Least Competent Criminals
Anthony Perone, 20, pleaded guilty in March in Connecticut in connection with two stalking letters he admitted mailing to a woman he had fallen for in the third grade but who apparently had spurned him. The rambling, incoherent letters explicitly threatened death, and Perone had intended to send them anonymously, in that he wrote no…
Suspected YMCA thief nabbed
Police last week arrested a woman accused of being involved in gymnasium theft cases around the country ” including two here in Oklahoma City, first reported in Oklahoma Gazette last fall. According to the “America’s Most Wanted,” police arrested Lizette A. Garvin, listed as one of the aliases of a woman charged in Oklahoma…
Can’t Possibly Be True
A Web site based in Seattle shamelessly encourages pedophiles to look all they want at kids (and gives tips for where the sightseeing is best), as long as they don’t touch, and police admitted to Fox News in March that so far, that’s not illegal. Said founder Jack McClellan, 45 (whose preference is for girls…
Readers’ Choice
In March, a British Airways economy-class passenger on a flight from Delhi, India, died onboard, and the corpse was moved to the less-congested first-class section, to the chagrin of Paul Trinder, who had paid the equivalent of about $6,000 for his nearby seat. When he complained, he said he was told just to “get over…
Review: ‘Cats’ beats a cat nap
Instead of cat napping this weekend, head downtown and check out a Tony Award-winning musical at the Civic Center Music Hall in downtown Oklahoma City and watch the claws come out. The larger than life musical “Cats,” based on T.S. Elliot’s book “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, is the longest running musical here in…
Tattoo convention produces eye-opening results
The barrel-chested bald man winked at passing gawkers as he lay on his stomach, wearing nothing but confederate flag boxers and attitude. The man chose the second annual Oklahoma City Tattoo Convention to add another tattoo to his calf, one of the few blank spaces left on his body. All around the convention, the buzzing…
Judge releases man charged with murder
Pleading with those in his courtroom he has no other choice, a judge has released a man charged with murder. Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliot granted the release to Earl Bradford Postelle, 42, who is charged with the Memorial Day murders in 2005. “I find it incredible this is the position I’m…
Safety First!
Britain’s Health and Safety agency headquarters reportedly posted signs in various locations in the building warning workers not to attempt to move chairs and tables by themselves, but to call for porters (for which 48 hours’ notice was required). (In April, London’s Daily Mail reported, not surprisingly, that the agency’s workplace injury record was very…
Preserve That Porn
It looked like just another case of a man’s hoarding junk in his apartment and providing a home for several hundred animals (in this case, pigeons and mice), but health officials in Toronto learned in a March raid that the resident was lucid enough to protect, from animal feces, his extensive collection of pornography by…
Judge: McCarty test results expected next week
Results of a second round of DNA testing in the state’s murder case against Curtis Edward McCarty should be in the court’s hands next week. At a status conference hearing Friday morning before Oklahoma County District Judge Twyla Mason Gray, attorneys indicated the lab said results would be rushed back to Oklahoma by Wednesday.…
Creme de la Weird
In March, police in Trenton, N.J., arrested four men in separate incidents and learned that they fancy themselves as “diplomats” from the Abannaki Indigenous Nation and claim immunity from the laws of the “so-called planet Earth” (and, by the way, of Mars and Venus, as well). One allegedly possessed an unidentified “controlled substance,” and the…
Spider-Man 3
Reviewer’s grade: B A comic-book flick is well-insulated from film criticism. When the movie boasts full-blooded characterization, as is the case with the “Spider-Man” franchise, it earns kudos for ambition. If it serves up eye-popping action, also part of “Spider-Man,” it’s praised for preserving the spirit of the source material. And when it occasionally stumbles…
Inland Empire
Reviewers’ grade: A Part amateur art film and surreal nightmare, David Lynch’s “Inland Empire” is guaranteed to upset the most jaded of moviegoers. Lynch familiars Laura Dern and Justin Theroux are movie stars Nikki Grace and Devon Berk, who win roles in a movie to be directed by Kingsley Stewart (Jeremy Irons). Problem is,…
Next
Reviewers’ grade: B- “Next” is not technically a time-travel flick, but it’s close enough to be susceptible both to the genre’s kaleidoscopic joys and its lapses in logic. Loosely based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, the movie is a frothy blast of hokum that’s clever as long as you don’t scrutinize it…
