So other than that, how was the rest of the show?

Damn good, thank you very much.

Green Day made news on Wednesday night, Sept. 4, when the punk trio abruptly halted its concert at Detroit’s Comerica Park, rushing off the stage during just the fifth song, “Longview.” The crowd of just under 41,000 initially continued singing the lyrics but fell quiet — with some chants for Lions’ quarterback Jared Goff. A “Show Pause. Please standby for details” message eventually appeared on the video screen.”

Detroit police confirmed that an unauthorized drone had entered the baseball stadium’s airspace, with security calling the band offstage. The man flying it was apprehended and Green Day returned after a 10-minute break, with frontman Billie Joe Armstrong asked fans, “How you doing? We’re gonna pick up where we left off.” He also urged them to put their cell phones away, saying, “Pull ’em out later. Let’s be here right now.”

After finishing “Longview” and tearing through “Welcome to Paradise,” Armstrong added, “Ain’t no mother… that’s gonna stop us, I’ll tell you that.” And later in the show Green Day posted a social media message apologizing for the delay, explaining that, “Stadium security had us clear the stage while they dealt with a potential safety issue. DPD quickly resolved the situation, and we were able to continue. Thanks for understanding.

Green Day did not stop for the rest of the night, delivering a characteristically epic — and excellent — two-and-a-half-hour performance that commemorated anniversaries of the group’s two biggest albums, 1994’s “Dookie” and 2004’s “American Idiot”, by playing both in their entirety. Green Day filled out the rest of the concert with a selection of other favorites, including five from its latest album, “Saviors,” and a rendition of “Brain Stew” that Armstrong teased into with guitar licks from Black Sabbaths’ “Iron Man” and Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.”

“Tonight is not about a political party,” Armstrong declared during a ferocious “Letterbomb” from “American Idiot,” a topical takedown of the George W. Bush era that remains wholly relevant 20 years later. “It’s not even a party. This is a celebration!”

But there was certainly a party spirit throughout a night that, via opening performances from Smashing Pumpkins and Rancid that affirmed the continuing potency of alternative rock from the 90s. (The Linda Lindas, which came on first, are more contemporary but cut from the same cloth.) Whether it was “Ruby Soho” or “Today” and “Tonight, Tonight” (or the Pumpkins’ cover of U2’s “Zoo Station”), there was nothing at all dated about the performances by musicians well past their mosh days but still fierce of spirit.

That’s been Green Day’s stock in trade forever, from early 90s club appearances to a 2021 show also at Comerica. Wednesday’s concert was filled with the irreverent attitude and boisterous spirit that’s still dear to Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, drummer Tre Cool — all in their early 50s now — and their three adjunct players. The 37-song set was marked by a Boy Scout jamboree’s worth of fire and pyrotechnics, occasional confetti showers and colorful visuals, and it was preceded by the usual hijinks — crowd singalongs to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop,” the latter led by a crew member dressed in a bunny outfit.

The show did have an interesting kind of restraint, however. There was plenty of energy — the group had the stadium grandstands shaking at several points — but less of the pure schtick Green Day also trades on. The focus was more squarely on the music, the band seemingly more interested in delivering the dynamically sophisticated songs with tight and explosive power — even quieter tracks such as “Are We the Waiting” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” “American Idiot” was particularly strong, with songs strung together in seamless fashion.

Green Day opened with the new, and on-point, “The American Dream is Killing Me” and was quickly into “Dookie,” pulling out deep cuts such as “Having a Blast,” “Pulling Teeth,” “Sassfras Roots,” “In the End” and “All By Myself,” which Cool sang in a bathrobe. The “American Idiot” recitation similarly brought out less-heard material, including “She’s a Rebel,” “Extraordinary Girl,” “Homecoming” and “Whatsername,” with Armstrong substituting “Michigan” in the title line of “Give Me Novocaine.”

Armstrong also brought a young woman on stage to sing part of “Know Your Enemy” with the band, and he used “American Idiot’s” “Holiday,” which he introduced as “an anti-war song,” as a rally call for fans to vote in November. (The Linda Lindas, however, were the only one of the four bands to reference Donald Trump specifically — and, of course, pejoratively).

Green Day finished per usual, with Armstrong alone on stage, singing its 1997 hit “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” as a lullaby-style send-off. He could rest assured that fans did indeed have the time of their lives, and it’s to Green Day’s credit that the rest of the show eclipsed the drama that happened early on.

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Avril Lavigne was just 17 when she released her first album, “Let Go,” and 18 when she had her first hit, “Complicated.” But she was already invested in a music career long game.

“I have looked forward to having a greatest hits tour since I was first starting out,” says the Ontario-born Lavigne, now 39, who’s in the midst of exactly that kind of trek this year following the release of a new “Greatest Hits” album in June. “I love and am so proud of all the music I have put out over the past 22 years, but there is something super special about having a setlist that is all hits and knowing that these songs really resonated with people not only when the songs were first released, but consistently over the years.”

Lavigne has a lot to show for those years — six more albums and Top 10 hits such as “I’m With You,” “My Happy Ending” and “Girlfriend,” record sales of more than 40 million worldwide, 10 Canadian Juno Awards and an Order of Canada Honor. Divorces and a debilitating 2015 case of Lyme disease have left her unbowed, and Lavigne promises there’s more to come soon.

“I can’t spill too much right now,” she says, “but once I finish this tour I am going to get back in the studio and really map out what I want the next year of music to look like. I know people are waiting for new songs and I am excited to share them, but I really want to make sure it is all perfect first.”

In the meantime, she’s happy to celebrate what she’s done to this point.

“I still feel like a teenager,” Lavigne notes, “and every night when I get up onstage, I am reminded of what an amazing life I have been able to live. I’m just so glad I started as young as I was — ’cause I still feel young.”

Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan and Girlfriends perform at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7 at Pine Knob Music Theatre, 33 Bob Seger Drive, Independence Township. Tickets are sold out.

Other music events of note this weekend (all subject to change) include …

FRIDAY, SEPT. 6

• Pontiac’s Flagstar Strand Theatre kicks off its fall season at 8 p.m. with the Del McCoury Band and its decades of bluegrass. 12 N. Saginaw St., Pontiac. 248-309-6445 or flagstarstrand.com.

• The Beatles live via 1964 The Tribute, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the group’s first appearance in Detroit, at 8 p.m. at Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit. 313-576-5111 or dso.org.

• Columbus, Ohio’s Starset journeys into Wolverine country to bring its Immersion: The Final Chapter tour to the Fillmore Detroit, 2115 Woodward Ave. Doors at 7 p.m. 313-961-5451 or thefillmoredetroit.com.

• Jake Hoot, winner of Season 17 of “The Voice,” performs at 8 p.m. at 20 Front Street in Lake Orion. 248-783-7105 or 20frontstreet.com.

• The KPOP Breakout Tour features Trendz, Craxy, Ichillin’ and U-Chae at 7 p.m. in the Pike Room in the Crofoot complex, 1 S. Saginaw St. 248-858-9333 or thecrofoot.com.

• Nashville’s VEAUX stops at the Lager House for an 8:30 p.m. show with the Foxies and Daydream and Bega. 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit. 313-500-1475 or thelagerhouse.com.

• British goth rock troupe the Mark Violets, Rosegarden Funeral Party and Siamese gather at Small’s, 10339 Conant, Hamtramck. Doors at 7 p.m. 313-873-1117 or smallsbardetroit.com.

• Kind Beast tops a bill that also includes the High Strung, Touch the Clouds and Cherry Drop at the Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale. Doors at 7 p.m. 248-820-5596 or thelovingtouchferndale.com.

• The Latin-flavored sextet Tumbao Bravo plays through Saturday, Sept. 7 at the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe, 97 Kercheval, Grosse Pointe. 313-882-5399 or dirtydogjazz.com.

• Kimmie Horne sings jazz at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit. 313-961-2543 or cliffbells.com.

• Chicago singer Tony Romiti performs at the Diesel Concert Lounge, 33151 23 Mile Road, Chesterfield Township. Doors at 7 p.m. 586-933-3503 or dieselconcerts.com.

• Hillbilly Knife Fight and Tiffadelic offer a promising start to the weekend at 7 p.m. at the Cadieux Cafe, 4300 Cadieux Road, Detroit. 313-882-8560 or cadieuxcafe.com.

• Sirsy tops a four-act bill at 7:30 p.m. at the New Dodge Lounge, 8850 Jos Campau, Hamtramck. 313-638-1508 or thenewdodgelounge.com.

• The soulful Shemekia Copeland sings at 8 p.m. at The Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor. 734-761-1818 or theark.org.

• Virtual: Blue Canvas Orchestra streams live at 8 p.m. Tickets via veeps.com.

• Virtual: The jam band Goose plays at 8 p.m. from Saratoga Springs. New York, and again on Saturday, Sept. 7, for subscribers to nugs.net.

• Virtual: The Disco Biscuits perform at 8 p.m. from Dillon, Colorado, for subscribers to nugs.net.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 7

• Detroit punk rock favorites the Suicide Machines will rock at Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit. Doors at 6:30 p.m. Hey-Smith, Kill Lincoln and Bad Operation also perform. 313-961-8961 or saintandrewsdetroit.com.

• Kaleo comes from Iceland to play blues-rock at the Fillmore Detroit, 2115 Woodward Ave. Doors at 7 p.m. 313-961-5451 or thefillmoredetroit.com.

