The Met Magazine

Mr. Funny Guy Wakes Up [p.7] Capasso and Blend Get Drunk [p.22] FREE! DALLAS’ WEEKLY JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT AND CULTURESOMEOWLDHEART 97’sTHE Frontman RHETT MILLER writes about life on rock’s long road [p.10]VOL. 22 #17 APRIL 28, 2015 ERIC CELESTE on money, media, and love JOHN LEWIS on Keven McAlester BRET MCCABE on Jackopierce CHRIS SHULL on Keri-Lynn Wilson THE MET’S TURNING 21. BUY US GIFTS.

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ContentsTHE MET JASON QUIGLEY Volume 22 | | Issue 17 | | April 28, 201510 The Traveler Rhett Miller sings,plays guitar, and he typesreal pretty, too.Features Entertainment12 Birthday! Todd Johnson designed 17 Movies the stuff printed on pages 10-15. That's John Lewis is just freaking why those pages look so good. awesome. Also, he writes about Keven McAlester's movies.Departments 19 Arts4 FrontPage Chris Shull and Joy Dickinson Rachel Buchholz reviews local “authors” Tipping get critical. Balestri & Celeste 21 Music5 InProfile Bret McCabe probably hates Gregory Kallenberg and nude dudes your favorite band.7 Mr. Funny Guy 22 Drinking He was funny once, wasn’t he? Because, Someone buy Joe Capasso and that time seems to have passed. David Blend a drink.FromTheEditor to have a baby. Give us more time, get us on press today, and I will name the babyTHE MET IS GONE. IT'S LITERALLY after you.” The baby is now almost 21. Hergone. As I type these words, all the digital name is Maddison. Editors lie. But a liefiles for this issue are on a laptop that my won’t work now. Midway Press is wise towife left in a freaking taxi. This is very our ways. What do I tell the six people whobad. In just 16 hours, the April 28, 2015, sponsored this issue and the 18 peopleedition of The Met needs to be in the who contributed without compensation?hands of Midway Press in Dallas or there Hell, some of them — Todd Johnson, Melis-won’t be an April 28, 2015, edition of The sa Katz, Adam McGill, and Chad Tomlin-Met. All week, I’d been borrowing the lap- son — weren’t even going to get bylines.top, which has on it design software I All two dozen of those people were a partdon’t own, to lay out the pages of this is- of this simply because they love The Met.sue. If my wife ever does get her laptop I wanted to thank them. Now I have toback, it’ll be too late for me. It’s already apologize — to them and to myself. For 21midnight. I’m typing this because I don’t years, The Met has been as much a part ofknow what else to do other than cry, and me as my own name. I know I’m not alonethat box has already been checked. “Hey, in having such strong feelings. Oh, no.dummy,” you’re thinking. “Didn’t you More crying. But wait! Great Ceasar’smake a backup?” Yes. The backup drive Ghost! I have PDF copies of all the pages,went on the fritz. It’s dead. The Met is in layout. If I download the $700 designdead and gone. How do I accept that fact? software, then start rebuilding from theI mean, we’ve survived production crises PDFs, cutting and pasting the text a blockbefore. For the very first issue, we missed at a time, then beg someone to proof theour press time by seven hours. Seven. The pages again, we can still do this. It’ll takeonly reason we got printed in time to have all night, yes. It’ll be full of mistakes, sure.copies at our premiere party, where 1,500 But it’ll get done. If you’re reading this, itseverely drunken people helped us earn a means we did it. Again. Despite our lack oflifetime ban from the Dallas Museum of resources, despite our own incompe-Art, was because our then editor-in-chief tence, despite everything, we managed tomade a deal with our rep at the printer. publish another issue of The Met. Just“Doug,” the editor said, “my wife is about like the old days. Only worse. — JOSEPH GUINTO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEFCOVER: This issue's bad-ass cover was designed by Chad Tomlinson APRIL 28, 1994 – APRIL 28, 2015 3 THE MET

FrontPageF A I R L Y W E L L E D I T E D B Y J O S E P H G U I N T O NEWS OR REVIEWS EACH WEEK, JUST DEPENDINGMurky Depths volves navigating labyrinth-like caves and holding one’s breath through long under-A snide heroine threatens to drown a new young adult undersea water tunnels. Worse, Summer is put onadventure novel by a local author tandem. ■ BY RACHEL BUCHHOLZ trial for spying — and learns who’s really behind the plan to destroy her world. BOOK REVIEW won’t stop polluting the mer- GABRIEL LIVES maids’ ocean home. in an underground It’s hard not to get engaged with thisAS THE EDITOR OF A SUPER- lake. He talks to part of the story: Secrets are revealed, es- fancy children’s magazine that I It takes Summer a while to dolphins. In Celtic. capes are attempted, groins are kicked. A can’t name because of figure out who Gabriel really fun character closely resembling the baldconflict-of-interest issues, I tend to take is. Until then, she seems to the slits on their necks that allow them to Jamaican guy from those early-’80s 7 Upoffense to people who assume that take pleasure in condescend- breathe underwater. They spend their commercials shows up, maybe to addwriting for kids is easy. Too often people ing to Gabriel because of his days swimming (sometimes naked) in some diversity. You finally start to root forthink that children’s writing is just fisherman status and only of- glowing underground lakes and rivers lit Summer as she finds her strength, bothdumbed-down adult writing, that kids are fers sarcastic comments to Ga- by phosphorescent plankton, eating fresh inside and out.too clueless to realize that you’re trying to briel’s kind words (the ex- seafood, and doing absolutely nothingmanipulate them with mystical creatures change of which is often pretty with the money that’s been earned from This is a world the authors have clearlyand star-crossed lovers, and won’t care awkward and hokey). It seems collecting shipwreck treasure over the put some thought into, one that’s beenthat you’ve forgotten to develop charac- like we’re supposed to love past millenia. But soon this world turns cleverly imagined and created. But as funters or fix holes in the story Summer's independent spirit, sinister as Summer discovers she’s one of and engaging as the action becomes, it’s her “whip-smart wit” that hundreds of human “guests” who have hard not to feel like one of the muirins' So the news about this year’s debut of makes her say the things she stumbled upon the muirin society and are uninvited guests, one that is not allowedThe Green the Black and the Deep Blue says. But, sorry. Summer ’s now virtual slaves living deep inside the to experience the full story. The unveiledSea was a bit concerning. D Magazine re- kind of a bitch. She's more caverns. Escape is impossible — it in- secrets — the dark history between mui-ported on its Frontburner blog that the Kristen Stewart than Bella rins and humans, the truth about Sum-authors, the writing team of Ray Balestri Swan. mer's parents and brother — are simplyand Eric Celeste (a former Met attorney told to Summer, and therefore to the read-and editor in chief, respectively), decided Her behavior is supposed to er. The authors missed an opportunity toto write the book after concluding that be okay, though, because “her set scenes here that would take the readernearly all young adult novels were essen- whole life has been messed back in time, showing the story's evolu-tially the same story — a riff on Romeo up” after she lost her 14-year- tion through the characters’ perspectives.and Juliet. Just repurpose that tale, D’s old brother in a sailing acci- Instead, the linear type of storytellingreporting suggested, and you've got a hit. dent nearly 10 years ago. But they chose makes the book feel as if it’s it's hard to accept that excuse. following a tired, outdated formula meant Still, even after discovering the authors’ After all, poor Summer drives for readers from a time when bald Jamai-intentions and even after finding the un- a brand-new convertible, lives can guys were pitching sugary soft drinks.resolved plot points and undeveloped in a mansion on the beach,characters that threatened to sink the and has two loving parents. And she The heroine also feels dated. Today’sbook, I finished The Green the Black and doesn't think twice about taking a sailboat young-adult readers are no longer clamor-the Deep Blue Sea with a shrug, thinking, cruise with Gabriel, even though it’s the ing for surface-level girl-meets-not-quite-“Meh. It wasn’t that bad.” very first time she’s been sailing since her human-boy love stories. They’re looking brother's accident. for heroines who are dealing with real, The book follows 17-year-old Summer serious issues, who are finding deep,Kane, a Rhode Island lifeguard who falls Still, Gabriel keeps up his pursuit, meaningful relationships despite battlingin love (or something) with a mysterious mostly because he’s on a secret mission to cancer, or being orphaned in Nazi Germa-fisherman named Gabriel, who woos her get to Summer’s scientist father, the keep- ny, or living with an abusive stepfather.by stating that her green eyes and black er of a doomsday key (which, in one of the (See: The Fault in Our Stars, The Bookpupils remind him of the green grass and numerous holes in the story, is never ac- Thief, and Eleanor and Park, all of whichblack cliffs of Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher. tually used to set off said doomsday). The have recently been on The New York(Hence the green and the black of the title. mission, though, at least seems believ- Times Best Seller List.) To think thatGuess what his eyes remind her of? Yes! able. Less believable are the feelings Ga- young readers will believe that SummerThe sea!) briel starts developing for this girl. and Gabriel have found this kind of love, or that Summer — who eventually saves Gabriel can also talk to dolphins. In But when the two separate about a third herself but not the other guests in SlánCeltic. And, oh yeah, he’s kind of a mer- of the way into the book, the story gains Abhaile — is a heroine worth caringmaid, a member of an evolved species momentum. After being kidnapped by an about, borders on being disrespectful tocalled muirin that’s been living in the evil muirin, Summer is introduced to the the kinds of readers who care about morecaves and tunnels and underground lakes fabulous underground world called Slán modern young heroes and heroines.of Rhode Island for a thousand years. Abhaile. In this world live thousands ofThose muirin have something catastroph- supposedly peaceful creatures who look Still, there’s a wildly imagined worldic in store for the selfish humans who like tall, beautiful, superwhite humans here that offers potential intrigue. That’s except for their webbed appendages and what makes The Green the Black and the Deep Blue Sea an adequate read, albeit one that sometimes leaves readers feeling like they're lost in the depths. ■ Rachel Buchholz, who occasionally copy edited for The Met, now lives and works (at an undisclosed job site) in Wash- ington, D.C.THE MET 4 APRIL 28, 1994 – APRIL 28, 2015

