They are known by many names, some of which are endearing, silly or downright demeaning, none of which adequately describes our cultural obsession with them. We call them boobs (too whimsical), mammaries (too medical), teats (too Shakespearean), honkers (too Man Show), jugs (too Pamela Anderson), melons (too horticultural), ta tas…
Rick Day has dedicated his life to two causes: marijuana and barbecued beef. Although he has smoked both–the latter as an award-winning caterer, the former as a die-hard stoner–it’s pot that has ignited his political conscience. He has shouted down Drug Enforcement Administration agents at local high school drug forums,…
Call me conventional, call me coarse, call me crazy, but I prefer my drama, oh, I don’t know, dramatic. Give me a plot with a narrative structure that makes me eager to discover what happens next. Give me characters that are as clever as they are round, who search for…
‘Tis the season to roll out the proverbial cash cows of Christmas–those obligatory feel-good productions, given a tragic twist perhaps or a comic shakedown, but ultimately setting their sights on invigorating the spirit and enriching the box office. After all, what would the holidays be without three different theatrical versions…
You’ve come home from work–late as usual. Dinner is done; your wife is frustrated; the kids are out of control. It’s time to get them to bed, but they haven’t even been fed. The phone rings and you pick up, hoping for a pause in the disaster. Although the prospect…
Two women stand warily by a chain-link fence in old East Dallas, peering over their past, searching their fragile memories for landmarks of the abuse they suffered as children of the Hare Krishna movement. By age 5, each was sent by her devotee parents to a religious boarding school at…
Even the most hardened of humbuggers among us has trouble grumbling at full-Grinch when confronted each holiday TV season with the holy trinity of Christmas fables. By these, I mean It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street and Scrooge as well as their dramatic permutations and progeny. (No way…
Nick Cristano has a problem, and I’m having trouble figuring out why. As the central character in Theatre Three’s box office hit, Over the River and Through the Woods, Nick is put to a choice. Should he take the promotion his advertising company is offering him and move to Seattle?…
It’s hard to cop to this, but here goes: As the lights rise over the masterfully crafted set of The Front Page at the Dallas Theater Center, I am already prejudiced against the production. That’s right, prejudiced against this classic of the American theater. Artistic director Richard Hamburger has chosen…
Come January 1, one of the perks of being a state criminal judge may be legislated out of existence. No longer would judges have the unfettered discretion to appoint lawyers for indigent defendants. No longer would there be a patronage system–or at least the appearance of one–that allows judges to…
It’s 1999, the end of history as we know it, with the Cold War over and the Western World infatuated with its own narcissistic reflection as it gazes into its navel and can’t see past itself. Forget the big picture. There are no more big ideas. There’s no more big…
There are two fundamental rules that must remain inviolate for my 4-year-old, Max, to enjoy children’s theater. First, never allow larger-than-life animal characters to frolic in any interactive fashion with the audience: Breaking the fourth wall scares the hell out of him. And second, make certain that the running time…
So what if he had been served with papers, ordered to appear in court or risk getting thrown in jail. No way Kim Sullivan was getting her hopes up until she saw him walking through those courtroom doors–not with the Texas attorney general trying to squeeze more than $40,000 in…
They came because they were curious, because they were committed. They came because they were fed up. On August 15, more than 30 lawyers, Democrats all, gathered in the Oak Cliff courtroom of Justice of the Peace Luis Sepulveda to talk politics and decide just how serious each of them…
It had all the makings of a trend. The new global economy–the one driven by the Internet, e-commerce and multinational corporations, the one that keeps three shifts running 24/7, that enables us to bank at 2 a.m., trade stock at 3 a.m. and get fit at 4 a.m.–seemed to need…
“Little Rose” has a butter-melting smile, cascading cornrows and huge brown eyes. An adorable 5-year-old, she’s the kind of cute you can’t resist hugging. But don’t be fooled by her Shirley Temple pout; she is also a powerful weapon in the arsenal of drug-policy reformers, those men and women who…
As Tom Stanley lay dying, his heart worn down by time, Lillian Stanley searched for ways to console her husband. Each day he spent at Presbyterian Hospital in January, she would gather family and friends around him–those who had loved him and those who had wronged him–so Stanley, 83, could…
It wasn’t as though she asked for much: a warm bed, a full belly, a squeaky chew toy. Of course, she had needs. What dog didn’t? But Missy the Chihuahua never complained. She had a good home, a big back yard and the unconditional love of her two parents–Karen and…
Last November, inmate Erik Indian stood before the latest group of candidates to enter the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI), the faith-based prison program operated at the Vance Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, just outside of Houston. “I have been here 14 months straight, and I have never…
It’s hard not to notice the cheesy advertisement: a full page in The Dallas Morning News, screaming tabloid headlines, before and after photos of big fleshy people morphed by hypnosis into small suggestive people: “True story how Mineola man wins 20-year battle with obesity”…”Fast Weight Loss”…”Instant Results.” Take Bob Denton,…
It was all he could do to keep from going crazy, a little nuts, when he thought about how much he missed his kids. He claims he never anticipated the War of the Roses his ex-wife would wage–with his words twisted, his actions demonized, his own children turned bitterly against…
She stood by the bailiff, arms folded, nostrils in full flair, obviously incensed that she essentially had been arrested and forced to appear in court. But her detention last Friday was not for complicity in the murder that put her husband behind bars for life. It was not for her…
