Dallas Archives - Page 6 of 10

The State Fair of Texas

October 24, 2016

I finally made it to the State Fair this year.

And it was bizarre.

My first experience with the fair was unusual because I went for a “first-timers at the Fair” news story.

The State Fair marketing team ferried us around the park in these terrifying go-carts and allowed us to cut the lines, so it wasn’t a typical State Fair experience. That story is here.

And yes, a picture of me eating a corn dog made the print edition. Watch out, Anderson Cooper.

Michael and I went back a week later and had a “real” State Fair experience.

Here is what stuck out:

Some fair visitors are surprisingly rude. Moms in particular had no problem essentially cutting people off and basically ramming people with baby strollers.
The butter sculpture was strange. There was a cow with penguins eyeing its utters. I don’t understand.
A lot of things are creepy. Besides the butter sculpture failure, there is a carnival barker with no legs, a lot creepy smiling corn dog pictures, and a Nicholas Cage ride.

Oh, and the giant cowboy puppet that talks!

Here are some pictures.

The creepy carnival barker at the State Fair.

State Fair of Texas butter sculptures. Why are the penguins eyeing the cow?

Big Tex at the State Fair of Texas.

LGBT / Oak Lawn

Texas Latino Gay Pride

October 9, 2016

We made it to Texas Latino Gay Pride.

The festival was held at Reverchon Park, which is at the edge of the gayborhood. There was lots of food, liquor, and some salsa dancing.

Mexican tchotchkes being sold at Texas Latino Gay Pride.

Mexican wrestler masks for sale at Texas Latino Gay Pride.

Dallas / LGBT

Straight Clubbing

October 7, 2016

Although Cedar Springs has a large number of gay bars and restaurants, there aren’t actually that many places to dance.

That is why we’ve found ourselves going to more straight bars. Here are our three favorite straight bars in Dallas right now:

1. Beauty Bar

1924 N Henderson Ave, Dallas, TX 75206 / Website

Who knew that chain dive bars were a thing? Beauty Bar is a bumping place in the Knox/Henderson neighborhood of Dallas. It’s a nail bar during the day, and a dance club at night.

Beautiful people at Beauty Bar in Dallas (Hi Walter!)

The No Requests sign at Beauty Bar in Dallas.

Beauty Bar is a small, single-room place with a retro setting. (It actually reminds me a lot of Liquor Lyle’s in Minneapolis.)

Oak Lawn

High-Rise, Dallas

October 4, 2016

The movie High-Rise is about a luxury apartment building that descends into chaos. The film opens with shots of the trashed apartment building and a pool strewn with bodies.

A man then kills and eats a dog.

Although they aren’t eating dogs at iLume Park yet, my apartment building has experienced a rapid and sad decline.

I was so impressed with the building when I first moved in last year – we had a free happy hour every day of the week and continental breakfast in the mornings. There were dog walkers, maids, and tons of events for the residents.

They also did fecal testing / DNA profiles on the dogs, so they could fine anyone who failed to pick up after their dogs.

The building was like a boutique hotel filled with gay professionals and recent arrivals from out-of-state. It was fabulous.

Happy Hour at iLume Park in Oak Lawn, Dallas.

The decline

But the leasing agents had trouble filling the building. They then relaxed their leasing standards, slashed deposit requirements, and started offering 2-month rent discounts to new tenants.

A waive of ratchet residents moved in. There were drug dens, dime bags in the stairwell, break-ins, fights, and gun threats. Many of the original residents fled.

Dallas / Dallas Morning News / LGBT

Fall finally arrives in Dallas

October 3, 2016

Kennedy Davenport performs at Dallas Pride.

That picture sums up my September.

The past month whizzed by.

We had gay pride parades in Dallas and Fort Worth, long pool days, and trips to Six Flags Over Texas. I will cover everything in posts this month because I’ve promised myself to stop having a Truman Capote dilemma and finally start blogging again.

Dallas Morning News / Oak Lawn

Hillary and the pitbull

September 7, 2016

I got up around 4 a.m. today, wrote the morning news roundup, and then posted the newspaper’s Hillary Clinton ‘recommendation’ to Twitter and Facebook (where it would go viral.)

By 5:30 a.m., I was running for my life down Cedar Springs Road.

I came across a stray pitbull while taking the dogs to the walk-up Starbucks at the edge of Oak Lawn. We were several blocks from my apartment building when I noticed the 70-pound pitbull staring at us from behind an apartment building fence.

Ingrid, my labradoodle, barked at the pitbull and it darted toward a fence opening.

Cut to me sprinting at full-speed down Cedar Springs road with a labradoodle and a Chihuahua. It felt like a scene from Stranger Things (or at least a Dallas version of Scary Movie.)

Best Week Ever / Dallas

New Routines

August 15, 2016

After being at the new job for a month now, a routine is finally beginning to take shape. I initially tried to bus downtown for the first week, but I gave up and started driving.

