Hunt County Sheriff's Office

Sam Lone Wolf, aka a bunch of other names

Earlier this month, I wrote a cover story so bizarre, I had to periodically check official documents just to be sure I had not wandered into the realm of magical realism. Yes, in fact, a sacred white buffalo was born to a Greenville rancher named Arby Little Soldier during a lightning storm in 2011. Indeed, Little Soldier, as far as I know, still maintains said white buffalo was slain as a result of a Cheyenne conspiracy.

See also:
- A White Buffalo's Death Breeds Suspicion and Lies

I'm not spoiling much by saying we may never know the whole truth, but the white buffalo was not mutilated by conspiratorial Native Americans wielding skinning knives, perhaps at the behest of Ted Nugent.

There was another character, though, who I found even more fascinating, but I couldn't plumb his strange background as much as I would have liked, primarily for the sake of column inches.

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Wikipedia

Painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec will not make it to this week's Little People of America convention. Because, you know, he's French.

It just so happens that this week, both the Little People of America, which provides support to people with dwarfism, and the National Federation for the Blind, which advocates for people who can't see, are hosting their annual conferences in Dallas.

A coincidence, no doubt, but it got me thinking about logistics, or how exactly a hotel or convention center accommodates hundreds or thousands of people who have the same physical limitation. MSNBC reported on the steps Dallas hotels are taking to welcome the short-statured attendees of the LNA conference, which is happening at the Sheraton on Olive Street. This includes stools at registration desks and beside beds as well as dowel rods to reach buttons on the elevator. And DFW Airport is permanently installing retractable steps in all of its bathrooms to make reaching the sink easier.

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Photo by Leslie Minora

The in-the-works core of innovative disaster relief housing.

Walk across SMU's campus, a mini-city of stately brick buildings and pristine open spaces, and you'll stumble across an odd sight this week: a wood-framed prototype meant for housing relief after natural disasters, built sturdily on a swath of green at the center of campus. It's the latest work of bcWORKSHOP, the nonprofit community design firm founded by Brent Brown of Dallas' City Design Studio, and it's shaping up as an interesting innovation in post-disaster housing.

The idea sprang up after Hurricane Dolly in 2008, which devastated southern Texas. The state awarded money to three counties to fund the creation of prototypes for innovative housing relief for those displaced by Mother Nature. bcWORKSHOP met last summer with residents of Cameron County to learn the priorities of those who had been displaced by the storm and determine how best to meet their needs through housing.

Then, it was time to create a prototype.

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Kinda beautiful, right? It's like a baby -- the arrival is joyous, even if some think its conception was regretful. No use dwelling on the labor pains. (Or, to sum up in the inimitable words of hard-hitting Dallas Morning News Metro columnist, it's "nice." Don't think so? Then discuss.)

... brought to you by videographers, Justin Terveen and Jeffrey McWhorter, and editor, Justin Ransom, via You + Dallas.

The Tablet Claw: coming to a meeting room near you?

Those ideas, the ones you can't shake and would love to invent, the ones you imagine would make a cool million in an instant -- they're the ones Buddy DiFonzo and Mike Solow are looking for. Friends from their software sales jobs, they started a company called Idea Harvest, which matches idea people with designers and manufacturers, streamlining the inventing process and landing them a profit based on clients' success.

Their inaugural project is an idea of their own: the Tablet Claw. Less than a year ago, DiFonzo sat in the crowd at a company conference when the speaker fumbled and dropped the iPad he was using to deliver the presentation. "It flew out of his hand," DiFonzo says. That's when he realized that tablets are slippery as hell, and there's an uncornered market to making them graspable.

He texted Solow to discuss the idea over lunch. They were both in. DiFonzo researched currently available products that would make it easier to grip the device during a presentation. There was stuff out there, but it was "bulky," "nerdy," "not iPad cool." They imagine their product could be used by pharmaceutical salespeople, anyone delivering a presentation, or by casual users.

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Caleb Winter Massey and his table of rayguns at the Deep Ellum Outdoor Market Saturday afternoon

​We stopped by the Deep Ellum Outdoor Market Saturday and were pleasantly surprised by the breadth of vendors on hand. But we spent a good 30 minutes at the Red Ranger Ray Guns table, where the 7-year-old who lives in my house and other wee passers-by discovered the possibilities presented by discarded Nerf guns, Super Soakers, power washers and other household items brought back to the future. What you see above are but a few of the items rescued from the dustbin by Caleb Winter Massey, who hawks his wares via Etsy, where he writes of his obsession:

My first exposure to ray guns and their unparalleled awesomeness was on a fourth grade field trip. Some science dude was talking about something, but I honestly don't remember anything about that lecture. The ray gun he was holding had taken control of my mind. It was the Hubley Atomic Disintegrator with it's clean, classic look and wonderful red handle. I had the brief opportunity to hold this masterpiece and never wanted to let go.

