Thanks, Bernie!

Well, the votes are in and our man Bernie Scheffler ended up with the smaller number, but Bernie is already focused on the future.

Thanks for your hard work and the positive campaign, Bernie. I'm ready for 2009 right now.

It's Almost Over

The Texas Legislature is wrapping up it's session this week, which means there's all kinds of nonsense going on. If you are interested in reading more about that kind of thing, please refer to one of my new favorite blogs, Grits for Breakfast where Scott Henson has a great roundup on the status of criminal justice related bills.

Coming Soon To A Newspaper Near You?

You wouldn't think that you could cover local news in say, Pasadena, Calif., from India, but evidently you can ... or at least PasadenaNow.com thinks so. Unfortunately, I think we will see more moves like this very soon. Do you think someone in Bangalore can cover news in Fort Worth better than someone here can? I don't think so, and I hope no one else in Fort Worth does either.

Is Cowtown Crazy for Giuliani or What?

As dicussed previously, Fort Worth is crazy for Rudy Giuliani. But is Rudy Giuliani just plain crazy? Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff seems to think so. “It’s a Catch-22 kind of nuttiness. What with all his personal issues -- the children; the women; the former wives; [Bernard] Kerik and the Mob; his history of interminable, bitter, asinine hissy fits; the look in his eye; and, now, Judi!, his current, prospective, not-ready-for-prime-time First Lady -- he'd have to be nuts to think he could successfully run for president. But nutty people don't run for president -- certainly they don't get far if they do.”

Or do they?

UPDATE: Rudy Giuliani hates ferrets and the people who love them and here is the audio to prove it. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

Modern Architecture in the MetroMess

There's nothing I enjoy more than a good Internet pissing match. Well, actually, there's A LOT of things I enjoy more, but an Internet pissing match will do to pass the time.

This particular one is between Anthony Mariani at the FWWeekly and the good folks the Fort Worth Architecture online forum, which is -- IMHO -- one of the great online discussions about civic life in the Fort. The people at the Fort Worth Architecture forum are passionate about this city, opinionated, educated and knowledgeable. It's a good read that I highly recommend.

Anyway, this all started with Mariani's piece on modern architecture in Dallas and Fort Worth. The gist of the article was this: although Fort Worth is proud of its examples of Modernist and contemporary public architecture -- the Amon Carter Museum (Philip Johnson), the Kimbell Art Museum (Louis Kahn), and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Tadao Ando) -- Dallas is poised to jump into the lead with its Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and the Trinity River project. Mariani ended the article by saying "as Dallas boldly looks forward, Fort Worth should think twice about looking back. In other words, fellow Cowtowners, get your digs in at Big D while you can."

This article certainly raised the hackles of the architecture geeks at the FW Architecture forum -- and I mean architecture geek in a positive way. I thought the comments made some interesting points, but devolved into cheap shots and Dallas vs. Fort Worth rhetoric (which is a WHOLE post unto itself). My take on it was the architecture geeks were mostly right, and Mariani was flat-ass wrong, at least in regarding public architecture in the two cities.

While Dallas certainly is taking great strides in its public architecture with what's going on in the arts district, I'm not sure that Rem Koolhaas' design is going to redefine the way anyone in the Metromess looks at public architecture. As a proud member of the Cowtown tribe and self-proclaimed architecture geek, I ain't gonna wet my pants over this one. I'll put our museums up against anything in Big D and feel good about it.

And throwing out the Trinity River Vision as an example? Spend anytime at Unfair Park or Frontburner, and you'll see that people in Dallas have mixed feelings at best about that little boondoggle. Is it a parks project? Is it a highway project? Who knows? And how will all that money that Dallas voters approved be spent? And the Calatrava Bridge? If it is ever built, it will get you to Ray's Sporting Goods faster, but what else?

That being said, if you want to talk about things that Dallas is doing right, how do you not mention the Nasher? It's a sublime architectural experience.

OK, enough of the piling on Anthony Mariani because I thought he did bring up an interesting point: progressive residential construction in Fort Worth is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. To quote the article:

The third wave is one of the most progressive residential developments in the country. Urban Reserve, located on the east bank of Upper White Rock Creek, introduces Modernist and architected single-family speculative tract housing into North Texas’ hodgepodge of cottages and colonials, Tuscans and Tudors. Think flat roofs and fake façades rather than houses of seven gables and protective (or confining?) white columns.

