open gov is a nightmare. —James G. D’Angelo @JamesGDAngelo, Twitter Readers also responded a web article, “Transparency bills flounder in Michigan state Senate during Sunshine Week.” Both sides have to much to hide for transparency, it’s the only thing they can agree on! —Jim Guinn, Facebook Both sides aren’t blocking this, Jim. —Jeff Gruber, Facebook Have a comment? Of course you do! Sound off: letters@metrotimes.com.
Vol. 42 | No. 22 | March 23-29, 2022
News & Views Feedback ............................... 4 News ...................................... 6 Best of the Rest ..................... 8 Informed Dissent .................. 9 The Incision......................... 10
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metrotimes.com | March 23-29, 2022
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NEWS & VIEWS will soon begin accepting online credit card payments for FOIA requests. The initiative began with Kelly RossmanMcKinney, former spokeswoman for the AG’s Office who died in November. “I find it fitting that one of Kelly’s last accomplishments as our Communications Director is this new payment option for Department FOIAs,” Nessel said. “She spent her entire career advocating for journalists and government transparency, and this change is all credit to her. It’s my hope the online transactions provide an easier avenue to securing responsive records under FOIA.” Nessel’s office has called for more government transparency.
Left in the dark Transparency bills flounder in Michigan state Senate during Sunshine Week By Steve Neavling
Michigan will now accept credit cards for FOIA requests
In many states, Sunshine
Week is an annual celebration of open government. In Michigan, it’s a dark reminder that the state is one of the least transparent in the country. Michigan is just one of two states that don’t require the Governor’s Office or Legislature to respond to public records requests, and it consistently ranks among the worst states for transparency and accountability. In March 2021, the state House approved a bipartisan package of bills that would extend the Freedom of Information to the Governor’s Office and the Legislature. But since then, the bills have floundered in the Republicancontrolled Senate, and have yet to be taken up for a floor vote. State Rep. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills, renewed his calls for the Senate to approve the bills. “It’s Sunshine Week, and our bipartisan transparency plan is getting welltanned as it sits in the Senate,” Tisdel said in a statement Tuesday. “Michigan remains one of the least transparent states in the nation. Last year, the House approved a plan to bring the Legislature’s and governor’s records to light — unanimously. The Senate should quickly sign on to our efforts to make our government more transparent for the people of our state.” Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, perhaps fittingly, didn’t respond to Metro Times’ request for comment. “Lansing has operated in the dark for long enough. It’s time to shine a light on the Legislature, and that process starts with highlighting Republican inaction on these common-sense measures,” House Democratic Leader Donna Lasinski, D-Scio Township, said in a statement. “All we’re asking is
Lansing State Capitol Building in Michigan cloaked in darkness.
to bring Michigan in line with nearly every other state in the union and give citizens true ethics standards and the ability to watch government work.” Frustrated by the Senate’s refusal to take up the bills in the past decade, advocates for transparency had planned to launch a ballot initiative that would expand the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to include the Governor’s Office and Legislature. But the group, Close Lansing Loopholes, begrudgingly decided to hold off because it was running out of time to collect signatures. Lonnie Scott, a leader of the initiative and executive director of Progress Michigan, a progressive nonprofit, says the bills before the Senate have too many loopholes and broad exemptions. Under the legislation, for example, documents wouldn’t be considered public record for 15 days, and there’s an exception for all communication between the governor’s office and the Legislature and their constituents. The legislation also removes a judicial review from the process if a FOIA is denied. Instead, appeals would go
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to the administrator of the Legislative Council. “There are so many exceptions for the Legislature that don’t exist anywhere else in the state,” Scott tells Metro Times. “The bills create tiers of transparency. The Legislature would be the least transparent. It creates a lot of exceptions for them that don’t exist anywhere else in FOIA.” Even when FOIA requests are approved by the state, the costs to receive the records are often exorbitant. Writing for Metro Times, reporter Erin Marie Miller, for example, said she was charged $284,541 for two months of communications related to the short-lived $9 million government-funded field hospital set up at what was then Detroit’s TCF Center in the early months of the pandemic. Miller also was charged $37,590 for more than a year’s worth of communications and data related to COVID-19 policymaking. While the state Senate keeps Michigan in the dark, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that her office
On Friday, Whitmer signed a new executive directive moving forward in her promises to address government transparency. Effective immediately, departments for the State of Michigan are required to update their systems to accept credit card payments for FOIA requests. “This executive directive furthers transparency and openness in state government, making it easier for any Michigander to access department records,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer in a press release. “Effective immediately, all State of Michigan departments are required to begin modifying their systems to accept credit card payments for any fees associated with the production of records under FOIA. We will continue getting things done and ensure we make improvements whenever possible.” While this is another step forward in the state’s attempt to promote transparency in government, it is important to note that Michigan does not require the Governor’s office to FOIA requests. Michigan’s legislators are also excluded from FOIA requests, and in recent years, Michigan ranked last in government transparency. Michigan’s Attorny General Dana Nessel recently announced that her office will soon accept credit card payments for FOIA requests as well. Credit card payments and lack of access to the governor’s office aren’t the only issues with Michigan’s FOIA process. Last summer, a local journalist was quoted $284,541.48 after submitting a request to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. —Alex Washington
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NEWS & VIEWS complaint. “At its core, EGLE has participated in the creation of a class of internally displaced peoples, forced from their homes by decades of compounding discriminatory decisions that have resulted in this man-made crisis,” the complaint states.
Best of the Rest
EPA probes whether state environmental regulators discriminated against Black Detroit residents with plant
$400 auto insurance refunds are hitting mailboxes in Michigan
By Steve Neavling
Even on hot days, Victoria
Thomas won’t open the windows of her house because an orange powdery substance will coat her furniture. The retired locker room attendant from Detroit Public Schools lives in a predominantly Black neighborhood near Stellantis’ Jeep assembly plant on St. Jean on the city’s east side, where residents have complained about a host of environmental hazards. Thomas often has a burning sensation in the back of her throat, and she has chronically watery eyes and a persistent cough. Her sister developed a rare inflammatory disease and decided to move. After her aunt developed a persistent and painful cough, she also moved. Thomas is among five residents who have filed a civil rights complaint against state environmental regulators in November for allowing the plant to increase emissions of toxic contaminants. They also allege the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) failed to analyze the cumulative impact of air pollution before issuing the emission permits. Responding to the complaint, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is investigating whether the state’s decision to allow an increase in emissions amounts to racial discrimination. The E A notified EGLE earlier this month that it was reviewing the permit process. The complaint, filed by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, alleges EGLE violated the Civil Rights Act by issuing permits in an area that is
The area surrounding the Stellantis’ Jeep plant in Detroit is covered in an overwhelming odor. COURTESY PHOTO
predominantly Black and lower-income and has historically been inundated with environmental contamination. “The decision by Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) allowing Stellantis to significantly expand its facilities continues the discriminatory legacy of requiring communities of color to bear the disproportionate burden of the industrial pollution generated by all of society,” the complaint states. EGLE allowed Stellantis to increase volatile organic compound emissions in exchange for decreasing the same emissions at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Warren, which surrounds predominantly white neighborhoods. In the area near the Jeep assembly plant, the asthma rate is nearly twice the state average, and more than twothirds of the children are impoverished. “EGLE’s decision to issue numerous permits requested for the Stellantis Complex in a short period, which allowed for a significant enlargement of air emissions in a low-income community where nearly all residents within 1 mile are people of color already inundated by other industrial sources, amounts to discrimination of the basis of race, color, and national origin in violation” of federal law, the complaint states. EGLE said it welcomes EPA’s review and is prepared to take action.
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“Michigan EGLE looks forward to EPA’s review of Michigan permitting decisions and processes to ensure that the state is doing everything within its authority to protect vulnerable communities, and to receive guidance from E A in doing so most effectively,” EGLE spokeswoman Jill A. Greenberg said in a statement to Metro Times on Friday. Over the past year, residents have complained of a nauseating smell wafting from the plant. EGLE has issued three air quality violation notices to Stellantis and is working with the automaker to address the chronic stench. In addition to suffering adverse health effects, residents also complain of loud noises, including diesel engines roaring at all hours. Neighbors are moving away and can’t sell their homes. Left behind are vacant houses that are driving down the property values. Robert Shobe, one of the complainants, has cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and gets frequent headaches, coughing fits and bouts of nausea. He’s so worried about the health hazards that he doesn’t invite friends or family to visit him. Akishia Hunter, another complainant, spent months in hotels to get away from the health hazards and loud noises but she can no longer afford it. She worries about her son’s severe asthma. “You barely sleep,” she said in the
Insured drivers, your $400 refund checks may already be on the way. Michigan auto insurance companies recently began sending refund checks or automatic deposits. The refunds must be issued by May 9. The refunds are part of a surplus in the catastrophic care fund, which reimburses medical and other cars for people seriously injured in crashes. The fund, which is financed by an annual per-car fee, became optional as part of an auto reform bill in 2019. “Our bipartisan auto insurance reforms have significantly lowered the cost of auto insurance for families. And starting this week, thanks to that reform, Michiganders are getting $400 refund checks per vehicle for every insured driver, putting money in people’s pockets,” Whitmer said in a statement. “We will continue working to save Michiganders money so they can pay their bills and put food on the table.” To be eligible, you must have an insured vehicle as of Oct. 31, 2021. The state said motorists who don’t receive a refund by May 9 should contact their auto insurer. But beware of scammers, state officials said. “If you are eligible for a refund, your auto insurer will send it to you automatically and you do not need to take action. Incorrect information could cause delays, so drivers may wish to confirm that their insurer has their current address and banking information,” Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) Director Anita Fox said. “Now that the refund process has begun, it is especially important for consumers to be alert for potential scams. No one should call you seeking your personal information in order to get your refund, and if you get such a call – hang up and call your insurance agent or company directly to verify the legitimacy of the call.” For more information on the refunds, visit Michigan.gov/MCCArefund or call DIFS at 833-275-3437 or email the agency at autoinsurance@michigan.gov. —Steve Neavling
NEWS & VIEWS Informed Dissent
In defense of public defenders y Jeffrey . illman
According to Missouri Sen.
Josh Hawley, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — President Joe Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court — has a soft spot for pedophiles. More specifically, she has “a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes,” Hawley wrote on Twitter. This claim collapses upon even cursory inspection, of course. But Hawley isn’t trying to build a serious case against Jackson’s nomination. He’s winking to the QAnon weirdos who are already convinced that Democrats are inherently pedos while also making the kinds of outrageous statements designed to garner media mockery, thereby earning him cancel-culture whiny-time on Fox News. (Apparently, his ilk now has the support of The e or Times editorial board, which evidently believes that the real danger to free speech is people facing consequences for their speech.) Aside from Hawley, the GOP’s initial attacks on Jackson have mostly ignored the nominee herself, focusing instead on grievances past — Robert Bork and Brett Kavanaugh topping the list of allegedly mistreated Supreme Court nominees. Inevitably, though, most if not all of the Republican caucus will find a way to vote against the confirmation of the first Black woman justice for reasons other than her being a Black woman. On Monday, during the first day of her confirmation hearings, Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee telegraphed the play. Not only did Blackburn wonder aloud if Jackson’s “hidden agenda” is to “let violent criminals, cop killers, and child predators back to the streets” and incorporate critical race theory into the legal system, but she also criticized Jackson for being a public defender: “You used your time and talent not to serve our nation’s veterans or other vulnerable groups, but to provide free legal services to help terrorists get out of Gitmo and get back in the fight.” The racism isn’t subtle, but subtle has never been Blackburn’s style. It’s likely most Republicans will shy away from — or at least be more
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson defended some bad people. Republicans think that should keep her off the Supreme Court. LLOYD DEGRANE, WIKIMEDIA CREATIVE COMMONS
Jackson’s time as a federal public defender will give Republicans license to link her to all manner of purported villains and label her — as Mitch McConnell has put it — “soft on crime.” oblique in their — race-baiting. But Jackson’s time as a federal public defender, from 2005 to 2007, will give them license to link her to all manner of purported villains and label her — as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has put it — “soft on crime.” Take, for instance, Khi Ali Gul, who was detained in Gitmo after the Bush administration classified him as an enemy combatant — wrongly, Gul says, and without due process. She appealed his detention as illegal. (In 2014, Gul was repatriated to Afghanistan.) The Republican National Committee has argued that Jackson’s “advocacy for these terrorists” went “beyond just giving them a competent defense.” Like all public defenders, Jackson didn’t have a say in which cases she was assigned. No matter. As the Times reported, Republican senators have been gearing up for this fight during hearings for appellate nominees who also handled indigent cases, criticizing them for, well, doing their jobs too well.
