‘A gift to the city’
Belt was a beloved local figure, known for his big personality and dedication to revitalizing the Paseo Arts District. The area, once derelict and in danger of closing down, is now a thriving art community that has garnered national acclaim. Jennifer Barron, Paseo Arts Association executive director, said the district owes much to Belt. “Simply…
Right-thinking governors
Democrats have been arguing for quite a while that Medicaid expansion is the only fiscally responsible path forward. Now their argument has been endorsed by Kasich, who has impeccable conservative credentials, since he is a former chairman of the House Budget Committee and a former Fox News analyst. Kasich built his political identity arguing for…
What evolutionists fear
Whenever a bill comes up before our Legislature that gives teachers in our public schools the freedom to teach the positives and negatives of evolution, they immediately cry “foul” because anything that might bring doubt on their beloved theory must be religious. The reason why they are so touchy is because they know how weak…
Parking avenues
Rendering of a planned parking garage near City Hall More companies — large and small — have made downtown their home, bringing thousands of new employees to the area. Upscale housing has been constructed, streets have been repaired and once-abandoned buildings have been remodeled. At the same time, people throughout the metro make frequent treks…
Losing bet
Credit: Shannon Cornman Twelve certified gambling treatment programs in the state receive that money from the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. The amount was set when casino gambling in Oklahoma began in 2004. While such treatment programs receive additional funds from anonymous donors and grants from some American Indian tribes that…
Victoria’s secret
By: Mark Hancock Victoria’s Pasta Shop must be doing something right. Next year marks a quarter century of operation in Norman. Not much has changed in that time. Its menu is essentially as it was a decade ago. The operators have managed to maintain a continuous level of goodness for a long while. Unlike some…
‘Love’s Labour’s’ libraries
For the third year running, Reduxion Theatre Company will take Shakespeare to the people. Through April 13, audiences can revisit one of the Bard’s original comedies, Love’s Labour’s Lost. Reduxion partnered with Metropolitan Library System to create an accessible, interactive theater-going experience. Shakespeare should be for everybody, according to Tyler Woods, Reduxion’s artistic director. He…
West of Memphis
It says something about the horrific saga of the West Memphis Three that their experience still manages to be so shocking. One might have thought that three HBO documentaries, the Paradise Lost films of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, would have been sufficient to tell this story. But West of Memphis, which opens Friday exclusively…
Range war
Meadowlake residents by a new gate near the proposed gun range Credit: Mark Hancock The Tecumseh-based Quail Ridge Sporting Clays opened that part of its outdoor shooting range business in February 2012 at S.E. 149th between Air Depot and Midwest boulevards in the Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust (OCWUT)-owned Elm Creek Reservoir reserve, where a…
Whole lotta crazy going on
How about this simple analogy: Republicans, with super majorities in the House and Senate, are like children who suddenly find themselves in a free candy store. They’re gorging. “Will it eventually make them sick?” ask hopeful progressives. Democrats call it a whole lot of crazy going on. “Excuse us,” argue Republicans. “Aren’t we simply fulfilling…
Tracks of my ears
Sleek and stylish electro duo The Deer Tracks is about as overtly Swedish as a certain chef from The Muppets, which means the blood coursing through the two members’ veins all but guarantees they construct ridiculously infectious pop music far more sturdy than an IKEA shelving unit. In fact, they do. The two — singer/chanteuse…
Johnny Polygon — The Nothing
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:1″><span style=" Times New Roman” ,”serif”;mso-fareast-times=”” new=”” roman”;=”” mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:es-bo”=””> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal”> The Nothing is a smart, subtle and cohesive album that suits Polygon’s always formidable flow. He clearly has bought into the Clams Casino mode of hazy hip-hop production, and it’s a smart choice; his voice has always moved like…
I feel pretty
Serendipity By: Mark Hancock People like to feel pretty. It’s just a fact of life. We all have our own ways of feeling pretty. For me, there is nothing better than slipping into a formal dress for an event that requires just a little bit more from the closet and the rarely used makeup items.…
The elite ate
The Brewhouse By: Mark Hancock Seriously, what do you think they are, nerds or something? They’ve got to be around their people. They’ve got to be around their comrades, wearing matching colors and drinking brewskies and hugging each other way too long whenever their team scores. This is the exact reason the sports bar was…
Agenda agitation
Credit: Brad Gregg To many, Agenda 21 is a voluntary U.N. resolution meant to foster sustainable communities. To others — including some state legislators — it is a covert means to steal our McMansions, confiscate our guns and force us all into cramped urban apartments and onto mass transit. The measure, authored by Rep. Sally…
Fancy that
Credit: Brad Gregg But McEntire, a proud gun-owner, recently riled up some of her fans when she fielded a question about gun control on a South Carolina radio station. No one, she said, should have the “power” of owning assault weapons. The crooner reiterated her support for the Second Amendment, but added, “I think…
Supply and diversity
Monty Milburn By: Mark Hancock But that’s how Scott Hamilton describes it. “As grotesque as that was, [it] truly served a positive purpose for Oklahoma City’s LGBT community,” said Hamilton, executive director of Cimarron Alliance. “It was at that point that people started asking, ‘Where am I spending my money?’” It’s a question that, after…
