Sorry to copy our buddies at We Shot J.R., but tonight’s Pre-SXSW Party at the Darkside Lounge (in Deep Ellum, so there) is pretty much the only show in town on Hump Day. It’s a good opportunity to see what Dallas is sending to Austin for the mid-March music festival…with…
In today’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram is a piece about Jon Stewart, written by Alyson Ward. It includes this nugget, which is essentially the central point to her alarmingly unspectacular, tired story: “Don’t laugh. American culture, it seems, can’t decide whether to classify Stewart as a comedian or a journalist.” Really,…
In his Deep Ellum Town Hall post below, Robert neglected to mention the exchange between Mayor Laura Miller and Club Blue’s Marshall Armstrong that has already been reported. Thing is, The Dallas Morning News missed the point of why that conversation was so troubling. When the mayor said, “I just…
Bruce Bartlett, the former Reagan-Bush I administration official fired from his gig at the locally based National Center for Policy Analysis think tank, is getting much pub these days. (Bush-bashing is, after all, the new aqua.) After appearing on the Dallas Observer cover two weeks ago, he’s been spotted on…
Since Monday, I’ve been parked on an unforgiving bench in the 297th District Court in Tarrant County, watching the trial of Andrew Wamsley, the 21-year-old Mansfield man (and my fellow Mansfield High School alum) who is accused of corralling his girlfriend, her best friend and the manager of a local…
Remember when Dallas police Chief David Kunkle was unhappy with the influx of Katrina evacuees, insisting they’d roll into Dallas on a crime wave? No? Then a refresher from the September 2, 2005, edition of The Dallas Morning News: “Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle said, ‘We’re hoping for the best…
I can’t say I told you so, because I wasn’t the one who said it. It was my friend, Village Voice Media video game columnist Luke O’Brien, who told me Eva Alejandro-Pena would soon be chopping down her tree and putting it on eBay. “Give it a week,” he said…
The mayor oughta play Deep Ellum more often. At 10:30 a.m. yesterday, there was quite the line snaking out of the front door of the Gypsy Tea Room, as some 200 folks waited for Mayor Laura Miller and her backup band–Dallas police Chief David Kunkle and council members Pauline Medrano…
Soxxy: Bobby Soxx, back when he was a star. And alive. Whilst trolling the MP3 junkyards for free music this weekend, because I am nothing if not a cheap bastard, I stumbled across this mention of an old Observer fave on the Punk Records blog, along with two outta-print MP3s…
If you haven’t heard, MP3 blogs are the new MTV. Just ask Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Thanks to word-of-mouth buzz initiated by taste-making music blogs such as Said the Gramophone and Stereogum, the Brooklyn-based band went from toiling in obscurity to selling out shows across the country essentially overnight…
He amassed a 30-2 record, hung 467 yards and 41 points on Southern Cal and led the University of Texas to its first national championship in 35 years. But from this day forward, right or wrong, Vince Young will always be associated with the number six. As in “Act your…
Welcome to American Airlines Center, home to bells, whistles and enough sensory stimuli to obliterate the line between Mavericks game and Mardi Gras. On the court, roving reporter Chris Arnold prods fans, screaming into a microphone. Up in the stands there is a drum line, a section of freaky face-painters,…
Life in Dallas politics can be nasty, brutish and short when ambition, outrageous rumors and bitter rivalries turn a low-key election into primordial combat. But even in this uncivilized context, Karl Smith was shocked to find a police report dropped off at his Oak Cliff home that detailed a charge…
Waving to the crowd, the man with the most-talked-about hair in the world bounds onstage to the music of “Money, Money, Money,” surrounded by the “Fun Girls”–tall, sexy models in short black skirts and white tank tops, who are leading the audience in a chant of “Trump, Trump, Trump…” Confetti…
Laissez les bon temps rouler: Talk radio last week was all over testimony from the Government Accountability Office that emergency aid given to victims of Hurricane Katrina was used in at least one instance to buy goodies from the Condoms to Go store on LBJ Freeway, among several local purchases…
Protection Racket Rent-a-Dallas-cop: For a while, I used to think the Dallas Observer sided with the little people in their daily struggle against local leviathans like City Hall, Laura Miller and The Dallas Morning News. Then we watch as Jim Schutze, like Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode III, vaults…
Truth: Old Texas Rangers General Manager John Hart once appeared in TV ads wearing sunglasses. Myth: On the cover of this year’s media guide, new Rangers GM Jon Daniels will wear a bib. Truth: Daniels was born five years after the Rangers arrived in Arlington. Myth: His name is temporarily…
In late January, University of Oklahoma President David L. Boren crossed the Red River to steal some of the best and brightest students in Dallas from under the noses of college recruiters at the University of Texas and Texas A&M. The method was impressive–and expensive. OU recruiters filled a banquet…
Even before his name showed up in The New York Times Sunday Magazine on October 17, 2004, Bruce Bartlett knew he might be screwed. A few weeks earlier, the former Washington insider–he was a policy analyst for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush’s administrations–appeared in The New Republic saying…
A Republican candidate for Dallas County district attorney, Dan Wyde talks on his Web site about his Southeast Texas family that emphasized “faith in God” and “duty to country.” Now a judge, Wyde also boasts about his conviction rate as a former prosecutor and his efforts to convict a major…
Bang, bang: Buzz had a couple of items to blather about this week. One was about Texas game wardens busting North Texas fishmongers and restaurants for illegally selling game fish. Eh, whatever. We had something else about whether that Woodall-Rogers park the city is thinking about will extend to Ray…
Four Horsemen of DTS Beyond the end: I just finished reading Rick Kennedy’s article on dispensationalism (“The End Is Near,” February 9) and its Dallas roots. I am speechless! I am an evangelical Christian dating from 1970 and was brought up theologically in the system. Many years and many changes…
