Latest Alarming Headlines
“Jilted Lesbian Rugby Player Killed Herself After Brutally Beating Lover Who Had Webcam Affair” (Daily Mail (London)). “Man, 75, Hurt While Riding Pet Buffalo” (MSNBC.com version of an Associated Press story). “Boy Glues Hand to Bed to Avoid School” (MSNBC.com version of an Associated Press story).
Least Competent Criminals
A 53-year-old man from Vernon, British Columbia, was arrested in January and charged with robbing a CIBC bank. He had left his 20-year-old companion in the getaway car listening to the radio, but when the alleged robber got in with the stash, they discovered that the car would not start because the radio had drained…
Readers’ Choice
In Chaparral, N.M., in December, a loaded .357 Magnum was being traced by two men onto a pattern to create a custom tattoo design, but somehow, the gun went off. Both men were hit by the same bullet, one in the hand and the other in the arm. A 77-year-old man in Des Moines, Iowa,…
Recurring Themes
Undignified Deaths: A 25-year-old woman jumped to her death from a department store roof in Tokyo in November and, as sometimes happens with such suicides, she landed on a pedestrian (who was hospitalized in serious condition). At least five people choked to death in Japan over New Year’s, as usual, from eating the extremely sticky…
Would “News of the Weird” Exist Without Alcohol?
On Nov. 18, two inebriated men in separate cars, driving by the Carpet Classic Floor Studio in Highland Township, Mich., lost control at the same time, and both smashed into the store. Christopher Dougherty, 22, the subject of a “drunk pedestrian” police call in Kingsport, Tenn., on Oct. 14, was tracked to a Hardee’s restaurant,…
American Gangster
2007 The crime epic “American Gangster” is a lot of things, but “unique” isn’t one of them. Director Ridley Scott purposely conjures up the ghettoized look and feel of Seventies cinema “? “The French Connection,” “Serpico,” “The Godfather” and so on “? in this real-life story of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas and the cop…
The Weirdo-American Community
Police in Madison, Wis., believe they ended the spree of vandal defecations in an apartment house on Schroeder Road (laundry room, hallways, items of clothing) with the January arrest of Ronnie Ballard, 19. At Ballard’s first court appearance, Dane County Court Commissioner Todd Meurer set bail at $1,400 and issued a ruling he said he…
Leading Economic Indicators
It was not only banks in the U.S. that freely loaned money over the last few years, but also those in India, and not surprisingly, many of their debtors have recently run into trouble making payments. Indian banks, inexperienced at collecting from so many defaulting consumers, often prefer to hire “goondas” (thugs) to settle debts…
The Kingdom
2007 Hollywood’s latest fight-the-terrorists-flick, “The Kingdom,” isn’t as cheesy and faux patriotic as it easily could be, but isn’t as interesting as it could be, either. Jamie Foxx is an FBI agent in charge of a rapid response investigation team. When an American compound in Saudi Arabia is brutally attacked by a terrorist cell and…
Mad #487
E.C. Publications In this age of “The Daily Show,” Mad magazine hasn’t exactly been a go-to source for cutting-edge political humor. The March 2008 issue attempts to regain some of that credibility with the piece “Why George W. Bush Is in Favor of Global Warming,” featuring the work of 10 cartoonists. It’d be a stunt…
Butt Rot & Bottom Gas: A Glossary of Tragically Misunderstood Words – Eric Groves Sr.
