Fort Worth Weekly // January 5-11, 2022

January 5-11, 2022 FREE fwweekly.com

It’s been a long time, but North Texas’ bad boys of alt-rock are reuniting for one night only in June.

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NEWS Local man claims a Fort Worth city councilmember stole his $400 motorcycle jacket.

BY EDWARD BROWN

A N T H O N Y

FEATURE In which we take a look back at all that has happened and make a few bold predictions.

BY S TAT I C

M A R I A N I

STUFF Like the rest of the league, including Tampa Bay and the Pack, the Cowboys are just above average.

BY BO JACKSBORO

MUSIC Noise-punk trio Most Efficient Women dropped new tunes just as the ball dropped for New Year’s.

BY PAT R I C K H I G G I N S

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Vo lum e 17

Number 40

J an uar y 5-1 1 , 2022

INSIDE Did a city councilmember lift a biker jacket at a cigar bar?

By Edward Brown

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Bob Niehoff, General Manager Ryan Burger, Art Director Jim Erickson, Circulation Director

Wrap It Up, We’ll Take It A Democratic turnaround in Tarrant County? It’s possible.

And more fearless, possibly insane predictions in our annual look backward and forward.

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By Static

Welcoming Home the Astronauts

Fort Worth’s biggest alt-rock product since the Toadies is back — only for one night?

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By Anthony Mariani

Documentaries of the Year Our esteemed critic offers his Top 10.

By Kristian Lin

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Cover image courtesy Flickerstick DISTRIBUTION Fort Worth Weekly is available free of charge in the Metroplex, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of Fort Worth Weekly may be purchased for $1.00 each, payable at the Fort Worth Weekly office in advance. Fort Worth Weekly may be distributed only by Fort Worth Weekly’s authorized independent contractors or Fort Worth Weekly’s authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Fort Worth Weekly, take more than one copy of any Fort Worth Weekly issue. If you’re interested in being a distribution point for Fort Worth Weekly, please contact Will Turner at 817-321-9788.

Anthony Mariani, Editor Lee Newquist, Publisher

Cour tesy of Music Box Films

Light Fingers

STAFF

CONTRIBUTORS

Edward Brown, Staff Writer

Megan Ables, Christina Berger, E.R. Bills, Jason Brimmer, Sue Chefington, Buck D. Elliott, Juan R. Govea, Patrick Higgins, Bo Jacksboro, Laurie James, Kristian Lin, Vishal Malhotra, Cody Neathery, Wyatt Newquist, Linda Blackwell Simmons, Madison Simmons, Teri Webster, Ken WheatcroftPardue, Cole Williams

Emmy Smith, Proofreader

EDITORIAL

Michael Newquist, Regional Sales Director Jennifer Bovee, Marketing Director Stacey Hammons, Senior Account Executive Julie Strehl, Account Executive Tony Diaz, Account Executive Wyatt Newquist, Digital Coordinator Clintastic, Brand Ambassador

BOARD

Anthony Mariani, Edward Brown, Emmy Smith

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FIND YOUR HAPPY PLATE

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You Want It Darker?

Instead of turning their backs on him, conservatives ran toward Agent Orange, and our democracy may suffer the consequences.

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B Y K E N W H E A T C R O F T P A R D U E

I began writing this on the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year — appropriate, I suppose, at the end of such a dark year. With little grasp of what the future holds, we all are fumbling.

We don’t yet know how different strains of COVID will affect our economy and our teetering democracy. We don’t yet know how the midterms will go. Will Republicans who have pledged their allegiance to a disgraced former president regain control of Congress, as now seems likely? Will that set the stage for Trump or a Trump clone to return triumphantly to the White House in 2025?

Yet we began the year with hope. After enduring four of the worst years of our lives with a former reality TV star perfectly playing the part of an insane president, I thought we’d catch a break in 2021. With 45 no longer on the stage, perhaps the majority of Republicans would come to their senses and regret their allegiance to a twice-convicted tax cheat who fomented

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Real Atlases

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The Great Resignation proves that when the working class shrugs, things begin to fall apart.

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The other early evening, I was standing in the front entry near the register at one of

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a coup. Then things might become seminormal again. Boy, was I ever wrong.

After 2021, semi-normal is now well out of our collective grasps. What has become clear is that Republicans are working every day against the continuation of the American republic. The GOP has evolved into a personality cult dedicated to a reality TV grifter, interested in subverting democracy and sabotaging the economy.

When Biden mandated shots for businesses of more than 100 people, 14 Republican state attorneys general, all of whom I imagine are vaccinated, sued him. Since our economic well-being is dependent on getting more people vaccinated and boosted, it seems clear that Republicans don’t want the economy to succeed because in their twisted worldview, that would be a victory for Biden. To them, the dead are justifiable collateral damage.

And speaking of the dead, here in Texas, the three-decades-long sclerotic Republican regime enters 2022 with blood on its hands after the deaths caused by the collapse of our poorly managed electrical grid and Abbott et al.’s continuing cruel refusal to expand Medicaid. It appears Texas functions as a Matrix-like simulated reality to test how much Texans can stand to be governed by incompetent greedheads, until we get off our asses and vote the fools out.

From the clearly unconstitutional vigilante-fueled anti-abortion law to the undemocratic super-gerrymandering and limiting voting of Democratic constituencies, we are the nation’s laboratory for Republican misgovernance. Is this the year when we finally have had enough?

And nationally, too. Less than a year ago, for the first time in our 232-year history, we failed to have a peaceful transfer

of power because 45 decided that Brand Trump could never concede to the unsurprising reality that he’d lost by 7 million votes. The fact that around 70% of Republicans still buy his conspiratorial shtick shows the deep shit we’re in. Violence and threats of violence have now become totally normalized in the Republican party of Gosar and Boebert. And even talk of Civil War is de rigueur.

So awash in disinformation are Republicans that they call Democrats Marxists, which never fails to crack me up and leave me wondering where in Das Kapital Marx makes his case for workers to unite so we can have a 26.5% corporate tax rate?

But for sheer ludicrousness, you can’t beat the fact that, when surveyed, Republicans refuse to believe their lying eyes that the economy is booming. Though in the Ludicrous Olympics of our political world, that might be edged out by Tucker Carlson’s contention that immigrants who trek thousands of miles through deserts and jungles using their ingenuity to survive multiple dangerous encounters with law enforcement and gangs will be pliant Democratic automatons. In fact, it’s his mostly elderly couch potatoes being spoon-fed white supremacists’ lies who are by far the most robotic automatons around.

In a sane country, after two impeachments, the botching of his COVID response leading to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, not to mention, organizing an insurrection to stop Congress from doing its constitutional duty to count electoral votes, Trump should’ve been declared persona non grata by his party, yet he’s still the hero of his base, which speaks both to the incredible power of the factfree right-wing media and its total deprav-

ity. After Jan. 6, you would’ve thought that Trump supporters would be so ashamed of themselves, they’d hide under a rock, but no. In the insane 2021 universe, they were everywhere — screaming lies about masks, shots, and CRT at school board meetings, proudly basking in their ignorance.

I should end by giving some faint ray of hope, but I won’t. Because of the intransigence of Republican governors, including ours, people are unnecessarily dying of a disease they shouldn’t. Because of the work of Republican legislators at the national and state level, we are in danger of losing our democracy. And yet, these same duplicitous Republicans are the very people who will most likely take power at the end of 2022 without paying any political or legal price for their deadly incompetence and treachery.

The forces of darkness are counting on our sheer exhaustion after four years of the Trump Shit Show and almost two drawn-out years of COVID. They may well be right.

