I always answer my office phone with some degree of trepidation. Not that I don’t like bitching out publicists trying to sell me on a “summer wedding feature,” because I do–and how. But I like a good old-fashioned news tip a lot better, and those are few and far between…
What’s bad news for Tom DeLay is good news for Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck, the Dallas-based documentary filmmakers whose movie about Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s investigation into the doings of DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee (TRMPAC) has found a distributor. The Observer first…
Last night I went to an early screening of the film Water by acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, whose 1996 film Fire sparked rioting in her native India upon its release. (Seems the radical Hindus back home didn’t dig the storyline involving two women who leave their husbands and wind…
Mike Rhyner is still calling Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells “The New Jersey Con Man.” Rhyner’s on-air partner, Greg Williams, is bashing Parcells for missing last weekend’s earth-shattering press conference to instead attend baseball spring training. And there are at least enough dissenting Terrell Owens opinions to form a small…
I’ll admit it. I watch Deal or No Deal like a fiend. I cheer, I yell, I jeer. (If this show is a complete mystery to you, go here for a rather cynical explanation by the Freakonomics freaks.) There are contestants I love totally and ones I loathe completely. On…
I know the image of Terrell Owens celebrating in the middle of Texas Stadium in 2000 sickens most Dallas Cowboys fans. Well, hate to break it to you, but that star ain’t all that sacred. Want proof? We’ve all heard the suburban legends about kids sneaking into the stadium and…
The Democrats kinda, sorta have the registered voters in their corner come the mid-term elections, at least according to a Zogby poll released today. Yeah, well, judging by this info, Texas Dems really shouldn’t get their hopes up. Barbara Ann Radnofsky, we’re looking at you. You too, Chuck Thompson. –Robert…
Since many of you probably spent your daily four-hour YouTube stint watching Chuck Norris read his own facts, you may have missed the first-ever Happy Bullets music video. “Drinking on the Job” features bassist Andrea Roberts puking Post-It notes after a long day of swigging the sauce at work. If…
My, the oil barrels are already in bloom this season. Sunday’s flood waters left an odd deposit along Turtle Creek: a 55-gallon barrel of oil jammed into a tree about 15 feet above the ground, and it’s dripping its contents into another barrel. Officials charged with cleaning up with the…
Splashed below the fold on the front page of The Wall Street Journal today is a piece on how Irving-based ExxonMobil may have sparked an Internal Revenue Service audit of Greenpeace, challenging the environmental organization’s tax-exempt status. The spark: a letter to the IRS from Public Interest Watch, a group…
Didn’t take long for Terrell Owens to start paying dividends. On Monday the Cowboys sold 1,500 Owens jerseys at $75 a pop. According to my abacus that’s around $112,000, which makes it a long way to go toward recouping the $10 million he’s guaranteed this season, but it’s a healthy…
During the Ring of Honor induction for the Triplets last fall, I asked Michael Irvin about Terrell Owens and the controversy of the moment—T.O.’s stream of negative comments about Eagles QB and multiple Pro Bowler Donovan McNabb. Irvin, of course, is buddies with T.O., who infamously agreed with Irvin’s comments…
A loose recounting of a conversation overheard at the most recent pAper chAse show at Rubber Gloves in Denton: “You need anything from the bar?” “No, I’m done at least until after the pAper chAse play.” “Um, ‘K. Wait, why?” “Dude, ’cause it’s the pAper chAse. I can’t be drunker…
This week at nerve.com, former Observer music editor Sarah Hepola makes Rhett Miller say uncomfortable things about his son. He also indirectly calls Winona Ryder “cuckoo.” For both of those reasons, Rhett, you might’ve won us back. -Sam Machkovech…
John Goodman, founder and well-paid head of the Dallas-based think tank National Center for Public Analysis, takes it in the shorts on The Nation’s Web site. Where to begin. The headline? “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” The lead? Katrina vanden Heuvel (which has to be a fake name)…
I know Ray Hunt and Tom Hicks gots some, ya know, pull, so why am I nonetheless surprised by the company they keep? Seriously, imagine a board meeting with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger and Hicks; do they talk U.S. defense policy and international security or Texas Rangers trades? There’s a…
I must be 6 years old, because I giggled my way onto the SMU Cox School of Business Web site a while back and stumbled upon poor Dr. Ellen F. Jackofsky (pronounced ANY-thing-but-Jack-Off-Ski). I kid you not. My Mustang sources tell me she often lunches with professors Michael Hunt, Anita…
Did you think Midland, our distant Western neighbor, was home only to rabid, football-obsessed rednecks and rabid, Iraq-obsessed presidents? If you did, boy, were you ever wrong. You pea-brained, materialistic Dallasite, you. Put down that stale energy bar and pay attention. A new ad campaign called Come Home To Midland…
As of about one hour ago, the Plano Independent School District is involved in two lawsuits claiming the district is violating its students’ religious freedom. Well known is the case Morgan, et al. v. Plano Independent School District, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Sherman in 2004 after…
If you’ve tried to get into the SMU Cox School of Business (whose radio ads make me giggle, because I am 7) and failed, there’s a reason: Patti Cudney and her team don’t want you. Actually, that’s not true; they just want 100 of the best and brightest for the…
So, where was he? Bill Parcells, so we’re told, is the only guy on the planet capable of handling Terrell Owens. The infallible Tuna is the main reason the Cowboys think their T.O. experiment will work when 31 other teams are convinced it won’t. But on Saturday, at Owens’ introductory…
Got very excited about this headline on Slate.com this morning: “The Dark Side of Whole Foods.” Nothing against Whole Foods–used to shop there all the time, till Central Market stormed in. Still, sounded good. Well, turns out there ain’t much to the story about the Austin-based chain, which has three…