InProfileMy meeting with the bestG-string duet in Dallas. ■ BY GREGORY KALLENBERG JAY FUERTEZ asks me what I do, I tell them that I’m in the entertain- Randy the Master Blaster Ricks ment business. I’m in the male dancing business. I pro-ITA L K E D T O M A L E S T R I P P E R R A N D Y T H E vide male Las Vegas-like burlesque to a primarily female rocket scientist. You have to be able to dance, work the Master Blaster Ricks 21 years ago. This was for one of audience. crowd and connect with your audience. This job isn’t for the first InProfile columns in The Met. Back then, everyone, no doubt. Ricks was 36 years old and brimming with confidence. He What’s your stage name and how did you come up told me that if he spent one night with my girlfriend, it with it? >> NICK: Let me put it this way: If you gave me a book would change her life. Well, that girlfriend is now my on developing software, I could probably figure it out. It’s wife, and, after catching up with Ricks at age 57, I >> RANDY: My stage name is Randy the Master Blast- logical. If you put a software developer on stage, under a wouldn’t be surprised if he’d still issue the same chal- er. All the football players used to ask me how I was look- spotlight, with hundreds of women screaming at him, I lenge. The only thing that seems to have changed about ing the way I was, I would always tell them, “It’s because don’t think he’d do as well. While you’re dancing, there’s Ricks is that this male dancing Batman — he holds a the Master Blaster says so.” I got the name from Joe a lot more to think about. You don’t want to fall. You don’t Guinness World Record for being the longest successful Leider, the founder of modern bodybuilding, and the want to slip. You don’t want girls to boo at you. It’s hard- male stripper, at 34 years and counting — now has a Rob- name just stuck. er than it looks. in. That would be his millennial protégé Nick Rodius, who, like Ricks, you can catch at La Bare in Dallas. Since >> NICK: My stage name is Nick. I didn’t really want What do you think you’ll be doing in the next 21 we’re celebrating The Met’s 21st birthday, it seemed only to come up with a ridiculous name, so my name is just years? fitting to revisit the Master Blaster and have a visit with “Nick,” because, well, that’s my name. And Nick is really Rodius, too. So, let’s see if this G-stringed dynamic duo easy to remember. >> NICK: That’s a good question. I’m sure Randy changes your life. would want me to keep dancing and be the next Master Do you have any watchwords to live by? A philos- Blaster, but you never know. You have to live each day like How did you get started in male stripping? And ophy that guides you when you’re stripping? it’s its own. what do you tell your friends that you do? >> NICK: “Each day is a privilege and not a given right.” >> RANDY: I’m happy in my life. I love what I’m doing, >> NICK: I’m 22 years young, and I’ve been in the busi- Kind of like a carpe diem kind of thing. I try to live each so I want to keep dancing till the wheels come off. ness for a little over a year now. I started out as a shot guy. day like my last, because you never know. So I try to be as It’s when we do a 30-second lap dance and the ladies do a nice and as courteous I can be all the time. What will be the apex of your career? What is your shot out of test tube from your pants. It’s called a “crotch pinnacle? shot.” My girlfriend wouldn’t let me dance, but when she >> RANDY: My philosophy is to always have fun and to and I broke up, Randy thought I should start dancing. love what I do. My moniker is that I’m “205 pounds of >> NICK: Well, I’m pretty much at it. We’re putting on steel sex appeal.” But I’m successful because I love every- the best show we’ve ever had. I’m going to be in Magic >> RANDY: I started dancing February 12, 1979. I’ve thing about women. That’s how my mom raised me. To Mike 2. As soon as that movie comes out, I’ll probably be been stripping since I was 18 years old. But if someone respect women and compete and be the best. Last night, I at my peak. guarantee I made the most money of everyone at the club. Nick Rodius Seriously. I’m that good at what I do. >> RANDY: I’ve hit all the pinnacles. I’ve won the Great American Strip-off two times. I’ve been a sev- What’s your biggest asset? en-time Playgirl centerfold. I’ve owned a male dancing >> RANDY: My confidence. You have to walk the walk club. I’ve done it all. I’m the Mike Tyson and Tiger Woods and talk the talk. I’m a manly man. I’m olive-skinned, of male stripping. No one will ever match what I’ve done. hairy chest. There isn’t a demographic that I don’t appeal It just won’t happen. There’s no doubt that I’m the best to. in the world at what I do. Period. ■ >> NICK: Like on my body? What’s my best attribute? It would have to be my smile. I’m also really witty and like APRIL 28, 1994 – APRIL 28, 2015 5 THE MET to make the girls laugh and smile. Chippendale's or Thunder from Down Under? >> NICK: I’d probably pick Chippendale’s, because they do the choreography thing and do more improv. Thunder from Down Under is more of a production. I would defi- nitely love to try out for the Chippendale’s at some point. >> RANDY: Everyone who understands the industry knows those outfits are a production roadshow. It’s a dif- ferent thing from us. I don’t want to toot our own horn, but Le Bare is a Bugatti and they’re a Volkswagen. What is the biggest myth of male strippers? >> NICK: That we’re all gay. I hear it all the time. >> RANDY: Thinking that all male strippers are gay. What do you tell people who say that it’s harder to be a software developer than a male stripper? >> RANDY: To be a really good male stripper, you have to have gifts that God gives you. Good skin, good phy- sique, nice face and a good mind. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a good male stripper. But if you want to be a great one stripper, you do have to have the mind of

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Mr. with a kippy 15 years his junior. Well,Funny surely his career has been more stable. Goodness gracious, his LinkedIn page reads like he throws a dart at Mediabistro every six months and applies for whatever it hits. Now he’s working at American Way — for the third time. And his boss is a wild-eyed younger guy who used to workGuy for him at the Observer, back when Eric left that place for his second tour of Amer- ican Way. Wait. Hang on. Joseph Guinto is free- lancing for American Way? The guy was living in D.C. and working as a White‘WHAT A Horatio House correspondent for Investor’s Busi-Alger story Keven ness Daily when they put me in hiberna-McAlester is.’ tion. He should be at the Wall Street Jour- nal by now. Maybe things don’t go his way — fine, at least the Washington Post. Yet here we are 15 years later, and he’s still working for Eric. Too funny. And to top it off, it looks like his wife was the one whoMA N , I A M S U P E R P I S S E D . became a successful media executive. Na- When the Dallas Observer’s par- tional Geographic? Nice. Oh, look. Here’s ent company, New Times, paid an Instagram picture of the razor clams a la plancha he cooked her for Sunday din-$2 million for The Met and shut it down ner. That’s cute.in the fall of 2000, I did not agree to be put Archibald Keven McAlester. Nominat-to sleep in a hibernation chamber set to ed in the documentary category for a fric-rouse me on the paper’s 21st anniversary. king Academy Award this year. That cer-Last thing I remember, I was at the Green tainly proves the American dream is stillElephant, being over-served at a wake for alive and well. What a Horatio Alger storyThe Met. That damn Creed song was on this guy is. Goes to only the second-bestthe jukebox. This guy named Paul Riddell boys’ private prep school in Dallas, en-asked me if I wanted something to make dures the family struggles that come withthe pain go away. Then ... having a father who’s a university deanNow, here I am. Words can’t describe and a mother who’s a world-renownedthis hangover. Not English words, any- preservationist, goes on to Harvard andway. You know how Eskimos have 47 then finds tremendous success after usingwords for different types of snow? Maybe his ex-girlfriend’s money as a springboardif I were an Eskimo, I could tell you how to the movie business. Inspirational.bad this hangover hurts. Looks like Adam McGill is still pre-I wonder where everyone is and what tending he’s not gay. Not sure I would en-they’ve been up to for the past 15 years. trust him with internal communicationsWhoa, the World Wide Web has changed at a company that has filed for bankruptcyquite a bit. So you’re telling me that on protection while it restructures $40 bil-these certain pages, people just publish all lion in debt. But whatever.this personal information about them- Chris Shull does PR for the Dallas Sym-selves for everyone to read? phony Orchestra. Makes sense. TheyOkay, the big dog, Randy Stagen, the- don’t drug test. If I had a time machine,guy who started the whole thing. I see he I’d go back to 2000 and short DSO stock.is still insisting on calling himself “Rand.” Kim Harwell married Scott KeltonHave to hand it to him. That’s Andy Jones? That loser? Oh. He’s a vice presi-Kaufman-style commitment to a joke. dent at Expedia. Shocking. I expected toAnd I see he’s running a company called find mugshots and an accompanying APStagen (amazing!) that describes its mis- story about a porn bust. Good for them.sion thusly: “Stagen helps mid-market And good for me, too. At least my 15-companies scale by deploying a highly lev- year sleep preserved my youth and poten-eraged and affordable engagement model tial. I mean, I might have wound up win-that builds capacity and delivers sustain- ning a National Magazine Award andable results.” That right there is USDA moving to Manhattan to take a job at ThePrime bullshit! So the guy who managed New Yorker. But there’s a chance it couldThe Met into ruin is a management con- have gone the other way, too. Who knows?sultant. Kinda like the Cistercian priests I might have settled for a job at someplacewho taught me about sex and marriage. I used to mock, like D Magazine, andHow does this guy pay his bills? Oh, he worked there so long that it crushed mymarried a lawyer. Got it. spirit. Maybe I would have wound upEric Celeste. Interesting. His daughter bald, bearded, and wearing Warby Parkers,dyed her hair red and — wait a second. just like every other fortysomething who’sThat’s not his daughter. Oh, no. He got trying to stave off a midlife crisis.divorced? I always thought of Eric as an Not me. I’m still young, baby. I’m goingascetic with a low li- to crack this city openbido. But according and suck out its mar-B Y T I M R O G E R Sto these social me- row. Watch out, Dal-dia sites, he took up las. I’m back! ■ APRIL 28, 1994 – APRIL 28, 2015 7 THE MET





