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Trinity River Expedition's Charles Allen was Julia Barton's guide for her Weekend America story over the weekend.

Ten years ago, former Dallas Observer contributor Julia Barton wrote on Salon about the giant ball of flaming space rock that destroyed Dallas -- c'mon, you don't remember NBC's Asteroid? On Saturday, on American Public Media's nationally broadcast Weekend America, she was back at it again -- only, the meteor had been replaced by (what else?) a high-speed toll road along the Trinity River's levees.

And it's a solid, thoughtful public-radio piece from a journalist who grew up in Dallas and is probably as conflicted about tomorrow's vote as most locals who don't spend every waking hour posting to blogs: "One side wants a quiet place to go and look at the river, and feel a little peace," she says after her day trekking down the trinity with guide Charles Allen. "The other side wants a canal for cars and trucks to escape gridlock downtown, and feel a little peace." Peace? Sure, but where's the fun in that? --Robert Wilonsky

At least this is a better photo than the one The News used today. When did Zac turn into a zombie, anyway?

About an hour ago, Dave Levinthal over at The Dallas Morning News broke the news that former Dallas Observer music editor Zac Crain has been removed from the mayoral ballot because he didn't collect enough valid signatures by the March 12 filing deadline.

I just got off the phone with Crain, who says the City Secretary's office told him he missed the required 473 valid signatures by 54 names. Why? Either people had moved out of Dallas since they signed the petition or they were "inactive voters" who hadn't voted recently enough. Neither of these reasons seemed to sit too well with Crain, who says he's going to investigate his removal and see if he can't get back on the ballot.

He did tell Unfair Park he's "pretty bummed out about it," but that he's also optimistic that this ain't over yet. Crain says his campaign manager, Jonathan Rector, has already found four signatures rejected by the city that Crain and his people believe are valid. Developing. In the meantime, feel free to write us in on your May ballot, because we totally have great ideas we're planning on stealing from Darrell Jordan. --Andrea Grimes

Saturday a packed Good Records hosted the CD release party for the two-disc Zac Crain for Mayor comp, with performances by Baboon, Dove Hunter and Erika Wennerstrom of Cincinatti's Heartless Bastards, who certainly appreciated the audience, despite most likely not knowing who this Crain character was. For those of you who've never seen Dove Hunter or attended a Good in-store, here's some video evidence of why you should do both. And for those of you with a craving for local music and a soft spot for the underdog, the Crain comp is now available for the ordering. --Noah Bailey.

Have you read Steve Blow this morning? No? Really, you should. It's top-notch stuff, no joke--The Man, more or less, taking seriously The Kid running for mayor. Love the headline: "Another Observer mayor? Web-savvy candidate is no joke." Love the description of our pal Zac Crain: "He's 32 and straddles the divide between young hipster and settled family man. But the latter seems to be winning out daily." Love Zac's attitude about all this: "Whatever happens, I took a stand." Not sure I love what his friend and former colleague has to say--did I really use the word "flair"?--but Blow did a nice job of taking seriously a mayoral candidate who's gonna have to take himself more seriously after this morning's paper. --Robert Wilonsky

The real amusing thing about the weekend's Silverado 350 Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway wasn't that rookie trucker chick Erin Crocker blew an engine on the first lap. Or that checker flag-grabber Clint Boyer led for 103 of the race's 148 laps, dueling ferociously with Nextel Cup chaser Kyle Busch in the final laps.

No, the most amusing spectacle was 28th-place finisher Robert Richardson, the 24-year-old McKinney native (and former SMU quarterback) who drove the No. 1 "Kinky for Governor" Chevy. The black truck featured hot pink lettering and independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman's mug on the tailgate and rear quarter panels. Texas politics has never been so pure. --Mark Stuertz

Kinky Friedman got naked for this Observer photo shoot three years ago. No way he regrets it now.

There's a huge cover story about The Jewboy Who Would Be Governor, Kinky Friedman, in the new issue of The Weekly Standard (not even makin' that up). It wonders of Friedman's candidacy, "Is it good for the Texans?," a reference to Stephen Schwartz's recent book Is It Good for the Jews? The Crisis of America's Israel Lobby--and a question my parents often ask of me, matter of fact. The Weekly Standard piece doesn't say much you couldn't have read, oh, here a year ago--with two notable exceptions.

First, he lays into a Dallas Morning News story from September 24 in which Christy Hoppe refuted Friedman's contention that Texas ranks last in the country in education. "Texas is 40th in spending per student," Hoppe wrote, "and there is no category assessed by the National Education Association in which Texas is last." Writer Matt Labash asked Friedman about the piece, and this is what he had to say: "Oh fuck that lady! We're forty-third, not fiftieth--yaaayyyyy!"

