Articles for November, 2009
This is Why We’re Not Allowed to Microwave Popcorn Inside the D Offices
Well, not this, exactly. But the idea that Dallas Fire-Rescue could come up here (to be clear: they didn’t come here; if you click the link, you’ll see that happened at a retirement community) expecting a three-alarm fire and find little more than burned popcorn has now been added to the list.
Why Do I Have to Keep Going To Austin For Music Festivals?
This weekend, I went to Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin. It was the third time this year I’ve gone to Austin for a music festival, following South By Southwest in March and the ACL Festival last month. The other two occasions were primarily work-related; this one, I went to for fun fun fun (sorry). Mainly because — while the other two tend to focus on the here and now and ticket sales — Fun Fun Fun has more in common with shindigs like the All Tomorrow’s Parties events. It feels more curated than target-marketed. Obviously, of course, it’s not exactly like it’s being run by a non-profit. But I think you get my meaning.
So why do I have to go to Austin to get that?
(Before you answer, I will stipulate that Denton’s NX35 does solid work — and has Steve Albini coming next year as its keynote speaker. But it’s not necessarily what I’m talking about. And don’t say, “We do have that! It’s in Richardson at Wildflower Festival.” Unless you’re trying to make me laugh, in which case, thank you.)
New Pub Ups The Ante For ‘Best Workplaces’
Competition is good. It keeps you on your toes; it forces you to do better. The Dallas Business Journal might be thinking about this today, after yesterday’s Dallas Morning News debuted a new annual magazine called Top 100 Places To Work 2009. The inaugural, 44-page DMN product ranked local companies based on six criteria; The Richards Group came in No. 1. The DBJ may be feeling the heat because, for eight years, it’s had the “best workplace” field to itself here with an annual publication called Best Places To Work In The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
The scoring for both publications is handled by an outside firm: Kansas-based Quantum Market Research for the DBJ; Pennsylvania-based Workplace Dynamics LLC for the DMN. One interesting difference is that The News invites a select group of companies to participate while, under the DBJ rules, companies nominate themselves. And curiously, the DMN’s No. 2-ranked company–Southwest Airlines–hasn’t shown up on the DBJ rankings for years. But, one thing’s for sure. The opportunities for company bragging rights–”We’re the best;” “No, we are!”–just doubled around here.
UPDATE: I misunderstood her meaning when Cheryl Hall explained in the Sunday magazine: “The News and Workplace Dynamics invited more than 1,100 companies to participate in our inaugural Top 100. We at the newspaper don’t know which businesses entered.” The DMN says that any and all companies here were eligible to be nominated and to participate.
Bank Chief Explains A Star-Crossed IPO
Alan White, chairman and CEO of Dallas’ PlainsCapital Corp., seemed tired and a little wary last night–understandably so. White (pictured) was back in town after a grueling, three-week-long “road show” in support of the financial-services company’s initial public offering, which PlainsCapital abruptly yanked on Nov. 4. It had been trying to raise $225 million, about $90 million of that to pay back TARP money the bank got from the feds in 2008.
So, why did the IPO misfire so badly? During those three weeks, White said, the Dow sagged back below 10,000, and stock in a Chicago bank called PrivateBancorp lost 40 percent of its value, scaring off Wall Street. Then, when Texas banks like Cullen/Frost and Texas Capital began reporting third-quarter earnings declines, the pressure was on for PlainsCapital to reduce its offering price of $14 to $16 per share. And, White said, “I wouldn’t do that.”
Ron Steinhart, a veteran Dallas banker, says PlainsCapital’s timing was off: “The stars just didn’t line up right.” In the meantime, White said he’s in no rush to schedule another IPO–he’s got nearly 10 years to pay back the fed dough, which his bank is using to make loans–as PlainsCapital is fundamentally sound. “Like my preacher says,” White added, smiling, “I’ll just fake it ’til I make it.”
KXT Debuts With Good Tunes, Soporific DJ
Getting ready for work and school this morning in the Rogers household, we listened to the new public radio station in town, KXT (which plays “music to the core”). Here’s what they played in the 7 o’clock hour, when I was listening:
SANTANA She’s Not There MONSTERS OF FOLK Whole Lotta Losin’ INGRID MICHAELSON Maybe UB40 Kingston Town PINBACK Fortress TELEGRAPH CANYON Shake Your Fist VAN MORRISON It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue LANGHORNE SLIM Say Yes THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT Does This Mean You’re Moving On? ELVIS COSTELLO Clowntime Is Over LITTLE BLACK DRESS Robin RHETT MILLER I Need To Know Where I Stand IMOGEN HEAP Swoon MANU DIBANGO Soul Makossa HAPPY BULLETS The Vice and Virtue Ministry
I had to cut and paste the playlist from their site because I could not have identified a single one of those songs. That’s a good thing. But I do have one minor complaint. I’m a fan of Gini Mascorro’s. I think she’s got a great voice. But it’s not a morning voice. Mascorro sounds like cigarettes and fine scotch to me, not orange juice and bagels. I want to hear her maybe around 10 o’clock in the evening. Maybe it’s just me.
Stephen Hough Gets a Cool Cabbie in Dallas
The pianist Stephen Hough was in town to perform with the DSO. On his blog for the Telegraph, he mentioned over the weekend an interesting cab ride from DFW Airport. In the future, presumably, one in five cabbies will be a former journalist.
See Hilary Swank Tonight for Free
Just a reminder that you have until 2 today to write a haiku about Hilary Swank. Top three poems win a pair of tickets to her Brinker International Forum gig.
