People With Issues
Todd Hall, 36, was sentenced to a year in prison after his conviction in Bentonville, Ark., in June for habitually biting the toes of his son, which Hall said he did up to age 6 as routine discipline. (He had earlier been on probation for the disciplinary biting of his 10-month-old daughter.) In June in…
Least Competent Criminals
A Polynesian man in his 20s was being sought as the robber of the Black Diamond Equipment store in Salt Lake City in June. He made off with some gear from the ski and climbing accessory store, but had originally demanded jewelry, as he apparently thought he was knocking off a “diamond” store. Motorist Zackary…
Least Competent Criminals
A Polynesian man in his 20s was being sought as the robber of the Black Diamond Equipment store in Salt Lake City in June. He made off with some gear from the ski and climbing accessory store, but had originally demanded jewelry, as he apparently thought he was knocking off a “diamond” store. Motorist Zackary…
People With Issues
Todd Hall, 36, was sentenced to a year in prison after his conviction in Bentonville, Ark., in June for habitually biting the toes of his son, which Hall said he did up to age 6 as routine discipline. (He had earlier been on probation for the disciplinary biting of his 10-month-old daughter.) In June in…
Fine Points of the Law
An 18-year-old, severely mentally challenged, Paris, Texas, man was sentenced in February to 100 years in prison for a single act of what might amount to the childhood sex game of “doctor” with a 6-year-old neighbor. The man has an IQ of 47, and no coercion or violence was involved, but the jury was not…
The Continuing Crisis
The New Age movement might be growing too inclusive, according to a July report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (published in a city where the concept of “New Age” is already highly nuanced). “(P)agans feel jilted,” wrote the reporter. “Chiropractors want out (of consideration),” “channelers wonder if they belong,” and “organic farmers don’t want…
Super Friends: The Lost Episodes
2009 Back in the days when Saturday morning meant cartoons, one stood above all the others for me: “Super Friends.” In its various incarnations throughout the 1970s and 1980s, its colorful superhero stories remained the highlight of my weekly, cereal-abetted ritual. The double-disc set “Super Friends: The Lost Episodes” rounds up two dozen adventures that…
The Continuing Crisis
The New Age movement might be growing too inclusive, according to a July report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (published in a city where the concept of “New Age” is already highly nuanced). “(P)agans feel jilted,” wrote the reporter. “Chiropractors want out (of consideration),” “channelers wonder if they belong,” and “organic farmers don’t want…
Fine Points of the Law
An 18-year-old, severely mentally challenged, Paris, Texas, man was sentenced in February to 100 years in prison for a single act of what might amount to the childhood sex game of “doctor” with a 6-year-old neighbor. The man has an IQ of 47, and no coercion or violence was involved, but the jury was not…
Hannah Montana: The Movie
2009 Back in December, we Gazette reviewers were asked to predict the worst movies of 2009 and I chose “Hannah Montana: The Movie.” Well, now I’ve seen it and, unlike the falsely humble, I love it when I’m right. Prepubescent girls, the only audience for which this thing is intended, are said to love horses.…
The Wild Man of the Navidad
2008 Remember all the 1970s’ Southern-fried cryptozoological flicks like “The Legend Boggy Creek”? The moonshine-infused spirit on those no-budget docudramas is bottled, shaken and spilled in “The Wild Man of the Navidad,” an anarchic-in-inception film on one of nature’s unnatural. Dale S. Rogers (co-writer and co-director Justin Meeks) is a welder in the dirt-poor, redneck…
Spring Break
1983 With “Spring Break,” director Sean S. Cunningham revisited the sex-crazed teens that made him a rich man three years earlier with “Friday the 13th.” Only this time, he didn’t kill them. But you may wish he had. “Spring Break” is one of those harmless, but completely stupid T&A comedies that helped define the 1980s,…
Dark Rising
2007 Although billed as a horror comedy, Canada’s “Dark Rising” is neither scary nor funny. It is, however, haphazard and amateurish. Its logic-challenged story begins “Princess Bride”-style, with an old man telling a tale at bedtime to a young girl. But then the girl, Summer, is whisked away by demons to another dimension. The film…
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