Quirk Seen any labial furrows lately? (Those are the grooves that form a fish’s protruding mouth, by the way.) Have your hands been smegmatic today? (That means soapy, for what it’s worth.) Hoping to get some bonification from Gov. Henry? (That’d be a tax waiver, you see.) Get ready to laugh with “Butt Rot &…
Various artists – Juno: Music from the Motion Picture
f=’http://www.okgazette.com/bestofokc’ target=’_blank’>best (if not the best) movies in 2007. Combining songs by bands and artists you know with obscure performers and ones you might not expect to be revived on a soundtrack, the album is super-fun and easy to enjoy. With classics like “A Well Respected Man” by The Kinks or “I’m Sticking With…
First sign of hope for black golfers shone in tiny Oklahoma town
More than 30 years before Tiger Woods captured his first PGA title, a little-known golfer named Pete Brown rolled into the tiny Oklahoma town of Burneyville and made history. The 29-year-old Mississippi native bested a tournament-tested field at the 1964 Waco Turner Open. What’s so significant about the final results of some little golf tournament…
Rocket Science
2007 For some reason, although I try hold my literary judgment beyond the book cover, movie trailers still fool me with snippets of dialogue and fleeting snaps of humor. This is how movie fans fall prey to films like “Rocket Science,” a viewing experience to which I eagerly counted down. High schooler Hal Hefner…
Why I’m voting yes
On March 4, Oklahoma City voters will decide whether to extend the MAPS for Kids penny sales tax expiring in December 2008 for a year to fund improvements to the Ford Center and for another three months to fund a practice facility if the NBA selects the city for a team. The first year…
Beowulf: Director’s Cut
2007 How? How! How in the world was “Beowulf” not among this year’s Academy Award nominees Best Animated Feature Film, but the yet-another-talking-animal-movie “Surf’s Up” made the cut? Here’s a movie that dares to be different, that aims to use animation as a tool to tell a story instead of to babysit kids, and Oscar…
Former Oklahoma hoops coach faces phone troubles
Hey, Kelvin Sampson; the phone is ringing. It’s the NCAA. Less than two years removed from his men’s head basketball coaching duties at the University of Oklahoma, Sampson finds himself in trouble at Indiana University for the same reasons. Last week, the NCAA released a report listing five major violations against Sampson. The…
SiK gives heavy metal some Texas flavor
Dallas band SiK will lead a posse of Lone Star holdouts across the Red River for the “Texas Metal Invasion” this Saturday, proving that metal is alive and well. “It’s homegrown Texas metal,” said SiK drummer Keith Wishon. “We’re going back to the original Pantera sound, with that southern metal feel. Not southern rock, southern…
Art educators’ own work showcased at OCU exhibit
After guiding many of tomorrow’s young artists on a daily basis, three public school art educators are getting a chance to have their own work spotlighted in a new exhibit at Oklahoma City University. “Abraham Lopez, Olivia Lopez, Marty Bernich: New Paintings” is showing at the Hulsey Gallery in the Norick Art Center on the…
Carpenter Square’s ‘Dead Guy’ satirizes reality TV with caustic comedy
., she has a killer idea on her mind, literally. Finding self-absorbed slacker Eldon Phelps sloppy drunk in a bar, she pitches it to him: “The Dead Guy” will be the reality show to end all reality shows. The contestant will be filmed 24-7 as he spends a million dollars any way he wants. Then,…
Chainsaw Kittens reuniting for Norman Music Festival
Organizers with the Norman Music Festival have announced that Oklahoma native Tyson Meade will fly in from China to rejoin his former band mates for a Chainsaw Kittens reunion at the April 26 festival. Dallas’ psychedelic-rock choir The Polyphonic Spree was the first to sign on to this year’s event, a project of the Norman…
Reba McEntire – Love Revival
Hallmark Released just in time for Valentine’s Day is a collection of songs from Reba sure to cure (or make worse) the love fever you have burning in your soul. The 10-song “Love Revival” album, released by the Okie-born queen of country, is an upbeat collection of mostly enjoyable pop-country numbers. The opener and…
Step Up 2 The Streets
Reviewer’s grade: D+ Briana Evigan stars in this in-name-only sequel to a surprise hit of 2006. She’s Andie, a Baltimore high school student whose last chance to avoid being shipped off to Texas is making good at a new school for the arts. There, against the wishes of the school’s director, she recruits…
Folk singer Duvekot returning to Norman
When vibrant singer/songwriter Antje Duvekot took the stage last year in Norman’s Winter Wind concert series, things weren’t exactly going her way. The weather was bad, she was exhausted from traveling, and her guitar was lost at the airport. But the German-born performer took it all in stride, borrowed a guitar from one of the…
