Metro Times 04/10/2024

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NEWS & VIEWS

RIP John Sinclair, dead at 82

John Sinclair, the poet and political activist who was a leader in Detroit’s counterculture scene of the 1960s and ’70s, has died. He was 82.

Publicist Matt Lee confirmed that Sinclair died at 7:58 a.m. last Tuesday morning at Detroit Receiving Hospital. Heart failure was the official cause of death, but Lee says Sinclair was in poor health in recent months.

“It was more complicated than that,” he says, adding, “He was on the ropes for the longest time. He went in with blood poisoning and he bounced back, but then he went under again. But he just couldn’t rally. There were just too many things wrong.”

Born in Flint in 1941, Sinclair rose to prominence as a poet known for his radical politics. In the 1960s, he became manager of Detroit rock band MC5, booking them as a house band of sorts at the former Grande Ballroom, where they recorded their landmark album Kick Out the Jams. (His wife, Leni Sinclair, was a notable photographer of the scene.) In 1968, under Sinclair’s management, the MC5 performed for the massive rally outside of the chaotic Democratic National

Convention in Chicago protesting the Vietnam War.

Sinclair was also a founding member of the White Panther Party, an antiracist socialist group aligned with the Black Panthers.

In 1969, Sinclair was sentenced to ten years in prison after offering two joints to a woman who was an undercover cop. The severity of the sentence sparked protests that inspired John Lennon to write a song called “John Sinclair” and sparked Ann Arbor’s

annual Hash Bash, a rally where attendees smoked pot openly on the University of Michigan campus that eventually evolved into the heart of the movement to decriminalize and legalize cannabis in the state.

Sinclair was released from prison in 1971, and later moved to pot-friendly Amsterdam. He also penned a cannabis column for Metro Times He eventually returned to Detroit. When Michigan’s first official cannabis dispensaries for adult use opened in

2019, Sinclair, who used a wheelchair in recent years, was among the first people in line to purchase it.

At the time, cannabis activist Rick Thompson reportedly asked Sinclair, “Things have come full circle, haven’t they, John?” Sinclair retorted, “It would be more full if they came and gave me back the weed that they took.”

As a poet, Sinclair often performed with a live jazz band and has released a number of albums over the years.

Tenants at Detroit’s Alden Towers fight eviction threats

Roach infestations, chronically broken elevators, frequent heat and water shutoffs — unfortunately, these are common complaints for renters across Detroit.

At Alden Towers, located at 8100 E. Jefferson Ave., some tenants are fed up with their deplorable living conditions and have begun withholding rent and refusing to leave until the issues get resolved.

Sophiyah Elizabeth, a musician and artist who has called Alden Towers home since 2016, was told her lease was being terminated after raising several complaints with the building’s management company Friedman Communities. She remains in the building after

meeting with City Council President Mary Sheffield and Detroit Action, who advised her to stay and fight.

Alden Towers was a peaceful community with a serene view of the Detroit River when Elizabeth first moved there in 2016. She and fellow residents would host events with live music in the front lot off the Detroit Riverfront, the waft of food and allure of smooth sounds bringing neighbors together for afternoons of connection.

She noticed the building began to gradually decline in 2023. From August to December of that year, Elizabeth’s C Tower apartment was infested with roaches. After the infestation remained unresolved despite pest control treating

the apartment several times, Elizabeth requested a new apartment in early December. She says she was told to pay a full month of December rent for the roach-infested apartment plus a prorated fee for the new one to avoid eviction.

So she paid her rent on December 14, but a day later was served a notice to vacate the premises by January 15. She says a Friedman representative also told her over the phone to turn in her keys.

“They called me and said, ‘We want you to turn your keys in because it seems like everything we did, you’re not satisfied with,’” she says. “That’s not true.”

The reason given on the notice is

for “refusal to permit commercial pest control contractor to spray commercial pesticides” and “[refusing] entry for treatment without being present, thus prohibiting treatment for roaches.” She had requested for exterminators to use an alternative to spraying pesticides in her apartment due to a previous meningitis diagnosis.

She feels the attempted eviction was retaliatory since she began contacting the company’s upper management, media outlets, and Detroit City Council with stories from her fellow tenants.

“I started to ask people questions,” she says. “I would come back and it be [roaches] in the hallway… it’s never been like that… was I really supposed to stay

and wait on [a] ‘this too shall pass’ situation? They really expected us to do that. But guess what, people did because they don’t have nowhere else to go.”

The Detroit Riverfront complex with four eight-story brick towers and nearly 400 units was built in 1923 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. It was abandoned for some time until Triton Properties purchased it in 2012, pumping $5 million into renovations in 2013.

Elizabeth refused to turn in her keys and decided to wait for the management company to take her to court. She has also organized meetings with Detroit People’s Platform to help form a tenant’s association and share resources on how to handle an eviction. Since the initial threat of eviction, the management company has given her a three-month lease to stay in the building until June.

Another resident, Kristine Christlieb, has been withholding her rent in an escrow account in protest for at least four months.

The 70-year-old woman lives on the sixth floor of the complex’s D Tower. She recalls the elevator would not go to the sixth floor for six months in 2023, so she had to go to either the fifth or seventh floor and take a flight of stairs. There have also been several instances where there was no heat, no elevator, or hot water.

“Until they negotiate compensation for all the inconveniences, I’m not going to pay,” she tells Metro Times

“When the elevator goes out, you have no idea… I’m 70 years old. When I am forced onto six flights of stairs just to get to my car, or with my arms full of groceries, the chances of me falling are considerable… I can’t understand why they would incur the possibility of that liability.”

Christlieb rattles off her notes, where she’s kept track of every time there was no elevator, hot water, or heat in 2023. “April 4-6: elevators were out. April 11: no heat or hot water. May 1: no heat, elevator came back on. August 23: elevator is out for five days. I asked for a space heater and I was told I could go buy one. October 30: no heat, no hot water for weeks. Nov. 6: no heat, no hot water. Nov. 13: still no elevator.”

She remembers there was no heat for the entire month of April or October, and she developed shingles in November when there was no heat or hot water.

“The management rarely says a word. They don’t say, ‘We know the heat is out, we’re working on it,’” Christlieb says. “You call down there and ask what is the ETA on the heat and it’s always, ‘Well we’ve sent for a part and we don’t know when it’s gonna come in.’ There’s no sense of urgency or real empathy offered. It’s chronic, so clearly there is something wrong.”

In January, Elizabeth and Christlieb picketed outside the building when the heat was out for five days.

Christlieb held a sign that read, “Friedman, no heat, day five.”

Rene Black, who lives across the hall from Elizabeth with his husband, also experienced the roach infestation, and issues with heat and water. He and his partner pay $2,200 a month for a threebedroom, two-bathroom apartment.

“I feel that we pay a lot of money to live here and everything to just deal with so much,” Black says. “No hot water. The dishwasher, the day we moved in, was filled with water. You can open that dishwasher, it’s still sitting with that same water. I told them that numerous times. [They said] ‘Oh, we’ll get you the new dishwasher.’ We have not received a new dishwasher, and that’s been since July.”

Black was one of several tenants who were displaced when a fire caused by another tenant ripped through the B Tower in May of 2023. Several tenants reported fire alarms did not go off or that the alarm was so quiet they could barely hear it.

“It was a very faint sound like I thought it was a car alarm,” Black says.

Elizabeth remembers, “I had a friend over at the time, and we looked out there, we were like, why is everybody outside? It was a bunch of people outside looking over to the left. We go outside [and] we see it’s a whole ass fire. What alarm was going off in here? What notification did we get to leave or evacuate? Nothing.”

Black says after the fire, he and his husband were moved into a new apartment that had mold on the floor from a water leak, so they had to move again.

“A lot of our peace was stolen after the fire,” he says. “I see a fire and I’m freaking the fuck out. It was traumatizing.”

Elizabeth sees the issues with Alden Towers as a symptom of gentrification, as companies “invest” in the city while putting their profits above the people who live there.

“Detroit’s history is just being whitewashed or washed away. There’s no one preserving it or taking care of it,” she says. “We need stewardship from [the] community in places that have been in Detroit longer than the people who are coming in. You’re not managing anything. You’re making money.”

She adds, “When you’re paying for rent, you’re paying for something you don’t own. It’s the same thing as sharecropping... This is making me not want to rent anywhere else.”

Despite the repeated grievances, none of the tenants we spoke with want to leave Alden Towers. They don’t want to lose the community they’ve built over the years or the unbeatable view of the Detroit River. Many cannot afford to move and they’d rather see the historic building cared for properly.

“We love living here. We’ve met some great people,” Black says. “To go somewhere else and to have to have first month’s rent, last month’s rent, deposit, that’s a lot.”

A representative from Friedman did not respond to a request for comment from Metro Times

Is Whitmer’s new memoir a sign of a future presidential run?

Detroit rapper GMac Cash coined the nickname “Big Gretch” for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in his 2020 single. Now, the Democrat is embracing a variation of the moniker for her upcoming memoir True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between

What we think is true are the rumors that Whitmer will run for president soon, as these days, releasing political memoirs seem to be a prerequisite for higher political aspirations.

