Dallas Observer | Complete Issue

Fighting Fire With Fire

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

His nightly transformation began with a twinge. Then, gnawing and relentless, it consumed him.

At 45, "Steve" was a hard-charging sales manager who'd snagged two promotions in three years. After work one spring day in 2006, he picked up his infant and toddler from day care, had dinner wit...

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In 1999, attorney John Carney received an unusual phone call. An American soldier, dialing from Japan, said he was having trouble finding a lawyer to handle his divorce.

Carney, who runs a consumer law practice with a sizable family case load, represented the soldier and discovered that t...

Ozzy Love|Burning Bridge

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

"The Ozz-Man Cometh," by Pete Freedman, August 7

Ozzy Love

I've been to a number of Ozzfests in the past, and I can truly say that there is nothing better in the summer...

Is It Over Yet?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Is it over yet? Because any election in which Paris Hilton becomes an issue—and offers a better energy plan than the two candidates—can't be over too soon, Buzz called Dallas County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet to see if he'd spotted any nifty electoral trends in the w...

Low-Bid to No-Bid

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Aha. Finally got my documents from Dallas Area Regional Transit. Think I may be on to something.

Last November DART announced it was suddenly almost a billion dollars short in its budget for new rail line construction. DART gets its money from you. It is committed to building new lines. S...

Ask a Mexican

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Dear Mexican: As a Mexican, I'm always ashamed of the fact that a lot of Mexican women just come to the United States to have babies and to use this country's welfare. I know a lot of them that just keep having children, and they do not pay a dollar for the hospital care. They even lie about t...

Stand and Deliver

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It was a Big Deal time slot: Lollapalooza co-headliners Wilco and Rage Against the Machine were scheduled to go on at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 2, only about an hour after The Toadies were scheduled to perform their own gig at the three-day Chicago festival.

And, in a sense, it was li...

Crazy, But That's How It Goes

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The night before Ozzfest, I was regretting that I'd agreed to write about it for this week's music column while Dallas Observer music editor Pete Freedman was on vacation. There were precious few bands that interested me. Sure, I would have really been stoked to see Metallica in junior hig...

Eyedea & Abilities

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

This Minneapolis duo has been a team since their teens, when DJ Abilities left home and Eyedea's mom put him up in their basement, where their partnership flourished.

Eyedea began competing in battle rap competitions, taking top honors in the '99 Scribble Jam before he was18, and winning ...

Shoe Strung

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Since several influential, tastemaking blogs anointed A Place to Bury Strangers as "New York City's loudest band" last year, the buzz around the band's self-titled debut album has only continued to grow.

Strangers' ear-splitting, echo-drenched offerings—especially "Missing Yo...

John Freeman's Going Away Thing with Baboon, Telethon, Gun Gun, The Hack and Slashers

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It's time to bid adieu (again) to one of Dallas' music VIPs, as John Freeman once again leaves town. And sending off the Dutch Treat and former Sloppyworld owner is one of the bands with a local history that goes back just as far as the former Dooms U.K. mastermind.

Baboon hasn't played a...

Heat Rave

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Summer is in full swing—and, here in Texas, it's a long way from being over.

Ugh.

It's tough to say why we don't love the season like we used to. Don't get us wrong; we dig the barbecues, drunken volleyball and television reruns. It's just that we wish summer rocked like it ...

Dave Matthews Band

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Want to make a hipster snarl? Just utter the following innocuous sentence: "Wanna go see The Dave Matthews Band?" Then watch the fun begin. The mere suggestion of attending such a patchwork and patchouli-laced event will make your tight-pants-wearing, electronic-music-loving friends recoil in hor...

Cex

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Rjyan Kidwell started up Cex in 1998, when he was just 16 years old. At 17, he launched the influential Tigerbeat6 label with Kid 606. By the time he was out of high school, the guy was already something of a well-known figure in underground electronic music.

His early material, which is ...

The South Rises Again

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Screen Door bills itself—in the parlance of some of the finest whiskeys—as a blend, a melding of modern culinary wisdom with decades of tried-and-true grit from the hot, sticky South. The result is the modern Southern kitchen. But what does this mean?

That's hard to decipher. ...

Galindo's

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Beer posters with boob girls on them count: 3
Creepy, anthropomorphized jalapeño with gloves on the menu count: 1

Known scientific fact: Mexican food is tasty shit. And it becomes even tastier in the summertime. So, when I saw the sandwich board outside of Galindo's that...

Mighty Aphrodites

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Perhaps this review should begin with a disclaimer: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen's 39th film as writer-director, will do little to endear itself to the happily-ever-after crowd or those who consider acts of infidelity punishable by impeachment. Leave it to Allen to make a r...

Apocalypse Whatever

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Early buzz out of Hollywood pegged Tropic Thunder, directed and co-written by star Ben Stiller, as the end-all and be-all of movie-biz parodies—a savage beast with a rough touch featuring Tom Cruise in a career-resurrecting role as bald-headed, big-gutted, foul-mouthed studio ...

Head East

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Dallas is lucky to have the Asian Film Festival. Your average moviegoer still thinks of Asian films exclusively in terms of kung-fu and samurai flicks. Don't worry--there will be plenty of the latest and best of those genres represented, but there is a entire movie industry chugging away in t...

