Fort Worth Weekly // May 18-24, 2022

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METROPOLIS This just in, Lola's is moving.

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POSTER ART See page 16, for your free commemorative poster.

EATS & DRINKS Photographic evidence of Lola's Last Supper.

(Wait, what?)

MUSIC The Saloon is closed, but the Trailer Park is still open. See page 29.

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The expanded dining options at Billy Bob’s Texas are worth the trip — with or without a big show.

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FEATURE Former members are speaking out against Mercy Culture Church.

BY EDWARD BROWN

EATS & DRINKS Zonk is like your typical killer burger joint — except meatless.

BY C O DY N E AT H E RY

E D W A R D

B R O W N

STUFF MUSIC While the Stars are going home, the Working with Wilco’s producer Mavs are soaring over their multifarious helped Fort Worth’s Left Arm critics into the conference finals.

Tan become more deliberate B Y PAT R I C K H I G G I N S but still adventurous.

AND BO JACKSBORO

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

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Vo lum e 1 8

Number 6

May 1 8-24, 2022

INSIDE

Mercy, Mercy Me

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By Edward Brown

Billy Bob’s Honky Tonk Kitchen does a lot of different things right.

By Edward Brown

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Ryan Burger, Art Director Jim Erickson, Circulation Director CONTRIBUTORS

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Doom Respect Doom

Tulips’ Friday show with Clear Acid will make for the perfect soundtrack to our discontent.

By Steve Steward

Cover photo courtesy of Billy Bob’s Texas

Cour tesy Facebook

Texanized Fare

Bob Niehoff, General Manager

Watauga Fest is just one of a bevy of fun entertainment options this week.

By Jennifer Bovee

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Gotta Watauga

From its politicizing from the pulpit to a massive dog-whistle project, the Northside megachurch is far from Biblical, according to some ex-members.

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This exhibition was organized by The Art Institute of Chicago.

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E

verything about their first visit to Mercy Culture’s popup church service felt right to Sam and Jane, a young married couple who asked that we conceal their identities to protect them from backlash.

It was mid-2019, and a mutual friend had recommended attending the services at Paschal High School near TCU. “It seemed like a normal church,” Sam recalled. “My wife and I went to a Bible college. One of my plans was to become a youth pastor. The Mercy members seemed to empower people.”

Landon recently lashed out at the vast majority of Oakhurst residents who voted against the shelter. In a social media post, the pastor said the area residents are “evil.”

The pastor, Landon Schott, was accessible and free of the right-wing agendas that would later define his leadership, Sam said.

Then COVID hit. The couple stopped attending church to protect the health of Jane’s grandparents. By the time they returned to Mercy Culture services, Landon and wife Heather Schott, who is also a senior pastor, had renovated a large building on the North Side. With the new space came new leadership and a new vision, Sam alleges.

To serve on Mercy’s youth team like he wanted, Sam had to volunteer six hours every Sunday in Mercy’s child care area.

Newly married and with a full-time job, Sam raised objections about the requirement.

“That’s when I started questioning things,” he said. “I started to see holes and flaws that I hadn’t noticed at the beginning.

At first, they told me I should serve more.

All the work was putting a strain on our marriage. I was told that serving more would help our marriage. Then they said I should ask my job for a day off since I didn’t have time off on Sunday. It was a complete change with the new leadership.”

The Schotts have ignored my repeated requests for comment on this and other stories.

Becoming a member of Mercy Culture Church, Sam alleges, is a form of indentured servitude.

The church’s low overhead may explain how the business affords the Schotts an upscale 3,000-square-foot home northwest of downtown. Sam and Jane stopped attending the church last year after Mercy leaders told congregants to vote for and support then-mayoral candidate Steve Penate, a far right-wing activist known for crusading against so-called “woke” books in public schools and other targets of Fox Nation’s culture wars.

Mercy Culture’s leaders exploit their members for financial gain, Sam alleges, by prophesying that churchgoers should buy property to “expand territory” but only through Realtors like Heather Schott, Steve Penate, and other church leaders who are active real estate agents. Admins in Mercy Culture’s private Facebook page would regularly refer Mercy members to church leaders who then earned commissions off sales or purchases of property, Sam alleges.

Members are expected to tithe 10% of their annual income, Sam continued, and church leaders emphasize that real giving only begins after that mark is met.

Sam and Jane aren’t the only Fort Worthians alleging that Mercy Culture Church leaders are grifting their followers.

In April, the vast majority of Oakhurst neighborhood residents voted against Mercy Culture’s proposed temporary housing shelter for victims of human trafficking. Residents of the Northside neighborhood that abuts the church confided through Instagram messages that the proposed Justice Residences were not a credible solution to the issue of human trafficking that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) estimated targeted 200,000 minors a year in 2014 (the most recent year of official DOJ figures). Heather has long publicized a baseless claim that 30 million Americans are trafficked every year. The project appeared to be a scam, Oakhurst residents told me.

Through its active endorsements of Christian fundamentalists like county judge candidate Tim O’Hare and district attorney candidate Matt Krause, Mercy Culture pastors and worship leaders have positioned themselves as local leaders in a powerful and well-funded Christian Nationalist movement that seeks to domestically entangle church and state

Writing for Time in the months following the Jan. 6 insurrection, Andrew Whitehead said, “In order to understand what led to the deadly Capitol insurrection and the spate of proposed voting laws, we must account for the influence of Christian Nationalism, a political theology that fuses American identity with an ultraconservative strain of Christianity.”

The Indiana University sociology professor cited polls that found 20% of Americans self-identify with the movement.

“As a political theology that co-opts Christian narratives and symbolism, Christian Nationalism has its own version of the ‘elect,’ those chosen by God,” Whitehead writes. “They are ‘people like us,’ meaning conservative Christian but also white, natural-born citizens.

Moreover, in a prosperous nation, only the ‘elect’ should control the political process while others must be closely scrutinized, discouraged, or even denied access. This ideology is fundamentally a threat to a pluralistic, democratic society.”

Since Congress’ passage of the Bill of Rights in 1791, the United States has remained a secular Democracy even as political movements in the ensuing decades and centuries threatened that tradition. Supreme Court rulings and constitutional amendments have only further provided legal protections to citizens of all faiths and the nonreligious, but a concerted effort by fundamentalist Christians and so-called charismatic Christians that began in the 1970s is now positioned to upend America’s pluralistic way of life.

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Calvary Christian Academy has changed under the leadership of Mercy Culture, one parent alleges. The academy pressures parents to attend church services at Mercy Culture regularly, she said.

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Fort Worth is home to a powerful movement whose members believe installing right-wing fanatics into elected office will bring the second coming of Jesus.

as a means of subjugating anyone who does not buy into the homophobic and fundamentalist beliefs of a minority of evangelical Americans.

“We declare that Fort Worth is yours, Jesus,” Mercy Culture Church recently posted. “We declare your justice and righteousness resound in every part of our city. We declare no other spirit but the holy spirit is seated on the throne of Fort Worth.”

Sam said little about the megachurch can be said to be Christian.

“Look at the Bible and what Jesus did,” Sam said. “This church does not embody any of this. You don’t see any example where Jesus said overthrow the government and put in a new regime. Every single time throughout history where there is a theocracy ruled by Christians, it ends in bloodshed and carnage. That’s why I’m scared for Fort Worth.”

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Journalists and scholars point to the rise of Christian Dominionism in the 1970s as the genesis for modern Christian Nationalism. The term refers to the belief that Christians should take over the government. Critics of Christian Dominionism note that New Testament teachings emphasize preparing for the heavenly kingdom — not transforming government.

Christian Nationalism evolved again when the New Apostolic Reformation movement was formalized in the mid-1990s. The term describes nondenominational churches that adhered to unbiblical beliefs that Jesus appoints apostles and prophets to this day.

Like many charismatic church leaders, the Schotts believe in the “seven mountain” prophecy that calls for Christians to gain influence in seven pillars of American society: religion, family, business, government/military, education, entertainment, and media.

There are few articles on the Schotts’ rise to influence within the charismatic Christian movement. One 2009 article

by The Spokesman-Review, based in Washington, described a television show that starred a “youthful and attractive” Landon and Heather Schott.

“This television show was put in my heart,” Landon told the reporter. “This is a show for young people that doesn’t have the typical Hollywood message of live life and have fun without considering the consequences. We want to prevent lives from being destroyed, so we tell stories about people whose lives have been put back together through the Lord.”

Based on the article, Landon grew up in Seattle, and his father is a longtime minister.

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Oakhurst resident Natalie said the Schotts are not accepting of other viewpoints.

“The family traveled all over the world, planting churches in Mexico, Australia, and other countries,” the article reads. “Landon was 14 when he preached his first sermon in India. He started preaching full time when he was 16 and became ordained at 18.”

The ordination age of 18 suggests that Landon does not have a four-year degree in theology. Mercy Culture’s website does not describe any formal education on Landon’s bio page.

“I think Biblical literacy is extremely low at Mercy Culture,” Jane said. “Landon would take an Old Testament story, and he would take it out of its context and say this is how we are supposed to act now. When you know good Biblical exegesis, you know everything needs to be read in context. You can’t just cherry-pick a Bible verse and say, ‘Listen to this.’ Landon did a lot of that.

If you are doing an expository sermon, you are taking a section of scripture and analyzing it: ‘Here is what the Bible is saying, and here is how you can apply it to your life.’ Landon starts with what he wants to tell [the congregation], and then he cherry-picks his verses to support his points. If you listen to the way Mercy Culture members speak, they aren’t quoting Bible verses. They are quoting catchphrases from Landon.”

Our open records request with the city’s zoning commission was returned with copies of Mercy Culture Church’s founding documents. Based on the Secretary of State’s office, the church was incorporated on Nov. 11, 2017, and the founding members are listed as living outside of North Texas: Landon and Heather Schott (Cedar Park, Texas), Steve Penate (Peoria, Arizona), and Matthew

Saville (Stafford, Virginia). The church’s articles of incorporation forbid political activity by church leaders.

