Struttin’ With Smitty

All I want for Christmas is the chance to dance with Emmitt Smith. Now, where’s my earring of honor? Much as this pains me, I cannot deny your (creepy) fascination with watching grown men dance. So, in the spirit of Christmas, here goes: You can win a chance to dance…

A Dreamgirl’s Potential Nightmare

Jennifer Hudson’s probably going to get an Oscar nomination for her performance in Dreamgirls. But not before the first-timer and former American Idol favorite has to deal with something she told the Dallas Voice last week, during her trip here to promote the big-screen version of the hit musical. Seems…

Got Balls?

Says here that FC Dallas has narrowed its list of head coaches down to a Final Four: interim head coach Steve Morrow, SMU head coach Schellas Hyndman, D.C. United assistant coach Tom Soehn, and New York Red Bulls technical director Jeff Agoos are the four candidates. Didn’t even know FC…

Baby, You Can Drive My Cart

Yeah, so the new Whole Foods, with its panty-waist spa, has a place to watch cheese mold, a chocolate drainage system, a taffy-yanker and a place to buy hair shirts, all christened by a proclamation from a mayor who specializes in bridge merchandising. That can’t out hot-wax Central Market in…

Subdivided and Conquer

Got a missive yesterday from a Little Forest Hills resident who reminds us to mark the calendar: January 3. A little early still, but the reason’s a good one: That’s when University of Texas-Dallas new media and emergent communications professor Dean Terry’s documentary Subdivided debuts on KERA-TV. Had no idea…

Target Practice

Brian Gray, at left, says Shelley Hallman is hanging up pictures of him affixed to a shooting-range target. Dude, who hasn’t been there? Felony prosecutor Shelley Hallman, who prosecutes death penalty cases and has a knack for acting like a 7-year-old, has struck again. The wife of failed district attorney…

Help the Needy. Wait. The Lazy. No. The “Laid Back.”

The beloved Denton DIY hang Secret Headquarters is in trouble, if there’s anything to glean from a MySpace bulletin I — and many others — received yesterday. Yup, the venue is asking for donations via the Paypal button on its Web site; as SHQ’s Scott Porter says, “[W]ell, it turns…

Green Grass for a Local Filmmaker

Among the short films selected to screen during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, is one from a local filmmaker: writer-director Jesus “Chin” Beltran’s debut, The Grass Grows Green. The Sundance Web site says of the movie only this: “A Marine’s complicated relationship with life and death, from…

Match Game

Seriously, dozens of Friends of Unfair Park wonder why we haven’t commented on the local woman who lit matches on an American Airlines flight from Nashville to Dallas to cover the smell of her flatulence. Really, what is there to say? Poor lady. Says she suffers from a medical condition;…

Kicking and Screaming

Martin Dramatica’s Miracle in The Meadowlands notwithstanding, there lives a man capable of instantly and permanently solving the Dallas Cowboys’ kicking quandary. Unfortunately, Steve Hoffman now works for the Atlanta Falcons. “I still have the utmost respect for the Jones family and the Cowboys, but I’ve got my own kickers…

Paying the Piper

An inmate lawsuit, whose allegations of incompetence and neglect at the Dallas County jail have been echoed by a pair of internal investigations into the health care at the facility, continues to stymie the county. If that’s not exactly a surprise, the case has also underscored the ineffectiveness of the…

Fifth Time’s the Charm

Fifth time’s the charm: It’s the holidays, a season to be charitable, so it’s just plain wrong to crack jokes at the expense of people who choose to get married during this joyous month. Yessiree, that would not be nice at all. It would be Grinch-like. Mean. Oh, go ahead…

Zac Attack | Out in the Cold | Give It Up, Manny | Born Blue

Zac Attack Mumblin’ mess: Zac Crain (“The Zac Factor,” by Jim Schutze, November 30) was one of four mayoral candidates I listened to one Sunday morning a month or so ago. (One of the others was Mitchell Rasansky; I don’t remember the others.) The candidates were uninspiring. As I left,…

Onward, Christian Soldiers

At the Honor Academy, a 400-acre evangelical, non-accredited Christian school just outside Tyler, serious questions of theology involving Jesus, hell and Walt Disney are being tossed around this morning. The last five minutes of David Hasz’s “Making of a Leader” lecture are reserved for questions from the 500-student class. A…

Mr. Funny Guy Has All the Answers

I see Mr. “Funny” Guy has posted City Manager Mary Suhm’s memo concerning Allen Gwinn’s city employee credit-card database from a few days back. Tremendous. She has answers for every questionable expense about which Allen and Unfair Park had questions. That’s why she gets the big bucks. I hope the…

Reviewing the Revue, Part Two (With Audio!)

Hal Samples Bobby Patterson, front and center, holds court with his new best friends (including organizer Don Cento, back row, fourth from left) Saturday night during the Reunion Tower Revue. Pardon for our taking forever to post some more tracks from Saturday night’s Reunion Tower Revue at the Sons of…

Norah Jones is “Thinking About You”

Curious to hear the new Norah Jones? All you have to do is click right here to buy “Thinking About You” for a whole 99 cents — and the best part is, you can do whatever you want with it after you buy it. None of that iTunes bullshit where…

Friends with Benefits

Yeah, yeah, so we’re a little late with this; never you mind that. What’s more important is that two benefit concerts last weekend proved it’s possible for totally different artistic scenes to come together for the sake of a great show, if you just tack the words “benefit” or “fundraiser”…

Re: DHA Has a Lott of Nerve

Betty Culbreath, chair of the City Plan Commission, seconds the emotion that Ann Lott’s ouster as Dallas Housing Authority CEO has something to do with the city’s wanting to sell Little Mexico to a private developer. (Michael Davis at DallasProgress pointed us in Culbreath’s direction.) Indeed, she writes on her…

Re: Chuck E.M.F.’s Cheese’s

A good Friend of Unfair Park’s, who would prefer to keep his name to hisself for reasons that will become clear after the jump, sends a missive concerning the missus’ report from Chuck E. Cheese’s yesterday. Seems the only thing good to come out of a gig at the joint…

Victory, Meet Vindication

As I told you a couple months ago, neither the Dallas Mavericks’ collapse nor the city’s premature parade plans were the fault of Celia Barshop. Yesterday, Dallas took steps to prevent its special events manager from ever again being conveniently abused as a scapegoat. You remember what you did last…