West Africa

Fela! Shakes It (and You) at the Winspear

Dallas Children's Theater Delivers a First-Class Version of The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley

How Medicare Became a Thieves' Bazaar

In Dallas and across the country, hospitals, doctors and dealers have made Medicare the nation’s sweetest crime. The feds are now trying to shutter the door.

The Art Of Nesting

Five of This Week's Top Show Announcements: Best Coast, The Octopus Project, Brad Paisley and More

Best Coast Tuesday, May 28, at Granada Theater, $24 L.A.'s surf-pop duo Best Coast blew up on everyone's radar in 2010 when they were one of the most blog-worthy bands around after releasing their debut LP Crazy for You. Then, last year they had an equally as powerful follow-up with The Only Place, ... More >>

Sundance Preview: Movies to Know from Park City

It's Hard to Teach Kids to Read if They Only Want to Burn Down the School

Somewhere somehow we just got on the wrong track, folks. All these issues like the public schools, crime, unemployment: We're still trying to rearrange the furniture when the house is already on fire. For example, as I said here yesterday, that bright shiny new superintendent of schools we just hir ... More >>

First Round of SXSW 2013 Acts Announced, Including Blackstone Rangers and The Relatives

With the announcement of 35 Denton's initial lineup, it was only a matter of time before you felt that tightening in your chest, aka the first round of SXSW acts. North Texas' Blackstone Rangers, Ronnie Fauss, the Relatives, Somebody's Darling, Sarah Jaffe and Tedashii are all represented. Thurston ... More >>

DFW's First Trader Joe's Location Opens in Fort Worth Tomorrow. No Crying, OK?

The very first Texas outpost of Trader Joe's opens tomorrow morning at 2701 S. Hulen in Fort Worth. The Monrovia, California-based specialty market has a cult following, with loyal devotees sometimes traveling hundreds of miles to stock up on Two-Buck Chuck ($2 wine that beats the pants off of Walm ... More >>

Refugee Writers Means an Outlet for Refugees and Awareness for the Rest of Us

The other day, Unfair Park chatted with filmmaker Bentley Brown about his film Faisal Goes West, the tale of a Sudanese family moving to America and settling in Dallas' Vickery Meadow neighborhood. Brown mentioned his friend who convinced him to film in Dallas (and acted as script supervisor) starte ... More >>

Trader Joe's Opens in Fort Worth in June

Word out of the Monrovia, California, HQ for Trader Joe's, is that the company's first two Texas stores will both open on Friday, June 15 at 8 a.m. One is in the Woodlands north of Houston and the other in Fort Worth. The Fort Worth location at 2701 South Hulen Street and is over 12,000 square feet ... More >>

Item Involving Charter School's Bonds Pushes Council Into Passionate Philosophical Debate

​This was a good day -- such days do occur -- to study democracy in action at Dallas City Hall. The city council engaged in a smart debate on a proposal to help a charter school organization sell bonds to build more charter schools. The mayor and council decided not to decide. If you listened to ... More >>

Art, Revolution and Trying to Keep the Doors Open at South Dallas's Oldest African Art Gallery

A year and a half ago, the owners of Pan-African Connection Bookstore, Bandele Tyehimba and his wife Akwete, found out their building was being torn down and replaced with a dentist's office. They'd been at the location at the corner of Marsalis and Jefferson for more than 21 years. "I guess we were ... More >>

A Video That Actually Sells Dallas, In This Case to Foreign Investors. Y'all Come Now, Y'Hear?

​In recent days we've seen a video in which the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau sells the city to conventioneers and tourists, and a short film in which the Dallas Citizens Council sells the city to ... um, the citizens council? But after the jump, here's a real, honest-to-God pitch -- a fre ... More >>

See Addison, See the World

So, How Was Caraway's Trip to Nigeria?

Via.President Goodluck Jonathan will miss you, Mayor Dwaine Caraway.​I hope Mayor-For-Now Dwaine Caraway brought back pictures from his trip to Nigeria, where he's been for the past eight days to attend the swearing-in of President Goodluck Jonathan and tend to some business. He's back this evenin ... More >>

Well, That's Quite the Mavericks-Heat Sports Bet You've Made There, Governor Perry

Via.​This just in from Governor Rick Perry's office: He's added congressional redistricting to the special session's to-do list. Wait. Sorry. Wrong press release. Let's start this over.This just in from Governor Rick Perry's office: He's bet Florida Governor Rick Scott "a case of Texas barbeque sa ... More >>

Mayor Dwaine, Meet President Goodluck

Via.Goodluck Jonathan​One week from today, Goodluck Jonathan -- who won election last month after receiving more than 60 percent of the vote during mostly peaceful elections -- will be sworn in as president of Nigeria, the most populated country in Africa. Analysts are mixed on what Jonathan's pre ... More >>

Do Mexicans Poop in the Fields?

