Downtown Dallas Is Lovely This Time Of Year

Especially if you manage to escape without your car being jacked, towed, ticketed, or damaged to the tune of thousands of dollars at the hands of a careless valet. (OR WORSE!)

I remember a better time in the Deep Ellum part of Dallas(1986-1999). --The downtown has never been nice.-- A time when society, art and culture collided with good people who were welcomed by the city. The city wanted us to be there. Some of these elements remain today with exception of the latter. Today you are welcome. You are welcome to find a $40 ticket on your vehicle when you come out of the club. You are welcome to legal counsel. You are welcome to false imprisonment. You're welcome to pay out the ass for shitty service and food. You're welcome to be pepper-sprayed in the face with bear mace.

As a good ole boy from Ft. Worth it's a downright struggle for me to make the adjustment to life in Dallas. (I never dreamed it would be this hard). There are certain things one must learn. Very different things from the clean, safe confines of downtown Ft. Worth and Tarrant County as a whole. In Downtown Ft. Worth, you never have a traffic jam, you never have trouble parking, you don't have to pay to park or valet if you don't want to. Entertainment is affordable. There are people in downtown Ft.Worth,  friendly people.

Downtown Dallas is like one long, dark, lonely alley full of trench-coated strangers... The kind in your nightmares. The kind of scary that makes one lock his car doors and hurry along his way with no thought of stopping. Like being chased and having the dogs set upon you on a black rainy night.

I find Dallas forbidding. I always have. There's something about the tunnels under the city that reminds me of the North Vietnamese.(VC)  You can't see who you're really dealing with in Dallas. You can't get a clear picture of who and what is there. It's like a ghost town.

So what's missing?
Where are the sidewalk cafes and bars. Where's the live music scene? Where are the coffee houses? Where are the food trucks? Fuck, where are the fucking people? Besides valets, meter maids and cops in riot gear..WHERE ARE THE FUCKING PEOPLE?!


The money elite have given generously to make it their playground, but it's not so inviting for the common man. 
Texas has plenty of land. Why don't the wealthy build some free parking lots in downtown Dallas? Not so inviting for me when I literally have to work to park my car somewhere . Not at all.
Oh you'll find Art, Music, some Theatre, Deck Parks(wtf?), and Fake Suspension Bridges to Nowhere. You'll find all that and more. Check out the 6th Floor museum if you really want to get creepy.

But you won't find any free, safe, well lit parking.

If you're able to overcome those demons and actually get into a party downtown, you'll find the local music is bad. No, really bad. (NOTE: DISCO DIED FOR ME IN 8th GRADE), everything's too expensive and the people are "snooty." (My moms way of saying 'shitty'). So basically you pay extra to be treated like shit in Dallas. Yep, that's pretty much it.

That's why I have some rules to living in BIG D. I plan to share them with you here as often as I can.
I welcome any of your rules to living in our poorly planned, pretentious, poltergeist of a puny city.

RULE 1 :   DON'T GO DOWNTOWN. (No Exceptions)

 

The Weekly Wrangle

As it brings you this week's blog round-up, the Texas Progressive Alliance thinks that if Herman Cain had just married all those women, he could be where Newt Gingrich is today.

Off the Kuff provides a little perspective about redistricting and the political outcome of the ongoing litigation over it.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson says it's time for a new direction for the Texas Democratic Party: A tremendous opportunity to create a new Democratic Party in Texas.

McBlogger says that Judge Jed Rakoff threw a big wrench into the sweetheart deals some of the banks have been getting from the SEC.

Bay Area Houston has the information if you want to contact the judge about state representative Joe Driver's sentencing.

Refinish69 at Doing My Part for the Left has a few suggestions since The Holiday Season is Here!

BossKitty at TruthHugger is more comfortable with crop circles than the Frankenstein-like Tea Party the Koch Brothers created: Why the Tea Party is like a Crop Circle.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw summaries the choices presented by the Republican presidental hopefuls in An OOPS, a Serial Flipper Flopper, Adulterers, a Sourpuss and a Scared Spin Doctor. It would be funnier if it weren't all true.

Mitt Romney's path to the GOP nomination got considerably rockier in the past week, and that was before Herman Cain failed to deliver in 30 minutes or less. The rise of Newt Gingrich is however a dilemma for conservative fundamentalist Christians, as PDiddie at Brains and Eggs observes. Can they get behind a nominee who believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman who does not have cancer?

