One April morning, Richard Chichakli, a slender man of Syrian descent, was sitting behind his personal computer, checking e-mail and preparing for the day. His wife and teenage son were sleeping in another room of their modest brick home in Richardson. At 6 a.m., Chichakli says, he heard banging on…
Forever Plaid is the story of four singers—Sparky, Smudge, Frankie and Jinx—who are on their way to a big gig when their cherry-red Corvette is broadsided by a school bus full of Catholic teenagers. As is customary, the God-fearing go unscathed while the rock ‘n’ rollers are doomed to a…
One of my first Dallas Observer stories was on an “apparition” of the Virgin Mary that appeared in the bark of a tree in Oak Cliff. Turns out the miracle was the creation of two little girls, but whatever, crowds flocked. Eventually, the family sold the tree to GoldenPalace.com, which…
Michael Martin Murphy doesn’t call himself a country artist, and with good reason. He’s a “singing cowboy poet,” and his are the sorts of songs one rarely, if ever, hears on country radio anymore. Of his six gold records, the most notable may be Cowboy Songs, the first collection of…
Larry James steps through the dusty glass doors of his new building and flicks on a low-powered flashlight. He points the light toward a bank of elevators that haven’t been used in years. “We’ll have to take the stairs,” he says, shuffling in the darkness. The building, at 511 N…
Artists have been bending metal into art for thousands of years, and they’re still at it. Through December 23, the University of North Texas School of Visual Arts will hold an exhibit of some of the best metal art that has come through the school in the last 30 years…
In December 2004, Roy Combs, a career criminal who ran a South Dallas car lot, was named as one of 23 members of a criminal organization that smuggled hundreds of pounds of cocaine each month from Mexico to Dallas and beyond, including Oklahoma, Mississippi and Ohio. The U.S. Attorney’s Office…
Something wasn’t right. Jack Cox could feel that in his gut. The seal on the trailer had been broken. The trailer’s identification number had been painted over. And now the trucker didn’t want to get out of the cab. Cox stood behind the spotlight mounted on his squad car and…
Hecate Hill is this really cool place where Bigfoots hang out. And they don’t take too kindly to being killed, OK? So when these hunters in Southern Oklahoma kill one of them, all hell breaks loose. Or does it? That’s the central question of Hecate Hill, a one-act play at…
By the time the detective got there, the girl was more or less dead. She had been raped, that much he figured from how they found her–lying on her mother’s bed, her shorts pulled off, her shirt pushed up above her bra. She was 11 years old, and that sickened…
Gary W. Moore never knew that his father once had a promising major-league baseball career. At 15, his papa, Gene Moore, was the best catcher anyone in his small town of Sesser, Illinois, had ever seen. Then his baseball career was interrupted by World War II, and he was shipped…
On the morning of September 3 in Mexico City, a maid was cleaning rooms at the hotel Maria Cristina. After knocking repeatedly on the door of a room occupied by a retired American judge named Christopher Kepler, she called security. When they opened the door, they found Kepler, 57, dead…
From the outside, Paul Westbrook’s house looks pretty normal. White brick, two stories, a few shrubs out front, nothing special. Judging by appearances, it’s a house owned by someone who doesn’t care much about appearances. But the ’70s-era-looking house is hardly normal. Its walls have a Styrofoam core, its roof…
If it weren’t for photographers Eliot Porter and Robert Glenn Ketchum, the environmental movement wouldn’t be where it is today. Porter (1901-1990) was revolutionary in bringing color photography to a fine arts audience. He began using color in 1939, long before his contemporaries accepted the medium, as a way to…
The cop is finishing his second tater tot when a call comes over the radio. Officer Spearmint has just caught a girl and her pimp. They’re across the street at the Pilot truck stop. Terry Peters looks out into the darkness. “The animals are out,” he says. Then he turns…
Kenny Wetzel called the Dallas D.A.N.C.E. (Dancer’s Annual National Competition Extravaganza) the “best party in the nation.” Coming from Kenny Wetzel, that’s saying something. Wetzel, also known as the “King of Flying Lindy,” was the best swing dancer ever to come out of Illinois. This year’s extravaganza, which includes 16…
It’s just after 2 p.m. at Bryan’s House, and most of the 2-year-olds have fallen asleep for their afternoon naps. They sleep in a semicircle, each boy or girl on his or her own miniature cot. Across the hall, the 3-year-olds are stirring. One girl with beaded hair is making…
Rosalind de Rolon, besides having a fantastic name, is also a former journalist, diplomat and religious scholar who spent 12 years studying the Aramaic Gospels, the Holy Grail, the feminine archetype and the historical Jesus—which is a fancy way of saying she studied the ideas upon which The Da Vinci…
When I used to live in New York I never went to plays, except the one time my brother came into town with free tickets to something called Tony and Tina’s Wedding, which everyone in the world had heard of except for us. Apparently, it’s one of the longest running…
When CNN news chief Eason Jordan made the off-handed remark last year that U.S. soldiers were deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq, killing 12 of them, pro-military bloggers went on the attack, calling the allegations ridiculous and untrue. Two weeks later, engulfed in controversy over the credibility of his network, Jordan…
The votes have been cast. It’s over. For good or bad, Gene Robinson, son of a Kentucky tenant farmer, has made history–and captured the world’s attention. The Episcopal Church has its first openly gay bishop. It is August 5, 2003, and Robinson is to appear before the House of Deputies,…
It’s well past midnight in Leander, Texas, and as usual, Travis Wilson can’t sleep. His skin is itching. It’s always itching. He tries not to think about it, but it’s been itching for more than a year, and he cannot make it stop. It’s driving him crazy. He paces the…
