The Cliburn isn’t the only traditional Fort Worth competition running this week. The Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial tees off too. The drama of the Tiger Woods-Sergio García foofaraw will skip us, with neither golfer in attendance, but two-time winner Zach Johnson will still be on hand to defend his title from last year. The tournament runs Wed-Sun at Colonial Country Club, 3735 Country Club Cir, FW. Single-day tickets are $45. Passes are $100-3,700. Call 817-927-4200.

THU ▪ 23

Monty Python fans can find a forerunner of the troupe’s humor in Round the Horne, a BBC radio show from the late 1960s that featured brash absurdism, straight-faced intellectual humor, puns and wordplay, breathtaking pace, and a live audience. Actors will re-create one of the episodes in a radio theater staging to benefit the Grapevine Library at 7pm at 1201 Municipal Way, Grapevine. Admission is free, but reservations are required. Call 817-421-2311.

FRI ▪ 24

In addition to being one of Western history’s great painters, Peter Paul Rubens also performed a number of secret diplomatic missions in the 1620s, brokering a peace between the feuding districts of present-day Netherlands and being knighted by the royal families of both Spain and England for his work. The Kimbell Art Museum’s Artful Readings Discussion Group takes up Mark Lamster’s book about this artist’s fascinating sidelight at 5:30pm at 3333 Camp Bowie Blvd, FW. Admission is free. Call 817-332-8451.

SAT ▪ 25

Darrin Kobetich and Bryan Batson will play at the grand opening of the Backwoods kayak and canoe rental concession on the Trinity River. In addition to the music, there’ll also be a raffle, outdoor games, and packages for sale that include burgers, bratwurst, and beer. Sounds like a pleasant Saturday afternoon. The event runs noon-6pm at Panther Island Pavilion, 480 N Taylor St, FW. Packages are $25. Call 817-332-2423.

SUN ▪ 26

Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani has made excellent movies about immigrants from Pakistan (Man Push Cart), Puerto Rico (Chop Shop), and Senegal (Goodbye Solo). His latest film, At Any Price, is about native-born Americans living in the heartland. Starring Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron as Illinois farmers, it plays Fri-Sun at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St, FW. Tickets are $6.50-8.50. Call 817-738-9215.

MON ▪ 27

Despite the damage and loss of life from last week’s storms, the city of Granbury will carry on with its Memorial Day Celebration as scheduled, paying tribute to our nation’s military men and women with a parade, arts and crafts, live music, and food. Pay a visit down there; the locals will welcome your support. The festival runs Sat-Mon at Historic Granbury Square, 123 E Pearl St, Granbury. Admission is free. Call 817-573-5299.

TUE ▪ 28

Music history is the concern in Elvis at 21, a show at Fort Worth Museum of Science and History that features photographs by Alfred Wertheimer. The photographer followed Presley on tour in 1956, snapping candid shots of the budding rockstar before he was famous –– and before Col. Tom Parker cut off his protégé’s access to the press. The show runs May 25-Sep 2 at 1600 Gendy St, FW. Tickets are $10-14. Call 817-255-9300.

The dug-up area isn’t large — a strip of pasture about 50 feet wide and 1,200 feet long — but to Crawford and an awful lot of folks, including the Tar Sands Blockade activists, it represents everything that’s wrong with both hydrocarbons and eminent domain law.

The hydrocarbons the pipeline will carry are tar sands bitumen, an extremely heavy and poisonous material that, once spilled, is almost impossible to clean up. A spill that washed into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010 has yet to be cleaned up, and this year’s March 29 spill from a pipeline rupture in ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower, Ark., is making its way to the Arkansas River. The tar sands bitumen is so heavy it sinks into the soil and riverbeds rather than floating on the surface as oil does.

Gas and oil companies have long had the right in Texas to use eminent domain powers to condemn land they couldn’t lease from owners, but in this case TransCanada’s taking of the Crawford land is still in the courts. The family has recently filed an appeal of the decision handed down last August —via text message — by Lamar County Court Judge Bill Harris that gave TransCanada the right to condemn the land. That appeal will be heard by the Sixth Circuit Court in Texarkana.

“It is just galling that there is a process you have to follow in matters like this, and TransCanada is just ignoring it,” said Crawford. “They’re tearing up our land despite the appeal. Just because they’re a big corporation, they should not get to circumvent the legal process.”

