Articles about Entertainment
Play-N-Skillz Et Al. Rock My World With “Dallas Freaks”
WARNING: This video is NOT safe for work.
Now this is how you make Dallas world class. Forget the Arts District and the Large Marge. They won’t do it like this. The musical artists Play-N-Skillz, Dorrough, Too Short, and Bay Bay have collaborated on a song called “Dallas Freaks,” the gist of which is that, in their opinion, Dallas has the best freaks (”freaks” being a term for women that are, let’s say, sexually active). If these gentlemen can get their message out, that will move the needle. If the brass at Boeing had seen this video, no way would they have decided to move to Chicago.
Did I mention that the video is NSFW?
Leading Off (3/5/12)
Sex Charges Be Damned, Preacher Launches New Church: A month ago Rev. Tyrone Gordon resigned from St. Luke Community United Methodist Church after allegations of “engaging in sexual acts and relationships” with young men at the church. Now, Gordon has started up a new church, which met Sunday in the Radisson Hotel in North Dallas. Good luck with that.
Collin, Kaufman Counties Drowning In Hog Blood: Figuratively, of course. That’s because in the three months since the Texas Department of Agriculture launched their “Hog Out Challenge,” 12,632 wild hogs have been killed (sub. req), and it probably looked like this.
What To Do With The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge? Drive On: I spent a lot of my weekend trying to cool off about the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, that profane monument to the extortion of civic will. Because, if you want to talk Trinity River Project, the people of Dallas voted for a public space and a desperately needed recreational resource, yet nearly every amenity associated with that project that could be of real public use has been stifled or squandered, while the projects that are most civically offensive — the toll road and the “world’s most expensive knockoff bridge” — are the recipients of elected officials’ and private donors’ care and attention (did I really hear some squeaky speaker giggling about “our two Margarets’ bridges” during Friday’s opening remarks? Gag.) But I’ve lived in Dallas long enough to know that when it comes to certain aspects of this city, you have to partake in a little self-lobotomization. That’s why, after trying to think happy thoughts all weekend, I’m officially adopting Steve Blow’s position on the bridge (sub, natch), which is, ho-hum, some aspects nice, some not so nice, what’s for dinner?
David Stern Out as NBA Chief in Two Years: Report. Leave your fake Mark Cuban reaction quotes in the comments!
The Real Women Behind GCB: How Highland Park Became the Hillside Park of Good Christian Bitches
The cast of GCB. Will Dallas recognize these characters?
On Sunday, the ABC television network will broadcast the first episode of a new Dallas-set program called GCB. That title was settled upon after the name of the book on which the show is based, Good Christian Bitches, was deemed unacceptable, and after the replacement title, Good Christian Belles, was deemed stupid.
None of this is news to you, of course. You were among the first to buy Kim Gatlin’s novel when it was published in 2008, and you tried to figure out which characters in the book’s “Hillside Park” were thinly veiled facsimiles of which real people in Highland Park. D Magazine made its best guesses in the December 2008 issue. While some of the characters have been altered and others added for the television adaptation, the protagonist remains a woman named Amanda Vaughn (thought by many to be Gatlin’s representation of herself, and played by actress Leslie Bibb.)
In our January print edition, we brought you the story of the battle that ensued between Gatlin and the book’s original publisher, Brown Books. (It’s now a title for Hyperion.)
Will the TV show be any good? Visit FrontRow on Monday, where Laura Kostelny will have a full recap of the premiere.
House District 33 is an Entertaining Place
I’m sure the demographers and politicians who drew the new boundaries of Texas’ Congressional districts were thinking more about race than races, more about gains than games, but it occurs to me that the incumbent-free House District 33 — which former City Councilman Steve Salazar has said he wants to represent — is an entertaining area. From east to west, it includes:
- The Texas Theatre
- The Kessler Theater
- Lone Star Park
- The Verizon Theatre
- Six Flags Over Texas
- Rangers Ballpark
- Cowboys Stadium
- The Fort Worth Stockyards
- Billy Bob’s
Should make for a fun campaign.
Organizers Pump Up Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Bash
Gail Thomas and the head of Victor Considerant
The Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” blasted over the loudspeaker. Channel 8’s Brad Watson interviewed event producer Todd Fiscus of Todd Events. An all-female mariachi band called Mariachi Rosas Divinas performed. And City Manager Mary Suhm was spotted peering over the side (looking for a body, maybe?). It was all part of the scene on Dallas’ newest bridge today when organizers for the upcoming Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge Celebration let people know that this weekend’s really, really big show over the Trinity River will go on, rain or shine (in case of the former, the Friday portion will be moved to Gilley’s).