At the vanguard of a burgeoning nationwide movement, developer Diane Cheatham’s 13-acre project is further evidence that, from the vantage point of today, Modernism isn’t as foreboding as it seemed during the height of its popularity in the early 1970s. Urban Reserve and similar housing developments apply to cul de sacs the philosophy of Target superstores: offer exceptional contemporary design at reasonable prices. Nearly all of the 50 proposed dwellings have already been sold.

Coupled with the performing arts center, Urban Reserve will put Big D on the map, as an international destination and a place for design connoisseurs — rich and not so rich — to call home and be congratulated on their urbanity.

So, Dallas has the Urban Reserve and Kessler Woods Court and many other fine custom-built examples of modernist architecture sprinkled through town. And, Fort Worth has -- what? -- Village Homes? Nothing, really, except that house down in Burleson that was in Dwell Magazine

That's not to say there's anything much to write home about regarding affordable modernist residential architecture in the Metromess. And I know lots of people think that modernist architecture has to be expensive. Not true. KRDB architecture in Austin is doing really nice, yet affordable, modernist architecture in A-town. Austin even has its own modernist subdivision. Why not in Fort Worth? Is there no market for it here? Is it just that people prefer Tuscan fantasy crap? Now that's a story I want to read!

However, Anthony Mariani couldn't leave it alone. Anthony, you should have just walked away. Yeah, you took some cheap shots. But you have to hold your head up and just walk on by. Trading cheap shots may feel gratifying, but it ain't very professional. Just snap your panties back into place and move on.

However, Mariani made a good point:

To many respondents, comparing Fort Worth to Dallas — or one city to another — is a fool’s errand. Suggesting that there’s some sort of rivalry between Cowtown and Big D is an even bigger affront to reason. But twin cities such as Minneapolis-St.Paul, Winston-Salem, and Fort Worth-Dallas aren’t “normal” metropolises. Especially in regard to a potential visitor or resident’s perception of the city, twin cities must be evaluated differently, meaning that one twin cannot be assessed as a place in which to live or sightsee without considering the other. The identity and vitality of each depends on the cross-pollination of ideas and, more significantly, location-specific cultural resources. We have the Cultural District and are either loved or envied by Dallasites for it. Dallas will have an enormous, spellbinding performing arts complex and will be either loved or envied by us for it. (The normal folks, not caring about city limits and hotel-motel tax income, will be glad just to have more cool stuff in the region.) Each twin feeds off the challenge of meeting or surpassing the other’s cultural resources, for the sake of fueling the health of the entire region.

You make a good point, except for this: "Suggesting that there’s some sort of rivalry between Cowtown and Big D is an even bigger affront to reason." While technically correct, you're point is spiritually flawed. Most old-time Fort Worth residents make a hobby out of hating Dallas while most most people in Dallas regard Fort Worth like they do San Angelo or Abilene -- it's out west somewhere. You need two sides hating each other to make a rivalry. That said, there is a rivalry and the reason it is not an affront to reason is this -- it's fun. Yeah, it's stupid and it may not make sense but it defines the DNA of many here in Fort Worth. We're from Fort Worth, we damn sure ain't Dallas. Cross-pollination be damned!

Now give me an ice-cold Rahr Stormcloud and a chop beef sandwich from Angelo's and I'll be on my way.

Fireman's 4 Now in Bottles

So sez the brain trust at HornFans. I will try to provide independent verification of this. In the meantime, you can check on the Real Ale Brewing Company, the pride of Blanco, online. They have this quote on their homepage: "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer" - Frank Zappa.

My kind of people.

PSA: Doug and Jill Bryan at Poor David's

My good friends and former Big Boss Groovers Doug and Jill Bryan take the stage at Poor David's Pub tomorrow night at 8. There's a $7 cover and a high probability of hilarity.

BTW Jill: Whither a Web site or MySpace page? How can I link to you without one?

Establishment Politics in the Panther City

The FWWeekly spanks the Startlegram for its general lack of coverage of local city council races and the S-T editorial board endorsement of all the incumbents running (By the way, all y'all in District 9 please pay attention to the photo at left). FWWeekly also called out Mayor Mikey for the general lack of discussion over what to do with Barnett Shale drilling revenue.

You Learn Something New Every Day

Well, at least I do. I'm still unraveling this Fort Worth music scene thing. Case in point: Goodwin. I caught Tony Diaz and Daniel Gomez at the Hecho en Tejas deal a couple stormy days back, and I thought those guys were the shit. I'm going to try and catch them Friday night at The Moon.

And now Cindy by way of Stash hipped me to Tony and Daniel's previous gig, Bindle. It's frightening how much I don't know about what's going on around here. But at least I know where to look. Sometimes.