But if those who want to preserve our republic don’t march and organize like it’s 2017, insist those responsible for Jan. 6 be held accountable, and vote in numbers we’ve never seen in a midterm, the only place our children and grandchildren will be able to learn about democracy is in a museum. l

my favorite local eateries. I was by myself and waiting for a table. The diners were still spaced according to COVID protocol, and the thirtysomething female proprietor was discussing a reservation with a spry septuagenarian woman.

The female elder had pulled in before me and parked right in front of the front door. Her car was something nice, expensive and European. The eatery lay in close proximity to Westover Hills, and I was standing in close proximity to the proprietor and the septuagenarian’s conversation.

The elder needed a reservation for eight on such and such day, and the proprietor was politely explaining to her that tables on that date were not available. The elder stressed the imperative nature of the

date and the reservation, and the proprietor politely explained and re-explained that a table on said date was unfortunately impossible. The conversation went on for quite a while, and I was impressed with the proprietor’s patience and civility.

The elder — who noted that she was a frequent customer — was agitated, but the proprietor remained courteously clear.

The eatery was down to one chef, one waitperson, and the proprietor was picking up the slack. Like many businesses around Cowtown, the place was struggling to find help, and the employees who were showing up were overworked, overstressed, and doing the best they could. At one point, the proprietor even asked the elder if she had any high school or college age grand-

children or grandnephews/nieces who needed a job. The labor shortage was stark and prolonged, and, again, the eatery was doing the best it could with the staff it had.

The elder was not confused or bewildered — she simply didn’t seem to care.

She reemphasized that she’d been a customer there for years. I almost laughed out loud when she then said, “Can’t you just push two tables together?”

The extraordinarily patient proprietor kept her cool but kindly explained, “I’m sorry, but that would hardly help. The tables on that date already have people sitting at them.”

The conversation was becoming a small spectacle, and I was getting hungry.

But I was wildly impressed with the pro-

Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue is a Fort Worth writer who has been proudly raging against the right for decades.

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly. com. Columns will be gently edited for factuality and clarity.

1 in 5 children were already living below the poverty level prior to the pandemic*. The ongoing impact of Covid-19 and the financial burdens of Winter Storm Uri have only exacerbated the issue.

Your holiday gift will make a huge difference and help us ensure struggling families have food and support for rent, utilities and other critical needs so they can experience the joy of the season. Please consider making a tax-deductible gift by the end of the year to our Community Fund.

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WWW.UNITEDWAYTARRANT.ORG/DONATE *Kids Count Data Center *Annie E. Casey Foundation

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E.R. Bills is the author of Fear and Loathing in the Lone Star State (2021) and The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas (2014).

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly. com. Columns will be gently edited for factuality and clarity.

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In the true spirit of the holidays, United Way of Tarrant County is working to bring a bit of cheer and happiness to those in need.

facing increasingly pension-less grinds, poverty-level minimum wages, and rising food and housing costs. Futures without real promise. Futures with very little hope.

The Great Resignation is a serious problem, but it’s been a long time coming.

Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan and Rand Paul (and legions of their pseudointellectual ilk) have always gotten it wrong. People like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Koch brothers were never Atlases. They were always the load the working public lifted up. And the billionaire class continues to grow exponentially, insanely, and, again, obscenely wealthy, while the real Atlases’ futures and existential prospects grow dim. So, a daunting cross-section of the working class is shrugging.

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from age or frugality. Post-COVID — or quasi-post-COVID — America is radically different and probably not just temporarily. In the good ol’ days and right up to COVID protocols, most of us spent much more time making a living than doing much living — or thinking about how we were living our lives. COVID shutdowns and the subsequent COVID relief checks

gave us more time to reflect. We eventually experienced Netflix burnout and boredom and lingering discontent. American culture had molded us to be happy little consumers with materialistic perspectives, but our wages and salaries were purchasing us less and less and Fortune 500 CEOs were taking more and more. And obscenely wealthy billionaires were conducting field trips to space with Captain Kirk. The closest the working class came to really living or going to space or experiencing adventure were the multi-season period dramas on streaming platforms.

And then it happened.

A large swathe of the overworked, underappreciated, and under-compensated working public realized that Ramen noodles weren’t that bad, especially if eating out a lot required reducing themselves to the wage-slavery that our tax-dodging socalled job creators offered us.

Why not get by on less and be content with less? Why not lounge around on the dole? Why not freelance? Why even bother having kids, especially if what they’ll have to deal with is the same servitude that most of us were been born into?

Our political leadership steps to the tune of billionaires and brainwashed boomers — and their futures are already assured. Meanwhile, the working class is

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prietor’s unflinching professionalism, and I thought the matter had reached its conclusion. I was wrong.

The elder fumed, harrumphed, and started to turn and then turned back and demanded to see the proprietor’s “books.”

“I beg your pardon,” the proprietor replied.

By “books,” I could only assume the elder meant the proprietor’s reservation log, but still. It was like a Gestapo command.

The proprietor held her ground, and, after a long moment, the elder eventually departed. I didn’t get the impression the elder was in any way pacified or sympathetic. In fact, when she turned to leave, I got the impression that her passing glare assigned me to the same class as the uncooperative proprietor.

Servant. Peasant. Little people.

The proprietor apologized to me for the wait and the small spectacle, and I told her I was knocked out by her extraordinary composure and self-restraint. But I had to know — was the frustrated elder even a good tipper?

“No,” the proprietor smiled. “She was one of the worst.”

Now, I’m not exactly in the business of criticizing cheapskates or my elders, and, to be fair, this isn’t a problem stemming

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All I have to say is shame on Mattie Parker for taking away our right to speak at city council meetings and to keep railroading the Redistricting through. Must see videos are available at (fwdistrict5.com)

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“Follow the Corruption” First Wednesday of the month right here in our dd

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“Local Voter Education” call-in Program Blog Talk Radio.com Sundays from 8 to 9 pm Call 1 (515) 602-9610 to listen, press 1 to speak

Upcoming guests: Jan 9: Running for Tarrant County Judge Democratic Marvin Sutton, Jan 16: Running for Tarrant County Judge Republican Robert Trevor Buker, Jan 23: Running for US Congress District 33 Robert Macglaflin Jan 30: Running for Tarrant County Judge Republican Tim O’ Hare

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Call Mayor Mattie Parker (817) 392-1234 and tell her to place proposition 2 on the Ballot,

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For 5 years we have asked the mayor and city council to place proposition 2 on the Ballot and billboards to inform everyone. Proposition 2 goes to the heart of the redistricting of Fort Worth. (We Got No Reply) It was not allowed to talk about proposition 2 at the Redistricting Task force meetings The Mayor and City Council will not place proposition 2 on the Ballot in fear that it will not pass

Downtown Fort Worth was hoppin’ on New Year’s Eve. As many Fort Worthians knocked back drinks and said adios to another year, one longtime customer at Silverleaf Cigar Lounge noticed that his motorcycle jacket had been stolen from the place’s breezeway.

The jacket owner asked that we use only his first name, Jim, to protect his privacy.

Jim didn’t wait for the police to arrive to start investigating. With the help of the lounge’s owner, Jim reviewed videotapes of the minutes leading up to the alleged theft.

At around 12:30 a.m., a group of revelers passed by Jim’s expensive 20-pound jacket on the way out. The next moment, the garment was gone.

At around 1 a.m., multiple Fort Worth police officers arrived at the lounge.

“Upon arrival,” a police spokesperson told us, “officers met with the victim who alleged he had clothing items stolen.”

Jim, whose motorcycle gloves inside the jacket were also taken, said the jacket is easily worth $400.

Jim and Silverleaf staffers looked through receipts from the ta-

ble where the party had been sitting and saw the name Chris Nettles, the recently elected city councilmember for District 8. Jim said he emailed the councilmember but did not hear back immediately.

Nettles acknowledged his presence at Silverleaf on New Year’s Eve to me but steadfastly denied taking anything that wasn’t his that night.

