Ricardo Garcia plays it cool, but he’s nervous. One of the guys who just finished has a chiseled, martial-arts physique and knocked out 60 rapid-fire push-ups without breaking a sweat. “How many sit-ups do I have to do?” Garcia asks the female soldier supervising the practice test. “Fifty-three,” she says…
I dunno, I just love typing that phrase above. It’s magnetically displayed on my fridge, and, yeah, I see your post-Super Bowl letdown and raise you a pre-March Madness abyss. This, my friends, is what we call the dead of winter. Since neither National Signing Day or a ho-hum Mavs…
Mark Graham Workers, most of them immigrants from Mexico, wait at the Garland Day Labor Center for contractors to pick them up. Late last year, when members of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps visited the Garland Day Labor Center with binoculars and videocameras, they triggered a small labor movement that…
Kristine Hughes, associate editor of Texas Lawyer and now a good Friend of Unfair Park, sends this accounting of today’s PETA nude-in downtown. Oh, but before we show you hers, Kristine wants to make it clear she’s not the kind who normally shows up “up at the promise of nude…
Really, some of us at Unfair Park aren’t big fans of American Idol. We are, however, fans of cousins William Green and Akron Watson of Dallas, one of whom didn’t make the cut on last night’s show. Why not? Well, if there’s a note hit during Willie’s version of “Amazing…
Energy-saving guru Amory Lovins used to consult for TXU and finds its plan to build 11 coal-fired plants “puzzling.” And very troubling. At this very moment, Mike Greene, president and CEO of TXU Power, is being deposed by Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition’s attorneys down at Energy Plaza on Bryan…
Still sounds like there’s a lot of injustice taking place at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center. Sheriff Lupe Valdez recently told The Dallas Morning News that under her watch, the ever-beleagured jail has improved “400 percent.” She should have told that to Jill and Conrad Galvin, the devoted parents of…
At right, Toadies guitarist and Emmy-nominated Project Runway editor Clark Vogeler. At left, Jay McCarroll, who won Project Runway’s first season. As the paper version of Unfair Park is only now hitting the streets, we figure now would be as good a time as any to let you know that…
The city might have closed down the Penthouse Key Club for five big-friggin’-deal months, but, hey, lookie here: Says a press release sent out this a.m., the publicly traded (did I spell “publicly” right…yeah) Rick’s Cabaret International, Inc. has signed a letter of intent to buy “an adult nightclub” in…
Yay. David Beckham should be here July 31. For some kind of tourney. Better than nothing. Richie’s right: David Beckham won’t be in Dallas (or Frisco, whatever) for a regular-season Major League Soccer game. But he is supposed to be in Dallas on July 31 for the inaugural SuperLiga tourney,…
Guess who ain’t coming to Dallas. Yeah. This faux-hawked sumbitch. The 2007 Major League Soccer schedule is out, and I’ve got a two-word review: Rip. Off. All the hubbub over David Beckham coming to America, and just guess the only city that won’t see him playing for the Los Angeles…
This is the week — Mercedes-Benz Spring 2007 fashion week, to be more precise, currently under way in NYC — during which I temporarily suspend my hatred for women who can afford to shop at places other than Forever 21 and gaze longingly at thousands of runway photos. All kinds…
Jerry Jones is slow like honey. Wait. That doesn’t sound right. Refrigerated honey. The Wycliff toll plaza. Global warming. Yeah, the Dallas Cowboys’ coaching search is slow like that. But at least when owner Jerry Jones announces his hire later this week, we won’t be able to criticize him for…
Tristan Simon, the Czar of Henderson and soon to be the earl of everything you put in your mouth, has sold his successful nightclub Candle Room to his general manager Tommy “D” Dondlinger (formerly of the allegedly terminal Hard Rock) and Bar manager Shawn Egerton. No price was disclosed. “I…
You and I now have lunch plans tomorrow. Let’s meet at noon at Pegasus Plaza, at the corner of Akard and Main. You know you want to. C’mon — there’ll be naked women there, courtesy the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Seriously, no matter what you think of…
James Lewis, a subject of an Observer story 18 years back, got some face time in a recent copy of DeSoto Today. Eighteen years ago, then-Dallas Observer writer Read Martin did a story on an Oak Cliff man named James Lewis, who wanted to get into the demolition business. Lewis…
Terri Leo doesn’t like the gays. Or maybe she just doesn’t get them. Got a little time to kill this morning? Good, because the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund has just issued its latest report on the religious right’s influence on Texas government, God’s Lawgivers? Carrying the Water for the…
Pray this is the only time you see the Texas Syndicate’s rather intimidating insignia. The Texas Syndicate, says here, is the “oldest prison gang in Texas’ history,” dating back to its 1978 formation at Folsom Prison in California. As recently as seven years ago there were some 1,000 members scattered…
Ed Bark asks the same thing we’re all wondering: How does any newscast anchored by this woman stay on top? God bless Ed Bark. I dunno how much Uncle Barky’s making over at his Web site — gonna guess probably less than he did whilst toiling for Dallas’ Only Daily…
State Representative Rafael Anchi�a Don’t tell FrontBurner, because they’ll think he’s a racist, but Representative Rafael Anchia belongs to the Mexican American Legislative Caucus of the Texas House of Representatives. And last week, Anchia was named vice-chair of MALC’s newly formed task force on immigration. Says a press release just…
I got an e-mail from cult expert David Clark about last week’s item concerning his upcoming seminar on Ole Anthony and the Trinity Foundation. Clark says, ya know, thanks and all, but he also says I mischaracterized his explanation of his involvement with 60 Minutes and Diane Sawyer when I…
I haven’t listened to it yet — really, who has the time? — but yesterday on Air America’s Sunday-evening show “State of Belief,” Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy had as one of his guests Rev. Andrew J. Weaver. Who he? Weaver’s a United Methodist pastor, a 1978 graduate of SMU’s…