The Blues Period

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Painting portraits of your favorite musicians is a time-honored way of paying homage to the artists you love. But more often than not, it's not that compelling as art. Sure, the original photograph of Johnny Cash flipping the bird is a powerful image, but how many times do we really need to see some...

Leaving Tracks

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Lots of high school students draw, but too often, those great works of art never go beyond doodles on notebooks, scribblings in worksheet margins and (shhh...don't tell) drawings on desktops. Much of it could land the artist in detention. However, some student artists, like those at Moises A. Molina...

A Bang-Up Show

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Suppose two guys want to make a Broadway musical about the history of the planet from the beginning of time through the present day. Well, first they'd need some major financial backing, but, when the musical would require a cast of more than 300 actors and cost $83.5 million to produce, how on eart...

Wardrobe Melodies

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Ok, I'll admit it. When I was around 10, I ventured into the closet, my heart set on a magical transportation to Narnia, C.S. Lewis' fantasy world full of mystical creatures and an evil queen who serves Turkish delight in a sleigh. Imitating Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan, I nestled into my clothing ...

Elder Stateswomen

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Despite appearances, the Ms. Texas Senior America Pageant, sponsored by Mature Texan magazine, is not a beauty pageant. How do we know? Because the Web site says so. Sure, they've got an evening gown competition, a talent competition and a "personal interview" portion, but just because that s...

The Chosen Arts

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Imagine you're a Russian Jew coming to live in America in 1909. Odds are you might wind up in New York City, though there are certainly other places you might logically unpack your bags. Hamilton, Texas, however, is not one of them. But that's just where the protagonist of The Immigrant heads...

Better Than...

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The grandchildren of Andy Warhol will soon display their goods at the Mighty Fine Arts gallery. Of course Polly Perez and Erik Tosten are not Warhol's descendants in the literal or the cheap knock-off sense. Rather, like Andy, these artists find their greatest source of inspiration in consumer and p...

Fur-Bidden

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Open letter to my daughter: Iris, I regret to inform you that you're forbidden to attend the All Pet Expo. You've already turned our house into a petting zoo. Your mother and I would have been content with two Great Danes, but at your insistence we've supplemented these monstrous drool-and-st...

Reading Pays Off

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Parents always want their kids to be lawyers. And lawyers do make serious bank, it's true. But is money alone enough to fulfill that burning desire in your heart of hearts? Local author Christine Son would probably say, "Hell no." Once a small lawyer fish in a big lawyerish sea, Son finally threw ou...

Waxing Nostalgic

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
This is going to make me sound like a pretentious shoegazing ass, but one of my favorite art pieces in my home is a Mazzy Star poster ripped off the wall of the Bomb Factory circa 1993. That thing has traveled with me to every crappy apartment and house I've lived in since, and though it's worn and ...

Czech It Out

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The first thing I envision when I think of Czech art is the kolache. Oh, seriously. Those hunks of perfect, tender dough, the hollow in the middle cradling some perfectly sweet fruit compote and, perhaps, some cream cheese. There's no telling how many of those delectable bastards I can put back betw...

Funny For Us

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
You know, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. After getting out of my stone-columned enclosure right around lunchtime I was trying to retie my toga in that swooping fashion that my BFF showed me last week (I like to be up with the latest trends), and this super-crazy dust devil thingy ca...

Drawing On The Past

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
When we consider the idea of a political cartoon, we often think of a detailed drawing riffing on some error in judgement by one of our fearless leaders. Bill Clinton smoking a cigar. Barbara Bush needlepointing a "Read my lips: No new taxes" throw pillow. JFK picking up a scrip for Ms. Monroe. Rona...

Before The Rise

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Did you know a pro athlete during college, a successful musician when he struggled unnoticed at an open-mic or a porn star when she was a Hooters waitress? That's cool. It's also cool to see some emerging fine artists before they become jaded alcoholics or famous generations after we're all dead. An...

Just Give The Words

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Good old LeVar, the big brother none of us had. All he wanted was to open our minds with a book. Hit up your local Borders bookstore now through the end of August and you can share the dream by donating a book to Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas. (Don't remember Reading Rainbow? Just c...

Sparks Of Laughter

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Hal Sparks is a man of many talents--rocking his man-itude on Queer as Folk, hosting Talk Soup and rocking out with his band Zero 1. He's even able to add personality to the unspeakably lame lines doled out to him on VH-1's various I Love The Whatnot programs. But most of...

Selling Shakespeare

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
The Merchant of Venice is a comedy? Oh, sure, that's easy for you to say, white bread. If you're Jewish or black--ol' Willie Shakespeare's play has some unflattering words about a Moorish prince's complexion, and, of course, there's Shylock--you might not exactly split your sides. On t...

Moving Stills

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Someone (who was that?) once said "a picture is worth a thousand words." If still pictures happen at 24 frames-per-second in movies...well, you do the math. The Museum of Modern Art in New York gets it. With more than 21,000 titles in their film collection, MoMA began Still Moving, a weekly p...

Bizarro World

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

In Zanna, Don't! every kid has two mommies. Or two daddies. Being gay is the norm, and heteros are closeted in the candy-colored, bully-free, over-the-rainbow world invented by writer-composer-lyricist Tim Acito in his 2003 musical.

At Uptown Players, director Coy Cov...