&RLIFEOINRACOKLLVEHICLE He’s been a THEN of the 45-foot Prevost tour bus only doesmusical traveler for so during these early morning hours while I ’ M WA S TING MY SHIFT IN THE SOLO BENCH, WATCHING RAIN the three bandmates and four crewmem- more than two bers sleep through the final stretch of the decades. Here, the speckle the dirty windows of the Chevy van and worrying about the girl- long overnight drive. The driver, nameless Old 97’s frontman friend. I should be sleeping. That’s the whole point of the solo bench: and ever-changing, drives steadily on. MyRHETT MILLER three horizontal hours before it’s your turn to drive for three hours. The wife sleeps through my FaceTime request typical move is to spend the shift before you get the solo bench drinking so I call the home phone. The kids are discusses the beer and smoking weed in the front bench so that when it’s your turn for ready for this. Any other hour of the day, journey from the solo bench, you can pass out. Then, three hours later, you wake up that phone would elicit as much response THEN to NOW. and slam some coffee so you’re awake enough to fight off the loneliness as the engine thrum of an overhead jet. of the early morning shift. It helps to chain-smoke cigarettes, though The home phone is only for telemarket- there is danger in the hypnotic effect created by the glowing cherry as it ers, except during the hour before school bounces along to the equipment trailer’s shimmy. when it’s: “Daddy!” I called the girlfriend during the last floor, surrounded by Hershey’s bar wrap- “Hi, kiddo. How’s the tooth?” stop. The girlfriend is an aspiring stand- pers. She seemed to be crying, but when “Um. You know. Whatever. Hurts.” up comic, so it figures that the new mes- she looked up at us, anger flashed in her “Go get mom’s phone and FaceTime sage on her answering machine does that eyes. me.” thing where the girlfriend’s voice says hel- Moments later, it’s the daughter ’s lo and then there’s a long pause before she “Do you want some of this chocolate?” sweet face. And she’s wiggling a precari- says, “Psyche! Leave a message.” Normal- she said. “I hate it so much.” ous front tooth at me. ly this would be funny, but I was huddled “You are not allowed to let that sucker against the wind at a truck-stop payphone, Our awareness of her frailty, our empa- fall out before I get home.” trying to hear over the roar of long-haul thy for her plight, was long gone by the “When do you get home?” semis, so this comic chestnut inspired time the van had hit the highway. Thank “I’ll be picking you up from school to- something bleak and desperate to blos- God our tour van came equipped with a morrow afternoon.” som in my weary traveler’s soul. Home karma filter. Unobserved cruelty is as nat- “That’s too long. Can’t you just teleport looms on the horizon. ural in young men as body odor or belief home right now?” in their own invincibility. “That depends on how much progress Night before last was Louisville. We you’ve made on your teleportation re- slept in the apartment of a skinny girl But she is there with me now in the solo search. As it currently stands, that tech- with a chubby roommate. One of my bench, the chubby roommate, fighting my nology remains unavailable.” bandmates might have shared a room need to sleep. Conspicuously absent from “Poop.” with the skinny girl, but the drummer and that lonely back bench is the girlfriend. She points the phone’s camera at her I rolled our sleeping bags out on the land- All I have of her right now is the memory older brother, whose toes are locked below ing at the top of the stair. Something woke of a voice on an answering machine. “Psy- the front edge of a chair by the fireplace as us earlier than usual, a whimpering some- che! Leave a message.” he performs the most earnest sit-ups in where between human and an-imal. We the history of exercise. The little sister located its source in the kitchen. The Home may be on the horizon, but I and I mimic his grunts and mock-compli- chubby roommate sat on the kitchen can’t see it from the solo bench. ment his rock-hard abs. I call out to him, by way of apology, that I wished my stom-T H E M E T 10 A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 NOW The silence that defines the back lounge

ach looked even remotely like his. With- coach starts yelling at the ump while I make my way back to my bunk, a cof- ON THE ROAD AGAIN:out pausing his exercise, he responds, you’re in the batter’s box, I might acci- fin-shaped space with a curtain forming The Old 97’s Rhett“And Leon’s getting larger.” dentally kick him in the nuts. Is Mom the fourth wall. I pull the curtain closed Miller has gone from still asleep?” but still hear the muted sounds of human a Chevy van to a If I were home, he would have delivered life up and down the hallway. The drum- tricked-out tour bus.the Airplane quote while shaking my bel- “Yeah.” mer and tour manager snore. The guitarly. Little bastard. I don’t know where he “Go put the phone next to her bed, and player ’s headphones betray his predilec-gets it from. I’ll send text messages until the dinging tion for falling asleep to music and letting sound wakes her up.” it play on, unheard. The bassist clicks Then he’s up, grabbing the phone from I start texting. away at the keyboard of his laptop. Doeshis sister. “Dad, are you gonna make it to “Good morning, sleepybutt.” he ever sleep? These people have been mymy baseball game tomorrow night? We’re “Wake up and look at how cute yer kids little army for decades now. We used to beplaying the Marlins!” are.” kids, and now we have kids. Most of us “If they don’t go to school you’ll go to still drink and smoke, and we all still talk “Hell yes, I will. We hate the Marlins.” jail.” shit. Just less. A lot less. “That’s awesome. I was afraid you “Don’t let the girl one’s tooth fall outweren’t gonna see a single game this sea- until I get home!” Home may be on the horizon. But it’sson.” Then the phone is ringing, and she also right here. This stings. The touring behind the sounds like a surly teenager pissed at thenew album has been pretty intense. morning. Rhett Miller has also written for The Atlantic andWhich is good and bad. It speaks to an “Why do they wake up so early every Sports Illustrated. His new solo album, Theincreased demand that, this deep into a morning?” Traveler, is out on May 19. See him with The Oldcareer, is rare indeed. But the price of this “I know. It’s annoying isn’t it?” 97’s on May 9 in Dallas at the Homegrown Musicsuccess is that I’ve had to be away from “Tomorrow?” and Arts Festival. For info and tickets, visithome even more than usual. “Yes. Tomorrow. I love you, babe.” old97s.com/shows/ “Well, kid, I wouldn’t miss the Marlinsgame for the world. And if that A-hole A P R I L 2 8 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 11 T H E M E T

TERRIBLE AT TWENTY-ONE 21THE MOST SELF-REFERENTIAL PUBLICATION IN DALLAS HISTORY IS TURNING 21. HERE'S WHY YOU SHOULD CELEBRATE WITH US.DYLAN THOMAS WAS CERTAINLY MORE SUCCINCT — the window of a minivan while on the way croissants. Doughnuts maybe. We’ll get“Rage, rage against the dying of the light” — but he was not to pick the kids up from soccer practice, one of those surgical tubing slingshotsnearly as persuasive as The Met’s founder and publisher, Randy no less. And sober as a goddamn judge. and launch the loaves high into the air.Stagen, who launched into a rant one day, many years ago now, People will fight to catch the stuff, eventhat would become this magapaper ’s rallying cry. A publishing But no! Not today you won’t. Because though they won’t know what we’rewunderkind, Stagen founded The Met in 1994 while still fresh today, whatever day this message actually throwing until it’s in their hands.”out of SMU. He wanted it to be a publication that would fight reaches you, The Met is celebrating itsnot against the dying of the light but rather against the journal- 21st birthday. Murder and mayhem and And so it was that the editorial staffersistic convention of the day, which focused on murder and may- crime and corruption and crumbling, shirked their duties one Friday and wenthem, corruption and crime. Instead, The Met would talk to an city-dividing overpasses can wait for an- to the now demolished Mrs. Baird’s Bak-audience more concerned with fun and frivolity, celebration and other day. Because today, wherever you ery at Mockingbird and Central to load upconviviality. An audience still celebrating its youth, or, at least, are and whatever your age, you will high- on stale, cheap, baked goods. From there,its youthfulness. five and low-five and drink and smoke and a years-long tradition began. Many flour- drink — with us. and-yeast-based concoctions were But youth is a fleeting thing, and it was I’d walk into a bar and they’d be like, ‘Sta- launched to great heights to be clamorednot even two years into The Met’s exis- gen!’ — high-fiving, low-fiving, the whole Herewith, then, we give you Some for by crowds of people who were left ut-tence that Stagen — still in his 20s — bit. But now, nobody knows me. Now Damn Fine Reasons Why You Should Cel- terly confused with their catch.found himself being pushed out by the when I go out, there are just waves and ebrate The Met’s Birthday.same forces that had once pulled him in. waves of kids. Everywhere! And they’re Then in 1998, on the day of the parade,This is the state of man: Time marches on drinking and smoking and drinking. It’s ONE it rained. Wet bread is heavy. Heavy thingsand crushes us under its boot. And so, tobacco, tobacco, tobacco, liquor, liquor, Because, to repeat, “Tobacco, tobacco, tobacco, travel fast when launched from a sling-thus began the rant that begat the mission liquor … beer!” liquor, liquor, liquor … beer!” shot made from extremely stretchy surgi-statement that carries The Met to this cal tubing. This would seem obvious, ex-very year, its 21st in existence. Huzzah! Dylan Thomas was asking old Come on. Don’t be lazy and just read cept for one thing: The starting area of the men to keep a remaining spark of life lit. the list. Read the intro to this feature Greenville Ave. St. Patrick’s Day Parade is Said Stagen then: But Stagen was asking — no, challenging package, too. a long distance, measured in the number “You think a 25-year-old accountant — us to do something more. Before it is of drinks one can consume, from the judg-cares about injustice when he comes too late, he was saying, we must push TWO es’ stand. So by the time The Met’s cabalhome from work to his place in The Vil- back to the middle of the crowd, the place Because We Almost Took Harvey Martin’s reached the judges, whom we planned tolage? He’s not thinking about injustice. where all that high-fiving and the low-fiv- Head Off With a Loaf of Bread both moon — seven staffers had paintedHe’s thinking about going out to happy ing is taking place. Don’t allow yourself to tightie whities with the letters T-H-E-M-hour. And I see these kinds of young peo- stand on the edges shaking hands. Not “Let’s throw them bread,” the major E-T and a registration mark — and thenple everywhere now. yet. Because soon enough, you’ll no longer general editor suggested, harmlessly. pelt with loaves of bread, good-naturedly, \"You know, I used to be the man. I used be on the edge. You’ll no longer be in the no one remained capable of fully graspingto go out, and everybody knew who I was. bar. You’ll be outside looking in — through “Bread?” the managing editor asked, in- the laws of physics. quisitively. And so it was that a wet loaf of bread “Yeah. That’s what you do in a parade — okay, to be specific, it was a dinner roll — your throw stuff to people. So, tomor- — rocketed toward the head of four-time row, when we’re riding on the truck in the Greenville Ave. St. Patrick’s Day, we’ll throw them day-old bread. Bagels, too. OrT H E M E T 12 A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5

