West Texas

Cracker Barrel, Rodeo Goats and Tofu Porn: This Week in Dallas Dining

It's over. All those special occasion dishes, all the festive cocktails, they're all gone. It's that time of year when were forced to come back to our desks and actually work, even if our desk tops have been pushed a little further away from our faces by a growing holiday midsection. You'd think we' ... More >>

America's Second Richest City Is ... Midland?

Writing in the Atlantic today, Derek Thompson reports from recently released data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that Midland -- not Washington, D.C. or San Francisco, but a 110,000-person speck of dust out in West Texas -- is the country's second richest city, per capita. It might well be fir ... More >>

Nelly Busted With A Loaded .45 and 36 Bags of Heroin in Sierra Blanca Last Night

Our friends at Riverfront Times reported today that rapper Nelly's tour bus was pulled over in the West Texas town of Sierra Blanca last night, the same checkpoint town Fiona Apple, Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg were pulled over in. Only this time, besides weed, Nelly had a loaded .45 and heroin in t ... More >>

Meet the Dallasites Who Made Forbes' List of Wealthiest Americans

Every year, the wealth fetishists over at Forbes compile an exhaustive list of the 400 richest Americans. It's a rarefied club, whose admittance requires an aggregate worth in the billions. Not surprisingly, a number of Dallasites made the cut -- 16 in fact. They range from oldies-but-goodies like ... More >>

Lubbock County Judge: Complete Economic Collapse, Probably Not Civil War, if Obama Wins

Lubbock County Judge Tom Head raised some eyebrows yesterday after he told a local TV station that the tax hike he was pushing for? Oh, it's just so the county can be prepared for when Obama, upon reelection, orders UN tanks into town and sparks a second civil war. In a rambling interview with the ... More >>

Markets, Pho, Limey's and BBQ: This Week In Dallas Food Blogging

This week I reviewed Dalat, a new Pho place on Fitzhugh Avenue that stays open late and takes a whimsical approach to Vietnamese cooking. I also took a closer look at Gandolfo's, the deli truck that hails from NYC. Elsewhere on CoA we noted the opening of Ten Bells Tavern, a new bar in Oak Cliff, a ... More >>

Texas Cattle Country Braces For Another Hot Summer. But Will Drought Return?

Last summer -- the state's hottest and driest on record -- brought Texas ranchers to their knees. Rains have revived parts of the state, especially the east. But 50 miles west of Fort Worth and further, the drought varies from severe to exceptional. So, what's in store for us this summer? Unfair Pa ... More >>

The Big Electricity Question: How Much Are Dry Nuts Worth?

As Brantley pointed out yesterday, the Texas Public Utility Commission got down to hard numbers last week as it inched further toward what appears to be inevitable -- a huge increase in the current $3,000 per megawatt-hour cap on the price of wholesale electricity during times when demand is high. T ... More >>

Sliced Beef, Texas Sausage and Tax Dollars Turned into TV: This Week In Dallas Grubbing

Flickr​It's getting cold out -- cold enough to make Thanksgiving seem welcome, but maybe not cold enough for mulled wine on the stove -- yet. This week we checked out SWIG, a trendy bar-restaurant on Henderson with a cool bar and ho-hum food. I still think the place warrants a visit. You know ... More >>

Memories in Paint

Road Trip: Noshing My Way to Big Bend

The scenery was pretty cool too.​According to the cheery student volunteer who gave a short lecture at Big Bend National Park the other day, the desert is delicious: Any resourceful visitor can make a meal of prickly pear pads and pigweed seeds. While the ranger-in-training assured us the fed ... More >>

For a Few Days, At Least, An Austin Judge Delays Vote on Harold Simmons's License to Bury 36 States' Nuclear Waste in West Texas

Annette and Harold Simmons​For those following along, it seemed all but inevitable that Gov. Rick Perry's appointees to the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission would sign off next Tuesday on Harold Simmons's license application to bury 36 states' nuclear waste out in We ... More >>

Sure, Simmons May Bury Nuclear Waste in West Texas. But It Has To Get There Somehow.

Nuke-Free Texas​We've noted a couple of times in recent days that Gov. Rick Perry's appointees to the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission are but days away from closing comment on Harold Simmons's permit application to bury 36 states' nuclear waste out in West Texas. Ah, ... More >>

How Do You Get Texas to OK Burying Other States' Radioactive Waste? If You're Harold Simmons, You Give Rick Perry Lots of Money.

