You are in: Travel | North Central Texas | Dallas | Stories
Dallas
Stories about Dallas
Five New Albums You Shouldn't Miss
Including new sets from Alejandro Escovedo, Rhett Miller, and more.
The Drop Everything List
The Homegrown Music and Arts Festival, Jimmie Vaughan, and the South Texas Heritage Center . . .
Texas Gets Prehistoric With Two New Fossil Halls
After years of exporting prized dinosaur fossils to some of the world’s best museums, the state will be getting two huge exhibit halls, in Dallas and Houston.
The Drop Everything List
The Round Dance Halls of Texas, Kristin Chenoweth, and the Bathing Beauties Contest . . .
Return to Southfork
The new Dallas smartly pretends the nineties never happened.
Laura Wilson's Studio
Laura Wilson's Studio
New + Noteworthy
The Scales of Injustice
Trials and Errors
Over the past two decades Texas has exonerated more than eighty wrongfully convicted prisoners. How does this happen? Can anything be done to stop it? We assembled a group of experts (a police chief, a state senator, a judge, a prosecutor, a district attorney, and an exoneree) to find out.
Larry Hagman’s Curtain Call
As the man known to the world as J. R. Ewing fends off throat cancer, he gears up to reprise the role that turned him into an icon and looks back on one of the most extraordinary—and eccentric—lives in show business.
The Drop Everything List
The Lone Star Jam, meeting Phil Collins, and the Houston Art Car Parade . . .
Ben Fountain Undoes Dallas
Decades after he started writing, the acclaimed author is publishing his first novel. And some of his neighbors may not be happy.
The Drop Everything List
The Chicken Fried Steak Festival, George Clooney, and a Tribute to Roy Rogers . . .
Dallas's Design District
This once-industrial enclave has been reborn as the city's trendiest new spot. Here's a guide to the area's acclaimed restaurants, chic stores, and daring art galleries.
The Drop Everything List
Roasting an Entire Steer, Fiddlers' Frolics, and the Moontower Comedy and Oddity Fest . . .
Like a Writer
Bizarre similes pour forth from a Dallas debut novelist’s fingers like wine from a bottomless bottle that is also missing its cork.
A Killer Role
Matthew McConaughey keeps his shirt on. For a while.
Dear Jane
My mother-in-law knew how to sew, keep an immaculate house, and dress stylishly. In short, she was nothing like the unpolished young woman who married her son. Perhaps that’s why we loved each other so much.
The Drop Everything List
The Sulphur Creek Iron Chef Cook's Challenge, Spoon, the Aurora Picture Show, and Battle on the Bernard. . .
Justice in Time
Fifteen years after being released from death row, Kerry Max Cook is still looking for freedom.
The Drop Everything List
The Memorial Hermann Ironman 70.3 Texas triathlon, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and the Avocado Takedown . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Art of Recycling, an interview with Darrell K Royal, Texas Onion Fest, and the LBJ 100 Bicycle Tour . . .
A Q&A With Bryan Curtis
The special correspondent on talking to former-football-star-turned-politician Craig James, understanding the “Real Street” rhetoric, and making predictions about sports.
Becoming a Pro Soccer Player
Brek Shea on scoring goals, getting free cleats, and doing the faux-hawk.
The World at Her Feet
Twenty-year-old Jane Aldridge draws 400,000 readers to her style blog each month, has appeared in Vanity Fair, and once attended a private dinner with Karl Lagerfeld. The secret to her success? That she won’t leave Dallas behind.
Hail Mary
Craig James—former star football player, onetime ESPN commentator, eternal antagonist of Texas Tech fans everywhere—is polling at about 4 percent in this year's Senate race. Does he really want your vote? Or just your sympathy?
The Drop Everything List
The Texas Music Roadtrip Exhibition in Austin, Ryan Bingham, Jeb Bush, and St. Patrick's Day Celebrations in Shamrock . . .
Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, Dallas
Notable Openings and Closings
What you need to know about dining in Texas this week.
9 Texas Bands That Could Make an Impact at SXSW
Though South by Southwest is bringing big names like Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z this year, here are picks from showcasing Texans, from the obvious to the relatively obscure.
Notable Openings and Closings
What you need to know about dining in Texas this week.
See Jane Shop
One of the nation’s top style bloggers on where she likes to go in Texas to get her goods.
Get Cooking
Recipes from the ten top restaurants in Texas.
The Drop Everything List
The Zilker Park Kite Festival in Austin, Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen, Bill Maher, and an Art of the American Twenties exhibit in Dallas . . .
Notable Openings and Closings
What you need to know about dining in Texas this week.
The Drop Everything List
The Livestock Show and Rodeo in Houston, dancing to Nina Simone, a forum with chef Alice Waters, and a Texas Cowboy Poetry gathering in Alpine . . .
Notable Openings and Closings
What you need to know about dining in Texas this week.
The Drop Everything List
Ruthie Foster in Houston, Don Hertzfeldt's short films, the Texas Yoga Conference, and National Anthem Auditions in Grand Praire . . .
Texas Food Lovers
Twenty chefs and restaurants make the James Beard semifinals.
New + Noteworthy
Plane Management
Where to Eat Now 2012
White tablecloths. Street food. Small portions. Lots and lots of innards. The only thing the ten best new Texas restaurants have in common is a willingness to prove that there is no such thing as a “Texas restaurant.” But when the escargots with fennel purée are this good, who cares?
Luv and War at 30,000 Feet
Somehow, as every other major airline went bankrupt, slashed its workforce, or grounded planes, Southwest Airlines kept flying high. Today, Southwest is the country’s largest domestic carrier. So how does a feisty underdog vanquish its competitors and dominate a thoroughly beleaguered industry? One Kick Tail-a-Gram at a time.
Notable Openings and Closings
What you need to know about dining in Texas this week.
The Drop Everything List
Mardi Gras in Port Arthur, the watercolors of Charles Russell, the Winedale Quilt Show, and the couture of Jean Paul Gaultier in Dallas . . .
Notable Openings and Closings
What you need to know about dining in Texas this week.
A Cook’s Tour
A slide show of scenes from the ten restaurants you should be eating at right now.
A Q&A With Patricia Sharpe
The senior editor on beer gardens, communal dining, and escargots.
A Q&A With S.C. Gwynne
The senior editor on understanding Southwest Airline’s culture, hearing jokes about plane crashes from a flight attendant, and making a business story interesting to the average reader.
The Drop Everything List
LeAnn Rimes in Fort Worth, the Animal Architecture Awards, the first big Andy Warhol exhibition in Texas, and Johnny Winter in Dallas . . .
The Drop Everything List
Erykah Badu and the Cannabinoids, Four Funny Females, Clint Black, and Amtrak's Fortieth Anniversary . . .
The Drop Everything List
Spindletop turns 100, Shawn Colvin performs with Lyle Lovett, the MLK, Jr. Symposium, and a Rick Riordan exhibition at the Witliff Collections . . .
The Drop Everything List
Ruby Jane Smith, Return of the Herd of Harpsichords, Sarah Jarosz, and the Texas A&M Singing Cadets . . .
Trite and True
We have met the enemy, and they are Good Christian Bitches.
Contributors
Wyatt McSpadden, John Phillip Santos, Skip Hollandsworth
The Drop Everything List
Willie Nelson and Friends, Cowgirl Round-up and Showdeo, Black Eyed Pea and Cornbread Cookoff, and a New Year's Eve show in Emo's new digs . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Mavs vs. the Heat, Lavelle White in Austin, RG3 takes on the Alamo Bowl, and Hayes Carll plays the John T. Floore Country Store . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Polyphonic Spree, Breakfast with the Cranes, YouTube tournament, and O. Henry's Gifts of the Magi . . .
New + Noteworthy
Campo
Dallas
This Is a Robbery
Were Bonnie and Clyde just a couple of crazy kids?
Being a Navy SEAL Sniper
Chris Kyle on using his first gun to shoot birds and squirrels, wondering if he would be able to kill someone, and feeling like a secret agent.
Offering Fine Advice Since 2007
Watching the Super Bowl on the sly, meeting the Hill Country neighbors, sharing a bed with man and dog, and smoking grapevine.
The 2012 Bum Steer Awards
It was a year of avaricious Astros fans, brainless bank robbers, competence-free comptrollers, discourteous doctors, enraged exes, frisky Frisco-ites, greedy gram-toting grandmothers, hotheaded hand surgeons, ill-informed idiots, jammed-full Jaguars, knife-krazy Kimbroughs, lambasted Lufkinites, mean-spirited magazine articles, nervy narcotics users, obtuse O’Neals, profane pilots, quazy Quaids, romantically rejected receivers, surveilling Scientologists, tumescent team mascots, unprivate urinators, value-subtracted vouchers, wind-challenged windows, x-foliated x-hibitionists, yobbish YouTubers, and zealous Zanes.
