Ben Gold’s on a plane from Iowa back to Dallas at this very moment — a newly burnished Hall of Famer … like Emmitt Smith, let’s just say. On the other side, his final installment from his return to Ottumwa, Iowa, where not all victories are in the distant past…
Yesterday, legendary local video gamer Ben Gold began writing for Unfair Park about his return to Ottumwa, Iowa, home of the Twin Galaxies arcade and the place where, tomorrow night, he will be among the first class inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame. In today’s installment, Ben…
Late last night, the missive you see below — in which Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield offers to pitch in $10 mil for that Oak Cliff-to-downtown streetcar line — appeared in the Unfair Park in-box. Mayfield tells Mike Eastland, executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, that…
Early last week I told you about 43-year-old Ben Gold, who, back when we were kids, was better known as “B-E-N” amongst the video-gamers who hung out at local arcades — like the late-great Game Zone at Preston Road and LBJ Freeway or TILT at Prestonwood Town Center — and…
I’ve known Gary Cogill a long time, and despite what Zac says, he’s a good guy, a thoughtful critic and a pretty good cook who, back when the Lakewood Theater fed the homeless at Christmas, could be found in the kitchen lending a very helping hand. I’ve also been aware…
Forthcoming at the beginning of 2011: The Dallas Morning News’s iPad app. Only, per the press release this morning, it’ll be a New York Times-made product via its new Press Engine offshoot, which is spitting out iPad and iPhone products for smaller publications without the resources to do it themselves…
As the women’s editor for the Dallas Times Herald for nearly 30 years, from the 1950s to the ’80s, Vivian Castleberry revolutionized the section’s coverage — addressing domestic violence, for example, in addition to lifestyle pieces on decor and fashion — and became the first woman named to the paper’s…
After the jump you’ll find the announcement that just landed in the Unfair Park in-box, but short story shorter: KTXA will broadcast 15 Dallas Stars regular-season games each season for the next four beginning, well, this season. Most, incidentally, will be Saturday-night games — and all will be in high-def,…
After the jump is ESPN’s tribute to Leah Siegel, a Dallas-based producer for the network who, during her tenure at the Worldwide Leader, garnered a handful of Emmy Awards. Leah died early this morning, about two years after doctors discovered she had stage four breast cancer — right after she’d…
On Salon, my old friend and former cubicle-mate Matt Zoller Seitz has asked an eclectic assortment of cinephiles, writers and filmmakers alike, to share The Film Experience That Left a Lasting Impression — as though, really, there could be just one.Full disclosure: Most of mine involve early, awkward dates at…
It’s been 17 months since the city settled its legal dispute with developer Craig Hall over lease payments related to the Arts District parking garage on Ross Avenue — and then agreed to dole out up to $9 million from the Downtown Connection TIF if he ever got ’round to…
Andrea, Patrick and I just spent the last half hour getting baked in the Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts parking lot on Fort Worth Avenue — sadly, not that kind of baked (though I guess we could have …). Broiled is more like it — that concrete alley is mothereffin’ hot…
After all the fussin’ and cussin’ accompanying yesterday’s item about ESPN’s decision to home-base in Sundance Square during next year’s Super Bowl, I thought it might be nice to talk to the very person who made that decision: Stephanie Druley. She’s the Worldwide Leader’s senior coordinating producer, and she oversees…
I signed up for LoopNet a while back to occasionally scout for some of the more intriguing spaces and businesses for lease or for sale in this town — like, oh, that East Side Ave. church-turned-house or Elliott’s Hardware. Which is why I just received in the Unfair Park in-box…
Can we quit being surprised about Deep Ellum being kind of awesome yet? Because between the group of excellent new bars and restaurants opening in the neighborhood, last Saturday’s downright packed Dallas Observer Music Awards showcase and the first-ever Deep Ellum Outdoor Market, it appears as though the ‘Ellum is…
Beckett Media, HQ’d off Welch Road and LBJ Freeway, publishes monthly price guides for damned near everything you can buy, sell, trade and collect — from sports cards to Beanie Babies. And though business ain’t what it used to be — myriad titles have been dropped over the years as…
Friend of Unfair Park and downtown denizen Noah Jeppson got into the Atmos Complex over the weekend thanks to an invite from John Greenan, executive director of Central Dallas Community Development Corporation, who never asks us anywhere. With a nod to the controversy surrounding the properties, which Forest City handed…
Hello, Unfair Park. It’s nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Sorry to say, though, it’s just a short stay–a follow-through on a promise I made yesterday to Robert, y’know. That promise? That I’d roll on through to this side of the fence for a moment to tell you…
I have been a terrible former music editor. Here we are, but three days from the kick-off of the Dallas Observer Music Awards, and so far I’ve written not one word about so glorious an event as the one planned by Pete and our crack promotions staff. Pete has offered…
Texas Observer Forrest Wilder has been doing an occasional chat-with series featuring homegrowns “involved in issues of the environment and energy,” and for his latest installment he’s chatting up none other than our old pal Patrick “Car-Free in Big D” Kennedy. Not surprisingly, Patrick’s got plenty to say: Wilder sent…
Last night was The Big Night — Jerry Jones (and Rich Dalrymple, the Dallas Cowboys’ director of public relations) took his turn on HBO’s Entourage, where Jeremy Piven’s Ari Gold tried to sell Jeruh and other NFL team owners on letting him broker the next round of TV rights. That…
Whilst combing through the Internets for an Unfair Park item, I just came across this job posting: “Host Ticket Top 10 (Full-time) Sportsradio 1310 The Ticket.” No kidding? I called Jeff Catlin, operations manager for Cumulus Radio Dallas, to see what the what — like, did Chris House get fired?…