Annette and Harold Simmons​A nuke-free Friend of Unfair Park forwards this morning this just-released add-em-up from Texans for Public Justice, which asks: Can anyone seriously believe Governor Rick Perry or his appointees on the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission are go ... More >>

Over The Weekend: The Flatlanders at Sons of Hermann Hall

Better than: Seeing the Flatlanders at the Wyly or the Granada, where they've played their last two shows. The ballroom at the Sons of Hermann Hall is their natural element, as dusty and real as the colorful West Texas characters that populate the band's best songs.Will Van Overbeek​The silver-hai ... More >>

Right on Cue, 8 Ball Zucchini in Season

Photo by Elaine Liner​Among the veggies in season right now at the downtown Dallas Farmers Market (1010 S. Pearl St.) are the adorable 8 Ball zucchini squash. About the size of a baseball, in yellow flecked with green or solid green like the typical zukes, 8 Ball squash are a new hybrid develo ... More >>

Ladies sling the booze in Blue Moon Dancing; Circle Theatre has a classical gas with Bach at Leipzig.

Shpiel Magnolias

What Do T. Boone Pickens, Josh Hamilton, Willa Ford, Craig Watkins, Demi Lovato and Pete Freedman Have in Common?

Patrick MichelsOur music editor in action ... Well, none of them are building wind farms in West Texas. Two have known the soft touch of Mike Modano. Three are former or current Disney Channel stars. All are enamored of copious amounts of free publicity. Two have posed nude. And all have been named ... More >>

PCB or TYA: Those Hudson River Carcinogens Are Finally Rolling Into Texas

Back in February, Alexa wrote about the pending transport of Hudson River sludge to West Texas, where Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons's Waste Control Specialists will turn one state's trash into one man's treasure. That trash in question are millions of cubic yards of PCBs -- or polychlorinated bi ... More >>

Road Trip: On the Set of Local Filmmaker Tom Huckabee's Carried Away

Patrick MichelsFort Worth-based filmmaker Tom Huckabee's first feature was a post-apocalyptic William S. Burroughs adaptation, in which a 19-year-old Bill Paxton gets a brainwashing and a sex change from militant feminists.For his second feature now, 26 years later, Huckabee is tackling slightly mil ... More >>

On The Range: West Texas Enchiladas

The first of a series documenting Chris Meesey's personal quest for authentic Tex-Mex. But we'll let him tell you more... I'm a genu-wine Texan, born and bred. In fact, I began life at Nix Hospital, San Antonio--less than one mile from The Alamo, the acknowledged epicenter of the Texas Universe. ... More >>

Calling All Ghosts

See the sculpture of Pard Morrison

"West Texas Puro Tango Blast" -- Not As Much Fun As It Sounds

Only a few days ago, The Dallas Morning News ran a piece about Texas' Tango Blast gang, which was formed within the confines of the state's penitentiaries and "could change the Dallas landscape because it rejects old notions of prison gang exclusivity and lifelong commitments," wrote Tanya Eiserer. ... More >>

Twenty Seven Years Later, Williams and Sears Are Still Serving Up Tuna

Is The Answer "Jesus"?

Won't You Be My Neighbor? No, Not You.

Coot Trick

Oldest Living Graduate didn't do enough homework; Drowsy Chaperone wakes up the smile muscles at Fair Park Music Hall

Pix of a Polygamist Smooch Is Worth a Thousand Icks

On The Border

See Greatness at South Side

Kids Rule

Searching for Melton Barker

Sewing Wood

See the art of a Hooker

The Right Way

Cooder Graw

Saturday, December 23, at Gilley's

Explosions in the Sky

Friday, October 29

The Polygamists Are Coming!

Nervous West Texas townsfolk brace for the arrival of a sect of Mormon fundamentalists and their many wives

How Now Mad Cow?

For Texas cattle ranchers, "What's for dinner?" is a touchy question

History Teacher

Elmer Kelton is likely the best Texas author you've never heard of

Best Salsa

Ozona Grill & Bar

Explosions in the Sky, Fridge

April 12

Naked Buddha

Fishbowl-zen den is a lot less clever than it thinks

Shallow Impact

Why don't tourists flock to the meteor crater outside of Odessa? Because most don't know a bona fide Texas treasure from a hole in the ground.

Run Over

Small towns in the Big Bend area brace for an onslaught of Mexican trucks rolling their way thanks to NAFTA

Yippy Ky Yay

Darn close to the real thing

High Spoons

Bare breasts, a bowl of red, and bad blood among the chili brethren in the Big Bend. Texas doesn't get any better.

Banter

Rocket man

Former NASA engineer Tom Moser dreams about launching the next generation of spacecraft from Texas soil

Joe Bob Briggs

Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, TX

Dust and wind

Joe Ely sends a sad, beautiful Letter to Laredo

West Texas waltz

Pop-rockers return from the dark side of the Moon Festival