What, No Beaver?

The MP3 blog Strange Reaction, which specializes in obscure punk bands from the 1980s, touches the local base with this generous posting: The Hugh Beaumont Experience’s entire four-song EP Cone Johnson , released in 1981 (and forgotten in, well, 1981). I would direct you to our archives for some info…

Maybe PISD Does Love God After All. Or Maybe It Hates Lawsuits.

Seems the Plano Independent School District was pretty surprised about Liberty Legal Institute’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Sherman on Monday, that claims the district is engaging in religious discrimination regarding its treatment of a Christian organization called Students Witnessing Absolute Truth (or S.W.A.T.). As first reported on…

Ever Feel Like You’re Being Watched

So now that you know the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is reinforced and ready to blow (they carry portable breath testers), surely you’re wondering, “What bar will they hit next?” Please note, we’re not judging here. You could be wondering that because you’re looking for a bar free of obnoxious…

Pegasus (Right) Now

You should’ve been at the Cavern last night. Doesn’t matter if the crowd (and the stage) were too cramped or if the room was too smoky or if you had to wake up early for work the next day–Pegasus Now is a band worth enduring all of those burdens for…

Drunk with Power?

Lushes are falling all over themselves to protest the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s latest outrage: arresting people in bars for being drunk. Today, The Dallas Morning News ran the sad tale of a guy who downed a sixer but never even left his own hotel–until the TABC carted him off…

Woodlawn Not Getting a Head

One presumes this is not what Woodlawn will look like as a boutique hotel, if and when that ever happens. Unlike so many of my unhealthy obsessions, my fascination with the old Woodlawn Hospital building held such promise. Day after day, I gazed out at the abandoned former home of…

The SMU…Cowboys?

SMU’s athletic administration will take tackle its future by relying on the Dallas Cowboys’ past–and not the recent past, but the waaaaay back past. The good past, that is. Steve Orsini will be announced this afternoon as the Mustangs’ new athletic director, replacing the retiring Jim Copeland. Orsini got his…

Sime Says

When Tom Sime quit his job last year as theater critic at The Dallas Morning News, some of his colleagues (including me) thought he was nuts. He took a pay cut to go to work for one of his best friends, Sue Loncar, as general manager of her Contemporary Theatre…

C’mon, but Lubbock?

So, Southern Methodist University and the University of Dallas are still in the running for the George W. Bush Presidential Library (and, look, I could probably fit that thing in the closet with all my comic books and old porn). Texas Tech University ain’t. I didn’t really think that would…

In Fund We Do Not Trust

I am starting to feel awfully bad for Leo Barron Hicks, the administrator of the embattled South Dallas/Fair Park Trust Fund. In November, the Observer ran a cover story about the fund’s history of making lousy loans to business owners who wind up making busy work for folks in the…

Woolly Baby

Had family in from out of town last night: aunts and uncles, the kind who prefer martinis and gimlets and Scotch to wine and bacon-wrapped scallops. This was their first visit to Dallas since the mid-1970s. And what was their lasting impression of the Big D? Was it the JFK…

J.R. Wants to Stay in Florida

Wuh-oh. Don’t think the mayor’s gonna like this bit o’ bad news. Seems John Travolta, tapped to star as J.R. Ewing in the oddly anticipated big-screen version of Dallas, wants to film the movie near his home. In Florida. “John Travolta loves his adopted hometown of Ocala so much he…

Skating is For Wussies

Kids these days are pretty lame, a fact made evident when you go to YouTube and type “Dallas” into the search engine. The results include a kid named Dallas twitching his head and some dumb girls descending into a local parking garage, among other brilliant pieces of cinema. A refreshing…

Call Me

Apparently, plagiarism’s a big no-no even in the world of…phone books? According to this release: “Attorneys representing Dallas-based Gordon Publications (GOPUBCO) have filed a lawsuit against Your Town Yellow Pages of Carrollton, Tex., based on claims of federal copyright violations involving advertisements contained in Your Town’s local telephone directories. The…

Wide Awake

Breaking our record of Most Local Music Videos Posted on Unfair Park In One Week, here’s the second musical clip in the past seven days: “Plan to Stay Awake” by the Deathray Davies. This was filmed by Austin resident Keith Lowry, who may or may not have other music video…

Talon’s Out

For some reason I find myself the daily recipient of e-mails from one Bobby Eberle, the Pearland resident best known for having created the Talon News Web site that employed fake journalist and real gay prostitute Jeff “Gannon” Guckert. As you may recall, Gannon was outed last year (henh) after…

Young and the Restless

I’ve only seen her on TV, but I wouldn’t require a personal interview and authorized head-to-toe-measurements before I agreed to marry Elisha Cuthbert. I’m pretty confident we’d live, like, happily ever after. So why is it that NFL teams are so damned picky about college players like Vince Young? The…

Go…uh…Canada!

I always thought Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders spent the off-season finishing their master’s degrees, smashing atoms or trying to solve the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture. Not so much. Turns out they cheer. –Robert Wilonsky…

Man Amongst ‘Boys

Back in 2001 I shook hands with Big Tex, or at least it felt that way when I hopped in Larry Allen’s golf cart for an interview at Dallas Cowboys training camp in Wichita Falls. On that particular day, Allen–one of the biggest, meanest, strongest, scariest players in NFL history–was…

CBS v. Belo v. Katrina

If you want to read the complete file in the case of Infinity Radio, Inc. v. Belo Corp. et al, the subject of a news story in this week’s Observer, here are the kinda-simple steps necessary. And lemme say I wish I knew how to do this Friday, after getting…

Do You Have the Worst Taste in Music?

If the answer to the above question is, “Sure, absolutely,” then I guess it’s time to direct you to a downloadable version of Terrell Owens’ much-talked-about rap song called either “I’m Back” or “I Suck.” It’s been on Owens’ Web site for a few days, but someone kindly converted it…

Oh, Dear, Bill Dear

Five years after the publication (well, self-publication) of his book O.J. Is Guilty, but Not of Murder, local private detective Bill Dear is moving his search for Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman’s killers to the big screen. On March 27 at the Angelika Film Center, 275 locals handpicked by Dear…