The next day, Jim said he received a call from a police officer who said the woman who took the jacket had just returned it to the police.

“They said they would drive it out to me, which I thought was kind of weird,” Jim said. “Two officers showed up in an unmarked car” to return the jacket.

Jim still has a lot of unanswered questions, like how could a female mistakenly hoist a heavy motorcycle jacket that has built-in Kevlar armor? And why did Fort Worth police, who are often slow to thoroughly investigate theft claims, somehow make it a priority to return allegedly stolen property in record time? And did this have something to do with a councilmember’s involvement? Jim said the jacket was returned with a facemask tied to one of the jacket’s straps, something he feels suggests that the thief intended to keep the garment.

Jim said that what the police have told him still doesn’t add up.

— Edward Brown

Silverleaf Cigar Lounge, the downtown spot known for primo smokeables and cocktails, was the scene of a still-mysterious theft on New Year’s Eve.

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ast year was a reminder that no matter how bad things get, they can always become a helluva lot worse. The economic and psychological pummeling of 2020 left Fort Worthians collectively and naively believing that our grimmest days were behind us, especially as presidential ballot figures confirmed that the former guy had been fired by We, the People.

All of six days into a promising new year, the attack on the U.S. Capitol shook

the country (read: Republicans) lives under the delusion that the election was stolen and local elected officials openly push Pizza Gate-type conspiracies. Think we’re kidding? Tarrant County’s district clerk, Tom Wilder, recently posted on Facebook that our news magazine is funded by left-leaning “donors” who are on the lookout for prostitutes.

Over the past year, lives have been uprooted, and nearly 1 million Americans have died from COVID. This year will be no less tumultuous as powerful forces fight to maintain control over life and politics in Tarrant County. Here’s what our editorial board predicts in the coming months.

Public Schools

Public schools are under attack, and the agitation isn’t coming from parents but rather elites who have the means to cough up $30,000 a year for private and religious school tuition yet use their time and resources to shit on already underfunded public schools.

The suburbs are falling under the sway of right-wingers who misrepresent

Critical Race Theory (CRT) and peddle other lies to serve one purpose — to push back on this country’s slow but steady march toward racial equity and the welcoming of the LGBTQ+ community.

Rather than following the Christian values they profess on Sundays and with their #blessed social media posts, many white parents are using their money and political influence to perpetuate this country’s sordid history of white supremacy and subjugation of Black and brown Americans.

Not too long ago, Fort Worth school board meetings were swamped with speakers who actually believed CRT was taught in Fort Worth public schools — it never was, not here, not anywhere. Now that their little sleight of hand has been exposed, they have turned their anger toward superintendent Kent Scribner.

The right wants to replace him with someone, anyone, who will push back against the progress in racial and gender equity that our society — and Fort Worth ISD — has made. Because that’s

continued on page 8

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hopes that 2021 would be the year when life returned to somewhat normal. One month after, an arctic storm left Sen. Ted Cruz scurrying to a resort in Mexico as many of his constituents literally froze to death when the state’s largely unregulated electrical system buckled under the stress of sub-zero temperatures.

In Fort Worth, we pulled together.

Businesses that were fortunate enough to still have power, like Tulips FTW and The Rail Club Live, welcomed all. Rail Club owner Chris Polone braved the blizzard to pick up homeless men and women along West Lancaster Avenue.

As brutal as those early months were, Tarrant County had something to look forward to. COVID-19 vaccines became readily available, and, for those who took the life-saving inoculation, the specter of a slow, protracted death became less of a danger.

Two COVID variants later, it seems like we still live in a conflicted time.

Vaccines are plentiful, and we no longer have to hear about tweets from an unhinged president. And yet nearly half

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Spoiler alert: 2022 promises to be yet another year of upheaval, and local politicians will be largely to blame.

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Lower Expectations

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C o u r t e s y o f Fa c e b o o k

The Southlake playbook is already playing out in Fort Worth.

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what Jesus would have wanted? Anyway, anyone at the head of a large school district should be held accountable for their students’ grades, and Scribner is no exception — nearly 60% of students in grades 3 through 8 did not pass the STARR test in 2021 — but the intentions behind most of the attacks should be seen for what they are. The playbook for defunding public schools that mostly serve ethnic minority students has a guiding strategy — start by going after school leadership. Then flip the school board from blue to red. And then remove books and programs that empower ethnic minority or queer students. Southlake’s model of accusing the school board of peddling CRT won’t fly in Fort Worth because most Fort Worth parents aren’t snowflakes who watch Fox News while mainlining chardonnay at 1 p.m. The right-wing effort to dismantle Fort Worth public schools will target our district’s lackluster academic performance as a way of discrediting the school district with the ultimate goal of defunding public education writ large.

Musical Chairs Fun fact: A favorite game of Tarrant County’s good ol’ boy club is musical chairs with the one exception — unlike

that classic kid’s game, Tarrant’s version is rigged. Just months after getting the boot from Fort Worth city council, Jungus Jordan took public office as a member of the five-member board of the Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD).

Remember, Jordan’s expulsion by voters was largely a referendum on his being one of several lapdogs for Fort Worth’s police union.

Does anyone remember hearing Jordan say anything constructive during city council meetings? *crickets* It’s a real shame because there is important work to be done at TAD and TAD’s one reform-minded board member, Gary Losada, was recently ousted by Tarrant County’s powers that be.

We expect former mayor Betsy Price to coast through the March Republican primaries to clinch Tarrant County’s top position that is confusingly called “judge.” As delightful as it will be to see Republican judge candidate Tim O’Hare and his cesspool of supporters crawl back to wherever they came from (#Southlake), it’s still a sad reminder that establishment money runs local elections.

The county judge sits on the fivemember commissioners court, and two of those seats are up for grabs this year. continued on page 9

Cour tesy City of For t Wor th.

Precinct 4’s commissioner race will see two establishment candidates vie for the seat that will soon be vacated by longtime commissioner J.D. Johnson. None other than J.D.’s son, Constable Jody Johnson, will be running against fellow Republican and Fort Worth police union head Manny Ramirez in what will certainly be a battle royale. Jody has the support of Tarrant County’s good ol’ boy club, but that may not be enough to upset the police union’s chosen one. The mere appearance of police union resources going toward a county election is unprecedented. And weird. They’re supposed to be used to serve city interests. The police union’s website makes it clear: “protecting and serving the citizens of Fort Worth,” not “helping one of our own get elected to higher office.”

Tarrant County justice of the peace elections have historically drawn less attention than races for commissioner, district attorney, or criminal court judge, but an alleged November ploy by five Republican JPs to gerrymander Tarrant County’s eight JP precinct has mired the upcoming race in a scandal that will likely frame 2022’s JP races.

On Nov. 9, Tarrant County’s three white, Republican commissioners voted to adopt the new map over the objections of several ethnic minority JPs and constables who allege that the map was drawn in secret for the purpose of diluting minority votes and ensuring current JP incumbencies. Indeed, two Democrat JP candidates were drawn out of the districts they were seeking to run in.

Shortly before that meeting and in a group text message, Republican JP Jason Charbonnet told a handful of his colleagues that the map wasn’t about any funny business.

“It’s to protect the incumbent,” he wrote.

The ploy worked, and the upcoming race will likely favor the Republicans who abused their power to protect their incumbencies. Already, one civil lawsuit is seeking to overturn the new map, and Steve Maxwell, the prominent local trial attorney who filed that lawsuit, has asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Tarrant County as part of the DOJ’s ongoing look into potential violations of the Voting Rights Act in Texas.

The five Republican JPs have the upper hand, but a lot could change in nine months, especially if the DOJ makes national news out of this example of local insider dealings. We predict a 5-4 flip in favor of Democrats in this fall’s JP races.

