Dallas News Blog

T.J. principal Edward Conger

​The Texas Tribune's Brian Thevenot has been studying the U.S. Department of Education's latest pile of funds slated for Texas schools -- $390 million aimed at rescuing the lowest performers -- and asks whether the program's good intentions will wreak havoc on schools doing their best to do better. Take, for instance, Thomas Jefferson High School -- easily, the best high school in the history of the Dallas Independent School District, especially when compared to, oh, W.T. White.

At T.J., the principal -- one Edward Conger, former Marine -- has been known to get very Joe Clark on his students: "If his students don't do their homework, it generates an immediate call home and a mandatory two-hour stay after school." (OK, so it's Joe Clark Lite.) Conger's also tough on teachers. And it's working to turn around T.J., writes Thevenot: "Just 18 months after Conger's arrival, the school has upped its overall ranking from 19th out of the 22 DISD high schools to sixth. In math, 72 percent of its students posted a passing rate on the TAKS test this year, compared to just 42 percent last year."

Still, the school -- which proudly displays a ginormous banner (I see it twice a day) advertising its achievements -- is considered "struggling." And if it wants a piece of the feds' pie, it'll have to do one of four things ... two of which involve axing the principal and most of the teachers. (The other two: going charter or going away altogether.) T.J. could use a few million, absolutely, but I wouldn't mess with the Marine.

A conceptual rendering of the Dallas Watersports Complex. Which piece, we're not sure.

​Among the several nonprofit groups updating media folks this afternoon at the Trinity Trust was the Dallas Watersports Complex, which surprised us, since, well, we hadn't heard of it. Victor Toledo, who was there representing the DWC, explained why.

"We purposely haven't talked about it much until we had all our permits in hand," he said.

With 13 of 15 permits in hand and zoning approved in December, Toledo said the DWC is on track to break ground at the end the month and could open sometime in April. The complex, which Toledo said he hopes will soon become a for-profit entity, is a cable waterskiing and wakeboarding park where riders are pulled by an overhead cable at approximately 18 miles per hour.

Located in West Dallas on Fishtrap Lake near the corner of Singleton Boulevard and North Hampton Road, Toledo said it will be the 10th such complex of its kind in the country and also the largest one in the U.S.

Update: As more than one Friend of Unfair Park has pointed out, yes, we teased this water sports complex last May, when West Dallas Chamber president Toledo announced it during a "State of the West" speech.

Justin Terveen

​Several Friends of Unfair Park, including the man responsible for this photo, have asked in recent days: What gives with the Chase Tower's color-scheme makeover? One call to building management later, and I can assure you: It has nothing to do with Valentine's Day or NBA All-Star Weekend doings. Rather, it's in support of the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign, and it'll remain that shade till month's end. Here's how it looks when incorporated into the skyline.

​Reserved seating in Los Angeles movie theaters has been around a few years, and patrons love it. But, far as I know, that incentive has yet to make its way to Dallas. Till now: Studio Movie Grill sends word that it's offering reserved seating beginning pronto. Truth is, Schultz and his director of marketing, Tearlach Hutcheson (ex of Landmark, Magnolia and AFI Dallas), began beta-testing the concept before Christmas, though it was evident only to online ticket-buyers.

"And it did well," Hutcheson tells Unfair Park. "The funny thing is, we didn't even promote it, but from the very get-go, people started reacting to it. There are a lot of benefits: One, they know they can get the seats they want, and if you're going with a group, well, you know how hard it is to get more than two seats together." Then he mentions it's been a real big hit with parents booking birthday parties: "It's nice being able to make sure all the kids can sit together."

Schultz and Hutcheson picked a handful of rows in each theater -- "we picked what we thought were the best seats." But reservations are only taken if you buy a seat and $12 food-and-drink coupon. Ah, but no rushing to the googolplex and waiting in line and hoping like hell you don't get stuck in the front? Priceless.

​Friend of Unfair Park PeterK shares yet another unusual eBay find: a 1903 cabinet card featuring one William Doyle, who, best I can tell, played for the mighty Dallas Giants of the Texas League from 1903 till 1905 -- during which time he counted among his teammates one Branch Rickey, otherwise known as the man who hired Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Unlike most of Peter's finds, this one isn't cheap: The one-off, made at Sanger Bros. most likely for Doyle himself, is currently going for $549 -- about $250 more than it sold for last summer. Nonetheless, it does give me good reason to post to a history book that's online in its entirety: Chris Holaday and Mark Presswood's 2004 Baseball in Dallas.