I live three miles from my office, so the 45-minute public transit commute felt ridiculous. I also decided that subjecting myself to the chaos of downtown’s West End Station was not worth it. Why was I standing in 100 degree heat among drug dealers, panhandlers, and drunk people while waiting for a bus that would be 20 minutes late?

Now that my public transportation experiment ended, my commutes are way shorter, cheaper, and more comfortable. (Hey, at least I tried.)

Dallas

The Brawl

August 1, 2016

Cops breaking up a fight in downtown Dallas.

There was a bizarre brawl in downtown Dallas yesterday.

The entire trip downtown was a comedy of errors – we first went to the office to set up my new monitor stand, but we didn’t have the right tools.

We then tried to explore the scary downtown Dallas tunnel system, but it’s apparently locked down on the weekends. After being semi-trapped in an abandon tunnel/mall for a while, we emerged to street level and walked to a 7-Eleven store.

A black guy was in front of the 7-Eleven screaming at a heavily tattooed white guy. And I really mean “screaming,” in the Kelis-sense of the word.

There was also a very bored-looking black woman with them.

We stood by some Russian tourists and watched the screaming match, but couldn’t make any sense of it. As the screaming got more heated, I became worried that someone might whip out a gun, so Michael and I went into the 7-Eleven.

There was only a single employee in the 7-Eleven, who seemed more interested in fixing a broken cooler than cashing out the customers waiting to pay. I was standing at the register as the outside screaming match moved down the street. I couldn’t see the men anymore, but I could still hear them screaming from inside of the store.

Then all hell broke loose.

Dallas Morning News / Drag Shows / LGBT / Oak Lawn

Drag queens and buses

July 25, 2016

Last week I started my new job and it was exhausting.

Moving to The Dallas Morning News was a dramatic change for me.

Back in Minnesota, I worked on a 7,000-person suburban corporate campus. The Thomson Reuters campus was so huge that I had law school classmates who worked there for years before I ran into them. It was also common not to recognize anyone in the hallways if you didn’t work in that part of the building.

Since moving to Dallas, I worked from home and didn’t see coworkers in-person unless I was visiting a client’s office.

Now, I go to a downtown office every day. It’s nice being back in a real office because working from home started feeling like being under house arrest. I also had clients in every time zone, so there wasn’t a clear end to the work day.

Dallas / dogs

White Rock Lake

July 15, 2016

Turtles chilling on a hot summer weekend

A day at the lake

White Rock Lake is a massive reservoir about 5 miles outside of downtown Dallas. It is the perfect place for an ambitious morning dog walk. Or so we thought.

The lake was beautiful, but the path was very long.

Fishermen at the dock at White Rock Lake

Fishermen at White Rock Lake (and some lady taking pregnancy photos.)

Turtles chilling on a hot summer weekend

Cocktails / Oak Lawn

Summer Pool Cocktails

July 13, 2016

The pool is one of the best parts of my apartment building.

It’s a great place to relax and socialize with a cocktail during the ~~horribly~~ hot Dallas summers.

However, this summer we had to change our pool strategy.

The demographics of our apartment building changed this spring and now the pool is overrun with children. Our neighbors like to lounge around the pool with booze, whereas children love to run, scream, dive, and splash each other.

It is hard to relax with a mimosa when your pool feels like a Chuck E. Cheese waterpark.

That’s why we fled to iLume – the building across the street. Our complex has the same owner, so they allow us to use the iLume pool for small one-time fee. The awkwardness of walking on Cedar Springs with a bathing suit on is totally worth it.

Cocktails at the iLume Park pool in Oak Lawn, Dallas.

Best Week Ever / Oak Lawn / Thomson Reuters

Perma-vacation

July 12, 2016

I did not make any plans for my 30th birthday (to the exasperation of my friends.)

My neighbors tried to make plans when we met at the dog park.

Jack: “You’re not celebrating?!”
Jill: “You have to do something for your 30th!”
Me: “I am not a big holiday person, and a big party feels gauche in light of the Dallas shootings.”
Jack: “I get that, but you should do something.”
Me: “Like what? Pool time? Bars and drag shows? Brunch? That’s every weekend.”
Jill: “Yeah, living in Oak Lawn is kind of a permanent vacation.”

We did get out of the house this weekend, spent some serious time at the pool, and even had a few long walks downtown.

New and old buildings at the edge of downtown Dallas (near the farmers’ market.)

A mannequin with a fabulous hat at Flower Reign in Oak Lawn, Dallas.

Dallas

The Dallas Shootings

July 8, 2016

We watched the chaos from our living room.

Orange is the New Black was ending when Michael saw the first tweets:

Michael: “Someone got shot at the rally downtown.”
Me: “Someone?”
Michael: “I think it was a cop. Or two.”
Me: “Oh god, this is going to be ugly.”

We spent the next few hours on Twitter and eventually started watching Facebook livestreams on the TV.

