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Local News

Rick Perry to Coyote: Bill White Responds

Bethany Anderson
By Bethany Anderson |

So, as we all know because now it’s even a Google ad, Gov. Rick Perry shot a coyote that was eyeballing him and his dog. With a gun. A gun that fires hollow point bullets in coyotes.

Well, today Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White responded, telling the Dallas Morning News’ Gromer Jeffers that, essentially, he has seen coyotes before, and he tends to scare them off with his steely eyed stare and doesn’t need a stinkin’ gun.

“To me, I don’t tend to be afraid of coyote,” he said, hinting that Perry might just be a ‘fraidy pants and thereby delivering the first true “Oh, Snap!” of the gubernatorial season.

Over on SideDish I put up a few pics of Shannon Wynne’s new Design District joint called the Meddlesome Moth. Great place. I recommend it, especially if you like to drink beer. And who doesn’t like to drink beer? So I was cleaning out my iPhone when I realized I’d taken these shots inside the men’s room, where above each urinal hangs a cool throwback stripper poster. To recap, then: go, drink, micturate. You’ll enjoy yourself.

moth1moth2moth3

Controversy

Talk About Being Dropped by a Contractor

Jeanne Prejean
By Jeanne Prejean |

So that’s why I kept getting a busy signal.

You know of Blake Mycoskie, right? He’s the Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS, the footwear company that gives a pair to a child in need for every pair you buy. You’ve seen him on those AT&T commercials where he goes around looking ruggedly unshaven, clubbing baby seals. I’m kidding! He doesn’t club baby seals! Of course not! He gives shoes to poor kids who don’t have them. And then he smokes a lot of weed and plays the guitar. But by then, of course, the cameras have stopped rolling.

Anyway, where was I? Yes. After a visit to Hockaday in 2008, Mycoskie said to himself, “Dude, I would much rather have gone to high school here than to James Martin High School in Arlington. And you know what? Just because a lot of these girls aren’t poor doesn’t mean they don’t need quality footwear. I’m going to design them a special shoe, just for Hockaday uniforms.” And that’s exactly what he did.

Ursuline? Are you just so jealous that you could scream?

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Oh, Mark. I get it. It’s the day after your team lost in the first round again for the bajillionth time, and you’ve got a sad. I have a sad. Zac has a sad, I saw it on the Twitters. We all have sads. And angries.

And to a point, you are right, to say that sometimes people use the anonymity of Twitter to be meaner because they can get away with it. But that’s the Internet, not just Twitter. I know, because I sometimes get good and schnockered and accidentally read the comments at the end of Dallas Morning News stories.

But to say so today, well, could make you sound kind of like a crybaby. Did you expect to see Mavs fans tweeting their overjoyedness at last night’s debacle? Did you think Spurs fans wouldn’t skeedaddle over to their TRS-80s, fire up the dial-up and tweet their mockery of our pain?

Good point, but the timing? Well, let’s just say it’s not just a team problem.

bestof_shoppingYou’ve told us about your favorite places to eat and drink locally. You’ve run down your list of the best bars and clubs in town. Now part three of the Best of Big D Readers’ Choice Poll 2010 – wherein you’ll have the chance to sound off on all the top places to shop – kicks off Monday morning and will run for two weeks, through May 16. You can vote once a day, every day, for the length of the polling.

The results of Best of Big D Readers’ Choice (including the services category, which is coming up in a few weeks) will be published in the August 2010 issue of D Magazine. Make the jump to see the categories on the shopping list.

Local News

America’s Worst Driver: Dallas Edition

Nancy Nichols
By Nancy Nichols |

Shocker: Dallas made the Travel Channel’s America’s Worst Driver program. Here is the cast of crappy drivers:

Tara is a Texas bombshell who was nominated by her ex-fiance. She says she hasn’t been in any accidents that count. Not sure what that means, but I’ll take her word for it.

Noel and his brother Seth are funny, highly entertaining, and (so it seems) active on Twitter! Noel weaves in and out of traffic and thinks he is invincible on the road. In other words…he’s an aggressive driver!

Telea was nominated by her best friend Andrea. She refuses to use her turn signal, and during the episode actually roles down her window to ask another driver what he thinks about her driving.

Stacey doesn’t like anybody telling her what to do, especially in the car. Her ex-boyfriend John admits he is a backseat driver, which makes matters worse.

