Look at Our Briefs

Sack of Kittens This week in Sack of Kittens: The Filthy Skanks. Looks like? GWAR with absolutely no production values. Meaning: Instead of, say, an enormous erupting penis, you get a dude in an old Skeletor and/or He-Man Halloween costume held together with duct tape and whatever else he could…

Fatal Distraction

So Mayor Laura Miller, The Dallas Morning News reports, was vacationing in La Jolla, California, last week, just blocks from Tom Hicks’ “summer retreat” offices. Miller wanted to take the opportunity to discuss renegotiating the no-compete clause that the city’s Reunion Arena has with Hicks’ and Mark Cuban’s Center Operating…

The Ex-Con Game

He grew anxious as he approached a customs official at the Ottawa airport, declaring that he had lost his fanny pack, which contained his drivers license and all his cash. It didn’t help that he had this thing about authority figures, a holdover from his time in prison that made…

Inquiring Minds

Dallas’ daily has been singing an odd refrain lately. Dallas Morning News writers have been insisting that the city shouldn’t worry its little head about a retrial of Al Lipscomb now that an appeals court has overturned the former city council member’s federal bribery and conspiracy conviction on technical grounds…

Not So Hot

Not So Hot Pitiful thing: Thank you, thank you, thank you for having the guts to expose Some Like It Hot for what it is–a disgusting attempt by Dallas Summer Musicals to fill seats and get some cash (“Some Like It Not,” July 25). This production was the most pitiful…

To Whom It May Concern

Through no fault of our own, it seems that Buzz has become one of the countless hated e-mail spammers clogging the Internet. This would be a cause for shame for our dear old mother, but let’s be honest: Maternal pride hasn’t exactly been swelling her bosom since we chose newspapering…

Trouble in the House of Tudor

The last thing Arthur Eisenberg wants is people to think he is a neighborhood antagonist. After all, he has lived in the “M Streets East” for 25 years, having raised his family at the corner of McCommas Boulevard and Concho Street. When Eisenberg recently decided he wanted a new house,…

Making Book

You need not bother reading this, Stephen King. Nor you, John Grisham or Mary Higgins Clark or you folks who crank out all that warm and fuzzy “chicken soup” drivel. You brand-name authors, rolling in high-dollar advances, celestial sales numbers and permanent spots on The New York Times best-seller list,…

Sex Sales

When I was in college I read two publications from back to front: Newsweek and the Dallas Observer. I read Newsweek because I liked the back-page columns by George Will and Meg Greenfield, as well as the magazine’s “back of the book” arts coverage. I read the Observer this way…

Missing Mom

Missing MomSmall comfort: The article that you have written about the current situation with my family (“The Reluctant Witness,” July 18) is nothing less than spectacular. You have been the only person in the press who has reached the public through the views of all of the family and friends…

The Reluctant Witness

He simply wanted his father to tell the truth, to stop the posing and the big-shot games and start saying something that made sense. Why is Mom still missing? What do you know? Why haven’t you told your own brothers and sisters that she vanished three months ago and that…

Bearing Witness

For the 11-year-old black boy growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the ’60s, the steel industry mecca he called home offered a never-ending series of confusing, often humiliating, lessons. Public drinking fountains and rest rooms were marked for “white” and “colored”; blacks were not welcome to sit among whites in…

Buc-bucaw

Fort Worth Weekly reporter Betty Brink has racked up a respectable number of journalism awards for the paper, most recently being named Print Journalist of the Year in the under-100,000-circulation category by the Houston Press Club. She’s been a stalwart for the weekly, and some of her excellent work has…

Da Bomb!

Da Bomb!Let’s roll: Finally–my voter’s registration will count for something! I’m awake! Take me to your leader! How can I help? So instead of boring you with what you already know about our wonderful city council (“Taxpayers, Arise!” July 11), let me just say I’m ready to do my part…

Coming of Age

Tom Gilley had been through it before: the termination, the humiliation, the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that something just wasn’t right. At 52, he was fired as regional marketing director for an employee benefits company, discarded like so much spoiled meat along with four other senior…

Hope in Hell

A hot, dusty Rio Grande Valley day gives way to twilight as people sit in their yards, shaded by wilted mesquite trees. Smoke from outdoor grills hangs in the air, children choose sides for street games and laughing toddlers dance under the spray of a garden hose. A couple of…

Winning Streak

After racking up an impressive record of about a dozen wins and no losses defending low-level Dallas porn-store clerks accused of violating anti-obscenity laws, lawyer Andrew Chatham’s winning streak is tapering off. That’s not because he’s losing, mind you, but because the cases appear to be drying up. That’s called…

Ice Age

Ice AgeAll of a sudden it sucks: I just finished reading your story on Rob (“Ice Ice Maybe,” July 4). As a longtime fan of Rob’s, it was nice to read something written about Ice that wasn’t filled with hidden ridicule and sarcasm. Twelve years ago I was winning talent…

Next Time, Phone

Being somewhat of a public forum, Buzz receives something on the order of 11,000 e-mails a day, conservatively speaking. We choose not to share these with you, since most are for porn, pleas to help Nigeria transfer $25 million in government money, offers to increase our ejaculate by 300 percent…

Been There, Done That

Let’s start with a round of Trivial Pursuit: What year is it? The voters of Dallas have recently approved a multimillion-dollar bond issue to tame the Trinity River, which threatens to flood large swaths of the city. The work has already begun, but some civic groups are grumbling that the…

Broadcast News

In January, Public Broadcasting Service President Pat Mitchell bemoaned the decreased financial support PBS was battling in the wake of September 11. “Corporate philanthropy has all but disappeared,” she said. “We don’t know, long-term, how any of this is going to impact us, but we’re feeling some of it right…

Raise Taxes Now

Raise Taxes NowCostly but nice: Mary Poss, Ed Oakley and Alan Walne are just voting for and trying to better our city with costly but nice development projects (“Cain’t Say No,” June 13). The fact is that Dallas City Hall needs to raise our taxes, period. We now seem to…