Then, toward the end of the story, Labash accompanies Friedman to Dallas for the one and only gubernatorial debate in early October, which would prove less a heated exchange of ideas than a dull quiz show in which everyone was the loser. Why Belo didn't get Alex Trebek to moderate the thing remains a mystery. Friedman fully expected to be grilled about several incidents in which he used language branded as racist by the Democrats who wanna push him out of the race, lest his spoil things for Chris Bell, and Republicans who would prefer to ignore Friedman all together. As Labash writes, "It's a bad rap for a guy who was a member of Students for a Democratic Society, who picketed segregation, who spent his entire irreverent music career making sport of the kind of yahoos they're suggesting he is."

Labash offers a great anecdote about the debate--one involving a comment he briefly considered using had Governor Rick Perry tried to use the race card. You read it for yourself; it might have made for great TV, but as Friedman says, "There's no mud on the high road." As for his own thoughts about his performance in the debate, during which Friedman unexpectedly looked a little like a man who hadn't spent most of his adult life on a stage, he says, "I stood toe to toe...and I feel good. Right now, I'm still voting for myself." --Robert Wilonsky

If this picture were at all legible, you could make out the four mayoral candidates gathered yesterday for small talk and lox yesterday at Temple Emanu-El.

I wouldn't consider it an entirely wasted Sunday morning. There were free Einstein Bros. bagels, after all, and lox and cream cheese; hell, that's worth a short drive right there. Of course, if I had known that in order to justify the gratis grub I'd have to sit for two hours listening to mayoral candidates Gary Griffith, Mitchell Rasansky, Darrell Jordan and my old pal and colleague Zac Crain agree with each other, well, I mighta stayed home and made my own breakfast.

As far as kick-offs go, this one at Temple Emanu-El was pretty tepid--a back-patting, small-talking, good-jobbing, atta-boying affair during which all four men agreed on the Trinity River project (shoulda been done earlier, oughta get done soon), public safety (it's the city's top priority), South Dallas (needs some economic development and a good sweeping) and education (go get one). Nobody picked a fight, nobody mentioned Zac's inexperience, nobody jumped on or picked on Rasansky when he said strong-mayor governments breed corrupt City Halls, nobody brought up the fact Jordan's already run for mayor and lost once before. Read this morning it was "the first salvo in what's expected to be a heavily contested race to succeed outgoing Mayor Laura Miller." More like a first date. Said Dr. Richard Wasserman, the forum's moderator, after the 90-minute discussion: "There were not a lot of meaningful answers" here this morning, "but it's still early."

Probably the most interesting thing to come from it was Wasserman's announcement before the forum that eight potential candidates had been contacted and only five agreed to show; the fifth, Bill Blaydes, withdrew his RSVP after deciding he was not going to for mayor, which left the final four. Of course, they'll be joined by other potential candidates in coming months--like, oh, Gromer Jeffers' man crushes Rafael Anchia and Don Hill or council member Ed Oakley. Till then, we're kinda in a holding pattern with events like this, during which only one actual idea was thrown out--Zac wants to eliminate court-appearance overtime for police officers, thus saving the department money it can use to hire more cops--and generalities were served up like smoked salmon.

If I were Zac, I woulda held up my copy of the October Esquire--the one with Brad Pitt on the cover and, yup, Zac Crain on page 212. You see, Zac was asked to write about himself for the magazine's "100 Things, Ideas & People You Need to Know Right Now" issue; he's at No. 28 on the list, as "The MySpace Candidate." Got almost a full page with a big picture; he shares it only with No. 38, "Omega 3's: The New Flouride," which is also Darrell Jordan's campaign slogan, if I am not mistaken.

So, see, if I were Zac--or his campaign managers or his PR person--I woulda copied the article, handed it out to all 125 people at the temple and taunted my opponents with the thing. Or I would have read it as my opening remarks, eliminating only the reference to emo bands; don't think my mom and her buddies would have gotten the joke, but who knows.