Need Some Gift Ideas?
We got you covered. Representatives from three independent record stores in Texas recommend recent releases from local artists to give as gifts to music fans.
The Drop Everything List
Tamales! Holiday Festival, the Nutcracker, Holiday Wine Trail, and the Charlie Daniels Band . . .
The Drop Everything List
Tamales! Holiday Festival, the Nutcracker, Holiday Wine Trail, and the Charlie Daniels Band . . .
The Drop Everything List
Kinky Friedman's Hanukkah Tour, Mariachi Mass, Renegade Craft Fair, and Jamie Foxx . . .
A Dallas Church Preserves Robert Johnson's Legacy
First Presbyterian Church's plan to renovate 508 Park Ave., the building where the legendary bluesman recorded almost half of his famous discography, has music lovers and historians cheering.
The Drop Everything List
Brittney Griner, East Austin Studio Tour, the Trains at NorthPark, and the World Gaming Championship . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Big Sing, the Texas Conference for Women, Billy Joe Shaver, and Wurstfest in New Braunfels . . .
New + Noteworthy
Velvet Taco
Dallas
The Keys to My Heart
For decades, I had an on-again, off-again love affair with the piano. Today, my ardor is once more in bloom—to the envy of even my husband.
Father Knows West
Is it time to revisit Larry McMurtry’s Berrybender Narratives?
Liza Richardson
The disc jockey and music producer on hanging out in Deep Ellum, working on the TV show Friday Nights Lights, and keeping up with Texas music.
Eddie “Lucky” Campbell, 34
Meet the bartender.
Rocky Ascent
Dusty Hill's older brother, Rocky Hill, has been called the "best guitarist you've never heard of," but the recent release of Texas Guitar Legend aims to change that.
The Drop Everything List
Jimmie Vaughan returns to Oak Cliff, UFOs in Laredo, the Cinema Arts Festival, and Stephen King on the JFK Assassination . . .
An Update to the Mary Eula Sears Case
The convicted killer of a prominent Abilene resident is set to be released.
Cowboys 52, Texans 10
After ten seasons as a major NFL franchise, the Houston Texans are picking up some fans, but the blood of Texas still pumps Cowboy blue.
The Drop Everything List
The World Series, ZZ Top, Costume Art Ball, and the Texas Mushroom Festival . . .
New + Noteworthy
Contributors
Annette Gordon-Reed, Jason Sheeler, and Dagoberto Gilb
His Big Year
Is Owen Wilson finally turning into—gasp!—a serious actor?
Jaap van Zweden’s Piano
Anthony Fiorillo, 53
Paleontologist
Give Me Shelter
Dallas’s ritzy Park Cities is the sort of place where Jerry Jones Jr. can buy a four-story castle with twelve bathrooms and a nine-car underground garage for a reported $8.7 million and some people regard it as a steal. Welcome to the fabulous world of Erin Mathews, the very discreet real estate agent to the very, very rich.
The Drop Everything List
Dolly Parton, 85 years at the Witte Museum, Red River Rivalry, and the Texas Rose Festival . . .
Peter Gent, 1942-2011
The author and former Cowboys wide receiver died in his hometown of Bangor, Michigan on Friday at the age of 69. Our coverage of "North Dallas Forty" (both the novel and the movie) through the years.
The Drop Everything List
Roky Erickson, the Orchid Festival, Texas Literary Life with Sarah Bird and Stephen Harrigan, and SXSW Eco . . .
Contributors
Prudence Mackintosh, Brian Johnson, and Justin Clemons
The Drop Everything List
The Gourds, the Supreme Extreme Mustang Makeover, Okkervil River, and Fantastic Fest
The Drop Everything List
Gary Clark Jr., Uncensored at the Harry Ransom Center, Texans v. Colts, and the official Texas Pecan Festival . . .
Opening Days
A round-up of impressive art exhibitions.
For Real, Y’all
What does a rash of new reality TV tell us about the Metroplex?
The Art Lover’s Companion
More than sixty art insiders gave us their list of favorite works of art to see in Texas. So grab your notepad, sketchbook, or iPad and take the ultimate tour of must-see art in Texas.
Texas Treasures
My journey in early Texas art began while I was a student at Southern Methodist University, where I studied Frank Reaugh pastels and met Jerry Bywaters. After 24 years at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, curating exhibitions and traveling the state, I’ve come up with a list of greatest hits.
Texas Treasures
My journey in early Texas art began while I was a student at Southern Methodist University, where I studied Frank Reaugh pastels and met Jerry Bywaters. After 24 years at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, curating exhibitions and traveling the state, I’ve come up with a list of greatest hits.
Offering Fine Advice Since 2007
Straight From the Art
From the Menil in Houston to the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas museums are home to some of the greatest paintings and sculptures in the world. But what are the best within our borders? Come along on a guided tour of the ten works of art you must see before you die.
Drama King
Less than two years after moving into the Wyly Theatre, the Dallas Theater Center has become the state’s drama darling. Is it the final curtain on the Alley Theatre’s time at the top?
The Drop Everything List
Steve Martin, the Taylor International Barbecue Cook-off, Emilio Navaira, and the "Whole World Was Watching exhibit" . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Buck Owens Memorial Birthday Bash, Texas Sommelier Conference, Stevie Nicks, and the Lavender and Wine Fest . . .
Big D-Vide
Another South Dallas politician is under investigation for corruption. Why can’t the city seem to change its script?
The Drop Everything List
Asleep at the Wheel, Texas Olive Oil, Alejandro Escovedo, Plaza Classic Film Festival, Juan Williams, and Dandee Danao's take on Smurfs . . .
Strange Mercy
The Drop Everything List
Texas High School Football, Chingo Bling, Houston Restaurant Weeks, Iron and Wine, Kueckelhan Rodeo, and the Legends of Kung Fu . . .
The Drop Everything List
All-American Burger Festival, Urban Cowboy Musical, Offshore Fishing, Bill Callahan, Christmas in July and Seven-on-seven football . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Cow Parade, Gorilla vs. Bear Festival, WBNA All-Star Game, National Day of the American Cowboy, and the Summer Balloon Classic & Airfest. . .
Benny and the Boys
The Drop Everything List
Little Joe's Picnic, Fireworks on the Brazos, Steve Earle, Star-Spangled Spectacular, Dock Dogs and Josiah Media Fest . . .
Designated Rivalry
Should the Astros join the Rangers in the American League West?
A Q&A With Michael Ennis
The writer-at-large on the development of West Dallas, Big D’s need for an urban middle class, and what a standout twenty-first-century city looks like.
The Drop Everything List
Richard Linklater, the Watermelon Thump, Audie Murphy Day, and the Star Wars Exhibit . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Texas Folklife Festival, Dr Pepper’s 120th Birthday Celebration, the Republic of Texas Biker Rally, and the Texas Water Safari . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Dallas Mavericks, the One Old Sorehead & One Nice Guy Vintage & Antique Tool Sale, Texas, and the Free Press Summer Fest . . .
A Q&A With Courtney Bond
The associate editor on classic margaritas, tequila, and writing about food and spirits.
Offering Fine Advice Since 2007
Spousal adjustments, fly abatement, soccer parenting, and the truth about creased jeans.
Marquee Grill and Bar
Dallas
T. Boone Pickens’s Office Cabinet
T. Boone Pickens’s office cabinet.
The Margarita Variations
On the rocks or frozen? Salt or no salt? And what tequila is best? So many questions, but these four recipes make it easy for you to shake up the best margaritas around.
The Drop Everything List
Erykah Badu, Ant Farm, the Watermelon Festival, and the National Polka Festival . . .
The Drop Everything List
Pachanga Fest, the Real Ale Ride, the Kerrville Folk Festival, and Bay Day. . .
The Drop Everything List
The Golden Arm Trio, Texas Bound, the Tejano Conjunto Festival, and the 24-Hour Video Race . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Texas Beer Fest, Lucinda Williams and Erika Wennerstrom, the Battle of Port Jefferson, and Railfest . . .
The Drop Everything List
Arcade Fire, the Texas State Surfing Championships, the Wings Over the Hills Nature Festival, and the Wiener Dog Races . . .
New + Noteworthy
Pondicheri, Houston, Malai Thai-Vietnamese Kitchen, Dallas
Extreme Makeover
Is Mark Cuban our next charming reality star?
No Country for Bad Movies
Once and for all: What are the ten best Texas films of all time?
