T
his Week:Brenden Celebrity Star to Honor Comics Legend Stan Lee, Oral Cancer Rise Due to Oral Sex. PBS’s The Buddha, Two Local Restaurants: Hot N Juicy Crawfish and TC’s Rib Crib, Reality? It Depends on the Hominid, and more…

Brenden Celebrity Star to Honor Comics Legend Stan Lee. Cinema owner Johnny Brenden announced that he will present his Brenden Celebrity Star to Comics Legend the immortal Stan Lee (pictured). Stan Lee’s Brenden Celebrity Star presentation will take place on Friday, May 7, 2010, the opening day of the new Paramount Pictures “Iron Man 2” film starring Robert Downey, Jr. which Lee served as an executive producer.

The ceremony, to be hosted by Celebrity Journalist Robin Leach, will take place in the Brenden Theatres at the Palms lobby at 7:30 p.m. The dedication viewing is free and open to the public.

The Brenden Celebrity Star presentation is part of a Stan Lee Tribute Weekend honoring the comics creator for his seven decades of bringing entertainment to the world. On Thursday, May 6, the N9NE Group will present Iron Man 2 Launch Party at the MOON Nightclub. MOON opens to the public at 10:30 p.m. and will feature appearances by Stan Lee and other celebrity guests. General admission applies. Stan Lee will introduce and personally welcome fans before select “Iron Man 2” showings at Brenden Theatres throughout the opening weekend.

The Buddha. The film by David Grubin premiered April 7, 2010 on PBS. Narrated by Richard Gere, the documentary tells the story of the Buddha’s life and happy-go-lucky doctrine. Huh? This is revisionist Buddhism much more digestible to Westerners. While I admire His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, is he really preaching what The Buddha taught?

         
The program’s narrative is supplemented by contemporary Buddhists, Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and one blissed-out poetess, Jane Hirshfield (pictured, who drove me nuts!)

I would like to suggest that Grubin do another, more insightful program called “Buddhism After Buddha.” I wrote a comment on the PBS discussion page, but it never was posted.


Many Buddhists regard the complexity of their religion as being “warm and fuzzy” as an insult. Have they packed away the “misery of samsara”?

What about The Four Noble Truths? They are:

1. Life means suffering. 2. The origin of suffering is attachment. 3. The cessation of suffering is attainable. 4. The path to the cessation of suffering is the Eightfold Path.

After the Buddha’s death, three distinct ”vehicles” of Buddhism emerged: Mahãyãna Buddhism, Therãvada Buddhism and Vajrayãna Buddhism, also called tantric Buddhism. This clearly indicates there was some dissention among the Buddha’s disciples. The main philosophical tenet of the Mahãyãna is that all things are empty, or devoid of self-nature. Its chief religious ideal is the bodhisattva, which supplanted the earlier ideal of the arahant (enlightened being), and is distinguished from it by the vow to postpone entry into nirvana (although meriting it) until all other living beings are similarly enlightened and saved.

Bluntly put, the Mahãyãna concept of the bodhisattva was devised to allow the lay population a positive reason to support the monks who were—or were supposed to—work solely for their individual liberation. After all, the great monasteries needed continual patronage and funding. The monks had to give something back to the peasants. (Photos: The Buddha’s relics in Las Vegas; and visiting Sarnath where The Buddha delivered his first discourse—the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta—after his enlightenment.)

Two Local Restaurants. Hot N Juicy Crawfish. John saw The Travel Channel’s “Man vs Food” featuring unusual cuisine of Las Vegas. Host Adam Richman found the restaurant serving the hottest crawfish in the country, Hot N Juicy Crawfish, tucked away off of Spring Mountain Road and Decatur at the end of the Chinatown District.

While the décor is slim to none, the waitresses were friendly and highly informative. We found out that the owner lives in Texas and there is only one restaurant—so far.

The crawfish is flown in daily—and alive! The tables have white flat plastic bags on them, photocopied paper menus, and a paper towel dispenser. No silverware needed. The restaurant has been full since the “Man vs Food” airing.

There is a big selection of food: Raw oysters, Dungeness Crab (seasonal), Snow Crab Legs, King Crab Legs, Shrimp, Crawfish, Fried Shrimp, Fried Catfish Basket ($9.25) , Soft Shell Crab Basket ($10.95), Calamari, Chicken Wings, Etouffee, and side items like corn, potato, sausage, regular or Cajun fries, rice, and rolls. There are free refills on soda ($2.50), bottled water, domestic beer and imported beer. The spice level is mild, medium, spicy or extra spicy. Hot N Juicy is open 12 noon to 10 p.m. every day of the week.

John ordered 1 pound of crawfish ($9.99/lb) with a spice level of mild—and he was glad he did! I stared in shock at the packed place—the crawfish species was dying in front of my eyes!

As a lifelong vowed “no-vegetables or fruit” vegetarian, I had never eaten or seen a crawfish—it’s a big cockroach with lots of legs, and a face. It had little black eyes. I was horrified. Hot N Juicy Crawfish, 4810 Spring Mountain Rd., Las Vegas, NV 89102. (702) 891-8889.

While we will definitely go back to TC’s Rib Crib, John might be going back to Hot N Juicy Crawfish—but not with me.