Simon & Schuster announced on Friday that the book will be published on July 9, providing “an unconventionally honest, personal, and funny account” of Whitmer’s life and career, “full of insights that guided her through a global pandemic, showdowns with high-profile bullies, and even a kidnapping and assassination plot.”

Memoirs serve as a way for candidates to connect with voters on a personal level, plus gain some extra credibility.

Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Joe Biden had all written a book before declaring their run for the presidency in 2020, a phenomenon highlighted in a 2019 article from The New Yorker Even if a candidate has already written a book, another will likely come just before a run to remind the world of their presence.

The idea of Whitmer as a potential presidential candidate has been in the air for a while, as she was even reportedly considered as a running mate for

Biden in 2020. Michigan voters reelected Whitmer in 2022 however, and expect her to serve through 2027.

Along with her time in politics, True Gretch will dive deep into Whitmer’s formative years, family life, and relationship with her grandmother Nino.

“Nino’s words persuaded Whitmer to look for the good in any person or situation — just one of many colorful personal experiences that have shaped her political vision,” a press release says.

In the memoir, Whitmer will reveal the principles that helped shape her career, including early days as a lawyer and legislator, her 2018 election as governor of Michigan, and lessons learned through challenging events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the domestic terrorist kidnapping plot against her, and the fight to protect reproductive rights.

She will also talk about her often selfdeprecating social media campaigns and the “slyly funny tactics she deploys to neutralize her opponents.”

Sadly, it seems that another BidenTrump rematch is in store for 2024, but maybe something unexpected will happen. If not, at least we can hope for better options (likely including Whitmer) in 2028.

“In this moment, our world is thirsty for compassion, empathy, big ideas, and the grit to get shit done,” Whitmer says. “No matter who you are, or what you hope to achieve, I hope this book will help you find the good and use it to make a difference. I’ll be doing the same alongside you.”

The rebel of many causes

Many of us who knew John Sinclair have a tale or two to tell, and one of mine began in 1965 when I met him and members of his “Guitar Army” at the Detroit Artists Workshop.

Three photos keep him forever in focus for me — one of them is in my book Black Detroit, where John is almost unseen, standing in back of me, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, and others during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Detroit Jazz Center, a concept essentially envisioned by John.

Another photo is of John outside the Drome Lounge in 1965 waiting to hear Yusef Lateef. Again Leni is the photographer, and here his nonconformist development was still in progress. The

third shot is of John in full iconoclastic bloom, a joint clutched in his mouth, two fingers hoisted in a peace sign.

In 1977, when my 12-year stint as a student and teacher at Wayne State University came to an end, John offered me a position at the Allied Artists Association where we, along with several devoted workers, began coordinating activities that would lead to various projects in community and educational ventures, most notably the creation of the Strata Concert Gallery and a jazz curriculum at Oberlin College. I often watched him through a haze of reefer smoke, pounding away on a typewriter, faster with his two fingers than most with all their

digits in play. One evening in 1984, he asked me to join him to catch Michael Jackson’s Victory tour at the Pontiac Silverdome; it was, like many of my ventures with him, unforgettable. By this time he was deeply involved in the development of a genre of music projects and publications, notably the Detroit Sun and later the Detroit Metro Times

For the most part, John was a poet, and nothing personifies more than his poem published in For Malcolm, a tribute that made one of the lone white contributors to the book. In 2017, I was part of a delegation invited to Ghana, and when we had a brief stop in Amsterdam, where John was living

at the time, there was a chance to visit the Anne Frank House. He wasn’t at his usual location, so I had to wait several months later to see him at the rear of the Charles H. Wright Museum in a wheelchair. He was there for my book signing, and almost as inconspicuous as he was in the photo at the Jazz Center.

In short, there was John whose presence was undeniably large and formidable, and another who was monkish and self-effacing, willing to work quietly behind the curtain, drafting a poem or an article. I was among that cadre who got to know both of them, both loyally devoted to the preservation and expansion of Black culture.

NEWS & VIEWS

Lapointe

‘Romney’ McDaniel takes her turn driving the GOP clown car

Before poking the Ronna Romney McDaniel piñata, let’s pause for this brief recollection of a joke about basketball and racial stereotypes once told on TV by a young, Black comedian.

I can’t remember his name, but I sure do recall the gist of his humor.

He said:

You white people. You’re so prejudiced.

You racially profile us all the time.

Say you’re sitting at the airport.

And you see a group of 12, young, seven-foot-tall, Black men walk by you.

So you immediately just assume we’re a basketball team, don’t you?

Many a truth is spoken in jest. Ironically, Michigan State Rep. Matt Maddock of Milford could have saved face last month with such simple-minded stereotyping. Instead, he took kneejerk racism up a notch and added a new twist that drew hoots of scorn from national critics both left and right.

As a result, Maddock challenged Romney McDaniel and others of their ilk for the title of “Most Embarrassing Michigan Republican for the Month of March.” The bronze medal went to Congressman Tim Walberg, whose cute quips about mass slaughter will be discussed in a moment.

Maddock did his bit by posting online a photo of the Gonzaga basketball team’s private airplane and chartered buses at the Detroit airport. He seemed to think this was a scheme by whoknows-who to ferry undocumented immigrants to the Motor City.

“. . . Illegal invaders at Detroit Metro,” Maddock wrote. “Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?”

Turns out they were headed downtown to play in the regional round of the NCAA tournament at Little Caesars Arena. That Friday night, they lost to Purdue, ending their invasion. Maddock refused to apologize. How will this poor buffoon cope in two years when World Cup Soccer comes to the U.S.?

By driving the Michigan Republican clown car late in the week, Maddock snatched the steering wheel from Romney McDaniel, whose shabby treatment from both former President Donald Trump and by NBC News made her almost — but not quite — a sympathetic figure.

A late, dark-horse challenge to both Romney McDaniel and to Maddock came from Walberg, the U.S. Representative from the Fifth Congressional

District in southern Michigan.

He recently told a town hall meeting that America should not aid Gaza’s citizens with humanitarian supplies while Israel attacks. Instead, he said, suffering Palestinians should be massacred with atomic weapons.

“We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” Walberg said in Dundee, according to The Detroit News. “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.”

Horrific as his comments were, the winner for the week was still Romney McDaniel. On her debut as an NBC

news commentator on Sunday, March 24 on Meet the Press, she wore a snazzy jacket of Democratic blue — not Republican red — and a flouncy paisley blouse with the dominant color of blue.

This was to be her first day in a twoyear gig for $600,000 in total. She first paid props to her home state and the chip always on its shoulder.

“I come from a state that’s been overlooked,” said the former chair of the Michigan Republican party. “I don’t see my state represented in a lot of news media.”

Casually but expertly, she blended

local concerns into boilerplate Republican talking points.

“When I look at my state of Michigan and I look at the cost of food, the cost of rent, the cost of insurance, I feel less safe,” she said. “Crime is on the rise. We’re seeing fentanyl coming across our border. We’re seeing an open border.”

Welker quickly corrected her by pointing out that crime is down and most drugs come through established ports. She kept returning to Romney McDaniel’s mortal sin: Her support of former President Donald Trump’s Big Lie that he won the 2020 presidential election over current President Joe Biden.

Those two probably will meet in the rematch this November. Weeks after the election four years ago, Romney McDaniel and Trump telephoned two Wayne County canvassers urging them not to certify legitimate votes in the Detroit area, where Biden was a big winner.

“We will get you attorneys,” she told them.

Although defending her actions then, Romney McDaniel conceded to Welker that Biden is really president — Stop the presses! — and she also criticized Trump’s Jan. 6 lynch mob that tried to kill then-Vice President Mike Pence and keep Trump in power illegally through violent insurrection.

Trump has vowed to pardon and release the imprisoned felons who stormed the capitol that day after his menacing speech behind the White House. He calls these convicts “hostages” and “patriots.” Romney McDaniel disagreed on NBC, a network Trump often denounces.

“I don’t think we should be freeing people who violently attacked Capitol Hill police officers,” Romney McDaniel said.

Her Campaign ’24 sideshow reached critical mass immediately after her appearance with Welker. Chuck Todd of NBC — on camera — led a mutiny of his colleagues on the main network as well as those who work on its liberal-leaning cable cousin MSNBC.

Over there, hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell loudly and proudly refused to use Romney McDaniel not because Romney McDaniel is a Republican but because she was an election denier who supported most lies Trump told.

Trump, after all, had lifted her from leading the Michigan GOP to chairing the national committee in 2017. But he dumped her a few weeks ago, replacing her with his daughter-in-law and some other guy named Michael Whatley.

After two days of both incoming flak and friendly fire, NBC executives also

unloaded Romney McDaniel. So the least we can do is to give her back her real name.

As part of her oath of fealty to Trump, she had stopped using her maiden name “Romney” in the middle because her uncle, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, had fallen from favor with Trump. He also forced her to stop public support for LGBTQ+ causes.