The Drop Everything List
The Big Bend Open Road Race, Larry Joe Taylor’s Texas Music Festival & Chili Cook-off, Itzhak Perlman, and the Buc Days Carnival . . .
The Drop Everything List
Buffalo Gap Wine & Food Summit, George Saunders, the Old Settler’s Music Festival, and the Main Street Fort Worth Arts Festival . . .
Royal Chef
Dallas chef Darren McGrady on cooking for Princess Diana and her family, selecting the royal wedding menu, and making Prince William's favorite thing to eat.
Alma
Dallas
To Have and to Hold
Can the T.D. Jakes brand go mainstream—and live to tell the tale?
The Drop Everything List
The Texas Tornados, the Festival of Ideas, Becoming Kinky: The World According to Kinky Friedman, and the Texas Pinball Festival . . .
The Drop Everything List
SXSW Style X, the Tolbert Texas State Chili Championship, Bayou City Noir, and the Texas Ghost Show . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Drop Everything List
The San Antonio Living History Association, the Texas Ballet Theater, Dai Due, and SXSW . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Rothko Chapel, the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Mardi Gras! Galveston, and the North Texas Farm Toy Show . . .
The Drop Everything List
The Rothko Chapel, the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Mardi Gras! Galveston, and the North Texas Farm Toy Show . . .
The Drop Everything List
Robert Duvall, the Steve Miller Band, the Whooping Crane Festival, and “The Thrill of the Chase” . . .
1–25
From dinosaurs roaming the Paluxy in Glen Rose to Lance Armstrong joining his first cycling team in Richardson
1–25
From dinosaurs roaming the Paluxy in Glen Rose to Lance Armstrong joining his first cycling team in Richardson
The Drop Everything List
Blaze Foley, the Black Architecture Project, the Ennis Czech Music Festival, and Willie Nelson . . .
The Drop Everything List
Texas vs. the Nation, the South Padre Island Kite Fest, Barbara Smith Conrad, and Eagle Fest . . .
Edie Brickell
Dean Fearing’s Closet
Dean Fearing’s boot collection.
The Drop Everything List
Rodney Crowell, Zestfest, the NFL Experience, and the United Nations Film Festival . . .
The Drop Everything List
Rodney Crowell, Zestfest, the NFL Experience, and the United Nations Film Festival . . .
The Drop Everything List
Pinetop Perkins, Red Hot Patriot, Fredericksburg Wine Road 290, and the Dallas Burlesque Festival . . .
The Drop Everything List
Shearwater, the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture, the Texas Citrus Fiesta, and the Monster Truck Thunder Slam . . .
Where to Eat Now 2011
Jalapeño sausage–stuffed quail, lemon-pepper-marinated fried chicken: The trend for most of the best new restaurants last year was comfort food with pizzazz. But then along came Uchiko to wow us with its mouthwatering take on Japanese fusion. Who says you can’t buck a trend?
New and Noteworthy
Whiskey Cake Kitchen and Bar, Dallas and Olmos Park Bistro, San Antonio
Lucia
Dallas
Paint by Numbers
How Jerry Jones made Cowboys Stadium into one of the state’s best art galleries. Seriously!
Chow Hound
Read a Q&A with Patricia Sharpe.
Monahans
Mary Anne Reed, 66
Marriage Counselor
The Drop Everything List
The Intergalactic Nemesis, the Cotton Bowl, the Magnificent Seven Ice Sculpting Competition, and the Ted Roddy Elvis Show . . .
The Drop Everything List
Flaco Jimenez, Gloworama, Jimmie Vaughan, and the South Padre Island Polar Bear Dip.
The Drop Everything List
The Mesquite Championship Rodeo, Hayes Carll, Belle Starre Carriages, and Christmas in the Vineyard at Flat Creek Estate.
The Drop Everything List
Beating a Dead Horse
Nearly 25 years after SMU received the death penalty, the Mustangs are finally on the trail to success. But an ESPN documentary reminds us how far the team had fallen thanks to ego, greed, and the religion of football.
Steer Pressure
The Drop Everything List
The Dallas Museum of Art, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis, Dickens on the Strand, and the Harbor Lights Festival . . .
Rich Man, Poor Man
The tragic culture clash that led to the murder of a governor’s son.
The 2011 Bum Steer Awards
It was a year of appalling analogies, bare-naked Badu, collapsing Cowboys, dim-witted Daughters of the Republic of Texas, egregious Ethics Commission, felonious fishermen (not to mention frisky firefighters), G-rated (not) guards, hilarious headlines, imperial incumbents, jackass judges (as always!), klutzy kat rescuers, legendarily lame and losing Longhorns, mind-boggling menus, noncompliant Nugent, outré overtimers, pajama-clad politicians, queso quarrels, rude representatives, scuffling strippers, toilet paper–free Texas A&M, unacceptable uniformed urination, vent-escaping vipers, woefully wrongheaded wide receivers, X-asperated Xanax-heads, yuk-yuk yeggs, and zealous Z-cups.
The Drop Everything List
Jeff Dunham, the “It Gets Better” Film Festival, the Mavs vs. the Spurs, and the South Texas Institute of the Arts . . .
George W. Bush Interview With Mark K. Updegrove (Audio)
October 26, 2010, Dallas
The Drop Everything List
The Border Art Biennial, the Hot Rod Revolution, JFK, and Via Colori . . .
The Time of Mex-Tex
Scenes from the fifty best Mexican restaurants in Texas, from Fonda San Miguel, in Austin, to El Meson de San Agustin, in Laredo.
The Drop Everything List
Ornette Coleman, the Great American Peanut Butter Festival, Tommy Tune, and the 15th World Championship Ranch Rodeo . . .
Guys in the White Hats
If these seven chefs have their way, Mexican food in Texas will never be the same.
The Yellow Cheese Hall of Fame
Mex-Mex has the purist vote wrapped up, but these Tex-Mex bastions win hands down when it comes to comfort food and customer loyalty.
Former’s Almanac
What Bush could learn from Nixon, Carter, and Clinton.
The Soul of a Man
For nearly sixty years, a succession of obsessed blues and gospel fans have trekked across Texas, trying to unearth the story of one of the greatest, and most mysterious, musicians of the twentieth century. But the more they find, the less they seem to know.
Bush 2.0
Two years after leaving office under a cloud of controversy, with a historically low approval rating, George W. Bush is reentering the spotlight and, with the groundbreaking of his library, launching his post-presidency. The question is, What will he do now?
Let’s Have Mex-Tex
Where’s the best place to get a perfect plate of enchiladas? A chile relleno to die for? A salsa you’ll never forget? Come along on our tour of the fifty greatest Mexican restaurants in Texas, from Hugo’s, in Houston, to Tacos Santa Cecilia, in El Paso. This is not your father’s Tex-Mex.
Don’t Mess With Exes
George W. Bush Interview With Mark K. Updegrove (Transcript)
October 26, 2010, Dallas
New and Noteworthy
Fuego, at Stephan Pyles, Dallas and House Wine, McAllen
Three-CD Collection
The Drop Everything List
The Fun Fun Fun Fest, the Terlingua International Chili Championship, Stephan Pyles, and Asleep at the Wheel . . .
The Drop Everything List
Wurstfest, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Houston Rockets, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra . . .
Justice Is Served
Listen to senior editor Pamela Colloff discuss the release of Anthony Graves with KRLD's Mitch Carr and Scott Braddock.
In Our Backyard
The faces—and voices—of eighteen Texans who are living the debate.
The Immigration Dinner Party
We invited four lawmakers who disagree vehemently on the subject and a couple of experts to keep things friendly. Pull up a chair for a round of table talk you won’t soon forget.
Contributors
Van Ditthavong, David Dorado Romo, and John Phillip Santos
Snap Decisions
Your unofficial playbook for watching college football in Texas during the weekend of October 9.
Symbolyc One
Pros and Cons
The best TV show you’ll never see.
Snap Decisions
Your unofficial playbook for watching college football in Texas this weekend.
Wouldn't You Like to Be a Pepper Too?
For your viewing pleasure: vintage Dr Pepper commercials from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image. Produced in Dallas, these sixties ads feature American Bandstand’s Dick Clark and the Dallas Cowboys’ Don Meredith. Films contributed by Daniel Redd and Bert Rodriguez. See more commercials at texasarchive.org.
The Grand Theatre: Volume One
This Time It’s Personal
Can Steve Austin wrestle his acting career into submission?
Offering Fine Advice Since 2007
School yard bullying, game-day taunts, gambling etiquette, and children who dislike bones in their meat.
