When Johnie Hopkins walked into Deeper Life Christian Church, a Pentecostal storefront mission in East Oak Cliff that ministers to Dallas’ homeless, he had nowhere else to turn. A former ironworker turned transient, Hopkins and his wife, Tina Howard, had been on the Dallas homeless circuit, from shelter to soup…
A small herd of horses stops grazing and looks up at a pair of strangers hanging onto a fence at Samuell Farm. To the city dweller’s eye, they look well-treated. But they aren’t, according to a Dallas Park and Recreation Department committee. The horses, part of a horse-riding concession that…
Bobby Vicious Crude, yes, but also clever: Wilonsky needs to get his facts straight. Bobby Soxx (“Grave City,” November 2) wasn’t all rage and violent temper. Some of the people who knew him best saw that side, but they also saw one of the funniest, cleverest human beings ever to…
SOMEWHERE IN THE STATE OF SONORA, MEXICO–As night falls, Gary Reeder rips through his motel room, hurriedly stuffing clothes into a small suitcase. After three days in this hellhole of a town somewhere in Mexico’s Sonoran Desert, Reeder looks frantic. Crazed. Downright scared. “I’m leaving tonight,” he says, spotting me…
JUNCTION, Texas–In the biblical version of the tale, the older son of the patriarch was filled with spite and jealousy, killed his younger brother, and was then marked by God and condemned to a life of wandering. In the ongoing West Texas remake, the younger son of the one-armed man,…
Nearly two years ago, Pat Melton stood up in front of the Dallas Park and Recreation Board and vented. She was angry and, as an animal lover, she had good reason to be. Some of the 300 or so farm animals at an obscure city park were freezing and thirsty,…
More than 8,700 women are incarcerated in the Texas prison system. Thieves. Killers. Drug dealers. But even the hardest cases in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice are prone to loneliness. After all, there’s just not much to do during all those forlorn nights in the stir. Take, for instance,…
(Editor’s note. Our media columnist disappeared at approximately 6 p.m. on election night. At 7 p.m., we declared him dead. A few hours later, we received word he was not dead. We rescinded our declaration. By 2 a.m., we were tired and annoyed, so we declared him dead again. But…
Looking for a reason why judicial candidate Mary Ann “Kamikaze” Huey, the only Democrat with enough guts and self-delusions to run against a Republican judge in Dallas County, came within a gavel’s throw of disrobing incumbent Bill Rhea? Wondering why Rhea, who had the unqualified endorsements of the legal establishment…
Judge Not Yellow-bellied story: Are you proud of your cover story, Adam Pitluk? (“Marked man,” November 2.) You told me many times when we spoke that you had no opinion, that you just wanted to be fair. So, I would have to then assume that this one-sided, yellow-bellied excuse for…
No news is good news: Your regular Buzz correspondent is back–pale, rested, and ready from a vacation that absolutely did not involve involuntary commitment or heavy doses of psychotropic drugs, as far as you know. And didn’t young Eric Celeste do a fine job while we were away? Don’t you…
Standing behind a discreet Japanese screen partitioning a small space in one of Texas Instruments’ vast hallways, massage therapist Lynn Street plugs her product. “These chemicals,” she says about the endorphins released inside the human body during a rubdown, “will stay in the system for up to 72 hours.” It…
The coach gestures like an overcaffeinated child, frantically pointing here and there. He runs across finished hardwood–part of the pristine workout facility at the Baylor-Tom Landry Center–warm-up pants swooshing, directing players like a traffic cop at a broken light. Basketballs thump in a kind of asymmetrical chorus, and the air…
Robert Bledsoe walks across a vacant lot just behind Main Street in the century-old town of Ladonia. Wearing a weathered baseball cap and dirty work pants, he steps onto the concrete foundation where the city’s railroad station once welcomed eight trains a day. The building is gone, but that’s OK,…
SEVEN POINTS–On a late morning last week, as the cool Texas air was sweetened by overnight rains and the sun sparkled on the surface of the nearby Cedar Creek Lake, 34-year-old Keith Tarkington stood in the parking lot of the local Dairy Queen, pulled on his straw hat, and declared…
Making him pay: Terrific piece of journalism (“Marked Man,” November 2). The mentality that a cop is dead (or injured) and someone must pay is absurd. I am outraged! I expect that any complaints to the DPD about the handling of this matter, including Mr. Rebeles’ allegations against detective Kimberlin,…
Three weeks ago, Herbert Lee Madison celebrated his 47th birthday. Alone. But he was safe inside his home, at least, away from the terrifying posse of police officers and squad cars that converged there on the afternoon of August 19 to arrest him. Madison will never forget it: One officer…
Felix Lozada, Dallas Park and Recreation Board member, is sleeping in his chair. Board member Dwaine Caraway, sporting a gold crucifix and a Gore-Lieberman pin, is swiveling his chair back and forth, looking at the scene from behind gold-rimmed glasses. He checks his watch. It’s 10:30 on a Thursday morning,…
The episode started with plans for strawberry shortcake, moved through discussion of important banana and hamburger precedents, and ended with accusations that might have Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton reaching for the Rolaids. Because of the fruit involved, it has one lawyer making references to The Caine Mutiny, the fictional…
When real estate developer Anthony Natale announced plans last year to rehabilitate 15 decrepit 1960s apartment buildings along Gaston and Live Oak avenues, he vowed that the ambitious, $22 million publicly backed project would cement old East Dallas’ reputation as a residential destination spot for young professionals. Six months ago,…
Shut Up, Already Gawking at your illogic: I am not the least bit interested in arguing for Pearl Jam (“Shut Up, Jeremy!” October 12). Music is subjective, and while I’d prefer my reviews peppered with less personal bias, your opinion is your opinion, and it can never be wrong. However,…
Rhode outta town: To quote Bart Simpson, these are “crazy, topsy-turvy times” in which we live. The NASDAQ swings like Dennis Rodman after 10 cocktails, more people are interested in the Mavericks than in the Cowboys, dogs and cats are sleeping together–it’s mass hysteria. Luckily for Buzz, there’s one thing…
