Via.

​As I've noted a few times, Mike Shropshire's Seasons in Hell, about the "worst team in baseball history" (the '73-'75 Texas Rangers), is my favorite sports book; probably has something to do with being raised on the '73-'75 Texas Rangers. Anyway.

On a very related note, a Friend of Unfair Park sends word: On Thursday Stage West in Fort Worth will debut Dallas playwright Larry Herold's latest, The Sports Page, set during Dallas Cowboys training camp in 1966. As Herold writes, he's been workshopping the piece for two years, and it's about "a young man desperate to be a big-time sportswriter [as he] heads for a showdown with a couple of crusty scribes, an attractive female TV reporter and a player who refuses to speak to the press."

To market the piece, says our Friend, Stage West has cut a series of chitchats with Shropshire as he recounts, among other things, boozin' it up on the sports beat during The Good Ol' Days and how the modern-day scribe's too buttoned-up and not havin' any damned fun. The whole collection follows, including the fifth and latest clip, which contains a very casually dropped bombshell about the first woman ever let into the Rangers' locker room in '75. Shropshire goes on to talk about the subsequent rise of the "talking doll" (as he refers to female sports journalists) and reveals how little has changed amongst some of the old guard.More >>

Etta James and the host of The !!!! Beat, Bill "Hoss" Allen

​Last night, I got a text from Peter Schmidt, who could not believe I've never written about a short-lived 1966 TV show called The !!!! Beat, hosted by iconic Nashville deejay Bill "Hoss" Allen. Wrote Peter, who'd come across it yesterday after a lunchtime discussion about Etta James turned up an extraordinary clip from the series, "Turns out the show was filmed at WFAA because Nashville had no color TV facilities."

Oh, right -- that's the show from which we used to pull Freddie King videos whenever they'd show up on YouTube. Which was but a tip of the tip of the iceberg: The series was shot on film and nationally syndicated (it debuted on WAII in Atlanta, for instance, on May 7, 1966), aired for 26 episodes and featured everyone from Otis Redding to Archie Bell and the Drells to Joe Tex to Louis Jordan, and featured no less than Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and David "Fathead" Newman in the house band.

​"And if you watch the show in order, Gatemouth begins with a beat-to-shit guitar ... and then a little bit into the show he gets a new guitar, so it looks better," says George Gimarc, who, but of course, is a student of the show. "When you have him trading licks with Freddie King, oh my God. And to see Little Gary Ferguson, who was Michael Jackson before Michael Jackson, and Barbara Lynn, who you forget played guitar." The first episode was shot on January 31, 1966; the next nine, during the first two weeks of February, many on the same day. Best Gimarc can tell, through his own research and chats with former WFAA cameramen, though The !!!! Beat was shot here, it never aired in Dallas.

But unlike WFAA's legendary Ron Chapman-hosted Sump'n Else, which aired locally from '65 till '68 and saw most of its footage erased almost immediately after broadcast, The !!!! Beat goes on: In 2005 German-based Bear Family released six volumes' worth of broadcasts, in addition to a CD compilation featuring some of the show's lesser-knowns. (Amazon has the DVDs too, at a higher price tag.) According to Gimarc, for decades the show was thought to be lost -- till, that is, Willie Nelson began going through and selling off his personal belongings when he had the taxman breathing down his neck in the early '90s. Rumor is, the entire collection was in his possession.More >>

​A Friend of Unfair Park reminds me: It's that time of the year again -- time for Dr. John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, to rank 75 major metros' literacy levels using a handful of criteria ("newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources") to make sweeping generalizations about the state of big cities' "social health." And after seeing an uptick in our ranking last year -- all the way up to 44, nothing to brag about -- Dallas now sits at No. 51. That's the lowest Dallas has ever scored since Miller began keeping score. Back in '08, matter of fact, we were all the way up to 38.5. But now? Austin and Plano rank ahead of us. But look out below, Fort Worth (No. 54) and Houston (No. 60!).

Below, where Dallas ranks in those individual categories mentioned above. Spoiler alert: It's the "Educational Attainment" score that really dragged us down.More >>

From long, long ago, George Gimarc with Iggy Pop, who's a pretty funny guy.

​If anyone would know the answer to the question, "Has there ever been an all-comedy radio station in Dallas?" it would be George Gimarc, who has spent most of a lifetime on Dallas radio whilst also collecting its related ephemera. No, he says. "Not that I'm aware of." Not till now, at least -- or February 1, to be specific. On that date Gimarc, the man behind KZEW's late-great The Rock and Roll Alternative and The Edge, will take control of 1700 on your AM dial. And he will replace KKLF's current programming, nothing more than a KLIF simulcast, with his own: all comedy, all the time.

We first told you about Gimarc's venture into the laugh factory in May 2010, back when he was launching what was then known as the Donkey Comedy Network. It has since changed names: 24/7 Comedy. And in recent months it has spread nationwide and even across the northern U.S. border: In October it took over the Emmis-owned frequency formerly occupied by KGSR's simulcast in Austin, and "we're killing it down there." Gimarc says the comedy format has also launched in Kansas City, Norfolk and Toronto, among other cities. And in coming weeks it will debut in Phoenix and Raleigh-Durham.

