Articles for December, 2011
Leading Off (12/12/11)
Terrell Owens Financial Troubles Shine Light on Dallas Real Estate: From the look of the photo on TMZ, the condo that the mercurial Dallas wide receiver purchased for nearly $2 million in 2008 was in The House. Owens was forced to part with the condo for $1.6 million last month, or somewhere around $350,000 less than he spent on the place, which says as much about the team-less Owens’ financial health as it does about the ever-softening Victory Park real estate market.
UPDATE: The House, Azure; Victory Park, Harwood: all the generi-lux really does blur together. That said, the FBvians in the comments are right, TO’s former pad was at the Azure.
Parents in Custody After Severe Case of Child Neglect: This story is pretty disgusting (flaking skin?!), but it is encouraging that it was a teenager visiting the house of Justin and Brittany Alston in Hood County who called the police after noticing that the couple’s 8-month-old child was starving to death. The baby is now in critical condition at Cook Children’s Medical Center. It may sound odd, but I sure hope drugs were involved. At least it would be an explanation.
Cowboys Iced: For the second week in a row, Dallas Cowboys kicker Dan Bailey hit a last second field goal only to have to try to kick it again because of a last second timeout before the snap. Two weeks in a row, Bailey didn’t make the second attempt (granted, last night’s kick was blocked). Oh, and adding injury to insult, Dallas running game revelation, DeMarco Murray, fractured and sprained his ankle. And the defense blew a 12-point lead. Hello December!
Bash With Bushes Marks a Very Good Year for McKool Smith
George W. Bush and Mike McKool
Dallas’s Belo Mansion may have been a funeral home for 50 years, even hosting the funeral of Clyde Barrow back in the ’30s. But Friday night the old joint was anything but a dead zone, as roughly 1,000 people turned up for a raucous holiday shindig there marking the 20th anniversary of McKool Smith, an IP/commercial litigation law firm.
Think casino games. Exotically clad drink servers (one, pictured after the “jump,” wore a steel “skirt” holding dozens of champagne flutes). Plus multiple live bands — including a group (called Vocal Trash) at the valet entrance that sang and banged out tunes like Footloose using garbage-can lids and drums made out of empty water-cooler bottles.
The Dallas-based firm’s Mike McKool blew out all the stops for this year’s annual holiday party, no doubt. Example: Lawyers from the firm’s other six U.S. offices, including from its newest outpost in L.A., were flown in and put up at a local hotel (presumably not a Super 8). McKool also went above and beyond on the season’s giving side, presenting not one but two $100,000 checks to nonprofit groups during the evening.
Dallas’s Vogel Alcove snagged one of the checks. The other went to Barbara Pierce Bush’s Global Health Corps. The daughter of George W. and Laura Bush was there to accept the dough in person, while her parents sat watching at a table nearby.
The 2011 economy may be continuing to struggle in many ways. If the McKool Smith bash was any indication, though, it’s been a stupendous year for the lawyers. (Photos by Jeanne Prejean)
Friday Afternoon Random Question
What the hell, man?
Ways to Give Back During the Holidays
A commenter on my original Christmas post thoughtfully pointed out that we could use some more information about the events that have charitable connections and elements. I agree, so I’ve highlighted those here. Know of others? Send them to me at liz.johnstone@dmagazine.com.
Highest Words With Friends Score Ever?
A friend sent me this screen grab (at right) of what looks to be the most amazing play ever in Words With Friends. I figured it had to be bogus and asked one of the game’s creators, Paul Bettner, about it. His response: “I think it’s ‘real,’ but there’s no way this just happened in the course of a regular game. To my eyes, this definitely required a concerted effort on the part of both players to build the required scaffolding.” Still, though. That’s some solid workmanship.
Alec Baldwin Upsets Greyhound Bus Company After Getting Kicked Off American Airlines
McKinney's own Words With Friends may be the big winner in the free publicity train following Alec Baldwin's removal from an American Airlines flight. The game maker's parent company, Zynga, tweeted out this image.
Tim mentioned on Wednesday that actor Alec Baldwin took to Twitter to complain about having been kicked off an American Airlines flight for playing Words With Friends when he was supposed to turn off his phone. Baldwin soon after deactivated his Twitter account and issued an apology on the Huffington Post, though the apology was to his fellow passengers on the plane, not to the airline.
