Haves a-Thrivin’

In A Christmas Carol, ol’ Ebby Scrooge is warned to change his ways or suffer eternal damnation. In local terms, Fort Worth is Scrooge, and we’re the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and if this town and its leaders do not soon start thinking of everyone instead of just the wealthy or the vocal majority, links and links and yards and yards of chains around our ankles — and wrists — will be the bleak house we keep.

The gaping divide between the haves and have-nots and between Tyrant County’s right-leaning bureaucracy and our ever-more-diverse populace will shape Fort Worth’s civil and social life over the next few years, so it’s well worth one last glance back before we step forward into the New Year.

Favored Nations

A handful of recent studies project North Texas to surpass both New York City and Greater Los Angeles in population by the end of the century. Outwardly, the Stockyards and Cultural District perhaps show the greatest signs of that growth. Those areas are home to several new developments, each valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but the health of a city should not be measured in terms of how well rich people are dined, boarded, and entertained.

Construction is currently underway on the Fort Worth Juneteenth Museum, and the 76104 location for the massive public center celebrating the liberation of formerly enslaved men, women, and children is purposeful. The predominantly Black and brown community has long been neglected by city officials and is devoid of new development. Based on a 2019 UT-Southwestern study, 76104 residents have the lowest life expectancy in the state, averaging only 67 years. There are quite a few reasons: This stretch of the Southside is a food desert, health care is almost nonexistent, and just about everyone is poor. Southside Community Garden, a new nonprofit created to address food apartheid in the area, is a reminder of our grassroots communities’ resilience in the face of uneven growth, the kind that continues to largely favor the economically robust parts of town at the expense of the weak.

As we look back on the year that was, many locals worry that Fort Worth’s aspirations for economic power and national recognition will come at the cost of our identity. Our mix of “culture and cowboys,” as the new saying goes, should lean more toward the former since there are probably 10 times more artists living and working in Fort Worth than occupational cowboys, which is mostly why the situation with the Fort Worth Community Arts Center is such a downer. City leaders recently placed the Cultural District institution on the public-private altar (“ Debating the future of the Arts Center, city leaders and developers once again see only dollar signs,” Oct. 14). Critics of the city’s plans say the arts center is wholly owned by Fort Worth and therefore should not be the object of corporate profiteering.

‘Not Giving Up Yet’

Just over the past few weeks, three music venues of various degrees — Lola’s, Twilite Lounge, and Downtown Cowtown at the Isis Theater — recently closed, highlighting the need for us to get up off our butts and go see some live, local, original music, because there’s certainly more than enough of us here to keep more than a handful of indie venues afloat.

The local scene isn’t broken, just in flux, and sometimes change is painful. At least that was our take a couple of months ago (“ Come Together,” Oct. 11) and earlier this month (“Not Waitin’ Around to Die,” Dec. 13). The reasons why a lot of us aren’t going out as much as we used to are myriad (rent, old age, inflation, DUIs, no bandwidth). To change our mindset, we all need to execute action with intention, so let the Weekly be your guide. We write about original, mostly Fort Worth-local music every week if not more often than that. Have been since 1995.

Venues aren’t the only places suffering. Bars, restaurants, and theaters are also seeing a dip in post-COVID attendance, and most of their owners and managers think the necessary nationwide lockdown was a contributing factor. Circle Theatre Artistic Director Ashley White said that, beyond curating shows and putting them on, part of her job involves engaging the public, especially those of us the lockdown may have conditioned to stay home.

“My friend and fellow producer Rebecca Lowrey says it takes nine months to build a habit,” White said. “We had two to three years to build the habit of staying home.”

Many of those all-important twentysomethings, who represent the next generation of art lovers and patrons, prefer to socialize beneath their own roofs. The Entertainment Software Association recently found that America’s favorite pastime isn’t sports. It’s video games. The trade group says that we Americans regularly play hundreds of millions of hours of online games per day. Just over a quarter of that group is 18 and under, while 35% of gamers are between 18 and 34. Four out of five sampled enjoy multiplayer games, meaning the people holding the consoles and wearing the headsets technically are socializing. Earlier this month, nearly 1 million users logged on to watch The Weeknd and others play Fortnight Festival, an annual online concert with live avatar performers in the Fortnight universe.

