Buzz

Was it something we said?
Buzz really hates it when our targets turn the tables on us. We were ready to scorch state Rep. Jerry Madden after someone from the Richardson Republican's office called the Dallas Observer last week and asked us to please stop sending a complimentary copy of the paper to his Austin office.

"Aha!" we thought. "He must be a GOP bluenose offended by our reporting--or our sex ads. Burn, baby, burn." Well, maybe. But as someone from his office explained it, Madden was merely trying to cut down on the volume of unread mail flooding his office during the legislative session.

Unread?
"I know that y'all's publication has merit," Madden's functionary politely explained, but no one in the rep's office was reading it.

Ouch.
We understand, Mr. Too-Busy-Bigshot-Rep. Jerry Madden. We're a big Buzz. We can take it. Rest assured--if you hear that reporters from the Observer are looking into your background, it's entirely a coincidence.

Are we supposed to care?
"If I can do anything to help break the back of this warehouse [party] business, I want to do it," Rangers and Stars owner Tom Hicks told The Dallas Morning News in a 30-plus-column-inch story published above the fold on the front page. He was referring to a multi-agency police raid at a teen beer party in a Deep Ellum warehouse last weekend that snared two of his sons.

There is so much that is truly bizarre here that Buzz isn't sure where to begin. Which is worse? Is it that it took 30 cops from three cities and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to bust up what was essentially a high-dollar kegger for Park Cities preppies? Is it the mewling from the pampered little princelings and their parents about how mean those bad policemen were? Is it the veiled threat Hicks made--despite condemning warehouse parties--when he complained of "injustices" from the raid? Or, finally, is it the fact that any of this rates the front page of the Morning News? (Maybe News publisher Burl Osborne is a bit touchy on this subject. When his son was busted in a similar raid on Park Cities partiers in Kaufman County several years back, the paper's initial story on the raid neglected to mention that fact. That raid prompted a lawsuit.)

To forestall a possible lawsuit here, Buzz has some suggestions:
Dallas should arrange some sort of diplomatic visas for students of St. Mark's Academy and Park Cities schools, exempting them from any laws when they travel within Dallas' jurisdiction--that pretty much appears to be what their parents expect anyway.

To do his part to break the back of illicit warehouse parties, Tom Hicks should ground his boozy sons. Spank them too.

Finally, to spare the rest of us the asinine spectacle of further Sturm und Drang over what was a raid AT A FRIGGING BEER BUST, everyone ticketed last week should pay their fines and shut up.

Thank you.

--Compiled from staff reports by Patrick Williams

Buzz is older than 21 and willing to chaperone the next party in exchange for free beer. Send an invitation to patrick_williams@dallasobserver.com.