That’s how Trump chews up and digests his allies before excreting them. In his usual, graceless way, Trump dismissed Romney McDaniel the same way he brushed off Pence and other highlevel Republicans after using, abusing, and discarding them.

“Wow!” wrote the large, loud, orangefaced, yellow-haired demagogue on an internet post. “Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She lasted only two days . . . It leaves her, in a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be.”

Few will shed tears for Romney McDaniel. At worst, she will be paid all that money by NBC for two years of work that was condensed into 20 minutes. Or, perhaps she’ll cut a deal to comment elsewhere.

As election day nears, right-wing TV channels, radio shows, and internet streams are flowing with half-truths, full lies, and shameless propaganda. There’s always room for one more skilled spinner.

She could always write a book, perhaps assessing her place in her own family legacy. Her grandfather, the auto exec and Republican George Romney, was a respected Michigan governor who knew how to deal with Democrats when the companies and the unions were flush with lots to go around.

Her uncle, Mitt, was one of few Republicans with the conscience and courage to stand up to Trump. Perhaps that cost Mitt his career. Might his niece ever write or say or do anything to bring honor to a Michigan-rooted political family that still carries a prominent name?

Perhaps she can come back here to help repair the steaming mess of the Republican Party in her Great Lakes State. Despite its disarray, the red team could win both the open U.S. Senate seat and take the state in the presidential vote.

Romney McDaniel could start by speaking quietly and with sanity to half-cocked zealots like Maddock and Walberg and to all the other local yokels and paranoid crackpots who have turned the Michigan GOP into both a national punch line and local punching bag.

Happy landings, Ronna. Welcome home.

The champions

The 2004 Pistons are remembered as conquering underdogs at a time when Detroit was desperate to see itself that way

If there is a Mount Rushmore for NBA teams that feel like symbolic soulmates for their city, then the 2003-2004 Detroit Pistons are on it.

This was a Motown team in every sense, and they played like an orchestra or jazz ensemble that season. Everyone had a role, but a role constantly being calibrated and re-calibrated toward lifting the collective someplace higher. And they played with the kind of qualities that fans from a tough city in the middle of an impossibly tough time hope for: Nerves as hard as steel. An unshakable belief in themselves and each other. Guts a mile long and a burning desire to defy expectations.

“They were ‘Grit’ before The Lions made it popular around here,” as fan Justin Roberts put it on X.

All this made it easy to root for them twenty years ago this month, when the Pistons stood at the brink of a bruising but ultimately dominant championship march over a Los Angeles Lakers squad stacked with four future Hall of Famers, all of them top 75 players. To this day, the Pistons’ 4-1 gentleman’s sweep is considered the greatest upset in NBA history.

Looking back, if you’re a sucker for romantic sports stories like I am, it’s hard to imagine this happening anywhere but Detroit. From the drifters who made up the starting lineup, to the ultimate triumph over a flashier, more celebrated opponent, Detroit feels like the only landscape our unlikely heroes could have blossomed from.

“That team showed what you can make happen when you give overlooked talent a place to be able to grow and succeed,” my friend Denzell Turner, a marketer from the city and

lifelong fan, tells me. They also “serve as this sort of parable for working-class struggle overtaking the ruling class,” says Kamau Jawara, another friend and local organizer whose obsession with basketball began with the ’04 Pistons. They brought “the NBA’s mega-market darlings to a dogfight they weren’t ready for and absolutely broke their spirit.”

The question now is, how will we embody the best of what they represent for ordinary working people and fans in the city, while adapting to a league completely dominated by corporate interests?

Starting over

As the Grant Hill era came to a close in 2000, Pistons president Joe Dumars went into rebuild mode. An undrafted Ben Wallace whose full talents had yet to be tapped came first as a throw-in consolation for losing Hill to a trade with Orlando.

The year 2002 was even more pivotal. The Pistons traded Jerry Stackhouse to the Washington Wizards for Richard “Rip” Hamilton, a nightmare from midrange. Chauncey Billups, a late bloomer who had been ricocheting around the league since the 1997 draft, was signed as a free agent. And with a late pick in the draft’s first round, they scooped up a lanky forward named Tayshaun Prince.

“When we got together, we all came from different places,” Billups, the starting point guard, 2004 NBA Finals MVP, and now head coach of the Portland Trailblazers, said at a March 17 ceremony honoring the championship team at

Little Caesars Arena.

“As fate would have it, we landed here in Detroit,” he said. “What we did on the floor embodied what y’all do every single day in life.” What Billups does so well here, as he has in the past, is connect the dots between the towering odds facing both the city and its NBA franchise. When Billups arrived in 2002, Detroit was reeling from decades of corporate plunder and municipal abandonment. Residents had just elected a young mayor named Kwame Kilpatrick who was seen as a symbol of promise to many, but ultimately never posed any real threat to a status quo that placed wealthy developers and personal greed ahead of ordinary people in the overwhelmingly poor and working-class Black city.

You can see the movie posters now. A group of guys hungry for a fresh start all land in the Midwest’s quintessential fallen city, desperate for its own breakthrough.

After getting swept by the Nets in the 2003 conference finals, Dumars replaced Rick Carlisle for Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown. They played solid ball throughout the first half of the ’03’04 season, but never hit a stride with enough consistency to strike fear in anyone. Which means that almost no one saw what was coming.

And then came Rasheed Wallace at the 2004 trade deadline. Sheed was a solid big man who could play both sides of the floor. But he was also called a “walking technical foul,” and it seemed like his talents might be eclipsed by some combo of his on-court challenges, a racist traditional media

system (the “Jailblazers” stuff should haunt every one of their careers), and NBA executives like David Stern who plainly hated his guts and wanted him out of the league. Eight years into his career, it wasn’t clear if he would ever find a system that could harness his powers and passion for good.

He had come to the right place this time. Sheed was a Philly boy Detroiters could recognize. And he turned out to be the final piece the team needed to really take off.

Finish strong

After picking up Sheed, the Pistons were an almost unstoppable locomotive. They went 20-6 for the rest of the season, and finished 54-28. They were solid offensively, but dismantled opponents with a defense that could pick apart any team in the league.

Big Ben was now firmly cemented as one of the all-time great defenders. Prince’s length made him a nightmare in his own right. And with Sheed in the mix down low and Rip and Billups on the perimeter, teams had to fight for their lives on every inch of the floor. Famously, the Pistons held 11 teams under 70 points that season. As ESPN play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico put it during the playoffs: “Every pass, every shot defended like it’s the last.”

They entered those playoffs with the third best net rating in the league. And still almost no one had them going the distance.

Before they could defy gravity against the Lakers, they had to make it through a notoriously scrappy Eastern

Conference. After wiping the Milwaukee Bucks 4-1in the first round, they slugged it out for seven games with the Nets before advancing to the conference finals, where the Pistons knocked off the Indiana Pacers, the team with the best record that year, in six bruising games. In game 2, the teams combined for an astonishing 26 blocks, 19 of them by the Pistons.

One of those blocks would go down as perhaps the most iconic in playoff history. Ahead by two, the Pistons have possession with just seconds to go. After a Billups turnover, Reggie Miller breaks out for what looks like an easy layup. And then our lanky hero appears, destined for greatness. Miller is in the air alone until he’s not — until Prince flies in to get a piece of the ball with so much momentum that he lands somewhere in the rows behind the basket. It was such an incredible block that it is now known simply as “The Block,” the one that every other block must bow to.

The Pistons were now on their way to the finals for the first time since the Bad Boys’ legendary back-to-back 1989-1990 wins.

But even after all that, popular opinion was that the Lakers might sweep. L.A. just had too much star power. The Pistons “shouldn’t even show up in L.A.,” Ben Wallace remembers hearing.

As Marlowe Alter writes in the Free Press, “nobody gave the Pistons a chance in the Finals — the Lakers were minus-700 favorites, meaning a bettor would have to put down $700 to win $100.” That’s almost right. Nobody, of course, except the Pistons themselves, and the dedicated fans who knew what they were capable of.

“David conquered Goliath”

“If you look at the names on the back of the jerseys, yeah, they should have swept us,” Billups said in a 2020 interview. After all, the Lakers were that era’s most feared franchise. Kobe and Shaq were still the best players on any court. They had also picked up Gary Payton and Karl Malone, stacking a team with three championships and two Hall of Famers with two more Hall of Famers, both on their way out but still capable of contributing.

What everyone missed though is that you can have all of the star power but none of the chemistry. And you’re going to need chemistry in order to overcome a team that has a metric ton of it and braids it together with elite gameplanning — a team, like the Pistons, that knows it lacks a traditional championship-caliber lineup, and so also knows their only chance is by elevating everyone to the height of their powers. Which is exactly what they did against the Lakers, who had their own clash of the titans

thing going on internally, making it impossible for them to deal with a team that “played the game the right way,” to use Larry Brown’s famous standard.

The Pistons knew L.A.’s weaknesses and exploited them relentlessly. They let Shaq do his thing one-on-one against Wallace, but dogged everyone else across every inch of the floor. They knew this would frustrate the hell out of Kobe, who started playing the worst kind of hero ball imaginable, jacking up chaotic jumpers over Tayshaun.