Sen. Ted Cruz lectured one that she had “devoted your entire professional career to representing murderers, to representing rapists, representing child molesters.” Hawley pointedly asked another if she regretted getting a man off death row. The idea, it seems, is that only the wealthy deserve decent representation. The poor and marginalized, on the other hand, should get steamrolled, and it’s somehow immoral for their lawyers to try too hard. Again, this is not a serious argument — at least from a legal or constitutional perspective, as Hawley and Cruz, both graduates of Ivy League law schools, certainly know. The criminal justice system is inherently adversarial, and adversarial systems don’t work if one side is the Washington Generals. Rather, this is political theater. It’s less about the Supreme Court than the midterms, or 2024. Republicans know that the Biden administration has probably locked up all 50 Democrats; they’re
playing to their base, trying to one-up each other in opposition to whatever they define as the “radical left.” But if in the process of point-scoring, Republicans cast aspersions on the integrity or ethics of public defenders, that will become a much larger problem. Like anyone who has reported on courts, I can attest to the fact that public defenders are woefully underfunded. And while sometimes they defend bad people, just as often, they defend people with drug addiction or mental illness or those facing severe sentences for minor crimes. Sometimes they defend the actually innocent. But in every case, they serve a vital function — to protect the rights of those who would otherwise be steamrolled. That’s as true for a corner dope dealer as it is for an enemy combatant in Gitmo. The reality is that the legal system is a machine — inhuman and cold. Elected district attorneys want to look tough. Police chiefs want people to think they’re keepijng the city safe by locking people up. No one cares about the endless stream of poor people who move through the system like cogs in a machine. To undermine the people who look out for them is to erode the safeguards that force the government to abide by the rule of law. That’s a slippery slope that won’t end well for anyone. et more at billman.substac .com.
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NEWS & VIEWS The Incision
Make renewable energy part of the defense budget By Abdul El-Sayed
“America is addicted to
oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology.” Before I tell you who said that and when, I want to explain why I’m sharing it. At the time I wrote this column, it had been more than a week since Russian despot Vladimir Putin attacked his neighbors in Ukraine, more than a week since Europe and the United States imposed some of the heaviest sanctions we’ve ever seen on Russia. Yet the sanctions, however costly, had one glaring omission: Russian oil and gas. Global energy markets are woefully intertwined with the Russian energy sector. On one day during one recent week alone, Europe paid Russia $720 million for gas. In the United States, Russian oil and gas account for about of fuel imports in . As effective as sanctions have been in crippling the Russian economy in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, America and the world’s reliance on Russian oil and gas has left Russia hanging on to a powerful, lucrative lifeline. Thankfully, as I write this, the Senate is fast-tracking legislation to ban Russian energy imports altogether. The Biden administration appears increasingly willing to support it. (Editor’s note: The day after this column was filed, resident Biden did indeed sign an Executive Order banning the import of Russian oil, gas, and coal.) Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Sunday of a “very active discussion” with European counterparts over the matter. To be clear, banning Russian oil and gas is the right move — one we should have made weeks ago. But it comes with a serious cost that Americans will feel immediately: rising energy and gas prices at home. While nearly 80% of Americans support the measure right now, they have yet to feel the pain, particularly at a time when gas prices are already near record highs. So we’re stuck at an impasse: Taking the strategically critical
America’s inability to quickly sanction Russian oil and gas is a direct result of our failure to invest in renewable energy.
The crux of the problem here is that we don’t treat renewable energy as the national security issue that it is — that it always has been. step of sanctioning Russian oil and gas would impose serious costs on the U.S. economy in a way that Americans will feel immediately in their pocketbooks. But we didn’t have to be here. We could have avoided this. Which brings me back to that quote, above. Those words are as true today as they were when first uttered by resident George W. Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address. President Bush won’t go down in history for his advocacy for renewable energy. Rather, he’ll be remembered for the war in Iraq he started over foreign oil. Rather than investing wholesale in the research and development we would have needed to free ourselves of the addiction, Bush’s decisions dumped an estimated $8 trillion into a war that took 900,000 lives. Imagine where we might be today if we would have invested that money into
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the research, development, and manufacturing capacity that would have freed us of oil and gas dependence entirely? We’re facing the consequences twice over. The climate crisis is accelerating. We’re watching as the long-heralded climate consequences of our addiction to fossil fuels play out in wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Today, our addiction to oil and gas found us actively subsidizing the Russian war machine. Even so, we seem stuck on the same disastrous short-termism that left us in Iraq for nearly two decades. You hear it in the straw man arguments of security analysts who deliberately confuse the timescales. They argue that because we are nowhere near the renewable energy infrastructure we need to achieve energy independence today, that we should be investing in yet more fossil fuel infrastructure. They point to projects like the Keystone XL pipeline
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as the key to energy security. But their logic just pushes us further into the quagmire we’re already in. Of course we don’t have the renewable energy infrastructure we need, we never invested in it! Failing to invest yet again, will leave us where we find ourselves yet again. The crux of the problem here is that we don’t treat renewable energy as the national security issue that it is — that it always has been. Whether it’s starting wars we can’t end, or failing to end wars we didn’t start — our addiction to oil and gas keeps getting in the way. So here’s a proposal: perhaps it’s time to relabel renewable energy investment as the matter of national security it so clearly is. Let’s include it in the annual National Defense Authorization Act through which we fund the rest of our national security interests. After all, that bill seems to grow every year, and it always garners broad bipartisan support. That way, rather than throwing money at a military that fights wars, we can invest in the resources that can prevent them in the first place — and maybe save our planet while we’re at it. Originally published March 7 by The Incision. Get more at abdulelsayed. substack.com.
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313.562.8484 www.stevenbernardjewelers.com metrotimes.com | March 23-29, 2022
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FEATURE
McCarty VS
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S.
Lemieux A quarter-century ago, a Joe Louis bloodbath helped propel Detroit into a glorious era By Joe Lapointe In the summer of 1996, I took my son,
Marc, on a coast-to-coast tour of college campuses so he could choose a school. By chance, we crossed paths with a prediction for a hockey explosion that would launch a championship era for the Detroit Red Wings. We lived on the East Coast then, but Marc wanted to check out (among others) the University of Michigan, in our state of birth. While we ate pizza in an Ann Arbor restaurant, a tall man with an athletic build and a mustache approached our table. I recognized Dave Lewis, an assistant coach with the Red Wings. By then, I’d covered the National Hockey League for three newspapers in three cities; he’d played in the NHL for four teams before coaching. “Joe,” he said. “It’s going to happen at Joe Louis Arena. Be there. People will come from Saskatchewan to see this.” He was smiling, slightly, but his tone and words were serious. I can’t directly quote most of them because I didn’t take notes and it was a quarter-century ago. But I recall vividly his vow: the Red Wings would then wreak vengeance upon Claude Lemieux of the Colorado Avalanche for maim-
ing the face of Detroit’s Kris Draper with a blind-side check into the boards in Denver that spring during a bitter Western Conference finals series in the Stanley Cup playoffs of . Just as Lewis promised, the payback came in Detroit’s now-demolished Joe Louis Arena. During a multi-player brawl, Darren McCarty of Detroit attacked Lemieux with punches that left Lemieux da ed and di y. Blood flowed from his face and onto his shirt and onto the white ice and sideboards as 19,983 enemy fans stood, jumped, clapped, howled, and roared with delight. Instead of getting ejected from the game, McCarty earned only two minor penalties for roughing. Hours later — after yet another McCarty fight and other fights involving others — McCarty scored the winning goal in suddendeath overtime in a 6-5 Detroit victory. That spring, the Wings won their first of four Cup championships in a span of 12 seasons. I covered the Joe Louis Bloodbath for The New York Times and got to both dressing rooms afterward to hear some blunt words. “Retribution,” a trembling McCarty said. “Back in the Bible, go to the Old Testament. An eye for an eye.”
Detroit Red Wing Darren McCarty and Colorado Avalanche Claude Lemieux duke it out on Nov. 11, 1997. | DAVID P. GILKEY, DETROIT FREE PRESS
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McCarty’s gory beating of Lemieux is part of the core lore of Detroit hockey, played here professionally for almost a century. And March 26, 2022 marks precisely the 25th anniversary of this pivotal moment. members founded in the Motor City in the Roaring Twenties. So the two teams had no geographical or historical rivalry. That didn’t matter. “From the first drop of the puck in Game 1, guys were taking runs,” Draper later recalled for The Players Tribune. “Slashing, grabbing, sucker-punching. ou name it. . . We did stuff. They did stuff.” In Game 3, Lemieux sucker-punched Slava Kozlov of Detroit in the back of the head because Kozlov’s earlier shove from behind had gashed the face of Colorado’s Adam Foote. After the 6-4 Detroit victory, as Lemieux walked with his family through the parking lot outside Denver’s McNichols Arena, they passed by the Wings’ team bus. Suddenly, Wings’ coach Scotty Bowman — a master of psychological warfare — stepped into the open doorway and spoke harshly to Lemieux, who told me about it the next morning in the corridor outside the dressing room. “I’m walking out with my child, my wife, and my nephew, and my family,” Lemieux said. “Bowman just started yelling out of the bus, which is a weird thing. The door was still open and he took a step down and said ‘Nice suckerpunch, you blankety-blank. I hope you get suspended.’” The next day, Bowman demanded the National Hockey League review Lemieux’s hit on Kozlov. Headquarters suspended Lemieux for Game 4. Bowman was a shrewd, veteran coach with a glittering record; Colorado’s Marc Crawford was new and young and had not yet won much. Hearing that Bowman demanded NHL justice, Crawford analyzed the mind of his senior rival. “He’s a great thinker,” Crawford said, “but he thinks so much that he even gets the plate in his head to cause interference in our headsets during the games.” At that point, even those in the know said “Huh?” Crawford’s reference was to an incident in which Bowman as a teenage junior got hit in the head by a rival’s stick.
