No matter what the city, school board meetings can be bizarre spectacles that blend clumsy gestures of civic pride with demoralizing flashes of stupidity from elected officials and parents. Around 10 years ago, the people who came to Dallas Independent School District meetings recast this shopworn script, adding dramatic flourishes,...
It is early one Saturday in November, still dark, and Clark Kirby and his volunteers are on their way to spy on a group of Latino men waiting for a chance to paint, saw, dig or demolish. I'll be going on this stealth mission too. I just don't know where...
Like two shits passing in the night, Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks of sudden past and temporary present take turns getting humiliated. If nothing else, Monday's 36-22 implosion against the New York Giants confirms three certainties: 1. The Cowboys' quarterback of the future is not on their roster. 2. The Cowboys' quarterback...
Damn the Innocent Burden of proof: As a lifelong Texan, it sickens and scares me to see this type of thing happen again and again and again ("Undue Process," by Glenna Whitley, October 5). I grew up with an attorney for a father, and throughout the years he's fought countless...
Lone Star Funds Chairman John Grayken asks the question, "Why is everybody always pickin' on me?" Or something like that. Since late March, we've been following the troubles of Dallas-based Lone Star Funds, which has been in hot water with the South Korean government over the sale of Korea Exchange...
"Hey dude, how's that Pokey O's ice cream sandwich with the mint chocolate chip Blue Bell and the oatmeal cinnamon cookies?" "Oh, it's only heaven!" "Man, what was it like getting backstage at the White Stripes show and playing checkers with Meg White?" "Only heaven, dude!" "Honey, did you enjoy...
The Chicken Man?" the woman behind the counter asks. "Just go on up the road about a half-mile, like you're fixing to go out of town. Take a left, then a right. You'll see the chickens." I'm at the Whistlestop General Store, the only business in Blanket, a Central Texas...
Darrel Rundus wants to preach at the State Fair of Texas. The city and State Fair say, "Unh-unh." Meanwhile, everyone in the midway prays to God they don't die. On the city council's agenda tomorrow is a closed-session briefing concerning a lawsuit filed against the city. No big deal. Happens...
Whit Meyers is trying to make sure Green Room and Jeroboam and the Gyspy Tea Room don't go the way of Trees. After reviewing the Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan put forth last month by the Entertainment Collaborative's bankrupt Gypsy Tea Room, Green Room and Jeroboam, we can safely say...
Marlon Brando's signed and personally annotated Godfather script is among the nearly 2,000 items for sale in Heritage's auction this week. Can ya spot me, oh, 40 large? Last week, Heritage Auction Galleries music memorabilia specialist Garry Shrum was kind enough to cross Oak Lawn Avenue to deliver the 464-page...
If we're all caught under the penny loafer of Christian fascism sometime soon, the Thermals' vision of a hectic dash for the Canadian border, pursued by evangelical thought police, will be vindicated. As it is, The Body, The Blood, The Machine comes off a little like theories of migrant invasions...
This is not a scene from the air traffic control tower at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Not yet, anyway. Keep this in mind next time you fly: The Federal Aviation Administration is getting rid of air traffic controllers--by creating salary caps for vets, offering lower pay to rookies, mandating a...
Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two but cant remember what they are. Today Show co-host Matt Lauer Chocolate has been called a psychoactive food, an obsession and an addiction. Its been referred to as the food […]
The history of football videogames is one of adding layer upon layer of complexity. Tecmo Bowl, the first great football game, had just four plays to choose from. Fast-forward to the latest Madden, and it's more like 400. The logical result of this evolution is Electronic Arts' NFL Head Coach,...
We've mentioned a few times that Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services, Inc., is having some issues--if you consider being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and receiving a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York issues. Well, on Wednesday ACS will have is...
"It's a dream come true, period. 'Cause I'm sober now...I've never been sober, you know." Chan (pronounced Shaun) Marshall, the artist commonly known as Cat Power, is poolside in Los Angeles awaiting the start of her fall tour, a jaunt that will take her from New York to Mexico City,...
Last Thursday, we had an item about the federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by Lucresia Mayorga Santamaria, who's claiming that Preston Hollow Elementary School is segregating its students by forcing Hispanic kids into English-as-second-language classes even if they're English-proficient. Santamaria, who has three kids at the school, is also claiming that...
Something wasn't right. Jack Cox could feel that in his gut. The seal on the trailer had been broken. The trailer's identification number had been painted over. And now the trucker didn't want to get out of the cab. Cox stood behind the spotlight mounted on his squad car and...
When the purveyors of pop culture want to know who'll be hot the next year, they usually look to the dubious cast of characters known as experts. But that title gets thrown around like dollar bills at a strip club. The chance that they'll be on the money is usually...
Art, like pornography, is difficult to define. It can be purely decorative or completely utilitarian, the result of some spontaneous expression or a well-planned and rehearsed performance or ceremony. Art is many things, and we'd like to hope it is in all things, but what it is exactly is difficult...
Yesterday, South Korean prosecutors raided this building, the Korean Exchange Bank, for a second time--which apparently means all's going well in Lone Star Fund's sale of the joint. Go here for a brief history of how Lone Star Funds got into trouble with the South Korean government in March. The...
