DOMA! DOMA! DOMA!

Haven’t gotten your free tickets to tonight’s Dallas Observer Music Awards? You still have a few hours to pick some up from Tower Records or Good Records. Doors at the Granada Theater open to the public at 7:30 p.m.–you’d be wise to arrive well before the scheduled start time of…

Balls Out

I want it established here and now that I have no personal vendetta against Tony Danza, and that I have no specific or secondary knowledge of the nature of his private parts. But I do think that a press release headlined “Sisters Have Balls On Tony Danza” is one of…

Frisco Kid

Get used to this. In a few weeks, you will not be able to escape the withering 15-year-old glare of Frisco “rock superstar” Cheyenne Kimball. “Hanging Out,” the new single from Frisco 15-year-old Cheyenne Kimball, is out today; iTunes has it for the standard 99 cents, which is about 43…

Mazel Tov, Mr. Akinpelu

The June issue of Ebony magazine contains a list of the top graduating African-American high-school seniors in the country. (The link has an incomplete list, but trust me.) “This year’s top seniors are remarkable examples of the talent and intellect that today’s Black youths possess,” claim the editors, who put…

Do the ‘Do

Planning is just not something I do a whole lot of. I woke up last Saturday morning and decided that a haircut was in order, and that Saturday was as good a day as any to chop off nine inches of hair. I’d been inspired by Sex and the City,…

(Flawed) German Engineering

Dirk had best nut up for tonight’s Game 2 against the San Antonio Spurs. Dirk Nowitzki is a great player, but if the Dallas Mavericks star keeps passing up crucial shots, he’ll never be an elite player. Dirk missed eight of 11 shots in the second half of the Game…

Sign o’ the Times

This sign–which says, in case you can’t read it, “Councilman Rasansky What are YOU Doing to Expedite Needed Repairs To Our Parkway? NOTHING???”–is actually a few houses down from the Pegasus that’s for sale below; what the hell’s happening on Royal Lane between Webb Chapel Road and Marsh Lane, anyway?…

Not Exactly Flying Off the Lawn

Dallas Soars! Then lands on a northwest Dallas lawn. Whilst driving down Royal Lane, I spotted this odd lawn ornament: a Pegasus left over from the 2001 Dallas Soars! campaign that never seemed to really take flight. (There’s a whole herd of them in the shopping center at southwest corner…

Small Ball, Big Balls

The woman’s voice on the other end of the line is strong and perky: “You’ve reached the national headquarters of the Continental Baseball League,” she says, as though you’ve just dialed a proud, tradition-rich enterprise. But at the moment, the Continental Baseball League doesn’t exist apart from its offices on…

Really? Neil Diamond?

I am not sure I believe this story, but nonetheless the Los Angeles Times’ Ann Powers insists today that the new anthem of the Latino immigration movement is…Neil Diamond’s “America”? I have a hard time believeing that, unless my mother is DJ’ing the protests; I’ll never forget Neil in the…

Dropping the Ball

When is no news conference news? When the No. 16-ranked high-school basketball prospect in the country decides he isn’t quite ready to tell folks where he’s going to school. (Same thing happened to me; I get it.) That’s what happened today when power forward Darrell Arthur of South Oak Cliff…

For a Guy Who Doesn’t Read…

…President George W. Bush sure is obsessed with his library (and his legacy). Say so right here in today’s New York Times, which details his desire to merge “a public policy center with his presidential library after he leaves office in 2009.” And the paper still has Southern Methodist University…

Bush is a Liar (Aw, Quiet Down)

Now George Dubya done gone and pissed off a whole new constituency: soccer players (and, of course, their moms). Today’s Los Angeles Times takes issue with something the president told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper for its Sunday editions. “As a boy, I never even saw a soccer ball,” the…

Tourist Trap

Looks like the city’s pitch to outta-town travel writers last month has already started to pay off: Pauline Frommer, of the famous Frommer franchise of travel tipsters, has written this little guide to our fair city that includes stops at all the usual suspects: the Mansion on Turtle Creek, the…

Net Gain or Net Loss?

Bono had proven he was serious about helping Africa long before he took the Music Hall stage at Fair Park on Friday. It took a few years and a sycophantic 60 Minutes story last year, but my cynicism gave way to real respect for his campaign against poverty. He doesn’t…

Mayor Miller Demands Recount

To follow up Jim’s earlier post about Mayor Laura Miller and husband Steve Wolens’ quick turnaround of their AMR Corp. stock, this morning the mayor sent (to Belo bigwigs Bob Mong, Jim Moroney and Robert Decherd and a handful of local journos) another e-mail detailing precisely how much money the…

Freemasons, Eh? Not Entirely.

Maybe there are some Freemason artifacts in Slowride’s video, which was directed by Kris Youmans (The Paper Chase, Happy Bullets) and edited by Justin Wilson, but it looks to me like a large part of it was shot inside Waxahachie’s 10,000-square foot Webb Gallery. Tom Sale’s suitcase dioramas are featured…

Morals? What Morals?

Been waiting a while to post this one–when I interviewed Justin Wilson (Red Animal War, Slowride, The Numbers Twist) a month ago, he showed me a rough cut of the latest Slowride music video for “Morals and Dogma,” one of the better songs from their latest album, C/S. Wilson’s a…

Slapshot in the Face

In case you missed it–and I know you did–the Dallas Stars’ first-round flop is looking more embarrassing by the day. With Mavs-Spurs and the EDS Byron Nelson Classic in our faces this week it’s difficult to think about the Stars. But what’s happening to the team that beat them–the Colorado…

The Mall: It’s a Good Thing

It was 20 years ago today, or thereabouts, that David Byrne shot True Stories in NorthPark Center. NorthPark Center officially reopened Friday, with the kinda-sorta debut of the brand-new wing that houses, among other things, the retro-normous AMC NorthPark 15 and the just-slightly-better-than-the Galleria’s food court. (Who knew the Soup…

Fake I.D.: Good for Business, Bad for Nation

See, illegal immigration is good for business. A fascinating piece out of Knight-Ridder’s Washington bureau outlines how forgers are making tens of millions–“and possibly billions”–selling counterfeit versions of official documets (including Social Security cards and driver’s licenses) to some 12 million illegal immigrants. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement…

WFAA: ABC’s Guinea Pig

In a move announced with little fanfare, on May 1 Belo Corp.-owned WFAA-Channel 8 became one of five ABC affiliates to offer a link to the mothership that makes available free videos of some of the network’s bigger hits. It’s part of ABC’s attempt to drive traffic to its own…