Focused on the Metroplex, Vol. 1

If you read this blog, know its author or have ever been within earshot of him for more than ten minutes or so, you're quite aware of the fact that he is not at all a fan of Dallas, Texas. 

Still, this being the city in which we reside for the foreseeable future, we're going to try to make the best of it because, well, that's what we do. 

So we're introducing a new feature here on FFF that we're calling Focused on the Metroplex, a periodic sampling of all that is good in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  Each time we post, we'll talk about things that bring culture, distinction or fun to the place we call home.  Over the last several months, we've made a conscious effort to find and focus on those things we enjoy here in the Metroplex and we've been pleasantly surprised at how many things we really like here.  We look forward to sharing them with you.

First though, in the spirit of fairness (and you know we love to present both sides of an issue), we present the following list of 50 Things We Hate About Dallas.  Now, we realize we are about to piss off and offend a whole bunch of our readers by printing a list that was written before we really took the time to look for the good in the area but hey, we gotta be fair, no?

Enjoy.

1.  Why Are We Here?  Dallas has no reason for being.  There is no navigable waterway, no natural resources, no topographical features conducive to settlement -- nothing.  It is a city without purpose.

2.  Suspension Bridges Over a Creek  Dallas is in the process of building three "signature bridges" over the Trinity River.  This is the Trinity River.  Dude -- you can damned-near walk over the fucking thing, yet a city that can't properly fund its schools is fine with spending damned-near a billion dollars for three actual bridges to nowhere.  But they'll look good.  Which is all that matters in Dallas.

3. Weak-Mayor System  In Dallas, the City Manager sets policy and the City Council votes on it.  The mayor has one vote on the city council.  So the mayor is ultimately responsible for nothing.  It is an idiotic way to run a major city and  leaves Dallas as The City That Can't.

4.  Serpentine Districts  Now, we realize this happens in a lot of places, but it's ridiculous in Dallas.  This is the City Council district map.  Back in the 1980's, the Supreme Court decided that Dallas having 13 at-large City Council members violated the constitutional rights of minorities.  Why?  Because it virtually ensured an all-white council.  So they changed to geographical districts.  Still a bunch of white guys.  So they tweaked.  And tweaked.  And you end up with districts that are 97% Hispanic, to be sure they get a Latino elected.  We call bullshit on all of that, for many reasons but we'll share two.  First, the best way to get someone elected is to vote for them.  How is it not discrimination to intentionally set up districts to punish white folks for voting?  Second, why is race a factor at all?  Why intentionally create districts to get someone of a particular race elected?  Race is not a qualifier for office.  Just because someone looks like you does not mean they are looking out for you.  The entire system is an insult to everyone involved, as it reduces everyone to the lowest-common denominator and completely casts aside any pretense of an educated electorate.

5. Thirty-Thousandares  Dallas is loaded with them.  You know the type: fake designer shades, bogus handbags and a penchant for conspicuous consumption for appearance's sake.  Then they go home and eat dog food because that's all they can afford. 

6.  Downtown Douchebaggery  Time was, downtown Dallas was a pleasant little undiscovered community of about 1,000 people.  There were corner shops and eateries, mostly of the mom and pop variety.  People knew one another and spoke on the street, even to the bums.  After the office buildings emptied out at 5 the place was a ghost town, save for the aforementioned residents.  The good 'ole days were as recent as the early 2000's.  When we moved out of our 14th floor 725 square-foot apartment in downtown Dallas in November of 2003, to head to L.A., we were paying $795 a month in rent.  Then the developers came in and decided to revitalize.  It became cool to live downtown.  Asshole suburbanites took the place over and it is Douchebag Central down there now.  All the Mom and Pops got run out and replaced with a perpetual cycle of failed successors.  When we returned to Dallas in the summer of 2006, our old apartment, which had had absolutely nothing done to it in our absence, rented for $1250.00.  $30,000ares abound and there is no sense of community.  It makes us sick to see what has happened to our old neighborhood.  All because of...

7.  People from Plano who Destroyed Downtown  In this particular instance, Plano can mean Allen, Frisco, Addison -- we don't care because they're all the same to us.  Downtown became popular, rents have tripled and the pompous and pretentious have the run of the place now.  Best example of this was heard on the train one day, passing through downtown when a woman said to her friend, "we're all a part of this wonderful experiment, to see if people can live in a downtown environment", like she's on the Discovery Channel or something.  Didn't have the heart to tell her People have been living in cities for centuries, genius.