Smokin’
Can your backyard brisket taste as good as the meat you’d get at your favorite barbecue joint? Bill Karau, a native of Pittsburg, thinks so. There’s only one catch—you’ve got to use one of his pits.
New and Noteworthy
Brownstone Restaurant and Lounge, Fort Worth and The Meddlesome Moth, Dallas.
I Believe I Can Fry
How a mild-mannered database analyst from Dallas became the undisputed king of extreme competitive deep-frying in Texas—which is to say, the world.
Who’s That Girl?
Who are Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato?
This Is Series Business
The trouble with Texas TV shows.
Where They're From
A memorable hour-long radio special based on the June issue of TEXAS MONTHLY, a co-production with KUT 90.5 FM.
Old Testament
I had never thought about my identity as both a Jew and a Texan until my grandparents told me their stories about growing up in South Dallas in the forties.
Erykah Badu
Dallas
The Big D
How a German Basketballer of the Year became the pride of the Dallas Mavericks.
Mr. Bridge
He’s the greatest player in the world—maybe the greatest player ever— of a card game that fewer and fewer people know how to play. But Bob Hamman doesn’t care. He’s too busy probing my mind.
Thanks
Exxon’s generosity.
Three Hot Texas Stocks
Three hot e-commerce stocks.
Cat & Mouse With Tom & Jerry
How much do Tom Hicks and Jerry Jones pay themselves for the privilege of owning the Dallas Stars, the Texas Rangers, and the Dallas Cowboys? That and more in a revealing joint interview.
Herb’s Flight Plan
For 28 years Herb Kelleher has run Southwest Airlines as a low-cost, short-haul carrier that’s fun to fly on and even more fun to work for. But there could be changes on the horizon.
Texas Sound Bites
Twelve garage rock songs you must hear before you die.
The Texanist
The trouble with black beans, an unnatural attachment to Texas license plates, the perils of striking up a conversation in the restroom, and the discomfort of two men riding together on the same Harley.
Texas Nuggets
The secret history of garage rock in the Lone Star State.
Three Chords and A Station Wagon
In the years before anyone had heard of Woodstock or Altamont, teenagers across Texas started bands in their parents’ garages, banging out earnest rock songs on cheap equipment and hoping to hit it big at the local skating rink or VFW post. For some, those dreams won’t fade away.
Alex Jones Is About To Explode
Does the country’s most popular conspiracy talk radio host really believe that 9/11 was an inside job? That global warming is a plot cooked up by the World Bank? That an elite cabal wants to kill most of the people on the planet (including you)? Two million listeners think so—and they’re hanging on his every word.
The Bucket List
Driving the River Road, in far West Texas; having a drink at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, in Dallas; fishing for bass in Caddo Lake; eating a chicken-fried steak in Strawn; searching for a lightning whelk along the coast; and 58 other things that all Texans must do before they die.
Good Eats
A slide show of images featuring our state’s top ten restaurants, from Il Sogno, in San Antonio, to RDG + Bar Annie, in Houston, to Samar by Stephan Pyles, in Dallas.
Where to Eat Now 2010
You had to be brave to open a restaurant last year. Or you had to be a genius. Or, like Robert Del Grande, whose revamped Houston eatery tops our list of the ten best gastronomical debuts of 2009, you had to be both.
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Big D & the Women
Reality (TV) bites Dallas women.
Louis, Louis
The CEO of Louis Vuitton’s North American division talks about the new store at NorthPark, Marc Jacobs, and knockoffs.
Tomorrow People
Blake Mycoskie, the founder of Shoes for Tomorrow (TOMS), talks about traveling around the world, shoe drops, and expanding the business.
Gift Giving
Ginger Reeder on gift giving.
People We’ll Miss—2009
A fond look back at 22 Texans who died in 2009, from Farrah Fawcett and Walter Cronkite to Brandon Lara and Joe Bowman.
The Art of Getting Groomed
The opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center was three nights of award-worthy performances, champagne, and, of course, ambitious frocks.
The Champs
How mixed martial arts went from what one senator called “human cockfighting” to an event that draws record crowds and millions of pay-per-view buyers.
Gone to New York
Bud Shrake’s letters to friends back in Texas during his years in New York show the late novelist in all his ribald, freewheeling glory. And never more alive.
Dove Hunting
How to dove hunt.
The Judgment of Sharon Keller
Her decision to close the door on a death row inmate’s final plea has earned the state’s top criminal judge lasting infamy and a misconduct investigation that goes to trial this month. But was she wrong?
The 50 Greatest Hamburgers In Texas
On our first-ever quest for the state’s best burgers, we covered more than 12,000 miles, ate at more than 250 restaurants, and gained, collectively, more than 40 pounds. Our dauntless determination (and fearless fat intake) was rewarded with a list of 50 transcendent burgers—and you’ll never guess which one ended up on top. Check out our Best Burger section.
Being a Multimedia Journalist
The CNN contributor and syndicated columnist talks about the future of media.
Cool Cocktails
A few of the state’s best mixologists share their secrets to making delicious drinks.
That’s the Spirit
Not that you’re looking for an excuse, but these five original cocktails concocted by Texas bartenders using local liquors are a thoroughly acceptable reason to pour yourself a drink. Or three.
Henderson Avenue, Dallas
Henderson Avenue, Dallas.
Josh Hamilton’s Locker
Josh Hamilton’s locker.
Art of the Weekend
This Man Is Having So Much Fun!
For Steve Kemble, having as good a time as humanly possible as often as humanly possible is very serious business.
Game Over
Sure, sure, the newspaper business is dying, and this is bad for freedom, accountability, and democracy itself. But worst of all is what’s happened to sportswriting.
Still Life
A violent tackle in a high school football game paralyzed John McClamrock for life. His mother made sure it was a life worth living.
Dan Branch’s Bookcase
State representative Dan Branch’s bookcase.
Real Estate
Ebby Halliday, real estate agent.
Styles and Styles of Texas
The thirty Texans with the most iconic, unforgettable, eye-popping looks, from Davy Crockett to Beyoncé.
Updating Your Closet
Ken Downing on updating your closet.
Golden Oldies
Afghan artifacts in Houston; Texas Biennial.
Hostile Makeover
Nobody told me an eyebrow plucking would hurt this much!
Saturday Night
From a honky-tonk in Odessa to a Catholic church in Houston, there’s one night of the week when you’re guaranteed to find Texans at their snappiest.
Here Comes the Neighborhood
Preston Hollow gets its Bush back.
Chamber Made
El Paso’s Chamber Music Festival, Hallettsville’s domino championship.
Our Economy
Dallas Fed chair Richard Fisher on our lame economy.
The Show Goes On
The Texas Ballet Theater; Olafur Eliasson; Art Guys in Abilene.
The Exonerated
Thirty-seven men, 525 years behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit. Thanks to DNA testing, their claims of innocence have finally been proved—but what happens to them now?
Andy Mullins
Andy Mullins, midway barker.
Return of the King
Tut’s treasures; aural art; the poetry of Laurie Anderson.
Music, Maestro
The Dallas symphony; The Color Purple; the Nasher at five.
Tony Romo Is the Greatest Cowboys Quarterback Since...
Die-hard fans of America’s Team are debating that very question as we speak—and also wondering if the kid from Wisconsin with the buxom distraction can take them to the Super Bowl any faster than, say, Gary Hogeboom did.
Dallas, Our Dallas
Dallas in Austin; base ball in Buffalo Gap; gorging in Canyon Lake.
Honorable Mentions
New and noteworthy
Villa O, Dallas and Trattoria Lisina, Driftwood
BBQ08
Eighteen hungry reviewers. 14,773 miles driven/flown. 341 joints visited. Countless bites of brisket, sausage, chicken, pork, white bread, potato salad, and slaw—and vats of sauce—ingested. There are only fifty slots on our quinquennial list of the best places to eat barbecue in Texas. Only five of those got high honors. And only one (you’ll never guess which one in a million years) is the best of the best.
The Kitchen Is Closed
Forty years ago, Pete Dominguez and his Mexican restaurants were the toast of Dallas. Now he’s alone, broke, and nearly forgotten.
Bolla
Dallas
Child’s Play
Summer vacation is right around the corner, but that doesn’t mean you should panic. We’ve rounded up 68 of our favorite things to do with your toddlers, teens, and every kid in between. Dance the hokey pokey. Rope a horse. Eat way too many hot dogs. Zip down a waterslide. And yes, feed the animals.
Let There Be Light
J. M. W. Turner in Dallas; Discovery Green in Houston; Fiesta in S.A.
This Old House
Jim Atkinson changes out his insulation.
