When it comes to sexy African-American actresses, Pam Grier stands alone.
PAM GRIER IN HER FILM HEYDAY
She was Foxy Brown, she was Coffy, and she was one tough black action heroine — something moviegoers had never seen in the 1970s.
FOXY BROWN MOVIE POSTER
Blaxploitation films such as Super Fly and Shaft crossed cultural and ethnic lines and drew diverse crowds to theaters back then. Macho black actors Richard Roundtree, Isaac Hayes, Jim Brown, and Fred Williamson all wrestled for supremacy as the genre’s top star. But when it came to actresses, there was no debate — Grier was top of the heap.
All these years later, she’s still a force to be reckoned, revealing her travels and travails in the revelatory memoir Foxy: My Life In Three Acts.
GRIER'S NEW BOOK
Grier, now 60, will be signing copies of her book and posing for photos from 7 to 9 pm this Friday (July 30) at The Dock Bookshop, 6637 Meadowbrook Dr, Fort Worth.
On the one hand, I admire the rookie wide receiver for refusing to be hazed by veteran WR Roy Williams.
Hazing is silly in any form, such as among college fraternity pledges. But it’s downright idiotic for grown men.
Bryant stood up for himself and refused to carry Williams’ sweaty shoulder pad after practice. Bryant doesn’t think playing for the Dallas Cowboys requires him to allow himself to be treated like somebody’s personal slave. Power to Bryant.
On the other hand, football hazing is a rite of passage, a tradition, and a bonding exercise designed to create team unity. Bryant is risking a lot by refusing to go along with the game.
Still, Bryant was right to refuse. I don’t think any man should allow himself to be hazed if he doesn’t want to.
The fact that the hazing was coming from an overpaid disappointment like Williams makes it even more difficult to blame Bryant. Then again, it’s understandable why Williams needed help carrying his pads — he surely would have dropped them.
Some folks are born to be wild for guitars, and there’s plenty of heavy metal thunder expected at the 9th Annual Fort Worth Guitar Show tomorrow and Sunday at Radisson Hotel, 100 E. Alta Mesa Blvd.
The show offers new, used, and vintage axes in a casual setting with dealers from around the Southwest.
Other cool collectibles, such as T-shirts and DVDs of classic rock ‘n’ roll shows, are usually available as well.
The show is put on by Competition Music. Call Scott with any questions, 817-535-2040.
He picked a substantial topic for his finale, profiling the state’s premier river writer John Graves.
I haven’t read the new Texas Monthly yet, but a friend emailed me this Graves quote from the article:
“Maybe it’s a sign of old age, or decrepitude, but I’m not very optimistic about the future of this country. People here, they weren’t what you’d call an admirable hunk of American society, but they had their own ways, which I got used to. They were a distinctive variety. But that’s all been wiped out. It used to be that the differences among people were big, and those differences always interested me greatly. But now I find a lot of sameness. I don’t like the way things are shaping up.”
I don’t agree with Graves’ statement at all, at least the part about everybody being the same. I know plenty of distinctive characters. A few might even be clinically insane. Graves could get his fill of personalities by just hanging out at the Fort Worth Weekly office for a day or two.
But maybe when I’m 90 I’ll feel like he does. Until then, I still think Texans are pretty interesting folks on the whole — including Graves and Cartwright.
Retro-fresh rockers Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights are seeing stars these days.
JONATHAN TYLER & THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
They went from jamming at small Fort Worth-Dallas dives not so long ago to signing a major record deal at Atlantic, releasing an album, touring with AC/DC, ZZ Top, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and appearing on national television.
The 25-year-old Tyler is living a dream that began when he was a teenager in Lewisville banging away on an electric guitar and wondering if he had the chops to make it big.
“There’s two levels — the local level where you can be a success and be paying your bills and working other jobs; I did that for two years,” he said. “But if you want to try to move into different areas of the country and reach new and more people you have to start over in those new cities just like you started when you were local. We can do great in Dallas and make plenty of money but if we go up to Wisconsin we’re the new guys in town. It’s like starting over again. But that’s okay. We knew what we were getting into when we got into it.”
Leaping to that next level hasn’t jaded him. Tyler still got a major buzz when the Northern Lights were pegged to tour with a legendary Texas rock trio.
“We were playing in Little Rock opening for ZZ Top in a pretty big amphitheater that seats 5,000 or 6,000,” Tyler said. “We’re on stage doing our sound check, jamming some bluesy stuff and out walks [Top guitarist] Billy Gibbons and he just sits on the stage watching us jam. We didn’t stop, we kept going but I almost couldn’t pay attention to what we were playing anymore because I was so surprised he was listening. Those guys are really cool. Their wives and dogs are all out on the road with them.”
ZZ Top was a blast to hang with, he said, and Tyler memorialized the tour by having Gibbons autograph a 1973 Fender Telecaster.