• Detroit techno legend Kevin Saunderson celebrates his 60th birthday with an All-White Party at Spot Lite Detroit, 2905 Beaufait St. Doors at 9 p.m. spotlitedetroit.com or paxahau.com.

• The Motown Museum gets deep with the annual Detroit Bass Day from noon to 4 p.m. on its Rocket Plaza 2648 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit. Bassists of all ages are invited to jam on 10 Motown classics by the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Rick James, the Four Tops, the Commodores, Teena Marie and Jr. Walker & the Allstars. The event also includes food trucks and vendors. motownmuseum.org for more information.

• Singer-songwriter Chris Tapper appears at 8 p.m. at 20 Front Street in Lake Orion. 248-783-7105 or 20frontstreet.com.

• Arizona DJ Markus Schulz heats things up at the Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Doors at 9 p.m. 313-833-9700 or themajesticdetroit.com.

• Syrian singer Omar Souleyman plays a matinee at 1 p.m. at El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Highway, Detroit. 313-757-7942 or elclubdetroit.com.

• Trumpeter Allen Dennard and his Organ Trio blows at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit. 313-961-2543 or cliffbells.com.

• MC Jahshua Smith performs a “Homecoming” date at 8 p.m. at the Lager House, 1254 Michigan Ave., Detroit. FROSTisRAD, Krissy Booth and Kwaj are also on the bill. 313-500-1475 or thelagerhouse.com.

• The Toby Keith tribute band Ride celebrates the late country icon at 8 p.m. at The Roxy, 401 Walnut Blvd., Rochester. 248-453-5285 or theroxyrochester.com.

• The Ark hosts the Ann Arbor Django Reinhardt Festival, featuring Djangophonique, Christo’s Novelty combo and Erik McIntyre at 8 p.m. 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor. 734-761-1818 or theark.org.

• Virtual: The Weeknd streams his show from Sao Paulo, Brazil, at 8 p.m. via his official YouTube channel, with a live chat to follow.

SUNDAY, SEPT. 8

• Warm up for the Detroit Lions’ home opener with an early evening set by the a capella vocal group Naturally 7 at the Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale. Doors at 5 p.m. 248-544-1991 or themagicbag.com.

• Grosse Pointe-raised guitarist John 5, now a member of Motley Crue, comes home to play with the Kiss tribute band Strutter and Turning Jane at the Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Road, Westland. Doors at 6:30 p.m. 734-513-5030 or tokenlounge.com.

• Americana up-and-comer Sierra Ferrell brings her vocals, fiddle and more to the Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St. Doors at 7 p.m. 248-399-2980 or royaloakmusictheatre.com.

• KK’s Priest, led by former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing, will be live — but before midnight — at District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte. Doors at 6:45 p.m. district142live.com. For an interview with Downing, visit theoaklandpress.com.

• Mike Tramp leads the latest version of his band White Lion into the Diesel Concert Lounge, 33151 23 Mile Road, Chesterfield Township. Doors at 7 p.m. 586-933-3503 or dieselconcerts.com.

• Sweden’s Dead By April is joined by Of Virtue at the Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff, Hamtramck. Doors at 7 p.m. 313-462-4117 or sanctuarydetroit.com.

• The Duane Parham Society plays at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. at Cliff Bell’s, 2030 Park Ave., Detroit. 313-961-2543 or cliffbells.com.

• Bccording, Zion Polanski, GVN and Swan stack up at 7 p.m. at the New Dodge Lounge, 8850 Jos Campau, Hamtramck. 313-638-1508 or thenewdodgelounge.com.

• The Henhouse Prowlers close the weekend with some bluegrass at The Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor. 734-761-1818 or theark.org.

Barron Trump has finally revealed his college choice — New York University — by turning up at the downtown Manhattan campus Wednesday morning for his first day of classes.

The 18-year-old son of Donald and Melania Trump sported a white polo shirt, Adidas sneakers and black Swiss Gear backpack, casually slung over his shoulder, as he was seen heading into the dean’s office building, followed by Secret Service agents, the New York Post reported. The Secret Service agents are there to guard him as his father, the former president, is running to return to the White House.

The sighting of Trump’s 6-foot-7-inch son ends months of speculation about his college choice, according to the Daily Beast, which first reported that NYU was his top choice. Barron is enrolled at NYU’s Stern Undergraduate College.

NYU is No. 35 overall on the U.S. News & World Report ranking of best colleges and No. 5 for its business programs. By choosing NYU, Barron is breaking with Trump family tradition. His father has boasted of his Ivy League education at University of Pennsylvania, which is ranked No. 6 by U.S. News and World Report. His older half-siblings, Don Jr., Ivanka and Tiffany, also graduated from Penn, while Eric Trump graduated from Georgetown University.

But NYU has the advantage of being Barron’s hometown university. NYU is kind of down the road — Fifth Avenue — from where Barron spent his childhood, raised by his mother in his father’s gilded penthouse in Trump Tower. It wasn’t clear, though, Wednesday, whether Barron will live on campus or will live with his mother at Trump Tower.

The fact that Melania Trump was seen arriving at Trump Tower last week fueled speculation that Barron would attend college in New York City. One way that Trump World sources have explained her absence from her husband’s campaign has been by saying that she sees herself as a “hands-on” mother, whose first priority is her son, Page Six previously reported. Some people have taken the “hands-on” mother description to mean that she would reside close to wherever he is attending college.

Donald Trump recently told the Daily Mail that while the family had considered other colleges, but Barron ultimately liked NYU the best.

“It’s a very high quality place. He liked it. He liked the school,” Trump told the Daily Mail. “I went to Wharton, and that was certainly one that we were considering. We didn’t do that … We went for Stern.”

“He’s a very high aptitude child, but he’s no longer a child. He’s just passed into something beyond child-dom.”

Nardine Saad | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

Adele says she’s making good on a promise to take a break from music after she completes her residency in Las Vegas.

The “Hello” and “Rolling in the Deep” singer confirmed during her Saturday show in Germany — her last in a 10-show run abroad — that she plans to “rest” when she wraps her three-year gig in Sin City this November.

“I’m not the most comfortable performer, I know that, but I am very f— good at it. And I have really enjoyed performing for nearly three years now, which is the longest I’ve ever done and probably the longest I will ever do,” the 15-time Grammy Award winner said onstage in Munich, according to fan footage posted on TikTok.

Adele has 10 shows left in her “Weekends With Adele” residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. The shows will span five weekends this fall after she had to postpone them in February due to illness.

“After that, I will not see you for an incredibly long time and I will hold you dear in my heart for that whole length of my break,” she said, adding that she will “fantasize” about her time onstage. “It has been amazing. I just need a rest.”

“I have spent the last seven years building a new life for myself and I want to live it now,” the 36-year-old said through tears. “I want to live my life that I’ve been building and I will miss you terribly.”

On Tuesday, Adele took Instagram to reflect on her “bespoke” gig in Munich, which launched Aug. 2.

“Wow! Wow! Wow! Munich you were incredible! What a phenomenal experience. I am truly touched by the genuine outpouring of love and good will I felt from every single person who came to every single show,” she wrote, captioning a highlight reel from the shows. She also thanked the fans who attended and her team for making it happen.

“There truly is no feeling like standing in front of people you’ve never met, belting out a bunch of songs that changed your life that in ways somehow changed theirs too. It’s truly remarkable and an extraordinary story to be able to tell. I’ve been sobbing watching this beautiful video! Danke Munchen!,” she wrote.

In July, the superstar told German broadcaster ZDF that her “tank is quite empty” and that she doesn’t have plans for new music “at all.”

“I want a big break after all this and I think I want to do other creative things just for a little while,” the hitmaker said. “You know, I don’t even sing at home at all. How strange is that?”

Likewise, before her Las Vegas residency began, the Oscar winning “Skyfall” singer said she planned to take a break from music and perhaps pursue a degree in English literature or an acting career. However, during a January show, she said she might be open to touring again after completing a follow-up to her award-winning 2021 album “30.” But, as she told a fan in the audience, she wasn’t in any rush to do either of those things yet.

Instead of touring to promote “30,” she took up residence at the Colosseum. She was initially set to launch her residency in January 2022, but unexpectedly shut it down a day before it was meant to open. She blamed the COVID-19 pandemic and issues with the supply chain at the time, then explained later that the postponement was because her “artistic needs” were not being met. She said the show had “no soul in it” and that it “lacked intimacy” inside the 4,000-person theater.

The “Easy on Me” singer ultimately launched “Weekends With Adele” in November 2022 and extended the run twice.

Earlier this month, the British balladeer confirmed during another Munich show that she and sports agent Rich Paul were engaged after repeatedly referring to Paul as her fiance — and sometimes her “husband” — for months. (The two went public with their romance in 2021.) The singer, who shares 11-year-old son Angelo with ex-husband Simon Konecki, has also been vocal about wanting to expand their blended family.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Ryan Seacrest may be breathing new life into “Wheel of Fortune,” but he’s promising longtime fans that things will pretty much stay the same.

After successful stints commandeering “American Idol,” “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” and “Live with Kelly & Ryan,” the radio and TV personality will officially take over the mantle of the long-running game show when it returns for its 42nd season on Sept. 9.

Not trying to shake things up, he plans on following the same successful formula he’s used in the past: “Don’t make any changes, don’t touch it,” Seacrest said in a GMA interview on Tuesday.