Remembering Karl King

Because today is the 62nd anniversary of VE-Day, I thought I'd do a post to say thanks to the sacrifices of the men and women who endured those years. I thought I'd point out that we need to appreciate those folks while they're here, talk to them and learn their stories because they are passing into history. So I did a little Googling around trying to find some information about an old friend and sort-of-Fort-Worth legend Karl King, a guy who lived through some of the worst of that time. I interviewed Karl a few years ago for a story I wrote and never sold that you can read here. I had been out of touch and hadn't spoken to him for a few years. Unfortunately, I found out today that Karl passed away on July 25, 2005.

You can read Karl's obit if you like. Let me just summarize it for you: He dropped out of Dallas' Bryan Adams High School at 14 and joined the Marines to escape the Great Depression. He served in China and survived the fall of Bataan by swimming two-and-a-half miles to the island fortress of Corregidor, where a month later he became a prisoner of war at age 16. He survived a hellish three-and-half year prison camp experience with many scars but remarkably little bitterness. He became a Fort Worth radio journalist and was among the first to report the JFK Assassination (his oral history is on file at the Sixth Floor Museum.) After he retired, he went back to school and received a bachelor's degree from TCU in 1980. He had curious mind and was an avid reader of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and he especially liked Emerson's essay on self-reliance.

Karl was a fantastic guy and I'm glad to have known him. Rest in peace, Karl.

Wendell Baker Story Update

Not that I'm really on fire about all this, but the Dallas premiere of The Wilson Brothers' movie The Wendell Baker Story was held at the Inwood last night. Other than that, I got nuthin 'cept this. You can get some video on the D(a)MN site (right), but it crashes my Safari browser, so good luck there. Also you can check out Frontburner buzz-fest. Ands last but not least, a little bit of real news: Luke Wilson sez the Dallas movie seems to be dead.

Cowtown Taqueria Tour

Kudos to the Startlegram's Amy Culbertson for great Sunday Food Section on what makes a true taco and a taqueria tour de Fort Worth. So what makes a true taco? Hint: If your plate looks like the one at the right, you're on the right track.

Fort Worth Marine Killed in Iraq

Master Sgt. Kenneth Mack was killed by a roadside bomb in Anbar province on Saturday. The 42-year-old Marine reservist was a Southwest High School graduate who worked for the Postal Service as a mechanic and enjoyed scuba diving and skydiving. Sgt. Mack leaves behind an 18-year-old daughter, Shyquadra, and an 11-year-old son, Nathanial, his mother, Mahalia Mack, told the Star-Telegram on Monday. He was the 16th Fort Worth service person killed in Iraq.

God and Tom Waits

This one left me scratching my head a little bit: a Jesuit journal hailing Tom Waits as a champion of the “the marginalised and misunderstood.” Although I agree this describes Waits' work perfectly, it has led some to ask: Is Tom Christian?

I think some ask this question with trepidation, as if their feelings about the man and his work will change depending on their own feelings about God and religion. If someone listens to "Down There By The Train" or "Lord I've Been Changed" and thinks, A-ha! Tom's been born again! I think that is just wrong. Really, it's just a TW persona -- the Revival Tent Preacher. Does this have anything to do with the "real" Tom Waits? Maybe, maybe not. After all, it "World Keeps Turning," he wrote: "They always say: He marks the sparrow's fall / How can anyone believe it all?" And as Waits once said about Charles Bukowski: "We know what we have read, and what we’ve gathered from the work and what we’ve imagined. Essentially, there’s backstage and there’s on-stage, when you’re a performer. You know what we allow you to know." (Source: "My Wild Years And The Woman That Saved My Life", Word magazine (UK), November 9, 2006. By Mick Brown)

I think that more than being a Christian, Tom Waits is humanist with a deep empathy for the forgotten, the innocents, the victims. In Tom Waits musical world, God is there, but Tom doesn't see Him as an active participant in the day-to-day for the same reason many people struggle with God's existence: Why do bad things happen to people? For instance, look at the song "Georgia Lee" from Mule Variations: "Not to make it a racial matter, but it was one of those things where, you know, she's a black kid, and when it comes to missing children and unsolved crimes, a lot of it has to do with timing, or publicity... and there was this whole Polly Klaas Foundation up here, while Georgia Lee did not get any real attention. And I wanted to write a song about it. At one point I wasn't going to put it on the record, there were too many songs. But my daughter said, 'Gee, that would really be sad -- she gets killed and not remembered and somebody writes a song about it and doesn't put it on the record.' I didn't want to be a part of that." (Source: "Gone North, Tom Waits, upcountry". L.A. Weekly: Robert Lloyd. April 23-29, 1999) But even then, Waits wants to know: "Why wasn't God watching?" There's also a very similar song on an earlier album, Bone Machine, called "A Little Rain," with the line, "She was 15 years old and she’d never seen the ocean, She climbed into a van with a vagabond, And the last thing she sad was 'I love you mom.' "