Making the best of it during a halftime interview in game 1, Kobe compared the contest to “two heavyweight boxers feeling each other out.” It wouldn’t take long to see the difference. The Pistons plainly outsmarted and outhooped the Lakers — getting stops, generating second-chance points wherever they could, and getting important minutes out of role players like Corliss Williamson, Mehmut Okur, and Elden Campbell.

Outside of Shaq, who really was unstoppable, the Pistons jammed the Lakers’ entire offense up all series, holding them to 81.8 points per game.

After a convincing Pistons win in game 1, the Lakers squeaked out game 2 in overtime in L.A. The Lakers wouldn’t see their arena again that season. After the loss, the team reportedly told Larry Brown “we’re not coming back to L.A.” They swept the next three games, slamming the series shut in game 5 in Detroit.

“I knew we’d get exposed,” Lakers forward Rick Fox said in a 2015 oral history. “...I personally felt we didn’t have enough respect for the Pistons. We thought we were going to steamroll them.”

The Pistons also knew otherwise. “When [Los Angeles] beat Minnesota, I was happy,” Billups said. “Because I felt like there was no way the Lakers could beat us.” Billups averaged 21 points, 5.2 assists, and 3.2 rebounds, and won the Finals MVP.

A day before game 1, an exasperated Sheed let everyone know how he felt about their predictions: “Ain’t nobody

scared here. Ain’t no punks on this team!”

Seeing a squad like that reach the mountaintop after telling everyone they could do it, and then exploding with exhilaration as if part of them still couldn’t believe it themselves, is some of the best of what sports has to offer us. “We shook up the world! We shook up the world! We shook up the world!” backup guard Lindsey Hunter, his championship hat tilted to the side, shouts into a flip phone moments after the trophy presentation.

“98% of the people didn’t believe in us, but guess what?” Sheed says in a post-game interview with Jalen Rose. “David conquered Goliath.”

20 years later

It’s hard to properly account for everything that ’04 squad meant. For starters, fans will tell you that it just feels flat-out good to see a team full of overlooked players bring a championship to an overlooked city. And they take enormous pride witnessing those players be so loudly defiant and refusing to stay in their assigned place against more polished and decorated opponents who are right at home under the nation’s brightest lights.

Whether it’s Big Ben, his ‘fro piled to the ceiling, swatting a shot into rows of fans wearing afros of their own in his honor, or Sheed, whose signature Air Force 1 would become a staple in the city, shouting “BALL DON’T LIE!’’ when an opponent misses a free throw after a bad call, a ruling you can still hear players roar in any open gym or neighborhood court run. And then to top it off, Jawara adds, we got to see Sheed, “the eventual all-time leader in ejections hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy.” Magnificent.

“You’re talking about … a lot of throwaways that came together and played great basketball, loved each other, became brothers,” Billups said on a 2016 episode of the Vertical podcast.

Sports fandom, like any fanaticism, has its share of absurdities and devastations. But at its best, it can help us imagine a

version of ourselves and our communities achieving everything we deserve. The ’04 Pistons were throwaway players in a city where almost everyone knew the feeling. Guys with nowhere to go landing in a city filled with Black families who fled as far and as fast as they could from the brutality of Southern apartheid toward the promise of jobs and greater freedom in northern cities like ours.

“Nobody gave Detroit credit,” Turner says. “The Pistons gave a lot of people hope about how bright the future could be for the city. As a young Black boy, I felt like the world was my oyster. There was no better place to be. I still feel like that to this day.”

And there’s also the question about what this city’s largely working-class fans deserve all these years later from both the franchise’s owner and the city’s leadership as both drape themselves in the team’s romantic underdog legacy.

Jawara warns against over-romanticizing “blue-collar basketball,” which is “something that allowed us to get in the ring with the biggest and the best, but no longer sustains us.” The NBA, after all, is a “global money machine” in which “you’re gonna absolutely need a ton of firepower [on the court] to survive” night to night.

Not to mention, by coasting on the ’04 Pistons heroic blue-collar story, we risk letting the team’s massively wealthy owner Tom Gores off the hook for failing the its actual blue-collar fan base, Jawara argues. Gores has allowed the team to “flounder year after year while fans still show up faithfully” with “no accountability, no restoration, and most of all, little to no winning.”

“Detroit can be more,” he adds. “We can preserve our scrappy DNA while showcasing our other beautiful traits: fashion and flashiness,” traits that also translate well to today’s game. “And we can hold the architect of this team accountable” for giving fans the team they deserve.

And in a way, this is also an important aspect of the ’04 legacy. This was a squad that loved its fans as much as they loved playing together. They undoubtedly would want the city and Pistons’ ownership to take those fans seriously enough to put forth a genuine effort to build a competitive team.

The ’04 Pistons are rightly remembered as conquering underdogs at a time when Detroiters desperately needed to see ourselves that way. And as the city evolves, they serve as a powerful reminder of what kind of city we should aspire to be. One where the communities who actually built that underdog reputation, and lifted its scrappiest franchise to immortality, be given everything they deserve from the city they’ve given everything to.

WHAT’S GOING ON

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

MUSIC

Wednesday, April 10

Artillery, Vapor, Potential Threat, Among These Ashes 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $20.

Jon Snodgrass + Jeremy Porter and The Tucos & Glenmore 7 p.m.; Small’s, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck; $13.

Julia Wolf, Scro, SUNBABY 7 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $18.

Matthew Sweet, Abe Partridge 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $30.

Foxxy Gwensdays 6 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit.

Thursday, April 11

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

Dick Valentine at Edo Lounge! 8-10 p.m.; Edo Ramen & Sushi Lounge, 4313 W. 13 Mile Rd., Royal Oak; no cover, reservations required.

Lyfe Jennings, Mavis Swan Poole 8 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $41-$54.

Swami And The Bed of Nails, The Boreouts 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $18.

Friday, April 12

Anthony Aquarius - The Return of Jimi Hendrix with Special Guests The Reefermen (with Anthony Aquarius, The Reefermen) 8 p.m.; Emerald Theatre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $20-$1,000.

Arizona Zervas, Zai, Austin Awake, Rockie 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $80.

Faculty Concert: Dr. Tigran

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

Gravy, Bitch Kraft, DJ E.M. Allen 9 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover. Intervals, Hail The Sun, Body

Thief, Makari 6 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $23.

Jesse Dayton 7:30 p.m.; downstairs at Joy Manor, 28997 Joy Road, Westland; $15.

LIVE WIRE - The Motley Crue Tribute 7 pm; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $18.

Taylor Dayne 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $35-$79.

Taylor’s Version - a Swiftie Dance Party 8 pm; The Crofoot Ballroom, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

The Best of BILLY JOEL & ELTON

JOHN Tribute, D Street - Tribute to Bruce Springsteen with The Yachtseas - Yacht Rock Review

7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $20-$150.

The Fall of Troy performing ‘Phantom on the Horizon’ 6 pm; Small’s, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck; $25.

The Sugar Clouds 7 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

TWIST OF COUNTRY - Faster Horses Night 8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $10.

UNiiQU3 with Auntie Chanel, Something Blue, Dream Beach and Huny XO 9 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $15-$20. Vio-lence, Exhorder, Deceased, Mortal Wound 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $25.

VOYAGE - THE ULTIMATE

JOURNEY TRIBUTE BAND, Jody Raffoul Band 8 p.m.; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $26-$49.

Saturday, April 13

Live/Concert

A Thousand Horses, Kendall Tucker 7 p.m.; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $20.

Albert Cummings 7:30 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $15-$150.

Big Something, Headspace Tour 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.

Blue October 7 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $33.50$97.50.

Club 90’s presents - 2000*s Night 9:30 p.m.; The Crofoot, 1 S. Saginaw,

Pontiac; $15.

Eli Young Band 8-9:30 p.m.; FIM Capitol Theatre, 140 E. 2nd St., Flint; $35-$100.

Framing Hanley, Rookie of the Year 6:30 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $20.

Jeff Rosenstock, Sidney Gish, Gladie 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $23-$49.50.

Kublai Khan TX, Sunami, Judiciary, Momentum 6:30 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $23.

Magic Bag Presents: 80s vs 90sMEGA vs CLASS 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $25.

Righteous Brothers 8 p.m.; Andiamo Celebrity Showroom, 7096 E. 14 Mile Rd., Warren; $35-$89.

Stars of the Sixties LIVE in Dearborn, MI on Saturday, April 16 at the Ford Community and PAC 7-9 p.m.; Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, Club Room 1, Dearborn; $39-$69.

The Decade Tour - Wreking Crue & Armageddon 6:30 p.m.; Emerald Theatre, 31 N. Walnut St., Mount Clemens; $20-$1,000.

Upon A Burning Body, The Browning, Hollow Front, VCTMS

6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $25. DJ/Dance

DISCO LOUNGE - A tribute to the Disco Club Era w/ DJ Eric Kacir 9 p.m.-1 a.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Tchami 8 p.m.; Cathedral Theatre at the Masonic Temple, 500 Temple St., Detroit; $35-$75.

