I was peacefully reading this week's Fort Worth Weekly when I found myself looking at a large ad for Panther Island Pavilion and its current cast of music acts of whom I have never heard, playing at what is, supposedly, the only waterfront stage in Texas.
I remember when Fort Worth's Santa Fe Rail Market was promoted by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and other local propaganda purveyors as being the first and only public market in Texas, ignoring the fact that it was not only not the first and only public market in Texas, it was not even the first Public Market in Fort Worth.
From the Panther Island Pavilion website home page an interesting blurb...
© Panther Island Pavilion - All Rights Reserved.
A Product of Trinity River Vision Authority
The Panther Island Pavilion name has been copyrighted? With All Rights Reserved? How much did that cost the taxpayers? This is a "Product of Trinity River Vision Authority"?
A Product?
Like a flood control product? Or is this an economic development product? Producing the imaginary one and only waterfront music venue in Texas? On an imaginary island? With an imaginary pavilion?
Why do the knuckleheads who provide Fort Worth's chamber of commerce type propaganda have such a penchant for ridiculous hyperbole? There is no island. There is no pavilion. The waterfront is a polluted river.
Panther Island Pavilion is only the most recent example of this type absurdity.
Been to Sundance Square lately?
The fact that there is no Sundance Square has been perplexing Fort Worth's few tourists for decades. Yes, currently there is some sort of actual square under construction on a couple of the parking lots that those few Fort Worth tourists often mistake for being Sundance Square, but the completion date for that actual Sundance Square seems to have the same type fleeting completion schedule as the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.
Back to the Panther Island Pavilion absurdity. On the website's home page is where I learned that Panther Island Pavilion is the only waterfront stage in Texas, in the following blurb...
Panther Island Pavilion (PIP) is a scenic outdoor venue on the Trinity River with the Downtown Fort Worth skyline as a backdrop. PIP has the only waterfront stage in Texas, a main stage for year-round events and two additional band shells for multi-act festivals. A sand beach provides public access to the river for boating, tubing, fishing, and swimming. Kayak and Paddleboard concessionaries are located on site for rentals.
Scenic? PIP? A waterfront stage? Skyline as a backdrop? A sand beach? Swimming?
Ugh. I could elaborate, but I think Ugh suffices.
Also on the Panther Island Pavilion website's home page you get to experience an amazing example of propaganda and hubris in a series of bizarre, for want of a better phrase, slogans...
SOAK YOURSELVES IN GOOD TIMES.
THE COOLEST PLACE TO PARTY IN SUMMER.
WHAT DO YOU MISS ABOUT NEW BRAUNFELS? BEER. WE GOT IT. CHEERS.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN'T DO IN DALLAS? TUBE.
GOOD TIMES ARE FLOWING IN FORT WORTH.
THIS IS WHERE FUNKYTOWN GETS DOWN.
LET THE COOL TIMES FLOW.
FOR A GOOD TIME...JUST ADD WATER.
You can't tube in Dallas? Add water for a good time? There is no beer in New Braunfels? Funkytown gets down here?
This past week's #1 Fort Worth Scandal has been the revelation that Fort Worth's Mayor, Betsy Price, has been traveling the world with a contingent of Fort Worth Police as she spreads the Fort Worth message across the planet, increasing the flood of tourists coming to Junky, I mean, Funkytown, to experience what can only be experienced in Fort Worth.
So, when one of those thousands of Japanese, Chinese, Australian, German or other tourists arrive and let's say, one of the Japanese, asks the Fort Worth Propagandist, "Where Sundance Square?"
"Sundance Square is downtown Fort Worth."
"What? No square? We want to see square that make other towns green with envy?"
"Sorry. No square."
"Okay, how bout Cultural District. We come to see Fort Worth Culture."
"Great. There are several museums in the Fort Worth Cultural District."
"Museums? We not come to Texas to see museums. We have museums in Tokyo. We want to see western culture. Cowboys."
"No problem. We can go to the Fort Worth Stockyards. There you will see cowboys and longhorns and western cultural stuff."
"Great. That what we come to Fort Worth to see. Get to see real stockyards too?"
"Well....sort of."
I tell you, Fort Worth really needs some sort of federally administered truth in labeling statute imposed upon the town....
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