In today’s episode, Slash Detroit breaks down barriers, encourages polite querying of Charlie LeDuff, and escorts the Nain Rouge out of town!
The video transcript
In today’s episode, Slash Detroit breaks down barriers, encourages polite querying of Charlie LeDuff, and escorts the Nain Rouge out of town! Transcript:
Welcome to Slash Detroit for Thursday March 20th, 2014. Today’s episode is brought to you by the new production studio that PishPosh.Tv is building for this show!
That's right. Pish Posh Tv is building out a new space, to make bigger, better, newer content! We'll be bringing back shows like the service industry oriented 86 List, as well as entirely new programs on 3D printing and civic hacking. If you've got a show idea, shoot us an email at Hello {at} PishPosh{dot}Tv, and we'll holla back.
Foul play, or fouler play? That's the question on many minds after Steve Neavling of Motor City Muckraker investigated one of Detroit's artistic gems, the Hiedelberg Project. Since November, six of the eight art-covered houses have been torched. One of Muckrakers police sources claims that the ATF and the Detroit Fire Department haven't received a lot of cooperation from the project's Executive Director, although she has been less shy about talking to the media.
The troubles don't stop there. The article goes on to document how a formerly volunteer-run organization, transformed itself into a fundraising machine, supporting nearly 200,000 dollars of annual payroll, while losing most of its properties to tax foreclosure. In social media and comment sections across the local web, folks are whipping up speculation about who is really behind the arsons. This is part one of a series on the Heidelberg, stay tuned to Motor City Muckraker for updates.
Heidelberg Project Under Fire (Motor City Muckraker)
Have you ever wanted your city to be the sturdy base of an extra-tall wizard hat at a gay pride parade? Congratulations, Detroiters! You're in the right town. Business Insider released this graphic, which shows how much square footage of housing one million dollars buys you in different cities. At the pointy tip of the hat, seven figures will buy you fifteen hundred square feet of living space in pricey San Francisco. But in Detroit, as the wide and inexpensive brim, you will get 83,333 feet of not quite prime real estate. That's about a football field and a half. Hurray, silver lining. Hurray.
With 27 thousand facebook followers and 330 thousand hits on it's website each month... You'd think Deadline Detroit is rocking and rolling just fine right? Wrong! Deadline Detroit; known for eclectic news aggregation and sharp opinions, announced Monday that despite its rising audience, revenue is lagging. Layoffs are scheduled for early April while a payless management team will continue to talk to potential investors.
Deadline Detroit to Lay Off Staff (Deadline Detroit)
On Tuesday, Police Chief James Craig announced the formation of a community policing program. His goal is to improve the overall quality of life in neighborhoods by strengthening the relationship between police officers and residents. Armed with tablets and smart phones, officers will be assigned to specific neighborhoods and will focus on quality of life issues like problematic businesses in town. Units are almost done with training and are expected to start as early as next week.
Next Wednesday at 3pm, Detroit's favorite messy haired investigative journalist, Charlie LeDuff, will participate in an Ask Me Anything on the IAMA subreddit. The news spread to the Slash Detroit subreddit, and already, people are preparing their sharpest daggers to dig into his unprotected back. User dudervoog says that "This will be an excellent forum for him to discuss his favorite subjects. Subjects like himself, his opinions, and his opinions about himself." while user PIHB69 would like to ask, "Is he going to copy and paste answers from previous AMAs without citing them?" Ouch. It could be a long grilling.
Charlie LeDuff to do reddit.com’s Ask Me Anything (reddit.com/r/detroit)
Friends of the Alger Theater in East English Village is holding a fundraiser to get the historic building a new roof. If you'd like to contribute to preserving a little piece of Detroit's history, you have two days left to do it, on the crowd funding website indiegogo. There are the customary incentives to giving at different levels, such as collectible theater tickets or even an original seat, but I'll go in a different direction. If you're not with the Friends of the Alger Theater, you're with the scrappers.
Alger Theater Raising Funds for a New Roof (indiegogo.com)
Hey Slash Detroit fans, a few months ago we poked a little fun at Quicken Loans for their March Madness competition, which has a grand prize of one billion dollars for a perfect bracket. We teased them, just a touch, because the math indicates that no one will ever have a shot at picking a perfect bracket. Well, even though they have 2 million dollars in guaranteed prizes, we decided to sweeten the pot. If you go to the link below, you can enter the Slash Detroit March Madness pool, and we'll give 2 tickets to an upcoming Tigers game or concert to whoever makes the best bracket. You have until the first tipoff today to enter.
Slash Detroit March Madness Bracket to give away Tickets! (Yahoo Sports)
Legend states that over 300 years ago, Detroit founder Antoine Cadillac went to see a fortune teller, who told him to be nice to the impish dwarf known as the Nain Rouge. Unfortunately, upon encountering the munchkin-sized devil, he instead poked at it with a stick, and Detroit has been cursed ever since. Join in with the citizenry of the Cass Corridor this Sunday from 1 to 3pm at the parking lot of Traffic Jam for a march to the Masonic Temple in order to banish the Nain forever or at least until next spring.
Marche du Nain Rouge this Sunday! (marchedunainrouge.com)
Attention all hip-hop heads! If you'd like to check out Detroit's freshest talent, head over to the second floor of the Park Bar this Friday night for Pass the Mic. From 8 pm to 10 pm, there will be free styling and battles, and from 10 pm on, there will be a showcase featuring artists such as Oba Rowland and Acapella. The event is 18 and up, and will ding you for a perfectly reasonable 10 dollars.
Hip-Hop open mic, battles, and showcase this Friday at the Park Bar (Facebook Event)
If you haven't seen it yet, a video of local students from the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences has gone very viral. The kids are singing a choral version of the smash-hit Happy by Pharrell Williams. If watching Slash Detroit makes you depressed, here's a little pick me up.
Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences students sing Happy (Youtube)
