He plays the RUBA Club Studios on Friday with Carter Hulsey as part of the Folk Catastrophe Tour.
RIP: Jimmy Ruffin, Motown’s Silken-Voiced Shepherd Of The Broken Hearted, Dead At 78
DETROIT NEWS: One of Motown Records’ most memorable voices is gone, as balladeer Jimmy Ruffin died at a Las Vegas hospital late Monday. He was 78. Ruffin’s most enduring hit has to be 1966’s “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” with its majestic, stately rhythm and Ruffin’s deeply soulful, sorrowful vocal. He followed up that Top 10 hit with “I’ve Passed This Way Before” in 1967. In 1980 he enjoyed a comeback hit with “Hold on to My Love.” Ruffin was born May 7, 1936 in Collinsville, Mississippi, the older brother of singer David Ruffin. The brothers made their way north, […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR: Dave Davies speaks with Foxcatcher director Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) DAILY BEAST: Bennett Miller’s tragic, true-life saga Foxcatcher is about many things: Familial strife, American exceptionalism, the corrupting influence of money, and Steve Carell’s prosthetic schnoz. It will also introduce many viewers to one of cinema’s most unstable and chilling villains in John du Pont—an ornithologist, philanthropist, conchologist, philatelist, sports enthusiast, and murderer. The film centers on Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum). In the wake of his gold medal win at the 1984 Olympics, he’s depicted living in relative poverty, subsisting on a diet of ramen and accepting […]
BECAUSE REALITY HAS A LIBERAL BIAS: Q&A W/ Comedian & ex-Totally Biased Host W. Kamau Bell
Illustration by GARY TAXALI© BY JONATHAN VALANIA Comedian W. Kamau Bell has been fighting the good fight in the stand-up comedy trenches of San Francisco since the phat pants ’90s. It was there that Chris Rock discovered him and eventually brokered a deal with FX for Bell to have his own TV show. In 2012, Totally Biased, a much-buzzed-about late night sketch comedy show starring Bell and produced by Rock, debuted to strong reviews and a big enough viewership to justify a second season until its ill-advised migration from FX to FXX, subsequent plummet in audience share and ensuing cancellation […]
TERROR AT 700 FEET: Russian Daredevils Snap Death-Defying Skywalking Selfies In Hong Kong
As someone who has a very rational fear of heights, this is probably the most terrifying horror film I have ever seen.
Bill Cosby Joked About Drugging Women For Sex
VILLAGE VOICE: Cosby’s dozen-plus accusers tell similar stories: that, after having a drink with Cosby, they felt drugged and confused as he had his way with them. Curiously, Cosby himself once made such scenarios the center of a stand-up routine: Witness “Spanish Fly,” a cut from his now-unfortunately titled 1969 LP It’s True! It’s True!. In it, Cosby describes being a kid and hearing about a wonder drug — “Spanish Fly” — that would make a girl go crazy once it was put into her drink. He presents this as a horny/goofy lark of an idea, a myth that kids […]
SMUS: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
Artwork by POASTERCHILD BY WILLIAM C. HENRY The pundits all crowed that the Republicans won a sweeping victory in the just-passed mid-term election, but in fact the REAL winners on November 4th were, in no particular order: self-defeating no-nothingness, sociopathic obstructionism, irrational fear of the other, bald-faced misogyny, seething homophobia and above all else, abject racism towards the nation’s first black President and First Lady. Yep, that’s what won out on November 4th. I’d congratulate the American Kakistocratic party (you can call them Republicans if you like) if there was even the teeniest of reasons for doing so, but, uh, well, you get the […]
EARLY WORD: David Bowie Is
At the Ritz 5 for one night only Wednesday November 17th @ 7 pm.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS: Satanic Coloring Book Shuts Down Bible Giveaway In Florida School
THE FRIENDLY ATHEIST: In January of 2013, World Changers of Florida, Inc. held Bible distributions at a number of public high schools in Orange County, Florida. No student would be forced to take one, but there would be a table set up where interested students could take a copy if they wanted. This alone could have been illegal, but the Orange County School Board agreed that non-Christian groups could also have a distribution if they wanted. When the Central Florida Freethought Community (CFFC) called their bluff and planned their own giveaways, they were heavily censored. Many of their books, […]
THEE OH SEES: Drop
They play Underground Arts Monday November 17th.
Q&A: Talking Trash, Twitter, ESPN, & Appetite For Self-Destruction w/ Badboy Funnyman Artie Lange
“Lamentations Of A Jersey Prince” by AUGIE PAGAN BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of his show at the Keswick tomorrow night and in the wake of the The Great ESPN-Twitter Reverse Mandingo Masturbation Fantasy Fiasco, we got badboy fatass funnyman Artie Lange on the horn. DISCUSSED: The Eagles, The Fightins, Riley Cooper, Woody Allen, robbing banks, opiate addiction, the ESPN-TWITTER fiasco, why he’s not backing down, why he shouldn’t, the struggle to stay sober in a business full of “hot babes with blow,” falling off the wagon, John Candy, Chris Farley, his work with Wounded Warriors, the double standard of […]
BEING THERE: Animal Collective DJs @ The Dolphin
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Last night I set out to accomplish three things: 1.) See 75 percent of Animal Collective play some tunes 2.) Milk them for any AC-related news, and 3.) Make it in and out of the Dolphin alive and not incarcerated. We started off the night with an Uber driver named Festus, who drove us through the unwelcome November snow showers, and shared with us his grievances about the whole Uber vs. PPA deal. Something, something, current events, the PPA ruled against something and he’s pissed. I tried to follow, but his angry Jamaican accent made […]
CINEMA: Black Hole Son
INTERSTELLAR (2014, directed Christopher Nolan, 169 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC No hyperbole has been spared on the arrival of writer/director Christopher Nolan’s new sci-fi epic Interstellar. Like all of Nolan’s recent films, Interstellar triggers an intimidating sense of immense scale, and once again Nolan has delivered a film whose captivating performances and clever design are offset by hose-blasts of sentimentality, self-important bloat and a disagreeable undercurrent of Ayn Rand-ian self-pity. Plus, wise-cracking robots! The dystopic near-future America of the film’s opening is certainly thought-provoking. From the vantage point of the Cooper family’s rural farm we see a […]