Sunday, April 14

Andrea Bocelli 7:30 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena; 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $81-$331.

Glenn Miller Orchestra 8 p.m.Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts; 12 N. Sagninaw St., Pontiac; $25-$55.

Grosse Pointe Symphony Orchestra 3-4:45 p.m.; Grosse Pointe War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Dr., Grosse Pointe Shores; $20 ($15 seniors, $5 college students, free to students K -12).

Koffin Kats, The Queers, The Cult of Spaceskull, the Lowcocks 7 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $25.

Korpiklaani, Atlantis, Illumishade 6:30 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $30.

Lyyra 4-4:30 pm; Christ Church-Detroit, 960 E. Jefferson, Detroit; $25 in advance/$35 at the door.

Michigan Philharmonic Jazz Concert + Buffet Dinner 6-10 p.m.; Saint John’s Resort, 44045 Five Mile Rd., Plymouth; $125.

Próxima Parada, Oliver Hazard, Abby Hamilton 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.

Queensryche with Armored Saint 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $35.

Thy Art Is Murder, AngelMaker, Signs of the Swarm, Snuffed on Sight 6 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $25.50.

Monday, April 15

Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, Wilderun 6 pm; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $25.

Magic Bag Presents: Scott H. Biram 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $22.

Soft Blue Shimmer, Keep, Trembler, Gripthumb 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.

DJ/Dance

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

Tuesday, April 16

Firewind, Immortal Guardian, Edge of Paradise 6 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $20.

Satch Vai US Tour: Joe Satriani & Steve Vai 7:30 p.m.; Fisher Theatre - Detroit, 3011 West Grand & Fisher, Detroit; $83-$358.

The Veronicas, Jesse Jo Stark 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $33.

Wind Quintets 7-8:30 pm; Ferndale First United Methodist Church, 22331 Woodward, Ferndale; $10-15.

DJ/Dance

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

COMEDY

Improv

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

Planet Ant Theatre Hip-Prov: Improv with a Dash of Hip-Hop; $10; second

Wednesday of every month, 7 p.m.

Stand-up

Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts Paula Poundstone; $30-$60; Saturday, 8 p.m.

Fox Theatre Jeff Dunham; $66; Friday, 7 p.m. and Saturday, 3 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle

Francis Ellis, Matt Lauria, Richie McLonis; $25; Thursday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Friday, 7:15-8:45 & 9:45-11:15 p.m.; and Saturday, 7-8:30 & 9:30-11 p.m.

Planet Ant Theatre The Misfit Variety Show (hosted by Lauren LoGiudice, featuring: Lauren Bickers, Tam White, Myes De Leeuw; $20; Sunday, 7 p.m.

Royal Oak Music Theatre Preacher Lawson “Best Day Ever” Tour; $24.50$59.50; Friday, 8-10 p.m.

Open Mic

Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy FREE Mondays, 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant Sign up 8:30 p.m., show at 9 p.m.; $5 suggested donation; Thursdays, 9-10:30 p.m.

THEATER Performance

Detroit Repertory Theatre Annabella in July; $30; Fridays, Saturdays, 8-10 p.m.; Saturdays, 3-5 p.m.; and Sundays, 2-4 p.m.

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

Tipping Point Theatre The Squirrels; $39; Wednesday, 2 p.m.; Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 6 p.m.; and Sunday, 2 p.m.

Trenton Village Theatre Phantom of the Opera; $14-$18; Friday, 7-10 p.m.; Saturday, 7-10 p.m.; and Sunday, 2-5 p.m.

FILM Screening

Motor City Cinema Society Heavy Metal (1981); Monday, 6:30 p.m.

SPORTS Baseball

Comerica Park Detroit Tigers vs. Texas Rangers; Thursday, 1:10 p.m., Friday, 6:40 p.m.; Saturday, 1:10 p.m.; Sunday, 1:40 p.m..; Monday, 6:40 p.m.;

Freep Film Festival

FILM: In 2014, the Detroit Free Press launched its Freep Film Festival to highlight documentaries focused on Michigan. To that end, this year’s fest includes a number of items of local interest such as the Michigan premiere of “23 Mile,” an experimental doc by filmmaker Mitch McCabe that looks back at the surreal 2020 election year that included the FBI thwarting militias meeting in the basement of a vacuum repair shop to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (On Saturday, you can catch a panel discussion with McCabe and Free Press editorial page editor Nancy Kaffer, and on Sunday, McCabe speaks with the paper’s politics editor Emily Lawler.) Another highlight is The World According to Allee Willis, which looks at the late songwriter known for co-writing Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and the Friends theme song, among many others. Beyond Michigan, filmmaker Sav Rodgers reevaluates Kevin Smith’s 1997 romantic comedy-drama Chasing Amy, finding the film to be a lifeline as a queer kid growing up in Kansas. The festival features more than 20 feature-length documentaries and nearly 50 events, including a dinner-and-a-movie series at Hazel Park’s Frame.

From Wednesday, April 10-Sunday, April 14; see freepfilmfestival.com for full schedule. Tickets start at $15 per

film or $70 for a five-pack.

Astronomicon 7

CONS: Astronomicon is back. Hosted by Detroit hip-hop horrorcore duo Twiztid, the pop culture convention returns to Livonia’s Burton Manor to celebrate its 7th year. This year’s event will be headlined by Michael Rooker of Guardians of the Galaxy and The Walking Dead fame, and will feature many other special celebrity guests, including voice actors Billy West (Futurama) and Rodger Bumpass (SpongeBob SquarePants), Power Rangers stars David Yost and Walter E. Jones, wrestlers Mick Foley and Kurt Angle, and many more. The convention will also host cosplay contests, concerts featuring the Majik Ninja Entertainment roster, vendors, and other events.

From Friday, April 12-Sunday, April 14; Burton Manor, 27777 Schoolcraft Rd., Livonia; see astronomicon.com for the full schedule. Weekend passes are $70 but other options are also available.

Flash Your Lights

ONLINE: Sound is likely not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about visual art, but this new exhibition is challenging you to think outside of the box. Kresge Arts in Detroit is holding its first-ever online

art show, featuring the 2023 cohort of Artist Fellows and Gilda Award recipients in visual and literary arts, including a mix of mediums ranging from painting, ceramics, poetry, and more, all tied together with audio elements. The exhibition theme is Flash Your Lights, inspired by 1970s Detroit radio DJ The Electrifying Mojo, who asked listeners to imagine futures of peace and revolution united by sound and to collectively “flash their lights” to demonstrate they were listening in solidarity. Kristen Gallerneaux, a 2019 Kresge Artist Fellow, curated this year’s exhibition and developed the theme. “It does not replicate a white cube gallery space. It’s more like individual artist pages that people can kind of scroll through and there’s text woven through,” she says. “The web designer who worked on this did a really beautiful job of creating a really nicely immersive way to navigate this work. It has a side-scrolling mechanism that works really nicely and there are options to turn the sound on [or off]. There’s a lot of interdisciplinary work.” She adds, “The exhibit is not about [Mojo], but it’s sort of expanding legacies of creative communities of listening that we have in the city.”

Available to view online at kresgeartsindetroit.org for free through June 14. After June 14, only a shortened, modified version of the exhibition will be available.

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MUSIC

Missy Elliott bringing first-ever headline tour to Detroit

Hip-hop heavyweight Missy Elliott has announced her first-ever headline tour, which includes a Motor City stop.

“OUT OF THIS WORLD — The Missy Elliott Experience” also includes Busta Rhymes, Ciara, and longtime collaborator Timbaland, and is set for Thursday, Aug. 15 at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena.

“This is an incredible time in my life as I am experiencing so many milestone ‘firsts,’” Elliot said in a statement. “Being the FIRST female Hip Hop artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and now going out on my FIRST headline tour. Fans have been asking me to tour forever but I wanted to wait until I felt the time was right because I knew if I was ever going to do it, I had to do it big, and I had to do it with family! So get ready to be taken OUT OF THIS WORLD with me, Busta Rhymes, Ci-

ara, and Timbaland! We can’t wait to share this experience with the fans!”

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 12 at 313presents.com, livenation.com, and ticketmaster. com.

Information on presale options is available at missy-elliott.com. A number of VIP options are also offered from vipnation.com, including premium seats, onstage photo options, lounge access, exclusive merch, and more.

Elliott has also collaborated with director Dave Meyers (“Get Ur Freak On,” “Work It,” “Pass That Dutch”) for a flashy cyberpunk tour announcement video that looks like something out of The Matrix

In the ’90s, then-obscure producers Elliott and Timbaland found critical and commercial success producing One in a Million, the sophomore album by Detroit’s Aaliyah. The singer

started working with them when she was 16, shortly after parting ways with producer R. Kelly, who is accused of sexually abusing her.

The duo’s avant-garde approach helped take Aaliyah’s music to the next level.

