Drink Up, Dallas

The June issue of Esquire, sporting the most uncomfortable photo ever taken of Tom Hanks on its cover, contains a “Best Bars in America” special section. Pretty much every major city in America (and minor–s’up, Hurley, Wisconsin) gets its entry, and there’s Dallas on page 112 with…the Inwood Lounge? Says…

Big Money in Pleasant Grove

Who says property doesn’t sell–for a lot, no less–in southern Dallas? According to this story, just a few days after Buckner Plaza South went on the market, it sold to San Francisco buyers for the full asking price of $3.6 million. It’s n0thing remarkable to look out–just another generic strip…

Screwed, Screwed, Screwed. Or Not.

The Dallas Business Journal planted the seed, and it’s taken root in some 200 news outlets across the country today: The paper’s piece about Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson’s April 28 speech in Dallas, in which he claimed to have killed a contract with a President George…

Drug Money

Today at noon, MoveOn.org will present a check for $99,185 to Republican Congressman Pete Sessions at his Dallas office. As you might expect, there’s a catch: It’s a giant novelty check, symbolizing the money Sessions has gotten from pharmaceutical companies over his career. In the 3rd District next door, a…

The Devil and Doyle Davidson

“SSSSSssssss…” “Stop that!” Carolyn Thomas snapped. Her best friend Dena Schlosser was driving with her eyes closed, hissing like a snake. “SSSSSSssssss…” “Open your eyes and look at the road!” Thomas said. “Put your mind on Jesus.” The weird behavior had started as soon as Schlosser and her three girls…

Ah, There’s the Rub

Fighting back after his ouster for sexual harassment, former assistant fire Chief Roland Gamez has filed a federal lawsuit that depicts him as the victim of an elaborate plot while portraying the department’s communications division that he once led as a bizarre outpost of Machiavellian plotting and odd sexual innuendos…

Crossing Boundaries

Hugo Olivarez’s T-shirts will make you uncomfortable, and not because of the fit. It’s the messages on the front that inspire the kind of nervous laughter Stephen Colbert got recently at the White House correspondents’ dinner, and like Colbert, they just keep getting more popular. The first time the public…

Us vs. Us

LeBron James was fathered by an ex-con. Alison Eastwood’s hotness somehow evolved from Dirty Harry. Luke Skywalker’s lineage is directly traced to the unholy sperm of Darth Vader. George W. Bush is…OK, extraordinarily bad example. And, in the tradition of conquering rotten roots, the San Antonio Spurs’ founding father was…

Line in the sand

Line in the sand: Thousands dead on September 11 weren’t enough to move Congress to secure the nation’s borders. A dangerous trek across miles of desert isn’t enough to stop impoverished illegal immigrants heading northward in search of jobs. What ever will we do about illegal immigration? Hey, Buzz knows!…

Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Cynthia Magnuson at the Department of Justice just e-mailed us a copy of the consent decree regarding the city of Dallas’ violations of the Clean Water Act, which contains a few more specifics than the press release mentioned below. We’ll read it a little more closely tonight (wow, what an…

Cuban Whistle Crisis Redux

We thought the Mavs’ owner was being unusually quiet this time of year. Guess we were wrong. Though, by Mark Cuban’s standards, this seems like pretty lame stuff, no? But is that really worth $200,000? –Richie Whitt…

Waste Not, Want Not

In March we reported that the city was being investigated by the Department of Justice for violating the Clean Water Act by illegally dumping pollution into the city’s stormwater system. Today, the DOJ and Environmental Protection Agency delivered their punishment: Dallas will be spending more than $3.5 million “in a…

Ugh, My Head

Even without having anything to drink, I barely remember what whizzed by last night. I think it was an awards show. Were awards given out? Nobody died, I hope? One of the Happy Bullets took a 4-foot dive from the podium after rushing the stage, I recall, but he seemed…

Whose Balls Are Worth More?

Tonight against the Chicago Cubs, Barry Bonds will try once more to tie Babe Ruth’s mark of 714 career home runs, which would put him second on the all-time homers list behind Hank Aaron and his 755 dingers. Of course, at this late date it’s a record about which most…

The Texas Tornadoes

Went to my 9-year-old son’s baseball game in McKinney last night and came away with two revelations: We really shouldn’t name our sports teams after natural disasters, and people, even coaches, are stupid. You’ve heard all the uproar and NCAA mandates that universities no longer use “Indians” or variations of…

Korean Barbecue

At the end of March, we reported about how downtown Dallas-based Lone Star Funds, a powerful international investment firm and equity fund, landed in some kinda big trouble in South Korea. There were myriad allegations of tax evasion and embezzlement and other dirty deeds to the tune of a few…

Firewall

Yesterday, Dallas Fire Rescue released the findings of an investigation into cheating at the training academy that raises more questions than answers, while simultanously serving as a treatment for a movie best described as “Crash meets Backdraft .” First, some background: In October, trainee Desmond Luster resigned from the department…

Food for Thought

So, this sounds like one hell of a score. If it’s true. The Chicago Tribune’s reporting this morning that the Food Marketing Institute’s trade show is leaving Chicago after next year. Sounds real sexy, right? Well, it does when you consider this stat: “The trade show, one of Chicago’s biggest…

Action Jackson

Alphonso Jackson, former Dallas Housing Authority chief, came back to town and got himself in trouble. The Dallas Business Journal’s May 5 story about U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson’s April 28 speech in Dallas is turning into one hell of a piece. Turns out Jackson’s “admirable candor”…

Is Radio Shack a Best Buy?

Fort Worth-based RadioShack Corporation’s stock jumped in value yesterday: It closed at $18.28, up $1.07 (or a whopping 6.22 percent). The reason? Rumors started circulating yesterday that Best Buy was going to buy Radio Shack–news that some traders find a little hard to swallow. Nobody’s talking about the deal, or…

Mother’s Day Comes Early

According to this story, Dallas is about to be the subject of a half-hour HBO comedy series called 12 Miles of Bad Road, created and exec-produced by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason (Designing Women, Evening Shade). The Hollywood Reporter’s reporting only that it’ll be about “a Dallas matriarchy,” that the…