Unless you’ve seen his Monday night improv act at Dan’s Silverleaf, you wouldn’t guess from Paul Slavens’ deadpan delivery as DJ of KERA’s 90.1 at Night what an odd sense of humor he has, though the jarring transitions between songs by, say, Ted Nugent and Bongwater hint at a great…
We have definite ideas of what fall should be, and right now, Dallas isn’t meeting a single one. Good thing we can point you to a place that has the seasonal elements we’re missing–and more. The Conduit Gallery exhibits Joe Mancuso’s floral abstractions, Michael Tole’s paintings of Ripley’s Believe It…
At Dallas bars, female patrons tend to slut it up for Halloween costume contests. But to win you’ll need some clever hook too. For instance, create a wraparound fabric model of a Calatrava bridge to go as eye candy. Or if you’re busty, wear a black tank and carry an…
So you’ve promised my life will change forever. All I have to do is attend a creepy event on Halloween night at the Adolphus Hotel, 1320 Commerce St. This is the hotel you’ve also just described to me as “famously haunted.” So I’m listening, but also scared. And that’s exactly…
If it weren’t for the antagonizing scenes teasing promises of frontal nudity and gore, I’d watch a helluva lot more horror flicks. What can I say–don’t tease if you won’t please! When it comes to horror films, give me gut-puking over good plots any night of the week. Studio Movie…
Sure, Dallas can be pretty scary, but have you ever been to Fort Worth, man? There’s no way the Stockyards and the old Hell’s Half Acre aren’t haunted, especially considering all the gunfights and flophouse murders that occurred there once upon a time–and that’s just the real haunted stuff. Hangman’s…
Certain memories will stick with you forever. Like the time you tried to cheer up a weeping willow tree because you thought it was sad, or the time when you screamed “MURDERER!” at a clown and bolted out an exit door during your first haunted house experience. Ah yes, I…
Walk through the pitch-black hall of doom, run into a few corpses, or let them run into you. Don’t take that early exit; Michael Myers is just around the corner. You feel like you could potentially get sick, but there’s no turning back now. Forget about turning around to find…
George Winston is a musician who seems to be sideswiped by each passing fancy and dives in with a deep, inspired passion. He first came to prominence in the early ’80s with a series of atmospheric, New Age-ish albums of solo piano music that painted moody soundscapes and conjured images…
Watching a soccer match for me is a lot like watching Apocalypse Now. In theory, I like both of those things. Show me a documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now and I’m intrigued. But force me to watch Marlon Brando chomp scenery in the actual product, and I’m done…
On the whole, The Doobie Brothers don’t really get what they deserve. In the average music-listening American’s mind, I would be willing to bet that when they think of the Doobies, they think of the Michael McDonald years. In reality, that was only a minor part of the Doobie history…
What is it about antiques that make collectors’ hearts melt? Is it the fact that this one item could have been their great-great-grandfather’s or just the fact that it’s just really, really old? Either way, Dallas is playing host to collections from all over the world and for one weekend,…
When I look into the sky, I don’t see the ancient hunters, bears and scorpions of Greek mythology. Orion the Hunter? Thing looks more like a shot jigger to me. Having never ladled water from a well myself, the Big Dipper reminds me more of a frying pan. As for…
Perched in the branches of an ancient Hemlock tree, I lived my childhood creating my own games and solving my own questions within the forest world around me. Though the tree has since been chopped down and reduced to firewood, I owe those moments for saving me from becoming a…
The time is 1950. The place is the St. George’s Park Tea Room in Port Elizabeth, the Detroit of South Africa. On a rainy afternoon free of customers, the tiny café’s black employees, Sam and Willie, kill time practicing choreography for an annual ballroom dancing contest. Willie, the younger of…
Like the ominous fingernail moon early on in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, the bloodsucker trend is again in a waxing phase thanks to the mass cult followings of the Twilight saga and HBO’s True Blood. However, the only authentic vampires in this first (and, I can all but…
As someone who has written several musicals based on great movies, I am happy when someone takes an awesome flick and turns it into an awesome musical. In these days of Sam Raimi as Hollywood mega-director, it behooves us to take a look back at where it all began with…
Every hockey season, my best friend and I have a method of rooting for our respective teams. If I attend the game in person, I’m allowed to wear the Dallas Stars jersey (old school away circa 1999 Stanley Cup) for the entire game, but if I’m at home I don’t…
Random Fact: I once carved a pumpkin to look like Tom Cruise’s character in Top Gun. It didn’t exactly turn out the way I would of hoped. Luckily, Central Market Plano(320 Coit Road) will be holding a pumpkin carving class on Tuesday to help people perfect their carving skills. For…
You see it every day on television. So-and-so’s husband is cheating on her with his secretary but what he doesn’t know is that she’s sleeping with his brother and pregnant with his illegitimate child. That’s right. It’s the typical day in the life of a soap opera and there’s way…
Having somehow missed the team’s three games leading up to the crucial penultimate contest, I’m not confident predicting how Dallas Desire matches up to the Los Angeles Temptation in the Desire’s Lingerie Football League home finale–particularly because the Desire’s Web site doesn’t include statistics beyond player height and weight (what,…
Dressed to kill and in high heels that did, I tore up the ballroom–actually, more of a tacky country club buried in the woods of Red River Redneck County–at my high school’s senior prom about five years ago. The Cha-Cha Slide never looked so good. “Mambo No. 5” never felt…