8. The City that Never Was  Lest you be deluded into thinking the douchebaggery is confined within the city limits, we offer you Las Colinas.  Back in the 80's, Irving was a nice, upper-middle class suburb.  But then something alarming to the sensibilities of the inhabitants began taking place.  People of color started becoming upwardly mobile and -- gasp! -- started moving into their neighborhoods.  Their solution, build a wall.  Literally.  We like to call it the Great Wall of Irving and it extends almost the entire length of Northgate Blvd and separates the northernmost portion of Irving from the rest of it.  The developers named the area Las Colinas (this has always amused us since, while trying to avoid the barbarians -- read Mexicans -- at the gate, they ended up naming the place in Spanish, but we digress) and now if you ask anyone in that area where they live, they will tell you Las Colinas.  For the privilege of saying The Hills en español, they get to pay over market-value for housing, groceries and taxes.  In the end though, if you ask the post office, they still live in Irving, whether they want to admit it or not.

9.  SUV's  For those who can't live in an overpriced neighborhood, just to impress their friends, there is the 'ole reliable: an obnoxiously-huge-ass SUV.  They are everywhere.  And it would be ok if everyone driving one had like nine kids in there or didn't slow down to a crawl to go over the slightest bump.  But they don't.  And they do.  Annoying.  You have a tank -- drive it like one.

*as an aside, while Googling for clever pics to link to your blog, the keywords "soccer mom" and "hummer" do not lead to pictures of a car.

10.  Rainy Day Freakout  People -- it is hot here.  And dry.  So the oil from your car is going to bake into the surfaces on which you drive.  When it rains, that oil makes the road slick.  So slow the fuck down!  Why is this hard?  (twss)  And don't get us started on what happens at the first hint of snow flurries.

11.  South Hell  Speaking of it being hot.  Dude -- there is just no need for how hot it gets here.  Now, we realize this is a matter of personal preference, but hey, it is our list, no?  Months upon months of incessant 100-degree days, with a hot, defeating wind (The average wind speed in Dallas, Texas is .4mps faster than that in Chicago), with no water to be found makes for an unbearable environment.  Everything is brown and dead all summer, people are bitchy and it is just a physically draining, oppressive kind of heat.

12.  Where's the H2O?  Dallas is like 250 miles from the ocean.  Even then, it's not really an ocean; it's the lukewarm bathwater of the Gulf of Mexico.  Texas has one natural lake.  One.  And it is nowhere near Dallas.

13.  Would You Swim in That?  There are two lakes which can be reached within the Dallas city limits.  One, White Rock Lake, permits no swimming.  The other, Joe Pool Lake, adjacent to some type of chemical plant that spews refuse directly into the water, is possibly the foulest body of water we have ever personally encountered.  The other regional lakes are marginally better.  You exchange a little bit of actual trash for a whole lot of White Trash.  Yee-freaking-haw!  The closest lake we have found even remotely tolerable is Lake Murray -- in Oklahoma.

14.  Ozone Alerts  Take L.A., remove the ocean, mountains, culture, class, people, weather, diversity and all-around greatness.  Leave the air just as it is.  You have Dallas.

15.  Traffic.  Take L.A., remove just a little bit of the traffic, but take away all of the cool destinations.  You have Dallas.

16.  Ash Wednesday  Now, we realize not everyone is Catholic.  We get that.  And we realize that Catholics are in the minority in Dallas.  But seriously -- how can you possibly get to adulthood without knowing what Ash Wednesday is?  Were you raised in a cave?  We get stopped, at minimum, 20 times every year by some helpful asshole, telling us there's something on our forehead.

17.  Open-toed Shoes with Stockings  Do we really even need to elaborate on this one?  In Dallas, we apparently do.  Stay classy, Texas!

18. Flip Flops on Men.  In public.  Nowhere near a pool.  Or beach.  Or prison shower room.  Wrong on so many levels we can't even begin to list them.  Just stop.  Please.

19.  The 7th Inning Stretch.  At a Texas Rangers game, as in other Major League Baseball parks, Take Me Out to the Ballgame is played between the halves of the seventh inning.  It's a long-standing tradition of the game and is perfectly at home in ballparks across America.  But in Arlington, they play this.  Seriously?

20.  College Hoops Scene.  Now perhaps we were spoiled growing up watching the likes of Temple, La Salle, St. Joseph's, Villanova and Penn fight it out at the Palestra but the college basketball scene in the Metroplex is sad.  TCU occasionally puts together a decent squad and once in a great while SMU will throw a fairly entertaining team out onto the court, but by and large, NCAA basketball in D/FW is a big yawn.

