Birmingham

The Smashing Pumpkins Ruined My Joy, Again, Last Night at The Palladium

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. In 2000, a 15-year old Gavin persuaded his dad to buy him a ticket to see the Smashing Pumpkins on their farewell tour. They were to play the cavernous NIA in Birmingham, England. Gavin had not been to see many concerts before. In fact, his previous con ... More >>

Dallas is Adding More Good Jobs than Anywhere Else

Five months ago, Dallas didn't even register on Forbes rundown of U.S. metro areas with the rosiest employment prospects, losing out to San Jose and Austin but also to Birmingham, Charleston, and Lakeland, Florida. That was a prediction based on a survey of employers' hiring predictions. Now that t ... More >>

Barbarians in the Ivory Tower

America's for-profit colleges offer education only a con man (or a congressman) could love.

For-Profit Colleges Only a Con Man Could Love

Barbarians in the Ivory Tower

2012 Oscar Nominations, Complete with Snubs, Surprises, and Mehs

The nominees for the cinematic super bowl, the 2012 Academy Awards, were announced yesterday, and as always there were a few of the year's best pictures and performances that were left warming the bench by the all-powerful Academy. Martin Scorsese's Hugo leads the game with 11 nods, beating out th ... More >>

Smells Like Dead Icons: "The Society for Olfactory Preservation" at 500X

We still have an hangover, art and otherwise, from Saturday night's gallery hopping marathon, but luckily we were still upright and mostly cognizant by the time we made it to 500X where whiffs of Chris Tennen and Scott Hilton's collaborative installation, "The Society for Olfactory Preservation," wa ... More >>

Jury Finds Former Animal Shelter Manager McGill Not Guilty of Letting Cat Die in Wall

​After several hours of deliberation, a jury returned a verdict of not guilty in the felony animal cruelty trial of Tyrone McGill, the former animal shelter manager indicted in August 2010 following a May '10 incident at the Dallas animal shelter involving a cat trapped behind a wall that wasn't f ... More >>

Maria Taylor Can't Recall Much About Her First Cyndi Lauper Show. But It Made Her Dad Cry.

​You might have seen Maria Taylor play with Azure Ray or Now It's Overhead. You might have heard her on a Bright Eyes recording. Hell, you might have heard her on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Regardless of where you heard her before, know this: Maria and her sweet voice will be on display later ... More >>

When Dallas Decides It's Over Being Occupied, That's When Things Could Get Ugly

Start the countdown. How long will it be before Dallas City Hall decides to evict the Occupy protest campers from Pioneer Plaza? You know it's coming. If the Occupy Dallas anti-corporate-greed protesters continue to camp out in a park just down the block from City Hall, political pressure will buil ... More >>

Peter Wolf Crier's All-Time Top Five Winning Priceline Bids While on Tour

With their second album, Peter Wolf Crier has established themselves as a legit indie-band and not the mere side-project they seemed to be when they released last year's well-done Inter-Be. The new album, Garden of Arms, isn't just another stellar release from Jagjaguwar this year, but it's a major ... More >>

Warren Leslie May Be Dead Now, But His Book Dallas Public and Private Will Live Forever

​Of all the books written about Dallas, it's easily the one most often cited: Warren Leslie's 1964 Dallas Public and Private, with a later edition underscoring its heretofore subtle subtitle "Aspects of an American City." Subsequent histories-of -- from Patricia Evridge Hill's Dallas: The Making o ... More >>

Quietly, Elvis Presley's December 1976 Concert at Memorial Auditorium Was Officially Released

​The boots got the boot last week, and my apologies to those Friends of Unfair Park who wrote in wondering what the what. (Out-of-town family obligations, if you must know.) I had intended to make up for that slight with a certain high-quality recording of some renown: Elvis Presley at Memorial Au ... More >>

SMU Cornerback Derrius Bell, After A Series Of Concussions, Makes The Heads-up Decision To Quit Football

Top 10 Overlooked Culinary Vacations

Flickr user ^riza^It's a long way, but the rendang is worth the trip.​Anyone with the means can travel the villages of Tuscany, visit tasting rooms in Napa Valley or hit Belgium's chocolate shops. In fact, certain places are so well known as culinary destinations, even those with only the faintest ... More >>

American Baseball, the European Way

​Even if European soccer owner Tom Hicks convinced Major League Baseball to inject the same screwy tables that govern soccer into America's pasttime your Texas Rangers wouldn't be a playoff team. But, alas, they wouldn't be relegated, either. If baseball were run according to European soccer ... More >>

Yeah, But What If Baseball Went To The European Football Table?

I know the Texas Rangers swept the previously mighty Boston Red Sox and we're all atwitter about the American League West division race heading into August ... September ... maybe even October? But what if baseball were governed according to, say, European football standards? You know, the top ... More >>

Don Hill’s Legal Defense May Be Less About the Facts and More About Martyrdom

Dallas, So Much Like Pittsburgh

We're awaiting our very copy of John F. Wasik's new book Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream, due to arrive shortly, in which he documents how the housing boom went bust and how walkable cities died a slow death, surprise surprise. And while Dallas and the surroundin ... More >>

Ollie Campesinos Explains How His Band Put Its Music On Myspace And Found Itself Signed Just A Few Days Later

Earlier this week, we caught up with Ollie, the drummer for Los Campesinos! (pictured, right), to talk for a few minutes about the band's quick ascent to success, the fact that the band released its first two albums within six months of each other, and even how the differences in the racial make-ups ... More >>

Brightblack Morning Light's Nathan Shineywater Smokes Some Pot and Answers Some Questions

UFL Passing on '08 Start Date

Tom Hicks is Now a Global Billionaire Bozo

He's a vilified clown of an owner on two continents. Or at least he should be.

Alt-Weeklies Provide Web Links to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Home Address

Action Taken in Solidarity with Phoenix New Times

Labor Lost

Local immigrant workers left unpaid and abandoned in Alabama

Membership Has Privileges

Lost in Transition

Business That's Your Business

Maria Taylor, Zykos

Saturday, April 15, at Hailey's

Monsters of Metal

Rob Halford rides again with the mighty Judas Priest

Just Can't Get Enough?

The most exhaustive--and exhausting--Depeche Mode collection ever

Run for Their Lives

Everyone deserves a second chance

Junior Achievement

Christopher Paul Curtis' stories are kid-tested, mom-approved

Decent Folk

Summer Hymns' summer hymns define the purdy South

Beach Head

At the Winter Music Conference, P. Diddy blows up while the U.S. blows up Iraq

English Beat

The Streets' vision of working-class England is full of beats, birds and brandy

Flesh for Fantasy

Brett Ratner tarts up this Red Dragon adaptation

Randy Newman

Good Old Boys (Deluxe Reissue) (Rhino)

Happy Nappy Girls

Getting their hair straightened for the first time was a rite of passage. But a group of Dallas women has found freedom in reclaiming nappier days.

In Cold Blood

Novelist James Ellroy reshapes America's ugly history in his own image

Mystery of St. Luke

Was an influential Dallas black church desecrated by racists?

Hail to the GM

The Cowboys never called, so Drew Pearson lives out his front-office dream in the XFL

Sunday's Best

Girls like it

Mama's bad boy

Felicia's Journey is a thrilling, grim, and unexpected trip

Duran Duran

Electric funeral

Black Sabbath has reunited, but has it cost its members their souls?

Out There

Roadshows

Joe Bob Briggs

Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, TX

Hope you die before we get old

Reunited Who and Sex Pistols cheat death one more time

Under the covers

How could Duran Duran make a comeback when it never went away?