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…
How to begin? Well, that’s what I’m writing about, isn’t it? Where to begin, how to end. I put up with this stuff from my dogs every day. I walk three of them—Otto, my 900-pound Weimaraner; Skeeter, my son’s seriously bloated toy fox terrier; and Dottie, my mother-in-law’s 900-year-old border…
Note to readers: The following is a serious, stat-saturated column. I promise more dwarf- and Dirty Sanchez-related questions next week! Dear Mexican, A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center reveals the following: ·Hispanics are four times more likely than non-Hispanics to receive welfare. ·Hispanics account for three-quarters of the…
It took about five minutes for this much of The Dallas Morning News’ crap Web site to load. Seriously. Five minutes. Sure, ours ain’t the best either, but at least it loads…most of the time. I have been trying to focus my thoughts on why the new Dallas Morning News…
At some point today, somebody at D will say Jim’s lying abut the Trinity River project. And we will act oh-so-surprised. For a sickening example of local kiss-up media carrying water for the Trinity River gang, please read today’s story at the top of The Dallas Morning News metro front,…
Dear Mexican, My fiancé is trying to learn Spanish so he can speak to my grandmother when we get married next month. Lately, he’s been listening to CNN en Español to get an ear for the language. A couple of days ago, he told me that, after several weeks of…
Dear Mexican, Not long ago, I attended a Los Tigres del Norte concert at a small hall with no dance floor. The people attending were supposed to sit down and enjoy the music. Five minutes into the music, these jumping beans started dancing in the aisle. It’s not the first…
First, the big news, the part that has to do with you. In 1998 you were told the Dallas taxpayers’ share of the Trinity River Project was $246 million and would never go higher. What I don’t think anybody has told you since then is that under Dallas Mayor Laura…
Talk about mixed emotions. Here I am a Democrat. We just swept the county. Why don’t I feel better? I’ll tell you why: Laura Miller. Last week I drove out of the basement of City Hall with my heart in my shoes. I’d just finished an hour and 45 minutes…
I know exactly what the election results are going to be: the biggest, most amazing Republican majority ever, bigger than the best majority Jimmy Hoffa ever got in a Teamsters election. I think the Republicans will all win by 100 percent to zero. I also don’t think you’ll be hearing…
You know what former Observer columnists don’t like? Being called glib and duplicitous by current Observer columnists. Mayor Laura Miller and I sat down yesterday for what became a quite rancorous hour-and-45 minute interview in the mayor’s conference room at City Hall. I’d describe a lot of it as the…