“This show works,” he added. “All I need to do is keep it moving. All we need to do is have fun every night. And I think if that’s what happens, this show continues for a long time.”

In June 2023, the 49-year-old was announced as Pat Sajak’s replacement — weeks after the 77-year-old host revealed “the time has come” for him to resign from the position he’d held for more than four decades.

Seacrest shared Tuesday that Sajak and his longtime co-host Vanna White told him that “the best part is you’re gonna meet three new people every night, and they walk away with cash.”

However, White said the new season will add another update alongside the new host. The revamped set will include a new board where the legendary letter-turner said she won’t “even have to touch the letter anymore.”

For his final spin at the wheel, Sajak will return to the airwaves for “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” on Oct. 7.

The Avon Players in Rochester Hills will kick off its new season in 19th-century London with the classic “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

The show runs Sept. 6-21 at the group’s theater at 1185 Washington Road.

John Deierlein is serving as the director, costume designer and lighting designer. He’s been with Avon Players for decades and is thrilled for the opportunity to direct “Sweeney Todd.”

“I have a background in choral singing, so I’m always drawn to large productions and ‘Sweeney Todd’ is one of those,” he said. “It’s a very large-scale musical with a brilliant score that’s fun to sing to but also very challenging.”

“Sweeney Todd” was written by playwright Hugh Wheeler with music by composer Stephen Sondheim.

“Sondheim is one of the most prolific musical theater composers of all time, and it’s simply classic American musical theater,” Deierlein says. “It’s also had many revivals. What attracted me to it was that I was recently in New York City and saw the Broadway revival with Josh Groban. I was lucky enough to see it after I knew I would be directing the show, so it was very inspiring.”

“Seeing it on Broadway gave me a lot of ideas,” he added. “It was fun to see what the professionals do and see how we could make it look just as cool with our production.”

Deierlein says something that makes Avon Players so special is that everybody involved is a volunteer.

“Everyone here does it because they have a passion for it,” he said. “In Oakland County, we have so many incredibly talented people in the area and many of them have the talent to do this professionally, but because of their life choices, they’re here local.”

Deierlein said Avon Players enhances the community by bringing high-caliber productions to locals.

“I think we bring a high level of theatre at a reasonable price,” he said. “Plus, I think a lot of folks in this area don’t want to have to drive to Detroit and spend $100 or $200 to see a touring production out of New York. It’s nice to have an evening out that’s fairly local. Avon also gives so many opportunities to kids and adults in the area to express themselves and show their talents.”

“Sweeney Todd” is billed as a dark comedy and horror musical for adults.

“It’s an exciting, fun piece, but it’s different,” Deierlein says. “It’s not tap dancing, which is very typical of other musicals. It’s different and exciting and thrilling, and I think the audience will love the music. It’s incredible.”

“Also,” he added, “coming up on the fall season approaching and Halloween, it has that kind of flavor.”

For ticket and show information, visit avonplayers.org.

Under bright sunshine the annual Arts, Beats & Eats festival continued Saturday afternoon.

The annual event will run on the streets of downtown Royal Oak through Monday. Sunday’s headliners on the Jim Beam National Stage are the Gin Blossoms and Chevelle. Monday, the Pop 2000 Tour will be followed by Keith Sweat.

The festival opens each day at 11 a.m. with tickets sold at entry gates along Main, Washington and Lafayette. Online ticket sales are no longer available. Sunday’s forecast calls for sunshine at a high temperature of 78 degrees while Monday will be sunny and 72.

For more information, go to artsbeatseats.com/.

Alice Cooper comes home to Detroit frequently, sometimes more than once in a given year.

Suzi Quatro, not so much.

That made the two Detroit rock icons’ pair of collaborations this week, in their home town, notable occasions — particular on stage Friday night, Aug. 30, at the Pine Knob Music Theatre.

The bass-playing Quatro, who now resides in England, made a surprise appearance with Cooper and his band for “School’s Out,” the finale of its theatrical Freaks On Parade tour show with Rob Zombie, Ministry and Filter. “You cannot say Detroit…You cannot say Detroit rock without Suzi Quatro,” Cooper told the near-sellout crowd as bubbles and confetti swirled around the stage. Nita Strauss, one of his guitarists, marked the occasion by offering Quatro a “we are not worthy bow” in her honor.

It was the Grosse Pointe-raised Quatro’s first on-stage performance in the metro area since a Dick Wagner Remember the Child benefit during 2017 at Sound Board in the MotorCity Casino Hotel. “I feel like I’m home — the air I breathe, everything,” Quatro said before Friday’s show, after her old stomping grounds earlier in the day. “You never lose your roots. I’m happy to be here, and I’m happy to do this for Alice. He told me I was doing this song tonight; I said, ‘OK.'”

Cooper and Quatro became friendly during the early 70s, when the Detroit-born shock rocker and his band moved back to the area from Los Angeles. Quatro said she and her bands at the time, the Pleasure Seekers and Cradle, even rehearsed in the barn on the farm Cooper and company were leasing in Pontiac. “Mostly talking to Suzi was about the old days,” Cooper — who was also joined on stage by his wife Sheryl and daughter Calico, regulars in his show — said after the performance, “because those really were the golden days of Detroit.” Quatro opened for Cooper during his mid-70s “Welcome to My Nightmare” tour and they’ve shared stages other times since, including at a festival in Europe during the summer.

The cameo came the day after Quatro and Cooper were at Rust Belt Studios in Royal Oak to record a cover of the MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” which is slated for the former’s next album. “That was great,” Quatro said of the Thursday, Aug. 29 session. She credited her son and producer Richard Tuckey with suggesting both the song and the Cooper duet. “We were able to capture our personalities. We were able to capture the spirit of Detroit. We were able to capture our youth and the energy, and we played off each other and it was really quite magical.”

Being at Rust Belt again was something of an odd experience for Cooper, meanwhile. He recorded much of his 2020 EP “Breadcrumbs” and his 2021 album “Detroit Stories” there; both included a version of the MC5’s “Sister Anne” featuring the group’s guitarist Wayne Kramer, who appeared on 11 of the project’s songs. Cooper said those sessions were the last time he saw Kramer in person before his death on Feb. 2 this year.

“It’s a very nice tribute,” Quatro said. “They’re all gone now, so now is the time to do that song again.”

“Kick Out the Jams” is the first song Quatro has recorded for the album, which she’ll continue working on in the coming months with a hoped-for 2025 release. Cooper, meanwhile, is eyeballing a “surprise album” he’d like to release later this year and is planning to be working in 2025 with the Hollywood Vampires, his band with Johnny Deep, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Cooper’s guitarist Tommy Henriksen.

By Julia Carmel
Special to The Washington Post

Jeff West was looking for a change of pace. After decades of running clubs and restaurants in West Hollywood, he left California in search of peace and quiet. He had been to Laguna Beach and Palm Springs, but a new gay-friendly destination was calling to him — twin vacation towns on Lake Michigan with a population of less than 2,500 people.

“I arrived in the winter, and I was so amazed by it,” said West, 67, who grew up in Texas and spent his life in Southern California. “Seeing snow was just so beautiful. I remember feeling my shoulders relax.”

In the summers, West celebrates with friends on the lake. During winter, he’s part of a gay bowling team called the Gutter Queens. Since relocating in 2021, he’s become a real estate agent, spending his days selling other people on the joys of life here.

Saugatuck and its neighboring town, Douglas, form a rainbow bubble within Michigan’s Bible Belt. The area is off the beaten path compared to the coastal hangs that typically attract huge gay crowds, yet its reputation rivals spots like Provincetown and Fire Island.

Drive through the lush, wooded roads in the warmer months and you’ll find a summer camp atmosphere. Hammocks hang outside a popular coffee shop. Kids spill floats purchased from the Douglas Root Beer Barrel out of their parents’ car windows.

Pride flags fly from many businesses and homes, a stark difference from the conservative towns in Western Michigan. At the Dunes Resort, the pool is packed with Speedo-clad gay men all summer long, and disco balls light up the confetti-filled dance floor every weekend.

“This is a small community where we get to enjoy the finer things in life and be comfortable and free,” West said. “It’s paradise for somebody like me to be able to come to a place and just feel so welcome.”

‘Fire Island of the Midwest’

There’s evidence of queer tourists and residents flocking here since the late 19th century, thanks to a long and colorful cast of eclectic artists, eccentric couples and LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs.

According to the Chicago Tribune, it really hit its stride in the 1960s as “a loosey-goosey mecca for pleasure-seekers, gay or straight.” During that era, the town was seen as a party destination for motorcyclists, college kids and queer people from near and far.

Gay travel guides like Bob Damron’s Address Book began ramping up around the same time, dubbing Saugatuck “The Fire Island of the Midwest.” Though a state law prohibited bars from hosting groups of gay people, a local jazz venue called The Blue Tempo became known for serving gay patrons.

Eric Gollannek, executive director of the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center, said the second edition of Bob Damron’s Address Book references The Blue Tempo as a mixed crowd bar and also mentions “an interesting beach” nearby — a strip of sand that stretched from the north side of Saugatuck’s popular Oval Beach to the mouth of the Kalamazoo River.

“They collected $5 to use their beach for the day,” said John Rossi, facilities manager for Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency, a program that’s affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “You could sunbathe nude, as long as you were not visible to the public.”

