Justin Time, A Tony Romo Super Bowl Ad (Sort Of)

Here’s a sneak peek at a Pepsi ad scheduled to run during the Super Bowl — starring Justin Timberlake, his “Dick in a Box” bud Andy Samberg and, in a teensy cameo, Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo. Watch now, before it’s adiosed off the YouTubes. –Robert Wilonsky Update: Thanks, Sam,…

“Go for Brett Shipp.”

Fine story about grade-fixing at Roosevelt High School last night, Brett Shipp. But, really, what’s with the Bluetooth earpiece during an on-camera interview? Expecting a Priority One message from Starfleet? –Robert Wilonsky…

Spin Class

Burning question: Just how much Jose Cuervo did Randy Galloway drink when he saw the radio ratings last week? If you saw the blurb in Dallas’ Only Daily over the weekend concerning the latest radio ratings, you probably envisioned ESPN 103.3 FM spending the Martin Luther King holiday breaking out…

What Do Matt Pulle and Antonin Scalia Have in Common?

Illustration by Brian Stauffer Pardon us, Friend, while we indulge in some self-congratulatory navel-gazing. The story “Split Decision,” Matt Pulle’s incisive feature for the paper version of Unfair Park about Dallas’ embarrassing scrape with the feds over Preston Hollow Elementary School’s deliberate segregation, has been nationally recognized in the lofty…

Warning You Now: A Lot of Math Ahead

There have been plenty of Trinity River shindigs in the 10 years since the original vote to approve the project, but no event brought out more big guns than the mayor’s Trinity River Corridor Project Summit Friday at City Club. The alphabet-roster of attendees could fill Unfair Park for a…

How the Trinity-Soaked Sausage Was Made

So I was talking to city council member Angela Hunt this week — about a story I’m working on, swear — and we start chatting about the recent Transportation and Environment Committee meeting down at City Hall. One of the things we both found interesting, as did Schutze in his…

Sundancing As Fast As We Can

Unfair Park don’t take no holiday breaks — instead, we go on a working winter holiday to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Which means that beginning tomorrow through next Friday, Unfair Park won’t be all-local, all-the-time — just, well, most of the time, as we add to…

Dollars for Daisies

So, the bidding just closed on that Tripping Daisy Dallas Observer Music Award I told you about on Wednesday, and, turns out, it wasn’t worth $107.50 after all. Nope, the Lucite doorstop went for … $405. And it sold to an enormous Tripping Daisy and Polyphonic Spree fan, judging by…

I Miss Rick Reilly

Because he’s the 11-time National Sportswriter of the Year. Because he can make you laugh and cry within a column ostensibly about sports but really about comedy and heartache and life. But mostly, I miss Rick Reilly because his Sports Illustrated fill-ins suck ass. Take this week. In the midst…

Showdown at 11:10

Punch. Counter-punch. This morning at 11, 103.3-FM ESPN debuts Michael Irvin’s show. Not just coincidentally, KTCK-AM (1310, The Ticket) is promoting a “major announcement” around 11:10. Don’t get your radio thong in a wad over either event. Irvin, who has been in court all week fighting a former contractor, will…

Newspapers Are a Bad Investment? Tell Me About It.

Thanks to some dude named Anthony Noto at Goldman Sachs, newspaper stocks are tanking today. Seems Noto, who Forbes recently said was pretty good at picking stocks, said today that he “anticipates ad sales will weaken further as economic conditions continue to deteriorate in 2008,” and Goldman Sachs today is…

Josh Venable to Rock L.A. Hard.

Josh Venable, headin’ to the City of Angels Turns out, Josh Venable still works for Clear Channel after all — only, now it’s in Los Angeles. Clear Channel’s Dallas market manager, J.D. Freeman, sends words that today, it was officially announced that the former Adventure Club host and KDGE-FM (102.1)…

Honor Among Pundits

Yaser Abdel Said Not 48 hours after the shooting deaths of two teenage sisters in Irving, the blogosphere is atwitter with the missives of angry scribes who’ve already branded the girls’ father, 50-year-old cab driver Yaser Abdel Said, an “honor killer” in a frenzy of Oh-my-God-Muslims-are-ruining-our-country hysteria. And police have…

What’s Left of the Dial

Our old pal J.D. Freeman, Dallas-Fort Worth’s market manager for Clear Channel Radio, fills us in today concerning some changes around the DFW dial. As in: KDGE-FM (102.1) needs a new morning show, as Lex & Terry are moving over to the recently resuscitated KEGL-FM (97.1) come January 9. (The…

Fox Me? No, Fox U.

Damned if I can find any hint of this on KDFW-Channel 4’s Web site, which might be the worst local TV-news site in town, but MediaWeek brings news that the Fox owned-and-operated station has paired up with journalism students from SMU on a new site called Fox U News, which…

The Spirits of Texas

The comedy team of Delkus & Hansen was in high gear New Year’s Eve down at Victory Park, where, clearly, someone spiked the punch. Speaking of punch, the WFAA-Channel 8 sports anchor sure knows how to welcome a new member to the team. Happy New Year, Cynthia Izaguirre. You too,…

The Playmaker Gets a Radio Gig

It figures that one of our final items of 2007 would deal with sports radio — though, to be fair, it has nothing to do with KTCK-AM (1310, The Ticket). Well, not really, though if memory serves former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin did used to have a weekly…

“Indefinitely” Is Turning Into a Long, Long Time

KDFW-Channel 4’s Rebecca Aguilar — still missing more than two months later Rowlett’s Marisa Trevino is a friend of Rebecca Aguilar’s; she’s very clear about that in her Scripps News-syndicated column about Aguilar’s continued absence from KDFW-Channel 4, from which Aguilar was indefinitely suspended in October following her polarizing parking-lot…

Meet the New Boss

Mark Donald, the new editor of the Dallas Observer The Dallas Observer will begin the new year with a new editor: Mark Donald. His should be a very familiar name to longtime readers of the paper version of Unfair Park: Mark — who now demands to be called Mr. Donald,…