FrontBurner

The general manager of Toyota’s Lexus division predicts gas prices will keep rising and will stay at higher levels for the foreseeable future. “I don’t seem them coming back down again,” Mark Templin said in Dallas Friday. “I see them at $4 a gallon in the short-term. We’re already paying $5 in California. Long-term, I think they’ll go even higher.”

The top Lexus boss was in North Texas for something called “An Evening with Lexus,” one in a series of exclusive, focus-group-style dinners he’s hosting in homes around the country. Part of the carmaker’s “epicurean marketing” strategy, the dinners are attended by Lexus owners and their friends and are catered by celebrity chefs. The local one will be tonight at a house in Rowlett, where Casey Thompson will serve up salmon, veal tongue and buffalo to Templin and 13 others.

SideDish!

Remember Byron Harris? I do. So I got a giggle when, while having lunch at the Press Box, I saw him schlepping a camera tripod down Ervay Street. “Hey, Byron!” I said as I approached him to take this picture. “Remember when you screwed me on TV?”

“No,” he said, grinning awkwardly.

“I’m Tim Rogers,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Oh, you’re that guy from Dallas Magazine.”

Yes, I am, Byron.

Citing “health concerns,” Bill Lively says he’s stepping down as president and CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The DSO made the bombshell announcement today, just 29 days after the fund-raising maestro took over the position part-time. The announcement quoted Lively, 67, as saying that on the advice of his physician, he would have to “prematurely” resign and “devote significant time this summer to rest and recuperation.”

In an interview this morning, Lively said that in recent weeks he’d lost 10 pounds and begun having headaches and became alarmed, mindful that two of his brothers had experienced strokes. His doctor suggested that working long hours for many years had led to “cumulative fatigue and stress,” Lively said, and that, in order to get better, he needed to recuperate. He’ll do that this summer at a second home in Estes Park, Colo., Lively said, before returning to Dallas in the fall and “considering another assignment.”

DSO Board Chair Ron Gafford said the board would “start the process of identifying interim leadership” immediately. Lively (pictured in photo by Jeanne Prejean) had been scheduled to wrap up his commitment with the North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee late next month, and then to start full-time with the DSO in June.

Because of his fund-raising prowess with Super Bowl XLV and in previous positions, Lively had been widely viewed as a “savior” for the symphony, which has been plagued by budget deficits in recent years. At a D CEO event just last week, he hinted at a methodical plan for revamping the organization significantly. Lively said this morning that the DSO is in good shape overall, except for one thing: “Their only weakness is that they’ve been leaderless for too long.” Now, it appears, they’ll be leaderless for awhile longer.

A financially minded FrontBurnervian points us to the news that Citigroup fired Ben Stein from a corporate gig for making jokes in Dallas that were allegedly and supposedly disparaging of women. Two things I’d like to see in the comments: 1) a report from someone who was present at the private-equity gig whereat Stein made these jokes and 2) some really offensive jokes that disparage men, just to balance things out.

Dallas Cowboys Get Another Smith. This one’s named Tyron. Without an E. That is so weird.

Miss USA Says She Was Groped in Dallas. Susie Castillo, who was the 2003 Miss USA, used the Internets to say that a TSA agent at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport groped her. Only the TSA says they’ve interviewed the agent and found nothing wrong, and are going to the tape of the incident to make sure. In a related note, I haven’t watched a Miss USA pageant since 1991.

Campaigns Are Not For Doing the Maths. When Fort Worth mayoral candidate Cathy Hirt claimed in a forum that 47 percent of Fort Worth ISD students will not graduate, I’m sure people thought she misspoke. But then the same claim showed up in campaign material, too, and now the FWISD board is kind of politely asking what Hirt smoked, because the graduation rate is more like 76 percent to 80 percent.

The Case of the Sartorially Challenged Bank Robber. Listen, I’m no criminal mastermind (that you people know of), but if you’re gonna rob a bank, don’t you kind of dress for it? Maybe a disguise of some sort, and not whatever you bought at Forever 21 last week?

