Fort Worth Weekly // January 10-16, 2024

January 10-16, 2024 FREE fwweekly.com

School-to-Prison Pipeline

Poor leadership and a new anti-vaping law are pushing vulnerable local teens from classrooms to the pavement.

S T O R Y B Y E D W A R D B R O W N P H O T O S B Y J A S O N B R I M M E R

EATS & DRINKS South Main Village welcomes tasty new taqueria Buena Vida.

BY EDWARD BROWN

STUFF Cowboys fans, expect more whiplashing from joy to pain and back again this postseason.

BY PAT R I C K H I G G I N S

SCREEN As our Top 10 list proves, content-driven documentaries still exist.

BY KRISTIAN LIN

MUSIC A three-volume history of Caravan of Dreams is a fabulous, fuzzy glimpse of a bygone era.

BY STEVE STEWARD

PINK LEMONADE MINI BUNDT CAKES 2 CT. $

LEMON DILL CAPER CRAB CAKES 4 OZ.

2 FOR $10

7.99/EA.

To evoke a refreshing glass of a classic favorite, rich and buttery lemon cakes are drizzled with pink icing and topped with candied lemon and bits of dried strawberries.

SAVE $1.99/EA. Bursting with fresh blue crabmeat, bright lemon, and briny capers. Serve with our scratch-made remoulade and a juicy squeeze of citrus!

PRICES VALID 1/10/24-1/16/24

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

FORT WORTH 4651 WEST FREEWAY | 817-989-4700

2

SOUTHLAKE 1425 E. SOUTHLAKE BLVD. | 817-310-5600

Experience the light and color of France Closing January 28

The exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and The Phillips Collection. It is supported in part by Frost, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Fort Worth Tourism Public Improvement District, and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Promotional support provided by Pierre Bonnard, Dining Room in the Country (detail), 1913, oil on canvas. Lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, The John R. Van Derlip Fund. © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Volum e 1 9

N umber 38

J an uar y 10 -16, 2024

INSIDE

STAFF Anthony Mariani, Editor Lee Newquist, Publisher Bob Niehoff, General Manager Ryan Burger, Art Director Jim Erickson, Circulation Director Emmy Smith, Proofreader Michael Newquist, Regional Sales Director Jennifer Bovee, Marketing Director

Failing Grades

Stacey Hammons, Senior Account Executive Julie Strehl, Account Executive

Fort Worth ISD and a local charter school are turning their backs on troubled students.

By Edward Brown

13

In the playoffs, that is. Have your celebration/consolation substances ready.

Fun and fantastic — the legendary Caravan of Dreams stars in the new book.

Cover photo by Jason Brimmer

Jason Brimmer, Buck D. Elliott, Juan R. Govea,

The ’Boys Are Back

Pleasure Dome

By Steve Steward

Christina Berger, Edward Brown, E.R. Bills,

By Patrick Higgins

17

8

Patrick Higgins, Laurie James, Kristian Lin, Cody Neathery, Wyatt Newquist, Steve Steward, Teri Webster, Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, Cole Williams EDITORIAL

BOARD

Anthony Mariani, Edward Brown, Emmy Smith

Fort Worth Weekly mailing address:

4 8 9 11 13

Feature 17 Music Stuff 18 Night & Day Screen 19 Classifieds Backpage . . . . . . . . 20 ATE DAY8 a Week Eats & Drinks

DISTRIBUTION Fort Worth Weekly is available free of charge in the Metroplex, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of Fort Worth Weekly may be purchased for $1.00 each, payable at the Fort Worth Weekly office in advance. Fort Worth Weekly may be distributed only by Fort Worth Weekly’s authorized independent contractors or Fort Worth Weekly’s authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Fort Worth Weekly, take more than one copy of any Fort Worth Weekly issue. If you’re interested in being a distribution point for Fort Worth Weekly, please contact Will Turner at 817-321-9788.

300 Bailey, Ste 205, Fort Worth TX 76107

Street address: 300 Bailey, Ste 205, Fort Worth TX 76107 For general information: 817-321-9700 For retail advertising: 817-321-9719 For classifieds: 817-987-7689

For national advertising: 817-243-2250 website: www.fwweekly.com

email: question@fwweekly.com

COPYRIGHT The entire contents of Fort Worth Weekly are Copyright 2023 by Ft. Worth Weekly, LP.

No portion may be reproduced in whole or in

part by any means, including electronic retrieval

systems, without the express written permission

of the publisher. Please call the Fort Worth Weekly office for back-issue information.

fwweekly.com

Buena Vida in South Main Village is a tasty thirst trap.

CONTRIBUTORS

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

Taco-Hoes

Clintastic, Brand Ambassador

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

4

Wyatt Newquist, Digital Coordinator Cour tesy DallasCowboys.com

By Edward Brown

Tony Diaz, Account Executive

3

Schoolto-Prison Pipeline

Poor leadership and a new anti-vaping law are pushing vulnerable local teens from classrooms to the pavement.

