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My family frequently travels to the northern part of Mexico. We visit with relatives, overeat, spend some pesos, and dread departure day. Our sad ride back home is always accompanied at the start by Tejano music, my father’s favorite jam. Playing over the radio, we hear Grupo Mazz, Little Joe, La Mafia, Jay Perez, and Selena. But it never fails that the closer we get to Dallas, the more the Tejano music begins to fade into static. Eventually, we cross an invisible line and there is silence. 

I always wondered, Why do southern cities in Texas seem to have plenty of stations while Dallas doesn’t have any? Where has all the Tejano music gone?

Major Gridlock in Insurance Negotiations. If you’re insured through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas and seek care at UT Southwestern Medical Center or Texas Health Resources, you’re going to want to pay attention to what’s happening around the bargaining table. If the parties don’t reach an agreement by October 4—and, to be fair, someone almost always blinks before deadline—more than 450,000 patients will face out-of-network prices for their care. These sorts of things happen, and especially between these specific stakeholders: talks broke down in 2016 and 2018 before reaching an agreement.

Remembering the Driver Who Died When 18 Wheeler Tumbled Over Central. I linked to the incident earlier this week, now we need to meet the man. Gustavo Gomez, 71, was killed when his 18-wheeler collided with another vehicle and appeared to lose control, sending it tumbling over Central down onto Stacy Road. His family remembers him as a jokester, but they also say he had a clean driving record and had worked for the same company for 20 years.

Wolfe City Officer Not Guilty in Deadly Shooting. Wolfe City is in Hunt County, about an hour northeast of Dallas. In October 2020, Ofc. Shaun Lucas arrived at a convenience store to break up an argument between two people, one of whom was a man named Jonathan Price. The matter continued outside, which is where things go sideways: prosecutors say Price was not a threat, followed commands, and was shot anyway. Defense attorneys say Price resisted and Lucas had to deploy a taser, which Price tried to grab before he was shot. A jury spent a few hours deliberating before returning a verdict of not guilty.

Summer or Fall: Who’s To Say? Looking at a sunny weekend with highs in the mid-90s. Fake fall is back!

On the July 19 episode of America’s Got Talent, Chapel Hart—a Mississippi-bred trio of Black women—performed their twangy riff on Dolly Parton’s iconic plea to the other woman, “You Can Have Him Jolene.” When they finished, the audience jumped to its feet, roaring its approval, applauding and chanting “Golden Buzzer,” the signal to move the country group to the next round. Moments later, judge Simon Cowell told the women, “I needed you today.” 

The face of lead singer Danica Hart was soaked in tears by then—the glory of the moment, of being so enthusiastically praised, washing over her in waves. But it was her response to Cowell’s question about their efforts to make a name for themselves in mainstream country music that provided the clearest view into her emotional state. There was heartbreak below that happiness. 

“We’ve been trying to break into Nashville for the last couple years,” Hart said, “but it’s been kinda hard when, I think, country music doesn’t always look like us.”

Significantly, the “last couple years” refers to a time of marked disruption in country music, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decades. Two summers ago, on June 2, 2020, Black music executives Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas launched #TheShowMustBePaused, an initiative designed, as they wrote in an Instagram post, to “hold the industry at large, including major corporations + their partners who benefit from the efforts, struggles and successes of Black people accountable” while pushing it to “protect and empower the Black communities that have made them disproportionately wealthy in ways that are measurable and transparent.”

That same day, eight days after the murder of George Floyd, Arlington-born Mickey Guyton dropped “Black Like Me.” On the macro, the haunting track provided a glimpse into her life as a Black woman in America. Drilled down, lyrics like “Now I’m all grown up and nothing has changed/Yeah, it’s still the same” were a searing indictment against her 10 years in the country music industry. If there were any doubts, her interviews on CBS This Morning, Entertainment Tonight, NPR, and numerous other outlets—where she consistently and courageously relayed details of being called the N-word, of facing questions about her sincerity, of trying to assimilate into an all-white world—put those to rest.