Still, I can predict our next mayor based on two observations. Darrell Jordan with his white hair parted in the middle, looks like a mayor. Maybe the mayor of a small southern town in the late 1950s, but a mayor nonetheless. And then there was this conversation taking place at my table. "They haven't said anything," said one woman to her husband. "Yeah," said the husband, "but Darrell Jordan says nothing the best." Ladies and gents, I give you the next mayor of the city of Dallas. --Robert Wilonsky

This sounds like just the thing to kick off your Sunday morning: having a nosh with Bill Blaydes, Gary Griffith, Darrell Jordan and Mitchell Rasansky. But all those announced and likely mayoral candidates will in fact be at Temple Emanu-El this very Sunday at 9 a.m. participating in a...what, round-table discussion? Debate? Bar mitzvah? Oh, says in the e-mail I got this morning it's a panel called "The Future of Dallas--2007 Mayoral Race," which, lookie here, will also include our old pal Zac Crain--or Zachary, as he's billed in the missive, which refers to the former Observer writer as "investigative journalist; invested citizen." Throw in "roguish ladies' man," and you got yourself a can't-miss movie pitch.

If you wanna go--and we wouldn't miss this for anything in the world, except sleep--e-mail moderator Richard Wasserman and ask him if there's room. Far as we know, you need not be a member of the temple or its brotherhood to attend. See ya there. Me, I don't miss a free bagel. --Robert Wilonsky

Since I've seen that one serious photo of Zac on his Web site a million times, I am using this one taken (by Aden Holt, I think) when Zac appears to have been 24. Or 8. Hard to say.

Not 10 minutes after a helpful city employee faxed over my old pal Zac Crain's campaign finance report late yesterday, we got a press release from the mayoral candidate's publicist, Melissa Conger. In it the former Observer music editor all but chastised his opponents--by which I mean Darrell Jordan and Gary Griffith--for raising tons of dough almost a year before the election. "I think it's ridiculous that people would actually base someone's frontrunner status on the amount of money they've raised," says Crain (fine, says Zac). "If you're talking to only wealthy contributors and interest groups, you can get $200,000 fairly easily. But you'll also have a ton of favors lined up that need to be taken care of in the next four years." According to the doc filed at City Hall, Zac has raised considerably less than his competitors: $140 thus far, which doesn't include the $1,851 worth of donated goods and services from the likes of campaign manager Lindsay Graham, legal counsel Robert Jenkins and "Creative Rounder-Upper & Webmaster" Don Cento. (That includes everything from barbecue for his April 24 campaign kick-off at the Sons of Hermann Hall to funds needed to rent a P.O. box and pay for "Vote Crain" buttons.) Incidentally, if you want to hear where Zac stands on the issues, you can access his interview with the folks at DallasBlog here. Or you can go to his Web site, which includes a lengthy section containing his thoughts on everything from how to handle the homeless to dealing with economic development.

Conger's press release has different figures than his campaign finance report; she lists Zac as having $2,675 in hand. Perhaps that's the result of his new "$7 for '07" drive, in which Zac's asking for pocket change from his supporters--instead of thousands. Or hundreds. Or dozens. Conger says Zac's gotten almost 3,000 visitors to his site, and that he "currently has 810 MySpace friends." (Incidentally, that stat forces Conger to explain what MySpace is: "an internet community that has tens of thousands of young voting age individuals who call Dallas home." To the older people out there reading this--say, those in your late 90s--it's also a swell place to post songs that Rupert Murdoch will claim as his property, meet underage people and have sex with them and hang with other members of the illiterati. Pardon the tangent.) Make no mistake, Zac says: He ain't got much money, but you can't buy sincerity. "I hope the pundits and politicians underestimate us all the way to election day," Zac says at the end of the missive. "I know that people are getting what we're doing on MySpace and plenty of other places no one will think to look...I'd rather have 2,000 people give me $7 than seven people give me $2,000. Those people don't ask for favors. They only ask for change." One question: Why hasn't TXU head electrician Erle Nye contributed to Zac's campaign? He's already given to Jordan and Griffith. Play fair and pony up already, Reddy Kilowatt. --Robert Wilonsky

Everybody knows why Laura Miller's not running for mayor. And everyone knows who'll take her place. Yeah. Right. Fine. Whatever.

It's not surprising to read this morning so many takes on Mayor Laura's announcement yesterday, first to KTVT-Channel 11's Sarah Dodd and then later to The Dallas Morning News' Emily Ramshaw, that she's not going to seek re-election. There's the one about how it wasn't Laura's decision at all, but one made for her by husband Steve Wolens, who will surely use his wife's retirement from politics to run for statewide office once again. There's rampant speculation about who will run, about who could win, about who shouldn't even bother. There's this editorial about how she was the right person in the right place at the right time--though, in typical Dallas Morning News hemming and hawing, it was "for better and for worse." (Speaking of wanting it both ways and then offering nothing, there is Steve Blow's take: "It's hard to know what to make of Laura Miller's mayorship at this point," which will comes as news to her supporters and detractors alike.) And then there's the theory that she was going to lose anyway, given how black folks hate her and white folks were turning on her in droves. And then there's the mayor's own pronouncement that she'd accomplished what she could--the Wright Amendment agreement (that Congress still needs to approve before it counts), the overhaul of the Trinity River project (that hasn't even begun construction)--and that it was time to spend time with her kids, who range in age from 16 to 11. And, of course, our own Jim Schutze wrote last night that Miller was leaving because, hell, who wants that lousy job to begin with, having to deal with 14 petulant, whiny brats who have only their own interests at heart and care little about the city as a whole. It's like being the mayor at a nursery school, where every 4-year-old's running around going, "Mine, mine, mine."