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For decades, journalists had reported this as fact: Scotty Bowman has a metal plate in his head, put there by doctors after his career-ending injury. Those words may have well been engraved on the Stanley Cup. It seemed to be a telling detail that helped explain something — who knows what? — about a brilliant but sometimes ba ing man. Crawford’s taunts soon reached Bowman during an impromptu news conference in the lobby of the arena. His response brought an even greater “Huh?” — because Bowman then told a swarm of reporters, repeatedly, “I don’t have a plate in my head.” We reporters were confused, as if someone had used a plate in his head to interfere with our brain waves. Why had Bowman never said this before? Why had he never bothered to correct the record? Bowman kept answering the same questions the same way. In that he was surrounded on all sides, this meant that the perplexed pack of puck pundits moved with Bowman, turning as a group in a 360-degree circle as if Bowman were the sun and we were his slowly orbiting planets. To mix journalistic clichés literally, Bowman was actually spinning the media while lobbying us in the lobby. The two teams split the next two games to give Colorado a 3-2 edge in the best-of-seven series. The horrid flash point came in Game on May at McNichols in a 4-1 Avs’ victory that clinched Colorado’s berth in the Stanley Cup finals against Florida. At of the first period, Lemieux charged Detroit’s Draper from behind and rammed his face into the solid dasher at the top of the side boards near the team benches. The impact cracked Draper’s face like the shell of a hard-boiled egg. Lemieux got a five-minute major penalty and an ejection for a game misconduct. After the game, in the corridor near the dressing rooms, Detroit trainer ohn Wharton walked from the first-aid room alongside Draper, who looked as if he had endured a car crash. Wharton
detailed the damage done. “He has a fractured jaw and possible orbital fracture and a broken nose,” Wharton told us. “He took 30-some stitches. The teeth will have to be replaced because they are out of position. e also suffered a concussion.” Draper said he learned the name of his assailant when he was on the table. “When I found out, I wasn’t surprised,” Draper said. He implied that Lemieux routinely protected himself while intentionally harming others. “He runs around with a visor down to his chin and a body full of armor,” Draper said. He said two Colorado players — he wouldn’t give their names — visited him after the game to call Lemieux’s deed “a classless act. “That’s coming from his own teammates,” Draper said. One of Draper’s teammates — goalie Chris Osgood — said another suspension of Lemieux would not suffice and that the Red Wings would deal with Lemieux in the next season. When someone suggested that this sounded like a threat, Osgood called it just a prediction. “It’s not a threat,” he said. “It’s something that’s going to happen. We’re sick and tired of it. It’s happened too many times. He could have broken Draper’s neck. It’s sickening.” The Avs went on to sweep the Florida anthers to win their first Cup championship. McCarty later told Detroit radio station 97.1 The Ticket that he often thought about Lemieux during that summer offseason. He said he envisioned Lemieux’s face on the golf balls he hit off the tee. Draper was not only his friend and “Grind Line” linemate; McCarty also was best man at his wedding. After surgery, Draper’s jaw was wired shut and McCarty carried a pair of pliers, he said, in case Draper choked on food and needed first aid. Constantly, McCarty said, he envisioned revenge against Lemieux. “I was driving myself crazy,” McCarty told the radio station. “I said, ‘God, whatever happens, can I be the messenger whatever Your plan is?’”
F
When McCarty started elaborating about “God’s will,” an alert public relations official announced that it was time to let Darren take his shower. Down the hallway, in the Avalanche room, a different philosophical analysis was advanced. “Everyone is gutless on that team,” said Mike Keane, referring to Detroit. “This doesn’t prove they are men. I think they are phony.” Three months later, McCarty and the fin de si cle Red Wings defeated the defending champion Avs in an occasionally vicious six-game Western Conference finals series. Detroit then swept the hiladelphia Flyers for its first Cup championship since 1955. That generation of players also won in 1998, 2002, and 2008. McCarty played on all four. That era of success has been bettered in Detroit hockey history only with four Cup championships in six seasons from 1950 through 1955, when the team played at Olympia Stadium and the NHL was a six-team league. In decades of sports reporting, I covered many major rivalries, including the New York Yankees against the Boston Red Sox in Major League Baseball and the Ohio State Buckeyes against the Michigan Wolverines in college football. I recognize the visceral passion among the athletes and their fans and, sometimes, even the media. I know how team sports — even at the highschool level — can spark tribal emotions that can rage out of control. Even by the standards of those traditional sports feuds, Red WingsAvalanche was extreme. Reporting the beating of Lemieux that night was like covering ritualistic mob behavior in a partly civilized frontier town. Or, as McCarty explained, this sort of revenge — with fists punching skulls — demonstrated hockey’s eternal need for vigilante justice. “ ou’ve got to keep fighting in the game,” McCarty said. McCarty’s gory beating of Lemieux is part of the core lore of Detroit hockey, played here professionally for almost a century. And March 26, 2022 marks precisely the 25th anniversary of this pivotal moment. The bad blood boiled from the Draper incident of 1996, when Detroit had the best record in the regular schedule but lost to Colorado in six games in the Western finals. Just that season, the Avs had moved to Denver from Quebec City, where they used to be the Nordiques, hatched in the 1970s in the renegade World ockey Association. The Red Wings were NHL blue bloods, “Original Six”
A bleeding Colorado Avalanche goaltender Patrick Roy is sent to the bench after brawling with Detroit Red Wings’ goaltender Mike Vernon. | AP PHOTO/TOM PIDGEON
During the following regular season, Detroit and Colorado played three games prior to the March 26 showdown. The Avalanche won all three. Due to injuries, Lemieux missed the first two, one of them featuring the removal of two Colorado players on stretchers. Lemieux played in the third match, in Denver, on March 16, but no attack took place that night. However, in the Denver arena, Detroit fans — the Wings’ base is widespread — hoisted signs that showed Lemieux’s name on tombstones. The Avs would visit Detroit in 10 days. There’s a phrase sometimes heard in hockey: “Get ‘em in your own barn.” As March 26 approached, the Detroit and Denver newspapers joined the feud. In the Denver Post, columnist Marc Kiszla wrote “Detroit so hates Lemieux it can taste the bile. But the Red Wings can’t hurt him, can’t intimidate him, can’t touch him.” Addressing “the motor mouths of
There’s a phrase sometimes heard in hockey: “Get ‘em in your own barn.” the Motor City,” he added: “It’s a rivalry only in Detroit’s spiteful dreams.” In the Detroit News, a headline heralded “A Time for Revenge” and put Lemieux’s face on a wanted poster. Columnist Bob Wojnowski wrote of Lemieux’s “phony sneer that supposedly makes him intimidating. “He’s intimidating like a carjacker is intimidating,” he wrote. “You don’t know when he’ll strike but you can bet it will be from behind followed by sudden flight.” Colorado players downplayed the grudge. “The Lemieux-Draper thing is over now,” Colorado’s Keane said. “They had their chance to settle the score last
game.” But goalie atrick Roy of Colorado offered a more realistic prediction. “It will be a very interesting game,” he said. “We expect a tough game.” Detroit players spoke more forcefully. Draper said of Lemieux “ e won’t fight guys on this team, at least not the guys who can fight.” McCarty said “I have no respect for the way he plays. He’s gutless and won’t stand up for himself.” When the Avs reached Detroit, “I was getting death threats,” Lemieux said. A security guard watched Lemieux’s hotel door. But he would have no such protection on the ice before the usual standing-room-only crowd at Joe Louis Arena, which stood gray and drab on
the north bank of the Detroit River, across from Windsor, Ontario. (Yes, Detroit is so “Hockeytown” it is actually north of Canada). The neighborhood included two other massive tributes to Louis, the “Brown Bomber” from Detroit’s nearby (and long-ago demolished) Black Bottom. He was the world heavyweight boxing champion before, during and after World War II. One memorial was a 30-foot statue of Louis and his gloved fists towering in a front hallway of what was once called Cobo Hall. Just down the street stood an 8,000-pound sculpture of Louis’s clenched fist bare-knuckled across from City Hall. Inside “The Joe” that night, both teams served knuckle sandwiches, early and often. Brent Severyn of Colorado and amie ushor of Detroit fought first at of the first period Rene Corbet of Colorado and Kirk Maltby of Detroit did the same at 10:14. “It was a saucy little game,” McCarty
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later told the web site Woodward Sports Network. “You can see something’s boiling up to happen.” (Other McCarty quotations from that WSN interview will appear below in italics). Lemieux felt an early slash from Detroit’s Vladimir Konstantinov and later a check into the boards from Detroit’s Brendan Shanahan. Neither was penalized by referee Paul Devorski. The major gang fight erupted at with an unlikely pair, Detroit’s Igor Larionov of Russia against Colorado’s Peter Forsberg of Sweden. In the NHL mentality of that era, European players were not expected to fight, especially two stars like these. Forsberg and Larionov were highly skilled craftsmen better known for creating scoring chances, although neither shied from hard contact and Forsberg enjoyed initiating it. But tensions and expectations were such for brawling on this night that their behavior seemed organic to the mood and attitude. In that neither dropped gloves for bare-knuckle punching, referee Devorski gave them not five-minute major penalties for fighting but only twominute minors for roughing because they merely wrestled on the ice and tumbled over on each other. “Rolling around like puppies on Christmas morning,” McCarty said with a smile. Meanwhile, McCarty and Lemieux milled about an eight-player scrum while everyone chose what hockey people call “dance partners.” When McCarty spied Lemieux, he lunged toward him and, with a shot from his gloved right hand, hit him upside the head the way Joe Louis smacked Max Schmeling back in at the original ankee Stadium. McCarty later said he looked Lemieux in the eye before unloading and explained the difference between this approach and a sucker punch. “That’s the cold-cock,” McCarty explained. “That’s not a sucker punch.” As Lemieux fell to the ice, McCarty ripped the helmet from Lemieux’s head. The Wings had often complained that Lemieux’s large, hard, plastic face shield amounted to part of his “armor.” “I didn’t see him coming,” Lemieux later said on the Canadian TV sports show OTR. “He popped me right in the temple. I was dizzy. I went down.” As Lemieux went down, McCarty fought with his legs as well as his arms. “Yes, I did try to knee him,” McCarty said. His “try” succeeded.
“He kneed me where I lost my helmet,” Lemieux said. “He got away with that.” Years later, Lemieux said he had a permanent knot on the back of his head as a souvenir. Having now shed his gloves, McCarty began to pummel the prone Lemieux about the head and face, drawing blood. He dragged him over to the boards in front of the Detroit bench and continued punching him. “I’m just — boom!” McCarty said. “Smashed Lemieux’s head against the wall . . . I smashed his face.” In that Lemieux appeared to be covering up in a defensive crouch, many fans later accused him of “turtling,” a term used for a player afraid to fight
The two goalies stood toe-to-toe at center ice and landed multiple punches in a lengthy slugfest that delighted the fans, who leapt from their seats and screamed; and the players, who stood in front of their benches and banged their sticks on the boards; and perhaps even some journalists in the press box, who pounded their laptop computer keyboards and punched the dials on their telephones. And it left visiting goalie Roy with blood streaming down his face. At this point, I called my editor on the desk in New York and told him to watch the wire services because some sensational photographs were no doubt on the way.
