JFK Assassination Anniversary

Yes. I know it isn't November 22. But I'm busy doing something that requires me to concentrate my limited brainpower, so I've got not enough mental bandwidth to think of anything to blog about. But, my YouTube videos now seem to work just fine in this Blog.

Back in 2003 I went to Dealey Plaza in Dallas for the 40th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination. This event drew a huge crowd, as you will see in the video. Many very moving and very odd things occurred during this event, the most macabre being police arriving in riot gear just as the moment marking the firing of the sniper's gun arrived, diverting everyone's attention. I did not catch the police on video, I had my digital camera out when they arrived. You can see the police and more photos from that day by going to my Eyes on Texas website. And below you can watch the video I took that day.

Paula Abdul is a Precious Gift

Paula Abdul had one of her better moments of ditsy weirdness on Tuesday's American Idol. The 5 remaining singers were to warble 2 songs each. The judges did not do their usual critiquing after each singer sang.

Instead, after all 5 had sung their first song they stood as a group in front of the judges to hear what they had to say.

Well, Paula started with the dreadlocked, perpetually stoned-acting one, named Jason Castro, believed to be Fidel's 4th cousin twice removed. Paula pretty much told Jason she did not like his performance of his first song, that being the only song he'd sung. And then she went to tell Jason she also did not like his second song. Which he had not yet sung.

Paula was, in a very confused way, reading off notes. When the other judges, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell tried to get out of this mess, Paula just got more confused, crying "this is so hard."

The show's host, Ryan Seacrest, tried to get out of the awkward moment with an attempt at humor, saying "Paula is finally revealing her secret power, that she can see the future." Or something like that.

Last year Paula had her own reality show on Bravo, called "Hey Paula." It was extremely painful to watch, but in a good bad train wreck sort of way. We got to see the backstage look at those embarrassing interviews she gave last year that caused a big brouhaha because she appeared to be drugged, drunk or both.

I thought the "Hey Paula" show would be the end of her career, that American Idol would replace her. It was that embarrassing.

My favorite moment of the "Hey Paula" train wreck was a part where Paula was in full whining, crying mode, verbalizing her odd sense of entitlement and her displeasure at being ill-served by her minions. She uttered what I thought would become an infamous quote that Simon Cowell would use at least once, but hasn't, as far as I know. Paula said, "Why don't they appreciate me for the precious gift that I am?"

Below you can watch YouTube video of Paula being very precious this past Tuesday.

This Farmer Wants a Wife

Before I get to this wanting a wife thing I've got to mention that there is this brilliantly insightful website devoted to all that is good about Fort Worth that has the extremely highly evolved good taste to include me among all that is good about Fort Worth.

The website is called West & Clear and they had this to say about me....

"The Durango Texas blog has writeup and YouTube-ry from last Saturday’s PrairieFest. You’ll see our booth at about 3:16 on the video! We are famous in the internet! Durango Texas looks like a pretty interesting read (especially the frequent Star-Telegram bashing) and I am looking forward to spending some time on the site. "

So, what I got out of that is yet one more person who sees the need to bash the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Pravda-esque Purveyor of Propaganda and Disseminator of Misinformation tool of the good old boy network that runs the company town of Fort Worth.

Well, let's do some bashing. In today's paper we had yet one more article that revolved around the exciting news that yet one more person from Texas is on yet one more reality show. It makes us so very very proud. My 2 readers may remember me complaining about this odd trait before, with me getting a clarifying message from the Star-Telegram's lead TV writer explaining that, unlike that evil paper in that evil city 30 miles to the east, the Star-Telegram tries to make their paper localized, connecting their few readers to anything remotely local about any given story.

Tonight a new show starts on the CW Network. I've no idea what that is, the network I mean, not the show. The show is of the reality show genre and is called "The Farmer Wants a Wife." Some farmer in Missouri apparently is having such a tough time finding a mate that he contacted the CW Network and asked for help. So, they brought in a bunch of city girls for the farmer to choose from.

