A Family Affair

The largest accomplishment for Modern Family, the best sitcom to emerge on network television over the past few years, isn’t the fact that it’s racked up trophy after trophy for its genius. The most notable achievement is how the mock-doc style show has become the most consistently enjoyable half-hour on…

Dallas Film Fest Brings More Wattage

The Dallas international Film Festival has earned a respectable spot among American film fests. Recent years have seen stars old and new walk the red carpet to their premieres while the residents of the eastern section of the city have packed the theaters that host new documentaries, foreign features, shorts…

Remembering Coach Joe Avezzano: Cowboy and Music Fan

So many got to know former Dallas Cowboys assistant coach Joe Avezzano as a hard-nosed, foul-mouthed, award-winning special-teams coach during his days roaming football sidelines, which began in 1968 and ended yesterday, after Avezzano died of an apparent heart attack while in Italy coaching the Seamen Milano of the Italian…

Moore Gogh-s To Great Lengths For Laughs

Wit and intelligence are a couple of characteristics that many claim to have, or at least wish they possessed. Novelist Christopher Moore seems to have been granted the shares of both prized traits that boorish dolts lack. Moore is promoting his latest work, Sacre Bleu, in which the death of…

Bongos Bring Good Karma for Food Trucks

Hah! Food trucks. Those’ll never take off. They’re just a fad that will be forgotten in a few weeks. C’mon, it’s not like any new ones are sprouting up or people have been lobbying the city to make laws more conducive for trucks selling high-quality food. If food trucks were…

Ray Wylie Hubbard Through the Lens of a New Generation

Country icon George Jones famously asked “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” back in 1985. For the most part, modern Top 40 country isn’t terribly interested in the footwear of elder greats, given the way radio playlists have tossed aside so many aging legends over the past 20 years or so…

Nothing’s Wrong With Sebastion Maniscalco (Sort Of)

While comedian and “Funny or Die” vet Sebastian Maniscalco’s question “What’s Wrong With People?” (also the name of his recent Showtime special and DVD release), is a bit generic, the way in which he seeks the answers are not only hilarious, but insightful and spot-on. On Leno, he lampooned dudes…

If Liking Sinbad is Wrong, I Don’t Want to Be Right

Pop culture has a way of overdoing it when it comes to ridiculing various temporary touchstones that helped define a certain point in time (where’s your Girbaud jeans these days?). Even more to the point, comedians often fall prey to this gantlet of hipster-ness. For a while, they are laughed…

Business Class Theater

While The Office or the film Office Space provide laughs through the everyday happenings inside of generically stale workplaces, they’re far more entertaining than the real thing most of us cubicle warriors encounter between clocking in and out. Dallas-based playwright and filmmaker Eric Steele, however, knows that life for the…

Run In Spite Of The Rock

When a recreational runner tackles a 5K “fun run,” it’s the overly cheery providers of false encouragement wielding cups of water that the runners end up wanting to physically tackle. If runners didn’t need the water, those fake-happy hand-clappers would get leveled. If they want everyone to do so great…

Cody Canada Talks About The Past and Present

Former Cross Canadian Ragweed singer Cody Canada’s current band, The Departed, is a properly named one. In May of 2010, Ragweed, or CCR as many fans still refer to them, were arguably the most beloved of all Red Dirt acts. It was then the band made national news by announcing…

Life’s a Parade of Beards for David Mayfield

For those fortunate enough to have witnessed a Cadillac Sky performance before the genre-blurring bluegrass outfit’s January 2011 break-up, many things were apparent after the show. The group’s expert craftsmanship would likely be the main memory, but not too far behind would be the energetic showmanship of a band that…

Run, Watch, Get Sloshed. St. Patty’s!

Wake up early, stretch, run three miles or so, drink to impressive excess, wave and holler at the fellow inebriated revelers atop parade floats, vomit, pump fists and thrust pelvises to whatever band happens to be playing in Energy Square, then — and only then — hop the DART Rail…

Heartless Bastards – Lola’s Ft. Worth – 3/9/12

Heartless Bastards Lola’s Friday, March 9 Before a sold-out Lola’s in Ft. Worth on Friday night, Austin’s Heartless Bastards simply dazzled, playing almost every song from their excellent new release, Arrow, as well as a few standouts from 2009 breakthrough The Mountain. While Wennerstrom was understandably the star, the band’s…