Jew Shouldn’t Vote Today

Gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman has spent this entire Election Day doing interviews, during which the Texas Jewboy is repeating a single theme: Do not vote. “Well, I haven’t stridently been telling them that, but people have been saying that to me,” Friedman says from his Austin campaign headquarters, where TV…

Re: Zoo-hoo

Ed Cognoski, a local media watchdog with his own blog (natch), offers this thoughtful response to Observer editor Julie Lyons’ post yesterday about the Dallas Zoo. –Robert Wilonsky…

Wamsley: “He Could Have Been Much More”

We’re now in the sentencing phase of Andrew Wamsley’s capital murder trial. (Friday afternoon, Wamsley was found guilty in the shooting and stabbing murders of both his parents.) Yesterday’s testimony was particularly compelling for those interested in finding out more about who Wamsley actually is. Testimony from former teachers, bosses…

Oh, Norah

When is the new Norah Jones CD not the new Norah Jones CD? When it’s credited to The Little Willies, a band consisting of Jones on vocals and piano (duh), Richard Julian offering remarkably Lyle Lovett-like vocals and guitar, Lee Alexander on bass, Jim Campilongo on electric guitar and Dan…

Barred and Grilled

As the sign at right indicates, longtime Lower Greenville Avenue survivor Greenville Bar & Grill was shut down last month. The space will reopen sometime in April, but not with the old GB&G moniker. That tag is gone for good. Greg Merkow, owner of Hurricane Grill next door, has acquired…

Townes’ Town

Music fans from around North Texas turned out for the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s Friday night screening of Be Here to Love Me, a new documentary about songwriting legend Townes Van Zandt. (Van Zandt, who was born in Cowtown, would have been 62 today.) The 8 p.m. screening…

Cowboys Getting a Bone(r)

After months of negotiations with almost every station on the dial, your Dallas Cowboys have announced this afternoon they’ve found a new radio home on KDBN-FM (93.3), better known as The Bone, and KTCK-AM (1310), or The Ticket, both of which currently fall under the Susquehanna Radio umbrella. The partnership,…

Dallas County is Anti-Social

Dallas County has a great public records search page on its Web site that’s fantastic for getting information on anything to do with the court system–or should I say, “used to have”? The court search function has been disabled because, according to an employee in the county’s IT department, “a…

Ignorance is Bliss

When an athlete screws up, we cover it like World War III. So when an asshole finally apologizes, shouldn’t we cover it like a peace treaty? I think so and wrote as much in my Observer column last week, detailing the secret settlement between Kenny Rogers and Larry Rodriguez, the…

Zoo-hoo

One thing that emerged loud and clear from two of the recent neighborhood town hall meetings is this: Dallas residents want a first-class zoo, and they’re willing to pay for it. Dick Geiger, for one, is sick of the Dallas Zoo’s reputation as the ugly stepsister to the slick, kid-friendly…

Re: Allison, I Know This World Is Killing You

In my experience–helping get a church built in South Dallas last year and not having anyone in city government to grease the wheels for us, for reasons I won’t detail here (and they don’t reflect well on the city)–it is extremely difficult to work with the city of Dallas in…

Allison, I Know This World is Killing You

Before D Magazine publisher Wick Allison writes his monthly publisher’s column, he might want to, oh, I don’t know, read his own magazine. In the March issue, Allison goes through his weary routine of comforting the comfortable by lamenting that City Hall has an anti-business attitude: “City Hall has thrown…

Tutto Tootles

After unloading his tapas bar Rouge on Lovers Lane, it appears Joseph Gutierriz–brought here by exotic motor head Scott Ginsburg to revive the ill-fated Voltaire (and later the big boo-boo Bamboo Bamboo)–has moved back to Phoenix, but not before unloading Tutto on McKinney Avenue for $250K. Gutierriz sold Tutto to…

And the Oscar for Best Seat Goes to…

Hoop it up: Former Mavs coach Don Nelson, far left, at the Oscars, where, presumably, the beer is free …Don Nelson, former head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, who sat two rows behind his pal and boss (?) George Clooney at the Academy Awards last night. Mark Cuban was there,…

Show Up, This Weekend

Tonight, Austin’s lounge-loving Small Stars open for super-quiet French folksters Mi and L’au, and that recommendation wins out solely based on how lame tonight’s concert calendar is (no, I’m not going to say a damn nice thing about Electric Six or Reggie and the Full Effect). Tomorrow, however, is a…

Wamsley: Guilty

After two and a half hours of deliberations, jurors in Andrew Wamsley’s capital murder trial returned a guilty verdict this afternoon. With tears in their eyes, Wamsley’s family stared at him as the verdict was read. As he was throughout the trial, Wamsley was stoic when the guilty verdict was…

Selling Out

This ranks as one of the worst-kept media secrets in town: WFAA-Channel 8 is in the process of converting a portion of its revamped 9 a.m. show Good Morning Texas (or GMT, for the hip frau) into paid programming, or “advertainment,” as one concerned citizen puts it. According to many…

State to City: Yer in Trouble

The city of Dallas gets pretty well sliced and diced in a searing report released Friday by a Texas House of Representatives legislative investigative committee, which concludes that Dallas tries to duck its crime-fighting reponsibility by shoving it off on private businesses, engages in witness retaliation and uses official pressure…

Safety First

With all this huffing and puffing over the future of Deep Ellum–and, from what I saw in The Dallas Morning News this morning, all’s well, so what’s the fuss?–has anyone at City Hall or from the Deep Ellum Association given John Thayer a ring? Who he? Well, Thayer’s a 31-year…

Sweet Thighs and Another Surprise

Got an e-mail last week from a Canadian reader (who knew?) wondering whatever happened to that Nick Tosches-Homer Henderson CD due for release, oh, in 1998. Frankly, Willow (if that is your real name), I have no idea. But in the spirit of whatever Jewish holiday’s coming up, here’s “The…

Light Sleeper?

Andrew Wamsley’s defense rested about an hour ago at his murder trial in Fort Worth. (For those too busy to click the link, Wamsley’s accused of shooting and stabbing his parents shortly before Christmas in 2003, so he could collect their $1.65 million estate. Chelsea Richardon has been convicted of…

Go Down Moses

Looks like former Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Mike Moses has another new job. Nice to see someone got something out of his tenure. –Robert Wilonsky…