And one is from Texas. Which the Star-Telegram made the focus of in their article about this show. The headline being "Farmer girl on new CW dating show has local ties." Wow. Now that really makes me want to watch this now that I know the show has a Texas connection.

The article goes on to report the totally important and pertinent info that "Brooke Ward is identified as being from Dallas. But the Texas Christian University grad grew up in the East Texas town of Atlanta, about 25 miles south of Texarkana. So among the 10 'city girls' that Missouri farmer Matt Neustadt has to choose from on this Bachelor with hay, the 23 year-old marketing representative would seem to have an edge."

Because she's from Texas? That's her edge? I don't think I am able to follow the train wreck of logic.

The article goes on to interview the Texas connection in a fine example of making a story local for the readers of the Star-Telegram. A paper with a mission. Unlike the Dallas paper that does not connect its readers to anything remotely local.

And on a totally different note on the same subject. I looked at the Farmer Wants a Wife website. It opens with a video. The video is amusing. At one point the voice over is saying something like "when the girls get to the farm they see the biggest (we cut to a rooster strutting about) they've ever seen." Then one of the girls says, "I didn't realize roosters were real things." Obviously the producers selected for high intellects when casting this show.

No wonder they ended up with at least one Texas girl.

I am Woman Hear me Bore

Have I already talked about my first Texas driver's license? I recollect mentioning it to Gar the Texan in reference to something I also don't remember.

Rather than blog about my driver's license I'd prefer to blog about a new goofy Star-Telegram, Fort Worth thing. But I've been banned for a week from boring people with my pathetic making fun of Fort Worth and its sad excuse for a newspaper.

So, back to my first Texas driver's license. It arrived the day before I was set to drive up to Washington for Christmas. I didn't notice anything wrong with it til I looked at it more closely the next day. Texas had turned me into a woman. I didn't mind too much.

I made it out of Texas and all the way to Washington without having to show my license to anyone. Not til I was at my sister's house in the Seattle suburb of Kent did I have to show my license. She was having an all-girl Christmas party and I was allowed to stay if I acted as the greeter and if I showed my license to all the incoming girls to prove my bonafides as one of them. It really wasn't all that hard to be a good girl. I was actually one of the better looking girls at the party, if I do say so myself.

I made it all the way back to Texas without having to show my license to anyone with a badge. When I got back here I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, that's not what they call it here, that's the Washington name, I never can remember the Texas name for the place you get a driver's license. The DMV, or whatever it's called here, is a total zoo. Long lines, antique computers, noisy. But the help is nice.

When my turn finally came I showed the nice lady my license and asked if she can spot an error. She saw it and said "I assume you are not female."

"I'm fairly certain I'm not," said I.

She then entered something into her computer to get my records from Austin. When she had that info she looked surprised and had me lean in close because she had a delicate question to ask me.

She whispered, "It says you're African-American. You aren't are you?"

"I'm fairly certain I'm not," said I.

She snipped the corner off my license so I could keep it as a souvenir of my day's as a female. I wonder what would have happened to me if I'd been stopped for speeding and the cop looked up my record to learn I was African-American in addition to being a woman? I suspect if this had happened in Texas this would not have gone well for me.

Texas Wildflowers Bloom Boom at Tandy Hills Park

This time of year Texas turns very green and very colorful. This year's wildflowers are being particularly plentiful. I've lived in my current location for most of this century. Up til about 5 months ago I did not realize I lived just a couple miles from Fort Worth's best park, that being Tandy Hills Park. I used to drive dozens of miles, sometimes more, to go on a hilly hike. I could have saved so much gas had I realized Tandy Hills had fun trails. And a lot of them. Miles and miles. A maze of trails.

Last Saturday the 3rd Annual Prairie Fest occurred at Tandy Hills Park. I'd been there just a few days prior and in just those few days the wildflowers at Tandy Hills had really amped it up, just in time for the festival. I saw a wildflower I'd not seen before, that being the yellow one you see above. It's real delicate, like an orchid.