It should be an excellent week for potato chip breakfasts, rapid mood shifts, and short-duration flirtations. The abundance of superficial exchanges that will be available to you could actually add up into something resembling meaningful breakthroughs. You will have the chance to explore the art of the five-minute epic conversation, as well as the science…
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I got an interesting spam today. A company that said it was very proud of its high-quality work offered to sell me phony credentials that are impossible to distinguish from the real thing. What caught my attention the most were the degrees from Harvard and Stanford. I wouldn’t mind having one of those up on…
The Producers’ has sex-crazed grannies, flamboyant Hilters, Nazi pigeons
Lyric brings a bevy of Broadway stars to the Civic Center stage for its production of “The Producers.” The Tony Award-winning musical is based on the 1968 Mel Brooks film of the same name, about scheming theater producers Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, who embark on a scheme to bilk their investors out of millions…
New report slaps needed county jail overhaul with huge price tag
The election season draws nearer every day, with city and county officials hoping voter fatigue doesn’t set in early. Through most of the spring and summer, Oklahoma City leaders have been hitting the public relations button to gear up citizens for another taxpayer-funded improvement package. Dubbed MAPS 3, the proposal costing hundreds of millions of…
As Kansas takes reins on Oklahoma/Kansas passenger rail line, Oklahoma waits to see results
Oklahoma is in a prime position with passenger rail, especially with a designation as a federal high-speed corridor. Kansas doesn’t have that luxury, but that’s not stopping Oklahoma’s northern neighbor from taking steps toward a passenger line that connects it to Oklahoma City. With pre-applications and studies in the works, Kansas is working toward a…
Lemma’s formula is little Quiz Bowl, all rock ‘n’ roll
Lemma is two full-time musicians, a doctoral student and an abstract geometry researcher. It’s a mathematical formula ” a puzzle worth solving. Together, the band ” Blake Lennon, Jeff Wesner, Aaron Newman and Luke Mullenix ” is a foursome of academi-nerds who seem to be more than the average metro act, playing locally, but dreaming…
The cost of war
Any discussion over what to do about Oklahoma’s high incarceration rates must begin with the general acknowledgment the so-called “war on drugs” has been a failure here and across the country. Nationally, taxpayers pay about $69 billion on an annual basis to fund this war, first declared by former President Richard Nixon in 1971, according…
Local dating company is helping speed up matchmaking process
In this fast-paced lifestyle we live today, it’s hard to find time for love. But thanks to a few clever entrepreneurs, we can now find it in just six minutes. Heather Mitchell started the speed-dating company Date or Fate in October of last year, she said. Speed dating is exactly as you see it in…
Arrested Tulsa man creates Internet news
What did you do this past week or so? Pay some bills? Change the oil on your car? Perhaps go out to dinner? Whatever you did, it was nothing compared to the whirlwind life of Beau Taylor. The 31-year-old Tulsan made headlines by making one up, which was a feather in his cap that began…
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Don’t whine and complain just because your guardian angel seems to be driving hard bargains lately. You’re actually on better speaking terms now than you’ve been in some time. Before the sweeter talk can begin, though, the two of you still have to work out kinks left over from previous miscommunications. Besides, there’s a method…
Norman church hosts free Back-to-School event
Get ready for another year of pencils, books and teachers’ dirty looks at the Back to School Roundup and Information Fair. Now in its fifth year, the free, three-hour event is designed to give children around the Norman area everything they need to start the school year, said John Helton, event director. Held from 10…
Police arrest former Sooner Holieway
Some news stories are just too hard to read. For University of Oklahoma football fans, this story in particular hurts as much as a linebacker blitz. One of the darlings of Sooner football lore found himself behind jail bars “¦ again. Jamelle Holieway led the Sooners to the national championship in 1985 as a freshman…
Krebs is haven for Italian cooking, other gastro goodies
If the more adventurous eaters among Oklahoma travelers ever decide to nut up and try a plate of lamb fries, they might do well to remind themselves of the wise words of Homer Simpson, when trying to talk daughter Lisa out of becoming a vegetarian: “Lisa, this is lamb, not a lamb.” FAMILY STYLE NO…