American took issue with Baldwin’s account of the events and published its own version on its Facebook page, though the company hasn’t filed a Federal Aviation Administration complaint, the Los Angeles Times reports. So Baldwin had upset one North Texas company, and it turns out that his apology managed to irritate another: Dallas-based Greyhound Bus Lines.
Baldwin wrote: ”There are many now who walk the aisles of an airplane with a whistle around their neck and a clipboard in their hands and they have made flying a Greyhound bus experience.”
Greyhound CEO Dave Leach responded in an open letter to Baldwin:
My guess is you’ve never traveled with us, but I ask you to give us a try for a number of reasons and see for yourself that we’re really a great way to travel.
First of all, we have hundreds of new buses in our fleet where we’ve added more legroom, leather seats, power outlets and free Wi-Fi. I think you especially would find the latter two amenities exciting, because we don’t require our customers to turn off their electronic devices…ever. You could therefore play Words With Friends during your entire trip and nobody would give you any grief over it.
Things To Do In Dallas This Weekend: Dec. 9-11
You guys. This week’s winning Art & Seek Flickr picture instantly made me want go play in the Neiman Marcus crawl tubes. The unfortunate thing is that much like the terrible fruity cereal I would only eat out of desperation, this holiday portal of fun is reserved for people much younger than myself. I have been known to shop in the kids section, but hey. No problem. I’ll attach a spy cam to my little cousin and send her in. She’s ten, and delights in two things: borrowing my shoes, and forcing me to stand back-to-back to see how much “almost taller” she is.
Friday
Finally! A show that has nothing to do with Christmas. Theatre 3 opened their production of La Bête yesterday, David Hirson’s tongue-twisting, mildly exhausting foray into the world of iambic pentameter. I’m interested in this for a few reasons, and it’s worth your time to give it a shot even though the reviews haven’t yet come in. Number one, though the writing is remarkable, this play is tricky. The basic plot follows a Molière-esque intellectual who’s forced to allow a buffoon with a penchant for potty humor join his prestigious comedy troupe. Any play with an hour-long monologue that manages to A) rhyme and B) keep the audience entertained gets a thumbs up, but the actor who can pull it off deserves a standing ovation. And that actor is tough to come by.
The other reason I want to see La Bête is because I think I’ve already seen a nigh-unbeatable production of it. The recent Broadway combo of Mark Rylance (his unbelievable performance of the aforementioned monologue was met with stunned silence, and then uproarious applause), David Hyde Pierce, and Joanna Lumley might be impossible to live up to. But I have high hopes.
Comparing Taylor Markeith Smith and Jerry Joseph
In this morning’s Leading Off, Bethany directed your attention to the story of Taylor Markeith Smith, the 22-year-old man who apparently wanted to play high school football again so badly, he pretended he was a teenager and tried to enroll in several different schools. The case immediately reminded me (and a few people who emailed me) of the story of Jerry Joseph in Odessa (known to folks in Florida as Guerdwich Montimere). This summer I wrote about Jerry for GQ, about how he became a basketball star at the high school made famous by Friday Night Lights, until it was discovered he was actually 22.
So far, we don’t know much about the Smith story. But we know enough to make a few comparisons. (more…)
Are the Texas Rangers Now a Second-Place Team?
I was home sick yesterday and slept through most of the day. When I rose from bed late in the afternoon and flipped on the television, I was still in a medicinal haze. Therefore I did not entirely trust my comprehension of the headline I saw written across the screen: “Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson to the Angels.” In what strange new world had I awoken?
While Wilson’s departure from the Rangers was expected, and his choice to join the division rival Angels in particular was almost as expected, the fact that the move became official on the same day that the Los Angeles of Anaheim team signed one of the greatest baseball players of all time to its club led to some extra gnashing of teeth among Rangers fans. But is Texas’ third straight division title less certain today than it seemed on Wednesday?
Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles Times writes that now “the Angels must be considered favorites to win the American League championship.” And Tim Cowlishaw of the Morning News seems as pessimistic as any local writer: ”Winning a third straight division title — something the Rangers have never done — just became a 50-50 proposition.”