In the photo above you see a lady with a kitchen utensil in her hair, sitting amongst the wildflowers and painting them. I don't mean she was painting wildflowers, I meant she was painting a likeness of the wildflowers. She was among many artists doing the same thing in one of the Prairie Fest activities.

In the above photo you see some Prairie Fest goers walking towards the main part of the festival. That is cactus in the foreground, I believe it's called prickly pear cactus. It also blooms and produces this fruit that is sort of tasty.

Above we're looking at a Tandy Hills trail heading through a patch of wildflowers, mostly bluebonnets, the official state flower of Texas.

I'm deeper into the Tandy Hills in the above photo. The wildflowers were being particularly thick here.

If you've never visited Texas and are thinking it might be interesting, April is the time you want to aim for. Texas looks its best. The temperature is not scorching yet, usually. In fact, the past couple days we've plummeted from being in the 80s, with a cold front from the north dropping the temps to natural air conditioned levels, as in it is 78 out there right now, but it got down to 46 last night. Brrrr. And in April, if you're lucky, you might get to experience a real wild Texas storm.

Cowtown's Crown Jewel

Okay. I admit I am in dire need of getting a life and that it is obvious I have too much time on my hands. Why else, with all there is to be troubled by in this world, do I seem to focus an inordinate amount of attention on things I read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that strike me as very goofy? Or things in Fort Worth that strike me as goofy.

So, on the front page of the Sunday paper there was this headline at the top, "Cowtown's crown jewel marks 10 years of sound and spectacle." Underneath the headline was the following.:

"It's been 10 years since the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall opened to great fanfare in downtown Fort Worth. In May 1998, the arts-rich city that is home to the Cliburn competition---and a healthy menu of symphony, opera and ballet---finally got a distinguished performance space equal to its world class art museums and worthy of local performing-arts groups' quality. We reflect on the hall's impressive first decade and its impact on the cultural scene."

Okay, I'm pretty sure it's the weird inflated self-congratulatory tone that bugs me. Using phrases like "world class." I'm almost 100% any place that actually does have world class attractions has the class not to describe them as such. It just seems sort of gauche and vulgar to me.

Speaking of gauche and vulgar, regarding that long name for this building, "Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall." The Bass family are Fort Worth billionaires. They bought Fort Worth the performance hall. And, I guess, gave themselves naming rights. The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame is in Nancy Lee Bass Hall. It just seems tacky to me to name a building after yourself that you're giving as a gift.

Up in Seattle, Microsoft billionaire, Paul Allen has built and remodeled many buildings. But somehow he had the good taste not to name his restored-to-its-retro-glory theater the Paul Allen Cinerama. When he built a Frank Gehry designed music museum he did not call it the Paul Allen Music Experience Project. Paul Allen has been buying up property in downtown Seattle for years and making come true his vision of creating a sort of mixed use Central Park type area connecting the downtown core to Lake Union to the north.

Meanwhile in Fort Worth the Bass family bought up some downtown real estate and turned it into parking lots named Sundance Square. Which they police with their own police force which locals call The Bastapo.

Paul Allen used an actual world class architect to design his music museum. I don't know what architect designed Bass Hall, but the Bass's have a reputation for having bad taste in building design. And to my eyes Bass Hall is not an impressive building. It's the type of bad architecture that Howard Roark would blow up. I think it would be the garish horn tooting angels stuck on the side that would have set off Howard Roark. If you don't know who Howard Roark is, Google it and add Ayn Rand to the search string.

In recent times one of the Bass's, I think it was Ed, tried to thwart the clever design of a sunken plaza at a college being built in downtown Fort Worth. The Bass family does not like modern looking structures. My dear ol' mom has equally bad ideas. I remember her suggesting I add gingerbread trim to an awning I built over my deck. I bet the Bass's love gingerbread trim.

