Concrete: In the Bad-Air Mix

This is a cement kiln. It makes cement. And it also makes pollution. A lot of it. That is so bad for, like, the environment and stuff. Here’s something else to add to the list of Things That Are Slowly Killing Us and The Earth and Stuff: cement kilns. Never…

It’s “Hardline” Out Here for a Wimp

Mike Rhyner, left, returns to host “The Hardline” with Greg Williams today. But Greggo all by his lonesome? Not bad, buddy. Not bad at all. Of my experience yesterday co-hosting “The Hardline” on KTCK-AM (1310, The Ticket) with the mighty Greg Williams, let me say this: Radio is hard. Very,…

Emotional Rescue

My eyes are closed, and I’m standing with a microphone in my hand in front of a room full of people. Dr. Steven Stosny, an anger and domestic abuse expert, has just asked me to recall a time I got really angry. “My roommate’s boyfriend drinks my beer without asking,”…

Thou Shalt Not

The votes have been cast. It’s over. For good or bad, Gene Robinson, son of a Kentucky tenant farmer, has made history–and captured the world’s attention. The Episcopal Church has its first openly gay bishop. It is August 5, 2003, and Robinson is to appear before the House of Deputies,…

Silence in the Court

A former court reporter sued Judge Sally Montgomery this week, claiming that Montgomery wrongfully fired her from her seven-year job at County Court at Law No. 3. Lawyers for Cayce Coskey claim that Montgomery, rated in February by the Texas Observer as the second-worst judge in Texas, fired Coskey on…

George who?

George who?: I once saw George W. Bush choke Randy Galloway. It was several years ago, when Galloway was still scribbling for The Dallas Morning News. They were in the press box at the stadium formerly known as the Ballpark in Arlington, and the Rangers, the team Bush once barely…

The Creepy Crawlies | Getting Some | A Holler for Harwood

The Creepy Crawlies Slithering down my back: I am ecstatic! I have been researching Morgellons Disease for over a year now, trying to find some sort of explanation. My first encounter with a symptom was in my home. Just out of the shower I felt a strong slither down my…

The 10 Percent Doctrine

Roberto Gomez needed a fix. He had loaded up a speedball, two parts heroin and one part cocaine, a ritual he repeated religiously three times daily. In this instance, he had cut the timing a little too close. “My hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t control the needle at…

Thank you, Dave Navarro, Thank You

� Danny Moloshok/Blue Pixel for MBP 2006 If we wanted our rock stars to be boring, Patrice, we’d listen to Radiohead. Last night’s Rock Star: Supernova was a lesson in feisty dialogue with co-host Dave Navarro. The guy was definitely showing some post-break-up angst when he exchanged his usual sticky-sweet…

Ant Invasion

If you like good kids’ movies and free stuff, you may wanna see The Ant Bully on Saturday. Just sayin’. I just got back from interviewing John A. Davis, the writer-director of the animated gem The Ant Bully, which opens Friday and is reviewed in the paper version of Unfair…

A Beautiful Thing

Signed up for Eisley’s e-mail/MySpace list? Yeah, I’m not, either; the Dupree siblings’ father, Boyd, kinda rambles in his updates about the band of Tyler super-teens, and there isn’t much in Eisley world to report lately, other than songwriting and preparation for their next record. Well, until today, anyway: Check…

Dubya: A Really Cool Dude

UNT journalism professor Jim Mueller’s new book deals with the days when Dubya was an owner of the Texas Rangers–ya ‘member, the good ol’ days. Jim Mueller, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of North Texas, recently found out how you wake up a classroom of 300 sleepy…

Theater Critics Camp Diary, Day 1

Back in the late 1980s, I wrote magazine stories about crimes, murders mostly. Grisly murders where one spouse kills another in a way that leaves scorch marks on the garage floor or bloodstains splashed across the kitchen ceiling. I sometimes interviewed the accused, giving me access to county and state…

Going, Going…Gone?

Today did not dawn pretty for you traditionalists. That is, if there are any of you left. First, Fort Worth’s tradition-saturated Colonial golf tournament has sold out and partnered with something called the Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resort, rendering the grand ol’ golfing get-together as faceless and bland as any…

Grail for Sale?

A New York company claims it’s selling, for $6 million, the guitar Robert Johnson’s holding in this legendary picture of one of music’s most influential writers and performers. There is a company in Washingtonville, New York, called Moments In Time Manuscripts Inc. that sells rare artifacts–among them, oh, a letter…

That’s the Ticket

Sweet Greggo: This is the man with whom I will be spending five hours this afternoon on The Ticket. I could not be more excited. Seriously. Today might prove a lighter-than-usual day on Unfair Park–gotta prep for my afternoon gig, dig? From 3 to 7 p.m. today, I’ll be riding…

Who’ll Pay the Rent?

Many of the folks who washed up in Reunion Arena after Hurricane Katrina could wind up displaced again. Hurricane Katrina displaced them once, now a failure to send in the proper paperwork could force thousands of evacuee families living in Texas to move again. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said…

So That’s How Journalism Works

About 30 minutes ago, Rod Dreher posted this item to Dallas Morning Views, the editorial board blog for Dallas’ Only Daily: “Murray: NCLB doesn’t work In today’s Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray writes that No Child Left Behind doesn’t work, and the Texas education statistics President Bush uses to extol…

Feel Free to Panic

A scene from John Carstarphen’s Panic Time, which debuts tonight for free at the Inwood Theater Old Friend of Unfair Park John Carstarphen, whose 1995 debut Stealin’ Home was a fave of former DO’er Matt Zoller Seitz’s way back when (“a funky, frenetic, upbeat piece of African-Americana!”), debuts his new…

Re: Pie in the Face

Lorlee Bartos was outta town last week when we posted our follow-up to our follow-up to our November story about the money pit that is the Bama Pie Co. building in Fair Park. But Bartos, a former board member of the city’s Community Development Commission, has something to add to…

A Maple Falls

Maple Terrace “is dead.” Said so in The Dallas Morning News: “Trammell Crow Co. has halted efforts to construct condominiums in Dallas’ historic Maple Terrace building and develop an adjoining high-rise because sales did not meet expectations.” This will not come as a shock to, oh, Andrea Grimes, who was…

Luke Wilson Talks Ass

Luke Wilson needs a stunt butt. Jessica Alba, probably not. Don’t get too excited–he’s just talking about his own tuchus and how outta-shape it’s gotten and why, for My Super Ex-Girlfriend, he needed a booty double. Fact is, he got to pick his own butt double (henh). No word on…