The Voices in Frank's Head

Yesterday was Francis Grunow's 34th birthday, which was celebrated at the historic Garden Bowl on Woodward Ave. It was the densest concentration of young and hip Detroiters since the grand re-opening of the DIA . I swear. I know a hundred or so people in this city and all but 6 of them were there. I learned many things over the course of an evening of drinking, bowling and, well, even more drinking. Vodka actually glows when exposed to black light. How I got through college without discovering this is beyond me. Maybe I was too drunk or something to notice. If professional bowling had women as cute as some of those who were at the Garden Bowl, the PBA Championships would be the highest rated show on television. I also learned that my neighborhood really is famous. Not only did we get mentioned in The Onion but people kept walking up to me, talking about how much they liked Gracie See's Pizza when they were there last week (I only recommended the place a couple hundred time...

Variety is reporting that the 80th Annual Academy Awards this past Sunday had the lowest ratings ever. It's an absolute shame. This means that a lot of people not only missed Jon Stewart's top-notch monologue during the show, they also missed Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performing "Falling Slowly" from their movie Once . They went on to win an Oscar for their song. However, let's face it, their movie was good enough that they deserved a lot more than just one nomination. Oh, well. Maybe next time around.

I long ago (at least in Internet years) discovered that my blog is one of the highest ranked ones when you search for "Dating in your 30s" on Google. As such, when I came across Lori Gottlieb's article in The Atlantic , I felt a need to comment on it. Ms. Gottlieb makes the argument that we'd all be a lot better off if we settled for a less than ideal partner when it comes to love and marriage. I think she makes some interesting points. The problem, of course, is that it could be taken to an almost ridiculous extreme. Simply marrying someone because they're available isn't a good idea, in my opinion. But maybe, just maybe, we could all do better by having one or two less items on our "deal-breaker" lists.

Atlantis made another perfect landing in Florida at 9:07 this morning. This brings their 13-day mission at the International Space Station to a successful conclusion. It also means that astronaut Dan Tani is once again on solid ground after spending 4 months in outer space. Welcome home everyone!

Keira Knightley is quoted in a recent interview as saying that the only excerise that she gets when she isn't working when she turns up the radio. You know, I've tried various programs in an effort to shed a few pounds over the years. I think I'll have to try this one: exercising with Keira. Turn the radio up. If nothing else, you have to admit that it has worked splendidly well for her.

YEAH!!! It's official. The Writer's Guild strike is over . The scribes got a decent contract and I get my favorite television shows back. Plus, more movie projects will be in the pipeline soon.

Kirsten Haglund of Farmington Hills, Michigan was named Miss America 2008 this past weekend. I heartily congratulate her. It's always great to see a fellow Detroiter accomplish something cool on the national stage. As proud as I am of my neighbor, I can't help but thinking that, way back in the 1960s, the Miss America pageant was targeted for protests by feminists who believed it was symbolic of everything that they were opposed to. It was after those protests that the pageant's television rating began to fall - from almost 2/3 of the American public tuning in to its current state where the show isn't even on any of the major television networks. While feminists like Robin Morgan , who organized the first protest of the Miss America pageant, might be pleased with the pageant's declining status, I can't help but feel that we as a society have lost something. As Miss America has declined in its status, it has been replaced by the likes of Paris Hilton , Lind...

Okay - so I haven't posted very much this month. One could even say that I've been down right neglectful of all things in cyberspace. The fact of the matter is that I launched a brand new event this month - the first annual Detroit Oscar Film Festival . It showcased some of the Academy Award winning film makers who have come from Michigan as well as some of the young, up and coming ones. The main event happened at the Music Hall on January 13, but I also had a launch party at the Garden Lofts the evening before. I was even lucky enough that one of my favorite photographers showed up to snap some cool photos of the event . (Thanks again, Liza!) You can see the rest of Liza's amazing photos here . Anyway, the weeks leading up to Oscar Fest were a non-stop flurry of activity. There were interviews with local newspapers . I also went on three different radio stations (WDET-FM, WJR-AM and WWJ-AM) as well as the local ABC affiliate, WXYZ-TV. We had a decent turnout for an ...

This year's Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. I would feel remiss if I didn't take a moment to put forward my picks. We'll have to wait a little over a month to find out just how accurate these picks are. Best Picture : No Country for Old Men. Actor in a Leading Role: Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises. Actor in a Supporting Role: Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton . Actress in a Leading Role: Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age . Actress in a Supporting Role: Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone . Director: Ethan & Joel Coen for No Country For Old Men . Original Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins for The Savages. Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood . Animated Feature: Ratatouille . Foreign Language Film: 12 . Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer for Atonement . Cinematography: Roger Deakins for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford . Documentary Feature: Richard E. ...