Blade: The Series ” The Complete Series
2006 Rapper Kirk “Sticky Fingaz” Jones takes over for Wesley Snipes as the vampire slayer who’s a vampire himself in “Blade: The Series,” Spike TV’s one-season wonder whose 13 episodes are now on DVD. It’s really the best way to appreciate it, because instead of the expected villain-of-the-week approach, “Blade” tells a continuing story…
Equal
Don’t you just love it when elected officials see themselves as so much better than the rest of us? The latest example of this is five “lawmakers/breakers” who are too busy to file their income taxes. Republican former Speaker of the House Lance Cargill owned up to the violation by blaming his accountant! It’s always…
Tulsa painter chose art over CIA
Michelle Firment Reid spent her childhood traveling around the world while her dad worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. Reid herself worked on graphics and disguises for the CIA during college before devoting her life to painting. “I could have eventually become a spy, but I couldn’t have done my art,” she said. “Art is…
Pancakes spur Oklahoma City man’s altercation, arrest
What a flap, Jack. A man was arrested by Oklahoma City police last week after he found his flapjacks lacking, according to a story by KWTV Channel 9. According to police reports cited by KWTV, Jacob Andrew Laws, 28, was upset about his pancakes and started a breakfast brawl with his wife. The…
Library program rewards seniors for reading
The Metropolitan Library System Lifetime Reader’s Society’s fifth annual Winter ReadFest is in full gear, and ready to take on metro’s literature lovers. The society, created for persons aged 55 and older, aims to incorporate enjoyment of reading and community involvement. Kim Terry, Metropolitan Library System’s manager of marketing and communications, said the program is…
Culture of Cargill’s leadership had hand in his demise, Republicans say
The story of Rep. Lance Cargill, R-Harrah, fall seems simple. The man who was the second most powerful elected official in the state as speaker of the House, who advocates for cutting taxes, practiced his own version of tax cuts by not filing. This slipup made its way to the state’s largest newspaper, and the…
Oklahoma City’s diet could lead to Taco Bell campaign
Oklahoma City’s attempt to slim its waistline is still making headlines, even after Mayor Mick Cornett’s appearance on “Ellen.” The Baltimore Sun reports our fearless leader is in talks with Taco Bell executives about potentially co-promoting a so-called “fresco” alternative ” think tomato-based ” as opposed to fixings of guacamole and sour cream. …
Killer weed could extend from Florida to Oklahoma
We haven’t trusted a plant since our childhood days, watching Saturday-afternoon airings of the Sixties sci-fi film “The Day of the Triffids,” and now a new report from Mother Earth News suggests our suspicions may be justified. An article titled “The Weed from Hell” discusses the “killer” weed known as the tropical soda apple.…
Oklahoma: A Portrait of America – Libby Bender, Carl Brune and Scott Raffe
Billy Books / University of Oklahoma Press The spirit of the state is captured through 350 photographs in “Oklahoma: A Portrait of America,” a hefty square hardback sure to inspire fingers for many flip-through sessions. In the opening section, “People,” snapshots of Oklahoma natives and visitors are presented two to a spread, each related at…
Audubon Society set to make Lake Hefner more bird-friendly
As the president of the Audubon Society of Central Oklahoma, Jane Cunningham and other Central Oklahoma Audubon chapter members, as well as members of Friends of Lake Hefner and the Sierra Club, are about to break ground on Phase I of the Lake Hefner Habitat Restoration Project. The groundbreaking is scheduled for the morning of…
Local artist finds inspiration from birds
After years of admiring the works of others, Ali Bergin finally decided to try painting. The results are colorful depictions of birds that are already being recognized for their engaging simplicity. While driving between Norman and Oklahoma City during her University of Oklahoma days, she often noticed the graffiti that decorated the highway overpasses and…
Festival explores life, music of Beethoven
After beginning research into Classical/Romantic composer Ludwig van Beethoven’s letters ” and those written about him ” six months ago, Katie Davis came to a startling realization. “I feel like I know him,” she said. The assistant professor and director of drama at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma adapted performances from those…
