Dear Mexican: My coworker was driving to work this morning when she realized she was being followed by a Mexican in his vehicle. He followed her for at least three miles on the road, and during this time he waved at her, smiled when she frowned and even puckered his…
The thing about ethnic identity is that it is always, has always been and will always be a dead end in the end. Then again, it’s also in the nature of things that you can’t change a dead-ender. Last night I was watching a TV news story about a city…
It’s a strange pleasure to be a Texan, and then a Dallasite. Like everyone else these days, I hail from a multi-ethnic family. When asked about my ethnicity my favorite response is, “Puerto Rican and Texan.” It feels the truest. Recently, and it seems throughout this year specifically, Dallas has…
Brett Stowers played for Fair To Midland for 10 insane years. He was part of brilliant, hair-raising shows full of frenetic energy and, at times, stuntman-level acrobatics, records that combined metal, prog and art in a way that eventually caught the attention of big labels first, and later Serjical Strike…
Hey. I thought there was a rule. You leave the guy’s kids out of it. Guess not. I see this morning Dallas school board member Lew Blackburn is taking a back-handed swipe at the superintendent of schools for taking his kid out of the Dallas school system. “You have to…
It soars into the air, a sparkling baton for rock singers. Its chrome-plated shaft sears fingertips upon contact. It spins first, then tumbles while singer Aryn Black of Scorpion Child dances and jams with the solos being played on a Flying V and a Les Paul. He doesn’t need the…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Oh, I guess we had some fun Saturday on the KNON radio version of “Get Off My Lawn,” a program I have been sharing every Saturday at 10 a.m. with political consultant and D Magazine columnist Eric Celeste. We took an on-air call from the elusive pseudonymous Dallas blog commenter,…
Oh, goody. I see the Dallas school board has a “request for proposals” out, seeking a public relations firm to come in as a private contractor and help the public school system (meaning the school board) with its relationship with the public. That’s a big idea. But they need to…
The plaintive tone is so heart-wrenching, the request itself so naïve, that one is tempted not to respond at all. But in the case of the West fertilizer explosion, silence is at least complicity. It may even be the heart of the crime. In an open-letter opinion column on the…
Dear Mexican: I’m curious as to the meaning of the term “Viva la Raza” that I have often heard expressed by my friends and family. I know what it translates to, but I don’t know why we say it. I happen to be what some call a “half-breed,” and therein…
Rereading last week’s leaked investigative report on Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles, I kept getting this little itch. I was sure I had read something about this somewhere else just recently. But I couldn’t imagine where. The report is the work of an obscure entity called the Office of Professional…
In the year 3013 in public squares at the hearts of modest villages and small capitals the world over, there will be statues of a global hero whose original identity is barely remembered, his or her actual existence in doubt and debated among scholars and the faithful. The exact appearance,…
Sorry, all you highway fans, but I can’t help loving the snit Texas Republicans have gotten themselves into over road money. Governor Oops, posing for the last two years with a Tea Party pitchfork, dropped the act yesterday and blasted the medieval wing of his own party after they shot…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Lindsey BestAndrew Youssef[Editor’s Note: Long-time concert photographer Andrew Youssef found out two years ago that he had stage IV colon cancer. In that time, he has continued to shoot tons of music events, on top of other freelance work and working a day job at a hospital, of all places…
Uh-Oh. Hippie Liberal Elitism Alert. If you are a hippie liberal like me, do not, repeat, DO NOT read the story in today’s New York Times about National Park Service plans for curbing visitation to Yosemite National Park. Reading of this story may cause serious damage to your democratic convictions…
Yesterday when he told the Urban League he was going after Texas on voting rights, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder quoted a federal court decision last year in which the court said Hispanic plaintiffs in Texas had “provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than we have space, or need, to…
Way back in 2010, the Observer wrote about a hellish July Fourth night that saw Dallas PD launch a volley of pepper balls into a crowd in an attempt to disperse it. That night seemed to be the tipping point for Lowest Greenville, and then-city councilwoman Angela Hunt proposed an…
All right. Maybe the headline was a little sensational. If the headline had been, “Interesting Charette Held,” you wouldn’t be here, would you? And there was some talk of dynamite last night at the “Connected City” seminar at the Nasher Sculpture Center. Different people, I’m sure, left last night’s deal…
We had gathered in an East Dallas home to have a party before a party when someone asked, “What is House of Plates?” The question grows more common with each soirée thrown by the Dallas group of um, bloggers? Event planners? Mysterious tweeters? Master Instragrammers? They are all those things,…
Dear Mexican: I had a conversation today with an 18-year-old Mexican co-worker that blew me away. She has a 3-month-old with her 19-year-old (also Mexican) unemployed boyfriend. They just found out she is pregnant again. After listening to her sob about it, I asked if she was going to keep…