Our StrongSide editor, Mike “The Looch” Piellucci, is a graduate of USC. That’s one reason I hate him. (I went to Notre Dame.) The other reason I hate him is because he is a graduate of Jesuit. I, on the other hand, graduated from Cistercian. In the power ranking of Dallas-area all-boys private schools, it goes like this:

1. Cistercian

DNF (tie): Jesuit, St. Mark’s

Having established that, let me check the stats on the North Texas Giving Day leaderboard for schools. Ah, yes. Here we are. Jesuit, which enrolls about 1,100 students, currently sits at No. 95, with $10,430 raised. Cistercian, with only about 330 students, sits at No. 2, with $429,774.

Hox vabiscum, Looch.

Last year, North Texas Giving Day raised $66 million dollars through 103,000 donors, benefiting more than 3,300 local nonprofits during an 18-hour period. Today the online giving event will aim to top that. 

The premise is simple: Thousands of nonprofits sign up to fundraise, and Communities Foundation of Texas provides a platform for donors all over the country to give to their favorite (or new) charities throughout the day. This year, the foundation is partnering with the technology platform Mightycause, which it says will help potential donors find charities that align with their interests and pet causes. 

“Each year thousands of donors show up for our community nonprofits and this year, we want to help all donors—those who have participated before and those that may participate for the first time—identify their unique passions and make gifts that can help make our communities safe spaces to be well, be happy, and be whole,” said Monica Christopher, senior vice president and chief giving and community impact officer at CFT. “We want to continue to grow the spirit of giving by engaging and activating more donors as each individual gift, no matter the size, helps the collective.” 

Dallas Officials Caught Off Guard by August Flooding. Dallas emergency management director Rocky Vaz said that while the National Weather Service issued a flood watch before the Aug. 21 rain began, it underestimated how much precipitation the area would get over the two-day period. In Wednesday’s city council briefing, Vaz explained that for the first hours of the torrential rainfall, there was no coordinated response between first responders, public works, and the emergency management department.

Keller Officials Remove Library’s Banned Book Week Post. Some Keller residents are questioning the decision to remove a post about Banned Book Week on the city library’s Facebook page. “City leadership was concerned that residents would think we were trying to cause controversy, given recent debates about books in the school district, so we removed it as that was certainly not the intent,” a spokesperson said. “We still invite our residents to celebrate Banned Books Week with us at the library this week, as we do every year.”

Family of Slain Irving Woman Awarded $1.1 Billion from Charter Spectrum. Dallas Judge Juan Renteria ordered Charter Spectrum to pay $1.1 billion to the family of Betty Thomas, who was robbed and stabbed to death in her Irving home by Roy Holden, one of the company’s cable technicians, in 2019. Court testimony revealed that the company hired Holden without verifying his employment history, after removing an employee screening program in 2016.

Nasher Prize Awarded to African American Woman for the First Time. The Nasher Sculpture Center awarded the 2023 Nasher Prize to Senga Nengudi. Nengudi is the first African American woman to win the prize, and the third American to receive it. Nengudi will receive the $100,000 prize at a special ceremony in Dallas on April 1, 2023.

No. If you like bad decisions and convenience stores, Dallas-based 7-Eleven and footwear company Crocs are pairing up to offer three limited edition atrocities Crocs. The “shoes” include custom 7-Eleven-related Jibbitz charms, including a Slurpee, the logo, and more. Prices start at $50.

Sometimes I walk a mile and take a dozen photos. Sometimes I walk a dozen miles and take one photo. This weekend was more of the latter than the former. I walked 17 miles on Saturday—“why?” is sort of the why—and I think I took one photo of the dam at White Rock and that was about it. I was connected with my surroundings, but I didn’t really feel the need to document. Or maybe I just didn’t see anything worth storing anywhere other than my brain. It happens. It can be better when it does.

Photo time.

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“H-E-Beelzebub Day” doesn’t work at all, but that headline makes me giggle. “Beelzebub” is a funny word.

The folks at H-E-B HQ must be popping bubbly and high-fiving each other. “Y’all, check out the front page of the Dallas Morning News. We got nearly the entire space above the fold. Does anyone say ‘above the fold’ anymore? Anyway, it’s like the Tyler Morning Telegraph or something. I’m not downplaying how kickass our grocery stores are, but I never expected this sort of fawning from a major metropolitan newspaper that has won eight Pulitzer Prizes. Pass the Champagne.” I assume at H-E-B HQ they drink real Champagne, so it’s capitalized.

