Detroit Diva

Have you heard about this group called the Minutemen who are citizens who have been patroling the borders between Arizona and Mexico trying to catch illegal immigrants? Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks they are doing a fine job and says our  "nation's borders are dangerously porous".  I personally don't like the idea of a random group of armed citizens patrolling our borders and hope the rumors that they are planning a similar group here in Detroit are untrue.  I find it really ironic that Arnold is so opposed to immigrants coming into the U.S.  If he thinks it's such a problem he can feel free to go back to Austria anytime. 

I forgot to mention that earlier in the week, Mary and I checked out the new Karma Tea + Tonic on Nine Mile in Ferndale.  If you're looking for a soothing kind of place to hang out - this is it.  Very zen with a warm ambience complete with a small waterfall and relaxing music.  Add some tea - they have something like 70 different kinds.  I was sorry that I didn't have a pillow with me so I could lay down on one of the couches and go to sleep. It was that relaxing.

It wouldn’t be a music day without some reference to Ms. Spears. Unfortunately she and her hubby are about to unleash themselves on us via UPN.  From the previews it’s going to be a heartwarming story of their love in that double wide, pimp daddy, more than one baby’s mama, kind of way.

Some music I’m loving right now – Swedish popster’s The Raveonettes  - listen to their album at VH1, Detroit band The Dirty American’s and from right across the river, Ontario’s Jody Raffoul.  I may have mentioned the DA’s a couple of posts back when I talked about the Detroit Free Press’ MC2 music downloads – you can get the MP3 of their song Car Crash. It's good ol' rock n' roll. If you head over to Jody’s website you can listen to some songs from his various albums by following the links for Jody Radio.  He’s got a great voice and his songs are in the storytelling vein like Bob Seger or John Mellencamp. The Dirty American’s and Jody played shows at MC2 but I think they were both on Saturday night and by then I was exhausted, so didn’t get to see them.

To Catherine at PovertyBarn -- I get the whole tagged thing now (scroll down on Catherine's site) and I'm working on it. As a Librarian, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm having a hard time coming up with 5 books I'd take to a deserted island. I keep having the twisted thought that I should take Lord of the Flies with me. 

Ok, what the hell is up with this weather? It has done this weird snowy rain thing for 2 days now. It went from 80 degrees earlier in the week to 35 today. It feels really, really cold.  What was hot (that was a bad, I know) was the Motor City Music Conference, here on out referred to as MC2.  Let's recap the festivities shall we.  Starting on Thursday night - Mary, Erin and I started at the 2500 Club (Metrotimes calls it Best Dump to see a show. Dump does not even begin to cover it) where we stayed for a whole 10 minutes.  We went to see a band called Coyote Shivers, which Erin's roommate Dana manages but we got the time mixed up and instead walked in on some hardcore punk band and their fans. Let's just say had we been wearing black and had tattoos on our necks we would've fit right in. So we moved on to the New Dodge Lounge in Hamtramck where we saw a really fun bluegrass group called The Salt Miners. Gotta say I didn't know that you could do Queen's Fat-Bottomed Girls on the banjo.  I also didn't know that Pabst Blue Ribbon, now going by PBR, was still a beer people drank but, hey, at a $1 a bottle, why the heck not.  From there we moved on to the Belmont for the Bang Sugar Bang show.  Matt & Company were excellent and from what I hear they had MC2 buzzing! I saw quite a few people from my hometown of Alpena including Matt's Mom (who thought I was my sister) and my brother's best friend J.D.  We had a blast! 

There is only one thing to say about Friday -  Moby!  I am telling you what - if you have not seen Moby live you are really missing out.  Cat said before the show that she was a little worried because she was expecting Moby to be standing on stage pressing buttons on a computer to cue up his music and instead he had a kick-ass live band. She said after, it was the best show she's seen this year and she's been to South by Southwest and Duran Duran this year. Mary said she can't stop telling people how awesome it was and the 3 of us decided we're there for any future Moby shows. Absolutely brilliant!

Saturday was volunteer time at MC2 which basically consisted of sitting around the VIP room, chatting with Mary and Erin, and drinking lots of Jones soda. Which was perfect after a couple of very late nights followed by early mornings.  So despite wanting to go see Dana's band Crud, I went home instead.  As much fun as MC2 was, I'm not much of a night owl or 20 anymore so it does a number on me.  It's going be another early night for me tonight - I gotta rest up for next year!

I want to go to NYC just to go to the Pearl River store in Chinatown. If the store is half as cool as the web site - it would be worth the trip.

The first annual Motor City Music Conference (MC2) kicked off yesterday. It's 4 days of music industry panels and workshops and over 400 bands are booked into every nook and crannie in the city. Mary, Erin and I are going to see the band Bang Sugar Bang tonight at The Belmont in Hamtramck. The guitarist Matt Southwell is a kid I grew up with - our Moms still live 2 doors from each other.  I can remember seeing Matt and one of his old bands playing in a garage at some house party and now he's got a band playing big gigs. Weird! Friday night is Moby at the State Theatre and I'm a little worried. Our tickets say the show is at 6:30, the State Theatre says it's at 7:30 and MC2 says it's at 8p.m. On top of that, our tickets say we're in Row 170  - there is no row 170 at the State. There's only about 40 rows so I don't know what's going on with all that. We've decided to go about 7pm and hope for the best.  If you're interested in Detroit music you can download MP3's of about 15 Detroit Artists who are playing MC2, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. The downloads are free!

The Cardinals have chosen a new Pope - Benedict XVI.

Sen. Bill Frist , the Senate Majority Leader no less, has decided it's a good career move to join a group of Christian conservatives in a TV event that will portray Democrats and progressives as "against people of faith". (See NY Times article here. May have to register and do article search)  What is wrong with these people? I'm a Democrat and progressive but I am certainly not against people of faith.  Despite my issues with organized religion, I still consider myself a person of faith. I just don't feel I need a church to have a relationship with God. What I am against is intolerance and hatred which is what these supposed Christians seem to see as a part of their faith/religion.  Do I think all Christian conservatives are intolerant and hateful? No, I do not. I do think that there are an increasing number of people who are headed that way and that a lot of them seem to be in positions of power or at least have the ear of the powerful and it's scary.  This agenda to portray liberals, progressives, Democrats, etc. as immoral and faithless is amazing to me especially when you have people like Tom Delay in Congress. What a bunch of hypocrites! Truly scary hypocrites.

Cat sent me the link to this video clip. It's so funny - I especially like the shrub's bouncing head at the bottom and make sure to read the signs the people are carrying . I 'm still laughing over the one that says Bush Be Tripping.

In the who cares department

Britney Spears has announced she is pregnant. Insert your own snarky comment here.