The Black Lives Matter march in downtown Dallas ended with a sniper firing into the crowd. All of the Dallas media outlets had a presence downtown, and everyone in the march had a smartphone, so we immediately got footage of the chaos.

It was like watching one of those “found footage” disaster movies – There were videos of gunshots, screaming crowds, and fallen policemen. But the live footage prompted more questions: How many people were dead? One sniper or three? Someone mentioned bombs. Are there really bombs? Are my new coworkers from the newspaper okay?

The local TV stations had to scramble to keep up with the pace of social media. At one point, a local news anchor just pulled up Tweetdeck and started reading tweets.

A news anchor pulling up Tweetdeck on live TV. Note that one of the columns says “competition.”

Your access to information depended on the strength of your Twitter lists, and it was apparent that the traditional TV outlets were hopelessly behind.

LGBT / Oak Lawn

Independence Day in Dallas

July 7, 2016

I spent my first 4th of July weekend in Dallas.

There were pool parties, new brunch places, drag shows, and even a trip to Fort Worth.

It was fun, yet exhausting. I was relieved when the weekend was over.

Perry Heights lined with American Flags for the 4th of July.

Architecture / Dallas

Lewisville and Denton

July 1, 2016

Michael used to live in Lewisville, a suburb of Dallas.

I had been to Lewisville a few times, and it seemed like pure sprawl: chain stores, fast food restaurants, big highways, and a massive landfill. When we finished cleaning out Michael’s old apartment, I got the brilliant idea to visit downtown Lewisville – a city of 100,000 people must have a cute downtown, right?

Well…

Shops and vintage signs in downtown Lewisville.

The Wayne Ferguson Plaza water feature has some very specific rules.

Best Week Ever / Oak Lawn

Best Week Ever 3-4: That Texas Heat

June 27, 2016

Best Week Ever posts are a summary of the past week

Texas summers are all about embracing the heat.

You’ll need plenty of water (and a shower) if you are outside for more than a few minutes. This translates shorter dog walks and a lot of laundry.

When we try to become more ambitious with the dog walks, we quickly regret it. Even our walks from Oak Lawn to downtown Dallas get dicey after 11 a.m.

LGBT / Oak Lawn

This is Bad

June 26, 2016

We started the evening with the mean girls at Alexandre’s cocktail lounge.

The mean girls are actually retirement-age men who park themselves at the bar in the afternoon and insult each other into the evening.

The quotes are amazing:

Statler: “Did Jack get a haircut?”
Waldorf: “No, it’s just falling out.”

Statler: “Can you hold your head up? You look like a turtle!”

Statler: “You guys are being nice for once. I’m suspicious. Is it my shirt?”
Waldorf: “No, that shirt is nice. It actually fits you for once.”

Oak Lawn

The Body

June 23, 2016

I saw a body on the morning dog walk.

Well, first I saw the bicycle cops near the Katy Trail.

Then I saw the tired-looking newswoman and the photographer.

A reporter at the scene of a suicide near Katy Trail.

I followed their gaze to the middle of the park, where a bunch of detectives and officers stood around a tarp that covered the body.

Oak Lawn / Restaurants

The People I Met

June 20, 2016

What a weekend! There were long dog walks on the Katy Trail, new restaurants, drag shows, and lots of new friends from all over the world.

There was John from Arkansas, Matt from Boston, Walter from Chicago, Carlos from Mexico, Victor, Geoffroy, and Kenneth – all from France… no one seems to be from Dallas, but so many people wind up here.

Well, except for Ty.
Ty is from Dallas. He’s the exception.

The large number of recent arrivals is why it is so easy to meet people in Dallas.

Most people are new and open to making new friends. It feels silly to point that out, but this is a huge contrast to Minnesota, where the saying was “A Minnesotan will give you directions to anywhere except their house.”

A full article about that is here, and my whining is here.

Pride flags hang over JR’s bar in Oak Lawn.

Having dinner at Ai Sushi in Oak Lawn (in the iLume building.)

The friendliness backfired this weekend.

We met one group of people at JR’s. Introductions were made, and people discussed where they came from and what they did for work.

Jack: “I am a Walmart manager.”
Me: “Oh that is so interesting! Our friend Jill works at Walmart too! I think she was Cedar Springs Taphouse. Let me text her.”
Jack: “Oh great…”

Jill arrives and Jack looks alarmed.

LGBT / memories / Oak Lawn

Last night, We marched

June 13, 2016

Last night, hundreds of people gathered at the Dallas LGBT Community Center to support the Pulse Nightclub shooting victims.

All of the important local politicians spoke – the mayor, the police chief, the county judge – and tried to reassure the Dallas gay community that we are safe. The crowd then marched the length of the gayborhood from the Resource Center to the Oak Lawn monument.

Cops and cameras were everywhere.

Mourners lay flowers and candles at the Oak Lawn Pulse memorial.