Orphan
“Orphan” is more psychological thriller than actual horror movie, but since we haven’t had a full-throttle horror flick so far this year, “Orphan” can be an honorary one. The delightfully creepy 12-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman has the title role. Vera Farmiga (“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”) and Peter Sarsgaard (“Rendition”) star as the Colemans, a…
Krebs is haven for Italian cooking, other gastro goodies
If the more adventurous eaters among Oklahoma travelers ever decide to nut up and try a plate of lamb fries, they might do well to remind themselves of the wise words of Homer Simpson, when trying to talk daughter Lisa out of becoming a vegetarian: “Lisa, this is lamb, not a lamb.” FAMILY STYLE NO…
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In Salmon Rushdie’s story “The Prophet’s Hair,” a greedy man intentionally cripples his four sons when they’re young, hoping to turn them into beggars who elicit profound sympathy and large cash donations. The plan is successful. His sons earn him a good income. Later, however, he comes into possession of a potent talisman — a…
New report slaps needed county jail overhaul with huge price tag
The election season draws nearer every day, with city and county officials hoping voter fatigue doesn’t set in early. Through most of the spring and summer, Oklahoma City leaders have been hitting the public relations button to gear up citizens for another taxpayer-funded improvement package. Dubbed MAPS 3, the proposal costing hundreds of millions of…
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Ideally, you wouldn’t even be reading this. You’d be white-water rafting along the Franklin River in Tasmania, or riding on “the train at the end of the world” in Tierra del Fuego, or observing Golden Bamboo lemurs in the rainforest of southeastern Madagascar. Ideally, Sagittarius, you’d be far away from any newspaper that carries my…
(500) Days of Summer
The romantic comedy is a genre as propagandistic as any World War II-era flag-waver. That’s understandable, given how rom-coms are about indulging moviegoers’ lovesick fantasies, not rubbing their figurative faces in the dirty reality of relationships. That’s why you’ve got to admire a picture as cheerfully impish as “(500) Days of Summer” and the zeal…
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
A Slovenian adventurer named Martin Strel swam the length of the Amazon River in Brazil. It took him over nine weeks to travel more than 3,000 miles. Previously he had breast-stroked his way down the entire Yangtze River in China, a distance of almost 2,500 miles. He scoffed at the idea of conquering the River…
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Ideally, you wouldn’t even be reading this. You’d be white-water rafting along the Franklin River in Tasmania, or riding on “the train at the end of the world” in Tierra del Fuego, or observing Golden Bamboo lemurs in the rainforest of southeastern Madagascar. Ideally, Sagittarius, you’d be far away from any newspaper that carries my…
Chesapeake’s Aubrey McClendon aims to cement legacy with sprawling campus
Two pages into Chapter 4, Grandpa Joe tells a wide-eyed Charlie how a work-obsessed Willy Wonka shuttered his candy factory for fear of spies. He chained the gates and told thousands of workers to go home. One day, months later, a wisp of vapor wafted from the smokestack, Grandpa Joe recalled. The whirring of machines…
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Make sure that no one except you will be able to tear asunder what you join together in the coming days. Tie knots that will never slip. Build bridges that can’t be burned. Send emails that cement new alliances and plug yourself into networks that are crackling with high-energy connections. Stock up on safety pins,…
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In Salmon Rushdie’s story “The Prophet’s Hair,” a greedy man intentionally cripples his four sons when they’re young, hoping to turn them into beggars who elicit profound sympathy and large cash donations. The plan is successful. His sons earn him a good income. Later, however, he comes into possession of a potent talisman — a…
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Make sure that no one except you will be able to tear asunder what you join together in the coming days. Tie knots that will never slip. Build bridges that can’t be burned. Send emails that cement new alliances and plug yourself into networks that are crackling with high-energy connections. Stock up on safety pins,…