Worse, TransCanada has broken its promise not to trench the property, which is thick with Caddo Indian artifact sites. Instead of boring through without disturbing the topsoil — which TransCanada promised Judge Harris that it would do — TransCanada’s crew is trenching almost the whole 1,200 feet.

“It’s awful, and I’m angry,” said Crawford. “Imagine if I lied to a judge about how I was going to do the work, then went ahead and did what I wanted, even though the work was not yet authorized. Citizens can’t get away with that.”

And it turns out that in the Winnsboro area in East Texas, 70 sections of TransCanada’s pipeline, installed this year, are being dug up so that they can be replaced — because it turned out the pipe was faulty.

There is plenty fishy but nothing funny about the Keystone.

To the editor: It seems a bit hypocritical the way the government is presently handling natural gas drilling. Just a few years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency was so worried about our groundwater that they required every derelict filling station to remove its fuel storage tanks. And they were willing to fund digging them up. In the same effort, they banned hydraulic lifts inside those buildings because they are notoriously leaky and allow hydraulic fluids to seep into the groundwater.

But it’s acceptable to wreck a million gallons of water to fracture each new gas well (“Evolution of a Rebel,” May 17, 2013)?  And that water is ruined once it’s used, and we dispose of it by injecting it so deep we think it can’t infiltrate our drinking water aquifers?  Nobody will convince me that we know for sure what’s going on a thousand feet belowground nor what passageways might already be there allowing seepage.

If we have to do this, the drillers should be forced to re-use their wrecked water, which is not happening at this time.  We are going to wind up having to build and maintain desalination plants if we don’t quit ruining the fresh water.  We already know how much trouble it is to drink seawater, and the cleaning process is just too expensive to even think about.

Chris M Waring

Hurst

Sequester Those Legislators

To the editor: Jeff Prince’s exposé about government sequestration of Meals on Wheels funding (“No Sequester on Hunger,” March 20, 2013) is a wake-up call for advocates of the elderly and disabled to take up the crusade and save this needed program that deliver nutritious meals and kind words to the homebound. Meals on Wheels workers make referrals for their clients for other needs such as personal assistance, utility bills, fans, and walkers. Meals on Wheels is their lifeline to remaining healthy and independent in their own homes rather than being relegated to institutions. Should Meals on Wheels be eviscerated, legislators who supported this sequester ought to be voted out of office. They’ve been sitting on their perches long enough.

Considering the amount of profligate spending the government does, sending billions of our tax dollars to foreign countries that pledge allegiance only to our generosity, they ought to be able to find some money for a humanitarian program like Meals on Wheels. Cutting it would be a coup de grace for our least powerful demographic group.

Thanks to the Weekly and Jeff Prince for giving this story the exposure it needed.

Delores Cantrell Taylor

Fort Worth

Eat Greens, Live Green

To the editor: A review of 12,000 papers on climate change (Static, April 24, 2013) in the May 15 issue of Environmental Research Letters found that 97 percent of scientists attribute climate change to human activities. Although we’re unlikely to reverse climate change, we can mitigate its effects by reducing our driving, energy use, and meat consumption.

Yes, meat consumption. A 2006 United Nations report estimated that meat consumption accounts for 18 percent of man-made greenhouse gases. A 2009 article in the respected World Watch magazine suggested that it might be closer to 50 percent.

Carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, is generated by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to confine, feed, transport, and slaughter animals. The much more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are discharged from digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively.

Each of us has the power to reduce the devastating effects of climate change every time we eat. Our local supermarkets offer a rich variety of soy-based lunchmeats, hot dogs, veggie burgers, and soy- and nut-based dairy products, as well as an ample selection of vegetables, fruits, grains, and nuts. Product lists, easy recipes, and transition tips are available at www.livevegan.org.

Fritz Wuster

Fort Worth

I endured 121’s post-apocalyptic hassle the other day for the sole purpose of visiting Ron’s Corner Tavern, a brand- new bar adjoining the cavernous Big Shots Sports Café in a shopping center that is home to, among other things, a jiu jitsu school and another sports bar, Toadies. Of course, I missed the off ramp, so I had to drive another mile and loop around to find the right frontage road; I didn’t find that either. I almost gave up and went to Cheddar’s.

I persevered, though, because Cheddar’s is kind of gross, and you just don’t give up on a place named after a guy named Ron. When I finally made it, I knew I’d made the right decision.

