Respect the office
This is simply not the case with regard to our federal debt situation or our economic situation at the time that President Obama took office, and it does not hold now. The long-term effects of 30 years of government deregulation of economic markets; privatization of public services; de-investment in our nation’s infrastructure; easing of tax…
You call that green?
I’ve never seen such a conflicted publication. First, according to core samples at landfills, it’s not disposable diapers, but newspapers (including Oklahoma Gazette) and Yellow Pages taking up all that space. Next Greg Horton sings the praises of a so-called man of God who denigrates the Bible, the basis for the Christian faith. Then we…
Dark Tide
In South Africa, Berry (New Year’s Eve) unconvincingly plays Kate, a shark expert and pro diver reduced to running ship tours for tourists, however few there are, after more or less turning one of her fellow divers to chum a year beforehand. Guilt keeps her from getting back into dangerous waters until her old flame,…
The Innkeepers
Heed its warning, my children. Like so many cerebral horror films in which gore is not their reason for being, carefully crafted sound design is a large, integral part of the experience, and writer/director/editor Ti West’s follow-up to 2009’s acclaimed The House of the Devil is indeed an experience. That said, I fully understand why…
B real
The trio, which began as a quartet in 2003, is composed of Tré McCoy of Omaha, Neb.; Dele Olasiji of Norman; and Eric Hollowell of Davenport, Iowa. They met at a party in 2001, while attending college. “Four different states and we all happened to end up at the same party,” McCoy said. “The name…
Heavy mental
Soon after meeting his fellow patients in an unnamed mental institution, Randle P. McMurphy exclaims, “Damn, what a sorry-lookin’ bunch!” Funny, I thought the same thing when viewing the OKC Theatre Company production of Dale Wasserman’s highly effective adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. OKCTC should take that as a…
Hip anatomy
Despite a common misconception that they are all about partying, hip-hop lyrics often convey important messages regarding political and social problems. At Inclusion in Art’s latest exhibition, Cipher, which opened last weekend, artists display pieces of their work inspired by hip-hop lyrics. Cipher’s first run was last year in Tulsa, but because of statewide interest,…
OKG 7 sushi rolls to savor
It’s perfect for a quick lunch or a lavish dinner with loved ones. Although we aren’t on the coast, you’ll be surprised by the freshness and deliciousness of sushi stops around the metro. GoGo Sushi Express and Grill 1611 S. I-35 Service Road, Moore 794-3474 Although it’s express service, this spot doesn’t cut corners on…
JD McPherson — Signs & Signifiers
Producer Jimmy Sutton’s precise attention to past details is Mad Men-esque in its re-creation of rockabilly guitar tones, plunking upright jazz bass, and the way it captures Jonathan Doyle’s tenor sax and McPherson’s voice, which is the kind of durable instrument that made an army of slick-haired, suit-wearing bandleaders famous in the 1950s. It’s more…
‘Chicken Fried’ dudes
C. Taylor Crothers When country rock’s Zac Brown Band looked to record a follow-up to 2008’s platinum-selling smash, The Foundation, they heeded the advice of Les Brown, shot for the money and landed a pair of stars. “I remember when Zac had these songs, he was like, ‘Jimmy Buffett is going to sing on this…
Big leagues
Soon we will be watching the Oklahoma City Thunder compete for an NBA championship. Like the highs and lows of a seven-game playoff series, the story of how major-league professional sports came to Oklahoma City is about tragedy, triumph, plot twists and larger-than-life characters. A new book by Mayor Mick Cornett’s former chief of staff,…
Norman, rock well
Portugal. The Man More so than most bands, Norman Music Festival 5 headliner Portugal. The Man has done a lot of growing. Born from a disbanded hard-core act, it championed a challenging brand of rock in its inaugural years. At least that’s what critics and listeners called it. Truthfully, it was far less heady than…
Pounding the pavement
Darlene Spry is among the thousands of runners who will hit the streets Sunday for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. For her, the race holds special meaning. On the morning of April 19, 1995, Spry’s mother and son were expected to be at the Social Security office of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. By…