Free Comic Book Day scheduled for Saturday
The sixth annual Free Comic Book Day will be held nationwide Saturday. Visitors to participating area stores can choose from 43 titles specially published for FCBD, featuring such characters as: ” Spider-Man, ” Justice League of America, ” Transformers, ” Mickey Mouse, ” The Simpsons, ” Archie and more. “A whole bunch of…
Deer Creek student wins South Africa trip
Aric Kampschaefer, 13, has earned himself a trip to South America through a contest with National Geographic Kids magazine. The magazine recently asked for students age 9-14 to write a 100-200 word essay displaying their passion for exploring, and submit an accompanying photograph. Aric’s mom, Cindy Kampschaefer, knew just the photo Aric needed…
Oil man Marland married adopted daughter
E.W. Marland’s mansion in Ponca City is an astonishing display of wealth and extravagance. It was here that Marland sunk much of his fortune building a home that estate officials say would now be worth close to $100 million. It also was here he first lived with his wife, Lydie, who had once been…
OKC Zoo holding birthday party for planet Earth
When kids celebrate a birthday, there’s cake and ice cream, but hardly ever a gorilla. But from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Oklahoma City Zoo, children of all ages are invited to a birthday party for Earth that will include just that and much more. Candice Rennels, public relations technician for the…
OKC among top fast food consumers
Oklahoma City has been one of America’s top 10 cities in fast-food consumption in four of the last eight years, according to Sandelman & Associates, a California-based research foundation. The list shows what percentage of residents in a city eat fast food more than 12 times a month. Oklahoma City residents made this list…
Tattoo artists to show their stuff at OKC convention
More than a hundred artists will set up shop at the second annual OKC Tattoo Convention, held Friday through Sunday at the Farmers Public Market, 311 S. Klein. The convention will be the first of its kind in Oklahoma since tattooing became legal last year. “There were artists in Oklahoma that we’d look at…
Christian novelist Dekker aims for mainstream success
For his new novel, “Skin,” Christian author Ted Dekker has dropped the evangelical angle on which he has built his entire writing career. Yet Dekker insists he hasn’t turned his back on God or his fans. The serial-killer suspenser is “kind of like ‘The Matrix’: Depending on who are, you take away something very…
Bright Eyes – Cassadaga
Saddle Creek Get your diaries, plastic framed glasses and ratty Converse sneakers ready, kids’ it’s time for a new Bright Eyes album. A few tracks on “Cassadaga” are fresh and fun. “Four Winds” is upbeat and twangy, contrasting nicely with front man/loner icon Conor Oberst’s shaky and often feminine voice. “Soul Singer in a…
The Untouchables: Season 1, Volume 1
1959 My parents’ friends were appalled by the fact that I got to watch “The Untouchables” on television every week. It was easily one of the most violent TV programs ever, but the rat-a-tat of Chicago typewriters was one of the main attractions for me, along with the vintage cars. Robert Stack starred as…
McAlester residents showered with community spirit
Some residents of McAlester are getting to know each other very well thanks to their local gas company. About 250 homes had their gas turned off after their utility, Public Gas Co., failed to make payment to its supplier, the McAlester News-Capital reported. Residents were not told about the financial blunder and, without warning,…
International painters showcased in Norman
ists will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday at the Norman Gallery Association Spring Art Walk, with music by Arabesque. Admission is free. For more information, call 307-9320 or visit www.thepas.org. “?Krista Nightengale
OKC Theatre Co. does classic ‘Cat’ right
erforming%20Arts%20review%20thumbnails/hottinroof.jpg” width=”150″ align=”right” vspace=”10″ border=”0″ />Before women had found and owned their power, there was Tennessee Williams’ South. There, gentlemen still practiced a patriarchal dismissal of women, even as they regularly succumbed to their wily manipulation. Williams used this dynamic social contradiction to help weave “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” now a production…
Latest Religious Messages
Among the world’s emerging messiahs is lapsed-Catholic Jose de Jesus Miranda, 60, of Houston (who has ministries in as many as 30 countries), whose message includes drinking (“Jesus (Christ) drank wine because he didn’t have Dewar’s (scotch)”), smoking, rejection of the concepts of sin and hell, and condemnation of Catholicism and the pope (according to…