There will be much gnashing of teeth and spilling of virtual ink about this subject for the next long while; everyone's going to run for mayor now, possibly even you, and from today till the election in May we'll hear and see plenty of pieces about the phalanx of would-bes and wanna-bes vying for The Worst Job in Dallas. And because it's a job no one in their right mind should really want--at least, not until the mayor's a strong mayor, which was never going to happen with such a strong woman holding the position--it comes as little surprise to some of us that Miller decided not to run again. In fact, she's been considering this for a year--since at least the FBI began its investigation into corruption at City Hall in June 2005, if not before. Schutze and I met with the mayor last summer, and she hinted as much: She might not run, because how could one expect to get anything done at a place of business populated by the greedy, the spoiled, the indifferent and the inept, not to mention the being-investigated-by-the-feds. For a while, Miller even toyed with beginning a blog, which surely would have signaled the end of her political aspirations; one can't spill the beans without spilling a little blood as well. Then she said she was going to run after all. Then, yesterday, she called Dodd to the Preston Hollow manse and said, in essence, take this job and shove it.

When Miller left the Dallas Observer to run for city council in December 1997, we announced her campaign by proclaiming, "Mr. Mayor, Meet Your Nightmare." At the time, she was frustrated about so many things--chief among them, how secretive City Hall was about its dealings with Ross Perot Jr. concerning what would become the American Airlines Center and Victory Park ("Perot Palace," she called the project) and how Al Lipscomb had managed to remain on the council for so long even after taking so much from others in exchange for his vote--and said, "Unbeknownst to the people who dared talk to me, I was contemplating a radical approach to this age-old problem of getting routine information from Dallas City Hall. I was going to stop whining and get even. I was going to run for the Dallas City Council." (You really should go back and read her piece from nine years ago; it's an astounding mixture of rage and optimism.) She won her council seat, then was elected mayor twice. I will leave it to others to speculate whether she could have won a third time, but now it's a moot point. She's out, come this time next year. She'll be spending time with her kids. Or maybe writing the book she talked about doing years ago, when first contemplating the second career in politics. Probably shopping at Whole Foods. Or whatever it is people do when they've had enough. --Robert Wilonsky

Last Zac Crain posting of the month; swear. (Fine--none in May either.) I just thought this one merited a mention because of its source--not a hometown blog, but venerable national journalism trade mag Editor & Publisher, which seems tickled by the fact "the former music editor for the alternative weekly Dallas Observer has thrown his hat into the ring to replace the current mayor of Dallas--another former Dallas Observer columnist." See, it's not just us. --Robert Wilonsky

I have no idea how serious a mayoral candidate Zac Crain will be come next year's elections; Lord knows he's swimming in a crowded pool that will likely include not only Mayor Laura Miller, but also attorney and perennial candidate Darrell Jordan, council members Don Hill and Bill Blaydes (and, just maybe, one or two others), former Mayor Pro Tem Max Wells and a handful of wealthy white businessmen who see running this city as their destiny. And I can't, for the life of me, come up with a good reason why fomer council member Domingo Garcia shouldn't run again; after his showing at the immigration-rights megamarch, his profile and chances will never again be this high. There will be many familiar and famous faces vying for Miller's center seat, and with their candidacies will come a lot of money, a lot of coverage and a lot of noise.

So where does that leave Zac, the former Observer music editor, current American Way editor and a friend of many in media and local music circles? (Here's a guy who can get Gentleman Scholar Peter Schmidt, DallasCEO editor Adam McGill and pediatrician-to-the-stars Chris Dreiling in the same room; Zac's a uniter, not a divider.) Truth be told, nobody knows at this early date; his advisors will do their best to help him craft a thoughtful, invigorating message and stick to it, which is all one can ask. Last night at the Sons of Hermann Hall, with a soundtrack provided by Shibboleth and Sorta, he debuted the very first plank in his campaign: the reasons why he's running. He spoke of his 2-year-old son and of raising his son in this son in the city. "I realized two things: One, I wasn't very happy with [Dallas], and two, I wasn't doing much to change that fact."

