Just got last-minute confirmation that San Francisco’s Birdmonster is going to rock the hell out of the Double Wide on Sunday. If I’d gotten word earlier, I might’ve whipped up a big preview about their MP3 blog hype and raucous live show, but I’m putting the final touches on our…
I’ve always known Dallasites will let their dogs crap anywhere and not do a damned thing about cleaning that shit up, but now I have proof: The makers of HEARTGARD, the doggie heartworm preventative, published a list today outting the worst cities in America when it comes to poop-scooping. Houston…
OK, so Dallas may not shoot in Dallas, but we are getting those two sure-to-be-fab Walking Tall sequels with Kevin “Hercules” Sorbo. And now comes word that the great Antonio Z. Barajas will shoot his long-awaited The Duel here beginning this very month. No, I’ve never heard of Antonio Z…
Monday oughta be a helluva lot of fun for Glenn West. Who he? Well, West is the managing partner of the Dallas offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a Crescent Court-based law firm with 1,200 attorneys across the globe serving “the most successful companies in the world in their high-stakes…
After spending an hour on the lawn of the building formerly known as Woodlawn, this is what I know about what Merritt and the editorial staff saw a little while ago: The man seen behaving erratically on the roof most likely isn’t off his meds, suicidal or in need of…
From my desk, I have an excellent view of the abandoned Parkland Hospital at Maple and Oak Lawn avenues. Currently, that means I have an excellent view of the obviously delusional man running around on the roof, scooting along the ledges, teetering on the edge of the Spanish tile roof…
More than two months ago, Parks Associates–a Dallas-based market research and consulting firm–produced a study that said the unfathomable (but obvious?): Americans are tired of the Internet. Seriously, according to the study, “few new households [are] willing to subscribe to Internet services, which will limit 2006 growth in overall Internet…
In the June issue of Vanity Fair is a riveting excerpt from Douglas Brinkley’s forthcoming book The Great Deluge, which chronicles in horrific detail how New Orleans drowned in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and just who let it happen. One of the leading suspects is New Orleans Mayor Ray…
On the one hand, I hate hipster elitism and the mentality that the fewer people who know about a thing you like, the better. On the other hand, I am a hipster elitist, but in this case I am too late to stop you from finding out about the Belmont…
Remember how the Susquehanna-to-Cumulus (spell that three times fast) switch was going to go oh-so-smooth? Um, notsomuch. The Cumulus folks officially take over Susquehanna’s metroplex radio empire today, and things, they are a changin’. Just in the last week, for example, former Susquehanna senior vice president and general manager of…
On April 25, the Austin American-Statesman’s Kurt Bohls insisted the annual University of Texas-University of Oklahoma game at the Cotton Bowl was a goner come 2008. (OK, so he reported that someone close to UT and the Cotton Bowl said it was “80-20 that Texas will leave” the Red River…
I’m not sure what’s worse: that the once-respected Dallas Independent School District board candidate Walter Lewis Price thought he could hide a conviction for stealing $516 worth of women’s lingerie from Neiman Marcus or that such a revelation could cost him the support of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price,…
In this week’s Observer you’ll find a story about WFAA-Channel 8’s use of a Video News Release (or VNR) in a story it aired in February. VNRs are TV ads filmed to look like news stories, complete with fake reporters. The WFAA segment used shots from a VNR pushing diet…
We scour the business pages so you don’t have to…and because you don’t want to. But let’s round ’em up, shall we? In the let-them-eat-cake category, two local businesses reported their first-quarter earnings today, and it doesn’t look like biz is bad for the likes of Neiman Marcus and Zale…
Last week I brought you breaking news about Maple Terrace, the boho-turned-yuppie-sellout apartment building at Maple Avenue and Wolf Street. A bunch of old tenants moved out in 2001 when the building changed hands and plans were laid for luxury condos, but a few decided to give the place a…
Six journalists representing national Afrocentric publications, among then Sister 2 Sister and Black America Today, are being feted in Dallas this week. (Why, I am not sure: The Black America Today’s Web site doesn’t seem to be particularly up to date, given that its most recent news story is about…
Localish time-travelin’ rockers Midlake get some love on Salon today: From the Audiofile, Thomas Barlett has this to say about the band and its second disc, The Trials of Van Occupanther: “Texas rockers Midlake have dropped their former quirked-out ’60s psych-pop shtick and started on some ’70s revivalism, a project…
This Saturday Lone Star Park’s all-time top trainer Steve Asmussen will run two horses in the Kentucky Derby—Private Vow and Storm Treasure—and hope to erase a pretty dreadful record in classic competition. Asmussen, who’s based in Texas, topped the U.S. trainer standings last year in wins and is ranked No…
It’s an annual rite of spring. On April 15–at precisely 11:59 p.m., if you’re like me–we do our taxes and write off the Texas Rangers. This year seemed no different. Before the season even started, prized pitcher Adam Eaton injured his finger. New leadoff man Brad Wilkerson started striking out…
Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells came out of his and Dick Cheney’s spider hole yesterday to attend the Texas Rangers-Baltimore Orioles game at The Ameriquest Ballpark at Arlington Stadium–but, of course, InvisiBill wasn’t much interested in talking football or the draft…or much of anything. He says that’ll change Friday and…
If nothing else, readers of Unfair Park know the blow-by-blow backstage doings regarding the decision to film the big-screen Dallas in Dallas…or Florida or Louisiana or Uranus. So why stop now? There’s a piece today in The Shreveport Times that reveals Betty Jo Lebrun-Mooring, of the Shreveport-Bossier Film Office, recently…
Video News Releases, TV ads disguised as news reports, have been around for decades. Only in March 2004, however, did debate about the use of VNRs break out of journalism circles. That’s when D.C. publicist Karen Ryan’s wildly successful spot pushing the Bush Administration’s Medicare drug bill aired as news…
