1/23 Bernice Johnson Reagon’s father once told her about a “land so rich that when rocks were cracked open, honey flowed from them.” It is a biblical parable that inspired the performer to name the group she founded Sweet Honey in the Rock–an African-American female a cappella quintet. The name…
If MC Hammer can go broke, anyone can. Actually, that’s not quite true. Most of us don’t put everyone we knew growing up on our payroll (street cred is not something your average plumber has to worry about) or spend $20 million on a house. Or, for that matter, attempt…
Feel like an evening at the ballet? Robert Altman’s The Company, a lovely and superficial montage of performance, is less a movie than a series of impressions, a rich sampler of a season with one of America’s premier dance companies–the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. There’s scandalously little by way of…
In 1998, a passionate majority of Venezuelans elected a new president. His name was Hugo Chavez, and he was the first leader in generations to come from outside the ruling class. He vowed to redistribute Venezuela’s oil wealth and to involve the people intimately in the political process. Openly comparing…
Here is something I bet you did not know, because I did not know it until a month ago, and people who should have known long before me didn’t even know until I told them. There is a record label in Los Angeles called CMH that, through a subsidiary called…
Mention Waiting for Godot and you will often get the sigh and the eye roll. Oh, that old thing. What is it about anyway? What does it mean? It’s weird. It’s long. It makes no sense. The eye-rollers do have a point. Godot playwright Samuel Beckett provides a pretty accurate…
We dislike today’s kids because, first of all, we’re adults now and they constantly step in front of us when we’re walking fast, stare at us at restaurants and burst our eardrums by screaming while we’re trying to talk on our cell phone at Target. Sure, they look cute, but…
Thursday, January 15 It may not be on display like ours, but we’ll bet it’s there. Somewhere in the house there is a toy (old or new) that is special. An item that is so important, no matter what spring cleaning occurs, the toy is staying come hell or high…
At this point in American political history, many Democrats have accepted the fact that they will spend their November sitting in their living rooms watching CNN, knocking back a bottle of Old No. 7 and waiting for Bush’s second presidential appointment. Yes, the Left has pretty much resigned itself to…
1/17 There is nothing more satisfying after a hard day’s work than saddling up the ol’ mechanical bull and letting it toss your troubles away. While this pleasure lasts only a few seconds, the 108th Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show in Fort Worth allows you to celebrate the timelessness of…
1/20 You notice a lot sitting up in the cheap seats, perched so high above the court in the American Airlines Center you’re sitting next to the retired numbers of Mavericks great Rolando Blackman and former point guard Brad Davis. (I refuse to use the term “great” in reference to…
1/17 A long time ago, in a stupider age, boys played a game of flipping baseball cards. The rules were simple: Two kids each hold cards, slightly bent. Release the cards. If only one lands face-up on the ground, its owner gets both. Otherwise it’s a tie. Flash forward to…
1/17 The inaugural Dallas Observer word of the week is “cremaster.” Webster’s says it’s “a thin muscle which serves to draw up the testicle.” For half of you reading this, an involuntary reflex of thanks goes out to cremasters everywhere. Also thankfully, the bit of brawn finally gets its just…
1/18 On the first hangover-free shopping day of the new year, we hightail our cheapskate asses to the nearby Barnes & Noble, where calendars are mercifully half-price. This trip also gives us a chance to buy the books we didn’t get for Christmas. We wanted Dick Wolf’s Law and Order…
Why are we so chronically dissatisfied that we have to make resolutions year after year? Because we suck, that’s why. We are all fat, lazy, too controlling, not assertive enough. We all need to pay off our credit card, get a cheaper apartment, buy a house, get a better job,…
Men and women have been hooking up for tens of thousands of years…or 6,000, in Baptist years. Why, then, does the search for a significant other continue to perplex us? Of course, in the old world we relied upon matchmakers who firmed up marriage plans while Olga and Yuri toddled…
If your New Year’s resolution has anything to do with losing weight, gaining muscle, increasing exercise, decreasing waist size or just generally getting your flabby ass back into shape, then consider yourself lucky to be in Dallas. The weather’s warm enough to exercise outside most of the year, and the…
So you’ve finally resolved to be cool. Well, too damn bad. Cool is one of those indefinable attributes, a blending of formality and comfort, attitude and contrition. Indeed, cool often appears in contradictory form. Bogart was cool when masking the scars of hard living and disaffection with a sharp suit…
Ninety-five percent of Americans profess to believing in God, yet only 78 percent admit to masturbating. Who’s lying? I’ll tell you who–girls. When it comes to religion, you’ve probably spent years coasting by, like most of us, on shoddy objections and cheap rationalization. You know, the stuff that allows you…
You’ve known it since the dear old days at Faber College: Knowledge is good. Here are seven places where you and your kids can put that credo into action this year with no risk of double secret probation. Unless that’s the kind of thing that floats your boat, in which…
Everyone wants to look good, but who wants to work for it? All that sacrifice and inconvenience. Not to mention the sweating. Gross. Take a shortcut in 2004: Improve your appearance the easy way–pay for it. The Fab Four warned us that money can’t buy you love. Queer Eye for…
Ever notice how many of our resolutions involve negative things? Stop smoking, stop pigging out, stop snapping at the significant other. This year, why not add something positive to the list? Start with a pledge to make yourself smarter. Chances are, you’ll regain the weight and start smoking and snapping…