NFL Pro Bowler, Super Bowl XII co-MVP, ly on, so Stagen ordered a literal truckload ry. Joke’s on them. The Met never had a ry, proof that sales reps never listen to ed-and Greenville Ave. St. Patrick’s Day Pa- of kegs and spirits to be delivered. fact-checking department. itors. A guy from Fort Worth called be-rade Judge Harvey Martin. Its flight was cause he wanted to option the screennot good-natured. It was menacing. And “I wasn’t going to run out of alcohol at STORY: Brat Trap — Three Hockaday rights of the story. A producer from KDFWas Martin ducked out of the way — just in our premiere party,” he says. “So they girls form a band and are signed to Ma- wanted to book the girls on the nightlytime — the loaf smacked the back of the rolled the kegs through the front door, and donna’s Maverick label after one pens a newscast. And an official from Maverickjudge’s canvas tent, hitting it so hard that people cheered. Then the party started peppy pop song about her parents being records called to explain that Madonnait nearly dislodged the entire apparatus. getting out of control. I had invited a di- killed in a car accident. The band was Brat had personally read the story and wanted verse group of people. We had the models. Trap. The song was “Car Wreck.” things to be straightened out. Taking the shot, with a full extension of We had the yuppies. We had the rock andthe surgical tubing slingshot, was a terri- rollers. We had the tattoo people. We had FALLOUT: It was multilayered. A Met CONTINUED >>ble mistake. “So, I don’t understand,” the artists. It was The Met’s ideal au- salesrep was in tears after reading the sto-managing editor said the next day. “Why, dience. There were some charac-then, did we take a second shot at the ters. And those characters got 4No. Because We’ve Proven that Drinkingjudges?” drunk. It was insanely crowded on Deadline Is a Dangerous Idea That Will Cost and people were spilling wine on Someone His Bachelorhood, So Now You Don’t Here's something that's easy to under- the DMA’s limestone floors, Have to Try It BY JOSEPH GUINTOstand: The parade organizers’ subse- staining them. The next day I gotquently decided to ban us from all future a call telling me we’d been B Y HALLOWEEN NIGHT IN 1995, a year-and-a-half Tim went through a couple of changes of wardrobeparades. banned for life from the DMA. into The Met’s existence, everyone on staff was during the course of the evening. He went out once and exhausted. The stress of producing a weekly pub- came back sans jumpsuit wearing instead a pair of walkingTHREE “What a way to start.” lication with a tiny budget, a small staff, anti- shorts and a T-shirt — and, of course, his hardhat and gog- The next year, the first anni- quated computer equipment, and only a trickle gles; it was, after all, Halloween. I didn't understand at firstBecause We’ve Been Banned From versary party saw 2,000 people of revenue had caught up to people on both the sales and the reason for the costume change, but it soon became ap- crowd into the art deco Hall of the editorial sides of the paper. There were shouting match- parent. The jumpsuit, you see, was a one-piece affair, zip-Fancy Places, Too. State in Fair Park for a three-hour es. Silent treatments. And Randy Stagen had recently spent pered at the front, making it very difficult for him to \"moon\" “Our parties were epic,” says Met party, also with an open bar — an entire morning under his desk, refusing to come out, be- people. five bars, actually, and a half-doz- cause he’d learned that the initial investors’ shares wouldfounder and publisher Randy Stagen. en girls in tight dresses handing have to be diluted and a new round of financing would need Moonings are usually harsh, shocking affairs, but Tim“Even from the start.” out shots. “The alcohol was ex- to be put in to keep the fledgling publication afloat. If conducted his with a dignity and elan I have never before cessive,” Stagen says. “It was so there’s an entrepreneur in America who hasn’t been there seen; it was truly statesmanlike; in fact, it was vice-presi- Indeed, on April 28, 1994, there were not responsible.” and done that early on, then they know something the rest dential. \"Sally,\" Tim said [to journalist Sally Francis], smiling1,500 people who descended on the Dal- Vicki Arnold, The Met’s long- of us don’t. reassuringly, \"would you like for me to moon you?\"las Museum of Art to await the debut of time administration director, re- This was all the subject of some conversation that nightthe city’s newest arts & entertainment calls the aftermath.“Beer and when two top editors, Eric Celeste, then editor-in-chief, and \"Well,\" Sally said, \"I guess that would be okay, yes.\"weekly. Except the paper wasn’t there. cigarettes were all over the floor,” Tim Rogers, then deputy editor, went to a Halloween party And he did.The Met hadn’t arrived at Dallas’ Midway she says. “And there were dozens at Terrilli’s “just for dinner” as The Met was in the pivotal Celeste lost a few points for failing to be physically trou-Press until 5 a.m. that morning. And it of beer bottles in the fountain evening of its weekly production cycle. After a drink or two blesome to his fellow guests, but regained them via a loudwas still rolling off the presses as the party outside the Hall of State.” or three — no one recalls — Celeste or Rogers — no one re- and deranged journalism discourse with that loudest andbegan. Shameful, to be sure. And well calls — said they “deserved a night off.” And so began one of derangedest journalism discourser of them all, none other deserving of the ban that fol- the longest nights in The Met’s young life. Seen from my than [longtime D Magazine writer] Rod Davis. As the first guests arrived, to the open- lowed. perspective, as the managing editor, this was disastrous. But Celeste's finest moments came not at Terilli's but atbar event, the papers were finally on a “But,” Arnold says. “Near the Seen from the perspective of a legendary imbiber, Dallas The Met, where I have a reliable witness. You see, it was ontruck, headed down the Dallas North end I did hand our owner, Ray journalist Brad Bailey, it was something else entirely. Crunch Night, the night they have to bust ass to get most ofTollway from the printing plant. But that Washburne, a broom and told The next morning, as Celeste and Rogers battled hang- the paper published, that Chaka and the Timster decided itdidn’t go well, either. Unsecured bundles him to get in there and clean the overs and I scrambled to make sure The Met would actually would be a grand idea to go instead go get torn-down drunkflew off the back of the truck, breaking place up. That’s not something get to press, instead of ceasing to exist, journalist Brad Bai- and then come back and put the paper out.open on the road. Rush-hour traffic slowed normally spoken to a million- ley sent the following effortlessly brilliant message to an It was not, however, the paper which Celeste ultimatelyto a crawl, and traffic reporters noted that aire.” email group of fellow journalists who formally identified as put out, but mainly the contents of his stomach, layingsome publication called The Met was re- The Bobwahred, and more informally called themselves “the there on his office couch with his ass in the air and his headsponsible. It would have been a brilliant FIVE Bobs”: in the trashcan, in which there was apparently some personbit of marketing, had it been planned. named Ralph. Because Madonna Read The Met I am here to tell you there is balm in Gilead, salve for Rogers was ultimately rescued at Terilli's by other Also unplanned: The booze ran out ear- jock-itch and joy in Mudville, for in Tim Rogers and his able co-workers, who threw him in a car and locked the doors, (A True Story about Fake Stories) assistant, Eric Celeste, we have found Drunks of Major Stat- certain in the knowledge that he would be unable to figure ure — not these piddling poozlers who delicately sip at bou- out how to work the little knobs. You know what you would tique raspberry wheat beers while talking about their in- I once would have been somewhat crestfallen and have read this month, had you vestments; these guys don't have any investments and they ashamed to report this, but now I am proud; I was just sit- been reading The Met? A fake are real Drunk's Drunks. Need I qualify myself as an expert? ting quietly, all by myself, bothering no one while this story. Here are some of the April I think not. In fact, these two conducted a rather state-of- played out. Once I would have felt it was my bounden duty Fool’s features we did, and the the-art eruption — a cross between a low-fashion show and to bother the other patrons, start arguments/fistfights and fallout. a street brawl — only yestereve. hit on women who did not welcome my attentions because, and this is important: There was nobody else to do it. STORY: The Real Beavis & The venue was Terilli's, which added to the contrast. But now there is. Butthead — Two Dallas losers Here amongst the Gucci loafers: Chaka [one of Eric Celeste’s The baton can be passed. sued Mike Judge for using their nicknames — a reference to the hirsute character from Land An entire generation of Drunks can now relax, relieved of likenesses without compensa- of the Lost], barefoot, barelegged, wearing nothing but a their burden, and do most of the rest of their drinking at tion. raincoat and a Santa Claus cap; eyes glazed, needing a home. Generation X has come into its own. shave and looking generally like he'd been sniffin' it when FALLOUT: Our cover models he was ‘sposed to be using it to put his model airplanes to- Rogers never returned to the offices that night. Celeste were asked, later, if they were ac- gether. didn't recover enough to be useful until the next day. That’s tually suing Mike Judge. That’s also when I berated both of them — even though Celeste was got to sting. Equally radiant was Marster Tim, resplendent in a hellish- my boss at the time — until I was purple in the face. ly bright orange and much-used Phillips 66 service station STORY: You’ve Got Jail — a jumpsuit with hardhat and goggles. Tim can flat get after it. So, how did the paper get out? I called my girlfriend, also former Lewisville High School He waged war on the wine, battled many beers, and the a journalist, at 3:30 in the morning and told her I was on my football player was accused of champagne suffered an utter rout. The alcohol was his fa- way over with the whole paper for her to proofread. Though murder. vorite kind — free. If they'd been charging him for it, he'd she had work of her own at 8 a.m., she agreed to help save have to've sold his car. us, and we made it to press in time. Later, she would tell me, FALLOUT: The Lewisville “Look, it was no big deal. When your boyfriend calls you up Leader did a story on The Met’s High point for his evening was that wondrous moment in the middle of the night, you would much rather he ask story, reporting that we’d gotten when he walked up behind the nicely-dressed, austere and you to do a copyediting job than some other kind of job.” all the facts wrong, that there haughty-looking man and proceeded to butt-hunch him un- had never been a player by the til the flushed man stiffly walked away. I married that woman. And she hasn’t done a late-night name of the one that we profiled, copyediting job since. and that budget cutbacks at The Met, which eliminated the fact-checking department, were the reason for the erroneous sto- A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 13 T H E M E T

