Tell Robert Garcia that his music is too loud for Balch Springs and that he’s probably eligible for a $227 ticket, and he’ll tell you, simply, “That sucks.” After navigating his ’80s-something Nissan through the drive-in lane at a freeway-side Captain D’s, the 22-year-old store clerk pulls his thumping, pulsing,…
I watch local network news in a different manner than you do. I am a professional media observer. I therefore bring a level of “observation” to my news viewing that most humans are not capable of understanding. I am more discerning in my evaluation of reporters and anchors than many…
This week, Serving Sara makes its home-video debut, which means the millions of you who missed this Liz Hurley-Matthew Perry made-in-Dallas costume drama in theaters several weeks ago can now enjoy it in your home, if by “enjoy” you mean not watch it all over again. But by no means…
There had been plenty of previous scrapes, but this one was different. This one made Aaron Downey take a step back. He breathed deeply thereafter, thankful that he was able to breathe at all. He was with the Blackhawks, sometime last year. They were playing Nashville, which perhaps meant less…
God and MammonMusic man: Good article (“Facing the Music,” by Charles Siderius, January 9). Al Petty ripped me off around 1994 with a fake deal to build 24 steel Guitorchestras. He took 24 synthesizer modules from my store to build the units, sold most of them and kept the money…
The young girl, her face framed in golden ringlets, approached the man seated at a nearby table in the quiet restaurant and smiled, holding the Barbie doll she’d recently received for Christmas. When he asked her age, she proudly held up four fingers. “You’re even prettier than Barbie,” he told…
Dallas police Chief Terrell Bolton has a simple answer for those who’ve questioned whether he had any advance knowledge of the massive fake-drug scandal that enveloped his narcotics unit in late 2001: He knew nothing. In the case, which became national news, a Dallas police informant set up unsuspecting day…
On a wide new road, beyond the city van where two workers catch an afternoon nap, there is a visible sign that Dallas is about to enter a new era of garbage technology. Or maybe not. With a sweeping view of the McCommas Bluff landfill sits the $6 million first…
We Meet Again, Mr. BondPants on fire: Jim Schutze’s column (“Junk Bonds,” December 26) should be mandatory reading for every Dallas taxpaying voter, elected official, candidate for mayor and city employee. It describes concisely the monumental difference between what might be “legal” and what is ethically and politically acceptable concerning…
There’s a lot to see from the upper reaches of the American Airline Center, where the press box abuts the roof just beyond the last row of cheap seats. Mostly you’re overcome by drunks who’ve been duped into buying oversized foam novelty hands and families that come complete with kids…
>The east end of downtown may be dead, but now it’s getting deadly. A Dallas Observer reporter was padding down Commerce Street the other day, on his way no doubt to pick up some super-important highly damning records–or smokes, whatever–when a chunk of the defunct Mercantile Building nearly squashed him…
Full Frontal isn’t smart enough to tell you what Michael Lind’s new book, Made in Texas (Basic Books, $24), is really about. This much we did gather, with a little help from Sunday’s New York Times Book Review: George W. Bush represents the backward-thinking born-again Texan who longs for the…
TYLER–In one corner of a disheveled hotel room off Interstate 20 sits the computer that Al Petty uses as he frantically tries to work himself out of a monumental mess, one that could send him away to prison for 1,200 years for money laundering and fraud. In another corner is…
During a recent social gathering, the middle-aged man, attracted by the easy laughter of the woman standing next to him, launched a conversation that finally got around to the question of what line of work she was in. Aware of the response an honest answer often generated, she opted to…
When the phone rang last week, I almost didn’t answer. The long vacation was weighing on me, along with many pounds of pasta and a glutton’s share of homemade cookies. I moved slowly but managed to answer before the machine kicked on. A friend was on the other line, jabbering,…
White-Boy HustleWeird stuff: Guh-REAT story on Doug Havard (“Crazy White Mother,” by Glenna Whitley, December 26). Couldn’t put it down. It gave me the same feeling as David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. All that weird stuff going on all around us, in plain view, but we just can’t see it. Also…
Navel Gazing Liliana Lovell opened her New York Coyote Ugly Saloon at 24, an age at which most are still puking patrons rather than bar entrepreneurs. Now Lovell thinks the Big D may be the next perfect spot to “get ugly.” “What I liked about Deep Ellum,” Lovell says, “people…
Buzz has a great idea for a high school band’s halftime show: a marching musical tribute to state Representative Tony Goolsby. Yearbook staffs, chess clubs and computer groups should do something nice for the Dallas Republican, too. Why? Goolsby has introduced legislation to stymie school bullies. Praise his name. (A…
It’s time once again for Buzz to look back on the year that’s passed, to recall the noteworthy events of 2002, to pause and reflect and grind out roughly 4,000 words of warmed-over hash served with a side of wise-ass. All right, let’s roll. Here they come, the events of…
The year started innocently enough. I was living and working back on the Right Coast, making a little bit of money, looking optimistically toward the future. That’s when things went horribly awry. I should have known. Hope is to me what a white Christmas is to Texans–a rumor enjoyed by…
Drugged and RapedDazed and confused: If the Dallas police can’t tell the difference between Sheetrock and cocaine, how would one expect them to know about sophisticated things like rape drugs? The fact that they have never sent a drug-rape case to be prosecuted in itself is evidence of their negligence…