In some instances — probably most — fights were a quasi-legal sideshow sanctioned as entertainment. But in other circumstances, calculated or spontaneous fighting could inspire a team, settle a grudge, intimidate an enemy, and even spark (symbolically, at least) an era of success. This was one of those. In the previous decade, while climbing from the cellar level of the NHL, the Red Wings had improved with the help of Bob Probert and Joe Kocur, “The Bruise Brothers,” two of the most effective punchers in the sport. McCarty grew up near Detroit, in Leamington, Ontario, Canada. He’d spoken of taking the tunnel bus across the border and under the Detroit River to watch Probert and Kocur punch out foes at The Joe. As was the case with them, McCarty took on the so-called “enforcer” role of vindicator not only for his team but for a vast community. “The whole Red Wing nation — man, woman, child, granny — who ever wanted a piece of this guy,” McCarty said on The Ticket. “I was the messenger.” McCarty paid only a small price for delivering his message. In a twisted bit of hockey justice, referee Devorski let McCarty off with only two minor penalties for roughing. According to this “It-takestwo-to-tango” logic, McCarty wasn’t “fighting” because his victim did not fight back and was not penalized). The only majors for fighting went to the two goalies, who also got twominute minors for “leaving the crease” in front of their nets. Hockey, after all, has decorum Thou shalt not leave thy goal crease. Back then, the NHL used only one referee instead of the two they do today. Perhaps a partner could have added to McCarty’s rap sheet a twominute minor for instigating, a fiveminute major for fighting, a -minute misconduct, and an ejection for a game misconduct. Colorado coach Crawford later said the referee apologized to him at the first intermission for not calling a more severe penalty against McCarty. “He said he blew the call,” Crawford said. “Small consolation.” Despite missing the most blatant offense, Devorski nevertheless called fighting majors as the night raged on. Later in the game, McCarty won at least a draw in his second battle, this one with the wonderfully named Adam Deadmarsh. Then came McCarty’s moment of
For some hockey promoters, fans, and journalists, hockey fights were a guilty pleasure. Others felt no guilt whatsoever. Before the internet, fans trade video cassettes of hockey fights by mail, an underground, bootleg circuit. and more interested in protecting himself in the manner of a turtle retreating into a shell. Lemieux later denied this, saying only that he was too dazed to fight back. McCarty offered an anatomical analysis. “ m trying to ta e my st and put it through his skull and rip his heart out,” McCarty said. “He got what he deserved.” Although vicious, bloody, pre-ordained and historic, this battle was not even the wildest punchout of the event. That came when goalie Roy of Colorado saw Lemieux in trouble against McCarty and raced down the ice to his rescue. This triggered a chain reaction. Detroit’s Shanahan cut off Roy and crashed him with a leaping body block with choreography resembling tagteam action in pro wrestling. Organically, Detroit goalie Mike Vernon dashed into the pile from the other direction to square off with Roy, goalie vs. goalie being correct hockey etiquette in six-on-six brawls, sort of like a square dance in a Saskatchewan barn when everyone knows the proper do-si-do.
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“You hockey writers,” he said with a chuckle. “ ou love that stuff.” A few minutes later, he called me back. “You’ve gotta see these pictures!” he said. “This is crazy!” At the time — late in the th century — fighting in hockey was commonplace, although reduced in scale and scope from the “Broad Street Bullies” era of the s when the Philadelphia Flyers dominated and intimidated the NHL with intentional brawls and twice won the Cup. They were to hockey what Hell’s Angels were to highways. In some ways, fighting amounted to hockey pornography — something physical and perspiration-producing between two (or more) consenting adults before willing voyeurs who watched either in person or through television. For some hockey promoters, fans, and journalists, hockey fights were a guilty pleasure. Others felt no guilt whatsoever. Before the internet, fans trade video cassettes of hockey fights by mail, an underground, bootleg circuit.
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glory, his career-defining memory and perhaps the highlight of his life. In the first minute of sudden-death overtime, on a flowing rush of skating and passing with Larionov and Shanahan, McCarty beat Roy to give Detroit the 6-5 victory. Selected as first star of the game, McCarty waited in the hallway for his curtain call and wiped tears from his eyes. After taking a bow, he sat in the dressing room and quoted the Bible. Two months later, in the postseason playoffs of , the Wings and Avs reprised March with a burlesque sequel at The oe. This show roared right out of Slap Shot, aul Newman’s ollywood hockey film farce from the s that mocked the Broad Street Bullies era. For the second consecutive year, the Red Wings and Avalanche met in the Western Conference finals. After three games, Detroit had two victories and the furies returned during a Detroit victory in Game . Again, the referee was Devorski. Late in the third period — after multiple fights, slashes, elbows, cross-checks, and high sticks — Coach Bowman of Detroit and Coach Crawford of Colorado discussed the proceedings from the near ends of their respective benches. Crawford stood up on his bench, therefore towering above his older rival and screaming down at him while Bowman ga ed back with a blank stare. As Crawford raged, his players and assistants held him back but never covered his mouth. According to the book Blood Feud by Adrian Dater, the conversation went something like this. BOWMAN “I knew your father before you did.” CRAWFORD “ eah, yeah. And he thinks you’re a fucking asshole, too . . . ou fuckin’ old cunt . . . Fuck you, you fuckin’ asshole, you’re a fuckin’ loser . . . I’ll fuckin’ kill you I will I’ll get you, you cocksucker . . . our time has come I’m going to get you.” It appeared at this point that Bowman’s psychological ploys had gotten the best of his rival. Although the Avalanche won Game in Denver, the Wings clinched the series in Game back in Detroit and went on to sweep the hiladelphia Flyers in the finals for their first Cup championship since . But the celebration dimmed a few days later when a limousine crash in suburban Detroit left Konstantinov partly paraly ed and with brain damage that destroyed many memory functions. When the Wings won the Cup
again the following year in Washington, they presented it to Konstantinov on the ice in his wheelchair. Also in that - season, in Colorado’s first visit to The oe, Lemieux challenged McCarty to fight as they lined up for the opening faceoff. It was a matter of honor, he said. Detroit fans, N L fans, and even some Colorado fans still thought Lemieux “turtled” in his March beating. “For me, it was planned,” Lemieux said on OTR. “I was tired of hearing about it.” e didn’t like hearing that he “turtled” in the previous brawl. No hockey team would ever be named “the
Detroit victory to tie the series at three wins each. Before Game back at The oe, Roy looked rattled in warmups. A group of teenage girls stood at Roy’s end of the ice and teased him verbally through the holes in the glass used during the games by photographers. Roy visibly reacted, turning toward them, speaking and skating toward them and then, apparently, thinking better of it, returning to his goal crease. I happened to be watching all this while standing nearby with my brother, Ernie, and I remember mentioning to
Gemel Smith. Neither turtled. McCarty’s career, which began in , also ended in , after he rejoined the Wings for their most recent Cup championship, in . e formed a rock band, Grinder, went through two divorces and a bankruptcy, and underwent four rehabilitations for substance abuse. In , he partnered with a marijuana company, icanna, to manufacture a line of products under the name “Darren McCarty Brand.” Early in , the company announced McCarty’s cannabis “gummies” with brands that included “ ower lay and “Lights Out.” At present, McCarty’s growling voice can be heard on a series of radio commercials for a Detroitarea pain clinic. In one script, he taunts Lemieux as a “turtlin’ bbleep .” And in a current television commercial for a law firm, McCarty brandishes his Stanley Cup rings as if they were brass knuckles. e and Lemieux never became close friends, but have appeared together at trading card shows and were interviewed together on T . If card show fans brought photographs of their famous battle, both men would sign them. When they appeared at the same event in suburban Detroit in , the Free Press reported that Lemieux signed the photo of his mugging with the captions like “A bad day at the office” and “I lost the fight” and “I was just praying.” Such promotion, he said, is “all for the good of the game.” Seven years before that, in Canada in , they met for a formal recollection — if not reconciliation — of their feud on the OTR show. One might say they broke the ice. “This is the first time that you guys have really talked about it at all,” said host Michael Landsberg. “Can I get you to shake hands “Absolutely,” said Lemieux. McCarty, to Lemieux’s left, nodded and offered his hand first. With tight smiles, they extended their muscular arms over the big leather arms of their chairs. With Lemieux’s hand on top and McCarty’s underneath, their two hands clasped into one, big, friendly fist.
Vernon dashed into the pile from the other direction to square off with Roy, goalie vs. goalie being correct hockey etiquette in six-on-six brawls, not unlike a square dance in a Saskatchewan barn when everyone knows the proper do-si-do. Turtles.” “Kraken,” perhaps but never “Turtles.” “I know that it had such a negative impact on the team and people critici ing me,” Lemieux said. “I said, ou know what I’m going to fight.’” ideo of the event shows a brisk and serious battle, evenly fought, with both combatants trading words before trading punches. Lemieux later said he didn’t want to wait to do it in Denver. The two teams played another conference final in , when the Avs again were defending Cup champions. McCarty scored a hat trick against Roy in a - Detroit victory in Game , but the series is best remembered for the goalie’s memorable gift of a gaffe in Game in Denver. After making a nifty glove save on Steve erman, Roy struck a Statue-ofLiberty pose with his glove held high above his head like a torch. e was showing off. But Roy accidentally dropped the puck to the ice. Before he reali ed it, several Red Wings jumped toward it and Shanahan pushed it over the goal line for a - lead in what became a -
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him that Roy didn’t seem in the right frame of mind. e played terribly and was pulled before a cheering, jeering crowd after giving up six goals in less than minutes in what became a - Wings’ victory to clinch the series. Detroit then defeated Carolina in the finals to clinch its third of four Cup titles in this era. Lemieux’s career, which began in , ended in . e maintained a close friendship with Wayne Gret ky, considered the best hockey player of his generation. Lemieux became the president of GRAF Canada, a Swit erland-based sports equipment company that makes hockey skates. Lemieux’s son, Brendan, is a forward with the Los Angeles Kings. Brendan Lemieux was born in March of and was the infant in his mother’s arms when Bowman verbally attacked his father in the parking lot outside the old rink in Denver. Late in , the N L suspended young Lemieux for five games for biting the hand of Ottawa’s Brady Tkachuk during a fight. Early in , young Lemieux traded punches with Detroit’s
Joe Lapointe is a Detroit-area freelance writer. This story is a chapter in his sports reporting memoir to be titled either The Fire-Balling Flame-Thrower Threw Bullets to Slam the Door or Local Team opes to Win Next Game.
thu 3/24 Happy Birthday, DENA! Happy Birthday, SUZANNE SUNSHOWER!
FRI 3/25 FUNK NIGHT (monthly) Doors @ 9pm • $5 Cover
SAT 3/26 SOMETHING ELEGANT
Lady DJ Dance Party (monthly) Doors @ 9pm • $5 Cover
Sun 3/27 matt smiley’s birthday show: asklepius/goods/lans nam/ lulu summerfield TRAP VEGAN pop-up @6pm Jack Daniels PROMO @9pm
mon 3/28 FREE pool Happy Birthday, sheila tequila!
EMPLOYMENT Centene Management Company, LLC seeks Senior Data Engineers in Detroit, MI to design data structure using understanding of BI and reporting reqs that the warehouse will support. Develop and test data warehouse and big data apps using ETL tool including Hadoop, Spark Job and Hive and Talend. Req’d: Bachelor’s degree in Comp Sci, Comp Eng, SW Eng, Bus Info, Bus Admin or rltd, and 3 yrs rel work exp. To apply, visit Centene’s web page at http://jobs.centene. com/#careers. Create a candidate profile and apply to requisition 00AFH. EOE.
Tues 3/29 national vietnam war veterans day! You Can DJ! @ 9pm • B.Y.O.R. Bring Your Own Records NO COVER! Deep Eddy Vodka PROMO!
Coming Up in april: 4/01 knuckledragger/ soot/ekg (Gutter/loud) 4/02 booty muzik (twerk/house/ghetto tech) 4/08 tigers opening day 4/08 dj skeez 4/09 faye/rosemont/camino kid 4/15 danny kroha/the brown thrasher Weekly Drink Special (M-Th) Jim Beam Shot & 9oz Miller Draft $5 JELLO SHOTS $1
IN LOVING MEMORY Robert “RICO AFRICA” Berry 2-22-2022 Celebration of Life: The Old Miami, April 16, 2022 @ 4pm
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WHAT’S GOING ON
Nicky Siano, a NYC dance music pioneer, performs in Detroit on Friday.
Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Submit your events to metrotimes.com/calendar. Be sure to check venue websites for COVID-19 policies.