He referred to a story he wrote for the Observer about photographer Hal Samples, who uses pictures of the homeless to illuminate their plight. Zac said a handful of the people he met on the streets two years ago are dead or in prison; surely, he suggested, that's a low estimate. But Dallas has had a plan for the homeless for 16 years, Zac said, one that was shelved and forgotten after being paid for. That's how Dallas does things, he insists: The city thanks the planners, writes them a check and sends them on their way, putting their proposals in drawers that turn into black holes.

"We have enough plans," he said. "It's time to start acting on them. And I'm gonna be the one to do that...The future of this city is bought and paid for. It's just on layaway. And the good thing is we all have a claim ticket, and it's called a vote. And if you give that to me, I'll go down to City Hall and bring back what already belongs to us." And with that, Shibboleth launched into the theme from the TV show Dallas.

After his speech, a local musician said he'd become convinced Zac wasn't just joking about his campaign--ya know, he's no Pat Paulson. "I still need to hear more, of course," he said, "but I'm glad I won't be voting for him just because he's a friend." And that was the vibe among most: It was a great start for the political novice, but just a start. There's a long way to go, and there are a lot of people to convince and climb over. But it's a start. --Robert Wilonsky

I'm asked this three times a day, at the very least: "Zac's kidding, right?" Or, "What's Zac thinking?" Or, "He's not serious, is he?" Seems no one wants to take former Observer music editor, and my good friend, Zac Crain at his word when he says he's running for Dallas mayor in order to save the city from the complacency and corruption that has turned the so-called Can Do City into the Can't Do Nothing For Ya Man City. Seems everyone wants to marginalize him as either an American Airlines-employed stooge doing the Wright thing for his employer (he's an editor at inflight mag American Way), or as a guy whose sole purpose in life was to piss off shitty local bands way back when. Never mind that during his last few years here, Zac wrote about issues involving code compliance and the homeless; never mind the fact he's 31 now, no longer a kid sharpening his teeth on the bones of Deep Ellum. He says he's sincere, he says he's serious, and I believe him. Find out if you do tonight at the Sons of Hermann Hall, when Zac delivers his first campaign speech at around 8 p.m.--between sets by Shibboleth and Sorta and food catered by the All Good Cafe. If nothing else, come see me. I'll be introducing Zac--not as an Observer writer shilling a candidate, but as the guy who hired him at the Observer 10 years ago and has been trying to make it up to him ever since. --Robert Wilonsky

They ain't making Jews like Kinky anymore: The would-be gov spoke to a crowd at Bill's Records and Tapes at noon on Saturday.

Kinky Friedman has but three weeks left to submit to the state the 45,450 signatures he (and fellow independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn Rylander Jingle Heimer Schmidt) needs to get on the ballot in the fall. On Saturday, during a stump'n'sign at Bill's Records and Tapes, Friedman claimed to be closing in on 100,000 signatures--"and we'll need 'em," he said. That's true: Probably plenty of folks who signed his petitions didn't realize they couldn't cast a single vote for anyone in the primaries or need to be registered voters; plenty of suspicious minds are claiming Gov. Rick Perry's peeps will do all they can to loophole the independents into a black hole and make it a two-man race, as if, with Democratic candidate Chris Bell. (I know, I know—who? No, not the dead guy from power-pop pioneers Big Star.) And Perry has every reason to want Strayhorn and Friedman out of the race and off the debate dais; they'll muss his hair and kick his ass and send him back to teeth-whitening class.

I've heard Friedman's campaign speech plenty of times in the past year, and it's starting to sound less like a stand-up routine and more like a stand-for-something pep talk. I truly dig his retro JFK shtick: "Ask not if you're proud of Texas; ask if Texas is proud of you." It's actually a hell of a closer, coming on the heels of tangible policy statements (if he were gov, Texas would switch to biodiesel; casino gambling would get raised and called; and he supports a guest worker program that allows for some 400,000 new guest workers per year) that prove he's not just making this up as he goes. No longer can you dismiss him as the novelty candidate; cover stories like the one in the new issue of Texas Music that seek to strip the giggles out of his laugh track are old hat at this late date. He says more in a 15-minute speech at Bill's than most candidates offer in a lifetime on the meet-and-greet circuit, and the nearly 200 folks, ranging from twentysomething stoners to sixtysomething reformed storners, who stuck around two hours for handshakes and autographs suggest he's no longer a politican novelty act.--Robert Wilonsky