Buzz

Down, Charlie Gibson, down!
Adherents of local good-sex guru Ella Patterson probably caught a glimpse of their zaftig Love Goddess on ABC's Good Morning America this week. The television broadcast kicked off Ella's month-long national tour to promote her steamy book, Will the Real Women Please Stand Up?, which offers sex info-nuggets ranging from the nutritional ("Semen is high in fructose. Therefore as a topical skin treatment it will be unhealthy") to the practical ("Practice your licking skills daily. When you get them down to a fine art, you will possess tongue manipulations that are uncontrollably erotic").

Patterson first self-published her tips, and the book became an underground local best-seller. Presumably seeing the nation's desperate need for a sassy sex manual, Simon & Schuster signed the former teacher in September.

Scorched earth
Mayor McCheese at Dallas' downtown McDonald's (better known as CrackDonald's) has resorted to Draconian measures to drive away the gangstas who like to hang there. He's playing classical music--the theory being that the Eurocentric strains of Mendelssohn, Haydn, and Beethoven will overwhelm the sound of boom boxes and drive away those hip-hoppin' rap addicts.

Sorry, Mac. Your diabolical plan is doomed to failure simply because the music isn't obnoxious enough. For stubborn hip-hop infestations, we recommend saturation with the country-ad jingle sound of Dixie Chicks and spot applications of the folky ballads of Domestic Science Club. Just to be sure, follow that up with regular applications of Deep Blue Something.

Out of tune
Speaking of street music, The Dallas Morning News, ever the cultural voice, has editorialized for, hold on to your hat, downtown buskers--you know, street musicians in search of handouts. (The scariest part is that the Morning News also wants to recruit mimes!)

Huh? We thought downtown already had buskers--they just left their musical instruments at home.

Buzz wants to go the News' street-music scheme one better. We're calling on the city's music schools to give free lessons to the homeless. You know: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to play the clarinet and...

Try changing your name to L
Apparently no one ever told D magazine publisher Wick Allison that the ladies go for the subtle approach.

In this month's issue of D, Allison attempts another clumsy seduction of the Observer's Laura Miller onto his masthead. In his column "Out Front" (though his approach on Miller is 180 degrees of that), Allison writes that the ignorant local news coverage provided by the likes of The Dallas Morning News and WFAA-Channel 8 "leaves it to others to step in where the big guys are too clueless where to tread."

Gosh, Wick, who do we turn to? The answer, we learn, is Laura Miller.
We knew that.
Wick explains--in detail--that it took the Observer's Miller to crack the story on Dallas' Talented and Gifted Program--"and it's a good thing for Dallas that she did.