New and Noteworthy
Café Pita, Houston and Rise no1, Dallas
Avery Johnson
Avery Johnson on how to be an NBA coach.
Who Was Jack Ruby?
If you thought you knew, you were probably wrong.
The Dean of Fearing’s
Live from Fearing’s in Dallas, the state’s best new restaurant.
Where To Eat Now 2008
Yes, the setting is ritzy and the food remarkable. But what really makes the state’s best new restaurant sizzle is something less tangible: the (Dean) Fearing factor.
New and Noteworthy
Merchants Grand Café, San Antonio and Charlie Palmer, Dallas
Third Grade Social Studies
They may only be kids in third grade, but you’re looking at the future of Texas.
Toilet Tales
In summer months, Houstonians are drinking ice cold . . . toilet water. Courtesy of Dallas.
Appetite for the Future
What will dining be like in decades to come? We asked the state’s top chefs and foodies.
The New Conservative
Can Jim Atkinson change the world?
Robots
David Hanson on robot love.
Who’s Next
Who’s the next Willie? The new Selena?
Keep Art Here
Katrina Moorhead; Teatro Dallas; Design Life Now.
The Class of 2017
The future according to third-graders.
Eat Their Words
What will dining, both out and in, be like in decades to come? We asked the state’s top chefs and food folk, from Dean Fearing and Hugo Ortega to David Bull and Charles Butt.
Ort Varona
37, Boutique retailer, Dallas
Dave Stephenson
42, sports marketer, Dallas
The Last Drop
Texas has the country’s most precise state water plan. So how is it that every one of our major cities is still on track to run dry in the next fifty years?
Clayton Kershaw
19, pitcher, Dallas
Ben Fountain
49, fiction writer, Dallas
El Gobernador
The first Hispanic to lead Texas will be a Basque jai alai phenom, Dallas attorney, and Democratic state representative whose election, in 2018, will relegate the GOP to semi- permanent minority status. Wanna bet?
Tomorrow Never Dies
The perils of prediction.
The Old Bowl Game
I wish I were in the land of Cotton (Bowl).
Contributors
C. F. Payne, Cecilia Ballí, and Gregory Curtis
Fed Up
The pall over Dallas City Hall.
Fashion at The Park
Dallas
American Dreamers
These six entrepreneurs are members of a unique Dallas program that is bringing the promise of microcredit to the Untied States: one small business at a time.
Corny Dogs
Every corny dog has its day.
The Unbankables
All over Dallas are working-class dreamers with more will than wallet, would-be entrepreneurs who’d start their own businesses if only they had savings, good credit, home equity. That’s what brings them to the PLAN Fund.
Endless Summerall
What the double-breasted buffoons in today’s broadcast booths can learn from a legend of the game.
Grounds for Suspicion
Conspiring minds want to know …
Craig’s List
Of the many things the first black district attorney of Dallas County is doing, none is more important than rethinking the concept of guilt and innocence.
The Longest Ride of His Life
When Randall Adams was sentenced to death ten years ago, the Dallas community thought a cop killing had been put to rest. But it hasn’t.
Leppert Colony
In the ninth-largest city in America, boring is the new exciting.
See No Evil
Dallas police say Charles Albright is the coldest, most depraved killer of women in the city’s history. To me, he seems like a perfect gentleman. Maybe too perfect.
Shape Up
Roads to Nowhere
The myth of the NAFTA superhighway.
Down and Out
My firsthand experience with the hard times that himbled my hero, former Dallas Cowboys star Golden Richards
Nerdysomething
Lisa Loeb eyes stardom.
Alternative Weakly
Texas newspapers go to war.
The Real Medical Crisis
For reformers of the nations health-care system, ground zero may be Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital, where the crush of uninsured patients with non-urgent complaints is affecting everyone’s care.
Crude Awakening
There’s black gold in the South American rain forest—lots of it. Can the oil companies get it out without ruining the jungle and the way of life of the Indians who live there? The perils of drilling in the heart of darkness.
Hostile Makeover
Mary Kay Ash and Jinger Heath have made fortunes getting women to buy and sell their beauty proucts. But no lipstick or powder can conceal the ugliness between these Dallas cosmetics queens.
No Choice
Jane Roe flips for a preacher.
The News About Jim Lehrer
Once an accomplished newscaster and reporter in Dallas, he’s still going strong—and now solo—on PBS.
The Removal Men, 1995
Basking in It
If the literary novel is dead, then why is Baskerville Publishers in Dallas flourishing?
Texas Twenty: Catherine Crier
No longer judged a lightweight.
Texas Twenty: Don Henley
Crooning for Caddo Lake.
Texas Twenty: Tom Luce
Head of the class.
Texas Twenty: Mel White
Preaching tolerance.
Texas Twenty: Dick Armey
The man of the House.
In the Drink
Drunken boaters have turned a popular lake near Dallas into deadly waters.
A Perfect Mess
Can a suburban Dallas house-wife who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder ever overcome her fears? She doubts it.
Of Mats and Men
At the 1995 state high school wrestling championships, pinning wasn’t everything. It was the only thing.
Hit Picker
Each week, record promoters flock to see Redbeard, the Dallas radio programmer with an ear for the best new music.
Big Wheel
Once he raced cars; now he builds them. Even at 72, it seems, Carroll Shelby can’t slow down.
Pine and Agony
Race Matters
Ron Kirk is ready to be Dallas’ first black mayor. But is Dallas ready for him?
“I Shot to Kill”
When burglars targeted my Dallas business for repreated break-ins, I felt violated—and I fought back.
Roe v. World
Twenty-five years after Norma McCorvey joined the flight to legalize abortion, the battle is still raging—and so is she.
Family Plot
For Dallas writer Carlton Stowers, Sins of the Son is more than just another true crime story. The son is his own.
The Art of Running for President
Phil Gramm is a world-class fundraiser, but it will take more than money to carry him to the White House in 1996.
Gramm Watch
Chipping Away
Cyriz is dueling industry-gian Intel in a showdown for the fastest computers in the West.
Start Your Engines
All the Dead Horses
The Humane Society wants to rein in Beltex of Fort Worth, one of the nation’s largest slaughterhouses.
State of Innocents
The DA and the DNA.
Shopping for A Wedding Gown
Lela Rose on buying a wedding dress.
Great Mexpectations
How will the Mexxico bailout affect Texxas? Experts say it’s just what we needed.
A Bloody Game
When Bush Comes to Shove
Big Talker
Jailed right-wing Dallas radio host Tom Donahue protests he’s a political prisoner. The IRS says he’s a crook.
Fast and Loose
Bugs Henderson doesn’t lhave an “act” — he’s simply one of the best blues guitarists around.
Closing the Circle J
A final farewell to the Hill Country spread that for more than thirty years meant everything to me and my family.
Brush With Fame
As a curator and in his own work as a painter, Jerry Bywaters left a lasting legacy of Texas art.
Barry Switzer Gets the Last Laugh
The rookie Cowboys coach has turned out to be exactly what all the critics said he wasn’t: a winner.
Critter Bidders
High-tech meets down-home in Texas’ latest ranching trend: a video auction of emus, elk, and other exotic animals.
Go Fire Yourself!
It’s the best thing Jerry Jones could do for the Cowboys.
Eating Myself Alive
Ten foods to gorge on in 2007.
Failed Coup
News you’d Rather not use.
Where to Eat Now 2007
Well, first and foremost, Dallas, since four of the year’s ten best new restaurants—including the top three—are there. But if you’re hip and hungry in Houston, Austin, or San Antonio, my list won’t disappoint.
Bedtime Story
Give yourself the slip.
Groovy Girl
Senior editor Michael Hall on spending time with Dallas musician Erykah Badu.
The Real World
Writer-at-large Michael Ennis on writing about politics and culture.
Getting Fit
Kenneth Cooper on getting—and staying—fit.
Home Girl
Most people from Dallas who make it big in the music business get out of town as soon as they can. “That’s what celebrities do,” Erykah Badu says. “I never wanted to be a celebrity.”
Coal Hard Facts
Facing an energy crisis, Texas is on the verge of a solution that will belch about five billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the next forty years. Breathe deeply—while you still can.
Par Excellence
The best golf holes in Texas, according to the legends of the game.
Here Comes Trouble
Dan Patrick is causing nervous breakdowns of various size and duration—and he’s not even in the Texas Senate yet.
The 2007 Bum Steer Awards
It was a year of aggrieved actors, banned boobs, Cuban commodes, DeLay denial, errant Elmo, frisky floaters, grouchy governors, hung hoopsters, immigration insensitivity, job-seeking judges, klobbered Karl, Longhorn lushes, miffed musicians, nude no-no’s, ousted Osteens, peeved passers, quarreling queens, riled Rangers, subpar sheriffs, tiny “terrorists,” unseemly URLs, vice presidential violence, wiseacre W., x-asperated x-wives, youthful yakkers, and zoo zeal.
