Articles for June, 2010
Another FrontRow Giveaway
If you like free concert tickets, go here.
Artist Brandon Bird Paints Awesome People Like Chuck Norris
Arete by Brandon Bird
I had to do some research on painter/t-shirt designer/Valentine maker Brandon Bird after clicking on this. And even though I chose Arete with Chuck Norris (needed a local peg), it isn’t even close to being the best painting of the bunch. Please go here for No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford. It will change your life. You’re welcome, and may the force be with you.
Steve Blow Goes Romenesko
Steve Blow’s bad joke has made it to Romenesko, the national media site.
Bachelor Shocker: Contestants Might Be In It for the Fame
Once upon a time, I blogged about a little program called The Bachelor. I suffered through it until the season wherein Dallas(ish)- based pilot Jake and his lady friend Google McGoogle decided to embark on a trip aboard the wings of love. After killing my spirit, you would at least expect them to pretend to be in love for a spell. Not so. There have been a lot of allegations–he’s accused Vienna of cheating; she’s mentioned that Jake’s piety gets in the way of business in the bedroom. You know, the usual. But now Vienna is going for the jugular. According to Us Weekly, in the upcoming “Very Special Brady Bachelor” episode airing July 5, Vienna claims that Jake is a “fame wh*re.” Say it isn’t so, Sweet V! Tell me he was there for the right reasons! Please don’t say he was faking the love in your dad’s crappy garage! Does this man have no shame? In related news, Vienna claims that she will appear on the cover of Playboy. Reps for that magazine say that’s not true. Sigh. I’ll be watching on Monday.
For Those Five Of You Who Watch: New Big Brother Cast Announced
The newest Big Brother cast was announced today, and the only cast member remotely near Dallas is this guy, Lane Elenburg, an oil rig salesman from Decatur. Anybody know him? Deets. Or not. Whatever.
Highland Village is One of the Best Dallas Suburbs
D Magazine online editorial intern Ryan Jones continues his suburban safari, exploring the best Dallas suburbs on an extremely limited budget. Today we find him in Highland Village, that small Denton County place crammed between Lewisville, Flower Mound, and Lewisville Lake. It’s No. 2 on our 2010 rankings.
Unfortunately Ryan couldn’t afford the entrance fee for most of the city’s lakefront parks. So he had to improvise.
When Rangers Expenses See Daylight, Interesting Things Appear
Barry Schlachter over at the Star-Telegram breaks down some the revelations that came from opening up the books for the Texas Rangers.
Tom Hicks was drawing a salary. A low six-digit salary, and one that would finish paying off a nice 1950s bungalow in North Dallas, but relatively low as far as salaries go, I suppose. Nolan Ryan was getting about $1.5 million , but I don’t think I have a problem with that, either – the team’s been relatively stable and successful under Ryan and GM Jon Daniels (whose salary was not mentioned in the story). This is a bargain compared to the $9M per year salary the New York Daily News claimed he was getting.
But the interesting part? Jamey Newburg, of the blog The Newberg Report, is listed as having gotten more than $27,000 from the Rangers from February to April. Newberg and his family was also flown by the team to Surprise, Ariz., for spring training this year.
As Schlachter pointed out, Newberg’s site lacks a disclaimer. Maybe the Rangers pay for all sportswriters and their families to attend spring training. Newberg says the money is from books he sold to the club, and not for his website.
But in the day and age where the FTC now requires mommy bloggers to say up front that the car seat they just reviewed was provided gratis by the company, wouldn’t a whole trip also require a legal disclaimer?
Exclusive Q&A On Museum Tower
Over on DallasDirt. And if you don’t think my questions hit the mark, feel free to send me some.
Heap to Scram, Creating Opening at D CEO
Sorry to report that the lovely and talented Kristiana Heap is leaving us after four years with the D Empire–first at People Newspapers, then with D CEO magazine. While Kristiana of course is irreplaceable, someone has to carry on in her absence as the whip-cracking managing editor of D’s award-winning business title. If you think you might qualify for the position, drop me a line at glenn.hunter@dmagazine.com.
Preservation Dallas Releases Endangered List
And the Statler Hilton is still on it, as is 508 Park, where Robert Johnson laid down some of his last recordings. DISD also gets some attention
Any buildings missing? And another question: Why can’t I find the list on Preservation Dallas’ website?