Tokyo drift
A passion for drawing and a deathly milk allergy played a role in the creation of Brandon Reierson’s design line, Lactose Intoler-Art. His work will be featured in a special show Saturday at Cafe Oasis. Growing up in Stratford, Okla., Reierson was read children’s books with vivid illustrations. He then used markers and copy paper…
Like the bike
And by “best,” I mean that it makes me shout obscenities frequently and loudly. With the continued growth of Oklahoma City, it’s not surprising that our highways and byways are groaning with growing pains, as well. A lot of road warriors have grownup in and around the Plains states and are not adept at driving…
Pretty in pink
Every spring, restaurateurs faithfully add the dry wines to their by-the-glass lists, hoping customers will respond to the warmer weather and order a lighter version of their favorite reds. It doesn’t always happen. In spite of the love rosé gets from critics, restaurateurs and the French, the category has struggled for success in the U.S.…
Don’t be crabby
Is artifice an inherently bad thing? I ask because, walking into Crabtown, I am struck by the overwhelming degree to which the building is decorated — inside and out — to make the diner feel as if he’s found some sort of Cajun seafood shack that was picked up by a tornado in Louisiana and…
Artful eating
If there’s one thing I know about the people of Oklahoma, it’s that they love art that challenges them. They love being offended and intrigued. We love the arts festival because of the food. I mean, the art is nice to look at, but it’s more fun to do when you’re toting around some delicacy…
CFN tweet of the week
Brad Gregg —actor Rob Lowe, following the Los Angeles Lakers’ Metta World Peace (the asshole formerly known as Ron Artest) on April 22 smashing an elbow to the head of Thunder player James Harden
CFN tweet of the week
Brad Gregg —actor Rob Lowe, following the Los Angeles Lakers’ Metta World Peace (the asshole formerly known as Ron Artest) on April 22 smashing an elbow to the head of Thunder player James Harden
Ill-conceived
Brad Gregg House Speaker Kris Steele said April 19 that the body would not hear Senate Bill 1433, which would proclaim that embryos have all the same rights as folks not encased in a womb. The bill is dead now that the House Republican Caucus voted to pull out the legislative equivalent of a vacuum…
Redneck rhapsody
Brad Gregg At a National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis, the “Cat Scratch Fever” crooner railed that if Obama were re-elected in November, Nugent would “either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” The comments came during an interview with NRA news host Cam Edwards, a former reporter and talk-show host…
CFN tweet of the week
Brad Gregg —actor Rob Lowe, following the Los Angeles Lakers’ Metta World Peace (the asshole formerly known as Ron Artest) on April 22 smashing an elbow to the head of Thunder player James Harden
Biting the hand that feeds you
Brad Gregg The Dacoma Republican might have hypoglycemia-induced irritability, at least judging by his recent attempt to evict food-service tenants in the Capitol snack bars, which are among the state and county retail facilities reserved for blind operators. Hickman complained of sub-par service to The Oklahoman and decided to legislate a solution by opening the…
Grievous in seattle
Brad Gregg Now they plan to share their anger fueled conspiracy mongering in a nationwide airing of Sonicsgate:Requiem for a Team, a documentary that purports to blow the lid off that Seattle-to-OKC move. Seattle likes to tout itself as the “Emerald City,” but for the past several years that green has been more of the…
Marked for a cause
Brandon Cutter works on a tattoo of Dash. Shannon Cornman Whitney Villanueva had never been inked. As an artist at Atomic Lotus Tattoo began to needle an outline of two puzzle pieces on her back, Villanueva said she was not nervous, particularly since her husband had sketched the design and her friends were there with…
Fame, Sweet fame
Sweet Brown Mark Hancock Sweet Brown falls into the latter category. After giving a very animated interview with KFOR-TV Channel 4 about a fire at her apartment building in early April, the Oklahoma City woman soon became a viral Internet phenomenon. The video of her interview currently sits at more than 3.5 million views on…
Supply and demand
