The best thing I’ve ever done on vacation is, well, not die. My vacations have included riptides, Mexican taxis and even a Category 4 hurricane, and I figure I’ve used up all my “Avoid Hell’s Gates” passes. So you won’t see me boarding a plane to the Dark Continent to…
In high school, I won a Martin Luther King Jr. essay contest about diversity and was featured—baggy pants, bangs and all—in the local newspaper. I’d forgotten all about it, but when I was home for the holidays I found the old news clipping laminated and posted in my old room…
He could make you quit smoking. He could make you conquer your stage fright and sing that rousing rendition of “Sweet Caroline” you’ve always wanted to sing…Or comic hypnotist Flip Orley could make you piss yourself in front of a live audience (from laughing too hard, mind you). Take a…
In my efforts to figure out what exactly an aquatint is, which failed miserably, I came across a couple of interesting Picasso vignettes: As a boy, the legendary Spanish painter took lessons from his father, an art teacher who often took his son to bullfights. When he noticed his son’s…
Notes on a Scandal, brilliantly adapted by Patrick Marber from the darkly comic Zoë Heller novel, is a grim piece of work—Fatal Attraction for the art-house crowd, shorn of its predecessor’s fearful misogyny. Set in a dreary London where a gray funk of fog and cigarette smoke hangs over everyone’s…
I am sorry to say that Peter did not feel very well that evening. His mother put him to bed and gave him a dose of chamomile tea. ‘One tablespoon to be taken at bedtime.’ But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper. —Beatrix Potter,…
For nearly a decade, Dallas theaters benefited from an unlikely patron saint: Chuck Norris. With his CBS action series Walker, Texas Ranger, shot in North Texas from 1993 to 2001, Norris employed many a local actor to stand on the receiving end of his title character’s faked karate fan-kicks. Regular…
Robert Wilonsky and Jordan Harper recap their top DVDs of 2006: Eraserhead (Absurda/Subversive): Finally available on DVD, David Lynch’s debut film is as captivating and frustrating as it ever was. The print looks great in its own weird way, and the feature-length doc shows Lynch speaking more clearly about his…
Despite Link’s green tunic and Peter Pan hat, he remains Nintendo’s most respected badass. In the long-awaited Twilight Princess for the Wii, the elf hero begins yet another quest to save the world with his trademark bombs and boomerangs. Minor déjà vu aside, Twilight Princess becomes nothing short of an…
You’d think with the Great One as their coach, the Phoenix Coyotes would be one of the better teams in the NHL. But you’d be wrong. Gretzky was great as a player, but so far he’s been a bust as a coach and executive. The Coyotes have missed the playoffs…
There was a time when rock ‘n’ roll was closely linked with concepts of identity, sexuality and gender. Remember Bowie’s skinny androgyny? Lou Reed’s seedy underbelly of drag queens and blow jobs? Iggy Pop’s eyeliner? It’s difficult to picture rock embracing such touchy and complex issues in today’s pallid music…
What are we—Chopped Liver? We’re sure that’s a line that never gets old to the comedians of Chopped Liver. That last sentence was sarcasm, a trait probably appreciated by the small improv ensemble, who are also part of Five Buck Improv (FBI). On Friday, they’ll share a bill with Greg…
Shooting a portrait is all about capturing subjects as they truly are. Well, fine, OK, not exactly capturing the subject, literally, but capturing the spirit of the subject. Their mood, expression, split-second emotion can all be captured in a well-shot photograph. That’s part of the artistic aspect, though—the stuff for…
Saltwater aquaria are often seen as the domain of the rich—those whose Christmas mornings brought a Beemer, a French bulldog and a Blackglama stroller. And while it’s true that a marine aquarium is more pricey than putting a betta in a bowl, with a little ingenuity, you can have a…
When I was a young lad, I went fishing nearly every summer on a charter boat off the coast of South Padre Island. Almost invariably, the captain of said vessel would play Jimmy Buffett cassettes during our voyage, ostensibly believing the friendly sounds of “Cheeseburger in Paradise” would draw in…
I did a fantastic job warming the bench for my high school soccer team. Sure, in Texas, the benches stay pretty warm on their own—but my soccer coach saw from the first day that I had talent in the ways of bench-warming, and she wouldn’t let those heat-radiating cheeks go…
Law and Order taught us to question lie-detector tests. Since we know polygraph results can be unreliable, scientists are digging deeper (thanks to brain imaging and neurotechnology) to show us the truth. Cool, right? Not so much—now we have to deal with the ethical problems of tapping into people’s brains…
Back when I was in my big ’50s phase at about 12 years old, I was appalled to learn that my mother once traded an Elvis autograph (my granddad rode on a plane with him once) for Pat Boone’s. Seriously. See, she grew up on oil bases and all the…
Little kids are funny. They can’t walk very well, they’re not very smart and they smell weird. They’re like a bunch of tiny Anna Nicole Smiths. My favorite thing that happens when the little bastards are around is when their parents pick them up in the air and smell their…
If there’s any animal that’s definitely been screwed over by mankind, it’s the turtle. We’ve polluted its habitat, stolen its eggs, caught it in fishing nets, driven some species to near extinction and, perhaps most heinously, forced it to live at the mercy of small children. The film Amphibious (Login-Logout)…
With a film title like The Cave of the Yellow Dog, I’m not sure what to expect. My first thought was a mashup of Crouching Tiger and any Jim Jarmusch film. However, when I read details about the movie, six words killed any interest there might have been for this…
Quick, be an Englishman! Do your Cockney damnedest! Chances are, you just straightened up a bit, acquired an invisible monocle and said something like, “Right ho, Jeeves!” Or, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t take orders from a newspaper article, you just kept reading to find out what…