I'm sure the Bass Family has greatly helped Fort Worth. One can't help but wonder what downtown would be like without them. But, Fort Worth has a population that is nearing 700,000. Isn't Fort Worth big enough to pay for things the way other world class cities do? As in if it is for the public good, put it to a public vote asking the citizens to approve taxing themselves in order to build something. What a concept. Then you could name it the Fort Worth Performance Hall. Wouldn't that be a nice name?

Instead, Fort Worth is run like a company town with the people mostly cut out of the loop. I know Oklahoma City voted a $1 billion bond when they built their hugely successful Bricktown development. The Fort Worth powers that be, copying a similar plan in Dallas, that was voted on by the people of Dallas, announced that the Trinity River north of downtown Fort Worth would be diverted into a town lake with canals and a diversion channel. If this goes forward it will involve yet more eminent domain abuse here in Texas. I don't know if you can use eminent domain for such a thing without a public vote. With over 80 businesses being given their eviction notices, I'm thinking a good lawyer is going to tie the project up. That and when the predictable, expensive to clean up polluted ground is found in that industrial wasteland the project will screech to a halt.

But, maybe I'm wrong and Fort Worth will end up with its own special version of Oklahoma City's Bricktown and San Antonio's Riverwalk.

I just thought of another amusing thing. When this Fort Worth copycat boondoggle was first announced, with plans by a Vancouver, B.C. designer, the Star-Telegram actually said this project would make Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South! They went from claiming Fort Worth's lame Sante Fe Rail Market was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place to claiming a little lake and some canals was going to turn Fort Worth into Vancouver. I sent a letter to the editor asking "Have any of you people actually been to Vancouver? If not you need to send a reporter pronto so he/she can report back to you how dumb your Vancouver of the South claim is." I don't remember if that letter got printed. I do remember the "Vancouver of the South" lie did not last as long as the "modeled after Pike Place Market" lie. That one got repeated for months.

I need to switch to the Dallas paper.

Fort Worth's Tandy Hills Park Prairie Fest

Today I went to the Prairie Fest at Tandy Hills Park in Fort Worth. It was a much bigger deal than I thought it would be. Tandy Hills Park has become my favorite place to go hiking and this festival did it justice.

So, in record breaking time. For me. I've uploaded 3 videos from today to YouTube, and they've already been processed and are viewable. One is viewable below. Now, please understand I have a very cheap video camera and very limited videographer skills, hence the jerky video. But it gives you an idea of what it was like to walk around this event and you get to see some Texans being a bit goofy. That's always fun.

Update: I've now webpaged yesterday's Prairie Fest. And added two more videos in addition to the one below.

Get a Life, You've Got Too Much Time on Your Hands

There are some things that I hear people say that make me cringe. One is "Get a life." Another is "Someone has too much time on their hands." To say either seems way way way too judgemental to my ears. Like suppose someone has a hobby that they obviously enjoy, that they put time and effort into. What sort of brain dead moron would besmirch someone's creativity by telling them they need to get a life? Or that they obviously have too much time on their hands?

It has been my observation that the type person who makes these type remarks is a person of very little accomplishment. They usually work at some menial job, or are unemployed, are poorly educated and no matter how hard you look you can not see any thing that they do, have done, are doing or can do. And even with a gun to their head they would be unable to do the very thing they are denigrating.

They are usually empty ciphers and at their core they are extremely jealous of anyone who can actually do anything.

Unfortunately, for me, I have relatives who fit this mold. Fortunately for me, I live thousands of miles from them, with my only contact usually being by phone. And even then, out of the blue, in regards to some erstwhile effort on my part, I will hear that I obviously have too much time on my hands. This from one who hasn't spent time with me in years and has no clue what I do.

I remember another time, I was up in Washington. I got a call telling me the mountain was out. In Washington that means you can see Mount Rainier. So, I took my video camera and walked down to the lake and took some video of the mountain. I stuck the video on my computer and in about 2 minutes I'd made a little movie.