“No substantial part of the activities of the corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation,” Mercy Culture’s founding documents read.

“The corporation shall not participate in or intervene in (including the publishing of distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for political office.”

Over the past two months, several people have sent me screenshots of Landon’s Tuesday Q&A sessions in which he posts Instagram stories intended to guide Mercy Culture followers’ behaviors and choices.

“Is participating in declaring your pronouns accepting the LGBTQ agenda?” he asked his followers. “Yes!” In the sessions, he frequently focuses on bashing gay and queer people. In one post, he advises Christians to not attend same-sex weddings: “FYI, you’re not hateful, mean, judgmental, intolerant, or bigoted because you choose to honor God’s word. You are obedient!”

To the Schotts, demonic spirits are real. Landon frequently preaches about witchcraft, and several people who closely follow Mercy Culture allege that Landon uses accusations of witchcraft to silence critics in his church. Several years ago, Landon published a book, Jezebel: The Witch Is Back, in which he describes how a “Jezebel” spirit can supposedly inhabit women.

“Don’t tell her anything,” the pastor writes. “Whatever you tell Jezebel, she will use against you. She will take things you tell continued on page 9

With each knock, Chanin Scanlon greeted her fellow Oakhurst residents by name and directed them toward a petition.

“Is this the petition against the shelter?” one elderly man asked Scanlon, who is finishing out her third term as Neighborhood Association president.

When Scanlon replied yes, the man let out a hearty praise as he signed the sheet.

“Thank you, Jesus,” he said as he scribbled his name down.

Scanlon told me she is taking no chances when it comes to stopping Mercy Culture’s plans to build a 100-bed shelter near Oakhurst for victims of human trafficking. The staunch opposition by area residents, she said, is not a critique on the fervent religiosity of Mercy Culture members or a rebuke of the idea of helping

Recent Oakhurst NA president Chanin Scanlon believes the Schotts’ efforts to build a large shelter for human trafficking victims is not over.

trafficking victims. The Schotts have continually dodged NA questions and tried to force through a poorly planned and potentially dangerous project, she alleges, adding that the community will not let the church power its vision through.

The leadership at Calvary Cathedral, the previous owners of Mercy Church’s building, were accessible and welcoming, Scanlon claims, adding that Mercy’s leadership has been considerably more secretive and condescending in their interaction with area residents.

It was during last year’s mayoral race that Mercy elder Penate, who was running for the city’s top elected seat, mentioned the Justice Residences during a public forum. Scanlon said that was the first time she heard about the project. In January, she said one of the proposed project’s engineers asked the Oakhurst NA board for preapproval of the shelter project.

Scanlon saw the move as an attempt to avoid a public meeting about the plan. In late March, Heather and Landon called a church-led meeting and invited Oakhurst residents to attend.

“It felt like a sermon,” Scanlon recalled.

Oakhurst resident Natalie, who asked that we not use her last name to protect her privacy, said the Schotts were allegedly very “preachy” in their interactions with Oakhurst residents.

“They were very pushy and not accepting of other views,” she said.

Two days later and in early April, 170 Oakhurst members voted against the proposed shelter while six voted for it.

“That’s not just a no,” Scanlon said.

“That’s a hell no. If this facility fails, what are the plans for this building? It’s right next to a truck stop. There’s a hotel across the highway. I-35 is known as a corridor for trafficking. The highway is loud. There is a train track that is loud. …

[Justice Residences are] a bad location for those victims.”

Human traffickers see their victims as property, she said, adding that Oakhurst residents view the proposed shelter as a magnet for violent criminals who may stop at nothing to retrieve their “property.”

Scanlon believes Oakhurst residents will be in particular danger because the Schotts regularly publicize the address of the proposed Justice Residences.

Through social media posts, Landon dismissed the vote as the work of a handful of activists while characterizing Oakhurst residents as the spawn of Satan.

“If anyone resists helping the most abused victims in our community, it’s only because they are EVIL!” he wrote on Instagram. “They hate that we challenge continued on page 10 fwweekly.com

her in confidence and use them to try and discredit you publicly. She will constantly seek information she can use to sound and appear to be intuitive, spiritual, and factual.

She will make provoking statements that ask questions like: ‘Why don’t you tell me what is really going on?’ ” Iris, who spent a few years attending Gateway Church, Mercy Culture’s parent church, and who asked that we conceal her last name to protect her privacy, never attended Mercy Culture but said Landon’s blatant homophobic and transphobic rhetoric can be accounted for by Gateway’s policies that bar homosexuals from holding leadership positions.

Gateway Church, which has several large campuses across the country but largely in North Texas, is headed by Robert Morris, a former “spiritual advisor” to disgraced one-term president Donald Trump.

“These churches expect you to adhere to a certain standard,” she said. “That’s how they weed out the gays. If you want to volunteer at children’s ministry or elsewhere, you have to take a membership class and sign a waiver that you uphold a Biblical life.”

Iris said female church members were expected to abstain from premarital sex, drinking alcohol in public, and wearing revealing clothing. The rules were much more rigid for women than men, she said.

She left Gateway in 2020 after the church hosted Trump during his visit to Dallas.

In 2020, the Washington Post reported that Trump’s rise to power can largely be attributed to support from evangelical church leaders.

The Post continues, “Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White and many more lesserknown but influential religious leaders

prophesied that Trump would win the 2020 election and helped organize nationwide prayer rallies in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, speaking of an imminent ‘heavenly strike’ and ‘a Christian populist uprising,’ leading many who stormed the Capitol to believe they were taking back the country for God.” Evangelical churches continue to see growth in membership even as mainstream church attendance continues to decline.

Based on data by the Pew Research Center, self-identified Christians made up 63% of the U.S. population in 2021, down from 75% a decade ago. The very group that Schott regularly singles out for living “sinful” lives, LGBTQ+ folks, is growing as a proportion of this country’s overall population. Around 20% of Gen Z — older teens and younger twentysomethings — identify as LGBTQ+, according to a recent Gallup poll.

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their wicked agenda so they resist and attack us. This is a handful of wicked activists that HATE our biblical stance on marriage.”

A recent report by the Institute for Shelter Care, a faith-based nonprofit that rehabilitates human trafficking victims, advises against the type of massive shelter that the Schotts are pushing for.

The opening of the report reads, “There are those who are new to the work who entertain grandiose dreams of a large, allinclusive campus of care with ‘100-plus beds’ to eradicate trafficking in their community.”

In the study, the institute examined 218 shelters across the country and found that most have a bed capacity of around nine. On average, most shelters for human trafficking victims run at half capacity due to low demand for bed space and because most shelter operators find that they are better able to help clients when their shelters aren’t maxed out. The report’s summary contradicts Heather’s public statements that Fort Worth needs a massive human trafficking shelter.

“There is harmony around an average of 8-9 beds per facility,” the report reads, “as found across the 218 programs nationwide and as supported by comments from these respondents. Still, it should not be concluded that large facilities are in err.

What was learned was that larger facilities demand so much in terms of staffing, administration, operations, and finance.

Shelter leaders and funders should ensure that these provisions have been considered and secured for the years ahead.”

The Schotts recently pulled their request to change the zoning from a planned development district that can be only used for religious purposes to a designation that would allow for home construction.

Scanlon believes the move was intended to avoid an embarrassing no vote by the zoning commission. Several Oakhurst residents and folks who follow Mercy Culture told me that the Schotts will resubmit their plans and possibly appeal the matter to Fort Worth City Council if needed because the project is so central to the Schotts’ ambitions.

Before leaving Mercy Culture, Sam said he would question church leaders on why they were using church resources to endorse political candidates. Mercy Culture members would reply that the violations of federal laws were protected by free speech, Sam said.

“Mercy Culture should have its taxexempt status taken away,” Sam continued.

“Welcome to being political activists because you are not a church anymore.”

“The ban on political campaign activity by charities and churches was created by Congress more than a halfcentury ago,” the IRS website reads.

“In 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity,” the IRS says. “To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban.

The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates.”

Sam said his experience at Mercy Culture shook his faith. He had to return to the core Christian teachings that inspired him to become a youth pastor and away from the rhetoric that defines religious life at Mercy Culture.

I asked Sam and Jane what they thought about Mercy Culture’s prospects for growth in the coming years. Despite opposition to the Justice Residences and growing awareness among Fort Worthians that the church was a staunch supporter of O’Hare’s misinformation campaign against Betsy Price — an effort that has already driven influential local Republicans like Mayor Mattie Parker away from Tarrant County’s Republican Party — Sam and Jane said that Landon will simply “get louder.”

Mercy Culture recently purchased Calvary Christian Academy in the Oakhurst neighborhood. One Oakhurst resident who watches the school closely said the private school run by Penate’s wife, Esther Penate, is preparing to rebrand as Mercy Prep. One Calvary Christian Academy parent messaged the Weekly on Instagram and said the school has changed drastically under Mercy’s leadership.

Attendance at Mercy church services is all but mandatory, the mother told us.

Mercy Culture’s new, second location in Waco is headed by lead pastors Les and Nikki Cody, who state on the church’s website that they “love the House of God and have a heart to see people experience the tangible presence of The Lord that changes lives in an instant.”

Listed below the Cody family is a photo of Landon and Heather Schott with a note that they currently teach from the Fort Worth campus.

“If there was any mosque or temple seeking to overthrow the government, Mercy Culture would be calling for that building to be torn down,” Sam said.

“The Kingdom of God is not a human kingdom. The fact that [Mercy Culture Church leaders] are trying to put America onto this godly pedestal is concerning.

Christians tend to not appreciate this country’s melting pot.” l

W A L L E R

A memory that has always stuck with me from childhood days spent at the Southwest Baptist Church of Desoto, Texas, is the voice of a tiny, elderly woman saying that the only thing you can really do to help people find God is to “bear witness” to your own experiences with Him. This point was made softly and in one of the sweetest voices I’d ever heard.