Academy Award nominee Heath Ledger was f ound dead in New York City this afternoon at the age of 28. I first saw Mr. Ledger in his 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You and was impressed with his acting abilities. My respect for him only grew as he moved into more challenging roles. He will be missed. His family and friends will be in my thoughts and prayers this evening.

Michigan had its presidential primary today - such that it was a primary. But I won't get into that rant right now. Instead, I'll simply say that this video persuaded me to cross party lines and vote for Mitt Romney . I'm sure it was my vote that put him over the top .

2007 is almost over, only a few more hours left. 2008 is almost here. Tom Walsh from the Detroit Free Press already gave us his predictions and the predictions of various other people around town. Not to be outdone, I give you my predictions for the coming year. I predict that 2008 will be the year that the Detroit Tigers get to play in the World Series again. I predict that 2008 will also be the year that a plan to expand Cobo Hall finally get approved. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that this year's presidential race will be an interesting one (and I almost mean that in the sense of the Chinese curse ). I predict that there will be a serious third party candidate, with Ralph Nader and the Libertarian candidate (possibly Ron Paul) nibbling at the edges. When we go to bed on November 4th, I doubt we will know who our new president is. The Book-Cadillac Hotel will finally re-open to the public in October, 2008 after being dormant for more than 20 years. (I...

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. It's being widely speculated that al-Queda is behind the assassination. CNN is also reporting that 22 innocent by-standers were also killed in this attack. While the United States has the bulk of its military assets deployed in Iraq to referee a civil war, one of the most important allies we have in the region is under siege from terrorists. I pray that this nation's next President has a lot more common sense.

Christmas is over for this year. However, I still feel the need to rant about one particular thing. In the great State of Michigan, it is illegal to sell alcohol after a certain hour on Christmas Eve or at any point on Christmas Day. Banning the sale of alcohol on the day that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ just seems ridiculous, in my opinion. The fact of the matter is that alcohol in general, and wine in particular, was a fundamental part of Jesus' life and ministry. In the second chapter of the Gospel of John, we are told a story of Jesus at a wedding feast at Cana . When the guests had consumed too much wine and their supply had run out, Jesus performed a miracle and made more of it. The Gospel tells us that he made 6 firkins (150 gallons) of wine and that its quality of the best they had ever had. This means that not only did make a lot of it, he made sure to bring the good stuff. Jesus continued to make wine a fundamental part of his life and ministry. For exampl...

Christmas 2007 is almost over - just a few more minutes of it are left. I am proud to report that: I'm not in the hospital; There aren't any tubes sticking out of me; Bright and/or flashing lights no longer cause migraines; I was able to watch an entire movie this afternoon without anyone trying to take a blood sample from me; I remember the names of everyone around me; and My car is in the same shape today that it was in a few days ago. These may not seem like big things but, to me at least, they are. This has been a much better Christmas than last year .

2007 has been a year of amazing viral videos. The folks at Time compiled their list the best ones. However, I've never been a fan of dancing prisoners or cats playing the piano. With that in mind, I am proud to present my collection of the best viral videos of 2007. First up, leave it to the folks at The Onion to make everyone wish that we were all poor this holiday season. We've also seen women in bikinis shape the course of political discourse this year by proclaiming their love for a certain candidate. Quite frankly, I can only hope this continues into 2008 because God knows most of the candidates themselves aren't very interesting. Rudy Giuliani , Barack Obama and Mitt Romney all had their own gyrating women, but let's face it - Taryn Southern's "Hott 4 Hill" blew them all away. 2007 also saw videos become a rallying point for change, the way Woodstock was a generation ago. Just take a look at This Is For The Soldiers : In addition to all ...

A few weeks ago, my friend Francis Grunow was named to the "40 under 40" list by Crain's Detroit Business . And now his wife, Claire Nelson , was on the front page for her work with Open City Detroit . I love these two. However, I can't help but wonder: who is their publicist?

It took me awhile, but thanks to the wonders of eBay, I finally tracked down a copy of Headless Body in Topless Bar . I'm sure this is one of the cheesiest movies ever made. It's just a guess, because I haven't seen it. However, I don't care. I simply love the title so much that when I found such a DVD on eBay, I had to buy it.

Today is December 18th. This means that Once is now available on DVD. Trust me - this movie is really, really good. Its plot is very simple. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy tries to get girl back. However, they did such a great job at executing that simple plot - everything from the acting to the music to costumes to you name it - it was just that good.

Okay - it's almost midnight. I should be getting to bed so I'm not a zombie at work tomorrow. But it's not like I'm going to fire myself. (I have to wait for my clients to do that.) Anyway, I was surfing the web and found a Detroit cityscape that was made entirely out of Legos. It is so darn cool! Although, I have to say that the People Mover does look a bit different from what I recall. You can see all of the photos here .