I'm perfect gang material. I mean, I love the matching jackets, and I'm super great at tying bandanas. I could be front row in any gang versus gang dance-off, any day. But, last time I went to gang tryouts, things looked way less like West Side Story and Grease than...
Business Week's been showcasing the "best affordable suburbs" to which its readers might wanna move, and this week it saves the best for last: the South, notable for its "strong job markets and low living costs." And, naturally, there is a Dallas-Ft. Worth suburb included on the list: Flower Mound,...
Yesterday I was all worried about being shut out of a closed city council meeting that turned out to be a luncheon for officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. So today I got to go. And it was … odd. The guest of honor was John Paul Woodley...
Although the song in Wonderful Town titled "100 Easy Ways (to Lose a Man)" does talk about a bunch of different ways you could lose a guy, I was surprised it never mentioned these surefire ways you can lose your man: do his grandpa, ask him to do a chore,...
Laura Sanchez glances at the gold watch on her wrist. She looks up and smiles stiffly. She only has an hour, she says, fidgeting with the pearl ring on her finger. And then she has to catch a flight to Monterrey, Mexico. She needs to escape; she needs to stop...
In recent months, the Dallas-based father-and-son investment team of Craig and Don Hodges -- better known as the $650-mil Hodges Fund -- has gotten plenty o' pub in such pubs as Kiplinger's and USA Today. The former celebrated the duo as "a rare, old-fashioned fund" that's making more on its...
There is a moment early on in "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," the 14th episode of the brilliant but canceled television series Freaks and Geeks, in which gangly, bespectacled, picked-last-in-gym-class high school freshman Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) arrives home from school, makes himself a grilled cheese sandwich, and sits down...
We, members of the NAAGP, hereby protest Casa Mañana's Children's Playhouse's premiere of a new musical, Jack & the Beanstalk, on Friday and encourage all largish people and NBA players to join us for a protest at 7 p.m. outside the theater, 3101 W. Lancaster Ave. in Fort Worth. (We'll...
Zac Crain may or not become mayor, but he does know the good rock from the bad. Gary Griffith, not s'much. A Friend of Unfair Park sends word today that he's been listening to advance tracks from the double-disc comp due out shortly to raise some campaign dough for our...
A federal judge recently found the principal of a North Dallas elementary school guilty of 1940s-style racial and ethnic segregation. In a civil suit, Judge Sam Lindsay ruled that Preston Hollow Principal Teresa Parker had systematically herded black and Latino kids into segregated classrooms to appease affluent white parents. At...
Good news for folks who're good with computers and stuff: If you're not working today -- which is to say, you're out of work and not just taking the day off to download current theatrical releases or browse for porn -- just wait till the beginning of 2007. You just...
It took about five minutes for this much of The Dallas Morning News' crap Web site to load. Seriously. Five minutes. Sure, ours ain't the best either, but at least it loads...most of the time. I have been trying to focus my thoughts on why the new Dallas Morning News...
Former Observer music editor Zac Crain has leaked the tentative tracklisting for his double-CD Zac Crain for Mayor campaign fundraiser, and it's somewhat of a doozy. Though the set contains the requisite contributions from Sorta-obvious Barley House drinking buddies such as Olospo, I Love Math and Salim Nourallah (plus everyone's...
Bent over a shelf of aging vinyl, Johnny Lloyd Rollins adds another record to his stack of take-home goodies. He's got a $20 bill in his pocket, and he wants to get the maximum amount of Disney for his buck. Rollins has struck gold: a Robin Hood picture disc, vivid...
According to legend (and by "legend" we mean "Wikipedia"), the original model for the hootenanny was a result of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie's inability to pay their bills. The folk-legends-to-be invited all their musically inclined friends and Greenwich Village neighbors to attend an open jam session that doubled as...
The magnificent aroma had but to waft enticingly around my olfactory receptors, and I was seduced. The bubbly sound of plastic on plastic sent my senses into overdrive. Ravenous, I pulled the Lean Cuisine from the microwave, tore the clear wrap off my partitioned Salisbury steak and macaroni and cheese...
According to the F.B.I., if you live in Dallas you might wanna buy one of these. Might save you and the cops a lot of time down the road. Saw this story in the morning paper about yesterday's F.B.I. report on the rise in violent crime last year. Lots of...
Read over the weekend that Sherry Jacobson, Metro columnist at The Dallas Morning News, had an explanation for why Dallas tops the FBI's list of crime-ridden cities: We're just too good at reporting our crimes. So, see, no reason to pay attention to the F.B.I.; no reason to even look...
Young and old, they lined up to get healed. Old farmer's wives with calloused, misshapen hands. A pot-bellied guy and his bum knee, souvenir of an athletic youth. Willowy teenage girls with their eyes closed, arms raised, illness unspecified. On some faces you saw quiet expectation. Others seemed so weary...
You know who people don't like very much? You'll never guess. Go ahead. Try. C'mon. Give up? Jerry Jones is more appealing than Terrell Owens. Hey, that's not me talking. It's the famed DBI or, for those of you not familiar with Dallas-based The Marketing Arm over on Bryan Street,...
For two suburban indie-pop bands losing members to higher education, the college town setting and former college-radio DJ acting as MC was perfectly appropriate. Indie-poppers Mathstorm and Voot Cha Index commemorated the end of life as they know it Friday by rocking Denton's Rubber Gloves with Frequency Down's Frank Hejl...
Dear Mexican, How can you explain the disparity between Japan and Mexico? Japan is a nation a fraction the size of Mexico, with zero natural resources, that suffered a devastating war of four years that included two atom bombs yet has reached the highest in educational achievements, technological advancements and...
