Arts & Entertainment

The guy writes three times a week; he doesn't have Mike Royko's research staff; he's not going to be Mike Royko, OK? Besides, look what happened to Royko. He's dead. Steve Blow is alive, if not edgy. With a laid-back, easygoing, yarn-spinning style, he can also be a darned good reporter when he feels like it. And if he had done not one other good column all year, he would have earned a Best of Dallas award just for the one he did on the Muslim couple who got jeered on the Jumbotron at Cowboy Stadium. In one short piece, Blow weaved together a tapestry of themes about bigotry, football, the hopes and fears of immigrants, and the newly diverse nature of the region. Not many scribblers can do all that in an 800-word column. Blow provides Dallas with something it sorely needs--a familiar and authentic voice. And by the way, in case you never noticed, this ain't Chicago.

If you want columns about the latest b.s. fads in corporate-speak or the 118th column about how a North Texas CEO is putting his company on the right track, you read The Dallas Morning News. If you want to find out the real reason the CEO of Southwest Airlines stepped down (he'd lost face in labor negotiations because of his "meddling chairman," Herb Kelleher) or if you want to know one of the unspoken reasons Arlington will overpay for the dubious promise of development around a new Cowboys stadium (because "among the nine biggest cities in the metroplex, Arlington had the largest increase in poverty in the 1990s"--and it has no other way to revitalize itself), then you read biz columnist Mitch Schnurman in the Star-T. Schnurman is a rarity--a smart, tough reporter who understands business and can explain how boardroom decisions affect a city and its citizens. You'd say that it would be great if he were a city columnist, but he already offers more insight into the way Fort Worth works than any columnist at the DMN has ever done with Big D.

Readers' Pick

Steve Blow

The Dallas Morning News

The governor of New Jersey got more national pub with his Gayo-American speech, but in local terms Laura Miller's public coming-out confessional before the North Dallas Chamber in June was every bit as riveting. The feisty former journalist who ran for office on a pledge of back-to-basics--she waged red-meat political campaigns against "the boys downtown" and their "big-ticket projects"--told the Chamber her husband had called her "stupid" and she was switching over to the boys' team. Yup. Just that simple. Miller said her husband, state representative and asbestos lawyer Steve Wolens, "is a lot more mature than me." Apparently Wolens had told the little lady to ditch that populist thing, put on some big fat pearls and cozy up to the downtown dogs. So now that's her plan. Instead of the streets and gutters she promised the voters when she ran, she told the Chamber she is now focused on the dogs' main deals, like the Trinity River project and redeveloping downtown. One of the most exciting things about Miller's personality makeover is that it comes barely a third of the way through her first full term as mayor. At this rate, we'll get to see at least three more totally new mayors before her term is up.

Readers' Pick

Kidd Kraddick

As the promise of the Morning News' "revolution" fades, it becomes more and more apparent that you can't change a corporate culture unless you (warning: bizspeak coming) hire peak performers and empower them. When the paper hired Keven Ann Willey to be its editorial page editor, it did just that. The editorials under Willey continue to be sharp and sensible. Even when we disagree with their conclusion, at least we know what the conclusion is--a marked improvement from the past 85 years or so. She has a vibrant, ideologically diverse staff that she allows to take the page in many different directions. It means that for the first time perhaps ever, you can open the editorial and op-ed pages of the DMN and be surprised.

Anybody really care what D magazine's writers think about Jessica Simpson, Alexa Conomos, Fireside Pies or other key issues of the day? Well, FrontBurner--a blog service of the publication's Web site--is the place to go if you do, indeed, care that much. On the other hand, if you prefer to catch up on inside jokes and office politics, they sometimes discuss cubicle size and trade sophomoric insults. Occasionally, they actually break some worthy news item, but that just detracts from their real purpose. The site apparently exists to allow the group (Adam McGill, Tim Rogers, Wick Allison, et. al.) to critique news coverage by other publications, particularly The Dallas Morning News. D's staff regularly calls out other writers in an online version of a Wild West challenge between two gunslingers. Downsides: Many people rightly or wrongly consider D a bastion of boosterism itself. Pluses: FrontBurner is great fun, sparked by occasional cattiness and a useful tidbit or two.

Situated just past the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway and Highway 121, Frisco Square is a 4 million-square-foot community built around the idea that the past is the future, that Norman Rockwell was right, that people want to walk to work (and to eat, and to shop), that real towns are built around plush parks and pedestrian-friendly streets. The people who came up with this idea (developer Cole McDowell and his company, Five Star Development; city planning director John Lettelleir; City Manager George Purefoy; architect David M. Schwarz; and former Frisco Mayor Kathy Seei) just might be right about all of that. Except there's not much there right now, other than townhomes, Frisco's new senior center and a few other buildings. But check back in five years. Then you can see how they did. Or didn't.

Book clubs are powerful tools. For example, any tome Oprah Winfrey features on hers instantly becomes a best seller. Same goes (to a lesser extent) for the books featured on other chat-show book clubs. Larry James and Central Dallas Ministries have the same goal, except for one important wrinkle. They don't want people who come to their Urban Engagement Book Club to buy the books. They want them to buy the ideas contained inside, thoughts about charity and its effects, politics and its soul, creativity and its importance. Every book leads to a lively debate and the feeling that maybe, just maybe, problems are about to be solved. You can see CDM is building up to something and, with the Urban Engagement Book Club, building a like-minded army to help them get there. Wish them well.

It's still early, but give Jack Matthews (the developer who brought the South Side on Lamar complex to life and owns much of the neighboring property) and the others brave enough to join him time. South Side itself is already home to the best artists-in-residence program in the area (and one of the best, period), as well as tenants such as Erykah Badu and The D.O.C. And sooner rather than later, Raphael Parry's new theater company, Project X, will have a home in the basement in the former confines of the building's boiler room. But it doesn't begin and end there. Gilley's opened a Dallas location in one of Matthews' buildings on the street, and David Card moved his Lower Greenville fixture, Poor David's Pub, to the area this summer. Plus, there's the up-and-coming, down-and-dirty dive Lee Harvey's to keep the locals well-lubricated on Pabst Blue Ribbon. Best part is, Matthews donated $1 million worth of real estate to the city so it could build the Dallas Police Department's headquarters directly across from South Side. So you don't need to worry about any Milk-Eyed Bandits going bump in the night.

As Chris Cree says, you don't have to know "antidisestablishmentarianism" to play Scrabble. Just plenty of two- to eight-letter words. Cree speaks from experience, because his knowledge of those words has made the local businessman the highest-ranked Scrabble player in Texas. He finished fourth at this year's National Scrabble Championship in New Orleans, losing a heartbreaking game in Round 30 to eventual champion Trey Wright. But it's still been a good year for Cree. A few months ago, he set an unofficial world record for most points scored on a single turn, when he played "blowzier" through two triple-word squares for 329 points, more than even many advanced players score in an entire game. Too bad it didn't happen in New Orleans.

You can get in free at any Dallas Mavericks game. Yes, you. It's simple. Here's the deal: Paint your face. Your body, too, if you feel up to it. Show up two hours before tip-off at the American Airlines Center. Find something called the "Mavs Urban Excursion." Don't worry, it shouldn't be hard to miss, since there will be more than a few people who look just like you. When prompted, scream and cheer and show just how much of a fan you are, even if you're the quiet type who'd rather just watch the game in peace. It's free, remember, so don't be shy. If you're lucky, and not too many had the same idea, the Mavs Street Team will hook you up with a ticket. And it's pretty close to the court, if you're still on the fence about the whole face-painting, whooping-it-up thing. By the time the final buzzer sounds, you'll be ready to do it all again next game.

Besides coming up with an undeniably sweet name, Art Prostitute founders Brian Gibb and Mark Searcy have come up with undeniably sweet things to go along with it. Like Art Prostitute, the most stylish art and design magazine around, geared toward building a new generation of art collectors. (It's a touch pricey at $20 but worth every cent because of the art prints--from Shepard Fairey, among others--that come with each issue.) There's also Art Prostitute, the duo's gallery that could one day be the epicenter of the North Texas arts scene the way the sainted Good/Bad Art Collective used to be, and it's already bringing in artists from all over, the kind of people you need to know about. Not to mention www.artprostitute.com, their Web site that acts as a tip sheet for everything that's worth checking out, be it music, art or whatever.

You might not have heard of Denton group Midlake, but Jason Lee has. Then again, you might not have heard of Jason Lee either, but that's a topic for another time. The actor-skater (you may remember him from such films as Chasing Amy, Mumford, Vanilla Sky and, yes, Almost Famous) swears it's one of the only bands he listens to. If you don't believe him, think of it this way: He came to town this summer on his own dime and spent a week shooting a video for their song "Balloon Maker." Before that, in May he hosted a Midlake show in London as part of an art opening sponsored by his skateboard company Stereo. So, if you were wondering, his money is, in fact, where his mouth is.

This is a tough one, because WFAA-Channel 8 still has Byron Harris and Brett Shipp, two of the consistently best investigative reporters in the market. But Channel 11's news team just seems to work harder and dig deeper day in and day out. Politicos and public relations types keep a close eye on Sarah Dodd's City Hall coverage to know what's up and what's coming. Steve Pickett provides smart, sharp coverage of the city's Byzantine public school system. Robert Riggs is a top investigative reporter. J.D. Miles is one of the city's most versatile general assignment reporters. Newcomer Jack Fink has hit homers on the police and terrorism beats. They've taken on top-flight journalists as their behind-the-scenes producers. And Tracy Rowlett, co-anchor and managing editor, always pushes his staff for that extra edge that makes them, we think, the best news show in town.

Readers' Pick

WFAA-Channel 8

Think pageant and immediately the mind calls up Miss America-like shows with stupid and obvious questions answered by vapid, hair-sprayed women in sparkly gowns. It's different at Buddies II. (Somehow we suspect Adam West won't be hosting the next Ms. Femme/Ms. Butch Buddies pageant at the homey lesbian bar.) Sure, there's a formal dress competition, and there are questions for contestants to answer, but the mood is completely laid-back, fun and supportive. We don't anticipate anyone sabotaging the talent portion of the show, and the congrats given when winners are announced are wholehearted. This fun, girly/not-so-girly version of a pageant is truly entertaining, and the crowd feels like family.

From the warped mind of local photographer Bobby Jack Pack Jr. comes one sick, twisted and absolutely hysterical sketch comedy show. The show, started more than a decade ago, stars a rotating cast and is filmed, well, whenever the hell they feel like it. Same goes for the airing, too, as the BJPSCS randomly shows on public access television or at theaters like the Magnolia, which has aired it in conjunction with other local indie-film projects. Sketches involve anything from a grown man in a green sequined leotard pumping gas on Live Oak Street while on his way to a "dance audition" to a woman finding a severed head in her credenza and simply tossing it out the front door to create a grisly traffic obstacle. It's like Dallas' own Mr. Show. Thankfully, DVDs are available on the Web site since the show's airings are often anyone's guess.

Oh, you could hand over a collection of old sculptures to the city. The newspapers would lavish praise on you, and the 500 or so people in Texas who actually appreciate bits of cast-off construction material welded into odd shapes would consider you some sort of god. Working for broader goals--the eradication of AIDS, an end to poverty, that sort of thing--rarely nets personal glory. Rich folks typically fight these problems from a safe distance, with a checkbook. No matter how much they donate, however, few can match the efforts of radio personality Action Jaxon. He organized the city's largest AIDS testing drive, participated in 7 UP's Serving Up a Cure dinner three years in a row, hosted the AIDS Arms Life Walk four years in a row, serves as a board member for the AIDS Services of Dallas, rode in eight fund-raising bike rides and so on. In addition, he volunteers at various homeless shelters and spends one week a year living in a shelter as a way to raise awareness. Then there's his work with the Carter BloodCare Blood Drive, Boxing for Life, reading programs...the more people George W. forces into poverty, the harder this guy battles back.

It depends on who tells the story. Either Dallas Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson rudely shoved Nate Wright to the ground as Roger Staubach's desperation heave descended on that fateful day, one game before the Super Bowl, in 1975, or the hapless Viking simply fell victim to incidental contact. When Minnesota fans approach Pearson for an autograph, however, he lets them know precisely where he stands on the issue, signing the ball, paper or family heirloom thusly: "I did not push Nate Wright, he pushed me. Get over it. Hail Mary, 12/28/75."

We've started bragging that we used to be in the local band [DARYL]. With all the lineup changes in the last 15 months, no one would be the wiser, perhaps not even the actual members of [DARYL]. It was hard to keep track--we tried, but it was at a bar, on a napkin. You know how these things go. The starting lineup was Dylan Silvers on guitar and vocals, Jeff Parker on bass and vocals, Michael Lamm on drums and Dave Wilson on guitar, keyboards and backup vocals. Parker left; Silvers switched to bass. Justin Wood was added on guitar, along with Angie Comley on keyboards and vocals. Wilson left. Dave Christensen took over on bass, and Silvers went back to guitar. Christensen moved to guitar when Wood left, and Comley's replacements were dual keyboardists/vocalists Justen Andrews and Beau Wagener. At some point, former keyboardist Chad Ferman filled in, a saxophonist named David Hayes was added, and, we think, Santana did a riff or two (that guy plays with everyone). What we do know is that [DARYL] has kept the same lineup for a dozen shows now and sounds better than it has in more than a year. Gentlemen, keep your seats.