21.  "Honoring God and America  with the playing of our national anthem."  That is how it is introduced at Mavericks games.  What, precisely, does God have to do with The Star Spangled Banner?  Don't get us wrong, we're not dissing God here -- we're huge fans of the Man.  But the reference, a holdover from original owner Don Carter, who used to have them play God Bless America instead of SSB, makes no sense.  I go to church to honor God.  I go to American Airlines Center to watch basketball.

22.  The Castration of Deep Ellum.  Deep Ellum used to be the coolest place in Dallas.  An area with a legitimate claim to musical roots, where clubs and shops and restaurants and bars abounded.  Just dangerous enough for the suburbanites to think they were living on the edge, but still credible enough for the punks to still think it cool.  Then the powers that be decided to ruin it.  Now, whether they were afraid it was draining money from the areas of the city they wanted the money to go (read Victory, Uptown, Knox-Henderson) or whether they were just scared shitless of diversity, permits stopped getting renewed, licenses got yanked and the area is a shell of its former self.  There's a shiny new DART train station now.  Unfortunately, there's nothing there now when one de-boards.

23.  Where's the Hood?  For all the fear white suburbanites feel, fleeing further and further North, they have no idea what a 'hood truly is.  This is a ghetto.  There is nothing remotely like that in Dallas.  Hell, we lived in the ghetto for three years before anyone told us that's where we were.  There are trees and parks and streetlights that work in the ghetto here.  Cops still have enough time to pull people over for traffic offenses in the ghetto here!  So all the little wannabe thugs that roll through the streets of Big D would get their ass handed to them in a real ghetto.  Just another facet of the fakeness that is Dallas.

24.  Money on the Shirt.  What the hell is that all about?  It's your birthday.  We're happy for you.  We may even get you a card, or a cake.  But pinning money to yourself and expecting others to add to the stash is just tacky as hell. 

25.  Austin Envy.  At least people in Dallas, for the most part, are smart enough to long for a hipper, more cultural, interesting city then their own.  Unfortunately, that longing is directed at Austin.  OK, so it has a river and a lake.  Take those away and you have a city with moderately good but way overrated music, in a college atmosphere.  In other words, it's Denton.

26.  A Lawless State.  The Texas legislature convenes once every two years, for six weeks.  That's it.  So basically, if anything happens that needs legislative attention, it has to wait up to 24 months.  Granted, Texans believe that not much does need legislative attention, so it works for them.  But operating a state government in the 21st century in this manner just boggles our mind.

27.  The Death Capitol.  We believe in the sanctity of human life, from conception until natural death.  Texas executes more prisoners than any other state.  Texas has three of the top ten counties most prolific in handing out the death penalty in this nation..  Texas also has the number one US county for convictions of all types overturned by DNA evidence.  There is absolutely no way Texas has not executed an innocent man.  In Texas, it's ok to execute a mentally retarded prisoner, according to the state Supreme Court.  In Texas, a defense attorney falling asleep during a capital trial is, according to this same Court, not an impediment to a vigorous defense.  In Texas, it's ok for a judge to go home at 5:00 on the day of an execution and refuse to answer his cell phone, knowing there is capital appeal in process.  And we're not going to even get into the gender/race bias inherent in the system, because that happens everywhere.  Apparently, in Texas, they would rather kill ten innocent men to get one guilty one.  We think one innocent man executed is too many.  The fact that Texas seems ok with it speaks to the barbarism of its society.

28.  States' Rights.  We believe the United States of America is singular.  One nation, made up of fifty states.  Kind of like 50 siblings under one set of parents.  The other side of that, preferred mostly in the Southeast -- and definitely in Texas -- is that the United States is plural, 50 independent states loosely affiliated via a federal government that is small, weak and unable to mandate much.  There's a problem with that though..  We have always found it ironic that the states that scream the loudest about states' rights are the very states that have shown they can't take care of themselves in the first place.  Texas ranks 30th in degreed adults, 42nd in poverty rate, 31st in infant mortality rate, 50th in uninsured children, 48th in AIDS rate, 33rd in life expectancy, 31st in homelessness and dead last in high school dropouts -- and they actually want MORE control!

