Dear Mexican, Why do non-Mexicans consider it a compliment when they tell Mexicans they don’t look Mexican? I am 100 percent Mexican—5-foot-7, with black hair, brown eyes and olive skin—and ever since I left my hometown of El Paso, I’ve been subject to this backhanded compliment. —No Soy Italiana, Pendejo…
If there’s one thing that gets Jim Schutze going, it’s the Trinity River Project — oh, and being called a liar by Wick Allison. Not fond of that either. Wick Allison posted a little essay this morning on FrontBurner about how wrong-headed and unfair Jim Schutze has been in his…
In the minutely Balkanized geosphere of Old East Dallas, the announced migration of Whole Foods from Lower Greenville to the Lakewood Shopping Center is an earthquake — a death and the impossible dream come true. And that’s for a move of .97 miles. I wrote recently about the boom in…
On Tuesday, D magazine editor and publisher Wick Allison made invidious comparisons between Los Angeles police chief William Bratton and our own chief, David Kunkle. Based on his belief that L.A. crime rates have been plummeting while ours have not, Allison wrote on FrontBurner: “David Kunkle may be a nice…
Dear Mexican, How did the patron saint of México get a name derived from Arabic? —El Moro Judío Dear Jewish Moor, You’re referring to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the brown-skinned apparition of the Virgin Mary whom tradition says appeared before the Aztec peasant Juan Diego in December 1531 just outside…
My prediction. A few days before Christmas I’m in the car at a light on Matilda at Mockingbird, and this sedan comes rolling around the corner at me with two guys, one at the wheel in his 40s maybe and the other guy riding shotgun probably in his 70s. As…
Mayor Pro Tem Donald Hill might not be good enough for Hill. It’s the “pro tem” part that he wants to get rid of…maybe? Gromer Jeffers has an item on the Dallas Morning News Bold Types blog saying council member Don Hill will announce tomorrow he’s running for mayor. Gromer,…
When he was at the University of Michigan in 1933, Jerry Ford looked like one tough son of a gun, much as Schutze here remembers Ford in the 1970s. Jerry Ford, whose funeral is taking place at this very moment, is still on my mind. I wrote a post for…
The Mexican is currently inside a trunk trying to sneak back into the United States after the Christmas holiday. In the meanwhile, here are some oldies-but-goldies: Dear Mexican, A friend of mine calls Mexicans “wabs” but being a menso doesn’t even know what it means—except that it’s not P.C. What’s…
Jerry Ford has died. I seldom have personal feelings for politicians, but Ford’s death makes me sad. Of course, that may be because I played such an important part personally in his presidency. This is a short story, so I’ll try to make it long. People born since 1973 probably…
Dear Mexican, I’m a Spanish-language student struggling with tenses and the gender of nouns. The other day, some friends and I were discussing street slang and the word verga (penis) came up (no pun intended). It occurred to me that the definitive symbol of masculinity ends in the feminine -a…
A portrait for the museum. A Rembrandt. I’m looking at Mitchell Rasansky in a pool of light at the back of a darkened office, staring back at me glumly. Here on Walnut Hill Lane across from Presbyterian Hospital, winter evening has fallen. The secretaries and administrative assistants of the world…
Why is this man smiling? Probably because he’s decided not to run for mayor. Who wants that lousy gig anyway? Oh, yeah — everyone else. Mitchell Rasansky is not going to run for mayor, in spite of poll results showing him at the head of a crowded field in citywide…
Dear Mexican, It seems that whenever Chicano professors want to show off their mexicanidad, they wear a guayabera. In fact, I saw a picture of you in the Los Angeles Times donning the shirt, along with Dickies pants and Converse All Stars. How trite and bourgeois! You go to a…
I don’t want you to imagine this scene. It’s not imaginary. I want you to see it. Picture this. South Dallas at night. Jim’s Car Wash, corner of Myrtle Street and MLK Boulevard. Right across Myrtle Street a dope house is doing a land-office business. Behind the car wash on…
Dear Mexican, I was flipping through my television when I noticed the Spanish-language channel showed a man in a red suit with yellow pants, antennae on his head and a heart with the letters “CH” on his chest. It appeared to be a sitcom, and all the characters related to…
OK, now I’m mad. Do you hear me, Wick Allison? Yeah, scary, isn’t it? Let me tell you how I feel about the big project to build parks, lakes and roads along the Trinity River downtown. I love it. We need more Austin here, less Waco. It costs money. We…
Dear Readers, I received many kind, drunken words from ustedes regarding my November 16 column proclaiming Mexicans and Irish “brothers in depravity.” Let’s start with a wab: Man, did you make me laugh with “leprecanos.” I never had more fun on Cinco de Mayo than I did in 1974 in…
Steve Blow, a metro page columnist in The Dallas Morning News, wrote a column last week about the mayoral candidacy of former Dallas Observer music editor Zac Crain. I sometimes enjoy Blow’s stuff, which has a comforting kind of good-old-boy twang to it, like a mouth harp on a hay…
What Jim knows about the Trinity River Project makes him a Brainiac on the subject. This is Jim’s actual picture. No kidding. And he will prove it. Later. D Publisher Wick Allison has devoted his publisher’s note in the December issue to a discussion of whether Jim Schutze is totally…
A federal judge recently found the principal of a North Dallas elementary school guilty of 1940s-style racial and ethnic segregation. In a civil suit, Judge Sam Lindsay ruled that Preston Hollow Principal Teresa Parker had systematically herded black and Latino kids into segregated classrooms to appease affluent white parents. At…
Hank Lawson says Leo Chaney, pictured here, is…is…well, actually, Lawson doesn’t say as he prepares to leave SouthFair. Hank Lawson, founding executive director of SouthFair Community Development Corp., will leave the helm at the end of December. He says his retirement from SouthFair–which is behind Park Row Estates, a 30-unit…