Fort Worth’s bars and restaurants continue to see slow but uneven growth. Some establishments bustle, while others falter or close, even amid a population boom. Some exceptional spots that closed this year include the Near Southside’s Beast and Co., the Foundry District’s Thirty Eight & Vine, Arlington Heights’ Boozies, and South Main’s Tre Mogli.

“Restaurants and their patrons have found themselves in a ‘new normal,’ ” said the National Restaurant Association last year. “Given emergent technology, changing consumer behavior and dining preferences, and the extraordinary challenges of the last two years, the industry is unlikely to ever completely return to its pre-pandemic state.”

In our look into the local food-service industry via the opening of Jackie O’s on the Near Southside (“ Food, Service,” June 21), we learned some hard truths.

“Through private conversations,” we wrote, “the folks who tend bar and wait tables say there’s a small but significant percentage of potential customers who haven’t returned to dining in, whether that’s due to public safety concerns or a preference to eat at home.”

The Texas Restaurant Association says inflation, staffing shortages, and lower occupancy rates are still the leading challenges for bar/restaurant owners.

“An estimated 67% of Texas restaurant operators do not have enough employees to meet existing demand,” the group continued. “This shortage, coupled with an 11.5% increase in wholesale food prices, creates a real challenge for even the busiest restaurants.”

Hao Tran said that teens and other young, able-bodied potential employees are mostly unwilling to work at Hao’s Grocery & Cafe for $10 to $15 an hour — the only wage she can afford to pay to stay profitable.

“They want more,” she said. “Before COVID, our salary was $10 an hour. The student I had was happy to have it. The job is not hard. It is a small local foods market. During COVID, those kids went out and had to work to sustain the family. Now that these kids have been in the workforce, they are used to making more money. Jobs offering $12 and $15 an hour are not enough for them.”

Even with massive apartments coming online nearby and all the attractions the Near Southside has to offer, Funky Picnic Brewery & Cafe struggles to stay even half occupied on some weekends, said co-owner Samantha Jo Glenn.

“We’re not giving up yet,” she recently posted on social media, “but it is getting harder and harder to keep our doors open. We need your help to keep Funky Picnic alive.”

The post led to a sizable but temporary surge. Like a lot of Fort Worth bar/restaurant owners, Glenn is continually experimenting with new events and promotions to find a sweet spot for customers whose buying habits and interests are increasingly difficult to predict.

Just the Good Ol’ Boys

With one swipe of his demonic claw, our horrible governor effectively made nearly 2 million undocumented Texas residents potential felons. Signed about a week before Christmas — a time when some people here and there reflect on peace, love, and mercy — SB 4 makes crossing the U.S./Mexico border between ports of entry a misdemeanor and, for repeat offenders, a potential felony. Under the new law that will undoubtedly terrorize communities across the state, all Texas peace officers have the newfound authority to stop, arrest, and jail suspected undocumented migrants.

“Inhumane” is how Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador described SB 4.

Gov. Greg Abbott, Obrador said publicly, “wants to win popularity with these measures, but he’s not going to win anything. He’ll lose favor, because in Texas, there are so many Mexicans and migrants.”

Yet even our xenophobic man in Austin can’t stop our state’s steady march toward tolerance and a collective desire to live in peace with one another. Every year, Texas becomes browner and less tethered to Fox Nation brainwashing. Based on recent census data, Hispanics now account for just over 40% of the state population, while Caucasians are a little less. And most of these newcomers overwhelmingly vote against racist Republicans.