The most impactful election in Tarrant County will be, by far, the race for district attorney. The overturning of wrongful convictions, investigations in the politically driven indictments of two Carroll school board members, monetary bail reform, and the establishment of a public defender’s office will only happen under new, reform-minded leadership.

Tarrant County is the largest county by population that does not have a public defender’s office, and our county jail is too frequently a death sentence for nonviolent offenders who cannot afford bail of as little as $100. The human suffering that has persisted in our criminal justice system under DA Sharen Wilson’s administration is truly horrifying.

This year’s DA race will be a referendum on Wilson’s tenure. Given her decision to not seek reelection amid accusations that she used her office to bolster O’Hare’s campaign, voters will be unlikely to entertain another Republican, continued on page 11

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Don’t expect Jungus Jordan to do much of anything as TAD’s newest board member.

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“A roaring, wondrous whirlpool of a show”

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– The Guardian

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October 17, 2021–February 6, 2022 This exhibition is organized by Tate Britain in association with the Kimbell Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities and by the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Fort Worth Tourism Public Improvement District.

Promotional support provided by

The Constitutional right to an abortion will be revisited by the U.S. Supreme Court sometime this year. In Dobbs v.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state of Mississippi is defending its abortion ban at 15 weeks and asking the Supreme Court to return the right to ban abortions to the states. A court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade would solidify the future of a new Texas law that bans abortion at six weeks — the time when most women realize they are pregnant.

As unsettling as those looming restrictions may be, a new FDA ruling has made medical abortions significantly easier to access. The drug mifepristone is commonly used with another medication, misoprostol, to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks after pregnancy. Mifepristone had previously been available only through pick-ups at a doctor’s office.

Under the Biden administration, the drug was approved for mail delivery. The recent FDA decision makes that change permanent. Around 40% of all abortions are performed using medication.

As federal protections for abortions wane under the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, women in Texas and across the nation will increasingly turn

Yes, the dumpster fire that is Southlake politics still burns mighty bright, and we can expect yet another year of dumbassery from reactionary white parents who have boundless material wealth matched only by their contempt for anyone who dares to suggest that wealth disparity in this country is tied to slavery and racism.

It is worth remembering there are many decent upper- and middle-class parents in Southlake who stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movements and social justice efforts in general. We’ve spoken to many of these people, and they have been unwavering in their struggle to fight the good fight in ground zero of this nation’s battle to finally smother racism and bigotry.

A powerful PAC had big political wins in 2021. Southlake Families helped elect two new city councilmembers, a new mayor, and three new school board members — all of them far right. We expect PAC money or donors tied to Southlake Families to give generously in Tarrant County’s upcoming March primary and November election that will see three new commissioners, a new DA, and a slate of county and state positions up for grabs.

And why shouldn’t they give, give, give? It’s a formula that has served the racist interests of Southlakers for two years and counting. When those

Fort Worthians continue to march and hold vigils in honor of Atatiana Jefferson.

donations result in political favors — and they will — you can expect yours truly to report accordingly.

Emboldened Southlake parents will continue their hunt for “woke” textbooks that describe the life of nonwhite, nonbinary, non-wealthy children. State leaders like Rep. Matt Krause have fanned that paranoia by investigating the infiltration of “pornographic” books in public schools.

The year looks bleak for Southlake.

Until there are serious consequences for the county prosecutors and officials who do the bidding of Southlake’s Republican donors, the wealthy suburb will continue to wreak havoc in Texas’ third most-populous county.

iStock

Fort Worth’s Trial

Causing destruction then toasting to it seems to define life in tony Southlake these days.

Mon., May 16, is the court date for Aaron Dean, the former Fort Worth police officer who shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman, as she played video games with her nephew at home more than two years ago. Jefferson’s is perhaps the most tragic recent police killing in a long line of too-frequent police shootings of unarmed Black men, women, and teenagers.

In response to a nonemergency call from a concerned neighbor who noticed Jefferson’s front door was open, Dean walked behind the home and shot her through a back window after failing to announce that he was a police officer.

Jefferson, then 28, was saving money for medical school at the time of her killing.

The delays reflect apathy and negligence on the part of Tarrant County’s largely white, largely old leadership. County prosecutors were tripping over themselves in late 2020 to prosecute two Carroll school board members as a favor to O’Hare and wealthy Republican donors in Southlake, but Judge David Hagerman, who is overseeing Dean’s trial, refused to meet with councilmember Chris Nettles in June when Nettles fulfilled a campaign pledge by calling for a trial date for Dean.

Dean is not the only one on trial.

Fort Worthians are following Jefferson’s case closely, even as national media attention fails to grasp its significance. A watchful local electorate will be judging how elected leaders handle Jefferson’s long overdue case and will remember their words and actions when next election season rolls around.

If Dean is found guilty, we can expect jubilant Fort Worthians to fill the streets in celebration even as his back-the-blue supporters curse the Deep State powers that be. If prosecutors don’t do their job, Fort Worth will see civil unrest unlike anything we have ever experienced. l This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not necessarily the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com.

Submissions will be edited for factuality and clarity.

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Abortion Battles

More of the Southlake Shit Show

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which leaves Democrat DA candidates Tiffany Burks and Albert Roberts in position to restore some semblance of integrity to the county office.

to mail-order prescriptions to maintain control over their bodies and their financial security.

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Madison Simmons

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They Are What We Thought They Were This week’s loss to a real team proves the Cowboys were never as great as we suspected.

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Blow it up. We’re done. Dak can’t throw, the receivers can’t catch, the O-line is aging and overrated, the defense can’t get pressure, put Zeke out to pasture, Santa isn’t real, Trump is still president.

Hope is lost.

Take a deep breath, Dallas football fanatics. What did we really learn after Sunday’s 25-22 home loss to a beat-up Cardinals team? What we suspected all along: The Cowboys are a good team — way better than last year’s squad — but maybe this collection isn’t as consistently great as we’d like them to be. They might not be a championship

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team. Was that really your expectation heading into this season?

For the Cowboys faithful, who haven’t enjoyed sustained playoff relevance since Bill Clinton “did not have sexual relations with that woman,” having a good team that has a chance to win every week isn’t good enough. We were on our way to certain glory after winning four in a row and pummeling the Football Team in what knee-jerk pundits described as a “get-right game” for Dallas’ puttering offense.

Let’s hop into the way-back machine together all the way to last year to see how this upward-trending juggernaut failed to dominate a fading, injured Cardinals squad.

A week ago, Cowboys fans were planning parade routes. As it turns out, when you play a team that has a real quarterback, football becomes hard again.

As good as the ’Boys’ winning streak felt, the suddenly vaunted defense — the same one that ranked almost dead last just a season ago — didn’t face a real QB. For the last month, Mike Glennon, Taylor Heinicke (twice), and Taysom Hill led offenses against America’s Team. Those dudes wouldn’t start on a few college teams. And Washington was so banged up on defense, they could have found more talent on Indeed.

Before you abandon your New Year’s resolutions and grief-eat Snickers bars until your rectum prolapses, let’s take stock of where the team is right now. After this week’s loss, the Cowboys are still in the playoffs, atop the admittedly weak NFC East, and hosting a playoff game in the first week of the postseason. They can’t catch Green Bay and seize the No. 1 seed anymore. That wasn’t a likely outcome anyway. The NFC is going through Lambeau. The Cowboys are looking at either a rematch with the Cardinals or a showdown with a very dangerous 49ers team for Round 1 of the playoffs.

Dak Prescott points to the supreme being who constantly lets him down.

The Cowboys are a decent kicker away from possibly being the No. 1 seed.