When my relative got home I showed the movie. My relative whacked me on the head and said, "I thought you were supposed to be working, not wasting time on stuff like this. You've got too much time on your hands."

I said I did not realize you'd made videos and knew how much time they took.

Two days later we were with our favorite Aunt and suddenly the video I made had become valuable and this ill-mannered, obnoxious relative of mine asked me to show our Aunt the video that I'd apparently wasted time on due to my need to get a life and my problem with having too much time on my hands.

Prairie Fest

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 26, 2008 the Fort Worth Prairie Fest takes place at my favorite place to hike, that being Tandy Hills Park. I'll be there. I'm sure you will be there too. For details go to my website and you will find all the info you could possibly need. If you need further convincing that you want to attend this event, watch the video below of last year's Prairie Fest.

Fort Worth is the Envy of the World

Today's blogging is totally Texas oriented, so don't read on if Texas bores you, do read on if you are among the many who are amused by stupid Texas stuff.

First off, we had another storm blow through north Texas last night. It was a bad one, and, unlike last week's storm this one generated at least one twister. That did no damage. But, oddly, unlike a week ago, last night's storm did not cause all the local TV stations to go to non-stop, all night, ruin prime time, arm waving, alarmist Weather Drama Queen Mode. I only had the TV on from 8 til 9. During that time the show I was watching had no interruptions. During a commercial I channel chased and I did see that annoying ABC Channel 8 Weather Guy in full arm waving mode. I don't know if they were interrupting regular programming.

So, unlike the storm of a week ago that pre-empted all programming, last night's storm was bad enough that I lost power about 10pm.

If I harbored delusions of grandeur I would think that my last week's making fun of the ridiculous local weather coverage wised someone up. Sadly I don't think it is possible to wise anyone up. It would be interesting to hear an explanation as to why a week ago they acted like the Nazis had just started a Blitzkrieg across the Oklahoma border and then a week later they treated a similar storm as if it was just doddery Aunt Fanny coming for an unexpected visit.

Speaking of harboring delusions that one can change things. I'd deluded myself into believing that my making fun of that embarrassing local paper I continue to buy, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, had caused them to cease with their embarrassing verbiage along the line of this that or the other thing in Fort Worth is causing cities, towns and people far and wide to be green with envy.

I swear that verbiage used to crop up at least once a month. I don't think I'd seen it in over a year. Til this morning. Oh, the aching pain to realize I had not caused them to fix this embarrassment.

The embarrassing verbiage resurfaced in an editorial about Fort Worth being the only big city in America without a plan to deal with its homeless population. That's a photo of a homeless person above. I took that in Fort Worth's Water Gardens. That's right next to Fort Worth's Convention Center where few conventions take place. Perhaps the homeless people are not seen as attractive by convention bookers.

So, here are a few sentences from this morning's stupid editorial:

"Fort Worthians love to think their community is unique among big U.S. cities. And it is. Local downtown revitalization is a case study for municipal leaders nationwide. The cooperative, progressive elected leadership found here is the envy of cities that are beset with political and racial divisiveness."

First off, why do Fort Worthians love to think their community is unique? Why would they think that? Have they not been to any other cities? How does the Star-Telegram know what Fort Worthians think? I know a few Fort Worthians and I've heard many of them verbalize being rather appalled by many things in Fort Worth. Of course, they are Fort Worthians who have actually been to other cities.

What other major city in America would allow a park in its downtown celebrating its heritage to be boarded up and closed off by cyclone fencing. Rather than fixing what is wrong with it?

Fort Worth's downtown revitalization is a case study for leaders nationwide? Huh? What city has sent anyone to Fort Worth to study Fort Worth's downtown? As I understand it in the early 1980's downtown Fort Worth was a ghost town. It was the only major American city without a single modern skyscraper. Then some local billionaires, the Bass Family, bought up some downtown land and turned it into parking lots. And called the parking lots Sundance Square. Some restaurants opened. And a movie theater. And a performance hall. There is still not a single department store in downtown Fort Worth. Unlike no other major city in America there is no Macy's, Nordstroms, not even a Dallas-based Neiman Marcus. There isn't even a Sears store.