The D-FW theater scene needs a lesson on supply and demand. There is too much of what we don't want. Seriously, could anyone else stage Annie or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat this year? Was there a clearance sale at the costume warehouse? And then there's the matter of too little of what we do want, mainly Our Endeavors Theater Collective, whose schedule includes only Around the World With Blackbrows the Pirate, an original play to tour elementary schools this semester, and another play that has yet to be determined. Both will surely be worth trespassing at DISD or driving to Tyler for, though we won't object to a legal visitation at a theater near downtown. The 7-year-old, dozen-member ensemble founded by couple Scott Osborne and Patti Kirkpatrick is innovative, mesmerizing, compelling, fantastical and about a million other gushy adjectives we could string together, whether they're performing a rare and heady work by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz or pulling out the fishnets and garters for Extreme Acts, a burlesque, sideshow, comedy, musical, dance revue.

We can't expect you to drive 30-something miles south to Waxahachie to look at art when you won't even drive five blocks to go to a Dallas gallery. But, for a few hours on a weekend afternoon and a quarter-tank of gas, Waxahachie's Webb Gallery is an inexpensive road trip. And the art's so fun, we swear it won't even feel like you're getting cultured. Bruce and Julie Webb founded their gallery about 17 years ago out of their love for self-taught art, primitive arts and crafts and fraternal lodge pieces. And the stories behind the works are just as intriguing as the drawings, paintings and sculptures in the collection. These are artists whose lives revolved around minimum-wage jobs and families and were affected by mental and physical disabilities. They didn't dream of making it in New York or getting their first solo exhibits. They made art because they were driven to create and it made them happy. It'll make you happy, too, if you can find the time.

The world's divided into camps: Kerry vs. Bush, Roth vs. Hagar, Magnolia vs. Angelika. While the Angelika in Mockingbird Station has its up sides--more theaters, a restaurant in the lobby--the Magnolia still gets the nod as Dallas' best theater, and not just because you can smoke in the bar, though that doesn't hurt. The place is just a little cozier and more audience-friendly than the art-house megaplex up Central Expressway: You can buy DVDs in the lobby, get yourself a box of Aussie cookies Tim Tams before the movie and then go eat at Ferré or Paris Vendome or Taco Diner afterward, all eateries that far outshine the one in the Angelika's downstairs. And the Magnolia is run by film geeks, from boss man Tearlach Hutcheson (a film prof when he's not doing the books for Landmark these days) to managers to ticket-takers, all of whom are happy to argue the history of cinema with you before a screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 or Garden State or some other top-of-the-line indie showing at the theater. Parking sucks, though.

Readers' Pick

The Magnolia

From The Range's Web site: "The Country Music Industry had alienated so many fans by the 'Great Garth Cloning Experiment of the '90s' that The Range seemed like a breath of fresh air. KHYI brought many listeners back to Country Radio." Couldn't have said it better--actually, we could have, but we can't argue with the point that country radio in this town sucks. In fact, all radio in this town sucks--save, oh, that station broadcasting jazz and static from the University of North Texas--and not just because most of it sounds like 1975. (Seriously, imagine listening to radio in the 1970s and finding only stuff from the 1940s; that's the state of our dial today, with its penchant for everything oldie and moldy.) The 7-year-old Range, with its homegrown jocks (including 41-year vet Allen Peck Sr.) broadcasting 50,000 watts from our own back yard, sounds like KNON without the amateurishness and Saturday-night KERA without the pledge-begging. The playlist is superb--from Townes Van Zandt to Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash to Loretta Lynn, Steve Earle to Dwight Yoakam--and we'll even forgive the occasional Pat Green, because at least he wasn't born and bred in a Clear Channel basement lab. There's even gospel on Sunday morning. Jesus, that's awesome.

Readers' Pick

KERA-FM (90.1)

Humidity curls our hair and dots our brow with sweat. And there are only a few reasons worth enduring it: tiny howler monkeys with tiny hands and tiny ears; sleek, whiskered river otters; three-toed sloths and stoney, ancient-looking manatees. These and hundreds of other creatures inhabit the Orinoco--Secrets of the River rain forest exhibit at the Dallas World Aquarium, which re-creates a section of Venezuela's Orinoco River basin. There's more to this aquarium than fish, which, in our opinion, are nothing in comparison with the seven-level rain forest. Sorry, white-spotted bamboo shark and stingray. There are also penguins, but they're South African penguins, so look for them outside...where it's almost as humid and muggy.

You'd expect a bar or music club to fill this slot, so what's the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game doing here? Our winner already earns techie points with more options and faster loads than Friendster, but MySpace's music section stands out by making local music simple to wade through. Type in a Dallas ZIP code, and more than 300 Dallas-area bands pop up. Each band's page features biographies, gig information and, most important, immediate music playback. No MP3s to fiddle with--within one mouse click, you'll know whether or not a random band like, say, savanteous Q malmsteen is worth your time. What's more, once you find a likable band, check its "social network" for similar acts, and with local faves like Baboon, [DARYL] and The Deathray Davies calling MySpace home, that shouldn't take long at all. Sure, you'll still have to hit bars and clubs for good live local music, but with MySpace leveling the musical playing field, deciding whom to see becomes a lot easier.

Every other Sunday evening (or so), a group of musicians gathers at the Barley House. As night bleeds into morning, they trade off the spotlight for short acoustic sets--nothing fancy, just a guy and a guitar and a stool, perhaps, the kind of earnest-looking scene that sends most beer-drinkers clamoring for the check. Except these are some of the best musicians in Dallas--members of Sorta and Deadman and The Shimmers--and though they're surely happy to see a large crowd gather, they're really playing for each other, trying to impress and entertain and surprise the other musicians. The set list continues to change, too, with special guests and tweaked lineups each week, meaning two shows are never the same. It's a wonderfully relaxing, feel-good way to end a week. Pull up a stool, order a beer and eavesdrop on some of the finest musical conversations around.

Textile artist Sue Benner works in cloth, thread and dyes, but there the resemblance of her creations to the quilts your grandmother made ends. Using small pieces of fabric to create dynamic abstract wall hangings, Benner says her current pieces are about relationships, "color-to-color, shape-to-shape, pattern-to-pattern." Educated in molecular biology and trained as a medical illustrator, Benner says her work relies on the underlying structure and organizing principles found in nature. The effect is always of joyous, riotous color. Shown internationally, Benner's pieces are in many private and corporate collections and are available in Dallas through private dealer Marie Park.

Going to the museum is a lot like going to church: It occurs during the daylight hours (usually Sunday), it's good for you (read: boring), there's an endless supply of old people around, and whatever you do, you can't make a peep. That's why the DMA's Late Nights series is such a revelation. Running once a month on Fridays from 6 p.m. to midnight, the series opens up those echoing, hallowed halls to bands, DJs, films, wine tastings, twilight gallery tours and more. It's kind of like the cultural version of a church lock-in. But this isn't mere "edutainment"; this place actually rocks. Participants have included such buzzworthy acts as I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, DJ Spooky and Cat Power. Museums should be a place to celebrate excellence in art and culture and music, not just a place to keep both hands carefully at your side. So raise your voices, and your wine glasses.

Huge art mainstays like the DMA and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth do well to veil the money-hungry concrete jungle that is our fair town, but it's the beauty of smaller collections that makes us say, "Are we really in Dallas?" Case in point: the Trammell and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, whose focus on ancient works of the largest continent actually rivals a similar collection at the Louvre. Yeah, we said it. The jade pieces here are mind-blowingly intricate, as are the dozens of royal decorations scattered through the building. Keep your eyes peeled, as one of Dallas' most amazing pieces is tucked into the very far corner of the collection. Walk through the origami swan hallway, and once you enter the shrine room, turn around and you'll see a door that looks off-limits to the general public. In there, you'll find a single piece of wood that has been carved into dozens of individual warriors, horses and elephants, which stand on top of each other to form a near-solid mass. You may think you're hallucinating when you see it, but even drugs aren't this good.

For about two months solid, it seemed, the Granada Theater showed nothing but old episodes of Absolutely Fabulous and maybe a football game. The beautiful space, once a movie house and then a live music venue, had tumbled to the point of hosting a few concerts a month and otherwise lying fallow. That changed when CD World owner Mike Schoder bought the place earlier this year and refashioned it as a comfortable, considerate music club for adults, the kind who can't always stay out till 2 a.m. to see their favorite band. The place is smoke-free, serves food and hosts the kind of shows that grown-ups want to see: Wilco, Jack Ingram, Malford Milligan. Will it fly? We certainly hope so. Schoder has proven himself a passionate musical advocate, and the success of CD World indicates a market savvy. Either way, we applaud him for taking the risk.

Talk about stand and deliver. For two years in a row (2002 and 2003), SEM, one of DISD's court-mandated magnet high schools, had more minority students pass the advanced placement calculus exam than any other school in the nation. It's even more remarkable considering how small the student body is. With only 400 students, 113 passed the test in 2003; of those, 60 were Hispanic or African-American. On the AP chemistry exam, minority students at SEM tied for first place in the state; of the 23 SEM students who passed, 10 were minorities. "It always starts with the teacher," says Gregg Fleisher, president of the nonprofit AP Strategies, which works with school districts and businesses to manage AP programs. "And SEM Principal Richard White has recruited some of the best calculus teachers in the state." The program is also supported by the Texas Instruments Foundation and the Advanced Academic Services department in DISD, which provides lead teachers, curriculum and other materials. We know the program works. Now, why can't it work everywhere?

A good director will inspire actors to give their best performances and let the playwrights' words shine without the directing getting in the way. René Moreno, who directed eight productions in Dallas and Fort Worth theaters this year, is one reason so many good actors are staying in the area instead of migrating toward the coasts. They're eager to collaborate with this actor-centric artist who says he just tries to elicit "good, honest work" from his casts. Since his first directing gig at Kitchen Dog Theater in 1996, Moreno, 45, has been in demand here and at Milwaukee Rep (where he'll stage Cabaret soon). Dallas audiences have applauded his work recently for the spitfire bio-musical La Lupe for Martice Enterprises, Edward Albee's cryptic Marriage Play at WingSpan, Arthur Miller's gut-wrenching All My Sons at Classical Acting Company, God's Man in Texas at Fort Worth's Circle Theatre and The Drawer Boy at Plano Rep. Moreno's next job: directing A.R. Gurney's Far East at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas in February.

At a feel-good, PR-style luncheon where many of the guests are whispering on their cell phones, Dallas City Councilman Gary Griffith is not only listening intently to the speaker but actually making tiny little notes with a ball point pen on a small leather-backed notepad that he keeps pulling out and then redepositing in his breast pocket. It's typical of the quiet, behind-the-scenes intensity and thoughtfulness this freshman member of the council brings to the mission. Often unheralded, Griffith has helped the council pluck its way through several political spiderwebs already, including supplemental pay for injured cops, hiring a new police chief and countless neighborhood battles over streets and parks. So far he's been modest, cautious, smart and effective. Of course, he hasn't been sipping the Marilla Kool-Aid all that long. Let's try to get some more good out of him before they bring the refills.

Readers' Pick

John Loza

It happens at almost every play for which Randel Wright designs the set. The lights come up onstage, the audience gets its first look at his spectacular handiwork and everyone applauds. For A Girl's Guide to Chaos at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, Wright filled the acting space with a ceiling-high tribute to the line drawings of the late pop artist Keith Haring, including Haring's signature crawling babies and barking dogs. For Lone Star/Laundry and Bourbon, also at CTD, Wright created an authentically shabby back porch and yard (complete with clothesline), then magically transformed it during intermission into a run-down West Texas honky-tonk lit by a gigantic rising full moon. The effect brought a satisfied "aaaaah" from the crowd. He's the only set designer successful at making the cave-like Bath House Cultural Center into an elegant acting space. For WingSpan's production of Edward Albee's Marriage Play, Wright incorporated the odd architectural elements of that venue into his rendering of a sprawling penthouse apartment. This designer definitely has a fine career building.

Now in its third season of plays and musicals at the Trinity River Arts Center, the Uptown Players upped the ante this year with more ambitious work and higher-quality productions. This company, founded by co-producers Jeff Rane and Craig Lynch, performs gay-themed shows for a dedicated audience composed mostly of young gay theatergoers (everyone's welcome, of course). To their small stage they attract the best local talent--Denise Lee, Coy Covington, Nye Cooper, Regan Adair, Donald Fowler, BJ Cleveland--to casts of musicals such as Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Life and the cross-dressing comedies of Charles Busch (this year's Red Scare on Sunset was a winner). At least once a season they stage a sprawling, large-cast drama. The recent production of Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion!, featuring more nudity than Dallas stages have seen in many a moon, played to sell-out crowds. Finishing out the current season is The Wild Party (through October 24). Next year's slate includes A Man of No Importance, Mambo Italiano, Southern Baptist Sissies and The Who's Tommy. Snaps all around!

Some people like to visit Mark Cuban's blog for its train-wreck aspects. You know, how he'll promote his show The Benefactor and say how great it is just before it airs to an indifferent public. We like it, weirdly enough, for all the other posts. Like the one about his take on politics and its effects on the business environment. (He took a shot at Senator Orrin Hatch and never mentioned that he once contributed money to Hatch's campaign, but it didn't affect his point, so whatever.) Or the one about how much he loves his new Sidekick II gadget. (Want one!) And especially the one about the future of HDTV, DVDs and the hard drive. It's in posts like these that Cuban shows he deserves at least a bit of the "business genius" label that is constantly attached to him. True, we long for the post where Cuban shows a smidge of humility, but in the meantime we'll settle for the insight and geekdom he offers.