SAT 3/26 & SUN 3/27 Black Women Rock Betty Davis Tribute
After a nearly two-year hiatus, the funky fresh collective Black Women Rock is heading back to the stage with a Betty Davis Tribute at the Charles H. Wright Museum. These badass ladies have a three-day extravaganza planned for their return, and have rebranded as The Daughters of Betty. As the name suggests, the group is made up of Black women rock ’n’ rollers, mostly from Detroit, who perform original music, cover songs, and spoken word poetry. There will be a performance at the Wright on Saturday with appearances by jessica Care Moore, Militia Vox, Sate, and more, and a post-show artist’s talk with yoga and a continental breakfast on Sunday. The post-show events are free. —Randiah Camille Green Doors open at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 26 at the Charles H. Wright
Museum; 315 E. Warren Ave., Detroit; 313-494-5800; thewright.org; Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online via Eventbrite. Yoga and continental breakfast on Sunday, March 27 starts at 11:30 a.m. and the artist talk begins at 1 p.m.
FRI 3/25 Nicky Siano
Nicky Siano had already left his mark on New York City’s club scene when he was only 17 years old, opening The Gallery in 1973. It was there that he created the blueprint for the modern DJ, pioneering techniques like beatmatching, EQing, and using three turntables, and serving as inspiration to influential DJs like Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles. Soon after, he landed a gig at the famous Studio 54, before allegedly being fired for excessive drug use after a friend died of AIDS, he retired from nightlife in 1982 to get sober and serve as a social worker. After 15 years away from the turntables, Siano returned in the late ’90s and at 67 years old he continues to spin to this day. Friday’s special performance will include a screening of the trailer for the upcoming film Love is the Message D Nicky
20 March 23-29, 2022 | metrotimes.com
COURTESY PHOTO
Siano and the club that changed music forever, and Detroit DJ TYLER_ will open. —Lee DeVito Doors at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 25 at Spot Lite; 2905 Beaufait St., Detroit; spotlitedetroit.com. Tickets start at $20.
FRI 3/24 Talib Kweli DJ set
Talib Kweli doesn’t really need an introduction. The Brooklyn rapper has established himself as an instantly recognizable name in hip-hop as a solo artist and half Black Star with Mos Def. The man has been featured on a long list of collabs with everyone from Pharrell Williams, to Just Blaze, and Kanye West. On Friday, the socially conscious lyricist will be making his way to Detroit not for a rap gig, but for an intimate DJ set at the Tangent Gallery. —Randiah Camille Green Doors open at 9 p.m. at the Tangent Gallery; 715 E. Milwaukee Ave., Detroit; tangentgallery.com. Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased either through Eventbrite or at the door.
FRI 3/25-SUN 3/27 Slavic Solidarity: A Dinner for Ukraine at Frame
Hazel Park’s Frame will host a Slavic dinner in solidarity with Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing attack. “Slavic Solidarity A Dinner for kraine” will feature elevated versions of Ukrainian dishes prepared by chef Michael Barrera. This includes zakuski — duck rillettes, cheese, pickles, and bread — and Ukraine’s national dish, borscht (beet soup). Proceeds from the dinner will benefit the krainian Congress Committee of America’s #SupportUkraine umanitarian Effort, which provides aid to Ukrainian refugees, children, and front-line defenders. —Randiah Camille Green Tickets are $85 per person. Dinner seatings are at 5:30 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 4 p.m. or 7 p.m. on Sunday. Frame is located at 23839 John R Rd., No. 2, Hazel Park; framehazelpark.com. Wine pairings and cocktails are available at an additional cost.
4/24 CAVETOWN
w/ Tessa Violet & Addison Grace
4/27 KALEO
w/ Bones Owens
4/30 SEVENDUST THIS SATURDAY
ARI SHAFFIR, BIG JAY OAKERSON & ROBERT KELLY
APRIL 8
DR. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: COSMIC COLLISIONS
w/All Good Things, Plush, DEEPFALL
MARCH 29
FLETCHER
5/1
MIKE.
5/3
AN EVENING WITH STEVE HACKETT GENESIS REVISITED
5/6
JESSE MCCARTNEY
5/7
INTERPOL
5/8
ACTION BRONSON, EARL SWEATSHIRT, THE ALCHEMIST, BOLDLY JAMES
APRIL 14
JESSIE JAMES DECKER W/ ADAM DOLEAC
w/ Tycho and Matthew Dear
5/10 SIMPLE PLAN & SUM 41 w/ Set It Off
5/11 JAMES ARTHUR w/ Nina Nesbitt
APRIL 18
SPOON
W/ MARGARET GLASPY
APRIL 19
ROYAL BLOOD
5/13 RYAN HURD
w/ Morgan Wade
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MUSIC Still working
Men at Work frontman Colin Hay performs in Royal Oak on Sunday By Alan Sculley
Look at any summer tour sched-
ule, and you’ll find plenty of bands and solo artists that are essentially living off of their past. They fill big amphitheaters (and even stadiums) even though they haven’t had a hit in decades. Some have even stopped making new albums because they’ve found their audiences just want to hear the songs they know. The fans come out to the concerts to hear those tunes live and relive the time those songs formed part of the soundtrack of their lives. That’s all fine and good. But Colin ay is not one of those artists. This singer-guitarist, who enjoyed huge popularity during the s fronting the Australian band Men At Work, finds that not only are his fans not overly interested in those hits of yesteryear, they want to hear new music from ay to go with songs from the solo albums he’s released since Men At Work broke up in anuary . “I’m very lucky in that way. I’m very grateful for the fact that that is the case,” ay says in an early March interview from his home near Los Angeles. “I think it would be a bit glum if they were just coming along for a couple of songs. ” The demand for fresh music is one reason ay remains focused on writing and recording new songs. e has just released his latest album or original material, Now and the Evermore, which arrives roughly a year after ay put out an album of cover songs, I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself. ay was well along with the Now and the Evermore album in , and in fact planned to release the album that fall. But the pandemic hit, and sent ay home to Topanga Canyon that spring, where he did what songwriters do. e kept writing songs, eventually recording more than tracks, of which were chosen for the album. “We ended up with this bunch of , for various reasons,” ay says. “But it seemed to be just kind of a mood that was created with this particular batch of songs that I liked.” ay sent some of the songs to his friend Fred Kron, who added string arrangements to them. “When I heard those string arrangements, I wanted to hear some more of them,” he says.
Colin Hay performs Sunday, March 27, at Royal Oak Music Theatre.
“So that’s in some ways partly how we chose the songs.” e adds, “It’s always a little strange talking about your own work in a way, but I think there is a lot of beauty in the record. When I listen to it, there’s pain involved with that beauty as well, but that’s the way things are in this world. But I love the way it turned out in that sense.” After finishing Now and the Evermore, ay was still at home waiting for venues to reopen so he could return to touring. One day, he was in his home studio and thinking about Gerry Marsden, the frontman of Gerry and the acemakers, who had recently passed away. ay started strumming and singing that group’s hit song “Don’t Let the Sun Catch ou Crying.” Liking how it sounded, Hay recorded the song and sent the file to a long-time collaborator, Chad Fischer. “I thought it sounded nice with just an electric guitar and a voice,” ay says. “I sent it to him and said What do you think of this ’ And he said Oh, I love it.’ And he orchestrated some stuff, put some stuff on it and sent it back.” Soon ay was recording his guitarand-vocal versions of other songs that connected him to moments in his life
22 March 23-29, 2022 | metrotimes.com
and sending them to Fischer, who added orchestration and other parts. It became apparent they were making a covers album. In the end, ay and Fischer chose covers, including the aforementioned Kinks classic “Waterloo Sunset,” a pair of Beatles songs “Norwegian Wood” and “Across the niverse” , the immy Webb song “Wichita Lineman” which Glen Campbell made famous , and of course “Don’t Let the Sun Catch ou Crying” and the title track, a Burt Bacharach al David song that Dusty Springfield turned into a hit. Touring to promote the two albums won’t be all that keeps ay busy in . Shortly after he finishes the current solo trek, he’ll join Ringo Starr for this year’s Ringo Starr and is All Starr Band tour. ay wrote the title song of Starr’s most recent album, “What’s My Name,” and the Beatles drummer plays on the song “Now and the Evermore.” Then later this year, ay will team up with Rick Springfield and ohn Waite for a tour in which he’ll sing and play guitar for his new version of Men At Work. “It’s basically the same band that I have that I go out with as the Colin ay Band,” he says. “It’s basically the same
PAUL MOBLEY
band, except that we just do a Men At Work set.” That Australia-based band enjoyed major success, beginning with the debut album, Business as Usual. It spawned the No. hit singles “Down nder” and “Who Can It Be Now ” and the album itself spent weeks atop the Billboard album chart. That debut was followed by another hit album, Cargo, in , which included two more hit singles, “Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake.” But the band ran into internal issues after that, and broke up after releasing a third album, Two Hearts, which failed to come anywhere close to the success of the first two albums. ay still enjoys the Men At Work material, too. “It’s really exciting and the audience really loves it. It’s because of the fact that that music has got some kind of timeless quality to it,” ay says. “It just feels like it always did whenever I play those songs.” Colin Hay performs Sunday, March 27, at Royal Oak Music Theatre; 318 W. 4th St., Royal Oak; 248-399-2980; royaloakmusictheatre.com. Doors at 7 p.m. Tickets start at $42.
metrotimes.com | March 23-29, 2022
23
MUSIC Music Notes
R.I.P. Kevin ‘The Last Soulman’ Jones of Detroit hip-hop group A.W.O.L. By Kahn Santori Davison
The Detroit hip-hop com-
munity is mourning the loss of Kevin “The Last Soulman” Jones of the underground rap group A.W.O.L. The cause of his passing is not known, but the group released a statement March 15, on its Facebook page that stated, “This will be the last post and final chapter of Detroit’s AWOL. Rest In Peace Kevin The Last Soulman Jones. You will be missed, bro.” The pioneering group was a part of Detroit’s first hip-hop wave in the s that also included James “The Blackman” arris, Kaos Mystro, Detroit’s Most Wanted, Awesome Dre, Nikki D, and others. “He was an iconic, classic hip-hop man, a true lyricist,” says fellow emcee Kalimah ohnson aka Nikki D . “Kevin ones was the emcee’s emcee in Detroit. We did plenty of shows together, but my fondest memory was our weekend cyphers at Hart Plaza during the summer. He will be sorely missed. His passing had me thinking today about what Detroit hip-hop did for us from the late ’ s and early ’ s. e was Detroit in his blood and bones.” Along with Jones, A.W.O.L. — Afrocentric Wicked Old-school Lyricists — was made up of Marqui “Boogie Mack” aughn and Bennie “D omicide” erron who was murdered in . The group released four albums — No Deal , What It Be Like , Detroit 4 Life , and Back 2 Tha Future — along with a host of other projects. The single “ ou Don’t Want None of This” is one of the group’s most notable hits, and became an instant underground classic. The group also received a “Detroit ioneer Award” at the Detroit ip- op awards show. A.W.O.L. was the subject of a Metro Times cover story.
Kevin “The Last Soulman” Jones.
