NEWS
August 13, 2009
THURSDAY THE FUNKY DIVAS OF COMEDY: Baltimore's Ayanna Dookie (who has an amusing Beyonce routine) hosts a night of serious funny peppered with serious attitude as dished out by "Funniest Mom in America" Meshelle, stand-up comedian Alycia Cooper (originally from Maryland, but currently working in Los Angeles) and D.C.-based stand-up comedian Erin Jackson. The jokes are on you at Magooby's Joke House, 9306 Harford Road in Parkville, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. Call 410-356-1010 or go to magoobys.
NEWS
July 30, 2009
SUNDAY STRANGE CUSTOMS: THE FLURRY FAMILY ODYSSEY: Fluid Movement, the quirky Baltimore-based performing arts group, presents its latest water ballet at the Patterson Park Pool, 148 S. Linwood Ave., at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. This time around, the troupe chronicles the journeys of the Flurry family as they travel from the chalets of Liechtenstein to the exotic jungles of Peru while you kick back and relax poolside. Tickets are $10. Go to brownpapertickets.com. 98 ROCK PRESENTS SUMMER ROCK FEST: Get ready to rock out with the metal band Bulletboys at Rams Head Live, 731 Eastern Ave., at 7 p.m. The lineup also features late 1980s artists Faster Pussycat (whose songs include "Poison Ivy" and "Where There's a Whip There's a Way")
NEWS
By Faye Fiore | July 8, 2009
WASHINGTON - -Al Franken, the funnyman who wrote the best-seller Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, was sworn in as the junior senator from Minnesota on Tuesday without doing one single funny thing. Once, he was known on the Saturday Night Live stage as the lisping, sweater-wearing bundle of insecurities Stuart Smalley ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and, gosh darn it, people like me"). But Franken stepped into the ornate Senate chamber to take his oath of office in a charcoal gray suit, Bible in hand, surrounded by political allies eager to cast him as a "serious" addition to Congress.
NEWS
May 28, 2009
FRIDAY Polish festival Enjoy food, drink, music, dancing and crafts from Poland. Vendors and performance stages surround Patterson Park's memorial monument of Gen. Casimir Pulaski, the Polish hero of the American Revolution. The festival runs all weekend, from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, noon to 9 p.m. on Saturday and 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $2 on Friday and $5 on Saturday and Sunday; children younger than 12 are admitted for free with a paying adult. The Pulaski Monument is at Eastern and Linwood avenues.
NEWS
By David Zurawik | May 14, 2009
It is inevitable that actor Greg Kinnear's name is going to come up in any discussion of actor-comedian Joel McHale. Both became widely known through the irreverent and popular E! entertainment channel TV show now known as The Soup. And both have moved beyond it. Kinnear used the show as a launching pad to become a film star. And McHale, who appears Saturday night in a comedy concert at Baltimore's Meyerhoff Symphony Hall as he continues his winning weekly performance with The Soup, is starting to break out on screens big and small as well.
NEWS
By David Zurawick | February 22, 2009
You don't have to look very hard to find evidence that no one seems to know what makes for a successful TV awards show host anymore, particularly when it comes to the biggest video gala of them all, the Oscars. After years of declining ratings and scathing reviews for its comedian-hosts, the Emmys this year went with five hosts, all of them from the reality TV genre. But the ratings and the reviews only got worse. The Grammys, meanwhile, taking a page from the Golden Globes, gave up on hosts altogether this year.
NEWS
By Sam Sessa | February 5, 2009
Fame and success came fast for comedian Gallagher. His third-ever gig as a comic was opening for country music legend Kenny Rogers in Dallas in front of 17,000 people, he recalls. Audiences loved his colorful clothing and trademark watermelon bashing, and his TV series and specials made him a smash hit (pun intended). Nearly 30 years since his explosive start, Gallagher is still bashing fruit and making snappy remarks about society. The clubs are smaller and so are the crowds, but that barely puts a dent in Gallagher's gusto.
NEWS
By Sam Sessa | November 13, 2008
Lisa Lampanelli is an equal-opportunity basher. Blacks, whites, Asians, Jews and Hispanics are all in the cross hairs of this up-and-coming insult comic. The only demographic she doesn't lampoon on stage? Europeans. "You only hurt the ones you love," she said. "That's why I don't make fun of French people and Europeans - because they smell and I hate them. They do. Try smelling one. I have. Horrible." Tomorrow, Lampanelli brings her stinging stand-up act to Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. She has about a week to refine her live routine before she tapes a one-hour special for HBO at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, Calif.
NEWS
By DAVID ZURAWIK | November 10, 2008
Inside the Actors Studio, one of TV's smartest and most engaging productions, celebrates its 200th episode tonight by putting host James Lipton in the guest's seat with comedian Dave Chappelle doing the interviewing. The two-hour program covers the celebrated 14-year run of the program, revisiting interviews by Lipton with Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith, Sally Fields, Al Pacino and, it seems, just about everyone who is anyone in the world of theater, film and TV. During an era of increasing incivility on television and in American life, Lipton has achieved the near-impossible feat of creating and starring in a show that is both popular and distinguished for its intelligence and grace.
NEWS
By FROM SUN NEWS SOURCES | October 21, 2008
Judge in Britney Spears' trial tells deadlocked jurors to deliberate more Jurors at Britney Spears' driving-without-a-license trial said that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict yesterday morning, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. But Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Steele told them to try again after he read them additional legal instructions. The jurors deliberated less than two hours yesterday at a San Fernando Valley courthouse. They also spent about two hours on the case Friday.