“Of all the bands we’ve done shows with, they’re the coolest as far as being back stage,” Tyler said. “They’re in their 60s and still doing their thing.”
Tyler also got pumped after TV talk show host Jimmy Kimmel bragged on the band after their April 8 performance and invited them to return for another show. Playing for three or four minutes on national TV was a challenge but Tyler relishes a good challenge.
“You’ve got a lot of cameras in your face and it’s a much different experience,” he said. “When you’re performing for an audience its easier to zone out and feel the music but when you’re playing with three or four cameras five feet away from your face it makes you more nervous. But we got into and forgot about the cameras.”
Wild man actor Tom Arnold was among Kimmel’s guests, but the green room scene wasn’t anything to write home about, Tyler said.
“I didn’t party with anybody there,” he said. “A lot of these things are such a routine for all the people involved that it’s just a job for them. It’s kind of like a mundane thing for everybody but us. We were loving it because it was our national TV debut and it was definitely exciting.”
The band felt loved in return.
“Some of the producers came down and said it was one of the better shows they’ve had,” Tyler said. “A lot of times it’s just people blowing smoke up your ass so it doesn’t phase me, but they treated us good and it will always be a fond memory.”
Tyler is touring in support of Pardon Me (shown below), his second album and his first major label release.
The album is getting good reviews and is certainly more polished than the band’s debut indie effort Hot Trottin’, but no less energetic and passionate. The rougher-edged Hot Trottin’ was recorded in five days on a miniscule budget (and who can forget that album cover’s hilarious depiction of a clearly partied out Tyler?).
The new release includes a remake of “Gypsy Woman.”
“When we signed to Atlantic it was one of the songs they wanted to use,” Tyler said. “The first album has some very redeeming qualities to it that I really like, but the second record is definitely more mature sounding and fuller sounding. Sonically it’s a lot better.”
Returning to Fort Worth for a Sunday night show is another thing Tyler is pumped about. The band has played Lola’s Saloon in the Stockyards but hasn’t appeared at the Sixth Street location.
“I like Fort Worth a lot,” he said. “It’s got a lot of music history and heritage there and it reminds me of Texas more than Dallas does. ”
The dude knows how to work a local crowd!
Here’s a clip of Tyler and the Northern Lights playing live at Fort Worth’s 8.0 bar back in 2008:
Jonathan Tyler & The Northern Lights play at 10 pm Sunday at Lola’s Saloon Sixth, 2736 W Sixth St. Tickets are $10 for over 21, and $15 for under 21.
“If cities were aging beauties then Fort Worth wold be Meryl Streep to Dallas’ Melanie Griffith. Sundance Square ages gracefully whereas Victory Park is Dallas’ version of a facelift gone wrong.”
Back in 1993, then-Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson told a reporter the Cowboys would kick San Francisco’s ass in the NFC Championship game — and the newspaper could print his prediction in “three-inch headlines,” he added.
WILL JOHNSON SMUGGLE HAIRSPRAY TO NICARAGUA?
Here’s my prediction on Johnson’s upcoming stint on Survivor (sorry but I don’t have access to any three-inch fonts so I’ll just put it in all-cap): “JOHNSON VOTED OFF FIRST ON SURVIVOR: NICARAGUA”
Survivor contestants who are recognized as being rich or famous are immediately in danger of being voted off the show. Johnson’s tribe mates will resent the fact he’s already financially set, and they’ll figure he doesn’t need money or fame so to hell with him.
Johnson’s not only rich and famous, he’s a loudmouth, which puts another target on his back.
On the other hand, he was the puppet master and mental manipulator of those old Cowboys teams back in the day, and Johnson knew just how and when to push players’ buttons to motivate them.
Survivor will test those abilities.
My prediction doesn’t mean I want Johnson voted off. He’s an interesting and fun guy and should add color to a show that’s been getting a bit stale lately. But he’ll have a tough time bamboozling his tribe into keeping him around.
“Meow! Meow-ow! Meeoooowww!” (Translation: “Any good lunch specials out there, people ?”
Tres Jose’s Mexican Restaurant showed promise but hasn’t stolen my heart. The servers are rather distant; after 10 visits in two months I still feel like a number there.
Tuesdays I’ve been hitting Nizza Pizza Pasta & Subs and I love it. They have $1 cheese slices and $1.50 pepperoni slices that are outta sight. The owner is a cool guy with a sense of humor and a focused, business-like approach to taking care of customers. The homemade, spicy bleu cheese salad dressing is uber-tasty.
But man can’t live on pizza alone (at least this Tex-Mex craving gringo can’t).
MMMM-MMMM BUENO!
I need tacos, enchiladas, rice, beans, and salsa, preferably salsa verde. I used to cradle my Los Alamos lunch special each day and whisper, “You complete me.”
There are a gazillion Tex-Mex joints in town, but few of them meet all my criteria. (I’m a demanding pain in the ass).
