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There are lots of fireworks planned for this 4th of July weekend, but all the colorful explosions won't be in the sky. There are a couple of stage shows closing this weekend you may want to see that are also full of sparks. First is Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Nova Arts Project.

A one-man show performed by Sean Patrick Judge, managing director for Nova Arts, Thom Pain follows one very pessimistic man as he struggles with everyday life. Filled with what Amy Hooper, NA founder, calls dry, definitely not laugh-out-loud humor, Thom is an odd mix of cynicism and hope. "You're rooting for him even through he's a mean kind of a bastard," she told Hair Balls.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the show's "(based on nothing)" subtitle, that's playwright's Will Eno's effort to make sure the audience understands the material is not based on his personal experiences.

This has been Thom Pain's Houston premiere. 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday. DiverseWorks, 1117 East Freeway. For information, call 800-595-4849 or visit www.novaartsproject.com. $10 to $15 (the July 4 matinee is a pay-what-you-can performance).

 

Photo courtesy TUTS

There will be crazy good tapping going on at Miller Outdoor Theatre July 9-14 when another summer of free performances kicks off with the musical 42nd Street courtesy of Theatre Under the Stars -- at least that's what Loretta Swit promises.

Swit herself won't be doing any of the dancing. But the actress, known mostly for her Emmy-award-winning TV role as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on M*A*S*H, will be singing and delivering the lines of prima donna Dorothy Brock.

The story is set on Broadway in the Great Depression so it should have a certain resonance  today. Small town girl Peggy Sawyer (played by Shannon M. O"Bryan who has performed the role on Broadway and on the road) replaces the star on opening night. The musical includes "Lullaby of Broadway," "We're in the Money," "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and "42nd Street."

"This is a prima donna with a heart," Swit says enthusiastically. "She has been in the business for a long time. The Depression makes for desperate characters."

"She's a diva. She deserves the star on her door. That's not a bad thing."

 

You log into Facebook, and you're hit with the sudden pang of 172 unread messages in your inbox, 146 unread updates, 59 event invitations, and a partridge in a pear tree. Your Google Reader is uncomfortably lodged at 1000+ unread, and it hasn't been touched in ages, sorta like your sexy bits. You blindly scroll down the Twitter updates to which you subscribe, your bleeding eyes not focusing on anything in particular and nothing at all. Your blog, still blatantly hosted for free on WordPress (lacking a unique URL, for shame!), is a wasteland of oozing drivel that only a teenager would find fit to post. "Lay off those double cheeseburgers!" actually meant something to you when you last uploaded a photo to Flickr, and memory fails as to whether you even have YouTube or Vimeo accounts. You had to login to watch those 18+ videos, right? Right? You haven't even submitted a story to Digg since Facebook Connect was born, and you last took the pulse of your MySpace profile sometime in 2007 (okay, that one's forgivable). Yeah, it's real, real bad.

Well, the doctor, doctor's got some news. Diagnosis? You've got a bad case of social media burnout. Yo, it ain't catchy, but it sure is catching.

Lucky for you, there's a cure.

Photo by astromark2007

ESPN doesn't think much of the fan experience in Houston, especially for the Astros fans, which ESPN ranks at number 68. This ranking is based on things like ownership, coaching, players, bang for the buck, fan relations, stadium experience, affordability, and something called title tracks -- that deals with the number of titles the team has won or can be expected to win. And I can see where ESPN is coming from with this list and with its ranking, but I think there are a few things about the Astros fan experience that ESPN failed to take into account, and which would, if considered, make the ranking much, much better.

1.  Minute Maid Park is the only ballpark in the majors that spares you the worry of deciding what kind of food to bring into the game with you. Instead, the Astros don't allow you to bring in food and let you have the ultimate ballpark experience of old hot dogs.

2.  What other ballpark in the majors has a hill in centerfield for the outfielders to play around on?

3.  Then there's the choo-choo train to nowhere.

"Human error" caused a Metro train to derail just after midnight on June 16, according to Metro officials, but engineers from Arup, a firm hired to assist in the investigation, say that Metro needs to implement a safer lubrication system on the rails.