The Mighty Metroplex
Just a few years after nearly being written off the map, the region has become a roaring engine of growth and social transformation.
Texas Myth# 31
Did The Texas Chainsaw Massacre really happen?
Around the State
You Can Go Home Again
Come home, Dixie Chicks.
Thank God It’s Friday
And Saturday. And Sunday. The arrival of fall means weekends spent watching football, up close and on-screen, and yet another opportunity to love the greatest game on earth for all the usual reasons. Forty-nine of them, in fact.
Water, Water Everywhere
From kayaking on Town Lake to mountain biking around Joe Pool Lake, from bass fishing on Lake Fork to horseback riding on the shores of Lake Whitney, here are some of our favorite things to do in, on, and around Texas lakes.
Hoop Dreams
The Spurs versus the Mavs.
The Links That Bind
For Texas’ Kuehne kids, excelling at golf is par for the course—and the least their father will accept.
Heavenly
The heavenly hits of God’s Property.
Armey of One
By trying to have it both ways in the coup against Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey hurt the Republican party—and himself.
Environment • Phyllis Glazer
Waste not.
Total Exposure
Is there such a thing as privacy on the Internet?
Sea You Really Soon
State Fare
Dallas’ Seventeen Seventeen has mastered the art of the catfish taco.
Food Fright
Eating a peanut shouldn’t be a particularly memorable experience, but for Dallasite Mona Cain and countless other allergic Americans, it’s a matter of life and death.
Where Are They Now?
Whatever happened to the 1971 Super Bowl–champion Cowboys?
Turn Out the Lights
The Dallas Cowboys old-timers reunion is over, but for one evening it was possible to remember when pro football was fun, players were loyal, and even a sportswriter could fall in love with his team.
Terrence McNally
Hurricane
A couple of indie film producers.
Fan Fare
A Texas football magazine that scores.
Affair of State
A Dallas lawyer’s roman à Clinton.
CD and Book Reviews
Grand Hotel
Why do reviewers from Condé Nast Traveler to the Zagat and Mobil guides swoon over Dallas’ Mansion on Turtle Creek? I wanted to find out, so I checked in.
Corporate Makeover
EDS, the company Ross Perot imbued with his own conservative image, is designing Internet sites for magazines like Elle. What a tangled Web we weave.
Hang Like a Bulldog
Boone Pickens no longer wears a tie. Herein lies a tale.
Punkytonk
The state prison name game; Dallas alternative-country band the Old 97’s is feeling no depression.
Sloane, Alone
Dallas’ Sloane Simpson was a society queen who enchanted New York, seduced Mexico City, and turned Acapulco into a jet-set getaway. But when she died last year at age eighty, she was almost completely forgotten.
The Curse of Romeo and Juliet
The patriarchs of Texas’ leading Gypsy clans have been embroiled in a furious feud for more than two decades. And now that their children are in love, it’s only getting worse.
Fly-boy
A Wylie computer programmer flies high.
Artbeat
Charting the state’s museum-building boom.
Mission Accomplished
Voice of Amerykah
Whether or not Erykah Badu is the Billie Holiday of hip-hop, her uplifting songs and soulful singing are winning fans from coast to coast.
State Fare
Walnuts, Gorgonzola, and chutney make for an upscale fish dish at the Grape in Dallas.
Mexican Revolution
New restaurants in Dallas and Houston are serving up authentic interior-style Mexican dishes that turn the tables on Tex-Mex.
Babes in the ’Hoods
Thought the competition between Texas cities was over? Until my daughter was born in Dallas and a friend’s was born in Austin, so did I.
Blowin’ in the Wind
Itchy eyes, sore throat, runny nose: It must be allergy season. But what causes allergies? How do you pick a doctor? And what’s the best treatment? An in-depth look at an affliction that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Sundance Across Texas
Tenor of the Times
Dallas sax player Marchel Ivery has impressed jazz greats like Red Garland and Art Blakey. So why isn’t he more famous? For one thing, he won’t blow his own horn.
CD and Book Reviews
Making Headway
At the Texas Woman’s University Aphasia Center in Dallas, a promising new treatment is helping stroke victims learn to read, write, and speak again.
Blue Period
Thanks to his wildly popular bluebonnet paintings, Dallas artist W.A. Slaughter is living on easel street.
Road Show
Our guide to finding Texas wildflowers that stand out in their fields.
Ink Big
Tex Rated
summary: What’s the best hotel in Texas? (Hint: It’s not the Mansion on Turtle Creek).
CD and Book Reviews
The Ice Bats Cometh
Even when they’re not winning games, minor league hockey teams like Austin’s are winning fans by the thousands. Who’d have thought skaters would score in Texas?
Bob Schieffer
What a Hall!
Rock, don’t run, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, where Texas greats from T-Bone Walker to Sly Stone get their due.
Smokin’!
Sowing the seeds of the hemp craze.
Bonnie and Clyde
To whom were Bonnie and Clyde really married, and whose saxophone was found in their car?
CD and Book Reviews
So Much to Learn, So Little Time
Today students at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas are expected to master more hard-core science than ever before. Yet after graduation, they’ll have to keep studying, and be counselors and business experts too. A hard look at the way we teach our doctors—and why it has had to change.
Beaming
Beaming over a new aircraft landing device.
Belo the Belt
Reading the Arlington newspaper war.
No Contest
If Bill Clinton wants to get elected president, he’ll have to do it without Texas—just like in 1992.
Ball Player
CD and Book Reviews
Proving Their Medal
Bread Winners
Upper-crust bakers in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin are turning out heavenly handmade loaves that make store-bought seem stale by comparison.
Bone Dry
From water rationing to stricken crops, the current drought may be as devastating as the one in the early fifties—the time it never rained.
Blown Away
Ninety-four years after the Goliad Tornado killed 114 people, why do we still ignore the warnings until it’s too late? A reflection on Texas’ worst twisters.
Wende, Becky, and Kelly Parks
Why Can’t Steven Phillips Get a DNA Test?
For that matter, why can’t any incarcerated man or woman with a good reason get one?
The Lawsuit from Hell
How an East Texas attorney spawned the most massive products-liability case ever— one that has cost millions of dollars and involved thousands of plaintiffs and might never end.
Cheril Santini
Sure Shot
Now Hear This
The surprising sound of the Internet.
Riffs on Roy
Oak Cliff native Roy Hargrove may not have the depth and seasoning of Wynton Marsalis, but the 26-year-old prodigy could still be one of the great jazz trumpeters of our day.
CD and Book Reviews
Her Three Sons
For the Wilsons of Dallas, taking pictures was a family affair. Today the mother is a successful photographer and her boys are hot Hollywood commodities. Here’s a look at Laura Wilson’s personal album.
Arlo Eisenberg
Mitch Pileggi
Blow by Blow
The art of throwing punches, the science of skipping rope, and other reasons why boxing is a hit with me.
Right On
Primary color: Dole on a roll, a report card for the Religious Right, and other fallout from Election Day.
War, Inc.
Brown and Root goes to Bosnia for the Pentagon—and cleans up.
The Far Right Stuff
Wyatt Roberts says he’s simply crusading against sin, but critics contend that the Christian activist is trying to usher in a new era in Texas: the anti-gay nineties.
CD and Book Reviews
Interview With The Vamp
After twenty years as the reigning queen of the soaps, the essential truth about Morgan Fairchild remains: She’s not a bitch, but she plays one on TV.
The Fourth Tramp
A new book about Lee Harvey Oswald reveals that conspiracy theorists are still straining to repackage old news into something new.
Not a Pretty Picture
Dallas and Houston have done it; Beaumont and Corpus Christi have too. So why hasn’t Austin built a respectable art museum? It comes down to three things: money, management, and mission.
Burnin’!
A Dallas soccer team burns up the competition.
Spin Control
Vertigo isn’t just the stuff of Hitchcock thrillers—it’s a debilitating disease, as Dallas radio talk show host Kevin McCarthy found out the hard way.
Stephen Stills
In God We Bust
Since the late eighties, dozens of big churches in Texas have put rapid growth ahead of financial health. Austin’s Great Hills Baptist is only the latest to pay the price.
Media Circus • Michael Irvin
Drugstore Cowboy.
Theater • Lou Diamond Phillips
It’s good to be King.
Television • Chuck Norris
Lone Ranger.
Design • Anthony Mark Hankins
Fashionably affordable.