Maybe it was the contrast of her tone to the usual bravado in the church (where no women were allowed to preach), or maybe it was because that was the first thing I’d heard about religion in a while that really made sense to me. (Those WWJD bracelets were a high commodity at the time.)

Static The Pro-Lie Governor

After Politico published a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, it took only nine days for Gov. Greg Abbott to remind us he doesn’t actually give a damn about babies’ lives.

On Thursday, Abbott’s office released a statement complaining about the Biden administration for providing baby formula to immigrants at holding facilities at the border during a nationwide shortage. Abbott claimed, “This is yet another one in a long line of reckless, out-of-touch priorities from the Biden administration when it comes to securing our border and protecting Americans.”

Side note: This is the same statement that opens with the words, “Children are our most vulnerable, precious Texans and deserve to be put first.” Abbott really must be flexible to shove his own foot so far down his throat like that in one sitting.

Before getting into the obvious reasons why Abbott’s message is appalling, let’s first clarify something: This practice isn’t reckless at all. The federal government is actually required by law to provide baby formula and other infant care supplies to migrants in holding facilities (see: the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997). If Trump supplied the gruel, Abbott would be saying it was a great example of a demigod taking pity upon mere mortals

(and the governor would probably have to take a smoke break afterwards too).

Baby formula is a lifesaving resource.

Breastfeeding is not always an option, like if the mother can’t produce milk (say, because of poor nutrition and stress from traveling a long distance and then being held in a detention facility), or when babies are lactose intolerant and need special formulas.

Extending life-giving necessities to immigrants with no other options is the absolute minimum of human decency –– especially in an age when sometimes it feels like there’s not enough decency to go around.

Abbott’s desperation to find a target for conservative vitriol likely stems from his awareness that both Republicans and Democrats are questioning his leadership — the Dems for, well, everything and the R’s for his weakness and ineffectualness.

None of this justifies vilifying infants and encouraging xenophobia and racism.

Abbott’s belief that some babies deserve to live more than others is also anything but pro-life. In an ideal world, Texans from all parties would hold Abbott accountable for his blatant cruelty, but that’s about as likely as Ken Paxton backing out of his contract with Lucifer, so don’t count on it.

Also, I may have taken only one foreign policy class in college, but since when was our “border security” contingent on immigrant babies not being given formula? Legalese can be confusing, so maybe the law is just really funky like that, but what’s far more likely is that Abbott’s complaint is just poorly disguised dogshit with an American

flag stamped into it for emphasis.

The backdrop of women’s reproductive rights hanging in the balance makes the governor’s statement particularly pointed. As women across the nation grieve and fight to be recognized as fully human under the law, Abbott is reminding Texans what the GOP actually cares about: votes.

Methodist minister David Barnhart perhaps best characterized what “prolife” really means to people like Abbott.

He said unborn fetuses are easy to defend politically because they don’t expect anything from politicians. They’re just an idea — the human equivalent of kicking a can down the street to be dealt with later.

Once a baby is born, Republicans take the laissez-faire approach: not funding childcare programs, maternity leave, wel-

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fare services, CHIP, housing, or any of the other scary, super-expensive things that come with raising children.

The GOP can then go back to ignoring the systemic racism that will follow Black babies for the rest of their lives.

They can avoid talking about how they’ll seek to control a baby girl’s body once she gets old enough to recognize her bodily autonomy. God forbid we do anything to help the babies who try to change their pronouns later on. And to hell with the brown babies in low-income migrant communities who are jeered at by angry whites while their baby formula is held for ransom by a wealthy, petty white man with nothing to lose but votes.

It’s the easiest route to martyrdom for any career politician who never has to worry about getting pregnant.

Perhaps a staunch pro-life Texan wouldn’t care about Abbott’s words about immigrant babies. Maybe people are so happy to live with their own hypocrisy that it won’t bother them to see a self-proclaimed Christian promoting hatred and turning humanitarianism into a political sin, but if we as a state don’t shut down this xenophobic fearmongering once and for all, we’ll not only lose our decency. We’ll also lose our humanity entirely. — Erin Ratigan This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@ FWWeekly.com. Submissions will be edited for factuality, clarity, and concision.

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J E S S I C A

ficers at the station were mostly focused on why I hadn’t come forward immediately “if that’s what happened.” I couldn’t seem to articulate the repression of trauma to them in a way that came across as sufficient.

We found out shortly thereafter that the rapist was already in jail in another county for felonious warrants, and so my assault was simply added to his list of charges.

I remember when I first found out I was pregnant. I didn’t even think about abortion as it was still whispered in the dark corners of Texas in the 1990s.

I remember just accepting with mindnumbing certainty that my life was over. I prayed to God to help me be OK in life despite being a child with a child. The bright future I had imagined in neon colors was abruptly reduced to dull tones of survival.

My mom became my hero when she told my dad I was not having the baby of my rapist. My dad told me in a phone call from another state that he just wanted me to know that I’d “have no innocence left” if I decided to go through with it.

It felt as if because I failed to defend

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Many films from this time period also portrayed women almost exclusively in subservient caretaker roles.

My dad was a long-haul truck driver, and my mom was depressed much of my life due to his abuse and control of her as a stay-at-home mom and housewife dependent on his income. Every time she tried to get a job, he would thwart her in some way to keep her subservient. According to my dad, East Texas would solve all the problems brought onto our family by the sinners of the big city. I realize now this was mostly code for: It’s cheaper to live there.

I repressed the gnawing ache of my rapist’s violation with the usual illicit teenage coping mechanisms. When trauma is repressed, the brain must bury the icy blocks deep from the mind for the system to keep running, generating the energy to go on. I started to throw up in the morning, becoming forced to also purge the truth of what happened to me.

Despite her depression — or, in hindsight, probably because of it — my mother was always a deeply caring woman. We filed charges against my rapist and soon found out I was pregnant. The police of-

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They’re the one thing men in power fear most of all.

Whatever it was, her wise words of empathy and communication found a foothold within me to this day, as I try to “bear witness” to another experience that also feels impossible to explain to those who haven’t felt it first-hand.

When I was 14, I was raped at a party. A boy I thought I knew — or maybe I should say “man,” as he was a few months shy of his 18th birthday — raped me behind the locked door of an absent parent’s house while I was drunk and screaming.

The rapist said he wanted to show me his guitar in the other room because I was learning to play. We started kissing, and then when I tried to leave, he wouldn’t let me. Like most men, he was physically stronger than I was when I tried to fight back. Nobody heard my screams over the music, or at least nobody cared.

The most striking thing about that time in my life was how normal it felt.

This was the late ’90s, when the culture was steeped in the toxic fumes of “artists” like Marilyn Manson, Fred Durst, and Eminem. I remember being frequently disgusted at how even lesser chauvinistic artists like Bradley Nowell used dehumanizing lyrics toward women at every turn.

Ken Wheatcrof t-Pardue

Brave Women

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Women Painting Women features 46 female artists who choose women as subject matter in their works. This presentation, international in scope, includes evocative portraits that span the late 1960s to the present. All place women—their bodies, gestures, and individuality—at the forefront, conceiving new ways to activate and elaborate on the portrayal of women.

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Hope Gangloff Eunice Golden Jenna Gribbon Alex Heilbron Ania Hobson Luchita Hurtado Chantal Joffe Hayv Kahraman Maria Lassnig Christiane Lyons Danielle Mckinney Marilyn Minter Alice Neel Elizabeth Peyton Paula Rego Faith Ringgold

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MODERN AR T MUSEUM OF FOR T WOR TH 3200 Darnell Street • Fort Worth, Texas 76107 • www.themodern.org Amy Sherald, A Midsummer Afternoon Dream, 2020. Oil on canvas. 106 × 101 inches. Private Collection. © Amy Sherald, Courtesy the Artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde

continued from page 11

myself against my attacker, this is what I deserved — and I wasn’t his daughter anymore because of it. I failed to control my rapist’s power over my body, so now I must further lose control over my body to win my dad back.

But, really, what I see all these years later is that what my dad had failed to do was instill in me the fear of others he had (and also connect with me on an emotional level). My father was scared of a cruel world he didn’t really understand — in his defense, he was raised in a much more abusive home than I had ever known — and so for lack of answers, empathy, and communication, he needed his daughter to be scared, too.

Fortunately, I saw through the fear tactics and for whatever reason was immune to them. Maybe it was because my mom was a fighter on her good days, and because she was the more joyful of the two, I wanted to be more like her. Regardless of where it came from, this courage is what had made him see me as bad, but deep down, not bad but really scary, and scary is worse than bad.

Not because I didn’t trust people but because I did. Trusting people is what made me devoid of innocence? Searching for the good in others made me bad? This is something that will always scare the people who love you but feel too scared and confused by the injustices of the world to actually protect you. As clear as this contradiction in his words was, I still couldn’t see it for what it was at the time. I just thought I was bad.

This is what the system does when it demonizes abortion. It makes women think they are bad, that they are to blame for their rape or abandonment. They must not have wanted bodily autonomy if they got themselves into this situation in the first place, so what’s the problem with us taking it now? They must not have had enough pain to make them fearful, so this pain is now deserved.

But the truth is this: Men who support these fear tactics are scared of women.

Scared of not understanding women because they lack empathy. Scared of their own lack of control over their own bodies when they want sex. Scared that if they lose control and rape, they’ll lose even more control if the woman has a choice about the product of that rape. Scared if women are not made to breed, they will take over and then men might have to know what it feels like to be treated the way they have treated women. But most of all, scared of women they can’t scare.

Throughout history, men have used brute strength and violence to control women. Then it was pregnancy or both.

Now that most women are on birth control and have access to resources like Plan B and Mifepristone, which works up to 10 weeks after conception, only women in the direst of circumstances like rape and severe poverty seek surgical abortions.

