Skate, grapple and roll
You have to pay bills and manage budgets. You have to shop for groceries and prepare your own meals if you want to eat. That said, there are also some perks. If you want to have muffins for dinner, no one can stop you. It might not be incredibly healthy for your overall well-being to…
OKG7 places to try in 2013
S&B’s Burger Joint7745 S. Walkersandbburgersokc.com631-0983 If you’ve been to S&B, then you understand why it’s popular enough to be opening another location to feed the hungry masses. If you haven’t dined on its inventive burger combinations, cheese cubes or smothered fries, it’s time to add that to the top of your 2013 resolution list. Still…
Sky high
The brew debuted on New Year’s Eve at Grandad’s Bar, 317 N.W. 23rd. Brad Stumph, Black Mesa co-owner and partner, said the name is a tribute to Woody Guthrie. In “This Land Is Your Land,” the Oklahoma-born folk icon sings, “As I went walking that ribbon of highway and saw above me that endless skyway…
Juice boost
It’s fair to say that your body is probably a little bit addicted, and drinking a bunch of juice doesn’t sound appealing, or even possible. That’s where Vidya can assist you. “If a longer juice fast sounds too intimidating, take it one day at a time,” said founder Claire Ragozzino. “Starting out with a one-day…
Shell game
And how many of those fancy foods do you actually want to eat? Because while caviar and pâté sound quite hoity-toity, the hoi polloi are often less excited when they’re served fish eggs and mashed goose liver. Steak can be fancy, but you can also get it at Denny’s. But lobster? Lobster is fancy. If…
Curry in a hurry
Spice and Rice is behind a filling station and convenience store on the east edge of Norman’s Campus Corner. Because of close proximity to campus and limited space in the tiny strip mall, parking is a bit of a nuisance, but it’s worth the hassle. Don’t go looking for fancy at this one-room restaurant, which…
The Mad Magician
Just as he’s about to hit the big time with his super-secret buzz-saw trick, however, his show gets axed and his boss claims proprietary rights to all of Gallico’s stage tools. As all mad magicians as wont to do, Gallico snaps and kills the guy by — and this fits the theme — decapitation via…
Zero Dark Thirty
Some, including Republican Sen. John McCain, accuse director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who last collaborated on The Hurt Locker, of falsely suggesting that intel gleaned through torture is what led the CIA to bin Laden. The controversy is at a fever pitch. Is ZDT a nearly journalistic work? Is it morally repugnant propaganda?…
Wuthering Heights
Costume dramas are not my thing. That goes double when they’re staged with an epic sweep — true tests of patience and bladder resolve. So there’s something admirable about directors tackling oft-adapted material with a decidedly different approach, which could account for two such pictures making many a critic’s 2012 best list: Joe Wright’s Anna…
The Loneliest Planet
It’s curious that the Internet Movie Database has classified The Loneliest Planet as a “thriller,” since the film forgoes not just all that genre’s trappings, but narrative altogether. Forty-nine minutes pass before an act of what passes for conflict occurs. Ironically, doing so further slows a glacial pace. The existential Western Meek’s Cutoff looks like…
Dewey Binns — High Character
Hailing from the decidedly unglamorous city of Lawton, Dewey Binns is the sort of blue-collar rapper everyone can get behind, but he’s just as book-smart as street-smart, as evidenced by this Steinbeck-esque collection of hip-hop vignettes. One gets the feeling that Binns rarely was satisfied with his first word choice, refining each line with the…
Michael Summers — More
Plus, I just like writing “Honky Cat.” This winning formula that has made Michael Summers the Michael Bublé of the 405 carries throughout the entirety of More. So slip on your finest cocktail dress, load up on olives and pour yourself a tumbler full of the perfectly blended tunes. “Secret Love Affair” is the way…
Dirty Red & the Soulshakers — Soul Shakin’
Opening with the innuendo-laden “Cornbread,” which makes you want to sop up all forms of sexual beans and greens, lead singer Eric “Dirty Red” McDaniel’s powerfully soul-drenched vocals and funky harmonica immediately let you know you’re in for a long, sweaty night. The pure, rolling thunder of “Shotgun,” with its impressionable refrain of “My shotgun…
Citizen Fred — Citizen Fred
After several listens, I’m still trying to process the idea behind it: Is the Oklahoma City act a joke band? Is it ironic art? Is it music to pump iron to? Or am I just overthinking it? Several songs are wonderfully hard-charged aggro-rockers that make you want to drive your beat-up ’Vette 110 miles per…
‘Hyde’ and shriek
Teal Wicks has it easy in Jekyll & Hyde — and not just because, unlike the musical’s star, she doesn’t have to fill two roles. No, playing Dr. Jekyll’s fiancée in the current national tour is a breeze because she’s not required to carry every scene. The actress spent the better part of 2011 being…
Decisions of politics and compassion
