The political hush over the Ross Avenue headquarters of the Dallas Independent School District in the last week is no harbinger of peace. Things are quiet only because various business and political leaders are trying to make up their minds whether to do a bombing run. The good thing, or...
thursday february 4 How do you choose between an Asian film festival (see sidebar) and a French film festival? We'll leave that one up to you. All we'll say is that if French films are anything like French people, the choice should be fairly simple. We've never been to France--traveling...
Not really what you'd expect in a sushi bar. The otherwise cool, modest clamor of dishes clinking and Kirin bottles toasting and waiters explaining the fishy menu gave way to the scooting about of chairs and tables to make way for...a very loud rock band. The four guys filling the...
At 9:30 last Friday morning, moments before the start of a court hearing that centered on his installation as president of the Dallas branch of the NAACP, the tall, nattily dressed Lee Alcorn conceded he was perplexed. "I just don't understand it," Alcorn said of a battle that has erupted...
Dallas 1998. Think back with us to the unique, exciting moments over the past year. Really, we mean it. Think back with us. Better yet, think back for us, because, frankly, Buzz's memory is not what it was before we discovered beer many, many years ago. Let's see. We recall...
When John Winkler bought his new home in 1997, he knew what he was looking for--a friendly, stable neighborhood and a house constructed by a reputable builder. Being in Mesquite, as in Texas, as in the land of endless, blistering summers, he also wanted a home that wouldn't cost a...
Sonic Youth--the Grateful Dead of Amerindie rock. The sentiment seems, at first, improbable, if not laughable. After all, much of the Dead's appeal can be traced to the accessibility of the assortment of American music that inspired it; theirs was a warm, familiar blend of country and blues and folk-rock...
There are 192 copyright registrations sitting in the Library of Congress for the song "I Think About You"--who says all of the good ideas are taken? There's a 1977 Patti LaBelle track titled "I Think About You"; another from 1989 by Michael Bolton; one more from 1979 by Sinatra knockoff...
John Wiley Price did most of the talking, holding forth grandly on his reasons for supporting Mayor Ron Kirk's Trinity River Plan. Clad in a typically natty outfit--tapered jacket, gleaming cuff links, high-collared shirt--Price appeared at ease, in control. He handily outshone the four men beside him, the collection of...
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla.--A man sits in the bleachers of Charlotte County Stadium. Judging by the white hair sprouting from beneath his Panama hat and the wrinkles covering his enormous pink face, he is about 70. Judging by the high nasal twang in his voice, evident whether he is whispering to...
If the grand plan to rebuild the Trinity River floodway through Dallas ever gets done--a one- to two-billion-dollar package of levees, parks, highways, and ponds--someone should erect an obelisk beside it with the words of Noah Cross. This genially evil character from Chinatown, Roman Polanski's 1974 movie, says: "Politicians, ugly...
Nobody ever said that punk rock and subtlety made good bedfellows, and Exene Cervenkova, the erstwhile singer of Los Angeles' legendary X, doesn't mince her words. She finds that poetic license and subtlety are often lost on those with deficient attention spans. With her new band, Auntie Christ--in which she...
The new collection Songs of Janis Joplin: Blues Down Deep is merely the latest in a series of outrages foisted upon a gullible public by the House of Blues, a nightclub chain and music label that seems to think we were all born yesterday; but for sheer chutzpah, it may...
Big bore I was truly offended by your article on the Tomorrowpeople ["Hasta manana," April 10] and the comparisons Richard Baimbridge drew between them and Big Star, and particularly Chris Bell. The "ethereal and emotive" energy that I was shown recently at Rick's Place was more that of a remarkably...
Davy Jones liked to party. Hell, everybody in Austin did back in the early '80s, and if you weren't careful, your days could disappear into a haze of pot, noxious stimulants, beer, and pills that invoked such a hellbroth of effect and counter-effect that you might think yourself sober--at least...
In the fall of 1994, independent oilman Sanford Dvorin cracked open a Dallas County Yellow Pages and sent a letter to every person connected with the oil and gas industry. Sounding like every piece of over-the-top, too-good-to-be-true, direct-mail investment scheme literature ever written, Dvorin's letter boasted: "History is about to...
thursday april 3 Mary Williford-Shade and Jose Bustamante: Nationally acclaimed dancer Mary Williford-Shade has earned something of a reputation as an angst queen with her ferocious, frenetic style of dance. She teams with Jose Bustamante, a University of Texas at Austin dance faculty member who has choreographed in both Spain...
Dallas businessman William Oates--"Sonny," as he is known to friends and associates--says he is gravely concerned about all the old paperwork crumbling and decaying in county courthouses across Texas. Binders full of old deeds, land records, tax liens, and other documents faithfully recording the important business transactions of Texas citizens...
I just found out that one of my best friends is a glitter-that-flies-out-of-the-envelope person. She sends out those greeting cards where GLITTER FLIES OUT OF THE ENVELOPE. I'm reconsidering our whole relationship. Anyhow, who invented this? Who thought this was a good idea? Who had a meeting and said: "I...
Until last summer, thousands of current and former employees of the City of Dallas had no reason to suspect that their retirement nest eggs might be in jeopardy. Since city employees don't participate in Social Security, they were spared the widespread discomfort afflicting workers who contribute to the federal system...
Getting bigger all the time With the rerelease of the classic film Giant, culture critics are re-examining the Texas Myth. Most are lamenting that the wild-cattin' Texas cattle/oil baron who lived as large as the Lone Star State is as dead and gone as James Dean, who played oilman-party monster...
In one corner: Tom Campitelli, 45 years old, 220 pounds, 6-foot-2, hiding his middle-age spread under baggy shirt and shorts, slow-footed and lacking endurance. In the other: Darla Johnson, 21 years old, 115 pounds, 5-foot-7, with legs up to her collarbone, creamy bronzed skin under tight Lycra bike shorts, and...
