Articles for March, 2009
Texas Monthly Owner On Debt Default List
Make your own decision about how much credence to put into this new Moody’s ranking. It looked to me like Emmis Communications had gotten ahead of the game with giant write-offs last year. Here’s what I know: TxMo president Evan Smith and I did a conference last week for Professor Dave Garlock’s famous class at UT, and exchanging numbers as publishers do, Smith shared the magazine’s profit ratios, which remain solid. So even if parent Emmis is in trouble, TxMo should weather the storm just fine.
Slowly Loading FrontBurner
Yes, we’re aware that the site isn’t loading as quickly as we’d all like it to. I could tell you our server is under attack from Turkmenistan this time. (It wouldn’t be true. But I could tell you that.) Instead, just know this: we’re working on it. We’re aiming to have the problem solved soon. Thank you for your patience.
Craig Watkins Misfires, Aims Again, and Hits the Target
The DA isn’t giving up on the budget fight. He called me yesterday about the brouhaha over his referendum idea, we engaged in a genial debate that went nowhere, and then he made a salient point. The Commissioners Court has ordered a 10 percent cut across the board to meet a $58 million shortfall. That’s a lazy way of downsizing. Any business — such as ours, for example — that has to downsize works from a set of priorities. Most governments, such as the City of Dallas, do, too. (Can anyone imagine City Manager Mary Suhm ordering an across-the-board cut to meet her $100 million deficit?) Are the DA’s office and the Sheriff’s Department in the same league as the District Clerk’s office or the commissioners’ own road-and-bridge allocations? Shouldn’t the commissioners have rolled up their sleeves and put pencil to paper?
Yes, the DA went off the reservation. (He did meet his deadline for cuts, by the way.) But when he settled down — and in our conversation he was reasonable and self-deprecating — his argument made sense.
Chuck Norris Continues to Promote Himself, His Insanity
You may know Chuck Norris as an 8th-degree black belt, star of The Octagon, and gay rights anti-enthusiast. But he’s also a guvment hater who says he wants to be president of Texas, after it secedes. Bud Kennedy points out that, as an Okie, he’s probably not qualified. I think it would be great, though. Have you seen The Delta Force? Three words: natural born leader.
Leading Off (3/11/09): Throwing Brickbats at Co-Workers in Response to Recent Office Turmoil Edition
1. A New York-style deli called Zinsky’s is set to open in Preston Royal in early summer. Look for Eric Celeste to have some strong opinions on the place. With one visit to New York City in his lifetime, he loves to promote himself as an expert on authentic delicatessens.
2. Neiman Marcus is reporting its first loss ever during a holiday season. The operating loss in the quarter ended January 31 was $592.7 million. But Neiman’s took non-cash impairment charges of $560.1 million, including $291.1 million to write down goodwill and $242.2 million to write down to fair value its trade names of Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and Horchow. Hey, Zac Crain, can you explain to me how a company arrives at a precise figure for writing down the fair value of its trade names, or are you too busy growing your beard?
3. Steel for the first Calatrava bridge is right now on a ship crossing the Atlantic, but all the sand in the levees makes it unclear how access ramps to that bridge will be built. Which brings me to this joke: how are Nancy Nichols and the Trinity River levees alike? They both have engineers crawling all over them, drilling for core samples!
Matt Martinez, Jr. is in Hospice Care
Mary Wilson at the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association just sent out an e-mail to the members of the association saying that Matt Martinez, Jr., who has brain cancer, is in hospice care. Details.
Scrabble Players Alert: Dallas Open This Weekend
I play Scrabble a lot. I used to play more, usually online at the Internet Scrabble Club. But even at my two-bingo-per-game best, I probably couldn’t hang with folks who will be in town this weekend for the fourth annual Dallas Open, including local pro and all around swell fella Chris Cree. Jump for the full details. And if anyone wants a game, you know where to find me.
UPDATE: I have been challenged to a game (best two out of three) by one Dave Levinthal. We’re looking for a venue. I had to go and rattle the cage of the guy who owns Scrabble-tile cufflinks, didn’t I?
D CEO Rejiggering Schedule
Even for a nationally lauded local magazine that doubled its sales in 2008–and so far this year is up 2 percent in sales over ‘08–this lousy economy has taken a toll. As a result, D CEO, D’s business magazine, is retooling its schedule this year to appear nine times in 2009, instead of 12. (Lower costs, and all that.) Once the music resumes, we’ll get back to monthly publication in 2010. That is all.
Why Do You Love Dallas?
We’re working on something for the “print product.” I am soliciting your input, if you’ve got a few minutes. What is it that you love about Dallas? Okay, call it North Texas. Think less in terms of a favorite dish at a beloved restaurant and more in terms of culture and people. For instance, one of the reasons I love Dallas is that a man can wear cowboys boots with a suit, if he so chooses. If you’d rather not put it out there for the world to see (and risk a snark attack), feel free to send me an e-mail directly.
Conan O’Brien Out-Irishes Brendan Higgins
Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show launches June 1. In preparation, he’s making his way across the country, from New York to LA, visiting NBC affiliates. Yesterday afternoon, he popped in to NBC Channel 5’s Fort Worth studio to say hi — and to do battle with that so-called and alleged Irishman Brendan Higgins. Higgins says, “We debated who between us had the more powerful hair. And I showed him what we do around the station to relieve stress, including the ‘cage fights’ we have in the station’s storage area.” Look for Higgins’ interview with O’Brien to air on Channel 5 in the days leading up to the launch of the new Tonight Show.
Craig Watkins Should Stop Believing His Own Publicity
Leading Off (3/10/09)
1. Major airlines (including, for the first time in its history, Southwest) are reducing their number of flights to combat declining traffic. This includes American Airlines, whose parent company, AMR, is among the 30 largest companies in this WSJ list of 283 that are at the greatest risk of defaulting on their debt. I think that’s a bad thing.
2. Amazingly depressing story alert: An Arlington man thought the worst possible chapter of his life was closed when he watched the execution of his father’s murderer. But today, more than two decades later, he is scheduled to watch the execution of his son’s murderer.
3. Today brings cooler temps and rain for the next three days or so. We need it.
Will The NYSE Delist A.H. Belo?
That’s the question a curious FrontBurnervian asks. The answer is, hold your horses. The company has only been below $1 since March 2. Theoretically the average price of a NYSE company must remain above $1 for 30 days. If it doesn’t, the exchange notifies that company and gives it six months to meet the threshold. That’s plenty of time to merge classes of stock or do something else to get the price up, so it’s unlikely. That’s the good news. The bad news is today A.H. Belo was kicked off the S&P SmallCap 600 (it was # 600).
Rojas Forsaking Hispanic Chamber For Kansas GOP
Sort of a shocker over at the Greater Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, where CiCi Rojas, the group’s president and CEO, has announced her resignation. Seems Rojas is returning to her native Kansas, where she’ll serve as executive director of the Kansas Republican Party. The GDHCC, meantime, has embarked on a search for a permanent replacement.
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