THE THEN AND THE NOW SIX Thursday nights to aimed 500-pound THAT NEVER WAS drink and play strip bombs. But you got Because We’re Open to Alternative Lifestyles poker until the place yours, didn't you, my The 21 things The Met Would have closed down. I think little samurai? Pay-Written About from 2000-present, had we not, and Alternative Meanings of “Alternative.” that nudity definitely back’s a bitch, huh played a part in suc- Tojo? You can make you know, gone out of business On alternative lifestyles: The Met once cess of The Met, which pretty little enamel hired a designer who believed he had lived may be why it's no lacquered boxes and Artisan A-Holes multiple past lives, including one that longer around.” folded paper cranes, What hell hath these hipsters wrought? predated civilization as we know it. While but could you con- trying to woo another young staffer, he EIGHT struct a simple Facebook Is for Fools once bared his soul, saying,“I haven’t told Because, When We Were self-sealing gas tank? Why the latest technology fad is destined to fail. anyone this in 10,000 years ...” Good, We Were that Fuck- HELL NO! Nimble is ing Good. And When We as nimble does, and Gather and Scatter His grasp of the language was also Ne- Were Bad, We Were that your vaunted Zeros I infiltrated a flash mob to watch it hatch, learn its anderthal-ish. Explaining how he once Fucking Bad. were just that: was surprised to discover that something DUCKS IN A GODDAMNED SHOOT- behavior, and, ultimately, destroy it. he owned had glow-in-the-dark proper- The worst words we ever printed: ING GALLERY, from Midway all the way ties, he said, attempting to tell the story in “I’m that fucking good.” — Eric Ce- to Tokyo Bay. Never forget! Remember the Townhome Is Where the Heart Is the past tense, “It glued! It glued in the leste’s joking addition to a Q&A with a Arizona!” Midtown is the new Uptown, which was the new dark!” noted Dallas cellist who was talking about — Arts editor Chris Shull’s screed, how she had managed to get a gig at Car- contributed to an issue we called \"Warm Downtown, which was the new Frisco. On alternative meanings: Vicki Arnold, negie Hall. Celeste added the phrase as a & Fuzzy\" aforementioned administrative director, joke, not expecting it to see print. It did. The Best Of D Magazine‘s Best of Big D Issues recalls that she was introduced to Randy When the issue came out, Celeste im- NINESelecting the best Best Of items from a random assort- Stagen through a gay staffer’s boyfriend. mediately offered his resignation to pub-ment of years because we really needed the week off “They told me they were hiring for an ‘al- lisher Randy Stagen, who now recalls, “At Because We Bit the Hand that Fed us, No Matter ter-native magazine,’” she says. “Remem- that time, Celeste had both hair and in- (read: the editor is hung over) ber, this is 1994. ‘Alternative’ had multi- tegrity. Today, he has neither.” What Those STUPID MOTHERFUCKING ple meanings then. But I was forward Tech Go Boom, Tech Go Bust thinking for my age, so I just overlooked The best words we ever printed: CUM-DUMPSTERS at the Association of Alterna- Living in La Vida Las Colinas in 2008 my assumption that Randy and Eric Ce- \"We have but one question for the fas- leste were lovers. It wasn’t until Eric’s tidious organizers of Sun & Star 1996, tive Newsweeklies Say Get Down with Your Bad Selfie wife gave birth to their daughter, Maddi- this fall's ubiquitous festival of Japanese Dallas native and Bachelor/Bachelorette pimp Chris son, a couple months later that I realized art and culture that has relentlessly filled In 1996, The Met entered into a “stra- the truth.” museums and concert halls since Septem- tegic alliance” with The Dallas Morning Harrison rates your dating profile. ber: Remember Pearl Harbor? The sun News, which was code for “The DMN SEVEN and star have met and mingled before, loaned The Met $300,000.” Twitter Is for Twerps and it wasn’t in the cool darkness of the Why the latest technology fad is destined to fail. Because of These Random Facts DMA or the quiet grandeur of the Meyer- What the Morning News got out of that son in that breathless moment between deal remains, to this day, a mystery to us. You Can't Spell Y-O-G-A Without G. S We once ran the Dallas Observer’s silence and music. What we got out of it was, well, moola, Our very own Gary Dowell gets in touch with his staffbox in The Met. In full. It prompted a Oh no, my friends. It was on the blood- cheddar, three hundy large, THIRTY cease-and-desist order. frothed beaches of Tarawa and on the fire- STACKS OF HIGH FUCKING SOCI- sweaty self to see what's up with down dog. swept hell of Iwo Jima that sun and star ETY! S One day, Brittany, our receptionist first mingled, and it was no god-damned The Met‘s Guide to the Stock Market saw two uniformed peace officers making tea ceremony either. It was war, dammit. Because journalists are the worst ass- We print a bunch of stock listings in the feature well their way to the front door of our offices in WAR! holes on the planet, the deal drew the ire because we really needed the week off (read: the the historic, cast-iron City Hotel building It was a peaceful Sunday morning in of the alternative press. The same year the on Elm Street one afternoon. She an- paradise, shattered by treachery and well- loan was given, the Association of Alter- editor is in prison) nounced via intercom that two constables native Newsweek-lies denied The Met were entering the building. Immediately, entry into its membership ranks. “The On iPhones and the Death of Polite Conversation the hurried steps of the majority of staff- coziness of The Met’s relationship withIs that a computer in your pocket are you just ignoring ers could be heard from all parts of the the daily Dallas Morning News is very dis- building as the staffers ran toward the turbing,” AAN’s Admission's Committee seeing me? back door. The sales rep who didn’t make said. “The issue was so paramount that it out in time was arrested for passing bad the committee did not even discuss the Tux to be You checks. editorial merits of The Met.”On a dare and a wager, Mr. Funny Guy wears the sameformalwear every day for a month. You’ll never believe S At the Dallas Press Club’s Katie Oh, is that so? You want to know some- Awards one year, our group was seated right thing about our cozy relationship and our what happened next. in front of the stage. We won multiple editorial merits. Well, here’s a story from awards, which was only part of the reason Randy Stagen that you can cut a hole in Yes, Yes, Mayor Miller. MORE. MORE! for the multiple loud outbursts of phrases and teabag.An enthusiastic member of the electorate overshares such as, “Ooop ooop” from our table. Even- tually, we decided to pick winners in each “While we were negotiating the strate- his private thoughts. category — NCAA bracket style. If our gic alliance, you editorial assholes wrote “team” won, we’d go wild. This led emcee an attack story on the publisher of The To Mavs and to Hold Bob Ray Sanders of the Fort Worth Star Tele- Dallas Morning News — Burl Osborne.The Dallas Mavericks win the NBA title and all you get gram, who was occasionally drowned out by Not only that, you put a picture on the our outbursts, to thank us, sincerely, for our cover of what was supposed to be his is this excerpt of a radio host’s mediocre book. enthusiasm. Notably, we were not banned child. He was wearing an elf suit. That from that event. was not cool.” For Whom the Toll Road Tolls A road-weary driver recounts his best efforts to rack S “Later in The Met’s run,” says one- WRONG! It was very cool. up the largest single-day fee in history. Sidebar: Why time editor in-chief Sally Rodgers, “Randy And now that the Internet sells hooker Stagen was starting his new career as a ads MUCH more effectively than those we rejected his expense report. corporate coach/fire walker and I think he pretentious print papers ever could, AAN needed a client. So he signed up The Met. has totally caved on its hardline stance. Fifth Time’s a Charm! We walked across hot coals, sat cross- AAN papers in Baltimore, San Francisco, Deep Ellum’s rise and fall and rise and fall and rise legged on pillows in a back room at Cos- Chicago, and Tucson all are or have been and fall and rise and fall and rise, again. Sidebar: The mic Cup, and bent metal with equal parts recently owned by mainstream newspaper bare hands and mental telepathy as he corporations. Sandbar, a reminiscence. preached to us about stuff like 'inner po- That means that AAN had principles tential.' But we had our own version of until it needed money and then caved like Check Out Her Taco team building. That consisted of meeting a junkie needing a hit, just like every hackThis diner, and thousands like her, are benefitting from on the roof of The Sandbar [a defunct spot politician their papers have kneecapped. not to be confused with a currently exist- Hey, AAN, how’s that corporate dildo feel the latest food craze in town: tacos! ing Dallas bar of the same name] on in your ass? Stuff We Read in a Magazine This MorningA fascinating recap of things we otherwise would have posted to Twitter because we really needed the week off (read: the editor is missing) Art and Artifice The Dallas Arts District and the ghettoization of culture. Intervention: Robert Wilonsky A friendship-ending, scorched-earth story about howthe Observer's most recognizable writer took a job at the DMN where his fingers of fury type so often that he’s now encroaching on everyone's beat, includingthose who write about the weather.. Written by Robert Wilonsky. (He couldn't resist a chance to type more words, and we really needed a week off — read: the editor is dead.)T H E M E T 14 A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5