Neil at Texas Liberal took a walk along some railroad tracks in Houston. On his walk, Neil encountered both solid and metaphorical aspects of life.

Sunday Funnies

Winning The War On Christmas

I read the news today, oh boy...


Fox News provides a source of constant amusement and irritation for thinking people everywhere. But at the end of November, news watchers know exactly what's coming: Fox News' stupid "War on Christmas" coverage. While there isn't any war on the country's most beloved holiday, Fox News is going to be sure and at least attempt to spoil it for everyone.
 
The "War on Christmas" concept started with Evangelical Christians who insist baselessly that they're being discriminated against during the holiday season of December by godless masses who want to "take Christ out of Christmas." With a higher literacy rate, these folks would likely realize that December houses three major holidays including Christmas, along with other minor ones.

Rhode Island is aware of this fact, and as such erected a holiday tree in the State House. Fox News is not happy, and they've invited a state representative to explain how her resolution to call trees for Christmas has been positively ignored. Rather than erecting her own appropriately named tree, Doreen Costa and Christians everywhere will not be happy until every pine tree from coast to coast has been named for Christmas. And they say everyone else is starting the war?

 The Fox & Friends segment even caught the attention of CNN, which cited the segment in its report on the Rhode Island tree and noted that "Fox News, as it does every year, went crazy" over the War on Christmas.
Strangely, though, despite Fox & Friends' freakout over the Rhode Island holiday tree, later during the show, they declared that there was "no more 'War on Christmas.' "

Laughing at the conjured-up nonsense about the "war on Christmas"...oh give it up already,and stop stirring the pot when there's no broth in it. Perhaps the real war on Christmas started when Constantine moved it from January to the Pagan Solstice day of 12/25. That was,uh,centuries ago...

UPDATE: The American Family Association has released their annual list of businesses that are “for” or “against” Christmas. Basically, “for” businesses say “Christmas” while “against” businesses say “Holiday.” It's all pretty ridiculous. 

I wonder if Fox News uses this tactic to deflect the fact that Jesus was a pluralist liberal. In retrospect, they probably hate this time of year because it forces people to start thinking about Jesus and his message of peace on earth. These types of ideas are not beneficial to the military industrial complex. Humbug!

4th And Long

If Texas government was an NFL team, they'd be the 2011 Indianapolis Colts.

And Rick Perry would be Curtis Painter...

The Weekly Wrangle

The Weekly First Frost Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance welcomes wearing a coat and gloves, condensing exhalation, and the opening of candidate filing season (SCOTUS willing) as it brings you this week's roundup.

Noted "redistricting analyst" Off the Kuff analyzed the new court-drawn Congressional map.

Lightseeker takes on the question of where OWS is now and what its future might hold. Check it out at Texas Kaos: OWS Meets Mass Democracy - The Need for a Narrative.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the recent failure (or was it?) of the so-called "supercommittee": Failure was a success.

Bay Area Houston wonders about Rep Joe Driver's felony and his $57,000 annual pension.

BossKitty at TruthHugger cannot stomach the ongoing civilian casualty toll in wars America propagates. Money talks, accountability walks. Quit electing politicians who answer to the military-industrial lobby and want to throw the rest of us under the bus: US and NATO Allies too sloppy for war.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is ashamed of the Texas Democratic Party. The only thing going for the party is that they're not Republicans.

Just one year ago, Texas Republicans were laughing all over themselves celebrating their super-majority in the House with the defections of Aaron Pena and Allan Ritter. They're not laughing any longer after two federal judges redrew the maps that erased all of their gains from 2010. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs notes that political fortunes can rise and fall just like the stock market, especially when pigs turn into hogs.

Neil at Texas Liberal noted that Occupy Houston published a newspaper. Occupy Houston and Occupy efforts across the nation are working hard and staying creative to make certain that the movement is here for the long haul.

WhosPlayin wrote about a Tea Party candidate for city council in Lewisville who is running on a platform of "rule of law" and "transparency", but who utterly failed at both in his campaign finance reports. But hey, at least this mistake is not as bad as his $56 million overstatement of the city's debt.

Sunday Funnies