A Bug’s Life: Sucking Brains In Deep Ellum

This city looks a little different under the gaze of a lazy Sunday. Gone are the razzle dazzle details of a typical Dallas weekend and, if you’re lucky, you get to see the Big D for who she really is. Platform heels tossed to the side, that little black dress…

Why Do Mexicans Paint Murals on Lowriders?

BUY TACO USA! Gentle cabrones: My much-promised Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America has finally hit bookstores! Place your order with your favorite local bookstore, your finer online retailers, your craftier piratas. And stay tuned for book signing info! Why do Mexicans with lowriders have murals on their hoods…

Is Dallas Smarter Than a Third Worlder?

In my ongoing series on cities smarter than Dallas, please allow me to add Seoul, South Korea, another place we need to send a team to right away. Yesterday the Dallas City Council heard an awe-inspiring presentation by Guillermo Penalosa, a leading-edge planner whose work has helped transform cities from…

A Modest Proposal for Clearing Dallas’ Filthy Air

I try. I keep offering. Dallas doesn’t have any problems it couldn’t solve if it just looked to more advanced cities. I make suggestions. Dallas gets pissed off. I don’t know what else I can do. Recently I pointed out that Dallas could resolve its seemingly intractable 15-year-old standoff on…

Business People Taking an Interest in DISD May Not Be All Bad, In Theory

Yikes. Now I have to say I found something good on The Dallas Morning-News op-ed page today. Will my Job-like suffering never end? In today’s Dallas’-only-daily-newspaper (alas), Mark Melton, an attorney at Hunton & Williams, has written an essay about the involvement of the “business community” in the Dallas public…

Thanks, Nanny State, for Looking Out for My Ass

I’d like to say a quick thank you to the Nanny State, before the moment passes and I forget all about spending a good deal of Tuesday cowering in a downstairs bathroom preparing to find out what my everlasting reward will be. Hey, thanks, Nanny State. Couldn’t have made it…

Are There Different Kinds of Mexican Food?

Dear Readers: Nearly four years after promising ustedes that I was going to write a book about the history of Mexican food in the United States, my Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America is getting released this week! April 10! Three-hundred-plus pages of astounding history (did you know the…