Punching, funding, Spacing

BOXED UP

In an ongoing effort to expand my cultural horizons, I decided to participate in the lovely spectator sport of flying blood, sweat and spit, by attending my first boxing match. Thursday’s Fight Night at Cobo Arena included such heavy hitters as James “Lights Out” Toney of Ann Arbor, and other local fighters, including Rickey Womack, Kenito Drake and Damian Fuller.

After traipsing across Cobo’s infamous dizzying carpet pattern — gives me vertigo every time — I ventured inward, bumping into the likes of Jon Marks, James Fisher and Ty Lowes, who thinks yanking a girl’s pigtails is an appropriate way of saying hello. Lovely members of the Detroit Dolls modeling agency Nikki Kaczorowski and Amy Rygwelski were in outfits considerably smaller than their last names, and staffing a table of giveaways.

After sneaking to ringside, I settled down and eagerly awaited the first match, which pitted this cute little tattooed guy from Tennessee against Dearborn’s Tarick Salmaci. Between rounds, as the fighters were mopped down and de-blooded, Hawaiian Tropic girls pranced around the ring with the round numbers. Salmaci won the fight, but was booed by the audience for “showboating” — a term explained to me by a gracious security guard who pointed out the boxer had raised his arms in victory before the fight was finished.

After a few more matches, I came to the stunning conclusion that watching two grown men beat the living daylights out of each other can become surprisingly boring after the first hour or so, and it was on to bigger and better ventures, with less grievous injury involved.

CASHED IN

It’s springtime, and that means it’s time again for all the public radio stations to commence with the annual begging for funding, since they don’t annoy the crap out of you with irritating commercials every five seconds. Detroit’s refreshing institution of the airwaves, WDET-FM 101.9, geared up for its fundraiser by holding a benefit concert at 313.JAC, which featured MT’s Jim Stone, DET’s diva of the graveyard shift Liz Copeland, DJ Magda, Year Of The Robot and His Name is Alive.

Out to provide support in the name of public radio were social worker Anat Avittan, bike messenger Kay Graning, artist Aubrey Hoermann, solo musician Kate O’Hara, chemical operator Brian Marschner and assorted other socially conscious hipsters.

So tune in to 101.9 FM this week and cough up some of your beer money for a station that actually gives airtime to talented, hard-working local musicians and provides, quality, unsensationalized local reporting.

SPACED OUT

Well, I finally made it out on a Friday to Space, where the former Legends bar was next to St. Andrew’s, which is Backstreet on Saturdays. Follow all that? Good.

Kids, leave your coat in the car, because they force you to check it to the tune of $3. After a half-hearted argument with the bouncer that my coat was not a coat, but an integral part of my outfit, I gave up and moved inside, joining the pulsating bass and the sweaty, heavily perfumed masses.

Wow, is this place freaking huge! Five levels, scads of separate dance floors and bars, way too many stairs, and practically bursting at the seams with people after midnight

After getting lost twice on my search for the privy, I happened upon St. John Hospital worker Jessica Pierce, Heather Streberger of Player’s and graphic designer-in-training Jamie Lawson, who were delighted and smug upon finding the bizarre occurrence of the men’s bathroom line being twice as long as that for the women’s.

Somewhere on the cozy, quieter top level, someone ingenious decided to throw subtlety to the wind by forgoing the typical snogging couches with a row of fully dressed beds. Beds in a bar. Hmm. Here I found Juliet Shinabery, Scott Barringer, and siblings Brian and Nancy Graves lounging on the leopard-print pillows and black-velvet bedspreads. So now we have a foursome, including a brother and sister, in bed together, in a bar, with a large supply of alcohol readily available, and droves of onlookers. Hmm.

Whilst leaning over to photograph this ideal montage for a porno scene, a young gentlemen happened to pass behind me and announce “Hey, I am going to look up her skirt!” Loud. I mean, really, really loud. One might even say he bellowed. Way to impress the ladies with your debonair charm, Mr. Suave.

However, at least a tiny bit of class was to be found, as security staffer Greg Clopton, flanked by Al Sneed, was seen lighting a young lady’s clove cigarette. She did go on to accidentally burn an innocent bystander, but at least he had gentlemanly intentions.

Somewhere between levels three and four (they should really distribute a floor plan at the door) Charlie Chami, Emad Reda and Sonny E. were yelling all sorts of indecipherable things at once, as they were observed with perplexity and bemusement by the reticent duo of Jennifer Stuart and Maria Haslett. These two studious ladies, self-proclaimed homebodies, had ventured out to the dance mecca for a change of pace, and described the club as “Grand Central Station with a lot of beer and bass.” They quickly retreated home a few minutes later.

Over by the expansive windows, which give a picturesque view of the parking lots, paranoid new car owner Matthew Harney and his cronies Ian Zimmer and Charlie Li were keeping a wary eye out for any would-be car thieves who might be lurking near Harney’s shiny new Explorer.

So there’s plenty to do and see at Space, but show up early, since the line starts to wrap around the block after 11. And with cover set at $10 a pop, it’s practically a dirt-cheap bargain deal for all these new mega-super-sexy-New York-style … oh, you know what I mean.