​Some of the items you see above are just for show; Massey, it should be noted, fabricated the arsenal used in Theatre Three's 2010-2011 Main Stage season-opener Sherlock Holmes in the Crucifer of Blood. But two of the rifles made noise and lit up, while the so-called Neutralizers and Gophers you see here fire Nerf darts (and further than you'd think). They run $18 and come with quite the, ahem, backstory:

The Red Rangers were founded in 1885 as a Special-Ops branch of the Texas Rangers to combat the increasing tide of railroad pirates. They became pioneers in advanced weaponry, employing the use of the greatest scientific minds of their time. With their genius, the Red Rangers developed the most awe inspiring display of atomic and steam powered devices ever witnessed. These are those creations. They have been declassified and made available to civilians. For the health and safety of you and your family, all weapons have had their energy cores drained.

Better still, they're considered quite the green machines: Last month, Massey's creations made Recycling.com's list of Fifteen Custom-Built Recycled Nerf Guns.

Click to embiggen Kevin and Kerry's action figures. Use The Iron Claw, if you must.

​Long story short: Upon learning from Zac Crain this morning of the death of Jimmy Wehba -- that's Garland's own Skandor Akbar to you and my grandfather, who spent every Saturday night tuned to wrestling on Channel 11 so way back when -- I spent way too much time stumbling down Amnesia Lane. Which, long story shorter, led me to the website of Kevin Von Erich, who I cover-storied for the paper version of Unfair Park years ago. And it was there I learned that Mattel's coming out with Kevin and Kerry Von Erich action figures sooner than later.

Turns out, they were introduced at Comic-Con in San Diego a few weeks back. Mattel's introducing its first installment in the WWE® Legends Hall of Fame Series next weekend at Kmarts (none in Dallas, alas), but no word on when Kerry and Kevin surface. I've left word for Mattel's L.A. PR reps. For my kid, you see.

​My wife and the 7-year-old who lives in our house happened to be downtown close to 12 sharp and stopped by Thanksgiving Tower for Project Bandaloop's noontime show, which went off a little earlier than originally announced; hence they missed the whole thing, then opted not to stand in a looooong line for a taco and a Popsicle (besides, their meter was running out -- ahem). But several very-impressed Friends have submitted their thumbs-up recaps, and our Nick Rallo got there just in time for the wrap-up, which, truth told, doesn't look a heckuva lot different than yesterday's sneak preview. Which is why it's on the other side. Still, though -- impressive.More »

SpyHunter007

Back in 1982, Ben Gold was the greatest Stargate player of all time, setting the world record in Richardson.

​Thanks to this brief heads-up on the NBC5 Web site, I just spent the last little while researching Ben Gold, the local man set to be inducted into the brand-spankin'-new International Video Game Hall of Fame in Ottumwa, Iowa, on August 7. Hard to believe I didn't know anything about Gold till now: He was a member of the very same U.S National Video Game Team in 1983 that featured Billy Mitchell, star of the Donkey Kong doc The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters, which sits firmly among My Favorite 12 Movies of All Time (though Gold has some issues with it).

And, way back when, Gold was featured on That's Incredible, profiled in the Dallas Times Herald and written up in a massive Life magazine spread on the National Video Game Team. More recently he showed up in the doc Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade -- and, as Gold mentioned when we spoke moments ago, he was on Bob Sturm and Dan McDowell's Ticket show last Friday.

Gold says he's known since March or April that he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame, but it became official about a month ago. He's among an estimable debut class -- not only is he among such famous players as Mitchell and rival Steve Wiebe, but also console creator Ralph Baer and Atari creator Nolan Bushnell. And though he's longtime pals with the hall's organizers, Gold is honored to be included amongst the class.

"In 1983, when I was in Life magazine, for a six to 12-month period, I was 'famous,'" he says. "I got phone calls from time to time from the media, and when I went to video-game functions there was a lot of interest. And then when video games became less popular, there was almost nothing for 20 years. Then, in 2005, there was a rebirth. I guess it was when competitive video-gaming became a big deal ,and that's when Chasing Ghosts happened, in '05 they came to Dallas, And then in '07 it premiered at Sundance, and then King of King came out. Chasing Ghosts fizzled, and King of Kong made Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe household names. But now, all of the sudden, with the hall of fame, I started getting a lot of inquiries, which is weird."

Which is why Gold just posted several flashbacks to YouTube, including footage from his That's Incredible and PM Magazine appearances. Those are on the other side. I'll have more with Gold before his trip to Iowa. We're grabbing a beer in a couple of days. And we might just play some Stargate. Because the HR rep says he doesn't play much these days, but he's "still reasonably good at Millipede."More »

​... I present to you the story of one Richard Jordan, a local man whose tale of traveling cross-country in a Lamborghini Gallardo has become a smash hit over on Jalopnik since it was posted yesterday. Friend of Unfair Park The Big Guy sent it my way late Thursday, along with this summation to explain its appeal here and, clearly, elsewhere: "From Dallas, sells his business, buys a house for girl, they break up, chucks it all, sells all his shit, buys a lambo, drives the lambo all over the place, gets 54 tickets, loses house, blows up car engine, returns to Dallas to build motorcycles." That, right there, that's poetry.