Bill Kettelhut provides the "blog" to this anti-blog
He has a radio program on WXOU out of Oakland University
Wild At Heart
Did an extra long show today on WXOU 88.3FM (www.wxou.org for those out of
range) and was just sitting around the station trying to get in the mood to
write today’s blog when I realized I better hurry since my Judas
Priest/Motorhead show has an early 4:30PM start time.
I am really looking forward to seeing Motorhead tonight, who are a British metal band started by ex-Hawkwind bassist Lemmy after he got kicked out of the band in 1975. The
band is named after a song Lemmy wrote for Hawkwind, simply entitled
“Motorhead”. The band had a lot of British success with a bunch of great
songs such as “Ace Of Spades”, “No Class” and “Overkill” and has been
getting recent US exposure by doing Triple H’s theme music. Rock On!!!
This will also purge me from going to see the Jordan Sparks/Jesse McCartney
show at the Royal Oak Music Theatre. After this show, along with the Cute Is
What We Aim For and Paramore, I’m starting to feel like I’m auditioning for
‘How To Catch A Predator’, esp with the abundance of young teenage girls. To
be 16 again! Sigh! I’m still also trying to figure out if Jesse’s background
band singing Springfield’s “Jesse’s Girl” is really great marketing or just
plain creepy. I’m siding towards creepy!
Besides hitting a number of concerts, I did do some historical sightseeing.
I have always loved going to the Cranbrook Educational Community, esp the
Science Center, but I have never toured the House on the grounds which I
made the effort to do it this past week. Built in 1908, it is the oldest of
the area’s tourable mansions and was designed by the world famous architect
Albert Kahn. In this area, Kahn designed the Henry Ford’s Bob-Lo Island
dance hall, massive Ford River Rouge Plant, theFisher Building, the Edsel &
Eleanor Ford House, Battle Creek Post Office, The Detroit Newsand numerous
building on the U of M campus (10 of his buildings are recognized by
official Michigan historical markers). The Cranbrook House stands out
because despite Kahn’s unique stylistic voice, George Gough Booth was a
designer in his own right and helped put a little bit of his touch in the
building (such as a stained glass window of him with a fly on his
nose and a phantom George Washington with a fly swatter overhead). Booth
was an avid student of the Arts and Crafts movement and, together, brothers
Ralph and George Booth were major benefactors of the Detroit Institute of
Arts and worked with Scripps to publish the Detroit News. This is a very
beautiful house though one can only tour the main floor. The library itself
makes it worth touring so make sure to take some time before October to tour
it (don’t forget you can get free passes at your local library thanks to
Macy’s). You would like to go on a nice day so you can tour the gardens at a
leisurely pace. Go to www.cranbrook.edu for more information.
I also took a few moments to check out the Natatorium which has swim classes
open to the public and walked around the William Massie house, the first in
a series of ten prefabricated houses designed and constructed by him, which
harkens back to the home designs of the 1950’s. I can’t wait until it opens
for tours later this fall.
WXOU has been doing some events at the Parisian store at the Mall At
Partridge Creek which is still pretty new. While the events are fun, I never
walked the mall before so I did that this past weekend and found a few
surprises. The mall is open-air and has live music in the mall center on
weekends. There is also 2 bocce ball courts, an outdoor play area for the
kids and a MJR theatre. Customers are also allowed to bring their dogs into
the shopping center of which I saw every size and breed. They are "comfort
stations", with water and sanitation supplies for dog owners and some of the
stores will even have treats out for your canine buddies. Make sure to take
them to the Three Dog Bakery which caters to selling treats for their dogs.
The business was started by a guy who had a dog who couldn’t digest a lot of
foods and would make special treats for him which then started evolving to
giving them to friends and neighbors and of course
the rest is history. The treats are also human edible and esp great for
diabetics. The shops are tailored for a bunch of great clothing stores and
some nice restaurants. Fans of Swarovski crystal should check out this store
which has a limited edition crystal rhino (1 of only 8 in the country) and
can be won in a lottery by someone who joins their exclusive club. For more
info, go to http://www.shoppartridgecreek.com.
I also stopped out front at the Nino Salvaggio's grocery store which is a
higher end chain but had some nice samples out, included the new
Margarittaville Lime Flavored Tortilla Chips. They basically tasted like
lime flavored fruit loops so that is an interesting taste sensation. Not
sure what flavored salsa I would recommend!
That’s all for now so feel free to stop by my website
http://www.myspace.com/wildatheart_13 and tune in Thursday for another chance to win
tickets to the Aimee Mann/Squeeze show at Royal Oak Music Theatre on the
29th.