Ed Okpa on the Trinity River Toll Road And Why He's Never Mentioned in The Dallas News

Edward Okpa​Since last week's piece in The News about David Kunkle, Ron Natinsky and Mike Rawlings's thoughts on the Trinity River toll road is behind the pay levee, allow me to summarize: Natinsky's still very much for it; Kunkle's ain't at all interested, and Rawlings is taking the ol' wait-n-se ... More >>

Nigerian Soccer Star Buried in Africa, As Family Challenges Little Elm PD's Suicide Ruling

Uche Okafor, a soccer star in Nigeria, played for Major League Soccer's Kansas City Wizards in the late '90s.​In the two months since Nigerian soccer star and Major League Soccer alum Uche Okafor was found dead in his Little Elm home, press from his home country has followed the blow-by-blow betwe ... More >>

Unexpected Influences: Datahowler Doesn't Always Listen To Music -- But When He Does, He Prefers Obscure African or Latin Records.

Welcome to a Unexpected Influences, where we talk to musicians about the music no one expects them to like.Datahowler​Datahowler, mad processor of decades of international culture, has a lot on his mind. Born Ross Edman (and formerly using the moniker Objectiv One), he has managed to push himself ... More >>

White Material: Drowning in the Current of Revolutionary History.

Crime & Punishment & News & Notes

Bradley Eyo, who was killed last weekend​Some grim news with which to close out the year, almost ...The day after Christmas, Bradley Eyo was found shot to death on Barnes Bridge Road near Lake Ray Hubbard. But Dallas homicide detective and Garland police discovered during their investigation that ... More >>

Harvey Lacey Wants to Rebuild the (Third) World One Bale of Recycled Plastic at a Time

From a video you'll find after the jump, Harvey Lacey and the building blocks of his building blocks​For the last few weeks, Brother Bill Holston's been on me to write about longtime Friend of Unfair Park Harvey Lacey's save-the-world project -- which, till Tuesday morning, wasn't completely clear ... More >>

Scenes of Lord Bongo and The Professionals at the Peak of Their Fame in Sierra Leone

Godfrey Manly Spain as his signature character, "Lord Bongo," in Freetown in the late 1980s. In the Paper Version of Unfair Park this week, we've got a longer look at the life of Lord Bongo Johnson, one of Sierra Leone's most popular and influential celebrities in the early '90s, who murdered his ... More >>

One of Sierra Leone's most beloved comedians took refuge in Dallas from his country's civil war. What could have turned him into a killer?

Slow Food Dallas Wants to Plant a Seed
For Immigrant Neighborhood

​Slow Food Dallas is planning to use a portion of the proceeds from its upcoming $100 per plate benefit dinner to help launch a community garden in a Vickery Meadows area apartment complex. The local chapter has traditionally raised money to send delegates to the biannual Terra Madre conference in ... More >>

Years Before Brutal Murder-Suicide, "Lord Bongo" Was Sierra Leonean Comedy Superstar

A comedy star who made his career as "Lord Bongo" back in Sierra Leone, police say Godfrey Spain murdered his wife before hanging himself in their Mesquite home last month.​You might recall reading last month about the Mesquite couple found dead in their home, in what police suspected was a murder ... More >>

The Mansion's Bruno Davaillon:
A Star is Born Down on the Farm

Photo by Robert Bostick​If you ask a random Dallasite to name the best local restaurant, the answer might well be The Mansion on Turtle Creek at the Rosewood Hotel. Ask that same person when they last ate at the 30-year-old Dallas icon, however, and you just might elicit a long pause. This tre ... More >>

Annette Simmons Donates $1 Mil in Stock to Keep Mercy Ships Floating Off Coast of Africa

Mercy Ships​Since 1978, Mercy Ships has been sending hospital boats, for lack of a better term, to impoverished and beleaguered countries to tend to the "forgotten poor"; at this very moment, matter of fact, the African Mercy is perched off the shores of Togo in West Africa, a country ranked near ... More >>

Restrepo: Capturing Men at Work at War.

News & Notes: Lost Society Closed, Dallas Police Warn to "Watch Your Car," Doug's Gym Feted

Brightman Nwatu​That's quite the hodgepodge. Nonetheless, to the briefs ...Avi Adelman, first to the story despite what you read elsewhere, brings the latest news concerning Lost Society on Lower Greenville Avenue: The landlords have done put a padlock on the place. And that's not all: Co-owner Br ... More >>

Hi Soccer or Bye Sucker?

​The Dallas Cup will live on each Easter weekend as one of the world's most prestigious youth tournaments. FC Dallas will anonymously toil away in Major League Soccer. And Starbucks-slurping soccer moms in their minivans will still dominate our roads and bogart our athletic field parking ... More >>

USA! USA! USA!

Goals Gone Global

Show Announcements: Three Dog Night Coming To Arlington, More

​As Three Dog Night's website boasts, "From 1969-1974, nobody had more Top 10 hits, moved more records, or sold more concert tickets." But just because the band is some four decades beyond its glory days doesn't mean it isn't keeping busy. The group--including original members Cory Wells and Danny ... More >>

Narration Au Naturel

Border Poet

Border Poet

Alien Invasion As Apartheid Metaphor? It Works In District 9.

Amadou and Mariam Break Out Of World Music

World Music Must Die

AMADOU AND MARIAM BREAK OUT OF A FLABBY, GENERIC GENRE

Global Drama

That's The Spirit

What's Up Doc?

Still Burning

Mouth Jump

What's in a name? At Saltimbocca's!, it's the best dish on the menu.

Urban Renewal

Sankofa Café Bash honors Juneteenth

Swank sweat lodge

Drummers of West Africa bring the roots of rock to Fort Worth