My Top 5 Criteria: (1) good food, (2) good service, (3) reasonable price, (4) close proximity to downtown Fort Worth, and (5) a laid-back atmosphere.
Yesterday’s visit to Yucatan Taco Stand was pretty good. Their $8 beef nacho plate is excellent. Yucatan serves wonderful tortilla chips with its nachos piled plenty high.
Still, I can’t give my heart to Yucatan — the place is too noisy. I’m looking for mental as well as physical nourishment, and the noise and chaos level at Yucatan is high. The only noisier place is Jason’s Deli on Camp Bowie Boulevard, where every mother in town takes their snot-nosed brats to cram potato chips down their throats while they scream at the top of their lungs.
I’d rather eat on the runway at D/FW International Airport.
So, 10 weeks of hitting restaurant after restaurant has still not provided me a new honey hole.
You see, I’m a “one restaurant man.” I’m a “regular.” I don’t want to eat at a different place every day. I don’t want to spread my love around. I want a favorite spot.
And when I find such a place, I never leave.
My last honey hole, Los Alamos Café, was my spot for 20 years. I spent about $40,000 there over the years, $7 at a time. Then they closed in May and I’ve been drifting along like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western ever since, a man with a fistful of lunch money but no regular spot to spend it.
"GO AHEAD, MAKE MY PLATE"
I’m adrift in search of enchiladas served by a kindhearted waitress who knows my name and knows I like extra onions and jalapenos and prefer corn tortillas to flour.
My latest hot tip is Regina La Abuela Restaurant on NW 25th Street. I’ll give it a try and let you know how it turns out.
Please keep those suggestions coming. If I don’t find a honey hole before long, I’m liable to start packing my lunch to work and living on nothing but bologna and PBJ sammies. Life is too short for that.
The new color-coded sections “make it easier to find your favorite sections,” the story said. And a new typeface improves readability.
So, based on the Star-T ’s story, the redesign was an effort to improve readability and please subscribers.
What the story doesn’t say is that cutting the paper down an inch in width – which is two inches in width when you spread the paper out – saves the newspaper money in printing costs.
Narrower pages also mean fewer stories. And it would take a marketing genius to convince readers that fewer stories in their paper each day is a reader benefit. So the Star-T ignored that fact and played up the "we did it all for you" angle.
TCU journalism professor Tommy Thomason compared newspaper redesigns to actresses getting dressed for the red carpet. The actresses pick a designer dress, they try it on, they love it, their assistants love it, and then they walk the red carpet and end up on “Worst Dressed” lists the next day.
“A redesign is largely in the eyes of the beholder,” he said. “I don’t care for the colors that make it look like a USA Today knockoff.”
A faltering economy and a newspaper industry in transition have prompted papers nationwide to reduce the size and content of their product, and the Star-Telegram is no different. This makes the second time in the past few years they’ve shrunk the size.
“There is less content than there used to be because there is less advertising than there used to be,” Thomason said. “Some people will say this [redesign] is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
“There are some legitimate positives there in terms of legibility,” he said. “But no one mentioned the elephant in the room – there is less content.”
I solicited feedback from various folks in the Fort Worth Weekly newsroom, and the negatives outweighed the positives.
“It looks like a shopper guide,” and “It looks like they’re trying to be USA Today , and nobody reads that but people in hotels,” were a couple of responses.
(And, just so you know, we don’t hate the Star-Telegram , nor do we root for them or any other newspaper to fail).
The nicest thing anybody said was that the new font makes the paper easier to read, and the narrower width makes it easier to hold when reading.
When gas prices soared a few years back and the economy faltered, companies that made candy bars, ice cream, cereal, and any number of products suddenly began decreasing the size of their packaging without telling consumers. It was a sneaky way to cut costs and increase profits.
Maybe I’m naive, but I expect more honesty from a newspaper.
Chow, Baby’s not clear exactly how, but surely
butterflied shrimp
are part of the
global
marketing conspiracy
, the one that brought us Certified Angus Beef™ and “dr...
Shea Seger
’s music is now –– finally –– available for download. Seger, the subject of a recent cover story (“Shea Seger Redux,” April 7, 2010), is a Fort Worth-...
When I heard that Annette Bening and Julianne Moore were playing a lesbian couple in a movie, I thought, “That sounds like it’ll work.” Then I saw the trailer f...
If redistricting weren’t so serious, it would be funny. As Forrest Gump’s momma says about life in the 1994 movie, “It’s like a box of chocolates. You never kno...
Chow, Baby’s not clear exactly how, but surely
butterflied shrimp
are part of the
global
marketing conspiracy
, the one that brought us Certified Angus Beef™ and “dr...
Shea Seger
’s music is now –– finally –– available for download. Seger, the subject of a recent cover story (“Shea Seger Redux,” April 7, 2010), is a Fort Worth-...
When I heard that Annette Bening and Julianne Moore were playing a lesbian couple in a movie, I thought, “That sounds like it’ll work.” Then I saw the trailer f...