S T O R Y B Y E D W A R D P H O T O S B Y J A S O N B R I M M E R

C

B R O W N

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

lumps of lightly strewn litter pockmarked the apartment grounds as Ivan and Lorenzo approached. The two 18-year-olds recently kicked out of a local charter school were polite and soft-spoken as they recommended spots for lunch. We are concealing their last names to protect their privacy.

Lorenzo, a Black man, darted back to his apartment to grab his phone as Ivan, a Hispanic man in slippers and a fuzzy gray sweater, described a recent car accident that totaled his Dodge Charger. He showed me his

4

Daniel Garcia Rodriguez: “The decision to kick them out of school hidden under the umbrella of being withdrawn was one of the worst things that could happen to the kids.”

bruised left arm, adding that buses, fortunately, have offered a way for him to find work at area fast-food restaurants to save money, reenroll in school, and apply for college. As we all chatted over fried chicken a few minutes later, both teens expressed their eagerness to earn their GEDs and attend Tarrant County College.

At the beginning of the fall semester, Lorenzo and Ivan were “withdrawn,” which essentially means expelled, from Fort Worth Can Academy-Westcreek on the South Side.

The campus is one of 13 public charter high schools across Texas managed by Texans Can

Academies, which launched in Dallas in 1985 and whose stated goal is to provide students with the “skills necessary to thrive beyond the classroom.”

Lorenzo, whose mother died last year, has been homeless for the past two years. “My pop was staying with my uncle, and I had a falling out with my uncle. I’ve been homeless since.

When [my uncle] kicked me out, that’s when I dropped out of school.”

The missed classes at Fort Worth ISD’s Paschal High School meant Lorenzo had to enroll at Can Academy a year ago. In September

when he was just months from graduating, he was caught vaping along with a handful of other students. School leaders immediately withdrew him. As a police officer escorted him out, Lorenzo alleges the principal said she was going to do whatever she could to prevent him from reenrolling anywhere.

Lorenzo feels he “should have been given a second chance — I never got in trouble before that.”

Ivan said his problems began at Fort Worth ISD’s Paschal High School when instruction became virtual during the pandemic. Under the lax format, he frequently skipped class, which resulted in suspensions and enrollment in Can Academy during his junior year. At the beginning of his senior year in September, Ivan said a misunderstanding led to his removal from the charter school.

“I got into an argument with the principal,” he said. “She thought my friends and I were about to fight. We were not going to fight.

I spoke up about it.”

Both teens said they were never allowed to defend themselves and that no one from either the charter school or Fort Worth ISD contacted them with options for reenrollment.

The teens said they are actively trying to reenroll at either Can or somewhere in Fort Worth ISD but that neither entity is returning their calls.

Daniel Garcia Rodriguez, a former Can Academy student and student advocate, left the charter school early into the fall semester, partly out of frustration over the forced removal of students like Ivan and Lorenzo over seemingly minor offenses. Garcia, based on continued on page 5

first-hand experiences working at Can and also Polytechnic High School, said “withdrawn” is basically “expelled.”

These teens “have gone through so many things that right now, more than ever, they need an environment to empower their recovery,” Garcia said. “The decision to kick them out of school hidden under the umbrella of being withdrawn was one of the worst things that could happen to the kids.”

Based on the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, middle and high school students who are expelled or suspended are up to 10 times “more likely to drop out, experience academic failure and grade retention, hold negative school attitudes, and face incarceration than those who are not.

Black students [composed] 15% of the overall U.S. school population but received 39% of out-of-school suspensions.” In 2020, the Texas Criminal Justice Network, a nonprofit working to end mass incarceration, found “no evidence that suspensions and expulsions are an effective method of changing students’ behavior in schools.”

Over the past decade, Black Fort Worth ISD students have made up only 20-25% of overall enrollment but accounted for nearly half of all suspensions, based on data from the U.S. Department of Education and released to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram via open records request. And Fort Worth ISD is not alone. The disparity rages nationwide. Multiple studies point to cultural discrepancies between students and school leaders as the root causes of the obvious disciplinary bias against Black children.

Although a Can staffer initially left a voice message with us after we contacted them, the charter school has not responded to our repeated calls to the main office. We will update this story if we hear back.

Ivan feels policies at Fort Worth ISD and Can Academy have made graduating unnecessarily difficult when economic barriers and other challenges are hard enough to overcome.

“Just because we mess up a few times shouldn’t mean that we do not get the

Garcia’s own troubled past guided him toward a career in teaching in public schools, a space where he felt he could motivate and inspire students without resorting to punitive approaches to instruction. The 29-year-old Brownsville native is the first U.S. citizen in his immediate family. His namesake older sister, Daniela, died at birth in Mexico. For his parents, the American dream meant more than access to material comforts.