And yet there is this bizarre slapping themselves on the back thing that the Star-Telegram does regarding Fort Worth's very very mediocre attributes. The best example of Fort Worth's reality is what happens on the day after Thanksgiving. The busiest shopping day of the year. Downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town on that day. Why? Because the city that is the envy of others has few places to shop.

Can the Star-Telegram please name the cities that envy Fort Worth? The only big city I've ever been to with a deader downtown than Fort Worth is Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ironically I was at a convention in their very nice convention center, that, apparently, unlike Fort Worth's, is frequently used. It even has a large hotel attached to it that, unlike Fort Worth, they did not have to provide tax incentives in order to get someone to build a hotel. And though downtown Tulsa was not very lively it looked real nice, with a wide pedestrian walkway connecting the convention center to the downtown core. I was there on a Sunday. A lot of towns are pretty dead on Sundays.

Maybe the Star-Telegram should send a reporter to some other cities that really are both vital and revitalizing. Geez, just drive east 30 miles and see all those construction cranes all over downtown Dallas. Visit the downtowns of Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Denver, San Diego, Chicago, Boise, Salt Lake City, Phoenix or even Oklahoma City and San Antonio and you'll see very vital, booming, growing downtowns with downtown residential buildings being added.

Nothing happens or is happening in Fort Worth that hasn't already happened elsewhere. For any city to envy Fort Worth Fort Worth would have to be trendy, would have to be doing something someone else isn't already doing. The Star-Telegram needs to knock off their phony transparent civic boosting. Fort Worth is a perfectly nice town. Quit pretending it's something it's not.

I've been annoyed about this paper's propaganda ever since they lied about a very lame downtown Fort Worth development, a meager little food court type thing that would have been lame in a small mall in a small town, but which the Star-Telegram claimed over and over and over again that it was the first public market in Texas, modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market and markets in Europe. Of course, when it opened I wasted gas driving to see this thing, with high expectations due to the Star-Telegram's lies. It did not take long for the Sante Fe Rail Market to fail. Ironically, little Tacoma has a similar thing called Freighthouse Square, also by a transit train hub, opened about the same time. It's still open. Because it isn't lame. Because someone who knew what they were doing designed it. The Tacoma Tribune didn't tell its readers that Freighthouse Square was the first public market in Washington and that it was modeled after Pike Place Market. Because the Tribune knows its readers aren't morons. Even my old hometown of Mount Vernon, population less than 30,000, has a successful market type thing by it's downtown transportation hub.

Methinks, in a classic case of transference, it is Fort Worth that envies other places. What does a Fort Worthian think when they see something like Pike Place and remembers their Sante Fe Rail Market? Or when they see little Mount Vernon did it better than they did? Or when they see an actual place that does resemble Pike Place, that being the Dallas Farmers Market. Does this cause envy? Fort Worth is sort of like a homely girl who goes about saying everyone envies her because she's so pretty, when the sad reality is that the poor deluded girl is envious of just about everyone she sees because she's painfully aware she ain't the beauty she pretends to be. But a good makeover job would really help. Same is true with Fort Worth. Start with fixing Heritage Park. Then finally do something with Lancaster. You really think you're gonna get conventions with that mess by the Convention Center? Then, please, I beg you, clean up and landscape the freeway exits to the Stockyards. They are not worthy of a big city's exits to its most popular tourist attraction. Visit some other places and see what they do with their freeway exits. Go here and scroll down and you'll see my photos comparing the Stockyards exits to the freeway exits to little Mount Vernon in Washington. You'd think Mount Vernon was the big city and Fort Worth wasn't. Be warned if you are a Fort Worthian, the photos of Mount Vernon may make you green with envy.