As sportscaster Tom Downey pointed out on Twitter, “The Cowboys have lost 3 games by a combined 8 points. Greg Zuerlein has left 14 points on the field in those games.”

This team can play with anyone.

The team’s performances aren’t always pretty — and are usually gut-wrenching.

The other teams ahead of them are all just as bungling and unpredictable. This is just what the NFL looks like right now. There are no “should haves,” but the Cowboys could have easily beat the Tompa Bradys, the Raiders, and now the Cards had a play, kick, or call or two gone differently.

Ask yourself this: Does that Cardinals team really scare you in the playoffs? Does Tampa? Even Green Bay looks beatable for a 1-seed. Of course, the Cowboys aren’t inspiring fear in any of those teams, either.

I hear you, haters. Dak’s performance last week is concerning. He doesn’t look right, compared to how efficient and accurate he was to begin the season.

No. 4 kind of embodies the ethos of the entire team: good, not great; capable but inconsistent; and always maddening.

Even more concerning than Dak is the playcalling. Wunderkind Kellen Moore has become as predictable and stagnant as his ginger-headed, clapping mentor. The kid has gone too conservative. He doesn’t plug in the offense until the fourth quarter when the team is down. To wit: Dak and company came out of the gate in hurry-up mode, and it seemed to work. They wouldn’t get back to that pace until the end of the half when they were up against the clock. Those were the two best drives of the half for Dallas.

Even with a mediocre offense and a defense that couldn’t consistently establish pressure, the team still could have pulled this out. A dropped interception in the end zone by Jayron Kearse, another missed field goal, and a careless fumble by Dak frittered away an all-around good showing by the defense.

The team wasn’t helped by head coach Mike McCarthy burning a timeout in the middle of the third quarter. It could have been used to challenge the blown non-fumble call in the fourth. The top guy doesn’t know how to manage a game or instill discipline in his oft-penalized team. I’m not sure what he does well or why he has his job.

You can panic if you want. I’m not going to. I’m also not going to hold my breath that the Cowboys will mysteriously put together four quarters of great three-phased football. This is what they were all along. It’s what most teams are. The whole league is so-so. If you expected anything different from the Cowboys, maybe we’re watching two different sports. l

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Best Documentaries of 2021 Counting down the year’s best nonfiction cinematic achievements.

Sasha Kovac practices ballet in her backyard in Little Girl.

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made by the artists at this 1969 festival that provided six days of concerts ranging from gospel (Mahalia Jackson) to blues (B.B. King) and from R&B (Stevie Wonder) to African music (Hugh Masekela). The footage languished in archives for half a century because distributors were more interested in the white people at Woodstock, but Questlove brought this celebration of Black music to rousing life.

1.) Little Girl. Many fiction films imitate the techniques of documentaries, but not enough documentaries imitate the techniques of fiction films. That’s what Sébastien Lifshitz does for this narrative about Sasha Kovac, a 7-year-old who was born male but has always known herself to be a girl. The kid was lucky to be given a gender-neutral name at birth and luckier to have parents in the countryside outside Reims, France, who accept that she was born in the wrong body. Put together like a good drama, the film catches Sasha at a moment before the ignorant and cruel world will inevitably act on her, and it’s deeply moving.

5.) Music Box: Listening to Kenny G. When you’re a popculture punchline, you live in hell, one that no amount of money can pull you out of. Kenny G occupied that hell during the late 1980s well into the 1990s, and the now 65-year-old saxophonist seems to have handled all the hate from jazz purists and music fans amazingly well.

Penny Lane’s film for HBO Max reveals surprising tidbits (a Chinese music theorist explains why Kenny G has a massive following in China), sits numerous hardcore jazz scholars down to make their peace with “Songbird” and “Silhouette,” and asks deep questions about what makes music good or bad. This documentary is comedy gold, and Kenny G is in on the joke.

2.) Procession. Robert Greene always takes an unorthodox route to his story, and so it is in this Netflix film. Rather than simply interview six Kansas City men who were raped as boys by Catholic priests, he has them all make their own short films about coping with the experience. As the victims help out on one another’s projects as actors or crew members, they bond together through their shared pain, learn the ins and outs of filmmaking, and walk through fire to achieve some sort of closure on their stolen innocence.

3.) Flee. This is much better than the movie version of The Kite Runner. Jonas Poher Rasmussen recounts the story of a gay man named Amin who fled his native Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded. While he settled in Denmark and found love, he kept the experiences on his journey secret even from his husband. The animation protects the identities of the people involved whose lives might be endangered otherwise, but it also contributes to the surreal, dreamlike odyssey of refugees as they leave their homelands and pass through unfamiliar territories to try to make a new home.

4.) Summer of Soul (… or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Were you lucky enough to see this movie in the theaters? I was, and no home sound system could match the experience of being surrounded by music

8.) Wojnarowicz: Fuck You Faggot Fucker. The subtitle comes from a scrap of paper bearing that homophobic slur that David Wojnarowicz (pronounce that name voy-nahrow-vich) found on the sidewalk. He turned it into art by drawing two men having sex underneath the words. The movie chronicles the life of this New York street artist who was on the militant edge of the gay-rights movement during the AIDS epidemic that ultimately killed him.

Chris McKim’s film details his life and becomes a battle cry for making trouble in the face of bigotry.

9.) Her Socialist Smile. Helen Keller has long been a secular saint in our culture, but this movie exposes just how controversial she was in her day. It wasn’t her advocacy for the disabled but rather her support of leftwing causes that made people burn her books. Today, she’d be alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the political spectrum. John Gianvito could have unspooled this story in a conventional way. Instead, he uses strange, elliptical techniques to mirror the workings of a mind that even drifted left of the American Socialist Party in Keller’s fight for social and racial justice.

6.) A Cop Movie. This Netflix film starts out as an ordinary movie about police officers in Mexico City, and then director Alonso Ruizpalacios goes several layers deeper by revealing that the cops we’re watching are actors portraying the real-life officers whose experiences make up the film. Then we follow actors Mónica del Carmen and Raúl Briones as they train with real cops in the D.F. while squaring their roles with their own less-thanfriendly real-life experiences with police. This story about police corruption south of our border is more powerful for coming at the topic sideways.

10.) Writing With Fire. It takes fearlessness to be a journalist, especially when you’re an Indian woman from the Dalit (untouchable) caste trying to break into a profession dominated by men from upper castes. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh follow the all-female staff of Khabar Lahariya as they report on crimes in Uttar Pradesh that the police don’t care about. After seeing so many Indian movies gloss over the country’s myriad problems, it’s a great tonic to see these women tackle these issues head-on. The Indian people and government call them untouchable. I want to be like them when I grow up.

7.) All Light, Everywhere. Theo Anthony goes deep inside the surveillance state with a bunch of video experts and manufacturers who joyfully predict a privacy-free, completely monitored world that sounds a lot like 1984.

This film was made too early to point out that the scrutiny of cameras did nothing to keep Derek Chauvin from murdering George Floyd, but it does delve into the fatal flaw of this supposedly objective technology. True, the cameras themselves are unbiased. The trouble is, the people watching the video feed always have their own biases. Until we can correct those, there’s no trusting the tech.

Honorable mention: Marilyn Agrelo’s Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street … Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers … Hogir Hirori’s Sabaya … Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s The Rescue … Wang Nanfu’s In the Same Breath … Matthew Heineman’s The First Wave … Jessica Beshir’s Faya Dayi … Sergei Loznitsa’s State Funeral … Joshua Rofé’s Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed … Jason Pollock’s Finding Kendrick Johnson. l

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Maybe this pandemic has encouraged more people to watch documentaries at home. What’s certain is that not enough of them have made it to the big screen. Even the Grand Berry Theater and the Modern Art Museum, reliable places to watch docs, left too many of the films here to streaming services. This New Year, let’s resolve to ask them and the big theater chains to give us more movies like these in 2022.