TC’s Rib Crib. 8470 West Desert Inn Road, Las Vegas, NV 89117-4400. (702) 451-7427. TC’s Rib Crib is a locally owned and operated family restaurant specializing in down home cooking and Southern hospitality. TC’s was named Best Local Barbecue by the Las Vegas Review Journal, so we went after a movie to try it out.

You would easily think our waitress was TC’s daughter—she was that proud of the place!

Specializing in ribs, brisket, beef tips, hot and spicy chicken wings, pulled pork, chicken, hot links and a variety of sammies, TC’s is not fancy, but decorated with family photos. Fridays is Catfish Fridays and the line goes out the door waiting to get in. And, as our waitress told us, TC is in the house every Saturday and Sunday and he’s a big talker!

In addition, TC’s Rib Crib has an array of sides from family recipes such as: Aunt Ada’s Potato Salad, Big Sam’s Baked Beans, Cousin Joe’s Greens, Uncle Earl’s Coleslaw, Sweet Potato French Fries, Criss-Cut Fries, Fried Jalapenos, Fried Okra, Mashed Potatoes and Cornbread which is served with every order.

Reality? Depends on the Hominid. What if the several kinds of hominids had different, conflicting perceptions of reality? Maybe they saw different planes of consciousness. That’s my theory. Number 1 New Hominid: Australopithecus sediba. Two partial skeletons unearthed from a cave in South Africa belong to a previously unclassified species of hominid that is shedding new light on the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens, researchers say.

The newly documented species, called Australopithecus sediba, was an upright walker that shared many physical traits with the earliest known Homo species—and its introduction into the fossil record might answer some key questions about what it means to be human.

The fossils are between 1.95 and 1.78 million years old, and in this week’s issue of Science, two reports describe both the physical characteristics of this new Australopithecus species as well as the ancient environment in which it lived and died.

These new fossils, however, represent a hominid that appeared approximately 1 million years later than Lucy, and their features imply that the transition from earlier hominids to the Homo genus occurred in very slow stages, with various Homo-like species emerging first.

Number 2 New Hominid: “The Denisova hominid.” A new member of the human evolutionary family has been proposed for the first time based on an ancient genetic sequence, not fossil bones. Even more surprising, this novel and still mysterious hominid, if confirmed, would have lived near Stone Age Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

These enigmatic hominids left Africa in a previously unsuspected migration around 1 million years ago, a team reports in a paper published online March 24 in Nature.

The researchers base their claim on DNA from a finger bone belonging to a female hominid that lived in the Altai Mountains of central Asia between about 48,000 and 30,000 years ago.

The researchers compared Denisova mitochondrial DNA to complete mitochondrial sequences from 54 people who are living today as well as a human who lived in Siberia about 30,000 years ago, six Neanderthals from more than 40,000 years ago, a modern pygmy chimpanzee and a modern common chimp.

Mitochondrial DNA from the Denisova fossil differs from that of humans at almost twice as many chemical positions as Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA does.

The findings at the Denisova fossil suggest there might have been an entirely different hominid species that roamed the planet about 50,000 years ago.

Looking back at the region and the cave, where scientists earlier discovered artifacts from humans and Neanderthals, there is a possibility that all the three species (anatomically modern humans (AMH), Neanderthals and the mystery hominids) could have possibly met and interacted with each other.

Movies This Week. Mother (YES), Kick-Ass (YES), City Island (YES), The Back-Up Plan (NO).

Mother. A fascinating, daring film by Bong Joon-Ho. Hye-ja (Hye-ja Kim) is a single mom to mentally disabled 27-year-old Do-joon. Her son is her life. Do-joon is dependent on his mother for everything and has no social skills. Walking home alone one night down a nearly empty city street, he encounters a young girl who he follows for a while before she disappears into a dark alley. The next morning, she is found dead in an abandoned building and Do-joon is accused of her murder. Do-joon’s case is quickly closed, but his mother refuses to let this be the end of the story. Hye-ja’s maternal instincts kick into overdrive, and she sets out to find the girl’s killer and prove her son’s innocence. Korean with English subtitles.


Oral Cancer Rises Due to Oral Sex. Media publicist Bobbi Katz sent out a “Media Alert” regarding a free, high-tech Oral Pre-Cancer screening at Four Seasons Dental & Med Spa. Oral Cancer is one of the fastest growing and most disfiguring forms of cancer, now killing someone in North America every hour.

The increased practice of oral sex with multiple partners among the younger population, some experts believe, is one reason for the rise in oral cancer.

A Las Vegas dentist, Dr. James P. Wright, founder of Four Seasons Dental & Med Spa, now has cutting edge technology to detect the disease.

Dr. Wright will offer oral pre-cancer screening free to patients with appointments through May 15, 2010 (usually $65).

In 2007, oral cancer increased by 11%, making it the sixth most prevalent cancer. More than 40% of those diagnosed will die within 5 years, making oral cancer more deadly than breast, cervical, Hodgkin’s, prostate, liver, testicular, kidney, thyroid and colon cancers! Who knew! It is also the most disfiguring cancer. The latest statistics point out that this has become a cancer you can “catch” as oral sex is causative in contracting oral cancer. www.telegraph.co.uk/