Imagine a situation so financially dire, you can’t get together $300 dollars in two months to obtain the abortion pill. Or

Ken Wheatcrof t-Pardue

Women Painting Women

Metro

maybe a situation where you’re trying desperately hard to trust the man who impregnated you to be a partner, only to confirm it would be more of the same daily sacrifice from only you, further depriving the children you already support on your own of resources forever scarce. So desperate that you’ve repressed the memory of your rape until it becomes physically ejected from your mouth in undeniable tragedy.

These scare tactics are affecting only women who need access to abortion the most. Women who want nothing more than to get out of poverty but can’t due to abandonment by men they trusted because they’re resisting cynicism at all cost to remain hopeful of a better life for their children. Because that’s what mothers must do to raise joyful children — sustain hope in humanity.

I got my joy, courage, and hope from my mother, and despite all the pain I’ve endured because of these traits, they still shine vibrant in my life today. And now those traits shine bright in the eyes of my two daughters, too.

Anyone who truly listens to the individual stories of these women bearing witness to their experiences must know that this is a war on women, not a war on abortion. In my story, rape almost destroyed my life, and having the choice of agency over my body saved it. I mean this metaphorically, but it also could have been physically as I weighed 90 pounds at the time.

The fact is that there will be real deaths if Roe v. Wade is overturned just like there was before we had a choice. A real child like I was might lose her life for a clump of cells that is not alive, that very well could be a miscarriage, stillbirth, or some other tragedy.

We will never be able to control the tragedies we don’t know yet, but for now at least, we sure as hell can control the ones we do — as long as we’re not scared. l This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@ FWWeekly.com. Submissions will be edited for factuality, clarity, and concision.

NIGHT&DAY

bring some spending money for the carnival rides, games, and food vendors.

For more information, follow Facebook. com/WataugaRec.

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See acrobats, contortionists, jugglers, and more at Under the Friday Big Top at The Lot Downtown (110 S Main St, Mansfield, 817-225-6840) at 8pm. This event is outdoors, and you’re welcome to bring a blanket, lawn chairs, and refreshments.

Doors open at 7pm, and the show is 8pm9:30pm. Tickets are $5 on EventBrite.com.

Thursday

The City of Watauga invites you to check out their fair city at the annual Watauga Fest at

Capp Smith Park (5800 Robin Dr, 817514-5828) 5pm-10pm today and Fri, 10am-10pm Sat, and noon-10pm Sun. Live entertainment will be provided by

local cover bands In Halen (Van Halen tribute), Incognito (classic rock and dance covers), and Metal Shop (they play, uh, metal!). While this event is free to attend,

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PBR isn’t the only multi-day event in North Texas this weekend. Elm Street Tattoo Fest is back Fri-Sun in Dallas, and Watauga Fest is Thu-Sun.

From 2pm to closing time Fri-Sun, tattoo lovers from around the world Saturday will convene in Dallas around Elm Street Tattoos (2811 Elm St, 214-653-1392), including Heart in Hand Gallery (2614 Elm St, Ste 120, 469-7765667) and Trees (2709 Elm St, 214-7411122), for the annual Elm Street Music & Tattoo Festival (ElmStreetTattoo. com). View art displays, shop from vendors, hear music by mystery artists — follow Trees on Facebook for updates — and schedule time with guest tattoo artists for your new ink. Greg Christian, Tommy Montoya, Cindy Burmeister, and many more stars are scheduled to attend.

Tickets are $15 at AXS.com.

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Rock out with Metal Shop tribute at Watauga Fest this weekend.

As you’re well aware, this year’s PBR World Finals: Unleash the Beast have Sunday been taking place at Dickies Arena (1911 Montgomery St, 817-402-9000), and the final competitions are 7:45pm Thu-Sat and 8:45am Sun. For the “toughest eight seconds in sports,” the PBR pits the most rugged riders against the baddest bulls. “Unleash the Beast

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Are you ready to relax, unwind, and unplug?

Apparently, Jack White Monday is. If you’re headed to The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory (300 W Las Colinas Blvd, Irving, 214978-4888) at 8pm to see Jack White: The Supply Chain Issues Tour, know that it is a “phone-free show.” You read that correctly. No phones will be allowed in the performance space for an “unplugged, real-life experience.” How does this work?

Staff will help you secure your phone in a lockable pouch that you keep with you. If you have an urgent need to use your phone — or to jump on your social media (you addict!) — there are designated phone use areas in the lobby and concourse. For more details, check out the event page at Facebook.com/LiveNation.

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Celtic Weekend

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brings 750 tons of dirt, 65 tons of steer, and 25 tons of steel. Each rider faces all of that weight as he competes to qualify for the PBR World Finals, where the winner will walk away with $1 million and the coveted gold belt buckle.” (PBR also brings a ton of great music with it. Read more about that in Crosstown Sounds on FWWeekly.com.)

WEEKENDS THRU MAY 30

Saturdays, Sundays & Memorial Day Monday

Upcoming Theme Weekend

May 28, 29 & 30 — The Last Huzzah!

Get Discount Tickets Tom Thumb & Albertsons Today! www.SRFestival.com Just 30 Minutes South of Downtown Fort Worth

It’s Troma Tuesday at Downtown Cowtown at The Isis (2401 N Main Tuesday St, 817-808-6390). Hosted by the Movie Mutant (@MovieMutant), see the 1981 film Graduation Day at 8pm. “A masked killer begins murdering students on the school track team after a track runner dies upon completion of a 30-second 200-meter race.” There will be movie-themed cocktails available for purchase in the lounge. You must be at least 18 years old to enjoy this campy horror flick in this newly restored 500seat theatre. Admission is free.

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If you’re worried about the teacher asking you what you did with your Wednesday summer vacation during #BacktoSchool this fall, today is your day.

Ease your troubled mind with fresh event ideas, food and cocktail offerings, and everything else the Weekly writers come up with in our Summer 2022 Edition that hits the stands today. To submit event listings or get in touch with an account executive about ad space, please email Marketing@FWWeekly.com as soon as you can. We go to press on Mon, May 23, for this special issue.

By Jennifer Bovee

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Courtesy of of Thirst Thirst & & Company Company Courtesy

Saturday & Sunday June 11th-12th 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.

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Amon G. Carter Jr. Exhibits Hall at the Will Rogers Memorial Center

3401 W. Lancaster Ave. Fort Worth, TX 76107

LEARN MORE ABOUT EARLY BIRD FAST PASS REGISTRATION: www.hsnt.org/mega

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TEXTING MASTERS

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TRINITY METRO Well-connected communicators are all about riding Trinity Metro TEXRail. That’s because while we’re doing all the driving, they’re free to safely stare at their screens as much as they want. Ready to join them? Find a ride you’ll love now at RIDETRINITYMETRO.org.

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JUNE 2–18, 2022 VAN CLIBURN CONCERT HALL AT TCU

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SIXTEENTH VA N C L I B U R N I N T E R N AT I O N A L PIANO COMPETITION

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EATS & drinks Zonk a-Donk

This vegan burger joint on Race Street is the real deal.

Zonk Burger, 2919 Race St, FW. Thu-Mon 11am9pm. 817-349-8646. All major credit cards accepted.

S T O R Y A N D P H O T O S B Y C O D Y N E A T H E R Y

“If you’re looking for a healthy diet, eating our food won’t help with that.” And just like that, Zonk Burger co-owner Zach Stacy’s proclamation removed any preconceived notions regarding vegetable-based food and smashed them into a thousand tiny tofu pieces.

A red and white diamond-patterned boat of freshly cut French fries smothered in potato-based, dairy-free queso, onion rings, and vegan donuts served Sunday mornings — in addition to all of the other carbs that typically go along with a burger joint minus the meat — mark his words as true.

From a food truck to now a brick-and-mortar location, Zonk Burger has a little something for every palate.

While Stacy operates the front of the house, co-owner Erin Hahn presides over the kitchen. Although they both worked for Heritage Auctions in Dallas, they yearned for more community involvement. Hahn developed her skills at Food Heads in Austin before taking a job at the Spiral Diner in Oak Cliff for about a year as Stacy started winding down his antiquing career. Their path led them to Fort Worth in 2018.

They started out as a food truck in April 2019 until the lockdown as a proof of concept. Once they had built a customer base, they felt about as comfortable as they could navigating the murky waters

“Best Thai Food” – FW Weekly Critics Choice 2015, 2017 & 2019

APPROVED THAI RESTAURANTS IN FW!

4630 SW Loop 820 | Fort Worth• 817-731-0455 order online for pickup Thaiselectrestaurant.com

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY 20

continued on page 21

SPICE

“Best Thai Food”

– FW Weekly Critics Choice Thai Kitchen & Bar 2016 – FW Weekly 411 W. Magnolia Ave readers Choice Fort Worth • 817-984-1800 2017, 2019, order online for pickup at Spicedfw.com 2020 & 2021

THE BEST THAI IN FORT WORTH

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FIRST BLUE ZONES

bar, and drinks can be enjoyed on the spacious patio behind the restaurant.

Although companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have recently been criticized by environmental watchdogs for a lack of transparency with greenhouse gas emissions, supply chain practices, and waste management, Zonk Burger’s owners are fully committed to running a healthy, clean, green operation.

This means no lab-based meat.

“We wanted to raise the standard of vegan and vegetarian food with ‘real’ food,” Hahn said. “Everything is made fresh in-house using responsibly grown

of a global pandemic to begin work on their brick and mortar. Landing in a small shopping strip neighboring The Post and La Onda on Race Street, Hahn and Stacy forged ahead.

“The Race Street and Riverside District area really reminds us of East Austin before its growth,” Stacy said.

A smidgen under 800 square feet, the interior of Zonk Burger is a blend of classic American diner and New Wave ethos with bright and bold colors against white walls with black and white checkered flooring laid by the owners themselves.