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What the Constitution Means to Me hits Dallas this weekend.

NIGHT&DAY

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The Tony-nominated play What the Constitution Means to Me has a limited Thursday run Tue-Sun at Winspear Opera House (2403 Flora St, Dallas, 214880-0202). As a 15-year-old, playwright Heidi Schreck earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the country. “In this hilarious, hopeful, and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.” Performances are 7:30pm Tue-Thu, 8pm Fri, 2pm and 8pm Sat, and 1:30pm and 7pm Sun. Tickets start at $25 at ATTPAC.org.

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If you received some new cigars as a gift over the holidays, would you like to Friday know how best to pair them with liquor? Local cigar club Leaf N Grain Society has three co-founders who blog about such things on LeafNGrainSociety. com. They occasionally host in-person events, too, like the upcoming Bottle Night at Underground Cigars (6409 E Lancaster Av, 817-507-3640). At 6:30pm, “bring a bottle, share a bottle, and pair a cigar.” There is no cost to attend.

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At noon, 3pm, or 7pm, meet up with Fort Worth Crawling (131 E Saturday Exchange Av, 833-6647249) for the Stockyards History Tour Pub Crawl. “Relax with beer in hand while our expert local guide shares the unknown stories of Fort Worth and Texas.

Learn the history they left out in 8thgrade social studies class and meet fellow travelers from around the globe while visiting different bars.” Tickets are $39.99 for a dry run (without drinks included) and $64.99 with four draft beers included at FortWorthCrawling.com. You must be at least 21 years old to attend. (Note: These tours are done daily but are usually sold out. Get on this now!)

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Reality TV’s Ink Masters Tattoo Show hosts the fourth annual Arlington Sunday Tattoo Expo 1pm-11pm Fri, 11am-11pm Sat, and 11am-9pm Sun at Arlington Expo Center (1200 Ballpark Way, 817-459-5000). This event features more than 200 tattoo artists doing live tattooing all weekend, plus vendors, food, and more. While I am still unsure of the ticket price, I did see a post offering $5 off for those who arrive before 5pm today.

Tickets are $25 per day or $40 for a three-

Cour tesy Kidd Nation

See KISS FM’s Kellie Rasberry at Downtown Cowtown Tue.

Never one to pass on covering animatronic dinosaurs, my latest Monday offering comes to you from Grandscape (5732 Grandscape Blvd, The Colony, 972-668-2222). You may have noticed that the massive dino-sized tent structure at the front of the property has yet to come down. That is because Jurassic World: The Exhibition has been extended thru Tue, Jan 17. What a time to be alive!

(Or, extinct, as it were.) Anyhoo, arrival times are pre-scheduled in 15-minute increments 12pm-6pm today and then 12pm-7pm Thu, Jan 13; 12pm-8pm Fri, Jan 14; 10am-8pm Sat, Jan 15; 11am7pm Sun, Jan 16; and, finally, 12pm-6pm Mon, Jan 17. Tickets are $19.50-$89.50 at JurassicWorldExhibition.com.

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As part of the Conversations with Women’s Voices of Tuesday DFW’s four-night series, Downtown Cowtown at The Isis Theater (2401 N Main St, 817-808-

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At 6pm, Mount Stylight Classes (@KenzyeStudio, Wednesday 817-932-0802) is hosting an acrylic-pour art class at Summer Moon Coffee (625 S Main St, 817-439-9007). All skill levels are welcome.

Tickets are $23 on Eventbrite.com and include all the supplies needed to either make tiles or canvases for hanging.

By Jennifer Bovee

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6390) presents an evening with radio personality Kellie Rasberry of the 106.1FM Kidd Kraddick Morning Show from 7:30pm to 10pm. The guest moderator is local mental health professional Adaire Byerly of Entertainment Mindframe (EntertainmentMindframe.com). Future speakers include Tashara Parker from WFAA on Tue, Feb 8, Betsy Price — former mayor of Fort Worth and current candidate for Tarrant County Judge — on Tue, Mar 15, and Krys Boyd of Think on KERA/NPR on Tue, Apr 12. Tickets are $35 per event or $100 for the entire series, at OuthouseTickets.com.

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day pass at the door. (Note: If your one day is Friday and you arrive before 5pm, you’ll receive $5 off.)

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GIOVANNI’S

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I TA L I A N K I T C H E N

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K I N T A R O R A M E N . C O M

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C H E F I N G T O N

We’re shattering records again. The U.S. is averaging 400,000 new COVID cases a day as the omicron variant continues to disrupt every aspect of life for those taking precautions. In Texas, where 98,469 people were hospitalized over the last seven days (as of Jan. 4), officials have been reluctant to reintroduce shutdown orders for businesses, schools, and public places.

As is the case with every dark turn of our new plague — one that’s cost more than 800,000 people their lives — the service industry is the first in the business sector to feel the full brunt of its impact.

Hospitality workers are back in the same leaky life raft as March of 2020.

Many restaurants have announced temporary closures, modified service, or vaccine requirements for indoor dining — difficult decisions that echo industry mandates from the pandemic’s earliest days.

Across the country, only a handful of cities like Boston, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco have mandated vaccine policies for indoor diners. Locally, county and city officials have bristled at the idea of taking sweeping action as they did more than a year ago.

Along with COVID, many restaurants are still dealing with inflation, pandemic supply delays, and staff shortages, issues that led to the closure of more than 90,000 restaurants in 2020, according to the National Restaurant Association.

In North Texas, multiple bars and

Cour tesy of Jon Bonnell

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Bonnell: “I don’t think this one warrants the shutdown.”

restaurants have chosen to close for a week or more as COVID has ripped through staff.

Chef Jon Bonnell was forced to shut down his flagship eatery, Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine, for five days, including New Year’s Eve — traditionally one of the two biggest revenue-generating days for restaurants. He estimates his business lost $90,000 over the course of the week, between revenue, wages (he still paid everyone), taxes, spoiled product, and more.

After two of his employees tested positive for COVID, he furnished his entire staff with rapid tests and asked them to report back.

“I said, ‘Anybody who has the slightest sniffle, tingle, cough, anything at all, take a test right now,’ ” he said. “As soon as the number got so high that we

couldn’t staff the restaurant, I just said, ‘You know what? We don’t have a choice.’

It would’ve been the same thing if we had that many people get the flu.

“It’s a very simple rule,” he added.

“If you’re sick, you don’t come to work right now. Five years ago, if you had a little bit of a fever, you took an Advil and powered through it. Nobody would’ve said a word. I did that all the time. We just live in a different time now.”

Bonnell has continued to serve curbside pickup meals, as he has since the early days of the pandemic. While that income has been welcome, it hardly compares to what he makes in his open dining room.

Both The Boiled Owl Tavern and its sister bar Tarantula Tiki Lounge also shut their doors for a few days due to

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The service industry has been forced to adjust to COVID’s latest and most contagious mutation.

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Omicron’s Canaries

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EATS & drinks

widespread staff illnesses. Like Bonnell, Steve Steward, who co-owns the Tarantula and tends bar at the Owl, said the decision to close was just a numbers game — there weren’t enough healthy bodies to field a team.

Both bars were forced to close on Christmas day. Tarantula opened during the time of COVID, so Steward couldn’t predict how busy the newish South Main Street bar would have been. For the Owl, on the other hand, he and other workers missed out on one of their best moneymaking days of the year.

“That was a bummer to not open,” he said. “It’s one of those things where we’ve been doing this for almost 10 years now. This would have been our ninth Christmas, and we didn’t get to open.

And anytime you close your bar, that sucks because you’re losing revenue.”

