There’s nothing more therapeutic than beating on something loud and hard…and with feeling. Percussion is timeless, universal instrumentation. It’s how we all unleash pain and joy, frustration and exultation—whether by sticks on a log, broomsticks on trashcans, wooden spoons on pans or palms on a steering wheel. The world is…
Hear ye, hear ye! Gather ’round and rejoice ye North Texans, for ’tis a wond’rous time in the Year of Our Lord 2006: It’s the season for Scarborough Motha-effin’ Ren Fest, bitches! Bust out your corsets (pun intended), your man-tights, your bigass turkey legs and mugs o’ mead, because somebody’s…
I had the privilege of being in one of Teatro Dallas’ productions back in their old downtown space. A budding actor, I had dreams of Academy and People’s Choice Awards and director Cora Cardona took a small chance on me, albeit with a mid-sized role. But for that one moment…
If only life were like a typical Neil Simon play. Anger would be expressed with quips and gags. So would pain, sadness, happiness, horniness, loneliness and any other -ness you could think of. Existence would play to a laugh track, and the never-ending punch lines would be broad and telegraphed…
The Frisco RoughRiders weren’t too good at baseball last year (they finished 24 games under .500), and yet the minor league club drew more fans than any other Double-A team in the country. Why? Perhaps it was the bathrooms. That’s right, the bathrooms. Visit the RoughRiders’ Web site (ridersbaseball.com), click…
Hit Stout on its one-year anniversary for Casino Night. Play blackjack, roulette and Texas Hold ’Em with chips redeemable for cool gift certificates. And give Stout credit. It’s hung on for 365 days in a location legendary as the home of Poor David’s Pub. Somehow they managed to scrape off…
Listening to artist Max Kazemzadeh talk is like colliding with a truck carrying art history audiobooks. Plus, the guy could wire a remote control to activate his blender if he wanted to. Techy quirks coupled with his art-school pedigree can make for some interesting art. Check out his latest exhibition,…
The French are a cruel, heartless people—just look at how they ruthlessly withhold man’s right to put ketchup on his filet mignon. The Southern Methodist University French Club is continuing the tradition with the latest showing in their French film festival: Qui A Tue Bambi? It translates to “Who Killed…
A writer and comedian whose résumé includes both “contributor for The New Yorker” and “creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Andy Borowitz certainly seems interesting. So it’s no surprise that the Dallas Institute for Interesting People has asked him to be a part of their lecture series. What’s surprising…
Q: What did one Deadhead say to the other Deadhead after the LSD wore off? A: “Man, this band sucks!” If you think that joke is totally harsh, you probably won’t definitely avoid seeing Dark Star Orchestra, a Grateful Dead cover band making its way to the Lakewood this Thursday…
If you spend your weekends banging your head in rock clubs you should give your head a break this time. Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey examines heavy metal with an anthropological eye toward sex, death and religion. It’s a lot of brain power focused on music that (seemingly) doesn’t require much…
Comics seem to have a good track record at developing sitcoms. There’s Jerry Seinfeld and Ray Romano, of course, but I also have to confess a liking for Kevin James’ King of Queens. Now comic Kevin Brennan is developing a sitcom for NBC. We’ll get to see if he can…
The Andy Milonakis Show: The Complete First Season (MTV) Another Public Enemy (Tartan) A Boy Named Charlie Brown (Paramount) Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King (Sony) Doctor Who: The Beginning Collection (BBC Warner) Don’t Deliver Us From Evil (Mondo Macabre) Godzilla: The Series (Sony) Hot Wheels (Warner Bros.) I Love Your…
“You want an easy job, go join the Red Cross,” someone says well into Thank You for Smoking, a gleeful farce about capitalist mendacity based on Christopher Buckley’s 1994 bestseller. The implication, made drummingly plain in the film’s every bon mot, is that our ethical barometers skew lazily toward goodness…
If French writer André Malraux was correct when he claimed that “all art is a revolt against man’s fate,” the most horrific events in human history can give rise, incongruously, to images of soul-searing beauty. How else to explain the stunning black-and-white images that fill Fateless, the story of a…
We are in the middle of a B-movie renaissance, if you haven’t noticed. For years now, the politics of the multiplex have forced films to be either big-budget, Burger King-cup blockbusters or tiny “indie” projects about college-educated Caucasians with emotional problems (and viewed by college-educated Caucasians with emotional problems). But…
If you’re craving an antidote to the sanctity of repressed gay cowboys, you could do worse than Adam & Steve. This good-natured comedy from writer-director Craig Chester uses gently sly wit to poke fun at neurotic gay singles, coming of age in the 1980s and dating in the era of…
Lesley Dill Dill combines a variety of material–horsehair, wire, thread, tea, glue, ribbon, paper, felt, organza–to create work that is at once precious and weird. The wall-scaled “Blonde Push” brings to mind the enormous fringy brushes of a car wash without the whim and froth of suds. Long strands of…
Diaries of a Barefoot Diva: And Other Tales and Stories From the Ghetto The residents of a rundown building on MLK Boulevard become subjects of a documentary by an aspiring filmmaker in this new musical by its star, Sheran Goodspeed Keyton, and composers Joe Rogers and Aaron Petite. The comedy…
Rats, The Mousetrap is back. So is The Phantom of the Opera, that great and glorious hunk of cheese from the grand vizier of musical cheddar, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. The former is onstage at Theatre Three; the latter has parked its high-fat touring production in the Music Hall at…
Fort Worth hosts two exhibitions spotlighting the “grid” as a bearer of structural order in painting and the city. The shows feature work from the ’80s–the 1880s and the 1980s, that is. And no two exhibitions could be so different. If the panoramas of Texas cities in Patterns of Progress…
Wonder Showzen: Season One (MTV) On the surface, the way this MTV2 puppetfest explores adult concepts through a kiddie-show format seems fresh as a Nantucket limerick. But Wonder Showzen’s execution is so bold and frankly hilarious that it feels wholly new. Whether it’s exploring diversity with a forbidden homosexual love…
