Ask a Mexican

Dear Mexican: What’s the fascination Mexicans have with Elvis? —Good Roceando Tonight Dear Gabacho: Your question is spot-on, but it’s taken a while for Elvis to achieve icon status amongst Mexicans. As recounted in Eric Zolov’s 1999 book, Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture, the King largely sparked…

Ask a Mexican

Dear Mexican: Whenever I have an immigration debate with my Chicano hermanos who support open borders and get angry at any type of immigration control, they don’t seem to understand the basic laws of economics, such as the fact that migrant workers who pick fruit, work in construction and do…

Allow Myself to Introduce … Myself

Dart boards rejoice. Been meaning to get around to this and, with Wimbledon in a rain delay, seems like a good time. (Sports prologue: The Rangers stole another win in New York and the Mavs will sign Gerald Green. There.) Couple of you have emailed asking for some personal background…

Meet Jim Schutze, DART Cop

Sorry, but every once in a while I feel a need to clear the air on blog comments. I recently wrote about a major Dallas Area Rapid Transit screw-up in which alert citizens caught one of the agency’s major contractors tearing up $600,000 worth of new improperly installed train track…

Ask A Mexican

Dear Mexican: What do you think would happen if U.S. citizens could as easily buy land and set up businesses in Mexico as Mexicans can do in the United States? Might that be a big boost to the Mexican economy? I know there are provisions in the Mexican Constitution that…

Fluid Victory

For one brief shining moment last week my man Roscoe Betz was in tall cotton. Dallas County Justice of the Peace Albert B. Cercone handed him a victory on every score. I wrote about Betz two weeks ago (“Hardballs,” June 12, 2008). He’s an 89-year-old retiree and World War II…

Heavenly Bottoms?

Texas Heavenly Homes’ proposal for new Tenth Street Bottoms neighborhoods, from the city’s Bottom Revitalization Project briefing Tomorrow, the city council will approve a $500,000 zero-interest loan of city bond money to an outfit called Texas Heavenly Homes for the redevelopment of the Tenth Street Bottoms area at I-35 and…

Jim Schutze: Now With More Talking!

For those who missed Schutze’s appearance this a.m. on KLIF-AM (570), during which he discussed his Unfair Park item concerning Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s $600,000 problem with the Green Line, morning-show host Jeff Bolton’s producer Clint Granberry was kind enough to send us , which doesn’t need your every last…

On KLIF Tomorrow Morning, Jim Schutze Will Toss DART(s)

CBS How come we’ve never seen this page till now? Very fancy there, Jim. Says here that KLIF-AM (570) morning-show host Jeff Bolton is a “dynamic, nationally recognized talk radio show host” who offers a “combination of independent thought, scathing humor and a tireless commitment to broadcasting ‘on the scene’…

You Know DART’s New Green Line? Well, Um, You Go First.

Says DART: “Silas Fisher, safety manager for Archer Western Contractors, will make sure construction moves safely down the southeast portion of the Green Line.” You remember the $600,000 Dallas Area Rapid Transit track boo-boo I talked about in my June 12 column? Maybe not. Anyway, DART had to order its…

Your Weekend Planner: Vacation Edition

If I don’t make it back, hey, it’s been fun. We need to talk. Actually, no, we need a break. How about one, then the other? Been at this sports blogging thing going on eight weeks. So far, so swimmingly. I write, you read. I write some more, you correct…

Sexy Town

The big buzz word now at City Hall is “walkable.” They want to develop new neighborhoods that are “walkable.” Meaning you walk. But I have a question: walk to what? Walk to crap? Do I want to leave my crappy apartment complex and walk around the corner so I can…

Ask A Mexican

Dear Mexican: I recently went to a Los Angeles Dodgers game at Dodgers Stadium. It was good to see the familias having fun with their children, pero I then saw and heard something disturbing. There will always be rivalries in any sport, of course, pero the white people cheering for…

Keep Your Eye on the Bottoms

A page from the city’s study concerning redevelopment in the Tenth Street Bottoms I wasn’t going to write about this, because City Manager Mary Suhm assured me it was nonsense. I think she may have implied that I was nonsense too. But the church fire on Sparks Street yesterday has…

Eat the Rich

Mayor Tom, reading to the kids earlier today at the opening of Bookmarks. But, surely, you have a better caption than this one. So, this afternoon I go over to City Hall to pick up some stuff — a thick file of personal e-mails that will go off like an…

Your Weekend Planner: Father’s Day Edition

Enjoy. FRIDAY: Check your calendars, triskadecaphobians. Don’t walk under ladders. Don’t screw with masked dudes named Jason. And, whatever you do, don’t work around cranes. SATURDAY: Still six weeks until the Cowboys depart for Oxnard, Calif., but that isn’t stopping Terrell Owens and Marcus Spears from throwing a “Back to…

Hardballs

Sorry, but every once in a while life just hits you over the head. Dallas Area Rapid Transit finds out it’s short a billion dollars on its construction budget. No big deal. Don’t sweat it. But let DART owe a few bucks to some humble taxpayer, and, wow, it’s a…

Ask A Mexican

Dear Readers: The Mexican has previously published only one Best Of column in his nearly four years living under his cousin’s identity in this country, but I must pull this week’s first pregunta out of the archives because ustedes keep asking it—obviously, not enough of you bought my paperback since…

And You Think We’re Obsessed With Angela Hunt

I know people accuse Unfair Park of being the Angela Hunt Fan Club on occasion, but of late I have decided it’s The Dallas Morning News that is Anglea Hunt-obsessed. Last November, on the day after the big defeat of the Trinity River toll road referendum, Rudy Bush did a…

Pony Up. Or Pony High?

SMU’s basketball team is back safely and successfully from its summer camp in Africa. If you’re interested, head coach Matt Doherty will provide details tonight at 8 on KRLD 1080 AM. I don’t expect an explanation of the above video, which seems to be SMU football players dancing. But I’d…

Your Weekend Planner: Mystery, History and Get-Well Wishes

Sorry TMS, two wheels are better than four. FRIDAY: Convicted steroids dealer-turned-NFL informant David Jacobs was shot to death along with his body-building girlfriend in Plano yesterday. Like it did me, did this send a cold-blooded shiver down your spine? With the way he imported raw powder from China, manufactured…