Which of these four contestants will be crowned Dallas’s worst driver and have their car crushed? Tune-in (or set your DVR) tomorrow, May 1 at 9:00 p.m. to find out.

Restaurants & Bars

Announcement: May 21st

Patrick Kennedy
By Patrick Kennedy |

[DSC01465.JPG]
Actually, I think of it more as a solution. Thank you very much.

If you haven’t been to our friends at FortWorthology, head over there some time. If you haven’t been to Fort Worth, have we got something in store for you.

As many of you may know, on most Fridays, we organize a local happy hour preferrably in local, walkable neighborhoods throughout Dallas. It is also often orchestrated with a free beer from me to the first person who guesses the City shown in various imagery and hints of the City’s history, origins, demographics, morphology, yadda yadda.

Well, on May 21st, we will be having a dual happy hour with the good people of FortWorthology, set in where else but in the siamese sister city of Fort Worth! Omigod that’s so far away. How is that walkable? Glad you asked. We will be taking the TRE out there.

Next question: Why so far away? Well, that answer is two-fold. First, Kevin of FortWorthology has the crazy idea that he wants to train around the country for three weeks to see the land and visit the great cities sprung from its soil. Second, we want some time for people to plan, since it isn’t exactly about walking from the office to the corner pub.

Kevin also has some ideas for location and we will be working out further details including potential cross-site competition for the Free Beer Guess the City. Perhaps two cities, two potential beers??? Yum. I just might have to guess in his site’s competition.

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Local News

Dallas Man Digs Up Grave, Steals Foot

Bethany Anderson
By Bethany Anderson |

OK. I really don’t know what’s going on, but first I found this, which has nothing to do with Dallas, and then I saw this, which does have something to do with Dallas, and now I understand why Rick Perry carries a gun on his person.

People? They be crazy.

It has always seemed to me that many defenders of sprawl, aren’t really defending the actual everyday world that is defined by sprawl. Sometimes it stems from property rights (although any property owner NOT thinking about their neighbor is shooting themselves in the foot).

For others it is a misplaced anxiety about losing their home, their abode, the stuff they love inside the house. Rarely, do they really love what is outside the walls of their house. This is why home selling so often veered into pedaling improved niceties for the petty bourgeois: granite counter tops, a jacuzzi tub, a game room, etc. etc. All nice things sure. But, more often, in order to afford that place, the house ends up being constructed about as well as a bird’s nest with paper, sticks, and spit. (Maybe THAT’s what Herzog and DeMeuron were saying?)

But is life really better when you don’t want to leave the house? When their is no amenity a few steps from the front door?

My guess is that the majority of sprawl defenders and attackers of “urbanism” are really those just afraid of change. Evolutionally (sic) speaking, these people have a purpose. They are wired to ensure that change has to prove itself. That we don’t keep wandering down wrong roads and dead ends of false progress (see anything designed recently by Steven Holl).

With that, I bring up one of the first two rules of science:

Look at things right under your nose as if you’ve never seen them before, then proceed from there.

Which looks like a better place to Work? To Shop? To Play? To Converse? To Laugh? To Live? To Love?

The following photo-sets represent two distinctly different “genotypes” of place: the tax, zoning, and transportation policies shaping the physical form, the phenotype, of cities.

http://www.dkolb.org/sprawlingplaces/images/fullsize/spr.strip.pei.jpg

http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11_05/sprawl.jpg

http://www.lightrailnow.org/images/mil-hwy-fwy-sprawl_cnu.jpg

Set 2:
http://www.bv.com.au/file/cecil_DaveMcCaf_web.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_D5kx0bUGx_c/SHeJvxKmKPI/AAAAAAAAAa8/j3hvXB7m4r0/s400/plessis%2Brob4.bmp

http://www.myurbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/CIMG0065.jpg
Image from MyUrbanist.

As someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to putting on fundraisers for elementary schools (mainly because I watch my wife work her butt off), I gotta say I’m impressed with the shindig that Stonewall Elementary is throwing tomorrow. The Shake, Rattle, & Roll silent auction features not just the Charming Gardners but the Reverend Horton Heat, too. One wonders, given that it’s a DISD event, whether the Reverend will perform “Bales of Cocaine” or any of his other less-than-PC numbers.

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