We know what is causing the pain. Jane has a bad gallbladder that is full of stones — easy to fix. In the hospital Friday morning for surgery, home Friday afternoon, back at work Monday morning. Like hundreds of thousands of hardworking Oklahomans, Jane has no insurance and no way to pay for the surgery. …
Hot or not
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that McClendon will likely remain in place as CEO after an internal investigation of his financial dealings is completed later this month. McClendon, you might remember, survived a shareholder revolt after revelations that he used his stake in oil and gas wells as collateral for more than $800 million…
Sweet charity
Munn, ranked 18th, has been working with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the USDA to help animals and kicked off DoSomething’s “Green Your School” campaign with a rant about light switch and faucet offenders and “those people who drive those really big Hummers.” Underwood, coming in at No. 17, lent her support…
Parker Millsap can’t lose
Parker Millsap is a classic case of a voice not fitting the person from whom it emerges. Slight, squeaky-clean and still somewhat baby-faced, Millsap is a sharp dresser — often sporting a bow tie, button-down shirt and cardigan — and near-constantly shadowed by his rambunctious, black-and-white mutt, Mavis. It’s the sort of dapper wholesomeness of…
‘21’ ain’t just blackjack, folks
But lest ye think conspiracy-mongering is isolated to the House side of the Oklahoma Legislature, state Sen. Patrick Anderson, R-Enid, is here to disabuse you of that notion. While “Agenda 21” might sound like some villainous plot to rain down chaos on the order of cats and dogs living together, it’s actually a nonbinding set…
Cliff hanger
“He was pilloried by many within his own party who said that taking Cole’s approach amounted to surrendering before the fight had even started. More than a month later … it turns out that Cole was, in the main, right,” wrote The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza. “It’s the difference between tactics (a series of one-off…
Kali raw
Most musicians are reluctant to speak about a band breakup, but when they do, it’s almost always in a pre-approved, press-release manner that may as well be the recording industry’s version of the once-romantic couple’s face-saving lie: “It was a mutual decision.” But local musician David Goad has no problem baring his soul. “I’ve been…
A good Egg
“We’re going back to the way radio used to be,” he said. “There’s lots of listener interaction, and since we’ll program all the music here, we’ll take requests and play dedications.” It’s a marked change for Moore, whose experience with corporate radio structure included stints at KRXO, KTOK and KYIS (then KZBS). Deregulation of radio…
Tiger would
Everyone in their mid-20s to 30s arguably carries a certain guilty pleasure for the pop-punk and pre-guyliner emo tunes of the likes of Taking Back Sunday, Brand New and Blink-182. Oklahoma City’s own Tiger Lily is more upfront about its appreciation. Luckily, a new generation of bands, including The Wonder Years and The Story So…
Going downtown
“For several years, the university and the law school have been looking for a location in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City,” said OCU Law Dean Valerie Couch. “Just being all under one roof is going to be wonderful for us.” In 2009, before Couch came aboard, law school officials considered a possible relocation to…
Looking for options
On Jan. 2, the council passed a project requirements document for the streetcar, but some members expressed reservations about the proposed route and stressed that it is in no way finalized. The council’s action means that the streetcar project consultant, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., will coordinate its efforts with other MAPS 3 consultants, the Central…
In the neighborhood
When Compassionate Care Cottages, LLC, opened five months ago, it was the result of several years of planning by co-owners Karon Betts and Valentine Umeh, who met while working at a large living center in Oklahoma City. They both saw patients succeed in the institutionalized setting, but there were others who needed something else. “Some…
Hope Springs
Not without extreme difficulty, she somehow persuades Arnold to visit a marriage counselor (a misused Steve Carell, Crazy, Stupid, Love.) in another town for a week of intensive therapy — good for their relationship, bad for the viewer, for whom it feels like sitting in sessions in real time. At nights, in their room at…
Hansel & Gretel
Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante (Headless Horseman), the fractured fairy tale takes place in the modern day, with Hansel (Brent Lydic) and Gretel Grimm (Stephanie Greco) ending up prisoners in the fattening-up forest cabin of Lilith, the town’s seemingly kindly baker who’s actually a witch, played way over-the-top by Dee Wallace Stone, a long ways…
Listen up again
Following up our list of 2012’s best local albums, here are our picks for the 10 top singles. 1. Sooner the Sunset, “All Because of You”If there is a formula to writing the perfect folk pop song, Graham Colton clearly has it, and to give him an equally formidable singer-songwriter to play off of (Lindsey…