The beer and wine selection is decent for a restaurant of this size that doesn’t have a

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“Vegan” does not always necessarily mean “calorie-conscious.”

continued from page 20

3431 W 7th St • Fort Worth, TX 76107

817.332.3339

Zonk Burger Oyster mushroom burger ........................ $11 Onion rings (Friday only) ......................... $4 Zonk Burger ............................................. $8.50 Tofu sandwich ......................................... $8.50 Seitan wings ............................................ $7.50 Loaded fries ............................................. $8 Green beans ............................................ $5 Chocolate chip cookie ............................ $3

Another standout was the fried tofu burger, dressed as a traditional burger as well.

For sides, might as well go with the seitan wings with habanero buffalo sauce or, the surprise of the visit, seared green beans crowned with smoky mushrooms, frizzled onions, and pepper, giving this dish a spunky pop.

If you see chunky chocolate chip or snickerdoodle cookies at the register, these are a reflection of Hahn’s love of baking.

And if you’re not full yet, grabbing one to go will certainly guarantee a zonked-out nap later. l

BEST RAMEN WINNER - Fort Worth Weekly Best Of 2021 It’s sort of an old-timey diner and New Wave party at Zonk.

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produce and sustainable food practices.”

Since the menu relies solely on vegetables, it will vary depending upon growing seasons along with rotating specials. The fried oyster mushroom with Stacy’s quick pickles and tartar sauce is a current special and perhaps should earn a permanent spot on the blackboard menu. The yin and yang of the crunchy, beer-battered outer layer of the morel and soft meat inside with zingy pickles and tartar sauce between buns that hold their own provided a bevy of savory, surprising bites.

The original Zonk Burger made of chickpea and the ancient Asian grain millet are formed into a patty and dressed as you’d expect a burger to be, with crispy lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles, plus a nut-based special sauce that mirrors McDonald’s. The sandwich was a delight.

Free Delivery Limited Area & Minimum $20

fwweekly.com

Eats & Drinks

Retail Location OPENING SOON In River East!

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Smoked Meat Tamales Fresh Salsa Verde Vegetarian Options Catering & Special Orders Mama Lu’s Kitchen MamaLuSalsa@gmail.com 817-255-0910

HOT DEALS AT COOL PRICES

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25 Weekly Rotating Taps & Craft Cocktails Canned & Bottled Beer From Across the Country

of South Main Village

Dine In or To Go

HOURS: Tues-Thurs 11am-10pm Fri-Sat 11am-12am | Sun 11am-10pm

Weekend Brunches with a Large, Dog-Friendly Patio

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300 S. Main St. | 817-349-9832 | Facebook.com/TheBeardedLadyFortWorth

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EATS & drinks

The expanded dining options at Billy Bob’s Texas are worth the trip — with or without a big show.

Honky Tonk Kitchen Billy Bob’s Texas, 2520 Rodeo Plz, FW. 817-624-7117. 11am-6pm Sun, 11am-4pm Mon-Tue, 11am-10pm Wed, 11am-11pm Thu, 11am-midnight Fri-Sat. All major credit cards accepted.

B R O W N

marily food during the pandemic. Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission laws allowed watering holes in the Lone Star

State to reopen if a certain percentage of their sales came from food and not alcohol.

As many bars made token efforts by serv-

ing nachos and other light noshes, Billy Bob’s went all in by expanding the Honky continued on page 24

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Like many local music venues at the time, Billy Bob’s Texas pivoted to offering pri-

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E D W A R D

The juicy, smoky meats were all killer.

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C o u r t e s y o f B i l l y B o b ’ s Te x a s

Honky Tonk Delight

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TWO LOCATIONS!

Edward Brown

We Are Now Open At

Seating at the Honky Tonk Kitchen offers a great view of the main stage.

Eats & Drinks continued from page 23

EAGLESPOINTTEXAS.COM BURLESON: 200 S MAIN ST #100 SAGINAW: 1029 N SAGINAW BLVD #C6

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817-349-9387

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Tonk Kitchen’s offerings under the direction of Chef Alex Walters.

The restaurant now serves a deep menu of Texas-inspired fare. Steaks, pork cracklings, elevated Frito pies, and burgers were a few options on the online menu that excited me ahead of my recent visit. The evening I arrived, though, I was told there would be a limited menu even though the space was bustling ahead of a late Saturday night concert. The reason for the shortened menu, one waiter told me, was due to a staffing shortage that evening. Still, I found plenty of enticing options available.

The Honky Tonk Kitchen’s environs blend with the sprawling bars, dance floors, and performance stages that abound at the 41-year-old venue. Wellworn wood chairs and around a dozen large- and small-top tables offer diners prime real estate near the main stage.

I opted for the loaded tots for my opener. The lovely amalgam of goldenfried spuds, generous servings of sliced brisket, rich melted cheddar cheese, sweet barbecue sauce, and diced jalapeño — topped with drizzles of sour cream — was a delicious mix of salty, sweet, and savory.

Billy Bob’s Boomtown was a towering double-patty burger. The beef had a

Honky Tonk Kitchen Dos Tacos ................................................... $12 Two-meat dinner ........................................ $21 Loaded tots ................................................ $13 Bob’s Boomtown ....................................... $12

pleasant smoky odor and char that made it clear the morsels were properly grilled over a hot open flame. Thickly diced onions and crispy pickle slices, along with a large fresh tomato slice and chopped lettuce, rounded out the delicious entree.

The accompanying fries had been fried a perfect golden brown and were lightly seasoned.

The two-meat dinner came with the option of chopped beef, pulled pork, sausage, or sliced beef. I sprung for the sliced brisket and sausage. Each of the eight slices of smoked pork was juicy and a bit fiery. The casing on the sausage had a nice snap, and the two large slices of brisket came encased in a dark, dense, peppery casing. Fans of mild, post oak-smoked ’cue might find Walters’ smoked meats to be heavy on the smoke and seasoning, but I relished every bite. My only complaint was the saltiness of the rub that detracted from the natural flavor of the beefy morsels. The accompanying green beans were underseasoned, but the paprika-kissed pinto beans were a standout delight.

Don’t expect authentic Mexican tacos at this restaurant, although the hefty entrees are delicious. Each taco came with the same fixings as the burger, but a little variety or some homemade hot sauce would have been nice. Still, the chopped brisket was smoked to perfection, and the pork was juicy and fork-tender albeit underseasoned.

The staff was polite, and the service was prompt during my visit. The Honky Tonk Kitchen offers a view of Billy Bob’s main stage that won’t leave diners missing out on the action. It was great to see the iconic honkytonk bustling once again with country music. l

1.) Thursday is when my beloved Mexican Pizza is back on the menu at Taco Bell locations around the country. This fact requires no further explanation. If you know, you know. #GuiltyPleasure 2.) Central Market wants to know, are you really into Texas Sampling? Tasting stations will be set up all around the stores in Fort Worth (4651 W Fwy, 817-989-4700) and Southlake (1425 E Southlake Blvd, 817-310-5600) 5pm-8pm Fri, featuring crab cakes, small-batch ice cream, oat sorghum pecan bread, Wagyu beef, and more, provided by suppliers within the great state of Texas. Plus, pick up a $10 coupon good for Texas products that evening. While the event is free to attend, CM requests that you reserve a spot at bit.ly/3kWsDOB.

4.) The Denison Arts Council (@ DenisonCouncil) hosts 10 North Texas wineries at its Art, Walk & Wine event 5pm-9pm Sat. Registration for the walk begins at 5pm at the Denison Cultural Arts Center (517 W Main St, 903-2714035). Enjoy (and purchase) the works of local artists at retail stores around the square while sipping wine and listening to live music. The first 600 attendees receive complimentary tote bags that include commemorative wine glasses and info on giveaways at the local businesses. Tickets are $30 on EventBrite.com and include 10 drink vouchers. Non-drinking tickets are $15. continued on page 26

If you’re a #PunkRockGrrl who loves her milkman/milkmen, check out 1836 Farms.

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3.) D&D Rockin Rods is filling the lot at Ol’ South Pancake House (225 E Renfro St, Burleson, 817-989-9090) with old school vehicles 4pm-7pm Sat for the Hot

Cakes & Rods Classic Car Show. The event is free to attend. If you’d like to show off your car or truck, registration is $20, with the proceeds going to D&D’s holiday charity efforts. For more info or to register your ride, visit DDRockinRods.com.

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ATE DAY8 a week

Wild Acre camping mugs are available for purchase. Enjoy camp activities, live music, and food trucks, too. There is no cost to attend.

continued from page 25

5.) Ah, summer camp. I bet you will find some awesome summer camp ideas for the kiddos in next week’s Summer 2022 Edition. (To participate, email Marketing@FWWeekly.com.)

Meanwhile, make plans to have a little adult fun at Camp Wild Acre 11am-6pm Sat, May 28. Along with three unique beer varieties, including Banana Pudding Hefeweizen, Punch Bowl Fruit Punch Sour, and S’mores Stout, exclusive Camp

6.) Texas Winos already had me at the words “indoor festival” but have now piqued my interest with timed entries — cool, comfortable, and less people-y — at its upcoming Texas Wine Festival.

While the venue holds 800 people, the festival is admitting 150 at a time at noon, 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm Sat, May 28, at 1010 Collins Event Center (1010 N Collins St, Arlington, 877-294-6836). Tickets are $49 at TexasWinos.com and include admission,

a souvenir wine glass, wine tastings, and samples from vendors.

7.) Do you miss the milkman — not The Dead Milkmen, silly — or are you too young to remember him? Either way, 1836 Farms (@1836Farms) provides Texas families with organic milk “the old-school way” in sustainable glass bottles, including the new Texas Bluebonnets bottle pictured here. You can find this brand locally at various grocers, from independents like El Rancho Supermercado (4812 S Fwy, 817-484-3290) to the bigger chains like Tom Thumb and Whole Foods. For home delivery options, visit 1836Farms.com.

8.) While there are various local food banks you can visit when times are tough, they don’t always have pet supplies on hand. Luckily, Fort Worth-based pet food bank Don’t Forget 2 Feed Me (5825 Rosedale St, 817-334-0727) is helping.

