Albert Maysles does not give out awards. He accepts them frequently, all those accolades for a lifetime’s worth of achievement, including immortal films made with his late brother David (Gimme Shelter, Salesman, Grey Gardens) and others (Primary, LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton). But Maysles has never before lent his…
Because We CareThis stinks: As a longtime reader of the Dallas Observer, I have learned to take most of the sensationalism written by Jim Schutze in stride. I continue to read the Schutze brand of speculative journalism week after week because it’s entertaining in a way that is not unlike…
In August, Sergeant Raul Rios called it quits. He couldn’t stand working in the Dallas Police Department anymore. The 21-year department veteran says the immediate cause of his leaving was his surprise transfer from supervising a dozen patrol officers on the streets of Northwest Dallas to a graveyard shift in…
See, this is why I never do stories on Channel 5. Because the station sucks. OK, maybe that’s too harsh. It usually sucks. Most nights on most stories, it offers nothing by way of news value or entertainment. With its overhyped “breaking news” segments, breathless anchors (Mike Snyder, holla!) and…
Last month, the Dallas Central Appraisal District proudly announced that its new self-designed “state-of-the-art mass appraisal system,” known as MARS, was finally running. It had been a four-year effort to update the district’s systems that had cost upward of $5.5 million. Officials say the system is nearly at full speed…
Turns out Entertainment Weekly, not High Times, is a co-sponsor of the Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards handed out each March to unofficially herald the opening of the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. Still, during Friday night’s shindig at the Austin Studios, some of us couldn’t help…
In this installment of Sack of Kittens: Loaded Moses. Looks like? If the entire city of Flower Mound could be distilled into five people, they would look something like these fellas. The same scenario would also work if you replaced Flower Mound with Lewisville or Farmers Branch, or possibly Mars…
SURPRISE, ARIZONA–A quick look around the Rangers clubhouse leaves me feeling that, despite the overall luxury, this is less a professional locker room than it is a halfway house for could-have-beens, used-to-bes and hope-they-still-cans. It’s a sad sight, a total downer. (They have buckets of workout powder in this joint–Creatine…
Well, isn’t this just peachy? For years now, Buzz has made it known that we are amenable to a little journalistic bribery. Cheap bribery, too. Our soul, we’ve advertised, can be bought for $1.89. Cash or check. Granted, it’s a bit frayed, sort of a fixer-upper, but still cheap at…
On the SpotAmazed: I wanted to write and say that the author hit the spot on this article (“Dancing Across the Border,” by Cheryl Smith, February 27). I am Caucasian, and I was born and raised here. However, I am married to a Chilango. I dated a Chicano for several…
In the current U.S. climate of French-bashing, winemaker Eileen Crane finds herself in the unique position of heading up Domaine Carneros, a joint venture in Napa, California, between France’s Champagne Tattinger and New York-based Kobrand Corp. Crane claims to be the world’s first woman to have built two large commercial…
SURPRISE, ARIZONA–If baseball has a paradise, this is it. Surprise, where the Rangers now share a palatial 132-acre facility with the Kansas City Royals, is the polar opposite of Port Charlotte, Florida, the retirement swamp where the team had trained since 1987. Here there is more energy, more life. Periodically,…
SURPRISE, ARIZONA — I’d heard bad things about Carl Everett, horror stories from sportswriters who said he could be tempestuous and condescending. Whatever, I thought. That’s news when an athlete isn’t that way. I’m not a beat writer. I don’t hang around every day; I fly low. The following is…
Digging through piles of nondescript hats, T-shirts and sweatshirts at T-N-T Sports Wear, I soon struck shopper’s gold. It came in the form of a baby-blue knit cap bearing that famous Ralph Lauren insignia, the tiny polo player so beloved by Yuppies. Only $2.50–a steal of a deal. At least…
Sex for SaleHypocrisy begins at home: Nicholas Bredimus (“American Sex Tourist,” by Thomas Korosec, February 20) could probably have gratified himself and avoided the hassle of trying to obstruct justice in the first place if he’d only settled for what’s closer to home, where a man with practically any budget…
He’s heard it dozens of times: The publishing business is a risky business. “But what business isn’t?” asks Glenn Yeffeth, one of those people who, midcareer, switched professions (15 years as a business consultant) to start a new business (independent publishing house) with money he saved–one of those people you…
Exactly how bad will Dallas’ curbside trash recycling program have to perform before anyone with city government acknowledges that it just ain’t right? Pretty bad, apparently, judging by the latest numbers in a national survey. The survey published last month by the trade publication Waste News found that only 2.2…
MONTERREY, MEXICO–The twin circles on the smooth concrete plaza swell, drawing more and more young bodies into the hurricane of bad haircuts, bright tropical shirts, baggy pants and dirty sneakers. The ever-growing number of young men in the circles twirl and twist and strut and shake their bodies to the…
In the musical 1776, John Adams objects to the removal of a particularly stirring and poetic paragraph from the Declaration of Independence. “We’re a congress, not a literary society,” another delegate reminds him. If the Dallas City Council failed to create a document that might inspire residents to sacrifice their…
Play Ball It was a rookie mistake, really, inviting my wife to accompany me to the Playboy Spin-the-Bottle Tour’s Dallas stop at Mike’s Treehouse on February 22. She was only supposed to be my insurance policy, a way for me to avoid being roped into participating in the night’s festivities…
So, have you laid in your supplies of plastic sheeting and duct tape to prepare for the next inevitable terrorist attack? Feeling more secure now? No? Not to worry, citizen. Fortunately, the Texas Legislature is way ahead of the feds and is taking its own steps to combat “terrorists”–at least…
So SpecialMossEisley: So let me get this straight, the mainstream music industry has its eye on a good young band built around a young happy family (“The Force Is With Them,” by Zac Crain, January 30), something extraordinarily special and extraordinarily rare? Sigh. I’m not saying this is going to…
