During the eighth grade, every girl in my school came down with a raging fever that caused them to behave even more crazily than usual. The cause? Teenybopper rock band Hanson, who were in the process of taking over the world. My oh-so-edgy friends and I had but one recourse:…
Life’s challenges, while harrowing and stressful, are made happily more tolerable if one has a trustworthy friend by one’s side. Especially if that friend’s name is whiskey. Ever faithful, always smooth in a pinch, whiskey makes even the most painful of situations, like an ex’s wedding or an early staff…
Hey, kids! Wanna play a game? Tell your mommy or daddy to drop you off at at the mall so we can have some fun together. I’ve got a very special game for us to play together, and I think you’ll like it very much. I like to call it…
I have never been the world’s biggest fan of children, even when I was one. In junior high, I cringed every time a kid addressed a teacher as “Hey, miss!” And when I completed my first and only baby-sitting job, I was exhausted from chasing a naked 6-year-old boy around…
Robert Caruso is an internationally known psychic medium. How do we know? Because his Web site says so. And if the Interweb says Robert Caruso is internationally known, well, it must be true and we’re just woefully behind in keeping up with our famous psychic mediums. Heck, you’re probably wondering…
For thousands of years, humans have constructed shrines and places of worship to honor the things we value most. These physical manifestations of holiness give our souls a place of refuge—from China, where many-layered pagodas rise toward the sky, to Europe, where the great, gilded cathedrals of Christianity inspire awe…
Kids bear the burden of many unreasonable expectations based on sweeping generalizations about who they are. Does every boy wanna be a baseball player? Every little girl a pretty, pretty princess? And what of the Kids Love Frogs exhibit at the Skillman Southwestern branch of the Dallas Public Library? Maybe…
Calling all of DFW’s experienced locksmiths: Are you available for a one-time contract assignment this weekend in Grand Prairie? Local talk radio station Live 105.3 is hosting what they’re calling “DFW’s Largest Frat Party” that night at the Nokia Theatre. Can you work quickly and quietly, sealing Nokia’s doors from…
Bringing up baby: Nineteen months ago, Kelley Cato and his wife, Tracy, knew their lives were about to get a lot more stressful. That’s just part of life with a new baby: An infant’s job description is pretty much just to cry, whine, demand food at odd hours and poop…
Used to be, when you wanted to hang with Mr. Cooper, aka comedian Mark Curry, you tuned into TGIF. In 2004, you’d hang by watching Celebrity Mole: Yucatan, somehow without injuring yourself or others. Today, you can see the comedian where he really shines: onstage. Curry’s at the Addison Improv,…
Truly great feats have been achieved by few members of our downtrodden human race. While many of us slog through life, filling the bank account up every two weeks only to find ourselves stretched thin in a few days’ time, some among us have mastered the art of living. They…
The line of cars stretches a few hundred feet back from the window where a clerk in a tie-dyed shirt is handing a case of Corona over to a guy in a low-rider pickup truck. Standing somewhere down the line between a Kia and a Ford is Jazmin, who wears…
Few activities satisfy the soul like imitating an old-school film noir private detective: “Hey, see! Get Carmilla on the line, see? We’ve gotta get to the station, see?” Ah, those were the good old days, when men ran around in trench coats and women wore nothing but red lipstick and…
Supposedly everything’s bigger in Texas; I haven’t seen a lot of evidence to support that claim, especially since my bank account does nothing but shrink and the miniskirts and tank tops on the smaller-than-life Texas girls at NorthPark Center get tinier all time. But one reliable constant remains: monster trucks…
It was the kind of day when even a quick dash across a parking lot means a sticky, sweaty shirt and glistening hairline. Despite the heat, Shelly sat in her car, her hands gripping the steering wheel, her heart pounding. For 30 minutes, the blond, beautiful woman sat shaking. The…
We bestow many great honors upon prominent deceased members of our human race. Some are immortalized with statues, others are featured in portraits painted or photographed by the world’s most talented artists. Big, shiny buildings borrow a deceased’s surname, and scholarships and foundations do the same. Bo-ring. Who wants a…
Been experiencing a stifling sensation lately? Maybe you’ve got too much soul. Best to chop some up, Lord Voldemort-style, and dump soul slices somewhere else. But if you’re a good-hearted weirdo who wants to hang on to your soul, it might be better to get rid of some different sole—not…
It’s not often a building gets compared to a stuffed animal, but that’s the implied comparison the president of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History makes when he talks about the 66-year-old building: “It has been loved to death.” For many native (and nerdy) North Texans–this writer included–the…
Altruism is overrated, especially in light of that 15 minutes of PerezHilton.com surfing time you lost because you feel obligated to chat with Lonely Steve over in accounting. How ’bout something special for number one? Do it guilt-free: for the next three Thursdays (August 9, 16 and 23), all the…
A couple of weeks ago, my father, who by all accounts is a reasonable man despite an unusual enthusiasm for pinto beans and windbreaker jackets, was mowing the lawn. It was sunset in the outskirts of the quiet Arlington sub-suburb of Mansfield. My father, a land developer, was dutifully clipping…
We say: “pink baby head.” You think: WTF? Us too, when we heard about the Pink Baby Head party-exhibit-art-installation-thing at the Pawn Gallery in Deep Ellum this Friday. We’d love to tell you more about Pink Baby Head, but all we found on pinkbabyhead.com was a pink baby head. Even…
Recent studies suggest that if your friends are fat, you’re likely to be a porker, too. No wonder. It’s much easier seat six for some tasty apps at Applebee’s than it is to cram them into a doctor’s exam room for some BMI analysis. So load up the whole crew…
