We once heard a boxing commentator suggest doing away with fight judges and replacing them with 10-year-old boys. Where a panel of adults can watch two guys slug it out for 12 rounds and still not agree who won, your basic fourth-grader–having presumably more firsthand experience with the action–tends to…
New, Improved Michael IrvinMoving: I thought your treatment of Mr. Michael Irvin’s life and struggles was excellent (“Back in Bounds,” September 5). Straightforward, moving and void of the sort of clichés such a story often breeds. Neither condemning nor glorifying, the facts were objectively presented, and a strong, compelling article…
Race StoryDirty and ashamed: I know exactly how Jim Schutze felt as a child (“Crossing Division Street,” August 22). I grew up in rural Michigan, and one day I asked my mother if I could have a friend over. When I told my mother my friend’s name, she replied, “No…
On a recent August evening, 16-year-old T.J. Davis retreated to his room, stretched his 6-foot frame across his bed and stared silently at the greeting card that lay on a nearby end table. Finally, he picked it up, propped it against one of his textbooks and began to write. The…
The more David Spence spoke, the deeper the hole he dug himself before the Dallas Ethics Advisory Commission. When he was finally finished, the dirt he’d kicked up had soiled his neat suit. On September 6, Spence appeared before the six-member commission to answer charges that he violated the city’s…
He doesn’t look like a troublemaker. Doesn’t really talk like one, either. Not at first. The morning workout took a lot from him, maybe, and so he’s preoccupied with hydrating himself, quickly slugging back a cup of dirt-colored sports drink. Shirtless, wide receiver Antonio Bryant sits at his corner locker…
WWJD? One in an occasional series (meaning we’ll do it when we get around to it) in which we ask important Dallas questions of Jeff Liles, a local guy who’s been in bands and stuff and is sort of semifamous. Jeff, what do we do with Reunion Arena? How about…
Like many of you, Buzz has been keeping close watch on our 401(k) investment account in this troubled economy, and we’re happy to report that despite recent setbacks, we’re still on track for a comfortable retirement. At age 135. Barring any unforeseen changes at the Dallas Observer, or a winning…
“Control? You think you have control?” Michael Irvin says. “Tell me what you have control of, and I’ll put something in front of you that you’ll realize you don’t have control of that thing.” By the time he hit bottom, his so-called friends, his posse, his peeps, had all slithered…
Remember the 1998 scissors incident? Michael Irvin and Cowboys lineman Everett McIver got in some sort of fight over a haircut, and McIver ended up with a 2-inch cut on his neck and stitches. The incident was hushed up by Cowboys officials, dismissed as mere horseplay, and with good reason:…
Tracy Rowlett knows the biggest challenge his station, KTVT Channel 11, faces next week is to avoid getting too maudlin, too caught up in the emotions of remembering the terrorist attacks of September 11. Not that they won’t interview or talk about people who were and are deeply affected by…
Old habits die hard. Sometimes not at all. It was night, the U-Haul trailer was bouncing behind my car and I could barely make out the neon skyline when the bile began to bubble. A bad sort of déjà vu. I pushed it down, forced the ill will back to…
A Little Less Conversation Elvis is alive and working at a local news station. Seriously. From 1990 to ’95, John Paxson was CBS’ man in Dallas, and though he’s been burning London bridges for the past seven years as the net’s bureau chief, he couldn’t shake our city. That’s one…
Ah, eBay, is there any sort of assorted crap that can’t be purchased at the online auction house/flea market? Perhaps. Buzz went looking for our misspent youth there, but a search turned up only a book and a couple of CDs with those words in the titles; apparently, the days…
Schutze ScoresGod’s work: You have a very fine journalist in Mr. Jim Schutze (“The Orphan Chronicles,” August 29). I apologize for scaring him with my sternness, but having dealt with his father for a few years, I know he was familiar with sternness before he met me! His father and…
Bring It On Three cheers for Jill Jones, co-star of UPN’s Girlfriends Duncanville native Jill Marie Jones, who cheered for the Dallas Cowboys from 1993 to ’95, is a novelty and then some, an acting novice with a good gig and serious chops. As one of the principals of UPN’s…
Being a Democrat, a Latino, a woman, Sara Saldaña believed she had chosen the right election cycle to run for civil district judge in Dallas County. With George W. Bush off the ballot, there was no better time–or so said the Democratic Party regulars when they convinced her and 23…
Never let it be said that Buzz misses a chance to brag about, well, Buzz and assorted Dallas Observer co-workers. And we need only the flimsiest premise to do so. For example, you may have seen the recent spate of stories informing you that Laura Miller, Dallas mayor and former…
Latin BeatStereotypes: I read your article (“Blue-Collar Nights,” August 15), and as part of the Hispanic community I did not appreciate the stereotypes used throughout the article. I did not like the way things were addressed. Yes, the music is part of my culture, but I am not a lawn…
From 1998 until this year when both of my parents died of old age and natural causes, I knew Lois Lillico only from an arm’s length as the stern night nurse at the health-care unit of Presbyterian Village North, the retirement community on Forest Lane near Greenville Avenue where they…
I have been writing about racial issues in Dallas for almost a quarter-century, during which time my thesis has always been that Dallas is a weird place. A while back I had an experience that caused me to wonder if there might be another possibility–that perhaps I am a weird…
The judge takes his seat behind the bench, wearing shirtsleeves, a striped tie and a bucketful of country-boy charm. “How y’all doing today?” “Fine…OK…good…,” respond the two dozen or so recovering addicts who remain seated in the gallery. “I could be doing better,” he tells them. “I just got back…