Sports • Michael Johnson
The running man.
Ryan Shams
Shocking
The gospel according to Michelle Shocked.
Disunion
The Texas film industry’s labor pain.
The New Fat Cats
Meet the newest Texas fat cats - the well-heeled contributors financing political campaigns in and out of our state.
Golden Oldie
After playing for years in relative obscurity, 57-year-old Ronnie Dawson is the latest cult hero in the cultish world of rockabilly.
Thrill Killers
Now that the crack epidemic has leveled off and gang violence is down, urban Texas is being terrorized by a new type of criminal: the superpredator. He murders without motive, feels no remorse, and worst of all, seldom gets caught.
Jimmy King
Principals, Not Heels
Why good schools have clean bathrooms and principals who don’t wear high heels.
Roar of the Crowd
King Lear Jet
The feud between billionaire Harold Simmons and his daughters is worthy of Shakespeare.
Texas Primer: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
How much are the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders paid per game?
Pulpit Fiction
The D-Files
Signs of intelligent life in Dallas.
CD and Book Reviews
The 1998 Bum Steer Awards
A year of altered antlers, bawdy broadcasters, comedian corrections, dining detectives, emancipated emus, fossilized felines, gullible Gore, hemline harassment, insatiable igniters, jazzed-up jewelry, Kay’s kennelwear, lottery loonies, metric madness, numerous nudes, 007 oenophiles, poultry protesters, questionable quizzes, revengeful revenuers, Spam slingers, tie tirades, unallowed uniforms, variant videotapers, warning! water, x-humed x-mascots, yanked Yvonne, and zodiac zombies.
Guy Mezger
Ku Klux Klowns
There was something comical about the plot by four Klan members to blow up a chemical plant in Wise County— and that was before their own Imperial Grand Wizard turned them into the feds.
Joan of Art
Less than a decade ago, she was a homemaker and an arts volunteer, but today the Arlington Museum of Art’s Joan Davidow is the most imaginative and adventurous museum director working in Texas.
Primary Color
Handicapping the Republican primary: Will far-right might carry the day?
The Entertainer
How has Jacksonville native Neal McCoy, a self-described “easy-listenin’ kinda guy,” managed to sell five million country CDs and cassettes? It has little to do with his singing.
Ramblin’ Roses
Texans are rediscovering antique roses, the hardy, neglected beauties that decorate old graveyards and abandoned houses across the state. Whether you buy them from a nursery or rustle cuttings from the wild, here�s the dirt on how to grow your own.
Jensen Ackles
Day Careful
A Dallas company’s virtual child care.
Arts and Wozencraft
Cheryl Clark
A Stand-up Guy
Plano’s Steve Harvey has been a successful comedian for years. Now he’s a sitcom star too.
Whodunit?
The mysterious murder of a small-town mayor.
Miller Time
After years of attacking members of the Dallas City Council, journalist Laura Miller wants to be one.
Jazzed
Can yet another independent label survive in today’s rough- and-tumble music business? The young founders of Dallas’ Leaning House Records sure hope so.
Soul Survivor
His mentor, Sam Cooke, is long dead, but Dallas’ Johnnie Taylor is alive and well and still living at the top of the charts.
The Handmades’ Tale
These twelve Texas artisans herald the victory of man over machine, carefully crafting wood, metal, or stone into items for your home and hearth that are tomorrow’s heirlooms today.
State Fare
From Chef Pat, Tarantino’s, Dallas.
Watch Out
Advice for the new coaches of the Dallas Cowboys and the UT Longhorns.
Lee Trevino
Which soft drink’s quart-size bottle did Lee trevino use as a golf club?
CD and Book Reviews
The Eyes Have It
An anxious, alcoholic, stressed, and depressed Dallasite. A suicidal San Antonian. For each, a seemingly visionary treatment.
BUSINESS • Thomas O. Hicks
Hello, good buy.
SPORTS • Dennis Rodman
As the Worm turns.
RADIO • Tom Joyner
The host with the most.
FOOD • Stephan Pyles
A recipe for success.
MULTIMEDIA • John Romero
Game Boy.
RELIGION • T.D. Jakes
A blast from the pastor.
Class Acts
Long before they were chart-topping musicians, Erykah Badu and Roy Hargrove made the grade at an arts magnet school in Dallas.
Scorched Earth
This summer’s hot topic? Weather.
This Year’s Model
Fame of Hall
You might not recognize actress Irma P. Hall on the street, but you know her from her films. And thatÕs just how she likes it.
Pay Check
Michael Dell earned nearly $34 million in 1997. Was he worth it? Find out in our roundup of the most overpaid and underpaid CEOs in Texas.
Kristen Link and Lindsay Long
Start Here
The childhood homes of nine famous Texans.
Foxx, Whole
With feature-film roles, a chart-topping album, and a successful stand-up career, sitcom star Jamie Foxx is laughing all the way to the bank.
Abraham Zapruder
How much did Life pay Abraham Zapruder for the rights to his assassination film?
Conspiracy Dearies
The Lone Gunman
Why the Warren Commission was right.
The Evidence
The magic bullet, the president’s jacket, Oswald’s camera, and other artifacts from the National Archives.
The Witnesses
Nellie Connally, Red Duke, and others remember November 22, 1963.
The Two Oswalds
It’s the most intriguing theory of all: two men with the same identity, one a patsy and the other a murderer who got off scot-free.
The Conspiracy Theories
JFK was killed by (a) the mob, (b) Castro, (c) the FBI, (d) the CIA, or (e) none of the above? Decide for yourself.
The Assassination at 35
A handsome young president, a convertible limousine, a sniper, three shots (we think);and our lives were changed forever. A special report on what is, for many, the defining event of the past fifty years.
CD and Book Reviews
Addicted to Sex?
Even if you’re not, many Texans are: Sex Addicts Anonymous has 61 chapters across the state, tending to the tattered psyches of exhibitionists and other tormented souls.
The Real Troy Aikman
His dreams. His fears. The truth about his love life. A candid chat with Texas’ most misunderstood sports hero.
Six Brothers
The tragedy of the Von Erichs—the state’s first family of pro wrestling—is well known not just to fans of the sport but to the many groupies who oohed and aahed at the matinee-idol athletes over the years. Still, you haven’t really heard the story until it’s told by the sole surviving sibling, whose eldest son may be the next one to step into the ring.
Flipping Out
The letter-sweater-wearing, pom-pom-shaking, pep-rally-leading girl next door has been a beloved Texas icon for generations. So why do so many people today— lawmakers and lawyers, preachers and feminists—think cheerleading is the root, root, root of all evil?
Non-Issues
Greece, lightning, and other non-issues in last month’s election.
Familia Feud
In Laredo, a conservative revolution is upending the city’s old patronage politics.
The Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog
In Texas the ultimate arbiter of good taste has always been Neiman Marcus, the Dallas-based department store that marks its ninetieth birthday next year.
Still ZZ After All These Years
So what if they’re not cranking out hits and selling out concerts the way they used to? After nearly three decades, no one makes better blues rock than ZZ Top.
The Killer Cadets
David Graham and Diane Zamora were intelligent, young, and in love. And they shared a secret: They had brutally murdered Adreianne Jones.
All-American Troy
America’s Marketer
Bad News
Does the Dallas Morning News discriminate? Plus: Bill Clinton between the covers.
CD and Book Reviews
CDs by Doctors’ Mob and the American Analog Set, plus a tribute to Bob Wills; booksby James Lee Burke and Louise Redd.
CD and Book Reviews
Playing for Keeps
The truth—what we can discern, anyway—about Tom Landry’s leukemia.
How Many of You Have Heard of Zig Ziglar Before—Or Is This Your First Time-uh?
From Harvard to Hesitation Hill, the nation’s most motivated motivational speaker is much in demand. And he’ll still see you at the top.
Garden Variety
From antique benches to cast-iron planters, a selective guide to the yard art of your dreams.
For the Children
Slime Time!
An Addison snail breeder gets fresh with the world.
Race Value
Rating our primary concerns.
Pale by Comparison
“Michael Jackson’s disease” sounds like a punch line, but the pigment-robbing skin disorder is no joke. Just ask Dallas County commissioner John Wiley Price.
The Jones Gang
You know the real reason Texas Stadium has no roof? So Jerry Jones can get his head inside. (Or, how the Cowboys owner’s ego makes it hard to root for America’s Team.)
Texas Food Conquers the World!
How to cook up a culinary craze: Mix talented chefs, native ingredients, classical techniques, and good publicity. Name result “Southwestern.” Let spread across globe.
Also-runs
Wacky White House wannabes.