Rossi visited Denison’s Beach, owned by a local Marine businessman named Frank Denison, for the first time in the 1970s. “It was mostly gay, but there was a mix, I could tell,” Rossi said. “Sometimes there were lesbians that frequented it, and occasionally you might see a straight couple.”

Rossi, 68, grew up about 40 miles away in Grand Rapids. He said word-of-mouth recommendations initially brought him to the area.

“There was this network — people told you, you knew what was safe and what wasn’t,” Rossi said. “I mean, there were three bars in Grand Rapids. There were two bars in Lansing you could go to. There were a lot of bars in Detroit we used to go to.”

One of the people who began frequenting The Blue Tempo was Carl Jennings, who was living near Grand Rapids with his wife and children. Though he was closeted at the time, he would spend his weekends tending bar in Saugatuck.

“Back then, you had to live and lead two lives. You had to be a straight person or at least appear to be that way,” Jennings told Michigan Public Radio in 2016. “And then, if you’re fortunate enough to find something like Saugatuck, it just felt warming and accepting.”

Eartha Kitt and ‘tea dances’

The Blue Tempo burned down in 1976, and the loss of that de facto gay space was felt immediately. By the early 1980s, Jennings had come out to his family and found his life partner, Larry Gammons. The couple decided to go into business together.

“We thought, ‘You know what, we should open a gay resort,’” said Gammons, who is now 77.

They originally set their sights on a hotel in Saugatuck, but the Saugatuck town council didn’t want to issue a liquor license to a gay business. After they were turned down for a third time, they found a shuttered roadside motel in Douglas and quickly made an offer on the property. At the first Douglas council meeting, they were able to secure their liquor license.

The Douglas Dunes finally opened in 1981, becoming one of the largest LGBTQ+ resorts in the country.

“May 1 was our grand opening, and we laughed about the fact that the city didn’t know what hit ’em because cars were lined up and down the highway,” Gammons said. “All these people. They just showed up.”

“As you well know, all you’ve got to do is tell a gay person and they spread the news. It spreads like crazy,” he added. “And everybody was so excited about a new big place opening up.”

Gammons and Jennings wanted the resort to be as safe as possible, so they hired their own security to make sure that homophobes wouldn’t get inside to harass patrons. They also made it clear to local police that they’d expect help with external issues. Over the years, the Dunes was targeted by gay bashers, received a bomb threat and even got a threatening call from the Ku Klux Klan.

Nonetheless, the resort was popular and quickly earned a reputation for throwing huge parties with fantastic entertainment.

“The music was so much better at The Dunes than in Grand Rapids,” Rossi said. “I used to talk to the DJs and I’d just tip them a couple bucks, and I’d say, ‘What was that you just played?’”

They booked performers such as Eartha Kitt, Linda Clifford and The Weather Girls (though the latter had to cancel at the last minute) and hosted tea dances every Sunday.

“We turned down Madonna,” Gammons said. “Her brother lived in the Detroit area, and he was gay, and Carl was DJing. She was just a punk rocker, and she went up to (Carl) when he took a little break and said, ‘I’m better than that girl. You know, you ought to put me onstage.’”

“We turned her down, and it was about six, eight months after that, she went to New York and got discovered,” he added.

The parties raged on for decades, with Gammons telling The Chicago Tribune in 1995 that gay tourism was bringing “an estimated $6 million annually to the area.” Gammons and Jennings sold The Douglas Dunes in 1998 to Danny Esterline, Greg Trzybinski and Mike Jones, who renamed it The Dunes Resort.

Though there is a widely cited statistic about Saugatuck-Douglas being home to more than 140 gay-owned and gay-friendly businesses, Jones said in an email that number was “made up” for press releases and websites to “promote the area as gay-friendly.”

Jones, 58, still remembers visiting the Dunes — which he calls a “little Midwestern gay Mecca” — for the first time in 1990.

“It really stood out as like, ‘this isn’t normal.’ Even in Chicago in the late 90s, guys weren’t holding hands walking downtown,” he said. “And you’re really right in the middle of God’s Christian reform, Southwest Michigan. So it’s almost like there’s a bubble over us. You have to remember that the whole world isn’t like this.”

Though Jones had visited many of the popular gay hot spots and swore he’d never live in a small town, he felt differently at the Dunes.

“I’ve been to P-town, and we’ve been to Fire Island, and we’ve been to Key West, and Rehoboth, but they’re just a different attitude,” Jones said. “And I never thought when I was in Fire Island or P-town or Rehoboth, ‘This place is great. I want to live here.’”

Nude bathers in the 1890s

With a bit of close reading, the queer history in Saugatuck and Douglas dates back more than 120 years. Gollannek, the director of the local history center, said there are examples of same-sex relationships from the late 1800s through the 1920s.

Some gay tourism can be attributed to the rise of steamboat travel, which made it easier for visitors to make their way over from Chicago. But the most obvious influence on the area’s emerging queerness was a woman named Elizabeth Bandle.

“She and her family had land in Saugatuck on a farm,” said Shanley Poole, 27, engagement liaison and storyteller for Ox-Bow. “She invited a few students and professors up to do plein-air painting because the lighting there was just gorgeous, and it kind of became a tradition year after year.”

Among the people who visited Bandle Farm in the early 1900s were Frederick Fursman and Walter Marshall Clute, artists from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who went on to found Ox-Bow in 1910. Since artists and city-dwellers were typically more accepting of queer people at the time, it created an environment that fostered gay tourism.

“In 1910, we have these groups of artists and free-thinking individuals — bohemian folk — coming to a secluded area,” Gollannek said. “Avant-garde artists coming here, painting plein-air, working with nude models, and this becomes a place where there’s some openness.”

The Saugatuck-Douglas History Center has records of LGBTQ+ people living in the area starting in 1917, with interior designer Florence “Dannie” Ely Hunn purchasing a cottage near Saugatuck-Douglas with Mabel “Jims” Warren, her partner of more than 50 years.

Many locals can also recall LGBTQ+ people and couples who they met during their first trips to Saugatuck.

“We have had members within GLBTQ community that go back to probably the ’30s, ’40s, like Mary Kay Bettles,’” Rossi said. “She met her lover at a place over by where the chain ferry is now. It used to be a gas station and an ice cream shop.”

Bettles and her partner, Jean Palmer, were not the kind of couple that flew under the radar.

“Jean would wear ball gowns and fur coats and sit on her really rustic cabin porch during the summertime, and Mary Kay Bettles was like, wearing jean shirts and trousers and loved her dogs,” Poole said. “And (Bettles) would wear a Sheriff’s Badge and kind of dubbed herself the Sheriff of Ox-Bow and would chase people off campus if they didn’t have a reason to be there.”

Some visitors and residents were closeted in their hometowns, but felt safe to live with their partners and express affection in Saugatuck-Douglas. Burr Tillstrom, the Chicago-based puppeteer, kept his private life quiet, but purchased a barn in Saugatuck during the 1960s, which allowed him to loosen up as he spent his summers teaching at Ox-Bow.

Rossi, who’s now 68, also grew up during an era that lacked the language and freedoms that many LGBTQ+ people have today.

“Among artists, there was more of a tolerance for ‘less traditional lifestyles,’ as they would call it,” he said. “The definition of gay didn’t really come until maybe the ’50s or ’60s.”

“Saugatuck was sort of used to the fact that there was an eclectic crowd that came here. They painted, they partied, they spent money,” Rossi said. “And you know, when people spend money, and money’s to be made, money does not have sexual orientation.”

These days, Saugatuck-Douglas is a bit different.

It’s more expensive than it once was, with many hotels charging upward of $500 per night, and the frisky nude beach became a thing of the past when the Land Conservancy of West Michigan purchased Denison’s old land around 2009.

“Now the city owns it,” Gammons said, “so no nudity, no hanky-panky, no liquor, no nothing.”

Chris Hewitt | The Minnesota Star Tribune (TNS)

Summer is the season for blockbuster movies, but autumn is when the publishing world unleashes one title after another from some of the biggest, and biggest selling, authors.

We’ll see new books from “The Overstory” writer Richard Powers and “Leave the World Behind” novelist Rumaan Alam, for instance. Here are five others we can’t wait to dive into, all due in September:

Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner

Booker Prize and National Book Award finalist Kushner’s latest is about a woman who is lying to everyone about everything. Sadie (not her real name, of course) is a secret agent, sent to France to infiltrate a group of anarchists. She has a lover, whom she’s surveilling, and friends, whom she’s using, and everything works well until she becomes fascinated by a man who may be even more duplicitous than she is.

Sept. 3, Simon & Schuster, $29.99.

Devils Kill Devils, Johnny Compton

Guardian angels are supposed to be a good thing, but Sarita isn’t so sure when, on her wedding night, her angel, Angelo, who has repeatedly saved her from disaster, kills her husband. Compton’s followup to last year’s “The Spite House” is said to be a super-violent tale of horror that casts vampires in a whole new light.

Sept. 10, Macmillan, $28.99.

Final Cut, Charles Burns

This graphic novel (very graphic — it’s definitely not for kids) is a tale of romantic obsession that’s also about identity and nostalgia. Brian and Jimmy, who used to make goofy science-fiction short films when they were in middle school, reunite as adults to create a more ambitious feature film. Inspired by their beloved “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” it drives them and their collaborators, including muse and lead actor Laura, into a remote forest where things take a dark turn.

Sept. 24, Pantheon, $34.