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Reviewer’s grade: B- Remarkable child actor du jour Freddie Highmore (“Finding Neverland,” “August Rush”) leads a solid cast in this fanciful but never cloying family fantasy adventure about three children in an old house who discover a secret book that reveals the wonders “? and frights “? of the unseen creatures around us. …
Tiny Titans #1 – DC Comics
As if the Teen Titans didn’t look young enough in their recent Cartoon Network incarnation, DC Comics shrinks them to elementary-school size for “Tiny Titans,” a new comic book title aimed at the young buyer. The basic concept is that Robin the Boy Wonder and all his Titan teammates “? including Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy,…
OU lacrosse team hoping for breakthrough season
For all the physicality of hockey without the ice, lacrosse is your game. Three years ago, the University of Oklahoma established a men’s lacrosse team, and this new season marks its first with an official coach, Max Dugan, which helps with confidence. “When you start a new program like this, it’s always slow and incremental…
Caffeinated metro gamers gather for marathon play
A LAN is a local area network, which just means it’s a bunch of computers hooked together through a server ” like in an office. A LAN party entails dozens or hundreds (sometimes thousands) of computers wired together for blazing-fast gaming action. You like video games? You might not like them this much. Attendants at…
Oklahoma legislator aims to curb uninsured motorists’ settlements
We at Chicken-Fried News are scratching our heads. The 2008 legislative session has only just begun, and already a voice of reason can be heard from our wise lawmakers at 23rd Street and Lincoln Boulevard. A House subcommittee recently passed a proposed bill that would limit insurance awards for uninsured motorists, according to The…
Natural history museum offers free admission for ‘I.D. Day’
Need to prove to your little ones that science can be exciting? Then head to the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 2401 Chautauqua in Norman, for a free day of fun Sunday that takes experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of phenomena to a whole new level. From 1-4 p.m., “What on Earth! Science…
Dave Koz – At the Movies’ Double Feature
Capitol Finally, something other than cell phone usage and Internet piracy comes along to put a damper on the magic of cinema: Dave Koz’s “At the Movies” double album. With a CD and DVD, it rapes the memories of classic films both aurally and visually. The jazz saxophonist turns his chosen-instrument prowess into…
Science on the Cutting Edge
Latest Ape-Human News: The 4th Texas Court of Appeals in January affirmed a lower court decision that monkeys and chimpanzees have no legal right to file lawsuits against an animal preserve for mistreatment. In Apeldoorn, Netherlands, however, one prominent member of the family is full of human nature: Sibu, an orangutan at the Apenheul Primate…
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
The New Lucky Restaurant has been around since the 1950s in Ahmadabad, India, serving diners among the gravestones located at various points around the tables. No one is certain who was buried under the restaurant, according to a December Associated Press dispatch, but Indians aren’t much spooked by the experience. Said a retired professor: “Graveyards…
Japan’s best-selling novels
Five of the 10 best-selling novels in Japan in 2007 were originally composed, and serialized, on cell phones, thumbed out by women who had never written novels, for readers who mostly had never before read one. The genre’s dominating plotlines are affairs of the heart, and its characteristics, obviously, are simplicity of plot and character…
Coburn criticizes Bush administration’s lack of military vision
BAGHDAD ” Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, strode through the great dome of Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad palace ” now the temporary United States Embassy ” with an air about him like he does it every day, and that he’s not all that impressed by it. With a staunchly conservative reputation, legendary for demanding cuts in…
Paris 1900 – Hardy S. George and Gabriel P. Weisberg
University of Washington Press With just days left before it disappears, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s “Paris 1900” exhibition can be revisited any time with a spiffy new coffee-table book of the same name. The exhibit’s 123 pieces are included, often in colorful full pages. Museum president Carolyn Hill provides the introduction, while Hardy…
Bloom! – Maria Van Leishout
“Bloom!” is the book you should have given your wife, girlfriend or daughter on Valentine’s Day. But men now can score points by gifting it “just because.” Written and illustrated by multitalented Holland native Maria Van Lieshout, this “little book about finding love” charms with minimal words, few pages and a simple story. Bloom is…
