Had family in from out of town last night: aunts and uncles, the kind who prefer martinis and gimlets and Scotch to wine and bacon-wrapped scallops. This was their first visit to Dallas since the mid-1970s. And what was their lasting impression of the Big D? Was it the JFK…
Wuh-oh. Don’t think the mayor’s gonna like this bit o’ bad news. Seems John Travolta, tapped to star as J.R. Ewing in the oddly anticipated big-screen version of Dallas, wants to film the movie near his home. In Florida. “John Travolta loves his adopted hometown of Ocala so much he…
Kids these days are pretty lame, a fact made evident when you go to YouTube and type “Dallas” into the search engine. The results include a kid named Dallas twitching his head and some dumb girls descending into a local parking garage, among other brilliant pieces of cinema. A refreshing…
Apparently, plagiarism’s a big no-no even in the world of…phone books? According to this release: “Attorneys representing Dallas-based Gordon Publications (GOPUBCO) have filed a lawsuit against Your Town Yellow Pages of Carrollton, Tex., based on claims of federal copyright violations involving advertisements contained in Your Town’s local telephone directories. The…
Breaking our record of Most Local Music Videos Posted on Unfair Park In One Week, here’s the second musical clip in the past seven days: “Plan to Stay Awake” by the Deathray Davies. This was filmed by Austin resident Keith Lowry, who may or may not have other music video…
For some reason I find myself the daily recipient of e-mails from one Bobby Eberle, the Pearland resident best known for having created the Talon News Web site that employed fake journalist and real gay prostitute Jeff “Gannon” Guckert. As you may recall, Gannon was outed last year (henh) after…
I’ve only seen her on TV, but I wouldn’t require a personal interview and authorized head-to-toe-measurements before I agreed to marry Elisha Cuthbert. I’m pretty confident we’d live, like, happily ever after. So why is it that NFL teams are so damned picky about college players like Vince Young? The…
I always thought Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders spent the off-season finishing their master’s degrees, smashing atoms or trying to solve the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture. Not so much. Turns out they cheer. –Robert Wilonsky…
Back in 2001 I shook hands with Big Tex, or at least it felt that way when I hopped in Larry Allen’s golf cart for an interview at Dallas Cowboys training camp in Wichita Falls. On that particular day, Allen–one of the biggest, meanest, strongest, scariest players in NFL history–was…
If you want to read the complete file in the case of Infinity Radio, Inc. v. Belo Corp. et al, the subject of a news story in this week’s Observer, here are the kinda-simple steps necessary. And lemme say I wish I knew how to do this Friday, after getting…
If the answer to the above question is, “Sure, absolutely,” then I guess it’s time to direct you to a downloadable version of Terrell Owens’ much-talked-about rap song called either “I’m Back” or “I Suck.” It’s been on Owens’ Web site for a few days, but someone kindly converted it…
Five years after the publication (well, self-publication) of his book O.J. Is Guilty, but Not of Murder, local private detective Bill Dear is moving his search for Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman’s killers to the big screen. On March 27 at the Angelika Film Center, 275 locals handpicked by Dear…
In the Squeezing Blood from a Stone filings at the United States Bankruptcy Court Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, it seems there are still a few folks who want some scratch from what remains of the Entertainment Collaborative. In January, U.S. District Judge Harlin DeWayne Hale officially chopped down…
You wouldn’t hire Charles Barkley to be the Mavericks’ team psychologist. Put Robin Ventura in charge of the Rangers’ alumni association. Or name Lee Harvey Oswald Inc. as Dallas’ public relations firm. Um, then why in the world would you applaud the signing of Terrell Owens as a Dallas Cowboy?…
As Mayor Mackie Choice sits with friends on his front porch on a warm March afternoon, he periodically surveys the horizon for danger. The bulldozers could come at any moment, from any direction, to level the entire town. Already they have razed a nearby settlement, and nobody knows what their…
IN THE MOVIES, Hogwarts castle is a towering Gothic monument to magical education, with Harry Potter and the rest of J.K. Rowling’s young wizards traipsing across the expansive school grounds. Set against the foggy, mountainous backdrop of Scotland, the boarding school features secret passageways that contain dangerous monsters, moving staircases…
No, you didn’t miss the news that Belo Corp., the owner of The Dallas Morning News and WFAA-Channel 8, is involved in what looks like a nasty lawsuit with the mighty New York City-based CBS Corporation. That’s because Belo’s media outlets (and CBS’, for that matter) have failed to report…
Keep it: The Federal Emergency Management Agency began its audit of aid money doled out to victims of Hurricanes Katrina/Rita/Wilma last week, but if you are one of the people who used FEMA debit cards to buy booze, tattoos, sex toys or a trip to a massage parlor in Dallas…
Texas Crude Gramps, just get over it: Sorry, Jim, I’m going to have to break a little tradition I have and disagree with the spirit of your latest article (“SMU’s Shame,” by Jim Schutze, March 16). Sure, SMU was operating on the shady side when they systematically subverted the University…
In a rare piece of good news for the Dallas County Jail, InfoIntegration, the infamously incompetent computer firm that lost track of inmates like they were old pairs of tube socks, will not renew its contract when it expires in July. Tonya Brenneman, the founder of the firm, got the…
The worst thing that can ever happen to you, according to my wife, is bedbugs. For those of you who don’t pay attention to the news, bedbugs, those nasty little bloodsuckers, have made a comeback. You can read about their resurgence here. My wife and I found this out the…
Former Republican strategist-turned-Republican critic Kevin Phillips, now a bestselling author with such titles as American Dynasty (about the Bush family) and Wealth and Democracy, is at it again with his brand-new tome American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. (Ah,…