Pop’s Postmarks to make first-ever Oklahoma appearance
Tuesday’s show at Norman’s Opolis marks the first time playing in Oklahoma for the Miami, Fla., indie pop band The Postmarks. Yet the band has ties with Flaming Lips manager Scott Booker and the Edmond-based music label he co-founded, World’s Fair. “We just sort of take each city as it comes along and…
Oklahoma’s education problem
The Art Buchwald quote too many cannot read or write, but they can multiply, sums up some of Oklahoma’s education situation. In spite of years of work and signs of progress to improve our public schools and higher education system, we are not where we need to be. Part of the problem is the system,…
OKC Theatre Co. does classic ‘Cat’ right
Before women had found and owned their power, there was Tennessee Williams’ South. There, gentlemen still practiced a patriarchal dismissal of women, even as they regularly succumbed to their wily manipulation. Williams used this dynamic social contradiction to help weave “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” now a production of Oklahoma City Theatre Company.…
Katie Awards fraud alleged
The Press Club of Dallas and the Press Club of Dallas Foundation filed a civil fraud lawsuit on Monday against former Press Club President Elizabeth Albanese over the judging of the 2005 and 2006 Katie Awards, which honor journalism and communications excellence. Recent published reports have found Albanese may have rigged the contest by…
Kickin’ It Old Skool
Reviewers’ grade: D- At first I thought that “Skool” was spelled that way due to urban patois. Now I’ve seen the movie and I know that “skool” is misspelled because no one associated with this disaster is smart enough to spell it correctly. Yes, it’s that dumm. Jamie Kennedy plays “? I just can’t write…
Billions of dollars for you, but promise not to tell us what you do with it
To fund a new Iraqi economy and government after the March 2003 invasion, the U.S. Federal Reserve shipped 484 pallets of shrink-wrapped U.S. currency, weighing 363 tons, totaling more than $4 billion, and, according to a House of Representatives committee staff report in February, most of the cash was either haphazardly disbursed or distributed to…
Various artists – Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Death Proof’
0pt”> Warner Bros. “Grindhouse” bombed big to the surprise of all Hollywood, but if there’s one thing any Quentin Tarantino film can assure you, it’s a great sound track. And “Death Proof”‘ his half of “Grindhouse”‘ is no different. Like other QT discs, it’s a mix of old film themes, bona fide rock classics,…
Touch a Truck’ gives kids hands-on experience with big vehicles
More than 30 vehicles ranging from garbage trucks to fire engines to a hot air balloon will fall prey to the wandering hands of children 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. That’s when Mothers Offering Mothers Support hosts the third annual “Touch A Truck” event at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds, 615 E. Robinson in Norman. “Kids…
Kids can keep fossil finds at Norman museum dig
Kids attending the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History this weekend are going to dig this ” literally: The museum is playing host to a family fossil-hunting field trip Friday and Saturday, and whatever participants unearth, they get to keep. So, Mom, prepare to make room for a life-size trilobite display in the den.…
Auditing the auditor
There’s no time like the present to abolish the office of state auditor and inspector. It’s one of those obsolete state offices created 100 years ago that should have been eliminated when the offices of state mine inspector and the commissioner of charities and corrections were abolished. The only authority the state constitution gives…
Lost tapes of Defenestration album found in Texas
Twenty years ago, the most promising young alternative-rock band in the area wasn’t The Flaming Lips. It was the Norman-based Defenestration ” a loud, four-piece ensemble centered around Tyson Meade’s vocals and Todd Walker’s guitar. At the height of its local popularity, the band self-released a seven-song mini-album, which led to a deal…
Bobby
2006 If a movie’s success was determined by good intentions alone, “Bobby” would’ve been a box-office blockbuster. Writer-director Emilio Estevez fictionalizes more than a dozen story threads at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968 “? the day Robert Kennedy fell to an assassin’s bullet “? but that tragic death is chiefly used as…
Oklahoma’s only Derby horse enjoying retirement
On May 6, 1989, a thoroughbred named Clever Trevor became the first and only Oklahoma-bred horse to ever run in the Kentucky Derby. He finished 13th, but became the first accredited Oklahoma-bred to win more than $1 million in career earnings. Now 21, Trevor grazes on the prairie grass at a farm near…
