thursday january 4 10th Annual Southwest Boat and Tackle Show: The press material for the 10th Annual Southwest Boat and Tackle Show is rife with references to "the outdoorsman" and "serving the needs of the outdoorsman." If, in the words of Fran Leibovitz, you believe The Great Outdoors is what...
"The Legend Begins," says the sign over Stone Trail. Well, it can't begin if you can't find it. It wasn't just me. The guest who was supposed to meet us at Stone Trail ("at the southwest corner of Midway and Belt Line," as I'd been instructed, with no mention of...
Like a remorseless killer in a grade-Z slasher flick, The Fantasticks keeps coming back. You can strafe it, bomb it, drive it over the edge of a cliff, but it will not die. Since its May 1960 opening, this small, saccharine musical has run through 10,000 off-Broadway performances, and is...
Act II The year is 1988. The scene is Granbury, now brimming with free enterprise, country charm, and overpriced antiques. After the Opera House began playing to sold-out houses, a new merchant class had come to town, snapping up every stone-slab building on the square. This sleepy farming hamlet was...
Bye-bye, Houston Oilers. Used to luv ya, Blue. Lost 'em to Nashville, Tenn., for a $292 million state-of-the-art stadium with 82 luxury suites, 9,600 premier "club seats" and 42,700 season tickets--plus a $28 million "relocation fee" and other goodies. Break Bum Phillips' heart. Rams, Raiders, Browns--same story. Now if all...
It comes in cycles, this "year-in-music" stuff, and 1995 had the misfortune of following one of the most dramatic years in a long time, when such rock monoliths as Pink Floyd, the Eagles, and the Rolling Stones broke box-office records, while a disillusioned youth market shouted out, "Who killed Kurt...
Happy blew year A more overrated holiday you won't find, when the whole world becomes one sloppy-drunk frat party. Call me old-fashioned, but if someone's gonna vomit on me, I'd prefer to know them--or at least be sleeping with them. While I can't think of anything better than bidding farewell...
The rock and roll made in 1995 leaves in its wake a noxious odor (which might be coming from sweaty Blues Traveler John Popper) that will surely hang over 1996 like a black cloud. The bands that will ultimately represent 1995--the superstars and chart-toppers, the major-label success stories and indie-label...
Every so often a car pulls into the parking lot at the northeast corner of Park Lane and Greenville Avenue, stops, and then slowly leaves. An animator would draw those cars bewildered and dejected, with down-turned front grilles and hunched fenders. The people in those cars are bewildered and dejected...
The decor at Bombay Cricket Club seems slightly stark and cold--bare wood floors, flounces over bare windows the only softening touch (big Indian rugs would make it cozier), but the service is so helpful and the food gives such a glow that the whole place seems comfy by meal's end...
thursday december 28 Earthly Pleasures: By this time of year, our ears bleed spontaneously each time we hear a "fa-la-la-la-la," so it's easy to forget that the Christmas classics weren't exactly fresh when December rolled around. It's time for a new set of hard-candy favorites--or, in this case, a set...
When Kimberly Tracey called the city to complain about her East Dallas apartment complex, she had a list of gripes. Maintenance was poor, the linoleum on her kitchen floor concealed rotted wood, and the roof leaked in several places. The entire building was a mess, she said. City inspectors eventually...
The saga of Sam Krasniqi, an Albanian Moslem who was acquitted of molesting his son and daughter but was nonetheless unable to regain custody of his children anyway ("Tell Mama Why You Cry," Nov. 17, 1994), took a strange turn last week when Krasniqi was indicted on three counts of...
Don't get kinky Texans learned long ago that Texas Jewboy Kinky Friedman is an acquired taste. But recently, because of the success of his series of detective novels and a new CD, From One Good American to Another, the Kinkster's horribly politically incorrect humor has been reaching a diverse audience...
What a difference a year makes. And if we only knew then... For example. Last winter, the majority of the Dallas city council balked at the idea of letting the voters decide whether or not to build a sports arena. It was a ridiculous idea, they said, a stupid concept,...
Home sweet Hope House I loved the article "Young, gay, and thrown away" [Nov. 30] by Johnathon Briggs. I found an old issue today and read that touching story. When I was done reading it, I just sat there and thought about how hard life is for some people, especially...
1. Refried Ectoplasm (Drag City) and Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center (Duophonic, import), Stereolab. A collection of stray singles, revamped tracks, and unreleased treats, Refried Ectoplasm makes a more instant impact than any previous Stereolab offering, highlighting the dead-on pop sensibility usually obscured by the enlightened drone of...
1. Jerry Garcia. It was fitting that the man who specialized in 15-minute guitar solos would die in his sleep. 2. Selena. The assassination of Tejano's once and future queen transformed Selena into a momentary superstar and the eternal martyr. She was number one with a bullet, quite literally: In...
Alan Paton's classic 1948 novel Cry, The Beloved Country managed to be both political and literary in a century of world literature that often tried to achieve greatness through its politics alone. The French had their existentialists, the Germans their realists, but South Africa had scarcely registered as more than...
In an age when the British Royal Family is more of a sick joke than it is a necessary monarchical body, it would seem to follow that many of Shakespeare's regal tragedies (Henry IV, Richard II, etc.) become noteworthy for their historical significance even as they lose their obvious relevance...
Every band is a local band somewhere. So with that in mind, as we look back at 1995 and pat ourselves on the back for making the Toadies gold, launching Deep Blue Something to top-of-the-pops domination, and landing Tripping Daisy on MTV and Reverend Horton Heat on every sound track...
Whitewright, Texas, appears to be an uncontroversial place. It is what it is: a former railroad town, whose main industry now is the Carl's Sausage plant on Bond Street. Grand Street is lined with shops, city hall, the library, and the police department. The side streets of this town 60...