DF2FM was recently able to approve two new food pantry partners who will be receiving food for the pet food bank’s clients, including Arborlawn United Methodist Church (5001 Briarhaven Rd, Ste 4406, 817-731-0701) and Your Harvest House (349 NW Renfro St, Burleson, 817295-6252). For more locations or info, visit DontForgettoFeedMe.org.

The Ori g i n a l FT W

Oyster Bar Going on 50 years. Come see us!

D R I NeK of th Month

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Happy Hour Mon - Fri

Dollar Off Beers | $8 Drink of the Day

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CREAMY, SMOKY, BANANA-Y

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Fort Worth | 612 University

MUSIC Left

H I G G I N S

Fort Worth sextet Left Arm Tan has never felt comfortable with the confining labels assigned within country music — the genre, for good or ill, that they’ve

been most associated with. Red Dirt, Americana, alt-country, roots music — they all seem to apply and yet, somehow, also seem unfitting to the group’s sound.

The musicians have always tried to push beyond the labels they’ve been tagged with by radio stations and

promoters, but it was really 2020’s selftitled album (known colloquially among the band members as “The Phoenix Album” due to the record’s Trans-Amian artwork) that the guys really made a conscious effort to ditch preconceived notions of what they were “supposed”

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continued on page 28

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Left Arm Tan is all about getting country music fans out of their comfort zones.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

For their sixth studio album, the Fort Worth group gave way to one final decision maker for their most genre-pushing release to date.

Jacob Sizemore

Arm Tan Swings Big

to sound like and just make the music whey wanted to make. As much as they successfully accomplished this goal on their last record, with Undefeated, the sixth studio effort in the band’s catalog which debuts Friday, pushes the limiting boundaries of “country” music even further.

“I think one thing we embrace as a band is constant change and constant evolution of our sound,” said singer/ guitarist Brian Lee. “Evolution doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to be something different on every album. It just means that we have to be willing and open to let the song be what the song needs to be, regardless of artistic direction or how it fits into a particular radio format or even in what way the original writer had it in mind that it was going to be.”

To help the band expand their ever-evolving sound, they enlisted Ken Coomer (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo) to serve as producer. Though they’ve co-produced with their engineers on previous records, Undefeated was the first time they turned over absolute control to someone outside of the six of them. Lee said the band sent Coomer more than 20 tracks, of which eight were chosen. A rule of Coomer’s is that albums consist of no more than eight songs.

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SAT 6/11 JEFFERY SMITH W/ SPECIAL GUEST PERFORMANCE BY SAXOPHONIST DAVID CARR JR SAT 7/16 EVOLVE THE REVOLUTION: A LECTURE DISCUSSION FOLLOWED BY A CONCERT

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FRI SOFTSPOKEN AND AVANTI 5/20 W/ SPECIAL GUESTS AMONG THE FALLEN & MORE! SAT ISAAC SLOANE & THE SOUND BRIGADE 5/21 RADIO WORE • THE DIRTY SHIRTS WED 5/25 GIRLS NIGHT OUT SAT LUH BERG, DJ T RICH, 5/28 SOJIGGY, JAYGHOST & MORE

RIDGLE A LOUNGE

FRI 5/20 FOUND8TION, HYPERBOLIC, KING HONEY BEE FRI 5/27 GLUESTICK, BLOOD SUGAR, GHOST REPUBLIC, KUDU

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SAT 5/28 THE CHEMS, LOOMA, VANASTRO, ISAAC SLOANE & THE SOUND BRIGADE

28

Jacob Sizemore

AN EVENING WITH CADILLAC MUZIK, EREC SMITH; JASON LITTLEFIELD

Music

continued from page 27

“On every other album you’ve got six guys in a band and all have opinions on which songs should be on the album or whatever,” Lee said. “This is the first time we just let a producer make the creative tough calls. We feel the songs [that Coomer chose] which did make [the album] are really strong and really represent where we’re at as a band.”

For LAT, the decision to work with Coomer was inspired by the work he did with a band they admired and are friends with, Charlottesville, Virginia’s Sons of Bill. Coomer produced SOB’s 2013 album Love and Logic.

“That was really the album for Sons of Bill that really took them in a completely different direction sonically and moved them into a whole different genre in a way,” Lee said. Coomer “was a really big part of that. He was a big driving force and really a catalyst for dramatically changing a band we had already loved and admired and were on a similar trajectory [to us] in the way the band was evolving.”

In addition to his work with Sons of Bill, Coomer’s association to Wilco, one of the Fort Worth group’s heroes, was an added plus. In fact, the name Left Arm Tan was lifted from a line in the Wilco song “Monday” from 1996’s Being There.

Lee said working with Coomer really “sped the process up and allowed us to be able to just focus on making the songs as good as they could possibly be.”

Whether the boundary-pushing sound of Undefeated is owed to the natural progression of LAT as a band, or to Coomer, or to the combination of the two, the genre-expansion is evident. Incorporating unconventionally “country” sounds like keyboards and full horn sections, the sonic palette is at times Pat Green and

Left Arm Tan album release 8pm Fri w/Salim Nourallah at The Post at River East, 2925 Race St, FW. $15-120.

817-945-8890.

Randy Rogers, others Tom Petty and Ryan Adams, but also always none of them.

As well as releasing the title track as a single, LAT is promoting the new record with an entertaining animated music video for the song “Cocaine Skinny,” an amusing track about a burnout musician unwittingly getting caught up in drug trafficking.

“We’ve done a couple of videos” in the past, Lee said of the new single’s visual accompaniment. “Not as many as we probably should have. As you know, they’re time- [and money-] consuming.

Essentially, the point we do a video is when our publicist or promoter is saying, ‘We’ve gotta have a video!’ And we go, ‘OK, I guess we’ll be professionals and do one.’ But this one didn’t take too much arm pulling. The material was so ripe for a video, it was an easy decision.”

To celebrate the release of Undefeated, Left Arm Tan is performing at The Post at River East on Friday. It’ll be the first of a handful of shows before departing for their first tour in the United Kingdom this summer. Though they’ve played here and there over the last two years, supporting the new album will be the first time they’ve played consistently since the beginning of the pandemic, which happened to strike just after the release of “The Phoenix Album,” derailing much of their ability to play that material as well.

“We’re just excited to get our new music out there which honestly feels like two albums’ worth of music that we love and which say different things that we get to introduce people to,” Lee said. “We’ve definitely got our hands full for now, for sure.” l

Hearsay Clearly Acidic

Contact HearSay at Anthony@FWWeekly.com.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Cour tesy Facebook

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My brain is scrambled right now. I feel like I’ve been zapped by some warbling beam of crimson, deleterious energy, a Discombobulator Ray powered by current events and flipped on by the media, its photonic malevolence emanating in superheated, enervating waves from an open window on my phone. What do you call this feeling, and is it a trope common to dystopian fiction? Did the old people in Logan’s Run feel like this when they were young? And what does this feeling have to do with a music column?

Not much, admittedly. Maybe I feel spun like that because living in the dystopia that is the United States of America: 2022 AD is not as sexy and exciting as fiction makes it out to be, and the soundtrack? I don’t even know what I should listen to.

Sometimes I walk around with John Carpenter scores pulsing in my headphones, because then at least I feel like I’m in a movie for a little bit, but I almost don’t want to revisit any old faves because I don’t want them tainted by this moment in time. But that’s even more depressing, because it makes me think that maybe I’m kind of grieving for a wayback-when that is actually only recently in the past. Tragedy + time = comedy, but that formula can’t be finished when there’s little room to breathe between yesterday’s national, existential crisis and whatever pillar of safety and personal autonomy is being undermined or overturned today.

Everything sort of feels like two adjacent

keys being mashed at the same time on an out-of-tune piano, the dissonance pounded upon repeatedly until everyone agrees to sing along to “God Bless the USA.” Of course, now that I think about it, John Carpenter’s greatest hits are rooted in those adjacent-key intervals, and jamming the Halloween soundtrack while out walking (or driving or cleaning my apartment) is probably not doing my brain any favors when the news is already ominous enough, but I don’t even know if sunnier music would help. I just imagined putting on Bob Marley right now, and the only three little birds that seem appropriate to the moment are crows, ravens, and vultures. If they’re on my doorstep, it’s because they found some lunch.

Does that sound heavy? Because that’s how I feel, and, frankly, heavy music is about all I want to hear these days, which brings me to Friday night’s show at Tulips FTW (112 St. Louis Av, 817-367-9798). Area apparel brand Bleach USA is debuting a new skate video, after which is a show headlined by the doomy, psychedelic, loud shoegaze band Clear Acid. Doors are at 7, and the video airs at 8, with the bands playing immediately after, starting with Washout — I watched a video clip of the band, and they reminded me of Bleach-era Nirvana — and North Texas hardcore destroyers Urn in the middle slot. The show is free if you click on the calendar at TulipsFW.com and RSVP at the Prekindle link that pops up.

I know having my eardrums caved in by a few loud bands won’t fix anything, but in the context of their music, maybe that feeling of being zapped will make more sense. — Steve Steward

29

Of Suns and Stars

Though only one team is moving on, Sunday’s pair of local Game 7s was historic sports viewing.

This past Sunday saw a supernatural aligning of local sports astral bodies the likes of which has never been witnessed before in human history. There was even a blood moon, er, eclipse or whatever tossed in the mix to further drive the sports occultism.

The divine ball and puck spheres coalesced into a single spectacular celestial event. For the first time ever, one city had two of its franchises playing a Game 7 on the same day! The Dallas Mavericks and their American Airlines Center bunkmates, the Dallas Stars, each underdogs in their matchups against the Phoenix Suns and the Calgary Flames, respectively, had somehow managed to mystify the legions of so-called “insiders” or rather the nauseating dude-bro talking heads at ESPN and in The Sporting News, who predicted the swift dismissal of our hometown heroes.