Think big, as in Lyle Lovett and his Large Band. A street fair, Aztec dancers, special films, a 5K run, fireworks, and much more. (One major caveat: just 6,750 people will be allowed on the bridge at any one time.) The photo shows Gail Thomas, president and CEO of the Trinity Trust, a celebration sponsor, talking about some of what’s planned in front of a giant head depicting Victor Considerant, an explorer who founded the French-speaking La Reunion colony in today’s West Dallas. Victor’s one of the 12-foot-tall puppets that will appear as part of Saturday’s Parade of Giants. The parade’s a highlight of Bridge-o-Rama, a West Dallas Chamber of Commerce bash that will complement the MHHB festivities.
Photo credit: Jeanne Prejean
Leading Off (2/27/12)
Trinity River Project Backers Find New Ally in Sen. Cornyn: No matter who wins Sen. Kay Bay Hutchison’s senate seat, backers of the Trinity River Corridor Project will have Sen. John Cornyn stepping up to take her place as the project’s champion in Congress. Cornyn, clearly not speaking with Jim Schutze in mind, told the Dallas Regional Chamber Friday that “there is a lot we can do with the Corps of Engineers and with the regulatory part of this to help remove obstacles and help expedite the Trinity River Corridor Project.” I hope those “obstacles” don’t include the corps’ general opinion that building a toll road in the river bed is a really dumb idea.
Will Dallas ISD Teachers Follow Through With Sickout? This Wednesday is supposed to be the day when Dallas teachers bang-in sick en masse to protest the school board’s decision to extend the teachers’ workday. But will the educators keep their nerve? On the blog Teachers for Change, the anonymous organizer writes, “I am disappointed in how many of you are giving in to the fear.” It is illegal in Texas for employees to strike or organize work stoppages against school districts.
Animated Short Doesn’t Get Into USA Film Festival, Goes On To Win Oscar: Last night’s Oscar winners included Deep Ellum-based Reel FX’s co-founder (and Traveling Man co-designer) Brandon Oldenburg’s animated short, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.” Curious fact: the Oscar winning short was rejected from the USA Film Festival.
Plan on Watching The Oscars Sunday? Watch Them With FrontRow
This Sunday, the 84th Academy Awards will take place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and to celebrate the movieland version of the Kentucky Derby, we’ll be making predictions, offering up armchair opinions, talking celebrities, sounding off on the red carpet antics, and taking swipes at the official coverage and commentary with a live blog. We may even throw out a few drinking game suggestions. So join us here.
D Magazine’s Most Memorable Intern Applications
Not all interns are created equal.
Over the years, we have had some amazing interns. We’ve also had some pretty amazingly bad intern applications. It’s truly astounding what applicants reveal in answering questions such as “what makes you stand out?,” “give three words that describe you,” and “what are your strengths and weaknesses?” Someone on staff had a great idea to pull some of the most amusing answers and print them in the magazine. (Zac will try to steal the credit for it, even though it wasn’t really his idea. He just tried to enhance the idea, but that didn’t really work out, so it’s actually the original idea, which wasn’t Zac’s. But, again, he’ll tell you it was.)
Read some of the responses below. For historical accuracy and out of respect to the applicants, all creative grammar and spelling were left untouched. And know this: we didn’t make any of these up.
To whom it may concern: My major integrated marketing, advertising and public relations and I am very interested in obtaining a marketing internship at D Magazine. I have attached my résumé and cover letter for your consideration and I have filled out and submitted the online questionairre. Additionally, I believe on the survey question 5, I wrote in Texas Monthly at the end of the paragraph instead of D Magazine. I truly apologize for this error and it does not in any way effect my commitment to obtaining in internship at D Magazine. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you!
If We Don’t Get Large Marge Into TNT’s Dallas Credits, We May Have Wasted $182 Million
Photo by Scot Miller. Look for many more lovely photos of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in the upcoming March issue of D Magazine.
The Dallas Morning News added up the full cost for the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and found that it’s greater than $182 million. That number is higher than earlier estimates of about $117 million. The city’s share seems to have been about $28 million, which is “in the ballpark of earlier estimates,” according to the (paywalled) story today.
Large Marge is about to have her grand opening on March 2. (And West Dallas is hosting its own happenings the same weekend — called Bridge-o-Rama — not part of the official Trinity Trust events.)