Says Gimarc, the deal in Dallas isn't necessarily permanent, at least not yet. At present KKLF is a Cumulus station, but it must sell the station following its acquisition of Citadel; the chain simply has too many local frequencies. And KKLF's an interesting spot on the AM dial: Originally licensed in Richardson it's not easy to pick up south of, say, LBJ. "We're bringing Comedy to North Dallas," Gimarc says. "Inside your building, I doubt you could pick up the signal because it doesn't have that much oomph. It's more of a McKinney-Sherman-Allen-Addison area kind of thing." Ah, The Golden Quadrangle.More >>

​For the past seven years Teresa Woodard's been a "popular" reporter and anchor for a Fox affiliate in St. Louis, where, as evidenced by the video sampler platter below, she's donned many different looks for all kinds of stories. (Among then: The Banfield.) But it says here that Woodard's about to start a new gig at WFAA-Channel 8 -- a homecoming for the Dallas native with the degree from A&M who spent time in Waco and Bryan. She starts after February sweeps. Probably why Hansen had to take a pay cut.
More >>

Till this morning, I'd never seen this 2-year-old Dallas-n-Arlington ad made by Victory Park-based TM Advertising as part of its Texas Tourism package; never had reason. (The Arts District! Souffles! The Dallas Cowboys!) But this morning we get word: The Texas Governor's Office of Economic Development and Tourism has opted to switch agencies, handing the account to another Dallas-based company: Slingshot in the West End.

Says the announcement, the state opted to go with Slingshot after a two-month review, and while most of the work will be done here Slingshot will also open an Austin office. Per the release: "Slingshot will be responsible for promoting domestic and international travel to the State of Texas through an integrated campaign including broadcast, print, digital, social media and experiential events." To which Texas Tourism's director Julie Chase adds: "Slingshot's proposal included quality strategic thinking and creative ideas, a thorough media plan and understanding of emerging platforms to reach our wide variety of target audiences."

The ad you see above, done for German bank ING DiBa, started running two weeks ago and has been online for a month. In it, as you can see, Your Favorite Dallas Maverick walks into a butcher shop and has a nibble of wurst. Says the woman with the meat: "What did we always used to say?" To which Dirk responds: "So you grow big and strong." Which, we discovered over the weekend, infuriated German vegans, who've taken to the bank's Facebook page to leave angry notes that read, far as I can tell, something along the lines of, "Stop meat in the television!" In related news, Rudolph's Market & Sausage Factory opens tomorrow morning at 9.

​It's been close to two years since Greg Davis, WRR's longtime general manager, left the city-owned classical-music radio station -- and, remember, he didn't quit, he retired. But tonight, buried in the stack of docs prepared for next week's council committee meetings, we find this bit of breaking news: The city's hired his replacement -- a classically trained pianist named Sarah Colmark, at right, who can presently be heard on KHFM 95.5 and 102.9 FM in New Mexico, where she's also the station manager and has been since 2008. (Says here she cleaned house when arriving in Albuquerque, where her father owned the station.)

Not sure how much she's being paid; that's something council will have to consider Tuesday at the Arts, Culture & Libraries Committee meeting and again at the January 25 full meeting. But, writes Assistant City Manager Joey Zapata in his memo to the council:

The compensation agreement includes a base salary, all benefits accruable to civilian employees, and an annual incentive amount tied to the station's performance regarding revenues. The main difference of this agreement from prior agreements is that the incentive amount is pre-established in the contract with specific benchmarks of operating revenue.

As you'll see below there's also a formal press release dated today -- first I've seen it -- in which María Munoz-Blanco, director of the Office of Cultural Affairs, has nice things to say about the hire, but of course. To which Colmark adds:

"WRR is a radio station with a great track record of bringing classical music to the community of Dallas and North Texas. I am excited to build upon the community's vision of a radio station that works to promote the arts, reaches a broad audience with quality classical programming, and connects with the business and arts communities. I look forward to working with the Friends of WRR and the Office of Cultural Affairs to ensure the continued success of classical radio in the community of Dallas and North Texas."

Details below.More >>

The video's been making the rounds all morning, first on Busted Coverage, then Deadspin, then everywhere else. Question is: Who owns those beards sitting with the Dallas Mavericks in Detroit last night? The Mavs' front office said: Dunno, ask Mark Cuban. So I did: "No idea," he wrote back. But now we know, courtesy Larry Brown Sports: "It turns out the fans in question are Aaron Cohen, a fashion designer who runs a clothing company called Revive, and a guy who goes by Chris Smokes on Twitter." Well, that explains everything.

John McKeon

​Yesterday we got word that John McKeon, the president and general manager of The Dallas Morning News since October 2007, was leaving, which publisher Jim Moroney confirmed via email. At which point a press release went out, leading with news of fourth-quarter 2011 earnings ("decrease of four to five percent compared to 2010, an improvement in the rate of decline compared to the third quarter of 2011," per head honco Robert Decherd) but also noting McKeon's adios ("as part of the Company's continued efforts to streamline operations"). Moroney assumes his duties.

This morning, Moroney also dispatched to Unfair Park his memo to the paper's staff, sent late last night, in which he informed them of McKeon's departure. It reads, in full:More >>