Best Tattoo Artists in Dallas: Travis Clancy

Travis Clancy’s studio, located in an off-the-beaten-path warehouse district in Plano, is a stunning combination of recording studio and tattoo shop. It looks nothing like the semi-sketchy shops where most of us got our first piece of art — the barbed wire wrapped around the arm or small butterfly on…

Think You’re Fat? Go See The Whale, a Play about XXXL Life

Charlie is so fat that he eats, works and sleeps on his couch, a stained horror of abused upholstery. Sitting atop stacks of old books, the couch sags amid mounds of fast-food containers, soda cans, candy wrappers, chip bags — a rotting reliquary waiting for Charlie to wheeze his last…

6 Spooky Dallas Area Ghost Tours

When’s the last time you brushed up on your Texas history? Was it, say, over a couple of beers and on a Ghost Walk? No? Well, here is your opportunity to change that. I mean, what is more frightening that hearing scary stories that took place right where you are…

Historic Things Tend to Happen When WWE Comes to Dallas

The last time RAW, the company’s long-running episodic television program set foot inside the AAC this past January, longtime WCW stalwart Sting made his first public appearance on WWE TV. Daniel Bryan – though hurt again and unsure when the company’s medical staff will clear him – wrestled his first…

5 Free & Cheap Culture Events This Week

Halloween is coming up, but that doesn’t mean you should sit at home and work on your costume all week. Your idea to dress up as a zombie Caitlyn Jenner is decidedly terrible, and your brain would be much better served by spending a little time taking in some knowledge…

Five Favorite Things: Amy Strickland

Amy Strickland’s friends call her house The Funhouse and if this were a court of law, here’s our case. In her bedroom she has three plastic half balloons on the wall and a track of working carnival lights that were once used as a sales tool, but are now used…

Dennis Hopper Returns to the Big Screen in an Old Documentary

In 1969, the late, always unpredictable and wacky actor Dennis established himself in the Hollywood system as “Billy” in his co-writing / directed debut, Easy Rider. This rebellious film set the mood for Hopper and the often wild card of roles and projects he would take on for the remainder…

A Little Less Crazy Next Time, OK, Mouse?

The Crazy Mouse, a popular and relatively tame roller coaster at the State Fair of Texas, received some unwelcome attention this week when a wheel came off the ride, striking one of its operators in the legs and landing her at Baylor Hospital. She was released the same day and…

19 Awesome Things to Do in Dallas This Weekend, October 15-18

Thursday, October 15 Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony  One of the truly great symphonists, Bruckner wrote symphonies in the grand philosophical, yet personal, tradition of Beethoven; each symphony he composed stands as a richly detailed statement on the composer’s ideology and mood at the time of writing. Often referred to as the…

Spa Castle Is the Korean Spa Your Overly Stressed Self Deserves

We’ve extolled the virtures of the Korean spa plenty of times before, so there’s really no need to rehash the fact that they are the most budget-friendly way to deeply relax in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. King Spa is one of our favorites, but its not-too-far-away neighbor Spa Castle…

Goosebumps Honors the Vigorous Fun of R.L. Stine — for a While

Here’s a scary story for you. Somewhere in Hollywood, a cabal of producers are forever zombie-ing up the corpses of long-dead licensed properties, ever hopeful that you will continue to throw your money at familiar trademarked characters even as they eat your brains. Sometimes, when a silver moon shines just…

We Play Monopoly With 99 Homes Star Michael Shannon

Michael Shannon isn’t a stickler for rules. In his career, he’s ignored most of them, especially the mandate that a theater-trained, Oscar-nominated actor should shun the large roles in dumb movies that let him afford the smart ones. (See: Kangaroo Jack, Bad Boys II, Premium Rush, Man of Steel.) Shannon’s…

5 Art Events to Attend This Weekend

Aurora  The ephemeral nature of the biennial event, Aurora, gives the whole night a sense of magic. It also requires something of visitors: clear the calendar and show up. Starting at 7 p.m. Friday, 19 city blocks will be filled with light, video and music to create a sometimes messy,…

Steve Jobs Digs at the Heart of the Apple Icon

Aaron Sorkin opens up a new desktop icon with Steve Jobs, a briskly busy, talkative companion piece to the Newsroom and Moneyball writer’s Mark Zuckerberg-centric The Social Network. Adapting Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple innovator, Sorkin’s latest is less a novel exposé than a distinctly Sorkinian dramatization of well-known…

Crimson Peak Wasn’t Made for Times Like Ours

Mia Wasikowska is proof of reincarnation. The Australian actress must be possessed by the spirit of Lillian Gish. At 22 — the same age that Gish starred in Birth of a Nation — Wasikowska became a bankable name playing the lead in Tim Burton’s garish Alice in Wonderland. In the…