Pictures from the investigation, released by Metro at a press conference this afternoon, show gouge marks on
the concrete and rail along the stretch of track where the derailment occurred. Metro plans to test the track "to verify its structural integrity" with ultrasound, a yearly test that costs about $3,500.

Steve Clark, and engineer with Arup, says that these kinds of accidents don't happen very often, adding, "It's unusual for us to get involved in derailment investigations."

Photo courtesy Broadway Across America

The longest running Carlotta in Phantom of the Opera, a woman with more than 4,500 Phantom performances as the diva outdone by the young upstart Christine, is Kim Stengel who originally hails from Humble, Texas.

Stengel will be returning home as part of the national tour of Phantom brought to the Hobby Center by Broadway Across America www.BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com. It plays here July 8 through August 2.

Her parents still live in Humble and Stengel says her daughter, Kendra, 10 ("She was born in the show") stays with them from time to time when road life gets too long and when she wants to get back to see her kittens and friends.

So how does someone from Humble make it to Broadway, to tours across the United States, Canada and Asia? Stengel says it's because unlike some other states, Texas has always valued the arts and supported performers even at the youngest ages.

Ask Stengel what's to like about a diva, and she can defend Carlotta on two fronts: sympathy and the fact she makes for great theater.

Photo courtesy GHCVB

A lot of people will be converging on Hermann Park this weekend for various events, which means traffic could turn into one big hassle.

The Parks & Rec department is urging as many people to take light-rail to the park as possible. (We're sure Metro's urging the same thing, too.)

The 4th of July fireworks/symphony gig is set for Saturday from 8-10 p.m., but the rest of the weekend should also see big crowds at the zoo, the park and the museums.

Memorial Hermann is opening up their parking garage at 6400 Fannin to park visitors for six bucks, so that should help a bit. But officials want you to be aware of some other details if you plan on bringing a car:

This weekend, as we come together to celebrate Independence Day, let's do our best to remember what this holiday is all about. It's more than merely dodging DWI checkpoints on your way home from backyard barbecues and trying to decide between the Jon & Kate + 8 or Deadliest Catch marathons on TV; it's also about embarrassingly overwrought displays of jingoism. Here are but a few cinematic examples.

5. Rocky IV (1985) The Cold War saw many proxy battlefields: Jadotville, Congo; the Bay of Pigs; Lubango, Angola...yet perhaps no more decisive skirmish was fought than in Moscow, USSR. There, two mismatched heavyweights (one 5'9", one 6'5"), their punches landing like ICBMs, decided the fate of the globe. Make no mistake about it, Gorbachev wasn't cowed by Reagan's demands to "tear down this wall," but by the very real possibility that Rocky could demolish it with his bare hands.

Willow River Farms, a private group home for the mentally retarded and physically disabled in Brookshire, turned into a place where "residents would gather in groups and have sex with multiple partners at the same time," and the atmosphere was described as "one big orgy" by a former employee, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Harris County.

The suit, filed by Houston attorney John Ramsey, focuses on the alleged sexual assault of a 42-year-old mentally retarded woman.

"The more the family told me about this, the angrier I got," Ramsey tells Hair Balls. "[Willow River Farms] helped create a predator who is preying on other residents at this facility."

A Houston sailor was killed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego Tuesday.

Here, verbatim, is the version of the AP report the Houston Chronicle is running on it:

Houston sailor killed at Camp Pendleton
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Navy officials say the death of a 29-year-old Camp Pendleton sailor is being investigated as a possible homicide.

Navy Region Southwest spokesman Doug Sayers says the body of August Provost of Houston was discovered in a guard shack on the base before dawn Tuesday.

An autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday to determine the cause of death. Sayers says the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has taken a "person of interest" into custody. He says charges have not been filed.

The San Diego Union-Tribune says Provost was a boatswain mate seaman who worked on hovercrafts and was assigned to Assault Craft Unit 5 on the base.

Turns out the Union-Tribune report went on to mention that Provost's Houston partner says the  sailor was "openly gay" and that gay-rights activists are asking the Navy to investigate whether the death was a hate crime.