The Siege, Ben Macintyre

The prolific British writer’s nonfiction accounts of spycraft — including “Agent Zigzag,” “Colditz” and “Operation Mincemeat” — generally take him to World War II and the heroes who worked in the shadows to bring it to a close. But the events of “The Siege” happened in 1980, during America’s Iran Hostage Crisis. It’s a minute-by-minute account of the six days after armed gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London, taking 26 hostages.

Sept. 10, Crown, $32.

The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon

Duluth-based social media influencer, podcaster and “America’s government teacher” McMahon— whose popularity has zoomed as the country has become more divided and confusing — unveils 12 witty portraits of average Americans who made enormous contributions but didn’t get into the history books, like the guy who was at Alexander Hamilton’s deathbed and who wrote the preamble to the Constitution.

Sept. 24, Thesis, $32.

©2024 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

When a streaming show is canceled after just one or maybe two seasons, audience frustration radiates out from social media. TV used to be a business that aimed for long-running hits, but it doesn’t feel that way anymore and there’s no shortage of catastrophizing. “Television is dead,” is how one person put it. “The current model is unsustainable. It’s profit over art.”

The disappointment is real — but this is also a romanticization of the past. TV has always been profit over art. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help us understand what’s happening now.

But I get why it’s easy to buy into the fantasy that things were better before streaming upended everything. Survivorship bias means we remember all those old network shows that ran for multiple seasons and then lived on in reruns, but not the countless others — and truly, the numbers are staggering — that were canceled only a few episodes in, becoming yet more pop cultural detritus consigned to the Hollywood junk heap.

But it’s never been this bad — right? I don’t know if that’s accurate either! Around 600 scripted shows premiered in 2022. But go back 20 years, to 2002, and that number was 182. More shows are getting made, therefore more shows are getting canceled. But proportionally, the percentage canceled might not be drastically different.

With the traditional broadcast model, a long-running hit with 22 episodes a season can mean big profits, especially in syndication. For generations, that financial incentive also did the work of shaping audience expectations for the regularity that came with long-running shows.

None of this applies to streaming originals. That’s because money isn’t pouring in — at least, not money pegged to individual shows. The business model is different, which means the goals are different. Here’s how entertainment journalist Rick Ellis explains the thought process in his Too Much TV newsletter: “While many people in Hollywood don’t want to believe it, three new originals with eight-episode seasons are better for subscriber numbers than one show with 24 episodes. Especially because three different shows provides more of a chance you’ll have one that breaks out with audiences.”

Perhaps! But this has left audiences feeling forsaken. And people who make their living in television are experiencing one of the most intense periods of professional destabilization in recent memory.

Who wants a diet of short-run shows only? Maybe it wouldn’t feel so dire if a nice chunk of streaming shows — 10 or 15 of them across different platforms — were getting multiple seasons.

The history of television is littered with shows that barely made it to double-digit episodes, but there were always exceptions — shows that struggled in the early going but were given a chance to find an audience. That’s not because executives were more nurturing than they are now; if a show with mediocre ratings stayed on the schedule, it was probably because there was nothing else to fill the slot.

The 1979-80 TV season was notorious for the number of shows that failed, including “Salvage 1” starring Andy Griffith as a guy who recovered abandoned space junk and used it to build his own rocket. Fourteen episodes aired in the first season. When the second season rolled around, the network aired just two episodes before pulling it off the schedule for good. Imagine how frustrated audiences must have been! But that wasn’t uncommon; four or eight episodes might air and then — poof — suddenly a show was gone because it was a ratings disaster. At least with streaming, you’re getting a completed season (even if it’s short) before it’s canceled.

Here’s another frustration you hear right now: Hollywood has never been more obsessed with IP, aka intellectual property. I agree that this endless lineup of prequels and reboots and adaptations is tiresome. No one wants to take a risk on original ideas. But let’s not fall into the trap of revisionist history, either. Going back decades, spinoffs have always been part of the TV landscape, which is really just another way of saying … IP

IMDb has a page listing “Short Lived TV Shows 1970’s/80’s” and it’s a fascinating time capsule. Never heard of most of these shows. But what’s really surprising is just how many were based on movies (cough, IP once again).

Scroll down the list and … there was a TV series based on “Casablanca”?? (Lasted all of five episodes; maybe Sam got tired of playing that piano every week.) There was another based on “The King and I.” Also: “Breaking Away,” “Animal House,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “The Four Seasons,” “Logan’s Run” and more — all hoping to be the next “M*A*S*H,” I’m guessing.

I’m not in the prediction business and I can’t say whether the TV industry can recover if it continues to abandon the kind of long-running shows that become part of the fabric of our pop cultural lives. But it’s also a mistake to think through the current challenges if we’re only taking into account what’s transpired over the last 10 years or so.

Viewer discontent is real. Media bosses might want to start taking that seriously again.

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

The Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center — which Wayne State University President Kimberly Andrews Espy called “not just a building (but) a symbol of the musical soul of our city” — formally opened its tours on Thursday night, Aug. 29, with, appropriately, a night filled with music.

Endowed by the late Carharrt heiress and longtime patron of the Detroit Jazz Festival, the building that once housed the Hilberry Theatre on the Wayne State University campus has been retooled into a state-of-the art music center with two performance spaces — the 325-seat Detroit Jazz Hall and the 110-capacity Dee Dee Bridgewater’s club in the basement. An upstairs donor’s lounge was named in honor of Chris Collins, Wayne State’s Gretchen C. Valade Endowed Chair in Jazz Studies and the President and Artistic Director of the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation.

“Make no mistake — we’re inside Gretchen’s imagination come true,” Collins told Thursday’s invitation-only gathering that included Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and several City Council members.

Valade’s granddaughter Gretchen R. Valade, added that, “Jazz was beyond a passion for Gretchen. Jazz was her life and it was what motivated her.” Noting that her grandmother was a musician herself, she added that, “she knew the importance of celebrating that talent and skill, giving it all the respect that it deserves…She was always searching for opportunities to promote jazz, any way she could find.

“She put her heart and her soul into making sure that the music was accessible to all.”

Thursday’s program was tailored to that passion. Dr. Valade’s Brass Band, which traditionally opens the Detroit Jazz Festival, played outside the building and took the party inside with a New Orleans-style Second Line procession onto the Detroit Jazz Center stage. Collins, on saxophone, and pianist Cliff Monear paid tribute with a rendition of “Pure Imagination” from “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” which Collins said was one of Valade’s favorites.

Pianist Alvin Waddles led a trio and also performed another Valade favorite, the Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields standard “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby,” while the Wayne State Jazz Vocal Quartet delivered an a capella rendition of another standard, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square. Bridgewater was on hand to front the Wayne State University Jazz Legacy Orchestra — comprised of faculty, students and alumni — through one of Valade’s own compositions, “The Lights of Detroit,” in an arrangement by jazz musician John Clayton.

Brandee Younger — who will perform as part of the “Translinear Light: The Music of Alice Coltrane” on Friday night, Aug. 30, at the jazz festival closed the main program with her trio, playing Coltrane’s restored harp and paying tribute to both her and to Dorothy Ashby, another harpist and fellow Detroit native. The Dee Dee Bridgewater’s club hosted a jam session afterwards.

Conceived more than a decade ago, the Valade Center broke ground in 2018 and is part of Wayne State’s $70 million Hilberry Gateway project. The building itself was built in 1917 as the First Church of Christ Scientist and was purchased by Wayne State in 1961. The Detroit Jazz Hall is acoustically tuned specifically for jazz but will host other genres of music, and it’s equipped with up-to-date technology for streaming and recording. Its grand piano, a Steinway Model D nine-foot Concert Grand, was selected by a panel of players that considered four options.

The center had previously hosted performances in April, during an announcement of this year’s jazz festival lineup, as well as a panel discussion about Alice Coltrane on Wednesday, Aug. 28, that included her son Ravi Coltrane, who curated the “Translinear” concert, daughter Michelle Coltrane and John Coltrane Quartet bassist Reggie Workman.

Jeffrey Sposato, the new chair of Wayne State’s music department, said that the center “stands as a new symbol of both this musical legacy and the bright future that lays ahead.”

The center will host after-hours programs during this year’s jazz festival, starting with four ensembles in Bridgewater’s at 10 p.m. Friday, Aug. 30, and continuing with the Kurt Rosenwinkel Trio at 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31 and pianist Jon Cowherd on Sunday, Sept. 1, both at 10:30 p.m. in the Detroit Jazz Hall. For additional information visit detroitjazzfest.org.

Jessica Care Moore and Steffanie Christi’an have been performing music together for more than 15 years.

This month, the Detroit duo got around to recording and releasing some of it.

The duo, as We Are Scorpio, put out its self-titled debut album on Aug. 16, nine tracks of bold, ferocious anthems of truth-speaking, empowerment anthems that fuse rap, heavy metal, punk, funk grooves and advanced poetics into an assault that transcends genre — which is kind of the point.

“This is a movement, not just an album,” explains Christi’an (nee Mosley), who grew up in Southfield and Detroit, “singing before I could talk” according to her mother. Though she holds a degree in sociology from Wayne State University, music has been her main focus. In addition to her own work and We Are Scorpio, she’s also part of Kevin Saunderson’s Inner City and the Don Was Pan-Detroit Ensemble.

Working with Moore is an entirely different endeavor than the rest, however.

