Maybe the blue-hairs in the audience didn't see it coming. Or, then again, maybe they did—it's not as if The Who's Tommy maintains a reputation as a production tailor-made for the older theatergoing crowd. So, surely, the seemingly sedate audience attending last Saturday night's preview performance of the Dallas Theater...
Who showed up and instantly started haunting my Super Bowl dreams? One guess. The news-making earthquake turned out to be little more than a casual Texas thunderstorm. After a brief "drop, duck and cover", this is what I survived to see on Tuesday afternoon: *Cornerback Terence Newman’s strained groin will...
Bottle Shock, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is a great concept populated by great actors that works hard to make its audience feel great! Only, sadly, it's far, far from a great movie—a little too sweet to the taste, almost sickly so. Indeed, it's made-for-cable mediocre...
Mike Howard couldn't take it anymore. For the past month, the young attorney had been shouldering a caseload he had never imagined possible when he was a law student at Southern Methodist University. This morning—a sweltering day in mid-August—was a perfect example. Sitting in the Frank Crowley Courts Building, he...
Jenny At last, Joyce Poole has responded. Who, you're wondering, is Joyce Poole? "She is to elephants what Jane Goodall is to chimpanzees and Dian Fossey was to gorillas, their savior." Also: She is the author of 1996's Coming of Age With Elephants: A Memoir and 1997's Elephants for the...
Maguire Energy Institute director Bruce Bullock The first person quoted in today's Los Angeles Times story about the weekend oil summit in Saudi Arabia is Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at SMU. Says Bullock of the slight rise in oil output and slight dip in gas prices:...
A greeting, passed along in a coffee shop: "Hey, I haven't seen you in a long time." "How are you?" "Just like you—waiting to see if I'll still have a job." A long silence followed by a laugh that sticks in the throat and sounds like a last gasp. Those...
Sure, now you get up. In news even more shocking than Big Brown finishing last or Roger Federer getting bagled in a Grand Slam final, this morning I came across this line: “R.A. Dickey pitched two scoreless inning for the win.” What the %$#@*&?! The way ex-Rangers are chunking the...
Having just turned 60, legendary singer/songwriter/producer/video director/computer programmer Todd Rundgren might want to slow things down, perhaps even think about retirement. Yet the mercurial artist doesn't want to hear anything of the sort, preferring instead to confound expectations as he has done consistently over his four decades as a performer...
This morning, Attorney General Michael Mukasey gave a speech at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives National Conference, which takes place today and tomorrow in D.C. The title of his speech, delivered moments ago, was "Victory of the Level Playing Field," and in it, he referred to...
June cometh! Justin goeth? Entering his junior season, Justin Willis already holds SMU's all-time record with 51 touchdown passes. Last year, in which he was voted All-Conference USA honorable mention, he produced four of the top 15 most prolific total yardage games in school history. He's started 22 of the...
Don't bother saving the whales. It would be like pouring water on a book in a burning library. Instead, let's join together with our global neighbors and save the whales' home. The ocean covers 70 percent of our blue planet, holds 80 percent of its life and 99 percent of...
The line of people waiting to get into Cirque, the 18-and-up nightclub at the intersection of Harwood Street and Pacific Avenue, stretches more than a block, three or four people wide at every point. But the line, filled with night crawlers dressed in their going-out best, doesn't exist for any...
Swing Vote is an election-themed comedy that's about twice as smart as you expect it to be and still only half as smart as you wish it were. The clever premise, which would have seemed like pure science-fiction no more than eight years ago, concerns a U.S. presidential election whose...
Austin-based roots rock act The Gourds has a sound that falls squarely between the jammier efforts of the Wakarusa set and the more Americana fare of, say, the Bend Studio set. And while that certainly endears The Gourds' sound to both crowds, it also places it just outside of each...
Apparently, we haven't wasted enough time trying to choose a new name for Industrial Boulevard. Because now, through Friday at 5 p.m., you can offer your half-cent's worth in the city's so-called "Public Interest Survey" by picking and clicking on one of the six contenders: Cesar Chavez Boulevard, Eddie Bernice...
Sam Merten These are not members of the Lupe Valdez Fan Club. Approximately 25 labor union representatives gathered on the steps at the Frank Crowley Courts Building this morning to criticize Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, citing her refusal to hire from within the Sheriff’s Department, along with concerns regarding...
"Pack a Trunk," by Spencer Campbell, July 3 Ooo, Jenny, Jenny It's impossible to understand why Dallas Zoo officials are choosing to send Jenny to a foreign zoo that affords her no protection under our federal animal protection laws instead of to an elephant sanctuary in the United States. Jenny's...
ESPN the Magazine's Shaun Assael this morning offers his take on the David Jacobs story -- because Assael thinks he has some insight into why Jacobs, who claimed he sold his steroids to NFL players, and his girlfriend, bodybuilder Amanda Jo Earhart-Savell, were found shot to death in Jacobs' Plano...
As the electorate's disgust with its leadership deepens and the general election approaches, Republicans, even in Texas, are suiting up to defend their posts. Face-offs are unfolding in numerous local and statewide contests, but the showdown between Senator John Cornyn and state Representative Lieutenant Colonel Rick Noriega—and the recent seesawing...
It happened so quickly. First, the sudden drop in my stomach. Then getting worried about the time. Then the frantic fumbling through my pocket, trying to find my cell phone. Then seeing the time—right around 11 o'clock. Aw, crap! I grabbed two singles out of my wallet, rushed up to...
This week, we again sent Observer interns Daniel Rodrigue and Spencer Campbell out onto the streets armed with a cheap-ass walkman and a copy of a song from a band coming through town. The song in tow for this go-round was the French Kicks' "Abandon," and the dynamic intern duo...