OKC Thunder officials approve of the new ordinance. Shannon Cornman The process to revise the city’s ticket-scalping ordinance was initiated several months ago when a measure came before the council to raise the ticket-scalping cap from its previous level of 50 cents, as well as put a scalping-free zone around the arena. That proposal was…
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…
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…
Politics of satire
Kurt Hochenauer Democratic state Sens. Constance Johnson of Oklahoma City, Judy Eason McIntyre of Tulsa and Jim Wilson of Tahlequah are responding to the GOP assault on women’s reproductive rights here and elsewhere this year with satire and humor. Their pointed barbs and actions have an obvious theme in common: Reproduction involves a man as…
Donald Glover: Weirdo
Anyone who’s seen Glover’s work with the Derrick Comedy troupe — culminating in the 2009 instant cult film Mystery Team — knows his sense of humor is wonderfully skewed. In other words, although his act could be rated a soft R, it’s not for the lady who lives at home with her “Twilight DVDs and nine…
We’re honored
It was among several awards SPJ bestowed to the news weekly during the organization’s April 21 banquet in Oklahoma City. Gazette staff members won four first-place awards. Managing editor Rod Lott won first place in Entertainment Feature for “The wizard of gore,” which detailed the Sooner state’s connection to B-movie schlockmeister Herschell Gordon Lewis. Lott…
You can’t spell McClendon without ‘lend’
Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon has had a few of those in recent months.On April 18, Reuters reported that over the course of three years, McClendon had taken out around $1.1 billion in personal loans from companies he controlled. Those loans were used to secure a CEO perk in which he must pay for 2.5…
The Terror Experiment
This one takes place in a federal building on Christmas Eve. (For a federal building on Christmas Eve, the place sure is packed.) A terrorist manages to infiltrate security enough to bring in a bomb, which he detonates on the fifth floor. (The explosion’s aftershocks are depicted via tilted, shaking camera.) The airborne agent gets…
You say Hello
It comes as a surprise that power poppers Hellogoodbye formed more than a decade ago. Forrest Kline — chief songwriter, lead singer and sole remaining original member — started the band in 2001 as he was finishing high school. He never expected to be featured on MTV’s The Real World, have smash radio singles like…
The Divide
No sooner as the movie opened than a nuclear bomb has dropped. The precious few apartment building residents with the most recognizable, screen-friendly faces are those who conveniently find shelter in the basement, barricaded by a huge steel door that the supe, Mickey (Michael Biehn, Take Me Home Tonight), seals to keep out any radiation.…
The Case of the Black Parrot
Aboard an ocean liner depicted by really rough stock footage, intrepid journalist Jim Moore (William Lundigan, The Sea Hawk) and his ukulele-strumming cameraman/war buddy, Tripod (Eddie Foy Jr., The Pajama Game), are on a doozy of an assignment when they’re told about an impending strike of The Black Parrot, Europe’s master criminal. Explains old rich…
Coming home
It was a simple question, but one that could have gotten tons of disapproving stares from the line of fans that were at the Barnes & Noble on May Avenue and Memorial Boulevard to greet Taylor Armstrong on her April 7 signing in Oklahoma City. “Of course I do,” one fan declared. “She’s from the…
Action precedes Jackson
Police responded to Douglass shortly after 8:30 a.m. today, after a fight broke out among seven girls in a hallway. Two of the girls were arrested. “It was well before the Rev. Jesse Jackson got on campus,” said Kathleen Kennedy, executive director of communications for Oklahoma City Public Schools. “They will be disciplined according to…
The Wicker Tree
The new film is based upon Hardy’s own 2006 novel, Cowboys for Christ, but here’s the deal: If you’ve seen the original Wicker, you know exactly where this new one leads, and without the benefit of having Edward Woodward as your guide. In The Wicker Tree, it’s young Christian country starlet Beth Boothby (newcomer Brittania…
Miss Bala
Maria was also full of praise, earning an Academy Award nomination; Miss Bala was Mexico’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars, but failed to make the cut. It feels like an inferior duplicate — not vastly inferior, but noticeably, thanks to a running time that grows as repetitive as those…