A little while back I had breakfast with Lynn McBee, the super-fundraiser and volunteer who was heavily involved in planning the bridge’s opening celebration. She’s most excited about Saturday, March 3, when the Trinity Trust expects 30,000 people to come to the bridge for a street fair.
What does she believe we’re getting for our $182 million?
Big Rich Texas, Season 2: Biggest, Richest People in Dallas Still Spend Most Their Time in Fort Worth
That’s what I learned from reading Merritt Patterson’s recap of the season premiere of the Style Network’s show on FrontRow.
An Apology to My Neighbors Who Have Enjoyed Watching The Dallas Mavs Dancers Practice
Mavs dancers on the left; black shades on the right
I have to publicly apologize to my neighbors. I’ve ruined a really good thing, and I just feel awful about it.
I, along with my husband and dog, used to live in a gorgeous apartment overlooking Main Street. We loved that place. But it didn’t have hardwood floors, or a second bedroom. So we moved up a few floors and took a unit overlooking Elm and Ervay. The first night we moved in, we were greeted by a rather unexpected sight—women dancing in very short shorts and sports bras. That’s when I realized we had mistakenly placed ourselves in the best spot for watching the Mavs dancers practice. My husband was rather pleased by this. I was pleased when I looked out a few nights later and realized that the ManiAACs practice there, too. (Of course, unlike their counterpart, they practice with most of their clothes on.) Anywho, I was so excited by this discovery that I tweeted a blurry photo of the dancers saying, It’s Mavs Dancers Time. A little while later, I got a response from @megateddles (a Mavs dancer) saying, “um terrifying!” I thought that was the end of that.
But it isn’t so. A couple nights ago, I looked out our window to see if there were any dancers practicing. I was met by black shades. Yes, dear neighbors, I was the one who caused the shades that will forever block our view of the wonderful hairography of those skimpily clad Mavs dancers. But, even worse, I have also blocked the view of the XXL t-shirt wearing ManiACCs. And for that, I am forever sorry.
Why Dallas ISD Shouldn’t Have Taken Any Students to See Red Tails For Black History Month
Some of the Tuskegee Airmen in 'Red Tails.'
The Morning News is all over a breaking story that today Dallas ISD took about 5,000 fifth-graders to see the movie Red Tails, about the exploits of the famed Tuskegee Airmen — the first black American combat pilots — during World War II. Reporter Matthew Haag’s blog post is right to ask why only boys were taken to the show. (The DISD spokesman says there was only so much space available at the theater, so the girls were left at school, with principals given the option of showing them Akeelah and the Bee.)
I am less concerned with the differing treatment of the genders in this situation than I am with the fact that any kids at all were taken, by our public school system, to see Red Tails. I gave it a so-so, better-than-a-kick-to-the-teeth review on FrontRow. The movie’s not very good. More importantly, it’s not a history lesson. It’s more like propaganda.
Even For $600,000, Top Chef: Texas Can’t Tell the Difference Between Dallas and San Antonio
Dallas, not San Antonio.
Bravo’s Top Chef, you may have heard, has set its current season in Texas — namely rotating between the cities of San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin. This is a departure from previous seasons which were each centered on a single city: San Francisco, Las Vegas, and New York among them.
The excuse for the change of pace is that Texas is just “too big” to have its season confined to one spot, but in reality the state tourism office paid Top Chef’s production company $600,000 to feature San Antonio plus two other Texas cities. That money, however, didn’t teach Bravo how to differentiate between these locations.
See Raya Ramsey Talk About D Magazine Valentine’s Picks While Seated Next to Lingerie
As noted previously, ShopTalk’s Raya Ramsey was on the telly early this morning.
WFAA Daybreak host Ron Corning got too caught up in his personal anecdote about the blue cheese chocolate at Dude, Sweet Chocolate and ran out of time to ask Raya about where she got the lingerie that she’s seated next to during the segment (much to Uncle Barky’s delight).
Don’t worry: Raya will explain more about the “sassy” undergarments a little later on ShopTalk.
You can find all our Dallas Valentine’s recommendations here.
Randy Travis: Common Bat or Buffy Vampire?
Randy Travis is the guy in the middle, in case you didn't know.
Reuse Jeans sent out an email today to share pictures from the Jan. 21 grand opening of its new store at the Shops at Park Lane. In the email, they were sure to note how grateful they were that country singer Randy Travis had been able to stop by (see photo above.)
This new photo, and Mr. Travis’ recent Denton County Sheriff’s Department mugshot, have sparked an intra-office disagreement.
Settle the argument: Does he look more like a vampire bat or a vampire from the TV shows Buffy and Angel?
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