Despite its strip-mall location, Ron’s is decidedly upscale. You enter through a covered patio dominated by three huge TVs, one of which hangs over a fireplace. Inside is a somewhat narrow, shotgun-style saloon, minus any country or western affectations, bracketed on one side by tables and the other by a long bar counter. The bar’s glass top protects and displays a bunch of exotic, vintage beer coasters.

The coasters, along with old beer cans and other memorabilia, were part of the collection of an actual Ron, the retired uncle of the twin brothers who own Big Shots. The 25 or so beers on tap are all from craft breweries. Ten of them are Texas beers, including a couple from Real Ale (Hans’ Pils and Brewer’s Cut) and Pedernales’ Lobo Texas Lager. If you’re a craft beer nerd (and who isn’t nowadays, right?), Ron’s needs to be on your itinerary — I had a pint of Firestone Walker’s Union Jack IPA, a hard choice considering the wealth of have-to-hunt-for-’em beers, including ones from Anderson Valley, Victory, and Dallas’ Community Beer Company. I also tried a sample of the Lobo. I wasn’t terribly impressed with it (too sweet), but I was genuinely floored by the third shelf from the bottom of the back bar, which was lined entirely with high-end brown liquors. The left side was all rye, the middle section Scotch, and the rest filled by bourbons. Along with a menu that includes mussels in a white-wine-garlic sauce and panko-fried avocados, the beer and booze options made the place a lot classier than I expected.

Besides the excellent beers, I had a better-than-decent French dip, a sandwich that is becoming my standard for judging pub grub. It came with a huge pile of house-made chips. I can’t say I’d make a habit of winding my way through the roadblocks and nosebleeds along Airport Freeway to hang at Ron’s, but if you happen to miss a flight or have the ability to charter a helicopter, get yourself airlifted to Bedford and have a good time. Just be sure someone else drives you home through that mess, even if you’re sober. –– Steve Steward

Ron’s Corner Tavern

1833 Airport Fwy, Bedford. 817-510-7124.

Contact Last Call at lastcall@fwweekly.com.

His administration has managed to anger not just most Republicans — who already loved being angry at him — but just about everyone, including Democrats and the press.

Republicans continued their ongoing search for the blood of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama, over the Benghazi terrorist attack last Sept. 11 that killed four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya.

Democrats say the Republicans’ actions are to be expected, since Hillary is showing signs of running for president, and Republicans would like to sully her record while they have an opening. Plus, she worked for Obama.

But then Obama was hit with other revelations that didn’t really help his effort to make his second and final presidential term a success.

There were charges that mid-level workers at the Internal Revenue Service had ordered organizations with “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their name to justify their tax-exempt status.

That caused a huge uproar, even from Democrats — including Obama — who said the IRS should be strictly neutral politically.

“Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” Obama said at a specially called evening press conference. “It should not matter what political stripe you’re from,” he declared. “The fact of the matter is the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity.”

Trying to deal with the situation head-on, Obama called for the resignation of acting IRS Director Steven Miller, who had learned of the targeting a year earlier.

Miller, a 25-year IRS employee who had already suggested in an internal memo that the IRS might need a new acting director, dutifully resigned, which Obama pointed out at the press conference.

The next day, he named White House senior budget adviser Daniel Werfel as acting commissioner. Werfel had also been a budget official in the administration of President George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press wrote that the Department of Justice had secretly reviewed two months of records of office, home, and cell phone calls of almost 100 AP reporters and editors.

The department’s operatives were trying to find out who had leaked word of a foiled terrorist effort to bomb an airplane, which led to an AP story. The leak had jeopardized national security, said Attorney General Eric Holder — although he said he had delegated the handling of the matter to a deputy.

The howls about violations of freedom of the press were widespread, ranging across the political spectrum and certainly including vehement criticisms from many news organizations.

Holder got lectured by Republican and Democratic members of Congress when he appeared before a House committee.

Republicans and others are raising questions about whether there was a sanitizing of talking points about the Benghazi attack and the IRS’ Tea Party targeting and whether the White House tried to cover up either or both before last November’s election.

And then, news broke that at least two soldiers responsible for dealing with matters of sexual assault were in fact charged with that crime themselves in separate incidents.

That scandal wasn’t laid at Obama’s door, other than in his presidential role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but it caused the President to order strong action from military leaders to punish sexual assault and stamp it out.