Greta Van Fleet postpones Flint and Ypsi shows
Greta an Fleet’s tour of five Michigan concerts was cut short after half of the band got sick — but they say it isn’t CO ID- . “We’re heartbroken to share both Jake and Josh woke up ill this morning,” the band said in an Instagram post. “While CO ID has been ruled out, after medical consultation, we unfortunately must reschedule tonight’s show in Flint and tomorrow’s show in Ypsilanti to the fall.” The show originally scheduled for the Dort Financial Center in Flint on March has been moved to Sept. , while the date at Eastern Michigan University Convocation Center in Ypsi on March was moved to Sept. . All previous tickets from the original shows will be honored, but refunds are available at the point of purchase. The band, originally from Frankenmuth, announced a string of five Michigan dates that started at Kalamaoo’s Wings Event Center on March , followed by dates at the Delta lex Arena in Grand Rapids on March and Saginaw’s Dow Event Center on March , followed by the now-postponed Flint and Ypsi gigs. —Lee DeVito
Outdoor fest Jazzin’ at the Vanity to return to Detroit After a two-year hiatus due to the
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PHOTO VIA FACEBOOK
coronavirus pandemic, the a in’ at the Vanity festival will return to the streets of Detroit’s efferson-Chalmers neighborhood this summer. The free outdoor neighborhood party features jazz, blues, and rock music acts. (Some oldheads may know it better as “ a in’ on efferson,” which is what it was called in the early s. The festival will take place on Juneteenth weekend, from noon to p.m. on Saturday, une , and p.m. to p.m. on Sunday, une . There will be two stages of music, food trucks, local craft vendors, and live art installations. Festivities will be spread across efferson Ave. between Newport and Lakewood streets. Featured acts include Detroit’s celebrated ja saxophonist ames Carter, Jessica care Moore of Black Women Rock, Ghost Note, Marion ayden Legacy Ensemble, Brandon Williams, and more. “We are thrilled to bring back a in’ at the Vanity after canceling the last two years because of the pandemic,” efferson East, Inc CEO osh Elling said in a press release. “The effersonChalmers Business District has a rich history that we are committed to preserving and restoring. We’re excited to come together as a community once again to celebrate our local musicians, remember our history, and reflect on the importance of Juneteenth.” efferson East, Inc partners with the Michigan Arts and Culture Council,
and the National Endowment of the Arts to make the festival happen. More information is available at JazzinAtTheVanity.com. —Randiah Camille Green
Artists announced for the Potency Test
Cannabis company Pleasantrees has released new details for their upcoming “battle of the bands”-style contest, the otency Test, where six artists will compete for a grand pri e of , cash and studio time at The Village Studios. The artists include Pontiac rapper Arie KD, Lansing rapper Kwaj, Battle Creek singer-songwriter Sam Luna, Detroit hardcore band Adventurer, Brighton rock band V*A*S*E*, and Kalamazoo singer-songwriter Grace Theisen. The six acts will be judged by three guest judges. Those include White Boy Rick, the former teenage FBI informant who was recently freed from prison, whose story has been told as a Hollywood movie and an Eminem cameo on Starz show BMF, and who also launched his own cannabis brand; Chad Nicefield, frontman of rock band Wilson; and Pontiac City Councilwoman Melanie Rutherford, who is also a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter. All proceeds will go to charity, though details are to be determined. The Potency Test will take place at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April at the Crofoot in Pontiac. —Lee DeVito
FOOD Plenty of variety at this store By Jane Slaughter
Why do we go out to eat? Don’t
feel like cooking, save time, good place to meet friends without having to tidy the living room. But surely one of the best reasons is to eat food you’re never going to go to the trouble to make yourself. If you are paying a premium over homemade just to keep your stomach from growling, you and I are not playing by the same rules. Every time I ask chefs about their techniques, I am struck by the number of steps they’re willing to go through and the unusual ingredients they’re willing to source. Not to mention how they came up with the idea for all those steps and all those ingredients. Home cooking it’s not. Brendon Edwards of West Village’s new Metropolitan Bar & Kitchen, formerly of Gold Cash Gold, is one such chef. If you read on the menu Chili Butter Cabbage, you may think, hmm, chili and cabbage? And when you read that its ingredients include “grana padano-fennel-miso,” you might question “Italian cheese and Japanese fermented soybeans?” Edwards will explain that he likes to take his favorite “palate” — which is Latin American — and apply other cultures’ techniques to those ingredients. That’s why you’ll see a horchata-flavored panna cotta, and olives (Mediterranean) with chili and lime (Mexico). Edwards worked in Japan and in Playa del Carmen. He brought back from Mexico a stone molcajete on which the spices for his moles are ground with a pestle, as well as a Oaxaca-built tortilla press. The restaurant makes its own masa, using the ancient nixtamal process that soaks maize with slaked lime. Fresh masa means tortillas are cooked to order. All this effort pays off in some outstanding dishes. I liked everything I tried at Metropolitan, but perhaps the best was grilled pork collar: exterior-crisp morsels so tender they literally cut themselves if you touched them, glazed with tamarind and graced with paper-thin slices of apple and fennel. Every bite a marvel. Also good, though not as transcendent as I usually find, were some fried scallops with a lemony aioli and red quinoa (I think the frying detracts). Grilled octopus comes with fried bri-
Scallops and kale salad.
oche (as if brioche needed more fat), charred grapes and a mildish green romesco. The two-patty cheeseburger, which you can get for $10 during 4-6 p.m. happy hour, is served on a seeded bun with mild pickles and cheese and a zip aioli. I enjoyed it but would have liked the chance to specify a doneness level; it’s not rare. The meat and fish options are only five. In the longer vegetables column, I liked particularly maduros tostadas — sweet fried plaintains on those housemade tortillas, crisped and served with Peruvian green chilis and mild Oaxacan cheese. Sweet, hot, crunchy, creamy mouth-feel — a friendly riot of tastes and sensations. Once again, the sort of thing you’re not likely to think up and, if you’re like the unambitious most of us, unlikely to execute. I mean, most people give up long before “make your own nixtamal.” Likewise the winter squash tortilla is another friendly riot: both sweet and smoky-charred, with crunchy pepitas and salsa macha, a nutty, less spicy salsa, and somehow the tortillas hold their own and their flavor doesn’t get buried under all that. Maybe it is worth it to make your own. I mean, worth it for Brendon Johnson to make for us. About dessert: that horchata panna
26 March 23-29, 2022 | metrotimes.com
TOM PERKINS
cotta is already on my “best of 2022” list. Panna cotta can be boring as hell, but not when it tastes like the best horchata. It’s served with crisp puffed rice for that needed texture contrast, and little cubes of mango, for a bit of less-bland pick-me-up. No missteps here. Almost as good are four chocolateand-cinnamon doughnuts made from masa and cornmeal and served with chocolate cream. Again — the doughnuts taste great but they’re a little dry, so you counter that with some creaminess. I use “you” in the sense of “Brendon Johnson.” Metropolitan puts a lot of thought into its drinks, too. The $12-$16 house cocktails run the gamut from floral to tropical to maple-y to medicinal. I liked the strong Fall Rouge because of the crowd-pleasing baking spices. Beers tilt toward Michigan brews, from an “easy drinking” Cerveza Delray from Brew Detroit to a “tropic floral” Nordskye from Blackrocks in Marquette. There’s also a gluten-free Ground Breaker from Portland, Oregon. But if the relatively short beer list at the restaurant isn’t enough, you can go next door to the partner Metropolitan Variety Store, which has a selection of 200 to 300 beers that can even be bought one can at a time. They’re the
Metropolitan Bar & Kitchen 8047 Agnes St., Detroit 313-447-5418 metropolitanvariety.com Handicap accessible 4 p.m.-11 p.m. Thursday-Monday Entrées $19-$45, vegetables $7-$19
doing of Leslie rice, fresh off years at Holiday Market’s beer manager. I was boggled at the selection, and Price has about 200 wines as well, which you can take home or take to the restaurant for a corkage fee. rice likes to sell varietals most people haven’t heard of, or wines from countries that are not major wine producers, like Georgia and Slovenia. Price is also responsible for occasional tastings of beer, wine, and spirits, like the one upcoming March with Coppercraft Distillery’s (from Holland) bourbon and rye. If you like your free sip, you can order a cocktail at the bar. The Store is still in negotiations with the state about selling liquor by the bottle. The Variety Store is open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. and Sunday noon-6 p.m. For the restaurant, reservations are recommended.
FOOD Bites
Why it’s time to retire the term ‘gypsy’ By Konstantina Buhalis
Weeks ago, I walked through
the vodka aisle on a trip to Total Wine. With the power of Eastern Europe running through my veins, I was on the hunt for some Romanian spirits. But as I walked through the store, I saw something that made me pause: Gypsy Vodka. I rolled my eyes. “Gypsy” is the derogatory name for Roma, a term given to my people by Europeans in the 14th century, falsely believing that the nomads, who were from Punjab, India, were from Egypt. Gypsy Vodka is made by High Five Spirits, a company launched in 2015 by Michael and Adam Kazanowski, 20something twin brothers from Birmingham. The company has expanded, recently announcing a massive redevelopment of the 23-acre former Bay Harbor Equestrian Center in Petoskey into a 42,000-square-foot distillery and wedding venue called Gypsy Farms. The ambitious plans for the site call for multiple bars, indoor golf and duckpin bowling, glamping areas, and a music venue. According to a press release, the project is set to open in June. When we asked why the distillery chose a name recognized as a slur, Michael Kazanowski sent the following statement: I would get back to them saying we look at the name as something to be proud about. We look at the word as a way of art, love, and adventure, it honors their culture and history. We got the name while working music festivals seeing an abundance of love from everyone. We are of Polish descent whose ancestors were displaced during the holocaust and were in fact Gypsies. There is enough hate in the world that sometimes we like to look at the good in things and not the bad. Gypsy culture has deep roots and we fully respect and honor that. We have had the pleasure of having many people of Romani decent who have visited our tasting room, and they have expressed pride and have bought bottles to give to their relatives. Also, we have done many events with metro times in the
A bottle of Gypsy Vodka for sale at a metro Detroit liquor store.
past and have not had a single complaint we even won their event cocktail confidential. [Editor’s note: Metro Times does not ha e an e ent called “ oc tail on dential.”] Like other groups, some Roma choose to continue to use a term considered to be pejorative, but scholars and activists have called on people to move away from it and learn to use the proper names. Dalen Butler, a doctoral candidate in anthropology and history concentrating on Romani culture and history at the University of Michigan, explains that Roma congregated in the Balkans and throughout Europe, including a part of what is now Greece that was once called “Little Egypt.” He says the slur has negative connotations that go back to the 1500s, when anti-Roma laws were introduced that enforce racism, xenophobia, and cruelty. While Roma endured slavery in Romania for more than 500 years, the laws ensured the group would continue to be outliers, and Eastern Europe viewed Roma as sub-humans and barbarians. Butler explains further that the term “gypsy” has dark connotations associated with it. “Then you get this gross, what I would call gross, connection to enslavement, embodiment of darkness, xenophobia, cruelty, all these other things that we would associate with the worst parts about humanity,” he says. “It becomes attached to this word in the east more, so then you have this European-wide association with being
LEE DEVITO
backwoods, primitive, unruly.” Over the centuries, Roma were subjected to orientalism and treated as both the dregs of society, yet also romanticized as “Bohemian” due to their nomadic lifestyle, dismissing the fact that the lifestyle was forced on them due to anti-Romani laws. In pop culture like Disney’s 1996 feature film The unchback of Notre Dame, the animated retelling of Victor Hugo’s epic novel, one of the main characters, Esmerelda, is depicted as a highly sexualized femme fatale. In one scene she is shown dancing, wearing a red low-cut dress, and the local judge attempts to have her punished for refusing his romantic advances while using the phrase “gypsy vermin,” and insinuates he must purge them from aris. For a child’s film, it’s a more extreme representation of prejudice that in its attempt to explain to the audience how harmful that hatred is, it continues to perpetuate stereotypes. In recent years, the use of the word has come under renewed scrutiny. In 2020, Vogue published a story about “the fight to strike Gypsy’ from the fashion lexicon,” noting that designer label Gypsy Sport was considering changing its name. (It still hasn’t happened yet.) Last year, The New ork Times reported that the Entomological Society of America would no longer use the terms “gypsy moths” and “gypsy ants,” deeming the terms to be “inappropriate or offensive.” Earlier this month, the ESA announced that the gypsy moth will now be known as the spongy moth, an outcome of its “Better Common Names
Project” to rename species names that include derogatory terms or inappropriate geographic references. “When an invasive species carries the name of a nation or culture, it’s easy to unintentionally associate that culture with the pest’s harmful effects,” oanne Foreman, invasive species communications coordinator with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said in a statement. “We anticipate additional common name changes for other invasive species to reduce these negative connotations.’” As science recognizes that a name can be changed, social media has become a hub for discussion, with the Roma community taking to apps like TikTok to create informative videos about the term. In addition, the community on the internet is teaching about the culture and advocating for destigmatizing the minority group. The mistreatment of the Roma continues today. In the immediate present, amid the conflict between kraine and Russia, Romani refugees are living in poor conditions and are expressing concern for how they will be treated in other European countries. As they try to survive they are facing segregation and prejudice, making their situation even worse, as they fear for their lives due to the treatment of Roma throughout Europe. Butler says with an ever-changing language, there is no reason we should continue to use a word that “is literally born out of th-century stuff.” He adds, “why the heck are we still using this? We aren’t using old English, so [why] are we still using this word?”
