Update/Correction/Apology/Literary Forehead Slap: The premise of this column is a stupid mistake on my part. For some time I have labored under the impression that Lucy Crow Billingsley, a daughter of Trammell Crow, was an early partner with John Sughrue in the development of Museum Tower. That’s wrong. She wasn’t…
Generally, I take my muses in the form of flappers, gypsies and Dolly Parton. I also heed the advice of Emily Post. Her regard for manners and civility may swing square to some, but I find her devoted involvement to the enjoyment of others helps conquer narcissism and ensures a…
Over at The Dallas Morning News uniblog, my former colleague Robert Wilonsky has an item keeping us up to date on plans to turn Fair Park in South Dallas into a year-round commercial amusement park, an idea about which I have no personal objections or, for that matter, especially strong…
This morning I found a story in my copy of The Dallas Morning News called “Dallas Police & Fire Pension System looks to reduce its real estate exposure.” Translated into ordinary English, that headline would be: “Boson Six Pineapple Hiccup-Hiccup Do Not Read This Story.” Of course I rushed into…
See also: The Warped Tour in review Judging by the horde at Gexa Energy Pavilion on Tuesday, the local economy is doing just fine. Out of the nearly 100 bands that performed at this year’s fest, I’ve whittled it down to the 10 best that I literally stumbled across. As…
DEAR MEXICAN: Suppose the United States were as progressive and conscious of our country’s true self-interest as are, for example, many European countries; and suppose this had been true in the decades immediately following World War II, when Northern and Western Europe subsidized the development of southern European nations. If…
Let’s go back to hell first, see how things are going down there. Then we’ll visit heaven. Promise. We are trudging in together, you and I, one very hot recent afternoon. If you think back, we have actually visited hell several times. But today, for some reason, as we hike…
So I’m doing a this-hand versus that-hand thing in my head on Obamacare. Everybody says the Republicans are going to make this year’s presidential election a referendum on the Affordable Care Act. I just want to be ready. On the one hand, Affordable Care will encourage tons of poor people…
Since those bombs are about to be bursting in air, here are a few songs to go along with the noise. I know that some folks will be mad because I left anything from Springsteen off the list, but go ahead and add your own recommendations if you like…
Freelance photographer (and Observer contributor) Mike Brooks grew up in Hawaii. Pretty easy to fall in love with the visual arts there, but he didn’t start out as a music photographer. Since his days at the Punahou School in Honolulu, and two colleges in Northern California, he’s built a rep…
Sometimes I think the dumbest people to talk to about the newspaper business are newspaper people, of which I am one, obviously. Is it possible to scream blindness? David Carr, The New York Times’s media columnist — one of the few media reporters on whose word I truly hang, often…
The summer I bought The Breeders’ Last Splash on cassette at the mall was the summer I dyed my hair with Kool-Aid, and woke up with ants on my pillow. It was the summer I lost my grandfather, though my mother swears that was him making our lights flicker every…
It’s over 100 degrees these days. I know because, in addition to the endless polite conversations I’ve had regarding the topic, you keep taking pictures of thermometers. There is no ocean breeze to save us on these plains. There is only one savior: the pool. Enter Ku De Ta, where…
Dallas Mayor Mike (“I’m a toll road guy”) Rawlings has pitched a bunch of numbers to the media that he says prove Dallas should build the Trinity toll road before it fixes the existing freeways downtown. But thanks to some very handy detective work by three anti-toll road city council…
Dear Mexican: Barrack Hussein Obama, how you dare deprive Mexico of its young, educated people? These illegal aliens in the United States are the only hope for Mexico, and you want to keep them here. They could start businesses, create jobs and improve the standard of living for the people…
So Teresa Sullivan, the president who didn’t cut costs at the University of Virginia, got her job back anyway. Meanwhile making the rounds of newspaper op-ed pages is an essay by Jeff Selingo, editorial director of The Chronicle of Higher Education, saying the way to get college costs down is…
I don’t know how to tell my wife. We’ve got to put this sucker on the market and move the hell out of here. It’s coming! It’s headed right for us! The light! The light is coming! WFAA Channel 8 news had a story last night about a rich lady…
Chris Spinks’ folks raised him on a strict diet of classic rock. His friends upgraded that diet to all things Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords when he got a little older, starting with Social Distortion’s Live at the Roxy. From there, he played in a pop-punk band or two, landed…
I love you, Dallas. I really do. This city has allowed me the thrill of chasing the next great party, or finding the weird new watering hole. One side effect to all this socializing is a little bit of longing. I mean this as one part love letter, one part…
Every once in a while the guns get blazing so fast here on the interwebs that we fail to notice when somebody shoots true. Skimming back through comments on one of my recent items about the proposed new floating boat club at White Rock Lake, I found this ditty from…
The Highland Park White Rock Lake Carnival Cruise Ship story comes into tighter focus with each passing hour, and so far the real story looks a little worse with every new detail. Not to take the onus off the Parkies at all, but I’ve been getting strong indications that another…
Trying hard to think how to bring proper perspective to the absolutely stunning pronouncement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week that the Trinity River in Dallas is not in danger of calamitous flooding after all. We have been told over the last three years that the only…