To try and curb the spread of the virus, The Boiled Owl has switched to plastic glassware. Most customers, Steward said, have accepted the change without much pushback. Besides that, the beloved West Magnolia Avenue dive bar has mostly returned to normal.

At Tarantula, Steward said he’s happy to not have to play traffic cop anymore.

“We finally got to a spot in 2021, when the masks came off, when we stopped policing where people were sitting,” he said. “And now people can walk around like it’s a normal bar. And to me, that’s how this bar was supposed to be all along. It’s supposed to be lively and a little loud, with people moving about rather than just kind of like sitting down in a nice restaurant the way it was in 2020.”

Despite losing revenue, Bonnell sounded optimistic about the future of COVID thanks to its latest mutation.

“Omicron is more contagious, less severe,” he said. “That’s good news on both sides, to be honest.

“I don’t think this one warrants the shutdown,” he added. “We know a lot more about [COVID]. And if you’re vaccinated, boosted, you’re a healthy person, and you don’t have specific comorbidities,” the virus isn’t as deadly. “And I’ll be honest. I’m not worried about this for me. I’ve already had all the shots. I had COVID way at the beginning. I’ve had all this. I’m a healthy guy. I still don’t want to go around spreading it.”

As of Tuesday, Bonnell said his staff is healthy and expects most of them to return to work. Neither he nor Steward expects another round of PPP loans to make up for lost business. For both, it’s a sunk cost — another hit they’ve endured on the frontlines of the COVID fallout. l

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Happy Hour Mon - Fri

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3.) Having technical difficulties in the kitchen? Texas A&M wants to help. The university hosts educational programs based on community needs and developed by volunteers through its AgriLife

FIRST BLUE ZONES APPROVED THAI RESTAURANTS IN FW!

4.) On Sat, Jan 15, from 11am to 2pm, it’s time for the monthly Drag Brunch & Show at Funky Picnic (401 Bryan Av, Ste 117, 817-708-2739), featuring Kiki with the Kweens. Seating begins at 11am, and the show starts at 11:30am. There is no cover, but cash tipping is encouraged. The full Funky Picnic menu, plus a few select brunch items, will be available to order throughout.

5.) Also on Sat, Jan 15, from 11am to 2pm, the Denton Main Street Association is hosting its inaugural Denton Cocoa Crawl in Denton Square (110 W Hickory St, @OfficialDentonSquare).

Participating businesses will be offering a variety of hot cocoa tastings and accepting

food donations for LovePacs Denton, a nonprofit supplying food and necessities to those in need. There is no cost to attend, but item donations are appreciated. For updates on participating shops, follow Facebook.com/DowntownDenton.

6.) Looking for a trivia night in Arlington?

Murf ’s Trivia hosts one on Tuesdays at JR Bentley’s (406 W Abram St, 817-2617351). Sign up is at 5pm, then its Triple Trivia time from 6pm to 8pm with three rounds, including entertainment, nerd alert, and potluck. It’s always free to play, and there are prizes. With this being an English pub, you can get your fix of bangers and mash, fish and chips, or shepherd’s pie while you’re at it.

7.) At 7pm Fri, Jan 21, Hooligan’s Pub (310 E Abram St, Ste 150, Arlington, 817274-1232) is hosting a Rare Blanton’s Bourbon Tasting featuring 1-ounce pours of five bourbons, including Blanton’s Black Label, Gold Label, Green Label, Red Label, and Straight from the Barrel.

Food pairings include bread, brie cheese,

“Best Thai Food” – FW Weekly Critics Choice 2015, 2017 & 2019 4630 SW Loop 820 | Fort Worth• 817-731-0455 order online for pickup Thaiselectrestaurant.com

and meatballs with sauce, and then apple pie for dessert. According to the Blanton’s team, “These bourbons are extremely rare to come by, and some aren’t even available for sale in the United States,” which explains the ticket price of $229.99 per person. If the cost doesn’t deter you, your ticket can be found on Eventbrite.com.

8.) If the cold weather holds and you’re still excited about it — so excited that you want to don your ski gear — head to The Truckyard (5959 Grove Ln, The Colony, 469-401-6764) for the annual Après Ski Party on Sat, Jan 22, starting at 2pm. This free family-friendly event will have live music and limbo contests with prizes, and everyone who dresses in ski gear will be entered to win a custom Truckyard Shotski. Along with food truck fare and drink specials available for purchase, there will also be spiked apple cider and hot chocolate for adults (and regular hot chocolate for the kids). l

By Jennifer Bovee

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Extension Service in Tarrant County (200 Taylor St, Ste 500, 817-884-1945). The next event is Pressure Canner Testing Day. From 9am to 4pm on Thu, Jan 13, stop in with your Magic Seal, Maid of Honor, National, or Presto brand pressure-canner gauge, and the team will test it for you free of charge. #SafetyFirst

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2.) From 10am to 1pm Sat, learn how to work a pit and smoke the perfect brisket at the Backyard Pitmaster class hosted

by Brisket U (@BrisketUniversity) at Armadillo Ale Works (221 S Bell Av, Denton, 940-580-4446). Taught by a certified pitmaster, the class will help you gain insight into choosing the right piece of meat, prepping the meat from trimming and rubbing to wood selections and smoke profiles, timing, firebox management, and then slicing the finished product. All skill levels are welcome. Tickets are $89 at BrisketU.com.

Ah, winter. It’s finally cold enough for hot chocolate. Spiked or not, have some in Denton and The Colony!

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1.) With three separate music rooms to choose from, Ridglea Theater (6031 Camp Bowie Blvd, 817-738-9500) always has something going on. Starting Friday, the Ridglea Lounge has added a reason to drop in. Every Friday from 5 to 7pm, Happy Hour + Darts features $3 drink specials and a complimentary game of darts for two or three.

Cour tesy iStock

While 360 West is kind of a competing publication here in our backyard, we respect that they are sponsoring the 2022 Winter Restaurant Week, a great event benefiting a worthy cause. From Mon, Jan 10, thru Sun, Jan 30, the event has been expanded to a month-long chance to dine on a three-course gourmet meal for $49 at various eateries in North Texas. Proceeds benefit Grace Grapevine (837 E Walnut St, 817-488-7009), a nonprofit that “provides assistance to individuals and families in crisis with guidance toward selfsufficiency.” To see your dining choices and to participate, visit 360WestMagazine.com/ Winter-Restaurant-Week.

Meanwhile, here are eight other upcoming delicious food and booze events to check out.

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MUSIC

A Most Efficient EP With a now-set lineup in tow, Britt Robisheaux’s noise-punk project Most Efficient Women rang in the New Year with some brand-new tunes.

B Y

P A T R I C K

H I G G I N S

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Britt Robisheaux

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Although it’s a certainty that some brownline -framed- glasses - sporting internet-bullying parvenu — armed with an underground music XP dwarfing that of the average mortal local music journalist — would all too eagerly expose the assessment for its sheer contemptible and laughable ignorance, it is mostly accepted that the origins of experimental noise-punk begins with Steve Albini — at least as far as introducing the sound to more than the handful of quaaludeaddled onlookers who just happened to

be present at some forgotten band’s only show at a loft in Hell’s Kitchen in 1968.

In the ’80s with his band Big Black, and later in the ’90s with Shellac, the acerbic, often-controversial musician/ producer opened a space where atonal, brittle guitars, ear-piercing feedback, and confusing, syncopated rhythms seemed to provide the perfect sonic accompaniment to primal screaming vocals barking out lyrics riddled with taboos.

Though it’s never been appreciated at even the level of more accessible, yet still severely underground, subgenres like postrock or black metal, noise-punk’s tendrils still reach out to the current day and are even, perhaps surprisingly, more prevalent now than ever. With the popularity of bands like IDLES and Metz, the clanging, screeching subgenre is even starting to poke its misshapen head up out of the underground a little bit.