“At first, Tim and Missy were skeptical if I would like their work, but I thought it was tight, just ridiculous,” Aaliyah had said of working with Elliott and Timbaland. “Their sound was different and unique, and that’s what appealed to me … Before we got together, I talked to them on the phone and told them what I wanted. I said, ‘You guys know I have a street image, but there is a sexiness to it, and I want my songs to complement that’; I told them that before I even met them. Once I said that, I didn’t have to say anything else. Everything they brought me was the bomb.”

FOOD

Rising to the occasion

Secret Bakery

821 Livernois St., Ferndale maxbread.net

$2-$15

Few Detroit restaurant closures in recent memory came as much of a bummer as that of Core City’s Ochre Bakery, which produced as close to perfect plates as you’re gonna find, but shut down in mid-2022. Among the casualties in its all-star staff was breadmaker Max Leonard, who, at the time, was exhausted and hung up his oven mitts for a minute.

But Leonard is back. After moving into his parents’ house and not baking much while regrouping and figuring out his next step, he ultimately decided to revive his Secret Bakery concept. Prior to Ochre he had sold bread at a few markets and out of his home in Hamtramck. This time around he began baking and selling out of his new home in Ferndale.

The concept started to pick up steam until it was derailed by a Karen-y neighbor who complained to the authorities, but the problem ended up being a blessing — it forced Leonard into a legit commercial space and to run an above board operation, even if the name and marketing suggests otherwise.

Leonard keeps Secret Bakery’s small space on Livernois stocked with a range of sourdough breads and non-sourdough pastries, and on Saturdays also hosts pop-ups from other local food entrepreneurs. In a region with some powerhouse bakeries, it’s up there with the best.

Among those items Ochre fans may recognize is the olive bread, a slightly chewy loaf with pops of flavor from kalamata olives that’s Leonard’s take on fougasse. The style is typically used for dipping and is from southern France’s Provence region, which shares a border to Italy — hard not to think about its resemblance to its cousin across the border, focaccia. Secret Bakery’s Nordic-

style rye loaf is a dense boy in which Leonard uses a high amount of rye flour. He stresses that the bread’s flavor and texture demands strong toppings and, lucky for me, I had just made pickle herring when I got a loaf. Perfect combo.

A comparatively easy nibbler is among Secret Balery’s best sellers — a sesame sourdough. Leonard describes it as a riff on a super simple northern European breakfast roll. It’s also perfect for lunch, and was utilized on a sandwich in February by the Marksie Catering pop-up, which offered excellent lamb kofta sandwiches. The kofta was lighter and fluffier than any I’ve previously encountered, the whipped feta added a creaminess, pickled onions provided a textural and acidic contrast, and sautéed beans and onion helped put it over the top. Excellent. I can also vouch for Secret Bakery’s awesome baguette, and the sour and slightly chewy country loaf.

On the sweeter side, Leonard’s Nordic-style milk bread Danish holds

strong hints of cardamom and arrives with a fantastic hazelnut cream. The burnt wheat cookie is an intriguing item that was born out of a happy accident when Leonard burnt a batch of wheat flour. He recalled a baker who salvaged burnt nuts by using them to make a syrup, so Leonard hit him up, and he suggested using the wheat even though it was burnt.

In short, the wheat’s bitterness and smokiness counterbalances the chocolate to develop a unique and complex flavor profile. At a time when virtually every bakery has a sea salt chocolate chip cookie on tap, this is a welcome break. There’s a range of savory pastries as well, and those that I tried all sang.

Several times I tried to stop in but it was unexpectedly closed or had sold out, so plan accordingly. For now, Secret Bakery is open just twice a week as Leonard takes a slow and steady approach to growth. But the lines out the door say that there’s a demand for more.

CULTURE

Arts Spotlight

The guy who spray-paints Beavis and Butt-Head characters all over Detroit

If you’ve been in the Detroit area lately, perhaps you’ve noticed graffiti depicting characters from the Mike Judge cartoon Beavis and Butt-Head scrawled seemingly everywhere.

Metro Times has spotted the drawings on the sides of buildings, underpasses, and construction materials. Soon we were pointed to an Instagram page that appeared to belong to the artist, cataloging some of the drawings.

On a lark, we reached out via direct message and were surprised that he agreed to an interview, provided we keep his identity a secret. As a graffiti writer, he goes by “BVIS.”

He says he has been drawing the character for about as long as he can remember.

“I’ve been doodling the Beavis face since I was a little kid, kind of compulsively,” he says.

Why Beavis and Butt-Head?

“My mom wasn’t home a whole lot,” he says. “The TV pretty much raised me.”

He says his favorite show was Beavis and Butt-Head, in which the two teenaged slackers try repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — to “score” girls.

“I mean, really, like, the whole series was just them trying to score, and that never happening,” he says. “And it’s like, I can relate to that real-life frustration.”

It wasn’t until recently that BVIS started writing graffiti.

“Just like within the last maybe two years, a buddy of mine threw me a can of paint,” he says. “I just haven’t put it down since.”

He typically draws a version of Beavis, with his pronounced underbite, though he has also drawn a few of ButtHead “just to see if I could,” he says. Sometimes he mashes them up with

BVIS estimates he’s drawn “like, thousands” of them in and around Detroit, with some as far as the suburbs in Oakland County.

He typically paints them as a “throwup” or “throwie,” graffiti that involves a one-color outline and one layer of fill. In his case, he usually does red linework with yellow fill, evoking another popular ’90s cartoon, The Simpsons “Sometimes I’ll do like 20 in a night, sometimes it’ll just be like, a couple a day,” he says.

He adds, “But there really isn’t a day I’m not doing it. Even if it’s just like, you know, drawing on the dirt on a car with my finger.”

Over the past decade, Mayor Mike Duggan has cracked down on graffiti, fining graffiti writers and even building owners and encouraging the creation of elaborate, sanctioned murals on walls across the city.

But when asked if he is afraid of getting caught, BVIS claims to be unfazed.

“I feel like Detroit’s got bigger fish to fry,” he says.

BVIS says he works alone, and typically operates under the cover of darkness.

“I try to make sure I got my good running shoes on,” he says. “You know, I rarely look around while I’m doing it. If I’m looking suspicious, I’m more likely to get caught. So I feel like I just act like I’m supposed to be here doing this. Nobody’s really looking.”

He says he generally will not paint on buildings that do not have any graffiti already on them, though he admits he has broken that rule a few times. At least one building owner caught him, he claims.

“One guy in particular, he hit me up and he’s like, ‘Hey, I fucking hate you because you tagged my building, but I love you because I love Beavis and Butt-Head.”

characters from other cartoons, like Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

But Beavis is his main muse.

“I don’t know what it is,” he says. “It’s just like muscle memory at this point.

He claims he can draw the face in about 10 seconds, though the design has changed over time.

“He’s gone through a couple stages,” BVIS says. “I think the longer I do it, the more it looks less like Beavis and more just like a totally new character. … When I started, it was pretty much, you know, line for line. The eyes were a lot smaller. He had all his teeth, he was smiling. And then, yeah, just over time, he lost most of his teeth and is no longer smiling.”

He adds, “I don’t know if it’s, like, something internally [in me] that did that, but yeah, he’s just kind of transformed into like this haggard-looking Beavis.”

BVIS claims that much of the response has actually been positive.

“It’s not just like, pure vandalism or me just trying to get my name up,” he says. “It’s a character that people recognize and brings happiness.”

When he’s not drawing Beavis, BVIS says he likes to draw at home, and also makes music.

“Anything creative, using my hands — it’s really an addiction, but it’s a good one,” he says. “If I have to be strung out on anything, it’s better to be painting on a canvas than a crack pipe.”

And just what is it about graffiti that is so addictive?

“I love just getting away with shit,” BVIS says. “But part of me is like, I know people like it. It feels good to make people smile. But it is mostly the adrenaline rush.”

You can follow BVIS on his Instagram page, @fatdeepdish420.

CULTURE

Film

A whirlwind of expressionist violence

Monkey Man

Rated: R

Run-time: 121 minutes

When we are first introduced to the protagonist of Monkey Man — who is identified only as “The Kid” (Dev Patel) — he’s taking a savage beating in an underground fight club. Each night, he dons a ragged ape mask and plays the heel, allowing the fan-favorite champion to pummel him into a pulp, all to the enthusiastic cheers of a bloodthirsty crowd. If pressed, the Kid would probably insist that he’s just trying to make a buck in a world where the odds are stacked against the have-nots. In his own mind, meanwhile, this nightly ritual is a kind of training, preparation for a mission of vengeance that he’s been slow-cooking for 20 years. What the Kid would never admit, even to himself, is that he’s grown so accustomed to pain, he might be starting to think he deserves to be perpetually broken, both physically and psychologically.