Readers' Pick

www.texasgigs.com

For years we've watched Lulu Ward dazzle Dallas theater audiences by disappearing so convincingly into characters that she's almost unrecognizable. Like the twin divas (one gorgeous, one homely) in Pegasus Theatre's black-and-white comedy Cross Stage Right: Die! Or the three parts she played in Cloud Nine at the Bath House. She was Medea in Orgasmo Adulto Escapes From the Zoo. A slatternly crack whore in The Abandoned Reservoir. A jealous mistress raging in the afterlife in Ground Zero's 10:10. And she took on a dozen characters, including a 6-year-old, a hippie teen and an elderly Irish maid, in Contemporary Theatre's The Dining Room. Getting good at the acting thing meant giving it up for a few years, says Ward, 45. "I left, gained some weight, got a little older, and it made a difference. I felt like I owned my own talent after that. It was healthy for me," she says. A self-described former "pageant queen," Ward went through college on a Junior Miss scholarship. In the works now: a one-woman show called Texanese Confessions, based on stories about her parents. Mom Yoko is Japanese. Ward's late father was a "redneck steel guitar player who hung out with Willie Nelson." Ward has been married for five years to musician Michael Beall and offstage is an ardent animal rescuer who tends to four dogs and six cats. Little Lulu, we love you-lu.

He's drop-dead handsome, hugely talented and bald as an egg. Halim Jabbour, 30, also is one of Dallas' most in-demand leading men, cast in a variety of tasty roles at theaters large and small over the past year. For Ground Zero Theater Company, he was a cheating groom in the premiere of Vicki Cheatwood's smoldering drama 10:10. He played a New Yorker romancing a Georgia doll in Contemporary Theatre's nostalgic The Last Night of Ballyhoo. At Richardson Theatre Centre, he was the terrifying killer in Wait Until Dark. He never let up on intensity playing two roles (with and without toupee) in Boaz Unlocked's Three Days of Rain, even before an audience of three. "And that included my sister," he recalls. Born in Lebanon, raised in Saudi Arabia (his dad was a civil engineer there), Jabbour started pre-med at Baylor before transferring to UT-Austin, where he earned a radio-TV-film degree. After a stint at Circle in the Square theater in Manhattan and a year of study in Los Angeles, he moved to Dallas in 2002 and has worked steadily onstage ever since (by day he's production coordinator for Barney the Dinosaur). Dream role: one of the brothers in Sam Shepard's True West. Catch Jabbour in a new Texas Lottery commercial or onstage as Friar Laurence in Classical Acting Company's Romeo and Juliet.

The LCC has had operating fits and starts during its first year, but the Ricardo Legorreta-designed building has added warmth and beauty to a cold corner between downtown and East Dallas. The $10 million structure makes the colors purple and orange seem understated, even though the center's grandeur is in stark contrast with its across-the-street neighbors, a still-underdeveloped string of parking lots and sad-state buildings.

John Pomara is a painter who thrives on the death of painting. He understands well that painting's so-called death has become its very condition, and he has managed to infuse the splendors of that death with something radically new. His work hinges on the idea and fact of mediation--the mediation of pixels and paint through the repeated modeling of computer-generated images, and the physical movement of the pull of paint. When looking at the surfaces of his perfectly flat, shiny and brightly colored paintings, one would never know that they were so complicated. But it is this subtle play of contradiction--bringing to mind the hi-lo high jinks of Lichtenstein and Warhol--that makes his paintings so successful. The "hi" (as in high art) part of his works is obvious. He makes paintings that feel good all over and, most important, are good on the eye. The "lo" part is, while more suggested, integral to his work. Pomara plays on the lowbrow with his choice of base materials--highly pixelated advertisements and photographic imagery, industrial paint and aluminum panels. Pomara revels in the death of painting because he is the master of resuscitation.

Angstrom Gallery is both hip and intellectual, punk and smart. Everything about it--the artwork, the artists, the people who run it, the location--is right on. In short, Angstrom makes Dallas a better city. David Quadrini, the gallery's impresario and catalyst, has shown a penchant for verisimilitude of late, showing objects that appear to be what they are not. Muscling forth conceptually with ideas on appearance and the commodity fetish, such work--Daniel Gordon's photographs, Kaz Oshiro's paintings and Kevin Landers' sculpture--cuts to the core of what it means to be American. It does so without falling into the ugly traps of patriotism and provincialism. Perhaps even more exciting, though, is the gallery's acquisition of new space a few storefronts over, where there was recently an unannounced and unofficial (and so cool and so punk) showing of a sound-activated video by Jeff Shore. But Angstrom is not just concerned with being hip, hep and with it. It's a space truly invested in art as a thing and an idea. The openings are relaxed and fun. And above all else, the people are nice.

The former Stephen J. Hay School on Herschel Avenue stands proud again, refurbished and alive with uniformed seventh- and eighth-grade girls and their teachers. This first single-sex school in DISD was made possible by the willingness of the district to try something new, the bond issue voted by the citizenry in 2002 and the work and generosity of philanthropists Lee and Sally Posey. The Poseys led the efforts to create the school and established a foundation to support it, bringing in as executive director Liza Lee, former Hockaday headmistress and a national leader in all-girls education. Many of the finest private schools have always been single sex, and the absence of distractions of a coed school is believed to be particularly beneficial for girls. Each year, Rangel will add another grade until it is a combination middle school and high school. That's when the foundation's real benefits will kick in. The Poseys, who have privately sent more than 90 economically disadvantaged girls to college, have pledged that every Rangel graduate who is accepted to college "will have the financial support she needs."

Neither rant nor rave about the Nasher Sculpture Center. It is great. It is great with a capital G. We love it. Our readers love it. But, for as long as it lasts, the great shiny, chrome dinosaurs, crafted from recycled car parts and installed bumper-to-bumper, you might say, on the grounds of the Dallas Museum of Natural History, are just so majestic, monumental and silly. And don't you agree that this outdoor art, created by sculptor Jack Kearney, just screams "Dallas!" and our cultural schizophrenia more than the subtle, breathtaking masterpieces at the Nasher? Kearney created life-size replicas of a 20-foot tyrannosaurus rex, as well as a triceratops and stegosaurus that are more than 32 feet long each. The collection, on loan since 1998, weighs 7 tons and took Kearney three years to finish. P.S. to whomever we're borrowing these from: Please don't take our Chromosaurs away.

Readers' Pick

Nasher Sculpture Center

2001 Flora St.

214-242-5100

Yeah, yeah--Tracy Rowlett has more gravitas, whatever that means, but we're sticking with this selection, and not just because Hawkins is one of the few local TV news guys who doesn't think the Dallas Observer's one step below toilet reading. We like Hawkins because he's a reporter and anchorman and good at both gigs; he's even something of a poet, as acknowledged in our Full Frontal section a few months back when Hawkins referred to metered parking spaces as "asphalt rent," the first and last time we can recall a local talking TV head even attempting something close to...whatyacallit...writing. He's never too smug or overly sincere, makes mindless between-anchor chitchat seem kinda witty and doesn't condescend to the audience when breaking news good, bad or pointless. If he can stick it out at Channel 8, where the good folks are abandoning ship like it's the Titanic without even a band, Hawkins has the goods to be a major player for a good long while. He might even get him some gravitas, which Scott Samms probably thinks is a dirty word.

Readers' Pick

Gloria Campos

WFAA-Channel 8

Perhaps it's not fair to call Midlake's Bamnan and Slivercork the best local album of the year. Sure, it's great, but the word "local" might be considered a stretch. First off, the album hasn't yet seen an official launch in the United States, though that hasn't stopped local record shops from importing the album from Britain's Bella Union label in droves. To further complicate things, Midlake hardly sounds like it comes from America, much less Denton--there's really no other group making music like this in the region, as jazzy drumbeats, swirling keyboards and undernourished guitars unite in Pink Flaming Grandaddy Air Floyd Lips fashion. And, honestly, how many Dallas bands have mastered their albums at Abbey Road Studios? Therefore, we understand if a few people scoff at the "local" tag given to Bamnan, but in the end, we're damn proud to claim any local ties to an album this impressive.

Readers' Pick

[DARYL] Ohio

Containing a wealth of do-it-yourself legal information, the Dallas County Law Library is free for all Dallas County residents. Librarian David Wilkinson estimates that of the 250 people who use the library each day, only about half are attorneys. What are all of these non-lawyers doing in a law library? Taking care of routine legal matters without the expense of hiring a lawyer, says librarian Gerald Bynum. Such cases could range from name changes to uncontested divorces and simple wills. Prominent on the library information sheets listing available services is this disclaimer: "It is unlawful for library employees to interpret legal materials or to advise people how the law might apply to their situation." Another available giveaway, sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association, lists 28 legal clinics and counseling services that can provide this kind of information at no or low cost.

As digital photography gets cheaper and easier to use, Kodak moment by Kodak moment, we fear film will become obsolete. And for most people that's probably true. But for the few, the proud, those who practiced prying open film canisters and rolling film around developing reels in the dark, those whose favorite shirts bear developer and fixer splash stains across the tummy, film will never die, even if we have to hold protests with SLRs, Holgas, Brownies and Dianas in hand. Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery knows a picture is worth a thousand words, and for almost a decade owners Burt and Missy Finger have been feeding them to us, exhibit by exhibit, black and white, color, daguerreotype, digitally altered, historic, up-and-coming, teacher, student. And they've never disappointed. We can't name a gallery more consistent in its quality of shows. Plus we know they'll be on our side when the revolution comes.

When it comes to permanently scarring our body with needles and ink, we require three things: cleanliness, comfort and chemistry. We need to know the equipment is sanitary. We need people who ease our anxiety. And we need to know that the artist will work with us to make us happy. And that's why we keep going back to Pair O' Dice (and so do our friends). Richard Stell's been running this Deep Ellum institution for 11 years, enlisting the help of partner/artist Deb Brody and a succession of "kids" who hone their craft under his steady and heavy hand. Your mama may have said never trust a man with tattoos, but she was wrong.

Readers' Pick

Tigger's Tattoos

2602 Main St.

214-655-2639

We live in a world of modern convenience where cars have TVs and DVD players in them and even a lowly cigarette lighter can occasionally be outfitted to double as a bottle opener. The same concept of convenience applies to the free Sunday-afternoon no-limit Texas hold 'em tourneys at The Lodge, which, if you didn't know, is one of the area's finer gentlemen's clubs. (Or strip bar. Whatever. We're cool either way.) Where else can you gamble, drink, smoke and ogle nekkid ladies at the same time? Oh, yeah. Vegas. But that's, like, far away and stuff. Besides, we're fairly sure you can't do all of that at the same time, even there. If you're feeling guilty about this, just hit church in the morning.

When you're in a band with, like, 24 other people, you're not going to get rich anytime soon. Probably not ever. You can, however, be famous--sort of--if that band happens to be The Polyphonic Spree. You'll tour with David Bowie, travel around the world for free, see your face in magazines and on TV, hear your voice or flute or French horn or whatever on the radio, maybe even be detained by the FBI from time to time. And as soon as you take off your choir robe, not a single person will know who you are. It's the best of both worlds, getting all the cool stuff with none of the hassle. Only downside: Anyone under the age of 40 who owns a white choir robe and can sway in a rhythmic fashion can pretend to be you. But that's pretty cool, too, right?

This chunk of concrete and steel on Skillman Street near Northwest Highway was a Don Carter's All Star Lanes, with peewee leagues where kids would win tiny trophies and learn the thrill of victory and the agony of an ill-timed gutter ball. Now--nearly $10 million and two and a half years of construction later--you'd barely recognize it. Renamed the Rosewood Center for Family Arts, it's the home of the Dallas Children's Theater, where kids take classes on being tiny Laurence Oliviers and learn the thrill of professionally produced drama starring adult actors, some of whom also teach at the facility, which houses two theaters (one seats 400; the other, 140), classrooms, DCT's offices, a scene shop, a prop studio and a costume warehouse. The fund raising has been mostly grassroots, donated by fans of children's theater--both individual and professional--and the renovations continue as money comes available. Gone are the Oscar Mayer hot dogs. It's time for some Oscar-aspiring performances.

While all the other talk jocks seem to be collapsing into a single personality and voice, Mark Davis gets more distinctive. First of all, he actually knows some stuff and appears to have a life, something beyond skimming the front page and then trying to channel Rush Limbaugh. Some of his tangents are arcane, like his passionate interest in the sport of curling, but at least you know he gets out of the sound booth once in a while. His callers are often an intriguing lot, like the woman who, while calling, was being attacked by a basset hound, a toy poodle and a dachshund/Chihuahua mix but wanted to keep talking to Davis anyway. That's animal magnetism! Generally speaking, Mark Davis provides a uniquely engaging perspective on the city's everyday life.

