A couple weeks back, a retired Dallas businessman named Don Williams published a set of three academic studies he commissioned at his own expense, all claiming to present evidence that Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles is a failure. I was impressed that Williams was able to commission a study by…
The school reform debate has a way of flipping the words liberal and conservative around like pinballs, but somewhere running deep beneath the surface is a new orientation that needs new words. North of the line are people united in the belief that children from the most brutal circumstances are…
Despite it being a a pretty good spell since booking bands for places like Crown and Harp (she also did a stretch working on the non-editorial side of the building here at the Observer), Carlin Stultz is the kind of music supporter that doesn’t seem to fade easily. The recent…
Well, I see that Jerry Patterson, the state land commissioner, has accomplished his goal: The New York Times today is flouncing its long skirts and stamping its high-button shoes over a nutty gun rally Patterson has helped organize for next Saturday at the Alamo. Called “Come and Take It San…
If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent the last two months going to a lot of weddings, either alone or with your significant other. And although we typically don’t enjoy sitting in a church and staring at comb-overs, there are two things provided at weddings we can all agree on:…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
The acting city manager who would be king, A.C. Gonzalez, has always been the inside favorite. And if there is an issue in his way, it’s that. Just ahead for City Hall is a decision to make somebody the permanent city manager. But just behind it is a series of…
Kid Congo Powers was fantastic last night. He truly was. A full-blooded romp through a set that drew from his past as an ’80s pioneer of post-punk, as well as just some straight up punk, his was a stage presence far from the snarling beast you might have expected. Instead,…
Former Dallas mayor Laura Miller has a great piece today on the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News about the absolute insanity of hiring yet another city manager for Dallas from within the inbred, cultic, code-talking clan of apparatchiks usually described politely as “city staff.” She cites the example…
Kid Congo Powers comes through the Double Wide tonight, an unmissable chance to see a man with one of the most interesting résumés in rock in a tiny, intimate venue. A former member of The Gun Club, The Cramps, and The Bad Seeds doesn’t just turn up in a small…
For Every ZZ Top and Steve Miller our state produces, there are thousands of bands that either wallow in obscurity or just get by with endless, backbreaking tours and the hope of having enough cash to finance some studio time. Here are some acts that should have hit the big…
Dear Mexican: A friend says she read that only 20 percent of Mexican men go down on their ladies. Can you “spread” some light on the subject? El Gabacho Guapo Dear Handsome Gabacho: Let me refer her to The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality, a set of studies on the world’s…
So the Dallas ISD Board of Education, which decided at its last meeting to keep but humiliate its superintendent of schools, will meet again tomorrow, locked inside another closed-door “executive session,” to decide whether to keep, fire or further humiliate the superintendent. A person looking on as those doors swing…
flickr/adam_jonesAn actual old personDetroit rapper Danny Brown has a new album, called Old. Brown’s occasional boasts about receiving in-show fellatio aside, just about everyone who likes good rap music likes him, and this new work does not disappoint. But the title is really annoying…
Don O. has been playing blues records on 89.3 KNON for thirty years now. He was there when KNON broadcast out of an old house with no air conditioning and he’s never been late for a single airshift (despite 20 miles of traffic each way). He’s since been informally knighted…
Two interesting and ironically paired stories in the daily paper this morning — one about an expensive planned do-over for the failed Victory Park development, a monument to the perils of great-man leadership, the other about a planned museum exhibit honoring J. Erik Jonsson, one of the city’s most notable…
“Let me pour you the good stuff. I like to reward the creative drinkers,” he said as he pulled out a fresh glass. The audience had just poured out of the McDermott Concert Hall in the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center on the vibrations of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s dynamic…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
I am a little ill at ease for the moment. I am looking ahead to my manslaughter charges and trying to plan, not that I intend to manslaughter anybody. In the extremely unlikely event I should be charged with causing someone else to slip on a banana peel at the…
Hey, look, all you fellow libtard lifelong Democrats out there, and I am talking to both of you, I want to believe in Wendy Davis as much as you do. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? I’m singin’ it now. But there’s one big wave on this ocean that can still toss…
I realize that the following assertion will likely result in my being doused in hot lard and dusted in the crumbled tortilla chips, but it must be said: Eating Tex-Mex can be a serious drag. Please, Dallas, just put down the pig fat and hear me out. You should know…
Everyone loves doughnuts. Old people love doughnuts. So do kids. Doughnut shops can be found in rural towns and urban neighborhoods across America, rarely with a sign more specific than the word “donut.” (Yes, they spell it wrong.) They transcend race, class and gender. They are the kind of food…