On paper, Monkey Man is as straightforward as action revengers get. As a child, the Kid dwelled in a rural Indian village with his single mother (Adithi Kalkunte), who delighted him with tales of the heroic monkey-god, Hanuman. This bliss was shattered forever on one fateful night when corrupt, sadistic men arrived to drive the villagers out and

seize their land, by any means necessary. Two decades later, the Kid begins scheming his way in the inner circle of those same men to deliver his long-overdue revenge. It’s the sort of story that movie lovers have seen a hundred times before, and it unfolds without any significant twists or surprises, plot-wise. Initially, the Kid’s plan seems to be succeeding, but he fumbles while trying to make his big move, leaving him momentarily defeated. In this second act, he recovers and reaps some wisdom, and in the third he executes a refined and much bloodier plan on his enemies. Roll credits. So why does Monkey Man — which is not only a star vehicle for Patel, but also his feature directorial debut — feel like such a breath of fresh air? Partly, it’s due to the actor’s raw performance. Rich characterization isn’t all that crucial in the roaring-rampage-of-revenge subgenre. However, so many action antiheroes come off as quippy cartoons or stoic Übermenschen, it’s startling to encounter a protagonist like the Kid, who is obviously in such deep, intractable pain. His targets might be a monstrous police chief (Sikandar Kher) and the billionaire guru-mogul who pulls his strings, but the Kid’s real nemeses are his own traumatizing memories. Flashbacks to that tragic night 20 years ago often threaten to derail his vengeance, freezing him in the sweaty, trembling space between fight and flight.

That said, it’s not Patel’s haunted eyes — or his freshly sinewy physique — that leaves the strongest impression in Monkey Man. Rather, it’s the film’s invigorating, kinetic style, which thrashes the viewer with a whirlwind of color, motion and sound. As YouTube essayist Tom van der Linden has recently argued, the past decade of action filmmaking has been defined by the ascendency of pristine visual coherence and attentiongrabbing technical execution over all other elements (sometimes even story). What was once radical now feels obligatory. Patel’s feature feels like something of a course-correction, being perhaps the first post-John Wick action thriller to offer a different aesthetic sensibility. (As if underlining its intent, the film even name-checks Chad Stahleski’s estimable, ultra-violent franchise.)

Simply put, Monkey Man looks and feels quite different from most contemporary action pictures. Patel and his collaborators — most notably cinematographer Sharone Meir and editors Joe Galdo, Dávid Jancsó, and Tim Murrell — mostly eschew the wide shots and long takes that are employed so often these days to place elaborate fight choreography front and center. Instead, the filmmakers favor a frenetic, expressionist approach that results in a breathless flow of images and sound: a flash of steel, a grinning face, the sizzle of a street vendor’s grill. It’s not the hyper-diced,

stupefying sludge of Michael “Bay-ham,” but rather a middle way between the now out-of-fashion queasy-cam chaos of The Bourne Ultimatum (2008) and the Grand Guignol visual splendor of John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017). Viewers prone to motion sickness might not find it to their taste, but it’s unquestionable that Monkey Man is as artistically vitalizing as it is bone-crunching.

Patel has a story credit on the feature as well, and the Gujarati-descended British filmmaker enlivens the elemental pleasures of the Kid’s cold-plated revenge with textures plucked from contemporary Indian culture. The never-sleep bustle of the subcontinent’s city life is more than a backdrop. It’s woven directly into the film’s sensory fabric, from the smoky, claustrophobic din of labyrinthine slums to the VIP-room hedonism enjoyed by modern-day billionaire maharajas.

While the names of the people, places and political parties are all fictional, Monkey Man doesn’t pull its punches. It harbors a scorching contempt for civil corruption, runaway greed, and the false piety of right-wing Hindutva ideology. A temple community of transgender hijras plays a key role in the plot, and Patel isn’t shy about presenting Monkey Man as a gory, vicarious revenge fantasy for oppressed people of all sorts. It’s a credit to the actor-director and screenwriters Paul Angunawela and John Collee that this doesn’t come off as lip-service political posturing, but as an authentic expression of righteous rage that blends seamlessly into the context of the film. The Kid has nothing to his name but his pain, after all, and no purpose left other than to give it away a hundredfold to the unrepentant tyrants who squat on their golden thrones.

CULTURE

Savage Love

Best Interests

: Q I’m a woman in a new polyamorous relationship with a man who has a 5-yearold daughter. He and his ex-partner split up about a year ago and until two weeks ago, his ex wasn’t allowing him to see his child. However, once she learned of my existence, she suddenly changed her mind. I believe she’s letting him see his child now because she thinks this will drive a wedge between us. In reality, we’re both over the moon that he’s reconnecting with his daughter. Now here’s where I am going to ask for advice. My new boyfriend has recently begun exploring polyamory, and his ex doesn’t know I’m not the only woman he’s seeing. He’s not yet publicly out with the new woman, as it’s a recent thing, whereas we’ve been together more than six months. However, all three of us are getting along very well, and people in our social dance scene have started noticing. This dance scene is where his ex learned about me. Do you think that it’s safe for us to be open about his other relationship? Or do you think his ex will get angry and jealous that he’s enjoying life to the fullest and cut off contact with his daughter again?

—Regarding A Vengeful Ex

A: “For seventeen years, I’ve represented clients in child custody cases throughout New York State where being polyamorous — or kinky or a sex worker or frequenting sex workers or other issues of personal sexuality — is being used against a client,” said Diana Adams, executive director of Chosen Family Law Center. “And whether it’s safe to be openly polyamorous when you share custody with an ex who could potentially take you to court and bring it up in a child custody case sadly depends on your zip code.”

This is going to seem crazy, FAVE, but that’s because it is crazy: Before making the obvious move here — before your boyfriend lawyers up and takes his ex to court to secure his parental rights and responsibilities (he is making child support payments, right?) — you’re gonna need to look the results of the last three or four local elections.

“The best indicator of success is how conservative the area is, which is an indicator of how open-minded or conservative the judge, social workers, and other appointed professionals will be in evaluating by the subjective standard of ‘the best interests of the child,’” said Adams. “We don’t yet have

much protection from discrimination based on polyamory or other relationship statuses which is precisely why I’m engaged in advocacy for relationship and family structure non-discrimination laws.”

The kind of non-discrimination statutes advocated by Adams — which have already been made law in two east coast cities and they’ve currently moving through city councils in two west coast cities — would bar conservative judges and social workers from discriminating against people practicing polyamory. But if you aren’t lucky enough to live in one of the two cities where these laws are already in force, the passage of these laws and the debate around them where they’ve yet to pass could benefit your boyfriend and his daughter in the long run.

“These nondiscrimination laws don’t just make it unlawful to discriminate in those jurisdictions,” said Adams, “they influence public thought and make discrimination elsewhere less acceptable as well.”

As for the short run — as for whether it’s safe for your boyfriend to be open about his polyamorous “lifestyle” (awful term, I realize, but sometimes it can’t be avoided) the answer doesn’t just depend on your zip code, RAVE, but on the reaction his ex is likely to have. And seeing as she has a history of weaponizing access to their child (which is not in the child’s best interests), I don’t think his ex can be trusted to react benevolently, whatever her feelings about open relationships might be. Which is why your boyfriend should — if he safely can lawyer up and take his ex to court.

: Q I was told you help women who feel shamed about their orgasms. I’ve been in my relationship for five years and always had a difficulty orgasming. About a year ago, I had an affair during a manic episode. I hardly remember any of it, but it haunts me every day. It doesn’t help that my boyfriend constantly brings up the affair when we have sex. He knows two solid ways to make me orgasm, but he focuses instead on two ways I have a hard time orgasming and gets very angry when I don’t. When I tell him that it’s not him, it’s just my body, he brings up the affair and angrily says I was able to orgasm these ways with a stranger. I now feel anxious to have the big O as fast as humanly possible and try to guide him to do what feels best and even show him how to do it. But it always ends in an argument about how I orgasmed doing these things with someone else and he gets angry about it. Now I feel like my vagina is broken. He says it’s because I’ve had too much sex and accuses me of preferring sex with strangers and then starts berating himself for being too small. It doesn’t matter if it is penetrative, oral, or by hand, he always says the same things. I’ve had many successful

orgasms with him from penetrative and oral sex. I don’t understand why I can’t from his hand or when he’s behind me and those are the only ways he cares about. Can you help me? It’s been a consistent problem. We’ve had this fight at least three times a week for the last eleven months.

—Feeling Increasingly Broken Somehow

A: You don’t have any trouble getting off during sex — you’re fully orgasmic (even during PIV alone!) — but for reasons I’ll get into/speculate about in a moment, FIBS, your boyfriend has decided to ignore what he knows works for you and the gentle feedback you give him during sex. Instead, he’s choosing to do what doesn’t work — what he knows doesn’t work — and then when what doesn’t work winds up not working, FIBS, your boyfriend throws mean-spirited tantrums about the size of his dick and the regrettable affair you had during a mental health crisis. (An affair you told him entirely too much about! He may have needed to know about the affair, but he didn’t need to know exactly how you got off with your affair partner.) He’s not having sex with you to reconnect after the affair or even just for sex’s sake; he’s having sex with you to control and punish you. He doesn’t want to get you off — he’s intentionally setting you up for failure — because wants to throw this affair in your face again and again and again. Which means he hasn’t forgiven you, FIBS, and given how long he’s been staging these meltdowns — three times a week for eleven months — he clearly has no intention of forgiving you.