Readers' Pick

Russ Martin Show

Live 105.3

Overheard at Best Buy last year: "I'm into all kinds of music. I listen to Nelly and Limp Bizkit." Right, buddy. Now, granted, everyone winds up claiming musical impartiality at some point in his life, but there's no way a person can like every single genre in the world. Do your tastes honestly jump from Tejano to punk rock, from mainstream rap to lo-fi folk, from electroclash to country? If so, you must be one of the five fortunate souls in Dallas who can actually hear KTCU 88.7's The Good Show on Sunday nights. Tom Urquhart's wholeheartedly anti-commercial blast of musical variety will test both your claims of musical appreciation and your radio's antenna, but if you can pick up an effin' signal without driving west on Interstate 30, you're in for a sonic range unavailable on any other frequency in town. Watch out for the DJ banter, though, because when Tom, Chris and Tony aren't interviewing local musicians, they're wasting precious minutes on debates as odd as, say, the superiority of Nelly over Limp Bizkit.

Here's yet another reason to feel guilty about not pledging, or not paying your pledge, to public radio. Glenn Mitchell's noon-to-2 p.m. show on Dallas' public radio station, KERA-FM, is not only wildly entertaining, dastardly informative and harpooningly to the point, it's the local intelligentsia's preferred manner of intercourse. It's conveniently scheduled as well, while we're mad-dashing around town at lunchtime trying to find any parking space on Commerce or Elm. Content of the show defies categorization or even adequate description, but Mitchell's first hour is usually programmed for audience call-in or e-mail participation with a celebrity, notable, topical or otherwise interesting guest in the Dallas studio. The second hour is often one-on-one interviews he conducts with authors, poets, politicos, historians and others with something to share. The variety of the guests and topics makes Mitchell's show the best; and we like the soft, Jimmy Stewart-like Everyman quality of his voice, too.

Readers' Pick

Kidd Kraddick

Back-alley cockfighting is deplorable. Good can come from it only if it's out in the open, broadcast even. And without using roosters. In fact, the best cockfights involve no cock at all. We prefer head-to-head combat between two new songs, instead of poultry, and each weeknight at 9, 102.1 the Edge provides that battle and right on our FM dial. Now hosted by Ayo (he took over for Josh Venable in August), the competition is decided by phone-in and e-mail votes from listeners. No throwing down crumpled fivers, no feathers flying. It's good, clean radio fun inspiring rabid debate among listeners. And no cocks are harmed on any of the broadcasts.

Two words: Prince afterparty. Two more words: Snoop afterparty. Get the idea? When the baddest muthas come to Dallas, the real happening is at Erykah Badu's South Dallas club. A 1960s movie house that had fallen into disrepair, the Black Forest has been reimagined as a thriving cultural spot, with hand-painted murals, checkerboard floors, lush green walls, and good sound and lighting. This is all thanks to Ms. Badu, who uses the space as ground zero for a South Dallas revitalization project called Beautiful Love Incorporated Non Profit Development (or BLIND). Semi-regular entertainment comes from Mizz B herself, along with soul, R&B, hip-hop and rock acts from around the community. Notice that word: community. 'Cause even though Black Forest may host some of the biggest names in music, ain't no question whose home this really is. Prince may be on the marquee and Erykah Badu may be on the lease, but this place belongs to South Dallas.

Readers' Pick

Velvet Curtain

www.velvetcurtain.net

Ask anyone in town for the name of the premier political consultant in Dallas and you'll get two names: Carol Reed and Rob Allyn. Since their offices are on separate floors of the same building on McKinney Avenue, and since they often find themselves in competition, you might assume that there's a war going on in the stairwell. Your assumption would prove false, at least most of the time.

We've all heard much about political consultants, but what do they actually do? "I consider myself a general contractor," Reed says. "I help design the blueprint and then take that blueprint and make sure that everything gets done on time and according to plan. I set the budget, hire the subcontractors and then make sure that they do their jobs well and according to budget.

"I may be the one who makes the trains run on time, but Rob's great gift is his ability to translate a plan into a message and then deliver that message in the most effective and motivating way."

The two may be competitors, but they often hire each other for big projects, and while their relationship stops well short of that of James Carville and Mary Matalin, there appears to be a genuine friendship behind the scheming, bare-knuckle intensity that attends big-time politics. There's also mutual respect, collegiality and, at times, just the faintest whiff of Oedipal drama between the one-time mentor and her former protégé.

"In politics, truth is always one of the alternatives," Allyn deadpans. "And one of the things that I admire most about Carol is that she tells the truth to her clients." Here's what Reed has to say about Allyn: "As gifted and creative a writer as Rob may be, his biggest strength is his focus, his ability to stay on message for his clients."

Most of these clients are Republicans, and the same can be said of most of Reed's clients as well. Two notable exceptions: Reed handled Democrat Ron Kirk's mayoral campaigns as well as his run for the U.S. Senate, while Allyn helped Laura Miller become and remain mayor, defeating Reed's client Tom Dunning in the race to complete Kirk's term. Allyn also helped the mayor best Mary Poss (not Reed's client) in the election for a full term in the nominally non-partisan office. Aside from these walks on the political wild side, the two consultants have, between them over the last 20 years, worked for virtually every major Republican office holder in the state, as well as the two Presidents Bush and President Reagan.

Reed and Allyn are now working together to help pass the bond issue that would move the Dallas Cowboys to Arlington, a campaign spearheaded by Allyn. "I fought as long and as hard as I could to bring the Cowboys to the Cotton Bowl," says Reed, a former president of Friends of Fair Park. "After we lost that fight, I decided that I might as well take the money." Both predictably but probably accurately express optimism that the bond issue will pass.

The Dallas Cowboys campaign is emblematic of the consultants' involvement with lucrative clients and causes that are political but only quasi-governmental in nature: bond issues. The two have worked together successfully on referendum campaigns for the American Airlines Center and DART. Reed's solo victories include the Trinity River project, the 2002 DISD bond campaign and many bond campaigns for Dallas County, while Allyn's résumé boasts of successful campaigns on behalf of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and the Houston Metro.

One distinction between the two is that while Reed does business in other cities, her heart seems to be in Dallas, while Allyn casts a broader net, with offices in Austin, Phoenix and Mexico City. Allyn's international clients have included Mexican President Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Perry Christie of the Bahamas, as well as political parties and causes in Asia and the Middle East. Reed, on the other hand, has been extremely active in Dallas civic affairs, serving, among many other offices, as chair of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, president of the Dallas Rotary Club and on more than two dozen civic and charitable boards.

"A genuine difference between us is that while I certainly do work outside of Dallas, my community involvement keeps me focused here, while Rob actively seeks more national and international projects," Reed says.

Allyn, who sold his company in 2002 to Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm with offices in more than 100 countries, agrees. "We've always treated politics like a business," he says. "By definition, this approach also works for corporate clients. Our new affiliation gives us leverage and support to pursue business all over the world."

Meanwhile and for both, as long as there are elections, they plan to plan them.

"Corporate clients offer a challenge and pay the bills, but once politics is in your blood it remains your passion," Reed says. "You can go to rehab, but you're hooked forever."

It wasn't so long ago that Dallas blues had fallen on hard times. Once the signature sound of Deep Ellum, back when Blind Lemon Jefferson busked the streets and the blues poured out of every bar and brothel, by early 2004 the blues had all but disappeared from the downtown area. That changed with the February opening of Deep Ellum Blues. With a central location (painted all in blue) and an expansive seating area, the club can accommodate both intimate local shows and national touring acts. In its six months, Deep Ellum Blues has played host to such acts as George Thorogood, hometown hero Hash Brown and Austin heartthrob Guy Forsyth. But the club's real coup is owner Jim Suhler, longtime guitarist for Thorogood and nominee for Best Blues in the 2004 Dallas Observer Music Awards for Jim Suhler & Monkey Beat. He not only knows the blues; he plays them just as well.

Readers' Pick

Deep Ellum Blues

We smoke cigars about twice a year or so. The last time was during a fancy birthday dinner for a friend at Sambuca Uptown (which is actually between Uptown and downtown). We retired to the smoking room there, which is a glass-walled patio complete with all manner of plush seating options. It was the middle of summer, but the area was cool, the stars were bright, and the rich, hot blasting pleasure of sweet cancerous tobacco filled our lungs. Couple this with a glass of vino or a fine cocktail from Sambuca, pipe in some of the best jazz in town (you can see the stage clearly while you smoke it up), and you have a fine place in which to pump your lungs full of the good stuff.

OK, the rabid sheep turned out not to be rabid, all right? Buy a bag of feed pellets and cruise through Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, where you're so close to the animals they drool on you. Or stare menacingly into your car window, occasionally tapping it with a huge beak, like the ostriches and emus. Everybody loves Fossil Rim Wildlife Center--even our friend from Nigeria, who talked on his cell phone the whole time (we didn't even know you could get a signal out here) but admitted he'd never seen any of these animals in his own country. At Fossil Rim, just south of Glen Rose--90 minutes southwest of Dallas down Highway 67--you drive in your own car through 10 miles of habitats that simulate the African savannah and other wildlife-rich regions. Along the way, you see gazelles boinging in the fields; seemingly every species of deer known to man; zebras; giraffes; cheetahs; rare black rhinos and much more. If it doesn't seem too weird to dine on animal flesh, have a delicious Black Angus burger at the cafe halfway through the safari drive and get a penny squished in the gift shop. You won't be out too many bucks, and what you do spend helps support Fossil Rim's internationally recognized breeding and wildlife preservation efforts.

Dog park folk are a different breed. Parents who put down a bowl of cool water in a dog park don't expect their dog to be the only one privy to it. They may put it down in front of little Oliver, but they're happy for Skids, Blue and Gracie to partake. Moms and dads of canines who think enough of their pup to take her to the park are flat-out considerate, and at the White Rock Lake park, that consideration is evident as humans watch out for their own pals and everyone else's. We've seen at least seven humans bolt to help keep a dog from sneaking past the first of two gates. The dog park is a more intimate setting than regular parks where kids are on alert for strangers and parents generally cut the conversation with "Hi, is this your sippy cup?" Www.dallasdogparks.org actually has a pet bio section where owners can look up other dogs they meet and find out when they usually go, you know, so Fido can play with his buddy again. Though, it's nice if it helps the parents make human friends, too.

Who says people aren't going to Deep Ellum? We're up here on the roof of The Bone, overlooking Main and Crowdus and Commerce and Elm and Malcolm X and downtown and Uptown and East Dallas and South Dallas and Fair Park, and the view's great and there's a band up here and the party's jumpin' and this waitress just put another beer in our hand and we are, in the words of .38 Special, rock-in in-to the night--rockinintothenight!

Before a restaurant or bar opens, experts descend on the place offering all manner of opinion regarding décor, furnishings and so on. To hear them tell it, this stuff means something. The wall of Billy Bass plaques at Flying Fish reinforces the harmony between all beings, for instance. The faded frescoes at Tramontana echo Donald Rumsfeld's remarks about the demise of old Europe. OK, we're guessing. It's just too easy to overstate the influence of design on behavior--although, honestly, no one wants the layout of an establishment to upset their delicate chi. Vermilion Cajun Seafood & Grill, a new spot at Knox and Central Expressway, provides a welcome respite from feng shui and other ridiculous design trends. Almost nothing adorns the walls--besides a spot of color--except behind the counter. There whoever created the interior look arranged rows of discarded circular mirrors. No higher purpose to this design, no restoration of balance, no alignment of yin and yang. Just mirrors. In rows. And we like it.

A few months ago we ran a story outlining the hypocrisy and puritan reasoning behind sex toys being illegal in Texas (you can sell them as cake toppers but not as sexual accessories). From the same department of idiocy comes the law behind purchasing nitrous gas. When you inhale nitrous (commonly found in whipped cream canisters or in balloons at concerts), you get very, very high. Or so we've heard. You can buy containers of 24 nitrous canisters for about $20. It's legal to sell them; it's legal to buy them. You can also buy extra-thick balloons (needed to transfer the extremely cold gas from the canister to your lungs without first freezing your lips) for about $1 a pop. It's legal to sell those, too; also legal to buy them. But here's where the craziness comes in: If you ask for a box of nitrous canisters and a few balloons, then the store can't sell you either because now you've demonstrated "intent to inhale." Right. As if the 24 whippet canisters were meant for a whole lot of cakes. Anyway, you've been warned, laughing boy.

We fondly remember "members only" as the makers of a whup-ass jacket we sported circa 1983. Now it's a designation for hot spots about town, such as Tristan Simon's swank club around the corner from its slightly more grown-up sibling, Sense. On our two visits to Candle Room this year, the BPDF (Beautiful People Density Factor) was 4.3 and 5.1--well above the 3.2 BPDF needed to be designated as a "furricane" by the National Pleasure Center. As such, the swirling wind generated by the sea of rump-shakers takes out most everything in its path. Post-midnight attempts to wade into the subsequent cleavage storms are dangerous and often end disastrously. Consider yourselves warned.

When the missus said she was taking the kid to a beach in Fort Worth, well, let's say we wondered if she was in any state to drive around the block, much less to Tarrant County. But damned if she wasn't right: In the middle of nowhere, and about 50 years back in time, sits a 30-acre park known as Burger's Lake, where two sandy beaches lay alongside a one-acre spring-fed lake. Dangling over it is a 25-foot trapeze. Say wha? Add to that six diving boards and a 20-foot water slide, and it sounds like a little bit of paradise. And kids love it, no matter the age. The water's clean, the air cool even in the dead of summer (so much shade) and the vibe peaceful and safe (all the lifeguards are certified). And there are more than 300 picnic tables, as well as countless charcoal grills, which means you can arrive early and stay late and still wonder where the time's gone. To 1954, we reckon. Timeless. Only downside: It's open Mother's Day through Labor Day, and no booze allowed.

