Daily Archives: December 16, 2005

Well, “Lonesome Dove” was kind of a love story between two cowboys, too

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brokeback.jpgYou’ve probably heard by now about Brokeback Mountain, the new movie based on the Annie Proulx book about how a secret homosexual relationship between two cowboys plays out over the years. Inasmuch as Larry McMurtry — author of the incomparable Lonesome Dove novel and later mini-series — helped write the screenplay for Brokeback, that fact and the generally strong initial reviews are good enough to prompt me to include the film in my holiday movie-going.
But even if Brokeback does not sound like your cup of tea, don’t miss this clever review of the film by a gay man trying to reassure heterosexual males about the film’s merit, which leads me to believe that this recent overheard conversation is taking place in many other places around the country in addition to New York City.

What Starts Here Changes the World

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UT Tower_beacon.jpgThe University of Texas is on quite a roll these days, and in more ways that simply its national championship-caliber football team.
UT just rolled out its innovative new advertising campaign, a series of nine 30 second commercials with the theme ìWhat Starts Here Changes the Worldî narrated by former CBS anchoman and UT alum Walter Cronkite. The ads — which were developed by UT’s Office of Public Affairs and the Center for Brand Research in concert with GSD&M Advertising — emphasize how the UT and Austin communities “together forge a dynamic, creative and diverse community that few American cities can match.” UT will use the ads primarily during televised NCAA sporting events, where the networks provide the participating universities some free air time in each such telecast.
My favorite: “Breakfast Tacos.”

What does “Franchione” mean?

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darnell.jpgIt’s no secret in these parts that Texas A&M head football coach Dennis Franchione had a bad season, not something to take lightly in terms of job security in the football-dominated culture of College Station, Texas. So, after Franchione fired his defensive coordinator at the end of the season, the conventional wisdom was that Franchione would hire a big name coach as the new A&M defensive coordinator, particularly given A&M’s willingness to pay top dollar for an assistant coach who would revive the long-dormant Wrecking Crew defense.
Well, suffice it to say that Franchione’s hire — his old friend and oft-fired coach Gary Darnell — is not exactly what most Aggie fans had in mind as the solution to revive the flagging A&M program. Darnell has been out of football entirely the past year after being fired as head coach at Western Michigan. Moreover, Darnell was previously the source of much angst among Texas Longhorn fans when his unaggressive “read and react” defense that he instituted while serving as Longhorn defensive coordinator from 1994-96 was one of the primary reasons that former Longhorn coach John Mackovic was fired after the 1997 season and remains one of the most unpopular Texas football coaches in history. Darnell’s tenure as Texas defensive coordinator included the Horns’ defense giving up over 30 points five times in 1994, as well as such embarrassments as the 55-27 pasting that Notre Dame laid on the Horns in 1995 and the lopsided 38-15 Longhorn defeat to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl after the 1996 season. Just to put the icing on the cake, Darnell was also the college coach of currently underachieving Houston Texans linebacker Jason Babin, on whom the team wasted a first round draft choice.
Thus, with that backdrop, it was not particularly surprising that I received a phone call yesterday from a friend who is an ardent Longhorn fan. While chortling about Franchione’s hiring of Darnell, he passed along the following :

Q: “What does ‘Franchione’ mean in English?”
A: “Mackovic.”

Early betting on the ConocoPhillips-Burlington Resources deal

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ConocoPhillips2.jpgWell, there has been almost a week’s worth of bets on the proposed ConocoPhillips – Burlington Resources merger, and those bets have been decidedly against ConocoPhillips.
Since Monday, ConocoPhillips shares have been hammered, closing yesterday at $58.77, which is down almost 7% since the proposed merger was announced. Moreover, Houston-based investment bank Sanders Morris Harris and A. G. Edwards both downgraded ConocoPhillips stock to a “hold” from their pre-merger announcement “buy” recommendation. As noted in this earlier post, the ConocoPhillips play for Burlington runs contrary to traditional big energy company policy toward such mergers during times of high energy prices.
Responding to this market skepticism, ConocoPhillips chairman and CEO James Mulva conceded yesterday in public comments that the company is paying “a full price” for Burlington, but that “access to quality long-term resources has become much more difficult and expensive. We are in an extremely competitive environment and a portfolio of assets of Burlington’s quality cannot be replicated.” Mr. Mulva also noted that ConocoPhillips is analyzing whether to use hedges to “either lock in prices or mitigate the potential downside of a reduction in gas prices.” Finally, Mr. Mulva predicted excess cash flow would allow ConocoPhillips to reduce the relatively high debt-to-capital ratio that it is taking on to make the deal to between 18% to 23% by the end of 2006.

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