Bill Waybourn probably let out a giddy “yeehaw!” when he saw SB 4 passed. Our Trumpanzee sheriff’s fearmongering over the alleged dangers of immigrants is public record, and it’s no surprise that his jail remains understaffed because few of us want to work for a racist who regularly darkens already dark Mercy Culture Church to vampirically power up on all that evil Christian Nationalist energy. When Waybourn spoke at the White House in 2019, togging his signature black cowboy hat, he used the national spotlight to say that undocumented Mexicans will drive over “your” children. By “your,” we assume he meant snowflake Southlakers, who all undoubtedly coughed up their chardonnay at the news.

For six years, Big Hat Bill has overseen a program that allows his department to buddy up with easily the most despised federal agency in the country — ICE. 287(g) is bad news for everyone here, not just the targeted Hispanics: tearing apart families, tearing apart schools, tearing about businesses. The goal is simple. Purely evil. But simple. Make Hispanics suffer because helping them would be “socialism,” another Fox Nation-birthed bogeyman. There’s also the insane belief among some conservatives that encouraging illegal immigration is some Dem ploy to build the blue voting base here. In the words of Sam Anderson, singer-songwriter extraordinaire and co-frontman of the Quaker City Night Hawks: “Imagine someone saying to their family, ‘This could be extremely dangerous, but I need you to grab your things. We gotta flip Texas.’ ” Are conservative leaders just stupid, or are they stupid and evil? Or are they really smart because they know they can just say utter bullshit and their voters will still believe it?

Tarrant County may have a savior of sorts. In the November 2024 general election, Waybourn will face off against Democrat Rev. Patrick Moses. Current head of First Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth, the Real Deal Rev has three decades of federal law enforcement experience and is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, among other things. Moses has said he would find and address the causes of in-custody deaths at the county jail and end the politicization of the sheriff’s office.

Waybourn may go down in history as Buffalo Bill. Over his two terms in office, he has allowed more than 50 inmate deaths at his jail. Suffering a mental health crisis or simply being unhoused can spell doom. In previously unreleased audio obtained only by us, several sheriff’s deputies discussed falsifying records with supervisor approval on jail cell checkups (“ Checking Out,” Nov. 29), the kind that could have saved dozens of inmates, including Javonte Myers (who died from a seizure while in custody in 2020) and Zenorah (the newborn who died shortly after birth in a cell in 2020). The county recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit by Myers’ family for $1 million and is being sued by Zenorah’s mother and grandmother.

In a county where judges falsify government documents, dodge constitutional requirements to take the Oath of Office, and deprive defendants and parents of due process with alarming regularity, it’s no wonder that leaders at every level of county government act and rule with impunity. Some crooked judges are scrambling to cover up for their wayward deeds, like visiting retired Judge R.H. Wallace. Based on Secretary of State records, Wallace filed his oath of office in October — meaning he filed his oath three years after signing the oath which grants him judicial authority. Under the Texas Constitution, Oaths of Office are not valid until filed with the requisite governmental group. Maybe Wallace was hoping no one would notice. Neglecting to file his oath, or even take his oath as required, may have allowed him to double dip, earning pay from his judicial work while also collecting his pension.

Tarrant County Medical Examiner Dr. Kendall Crowns also botched his Oath of Office. He took it while the previous ME, Nizam Peerwani, was still in office (“ Cutting In,” July 2022). Crawford v. Saunders, the 1894 ruling by the Texas Court of Civil Appeals, established the precedent that elected officials in Texas cannot appoint a judicial officer if there is no vacancy. Even after our reporting on Crowns’ faulty oath, county leaders have refused to correct the error, and he remains the county’s possibly constitutionally unqualified ME to this day.

This year, we wrote a lot about right-wing meddling in school board elections, starting with Patriot Mobile. After flipping a few North Texas boards far-right, including Southlake’s Carroll ISD, the Christian Nationalist PAC masquerading as a cell phone company has not fared as well since then, possibly because of our reporting.

We were the first to question why the company’s $376,000 PPP loan was forgiven in 2021 when at the same time millions of Patriot Mobile monies were going toward school board candidates (“ Mobile Patriots,” Feb. 9). The horrible telecom outfit was also the center of one of our most widely shared stories, this one about a young employee allegedly impregnated by Patriot Mobile’s CTO (“ Shut Out,” Mar. 15).