10No. Because We Made a Tiny weeks later, I had a breakdown in the shower, thinking about my infant Little Forgotten Dent in daughter and the money I’d turned down. Dallas’ Media Landscape It was the best and worst thing I could have done. Worst because BY ERIC CELESTE the commute to Funkytown and the conservative corporate culture of a big-city newspaper almost killed me. Best because I needed to leaveITOOK THE JOB AS EDITOR OF THE MET because I needed the cisco (before he debuted Might magazine, he wrote a short-lived com- — Joseph Guinto and Tim Rogers were getting fed up with me for vari- money. It was late 1993, and D Magazine, where I’d been working, ic strip for The Met); first to read/love The Onion outside of Wisconsin ous reasons and had convinced themselves they could put out a bet- had shut down months earlier. I was 26. My wife was pregnant. I (after reading the first few issues, we asked the editors to write a ter product, which was at least partly if not wholly true — and because had no job. Of course, I told everyone that the editorship of The magazine-style article mocking us on the occasion of our second it forced me to work outside The Met’s insular we’re-such-clever- Met was really about something bigger. Something important. birthday and they, smartly, focused on our self-referential nature), et white-boys culture. Our refusal to push ourselves to really care about About reinventing journalism. About taking that foolhardy shot at cetera. Looking back, it’s safe to say our instincts were more often diversity in hiring and in seeking out freelance voices was our great- something grand and stupid and worthwhile, while you’re still young right than wrong. est flaw. enough to do so. [Insert wanking .gif here.] I could sell that lie. Really sell it. I convinced young, talented people Trouble is, no one remembers the folks who came first, did it better, If The Met were to suddenly reappear each week on newsstands to leave their jobs for a chance to work at a start-up. Today, that and lost money. Ask Betamax. around the city, its dick-grabbing attitude, which you’re getting plenty seems like an obvious move: Leave the big faceless journalism corpo- of in this edition, would be the most anachronistic thing about it. ration for a chance to plant your flag, establish your personal brand. Writing about yourself is good. Twenty-one years ago, no one thought like that. The Met wasn’t going We always believed, despite much criticism, that there was a damn Investing in media is dumb, dumb, dumb. to work if they didn’t believe in the dream. I get what Randall Goss, Bob Bennett, Ray Washburne, and the doz- That dream — or at least the pitch for it — went something like this: fine reason to write so much about ourselves. This issue is proof of our conviction, and I think time has proven us to be correct in that en or so other investors in The Met who came and went during its time The Dallas Observer doesn’t speak to young people in Dallas. It’s conviction. Today, being up-front about your staff’s backgrounds, bias- were thinking. Media companies then and now are vanity buys. Buyers run by a corporation out of Phoenix! It’s all about murder and crime es, and methods is seen as an important part of a media company’s convince themselves they can make money and have the ego-en- and City Hall. But The Met is going to be about things young people transparency agenda, designed to shatter the always-silly notion that hancement that goes with such a public venture. care about: art and entertainment and culture, sure, but also drinking a paper isn’t affected by the biases of the people editing and writing and smoking and fucking. The things all art and culture are REALLY it. We knew instinctively that it helped our credibility to tell readers in The various owners of The Met helped launch a lot of careers and about. Plus, we’ll have an office above a bar. And a juicer for when an editor’s note that cover-story essayist Brad Bailey was a drunk and made the city a more interesting place. I’m sorry they lost their asses you’re hung over. a gambler — because we also noted that this didn’t mean his insights doing so. weren’t worth printing. Today, The Dallas Morning News encourages its It’s amazing, looking back, that people bought that pitch without reporters to build personal relationships with readers in social media, When you get older, you'll do things your younger self asking perfectly reasonable questions like “What are my benefits? and online companies like Deadspin make the behind-the-scenes, sit- would have mocked. What is your business plan? Shouldn’t we just put the whole thing in com-like foibles of their staff a seamless part of their conversation cyberspace [nee, The Internet] and save a million bucks a year?” No. with readers. Taking yourself too seriously, which we always tried not to do, Everyone just said, “Fuck yes, man. I’m in.” Which is as sweet and stu- creeps up on you like belly fat. By the time you’re nearly 50, you can’t pid as it sounds. Publishers should have more faith in their editors. get rid of it. Randy Stagen, the founder, publisher, and batshit crazy source of There was one notable exception, though, in fiscal conservative The Met staff in 1994-96 would have thought this entire Met at 21 Tim Rogers. Before he made the decision to take a 30 percent cut in The Met's energy, let us pub-lish anything we wanted, so long as we project was the work of a bunch of old nostalgia-snorting pussies. pay and leave his very stable job at American Airlines, he wanted me would hear his ideas. This led to a wonderful relationship wherein the Several people involved with this project disagree with me on that to sign a contract, scribbled on a bar napkin, that said, “When the shit edit staff felt free to mock Stagen’s ideas openly to him. He once even point. They are wrong. [Editor's note: No we are not.] hits, I’m onboard.” I didn’t really know what that meant, much less came to a staff meeting so he could pitch us stories directly. After 25 whether it was legally binding. minutes of the editors treating Stagen like they treated each other — The evolution of media is good. abusively dismissing his ideas for their utter lack of merit — Stagen In the mid-'90s, journalism, specifically, alt-weekly journalism, I’m not sure I ever came to believe in the dream I was selling. But I stormed out, declaring, “Fuck you guys. You’re just a bunch of cynical was, if nothing else, proud of what we accomplished. I’ve already writ- editorial fuckers.” seemed cool. It was the only place where you could read about music ten about that — in the Dallas Observer, right after The Met was laid to and nightlife and sex and drinking. Now, the Internet is filled with sto- rest in 2000, six and a half years after it debuted. There’s no use in re- Still, the value in that open relationship between the boss and his ries/videos/websites devoted to just these things. If our twentysome- hashing all that now. Instead, I think that, as our dead, buried, rotting editorial team was immense. It exists in no other place I’ve ever thing selves came along today, they would laugh at the idea that put- baby turns 21, what we need is a series of meager and scattershot worked and predicted the famous relationship Nick Denton has with ting out a newspaper was a worthwhile career choice. things I’ve learned about media and The Met that are tied together in his staff at Gawker.com, in which his own staffers write posts criticiz- some sort of lazy, half-assed listicle that is rapidly becoming the go-to ing his leadership when they feel its appropriate. The barrier to entry is so easy to break through now, anyone who format for our national discourse. So here are those things. has something meaningful to say can find an audience without hiring Because Stagen fostered the same kind of environment, he was a printer or buying a wax machine. (Look it up!) You see the spirit of Being first isn't all it's cracked up to be. truly the unsung hero of The Met's journalistic success. I think Sta- The Met more in a website by Dallas urban planner Patrick Kennedy — Pick an example and The Met was the first to do it locally, and quite gen’s approach stemmed not from a grand strategy but from his huge, whose ideas are rallying young people to create a better city — than kind heart. The lesson: If you listen to that organ instead of your head, you do in any arts and culture publication today. That should be cele- possibly nationally. First weekly to publish online-only content; first to it’s often a good idea. Especially if you’re the kind of guy who eats an- brated. It really is a better media world. take nightlife/bar writing seriously; first to take humor-writing seri- other person’s vomited goldfish. ously (outside of Seattle – wud up, Dan Savage); first to run mocking Funny guys can be smart guys, too. Q&A interviews; first to cover competing media seriously (we wrote a Egad, homogeneity is bad. For a paper that often seemed dominated by dick jokes, it's ironic hagiographic cover story on the star journalist of our biggest compet- I left The Met in 1996 to take a job as arts editor of the Fort Worth itor); first to recognize the genius of Dave Eggers outside of San Fran- that The Met produced someone who now works hard to lead the con- Star-Telegram. I initially turned the job down because I had by then versation in Dallas about what sort of city we should have. Tim Rogers, bought into the idea that The Met — and by extension, me and all of us as the National Magazine Award-winning editor of D Magazine, is proof — was special. Changing the world. [Re-insert wanking .gif here.] Two that even funny guys can mature. Besides that, Tim has helped maintain The Met‘s spirit in Dallas print media. No other editor in this town is weird enough to take his staff on a cross-country road trip while wearing matching Adidas track suits. Endings are not failures. The idea that any relationship you have — with work or a partner or anything — fails just because it comes to an end is ridiculous. Every- thing has a life cycle. What’s important are the lessons you take from it. The overriding lesson for me, 21 years later, is that no matter what I thought when I took the job, The Met did end up being about more than money. The thing about getting older is that it allows you to ad- mit something maudlin. For instance, this: The Met was simply about forging friendships. Friendships whose bonds loosened but never broke. If The Met provided more important lessons for others, so be it. I think it was about me and my college buddy Joe teaming up with a crazy rollerskating kid who had a dumb idea to make a paper. And we hired all the smart kids we could find. And then we all fell in love. So, fine. I love all of you. Now let’s drink and smoke and fuck. A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 15 T H E M E T