Norman church hosts free Back-to-School event
Get ready for another year of pencils, books and teachers’ dirty looks at the Back to School Roundup and Information Fair. Now in its fifth year, the free, three-hour event is designed to give children around the Norman area everything they need to start the school year, said John Helton, event director. Held from 10…
Republican blames party split on Oklahoma senator
Could the Civil War be back on (inside the Republican Party, at least)? And could an Oklahoman have a lot to do with it? As reported on CNN.com’s Political Ticker, it seems one Northern Republican believes his Southern GOP brethren are to blame for the party’s failures with the public the past few years. And…
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
On the one hand, you may find yourself unable to flow as freely as you’d like to in the coming week. I foresee the possibility that your streaming currents will get dammed up in places, or else shunted into narrow conduits that constrict your natural surge. On the other hand, this could compel you to…
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Don’t whine and complain just because your guardian angel seems to be driving hard bargains lately. You’re actually on better speaking terms now than you’ve been in some time. Before the sweeter talk can begin, though, the two of you still have to work out kinks left over from previous miscommunications. Besides, there’s a method…
Arrested Tulsa man creates Internet news
What did you do this past week or so? Pay some bills? Change the oil on your car? Perhaps go out to dinner? Whatever you did, it was nothing compared to the whirlwind life of Beau Taylor. The 31-year-old Tulsan made headlines by making one up, which was a feather in his cap that began…
Chesapeake’s Aubrey McClendon aims to cement legacy with sprawling campus
Two pages into Chapter 4, Grandpa Joe tells a wide-eyed Charlie how a work-obsessed Willy Wonka shuttered his candy factory for fear of spies. He chained the gates and told thousands of workers to go home. One day, months later, a wisp of vapor wafted from the smokestack, Grandpa Joe recalled. The whirring of machines…
Bright Ideas
By early July, Jonathan Baltesz and his wife and kids were desperate to find their 10-year-old black Labrador mix, Simon, who had run away. They had one more plan, however. The family members urinated into containers and sprinkled the contents at various locales around their town (Bristol, England), laid out so that Simon could follow…
As Kansas takes reins on Oklahoma/Kansas passenger rail line, Oklahoma waits to see results
Oklahoma is in a prime position with passenger rail, especially with a designation as a federal high-speed corridor. Kansas doesn’t have that luxury, but that’s not stopping Oklahoma’s northern neighbor from taking steps toward a passenger line that connects it to Oklahoma City. With pre-applications and studies in the works, Kansas is working toward a…
Bright Ideas
By early July, Jonathan Baltesz and his wife and kids were desperate to find their 10-year-old black Labrador mix, Simon, who had run away. They had one more plan, however. The family members urinated into containers and sprinkled the contents at various locales around their town (Bristol, England), laid out so that Simon could follow…
Museum screens ‘The Windmill Movie’ documentary
Alexander Olch’s documentary “The Windmill Movie” is a difficult film to like, and an impossible film to love. Like its subject, documentarian Richard P. Rogers, it dissembles and remains at a distance from its audience. This lack of lovability isn’t surprising. The movie began as a documentary made by Rogers to chronicle his own life.…
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Underdogs are on an upsurge. Topdogs are on a downswing. The rebels have something resembling God on their side. The masters merely have money and propaganda. It’ll be an excellent week to launch strikes, boycotts, and protests. It’ll be prime time to say no to smiling manipulators. The best efforts, whether coming from you or…
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
I expect that you will soon stumble upon a key secret to your next masterpiece. And I’ll be surprised if you don’t discover a healing agent that will be effective in correcting an old mistake. In fact, Aries, I prophesy that in the coming week, you will have a sense that you’re doing the smart…
Museum screens ‘The Windmill Movie’ documentary
Alexander Olch’s documentary “The Windmill Movie” is a difficult film to like, and an impossible film to love. Like its subject, documentarian Richard P. Rogers, it dissembles and remains at a distance from its audience. This lack of lovability isn’t surprising. The movie began as a documentary made by Rogers to chronicle his own life.…