Air – Pocket Symphony
with “Pocket Symphony.” Comprised of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Beno
Cultural Diversity
On Jan. 31, several hundred Japanese husbands recognized the second annual Beloved Wives Day to upgrade Japanese men’s notorious, deeply ingrained indifference to their spouses. Among the husbands’ vows: be home from work by the unusually early hour of 8 p.m.; actually look into the missus’s eyes and say “thank you”; and try to remember…
Boy scout unearths mysterious liquid in Oklahoma’s Salt Plains
When are Oklahoma’s salt plains more exciting than “¦ well, a lot of dusty, dry dirt piles? When they rise up and bite you back! Maybe Bucky’s getting carried away. But a Boy Scout got a mysterious surprise recently when he was digging for selenite crystals in the northwest Salt Plains National Wildlife…
First parking meter was installed in Oklahoma
This week in 1935, the Oklahoma City Council approved the installation of the world’s first parking meter. Invented by lawyer and newspaper editor Carl C. Magee, the parking meter was met with as much disdain more than 70 years ago as it is today. “It was controversial,” said Michael Dean, public relations director…
That 70’s Show’ star to DJ at Electro Lounge
Danny Masterson, star of Fox’s long-running sitcom “That 70’s Show,” will DJ on May 9 at the Electro Lounge. Masterson, aka DJ MomJeans, started DJ’ing in 2000 just for fun, but it eventually turned into a passion. “I just had a lot of records. I started DJ’ing with a friend at a club.…
Cats’ celebrating 25th anniversary with OKC shows
“Cats” is about to pounce on Oklahoma City, bringing dozens of human-sized felines to the stage at Civic Center Music Hall. The award-winning musical first opened in 1981 in London, and came to American stages a year later for an 18-year run, making “Cats” the longest running musical in the history of British theater…
Oklahoma’s Miss America stands her platform
Pedophilia got a touch of pageantry last week when “America’s Most Wanted” showed recent footage of an underage sex sting operation involving Lauren Nelson, Oklahoma’s current Miss America. Lawton native Nelson is 20, mind you, but her would-be suitors online didn’t know that. According to an Associated Press reporter, the reigning M.A. worked…
The Invisible
Reviewers’ grade: D “The Invisible” presents a gang of unappealing characters in an unbelievable situation. While the same might be said of Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed,” don’t confuse the two. David S. Goyer’s film follows the “Ghost”-ly antics of a teenager as he tries desperately to save his own life by getting those responsible for…
The Condemned
Reviewers’ grade: F Let’s get ready to rumble! To any other screen in the multiplex not showing “The Condemned,” that is. This latest effort from WWE Films lands with a thud, failing on all counts, whether that be action, thrills or keeping you from checking your watch. Though lame-brained, previous WWE offerings like “See No…
Norman museum holds Native American Youth Language Fair
A battle of wits and words will be waged Thursday and Friday at the fifth annual Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair. Held at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 2401 Chautauqua in Norman, participants will demonstrate their knowledge of more than 18 different American Indian languages. Students compete in spoken…
Masters of Horror: Right to Die
2006 Despite a quite slim resume in horror “? 2003’s limp backwoods chiller “Wrong Turn” “? director Rob Schmidt nonetheless delivers one of the best “Masters of Horror” episodes yet with “Right to Die.” Hal Hartley film vet Martin Donovan stars as Dr. Addison, a dentist who’s having an argument with his wife (fetching…
Ponca City man relieved to read he’s not dead
Poor Rich Maril. He probably woke up one morning and was reading the newspaper, only to find out that he was dead. A little blurb in The Ponca City News notified readers recently that the paper made a little mistake concerning their dead ” uh, sorry ” dear friend and resident Ponca Citian,…
Norman’s May Fair full of kids’ activities
A park is generally a place where kids can play. An art show is generally for adults looking to be inspired. But Friday through Sunday, art meets the park at Norman’s 33rd annual May Fair Arts Festival. May Fair’s 2007 Celebrated Artist, Bob Palmer, will let kids help him create three canvas murals honoring…
OKC man picks ponies based on news headlines
Don Morris, a 60-year-old project manager at an Oklahoma City architecture firm, has a unique method for betting on horses: He pays attention to the headlines. In other words, the names of horses that correspond to ongoing national news stories are the ones who come out on top. “You’ve heard of ‘The Bible…
