Absolutes are not very common. Reality doesn’t often like to trade in them. However, if you were to walk into just about any music venue, practice room or recording studio around and say, “Jim Viner is the best drummer in Iowa,” you would find yourself on about as solid ground
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Posted January 06, 2016in Civic Skinny
Two days before Christmas, The Des Moines Register reported that almost a week earlier — it takes a while for news to get from Washington to Des Moines — Congress had approved and President Barack Obama had signed a bill that includes plans to build a new federal courthouse in
Read More →Everyone’s favorite Nickelodeon star, Drake Bell, has found himself in a not-so-funny situation. He was arrested on Dec. 21, 2015, for driving under the influence. Cops pulled him over after they saw him swerving and speeding after abruptly stopping at a red light. The 29-year-old posted a bail of $20,000
Read More →Fridley Theatres, a Des Moines-based company, announced plans to build a 12-screen theater in Waukee. The theater will be called The Palms in Waukee, and it is expected to open on the northwest corner of Northeast Westgate Drive and Hickman Road in the spring of 2017. Construction is expected to
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Posted January 06, 2016in Film Review
A funny thing has happened to Quentin Tarantino over the years. He used to be the poster boy for the indie auteur. Films like “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” were great because of their daring and unconventionality. But those films were so good — and Miramax was so good at
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Posted January 06, 2016in Locker Room
Kick off (literally) 2016 with bulls, broncs and a whole lot of rodeo action when the World’s Toughest Rodeo National Tour returns to Des Moines’ Wells Fargo Arena Jan. 8 and 9. Fans can expect to see the world’s best bucking horses, bulls and cowboys (and cowgirls) with nerves of
Read More →Leonard Gardner’s “Fat City” is a novel about two boxers from Stockton, California, but to say it’s a novel about boxing would be misleading. Very few of the novel’s 191 pages take place in the ring. Instead, it is the story of Ernie Munger, an up-and-coming boxer, and Billy Tully,
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Posted January 06, 2016in The Sound
William Clark Green is a Texas boy, through and through. Born in Flint, Texas, the 29-year-old has cut his teeth on the Lone Star State’s dusty roads, and his music is alive with references and tributes to the towns and cities that dot the vast Texas landscape. After working his
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Posted January 06, 2016in Center Stage
A critic has to be careful with the word “heartwarming,” a groaning cliché. But if ever a theater story deserved the compliment, it’s the one behind Broadway’s “Newsies.” For starters, the show is based on an extraordinary historical episode, an 1899 strike by New York newsboys. The street kids triumphed
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Iowa GOP caucus ignores warnings of the founding fathers
With the praise lavished upon the Iowa caucuses as grassroots democracy and the attention that supposedly makes Iowa “the center of the political universe,” perhaps it is worth hearing from a few who would see the Feb. 1, 2016, caucuses as counter to the American dream. No, they are not
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