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EntertainmentYOU REALLY OUGHT TO GET OUT MORE, YOU KNOW THAT? MOVIES This Page ARTS 19 MUSIC 21 DRINKING 23Masters & Mayhem would say, “Some rescue!” Documentaries like this aren’t about the past but about controlling what the past means. Control is again a theme in McAlester’s second feature, The Dun- geon Masters (2008), but this exploration COURTESY OF CRAIG COMPIANANO/USS KIRK ASSOCIATION of table-top gaming culture moves closer to our time (its center of gravity lies some-The End: Last Days in where in the last two years of Bush 43’sVietnam was nominated presidency), and the power struggles in itfor an Academy Award implicate us more directly. The easy ironythis year. contrasts the Game Masters, all-powerful at the gaming tables, with the actual hu- man beings who play the GM roles, low- wage earners barely surviving a tsunami of firings, foreclosures, and student debt in a landscape of hotels and shopping malls. The finer irony in McAlester’s film is that, at its core, contemporary role-play- ing is a protest against the degradation of the American Dream by predatory finan- cial institutions, a fear-mongering press, and a war-addicted government (McAl- ester reminds us of all these by shots that include news broadcasts). Last Days flips the rescue and fantasy/ reality memes once again. Its past is the “eerie calm” between the 1973 Paris Ac- cord that gained henry Kissinger his No- bel peace prize and the 1975 fall of Saigon, and its witnesses mostly struggle with feelings of shame and guilt or assert that they were right all along. Missing from the cloud of witnesses, but a striking pres- ence in the archival footage, is General Maxwell Taylor, our fifth and last ambas- sador to South Vietnam. His stubborn re-In his documentaries, Keven McAlester paints problems, drug use, and symptoms of fusal to prepare for evacuation as the multilayered pictures ■ BY JOHN LEWIS schizophrenia had all but shut down his North Vietnamese Army drives south to- music-making. Apart from a few fitful ward Saigon seems to some like a denial of comebacks, he left the music scene for a reality; others see him as working to avoid panic among the South Vietnamese mili- reclusive life hoarding mail, tary and civiliansW ATCH A TIME-LAPSE FILM several times before, in documentary and watching cartoons, and fending M E T MOVIES closely associated of a painter working in oils, theatrical films, told so often that a few You’re with the departing and you’re surprised at how seconds of archival footage are enough to off attention from friends and Americans. slowly the subject of the paint- awaken the voices sleeping in our collec- family. In 2001 his brother Sumner gained Gonna Miss custody over Roky, and with meds and In the end, Lasting emerges. Patches of paint in unnatural tive consciousness: “damn shame,” “col- discipline the singer found his voice again. Me When I'm Days is a story of tri-colors appear here and there on the can- lateral damage,” “war sucks,” “they A rescue story waiting to be told? Gone; age — who gets res-vas; gradually the subject appears, a figure wouldn’t let us win.” And when those cued and who gets leftseated in a garden chair or a miner trudg- sleeping voices awaken, they don’t seek Not quite the story McAlester tells with The Dungeon behind — and howing homeward at his shift’s end. A good truth, they seek confirmation. “Peace his fine brushstrokes. He shuttles back Masters; this triage affects bothdocumentarist works in the same way, with honor,” said Nixon, and to fill the and forth in time, alternating Roky ’s those who make theadding clip to clip like so many fine brush- gap between his words and reality, Holly- youthful charisma with the blank-eyed Last Days in choices and thosestrokes until we can see a familiar subject wood gave us an entire slew of movies “fallen” Roky, and both of these with the Vietnam who suffer the conse-in a new way, or an overlooked subject where heroes went to rescue the POWs “Boy Jesus” Roky of his doting, dotty quences. No docu-with a sense of its depth and meaning. left behind. Subtext: “This time we’ll get mother’s home movies and the “rescued” You're Gonna Miss Me mentary can have theTop-flight documentarists produce works it right.” Roky of the 2000s. and The Dungeon Mas- last word on the indi-that are world- and mind-expanding. ters directed by Keven vidual or the big pic- McAlester’s first documentary feature By film’s end, we come to believe that McAlester. Last Days in ture of history, any Former Dallasite (and one-time music examined the rescue meme in material almost all McAlester ’s “witnesses” — friends, co-workers, relatives, caregivers Vietnam directed by Rory Kennedy, written by Keven McAlester.editor for The Met) Keven McAlester is a closer to his Texas roots. You’re Gonna — have scripted their own rescue narra- more than Roky’s mom’s out-sized scrap-young master of the fine brushstroke Miss Me (2005) traces the troubled life of tives with themselves as protagonists and book of her son’s life can, but Keven McA-school. His 2014 documentary, Last Days Austin’s Roger Kynard “Roky” Erickson, Roky as object of their helpful interven- lester ’s fine brushstrokes in Last Days inin Vietnam, co-produced with director frontman for the short-lived but influen- tions. You can hear and see them suppress Vietnam manage to portray more than aRory Kennedy, was nominated for an tial 13th Floor Elevators. By 1969, when darker memories of themselves and watch few good men in a bad time, and to raiseAcademy Award in the Best Documentary the Elevators’ last album, Bull of the them recoil from Roky as though he car- for us the Game Master’s question: “WhatFeature category. The tale has been told Woods, was released, Erickson’s legal ried some contagion. As princess Leia would you do?” ■ A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 17 T H E M E T

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Weathermen: Jackopierce’s BE MUSIC& ENTERTAINMENT down our throats — but that music pipe-Cary Pierce and Jack line is so much easier to ignore now. May-O'Neill are a whole lot be that’s why I bridled against Jackopierce,more popular than we are. et al. so viscerally: Because such middle- brow product was so ubiquitous. And I do The Big D(uh) mean product. In writing this, I’ve lis-On the seemingly endless era of Jackopierce, the music Dallas missed, and tened again to the bands that seemed to why a critic’s white-hot hate dies hard ■ BY BRET MCCABE dominate Dallas’ airwaves in the ’90s and recoiled at the manufactured insincerityJ ACKOPIERCE SUCKS. TYP- as many as 400,000 people attended that bie butt rock (Ugly Mustard), doing it all of so much of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if ing those two words about Dal- day-long advertisement that was covered there’s a branded “Blink-182 guitar” pre- las’ cookie-cuter, alt-rock outfit by MTV and VH-1, both owned for the nookie (Pimpadelic), reality show set today. In a way, though, that’s awe- some. Because, the same technology that still feels good. Jack O’Neill by Blockbuster ’s parent, Via- M E T MUSIC novelty (Flicker- enables me to flash back allows me to stick), or trying to know about, hear, and buy music from com. As one of The Met’s col- Dallas artists from where I now live —and Cary pierce, the bros who met at lege-educated, white guy music editors Weather Pinot be the next Lisa 1,200 miles away, in Baltimore. — an illustrious cabal that includes Keven Noir Loeb (Tiffany Shea).SMU and started the aforementioned McAlester, Mike Emery, and Joe Gross — Thinking back on That’s the upside of the past 15 years of what I thought about those kinds of bands JW Thomas Group that time now, the disruptive technologies: Bands and fanscrime by combining their names, have didn’t dent popular taste. I had smart and $25 per bottle pop nightmare of don’t need an industry to connect. I doubt clever things to say about a quasi-obscure the money trading hands via pay-what-been cranking out their Hootie and the or mid-level indie-rock band playing at jwthomasgroup.com you-want Bandcamp purchases or two- the Orbit Room (or Trees, the Galaxy week tours with $8 covers is enough toDave Matthews Test Dummies piffle for Club, the Argo or Robber Gloves in Den- sustain careers, but, then, the people in ton). I also spent many nights at those the bands I’ve liked have almost always21 years now. They ’re also, amazingly, clubs falling in love with local bands: Bed- “MMMBop,” the had day jobs anyway. head, Captain Audio, Comet, Dooms UK,winemakers. Their Russian River Valley Gospel Swingers, the Earl Harvin Trio, Spice Girls, “Candle in Wind 1997,” Buying an album directly from the band Legendary Crystal Chandelier, Light certainly sucks less than not finding it atPinot Noir is named Weather, after their T Bright Highway, Mazinga Phaser, Max- “Mambo No. 5,” Robbie Williams, and the old Tower Records on Lemmon Ave. ine’s Radiator, The Reds, Stumptone, Sub Such user-generated connections of theBone Burnett-produced 1994 debut al- Oslo, UFOFU, Yeti. Celine fucking Dion feels quaint — even Internet era create their own infrastruc- tures — like punk’s DIY clubs, recordbum, Bringing on the Weather. Others championed those bands, too. if that reads like the piped-in playlist of a stores, and zines. We might have once But as Jackopierce was getting bigger by called that alternative subculture.That was the same year The Met pre- the day, the bands I favored were failing to fast-casual eatery. This era was the last catch on in North Texas. Indeed, much of Still, although The Met was ostensiblymiered. And at that time, my unsavory The Met’s music coverage was out of step time so-called major labels would ever ex- an alternative weekly, we chased the same with what Dallas really wanted. And what assortment of commercial ad dollars thatopinion about Jackopierce was a minority Dallas wanted was Jackopierce. Or Bowl- ert that manner of market dominance support mass media, and an ecosystem’s ing for Soup, Hagfish, Tripping Daisy, the smallest fish tends to be the first one eat-one. In his review of Bringing on the Toadies — the bands that were played on over music consumption and distribu- en. Sure, we covered some bands back the radio. When a local band drew a big then that have since been exalted by theWeather, veteran Washington Post critic local crowd, it was merely offering some tion. Pitchfork/Stereogum/Noisey generations, bankable mainstream sound: White Zom- but we also participated in the mass delu-Mark Jenkins even politely compared the The Met’s 1994-2000 lifespan book- sion that the only black artists in the city were old jazzmen or people named Erykahwork to that of the Eagles and Harry ended two frantic periods of industry ac- Badu. Hell, I owe my entire writing career to The Met taking a chance on me, but IChapin. tivity: 1) the chasing of anything that fit was also a music editor in Texas who didn’t like country music. The DixieOver the rest of that decade Jackopierce an “alternative” boilerplate loosely Chicks were the biggest local stars of the era, but I could never cotton to theirshared the stage with other popular acts I sketched by college-radio playlists and 2) over-polished twang. Then again, I was a proud Texan the first time I heard Nataliecontinue to despise: Jewel, Alanis Moris- the emergence of digital playback devices, Maines stand up and sing “Not ready to Make Nice.”sette, Semisonic, Counting Crows. In home-recording software, and peer-to- So times change, hard-line opinions1997, they also played alongside Bush, peer file trading that continue to remix soften, and, perhaps luckily, The Met passed away before Gen X started BigThird Eye Blind, Collective Soul, Sugar relationships between artists and con- Chilling the ’90s. Coming up I could nev- er figure out why boomer grown-ups onlyray, Matchbox Twenty, and No Doubt sumers. I’m not saying Universal Music listened to the stuff they liked in college. Now that I have Breeder peers I realizeduring a marketing ploy masquerading as Group and Sony/ATV Music publishing that the last time some people ever paid attention to music was when they werea music festival called the Blockbuster don’t continue to ride artists’ labor to of- between the ages of 18 and 24. So if the two gents in Jackopierce want to keep theRockFest at the Texas Motor Speedway. fensive sums of money — somebody was dream of the ’90s alive, at least in their minds, bully for them. I look forward toRemember it? Me neither. shoving Maroon 5, Hoobastank, Pitbull, raising a glass of Pinot Noir when I hear their “Into Me” used in a targeted nativeBut here again, in spite of my opinion, or Daniel “you’ve had a bad day” Powter advertisement for Cialis at some point in the next decade. ■ Bret McCabe is the senior humanities writer at Johns Hopkins Magazine, pub- lished by his alma mater. He is still paying off his college loans. 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READ IT TODAY A gripping MEET THE AUTHORS Google Play THRILLER! They're here now Soon to be a Amazon for Kindle Major Motion Picture Drinking as we speak Barnes & Noble for Nook Seriously!T H E M E T 20 A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5