The closing of 2023 also marks the abysmal first year of Tim O’Hare as county judge. The reptile whose political career is based solely on peddling conspiracy theories and sowing hate has proven to be — just like his idol, Donald J. Trump — simply an incredibly incompetent administrator. County employees have told us they’re frustrated that O’Hare reduced the county’s weekly meetings to biweekly because, well, work is hard. And even though O’Hare clearly has no idea what’s going on at meetings, he tries to make up for his obvious lack of preparation by bullying everyone around him. Watch the videos. They’re on YouTube. See for yourself. Apparently, $200,000 a year (!) isn’t enough for the ambulance chaser to even pretend he wants to do anything to help non-Southlakers (“Southlaking Fort Worth,” June 2023).

But Tiny Tim sure is a big hit among the Mercy Culture set. Assuredly with his blessing, that unholiest of megachurches continued its encroachment across Fort Worth, and Mercy Cultists, you know, for belonging to an outwardly homophobic place of worship, sure love our city’s gayborhoods. It took just a few weeks for Near Southsiders to sniff out Roots Market this summer (“ Culture Vultures,” June 28), which led to peaceful protests by progressives and bizarre antics by Roots’ supporters. We still aren’t quite sure why they spooged olive oil around parts of the pop-up event, and we probably don’t want to read too much into their kinky, warped minds. (Or do we?) By late summer, Roots Market got the message, packed up their Stained by Encounters merch (not a joke), and hightailed it to presumably friendlier swaths of the city. Southlake maybe? Good riddance.

You Can Print It

Between 2010 and, oh, around 2020, one of our favorite quips from our loyal trolls was “Print is dead!” Then and now, many publications were trying online-only models, clearly forgetting that competing in cyberspace places them in the same playing field as literally every blogger, troll, and pink-slime website out there.

Don’t worry. Print is here to stay, and we’re often reminded of the benefits of existing in the real world. Just a few weeks ago, a Fakebook post linking to our annual Turkey Awards (“ The 2023 Turkey Awards,” Nov. 22) was flagged as inappropriate, meaning no one could access the story. Whether it was a Mercy Cult operative or someone who took offense at our radically honest descriptions of corrupt local officials, we’ll never know. It was fine, though. We were able to create a new link and bypass the flagging, but the incident drove home the fact that no single person can mess with the tens of thousands of copies of the Weekly that hit the streets every week, so this traditional print magazine trudges on, sleuthing where the corporate oligarchs and powers-that-be don’t want us to and unapologetically taking our First Amendment mandate to hold the powerful accountable seriously.

Even influencers and YouTubers give us shoutouts — or steal our work: both signs that our approach to reporting remains as relevant as ever. One YouTuber with 866,000 subscribers essentially read Weekly contributor Jonny Auping’s 2020 true-crime piece (“Portrait of a True Crime Character,” Dec. 2020) word for word over the air earlier this year without providing proper attribution. Auping has asked her for credit. We’ve asked her for credit. Stephanie Harlowe continues to ignore us. Not that we needed it, but now we can almost imagine how everyone in Stop Six, Las Vegas Trail, and Como feels: unheard.

Next year, our fair city will see more of the same: the number of have-nots growing in proportion to the slice of the pie belonging to the same number of haves as ever, over-policing of poor neighborhoods, bar/restaurants opening and unceremoniously closing, jail deaths, and, yes, population growth. We also suspect Mercy Culture will try some other proselytizing stunt and that O’Hare, Waybourn, and District Attorney Phil Sorrells — Tyrant County’s Unholy Trinity — will be behind it if not out in front of it. You see, you can get away with a lot of Christian Nationalist bullsh when over half the town is full of Christian Nationalists. Whatever happens, if it’s consequential to civic life in Fort Worth, you’ll be able to grab a copy of yours truly at your favorite local watering hole to read all about it in print. And, yes, we’ll also be available online and via social media. It is 2024, after all.

This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.