As for the AP leak investigation, Obama renewed his support for a shield law for the media, a measure he’d favored while a United States senator from Illinois.

Obama has been trying to move into high gear on selling the Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare, as it moves into later phases and to spread Medicaid coverage across the land. In a time when he’s already being criticized for an overactive and intrusive federal government, these examples of rogue agency actions weren’t exactly what he needed.

With all that bad news exploding around the president, the news that the federal budget deficit is falling significantly faster than predicted sort of got lost in the shuffle.

To give an idea of how wide-ranging the week was, during a joint press conference with Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a session that was mostly about Turkey’s next-door neighbor Syria, Obama also answered questions about the AP investigation, the IRS flap, and other matters.

Then, in keeping with the way the week was going for Obama, it began raining.

Veteran Texas political reporter Dave McNeely can be contacted at davemcneely111@gmail.com.

Rapper Patrick “P.A.T.” Barnett doesn’t have a band, and he has never performed a show in North Texas. A twentysomething Air Force brat born in Germany who relocated to Fort Worth with his family when he was a kid, Barnett also just got out of the Air Force. “I don’t have many connections here,” he said. “I’m a bit out of touch.”

But like Nice Major, another stranger in his own land, Barnett recently put out a splendid album. Recorded with DJs Kushgod and Wats in Wichita, Kan., and at Kammb Studios in Euless, Where the Sidewalk Ends is a heady, long collection of urban noir tracks that sounds like a million bucks (though, of course, it was done on a budget). There’s some solid beatsmithery  and great melodic flourishes courtesy of synth woodwinds, keys, and horns, and Barnett has solid flow. Amazingly, and thankfully, he keeps the cursing to a minimum, and he avoids the N-word altogether. (Not that I’m some goodie-goodie, but cussing loses its impact when it’s overdone, and there are often better, more colorful, more precise words to use instead.)

Like Nice Major’s The Do You Believe Project, Where the Sidewalk Ends ­­–– inspired by the Shel Silverstein children’s book of the same name –– overflows with that gritty, semi-jazzy flavor popularized by Kanye West. Barnett has a couple of shows coming up: in San Diego and Las Vegas, of course.

Shows of Ever-Increasing Significance

The Grotto (517 University Dr., 817-882-9331) is the place to be this weekend. The week there got off to a good start on Monday, when The Matthew Show (in duo form) kicked off Jody Jones’ weekly songwriter showcase. Main man Matthew Broyles, on lead vocals and rhythm guitar and accompanied by Ed Rogers on lead guitar and backing vocals, crooned some beautiful, ’70s-glam-folk originals to an attentive crowd of about 15. Good job, fellas. The big Grotto shows will be Friday and Saturday. And they’re going to be loud. Texas Music purveyor Dim Locator (a.k.a. Will Kapinos), Lubbock shit-kickers The Beaumonts, and Austin twang-rockers Hickoids will open up for Haltom City’s finest, The Me-Thinks, on Friday. On Saturday, Fort Worth humor-punks One Fingered Fist, some outfit called TCB, and Nirvana-esque Fort Worth rockers Homebrew are playing.

And speaking of fine singer-songwriters, some of the finest in town will gather at Lola’s Saloon (2736 W. 6th St., 817-877-0666) on Friday night to celebrate Bob Dylan’s birthday. Event organizer Scott Copeland, Quaker City Night Hawks’ Sam Anderson and Dave Matsler, Thomas Flynn, Carey Wolff, Big Mike Richardson, Derek Larson, Jake Robison, and Ben Napier will pay homage to the legendary folk singer-songwriter by performing his songs –– Copeland guarantees you won’t hear the same song twice. Cover is $10.

Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.

Actually, it was hip territory. The Near Southside has become the it place to eat in this town, with new restaurants opening all the time. As good as some of the newbies are, though, nothing has come along to replace the Old Neighborhood Grill (1633 Park Place Ave.). The mom-and-pop eatery just keeps pumping out great comfort food at reasonable prices to scores of regulars. It fills the same niche as The Paris Coffee Shop (700 W. Magnolia Ave.), but the Grill’s menu is head and shoulders above that of Paris.

The place is set in an unremarkable line of shops on the less trendy side of the ’hood. A sign out front simply reads “Eat” — wonderful understatement, so post-postmodern. Inside, the atmosphere is homey and comfortable, with red brick walls and family photos — but in, you know, an ironic way.