Classic move: Keri-Lynn Wil- IMG ARTISTS T H E AT E Rson used to review cigarsfor The Met. Now she con-ducts the Slovenian Philhar-monic Orchestra. The F-Word Othello You Didn’t How a cigar-smoking Canadian taught me about the power of language >> You don’t dis Shakespeare. This re- ■ BY CHRIS SHULL alization came to me in 1996 after I wrote a mostly positive review for The Met of Othello by the Shakespeare Fes- tival. “Shakespeare doesn’t bother to define a clear motive for Iago’s hatred for Othello — the script’s major weak- ness,” I opined to the dismay of Bruce DuBose, then and now a local theater god (he’s the founder and executive producer of the Undermain Theatre). DuBose wrote a scathing letter, calling for my permanent banishment from the reviewing business. I pondered. I drank. I sobbed. Even- tually I decided: Fuck it. A critic needs to be able to take as well as give criti- cism. That’s why today, as an arts & entertainment staff writer and Guide columnist for The Dallas Morning News, negative feedback rarely both- ers me. That said: I still don’t get Iago’s motive. You hear me, Bruce? —JOY DICKINSON TIPPING I DON'T RECALL EXACTLY We hung out a bit. Had martinis at of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” a no- getting the word out about their newest how I met the cigar-smoking, Mick’s. Made a crazy dash from the Dal- toriously tricky tangle of time-changes star. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it Winnipeg-born, then-redhead las Opera’s Elecktra at Fair Park Music and willy-nilly cues. In spite of the com- was a good lesson for a young music critic. who got me into trouble with Hall to catch a Brahms sym- ARTS plexity of the piece, And today I have an entirely new appre-the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. But I do she said the audition ciation for Bonelli’s anger over an inno- phony at the Meyerson. Maybe M E T cent f-bomb. I’m now a publicist with the Dallas Symphony.recall thinking our meeting was kismet. that’s why she was so free with had gone well, adding, The spirit we tried to capture with ourAfter all, I was covering the Dallas Sym- her language when we sat down for our Slovenian “The orchestra didn’t cover story lives on at the DSO, which hasphony for The Met and she, Keri-Lynn interview. We conducted the interview at Philharmonic fuck up.” I raised my maintained an admirable record of ap-Wilson, was a fabulous babe and the St. Pete’s Dancing Marlin. A band per- eyebrows. She fol- pointing women to its conducting staff. ToDSO’s assistant conductor from 1994 to forming at Deep Ellum Live had requisi- Keri-Lynn Wilson, lowed, “Well ... I wit: Before Wilson arrived, Kate Tamarkin conductor was at the DSO. After she left, Rei Hoto- da, a winner of Marin Alsop’s Taki Con-1998. At that time, it was a rarity for a tioned the place to serve as their green filharmonija.si didn’t fuck up.” cordia Conducting Fellowship, joined. Hotoda still returns frequently to conductwoman to be on the podium. It still is. room the night we met there, so it was not Bam. Brilliant. The the orchestra. And today, Karina Canel- lakis, also a Taki Concordia fellow who That’s why writing a cover story about open to the public. But we still got in be- perfect quote, capturing the bravura and this year was honored with The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistanceher for The Met made so much sense. She cause I knew Pete. (Anyway ...). vulnerability of a young conductor taking Award, serves as the DSO’s assistant con- ductor.was young, ambitious, and awesome. For I asked Wilson about her audition for on her first job. So now I can experience wonderful mu-a time, she even contributed cigar reviews the gig with the DSO. She said a reviewing Eugene Bonelli, executive director of sic-making when Canellakis conducts the same orchestra (and many of the sameto this publication. panel had asked her to conduct a portion the Dallas Symphony, wasn’t quite so players) that Wilson led. Canellakis has prodigious talent, musical instincts and pleased. The f-word insight, and a cool, collected “podium presence.” That indicates she'll have aMASATAKA SUEMITSU HearThis was — and still is — major career. So I’m sure there’s a cover verboten in on-the-re- story in her future. My advice to the writ- cord conversations in- er of that story: Watch your language. ■ SOLUNA Festival volving the Dallas Symphony. And Wil- MAY 8- 9 son (who is now chief DALLAS CITY PERFORMANCE HALL conductor of the Slove- Karina Canellakis will conduct the Dallas Symphony Orchestra nia Philharmonic Or- as as part of the SOLUNA International Music & Arts Festival. chestra) was taken to She's leading ReMix, Hollywood Exile, featuring music by task. When I saw Korngold and others. Nineteen bucks gets you a ticket and one Bonelli soon after, he free drink. It lasts about an hour. For tickets call 214-TIX-4DSO stared daggers. I had or go to mydso.com/SOLUNAfestival. my cover story, but not the praise I was expect- ing from the DSO for A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 21 T H E M E T

TIM ROGERS AskTheDrunk Bad Santa: One Nostalgia BY DAV I D B L E N D Tavern celebrates the hol- Q: Booze and I have had a idays, and undergar- very satisfying relation- ments, all year round. ship for the past 20 years. But now that I’m turning 40, Total Recall fellate him like a monkey trying to earn a some people are telling me to slow down. Should I? weekend pass from the zoo. That Proust — CURTIS MARTIN, FORT WORTH could really draw a word picture, couldn’t A: I get this question all the he? time, and the answer is an emphatic “No!” Age And with all that in mind, I headed out is never a reason to quit doing the things you love. If Japanese extremeWhat was it like back when we were young, to One Nostalgia Tavern. The last time I skier Yuichiro Miura can scale Mt.drunk, and awesome? It was ... awesome? Everest at 80, you can head for the was in this bar, more than a decade ago, it mountains of Busch after you exit ■ BY JOE CAPASSO your thirties. Here’s the thing was called One Nostalgia Place. The sign though: While Miura isn’t half the athlete he used to be, you’re double outside advertised “Cocktails and Danc- the drinker you once were. Remem- ber your early twenties, when a mere ing.” As I remember, there were some five tequila shots guaranteed you’d end the night either in the bathroom cheap cocktails, but there wasn’t too or on the floor? Now you can take down five glasses of hard liquor and much dancing. It was a neighborhood not think twice. And if circumstances required you to chug the last ofM ARCEL PROUST ONCE ries have been told again and again, no dive, bland on the interior with a stained those glasses, it wouldn’t be a prob- said, \"Remembrance of things doubt growing and becoming even more lem. That’s the power of experience. past is not necessarily the re- titanic from the retellings. carpet and beer signs on the walls. It was membrance of things as they Did you ever see those pictures of But is this really the way M E T occupied then with fat Arnold Schwarzenegger, Curtis? Arnold assumed that because he’d DRINKING a few crusty old worked so hard for so long to develop his physique, he could slack off andwere.” Of course, the way I remember things were? Yes! Or at least men, smoking cig- not face any consequences. No mat- ter how prodigious your drinkingthings 21 years ago, my friends and I were maybe kinda sorta. With retrospection, One Nostalgia arettes and drink- might be, if you “slow down,” your Tavern abilities will sag like a flaccid Austri-Titans. Abso-fucking-lute world beaters. those days seem to lose a little of their ing canned beer. an man-boob. There’s nothing more embarrassing than an adult with aWe lived life with abandon, drinking and sweetness. In retrospect, it was really stu- 6521 Abrams Rd. There may have low tolerance. Some people cite their kids as an excuse for backing off thedancing and singing and fighting and pid to tell the boss to fellate me like a dog. onenostalgiatavern.com been some shuffle- booze. They claim they don’t have the time or energy to party like theylaughing without a thought or a worry. We That doesn't even make sense. I doubt board, maybe a used to. But what kind of an example do parents set if their kids see themhad the best parties, liked the best music, that dogs can truly fellate. Licking, that’s dart board. Nothing special, or at least yawning after one glass of sherry? No wonder kids today are looking toknew the coolest people. We did not care what dogs do. nothing that made it memorable. YouTube for role models!if you liked us or hated us. We did what we Also, we probably drank too much back But recently, I returned to find a much This isn’t to say your drinking can’t become more esoteric. If payingdid because we wanted to do it. then. Not quite alcoholism, but definitely more memorable spot. The “Cocktails more for “interesting” alcohol — let’s say that’s something made with aGo to a strip club on Tuesday night with pushing the envelope over the line for and Dancing” sign is still outside. There mirliton tincture — gives you the self-assurance you need to consumea gut full of cheap tequila and mush- what a normal liver should be subjected were still some old guys sipping beer, the it without guilt, by all means do so.rooms? Yes! Teach your former landlord a to. Also, the drugs. It was probably not carpet was likely the same, and the beer Maintaining your habit might even be healthy. As we age, sleep depriva-lesson by throwing half of a frozen wild smart to have done all the drugs. signs are still on the walls. But most of the tion can cause problems ranging from weight gain to mental erosion.boar into the crawl space of the house you So, yes, maybe the partying wasn’t as eclectic crowd consists now of mid- Keep boozing like you have been and you'll easily be able to sleep untilwere just evicted from? Double yes! Quit glorious as I sometimes remember it. dle-aged neighborhood couples, SMU col- noon. Some might say you have a problem, but in a scientific sense,your job by telling your boss to fellate you And it is within the realm of possibility lege kid types, and other various and sun- you actually have a solution. Anyone who gets mad because you found itlike a dog? Super-quintuple yes! The sto- that we were not as smart or as witty or as dry denizens. Karaoke is a big player at at the bottom of a bottle and not the top of a mountain is just jealous. And DrinkThis charming or as One Nostalgia Tavern, with the crowd how immature is that? good-looking or as awesome at karate lining up on Friday and Saturday nights to David Blend lives in New York and is the executive editor of Thrillist. either torture or delight your eardrums. The Metalian as we often recall. Two shuffleboard tables, a pool table, a The lesson: Nos- dart board, and video poker/games are 1.5 oz. Canadian Club talgia sucks and available for your enjoyment. There are .75 oz. Marsala wine memory pales next .25 oz. Solerna Blood Orange liqueur to experience. Plus, multiple TVs throughout the bar with 2 dashes orange bitters Marcel Proust Stir over ice. Strain. Garnish with would definitely good sightlines for watching sports or the orange peel. have quit his job by telling his boss to latest Kardashian/Bruce Jenner news. Happy hour is noon to 7 p.m. daily, and all day Sunday, offering $3 domestic beers, $2.75 well drinks, and $3.75 call drinks. ■T H E M E T 22 A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5

Z Happy 21st birthday to The Met from ZeroBase Media A P R I L 2 8 , 1 9 9 4 – A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 23 T H E M E T

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