Last month when I went to see Joe Ely, he said that there are only two themes in music: going away and coming home. If you look at Waits' themes, these themes are omnipresent. If you want, you can see these in religious terms: sin and redemption, trangression and forgiveness -- it's all the same thing. The album Frank's Wild Years is probably the best example of that. Frank goes out to pursue his dreams, but when he realizes all that he's lost by doing that, he finds redemption impossible to find: "A train took me away from here, but a train can't bring me home." Frank, like many of Waits' characters, must learn their lessons the hard way. It wasn't until years later that Waits spelled it out much more clearly in "The Long Way Home."

I put food on the table
and a roof over our head
But I'd trade it all tomorrow
for the highway instead
Watch your back, keep your eyes shut tight
Your love's the only thing I've ever known
But one thing's for sure pretty baby, I always take the long way home

Tom Waits understands that every one of us, no matter how noble and pure our intentions may be, everyone is capable of making mistakes, sometimes horrible mistakes, because of we are trying to follow our star. Sometimes that star is love or fame or just wondering what's around the corner. We don't do it out of malice. We do it because we are all human and we're trying to live the only life we have. To be human is to be fallible.

More often than not, there is redemption available in Waits' universe. I thought it was very appropriate that he wrote "Down There By The Train" for Johnny Cash because The Man In Black also mined this area of the human condition. In this song, redemption is there for everybody:

If you've lost all your hope, if you've lost all your faith
I know you can be cared for and I know you can be safe
And all the shameful and all of the whores
And even the soldier who pierced the heart of the Lord

Cash, however, was more overt about his religious beliefs and I think it is a little easier to tie a bow around his life. Waits is much more elusive. The idea that redemption is there for everyone without going through Jesus would drive a born-again Christian nuts. When Cash sings this song, you know in the back of your mind that this is a guy who sang tons of gospel songs -- you can listen and insert "God" or "Jesus" without even hearing the word. When Waits sings it, its seems much more ambiguous, more humanist. Grace is there for everyone. Period.

So is Tom a Christian? I don't think anyone other than Tom himself can really know how Waits feels about God, but this often-repeated story sheds a little light on it:

WORD (2006): There have always been a lot of religious allusions in your records, both musical and lyrical, of a salvation army band, revival tent variety On this record you’ve got a traditional gospel song, "Lord I’ve Been Changed," and a gospel song you’ve written yourself, "Down There By The Train." Is it the music you love or the sentiment?
Tom Waits: "I don’t know.. I always thought religion should be more visceral and that you should get beat up a little by it, you know? I was hitchhiking through Arizona, it was New Year’s Eve and I got stuck in a little town called Stanfield, Arizona. You think Arizona’s hot — in January it’s 10 below zero — and I’m not getting any rides. I’m about 17. And an old woman named Mrs. Anderson comes out to the sidewalk and I’m with my good buddy Sam, and she says, “It’s getting a little cold, it’s getting a little dark, it’s New Year’s Eve, come in the church”. And they sat us down in the back of the church, and it was all Pentecostal. They had a band up there; two Mexican guys and a black drummer and an old guy on the guitar - very weird — and a boy about seven playing piano. And they did this talking in tongues. I had never experienced anything like this before, so as far as I was concerned it was like scat singing; they were just going crazy. We were in the back, starting to laugh because it was unusual, and we were young and naive. And at the end of the service they took up an offering and they gave all of the money to us. They said, “We want to honour our wayfaring strangers, our travellers in the back who’ve come a long way to be with us tonight”. They gave us a basket of money, and we bought a motel that night, warm with a TV, trucks out the back. And we got up next morning, and we hit a ride and went all the way to California. That was probably the most pivotal religious experience I’ve had. If I was going to join a church, I’d join that church." (Source: "My Wild Years And The Woman That Saved My Life", Word magazine (UK), November 9, 2006. By Mick Brown)

I think there there is a God in Tom Waits' universe and his fascination with Christianity and the church has as much so do with his interest in life's big questions as it does a bad-ass Hammond B3 organ riff. There is an authenticity and an honesty than run through Waits' music and I really think is the cornerstone of his appeal. He deals with real human emotions -- heartbreak, loss, anger, joy and doubt. He really wrestles with the questions of what does it mean to be human and what is our place in this world. In spite of everything, in spite of the relentless furnace of this world, there is grace and beauty if you take time to notice the magic.