The service was very friendly, which probably knocks off some “hip” points. Like I care. My guest and I were greeted by a trainee who acquitted herself nicely. Both she and her trainer were quick with jokes and quips. It’s a walk-up counter service, and the vast menu is crammed onto a chalkboard that’s barely legible because the writing is so small.

Whipping out a magnifying glass (the young’uns would have passed out) to read the menu, I opted for the pot roast ($8.95), served with carrots and potatoes. Because I can’t get enough starch in my diet, I also ordered mashed potatoes on the side, as well as pickled tomatoes, which were zesty. The pot roast fell apart at the end of my fork and was bursting with flavor. The roast juice was luscious and salty, though not overpowering. The chicken-fried steak was big, but not in a ridiculous carnival sideshow kind of way. The batter was crispy, the meat tender, and the cream gravy peppery and rich. The accompanying fried okra was crispy and bereft of the usual okra slime, and the turnip greens were unremarkable, as they tend to be. Sorry, I can’t think of any way to make turnip greens sound trendy.

For dessert, the lemon meringue pie was one of the best I’ve ever had. The meringue completely dissolved upon contact with my tongue. And unlike at many places in the Fort, the coffee at Old Neighborhood Grill is excellent. Great coffee — the ultimate cool!

I didn’t take the nieces, though. They probably would have ordered burgers and drowned them in ketchup. They are so embarrassing.

Contact Chow, Baby at chowbaby@fwweekly.com

“The story is so powerful,” Adolfo said, “and it’s such an ethnic-specific show, that I asked myself, ‘Do I dare run the risk of letting another company do it first, a theater that might produce it without the cultural sensitivity and awareness that we could bring to it?’ I sort of look at the show as Fiddler on the Roof for Latinos, in the sense that it manages to honor the traditions and roots of a community but still be young and edgy and innovative. That’s the balancing act Artes de la Rosa always tries to achieve with its shows.”

He was well aware that this would be the biggest show Artes had ever staged, in terms of both cast and plot. The musical’s overlapping plotlines, carried out by Quiara Alegria Hudes’ book and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s music, call for a cast of 26 actors/singers/dancers, at least a dozen of whom have significant story arcs within the production. (That’s in addition to nine orchestra musicians needed to perform the show’s score, which includes salsa, Latin hip-hop, and straightforward Broadway-style balladry.) But Adolfo believed that the talent was waiting to be tapped in the North Texas Latino community, and he was right:

More than 150 people tried out for the show during three days of auditions. Director Adolfo, his associate director and choreographer Elise Lavallee, and musical director Kristin Spires finally chose the 26 performers from Fort Worth, Arlington, Denton, Rockwall, and other area cities. Some already knew the original cast recording by heart, while others had learned of the musical just before auditioning. One of the things that united them was the desire to do a show with compelling urban Latino characters that didn’t focus primarily on crime, drugs, or immigration issues.

“For this ethnic community, there are so few shows that we can call our own,” Adolfo said. “In the Heights is not West Side Story, where the characters carry weapons and run around causing trouble. One of our leading ladies plays a character who’s just come back [to the neighborhood] from Stanford. The fact of a young Latina going to a prestigious college is different and exciting for a lot of people to see. One young Latin guy wants to be a business owner, another one wants to become a community activist and political advocate for the barrio. There’s no gangs, no drug-dealing, no random pregnancies.”

Adolfo continues with a laugh and another comparison: “That’s not to say that the show is Bye Bye Birdie either –– it’s not just a perky little musical. It’s emotionally charged, full of ups and downs, heartache and joy.”

The Rose Marine is a historic building, but Adolfo concedes that the venue has its limitations as a performance space  To prepare for In the Heights, workers removed the first row of seats to create an orchestra pit. To avoid crowding the small-ish stage with such a large cast, Adolfo utilized every inch of the theater space, staging songs, dance numbers, and dialogue in the aisles. In his mind, the design challenges of the Rose Marine created an opportunity for more personal storytelling and involvement by the audience, which is part of what the show’s creators wanted to accomplish.

“In a place like Washington Heights, people often don’t go beyond their own neighborhood,” he said. “It can feel isolating, but it’s also more intimate. With this show, there’s always activity going on around the audience. They get pulled into the characters’ lives, the way they would if they were just walking down the street hearing people talk. In the Heights is about that vibe of community as family.”