There is no sweeter sports content than a Game 7, with its constant thrum of stomach-knotting nervous energy and its big-voiced-guy-booming, “It all comes down to this!” finality. We in North Texas were being treated to two in one night!

Neither disappointed.

The one flaw in this otherwise perfect sports porn coincidence was an obnoxious little overlap of the two games. The puck dropped in the Stars game just as the Mavs were coming out of halftime. For some, the concurrence likely made for some conflicting viewing allegiances, though we’re confident that, for most, one contest took priority.

With the implications of victory earning them a spot in the Western Conference Finals as opposed to merely the second round of the playoffs, we’re sure most yokels, like us, stayed with the Mavs until the final buzzer. Despite their all but certain victory, well-sealed by the

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Cour tesy DallasMavericks.com

STUFF

time the Stars took the ice, there was plenty of reason to stay locked in, if only to revel in the copious waves of schadenfreude washing over viewers as the Luka-led squad flat-out embarrassed the “best team in the NBA.” Phoenix’s “Big Three” — Chris Paul, with his (metaphorical and literal) giant head; Devin Booker, with his chillingly whiteless eyes; and Deandre Ayton, with his deranged hobo-chic aesthetic — were perfectly cast as Goliath to the Little Mavericks’ David.

Out of more than 100 “experts” across NBA media types, not a single one picked Dallas.

Whether his proverbial slingshot was that sweet step-back 3-pointer, a hard drive to the basket for a signature Euro-step layup, or a deft pass out to an open perimeter shooter, Luka Dončić swung it hard, and often, and the once championship-favorite giant Suns now lie dead. Basketball media and NBA Twitter alike were left just as stunned by the one-sided 128-90 thrashing as were the Suns.

Charles Barkley could barely speak through his shellshock during TNT’s halftime presentation. As head coach (and noted wife beater) Jason Kidd deadpanned after the game, “A lot of people said it was going to be a blowout. Well, they were right.”

In the media’s defense, it actually doesn’t make a lot of sense. This Mavs team is so flawed. They don’t have a dominant — or even passable — shot-blocking/ rebounding big who can control the paint.

The Suns, as well as the Mavs’ first-round opponent in the Utah Jazz, feature elite centers who can ball at both ends of the court. Dallas has little depth at wing and was forced to play Dorian Finney-Smith and Reggie Bullock practically entire games. Phoenix and Utah both had wings to spare, allegedly. The Mavs are streaky shooters, bad rebounders, they play too much one-on-one, everyone watches Luka, the role players go missing some games, and so on.

And yet. The Mavs just dick-whipped the reigning Western Conference champs and the best regular-season team in basketball. As a result, the lads in green and blue are headed to the conference finals for the first time since 2011. The Jazz and Suns, despite their regular-season success and pundit support, are left with the next six months to hone their bingedrinking skills.

We could spend volumes enumerating the many qualities Dallas lacks and picking apart reasons why the team shouldn’t be where they are, yet you simply can’t quantify what this team does have in spades: belief, toughness, the clutch gene, want-to, unselfishness, and, of course, Luka.

Kidd deserves a ton of credit, as does Jalen Brunson, Bullock, Spencer Dinwiddie, Finney-Smith, and others. But this season — this moment — comes down to one transcendent peak-of-his-powers apex predator who hoisted 1,000-pound anchor chains over his shoulders and blew wind into the sails of a leaky boat, steering

Luka was all smiles after the Mavs’ Game 7 blowout of the Suns, and so were we.

this thing toward greatness. Luka Dončić has been brilliant, and he continually raises the bar he set for his own dominance. The 23-year-old’s performance in Sunday’s series-clinching flogging of the Suns was nothing short of Jordan-/Kobe-esque. He controlled the game, played fearlessly, and understood no one could stop him.

In the early moments of the Game 7 meltdown by the Suns, there was only one guy on the floor who didn’t look overcome by the moment. Luka poured in eight quick points and set the tone for what quickly became a laugher. The young Slovenian achieved his 30-10-4 stat line in only three quarters.

After watching the Suns tuck their manhood inside their body cavities and tape them over, the casual fan could be forgiven for thinking Phoenix just wasn’t the team everyone thought they were.

Maybe that’s true, but the Mavs’ D was everywhere in that game and through most of the series. The swarming, scramble-andrecover defense confounded Phoenix, as that “Big Three” combined for a paltry 27 points on Sunday. The Suns did miss some bunnies at the rim, but they rarely saw open threes, had a tough time penetrating, failed to stop defenders from working over the top of pick-and-rolls, and were generally bullied and out-hustled.

Dallas earned that series win more than Phoenix lost it.

The challenge ahead will be even greater for the Mavs as they face a pedigreed Golden State team that is finally healthy on Wednesday. Don’t read too much into the teams’ regular season head-to-head record, in which Dallas took three of four contests. The Warriors were without one or more of their own big three for all but one of those games. This is a different team. So is Dallas. Throw out the stats, matchups, and any other barometer

you’d traditionally use. The Mavs don’t care. For all their flaws, Dallas is one of only four teams still in the dance. You can doubt them if you want. We won’t — not if No. 77 continues to remember he’s the best player in the world.

After all the giddiness of the Mavs game, we somehow had to get right to take in a hockey game. With all due respect to the Mavericks’ AAC little brothers, the buzz from witnessing the Suns go supernova in front of the world was so permeating, it took until the second period before the Stars’ Game 7 against Calgary could hold our attention. That’s when the Flames’ Tyler Toffoli scored to even it at 1-1. (Captain Jamie Benn opened the scoring at just the 40-second mark, about the time the Mavs had pushed their lead to more than 40 points.) It was at that moment that we were reminded of the Stars’ mortality and that just because the Mavs were riding a lead to easy victory, the same wouldn’t necessarily be true for their hockey counterparts. The Stars’ Vladislav Namestnikov would put the boys in Victory Green™ ahead again just 31 seconds later, but the response only deepened the luster of the fools’ gold that was the belief that Dallas had a realistic chance in this game or the series. The Flames tied the game 2-2 on the power play halfway through the third period, which would ultimately send the tilt to overtime.

As had been the case all series long, Calgary outplayed the Stars on nearly every shift, outshooting Dallas by nearly a 3-1 margin. The Stars were forced to throw their 1,000-pound chains around the neck of their own 23-year-old phenom in the form of goalie Jake Oettinger, who was forced to make 64 saves over the game’s three and a half periods (24 shots, a common whole game total, in the second frame alone). Though Dallas had a flurry of chances around Flames goalie Jacob Markstrom just before, Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau managed to slip a once in a lifetimer through an opening the size of the mouth of a 32-ounce Yeti cup between the pipe and Oettinger’s facemask from an angle so sharp it was practically on the goal line. Given 100 chances, Gaudreau couldn’t possibly do that again. What a waste of a literally historic goaltending performance.

The Stars had no business being in that Game 7 or the playoffs for that matter.

If not for “Otter,” they wouldn’t have been.

As flawed as the Mavs are, the Stars have bigger problems. They’re defensively lax, offensively hobbled, and talent and coaching poor. They now have their own six months to hone their binge-drinking skills.

Whatever happens, we’re sure few fans would have refused the deal if offered that if the Stars lose, the Mavs will advance.

Sorry to the stick-and-puck diehards, but that’s a blood sacrifice to the sports gods we were certainly willing to make. Now, bring on Golden State! l

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US 81/US 287AVONDALE-HASLET ROADTOTOI-35W I-35W US 81/US 287AVONDALE-HASLET ROAD VIRTUAL PUBLIC HEARINGWITH WITH IN-PERSON IN-PERSON OPTION VIRTUAL PUBLIC HEARING OPTION CSJ: 0014-15-037 THURSDAY, JUNE 2022 CSJ: 0014-15-037 THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2, 2022 VIRTUAL OPTION VIRTUAL OPTION Join us at www.TxDOT.gov,

IN-PERSON OPTION IN-PERSON OPTION

Thursday, June 2, 2022, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

JoinKeywords: us at www.TxDOT.gov, Thursday, June 2, School 2022,Cafeteria 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

V.R. Eaton High US 81/287 Avondale V.R.1350 Eaton High School Cafeteria Keywords: US 81/287 Eagle Boulevard Presentation posted Avondale at 10 a.m. on Haslet,Eagle TX 76052 Thursday, 2, 2022 1350 Boulevard Presentation postedJune at 10 a.m. on through Friday, June 17, 2022 Haslet, TX 76052 Thursday, June 2, 2022 View materials and provide comments from 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 2, 2022 through Friday, June 17, 2022 through 11:59 p.m. onfrom Friday, View materials and provide comments 10June a.m.17, on2022.

Thursday, June 2, 2022

Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is proposing improvements to US 81/ through 11:59The onsouth Friday, June 17, USp.m.

287 from of Avondale-Haslet Road 2022. to I-35W in Tarrant County, Texas. The

project would reconstruct the mainlanes and is add one insideimprovements mainlane in eachto US 81/ Theproposed Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) proposing direction, construct new continuous one-way frontage roads, and convert existing twoUS 287 from south of Avondale-Haslet Road to I-35W in Tarrant County, Texas. The way frontage roads to one-way frontage roads. The existing interchanges would be proposed projectWillow would reconstruct the mainlanes and add oneunder inside reconstructed.

Springs Road would be reconstructed to cross themainlane US 81/ in each direction, construct new continuous one-way frontage roads, and convert existing twoUS 287 mainlanes, an interchange is proposed at Heritage Trace Parkway, and Wagley way frontageRoad roads to be one-way frontage roads. The existing Robertson would connected to the proposed frontage roads.interchanges Entrance andwould be exit ramp locations would be adjusted providebe more efficient access to adjacent land reconstructed.

Willow Springs Roadtowould reconstructed to cross under the US 81/ uses.

