Virgin No More

Losing our Virgin-ity: Come June 18, this place is going buh-bye. On June 18, the Virgin Megastore in Mockingbird Station is closing its big glass doors for good. About 10 minutes ago, I was told this was a mere rumor. Then I found this on the local location’s Web site:…

On the Mark

I loves me some Mark Cuban. Those of us who endured the Dallas Mavericks’ failed “Three J’s” era and countless snoozefests at Reunion Arena appreciate the extreme makeover he’s performed on the franchise, on and off the court. The Mavs are on their way to a second-round showdown with the…

Da Vinci, Da Jackpot

Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code, currently at No. 5 on Amazon’s list of top sellers, has spun out a small industry, and no one is more grateful than Darrell Bock, research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. The author of Breaking the Da Vinci Code,…

Wright is Wrong. No, Wait. Right. Wrong. Uh.

As someone who lives in the flight path of Love Field Airport–by which I mean I must have a runway in my driveway–I must admit, I don’t much care about what happens with the Wright Amendment. On the one hand, yeah, the noise is annoying on those rare occasions when…

E&P & Z.C.

Last Zac Crain posting of the month; swear. (Fine–none in May either.) I just thought this one merited a mention because of its source–not a hometown blog, but venerable national journalism trade mag Editor & Publisher, which seems tickled by the fact “the former music editor for the alternative weekly…

History for Sale

They sit on shelves behind thin layers of glass: showbiz remnants all waiting to be sold for small fortunes. The movie lover comes unspooled! Why, there’s the Marx Brothers’ signed (in their real names!) contract for their movie Duck Soup, considered the quartet’s best work and one of the greatest…

Play It, Sister

Like many college students, when 23-year-old Susan Arnold heads to a party with her sorority sisters, she goes straight for the boys. But instead of coming armed with a mini-skirt, ridiculously high heels and a fetching shade of lip gloss, Arnold ends up capturing the attention of the opposite sex…

Mocking the Draft

Lowndes Shingler. John M. Longmeyer. Lou Cioci. Stop me when you’ve heard of one…Bill Van Burkleo. Sonny Utz. Drawing a blank? Of course you are. Join the clueless crowd. Because despite what geeks like Mel Kiper and Gil Brandt and Norm Hitzges and some eighth-grader with a Web site in…

All the Rage

A few days after the city’s April 9 immigration rally, which culminated in half a million people marching downtown, therapist Jane Ledesma was sitting in her car, listening to conservative talk radio for a change. Ledesma, a Latina activist in her mid-50s, wanted to hear what the other side was…

Scarlet letter

Scarlet letter: Whom do you trust to counsel you for personal problems, a minister or a licensed counselor? How about a pastor who is also a licensed counselor? Sorry, trick question. The right answer is don’t trust anyone. Too bad Peggy Lee Penley wasn’t a member of the Church of…

How to Suck| No Butts About It| Funny Money

How to Suck You Blue: Congratulations, you managed to actually vomit words onto a computer. Is your editor as mentally challenged as you are to have allowed this idiocy? (“Brown October,” by Jesse Hughey, April 20). You managed to do a music critique and only mention one song…and only one…

Cop My Ride

In January, Buzz told you about the Mesquite Police Department’s new policy of labeling seized vehicles with a cautionary, if a bit self-congratulatory, message. That story was about their first drug-dealer booty, a dually pickup complete with hard tonneau cover, but it also mentioned a Navigator due to get the…

Horse-Faced and Bugging

Twice a day, I drive past this woman on the Maple Terrace condo model-trailer-thing at Maple Avene and Wolf Street on my way to and from work, and twice a day, I wonder how the ad agency that picked that photo stays afloat. It wasn’t even shot specifically for the…

When Faced With Greatness

Last night, David Sedaris told me this story about a crow and a ewe. Then he talked a bit about porn and “fucked-up kids” (two completely separate topics, thanks), his love for the Hotel Aldophus and how organ and marrow donors should be relieved of their tax-paying duties for at…

“White Pants” Car for Sale

Jim Schutze would like to make it known that the 1972 Chevy Camaro featured on the poster for the movie The Night of White Pants is for sale. It belongs to his son Will, but he’s got a new ride now–a pick-up “in keeping with his new maturity,” Jim says…

DISD Takes Oriental Express

Last week, the Observer received and wrote about a copy of a letter Dallas school board President Lois Parrott sent to DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa in which she told him someone was purchasing frivolous merchandise in her name and charging it to the district. Parrott wrote that on two occassions,…

Faster Pussycat

If your wife really loved you, she’d buy you one of these too. Del Frisco’s co-founder Dee Lincoln claims she’s been getting a lot of marriage proposals lately–24, to be exact. Aside from the obvious, it’s not hard to understand why. Lincoln is a good wife. A very good wife…

Marty Needs a Good Yanking

The old hockey adage is that in the Stanley Cup playoffs, teams need their goalies to play extraordinarily well–to “stand on their heads.” At this point, the Dallas Stars just need Marty Turco to save face. Already down 0-2 to the Colorado Avalanche in their best-of-seven playoff series, the Stars’…

Losing Faith in Faith-Based Prison

In 2000, The Dallas Morning News ran an op-ed that pimped out the locally based Corrections Concepts Inc., which was trying to get off the ground by selling faith-based prisons to states. According to the piece, written by a professor of economics at Texas A&M University who happened to be…

Of Holy Spirits and Charismatic Christians

Starting last night, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians from all over the world are commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Azusa Revival in Los Angeles, and church folks with Dallas-Fort Worth ties are front and center. Scheduled to perform last night at the Azusa Street Centennial gathering in Los Angeles were…

Yuck This

I have no idea whether or not this happened today, and from the sound of it, I don’t wanna. To wit: “Today, attendees of the 15th Annual International Pediatric Endosurgery Group (IPEG) Conference will be greeted by members of PETA holding a demonstration outside the Hilton Anatole, where IPEG will…

Skin Deep

Fine, whatever, Rosa Johnson’s cute. But not as cute as you. In my long, long 22 years on this planet, I’ve had a lot of time to traverse the globe and learn about the important things in life, making observations at every turn about the world around me. In my…