SOURCE NOTE: Thanks to the Tom Waits Library for its wealth of information. It made pulling together these thoughts easier.

Lego Tom Waits

Found this on Flickr. Now what playset does this go with?

Oh, God, No!

Robert Wilonsky at Unfair Park blows the lid off of Dallas' own Owen Wilson cheering for ... Golden-freaking-State! As Joe Ely once sang, Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down. This proves it. Again.

The Week That Was in Cowtown

Enjoyed a great dinner with a dear old friend, Rick Poss and his lovely wife, Marianne, at Benito's on Magnolia last night. Rick is pretty well known in Austin music circles for his guitar work with Jimmy LaFave, Alejandro Escovedo and others. Now he has his solo CD coming out in July. I got a first listen last night and I LOVE IT!

Not to sound like a broken record, but I want to encourage everyone in District 9 to get out and vote for Bernie Scheffler. He's an important candidate that we need on the city council. Bernie e-mailed the other day to tell me they will be walking neighborhoods on Sunday, starting at 4 p.m. Visit his blog for more info. If you can't do anything else, do these two things: 1) Vote early at these locations. 2) Send an e-mail to everybody you know in Fort Worth, and ask them to vote in this city election. There were a total of 1349 votes in the last District 9 election. It is not a cliche to say every vote counts. Also, if you are so inclined, grab a Bernie yard sign or print your own Bernie flyers.

The Stash Dauber knows the real reason Willie's picnic isn't coming back to Cowtown.

There's an old joke that goes everybody talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it. Not true for Tammy Gomez. I talk about it, but she turns it into art. She also had another fantastic poem this week on one of my favorite topics: what does it mean to be a Texan.

Once again on the weather, I'd like to thank Pete at Cowtown Chronicles for confirming that our weather this week was typhoon-like in its intensity. Hope your power's back on, Pete. Mine is.

Check out Big D little d for a bad-ass podcast featuring, among others, The Theater Fire, Midlake, and Bosque Brown. It's got 20 hard-to-find, rare or otherwise obscure tracks total from local artists.

Regarding the Weather

There's only one way to describe our local weather lately: Biblical. I think we're only missing a plague of locusts to hit for the cycle. Driving home yesterday I drove through a pretty scary thunderstorm in ... wait for it ... Arlington ... and I got hailed on, of course. Thanks, Mother Nature. You suck.

OK, throw the virgin in the volcano. Sacrifice the goat. Appease the spirits with gifts of whiskey and pemmican. Whatever it takes. JUST GOT MOTHER NATURE OFF OUR ASS!

Rant over. Thanks for playing.

Dallas / Fort Worth Mid-Century Modern

Because one blog just wasn't enough, I've started a second blog with my wife -- Dallas / Fort Worth Mid-Century Modern. It's devoted to everything Mid-Century Modern in the greater MetroMess area -- furniture, appliances, design, real estate, architecture and culture.

I know MCM is kind of the hip thing right now, but I'm not sure how much appreciation there is it around here. However, this area REALLY IS a hotbed of MCM cool. But it's vanishing. In North Dallas, they are tearing down ranch houses faster than you can say "McMansion." And I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, "THOSE aren't antiques," about a funky lamp or cool 1950s lounge chair. What I worry is that by the time most people around here realize how cool this stuff is, most of it will be gone.

Also, I want Mid-Century aficionados on the left and right coasts to realize there is something between Long Beach and Levittown -- it's called the rest of America. I just want the Lone Star State to get its props. We aren't afraid to expand our horizons outside the area and the state, but we are trying to keep it mostly local, but always MCM cool.

OK, I admit, I am more than a bit of a nerd about this, but I love it. Check it out and let me know what you think. Some of my favorite posts so far: a Julie London appreciation, a screed against Plano, a plea to save a kick-ass Richardson Ranch House, and a look-see at one of my all-time favorite goofy estate sale album purchases. Enjoy, and don't be afraid to leave a comment.

My New Favorite South Park Character

THEY'VE KILLED KENNY! Actually not. But I found this likeness of the Stash Man at the Fine Line, along with news that Black Tie Dynasty and PPT will be playing at the Wreck Room this Friday night. You can probably also wish Jill and Brian happy wedding