Fifth time’s the charm: It’s the holidays, a season to be charitable, so it’s just plain wrong to crack jokes at the expense of people who choose to get married during this joyous month. Yessiree, that would not be nice at all. It would be Grinch-like. Mean. Oh, go ahead…
Got a loved one with a green thumb, or have any kids on your Christmas list whom you really hate? Texas Discovery Gardens is selling plants, shrubs and flowering plants that they say are “great gift ideas for all occasions and ages.” Um…right. “Sorry, Junior, but those Playstation 3s were…
Ya know, that John Edwards sure can give a speech, but only if it’s about John Edwards. Democrat vibes permeated the annual Stephen Philbin Awards, held at the Dallas Bar Association for the 23rd year at 11:15 a.m. Couldn’t help but be, with several dozen new judges, fresh from the…
There’s a story — or is that an ad? — in today’s New York Times about Verizon’s new “experience store” in Southlake, where customers can download music, play video games, watch football games in high-def and, for all we know, get a happy ending. Sounds like a little bit of…
Red light, green light: Brace yourself, Buzz is about to delve into the world of high finance, proving once again that ignorance is no bar when you have a deadline and a column to fill. Today’s subject is a “scandal” involving Affiliated Computer Services, the Dallas-based technology services company to…
Christmas doesn’t come in a box; it doesn’t come from a store. Christmas isn’t about dressing up your doghouse with lights. Or maybe Yuletide is about getting that Red Ryder BB gun. Whatever. From Thanksgiving to December 25 we’ll be fed several stockings full of “the true meaning of Christmas,”…
About an hour ago, cops on horses and motorcycles and in vans and squad cars showed up near the corner of Maple and Wyclif, which is just north of the Observer office. More than a dozen officers are now on the street, stopping drivers to check for license and registration,…
Kicked out: When the bearded son of a Dallas Morning News metro columnist gets kicked out of the downtown library for eating a banana, that’s news—or at least it was to former columnist Sherry Jacobson, who wrote about her kid’s plight last December. Apologies were in order, and they came…
Some readers of Unfair Park’s sister in print may find something odd in their paper this week. We won’t be cute about it: It’s a fucking chain letter soliciting bucks from chumps–specifically female chumps. Seriously. We should know all about chumps here this week: The one-page insert made it into…
For the non-motorcycle guy, there’s something a little jeering, a bit bullying about the two-wheeled beasts. If it were alive, all that chrome and steel and power would, I think, sneer at me: “What’s the matter, pussy-boy? You chicken? Buc-buc-bucaw.” Shades of high school come creeping in: wanting to hang…
So, it’s pretty much a consensus: We all hate to see Margaret Keliher go. But, seriously…Mayor Keliher? C’mon. Of all the elections in Dallas County last night, no race was as shocking as Jim Foster’s upset of Republican County Judge Margaret Keliher. Craig Watkins surprise defeat of Republican Toby Shook…
So far, we’ve received more than 75 letters from would-be proofreaders “correcting” Richie Whitt’s lead on his sports column this week. For the record, “two shits passing in the night” was not a typo. It was a joke or–as one letter writer corrected me when I ‘splained–an attempted joke. So…
Art and death: Suicide may be painless, as the theme song from the movie M*A*S*H suggests, but talking about it can be a pain in the butt, particularly if you’re a student at Tarrant County College. Would-be filmmaker William Lin found out just how touchy the subject is when he…
Sure, digital cameras are great: no more waiting around for prints at the drugstore, instant gratification, edit as you go, etc. But where’s the magic? Don’t photographers miss that alchemical moment when an image mysteriously appears from a sheet of blank paper bathed in chemicals—that hands-on moment when artistry arises…
I’d like to believe that director/writer/Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam is a film genius. The guy was a co-writer of Life of Brian and animator for Monty Python’s Flying Circus; he clopped coconuts together in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. That’s gotta count for something, genius-wise. But then there’s…
Pay to play: We’re having a debate about a debate here at the Dallas Observer. Robert Wilonsky, editor of the Observer’s blog Unfair Park, thinks Belo Corp. is behaving like an evil corporate monopoly by limiting access to the live broadcast of this Friday’s gubernatorial debate. This is bad, he…
Whoever named Dallas Heritage Village’s “Nip and Tuck’s Barnyard Buddies Storytime for Preschoolers” obviously didn’t grow up with a bunch of farm boys. I did, and believe me, you wouldn’t want your preschooler to hear some of the tales those guys told about their barnyard “buddies.” Let’s just say this:…
Suckers: Not long after Dallas city council member Mitchell Rasansky started talking about the need for a vote of the people on the Calatrava “signature bridges,” Buzz began seeing signs of pressure by the mayor and city manager to head that off. For one thing, Rasansky himself appears to have…
I guess I normally read the paper with two hats on. One is the sort of media critic hat, because I’m in the business, and I’m here at the Dallas Observer where we beat up on the mainstream media a lot. And they deserve it. But the other one is…
Dear Press Release I received Last Week From Some Girl At Ketchum Communications Concerning The Weight Watchers Account, I don’t think we should see each other any more. I knew our relationship was a sham from the very beginning. I know, at first you were very attracted to me. Or…
The Atlantic has a story (subscription required) this month on how “America’s educated elite is clustering in a few cities—and leaving the rest of the country behind.” Basically, college graduates are increasingly moving to “superstar cities” (places like Seattle, New York and San Francisco) and their surrounding suburbs partly because…
A 2,000-word story about the Emily Dowdy case–“Drugged or Drunk?” by Adriana Gardella—appeared on Salon.com August 30 and prompted more than 60 letters to the editor. (My story on Dowdy, “Oklahoma Railroad,” appeared July 21, 2005 in the Observer.) A former architecture student at OU, Dowdy is now serving 40…
