When I was a young lad, I went fishing nearly every summer on a charter boat off the coast of South Padre Island. Almost invariably, the captain of said vessel would play Jimmy Buffett cassettes during our voyage, ostensibly believing the friendly sounds of “Cheeseburger in Paradise” would draw in…
I did a fantastic job warming the bench for my high school soccer team. Sure, in Texas, the benches stay pretty warm on their own—but my soccer coach saw from the first day that I had talent in the ways of bench-warming, and she wouldn’t let those heat-radiating cheeks go…
Law and Order taught us to question lie-detector tests. Since we know polygraph results can be unreliable, scientists are digging deeper (thanks to brain imaging and neurotechnology) to show us the truth. Cool, right? Not so much—now we have to deal with the ethical problems of tapping into people’s brains…
Back when I was in my big ’50s phase at about 12 years old, I was appalled to learn that my mother once traded an Elvis autograph (my granddad rode on a plane with him once) for Pat Boone’s. Seriously. See, she grew up on oil bases and all the…
Little kids are funny. They can’t walk very well, they’re not very smart and they smell weird. They’re like a bunch of tiny Anna Nicole Smiths. My favorite thing that happens when the little bastards are around is when their parents pick them up in the air and smell their…
If there’s any animal that’s definitely been screwed over by mankind, it’s the turtle. We’ve polluted its habitat, stolen its eggs, caught it in fishing nets, driven some species to near extinction and, perhaps most heinously, forced it to live at the mercy of small children. The film Amphibious (Login-Logout)…
With a film title like The Cave of the Yellow Dog, I’m not sure what to expect. My first thought was a mashup of Crouching Tiger and any Jim Jarmusch film. However, when I read details about the movie, six words killed any interest there might have been for this…
Quick, be an Englishman! Do your Cockney damnedest! Chances are, you just straightened up a bit, acquired an invisible monocle and said something like, “Right ho, Jeeves!” Or, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t take orders from a newspaper article, you just kept reading to find out what…
Urban Gypsy’s upcoming symposium of writhing tribal gyrations features a class called “Dancing Darkly—Introduction to Gothic Belly Dance.” Despite the ominous title, we’re guessing it has little to do with listening to Bauhaus and ritualistically burning your forearms with a lit cigarette. Sorry to disappoint. But there are still a…
The Oceanaire Seafood Room at the Westin Galleria, 13340 Dallas Parkway, has its seafood flown in daily. Not trucked, not driven. Flown. Anyway, in celebration of the restaurant’s four-year anniversary, it is offering a special through the month of January. Between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., Chef Chad Kelley will…
During the holiday season last year, I visited my in-laws and was treated to the DVD of whatever “blue-collar” comedian was hot at the time. I don’t remember the comedian’s name or even a single joke, but I do remember deciding that I must not have been blue-collar enough to…
When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go…Uptown? That’s not the song that we’re used to, but it works. A similar new twist on old favorites can be found at the Uptown Players’ Broadway Our Way fund-raiser. This year’s event takes selections from hits such…
As a former college runner and current disdainer of cookie-cutter cities, I am going to have an unusual dilemma next week. Ordinarily, I’d love to race the Resolution Run, but as luck would have it, it will be held in Addison, the home of every chain restaurant known to man…
While still a relatively new sport compared to baseball, basketball or couples ice dancing, freestyle motocross has already forged its own memorable history within a few short years. We all remember where we were that fateful day in 2000 when Carey Hart first pulled off a backflip in competition. I…
Back in the early to mid-’90s, I had the biggest crush on my friend Jon. When we hung out there was always this undercurrent between us that said we were a good match…in my mind anyway. Unfortunately, youth on both our sides and naïvete on mine resulted in nothing happening…
We’re not quite sure what the genesis of the Pink Floyd laser light show tradition actually is, but we hope it’s this: Way, way back in time—you know, the ’70s—geeky young scientist types who worked at the museum were bemoaning the spiraling popularity of the planetarium. Whereas wholesome youngsters once…
Imagine two game producers rushing down the hall. One wants to pitch a WW2 game, the other a sci-fi shooter. They round a corner, crash into each other, and their papers go flying everywhere — and in one of those great “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!” moments, Resistance:…
Airwolf: Season Two (Universal) Be With Me (Film Movement) Dane Cook’s Tourgasm (HBO) Danica (First Look) Factotum (IFC) The Family Values Tour 2006 (Firm Music) Girls Behaving Badly, Volume One (Starlight) Haven (Fox) Mars Invades the Earth! (Alpha) Mi Amigo (Velocity) Mr. Fix It (First Look) The New Adventures of…
Jackass Number Two: Unrated (Paramount) The sequel to the dumb-ass jamboree makes its predecessor look plain and inoffensive. In short: more puke, more blood, more semen (from a horse, consumed nonetheless), more shit, more piss, more everything till you’d think the Jackasses (Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, etc.) would be…
While the Seattle SuperSonics may not exactly top the NBA standings this year, there are two little words that should encourage you to check out their stand against the Mavs 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the American Airlines Center: Ray Allen. How badass is he, with the He Got Game acting…
If Mel Gibson made Spaceballs today, he’d be up to his tequila-hole in defamation lawsuits. But in 1987 (before political correctness exploded), Mel Brooks was given a little more leeway to take pot shots at the chosen people. And while the movie is filled with stereotypical jabs at the “Druish,”…
Sometimes you want to go to the museum and touch stuff. You know, really mess with it and see what it’s made of and what it can do. Unfortunately, that sort of behavior is usually frowned upon and could even get you in some serious trouble. Not so with the…
