Where to Exercise Outdoors in Dallas

Check out Scott Colby’s Women’s Fitness Camps at http://www.womensfitnesscamp.com. Or call him at 214-505-8504. Join Colby’s free co-ed Playground Fitness Club at Meetup.com (http://fitness.meetup.com/236/). The next scheduled playground workout is 9 a.m., January 20, on the playground at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and St. John’s Drive in Highland Park…

New Year’s Resolutions Think Outside the Gym

I will stop smoking. I will not run for mayor. I will not watch the video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging. Again. I will lose 23 pounds. I will stop doing Borat impressions. You likes? Nice. I will learn to hold on to the football. I will learn how to ballroom…

New Year’s Resolutions

I will stop smoking. I will not run for mayor. I will not watch the video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging. Again. I will lose 23 pounds. I will stop doing Borat impressions. You likes? Nice. I will learn to hold on to the football. I will learn how to ballroom…

Get In-Volver-ed

If you’re like me at this time of year, you’re scrambling to catch up on all the movies that get nominated for whatever upcoming awards only because they seem to all come out in a three-week period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Yes, it’s mostly good stuff, but every couple…

In the House

When we were little, and sometimes even now, we fantasized about the house we would have when we were older. What color would it be? Would it have a basement, or possibly a Batcave? While we’re bummed that our reality is about as far from the Batcave as it gets…

Art by the Lake

It’s a cliché: A picture is worth a thousand words. As a writer, I don’t believe that—until I see a powerful picture or work of art. Then I realize that visual art is storytelling in its purest form. Check out two artists who pursue their work in very different ways…

Strange Fruit

Winona, Texas, is a small town situated northeast of Tyler in the Piney Woods of East Texas. Approximately 100 miles east of Dallas, the town isn’t much to speak of, with a population of less than 1,000. Unfortunately, Winona is best-known for the pollution, disease and death left in the…

Faith + 1

Librettists must have been slapping their foreheads and muttering “Why didn’t I think of that?” when Altar Boyz debuted off-Broadway. Take the boy-band phenomenon and the Christian pop movement, mash it around with double-entendres and create a musical comedy! Five young men—Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan and Abraham (the Jewish guy,…

Having a Ball

A group of friends and a truck crash. That story can’t end well, can it? Perhaps “well” isn’t exactly the right term, but “interesting” could sure fit the bill. And “illogical.” When it comes to Schrödinger’s Ball, a novel by Adam Felber, “entertaining” might work as well—especially since the friends…

Sexytime

What is the science of sexy? Is it that Miracle of Life video you had to watch in junior high? Science, sure, but we’re not so sure about the live birth bit at the end. Coulda done without. How about the Victoria’s Secret fashion show? Sexy, sure, but do you…

Puppet Stank

What happens when, instead of a glass slipper, Cinderella leaves one of her smelly tennis shoes behind when she flees the ball? Well, the prince better have a clothespin for his nose as he visits the other fair maids while looking for his beloved. Inanimate objects come to life in…

The Price is Righteous

Kelly Price’s mother remembers her baby daughter singing out from her crib in the middle of a quiet night. Not too surprising as the little spiritual diva was raised accompanying her father, the Reverend Joseph Price (as well as her evangelist mother, Claudia, and siblings), to work every day at…

Weather Girl

These days, you’d think most kids would be taught by their parents to run like the wind if a stranger offered them a ride on a “magic” school bus. That’s how youngsters wind up on milk cartons or with nasty hallucinogen habits. But have no fears, parents, about Ms. Frizzle’s…

Ode to Billy Joe

Billy Joe Shaver was the songwriter du jour for the outlaw country movement of the 1970s, penning tunes recorded by Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Bare and Johnny Cash. Waylon Jennings even did a whole album of Shaver compositions, 1973’s Honky Tonk Heroes, often credited for kicking off the movement that would…

Stuff d’Arte

We all love stuff. As George Carlin says, stuff is the reason people need houses. Houses are just a place to keep all your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff! And isn’t art, in its simplest form, just stuff you like to look at? Except it’s not called…

Cook in a Box

The newly opened Veuve is a monster of a restaurant (10,000 square feet, complete with a waterfall) designed to play on your senses, and they’re pulling out all the stops to make a good impression. Here, you can pay attention to the man behind the curtain as Executive Chef Tony…

Camel Toe Champions

I love the Winter Olympics. My beef with them is that they only come around every four years. How could they think I can possibly wait that long before I see some more figure-skating dudes in spandex onesies? But, it’s OK. Because now I can get my figure-skating fix and…

Tectonic Laughs

Some stand-up comedians seem custom-made for crossover sitcom stardom (see: Cosby, Seinfeld or Bernie Mac), while others probably should have stuck to playing nightclub open-mike nights in between shifts at the video store. Earthquake’s sitcom pilot for ABC may have flopped a few years back, but the man is back…

Spencer’s Gift Rock

The history of pop-punk is long and illustrious. Starting in the late 1970s with the Buzzcocks, it ran aground with Green Day, blink-182 and all those other suburban California tunesmiths who peppered the charts over the last decade like ants on a wedding cake. I’m sure that by 1999, every…

Powerful Pipes

The cathedral organ is best positioned to fill the house of God with music because it sounds most like the voice of God itself, capable of both bombast and whimsy. Its inspirational and reverent sound is explained and demonstrated in The Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s The Cathedral…

Singin’ Carroll

Down-home Texas singer-songwriters aren’t just a dime a dozen ’round these here parts; they’re a penny a gross. What keeps Adam Carroll from being just another drop in the guy-and-his-guitar bucket is an approach to the well-heeled genre that is both effortless and expert. More akin to storytelling than songwriting,…

Hot For Housewares

As we age, our tastes change. While the eau de vinyl records and Pearl Light beer used to really get us charged up, these days we get excited about bathroom fixtures, great curtains and stainless steel appliances. Ah, to be a grownup. No longer tempted by rows of freshly minted…