The arrival of a New Year always brings about in me a strange and unaccustomed desire to be un-depressing. And I don’t even drink. I don’t know what does it. This year I’m blaming it on Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston. He and I had an interesting chat about…
Hey, I think I have waited about long enough for The Dallas Morning News to weigh in on the racial segregation complaint lodged against Dallas by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development in early December. A month. Even allowing for Santa Claus and all, a month seems a…
Apparently if you really want to get one of your neighbors to open up about herself, you need to send somebody over to interview her for The New York Times. I learned more about my neighbor Virginia Savage Talkington (lotta names) McAlester from the pages of the Times yesterday than…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Dallas loves an icon. Our football team can’t just be ours, it must the whole of America’s, whether that means the whole of America loves those boys or hates them. A new arts structure cannot just quietly appear in Dallas. It must complete the largest contiguous district of its kind…
Had an interesting chat a while back with Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston about downtown office vacancy rates. Hey! What? It’s what people like us talk about. Just be glad you didn’t get stuck between us on an airplane. It’s interesting. Really. According to the Dallas Business Journal, Dallas…
Dear Readers: Since it’s the end of the year and the Mexican is on his 18th tamale (made by the mujeres in his family, of course), behold some letters from angry readers (and one fan), along with my answers. May your 2014 involve more cousins smuggled into los Estados Unidos…
Not that you asked, but here’s what it’s like to be me. I’m walking my dogs, Penny and Dorothy, up and down alleys in East Dallas, and I’ve got my little cell phone ear-bug deal going so I can talk to people and keep my hands free for clean-ups. And…
We spoke last week about the way city staff is dealing behind the scenes with a recent accusation of racial segregation by the federal government. Maybe we should talk, too, about the way they’re dealing with it in court. Late last month the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development…
The city of Dallas went to federal court earlier this week to stop a federal judge from expressing his opinion about a recent federal investigative report accusing Dallas of practicing racial segregation (the city’s brief is below). Plaintiffs in a whistle-blower lawsuit will come back today with their argument urging…
Most people regard metal music as an anti-intellectual, chest-beating, noisy fit for cavemen. Despite this being 100 percent true, there are a few positive things that result from having an intense dedication toward one of the most juvenile forms of music out there. While listening to metal may still sentence…
James Ragland is back writing a metro column for the city’s only daily newspaper, and that’s a good thing. But Ragland, who took a sabbatical from columnizing to do actual journalism, may need to give himself some catch-up time before launching too many more opinion epistles. He wrote a piece…
Dear Readers: Behold your favorite Mexican’s annual Christmas gift guide, where I give shout-outs to some of my favorite books that deserve your money this holiday season! And for once, I won’t recommend my books — ¡Ask a Mexican!, Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food…
Normally I don’t do this. I don’t suggest solutions. But in this case, I cannot resist. Last week I met with Mayor Mike Rawlings and his spokesperson, Sam Merten, to discuss an issue I had been writing about a lot — a car wash on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard…
Editor’s Note: Shea Serrano is an award-winning music writer and goofball whose recent exploits include Bun B’s Rapper Coloring and Activity Book. In his new column, he writes about his life and times. This game is very simple: Look at the pictures and guess what Kanye West song each one…
We’re always happy to hear about the prospect of [DARYL] getting back together for a one-off show here or there, but I honestly can’t fathom where their guitarist David Wilson would find the time these days. Wilson needs to be first in line to be duped on a 3D printer,…
Not that you asked, but here’s what it’s like to be me. I’m walking my dogs, Penny and Dorothy, up and down alleys in East Dallas, and I’ve got my little cell phone ear-bug deal going so I can talk to people and keep my hands free for clean-ups. And…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
We spoke here last week about a large section of the city near the new University of North Texas campus that has never had city sewer service. Newcomers and people unfamiliar with the city’s southern hemisphere might find it hard to believe, but we have substantial expanses of unimproved ranch…
Odd little contretemps in recent weeks on the pages of our city’s only daily newspaper: On December 4, education writer Matt Haag had a story in the The Dallas Morning News under the headline, “Dallas ISD teachers left at high rate in Superintendent Mike Miles’ first year,” purporting to show…
The Ethan Couch story is a tough one for me, because you know I always like ragging on rich people. And it seems hard to read District Judge Jean Boyd’s sentence any way other than as a get-out-of-jail-free card for a kid whose parents could afford to put him in…
Tuesday I talked to Mayor Mike Rawlings about the car wash on MLK Boulevard that I have written a lot about lately — well, a lot about over the last eight years, as a matter of fact. It’s the one the city recently threatened to take by eminent domain. We…
