The Year In Review

Whatever happened to good old 1986?

Halley’s Comet no longer blazes above; it came and went and the world didn”t end. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the local economy burned out along with it, perhaps to revive before the comet’s encore in 2061. We don’t know about that, but we can answer some other questions, like whatever happened to some of the fascinating, funky, and foul folks found on these very pages during the past twelvemonth?

Roll call starts with Richard Chase, the West End bad boy and media darling. Dick’s Last Resort was booming, but his partners sued him. claiming he had misappropriated company funds. Dick’s last resort is a fashionable one these days: bankruptcy. In October, he filed in California, where he’s now spending more and more time. Chapter 7. Straight liquidation. Hefty list of creditors.

Speaking of bar wars, in May we named Louis Canelakes one of the ten best bartenders in Dallas. In August we reported that he had been fired from his longtime job at Joe Miller’s by Miller’s widow, Linda. As the year draws to a close, Louie is involved in negotiations to open his own joint. He guarantees it will be at least as tacky as his former venue. Linda Miller has made some overtures to bury the hatchet; Louie figures the best place for it is still her head. “I got an attitude. When I’m in my own bar, I’ll forget it, it never happened. But right now I got an attitude. I been livin’ on beans and franks.”

Speaking of Millers, there was that other Miller, Bradlev Miller, the Dallas Morning News columnist fired for.. . for pretending to be almost exactly what he now is. in reality.

Miller got the DMN ax in March for writing a letter on company stationery in which he pretended to be “Leonard Glumph, Deputy Minister of Propaganda” for a fictitious group he created, the ultra-right-wing National Capitalist Workers Party. NCWP. The reader who received the letter took it seriously, and by the time the comedy of errors ended, U.S. Congressman Joe Barton had asked staffers to look into the NCWP. Eventually, the ill-advised joke cost Miller his job.

So where, five months later, does he land? Manager of editorial services for Washington’s influential conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, where he edits columns and writes press releases.

Jokes Miller. “There was so much corruption in the NCWP ministry of propaganda, with rumors all the time that it had been infiltrated by Communists-and even liberals-that I thought exposure to the techniques of a more successful organization might be helpful.”

Speaking of kidding, that’s what everybody said Carrollton auto dealer Bob Roethlisberger had to be doing when he purchased eighty-five gaudily painted autos from the Modern Car Collection of Swami Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. !

All but fifteen of the cars are sold, and those are expected to move by the end of the year. The sad footnote to this story is that Roethlisberger didn’t live to see his. own dream come true. He died of cancer last April.

The “rajneeshes” who left Bhagwan’s defunct Oregon commune to aid Roethlisberger have scattered. One pretty former Rolls saleswoman is said to be dancing topless at The Fare.

And speaking of women. whatever happened to Ms. Tex? You remember, the Dallas Artist’s Coalition project to raise S20.000 to fight sexism by erecting a gigantic female counterpart next to Big Tex? The fair spokeswoman, Nancy Wiley, said the article in our April issue was the last she’d heard of Ms. Tex, “unless she’s wandered in sometime in the last twenty minutes.”

Speaking of not speaking, John Wiley Price and former state Rep. Paul Ragsdale still aren’t, even in court, which is where they’ll probably be again: Ragsdale’s attorneys indicate they will reappeal their civil suit against (he county commissioner for violation of election laws. For Ragsdale. jailing his longtime nemesis for fifteen hours for contempt just wasn’t enough.