Look, if you’re going to get smart-ass about the name of the “Backdoor” comedy club, you most certainly deserve to be in the audience and not onstage. See, the Backdoor’s annual New Year’s Eve extravaganza is coming up, and it’s way better to be drunk and laughing at the jokes…

Once you have an “Elegant Dinner on the Titanic” at a grocery store, you’ll never let go, Jack. Never let go. Because you can be blase about some things, Rose, but not about the Titanic and the re-creation of a first-class meal thereon. Wait for absolution at Central Market, where…

Jo Koy is one of the few comedians to ever receive a standing ovation after performing on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Which is understandable, considering the sleep-inducing effect Jay Leno has on most people with brains. Still, Koy’s an up-and-comer with an impressive resume: He won Showtime at…

Remember all that vintage shopping you did for your Mad Men party this year? How you struggled to find the perfect Joan skirt or a just-right Don Draper hat or a little plaid dress that says “Peggy Olson is pregnant and crazy?” And how now those clothes are hanging sadly…

Henry Cho has said he does not want to be known as an Asian comic. Too bad every article ever written about him talks about how he’s Asian and a comic. And clearly a weekly paper calendar listing is the time and place for a meaningful discussion about race and…

Unlike peanut butter and jelly, Jon Gosselin and Ed Hardy, and Carrie Prejean and the definition of stupid, some things were not meant to be together. Like, say, orange juice and toothpaste, cats and dogs, and health care reform and comprehensive women’s medical services. But if you’re still one of…

It’s not for nothing that the visual arts are often perceived as being pretentious–it’s hard not to roll your eyes when some mouthy street punk decides to call his found-art-and-tampons exhibit On the Rise and Fall of Love and Mao and Symbolic Interactionism on My Heartface or some similar crap…

Ever since Barack Obama took office, have you noticed a springier spring in your step? A little extra oooo in your ooomph? Well, you have David Plouffe to thank for it. Because the press release announcing the former Obama campaign manager’s appearance in Dallas wants you to understand, in no…

If I told you that Bruce Vilanch is a gay comedian who has written material for Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and the Donny and Marie Show and co-authored the gay anthem “Where Is My Man” you might think, “Oh, he sounds like a fun dude!” But you still wouldn’t really…

I’m worried about Kevin Nealon. Not because he smokes too much pot–I mean, Weeds is just a TV show, and there’s no way a cool, smart, hilarious, handsome famous person would ever do something heinous and illegal like smoke pot in real life, right? Right. No, my concern is this:…

If you’re here, and you think Texas isn’t queer, you might need to get your senses cleared. The Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau has been promoting the city’s plentiful LGBTQ offerings for years, and maybe you’ve heard of that giant, massive pride parade every year over in Oak Lawn? The…

Many universities make a pretty penny off their sports programs, cultivating players and teams who unite and inspire their schools weekend after weekend, creating a space where academics and athletes alike can celebrate their respective strengths. And then there are places like Oklahoma University, where finding someone who can spell…

It’s almost unfair for any post-Travolta production of Grease to even exist in the world. Once someone takes over a character like Danny Zuko–flat, meatheaded at best–and turns him into a sex symbol for the ages, any subsequent portrayal that isn’t a spitting image of the original is going to…

Nail polish and vacuum cleaners and Sex and the City and THE COLOR PINK ZOMG! Do I have your attention, ladies? Because I know that there are only a few things that girls like and understand, so I want to make sure to hold your attention (SHOES!) while I talk…

If you’re lucky, you get to live in a city famous for something wonderful. Paris, perhaps, if you’re a couture fashionista. London, maybe, if finance gets your blood pumping. Darwin, Minnesota, if living within the same city limits as the world’s biggest ball of twine sounds like something you could…

Back in the ’80s, if you were a member of a hair band (and don’t act like that’s terribly difficult to imagine, daydreamer of spandex fantasies) it’s very possible that you’d have picked up the phone (after tossing off whatever lithe, coke-dusted groupie had fallen asleep strewn across the nightstand)…

Anyone who’s ever borne witness to a particularly taut Speedo, watched a gratuitous ’80s metal video or seen anyone other than an American Apparel model actually wearing American Apparel knows: Spandex doesn’t have the world’s best reputation. Perhaps its most redeeming quality is that it is the preferred fabric of…

Anyone who’s ever seen The Lion King knows that “Hakuna Matata” is Swahili for “no worries.” But we’re not going to be snippy if an aide society wants to use the phrase to help out impoverished kids in Chhattisgarh, India. If you, like us, think all people–no matter what language…

Hello, country music fan. I sense that you are also a patriotic citizen of the United States of America, and I am also relatively certain that you have an excellent memory for tragic events in our country’s past. Ah, wait. Perhaps I am not coming across to you properly. Allow…

You could be forgiven for thinking that America is no longer proud to be the land full of gun-toting, flag-bikini-wearing dipshits the Euros have been reckoning us for all these years. After all, Barack Obama is president, FoxNews is a running joke for anyone who can read above a first-grade…

He’s got a decent rank in Comedy Central’s list of greatest stand-up comics of all time. He’s white and middle-aged, known for politically incorrect humor, attacks on the media, politics and various other favorite comedy punching bags. Half-Catholic, half-Jewish. These could describe any number of notable stand-up comedians, but we’re…

An unremarkable, even unattractive Britain’s Got Talent contestant takes the stage. Simon Cowell licks his chops. The audience groans. Beautiful people are, as everyone knows, the only people with talent. But gosh, it’s been so long–a good 15 or 20 minutes–since we last saw a train wreck, and it’s getting…