“I think it’s amazing for people to be able to see Black women playing electric guitar, jumping into crowd, singing metal,” Christi’an explains. “It’s not something the (music) industry puts at the forefront. Black radio stations don’t play the type of music we play. It’s not easy for us to get on ‘white’ rock radio stations, either.

“So we have to create our own platforms and our own stages, which is what we’re doing here.”

We Are Scorpio (yes, that’s both of their Zodiac sign) is an outgrowth of Black Women Rock, which Moore — a Detroit-born poet, author and activist who came to prominence by winning the “It’s Showtime at the Apollo” competition five times in a row — founded in 2004 when she was living in Brooklyn. It’s one of the most enduring creations in a career full of achievements, including a wealth of books, her own Moore Black Press, a multi-media choreopoem “Salt City” and other works that have been performed nationwide.

Moore also has contributed to albums by rappers Nas, Jeezy and Talib Kweli, who guested on her 2014 debut album “Black Tea: The Legend of Jessi James” and appears on “Supa Dupa Star” from “We Are Scorpio.” She’s been a Kresge Arts fellow and received Knight Arts awards and an Alain Locke Award from the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Christi’an and Moore met in the mid-2000s, after Moore returned to Detroit from Brooklyn, through Black Women Rock. That opened new musical vistas, particularly for Christi’an who was brought up listening to rock music but, she acknowledges, “wanted to be Rihanna and Beyonce before there was a Rihanna and Beyonce” when she started out.

“I do write music that is personal and authentic to me,” she says, “but I write pop music. I would not consider Jessica’s poetry pop; the underlying meanings sometimes can be very straightforward and very raw, real-life situations, and I wouldn’t necessarily write music that way.” Christi’an laughs as she recalls that “we were doing a show once and the band was trying to tell (Moore), in regard to her verses, that it needs to fit into these 16 bars. Jessica said: ‘I’m a poet. Sixteen bars feels like slavery to me!'”

“So it was very different collaborating with Jessica,” she adds, “because I felt like I had to reach inside myself in a different way to bring my lyrics differently.”

The “We Are Scorpio” collaboration took hold during the pandemic, when the two artists “had some time on our hands,” according to Christi’an. “I was at her house one day and was walking out the door, and she said, ‘We need to record some music.’ ‘OK. …’

“Within a week, we started writing stuff. Jessica was sending me voice memos. I’d add something and send it back and it just went from there.”

The duo had plenty of help from within and out of town. Guitarist Wayne Gerard, who works with Christi’an in the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, produced or co-produced six of the tracks and co-wrote four; he plays on every song, along with keyboardist Paul Wilson Bae, drummer Cinque Kemp and bassist Divinity Roxx, Beyonce’s former musical director.

Detroit rapper Sada Baby, meanwhile, features on the hometown-pumping “I’m From Detroit,” while Florida MC Niko Is rhymes on “Fire This Time” and New York’s Militia Vox, who fronts the all-female tribute band Judas Priestess, lends some additional slam to “Scorpio.” Trumpeter Maurice “Mobetta” Brown adds jazzy flavors to “Butterfly Stings;” the album was recorded at his studio in Brooklyn.

“It’s been a blessing,” Christi’an says of the collaboration. “It’s such a cool way to step out of the box and challenge myself because Jessica is a beast when it comes to her penmanship, an amazing poet and an amazing songwriter as well. I really had to pull my big guns out to match her.”

With the album out, We Are Scorpio is now planning to shoot big — or at least as big as it can — in getting the group and the music out into the world. Both remain “super busy,” Christi’an says; Moore recently penned the film “He Looks Like a Postcard” and is busy with her publishing concerns. “I can’t make her sit down for anything,” Christi’an says, with another laugh. Meanwhile, she’ll be touring this fall with both Inner City and Pan-Detroit Ensemble.

Nevertheless, finally getting some music out has only fortified their commitment to do more.

“This is special,” Christi’an says. “We’re definitely trying to put together a tour. We’re definitely going for the Spoken Word Grammy. Then once we get to where we want to be with this record, we’ll get going with another one. We’re just trying to gain some momentum — and change the world.”

We Are Scorpio performs as part of the Black Women Rock! 20th anniversary concert on Saturday, Aug. 31 at the Fillmore Detroit, 2115 Woodward Ave. Doors at 7 p.m. 313-961-5451 or thefillmoredetroit.com.

Seth Meyers had just finished his first week back on-air after a three-week break for the Olympics when we connected by phone. There’d been major news in the presidential campaign while the “Late Night With Seth Meyers” host had been off-air and unable to talk about it.

“It’s always hard to be off for three weeks because we love what we do,” says Meyers. “The first week of our break — where it was post-debate and everybody was spinning out — that was really hard; whereas the last two weeks felt like the sun was breaking through the clouds a little bit.”

Then he adds in a mock-serious tone, “By the way, I really hope I’m not revealing my politics in this interview.”

Meyers says that doing the show this election cycle feels different for reasons beyond simply a shakeup among the candidates. “This week has been so wonderful to do the show and feel as though there’s just a little bit of hope in the air. Because in 2020, that whole election cycle, we didn’t have an audience; it was COVID. We were doing the show for an empty studio. So this is a very new feeling, and I’ve got to be honest, it’s not one I hate.

“I know anything can change, but also, because I know anything can change, I’ve given myself permission to enjoy the present,” says Meyers, who is also set to do a live “Closer Look Primetime” special on Sept. 11 following the presidential debates.

And the writer, comedian and TV host does have plenty to enjoy. His late-night show and related YouTube series were nominated for three Emmys — Outstanding Talk Series, Outstanding Music Direction and Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series. He’s got successful podcasts, an HBO stand-up special coming in October and thoughts about the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live” and the chatter around who, if anyone, should replace “SNL” honcho Lorne Michaels should he decide to retire.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Congratulations on the Emmy nominations. What’s it like being recognized for your work?

It’s embarrassing how satisfying it is because I know you’re not supposed to care about these things. But it’s just so lovely, especially when the show gets nominated because that covers so many people who I just love working with. And it’s very nice to be recognized by your peers; I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. It hasn’t happened for us so many times that we are immune to the satisfaction.

It was the first time [the nominations] happened when we were actually in production, and to find out by hearing a bunch of people cheer — for a guy who liked sports and wasn’t good at sports — I felt like this might be the closest I come to feeling the taste of victory.

Q: In your category, you’re nominated with your friends and “Strike Force Five” podcast co-hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, which must be nice and a little weird.

It’s not weird. One of the many upsides of “Strike Force Five” [a limited-series podcast that raised money for out-of-work staffers during the WGA strike] was going from colleagues to friends with everybody who’s in our category. They were colleagues I respected a great deal, but we all genuinely like each other. It’s almost, sadly, like you need a Writers’ Strike to give you time to make friends. 

There’s nothing more edifying than the moment where you realize you’re not, you know, on an island by yourself, that everybody has had the same things go wrong – and the same things go right. Although it’s more fun, I will say, to talk about the things that go wrong.

Q: Are you all glad that perennial category winner John Oliver is no longer in your category [Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” is now in a category called Scripted Variety Series along with “Saturday Night Live”]? 

We’re thrilled. [laughs] I should say Lorne calls me all the time like, ‘You should get him back in [your category]. 

Q: One of the “Late Night With Seth Meyers” nominations is for musical direction. The 8G band is no longer going to be part of the show on-air anymore. That must be bittersweet. 

We have one more week with the 8G band, and we’ll have Fred [Armisen] back next week, which will be very bittersweet. Somebody like me never expected that they would have the luxury of a band that would play them in and out of commercial breaks for a decade. 

First of all, I have such appreciation to Emmy voters for nominating Eli [Janney] and Fred for the work they do. And Syd [Butler] and Seth [Jabour], our other two band members, that’s a nomination for them as well. And yeah, I don’t want only to be sad about it, which I am, but I also really want to be grateful for the fact that I was with that incredible group of musicians for 10 years. 

Q: In decades past, it seemed like everyone could watch “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, but it seems unlikely that a lot of J.D. Vance supporters watch your show. Do you think the culture changed or did late night?

I think post-Jon Stewart, who I really do give credit for this, everybody was allowed to be their authentic self in a way that maybe they hadn’t before. And that’s a lot more interesting way to make television, for my money. 

Q: We were talking earlier about football and you made the point that in the ‘70s there were probably more Pittsburgh Steelers fans and Dallas Cowboys fans because those two teams were so often on TV.

That’s the same reason Johnny Carson didn’t have to do politics. There was an era where we all grew up and we had, like, no choices. You know what I mean? One of the reasons you could do television differently in the ‘70s was because nobody could go anywhere else.

Q: Let me ask about Day Drinking, the segment where you drink with celebrities like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Rihanna and Kristen Stewart: Are you trying to kill yourself?

Guests are trying to kill me because it’s a real hot segment and everybody wants a piece of me. [laughs] It’s hard to say no. I do love doing it.

Q: Waking up with a new tattoo after drinking is usually a sign you’ve had too much to drink. [Meyers and Dua Lipa got tiny matching tattoos].

It is so funny how many times this summer someone has said, “I think you have a tick.”And I say, “No, that’s a tattoo I got with Dua Lipa.”  I’m like, You got a tick, bro. I got a memory.