Ghostlight closes the deal with a production of David Mamet’s ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’
tegrity of an expert vocalist singing Schubert. Here would be a good point to cite an example, but it is impossible to find a sentence in the profanity-laced script that is quotable in this newspaper. INTERPRETATION This production shows how open to wide interpretation Mamet’s dialogue is. David Mays as Moss is menacing, when he…
Lemma’s formula is little Quiz Bowl, all rock ‘n’ roll
Lemma is two full-time musicians, a doctoral student and an abstract geometry researcher. It’s a mathematical formula ” a puzzle worth solving. Together, the band ” Blake Lennon, Jeff Wesner, Aaron Newman and Luke Mullenix ” is a foursome of academi-nerds who seem to be more than the average metro act, playing locally, but dreaming…
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
I expect that you will soon stumble upon a key secret to your next masterpiece. And I’ll be surprised if you don’t discover a healing agent that will be effective in correcting an old mistake. In fact, Aries, I prophesy that in the coming week, you will have a sense that you’re doing the smart…
Custom cars, electric guitars will growl at third annual Okie Twist-Off
Okie Twist-Off celebrates an entire culture of custom cars and brash music that its organizers openly describe as “trash culture.” What that culture sounds like and looks like isn’t as simple as one might think. Organizers Kevin Burden and John Manson both pointed to the legendary 1980’s Oklahoma City venue The Bowery Club as their…
The cost of war
Any discussion over what to do about Oklahoma’s high incarceration rates must begin with the general acknowledgment the so-called “war on drugs” has been a failure here and across the country. Nationally, taxpayers pay about $69 billion on an annual basis to fund this war, first declared by former President Richard Nixon in 1971, according…
Holy reality show
Apparently believing that religious competition in the Middle East is not exciting enough already, the television station Kanal T in Istanbul, Turkey, is preparing a reality game show for September release in which 10 certified atheists try to resist conversion by a priest, a rabbi, a Muslim imam and a Buddhist monk. The exact rules…
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Underdogs are on an upsurge. Topdogs are on a downswing. The rebels have something resembling God on their side. The masters merely have money and propaganda. It’ll be an excellent week to launch strikes, boycotts, and protests. It’ll be prime time to say no to smiling manipulators. The best efforts, whether coming from you or…
Paseo gallery displays works from Venezuelan, Danish artists
An exhibition featuring abstract-inspired art by a painter from Venezuela and a potter from Denmark opens Friday at JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker. The show spotlights the work of Thomas Batista, who came to Oklahoma from Venezuela when he received a scholarship to study fine art at Oklahoma City University, and Birthe…
Wade Crow – The Crazy Social
The most interesting music venue in Oklahoma City could very well be inside Wade Crow’s mind. Club Crow isn’t a dark corner, but it’s definitely a hole in the wall’ the kind of place one can visit to hide in plain view amongst friendly, staggering strangers. The Oklahoma City musician’s latest, “The Crazy Social,” is…
Oklahoma lawmakers join Obama ‘birther’ movement
The “birther” movement, a ploy to raise questions about whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States, thereby meeting the qualifications to be president, has been getting a lot of attention lately. During the last legislative session, state Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, floated a measure requiring proof of citizenship for candidates.…
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
It should be an excellent week for potato chip breakfasts, rapid mood shifts, and short-duration flirtations. The abundance of superficial exchanges that will be available to you could actually add up into something resembling meaningful breakthroughs. You will have the chance to explore the art of the five-minute epic conversation, as well as the science…
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
On the one hand, you may find yourself unable to flow as freely as you’d like to in the coming week. I foresee the possibility that your streaming currents will get dammed up in places, or else shunted into narrow conduits that constrict your natural surge. On the other hand, this could compel you to…