Readers' Pick

Six Flags Over Texas

2201 Road to Six Flags, Arlington

817-530-6000

www.sixflags.com

Most Italian liqueurs are mean-spirited, bitter things. If they don't kill you outright, they'll most certainly crinkle your skin. At the very least, Campari, Fernet Branca and the like will make hair sprout from a man's ears and cause women to grow mustaches. That's why mirto, available at Arcodoro & Pomodoro, is such a surprise. A viscous, deep red product of the myrtle berry, it buries all but a hint of bitter zing behind a unique flavor best described as fruity, but not sweet--almost like Crunchberries without the sugar coating (and without the Cap'n Crunch). The restaurant serves it chilled, which further mutes any unpleasant bitterness. Remember, flavors open up when you allow a drink to warm. Certain things, such as vodka or Bud Light or the aforementioned liqueurs, develop some rather nasty characteristics as they open. Mirto, on the other hand, remains wonderfully subdued.

You've finished the screenplay for your romantic comedy, sure to snag Julia Roberts' interest and a big fat check. But is it ready to send to your agent? Will the meet-cute scene in the bar really play? At free monthly readings on the first Tuesday of every month, sponsored by the DSA, professional actors wrangled by local performer Phil Harrington will give voice to your characters' pithy musings, and if it stinks, hey, better to find out now. Bring 10 pages of your script at 6 p.m. --with enough copies for each character and a narrator--to hear your own brilliant words out loud. (Make sure each role is highlighted for easy reading.) Or if you're not ready to have the world hear your efforts, show up at 7 p.m. to listen to other scribes' scripts. Check out www.dallasscreenwriters.com for more info.

The biggest traffic jam in Denton County used to be the bar at Rubber Gloves. There was a 2-foot lane between the booths and the tables, and another 2-foot lane between the tables and bar. And that was the sole path from the door and bathrooms to the showroom and arcade, which meant that, if you were seated on the outside edge of the booth, you frequently took a black messenger bag to the head or a Conversed toe to the ankle. But Santa Claus brought RGRS a new bar. Basically, the wall behind the old bar was ripped out, opening up another room, which now houses the bar along with a big square of standing/ordering/mingling space. There's plenty of room to sidle up to the bar or head straight to the music. Now if only we could get Rubber Gloves to clear up that High Five mess.

Yes, it's hard to do. Maybe that's why we see so many couples call it quits in the park. It's a public place, so not too much drama (the slapping, the screaming) can go down. It's more relaxing with the grass and trees. And it's hard to get too upset watching kids swing alongside a pickup game of basketball. In the past year, we've known or witnessed at least 10 couples break up at Tietze. We're not trying to give it a bad name or anything; in fact, it's a testament to the peaceful surroundings that folks entrust such pivotal moments to the place. In all fairness, we've seen a proposal there, too, but 10 beats one.

This humongous dance club, tucked away on a blah stretch of industrial buildings off Northwest Highway, is the Latin dance scene's least-kept secret. Escapade 2009 keeps the weekends thumping with its reliable mix of Top 40 music and rock en Espaol, along with live bands on some Thursdays. Giant video screens and fog machines give the sprawling dance floor some crazy techno cred. Good times don't come cheap, however--cover can run as high as 20 bucks. Fortunately for the male patrons, ladies seem to have a different interpretation of "no cover"--the skirts and shirts are barely there.

Readers' Pick

Babalu Club

2910 McKinney Ave.

214-953-0300

A few assumptions to start: You're out of precious vacation days; you need a break; you enjoy a good midafternoon buzz; and your boss isn't already sitting at the bar. Good, then yelp in pain, announce an urgent need to visit the dentist and call it a day. Sevy's attracts brokers and bankers and fully gruntled postal workers and housewives--just about anyone. The dress code ranges from casual on up. The kitchen serves a special afternoon bar menu. Bartender James Pintello spins out stories as well as medicinal doses of alcohol (remember the toothache?). It's a bright, quiet and friendly space, with a clear view of the doorway, just in case the boss gets the same idea. Plenty of time to duck into a corner or dash out to the patio, jump the fence and make your escape. Oh, yeah--almost forgot the underground parking garage. Good thing if you wish to avoid detection.

Think back to freshman-level science, when we first learned the essential value of coffee and alcohol. Life cannot exist without these two elements. Indeed, journalism cannot exist without these two elements. Yet they occupy opposite ends of the spectrum. They are, metaphorically, yin and yang, heaven and earth, Franken and Limbaugh. Attempts to meld coffee and alcohol generally fizzle: Kahlúa and cream, for example. Despite the obstacles, bartenders at Kismet managed to combine the electrifying buzz of high-octane coffee and the mind-numbing anesthetic of alcohol into one incredible concoction. The Turkish coffee martini is a blend of strong, bitter coffee, vanilla vodka, white chocolate liqueur and the aforementioned Kahlúa--potent in more ways than one. At once sweet and bitter, the cocktail provides something for everyone. It's visually appealing, slightly complex and laced with alcohol. Unfortunately, it goes down so smoothly that patrons may exceed their credit limit in a matter of a few minutes. It's that good and that easy to drink.

Think about bartenders for a moment and you begin to see why Adam Salazar holds the top spot in Dallas. Oh, there are older guys. But after 15 years working everything from dance clubs to high-end lounges, Salazar knows pretty much every trick, every shot, every cocktail. A few bartenders arguably mix better drinks--very few. Some are faster, although Salazar keeps the pace on Nikita's Naked Sundays. Several tell stories with stronger punch lines or maintain a more constant smile, but he manages to handle a lot of crap without losing his cool. What really sets him apart is this: He's knowledgeable, consistent and instantly recognizes regulars at every bar on his rotation. No matter which place he works, Salazar keeps pace with the vibe. When it's slow, he chats with customers. Ten deep at the bar and you find him slinging drinks. Need a drink? He sees you. Most important, people follow him--men, women, professionals and "professionals." Oh, and he reputedly can drink the rest of us under the table.

When expressway service drives started out, they had what? Maybe a Shell station? Then you started getting your McDonald's, your Wendy's, maybe an occasional Subway on the service drive. Well, the southbound service drive on Central at Knox takes the service drive scene to a whole new level. Baja Fresh is here, Fadi's Mediterranean Grill, Pei Wei Asian Diner, Juice Zone, Marble Slab Creamery, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Vermilion Cajun Seafood & Grill. Any given noon hour on a weekday, this service drive is jammed. You have to fight Beemers and Hummers for the parking slots. And the most amazing thing, given that this is an expressway service drive? Try as hard as you may, you cannot buy a lottery ticket here or find a single plastic jar full of Slim Jims. The bitter with the sweet, man.

It could be the Pabst Blue Ribbon. It could be the Astroturf patio. It could be that awwwesome velvet painting of the topless she-demon-thingy. Whatever it is, Double Wide feels like home--that is, if your mama was Anna Nicole Smith and your daddy was, well, who the hell knows? What makes Double Wide the best rock venue in town, however, is not in dispute: clean sound, nice-size stage, solid local booking, affordable cover and two different bars to separate the drankers from the rawkers. It's no surprise that, after only a year and a half on the scene, the Double Wide is winning this honor for the second time. What's surprising is that some people still haven't been there. What's the holdup, folks?

Readers' Pick

Trees

2709 Elm St.

214-748-5009

Let's face it: Downtown ain't pretty. With few exceptions, Dallas downtown plays host to big ugly buildings, lots of concrete, little plant life, crowded streets and empty sidewalks. The important thing to remember is that there are exceptions, foremost among them the tiny strip of restaurants and cafes known as Stone Street Gardens. This little cranny connecting Main and Elm streets offers what passes for charm in Dallas--outdoor seating, interesting architecture, cool happy hour and nightspots, a pleasant place for lunch alone or with a friend. Now if whatever was infecting the rest of our poor center city could be eradicated with a dose of smart development like this, we'd be, like, almost a real city.

Every man fears "women's drinks" for one reason: Ordering a fruity neon drink may cause a bit of...well...shrinkage. But if you pack more than enough to spare, there's no reason not to fight through the crowds at Fireside Pies and order up a prickly pear margarita. The color alone--a cross between fuchsia and flaming pink--is enough to cause your masculine regions to shrivel up and your voice to reach the eunuch octave. Just think of it this way: They create the drink from a manly portion of tequila; pureed cactus from the very fields where guys like Randolph Scott and John Wayne chugged rotgut whiskey while huntin' down renegade "injuns"; fresh-squeezed lime juice (probably hacked from trees by rusted machetes); and orange liqueur. French stuff--can't help you there. But it's rimmed with salt chiseled from mines deep in the Urals by tough old prisoners from the Gulag. Whatever you need to convince yourself, the effort is worth it. The cocktail is refreshing and has a kick, sweet but not fruity.

It's the weekend. You've worked hard for five days, and you're ready to rip it up. But before you brave Deep Ellum or Lower Greenville, you need a little boost, a way to ease into what is sure to be a night of unbridled debauchery. What you need is Down Bar and Lounge. The Dallas Morning News called this place a "haven for the unpretentious," and we agree. With its laid-back atmosphere and friendly clientele, Down is anything but a downer. Bartenders/owners Tim and Craig are quick with a joke and to light up your smoke, and they'll send you out the door with a smile and a good start to a decent buzz.

Recently, we went on a scotch-tasting journey around Dallas. We ordered the same drink, Dewar's rocks, at many fine bars about town. It wasn't at all unusual for that drink to cost upward of eight bucks. Usually, there was just enough scotch in there to get our scotch buds active, but not nearly enough to placate them. That was not true at The Loon. Long a legend in town for its stiff pours, the bar on the wrong side of the tracks from the West Village proved itself most generous. For $5.25, we got nearly four fingers of the sweet, pale brown liquor. Since you'll be drinking fewer rounds, be sure to tip handsomely. Especially to the bartender with the tattoo on her back. At least we think it was a tattoo. After two of those drinks, it could have been a gecko loose in her britches.

Wait until late, 11 p.m. or even later, then come to the Jasmine Cafe in what's left of the old downtown in Richardson on Main Street (Belt Line Road east of Central Expressway). A mainly Middle Eastern crowd, salted with whatever you call non-Middle Easterners, gathers over thick, sugared Turkish coffee and Turkish Delight candies. The hookah pipes begin to bubble and brew (tobacco in the bowls). You can buy your own hookah for $40 to $100. The sound system plays hits like "Habena," "Toutah" and "Me Alli We Oltelu." In the pale light of parking lots, backs of commercial buildings soften into outlines that could be walls of sun-dried brick. Chatter and laughter in several languages including English continue into the wee hours. The air is cool. Finally, somebody knows how to live in this hot, hot place.

Eulogized by such coolies as Spike Lee, Jonathan Lethem and Tom Waits, the city of Brooklyn has no shortage of die-hard fans. And why not? It's cool, culturally rich and diverse (well, if you exclude Williamsburg). The same could be said for the relatively new Oak Cliff jazz club of the same name. Owners Robyn and Lorna Tate have created a music haven that cuts across color lines to offer one of the most consistent and enjoyable jazz evenings in the city. Resident artists like Martha Burks and the Freddie Jones Quartet pack the house, which is small enough that people in the know arrive early to secure a table. It's a chance to soak up the friendly atmosphere, and the menu offers a sophisticated selection of entrées and finger foods. A smoke-free club with a family-run feel, Brooklyn is one of those rare locales: a live music venue where you can bring your parents and your kids.

Readers' Pick

Sambuca

2120 McKinney Ave.

214-744-0820

Its happy-hour deals are paltry. It offers no Golden Tee; doesn't have a dance floor; bathrooms are small; front deck overlooks a busy intersection; isn't open for lunch and is often so dark inside you can barely read. Did we mention how much we love Old Monk? This is a bar's bar, a true pub, a place that takes Irish mainstays (lots of good strong beers on tap, very few tequila choices, several great whiskey options) and combines them with a low-key charm and usually excellent customer service to form our long-standing favorite bar in Dallas. In fact, there's a four-seat table next to the double doors that lead to the covered patio. Please sit somewhere else. That's our spot.

Readers' Pick

Adair's Saloon

2624 Commerce St.

214-939-9900

Married people know about scheduling a night out together. With the kids, the jobs and the chores, sometimes you gotta have it on the calendar--tickets paid for, reservations made--or you'll end up at the same pizza joint again. For an easy night of culture and togetherness, subscribe to season tickets at Theatre Three. The 2004-'05 season includes A Woman of Independent Means, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and Rounding Third. Money, marriage and baseball: What else is there? Several plays on the schedule include free pre-show appetizers provided by nearby restaurants, including East Wind (Vietnamese) and Johnny Orleans Kitchen (Cajun). Or pop into Baker Bros. or Tin Star for an early meal. Après show, hit the Dream Café for coffee and dessert. At least you'll have something to talk about besides Junior's latest report card.