Cutthroat Island
Once upon a time, Galveston was an isolated island with few big-city problems. Recent flaps over civic corruption, press bias, and race suggest those days are over.
Texas, Paris
Two mythic cultures, one great love affair: How France has taken us to heart.
Does DaRoyce Mosley Deserve to Die?
A young black man with a spotless record is facing a controversial death sentence for the murder of four whites. An East Texas town remains divided.
Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson
Shots in the Dark
Two grim incidents involving guns, three dead teenagers: Reflections on self-defense.
Rush to Justice
Kim Wozencraft meant to spend her life putting drug pushers behind bars—until she became an addict. Now, more than a decade later, she’s fighting against the justice system she once embraced.
Good-bye to a Friend
Smooth Operator
You might say Tarek Souryal is the most important Dallas Maverick: He doesn’t score or rebound, but he reconstructs million-dollar ankles and knees, and that makes him a real team player.
Hot Potatoes
Is it possible to have a low-fat chip that tastes good? After three years of top-secret tinkering, Frito-Lay thinks it has hit upon the ultimate snacker’s delight.
Powers Boothe
Old-timers’ Day
Duking it out, after more than fifty years of friendship, over Ann Coulter, Terri Schiavo, the appeal of golf, and, inevitably, the decline of the Cowboys.
Me and Him
Once upon a time I thought it was cool to question God’s existence. Not anymore.
Date Line
The world’s largest online love line.
Al, Gored
Can Al Lipscomb survive both the ballot box and the jury box?
Ardor in the Court
Working out of his two-man firm in Dallas, plaintiff’s attorney Kip Petroff is doing something his peers around the country can’t: He’s bringing a major drug company to its knees.
Ice Guys Finish First
Hockey in Texas? And the team is good? Don’t laugh. The Dallas Stars could win it all this year, and sports fans across the state could soon be drinking Shiner Bock from the Stanley Cup.
Tex Mecca
What are tens of thousands of Muslims doing in Arlington? Adjusting to life in America, debating the merits of assimilation, and trying to convince the world that they’re not terrorists.
David Hale Smith
Shakespeare in Lufkin
Y’all, the world’s a stage.
Suburban Renewal
How three Dallas area developers are beating back the threat of soulless sprawl by restoring a sense of community.
State Fare
Shellfish? Swellfish. One bite of miso-glazed shrimp at Dallas’ Green Room and you’ll be hooked.
Take Note
Texas-friendly tips for watching the Grammys
Child’s Play
The state’s reigning piano prodigy is a nine-year-old from Carrollton? No kidding.
A Strike Against You
If your family has a history of cancer, are you doomed? Even though many of his relatives—including his famous father—succumbed to the disease, Mickey Mantle, Jr., didn’t think so. Then he got sick.
Thanks a Million ’98
Make that around $275 million. A roundup of last year’s top Texas philanthropists, from Tex and Buzz to Manny and Heavy Cat.
Return to Splendor
From humble Oak Cliff roots did a hip intellectual giant grow. In this oral history, friends and fans remember the late Grover Lewis, one of the great magazine writers of our day.
CD and Book Reviews
News Makers
Coming January 1 to a small screen near you: A round-the-clock, Texas-specific, CNN-style cable channel. Its creators will be watching. Will you?
Deep Dish
Which Hollywood legend is “the bitch of all time”? Which comedienne’s daughter was a dope addict by age fourteen and came to Houston to get unhooked? Texas’ top gossips tell all.
Teenage Wasteland
With its optimistically broad streets and oversized cantilevered homes, Plano is the suburban ideal taken to its extreme, and its exaggerated scale often gives rise to exaggerated problems. Heroin addiction is only the latest.
1999 Bum Steer Awards
A year of asking-for-it Aggies, badass broccoli, contraband coffee, Death Row decor, extrapolating elephants, faux feet, god-awful gimmickry, humongous heavyweights, incomparable ironers, judicial jimjams, kaput kowtowers, lame-brained liberals, moping millionaires, NASA ninnies, off-putting officials, prize-winning pignappers, quasi-comic quipsters, red-handed rapscallions, scarfable sod, theoretical thongs, ungodly ungulates, vomiting vegetation, wild-eyed window-breakers, xenophobic Xanthippes, Yankee yahoos, and zapped zealots.
Michael Martin Murphey
Pop Art
How 7 UP is trying to win back its share of the soft drink market, one commercial at a time.
The Games Game
Houston and Dallas go for the gold.
The Gay Non-Issue
The election of a lesbian sheriff in Dallas County is a reminder of how far we’ve come, in a very short period, on the question of sexual orientation.
Sunk
How the Texans who organized the Swift Boat Vets capsized John Kerry’s presidential campaign.
Tour Of Duty
Peri, Trouper
Waco, Houston, Dallas, Austin, London, New York, Hollywood: Peri Gilpin was all over the map before finding stardom on NBC�s hit sitcom Frasier.
Malled
Wealthy school districts think they’ve found a way to shield millions of dollars from the state’s Robin Hood law. Are they about to get malled?
The Kids Are Alright
Fourteen-year-old country prodigy LeAnn Rimes is singing a Blue streak. But she’s not the only Texas teen tearing up the music scene.
Death and the Matrons
What could drive a suburban housewife to murder? The bizarre cases of Rowlett’s Darlie Routier and Fairview’s Candy Montgomery hint at the answer, and it may be closer to home than we’d like to think.
Cowboy Family Values
Serious athlete. Devoted father and husband. Savvy businessman. On game day he may be Prime Time, but out of the spotlight, Deion Sanders is the squarest player on the Dallas Cowboys.
And Justice for Some
How the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals mistakes toughness for fairness—and gives the state a black eye.
Arlington's Team
Why isn't the new Dallas Cowboys stadium going to be in, er, Dallas? Blame the collision of an irresistible force (Jerry Jones) with an immovable object (Laura Miller).
The Magnificent Seven
Meet a diver, a high-jumper, and five other Texas athletes who hope to put the pedal to the medal at the 2004 Olympics.
Peace be with you. And also with you. Unless you're gay.
The battle for the soul of the Episcopal Church, being waged aggressively in this state, is not only about the ordination of homosexuals. It's also about the future of the denomination.
No Fuss
"It's still easy to walk around New York unrecognized. I'm kind of nerdy and not fashionable, so people don't give me a second look."
The Pedophile Next Door
How do you know when a child molester is cured? Are you willing to take his word for it? David Wayne Jones hopes so. Thirteen years ago he was convicted of preying on little boys at the East Dallas YMCA, but he could soon be out of jail and back on the street. Your street.
Family Man
To his suburban Dallas neighbors, Todd Becker was a doting husband and devoted father. They had no clue that he led a secret, lucrative life as a safecracker.
Where to Eat Now 2004
Now serving: the best new restaurants in Texas, including a glamorous international kitchen in Dallas, a hot sushi spot in Austin, and—the best of them all—a drop-dead room with a globe-trotting menu in Houston.
Perilously Plump
Texans love to say that everything’s bigger here, but when it comes to the waistlines in one in four of our largest cities, that’s nothing to brag about.
Mack McCormick Still Has the Blues
His cache of unpublished interviews and unreleased recordings is unrivaled—but both collector and collection are showing signs of age. Who will save the legacy of the man who saved Texas music?
Life of the Party
Night of the living Democrat.
The Franchise
Is the Dallas Mavericks' Mark Cuban a pushy billionaire with a lust for publicity, or is he an energetic owner who has saved the team? Do we have to choose?
Stanley Marcus
Mimi Swartz sizes up the legacy of Stanley Marcus.
Video Killers
Why the state's programmers are voting for gore.
Poster Boy
Artist Frank Kozik has been called a "rock-poster genius," creating jarring, macabre images for bands like the Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth. So why did he leave Austin for San Francisco seven years ago? He had his designs.
Taste for Trouble
When San Antonio restaurateur Mario Cantú died last November, he left behind a legacy of political activism along with fine Mexican fare.
Hello, Mr. Chips
Texas Instruments looks to cash in on its chips.
Around the State
Dallas rolls out the red carpet for dance, theater, sports, and opera. Plus: San Antonio puts photographer Kathy Vargas on display; Beaumont gushes about the one hundredth anniversary of Spindletop; Mission juices up its Texas Citrus Fiesta; and East Texas shines under the lights of Broadway.
The Man Who Loved Cat Burgling
For years Dallas’ most prolific jewel thief robbed the mansions of socialites like Nancy Brinker and Annette Simmons. If not for his girlfriend’s crack use, he might have gotten away with it forever.
About Faces
W is for "Whew"!
The former stripper, the tabloid, and George W. Bush.
My Library
