Randy Travis' mug

Denton County Sheriff’s Department arrested country singer Randy Travis at 1:30 a.m. today and released him later in the morning.

The Denton Record Chronicle reports that Travis was found in his car intoxicated with an open bottle of wine outside First Baptist Church of Sanger. He owns a ranch not too far away in Tioga.

The Morning News version notes Travis’ recent problems, how he had to walk offstage during a performance last year.  But they make no mention of his having stolen his dentist’s wife.

*Yes, it’s behind a paywall. The takeaway is Eminem is a Cowboys fan and he’s frustrated.

This is sort of charming, and relevant to Dallas because Ben, who’s from Greenville, got his start here and used to call me at the Observer and leave, like, seven minute voicemail messages wherein he’d basically narrate what he was doing. Like, “It’s pretty hot, I think I’m going to put on some shorts” and “I think I’m going to make a sandwich” and so on.

Friday

I’ll start by noting that if you still want to go to the game out in Arlington that’s not really the Cotton Bowl, there are tickets available online. And if you’re a fan of Anderson Cooper’s favorite “comedian,” she’s in town too.

Those who prefer a higher brow evening should hit the First Friday at the Modern in Fort Worth. I know, I know, it’s such a long drive to get to Cowtown, but where else are you going to be able to enjoy cocktails, dinner, jazz by the group Outer Circles, a docent-led tour of the museum galleries, plus a movie about the Shakespeare of Germany, Young Goethe in Love?  Yep, nowhere else.

Saturday

Your last chance to see the Dallas Symphony Orchestra perform Philip Glass’ American Four Seasons and pieces by Mikhail Glinka and Tchaikovsky is on Saturday night. The DSO needs, and deserves, your support.

If you’re not musically inclined, WaterTower Theatre is opening its production of The Diary of Anne Frank this weekend. That’s a story I hope never to see as a musical.

Sunday

There are great options for entertaining the small people who may live in your home as well. I’d drag my kids (if I had any) to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History to see the exhibit on George Washington. Last year I read Joseph Ellis’ biography of our first president, His Excellency, George Washington, and finished the book with a much greater esteem for the man than I’d ever had before. He ranks as one of our more underrated presidents, not like that weasel Jefferson.

But if you give your children the option of visiting animatronic dinosaurs at the Heard Museum in McKinney instead, then I wouldn’t expect them to be begging you at the end of the day for a visit to Mount Vernon.

Other things to do in Dallas this weekend here.

Fabolous: One thing they gotta fix is that if someone be taking days to make they move, you should be able to resign motherf—ers. Like, they be taking days to make a move.

Big Boi: Yeah.

Fabolous: And the other thing is that the kid in the studio, when we was playing in the board game, like, you can’t just be trying s—. Like, just plugging in words and letters. I think you should get like three, four tries and that’s it.

I agree 100 percent, by the way. I’ve wanted to be able to resign motherf—ers forever.

They were among the 400-plus guests at Cowboys Stadium for today’s Gentlemen’s Luncheon, an annual holiday party hosted by Dallas businessmen Barry Andrews and Alan White. As usual, the luncheon was a gathering of DFW’s sports and business power elite: Jones and Summerall and Moose and Emmitt; Washburne and Huffines and Francis and Simmons  — the Al Biernat crowd (Al was there, too). Also as usual, the entertainment (by C&W singer Lee Greenwood) focused on Christmas songs, then sent everyone home with a big, patriotic (God Bless the USA) bang.

photography by Bode Helm

Whether you’re a fan of music or our 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas competition, Thursday night is a good night to celebrate at the Warwick Melrose Hotel which is raising a toast to 10 Most Beautiful Winner (and former D cover model) Aubree-Anna Stinson, who graces Library Bar attendees with her smooth vocals every week. Tickets are being sold for $25 a piece which will include “heavy appetizers and a champagne toast,” and, of course, a live performance by Aubree-Anna. For tickets to the “Celebration Party,”  call 972-841-5864. Apparently, tickets are going quickly. Thursday, December 15 at 7 pm.

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)

Champagne lady

Every freaking day they wake up demanding to be fed again. And then, more likely than not, refusing to eat the meal you’ve prepared. Every day. There is no cycle, much less a break from the cycle. There is only the grind. I feel like I’m tour managing an endless tour with a band comprised of subliterate narcissists.