“H-E-B-boy” would be a great headline if Post Malone ever had a concert in a grocery store.

Tom Fox took that photo. He was part of the team that won the Morning News’ last Pulitzer, in 2006 for breaking news photography, in the course of covering Hurricane Katrina. He was a Pulitzer finalist in 2020, for taking these images of a would-be killer wielding an AR-15. He quite literally put his life on the line to get those pictures. What I’m saying is, Tom Fox is a total badass. Yesterday he took pictures for a story about the opening of a grocery store. I wonder if he was like, “Eff me. I can’t believe I’m trying to get the right exposure in a Frisco grocery store.” Or if he was more like, “I’m so glad there’s no chance I’ll get shot or drown today.”

Wait. You can rent ladder trucks? Because if I can rent a ladder truck, my weekend just got more fun.

Jeff Saenz almost died in his backyard on the night of June 1, 2021. The musician, producer, and owner of Modern Electric Sound Recorders—the Dallas studio where Leon Bridges, Paul Cauthen, Nikki Lane, and many other local and national musicians have recorded—was at home in Little Forest Hills when he went outside to investigate why the power had gone out. In the dark, Saenz stepped on a downed electrical line and was electrocuted. Rescued by his fiancée and a neighbor, he spent 10 weeks in the hospital, initially losing his left arm below the elbow and eventually needing his right arm amputated as well. Immediately, Dallas and Fort Worth musicians rallied to hold fundraisers for Saenz and his fiancée, her son, and the couple’s toddler daughter. (You can donate here.) Just over a year later, Saenz is back in the studio and performing. Recently, we talked to him about his return.

Almost 88,000 birds flew over Dallas County between Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. and 7:10 a.m. this morning, migrating south in preparation for the winter. The number of winged commuters above us peaked at 21,800 birds sometime shortly after 10 p.m., according to BirdCast, which provides migratory data on birds on a daily basis.

While we were all sleeping, Baltimore Orioles, Yellow Warblers, Indigo Buntings, Eastern Wood-Pewees, and Dickcissels were among avian flyovers trying to reach warmer temperatures before colder weather sets in.

But your porch light might be throwing them off a bit, experts say. Lights from porch lights and even big buildings attract the birds, which often leads to collisions with buildings as they become disoriented, killing nearly one billion birds each year, according to the Texas Conservation Alliance .

Yesterday, the twice-yearly “Lights Out Texas” initiative kicked into gear in an effort to help all those birds complete their fall migration.

Tractor Trailer Flies off Central, Kills Driver. This footage is insane: an 18-wheeler collides with another vehicle near the Stacy Road exit, which sends the tractor trailer up the wall of the highway and over. It falls to the road below and goes up in flames. The driver has not been identified and no one else was injured.

D.A. Hopeful Says She’ll Seek the Death Penalty. District Attorney John Creuzot hasn’t pursued the death penalty in a capital murder case since winning the office in 2018. His Republican challenger, Faith Johnson, says she would seek it, especially for cases like Billy Chemirmir, the man accused of killing 18 elderly people in robberies across Dallas and Collin counties. Johnson was the county D.A. from 2016 to 2018, after being appointed by the governor following Susan Hawk’s resignation.

Chief Eddie Garcia Fires Two Officers, Suspends One. Sgt. James Bristo was accused of using “unnecessary and/or inappropriate force against a citizen” and was fired following a discipline hearing. He also didn’t file a standard form after the incident and then “engaged in adverse conduct,” which led him to be arrested for official oppression. Sgt. Carlos Valarezo lost his job after Garcia determined he violated city code for making unwelcome jokes or comments “that interferes with another employee’s working conditions.” Sgt. Kung Seng got suspended for giving false testimony in a court proceeding.

H-E-B Opens in Frisco. And hundreds of shoppers poured in at 6 a.m. to … buy groceries. Hopefully they loaded up on those butter tortillas.