Golden Boys

For pretty much as long as I’ve been watching football, Brett Favre has been just about the coolest guy in the NFL. Whether it’s his cameo appearance in There’s Something About Mary, his ever-present three-day beard or the time he threw for four touchdowns and nearly 400 yards the day…

Barnaby the Scribbler

Not only does SMU art professor Barnaby Fitzgerald have an old-timey name, he also paints the type of old-school broads you might find in a Greek mythology textbook, lounging around eating apples with some naked dudes and minotaurs. His latest exhibit, Barnaby Fitzgerald:…complexions of the avatars…, collects a number of…

Shop Till You Bop at Forever Young Records

Dallas has no shortage of decent record stores, from Good Records to CD Source to CD World to Bill’s. (Though, honestly, I haven’t darkened Bill’s door since he charged me damn near $20 for a Pearl Jam single in 1994. I’ve always believed in price tags, after all, even at…

One Dead Lady

Our Lady of 121st Street premiered off Broadway in 2003, telling the story of a gang of old friends who reunite to mourn a nun from their school days. Somewhere in the typical funeral chatter, they find themselves confronted with (surprise!) a murder mystery. If I had to ballpark it,…

‘Tis the Season

I’ll be straight with you—I’m a sucker for the holiday jams, whether it’s “White Christmas,” “Carol of the Bells” or the classic Darlene Love/Phil Spector joint “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” I know I’m not alone on this (I’m also pretty sure I’m not the only person around that will…

Finders Keepers

As anyone who’s ever read FOUND magazine can attest, you can find some pretty interesting stuff stranded in the parking lots, dumpsters and landfills of our society. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” or so they say (or in the case of Dirty FOUND, one man’s porn is another…

Country Music Medium

If I had to pick between being a Hank Williams impersonator and being an Elvis Presley impersonator, I’d have to go with Hank Williams. After all, the Elvis market is saturated, man. Jason Petty made the same choice some time back, doing eight years of research with Hank’s family, band…

Hallguest

I’ll admit it. Back in 1995, I saw Houseguest in the theater. And you know what? I thought it was funny. To see Sinbad fake his way through a tooth extraction while pretending to be Phil Hartman’s dentist friend…well, that’s the stuff of Comedy Central dreams, amigos. See the man…

House Guest

If you’ve had a chance to catch Curb Your Enthusiasm this season, then you’ve probably laughed your ass off at Leon Black, the adopted houseguest/refugee played by comedian J.B. Smoove. Or perhaps you caught on to his comedic genius early, when he played Trucky in the bizarre 2001 comedy Pootie…

Far Out East

NOH—Angels, Demons and Dreamers is the new project by critically lauded performance artists Fred Curchack and Laura Jorgensen, known far and wide as purveyors of strange and wonderful theater. The five plays which make up the program—Dream of Katan, Sotoba Komachi, The Bird-Catcher in Hell, Shunkan in Exile and Hagoromo—will…

Death on Two Wheels

Motorcycles are dangerous. This is a proven fact. But hey, you gotta die somehow, right? Might as well do it on one of the hundreds of sweet, tricked-out bikes and choppers on display this weekend at the Cycle World International Motorcycle Show. See hundreds of new 2008 models, as well…

Message Sent

I think it’s safe to say we’ve come to the point in our society where Internet flirting is a generally accepted form of courtship. In the interest of full disclosure, I do say this as someone who met their significant other on MySpace, but I still stand behind my statement…

Walk The Dinosaur

When I got the Walking With Dinosaurs DVD set a few years back, I was totally stoked, though I think some of my college girlfriends were a little disturbed. During one viewing a girl that shall remain nameless said “what the hell is that?!” about 50 times rather than simply…

In The Halls

I was a few weeks from high school graduation on April 20, 1999, roughly the same age as Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I vividly remember the news frenzy that day, as well as what it was like to be a high school student in the weeks afterward,…

Up In Smoke

The play Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage tells the story of a “feisty rodeo competitor” called Big 8 and a “one-eyed Ukrainian biker named Black Dog,” spoofing the classic Western stylings of author Zane Grey along the way. And if Grey’s name doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps this will—one…

Gated Blaxploitation

Saint of the Suburbs, a new exhibit by artist Zoë Charlton, consists of work which “combines the black female figure and the suburban ideal to create a sublime and simple beauty.” From the work we’ve seen, this means paintings that split the difference between samey subdivisions and juicy booties. And…

Musical Portraits

Texas Singer-Songwriters: An Americana Portrait is a new exhibit of images by photographer Gary Goldberg, who was so taken with Texas country and folk music that he dedicated himself to getting shots of musicians from all across the state. The names read just like the ones on the records we…

Southern Girls

We’ve probably seen Steel Magnolias 30 or 40 times by now. After all, we grew up in a family with a great affinity for Dolly Parton. But we’ve never seen it on the stage, and while the version of Steel Magnolias currently playing at the Granville Arts Center is probably…

The Right Fight

Attorney Morris Dees is best-known for creating the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization founded in 1971 to protect civil rights while fighting racism. The center provides free legal counsel to victims of hate crimes and has won several landmark cases against white supremacist groups, which have responded in typically…

Evan Almighty

Artist and designer Evan Hecox is largely known for his skateboard work, which makes fine use of the rolling canvases by filling them with bright color and subtle commentary on “the everyday existence of the average person as they traverse the detritus of the modern metropolis.” He’s also shown his…

Honk If You Like Honk Jr.

At first we mistook Honk Jr. to be a French adaptation of the 1979 autobiography of Bocephus, Living Proof. However, though it would certainly be entertaining to see an actor sing “Family Tradition” in a slight French accent, this was not to be. Instead Honk Jr. adapts the time-honored tale…

All That Jazz

We often wonder what it’s like for artists slugging it out on the tribute circuit, dragging out their best versions of songs by dead guys (or guys we wish were dead like, say, Steve Perry). Luckily for jazz musicians/tribute artists Patti Austin, Byron Stripling and Paul Mercer Ellington, the source…