The movies for the Texas Theatre’s Tuesday Night Trash series just keeping getting worse.
In the spirit of the holiday that shall not be named because I am so unprepared, the Oak Cliff theater will screen Elves, a very, very distant cousin of the Will Ferrell vehicle. A woman and her friends are trapped in a department store with a bunch of genetically-mutated elves (part of a Nazi plot, naturally) and it’s Santa to the rescue. The movie is free, and there will be drink specials at the bar. And since it’s apparently National Sangria Day (I feel like it’s been too long since we had one of these “days”), La Calle Doce is serving their take on the boozy punch this evening.
If you feel up to a trip to Fort Worth, there are still tickets left for Lyle Lovett’s concert at the Bass Hall. The country artist will be there alongside members of his latest venture, an acoustic group made of up members from his usual tour mates, his large band. Definitely drop by The Usual for a cocktail after the show. It’s worth the little extra drive.
For more to do tonight, go here.
Who needs the most interesting man in the world when you can have Yu Darvish? As mentioned in this morning’s Leading Off, news reports say that your Texas Rangers offered $51.7 million for the right to be the only team in Major League Baseball that can sign the best pitcher in Japanese baseball. It’s expected to take something like a five-year deal worth another $75 million or so to get Darvish to summer in Arlington. (The amount is similar to what they apparently weren’t willing to offer the now-departed C.J. Wilson.)
This for a guy who has never pitched a day in the big leagues. The Japanese leagues are considered to have a high quality of play, but more on par with the high minor leagues in the states than with MLB. Pitchers there don’t have to pitch as often, or for as many innings in a season as they do here. And their ball is smaller.
So what’s being said about the Rangers’ risky move? A sampling:
Talk about living close to work. Khloe Kardashian and her husband — new Dallas Mavericks forward Lamar Odom — are leasing a condo at the W Dallas Victory Residences, a stone’s throw from American Airlines Center, where the Mavs play.
They’ll be moving into Mack Hicks’ (he’s the son of Tom Hicks) three-bedroom unit at the W highrise. Realtor-to-the-bold-face set Allie Beth Allman, no stranger to high-profile-athlete clients, did the deal. In fact, they liked Allie Beth so much, they mic’ed her up for Khloe & Lamar, the couple’s reality TV show.
Earlier news reports had the couple checking out the nearby Azure condos, where they were supposedly looking for a three-bedroom place renting for $8,000 to $15,000 a month.
Jacquielynn Floyd Follows Up on Dale Hansen Sex Victimization Revelation. The News columnist talked to the sportscaster (sub. req.) after he revealed Sunday night that he’d been victimized as a kid. The night of his broadcast, he got 1,500 emails, some of them from people who said they suffered the same thing as a kid and were moved by him to talk about it for the first time. Good on Hansen.
AT&T Abandons T-Mobile Bid. AT&T offered $39 billion to buy T-Mobile, a deal it has given up on in the face of regulatory push-back. Good news is that now AT&T has a lot of spending money for Christmas, right? Eh, now they have to pay $4 billion in fees because the deal didn’t go through. That stings. (As you might imagine, this rather big news is being reported by more than a few outlets on the internet. Yet the Morning News still put its story behind the paywall. I really should dump that AHC stock.)
Rangers Win Posting Auction for Yu Darvish. Speaking of deals I don’t understand, the Rangers have paid $51.7 million for a pitcher. Not to have him pitch for the team. Just to have the right to offer him money to pitch for the team.
Khloe Kardashian Something Something. Blah, blah, Khloe Kardashian. Basketball. Lamar Odom. Blurgh.
It seems the Dallas County Medical Examiner has found that the hairstylist who was found dead in her burning car in November may not have been murdered after all. From the Dallas Police Department’s Facebook page:
On November 4, 2011, Elizabeth Lightfoot was found dead in her burning car in the 16000 block of Preston Road. The Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office has completed its examination and has classified her death as accidental. The Dallas Police Department and Dallas Fire and Rescue are in possession of this report. The Medical Examiner’s findings are one component of a comprehensive investigation. Dallas Police Department Homicide Investigators in consultation with Dallas Fire and Rescue Arson Investigators continue to treat Ms. Lightfoot’s death as a homicide. This case will remain open until conclusive evidence is found that fully explains Ms. Lightfoot’s death. The circumstances surrounding Ms. Lightfoot’s death are unusual. Ms. Lightfoot’s family and the general public deserve a thorough and comprehensive investigation. This has been the Police Department’s goal since the inception of this case.
