I had a private little laugh and moment of startled disbelief while my wife and I were watching Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Romney described his father as having started out in life as an apprentice “lath and plaster carpenter,” a term so arcane…
The big City Hall racial blow-up over a reform of our very screwed up municipal court system — subject of a sort of weird editorial in The Dallas Morning News this morning — is probably a harbinger of worse things to come. Which is probably good. In all its attempts…
Dear Mexican: What is the reason for the colors of the Mexican flag? Is there any razón it resembles the Italian flag, minus the águila y serpent? El Girafe Dear Male Giraffe Gabacho: What’s now the Mexican tricolor is technically older than the Italian tricolore — although Italian kingdoms had…
Well, I guess Eric Nicholson and Jeff Siegel just know everything, don’t they? Nicholson, our own blog editor here, and Siegel, a columnist for the Lakewood Advocate, have been having fun making of Lincoln Properties, a real estate company, over a scheme to get Garland Road in East Dallas re-named…
Josh Pitts and Ben Piche were in the punk band Captain Incredible a ways back, and got so frustrated with the way their band was getting booked, they decided to concentrate on doing it themselves, hence their five-man outfit, Up To 11 Entertainment. Pitts has performed with DFW notables Darstar,…
While I was away on vacation The Dallas Morning News published an editorial saying Angela Hunt, Scott Griggs and Sandy Greyson, our three brainiacs on the City Council, are stupid, don’t know how to add and came up with all the wrong conclusions about the News’ favorite project, the idea…
Gone for a week. Vacation. Back. First thing, walked the dogs in the ‘hood. Got a half dozen mosquito bites. So I thought the mayor bombed the mosquitos while I was gone. What is up with that? Are there still mosquitos where you live? Also just back from vacation, next…
See also: Scenes from Art Conspiracy’s RZN8 It takes money to make money, and so it also takes money to raise money. Saturday night, Art Conspiracy continued its trajectory with a seed event to prepare for their fall shindig, and moving from Sons of Herman Hall to Life in Deep…
What Can You Use to Wipe Away Hate?
Dear Mexican: I was in a taco shop in the bathroom stall and saw your racist dribble in La Prensa San Diego (the paper was being used as ass wipe, I guess). Whatever you say or write will always be foreshadowed by the fact that you and all the dark-skinned…
See also: Damon K. Clark knows Dallas jazz See also: The Kessler’s Melissa Hennings shoots your favorite bands Julie Garcia, publicist for Granada Theater and Sundown, got her start in morning radio. From ’99 to ’07, her job was largely to manage Kidd’s Kidds, the charity helmed by the Kraddick…
The first week of college is here, so the Observer staff is providing you with some tips to get your through the first week/month/year. Dear Class of 2016, College. The best years of your life, they say. Four years to cram in enough experience so you come out on the…
Years ago. How many? I don’t know. When was the time before the time we started fighting about the Trinity River toll road? Was there such a time? I first talked to City Council member Angela Hunt about the Trinity River before the Trinity River was a brawl. So it…
Great. So tonight the government sprays us with piperonyl butoxide. To reassure us, the TV news last night shows us a guy from the company doing the spraying who tells us just not to worry. I say worry. The airplanes tonight will be spraying us with a compound called “Duet”…
Dear Readers: The Mexican is currently smuggling mescal out of Oaxaca and into hipster bars nationwide, and thus gives you two oldies-but-goodies. Dear Mexican: It seems that whenever Chicano professors want to show off their mexicanidad, they wear a guayabera. In fact, I saw a picture of you in the…
Last week in a Dallas City Council session someone suggested that maybe Dallas has fallen a bit behind in the race to become a primary continental shipping hub. Yeah. You could say. Race started. Other guy took off. Crowd roaring. We’re still stuck in the gate, and our jockey’s drunk…
Reading about the Medicare debate and listening to friends and neighbors talk about it, I always come to the same conclusion: Your opinions depend entirely on your personal experiences. A commenter here the other day said he thought most old people are “responsible” and have provided for their own medical…
Gosh, I’ve been reading about the secret negotiations between the two groups of fancy people downtown over how to control the light, and I can’t help thinking of the Paris Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War between 1968 and 1973. I don’t know how much you may remember or…
See also: The Kessler’s Melissa Hennings tends bar and shoots your favorite bands See also: KNON’s Don O. knows the Dallas blues Damon K. Clark, co-musical director at Winspear Opera House, is changing lanes. He’s sidelining what has been a pretty spirited performance career in local jazz and choir to…
The doormen. They are Dallas’ gatekeepers, ticket takers, fight breaker-uppers and occasional crowd curators. Before you ever get past that velvet rope, or even show your ID, they are sizing up our city’s finest and not-so-finest. The Overserved wants to introduce you to the gents and ladies letting you in…
What country is this? Have I been on some kind of horrendous toot, and did I sleep for a month, and did I wake up in the wrong country? All weekend long on my TV set I kept seeing Paul Ryan, the right-wing social Darwinist cheese-head, and they said he…
All right. A brief time-out? Before we all die of West Nile or shut down our endocrine systems with toxins, should we call in somebody who, unlike me or some editorial writer at the Morning News, actually knows something? An editorial in The Dallas Morning News today more or less…
Wait. I’m a libtard. I’m politically correct. I hate bullies. I despise people who make fun of a co-worker for being different from them. But they sent a Dallas police sergeant to deep nights at the jail because he came back to his division with a bag from Chick-fil-A? You…