Custom cars, electric guitars will growl at third annual Okie Twist-Off
Okie Twist-Off celebrates an entire culture of custom cars and brash music that its organizers openly describe as “trash culture.” What that culture sounds like and looks like isn’t as simple as one might think. Organizers Kevin Burden and John Manson both pointed to the legendary 1980’s Oklahoma City venue The Bowery Club as their…
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I got an interesting spam today. A company that said it was very proud of its high-quality work offered to sell me phony credentials that are impossible to distinguish from the real thing. What caught my attention the most were the degrees from Harvard and Stanford. I wouldn’t mind having one of those up on…
Beautification Station Cruisin’ OKC travels across metro
All aboard the Beautification Station, which just might stop at a neighborhood near you on Saturday. Beautification Station Cruisin’ OKC is a free bus tour that stops in neighborhood sites around Oklahoma City to show off landscaping and beautification projects in parks and near homes, said Nicki Largent, office manager for OKC Beautiful. The tour…
Police arrest former Sooner Holieway
Some news stories are just too hard to read. For University of Oklahoma football fans, this story in particular hurts as much as a linebacker blitz. One of the darlings of Sooner football lore found himself behind jail bars “¦ again. Jamelle Holieway led the Sooners to the national championship in 1985 as a freshman…
Beautification Station Cruisin’ OKC travels across metro
All aboard the Beautification Station, which just might stop at a neighborhood near you on Saturday. Beautification Station Cruisin’ OKC is a free bus tour that stops in neighborhood sites around Oklahoma City to show off landscaping and beautification projects in parks and near homes, said Nicki Largent, office manager for OKC Beautiful. The tour…
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
A Slovenian adventurer named Martin Strel swam the length of the Amazon River in Brazil. It took him over nine weeks to travel more than 3,000 miles. Previously he had breast-stroked his way down the entire Yangtze River in China, a distance of almost 2,500 miles. He scoffed at the idea of conquering the River…
Holy reality show
Apparently believing that religious competition in the Middle East is not exciting enough already, the television station Kanal T in Istanbul, Turkey, is preparing a reality game show for September release in which 10 certified atheists try to resist conversion by a priest, a rabbi, a Muslim imam and a Buddhist monk. The exact rules…
Republican blames party split on Oklahoma senator
Could the Civil War be back on (inside the Republican Party, at least)? And could an Oklahoman have a lot to do with it? As reported on CNN.com’s Political Ticker, it seems one Northern Republican believes his Southern GOP brethren are to blame for the party’s failures with the public the past few years. And…
Local dating company is helping speed up matchmaking process
In this fast-paced lifestyle we live today, it’s hard to find time for love. But thanks to a few clever entrepreneurs, we can now find it in just six minutes. Heather Mitchell started the speed-dating company Date or Fate in October of last year, she said. Speed dating is exactly as you see it in…
Awesome Color shoehorns rainbow into gutbucket of fuzz, distortion
Awesome Color is a throbbing, distortion-drenched trio drawing deeply on the rich rock heritage of its Michigan home, channeling the propulsive thunder of Detroit acts like The Stooges and MC5, and blending it with the chunky crush of noise rockers, before ladling spacey, groove-addled psychedelia on top. Although Michigan residents, the trio met and formed…
Oklahoma lawmakers join Obama ‘birther’ movement
The “birther” movement, a ploy to raise questions about whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States, thereby meeting the qualifications to be president, has been getting a lot of attention lately. During the last legislative session, state Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, floated a measure requiring proof of citizenship for candidates.…
Awesome Color shoehorns rainbow into gutbucket of fuzz, distortion
Awesome Color is a throbbing, distortion-drenched trio drawing deeply on the rich rock heritage of its Michigan home, channeling the propulsive thunder of Detroit acts like The Stooges and MC5, and blending it with the chunky crush of noise rockers, before ladling spacey, groove-addled psychedelia on top. Although Michigan residents, the trio met and formed…