Happy hour makes us just that. So happy. Often for more than an hour. It really is one of the great marketing concepts of the 20th century, right up there with the Marlboro Man and "Be All That You Can Be." It helps those of us who need to unwind with a cold adult beverage before going home to face the crushing conformity and soul-draining small talk that constitute family life in America in 2004. And we get munchies! M Grill & Tap is still our favorite combination of class and cheap happy-hour offerings. From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, it offers half-price on its beer, frozen margaritas, well drinks and pizzas. Two words: yuh-um. For the sissies, you can get a glass of red or white at the bar or on the patio for less than 4 bucks. Mondays offer even more discounts on bottled beer. If you're reading this on a weekday and it's near quitting time, we both know where you're headed.

Readers' Pick

Blue Mesa Grill

Various locations

Play outside all you want; the mosquitoes are all yours, and good luck with that sunburn, holmes. Us, we like our play time inside--and in an upscale shopping mall, no less, near the food court (Cinnabontastic!) and not too far from the Apple Store, where they sell the 40GB iPod we're too cheap to buy but not to stare at longingly. Besides, this place is awesome: Kiddos can climb all over giant, cushiony replicas of what appears to be the world's messiest dinner table. There's the giant platter of steak and sunny-side-up eggs, a cup of hot cocoa, a giant half of an enormous grapefruit and even a bottle of overturned hot sauce, all of which the little ones run on and jump on and slide down till they're too exhausted to think of eating. The floor's bouncy for the kids just learning to walk, and parents can sit and watch from the comfy seats that line the playground like a fence; there's just one entrance, making it extremely safe. And, of course, the mall's kiddie clothing stores are all neatly gathered nearby, which makes this an expensive day out but well worth it.

Some theaters have brought the beer and liquor to the movies, but Fallout Lounge has a better idea: Bring the movies to the liquor and beer. Each Tuesday, the Expo Park bar's staff shows two to three movies, beginning at 9 p.m. with a new release such as Fahrenheit 9/11, followed by some older releases such as Rushmore, Office Space or Three Amigos. There was even a Back to the Future trilogy night. Admission is free, and drinks cost less than a rental at Blockbuster with $2 wells and domestic drafts and $3 calls and import drafts. Your whole tab could cost less than a ticket to one film at a cineplex. For a weekday night, the event has quite the regular following. So go where everyone may know your name, but they'll say it really quietly because, dude, there's a movie playing.

Step onto Ozona's patio and it's almost like stepping into your best friend's back yard--except bigger and with a few more strangers. Two fireplaces, which do a lot to add to the coziness factor, are planted in the enclosed patio decorated with plastic deck chairs, old signs and string lights. On cool nights, a seat by one of the fireplaces is a choice dining spot. While you're warming your hands by the hearth, warm your tummy with some chips and queso and a Mexican platter you design yourself. The food's good and plenty, but the atmosphere is the real star here--so good, in fact, it's easy to forget that mean Greenville is just yards away.

Readers' Pick

Ozona Grill & Bar

After a night at Nick & Sam's--the fave steak house in town of one of our more cultured, picky foodie friends--why don't you and your dressed-up partner stop by Medici for a drink and a dance? Stylish and relatively sedate, it's the perfect after-dinner spot to sate your inner Soprano. Good-looking Italian men in impeccable dark suits, beautiful women (not girls, women) looking for a dance partner, stiff drinks, delicious items for noshing, a sophisticated gleam that makes you feel cooler than you are...what's not to like about this suave addition to Dallas' upper-class nightlife scene

You can't fault a place that inspired the Toadies' biggest hit, even though the song was so casually morbid it developed a cult following among vampire aficionados. (Seriously.) Blood sucking aside, Possum Kingdom Lake is just as potent a combination as the song it prompted, with cool, clear water perfect for swimmers and fishermen alike. (For the latter, the white bass are an especially big draw.) Plus, a handful of nature trails allow you to take in the tranquil charm of the water from a variety of vantage points. But a trip to Possum Kingdom--75 miles west of Fort Worth on Texas Highway 16--is worth it even if you don't make it to the shore. The surrounding countryside has a subtle beauty that is worth more than just a passing glance. How do we know about the scenery? Because we drove around the entire lake looking for a place to watch Game 7 of last year's Dallas Mavericks-Sacramento Kings conference semifinals match-up, eventually arriving at The Lighthouse on the Breakers, a cozy little lakeside bar and grill where the liquor was cheap and the patrons didn't mind our constant screaming. Or jumping. Or fist-pumping. Good people. Bonus: If you want to turn it into an overnight trip, the camping is extremely comfortable, and there are a couple of quality resorts nearby if you don't feel like roughing it.

Readers' Pick

Austin

The indoor/outdoor bar at Hotel ZaZa is a premier destination for guys pretending to have Dirk Diggler-sized wallets and women hoping to believe them. Doesn't mean the guys pretend to have class. Indeed, one desperate gentleman tried this out on a young woman: "You're so amazing, I'd pay to spend a night with you."

Dallas World Aquarium is a genuine tourist attraction, but not in a tacky way. It justifiably draws visitors for its re-creation of a rain forest environment and its dazzling array of aquariums, including a shark exhibit you can walk through via a glass-walled tunnel. It's more about spectacle than education, though the learning is there if you want it. The aquarium features many things you won't see anywhere else in the area, such as the "Leafy seadragons," a relative of the seahorse from southern Australia that looks like a rippling, fluttering oak leaf. There's also an outdoor penguin exhibit, a sea otter pool and salmon-pink flamingos. Kids will love the narrow, twisting fake-rock passageways that lead from one display to another--you really feel like you're in another world--and the educational function of the aquarium is never obtrusive.

A dive, by definition, is what it is. That's not much to go on, but Louie's fits the description. From the outside, the place is singularly uninviting: a gray blotch among other nondescript buildings. Parking--good luck. Pull up alongside a curb in the iffy neighborhood or block the sidewalk across the street. Louie's permits no outside light into the place, and the lamps barely illuminate anything beyond the table. No big deal: not much to look at but hodgepodge decorations stuck haphazardly on the walls. Pitchers of iced tea sit open on the bar, absorbing all kinds of incidental flavor. The place, however, draws a solid crowd. They churn out great pizza--arguably the best (if not for Fireside Pies) in the city. Even better, the bartenders shake up an outstanding martini, surprising for a dive. The crowd ranges from neighborhood folks to upscale people dressing down for the evening. Besides, no one said a dive had to be a miserable, salmonella-inducing experience. Louie's is just a good place to hang out for a while before contemplating that dangerous walk back to the car.

Before we go any further, you should be aware that a stay at Hotel ZaZa is not cheap. Rooms range from $245 to $295. Suites start at $350 and end at a price where your credit card company gives you a courtesy call just to make sure someone hasn't stolen your Visa. But money's no object when romance is involved, right? OK, don't answer that. Just know that should you check your sense of fiscal responsibility at the door when you check in, you and yours will be treated to a glamorous weekend on L.A.'s Sunset Boulevard. Sure, sure, you'll still technically be in Dallas (snugly nestled in Uptown, to be exact), but as soon as you hand your keys to the valet, you'll never know the difference. The cuisine is top-notch, thanks to chef Stephan Pyles' Mediterranean-inflected Dragonfly. The rooms are luxurious yet lived-in, like you're house-sitting for a well-to-do friend. The staff become your own personal assistants during your stay, ready and willing to do whatever, whenever. The Urban Oasis (aka the pool) even makes Dallas summers bearable. For an added touch of El Lay, there's a better than good chance that you'll see a star or two. (Ozzy Osbourne, Christina Aguilera and Jamie Foxx have all stayed there, and that's just off the top of our head.) It's a great way to get away without getting away, if you know what we mean. The perfect place for romance. And exorbitant credit card charges.

Readers' Pick

White Rock Lake

You've done the warm-up. You've done the workout. Now it's time for the cool-down. And Down, once again, is your best bet. After a night of drinking/dining/dodging bullets in Dallas, you've grown weary. You've watched various Barbies hook up with various Kens. You've spilled various drinks on various designer jeans. And you've rubbed elbows till they're damn near raw. So now make your way over to Down, where you can sit, relax and actually enjoy your drink--instead of cradling it in your hands in fear of sloshing out what you paid too much for in the first place. The nightlife can be brutal, but Down can pick you up.

We work hard here at the Dallas Observer. We're constantly working. It's work, work, work. Yup, that's us. That's the service we provide to you, dear reader. The problem is--at least for the singles among our number--that doesn't leave us much time to get out there and meet people. Which, in turn, means that our chances of procreating are decidedly less than the rest of the population. Some might say that's because the majority of the people who work here are losers who seldom shower, but that would be unfair. (The losers part, anyway.) Ah, but there's hope for us yet. No matter how pathetic we are, even we can still get a date through It's Just Lunch. Tell them what kind of time you have and what kind of person you're looking to meet, and they'll hook you up. But some advice: Shower first. It helps, believe it or not.

Maybe that sounds like a give-up to you, the ultimate no-shit statement. (Or perhaps you would have preferred our initial answer: anywhere that leads out of Dallas.) So let us explain. We have a 1-year-old kid who didn't sleep the first, oh, 11 months of his existence, and when he did sleep it was only in his car seat, which meant plenty of days and nights spent rolling through this town looking for something to entertain our eyeballs to keep them open. No matter where we were, we always ended up circling the lake. Always. Didn't matter what time of day or night. And it wasn't just round and round and round till he woke up; that would have gotten old. No, we cruised up the side streets and down the roads to nowhere, through the Lakewood neighborhoods dotted with historic homes and fields that led to horse stables and every other nook and cranny we could find. Spend enough time over there and Dallas starts to look a whole lot prettier, because it looks like another city--one with a view. Even now, when the kiddo's wide awake, the family cruiser will find its way over to Forest Hills or Casa Linda Estates or Lake Highlands just to see what's happening in a neighborhood so much prettier than ours and yours, unless you're lucky enough to live in a Dallas with scenery.

Readers' Pick

White Rock Lake

Frozen drinks generally suffer from two problems: Heavy ice content waters down the alcohol, and men holding one start to question their own sexuality. No problem. Ciudad is an Oak Lawn establishment, and Republic sits in Uptown, where straight men commonly disguise themselves as characters from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Republic offers some astonishing drinks. They use fresh fruit in their purees and mix in premium spirits--Vox Raspberry in the frozen raspberry version and Smirnoff Orange Twist in the mango limeade drink. They also do a unique frozen mojito. For a guy sending drinks to a woman, they're perfect: sweet, but hiding a subtle little punch. If a man settles down with a magenta, pale orange or dull lime-colored slurpee...ah, hell. It's Uptown, and you never know. Ciudad, meanwhile, sells a unique thing called a Pom Pom, consisting of pomegranate and pineapple laced with a hefty dose of tequila. The pineapple adds a touch of sweetness to the more exotic base flavor, and the tequila, oh, the tequila. A few of these will really f...um, mess you up.

Sometimes a restlessness plagues the mind, while the body is content to do absolutely nothing but sit, listen to music, maybe eat, definitely drink. Yeah, and smoking's on the list of vices, too. After the eyes adjust to the dim lights of the Landing, it becomes apparent that being there is like being at home, but better. Come in post-softball or in Prada and feel comfortable in the cushy booths nestled under beer lights. It doesn't matter that there's laundry to be done or mail to be opened. Once inside the Landing, the spell has been cast and all anyone can do is relax, have a drink and enjoy the Etta James, George Jones and Iggy Pop on the juke. See, at home, one might be distracted by productivity and sacrifice some important lounging. At Lakewood Landing, Lucille still calls to us from the frames on the wall, urging us to de-stress and unwind.

OK, we promised a few months ago we'd address this, and now it's time. Anywhere you go these days, you see young straight girls getting their drink on, then grinding each other on the dance floor. On its surface, this seems like a fantastic thing. OK, it is a fantastic thing. It's the good by-product of our society becoming Porn Nation, U.S.A. Casual and accepted bisexuality among women who leave the bar with men. The only problem is, it may be too widespread. One example: When we were at The Green Elephant earlier this year, we saw a dozen or more SMU girls doing this to each other. Turns out they were all straight, and all said they like to put on a show for the guys. But be careful, ladies. If you do it too much, it loses its danger, its sense of daring, its coolness. Of course, it's still hot. Don't get us wrong.

Most Mondays are a useless blur of team meetings and breakout meetings, with the occasional impromptu meeting to break up the monotony. No one gets any work done. So why not sit there with a churning stomach, a pounding head and the nauseating stench of stale smoke? Besides, you have other things to worry about, such as the name of the person you left asleep back at your apartment or the location of your car. "Naked Sunday" at Nikita forces the dying hours of the weekend to cling for a few more breaths. At 10 p.m. they dim the lights and crank the volume. Crowds pour in, vodka sloshes, soft-core porn appears on two flat-screen monitors and, for a moment, Saturday night returns. Patrons know that Monday lurks at 2 a.m., so they beat it back with the only weapon they have: massive doses of alcohol. Do Naked Sunday right and you won't think about the workweek until after you figure out where you are when the alarm rings Monday morning.

Late, late, late, 11 p.m. or later, load up your friends, your family if you have one, definitely the kids, and take them all to Ciro's on Midway Road just south of Belt Line. You'll join large gatherings of Middle Eastern families, many with kids, who have come to enjoy wonderfully fresh hummus, baba ghanouj, chickpea and olive mezze and falafel sauce, live music and some of the best belly dancing this side of Cairo. Between performances by professional dancers, many families get up and dance with each other. It's easy: Lift both arms over your head, snap your fingers and make big circles with your navel. Who knows? Someone may show up the next day at your parents' house and ask for your hand in marriage. Worth a try.