Dallas IMAX Aerial Showcase from Phillip Thomas on Vimeo.

You may not know the name, but you're very familiar with the work of filmmaker Phillip Thomas -- he's the man behind the camera for such things as the Dallas Mavericks' home-opening videos, the IMAX intro at Museum of Nature & Science in Fair Park, countless commercials and, no kiddin', this Queenryche video. Over the weekend, Thomas posted to Vimeo his time-lapse aerials taken of downtown -- both day and during the night -- that have been cut and pasted into a few of his shorts; I've left messages, but this appears to be the first time he's let the whole reel roll. After the jump, a bonus: his State Fair of Texas short.

Farouk Shami

​Tonight's the Democratic gubernatorial debate at KTVT HQ in Fort Worth -- can't wait! In advance of what could be an epic showdown, "hair-care guru" Farouk Shami sends word that he's picked up the endorsement of Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway following a Friday-night winding held by the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. From the confusingly written release:

Caraway and Shami met recently during one of Shami's many campaign stops and said that he was impressed with the gubernatorial candidate for several reasons, but mostly because "he speaks with experience and from the heart. He speaks about issues -- jobs, economic development -- that affect the average citizen and those who have not had a voice for some time." said Caraway. "He is real and he is committed."

"I am proud to have this endorsement," said Shami. "Mayor Caraway is very much in touch with the communities I am trying to help by creating jobs and those who have been impacted most by the economic downturn."

​Maybe I'll get around to writing this for City of Ate: Why can't Dallas do a proper Hebrew deli? Sure -- it's a dying art and an endangered species. So says David Sax in his book Save the Deli; as NPR put it a few months back, he's on a mission to save the Jewish deli, close to a permanent shalom in the foresaken flyover. Which I mention this morning only because Roasters' N Toasters, the Preston Road outpost of the Miami mainstay, has served its last pastrami sandwich and bowl of matzo ball soup.

The Dallas location remains on the Web site, but Danny Kaplan, president of Roasters, tells Unfair Park from Miami this morning the deli closed two weeks ago: "It wasn't doing the kind of business we expected." Which makes this ... what, the third deli to shutter in that location at Preston and LBJ? (After Deli News Too and Ed's Deli.) "I'm disappointed," says Kaplan, who blames the deli's poor performance on management, his own mispacha. And, whatever you do, don't ask him about Zinsky's. Roasters didn't even make it a year.

I miss Walls. And Bagelsteins. Come back, Gilbert's. All is ... forgiven?

Patrick Michels

​Let the branding begin as we transition from Super Bowl ads to NBA All-Star Week advertisers. Here's a sneak peak at what to expect over the next few days as Dallas (and some place called Arlington?) becomes a city-sized billboard hawking everything from T-Mobile to Gatorade to Foot Locker to Auto Trader to HP products. Says the NBA's executive veep of marketing partnerships, "All-Star Weekend happens to be one of the biggest pieces of our assets, the reason being it's a place where a huge number of fans gather: avid, casual and those who are just interested because this is the one time of the year where the best players on earth are together." Which is why Taco Bell's giving away free tacos from the back of a purple truck. Or is that just a hoax?

​While Major Mike's off helping Haiti, I spent my Saturday on the Code 58 set at Fair Park, where Bradley Whitford, Colin Hanks and their castmates took a day off from filming Matt Nix's buddy-cop action-comedy to talk to local media in between publicity-still shoots. We'll have more forthcoming from a shooting-day set visit scheduled this week; expect something in the paper version of Unfair Park closer to the May sneaks on FOX, as the show shoots here till July.

Till then, then, a few quick odds and sods from the day, among them: Yesterday, Code 58 had company on the Fair Park grounds as NBC's The Biggest Loser was shooting in the Swine Building. Just as I walked by the building, 'round 1:30 in the afternoon, a white van full of contestants pulled up and emptied out into the attached arena. They were all wearing cowboy hats, and they did not look amused.

Back to Code 58, when Hanks first got a script, the series -- about a drunken burnout living in an Airstream parked beneath the Texas Star (Whitford) partnered with a clean-cut ambitious comer (Hanks) -- was set in Los Angeles. The show, Hanks tells Unfair Park, "did not change much" when Nix opted to set it in Dallas. But Hanks had just "begrudgingly moved back to L.A." when he was told, sorry, you're moving to Dallas. "But that's what it's like when you join the circus: As soon as you move, you get a job that takes you somewhere else," he says. "The only difference is, this job could conceivably go on for six years."