Hand job
The OKC-based Lips issued an emergency tweet Jan. 4 via its Twitter account, although the concise wording sure sounded like it had come from the elegant quill of Coyne: “Fuck!!!!!! Someone stole Laser Hands!!! Please please please!! At South Bound Festival !!!Fuck!! Help us!!!” Concert organizers even got in on the search, offering an award…
The Inbetweeners Movie
Freshly graduated from high school and donning custom-made “Pussay Patrol” T-shirts, the four venture to the coastal Crete town of Malia for two weeks of constant drinking and, with luck, shagging. As uninspired as that setup is, it allows England to prove it can make teen comedies as unfunny as we Americans. As one expects,…
Sleep Tight
His only joy in life is waking up next to the beautiful, young Clara (Marta Etura, The Impossible). Too bad she’s not conscious of such a relationship — and quite literally. He abuses his access to apartments by hiding under her bed and waiting for her to fall asleep, whereupon he dons a surgical mask,…
Dredd
In this case, Dredd succeeds where the 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle Judge Dredd did not: ringing true to the roots and spirit of the UK-based comic — an anarchic, dystopian world. In doing so — you’re not missed, Rob Schneider — the action’s just way better, too. Set in a future U.S., some 800 million…
Dick Tracy
As its director, producer and star, Beatty aimed to translate Chester Gould’s iconic comic strip from the funny pages to the silver screen, and he did that wonderfully – with the help of its Oscar-winning production design and makeup effects, of course. The backlot artifice serves a purpose; the primary colors burst with wide-eyed appeal;…
T.I. — Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head
Guests include A$AP Rocky, Cee Lo Green, R. Kelly, Meek Mill, André 3000 and Lil Wayne, among others. Solid production comes from the likes of Pharrell, Jazze Pha, No I.D. and frequent T.I. collaborator DJ Toomp. Overall, Trouble Man is a pretty solid album. T.I. raps about his reputation as a troublemaker, but is largely…
I Am Bruce Lee
For example:• He was a child star in Hong Kong — the Macaulay Culkin of his day and place.• He was a 1957 cha-cha champion.• In college, he was obsessed with General Hospital.• He was quoted as saying, “My obsession is to make, pardon the expression, the fuckingest action motion picture ever made.” That film…
Looper
In Looper, writer/director Rian Johnson crams in so many, it initially looks as if this sci-fi actioner might collapse under the weight of them all. Dystopian society, time travel, telekinesis, gangland killings — there are a lot of ground rules to keep track of here, much of them conveyed through the wobbly device of a…
The road not taken
In contradistinction, the relegation of decision-making to a small number of policymakers with homogeneous thought processes and goals risks error.InI The Ikea Effect in Business states that one who is responsible and emotionally invested in the creation of an idea will be more likely to resist the alteration or rejection of the idea even if…
LETTERS
Oklahoma Gazette provides an open forum for the discussion of all points of view in its Letters to the Editor section. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Letters can be mailed, faxed, emailed to pbacharach@okgazette. com or sent online at okgazette.com, but include a city of residence and contact…
LETTERS
Oklahoma Gazette provides an open forum for the discussion of all points of view in its Letters to the Editor section. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Letters can be mailed, faxed, emailed to pbacharach@okgazette. com or sent online at okgazette.com, but include a city of residence and contact…
OKG7 resolution-worthy stops
Cafe Antigua1903 N. Classen Blvd.602-8984 If at all possible, get the special. It’s usually a creative collaboration of regular menu items and the day’s freshest ingredients. The cuisine is chiefly Guatemalan and the breakfast dishes are incredibly tasty. Expect migas-style eggs, fresh fruit, toast and Guatemalan oatmeal. If you’re in a hurry, grab a smoothie,…
Sierra Club kudos
Credit: Brad Gregg But we all know the list America has been waiting for … Best civic infrastructure, of course! Oklahoma City’s Santa Fe Intermodal Station has edged out the Gangnam Style Boardwalk, the Binders Full of Women Carpool Lane and the Claire Danes Cryface Light Rail to become the No. 1 transportation project of…
Your cheatin’ heart
Travis Jones Credit: Shannon Cornman And if she doesn’t, then Travis Jones will sell someone the technology to prove it beyond a doubt. Don’t think you can outsmart them. They’ve got technology on their side. Close, a local private investigator and owner of myspousecheats.com, is perfecting the art of catching unfaithful spouses by using GPS…
Sober school
Janet Oden and Mike Maddox Credit: Mark Hancock Now in its seventh year, Mission Academy is a project of Teen Recovery Solutions, formerly known as the Oklahoma Outreach Foundation. The fully accredited, private high school is designed for teens emerging from treatment for drug and alcohol abuse. “Some concerned citizens discovered that kids who came…