29.  Too Much of a Right Thing.  We preface this by saying, having been raised in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood, we were indoctrinated from a very young age into the marvels of the ultra-liberal.  Hell, Hitler could run as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States and our mother would vote for him.  Yes, we worked for Jesse Jackson and voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988.  We were young.  And we admit, foolish.  We have voted in six presidential elections now and have gone for the donkey three times, the elephant twice and Harry S. Truman once, as a protest vote in 2004.  So we are not a died-in-the-wool liberal, nor do we consider ourselves ultra-conservative.  We'd like to think we take a deliberate approach to issues and make a decision based on a good mix of fact, feeling and innate sense of what we feel to be right and wrong.  Extremists scare us, of any stripe.  And Texas is loaded with them.  Again, Hitler could run for President as a Republican and he would carry Texas.  Liberal bastions such as Minnesota and Massachusetts have elected Republican governors and Dems actually have to campaign there now to win the state.  Texas is a slam-dunk for republicans.  And that is never a good thing.  Because if a politician does not fear losing, that politician no longer feels beholden to the constituency.

30.  The Donut of Decay.  We've said before that we think of suburbia as God's little joke.  What starts out as a five-mile square area with one Kroger that takes 15 minutes to get to ends up with all the trees cut down, all the new streets named after those trees (streets that go nowhere, mind you, except into a dizzying mess of curves), and three Krogers -- the closest of which is 45 minutes away.  There's another side-effect to this abomination of habitat as well.  By and large, suburbs were created by people fleeing something -- or someone.  Guess what?  Twenty years later, it all happens again and another Flight happens.  This time a little further out.  The businesses and developers follow and then in yet another twenty years, it happens again.  What you are left with is concentric rings of blight and dilapidation that leads to, invariably, a "revitalized" downtown. 

31.  The DMA.  The Dallas Museum of Art is crap.  Their permanent collection is lightweight and their visiting exhibits are almost never done as well as they could be.  They rely entirely too heavily on modern art -- and not even good modern art.  A waste of prime downtown real estate.

32.  Dallas Cowboy Fans.  Does this really need any elaboration?  The scatter like cockroaches on the kitchen floor the minute their team loses more than two in a row and are everywhere when their team is winning. 

33.  Texas Ranger Fans.  We're going to absolutely contradict ourselves here, but it's our list and we can do that.  The Rangers have needed pitching since they moved from DC in 1972.  And they never do anything about it.  And they still draw 3Million fans a year.  Where's the pressure to win?

*OK, they went to the World Series since we started writing this.  You try to come up with a list of 50 legitimate things to hate about where you live!

34.  Hell, Metroplex Sports Fans in General.  They suck.  They arrive late, leave early and spend the whole damned time on their cell phones.  And have the audacity to insult Philadelphia fans.  Let's look at that for a moment.  Think of the famous "Santa Snowball" game.  You know the story -- Santa came out at halftime of an Eagles game and was pelted with snowballs by the Veterans Stadium crowd.  Can you picture it?  Good.  The stadium is full in that picture, isn't it?  The Eagles were 2-10 that day -- and STILL sold out their stadium.  Sure they boo the home team.  If the home team sucks, they deserve it.  But everyone of these fans paid money to support their team.  So Dallas ain't got shit on Philly when it comes to loyalty.

35.  Babymama.  It's not been a pleasant 17 years. *Babymama 1 (and it's been 18 years now).

36.  Downtown Misdirection.  The main streets through downtown Dallas run East-West.  That's weird to us.  In most cities, the numbered streets and primary arteries run North-South.  So it always feels like we're going North when we roll through to Fair Park, when in actuality, we're heading East.  Or are we?  According to the map, we are but since Dallas is skewed, we're really headed east-by-northeast.  Ugh.

37. We Couldn't do A and B?  Interstate 35 runs North-South from Duluth, Minnesota to Laredo, Texas, passing through the Metroplex.  About 20 miles south of the D/FW area, it splits into two, with one fork going through Dallas and the other Ft. Worth, rejoining about 20 miles north of the area, in Denton, Texas.  Since the interstate splits, they had to do something to differentiate between the two.  I35A and I35B make the most sense to us.  If they wanted to get a little more creative they could have gone with I35D and I35F.  But no -- we have I35E and I35W.  So you end up telling people, "you get on I35E North and exit...", when giving directions.  Try working in a hotel, where you spend the whole day giving directions like that.  And here's the kicker -- For about a three-mile stretch near downtown Dallas, you can be traveling North on I35E but be traveling geographically West.  Lovely.

38.   The Music Scene.  Nonexistent.  Sure, there are some talented individuals out there, just as anywhere else, but as whole, we're not impressed.  Besides, with the Powers That Be killing Deep Ellum with not a bit of resistance from the city at large, it's clear music is not a priority in this town.  Lisa Loeb, Erica Badu and Norah Jones are the town's claim to fame.  Yawn.