metrotimes.com | March 23-29, 2022
27
WEED One-Hitters
‘Camp Cannabis’ festival planned for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula this fall By Lee DeVito
An event billing itself as the
first licensed marijuana consumption event in the pper eninsula has been announced. “Camp Cannabis” is planned for Oct. - in Tourist ark, Marquette. It’s sponsored by Fire Station Cannabis Co., the . .’s first licensed chain of dispensaries. The Fire Station says the event will feature “national and regional music artists and comedians,” though a lineup has not yet been released. The dispensary says more details will be announced soon. The company also says the festival will feature spaces “dedicated to marijuana education,” as well as opportunities for shopping. Tickets are available for both camping on the festival grounds or just weekend passes without the campsites. “The event is an opportunity for attendees to come together in a welcoming environment to celebrate and learn about cannabis,” the organi ers said in a press release. “Through Camp Cannabis, TFS hopes to lessen the stigma associated with the use of cannabis, further event attendees’ knowledge of the plant, and provide the pper eninsula with a one-of-a-kind arts and culture experience.” Early bird tickets are on sale at fire.com camp-cannabis. In , the Canna am festival was held in psilanti’s Riverside ark, featuring a ink Floyd cover band. It was one of the first licensed consumption events to come to Michigan after the voters approved cannabis for adult-use in .
Ann Arbor City Council to consider proposal to decriminalize all drugs under 15 grams
A niversity of Michigan student group launched a campaign that calls on Ann Arbor to fully decriminali e all drug possession.
A cannabis-infused music festival is coming to Marquette.
“Progressives have said for years that drug use is not a crime, and with this resolution, they can finally put their money where their mouth is.” Students for Sensible Drug olicy at -M won key political endorsements and is urging the Ann Arbor City Council to adopt a “Resolution to Advance Sensible Drug olicy,” which would prevent the city’s police department from arresting people for possessing any drug under grams. “ rogressives have said for years that drug use is not a crime, and with this resolution, they can finally put their money where their mouth is,” Derek Fraser, policy director for SSD , said at a recent news conference. “We believe fundamentally that drug enforcement has not created cost savings, reduced incarcerations or improved public safety. A new approach is ultimately needed.” The proposal would eliminate “any municipal criminal codes that utili e arrest or incarceration for actions involving the manufacturing, distribution, selling, planting, cultivating, and transport of or fewer grams of any single controlled substance.” The resolution also calls on increased funding for proven recovery services, such as distributing Narcan, the medication used to reverse opioid overdoses,
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to local businesses. “We’re going to no longer use money on enforcement and instead spend it on proven, evidence-based measures,” Fraser said. State Rep. ousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor, and state Sen. eff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, have endorsed the proposal, saying the war on drugs has disproportionately impacted people of color. “Because it’s a racist war, we have seen the incarceration of our Black and Latino brothers and sisters reach an unacceptable level,” Rabhi said. “That is a problem that persists today.” Rabhi said of the people in Michigan’s prisons for “drug offenses that are now legal” are Black and Latino. “We need to change that,” he said. Irwin’s Chief of Staff Annie Sommerville said the resolution would decrease “unnecessary interactions with police.” “It keeps communities safer,” Sommerville said of decriminali ation. “The policy really centers around removing unnecessary harms that target communities of color and poor people.” Ann Arbor City Council has not yet publicly discussed the proposal, but SSD members said they have talked to
SHUTTERSTOCK
council members who are on board. In September , the city council voted unanimously to decriminali e the use of psychedelic mushrooms. —Steve Neavling
Michigan cannabis companies are giving away a year of free gas
The rising gas prices in metro Detroit have been a serious bu kill lately at nearly . a gallon. Two cannabis companies are trying to ease that pain for one lucky customer with a giveaway for a free year’s worth of gas. Baked Edibles of Burton and Detroit dispensary Green Genie are teaming up for the giveaway starting Friday, March . The free fuel comes in the form of gas cards valued at each. A purchase of any Baked product from Green Genie, located at W. McNichols Rd., will get you an entry ticket to the giveaway. Certain Baked products will give customers more than one entry ticket to the giveaway, too, so choose wisely. The giveaway is on until April and the winner will be announced at p.m. that day. We see what y’all did there. ust be aware that Green Genie is a medical-only dispensary, so technically, only pot smokers with medical cards can participate. Green Genie is located at W. McNichols Rd., Detroit - geniecannabis.com. —Randiah Camille Green
metrotimes.com | March 23-29, 2022
29
CULTURE A filmmaker trusts her viewers By George Elkind
The most familiar way of
making a documentary is also one of the least intuitive ones. Stitching together new or archival footage (“Broll,” as it’s usually called) to illustrate an argument or narrative spat out by a procession of talking heads may be the current standard, but it usually produces something more akin to a lecture than a conversation or personal expression. With Payal Kapadia’s inventive, affecting new film A Night of Knowing Nothing, no real trace of these approaches can be found. In documenting the recent romantic, educational, and activist experiences of university students around India, Kapadia stitches together her footage in such a natural way that every minute of it — and the emotional connections that flow beneath — feels fresh. The result is a work that feels remarkably inquisitive and open-ended, capturing experiences of youth activism, thwarted romance, and recent history as they happen, all while remaining politically and emotionally sharp. Begun during Kapadia’s time as a student at the state-run Film and Television Institute of India FTII and chronicling events of the past 3-5 years, Night works to find the emotional heart beating beneath a period of recent political struggle. Examining the social circumstances around a pair of unseen would-be lovers, the film’s action is framed by a (quietly invented) series of found letters from one of them: a student only ever known as “L.” By shaping her inquiry around the sentiments of a pair separated by caste and familial demands, and exacerbated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s noxious brand of Hindu nationalism, Kapadia makes a gently present, personali ing fiction a key tool to reflect on experiences both close to and greater than her own. This collectivistic approach to presentation, an effort to portray a shared experience rather than just a private or closed one, defines the film’s form. While almost all films are made collectively, by teams of skilled collaborators, Kapadia’s structure allows her to make Night a portrait of acute romantic longing — that most personal and individual of feelings — that serves chiefly to reflect upon within the shared experiences which surround and shape it. In terms of running time, L’s letters are
A Night of Knowing Nothing pulls from a range of sources, processed to appear together in celluloid-like black and white.
only so present, and even then largely as audio straddling the film’s wide array of images. Even so, they lend a crucial sense of balance. Night’s images (mostly digital) are deftly pulled from a range of sources; archival material, work by contemporary collaborators, and original footage all feature, processed to appear together in celluloid-like black and white. This suggestive approach presents private (as opposed to personal) experience as some wispy kind of myth, evidencing a belief in the penetration of the political and social into the entirety of a given life. In layering its formal materials together this way, Night manages to achieve a very rare thing in presenting a range of individual experiences convincingly as one shared, immediate one, portraying a galvanized student body convincingly as a single whole. To that end, Night incorporates both intimate-seeming and more public bits of footage, joined through skillful feats of non-linear editing. Kapadia and Ranabir Das (who’s credited as cinematographer, editor, and producer) use pauses, black space, and countless flourishes of sound design, seeking to capture a remarkable range of experience and observation. As skilled at capturing the elegant play of light through a fishbowl on a bedroom wall as they are a heated crush of dancing
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or protesting bodies, Kapadia and her collaborators manage to conjure a vast range of personal and political sentiments by shaping their work with the generous expectation of actually trusting in their viewers. Composed as it is of both original and found footage — some of it decades old, but presented with a sense of unity — Night at times resembles its own invented letters, feeling like an emotional archive of the present found in improbably expressive and polished form. The personal and political remain just as enmeshed throughout the film’s action as they do within its fictive romance, but neither this nor its poetic, montage-rooted approach preclude its ability to shock or woo this viewer. Featuring a range of protests against Modi and his allies’ ongoing disenfranchisement of students, non-Hindus, and those in lower castes, Night wraps its arms around experiences of the grimly frightening (police brutality, brewing storms) and gently longing (shots of empty hallways or movies watched in bed) while granting them all the weight of something felt firsthand. Crucially, it also offers more invigorating moments of social, physical, and intellectual connection, rooted in an air of excitement one need not dissociate from youth. In Night’s world, the fact you can dance in a hot room only to wake up in a cell the
COURTESY PHOTO
A Night of Knowing Nothing Rated: Not rated Run time: 97 minutes following morning — or discuss your favorite films only to go on and make one at their level — suggests a willingness to grapple with all kinds of experiential miracles, ones whose natures can be fine or mixed or foul. Kapadia’s willingness to do this – to try to approximate or generalize about so broad a range of shared experience – might sound audacious, even hubristic. But Night’s air of formal looseness, of being found at an editing table, grants it an air of emotional honesty that ultimately accounts for this. As finely made and balanced as Night is, it retains an ample sense of the subjective, improvisational, and personally expressive; no one could ever accuse it of cool or dispassionate calibration. In this light, her introduction of fictive letters amid a range of mostly unstaged footage reflects upon another impossible-seeming courtship her own effort to capture the shared emotional experience of a tremendous number of young people. The most durable art’s often powered by just these sorts of dances with the improbable, even ineffable — but it’s at its best when it gets this close.
metrotimes.com | March 23-29, 2022
31
Savage Love
CULTURE Q:
My boyfriend and I have not had sex for more than two years. When I rst as ed him about it he hemmed and ha ed. hen pressed him he said he doesn t ha e any interest. elt li e he as not telling me the hole truth. hen suggested he tell his doctor my boy riend said he could not do that because his doctor is an old amily riend. e on t go to another doctor. don t no hat to do. taying in a long term relationship ithout se does not appeal to me. ut lo e him so lea ing him is not an option. On all other levels we have a great relationship. ut miss his coc and miss intimacy. ha e tried many things but am sic and tired o being re used. e ill remo e my hand rom his coc i touch it and he does not seem to e er get hard anymore. used to thin that it as my ault but no longer accept the blame. hat can do —Unhappy Not Having Any Penetration Play In Literally Years
he didn t li e it that had riends. e as constantly orried as cheating on him and ould reassure him as best could. tried to be understanding because again his mom had ust died. ut nothing helped. month ago he starts yelling that he no no s or sure had cheated on him at least three times even if he doesn’t have any proof. (I never cheated on him. o bro e it off. ut he continues to send me do ens o abusi e te t messages e ery day. t the same time he ma es e cuses to see me. T o ee s ago he came o er to get his phone charger hich as not here. Today he came demanding a s eatshirt hich do not ha e. et een these surprise isits he sends te t messages saying he ould be happy if something terrible happened to me. hat should do loc ing him isn t an option as e continue to or together and must communicate or or related reasons. —Pushy Ex Abusing Confused Ex
A : If you’re going to rule out leav-
A : Get him fired,
ing, UNHAPPILY, your options are staying and enduring a sexless existence or staying and having sex with other people. If you don’t wanna be accused of cheating, you’ll have to ask your boyfriend’s permission to seek sex elsewhere. If you don’t wanna ask his permission or you ask and don’t get it, well, then you’ll either have to endure a sexless existence or discreetly fuck other people when you have the chance. (I hesitate to describe that as cheating in a case like yours, UNHAPPILY, since you wouldn’t be cheating your boyfriend out of anything he seems to want.)