Chile outside
By: Mark Hancock Names like Frontera, Concha y Toro and Walnut Crest offered buyers drinkable wines at less than $10. While Chile remains a value-based market, new names are emerging and better-quality wines are now appearing on metro shelves and wine lists. Concha y Toro is probably the best known Chilean label. Along with secondary…
The Electric Primadonnas — Clergymen
The band snaps wide awake with Clergymen. The album sounds like the sort of surreal dreams the collective must have been having in the time leading up to last month’s release. Clergymen plays like a version of Alice in Wonderland painted in pastel watercolors: bold ideas and bolder actions portrayed by a watchful eye and…
Road to a vote
Credit: Mark Hancock However, at least one group, Friends for a Better Boulevard (FBB), opposes the idea and will continue to request that the council consider a “no build” option. The boulevard is set to be built in the old Interstate 40 crosstown right of way. The project, headed by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation…
An app for that
Several local apps have gotten in on the game, making it easy to find a restaurant, choose a beer, hear tunes from metro bands, schedule a spa day and even dabble in philanthropy. The idea is to make your day-to-day activities as simple as a round of Temple Run. “[Nearly anyone] can pick up a…
Presto Pranzo!
Credit: Shannon Cornman Seriously, is there anything more uncomfortable than feeling like you don’t fit in? If you’re anything like me, you might have a few issues with the way you look, even if others don’t. And sitting in an overly ornate dining room where everything is crisp and just-so can feel stifling. Who can…
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel
You might not know it, but chances are Diana Vreeland has a great deal to do with what you think when it comes to fashion, style and design. As fashion editor for Harper’s Bazaar and, later, editor of Vogue, she injected post- World War II America with an almost revolutionary sense of, as she put…
Joining forces
Kristy Larson and Charles Shah “We care about the future; we care about the progression of the future,” said Charles Shah, president of the local Gay and Lesbian (GL) Sierra Club. “Being a gay man myself, I think the environment is a humankind issue. These two groups of people — Sierrans and gay people —…
Please sign here
Credit: Brad Gregg “It was the greatest feeling,” said Glenn, a Norman resident, recalling when he had the former NBA great sign his right arm so that a tattoo artist could make the signature a permanent fixture. And while Rodman’s badboy persona might not seem like a good symbol of family values, Glenn said the…
The great cover-up
Credit: Brad Gregg If not, a quickie recap: The ostensible scandal occurred on Sept. 11, 2012, when terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Early public statements by White House officials incorrectly attributed the violence to a protest against an anti-Muslim video. A recent…
Bearing arms
Credit: Shannon Cornman But that wasn’t all. Miles Hall, owner of H&H Shooting Sports Complex in Oklahoma City, said public demand for firearms, ammunition and gun safes came quickly following the news. The rush to buy guns was partly provoked by comments from President Barack Obama, who hinted at renewed guncontrol policies at a Dec.…
Mayo, my!
By: Mark Hancock At least, not around acclaimed Oklahoma chef Kurt Fleischfresser, whose renowned culinary chops were hired to amp up the flavors of Taco Mayo, the 34-year-old Oklahoma-based, Mexican-food chain. “They are quick-service restaurants,” he said. Fleischfresser may be best known for heading up the sophisticated, award-winning Coach House and other Western Concept restaurants.…
Liquid energy
Credit: Brad Gregg That’s great news, if only the powers that be would stop trying to sabotage it. A recent issue of The Intelligence Report, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), features a story on Comanche County resident Paul Pantone and his invention, named the Global Environment Energy Technology, or GEET. Pantone said…
Straight outta high school
“The name Kulprit D came from when I was walking through my old high school band room one day, and people were looking for me … and everyone was saying ‘Where is he, where is he?’ I walked through the door and they go, ‘There’s the culprit right there!’” said D, real name Dakoda Rollins.…
Snow job
Credit: Brad Gregg And so it was on Christmas Day that children and adults alike woke up and rushed to the window for a glimpse of that winter wonderland … only to find things exactly as they’d left them the night before. While parts of Oklahoma did receive significant snowfall that day, the flakes that…
Citizen Dick
“Of course I miss Oklahoma. Most of my family’s from Oklahoma, so there’s always a hole in the place of them,” said Dick, who hails from the Caddo County town of Cogar. “It seems to be that every time I come back through, there’s always some new thing, especially Oklahoma City. That seems to be…