The consensus seems to be that the Rangers still have an edge on the Angels, though the gap is much smaller than it was a few days ago. (more…)
Leading Off (12/9/11)
Fine. Go Then. Whatever. Former Ranger CJ Wilson went to the Angels for $77 million. Former Mav Caron Butler left to play for the Clippers. Tyson Chandler is allegedly on his way out, as is JJ Barea. Sigh.
You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid. A man robbed a bank in Lewisville and then spurred on a manhunt and police chase because officials were afraid that he would turn his gun on innocent civilians. Turns out it was a BB gun he was brandishing. The police sketch looked something like this.
Stiff Arm. WFAA’s Ted Madden hates the Heisman Trophy.
Man Poses as High School Student. Taylor Markeith Smith is trying to get on a high school football team, only he’s 22. He claims to be much younger, and so far he’s hit 13 North Texas schools. Nobody’s quite sure what his end objective is.
Sixteen Days. You have a little more than two weeks before Christmas Day. So tell me what you’re listening to in terms of Christmas music. Me? This. And this. And a little bit of this. Yes, I’m a Motown Christmas girl, and an unrepentant one at that. But I’ll always make room for this, too, though.
50 Reasons Why Fort Worth Is Better Than Dallas
I like those guys at Fort Worth, Texas magazine. They’ve got moxie. Here are their reasons why Cowtown is better than Big D. My favorite: “The name of our city magazine is Fort Worth, Texas. So what’s the deal, D? Was it just too hard to print your entire city name? Maybe you originally had another city in mind. Like Decatur. Or Denton. Or maybe you were having problems with spellcheck. In which case, you should be called Dumas.” Snap!
Dallas Is Awesome
Watch this new video produced for the Dallas Citizens Council, and tell me if it doesn’t make you want to strap it on and go put a hat on somebody. Wooo! One hundred and ten percent, baby! We are! Dallas! We are! Dallas! (In all seriousness, I hope 10 percent of the optimism displayed in this video is justified. If so, we’ll do just fine.)
Dallas Citizens Council – 2011 Video Advantage: Dallas from The Wolf Group on Vimeo.
Relive the 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas 2011 Celebration with These Photos
The 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas 2011 (photography by Matthew Shelley)
You might have missed the 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas 2011 party at The Gallery at The Joule last night (or perhaps you were, ahem, not invited), but it’s okay. You can live vicariously through these photos and pretend you were there, mingling with some of the loveliest ladies in town.
If photos don’t deliver an intense enough experience, check out Ron Corning’s recap of the event that aired on WFAA this morning:
Things To Do In Dallas Tonight: Dec. 8
I was a pretty horrendous artist as a kid. The only thing recognizable from my oeuvre were trees and the occasional flower, which is possibly why I find the Monster Engine so fascinating. It’s old, but I just stumbled across it last night. A comic book artist realizes the fantastic work of kids. Clicking through the monsters was such a nice way to start the day.
The NasherSALON with Olive on Pushing Daisies Glinda the Good Witch Kristin Chenoweth is very, very sold out. Sad. No matter. You can listen to “Taylor, The Latte Boy” on your way to the Texas Theatre to see a 35 mm print of Run Lola Run in advance of director Tom Tykwer’s latest feature, 3, released tomorrow. This movie is just awesome. Three scenarios; three ways life could be different if you were faster or slower or somehow changed. Highly recommended, but if you can’t make it tonight, they’ll show Lola all weekend.
Also kicking off tonight is the Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s Winter Series performance, the company’s 35th season opener. It’s very battle of the sexes, with a program that includes Camouflage, an all-male ballet choreographed by Ben Stevenson, artistic director of the Texas Ballet Theater, the DBDT premiere of Vespers, an intense all-female piece choreographed by Ulysses Dove, and Elisa Monte’s Pigs and Fishes. Might I suggest finishing your evening with a season cocktail? Raya rounds up the best over on SideDish. Drinking has never looked so pretty.
For more to do this evening, go here.
Texas Drought Has Led to Record Decline in Cattle
Texas cattle owners lost somewhere around 600,000 animals this year, says this report at Unfair Park. That’s 12 percent of the overall herd, the worst loss since the 1930s. The bad news: the price of beef is going way up, meaning the price of burgers and steaks will also increase significantly. (I guess that’s only bad if you eat meat, which most of us do, and do not stand to profit from such a price increase, which most of us don’t.) The good news: Texas is still America’s leader in beef production.
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