I have a writer’s blood and so I panic during a normal remote segment when it’s out of my hands and I’m not in control of how it’s all going to cut together. And so the only way for me to relax is to just get immediately hammered. That’s why those terrible mixed drinks off the top, albeit the worst concoctions, serve an important purpose. The part of me that’s like, “This isn’t a good idea,” that part goes to bed first.

Q: Your YouTube-only show, “Corrections,” also got a nomination. How do you describe it to people who haven’t seen it?

“It’s too late; you missed the boat,” is what I would say to them. [laughs] “Corrections” was born out of the vibe we had during COVID when we were doing a show without an audience. Because there was no audience, I will admit that my ego forced me to read YouTube comments just to prove to myself that people were watching the show and I noticed how many sort of pedantic, small corrections people were making in the YouTube comments. 

I just decided it would be fun once we got the audience back to clear the audience out and do a weekly address to the jackals, as I call them who have wasted my and their time correcting the show. It has become, without exception, my favorite part of my job. 

One of my oldest friends, Pete Grosz, is a writer for our show and a really talented writer and actor. He said the nicest thing about “Corrections.” He’s like, “It only took you 20 years in television to figure out the way to get your true self on there.” Because it is, I think, that that is maybe the most like me of anything I do.

It’s become a stand-up set about our show delivered to our group. It’s not a good use of my time, but I really do love it.

Q: Speaking of standup, do you have a new special in the works? 

I have one in the can that will be coming out in October on HBO and so now I’m going to take a little bit of a break. Because sometimes my wife points out that I do comedy all week, and maybe it’s not healthy to do it all weekend. Sometimes she’ll even point at our three children, and that’s helpful. 

Q: You have two current podcasts, one with your brother Josh, “Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers,” and an “SNL”-focused one with Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, “Lonely Island with Seth Meyers.” Did you look at lucrative podcasts like “Smartless” and “Armchair Expert,” and think, Hey, maybe I should get in on this?

One thing about the ones you mentioned, they’re so good at that sort of career-spanning interview, and they do it so well that I didn’t want to try to do something that was just my version of that. Ultimately, I also wanted to use it to hang out with people I love that I don’t hang out with enough. My brother and I, you know, we couldn’t be closer, but we’re on opposite coasts … so it’s been really amazing just getting to hang with him. And I feel the same way about those Lonely Island guys. I mean, it’s probably the most important decade of my life, that 10 years that we were all at [“SNL”] together. And so 1), I love revisiting it, and 2), they’re my favorite people to revisit it with.

Somebody said a really cool thing to me, which is, “I’ve read all the [‘SNL’] books and watched all the documentaries, but I feel as though it’s a whole different dimension to what it’s like to work there [by listening to the Lonely Island podcast],” and that wasn’t our goal. I did think it would be more of a recap of the shorts, but I’m happy that maybe the most memorable part of it is that we all felt this intense anxiety that brought us really close together as friends. And ultimately, when you’re listening to a podcast, you like hearing friends and family. It is a weirdly, I don’t know, intimate thing to spend time with podcasts, and so I’m glad people are digging them.

We’re all different people based on who we’re with, and with Josh especially, I’m the [screw-up], whereas with the Lonely Island, I’m the adult. I just love the fact that it doesn’t feel like I’m working the same muscle in each one.

We all contain multitudes, and I want my multitudes to be monetized.

Q: “SNL” is turning 50 in this new season. Will you, as a former cast member and head writer, be involved with the show’s anniversary season?

I had a fair amount of involvement in the 40th but I had just left and so I felt very connected in a way that I don’t feel now, but in a healthy way. I’m certainly available for anything Lorne would want me to do, but I am not committed to do anything. For me, it’s just so surreal that it’s a full decade after the 40th, which feels like yesterday to me.

Q. I’ve heard your era on”SNL,” which included cast members like Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis, referred to — by you — as “an golden era.”

Yeah, there was ‘an golden era,’ and I’m glad a lot of people are coming around to it. I’m seeing a lot of TikTok videos supporting my case.

Look, take me out of it; don’t even make this about praise for me: You look at the work that group did and I’ll tell you this, and I mean it: The easiest time in the history of the show to be head writer was when I was head writer. I’m not saying it’s an easy job. I just know for a fact that it’s never easier than the cast I got to do it with and the writing staff I got to do it with.

Q: It must be asked: Are you planning to take over for Lorne Michaels should he decide he doesn’t want to do it anymore?

Plotting, I wouldn’t say “planning.” I prefer the verb “plotting.” [laughs] No, I mean, again, I appreciate that the question needs to be asked. I really can’t stress my answer enough, which I will give until the end of days: He is irreplaceable.

He is so deeply tied to the DNA of what that show is that the very idea of a person sort of stepping into those shoes — I’m not saying someone can’t do it, but it’s beyond my comprehension to know who that person is.

With the return of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” for Season 4, the podcasting, murder-solving trio of Charles, Oliver and Mabel try to figure out who killed Sazz Pataki, Charles’ old friend and stunt double from his TV stardom heyday.

Nothing seems amiss at first. There’s no body or obvious crime scene. But Sazz hasn’t been answering calls or texts, and once Charles and his pals start poking around, they realize there’s been another murder in the building. Slowly but surely, they piece together the clues.

In an amusing twist, Hollywood has come calling. A studio wants to turn their podcast into a movie. So off they go to the Paramount lot in Los Angeles to sign away their life rights. This is such an enjoyably meta idea, because both Steve Martin and Martin Short have a rich history of satirizing show business in general, and the vapidness of Los Angeles in particular. Unleashing Charles and Oliver’s neuroses and egos in a Hollywood setting works as well as expected, largely because Selena Gomez’s Mabel functions as a splash of vinegar. She is less dazzled, and skeptical about the whole thing.

But all the pieces are already in place, including a script, a cast and a directing duo who are fresh off a “heart-wrenching, deeply, deeply viral Walmart ad campaign.” The directors are sisters whose last name is Brothers. They are the Brothers sisters. The show’s delight in wordplay remains intact!

I’m generally less enthusiastic about the show’s (over)reliance on A-list guest stars to fill out its world, with the exceptions of Shirley MacLaine (Season 2) and Meryl Streep (Season 3 and a brief return in Season 4). But you can’t argue with the lineup this season. Molly Shannon is the sharklike studio exec who has hired Eugene Levy to play Charles, Zach Galifianakis to play Oliver and Eva Longoria to play Mabel, whose character has been aged up by a couple of decades because apparently focus groups found the real age gap creepy. (Since when has Hollywood cared about that?!) Galifianakis is especially prickly about the gig and proposes a risky take on the character: “I was thinking about maybe playing him talented.”

At the studio, our New York threesome stumble upon a Hollywood backlot version of their home city — an old-school rap beat plays as a guy pushes a hot dog cart and a mother leans over the fire escape to holler at her kid — and it’s funny because this blatantly and hilariously corny depiction of a quasi-Washington Heights neighborhood is no less stereotypical than the show’s own depiction of New York’s Upper West Side.

They don’t stay in LA for long. Back at The Arconia, their glorious apartment building, they find proof that Sazz (Jane Lynch, who is piquant in all the right ways) is indeed dead. Even so, she shows up as a ghostly apparition who accompanies Charles on his quest to solve her murder — or, she tells him, maybe she’s just a “manifestation of your rapidly declining mental state.” His grief feels more poignant this time and losing his friend seems to cut him deeper than the previous tragedies he’s weathered.

The show’s great balancing act — between humor and moments that hit you in the gut — has always been its strength. Melissa McCarthy’s comedic instincts fit right in, as Charles’ over-the-top sister, with whom they temporarily bunk at her house on Staten Island. She is somehow melancholic and exuberant all at once.

A bar frequented by stunt performers is called Concussions and it’s the kind of throwaway but memorable joke that has you think: Please let this silly-smart show continue for a few seasons more, with its vulnerable, sardonic, wonderfully screwball outlook on life and death and everything in between.

“Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 — 3 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Hulu

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

The Zig Zag Power trio is, as the name connotes, a powerful combination featuring Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid and drummer Will Calhoun along with Melvin Gibbs, the New York bassist who’s worked with Rollins Band, Sonny Sharrock, Arto Lindsay and others.

The three began working together some time ago — during the 90s by Reid’s estimation — and has made a number of recordings fusing jazz, rock, funk and R&B. It’s approach is aggressive and free-spirited, not for the faint of heart but definitely for those who enjoy adventurous and ambitious — not to mention tasteful — instrumental music.

The troupe will be performing at this year’s Detroit Jazz Festival, and Reid, 66, caught us up on what he’s been up to, with and outside of the trio…

* Reid says there’s a great deal of common musical ground that unites him with Calhoun and Gibbs. “Melvin and I and Shannon (the late drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson) had a trio thing that we called Incription, where we interpreted (Jackson’s) music for the most part — and we take on some of those Tunes with Zig Zag. And Will was also a fan of Shannon’s, and we’re all inspired by various degrees of electric jazz and so-called fusion — Miles (Davis) and Mahavishnu (Orchestra) and all those types of things, as well as Shannon and Ornette (Coleman). Those are the things that kind of informed what Zig Zag is.”