So, Did Anything Interesting Happen This Morning? No? Good. As you were.

Dear Media Type People Who Get To Ask Mark Cuban Questions:

Apparently, Mr. Cuban now tires of you asking him about how much it  hurt to be hit by whatever he was hit with during Game 3 against the Trailblazers. If you ask, he will call you a dumbass, and perhaps throw a few more choice profanities at you.

Dear Kerry Eggers and the kind, Amish folk at the Portland Tribune:

Want to learn about a string of profanity? I can learn you that. But a couple of f-bombs, a dumbass and a damn sandwiched in a few hundred words does not a string of profanity make. Call me, or e-mail me, and I’ll show you a string of profanity. I’m good at it.

That being said, dude – if you had done your homework, you would’ve known you got off easy.

Hugs, Kisses, and Best Waffles,

Me

Do you like vodka? Do you like beer? Do you like lemonade? Then you should totally try the Summer Beer at the Old Monk. And if you like pretty rooms, fine furniture, fancy chandeliers, gardening news, and finding out what inspires interior designers, you should totally try our new and improved D Home page. We are the Summer Beer of blogs–lots of good things mixed together. We have product galleries! We have room galleries! We have a blog! We talk about television! I’ve exhausted my supply of exclamation points, so please come by dhome.dmagazine.com for a visit.

I went to see Charlie Sheen last night. I’m pretty sure I was the oldest person to pay for a ticket. Why did I go? I don’t have a direct answer to that question. I’m an ambulance chaser. I’m the driver who stops at a massive car wreck to look for dead bodies. I can watch twelve hours of earthquake damage on television. Tragedies fascinate me.

Charlie Sheen’s Violent Torpedo of Truth performance at the sparsely populated AAC was a delicious disaster. Kidd Kraddick, thrown into the impossible task of interviewing Sheen, was murdered on stage. There was only one Goddess. I swear she’s got a baby bump. If she does, then there is another calamity in the making. Mark Cuban didn’t show up; only dudes with beer guts and baseball caps with dates dressed in clothes from the sale rack at Forever 21.

Pictures instead of words below.

Tiger Blood Rained Down at AAC. But not from Charlie Sheen. No, instead, Kidd Kraddick, emcee of last night’s show, said he was the one everyone loved: “I was amazing at Charlie sheen show. They just couldn’t hear me cuz of all the booing. Lol.” However, a certain co-worker tweeted her response, “Kidd Kraddick booed more than Sheen. KK nervous. Sheen: “you told me these people loved you.” Kraddick #Losing.” Don’t worry about not having access to read this recap of the show. I consider not going to be me winning.

Investigation After Officer’s Slaying Leads to New Policies. Officer Jillian Michelle Smith was killed after responding to a domestic violence call. It has now been determined that the 911 operator and the dispatcher mishandled the call, thus causing them to either resign or be fired. It’s now a policy that two officers must respond to domestic violence calls. But this is just a temporary change, one that will be reviewed to see if it’s even necessary. Lessons were learned. Let’s just hope they’re remembered.

Let’s Get Rowdy. Or not. Tuesday in San Antonio at a Frisco RoughRiders game, umps declared a home run a ground-rule double. This caused Frisco players to throw trash cans and bats into the crowd, and, of course, the crowd reciprocated. I love sports. You never really know what’s going to happen–one minute you’re reaching for a foul ball, the next a trash can is nailing you in the head.

Found a Localized Royal Wedding Story, Finally! I don’t know if you are aware, but there’s this really large and important wedding happening tomorrow. While everyone’s been guessing and wondering about what Kate will wear, we at D have been racking our brains trying to find a way to localize the story. I thought about going with Tim’s tweet about how he’d rather watch the wedding than the NFL draft, but then I found this. It’s way sweeter than talking about the draft.

See local white people (and others) dance and goof around to Michael Franti and Spearhead’s song “Say Hey (I Love You).” Participants include the likes of Ray Hunt, Jim Keyes, Craig Hall. Some of them are “the bomb,” for reals.