What should we read between the lines there?
Not long ago we told you about Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi eviscerating Rick Perry. Well thanks to Newsweek, British novelist/essayist Martin Amis recently got in on the action. (Somebody could probably publish a hilarious book of quotes about Perry someday.) From Amis:
“Until very recently it looked as though the GOP had been blessed with the most intensely average candidate of all time. Rick ‘Crotch’ Perry (the nickname derived from his habit of readjusting his blue jeans) was a shoeless farm boy from an old Rebel family, a straight-C student and Aggie yell leader, a devout Air Force pilot who rose to become the potent governor of a major state. All right, he speaks like a drunkard or a stroke victim (for example, his attempt to say “Joe Arpaio” came out as “Joe Aroppehyeh”)—but so did George W. Bush. All right, he used to hunt deer at a game reserve called Niggerhead—but he carefully avoided that other Texan beauty spot, Dead Nigger Draw.”
Now imagine all of that coming from a delightful British accent.
You know how sometimes you show up to the Libertine on half-price food night and don’t even bother trying to park? Tonight will probably be even nuttier than that.
But you should wedge yourself in there anyway, since you get eight local bands on the bar’s nonexistent stage for the price of an new, unwrapped toy (or two, if you’re feeling extra generous). Chad Davenport of the Local Yokel Show hosts this annual toy drive for the Dallas Life Foundation, a homeless ministry, and artists like The O’s, RTB2, Madison King, and J. Charles and the Trainrobbers donate their time and talents.
Otherwise, you might make plans to spend your evening mostly indoors, as thunderstorms threaten. Wayne Lee Gay took in his second Messiah of the season last night, courtesy of the Dallas Bach Society, and calls it a “purist, devotedly authentic version.” Happily, the society performs Handel’s miraculous music again tonight at the Meyerson. Check out his review on FrontRow here before you go.
For more to do this evening, go here.
It takes courage to do what WFAA’s Dale Hansen did on the air last night. Jump to the 3-minute mark of the video, past the cheesy Oak Ridge Boys song. The longtime sports anchor talks about the time a 16-year-old boy assaulted him, and about his silence until now.
If he had stolen my bike… the glove on the handlebar… the dollar in my pocket… or simply punched me in the face and blackened an eye.. I would have told everybody.
Instead, I told nobody.
Writer Josh Harkinson, who is from Dallas, begins his look at 75205 from Highland Park Village or, as he calls it, “a strip mall clogged with Ferraris and fashion boutiques.”
Nothing that anyone familiar with “the Bubble” doesn’t already know, except perhaps this bit about Dallas Country Club, which references Wick’s column about the club’s de facto segregation:
Lambasted as recently as last year for not admitting African Americans, Highland Park’s 117-year-old Dallas Country Club revealed, after repeated calls, that it does in fact have black members but wouldn’t say how many or when they joined. A Parkie friend whose family belongs to the club told me he has never seen a black member.
Felony Lane Gang Suspected in Purse Snatching Spree in McKinney: A Florida-based gang has hit a number of daycare parking lots in Collin, Dallas, and Tarrant Counties, stealing purses from moms’ cars and using the identification to cash checks at nearby banks. The “gang” has been active throughout the nation.
Khloe Kontact Made: We’ll all get tired of this Kardashian krap soon enough, but not just yet. The latest? The double K touched down in Dallas over the weekend where she looked for an apartment (for just one year, that’s how long she thinks she and her man, Lamar Odom, will stay) and tweeted “Wow Dallas you guys are so freaking nice to me!” and “OMG how amazing is this sign!!! What a warm welcome from Dallas!!!!” (Oh, and the Thunder beat the Mavs in preseason.)
