$30K Millionaires

$30K Millionaires Great article! (“Douchebags in the Mist,” by Andrea Grimes, December 5.) I totally read it on my iPhone while cruising in my BMW 3 series (top down, of course) listening to “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews. “Chris Chris,” via dallasobserver.com It’s about sleeping with hot chicks. You play…

Help Wanted

Help wanted: Here’s a little inside Dallas Observer baseball stuff for you: Our editor, Julie Lyons, is departing in January to write a book; Girl on Top Andrea Grimes is leaving to attend graduate school at UT-Austin and continue her work as a stand-up comedian; staff writer Matt Pulle is…

White Rock Run Gets Colossal

The White Rock Marathon is all grown up. And all sold out. For the first time in the race’s 37-year history, organizers of Dallas’ second-largest participation sporting event were forced to cut off entries. At 15,000 runners. “Never thought I’d see this day,” says Bob Wallace, who won The Rock…

Finding My Cat Power

Just as ancient mystics ventured out into the wild to commune with nature and find divine guidance, I had to journey far, far out of familiar territory to find my power animal. This spirit guide would help me plan my future and calm my soul. I knew it would not…

American Toxic

Dennis Davis thought maybe his family was cursed. In early 1998, his uncle Don developed an aggressive skin cancer that devoured his face. Several months later, his brother Dale died suddenly at age 46 from stomach cancer. A few weeks after that, his granddaughter Makayla was born with severe birth…

Suffer the Children

“I find myself in a very uncomfortable position,” says baby-faced 38-year-old Somerville Independent School District Superintendent Charles Camarillo, clutching his elbows one recent morning while seated at a conference table inside his office. When the San Antonio native accepted his first-ever job as a district superintendent two years ago, he…

Birth Defects

Paula Baade was two months pregnant when doctors learned during a prenatal ultrasound that her baby would be severely deformed and advised her to abort the fetus. On June 4, 1986, Jessica Baade was born at Houston’s Memorial Hermann Hospital with her liver, spleen, and large and small intestines all…

Cultivating Carnivores

Barrel-chested, with shoulder-length white hair that very nearly falls into the category of “flowing locks,” Paul Riddell looks like an off-duty superhero standing outside his North Dallas condo. Behind him, a greenhouse takes up his entire patio save for a small stone walkway. With the insulated structure behind him, he…

‘Tis The Season For … Basketball?

Seriously, have you checked out the Mavs’ official Dirk Nowitzki Web site? Because for a second, it looks like he’s about to give you the finger. With the Cowboys 11-1, Terrell Owens turning 34 and Tony Romo sluttin’ around show business, the rest of our local sports almost become irrelevant…

Ugly Is As Ugly Learns

Scrolling through Campus Squeeze’s list of “The 20 Ugliest Colleges in the USA” — which was sent to me by a former classmate — I figured it would have some Texas offenders. Yup, yup, sure ’nuff: Perched in the 12 spot is the University of Texas at Dallas. Poor thing…

You Are Such a Prom Queen

Really, too bad Girl on Top’s on her way outta here. I so had the perfect assignment for her too, as it combines her two favorite pastimes: trying out for reality shows and hanging out at NorthPark Center. As the writers’ strike continues, here and in Hollywood, ABC will be…

Better to Be Fat and Fit? Thanks, Doc!

Big medical news out of Dallas, courtesy a University of North Texas professor and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Turns out, from 1979 to 2001 some 2,600 men and women, whose average age was 64, took part in something called the Aerobic Center Longitudinal Study at the Cooper…

Space, Still the Final Frontier

Yes, you will be able to get your picture taken on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. And, please, don’t pretend like you’re not excited. Two space-related items, only one of which is actual “news.” As in: Leland Melvin could have been a Dallas Cowboy. The former University of Richmond…

Dallas’ Window to Times Square

All photos courtesy Ida Mae Astute/ABC At right are Phillip Jones, head of the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Brad Oldham on the set of GMA this morning. The guy on the left is Sam Champion, which is so clearly a fake name. A couple of days back we…

The Old 97’s Come Down the Chimney

Noticed on our music blog yesterday that the Old 97’s have a new Christmas song available for purchase on the iTunes. As I am currently saving all my shekels for the Hanukkah — and, admittedly, a little afraid of any song in which Rhett Miller sings the word “suckled” right…

Cuban Takes Machete to Papers’ Sites

In the December issue of Presstime, the Newspaper Association of America asks six Interwebheads how they’d run newspaper Web sites if given the chance to start from scratch. Among the panelists are: reddit.com’s co-founder Steve Huffman, topix.net’s CEO Chris Tolles and Mark Cuban, who references Crocodile Dundee when answering the…

DMA Curator Gets Big Gig in DC

WRR-FM (101.1) During the opening of Matisse: Painter as Sculptor, Dorothy Kosinski appeared on WRR-FM (101.1) to discuss assembling the exhibition. Dallas Museum of Art senior curator Dorothy Kosinski has a new job: She’s now the director of the 86-year-old Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the nation’s first museum of…

Words for His “Wordless” Daughter

Robert Rummel-Hudson with daughter Schuyler Three days ago, the Kirkus Review ran a rave of a book called Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey with His Wordless Daughter, which is due out mid-February from St. Martin’s Press. In its subscriber-only review, the publishing-biz trade said of the book’s author, he relates…

Cementing a Move to Dallas

This is a move sure to please these folks: Lehigh Cement Company — a self-proclaimed “leading manufacturer of cement and construction materials in North America” that’s currently based in Allentown, Pennsylvania — is moving its corporate headquarters to Dallas early next year. Reports The Morning Call, “The relocation will potentially…

“Demolition by Neglect”?

William Sydney Pittman, the man behind the Knights of Pythias Temple So, Mike Pumphrey from the city’s Development Services Department just called back to say he and Mark Doty, conservation district planner with the city, and Preservation Dallas executive director Katherine Seale will indeed tour the Knights of Pythias Temple,…