40.    Protestantized Catholicism.  We have nothing against Protestants.  At all.  But if we wanted to be Protestants, we'd be Protestant.  Dallas Catholics are very touchy-feely-protestanty.  Nothing wrong with it, but we're not comfortable with it.  The whole holding hands during the Lord's Prayer thing freaks us the hell out and it's just a very different worship experience here.  We were born after Vatican II but were raised by nuns and priests who were pretty up there in age, so we received a very pre-Vatican II religious education.  We miss our icons, incense and, well, privacy. 

41.  Where's the History?  Los Angeles and San Francisco are both younger than Dallas -- and have earthquakes -- yet both have way more history on display than Dallas.  Dallas tears down its buildings, buries its past and moves on.  This is spun as it being a city that's always on the cutting edge.  We think it just means the place was never very interesting to begin with.

42.  He's Billy Fucking Joel!  We actually had to sing a few bars before some people here knew who we were talking about.  How is that possible?  Seriously.  It's not a matter of taste we're disparaging, but a fundamental lack of knowledge about things that everyone should just know.

43.  You're All Going to Hell, but Not Me!  We're in the bible belt, so Dallas comes with the full compliment of fundamentalist, judgemental bullshit commensurate with same.  Sigh.

44. They Wouldn't Get It.  Perfect example of the intellectual vapidity of this city is the downtown dog park.  It's under Central Expressway.  It's a dog park.  Do they call it "Central Bark"?  No.  They call it Bark Park Central.  Because people in Dallas are too fucking stupid to know what it is unless the word park is in the name.  Heaven forbid they try pass something as complicated as a clever pun along to the citizenry.  It would be like Scanners. 

45.  Garland and Everywhere Like It.  The home city the of television show King of the Hill is modeled after the Dallas suburb of Garland.  It is nicer in the cartoon.  Much nicer.  Donut of Decay factor in full effect here, as well as in Irving, Duncanville and De Soto -- Basically every suburb immediately connected to the city.  Which is worse, urban blight or suburban abandonment?  Give us a busy crack house over an empty Wal-Mart any day.

46.  Let's Vote Again.  A byproduct of the weak-mayor system of government, when paired with the ability for any jackass to put an initiative on a city ballot is -- nothing gets done, even when it does.  As with any large city, getting a big project done requires a lot of moving parts falling into place at the right time.  At least on the East Coast, this consists primarily of making sure the mob gets its cut of the contracts.  Not here.  No, her we vote on things -- big things.  Once-in-a-generation things.  And they pass.  Then someone gets 500 signatures on a petition and we vote on it again.  And it passes again.  Until some asshole gets 500 votes on a petition.  It has been ten years since voters in Dallas first approved the Trinity River Project, which will have a toll road, parks, lakes and trails.  (under suspension bridges, but we already went there).  Nothing has been done yet.  Guess what -- we're voting on it again.

47. Living Under the Big Top.  OK, so you want to live in the suburbs.  A new suburb.  So you want to cram as much home onto the smallest piece of land you can find.  OK.  Seems kind of stupid, but ok.  But, being an egotistical asshole, you want it to look like you have more house than you do.  How to achieve this?  Wait -- I know!  Put a ridiculously large roof that serves no purpose atop your home.  Then be proud of your overpriced zip code.

48.  Uptown.  It's funny the effect the developers have had in Dallas.  They completely renamed an entire section of the city -- overnight.  I was reading a flyer for a complex in development a few years ago.  It talked about the "prestigious Upton area of Dallas (old timers may know it by Oak Lawn)".  I was 31 when I read that.  And I still called it Oak Lawn.  But you should see it now!  People love the place.  And are oh so willing to pay higher rents to say they live there, as opposed to, oh, I dunno...Oak Lawn.  Typical Dallas.

49.  Fundamental Misunderstandings.  The lack of basic understanding of history continues to appal me.  Jesus Christ was a Jew.  When He died and, as we believe, was resurrected, his followers, who were the apostles, started a church.  That church continues to this day.  It is the Catholic church.  Ergo --Catholics are Christians!  How is that not something people just know?  How is it that a Protestant could possibly be unaware of these basic facts?  If you are a protestant -- you are protesting something!  Us!  Don't care if you agree with Catholicism -- just know your shit before opening your mouth.  Because we are tired of explaining it to every fundamentalist jackass we come across in this city.

50.  Texans.  They are everywhere!  And seriously -- we have no idea what they are so damned proud of.

Until next time,
Keep the Faith