A bump in the road? Or the beginning of the end? Couple months back I forecasted a significant change in the way the radio ratings wind would blow around these parts in the fall. Wow. I had no idea. With Arbitron finally awaking to the digital age and replacing its…
Local actors Christopher Dontrell Piper and David Jeremiah in Topdog/Underdog Theater in this town has never been better. So why are there so many empty seats? Tickets are reasonable—about $10 for most shows, with free parking at most theaters. Many companies, including Kitchen Dog and Theatre Three, even offer “pay…
As promised, the Dallas billionaire was on The Daily Show last night promoting his book and his plan. About halfway through the interview concerning Pickens’ desire to get America’s trucks running on natural gas sooner than later, Jon Stewart fell in love. And a May-December bromance begins. –Robert Wilonsky…
Numbers game: Ooo, looky here. In Buzz’s hands we have a copy of an investigation report from Dallas Independent School District’s Office of Professional Responsibility. It’s labeled “highly confidential,” and it’s about how some ne’er-do-wells at DISD submitted false Social Security numbers to a state agency—fake numbers for foreign nationals,…
They call him “faggot.” They call him “idiot.” They call him “agitator.” They call him, simply, “the most hated man in hockey.” And how does Sean Avery respond? With a shrug. “I laugh it off…doesn’t faze me,” he says. “If you’re going to dish it out you’ve got to be…
“Pole Position,” by Megan Feldman, November 6 Sexy Things I am reading your story on pole dancing, and while I may not go out and learn to dance around a pole, I am happy that women are becoming more aware of sexuality. Feminists made us believe that in order to…
Juan Narvaez was working as a sheetrock framer for Greater Metroplex Interiors near Dallas when he said he injured his back on August 29, 2003, at work, while lifting a heavy metal stud. Texas Mutual disputed the claim, saying that his back problem was a pre-existing condition and not work-related…
Just how well the workers’ comp system is working in Texas remains something of a mystery. While Amy Lee, director of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Research and Evaluation Group, can churn out report after report on initial denial rates—they have been increasing and were at 41 percent in 2004 among…
It was June 12, 2000, and Lance Morris, a volunteer firefighter for the small town of Justin, north of Fort Worth, was in a ditch, 8 or 10 feet below road level. He remembers six or seven firefighters handling the backboard with him, bringing out one of the 19 men…
The girl was 16 by the time she arrived at the Letot Center in Northwest Dallas, and already she had given birth to a child, spent nights sleeping in vacant lots and worked as a prostitute. Sending her home was not the answer. Home is where her mentally ill, crack-addled…
Word out of City Hall today is that the Jeffries Street Learning Center — a nonprofit on Grand Avenue whose mission is to provide Fair Park-area kids with “a positive environment and positive role models” — will receive its own bailout package courtesy Bank of America. Says the release announcing…
Rogelio Reyes Cannady A week from today, 36-year-old Rogelio Reyes Cannady will be dead. That’s the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s plan, anyway: Cannady is scheduled to be executed on November 19 for murdering his cellmate in October 1993. Cannady, once a waiter, was in prison in ’93 serving out…
At this very moment T. Boone Pickens is in New York City, where today he reiterated to reporters at a Forbes-sponsored energy confab that he’s tapping the brakes on his wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. But he insisted the slowdown on the $10-billion project has nothing to do with…
Turns out Jessica Simpson may be the Dallas Cowboys’ Yoko Romo after all. Consider: Dallas has gone 9-7 since she made her Thanksgiving game debut last season, lost to the Giants in the first round of the ’07 playoffs, and watched Tony Romo turn so-so just before he was relegated…
Haven’t seen this much. In the stands or in the end zone. According to a missive I received recently from the NFL’s shopping center, the Cowboys will kill the Redskins on Sunday. In merchandise sales, that is. From April 1 to Oct. 15 of this year, the Cowboys were –…
General Growth Properties Inc.’s shares are worth next to nothing today — 40 cents, following an all-time low of 24 pennies earlier today. And though the company is based out of Chicago, its fate will have dramatic repercussions locally should it either file bankruptcy, as expected, or disappear altogether in…
Ruben Bohuchot Allen Gwinn just texted me with today’s news: Ruben Bohuchot, the former Dallas Independent School District associate superintendent for technology indicted last year and convicted in July for screwing the district out of millions, was just sentenced in federal court. Writes Allen, U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay has…
Linda Harper-Brown, who doesn’t look happy even in her campaign Web site photo By now, you’re probably aware that a week after Election Day, the dust hasn’t settled in Irving, where three-term incumbent Linda Harper-Brown and Democratic challenger Bob Romano are still tussling over who gets to rep Texas House…
Cavalier as ever. Live 105.3 talk-show host Russ Martin is so convinced the charges stemming from his July 18 arrest won’t stick that this week he turned down a slap-on-the-wrist plea bargain from Tarrant County prosecutors. According to a jurisprudence source, Martin snubbed an offer of a reduced charge –…
Right now, one ball’s about all George Gillett, left, and Tom Hicks can afford. The headline is more or less the assessment of the chairman of one of England’s largest investment banks, who today tells The Times in the U.K. that the owner of Your Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers…
Late yesterday a Friend of Unfair Park lamenting the loss of Brothers Chicken sent me an e-mail bearing potentially catastrophic news for lovers of Ćevapčići or chicken paprikash: Franki’s Little Europe in Casa Linda Plaza is closed. Another Friend confirmed last night that there was indeed a note on the…
Sam, you forgot to pour this into your pot: Terrell Owens presenting the Top Ten list on the Late Show with David Letterman last night. Little T is not amused. –Robert Wilonsky…
