Kevin Landers When confronted by mass production and industrialization some 150 years ago, artists hustled to craft, fortifying the artists touch and, in so doing, letting the world know, Yes, we do need artists! The machine would not kill the artist. Born in Boston and working out of New York,...
Mark Cuban Going Broke A Full Frontal exclusive investigation Earlier this year, Forbes magazine noted that Dallas Mavericks and HDNet owner Mark Cuban is the 437th richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion. An 11-month investigation of Cuban's assets, however, reveals a different figure:...
Up front, it's "full disclosure" time. Let it be confessed here, publicly, that I have never been a religious Neil Young fan. Always liked him OK, always appreciated his adventurous spirit, never bought his albums. But since I've also never met a Canadian I didn't like (apart from Mike Myers),...
So good it's, ahem, illegal: The Beatles' White Album meets Jay-Z's The Black Album on the way to the courthouse, where EMI's lawyers lie in wait with cease-and-desist orders to protect copyright holders who want to fuck up what a bedroom DJ funked up on a Christmas Eve lark. The...
Last week, the Good Records Web site carried the following notice: "For four years we have had the pleasure to meet many of you on our journey to a new adventure in listening. We have been proud to bring our vision of a record store to the people of Dallas...
It is, to those of us born and raised in Texas, the Greatest Story Ever Told and Retold; who can forget the Alamo when it's on every Texas history class final exam? At 5 a.m. on March 6, 1836, some 189 Texian soldiers and volunteers were slaughtered while trying to...
Alex de Leon The question begs: What to do with art that makes avid if not heavy-handed political statements in an era so eager to wrest itself from the rant, screed and morality inherently connected with political art? Is it the responsibility of art to engender social revolution, much less...
Perhaps concluding that fusing two fading musical styles is a surefire way to stave off cultural obsolescence, Cooper Temple Clause layer vehement grunge-rock melancholia atop the kind of big-beat electronica ESPN uses to add emphasis to fourth-quarter touchdowns. Most of the time on Kick Up the Fire, CTC's second album,...
Some of us remember when rap music sounded and looked dangerous, when even grade-school kids could hear those old Rick Rubin beats and Busy Bee rhymes and say, "What the hell is this?" The dinosaurs who roamed that earth were former gang bangers and hoods from the nastiest, funkiest, most...
The last time Patty Clarke talked to Suzanna Wamsley, the Christmas season was just beginning. Her neighbor was on her way to purchase some pretty towels for an elderly lady moving into an assisted living facility. Typical Suzanna. If a neighbor had a death in the family, sweet, upbeat Suzanna...
Leo Hicks stands at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X boulevards, which lies in the shadow of Fair Park. It's the only place in the United States where two streets with these names meet, and the imagery weighs heavily upon the shoulders of the man charged...
The gold glint of chardonnay is tarnishing. Merlot is passé. Gad, even cabernet is sliding slightly in popularity. Syrah, pinot noir, pinot grigio (why does so much of it taste like two Bayer dissolved in Evian?) are ascendant. So are the wine-producing regions in Oregon and Washington. And Italy. France...
In the realm of human sorrows, there is no more searing grief than that of parents burying a beloved child, and to lower a son into his grave just as he's flown from the nest is perhaps even more agonizing. When a child is murdered, a different kind of anguish...
The Golden Age of the Comic Book Movie has turned the color of tarnished copper. But there is no going back, not when comic shops have become movie studios' research and development labs. But no moving forward, either; the comic-book movie has become a cinematic smudge once more, one blurring...
3/13 First things first: If you want to be an organ donor--and why wouldn't you?--have a chat with your family. Let them know your wishes right now, because chances are you won't be able to tell them when the time is at hand. Oh, and get that organ donor card...
Thursday, April 8 Star-crossed lovers. Feuding families. It's obvious: Romeo and Juliet. But what if it weren't presented in the tired format we always see, with a longhaired waif, attractive punk and over-the-top rivalries (and settings) that aren't ever really founded or explained. The Plano Repertory Theatre said "nay" to...
At some point, without anyone formally notifying us, the Mavs shifted from one of Dallas' more stable teams to its most capricious. The Rangers are rotting, and the Cowboys have Jerry Jones (and now Keyshawn) to make Valley Ranch feel like a bad afternoon soap, but the Mavericks have been...
I'm part of a small group of music fans holding out hope that someday, 10,000 Hz Legend will be recognized as the overlooked masterpiece that it so obviously is. The second proper album by chilled-out French keyboard maestros Air, Legend is a darker, weirder piece of work than the duo's...
The kid calls it luck, says it with a little laugh and a small smile, as if he´s sharing a secret. Says it casually, his dark eyes flitting from side to side before they land in his lap. It´s the same self-effacing manner he adopts whenever the subject of Niket...
Remember Omar Sharif? He's been all but absent from the silver screen in recent years (though he has been seen--or at least heard--on television). According to the actor, he left the trade by choice: "Let us stop this nonsense, these meal tickets that we do because it pays well, unless...
The relationship between yoga and writing seems like a natural correlation. One twists the body while the other twists the mind, and the result is a feeling of release and relief. Much like exercise, putting thoughts on paper can be a daunting task, but what you get in return is...
It is so very nice when a movie completely outstrips the expectations conjured by its trailer, as is the case with The Dreamers. At first blush, this tale of three passionate youths caught up in the late-'60s Parisian countercultural revolution looked downright trite. Never mind that esteemed veteran director Bernardo...