Q:
I’m a 65-year-old gay man and o er the past e years e completely lost interest in having sex with other men. oincidentally pleasure rom the prostate has gone to a whole new level. I am now having the most intense and po er ul prostate induced orgasms one could as or — li e oining the uni erse intense. o need to see a therapist —My Orgasms Are Now Sensational
A : Only if you’re unhappy, MOANS, and you don’t sound unhappy to me. (And if you were, you might be better off seeing a sex worker.
Q:
bro e up ith my boy riend about one month ago a ter almost a year together. m and he s and e met at or . month a ter e started dating his mom died. e is a ealous and controlling person hereas m a ery riendly and outgoing person and
EACE. Show his text messages to your boss or to HR, and demand they do something about the hostile work environment he’s created for you, i.e., tell your bosses you expect them to fire him. If your employer won’t fire your ex, EACE, talk to a lawyer about suing your employer and, if you must, seek employment elsewhere. I’m sorry this is being done to you, EACE, and in the future a controlling, possessive piece of shit who “constantly worries” you’re cheating on him needs to be dumped immediately. Because those sorts of “worries” always — always — become angry and sometimes violent accusations in the end.
Q:
hy do adult men ant to loo li e pre pubescent boys by cutting a ay their pubic hair air is masculine and should be allo ed to thri e in its natural habitat. —Bush Lover In Maryland
A : Are you suggesting you can’t tell
the difference between a -year-old man who shaved his pubes and a prepubescent 11-year-old boy who doesn’t have any pubes to shave? Because if you can’t, BLIM, you shouldn’t be having sex with anyone. OK, wherever you are right now, BLIM, I’m sure you’re saying, “Of course I can tell the difference ” To which I would respond, if it’s unfair for me to suggest you can’t tell the difference between a -year-old man and an 11-year-old boy unless there are pubes present, it’s unfair for you to suggest that adult men who shave their pubes
32 March 23-29, 2022 | metrotimes.com
y an a age
don’t blame myself and that I want out of this relationship because you’re not who or what I want I’m willing to do that.” So, while you can’t avail yourself of the face-saving, ego-sparing, off-theshelf “It’s not you, it’s me” lie, you can and should avail yourself of the lie you were workshopping there at the end of your question: “My partner wants to close things up for now.”
Q:
JOE NEWTON
are trying to pass themselves off as pre-pubescent boys. (And why would they do that To attract pedophiles who can’t tell the difference ou can make your preference for hairy adult crotches clear to potential sex partners without impugning the motives or tastes of people who prefer to keep their adult crotches shaved or trimmed. P.S. I get a lotta unsolicited dick pics in my line of work — not complaining, just saying — and half the dicks I see in any given week have pubes. So, there are plenty of naturally hairy guys out there for you to choose from, BLIM.
Q:
e been hoo ing up ith someone or a hile. t s been but not great and don t ant to do it anymore. he s per ectly good people ery riendly but e re only uc buddies and m not en oying uc ing that much. o can end this nicely person can say “ ey it s not you it s me hen brea ing up ith a romantic partner. omeho saying “ ey don t ant to do this anymore to someone you re ust boning seems almost cruel li e m saying “ ey you suc in bed. o need to ma e up a hite lie m in an M marriage so could say “My partner ants to close things up or no but ind o hate lying. —This Is The End
A : Trust your instinct and lie — and
that’s what, “It’s not you, it’s me,” is, right It’s a lie, TITE, and everyone knows it’s a lie; the person who says it during a breakup knows it’s a lie, the person who hears it during a breakup knows it’s a lie. But it’s a lie most of us are comfortable being told. Because when someone says, “It’s not you, it’s me,” what they’re saying to us is, “Look, I know this sucks and it hurts and I’m sorry and I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I have to and if it takes even a little bit of the hurt away for me to blame myself when we both know I
ma year old ueer boy ith a language uestion or you. seeing other people piss. Pissing at a urinal pissing their pants pissing in the tub pissing on me. o e er hen say to people “ ha e a pee etish in ariably the response get is “ don t ant you to pee on me. don t ant to pee on them That literally does nothing or me! I’m only interested in other people pissing on or near me o udgment on people ho ibe ith that as my etish relies on those onder ul people. ut m ust not turned on by my o n piss. o my uestion is can you thin of separate words or labels to better distinguish bet een people ho li e to pee on people ho li e to be peed on and people ho li e both —Pee Is Super Sexy
A : Top bottom vers works for anal,
it works for fisting, it works for BDSM, and it works for piss, too. And if telling someone you’re exclusively a piss bottom doesn’t do the trick, hand them a laminated printout of your question and my response. And if a guy still doesn’t get it after reading this, PISS, he’s probably not smart enough to find his dick and point it at you.
Q:
hen the ible says “come it means cum. That seems rather important or deciphering its hidden meaning. t s all about the importance o sperm retention. ry e aculation is the desert sraelites are sperm cells Jacob s adder is ghting the urge to e aculate e aculation is Christ rising to Heaven to meet od aron s rod is his penis Moses s staff is his penis. nd so on. —Intense Biblical Studies
A : I don’t argue with crazy people on subways, in restaurants, on airplanes, or at family gatherings. So, whatever you say, IBS, whatever you say.
end uestions to uestions@sa agelo e.net isten to an on the a age o ecast ollo an on T itter @ a ean a age olumns podcasts boo s merch and more at sa age.lo e
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CULTURE ARIES (March 21-April 19): The Carib people from Surinam quote their mysterious Snake Spirit as follows: “I am the force of the spirit of the lightning eel, the thunder ax, the stone. I am the force of the firefly thunder and lightning have I created.” I realize that what I’m about to say may sound far-fetched, but I suspect you will have access to powers that are comparable to the Snake Spirit’s in the coming weeks. In fact, your state of being reminds me of how Aries poet Marge Piercy expressed her quests for inspiration: “When I work, I am pure as an angel tiger, and clear is my eye and hot my brain and silent all the whining grunting piglets of the appetites.” TAURUS: April 20 – May 20 “It’s always too early to quit,” wrote cheerful author Norman Vincent eale, who first populari ed the idea of “positive thinking.” I’m an optimistic person myself, but I think his advice is excessively optimistic. On some occasions, it’s wise to withdraw your energy from a project or relationship you’ve been working on. Struggling to find relevance and redemption may reach a limit. Pushing ever onward might be
Free Will Astrology By Rob Brezsny
fruitless and even harmful. However, I don’t think that now is one of those times for you, Taurus. According to my reading of the astrological omens, it is too early for you to quit. GEMINI: May 21 – June 20 “You can be as earnest and ridiculous as you need to be, if you don’t attempt it in isolation.” So says author Barbara Kingsolver. She adds, “The ridiculously earnest are known to travel in groups. And they are known to change the world.” In my view, this is perfect advice for you right now. If you and the members of your crew focus on coordinating your efforts, you could accomplish blazing amazements in the coming weeks. You may solve riddles that none of you has been able to decipher alone. You can synergize your efforts in such a way that everyone’s individual fate will be lifted up. CANCER: June 21 – July 22 About 200 years ago, poet William Wordsworth wrote, “Every great and original writer must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.” Now I’ve come up with a variation on that wisdom: “Every great and original soul must herself create the taste by which she is to be understood and appreciated.” That’s what I hope you will work on in the coming weeks, Cancerian: fostering an ambiance in which you can be even better understood and appreciated. You now have extra power to teach people how to value you and get the best out of you. LEO: July 23 – August 22 “I hate housework!” complained comedian Joan Rivers. “You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again.” I wish I could give you a six-month reprieve from having to attend to those chores, Leo. In fact, I’d love it if I could permanently authorize you to avoid all activities that distract you from thinking big thoughts and feeling rich emotions and pursuing expansive adventures. But I’m afraid I can only exempt you from the nagging small stuff for just the next three weeks or so — four, tops. After that, you’ll have to do the dishes and make the beds again. But for the foreseeable future: Focus your energy on thinking big thoughts and feeling rich emotions and pursuing expansive adventures! VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22 A British plumber named Kev Crane worked for weeks to install a new bathroom at a private home. As he toiled, he passed the time by singing his favorite songs. He didn’t know that the homeowner, Paul Conneally, was
34 March 23-29, 2022 | metrotimes.com
JAMES NOELLERT
the owner of a music label. So he was surprised and delighted when Conneally offered him a deal to record an album in the label’s studio. There may be a comparable development in your life during the coming weeks, Virgo. You could be noticed in new ways for what you do well. Your secret or unknown talents may be discovered or revealed. You might get invitations to show more of who you really are. Be alert for such opportunities. LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22 It’s the start of the Listening Season for you Libras. I propose a full-on celebration of listening: a three-week Holiday of Paying Close Attention to Important and Interesting Words Being Said in Your Vicinity. Make yourself a magnet for useful revelations. Be alert for the rich information that becomes available as you show the world you would love to know more of its secrets. For inspiration, read these quotes. 1. You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. —M. Scott Peck. 2. Learn to listen. Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly. —my friend Jenna. 3. Listening is being able to be changed by the other person. —Alan Alda. 4. If you want to be listened to, you should put in time listening. — Marge Piercy. 5. Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold. —Karl A. Menninger. SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21 “Worry doesn’t count as preparation,” writes author Lily Akerman. That sounds wise, but I don’t think it’s true in all cases. At its best, worrying may serve as a meditation that helps us analyze potential problems. It prompts us to imagine constructive actions we might take to forestall potential disruptions — and maybe even prevent them from erupting into actual disruptions. I bring these thoughts to your attention, Scorpio, because now is an excellent time to engage in this kind of pondering. I declare the next three weeks to be your Season of Productive Worrying.
SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21 If I had my way, you’d be a connoisseur of kisses in the coming weeks. You’d make it your intention to expand your repertoire of kissing styles and ask willing partners to do the same. You would give and receive unwieldy kisses, brave kisses, and mysterious kisses. You would explore foolish, sublime kisses and sincere but inscrutable kisses and awakening kisses that change the meaning of kisses altogether. Are you interested in pursuing this challenge? It will be best accomplished through unhurried, playful, luxurious efforts. There’s no goal except to have experimental fun. CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19 “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days,” wrote author Flannery O’Connor. Her observation may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. And I’m offering it to you now, as you begin a phase when you can glean many new teachings about your childhood — insights that could prove handy for a long time to come. I encourage you to enjoy a deep dive into your memories of your young years. They have superb secrets to divulge. AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18 “Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected,” said author William Plomer. I agree with that. And I’m pleased to let you know that in the coming weeks, you will have more of this power to connect than you’ve had in a long time. I hope you will use it to link your fortunes to influences that inspire you. I hope you will wield it to build bridges between parts of your world that have been separate or alienated until now. And I hope you will deploy your enhanced capacity for blending and joining as you weave at least one magnificent new creation. PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20 “I use my intelligence to discover more ways of appreciating you,” author Piscean Anaïs Nin told her lover Henry Miller. In the coming weeks, I recommend you activate a similar ambition. Now is a time when you can enhance your close relationships with important allies by deepening your insight into them. What magic is at play within them that you haven’t fully recognized before? How could you better see and understand their mysteries? PS: You may be pleased when your deepening vision of them prompts them to extend the same favor toward you. This week’s homework: What nonsexual experience or adventure do you lust for?
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