Additional right-of-way and denial of access at ramp locations would be necessary US 287 mainlanes, an interchange is proposed at Heritage Trace Parkway, and Wagley to accommodate the proposed improvements.

Robertson Road would be connected to the proposed frontage roads. Entrance and of the project at Harmon Road to and North Tarrant Parkway access would construct exitPhase ramp1locations would be adjusted provide more efficient to adjacent land frontage roads from north of Harmon Road to west of IH 35W. The project would consist uses. Additional right-of-way and denial of access at ramp locations would be necessary of one northbound exit ramp to North Tarrant Parkway, two southbound ramps to and to accommodate the proposed improvements.

SIGN-UP FOR IN-PERSON OPTION

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the virtual public hearing or in-person option, please contact the Project Manager

Saba El-Hawi, P.E., Fort Worth District, atoption (817)will 370-3562 no later in than 4 p.m.

The virtual public hearing and in-person be conducted English.

If you need CT, Monday, May 30, 2022.

Please be aware that advance notice is required as some an interpreter or document translator because English is not your primary language or  Saba El-Hawi, P.E. services and accommodations may require time forinTxDOT to arrange. option are preferred. you have difficulty communicating effectively English, one will be provided to you.

If at Saba.ElHawi@txdot.gov Scan this QR code with your phone  https://signup.com/go/JWeUEBw you have a disability and need assistance, special arrangements can be made to or (817) 370-3562 or tablet for the project website  Call (214) 856-0269 to leave your preferred accommodate most needs. If you need interpretation or translation services or you are The environmental review, consultation, and other actions required by applicable Federal environmental laws for this project are being, or have been, a personofwith a disability whoDecember requires9,an accommodation to attend and participate in timecarried-out on the by voicemail.

TxDOT pursuant to 23 U.S.C. 327 and a Memorandum Understanding dated 2019 and executed by FHWA and TxDOT. the virtual public hearing or in-person option, please contact the Project Manager Saba El-Hawi, P.E., Fort Worth District, at (817) 370-3562 no later than 4 p.m.

QUESTIONS?

M AY 1 8 - 2 4 , 2 0 2 2

fwweekly.com

from North Tarrant Parkway/Harmon Road. Bridges would be constructed at Harmon

Road1and Tarrant Parkway, alongRoad with intersection Phase of North the project at Harmon and Northsignals.

Tarrant Parkway would construct frontage roads from north Harmon to westnoofresidential IH 35W. The project would consist Although additional right ofofway would Road be required, or non-residential In-Person Public Hearing Location of one northbound exit ramp to North Tarrant Parkway, two southbound ramps to and V.R. Eaton High School Library structures are anticipated to be displaced at this time. Information concerning services from Tarrant Parkway/Harmon Road. would be constructed at Harmon andNorth benefits available to affected property ownersBridges and information about the tentative In-Person Public Hearing schedule for right-of-way acquisition and construction can be obtained from the TxDOT Road and North Tarrant Parkway, along with intersection signals.

SUBMIT COMMENTS OR TESTIMONY US 81/ US 287 Project Limits district office by calling the Project Manager Saba El-Hawi, P.E. at (817) 370-3562.  Email comments to: Saba.ElHawi@txdot.govAlthough additional right of way would be required, no residential or non-residential In-Person Public Hearing Location The proposed project would involve construction in wetlands and would involve an  Call (469) 389-2603 to provide a verbal structures V.R. Eaton High School Library are anticipated to be displaced at this time. Information concerning services action in a floodplain. Any environmental documentation or studies, any maps and testimony and benefits available to affected property owners and information the tentative drawings showing the project location and design, tentative construction about schedules,  Written comments can be mailed to: forinformation right-of-way acquisition and construction be obtained fromforthe TxDOT SUBMIT COMMENTS OR TESTIMONY schedule and other regarding the proposed project arecan on file and available Carl L. Johnson, P.E. district office by calling the Project Manager Saba El-Hawi, P.E. at (817) 370-3562. inspection Monday through Friday between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the TxDOT  Email comments Saba.ElHawi@txdot.gov TxDOT Fortto: Worth District Office Fort Worth District Office at 2501 S.W. Loop 820, Fort Worth, TX 76133 or by phone at The(817) proposed project would involveare construction in wetlands and would involve an  Call (469) 389-2603 provide a verbal 2501 S.W. Loopto820 370-6500.

Project materials also available online at www.txdot.gov, action in a “US floodplain.

Any environmental documentation or studies, Fort Worth, TX 76133 keywords: 81/287 Avondale”.

These materials will also be available in hardany copymaps and testimony drawings showing the project location and design, tentative construction schedules, form for review at the in-person option.  Written comments can be mailed to: SIGN-UP FOR IN-PERSON OPTION and other information regarding the proposed project are on file and available for The virtual public hearing and in-person option will be conducted in English. If you need Carl L. P.E. for attending the in-person  Johnson, Appointments inspection Monday throughtranslator Friday between the hours of your 8 a.m. and language 5 p.m. atorthe TxDOT an interpreter or document because English is not primary TxDOT Fort Worth District Office option are preferred.

Fort Worth District Office at 2501 S.W. Loop 820, Fort Worth, TX 76133 or byIf phone at you have difficulty communicating effectively in English, one will be provided to you.

2501S.W. Loop 820 https://signup.com/go/JWeUEBw you have a disabilityProject and need assistance, can beatmade to (817) 370-6500. materials arespecial also arrangements available online www.txdot.gov, accommodate most needs.

If you needThese interpretation or translation or you in arehard copy  CallTX (214) 856-0269 to leave your preferredkeywords: Fort Worth, 76133 “US 81/287 Avondale”. materials will also services be available a person with aat disability who requires an accommodation to attend and participate in time on the voicemail. form for review the in-person option.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

In-Person Public Hearing US 81/ US 287 Project Limits

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SOUTH BY SO WHAT?!

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Can you be queer and be a Christian? This is the question that the newly founded Ark Church is posing.

On the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month, they would like to explain why they believe that “yes!” is the resounding answer. On May 18th at 6pm, head to Tulips FTW (112 St. Louis Av, 817-367-9798) for Beer & Bible, the church’s gathering, and drink some pints while chatting about various topics. More info:

Facebook.com/ArkChurchDFW

COWTOWN ROVER Inspection Almost Due? Are You Road-Trip Ready?

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Lone Star Gun Shows

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SOUTHBY SOWHAT ?!

PUBLIC NOTICE

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that on the 11th day of March, 2022, the Petition of Layla James Witham was filed in Wyoming County Court of Common Pleas at No. 2020-204, seeking to change the name of Petitioner from Layla James Witham to Layla James Robinson. The Court has fixed June 6, 2022, at 8:30 A.M, being held via Zoom, at the Wyoming County Courthouse as the date and time for the hearing of the Petition. All persons interested in the proposed change of name may appear and show cause, if any they have, why the prayer of the Petitioner should not be granted.

Kelly M. Carrubba, Esquire Counsel for Petitioner, 114-2 Warren Street, Tunkhannock, PA 18657, 570996-6588.

C PEA

Fort Worth 817-763-8622

Garland

E & SMOKE SINCE 4/20/ E LOV 1 97 0 THEGASPIPE.NET

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PUBLIC NOTICE

Letters Testamentary, Cause No. 2022-PR00029-l: The State of Texas, County of Tarrant, Probate Court No. 1, Tarrant County, Texas: I, Mary Louise Nicholson, Clerh of the Probate Court of Tarrant County, Texas do hereby certify that on the lst day of April, 2022, A.D BILLIE MARIE ANDERTON qualified according to laut as INDEPENDENT EXECUTOR without bond of the estate of BUDDY LEON ANDERTON, DECEASED. These are, therefore, given to prove capacity to act as such and that said appointment is still in full force and affect. Witness my hand and seal of the Probate Court of Tarrant County, at Fort Worth, Texas on. April0l, 2022, A.D. Signed, Mary Louis Nicholson, County Clerk, Probate Court, Tarrant County Texas. Witnessed by Glenda Caballero, Deputy Clerk.

PUBLIC NOTICE

NOTICE TO CREDITORS: Notice is hereby given that original Letters Testamentary for The Estate of Frances M. Russell, Deceased, were issued on April 25, 2022, under Docket No. 2022-PR00619-2 pending in the Probate Court Number Two, Tarrant County, Texas, to Sarah Frances Wright, Independent Executrix of The Estate of Frances M. Russell, Deceased. Claims may be presented in care of the attorney for the estate, addressed as follows: S. Barcus H, S. Barcus Hunte, 1701 River Run, Suite 1021, Fort Worth, Texas , Tel: (81, Fax: (817) 870-0540. All persons having claims against this estate, which is currently being administered, are required to present them within the time and in the manner prescribed by law. Dated: May 10, 2022.

HISTORIC RIDGLEA THEATER

THE RIDGLEA is three great venues within one historic Fort Worth landmark. RIDGLEA THEATER has been restored to its authentic allure, recovering unique Spanish-Mediterranean elements. It is ideal for large audiences and special events. RIDGLEA ROOM and RIDGLEA LOUNGE have been making some of their own history, as connected adjuncts to RIDGLEA THEATER, or hosting their own smaller shows and gatherings. More at theRidglea.com

LEGAL NOTICE

The owners or lien holders are hereby notified that the vehicles listed below are being stored at AA Wrecker Service: 5709-B Denton Hwy. Haltom City, TX 76148 (817)656-3100 TDLR VSF Lic. No. 0536827VSF | www.license.state.tx.us

YR

MAKE

2019 2011

Dodge Kawasaki John Deere

MODEL

VIN

Challenger 2C3CDZAG5KH687268 dirtbike JKBKXEAC8BA072822 STX38 mower M00STXB012430

PRICE $1147.59 $1490.45 $1040.04

*Storage charges accrue daily until the vehicle is claimed *Failure of the owner or lien holder to claim the above vehicles within 30 days is a waiver of all right, title, and interest in the vehicles and a consent to the sale of the vehicle at a public sale.

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