Yes, the drive from Dallas is tedious. And getting back to town can be flat-out perilous. But for music geeks, Hailey's in Denton has the best booking in town, hands down. Last year's shows included such buzz acts as The Wrens, Liars, TV on the Radio, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Iron and Wine, Mates of State, The Unicorns, The Walkmen and Bonnie Prince Billy. The list goes on and on. Not only is Hailey's sound and lighting excellent, but the club is freaking comfortable. We know, we know: That's so not rock. Whatever, dude. Some of us actually believe live music shouldn't come with bruises and spilled beer. Speaking of beer, however, Hailey's has 52 kinds on tap. And if the music's crummy, which it usually isn't, there are two pool tables in back that don't even interfere with the band. That way, everybody can do their own thing--sit back or rock out, play snooker or get snookered--without ruining the show for anyone else. Brilliant, isn't it?

Readers' Pick

Gypsy Tea Room

2548 Elm St.

214-744-9779

For a rumor to really catch on, it must contain elements that the public finds plausible. That's why "George W. served his country" works--most people understand that by reneging on his National Guard agreement, he saved thousands of American lives, both in Vietnam and at training sites around the United States. Geez, imagine him in the cockpit of a fighter, a place of actual responsibility. So when dismissed staff members (so the story goes) started a rumor that Republic had become a gay bar, people believed it because: 1. It attracts a "diverse" crowd (you know what we mean), and 2. it's difficult to tell the difference between gay male and Uptown male, anyway. Same hair, same costume, same facials. Oddly enough, the rumor worked in reverse, as hordes of stunning females descended on Republic in the wake of the "gay bar" tale. After all, women feel comfortable among the alternative set.

On the shore of White Rock Lake, the Dallas Arboretum is one of those city treasures that many residents still don't know about. Those who do often visit the arboretum only around Easter when the azaleas--with 2,400 varieties--are in glorious bloom, or in the fall for the magnificent mums. But on those days when the thermometer hits 95 degrees, take a picnic and head for the Palmer Fern Dell in the Jonsson Color Garden. The misters that keep the moisture-loving ferns and pond plants thriving also make the temperature plummet more than 20 degrees. Or maybe it just feels like it. Open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week (except Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year's Day). Adults $7, seniors $6, children 3 to 12 $4. Parking $4.

Here's the best wedding advice you'll ever get: Spend your wedding night in Dallas. Regardless of the fabulous honeymoon you have planned, stay here for your wedding night. After a long hard day of getting married, the last thing you need is to rush around, change clothes, pack or repack, rush to the airport, cram yourselves into cramped seats, try to sleep, etc. It's much nicer to enjoy your reception, dance more, drink more and spend more time in your lovely outfits with your lovely friends and family. Then, have the limo driver drop you downtown at the Fairmont, where you'll make such a smashing entrance, even strangers will applaud. Seriously. The Fairmont's a beautiful, traditional hotel with consistently excellent service. Every guest room has a perfect city skyline view, is very comfortably furnished and soundproof. The Fairmont offers a "Romance Package" where you can choose a deluxe room ($249) or a suite ($299) and get champagne and chocolates in your room and a continental breakfast in bed.

Want to exercise while wearing a large straw hat? Like to watch the sun set while working out? You don't have to attend Harvard to crew. Check out the new recreational rowing club, White Rock Boathouse Inc., which has restored the 1930s boathouse and provides rowing shells--three singles, one double and a racing shell--for the use of members. "Most people don't know how to scull, so we give lessons," says Ginger Twichell. She and club member Sam Leake charge $50 for private lessons, $75 for lessons for two. The shells have sliding seats, so the rowing motion gives an all-body workout. "It's very rhythmic," Twichell says. "You can get in a Zen-like state. It's very quiet out there, and you see the lake from a whole different angle." Membership is $300 per year, which gives you access to the boats and expertise of the members; go to www.whiterockboathouse.com to download an application. "You just reserve a boat, show up and take off," Twichell says.

The rumor's been that the reason Hailey's is the swankest, nicest, classiest rock-and-roll club north of the Gypsy Tea Room is that it was never supposed to be a haven for indie rockers. Instead, it was designed for jazz and blues artists, and the disposable income-ready fans attracted by that "more adult" music. But the youth market was more profitable, so a switch was made, and the hipsters paying the cover got to benefit from the fancy digs. It's a great story. But it's just not true. Owner Eric Hill wanted a club like no other, meaning no barn wood and neon signs, but rock was always part of the equation, along with the blues and jazz (the University of North Texas' award-winning jazz school is minutes away). There's a little jazz sprinkled in on occasion, but the calendar's usually booked with buzzworthy rock bands, dance nights and even Hipsters Balls because, despite the smoove façade, Hailey's has always been ready to rock.

The jukebox is filled with classic country, '70s rock and a few blues brothers; Christmas lights line the area above the bar, and a stream of water trickles from one section of a leaky ceiling tile. KC's II, in all its glory, is a badass little barroom on Northwest Highway that serves up Bud in the bottle and anything else as strong as you want it. KC's patrons are the epitome of the Common Man--no frills, no fuss. They're friends, too--or maybe just friendly--and they fully comprehend the concept of "come as you are." And we like that. We also like the dirty joke we heard the last time we were there.

Customers and tenants alike complain about the tough parking situation at Mockingbird Station. Folks anxiously cruise the shops during peak hours, holding up the line of cars for minutes at a time while they wait for some 17-year-old to quit fumbling with her keys, get in her damned Audi and make her precious space available. It's not that there aren't enough parking spaces--there's underground parking on the east side of the shops and plenty of covered and adjacent spots to the north. But it just seems so far. Smart MS shoppers, though, know the secret. Go the service road on northbound Central Expressway, take it about 50 yards or so, then enter the near-secret covered lot that allows you to exit between Silver Moon and Virgin Megastore. When you're done, bam, you whip out onto the service road, no parking hassle at all. And parking is important to us, because we're old and cranky.

Little kids like to touch stuff. The Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park lets them do that every Saturday at noon. It isn't to be confused with the much more expensive, privately operated Dallas World Aquarium in the West End. That's a fine place for many other reasons (see Best Kids Attraction), but you can't touch. You just look. At the Dallas Aquarium, however, staff members let you touch, hold or gently prod sea urchins, hermit crabs, starfish and other creatures, which are housed in a kid-level tank on the north end of the building. From slippery to prickly to slimy, kids can't get enough of the amazing array of textures. And here's something else you'll like: Parking is free, and admission is only $3 for adults, $1.50 for children.

For the past couple of years, The Ginger Man has dominated this category. And, granted, the place serves a smorgasbord of beers, but this year we were looking for something a little different, a bar with a little more character. And after much research, we found it in Stan's Blue Note, a Lower Greenville joint that has character (and characters) out the wazoo. For example, all beers are served in 16-ounce Mason jars. C'mon, how cool is that? And for those who can swill beer like a champ, there are T-shirts for completing all the brews: one for the 100 or so bottled beers and one for draft beers, of which there are about 50 varieties, with a few ciders thrown in, too. Stan's also serves lunch and has two front patios, which are prime spots for the annual St. Patrick's Day shenanigans that take place on Lower Greenville.

Readers' Pick

The Ginger Man

2718 Ball St.

214-754-8771

On a ballot from one of our worldly and learned readers last year, the answer in this category was "shoulder." We laughed about it then and still did until recently. Then we licked our way to the Tootsie Roll center of this particular Tootsie Pop: This wasn't necessarily a joke. Someone has probably actually had one--or maybe even both--of their shoulders pierced. Which led to the larger question of "Where would you go if you wanted to do that?" As it turned out, the answer was relatively simple. You'd go to Obscurities, the same place you'd go if you wanted anything pierced. The colorful and capable staff, including piercers Allen Falkner and Tasha Halverson, will hook you up no matter what you're willing to get hooked up. And since it's a tattoo parlor as well, it's one-stop shopping. That's always a good thing.

Readers' Pick

Tigger's Tattoos

2602 Main St.

214-655-2639

Forget them fancy import beers, son. Tonight, you're drinkin' a Lone Star. Want a little history? It's all over these walls. That messy graffiti, been here long's I can recall. Back in the day, we'd write our college emblems up on these walls. Heck, Lois Adair over there gave us the Marks-a-lots to use. She's a fine one, Lois, been runnin' this place for 40 years now. 'Course, they moved since it opened in 1963, and now it's famous, seein' as how Don Henley used Adair's to shoot part of that video about JFK dyin', and Pat Green shot that other video, and hell, I can't tell ya the scores of musicians done recorded themselves at Adair's. See, son, Dallas ain't all about Uptown and fancy cars and real estate. Sometimes, it's about good times with real down-home folk, music that feels like home, a little Patsy Cline on the jukebox. Just about any night is a good night at Adair's, son. Now pass me a bottle of that old skull popper. Daddy's gotta dance.

Readers' Pick

W.W. Fairfields

147 N. Plano Road, Richardson

972-231-3844

Flummoxed by whether to call Minc a gay bar or a post-gay hive of hipsterdom, we've given up all attempts to pigeonhole the place. There is often a saucy drag queen at the door, it's true, but Minc has become the most refreshing bar in Dallas to be gay without shouting out your queerness, that creeping feeling of politicization we often experience while on Cedar Springs (when all we want is to hang out). The gay boys tend to self-segregate in Minc's spacious back yard, where there's plenty of room for neck-craning cruising. But sprinkled amidst them, and throughout the rest of this large watering hole, are young straight cosmopolitan couples or friends who seem right at home. Impromptu dance circles often form in front of the DJ booth, and there's room--though not more quiet--in the bar's front area for those who want to try to converse. Minc welcomes whoever ends up there; it's a self-selecting democracy of hip.

Readers' Pick

JR's Bar & Grill

3923 Cedar Springs Road

214-559-0650

Look, we're advocates of making out anywhere. Movie theaters? Fine. Bathroom stalls? Whatever. As long as it is the pure and simple make-out, we're all for it. (Anything more is kind of, y'know, slutty.) But there is no finer place to make out than downtown Dallas on a breezy fall night, face flushed with a few glasses of wine. First of all, no one will care, because it's downtown, and people are selling crack and beating up tourists somewhere close by. Second, because the whole place is kind of dangerous (see reason one), which gives us an illicit thrill we haven't felt since high school. Third, it has a cinematic appeal--more Woody Allen than John Hughes' manicured suburban parks (which we preferred when we were 16, along with the back seat of Chevy Novas). A revitalized downtown is good for everyone in this city. Let the suits take care of the business side. We'll bring the love.

Our favorite bar in college was a saloon-type joint furnished with wooden tables that had been defaced by years of carving and writing. Who loves whom, who graduates when and who thinks who or what "RULES!!!" were common announcements on the ad hoc message boards. We loved that place. And we love Adair's because it reminds us of it. On one particular evening at Adair's, after many pitchers o' Miller Lite, nostalgia got the better of us, and we asked our waitress to bring us a Sharpie. Can't remember what we wrote on the wooden booth that reminded us of home, but we do remember that the Sharpie ended up in our purse. So, Adair's, we owe you a Sharpie--and an apology. We're pretty sure, though, that in our stupor of hops, barley and sentiment we royally overtipped. We hope that covers us for the petty theft and for any words we may have misspelled with said Sharpie.

Lofts in Plano? Strange but true. Eastside Village offers apartment living above street-level retail shops in the middle of "historic" downtown Plano. The nearby DART station makes zipping to work in downtown Dallas or Mockingbird Station for a movie at the Angelika a breeze. Residents can walk to nearby restaurants, bars, a small farmers market and antique stores, and the ArtCentre of Plano and two theaters are within strolling distance. The apartments range in size from efficiencies with 466 square feet, lofts with 700 square feet to two-bedrooms with 1,300 square feet finished in urban style, with high ceilings, hardwood floors and interior brick walls. Our favorite amenity isn't found in too many urban settings: a courtyard filled with hammocks. Still, the idea that you don't need a car to live in Plano is revolutionary.

We're way too young to remember when there were no vibrators, only "massagers," and no condoms, just "prophylactics." We suppose that it's just a nitpicky matter of terminology, but a visit to Condom Sense's antique massager and prophylactic display reminds us of a more discreet time. Before Trojan Twisted Pleasure Condoms, men carried Sheik Rubber Prophylactics. Before the Rabbit Pearl, women relied on Dr. Macaura's Blood Circulator or the Handy Hannah massager to "relax tired muscles." The collection also includes items distributed to servicemen, such as booklets on the dangers of unprotected sex, matchbooks with the reminder "V.D. can be prevented" and the Dough Boy Prophylactic Kit. One of our favorites is the 1930s-era Texide Rubber Sheaths--the box depicts helpful natives tapping rubber trees (thanks, guys!). We doubt you'll find anyone to custom-make your rubbers nowadays, but while you're sneaking a peek at the old stuff, you can discreetly pick up some, uh, modern protection.

Overheard from a conversation between two women standing at the bar on a Tuesday evening: "I'm just gonna have one drink. I don't have the breasts to hang out here."