Mac ’n’ cheese
Photo: Brad Elterman Things can move pretty fast — faster than you want, sometimes. Just 22, Canadian garage rocker Mac DeMarco recorded his 2012 debut EP, Rock and Roll Nightclub, as a personal, private experiment of Ramones-influenced power pop slowed to a creep, and brandished the cover with a lipstick-smearing selfie. An unexpected hit, it…
Fish takes the bait
Credit: Brad Gregg But there are two cheeks to every ass, right? What about Fish’s side of the story? “I was being open and honest at the time and I’m being open and honest now,” he said in response. “At the time, I felt strong about the decision on a personal level. It wasn’t anything…
Vote gloat
Credit: Brad Gregg The answer is “yes,” if the March 5 election results are any indication. According to the Oklahoma County Election Board, 24 percent of eligible voters in Nicoma Park cast ballots in its mayoral election and the two city council races. On the flip side, only 7 percent of eligible voters in Oklahoma…
Ridicu-laws
Credit: Brad Gregg But we might not be able to do that much longer. House Bill 1060, authored by state Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, easily won House approval last week. It seeks to prohibit the application of foreign law when the aforementioned violates the Constitution. In response to the measure’s passage, dissenting Rep. Emily…
OKG7 downtown delights
1889 Land Run Cafe1 N. Broadway235-2780 You can catch a piece of this menu from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day. Start your morning right with its breakfast buffet. For lunch, consider the weekly specials, only $10 a plate. You’ll most certainly want to save room for desserts like vanilla crème brûlée and molten…
Mane issue
Opponents of a horse slaughter bill protested in downtown OKC March 4. Credit: Mark Hancock Two measures alive in the state Legislature, House Bill 1999 and Senate Bill 375, would allow for the humane slaughter of horses while maintaining a ban on the sale of horse meat for human consumption in the state. The bills…
What’s a billion, anyway?
Credit: Brad Gregg The mag noted McClendon had leveraged against his personally held oil and gas interests and has “mounds of debt.” But don’t get out your tiny violin just yet. McClendon will leave Chesapeake April 1 with a severance package worth about $47 million. Although he’s no longer a billionaire (wiping tears away), he…
‘Terror’ alert!
Credit: Brad Gregg In a Warner Bros. Records press release, Lips front man Wayne Coyne explains the title as only he can: “If we have love, give love and know love, we are truly alive and if there is no love, there would be no life,” he said. “The Terror, we know now, that even…
‘Weary’ traveler
Ryan Bingham’s backstory is, like his music, unassuming and rugged — a modern rags-to-riches tale, or Rocky with a little more tumbleweed. Having endured a childhood devoid of parental guidance, financial stability or even, at times, a place to call home, his rise to prominence was nothing if not improbable. “It definitely seems like the…
Put down the smartphone and drive
It seems everyone has a story of a near-crash or of a texting driver who nearly ran him or her off the road or of somebody who knows somebody who was in a wreck caused by a driver on the phone. And if you don’t know have such a story, it’s only a matter of…
Mind your ‘Mannerly’
Carpenter Square Theatre is out to make upstanding ladies and gents of you all. Jeffrey Hatcher’s comedy, Mrs. Mannerly, harkens back to a time when lessons in etiquette were in their final throes. Set in Steubenville, Ohio, in 1967, Mannerly tells the story of a 10-yearold boy under the tutelage of one Mrs. Mannerly, a…
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…
In Their Skin
No matter the name, the film focuses on the family — in particular, the Hughes clan, headed by Mark (Joshua Close, The Master) and Mary (Selma Blair, TV’s Anger Management). With their young son (Quinn Lord, The Possession), they head to their country cottage for a little R&R. Shortly upon arrival at night, Mary asks…
Curandero: Dawn of the Demon
Certainly releasable, but only a goatee hair above watchable, the horror film is co-produced by Machete man Robert Rodriguez (no relation), who also wrote the original screenplay — “original” only in terms of it being rewritten, as there’s nothing new you haven’t seen 100 times before. To less adventurous viewers, I suppose the story’s being…
The Great Magician
A co-production of China and Hong Kong, the film centers around Chang Hsien (Tony Leung, Infernal Affairs, Red Cliff and roughly half of Wong Kar Wai’s output), a stranger who swoops into a little village in the early 1900s and wows its residents with his amazing tricks. But don’t call him a trickster — he…
The Tarzan Collection Starring Jock Mahoney and Mike Henry
For Mahoney, that’s 1962’s Tarzan Goes to India and 1963’s Tarzan’s Three Challenges. He may have been a fine father to actress Sally Field, but he makes for one dull Tarzan. This pair of adventures is notable for getting the character out of Africa and into Asia, yet only the latter sojourn is worth watching…
Best in Show
Although set amid the fictional Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show in Philadelphia, the comedy is really concerned with five sets of the contestants’ owners, including — but not limited to — a longtime married couple (Catherine O’Hara and co-writer Eugene Levy), two gay men (Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins) and a lonely woodsman (Guest). …
Radio gets ‘Red’ again
Roughly eight years ago, The Red Dirt Radio Hour got its start on KVOO-FM 98.5 in Tulsa. The program specialized in spotlighting Oklahoma bands like the Red Dirt Rangers, whose unique sound can best be described as a mash-up of rock, folk, country and blues. Rangers member John Cooper helped found the program. However, he…
What about the public good?