Considering bands like Hoaries or the experimental roster of artists on Fort Worth’s Dada Drumming label, the local scene has plenty of its own artists who, intentionally or otherwise, owe at least part of their sound to the totemic Big Black.

One such devotee is Britt Robisheaux.

While he’s likely best known as a producer/ engineer, boasting a wide-ranging discography that stretches from the synthdoom of Pinkish Black on one end to the late pop icon BJ Thomas on the other, he’s been a musician himself throughout his life. One of his current projects is the noise-punk outfit Most Efficient Women.

Now as a proper trio, the group followed the ball drop on New Year’s Eve with the new five-song EP Eating the Hawk.

Robisheaux (center): “The three of us had so much chemistry that I figured we should just spend our time writing our own songs instead.”

do a one-off show just playing Jesus Lizard songs.

“I just heard that [Friedman] wanted to play some Jesus Lizard covers, and I really wanted to get in on it,” Robisheaux recalled. “The show went well, and we kept getting asked to play others, but I had no interest in being in a cover band. The three of us had so much chemistry that I figured we should just spend our time writing our own songs instead.”

The three went into Robisheaux’s home base of Cloudland Recording Studios and, with a little help from Justin Lemons (Shiny Around the Edges, Dust Congress), who manned the console during Robisheaux’s parts, banged out the five songs over the last few years.

Two of the tracks were initially intended as demos for a proper recording session that was to be held with none other than the aforementioned Albini at his famed Electrical Audio studio in Chicago.

“Then COVID happened, and our plans got iced,” Robisheaux said. “We kept writing, but getting back to Chicago at that point didn’t make sense for a few reasons.

Hopefully, we can pull funds back together to get up there in 2022.”

Clocking in at a, uh, most efficient 13 minutes and 5 seconds, the five tracks are a flavor-potent aperitif of blistering punk abrasiveness. Much more focused than the expressive, free-jazz approach of MEW’s self-titled 2019 EP, Eating the Hawk offers plenty to chew on — churning distorted guitar, pounding drums, interesting, dissonant, left-field changes, and Robisheaux’s surprisingly hooky vocal theatrics as he muses on “songs all about cults and murders,” though he deflects on being direct about the subject matter.

“I’m a sucker for mysterious shit, so that’s what came out,” he said. “I’ve never been good at writing lyrics, so in a lot of cases, I just shout phrases off of the top of

my head while recording band practice. I’ll listen back and try to find meaning, then add more to make it cohesive. I always like when vocalists leave it vague and give the listener space to interpret a song however they choose.”

Producing other people’s music still takes the bulk of Robisheaux’s time (to say nothing of being a family man with little ones at home). Right now, he’s in the process of working on “an experimental dub record with members of Bedhead, Sub Oslo, and Addis Pablo,” but he hopes to keep devoting some time to Most Efficient Women.

“I generally don’t like to let art simmer for too long,” Robisheaux said. “For now, I just really want to get these songs out and move on. I plan to write and record more with [Martinez] and [Friedman]. Those two guys have great taste in music and are really fun to be around. Live performances will continue when the time feels right.” l

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Originally a loose collection of seemingly random contributors, for Eating the Hawk, Most Efficient Women settled into a regular lineup with Robisheaux on guitar and vocals, Uncle Toasty’s Jeffery Chase Friedman on drums, and Jacob Martinez (Hightower, Cut Throat Finches) on bass.

“I started Most Efficient Women around 2010 as a way to collaborate with musicians I really admired,” Robisheaux said. “The idea was to always keep the lineup open-ended. I just kind of reached out to whoever was inspiring to me at the time that I had access to. I’ve gotten to collaborate with members of SUNN O))), Bellini, Pinkish Black, Bludded Head, and all of my Drug Mountain bandmates. For the new record, I decided to put a solid lineup together to work out some ideas.”

Robisheaux originally hooked up with Friedman and Martinez by chance.

The three got together a few years ago to

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Flickerstick Redux

For all you young guns, or young’uns, out there who think you’re hot shit now, you might do well to, first, check yourself and, secondly, haul your ass to House of Blues on Sat, Jun 25. That’s when a really good rock band partially based here will reunite after over a decade apart to play one show only.

The Flickerstick story is semi-tragic in a sort of #firstworldproblems kind of way. This is not to take away from the surely long, surely successful career that had been snatched from them, but when you’re about to play a showcase for a major label and 9/11 happens right outside your New York City hotel room, you’ve got to think that maybe something was not meant to be. Who knows. Maybe 9/11 kept the bandmembers from getting into a really nasty bus wreck out on the road somewhere later in life. Maybe it helped them connect with their families in ways they wouldn’t have been able to as bona fide rock stars.

Or maybe it’s what is leading to a triumphant return. According to frontman and co-songwriter Brandin Lea, not only will he and fellow original members Dominic Weir, Cory Kreig, brother Fletcher Lea, Todd Harwell, and Rex James Ewing be onstage at HOB in late June, but Lea says there’s interest in writing some new material.

The timing couldn’t be sweeter.

Flickerstick is not just a great band.

They’re pioneers of reality TV, having “won” the MTV competition show Bands on the Run over two decades ago. And what’s tastier than legitimately solid tunes but a juicy backstory to go with them? This reunion could just be the start of something better than what 9/11 times could have offered. Could be. But I

guess you gotta look at it that way to keep from losing your mind over coulda-been/ shoulda-been scenarios. Move forward.

Always move forward.

Anyway, part of the credit for the Flick reunion has to go to a Facebook group created eight years ago that now has about 2,200 members from all over the country. Flickerstick Official is the very place where you can go to score tickets to the HOB show with a presale code before they go on sale Fri, Jan 14.

There’s absolutely no doubt this gig will sell out within minutes — Flickerstick Official members are already chatting about coordinating flights and booking hotel rooms all over North Texas.

The craze makes sense. Flickerstick was — and is — a really freaking good alt-rock/mod-rock band. Their songs are dramatic, but in a good, hard-to-fake, genuine way, and a punk-rock pulse drives the louder, more bombastic numbers — and there’s a lot of them. A Flickerstick show is a rollercoaster ride that levels out in atmospheric, moody sequences bookended by fist-pumping, anthemic, poppy rock ’n’ roll the way it was known before hip-hop and country took over the airwaves for good 20 years ago. (R.I.P., non-emocore rock ’n’ roll on the radio.)

Everything’s been coming up Flickerstick. Just a couple weeks ago, a revamped version of the band’s 2000 debut album, Welcoming Home the Astronauts, was released, and a new compilation, When We Were Young: Singles, B-Sides & Rarities, 1997-2004, came out. Maybe it won’t be long before Epic Records (Flick’s original label) comes a-calling again. Stranger things have happened.

Much stranger. — Anthony Mariani Contact HearSay at Anthony@FWWeekly.com.

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Anyone in the area who has a friend that works at Mouser knows it’s a great place to be. Their employees actively bring them new recruits and are rewarded for doing so with referral bonuses.

Does that motivate them to praise the company? Perhaps. But no one stays at a crappy job for an extended amount of time just to earn a referral bonus. Mouser is simply taking care of its own people first. They take care of the community as well...

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Realtor Cyndi Reep is no exception.

While she does have listings and can certainly help you sell your property, her true love is being a buyer’s agent. Whether it’s buying or leasing a commercial or residential space, she has a flair for helping clients find exactly what they want and need...

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SUBMISSIONS We’d Like To Hear From You! Do you have thoughts and feelings, or questions, comments or concerns about something you read in the Weekly? Please email Question@fwweekly.com. Do you have an upcoming event? For potential coverage in Night & Day, Big Ticket, Ate Day8 A Week, or CrosstownSounds, email the details to Jennifer@fwweekly.com.

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