Leading Off (11/9/09)
1. Parents and school districts alike are considering “absitnence plus” curriculums because despite recieving the most federal funding for abstinence-only programs, Texas has the highest percentage of teens who had more than one baby and the third highest teenage birth rate. But Marilyn Morris of Plano’s Aim for Success argues that teaching kids about contraceptives could be dangerous–kids might not understand that they can still get pregnant and/or diseases. “A majority of districts appear to respect that philosophy,” the DMN article states. “Aim for Success, which functions on private funding, is seeing no district pull out.”
2. Dallas City Council will vote on some ordinances this morning to make their zoning dealings look less shady in the wake of the Don Hill scandal. Seems like pretty straight forward stuff. Going forward, lobbyists could have to register–and that includes anyone who makes or spends $200 on influencing council members; people looking for subsidies could be prohibited from making campaign contributions during a certain time period; two council members would need to “second” a zoning case before coming in for a full vote; that sort of thing. Sorry, no funny quote here.
3. Listen, there’s no use crying over spilled skim milk, but I think we can agree that the matter of soy milk is a whole different business. Dallas-based Dean Foods makes White Wave Silk Vanilla Soymilk. People like it. They probably feel good about drinking it because it’s yummy and soy and organic. But wait! It’s not organic anymore. It may even have been made with beans grown with chemicals. And people are saying that Dean didn’t make that clear. But Dean has a form letter that they said they sent to their distributors when all this went down last January. And they also don’t call it “organic” on the container these days–just “natural.” See? This is why I don’t drink milk. At least with my 12 Diet Cokes a day, it’s not going to be a surprise when things don’t end well for me.
Dick Armey Profile in NY Times Magazine
Michael Sokolove does a fair job in portraying the former Denton congressman and majority leader’s second act as the lead organizer of the conservative protest movement. Many on the other side properly ask where all the Tea Partiers were when the Bush Administration and a Republican Congress were running up huge deficits. I admire Armey because he was fighting his own party every step of the way, as this Salon piece from 2004 shows.
In the New York Times article, Armey refers to ”those nitwits who took over after we left.” He means Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney (”Deficits don’t matter”), and Karl Rove, whose political strategy consisted of (a) paying for two wars on a national-debt credit card, and (b) trying to create a “permanent Republican majority” by buying off large segments of the population with massive entitlements like the Medicare prescription bill, which Armey fought against. Give the guy credit for consistency back when opposition made him an outcast in his own party. To my mind, that makes him worth listening to now.
Tidbit: Much as I like Armey, it’s also interesting to find out that his protesting earns a salary of $550,000 a year. Wowza.
Win Free Hilary Swank Tickets
I have three pairs of tickets for Monday night’s Brinker International Forum, featuring Hilary Swank. It’s haiku time. The three best haikus extolling Swank’s beauty and greatness will win tickets. Contest ends at 2pm on Monday, and tickets will be at will call. Comments are open. Go!
Demi Lovato Buys a Car at Park Place
Zac tells me Demi Lovato is a big deal. So when the folks at Park Place sent along the below photo and the release that follows after the jump, I decided to post them. That’s how it happened.
Darkhorse Candidate For Worst Person in the World This Week: Michelle Lynn Smith
I’m glad I’m going out of town to do something completely frivolous this weekend, because otherwise I very likely would just stay up late reading about the Fort Hood and Orlando shootings. Or the case of Michelle Lynn Smith, the Anna woman who knowingly married a two-time sex offender (Glen Bracy), and then stood by and did nothing while Bracy then — big surprise — sexually abused her 4-year-old daughter “up to 50 times” by his own estimate. She will have to serve 90 years of her 210-year sentence before she is eligible for parole.
Jaap van Zweden Saves the Lives of Two Men Having Lunch
Today, I was fortunate enough to have lunch with the good professor Willard Spiegelman and maestro Jaap van Zweden at Dali, in One Arts. About that I will say this: Jaap is probably my coolest new friend. All my other friends will surely understand that I won’t have much time for them in the coming months, as Jaap and I grow even closer. He told me he’s been going to Cowboys and Mavericks games. I will, no doubt, soon be invited to join him courtside. My family will dine with his at the Ritz, where he keeps a condo. We might going skiiing together this winter.
The highlight of the lunch, though, was when a brisk breeze swirled through the courtyard at One Arts, toppling two large shade umbrellas. One fell on empty tables. The other, which was shading our table, fell onto a two-top across the aisle from us, smashing a glass full of red wine, and threatening the lives of the two gentlemen there seated. They surely would have been decapitated if not for the quick thinking of my good friend Jaap, who lunged backward in his chair and, with his baton hand, managed to steady the sickle-like umbrella before it could do further damage. Bravo!
(Did I mention that I was over-served?)
Dallas County Expected to Run Out of H1N1 Vaccine Today (Probably)
So, go ahead and panic, if that’s your thing. My thing? An unnatural, inexplicable cockiness, and constant thumb drumming on my legs (not a euphemism).
Reviving Biofueler Plans Dallas Locations
Never underestimate the ability of businesspeople to reinvent themselves. Case in point: the folks behind Dallas’ Evolution Fuels Inc. (formerly Earth Biofuels), best-known for co-owning Willie’s Place at Carl’s Corner Truckstop near Hillsboro. After nearly going bankrupt two years ago as the biofuels market was skidding downhill, the company says it has paid off tens of millions of dollars in debt and will focus now on selling “mid-range ethanol blends” at retail fueling stations/convenience stores.
Kit Chambers, Evolution’s executive VP, says the outfit has signed letters of intent to open two Dallas stores–at Travis/Knox and Lemmon/Oak Lawn–and is aiming to acquire other fueling stations in Alabama and Mississippi. In addition, says Kit (pictured), a new entity called Evolution Resources will launch soon with an ambitious plan to “repurpose existing assets to produce cellulosic ethanol.”
Guess it all makes sense. While the biofuels biz in general has had its problems, ethanol is one biofuel segment that the government seems intent on propping up.
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