It’s a tough life being in a rock-and-roll band. Endless days on the road, long nights in smoky clubs, the occasional beating by thugs who don’t like your politics. You’re probably wondering what we mean by that last one. Well, we’re talking about Lillian Berlin, singer for the band Living…

Buzz is nothing if not a great Monday-morning quarterback. Example: Last week, KERA radio convened a “state of the local media” powwow. One of the participants was James Moroney III, publisher of The Dallas Morning News. Moroney took exception to the other panelists and callers when they suggested the paper…

First the good news, for those of you who like a little choice in your democracy: The Texas Libertarian Party has collected more than enough signatures to place its candidates on the November ballot and is awaiting qualification by the Texas secretary of state’s office. It was touch and go,…

So Ted Benavides hired a white guy to be chief of police? Wow, we didn’t see that coming. Our money was on former San Jose Chief Louis Cobarruviaz; Dallas has had tons of white chiefs and one black chief. The Hispanic population is booming, so picking a Latino seemed to…

Among the miles of sentences The Dallas Morning News has constructed about the proposed Dallas Cowboys stadium at Fair Park, here’s one that caught Buzz’s attention: “The footprint for the project, which would be north of the midway, would affect some areas of the park, including the sheep and cattle…

When we last visited the hamlet of Burleson–in last week’s cover story, “Sex Toy Story” by Glenna Whitley–the big question on many minds was whether Chris and Joanne Webb are “swingers.” In a just world, the only answer required would be “none of your damn business, Bub,” but this is…

We’re not a big fan of parties and festivals here at Buzz, and not because we’re misanthropic. Well, not solely because we’re misanthropic. We also happen to believe that organized group festivities are generally a bad idea. Nearly every story we’ve heard of wildly inappropriate or dangerous behavior–getting way too…

Last week Jim Schutze wrote about open-records guru Russell Fish getting booted from his apartment for speaking up at a management-sponsored crime meeting (“Scapegoats,” March 25). Fish got steamed and walked out when he discovered that the so-called Crime Watch meeting at Celery Stalk Apartments in North Dallas was really…

We here at the Dallas Observer do read and sometimes even care about the letters you send us; they serve as a handy barometer of how we’re being received. So with that in mind, we’d like to ask a question: What is up with you people? Sorry. Shouldn’t criticize the…

Buzz is going to keep it short this week because we have a whopper of a headache, thanks to one Larry S. Kilgore, Republican candidate for the Texas House. It’s not his fault, really. When we spoke to Kilgore about his problem–we’ll get to that in a bit; hang on–he…

Brace yourself, Buzz is feeling a bit George Will-ish this week, so we’re gonna do some literary quotin’ here. Our victim is George Orwell and his political fable Animal Farm, about animals that stage a revolution and take over a farm. (Hence the name. Der.) It ends with poor, hungry…

Buzz, being born and raised in the heart of United Mine Workers territory in Illinois, can’t help but feel some sympathy with organized labor. So it pains us to say this to Steel Workers Local 9479: Guys, did you really have to sink so low as to play the awful,…

Michael Bills thought he had a pretty good gig with the federal Transportation Security Administration. His job as a screener at Love Field was government work–good bennies, nice retirement package. An ex-Marine and former quality inspector for a company in Garland before he was laid off, Bills says he even…

OK, now we’re confused. What else is new? Buzz essentially has only three states–confused, pissed off and asleep. Right now, we’re vacillating between the first two, thanks to Deep Ellum and The Dallas Morning News. First, a little background. Last summer, the Dallas Observer’s own Zac Crain wrote a story…

Technically, Buzz is supposed to limit our insightful, thought-provoking commentary–OK, lame jokes… whatever–to local issues. Which is why we want to give a shout out and say gracias to the fine people at the Plano-based Free Market Foundation, a conservative pro-family group. Thanks to them, Buzz has the local hook…

A while ago, Buzz came across a T-shirt stenciled with the words “Jesus loves you. Everybody else thinks you’re an asshole.” We didn’t buy it, but now we wish we had, because then we could wrap it up and send it off to the fine, morally upstanding pharmacists at the…

There’s a reason Buzz slaves away every week in the journalism mines, sweating to produce the fine product you hold in your hands. The reason is that we are dumb. We know this because A) friends and family routinely tell us so, and B) as a media-type person we often…

It’s January again, time for us to take one last gratuitous unkind swipe at the various adults who spent the past 12 months doing the grown-up stuff that keeps Dallas a functioning city, such as it is. Maybe it’s because we’re getting older, but Buzz is feeling kind of bad…

This is the time of year when Buzz spends countless hours at Dallas’ central library, doing research for our upcoming annual year-end story. (By “research” we mean “cadging from The Dallas Morning News microfilms.” Please don’t tell them.) It has become something of a holiday tradition for us, hanging out…

Is a shop that sells condoms, lubricants, risqué novelties, lingerie and, um, “massagers” a sexually oriented business? Sara Lee Goff, owner of Condoms to Go, doesn’t think so. The city of DeSoto begs to differ. Goff opened her seventh Dallas-area shop in DeSoto in September, though this time she called…

After having spent the better part of the past six years voicing opinions on politics, culture, the law and other things we know little about, Buzz feels it’s time to expand our horizons and venture into new, fancier territory. So this week, Buzz tries our hand as opera critic. That’s…

Listen up, people: If you want to continue to get a weekly dose of quality vicious Buzz product, you’re all going to have to stop being so damn reasonable. We’re talking to you, Mr. Jim Hirsch, associate superintendent for technology at Plano Independent School District. Buzz received a press release…