The Ghosts of Classic Rock

Just in time for the frisky fall holiday, Method Entertainment has unveiled Halloween Wednesdays at Club Dada. Instead of dressing as ghosts and ghouls, however, bands disguise themselves as other bands. Usually that’s referred to as a cover band, but hey, ’tis the season. Participating bands are composed of musicians…

Impenetrable

Sculpture magazine described Richard Stout’s work this way: “The sculptures appear to explore a space of intimate events—in spite of their rhetorical titles, compiled from grand mythological narratives…Ascetic in appearance, cryptic in connotation, yet free-wheeling, they speak a private language of passions and are hard to penetrate, except intuitively.” We…

Tasting Colleyville

Some would say that “wine aficionado” is just a fancy phrase for “wino.” But they do exist, these winemakers and experts who take the lowly grape and elevate it to the highest, most respectable quality. Jefferson Wilkes, of J.Wilkes Winery, is such a person. He’ll be in Colleyville for a…

Boys Will Be Boys

What’s up Singapore’s ass? Apparently, Cut Sleeve Boys, the feature film by Ray Yeung, was banned thanks to the Singapore Board of Film Censors’ determination that it “[promotes] the alternative lifestyle.” C’mon Singapore! Queer as Folk? The L Word? Will & Grace? Get on the gay train already. Homosexually driven…

Just Focus

British painter Nigel Cooke “combines realism with abstraction in canvases that seem to represent scenes of urban decay.” Need a visual for the artspeak? Well, it’s kind of like that increasingly irritating construction going on at the corner of Live Oak Street and Good-Latimer Expressway…in front of the Latino Cultural…

Wherefore Art Thou?

Some people think it’s sad that Romeo and Juliet died. So young, so dead. But does anyone want a drama queen like Juliet raising kids? They’d be all, “I want the Queen Elizabeth Barbie, NOW!,” and she’d be all, “I can’t take this whining. I’m gonna run over to my…

Sugar High

Some great literature was born amid the social revolution of the ’60s. Whether a utopian society of happiness or one of post-apocalyptic turmoil, everyone had their own ideas of what society should and could become, and a 1964 novella by Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar, gave us a little bit…

O-69

I keep meaning to make it to GayBingo, but it just never seems to happen. Why that is, I don’t know. The appeal is tantalizing. Campy drag queen hosts, hunky dudes, extravagant theme nights and opportunities to win some cash—who can resist that? (Well, other than my dad…) But I’m…

Pizza Hut Breakdown

You couldn’t have Ozzfest anywhere but the Tyson’s Chicken Zima Dome. It wouldn’t be a hip-hop summit if it wasn’t held at the Exxon Propecia Bennigan’s Sportatorium. So where else would you have the 2006 Frisco Bluegrass Festival than at Pizza Hut Park? Bluegrass is an enjoyable musical art form…

The Country Rapunzel

That long hair down past her knees. “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” Loretta Lynn’s baby sister. “I’ll Get Over You.” The namesake gift shop in Nashville. “Talking in Your Sleep.” Those duets with Eddie Rabbitt and Gary Morris. “Our Love Is on the Faultline.” The One from the…

Perfectly Marvelous

I recently rented the movie Cabaret and, of course, Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey again knocked my socks off. It’s the part Minnelli was born to play. But I’d forgotten what a fascinating story wrapped around the music. Set in Germany just before the rise of Hitler and the Nazi…

Artful Greetings

I’m not sure you can judge an art exhibit by its name, but calling a Miami-themed showcase of paintings and collages “say hello to my little friend…” is pure genius. The catch line of Brian De Palma’s classic Scarface has been repeated so often on SportsCenter and the like that…

Pepto-Bismol

Everybody’s thinking pink during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so Firehouse is sponsoring a Think Pink cocktail and dinner party with the Dallas Chapter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. All the food and drink is pink, from pink champagne to pink martinis to pink salmon. Can’t make…

Low-Key Funny

Todd Barry is tolerant: “I like cilantro, but you don’t have to.” You’ll find this quote and others among the “Great Todd Barry Quotes” on toddbarry.com. His tolerance of cilantro aside, this “great quote” and its characterization as such illustrate the kind of funny Todd Barry is: dry, clever, a…

Racing for Boobs

It’s that time of year again. Not Halloween, not the long-awaited fall weather or even the opportunity to get schnockered at Oktoberfest. It’s the annual Komen Race for the Cure on Saturday, a chance for veteran racers and novices alike to peel themselves off the couch, get some exercise and…

Dreadful

The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs forever cemented Stephin Merritt’s place among indie-rock royalty, earning countless spots on collegiate mix tapes with songs like “I Don’t Want to Get Over You,” “Papa Was A Rodeo” and “Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits” (“Let’s pretend we’re bunny rabbits/let’s do it all day…

Dreadful

The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs forever cemented Stephin Merritt’s place among indie-rock royalty, earning countless spots on collegiate mix tapes with songs like “I Don’t Want to Get Over You,” “Papa Was A Rodeo” and “Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits” (“Let’s pretend we’re bunny rabbits/let’s do it all day…

Day of the Costumes

Winter is on its way, leaves will fall and all sorts of traditions will seasonally celebrate ghosts, spirits and that which is otherwise dead or dying. While we here in the States are used to dressing as ghosts, zombies and vampires, some Americans seem to think the Mexican “Day of…

Saved by the Porno

2006 has not been kind to Dustin “Screech” Diamond. In June the former child star went public about being so totally broke that his humble Wisconsin home was in danger of foreclosure. Screech did what any industrious American pop culture icon would do when strapped for cash; he set up…

The Family Jewels

I am an idiot. At least one with tunnel vision. When I agreed to write about the upcoming International Gem and Jewelry Show, I only thought back to my geology class in college. I harked back to the days studying about quartz, feldspar and my personal favorite, muscovite. I loved…

Pike’s Peak

It’s not my job to tell you how bad Patrice Pike’s music is…it’s my pleasure. After all, it’s not her job to suck, either, but she does so voraciously and with pride. For the last decade, Pike has peddled her uniquely generic brand of crappy modern rock to audiences, first…

Tinhorns

Sure, digital cameras are great: no more waiting around for prints at the drugstore, instant gratification, edit as you go, etc. But where’s the magic? Don’t photographers miss that alchemical moment when an image mysteriously appears from a sheet of blank paper bathed in chemicals—that hands-on moment when artistry arises…