Articles for April 29th, 2011
Jean-Jacques Taylor Gets Reprimand from Ed Bark, Tracy Rowlett
Yes, the Mavs can be headdeskingly frustrating to watch at times, and if you have young children, you should just permanently outfit them with earmuffs until the team’s post season play is over. These are all facts we can agree on.
After the fetal-position inducing Game 4 against Portland, the Dallas Morning News‘ Jean-Jacques Taylor apparently wrote a column that, according to former DMN writer Ed Bark, eviscerated the team. Taylor apparently said the team was “gutless.” I say apparently, because the Taylor’s musings are so valuable the paper has put them behind their paywall, meaning anyone who isn’t paying to read the paper or the website is now bereft of Jean-Jacques Taylor columns.
I will pause in case you’re sad. (more…)
Pricey Gasoline Here to Stay: Lexus Boss
The general manager of Toyota’s Lexus division predicts gas prices will keep rising and will stay at higher levels for the foreseeable future. “I don’t seem them coming back down again,” Mark Templin said in Dallas Friday. “I see them at $4 a gallon in the short-term. We’re already paying $5 in California. Long-term, I think they’ll go even higher.”
The top Lexus boss was in North Texas for something called “An Evening with Lexus,” one in a series of exclusive, focus-group-style dinners he’s hosting in homes around the country. Part of the carmaker’s “epicurean marketing” strategy, the dinners are attended by Lexus owners and their friends and are catered by celebrity chefs. The local one will be tonight at a house in Rowlett, where Casey Thompson will serve up salmon, veal tongue and buffalo to Templin and 13 others.
DISD Purges 450 From Central Staff
That news just arrived in my inbox. If you read the full release, which comes after the jump, you’ll see that the 450 positions mentioned in the headline bring the grand total of central administrators laid off since 2007 to 779. That prompts two questions from this DISD product: 1. How many central administrators does it take to run a massive school district? 2. How many people are left in that building on Ross Avenue?
TV’s Byron Harris To Screw Someone in Downtown Dallas
Remember Byron Harris? I do. So I got a giggle when, while having lunch at the Press Box, I saw him schlepping a camera tripod down Ervay Street. “Hey, Byron!” I said as I approached him to take this picture. “Remember when you screwed me on TV?”
“No,” he said, grinning awkwardly.
“I’m Tim Rogers,” I said, shaking his hand.
“Oh, you’re that guy from Dallas Magazine.”
Yes, I am, Byron.
DSO Bombshell: Bill Lively Resigning
Citing “health concerns,” Bill Lively says he’s stepping down as president and CEO of the Dallas
Symphony Orchestra. The DSO made the bombshell announcement today, just 29 days after the fund-raising maestro took over the position part-time. The announcement quoted Lively, 67, as saying that on the advice of his physician, he would have to “prematurely” resign and “devote significant time this summer to rest and recuperation.”
In an interview this morning, Lively said that in recent weeks he’d lost 10 pounds and begun having headaches and became alarmed, mindful that two of his brothers had experienced strokes. His doctor suggested that working long hours for many years had led to “cumulative fatigue and stress,” Lively said, and that, in order to get better, he needed to recuperate. He’ll do that this summer at a second home in Estes Park, Colo., Lively said, before returning to Dallas in the fall and “considering another assignment.”
DSO Board Chair Ron Gafford said the board would “start the process of identifying interim leadership” immediately. Lively (pictured in photo by Jeanne Prejean) had been scheduled to wrap up his commitment with the North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee late next month, and then to start full-time with the DSO in June.
Because of his fund-raising prowess with Super Bowl XLV and in previous positions, Lively had been widely viewed as a “savior” for the symphony, which has been plagued by budget deficits in recent years. At a D CEO event just last week, he hinted at a methodical plan for revamping the organization significantly. Lively said this morning that the DSO is in good shape overall, except for one thing: “Their only weakness is that they’ve been leaderless for too long.” Now, it appears, they’ll be leaderless for awhile longer.
Things To Do in Dallas This Weekend: April 29-May 1
Happy weekend, everyone. As usual, I start off thinking with my stomach.
Friday
The big deal Dallas Food and Wine Festival continues this evening with the Texas Salute!* dinnerfest at the Farmers Market. You get a complimentary wine glass, which you can then fill (and refill) with the alcoholic fruit juice stuff we all like so much. Once that’s taken care of, create a hodgepodge meal of shrimp cocktail from Big Shucks, tamales from La Popular, and plenty more. Whiskey Cake will be serving their signature namesake dessert, which, according to Sarah over at SideDish, is a must eat. In fact, if there’s a line, you should probably fight your way to the front of it to make sure you don’t miss out. And if you happen to step on some cowboy-booted toes in the process, well, that’s just the way the cake crumbles. Attire is “western chic and casual,” making this a golden opportunity to whip out your rhinestone-studded belt.
Ben Stein Gets In Dutch for Dallas Remarks
A financially minded FrontBurnervian points us to the news that Citigroup fired Ben Stein from a corporate gig for making jokes in Dallas that were allegedly and supposedly disparaging of women. Two things I’d like to see in the comments: 1) a report from someone who was present at the private-equity gig whereat Stein made these jokes and 2) some really offensive jokes that disparage men, just to balance things out.
Bringing ’88 Back: Mavericks Take On Lakers
After the jump, the fourth quarter from the deciding Game 7 from the last time these two teams faced off. I hope and expect it to go better this time. Anyway. Magic! Aguirre! Kareem! Blackmon! It’s the NBA on CBS.
Leading Off (4/29/11)
Dallas Cowboys Get Another Smith. This one’s named Tyron. Without an E. That is so weird.
Miss USA Says She Was Groped in Dallas. Susie Castillo, who was the 2003 Miss USA, used the Internets to say that a TSA agent at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport groped her. Only the TSA says they’ve interviewed the agent and found nothing wrong, and are going to the tape of the incident to make sure. In a related note, I haven’t watched a Miss USA pageant since 1991.
Campaigns Are Not For Doing the Maths. When Fort Worth mayoral candidate Cathy Hirt claimed in a forum that 47 percent of Fort Worth ISD students will not graduate, I’m sure people thought she misspoke. But then the same claim showed up in campaign material, too, and now the FWISD board is kind of politely asking what Hirt smoked, because the graduation rate is more like 76 percent to 80 percent.
The Case of the Sartorially Challenged Bank Robber. Listen, I’m no criminal mastermind (that you people know of), but if you’re gonna rob a bank, don’t you kind of dress for it? Maybe a disguise of some sort, and not whatever you bought at Forever 21 last week?
So, Did Anything Interesting Happen This Morning? No? Good. As you were.
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