Human Bowling At Cowboys Stadium: This video is much easier to watch when you know that no one was seriously injured when the runaway cart plowed through a group of people standing on the field at Cowboys Stadium Sunday after the 5A Division II championship.
Daniel “Rudy” Reuttiger, who was portrayed by Sean Astin in the movie “Rudy,” has been accused of stock fraud by the SEC in regards to his beverage company, Rudy Beverage. How does this connect to Dallas? Well, let me connect some dots for you.
Back in the day, some 80 percent of Rudy Beverage Group was purchased by Global Beverage Solutions, according to this press release. Global Beverage Solutions, which traded under the ticker GBVS in the penny stock market, was one of four companies for which the SEC said now-on-the-lam-from-the-FBI-and-former-stockbroker Josh Lankford manipulated stock prices. Josh Lankford was based in Dallas, as were his companies, Market News First and Lankford Media Group.
And, full disclosure, I worked there. I’ve actually had a Rudy Beverage. It tastes like benches that have been ridden and oranges and despair. And vitamins. And the commercial that ran about it on MN1 haunts me to this day.
Gift card sales are up. Home Depot’s aiming to steal holiday-decor sales from Michaels Stores. And she bought her first 2011 Christmas gift way back in July. Those are a few tidbits from an interesting Q&A with veteran retail reporter Maria Halkas of the Dallas Morning News. The interview, which focuses on holiday-season shopping, was posted today on the Talking Biz News website.
This happened on one of the Morning News‘ 543 blogs at 6 a.m. yesterday so we all missed it. And somehow it didn’t come up in the “Kathlyn Gilliam Wick Allison” Google Alert I set up five years ago. (I may have missed it among all the happy holidays emails from Soldier of Fortune and Crochet Monthly.) Bruce Tomaso, noting the passing of Gilliam as well as the details of her public viewing yesterday, couldn’t help taking a moment to pull Wick into the fray over his past comments about Gilliam, the first black trustee of DISD. Or, actually, since he spent exactly 118 words on Gilliam and 100 on Wick, you could probably reverse that. So, I will: Bruce Tomaso, while kicking Wick in the khakis over his long-held distaste for Gilliam, also noted that she died on Saturday.
If you haven’t heard, Christopher Hitchens died last night. You can read about it here, here, and here. I didn’t realize until today that one of the last things he wrote–he was as prolific as he was eloquent–was about Dallas’ own Robert Jeffress, and his controversial comments on Mormonism. Hitchens kind of agreed with Jeffress.
Turns out, Dr. Jeffress has actually been reading through some of Hitchens’ work recently, in preparation for his next book, which will be a research-heavy book addressing atheism. I asked Jeffress over email how he feels at a moment like this, when a prominent atheist dies. This is what he told me: (more…)
My grandmother, patron saint of cookies, used to do all of the Christmas baking. She made gingerbread men, iced butter men, thumbprint cookies, white wedding cookies, chocolate chip, brownies, and two different cakes. But in the few years since I took over the cookie factory, family members have just been lucky to get his or her preferred man (ginger or butter) to stick in their stocking. This year, however, will be different. I’m starting early. I’m completely on top of this. And by that, I mean I’m at least buying the ingredients.
Friday
For those wondering where Tatum O’Neal has been since winning her Oscar at the age of 10, well. Tonight, you’ll have no doubt. O’Neal takes the Music Hall stage in yet another rendition of A Christmas Carol. This particular production uses the same sets, costumes, props and special effects created for the 2008 Kodak Theatre production in Los Angeles.
That, or just head to the movies. I really want to see Sherlock Holmes, but I wouldn’t be opposed to the Inwood Theatre’s evening of holiday classics, which actually runs all weekend. They’re horning in on the Texas Theatre’s bad B-movie territory, showing a digital restoration of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a baffling mixture of ’60s-era sci-fi, Christmas cheer, and youthful slapstick humor. But what could be better than bookending that ridiculousness with a couple of Max Fleischer cartoons? Not much. “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” is one of my favorites things.