It is a little slice of heaven in our urban hell, isn't it? The Dallas Arboretum with 66 acres of variously manicured green spaces and forest-y wilderness, plus 11 display gardens, which bloom and change with the seasons. The Arboretum is a "let the kids run wild" place, and stay-at-home moms use it liberally for those summer afternoons when the only alternative activity for a houseful of kids is homicide. For more things to do, adjacent White Rock Lake offers practically limitless venues, and under calmer adult supervision, kids can fish, feed the ducks, bike, bird-watch, paddle and sail. There are six great playgrounds and Dallas' first dog park. The Arboretum and White Rock Lake may actually be the best place to abandon your children for short stretches while you regain your parental sanity.

Readers' Pick

White Rock Lake

Guess it depends on the kid, doesn't it? A 9-year-old certainly isn't going to be swinging from a miniature jungle gym or crawling through a Technicolor tunnel--and if he or she is, we're really sorry. So if the kid's older, maybe you oughta think about SpeedZone or Stone Works Climbing Gym or Dave & Buster's. But if you're needing a place to entertain a bunch of really young ones, between the ages of 1 and 4, there's no better place than Gymboree, which you can rent out for a party and not have to worry about the cleanup later. One of their instructors will lead Mommy and Daddy and the young pup through an hour's worth of activities, including everything from a little Hokey Pokey to games beneath the parachute. You can then retire to a smaller room for cupcakes and other goodies, and there's always the goody bag you get on your way out that usually has a coupon for a hefty discount at one of Gymboree's clothing establishments, which comes in handy after your child rips his pants at a Gymboree birthday party.

Readers' Pick

Chuck E. Cheese's

Various locations

At some point, people in this city must come to terms with pretension. It works both ways, you know. Denizens of downscale hangouts such as Duke's or Champps scorn people decked in the latest Michael Kors. Folks slurping drinks at Republic or other Uptown joints refuse to accept guys with shirts tucked in. The infamous membership list at Sense is just another way to define the audience. What makes this place a great bar is the vibe. In many bars, friends enter in pairs or groups and form separate fortresses throughout the room. At Sense, people mingle--as individuals or groups. Suburbanites chat with Uptown types, professionals with students, white with black. Even birthday gatherings with reserved seating invite strangers to join in. The list (if your name's not on the clipboard, entry can be a bit more challenging) generates that vibe: Insiders accept other patrons equally, simply because they entered the room. By setting itself up as a pretentious place, Sense created the least conceited atmosphere. Can't get on the list? 'Bout time you ditched the old tank top and khakis.

On a picturesque little corner in Bishop Arts, with a generous awning over the sidewalk and small round tables inside and out, Nodding Dog is a sophisticated hang-out for Cliffies and their dogs--a place whose every battered folding chair and aging sofa calls out for you to take a load off, sip some java and relax. The name is apt: Watch this place long enough, and you will pick up the pattern. First the dogs begin to nod off. Not too much later, their masters start to droop and snuffle in the midafternoon quiet. Where else can you do that? Fall asleep at a table on Lower Greenville and Avi Adelman will put a picture of you on his Web site! Not so Nodding Dog--the epitome of life on the cooler side of the river.

For thumping beats and bangin' bodies, the Lizard Lounge is the still-reigning king of the Dallas dance scene. For one, some of the country's hottest DJs spin here when they come through town, and house DJs include such Zen masters as DJ Merritt, host of 102.1's legendary Edge Club, and drum 'n' bass maestro DJ Titan. For another, the place is usually packed--the young, the younger and the just barely legal show their moves (and their midriffs) on the humid dance floor. Third, Lizard Lounge is host to both "Neo Gothic Industrial Electro Crash" nights and the Porn Star Ball. Finally, a place to wear our pasties and our black nail polish.

Readers' Pick

W.W. Fairfields

147 N. Plano Road, Richardson

972-231-3844

Of the many reasons to love the Landing--the dark wood, the great blue cheese-and-bacon burgers, the cold bottled beer, the no-nonsense bartenders and waitstaff--its jukebox is certainly one of the top three. Yes, it has plenty of cool, funky youngsters, and it has lots of old-school country, à la George Jones. It has a great sampling of rock and/or roll, it has Elvis, it has it all. But most of all it has the seemingly never-ending wails of the late, great Johnny Cash, and hearing "Ring of Fire" belt out of the Landing around midnight is one of the truest East Dallas experiences that can be had.

Readers' Pick

Cosmo's Bar and Lounge

1212 Skillman St.

214-826-4200

Stuck at that in-between age where we're old enough to have purchasing power but not old enough to want to go to Tupperware parties, we revel in Passion Parties' slightly naughty in-home presentations. The women-only party begins with the "sensual" products--romantic body lotions, massage oils, a "Bed of Roses" rose petal kit. As the evening progresses, the featured items are less bath time and more battery-powered. The hands-on approach (products are passed around for all the guests to examine) makes even novices in the world of "novelty items" feel at ease, and the product names--Chocolate Thriller, Glow Boy, Honey Dipper--always elicit a few giggles. And when we held a $140 multispeed, pearl-filled, vibrating, rotating, "top of the line" contraption, we realized that, until that moment, we didn't know what we'd been missing.

We're purists. A martini can contain only three ingredients: gin, vermouth and a garnish. It's the quintessential sophisticate cocktail, with subtle but sublime flavors--crisp and bracing, herbal and aromatic. Made carelessly, however, a fine martini can become a slurry of gin and ice. Good martinis come from bartenders who ask questions: How dry? Rocks or up? What garnish? What gin? And (despite the 007 cliché) shaken or stirred? Weary of bad martinis served by the cavalier, we've taken to giving orders. The cocktail served us at the sophisticated but comfortable Library Bar came just as we ordered: clear as a diamond, in a pre-chilled glass, an exquisite medium-dry martini, up with a twist, stirred. It made us think of a line from Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms: "I had never tasted anything so cool and clean. They made me feel civilized."

Readers' Pick

Cool River's strawberry shortcake

1045 Hidden Ridge Road, Irving

972-871-8881

There are some good things about Dallas and North Texas, but the landscape ain't one of 'em. For the most part, the area is bereft of any aesthetically pleasing vistas. Fortunately, we have White Rock Lake to keep us from forever cursing the concrete jungle. In the morning, the sun rises (from the east, for the direction-impaired), illuminating the city skyline; in the evening, it sets behind downtown and lights up the water. Either way, you can't lose. Unless, of course, the muggings start up again, at which point you're on your own. Enjoy the view, but be wary of dirtbags lurking in the bushes.

That's right. Plano. Straight up the Tollway, north of that dreaded Interstate 635 barrier, where they've reconstructed the convenience of an old-fashioned downtown without those "colorful" elements. You know, grime, panhandling, the frantic search for parking, the threat of sudden death or dismemberment. The Shops at Legacy offers a choice of street parking, valet parking or well-lit parking garages. Listen up, Dallas: parking. People walk--walk--to dinner (Bob's Steak and Chop House--the one with legal cigars--Jasper's, Naan or one of several other options). Afterward they grab a glass of vino at Crú or stroll over to the Angelika. If they want coffee, there's (gasp) Starbucks. Oh, and bakeries, banks, stores--even a barbershop. Didn't take them long to build the sucker, either. And they managed it all without a signature bridge.

Over the past four years, Mark Giese worked at Il Sole, Salve!, Bali Bar, Paris Vendome, Dralion, Passport, Nikita, Spike and now the bar nestled in Tom Tom's extension. Some of these stints lasted a few months. In a few cases, he parted ways after a handful of days behind the bar. Between jobs he travels around the country until exhausting his cash, then heads back to find a new setup. Yet he's quick, personable--a solid bartender, respected enough to open one-time hot spots Passport and Dralion. With several fine-dining restaurants on his multipage résumé, he knows something about food service and wine, too. Just visit him quickly at Tom Tom, before he moves on. Unless, of course, he's settled in behind a new bar between the time this piece hit the printer and the ink dried.

Part of Best of Dallas' challenge each year is finding new categories for Premiere Video: "Best Video/DVD Store" (2003); "Best Place for a Cinephile With Loose Change" (2002); "Best Too-Hip-for-Blockbuster Video Scene" (2002); then, "Best Sour Grapes" in Buzz, 2002, because they got so mad at us that year for not winning "Best Video Store." So what's best about them this time? Actually, something special takes place there every Friday and Saturday night--the global in-gathering of the East Dallas intellectual ethnic group. C'mon. East Dallas is an ethnicity. You could spot one of those types coming at you from the far end of a long corridor in Newark Airport. Sure. There's one comin' at us now--an East Dallas pop-bottle flip-flop zombie. Well, see, Premiere Video on Friday and Saturday nights is where these people meet and get their instructions!

Tearlach Hutcheson doesn't vote. Hasn't in 14 years. Actually, he's not allowed to vote, at least not in this country. You see, the man who runs the Magnolia and Inwood theaters, which are part of the Landmark Theatre chain of art houses, is Australian, and though he's eligible to be a U.S citizen, he simply hasn't filled out the necessary paperwork. "And I like to say there's a little Charlie Chaplin in me," he says, not referring to the filmmaker's penchant for young girls. "Being an Australian is such a large part of my identity I just couldn't give it up."

So it's been with an outsider's bemused perspective that Hutcheson has seen myriad movies with political themes parading in and out of his theaters all year. His favorite? Well, probably Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11--but that opinion doesn't count, since it made the Magnolia a small fortune this summer and since it was the only one of many Hutcheson actually saw. "And like I said, it doesn't matter since I can't vote."

But it has been the Year of the Political Movie, a cinematic season of celluloid campaigning by the likes of Michael Moore, Robert Greenwald, George Butler, John Sayles and other filmmakers raking in moviegoers' spare change by calling for a regime change. Control Room, a vivid peek at the lives (and deaths) of journalists working for the Al-Jazeera network, came early and stayed longer than anyone imagined; documentarian Jehane Noujaim's movie debuted in late May and had pocketed some $2.5 million by late September, when it was still on some screens around the country. Released by Magnolia Pictures, the big sister of the Magnolia Theatre, Control Room proved not even negative reviews from Donald Rumsfeld could keep people out of the theater.

But the proselytizing began in earnest in June, when Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 stormed the cineplex after months of controversy surrounding just who would release it (Disney, which paid for it, or Miramax, which commissioned it) and who would see it (the fence-sitters or the True Believers) and how much impact it would have on the election (we shall see). It opened June 23 and made some $70,000 its opening week at the Magnolia, where $20,000 is considered stellar box office for a first-week gross. Nearly every screening was sold out for weeks, and early on theater employees witnessed a rare sight--audiences standing and applauding at movie's end. So much for reaching the undecided voter. "That doesn't happen at all," Hutcheson says.

Then, in short succession, marching into theaters were Harry Thomason's The Hunting of the President, which documented the right wing's attempts to oust Thomason's best buddy Bill Clinton; Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, which laid out the case that the Fox News Channel is staffed by Republican talking heads pushing the Bush administration's talking points; George Butler's Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry, in which the Pumping Iron maker told of Kerry's Vietnam War service and his decision to protest the war upon his return; and Greenwald's Uncovered: The Truth About Iraq, in which former government officials unravel the president's case for invading and occupying that country.

But the agenda pushing wasn't limited to the documentary. Though Jonathan Demme insisted his remake of The Manchurian Candidate was apolitical, its villains supported legislation that sounded like the Patriot Act and worked for companies that looked a lot like Halliburton. And John Sayles' Silver City starred Chris Cooper as a Colorado gubernatorial candidate whose failure to speak in complete and coherent sentences made him look like an indie-film version of Will Ferrell's Saturday Night Live Dubya double.

"The simple reason so many of these films came out this year is because this war had divided so many people, and most of these movies go after the person responsible for it, Bush," Hutcheson says. "And when you have a film that goes after Bush overtly, like Fahrenheit 9/11, the movie becomes their rallying cry, and they circle up the troops. What I find interesting is there have been a lot of films that have come out that are pro-Democrat--or, actually, anti-Bush or anti-Republican--so where are the films that come from the other side and give us a balanced viewpoint?"

There have been a few of those as well: In September, Dallas was host to the first conservative film festival ever held in the country, where such movies as George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, Michael Moore Hates America and Confronting Iraq were screened. And In the Face of Evil: Reagan's War in Word and Deed opened here two weeks ago, trying to make the case that the Gipper was a commander in chief elected by a much higher power than the people.

But only Fahrenheit 9/11, which pocketed more than $100 million on its way to video-store shelves last week, could be considered a success among all these releases--and even then, its rep as the Magnolia's highest-grossing film in the theater's short history was eclipsed by the surprise success of geek comedy Napoleon Dynamite. Most of these movies ran in the Magnolia and other art houses only a few weeks; Silver City and Going Upriver were gone within 14 days of opening. If viewers were undecided about whom to vote for, they made up their minds about one thing: Enough's enough.

"These movies aren't going to bring in the undecided voter," Hutcheson says. "They're for people who want their viewpoints reinforced. I mean, Going Upriver to me is like the Democratic National Convention being shown in our theater. Ultimately, what makes a good film is a good story. You go back to Fahrenheit, and it's a good story. These other ones aren't entertaining people. But every single year we play big films and small films, and the political film has the flavor of this year. Next year it might be Italian films. But let me say this: People should get out and vote regardless of who they're voting for. You know, in my country if you don't vote, you get fined. To live in a democracy you have a responsibility, even if you don't see the movies. " --Robert Wilonsky