Someone who can’t stop demanding apologies won’t be satisfied by the millionth one. Yes, you had an affair and, yes, that was wrong. But there were extenuating circumstances — you were in a manic state — and if he can’t forgive you and get past it, FIBS, he has no place in your life, your bed, your vagina, or your mouth.

P.S. You aren’t broken — not yet. But longer you stay in this hell of a relationship, the likelier you are to start having the problem you’re worried about, i.e., difficulty climaxing. You’re in good working order right now — you can come, and in a variety of positions, doing a variety of things. Don’t let your angry future ex-boyfriend take that away from you. DTMFA: dump the motherfucker already

P.P.S. Some people insist on being told everything in the wake of an affair. Every detail, however small. But telling the person you cheated on everything — or extracting everything from the person you cheated on is the relationship equivalent of salting the earth. Everything withers and dies, and nothing new grows.

: Q I have a very good friend of nearly fifty years. She has four kids, six grandkids, and ten great grandkids. She told me yesterday that the partner of one of her granddaughters just came out as transgender. But she

told me in a gossipy and joking way that shocked me. I told her that this must be a difficult time for everyone and changed the subject. I want to support this young woman, her partner, and kids, and of course my friend. Any ideas?

—Appalled With Friend’s Unkind Laughter

A: Was your old friend gossiping or was she confiding in you? Was she making cruel jokes or was she using humor — perhaps ineptly, perhaps insensitively — to defuse whatever tension she might’ve been feeling in the moment and/or whatever tension she incorrectly assumed you might’ve been feeling?

When I came out to my mom — decades ago — she said the right thing first: she still loved me. Then she told me she didn’t want to meet anyone I was dating… which hurt to hear… and then she told me a joke about two men attacking a woman in a famously cruisy park in Chicago. The punchline: “One held her down, the other did her hair.” So, two minutes after I had done what seemed impossible me five minutes earlier saying “I’m gay” out loud in the presence of my mother — my mother told me a joke that was 50% gay joke and 50% rape joke. If I was a different sort of person, gay or otherwise, I might’ve been hurt or angered. But my mom was struggling and the joke again, 50% gay and 50% rape — was an effort on her part, however clumsy, to connect with me through our shared sense of humor. And one day I would sit at the dining room table and listen to my mom laugh as she told my first serious boyfriend about the night I came out and retell that same joke. Which she did not to insult him, but to make him feel like he was part of the family.

Look, AWFUL, your old friend may be a transphobic bigot. But I think your old friend, like my late mother, deserves the benefit of the doubt: assume the best, assume she was nervous, and let this go. When you see her next, ask whether her granddaughter’s partner wanted her family to spread the word about her coming out — some queer people do — or if you aren’t supposed to know yet. If her relative wanted family to run and tell (and, again, some queer people do), send a note to your friend’s granddaughter and her partner expressing your support. If you’re not supposed to know yet, keep your mouth shut. P.S. My mother confided in someone without asking me if it was OK — an old friend of hers, a priest — and his kindness helped get my mom to a place where she could sit across a table from the guy who was sodomizing her third son and laugh about family stories. If you scold, you won’t be able to be that friend. So, don’t scold. Listen.

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

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

Now is a favorable time to make initial inquiries, ask for free samples, and enjoy window shopping. But it’s not an opportune time to seal final decisions or sign binding contracts. Have fun haggling and exploring, even as you avoid making permanent promises. Follow the inklings of your heart more than the speculations of your head, but refrain from pledging your heart until lots of evidence is available. You are in a prime position to attract and consider an array of possibilities, and for best results you should remain noncommittal for the foreseeable future.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

Author Betty Bender said, “Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile initially scared me to death.” Painter Georgia O’Keeffe confessed she always harbored chronic anxiety — yet that never stopped her

from doing what she loved. Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Anyone who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” I hope these testimonials inspire you to bolster your grit, Taurus. In the coming days, you may not have any more or less fear than usual. But you will be able to summon extra courage and willpower as you render the fear at least semiirrelevant.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

about the Arthurian legend. The king, Ambrosius Aurelianus, advises the magician Merlin, “Take power where it is offered.” In other words: not where you think or wish power would be, but from sources that are unexpected or outside your customary parameters.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

Search for elegance and beauty in earthy locations that aren’t sleek and polished. Be receptive to the possibility that splendor and awe may be available to you at a low cost. Now may be one of those rare times when imperfect things are more sublime than the so-called perfect stuff.

What have taxes ever done for us? Aside from roads, public education, national defense, social programs, a judicial system and the rule of law, public health, great leaps in science and technology… nothing!!

Richard the Lionheart (1157–1199) was a medieval king of England. How did he get his nickname? Scholars say it was because of his skill as a military leader. But legend tells an additional story. As a young man, Richard was imprisoned by an enemy who arranged for a hungry lion to be brought into his cell. As the beast opened its maw to maul the future king, Richard thrust his arm down its throat and tore out its heart, killing it. What does this tale have to do with you, Gemini? I predict you will soon encounter a test that’s less extreme than Richard’s but equally solvable by bursts of creative ingenuity. Though there will be no physical danger, you will be wise to call on similar boldness. Drawing on the element of surprise may also serve you well.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

Will the adventures heading your way be unusual, amusing, and even unprecedented? I bet they will have at least some of those elements. You could encounter plot twists you’ve never witnessed or imagined. You may be inspired to dream up creative adjustments unlike any you’ve tried. These would be very positive developments. They suggest you’re becoming more comfortable with expressing your authentic self and less susceptible to the influence of people’s expectations. Every one of us is a unique genius in some ways, and you’re getting closer to inhabiting the fullness of yours.

LEO: July 23 – August 22

RENDER TO CAESAR, DRINK AT GUS’

At least for now, help may not be available from the usual sources. Is the doctor sick? Does mommy need mothering? Is the therapist feeling depressed? My advice is to not worry about the deficiencies, but rather shift your attention to skillful surrogates and substitutes. They may give you what you need — and even more. I’m reminded of The Crystal Cave, a novel

The rest of the story is not yet ready to emerge, but it will be soon. Be patient just a while longer. When full disclosure arrives, you will no longer have to guess about hidden agendas and simmering subtexts. Adventures in the underworld will move above ground. Missing links will finally appear, and perplexing ambiguities will be clarified. Here’s how you can expedite these developments: Make sure you are thoroughly receptive to knowing the rest of the story. Assert your strong desire to dissolve ignorance.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

In the coming weeks, you can ask for and receive more blessings than usual. So please be aggressive and imaginative about asking! Here are suggestions about what gifts to seek out: 1. vigorous support as you transform two oppositional forces into complementary influences; 2. extra money, time, and spaciousness as you convert a drawback into an asset; 3. kindness and understanding as you ripen an unripe aspect of yourself; 4. inspiration and advice as you make new connections that will serve your future goals.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21:

Read the two help-wanted ads below. Meditate on which appeals to you more, and treat this choice as a metaphor for a personal decision you face. 1. “Pedestrian, predictable organization seeks humdrum people with low-grade ambitions for tasks that perform marginally useful services. Interested in exploring mild passions and learning more about the art of spiritual bypassing?” 2. “Our high-octane conclave values the arts of playing while you work and working while you play. Are you ready and able to provide your creative input? Are you interested in exploring the privilege and responsibility of forever reinventing yourself? We love restless seekers who are never bored.”

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

What is a gourmet bargain? What is a discount marvel? How about an inspiring breakthrough that incurs no debt? Themes like those are weaving their way into your destiny. So be alert for the likelihood that cheap thrills will be superior to the expensive kind.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in,” wrote novelist Graham Greene. For me, it was three days near the end of third grade when I wrote a fairy tale about the unruly adventures of a fictional kid named Polly. Her wildness was infused with kindness. Her rebellions were assertive but friendly. For the first time, as I told Polly’s story, I realized I wanted to be an unconventional writer when I grew up. What about you, Capricorn? When you were young, was there a comparable opening to your future? If so, now is a good phase to revisit it, commune with your memories of it, and invite it to inspire the next stage of its evolution in you.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

Even when you are your regular, ordinary self, you have a knack and fondness for irregularity and originality. And these days, your affinity for what’s unprecedented and uncommon is even higher than usual. I am happy about that. I am cheering you on. So please enjoy yourself profoundly as you experiment with nonstandard approaches. Be as idiosyncratic as you dare! Even downright weird! But also try to avoid direct conflicts with the Guardians of How Things Have Always Been Done. Don’t allow Change Haters to interfere with your fun or obstruct the enhancements you want to instigate. Be a slippery innovator. Be an irrepressible instigator.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

Below are truths I hope you will ripen and deepen in the coming months. 1. Negative feelings are not necessarily truer and more profound than positive ones. 2. Cynical opinions are not automatically more intelligent or well-founded than optimistic opinions. 3. Criticizing and berating yourself is not a more robust sign of self-awareness than praising and appreciating yourself. 4. Any paranoia you feel may be a stunted emotion resulting from psychic skills you have neglected to develop. 5. Agitation and anxiety can almost always be converted into creative energy.

Homework: What’s your best method for dissolving bad habits? Tell me so I can benefit from your wisdom!

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