* Reid acknowledges that the Zig Zag Trio tends to be on the outer fringe at most of the mainstream jazz festivals it plays. But he says the group finds that to be an exciting challenge. “Y’know, everyone has different definitions of what jazz is. You now people; sometimes they’re not gonna laugh at the comedian, or they’re gonna be made at the magician. People have different reactions to things; they come with the narrative they have and they project that onto what they’re seeing, they want it to be this or be that. So sometimes people see me with the electric guitar and the pedals and they roll their eyes. There’s a gap to be breached. But maybe there’s a moment where they hear something and go, “Oh, OK, I like that,” and they open up. The Grateful Dead said “you’re the music, we’re just the band.” So if people come in and are prepared to not engage, for whatever reason, alright. But if people are willing to be moved and be open, we’ll give them a lot to embrace.”

* Reid describes the Zig Zag Trio’s approach as “a bit of a harmelodic thing…avant garde and free jazz and playing with structures and movement from one moment to the next and having a kind of confidence with your partners and knowing what you’re gonna do with them and that they’re gonna do with you. It really is about the relationship between the participants, which is the thing that is so difficult. It’s hard to explain that kind of interplay, that kind of listening, the kind of moving together. There’s a funny fine line of what you’re hearing, what your intentions are, what you’re prepared to do and what you’re willing to risk.”

* Reid is among the guests on the upcoming MC5 album “Heavy Lifting,” playing on the track “Can’t Be Found” — one of two that also features the late original MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson. Reid had met the late Wayne Kramer prior to the pandemic, when both were instructors at a guitar workshop hosted by Tom Morello, and remained friendly afterwards. “(Kramer) wore his legendary status really lightly, but the idea of an MC5 record…you can’t take something like that lightly. I didn’t. But Wayne was such an encouraging person. He’s a positive, feisty dude. He was kind of like, ‘Do YOU. Do what you feel. Don’t think.’ So I listened to it and tried to absorb the tune and get a vibe for it, and it worked out.”

* Reid says Living Colour has “started recording” music for a new album and also has more touring coming up with Extreme. “There’s a lot going on. We’ve been really busy, busier than we’ve been in awhile, and it’s been great. The band’s been in sync and doing great shows, and I’m excited to see what we come up with.”

Zig Zag Power Trio performs as part of the Detroit Jazz Festival at 3:45 p.m. Monday, Sept. 2 on the JP Morgan Chase Mainstage in Campus Martius Park. For full festival schedule and information visit detroitjazzfest.org.

 

ESPN is all in on engagement speculation when it comes to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s love story.

“NFL Live” anchors debated the matter — which fans of the Grammy winner have speculated on since news broke last fall of her romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end — on Tuesday’s broadcast.

“Travis Kelce made a big purchase recently. No, not an engagement ring, but it was Swift-adjacent,” quipped Laura Rutledge, referring to news of Kelce’s new racehorse named Swift Delivery, adding, “I like it.”

“How do you know that Travis Kelce didn’t buy an engagement ring?” Adam Schefter asked.

“I don’t know. Do you know?” asked Rutledge. “Are you gonna break some big news here?”

“I’m just saying, you said he didn’t buy an engagement ring, and I’m just wondering…” responded Schefter.

The Super Bowl champ and hitmaker, both 34, went public with their romance last September. They’ve since taken their relationship global, with Kelce regularly popping up at international legs of the singer’s record-breaking Eras Tour.

In May, a source told Entertainment Tonight the stars’ “loved ones see an engagement coming sooner than later.” However, an insider swiftly told Us Weekly engagement was “not even on [Kelce’s] radar.”

“Travis has no plans on proposing to Taylor anytime soon,” said the latter source.

The pair went Instagram official in July in a selfie featuring Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte at one of Swift’s Wembley stadium shows. Later that weekend, Kelce joined Swift on stage.

Classes began this week at many state and private colleges in New York, while new-student orientation has been taking place at such top schools as Columbia and New York University.

Barron Trump’s father, former president Donald Trump, has said that his son is expected to attend a college in New York, but the conspicuously 6-foot-7-inch teenager has not been seen moving into his freshman dorm, in the same manner as other celebrity kids, notably Suri Cruise at Carnegie Mellon or Violet Affleck at Yale.

There has been no video of Melania Trump helping her 18-year-old son find his way to his new on-campus residence or of an entourage of assistants and Secret Service agents following behind, lugging boxes and suitcases.

Maybe Barron has been busy, helping his father’s 2024 presidential campaign in a behind-the-scenes way.

Earlier this month, some Trumpworld “insiders” told the Daily Mail that Barron and his best friend Bo Loudon, a 17-year-old “conservative influencer,” have become the former president’s “secret weapon” and “de-facto social media outreach team” in his bid to sell Gen Z voters on the righteousness of his MAGA cause. The Daily Mail said that “tech savvy” Barron and Bo were “busily briefing” Barron’s 78-year-old father on the new landscape of streamers and YouTube stars.

And yet, Trump insisted last week that Barron, who graduated from high school in May, was all ready to start college.

The former Manhattan real estate mogul revealed to the New York Post, his former hometown tabloid, that his son was “all set in a certain school that’s very good.” Trump also shared that his son would go to college somewhere in New York, and that the family would make an announcement “soon.”

If Barron had indeed been accepted to “a very good school,” it could be Columbia or Cornell, the Daily Beast reported. They are listed as the top universities in New York, according to U.S. News and World Report’s list of best colleges. Both schools tie for No. 12 nationally.

But Columbia, in New York City, held its “mandatory” new-student orientation this week, with classes starting next Tuesday. Classes at NYU, ranked 35th, also start next Tuesday. Classes at Cornell, in upstate New York, started this week. The Cornell Daily Sun reported last week that Barron “does not appear in the student directories of Cornell, Columbia and New York University. Registered first-year students at Cornell are typically listed.”

The Daily Beast reported that Trump family’s announcement about Barron’s college choice has not been forthcoming. Trump’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung also declined multiple requests from the Daily Beast to offer details about Barron’s whereabouts.

Back in April, the Daily Beast reported that Barron’s top choice for college was NYU, which makes sense, given that the urban university is kind of down the road — Fifth Avenue — from where Barron spent his early childhood, raised by his mother in his father’s gilded penthouse in Trump Tower.

Last week, Melania Trump also was spotted arriving at Trump Tower, while her presidential candidate husband was holding a campaign rally in North Carolina, Page Six reported.

Melania Trump’s presence at Trump Tower renewed speculation that Barron would be attending a school in New York City. One way that Trump World sources have explained her absence from her husband’s campaign has been by saying that she sees herself as a “hands-on” mother, whose first priority is her son, Page Six reported. Some have taken the “hands-on” mother description to mean that she would reside close to wherever he is attending college.

Melania Trump further fueled speculation amid “Barron’s college mystery” by posting a cryptic message on X Tuesday, the Daily Beast reported. She shared an aerial photo of Manhattan, effusively writing about how she arrived in the Big Apple 28 years ago as an aspiring model from Slovenia.

“This electrifying town isn’t just my home; it’s a colorful canvas where dreams come alive,” Melania Trump wrote. “New York’s iconic skyline and vibrant culture inspire me every day.”

There was “a lot to unpack” in Melania Trump’s message, the Daily Beast reported. But the message definitely implied that Melania still sees New York as her home, even though she’s spent the past four years raising Barron at her husband’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Maybe the message was her declaration that she’s more or less moving back to New York — perhaps because Barron will be going to school there.

The former First Lady already has made it clear that she doesn’t intend to move to Washington, D.C., if her husband is re-elected president. In June, a Trump World insider told Page Six: “Melania has made a deal with her husband that if he wins the presidency she will not have to be on first lady duty 24/7.”

Whether or not Barron ends up going to NYU or some other New York school, the choice marks a departure from Trump family tradition, the Daily Beast noted.

Donald Trump has boasted of his Ivy League education at University of Pennsylvania, which is ranked No. 6 by U.S. News and World Report. His older half-siblings, Don Jr., Ivanka and Tiffany, also graduated from Penn, while Eric Trump graduated from Georgetown University.

As Trump has spoken of his son’s academic future, he has praised him for being very smart and claimed he is very much in demand by the nation’s top institutions of higher learning.

In an interview with “Fox and Friends Weekend” in June, Trump rambled on with his praise: “He’s tall, good-looking guy. He’s a very good student, and he’s applied to colleges and gets into everywhere he goes. He’s very sought-after from the standpoint he’s a very smart guy. He’s a very tall guy and he’s a great kid. He’s cool. He’s pretty cool, I’ll tell you.”

 

After memorably roasting Tom Brady in May, comedian Nikki Glaser has scored big with her next gig — hosting the 2025 Golden Globe Awards.

The annual awards show and CBS, which will air the ceremony on Jan. 5, made the announcement on Wednesday.

“The Golden Globes is not only a huge night for TV and film, but also for comedy,” Glaser, 40, said in a statement. “It’s one of the few times that show business not only allows, but encourages itself to be lovingly mocked (at least I hope so). (God I hope so).”

“It’s an exciting, yet challenging gig because it’s live, unpredictable, and in front of Hollywood’s biggest stars (who also might be getting wasted while seated next to their recent exes),” the “FBoy Island” host jabbed.

Praising past Golden Globes opening monologues for featuring some of her “favorite jokes of all time,” Glaser noted that previous provocateurs like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Ricky Gervais “have said exactly what we all didn’t know we desperately needed to hear.”

“I just hope to continue in that time honored tradition (that might also get me canceled). This is truly a dream job,” she added.

News that Glaser would host the Globes comes after her breakout barbs on Netflix’s “Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady.”

Comedian Jo Koy faced backlash for several of the jokes he made while hosting the Golden Globes earlier this year.