Corporate executives were once proud that their enterprises produced jobs and wages for employees as well as products and services. Today, the system seems to consider labor a commodity to be purchased at the lowest price. And whereas CEOs once averaged salaries equal to 60 times what their hourly workers made, today’s CEOs commonly earn…
New thinking needed
When will the state of Oklahoma decide to do itself a service and stop electing the kinds of folks who cause young people to flee the state as soon as they are able to do so? Each May, you hear this great whooshing sound of all the bright graduates racing out of the state to…
Show some respect
Kolliopoulos, along with several others, gave this town a flavor and spirit that can never be equaled. A lot of musicians like myself were given the spark to go out in that cruel world and try and earn a living playing music because of him. The scene he was a part of on Western Avenue…
Fair price
You accurately depict the feeling of a temporary victory in a battle in a long war for the neighborhood, but I’m not sure you captured the flavor of the war itself. I attended several community meetings held by the JFK Neighborhood Association and those hosted by OKC, and I attended the OKC Planning Commission meetings…
Consistent religious beliefs
If Hobby Lobby really wanted to do something to decrease the number of abortions in America, it could sell products made in America, giving Americans jobs instead of the Chinese. If they want to base their decisions on religious beliefs, then they should base all their decisions on religious beliefs. Somehow, I think most of…
Embracing early childhood education
In contrast to previous mandates for bubble-in quick fixes, the administration now endorses collaborative and coordinated efforts emphasizing socio-emotional interventions and diagnostic data so that children read for comprehension by third grade. He now heeds the wisdom of generations of scholars, including Nobel Prize winner James Heckman, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and many…
Pot and panned
Could you please give him a sucker and a pat on the back? He sounds like a crotchety ass. —Paul Walker, Tulsa
Water and wishful thinking
The USDA drought monitor map issued Feb. 5 predicts more of the same, and now Canton Lake is drained to record low levels to keep Oklahoma City on its unsustainable water usage path. Farmers and ranchers have drastically reduced their cattle herds for lack of hay and water due to this ongoing, severe drought. Another…
Balanced journalism
Our society, especially Oklahoma, needs more objective and factual articles such as Dr. Stone’s piece on this controversial aspect of human reproduction. Juxtaposition of that article with the letter below it, “What about the public good?” by Nathaniel Batchelder, was probably just coincidental. However, both pieces of writing well-illustrate the balanced journalism sadly needed in…
Philo Vance Murder Case Collection
Perhaps one reason for the character’s comparative absence among pop culture’s top of mind is that no one actor “owned” the role. In fact, across the six examples in this three-DVD set, not a single actor plays the metrosexual man twice; it’s like a George Lazenby switcheroo each time. Furthermore, two of them are arguably…
Nothing but net
The crowd erupted with cheers and applause as Kufahl became only the fourth fan in Thunder history to execute the MidFirst Bank Half-Court Shot. A teacher and coach at Christian Heritage Academy in Del City, Kufahl held MidFirst’s oversized $20,000 check in the air, hardly able to contain his excitement. “It felt good from the…
Chosen ONEs
Two dozen organizations statewide, including eight from the Oklahoma City metro, have been selected as finalists. The state’s top nonprofit — and winner of $10,000 — will be announced at the annual ceremony on April 20. Oklahoma’s nonprofit organizations make a difference in a variety of ways. Whether it be educating children, taking care of…
Sushi Girl
After six years in prison, the newly sprung Fish (Noah Hathaway, Troll) may be spurned by his family, but is welcomed back with open arms and a party thrown by the devious Duke (Tony Todd, Final Destination 5). Also invited to the exclusive event — a yakuza-style dining experience of eating sushi off a naked…