Collin County DA John Roach and former Judge Charles Sandoval Are Out to Overturn an Election (Update: And Fail)
Note to U. S. Attorney John Bales: There are strange doings afoot at the Collin County Courthouse this morning. I hope your assistants are sitting in the audience.
In last year’s Republican primary, Judge Charles Sandoval was defeated in a landslide by attorney Suzanne Wooten. The loss was undoubtedly due to Sandoval’s being named the worst judge in Collin County by a poll of local attorneys. We’ve been tracking Sandaval since. To catch up, you can go here and here.
Sandoval didn’t like being out of a job, and apparently DA John Roach didn’t like having him off the bench. So the DA started a grand jury investigation. According to a Motion to Quash filed by Judge Wooten, one of the DA’s assistants told her attorney that she:
“needed to resign immediately to keep them from ‘taking her law license, her family, her home, her liberty, and her reputation.’”
Judge Ray Whelessat this moment is hearing the arguments on the motion to quash. The Collin County Observer provides an excellent overview of the case.
UPDATE: MotionTo Quash Granted. Now it may be time for a Grand Jury or the U. S. Attorney’s office to look into the shenanigans of the Collin County DA’s office.
Last Week for 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas Nominations
This week is the last for accepting nominations. Don’t let the beautiful women in your life (or the ones you wish were in your life) go unrecognized. Nominate them. They’ll love you for it.
What To Do in Dallas Tonight: June 30, 2010
It’s the last day of June. What will you do to make it special? Google “Landon Donovon shirtless?” Throw darts at a picture of Steve Blow? Weird, me too. But all that arm usage is sure to make me hungry. Since I’m still working downtown (until Friday), I am going to check out the Lily Pad Cafe in the Main Street Garden. After a delay due to vandalism, The Pad (hmm, maybe not the best nickname), has finally opened. The restaurant has everything from breakfast tacos to Niman Ranch hot dogs to organic fat-free yogurt, and the prices are right (read: many items under $5). Or I might just wait until happy hour to head over there. They are pouring $3 sangria and serving Shiner and other beers in a can (yessss) for $2.
If I’m feeling really ambitious, I might sneak over to Fair Park to see Dreamgirls. I love love loved the movie, and judge if you want, I’m excited for the musical, which opens tonight. And not just because “One Night Only” was a theme song for my dating life until recently. The cast is full of Broadway veterans, and there’s even a dude who appeared on Diddy’s Making the Band. If you know me you know how special that is.
How Bad Is it About to Get for Steve Blow?
Yesterday Metro columnist Steve Blow made a molestation joke on one of the Dallas Morning News‘ blogs. Jay Gormley on CBS Channel 11 last night turned the heat up on the situation when he interviewed the victim of the abuse that had occasioned the news story Blow was riffing on. I’ve got three things to say about that: 1) the paper needs to announce today that Blow is being put on a two-week unpaid suspension. Zac thinks it ought to be a seven-year unpaid suspension. Listen, Steve Blow ought to be fired. But not for making a molestation joke. He should be fired for being a bad Metro columnist.
Which brings me to 2): I’ve got empathy for Blow when it comes to the pickle he’s gotten himself into. I am in no way defending the joke he made. But anyone who works at a media outlet who has been asked to blog and tweet and tumble and facebook knows how Blow got himself in trouble and has trod similar territory. There’s a bottomless bucket that we’re all asked to fill each day with posts and opinion and entertaining nuggets. We’re all publishing more words than ever, which necessarily means we’re giving them less thought. Hey, much of the time it’s a blast. It can be fun to work without a safety net and get instant feedback on what you write. But the pitfall is what Blow fell into yesterday.
And 3) whatever disciplinary action the paper takes, it’s going to cast a pall over all of the paper’s blogs. What newspaper reporter wants to risk his job for a joke?
Texas Prisons: The Flip Side of “Tough on Crime”
Marie Gottschalk at The New Republic reviews Robert Perkinson’s Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire. And an empire it seems to be:
Perkinson draws much needed attention to Texas, which operates the country’s largest state prison system, and holds more people today than the prison systems of Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands combined. If you add in parolees and probationers, over 700,000 people are under the control of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a population approximately equivalent to the size of Austin, the state’s booming capital.
We operate under the “let-em-rot” theory of crime control. I wonder if there is a correlation between our theory of punishment and the fact that until only three years ago, Dallas had the highest murder rate among major cities in America. There is a evidence, after all, that prisons are the breeding grounds of the very thing they are designed to control.
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