“The American dream was about access to education,” he said. “Being a U.S. citizen to undocumented parents in the States came with challenges.”

Garcia’s parents moved to Fort Myers, Florida, in the early 2000s for better work opportunities.

“I was a bouncy kid in search of affirmation,” Garcia said. “I slowly started to see that our schools weren’t friendly toward that type of behavior.”

Educators, he said, relied too heavily on fear-based models. By fourth grade, Garcia and his friends saw the full effects of the state public education system. Misbehaving fourth graders were ordered to fully extend their arms while holding heavy textbooks for several minutes at a time. Talking in class and fidgeting forced Garcia’s elementary teachers to remove him from track and field.

“That was where I felt community,” Garcia recalled. “That was my first time being excluded because of how my teacher perceived me. I began disassociating myself ” from school.

By middle school, Garcia’s frustration with the overly punitive school system led to frequent stints of in-school suspension.

More than a decade later, he sees his early punishments as the beginning of his potential school-to-prison pipeline that began with a felony (grand theft auto) during his freshman year of high school.

In-school suspension was “one large classroom,” he recalled. “Complete silence.

There was never an opportunity to grow or continued on page 6

CONNECT WITH ART THROUGH COCKTAILS, CONVERSATIONS, AND CREATIVIT Y. Each month you’ll find something different—from performances, artist talks, and unique tours to art making, music, and films.

JANUARY 11, 2024 | FREE | 5-8 P.M.

Prairies & Preservation Delve into artist James Prosek’s depictions of the untamed beauty of the Texas landscape and learn from experts about what you can do to protect wildlife diversity. Join Ed Roberson, the host of the Mountain & Prairie podcast, in conversation with Prosek discussing his exhibition Trespassers: James Prosek and the Texas Prairie.

Seating for the talk is first come, first served.

Ivan (left) and Lorenzo said they are actively working to reenroll in public school but remain unsure how best to proceed.

Generous support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.

fwweekly.com

education that we need to be successful in life,” Ivan said. “Getting in trouble one time shouldn’t get you kicked out.”

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

continued from page 4

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Feature

5

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith:

MEMORY MAP

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

October 15, 2023–January 21, 2024

6

MODERN ART MUSEUM OF FORT WORTH 3200 Darnell Street • Fort Worth, Texas 76107 • 817.738.9215

themodern.org

This exhibition was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Pictured: Jaune Quick-toSee Smith, The Rancher, 2002. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 72 ¹/₄ × 48 ¹/₈ inches (183.5 × 122.2 cm). Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; purchased through the William S. Rubin Fund 2005.13. © Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith. Photograph courtesy the Artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

Feature

continued from page 5

have due process. It felt like an exclusionary practice because we had a population of white students at our school. A majority of suspended students were Black or Latino. I was there for talking too much or laughing. Dress code violations landed many students in in-school suspension. We were never given guidance or tools for how to moderate our behavior.

Students were dealing with emotional triggers” from home life.

It is natural for any child or teen who is singled out and excluded to act out, he continued. At no point did teachers in Florida and later Fort Worth take time to ask about Garcia’s stressors. Returning to class after a week of in-school suspension was humiliating, and his teachers made no effort to catch him up on missed work. Looking tough became a protective mechanism.

The 2008 housing market crash caused a shortage of work in Florida, so Garcia’s family moved to Fort Worth around 2010. He enrolled in ninth grade at North Crowley High School. Initially, high school soccer offered an alternative to gang culture, but his coach booted him from the team due to lingering disciplinary problems. As crushing as that experience was, verbally humiliating words from an English teacher pushed him to drop out of school completely and begin committing petty crimes, including that felony.

“She said in front of my friends that I was not going to make it anywhere in life,” Garcia recalled. “That was a breaking point. I turned to the streets. I left my house and moved in with someone I was dating. I didn’t care about school anymore. I started smoking, selling drugs, and carrying weapons.”

Even with loving parents, severing his ties with school left Garcia feeling lost. It wasn’t long afterward that he stole the car and evaded arrest. He pleaded guilty to the felony charge that remains on his record. Possibly because it was his first offense, Garcia was given a relatively lenient sentence: one-year probation and community service. He enrolled in Can Academy-Westcreek to complete high school.

The kindness of one person, Marine Corps mentor Sgt. Ray Franklin, saved the troubled teen. Franklin helped Garcia find a job and graduate from Can Academy.

Though Garcia was not allowed to become a Marine because of his criminal record, Franklin still helped him find work while motivating him to finish school.

Sgt. Franklin knew about Garcia’s record, but “he didn’t care,” Garcia said. “He spent so much time with me and reaffirmed my existence. He came to my house to check on me. That relationship completely changed the course of my life.”

Can Academy staffers, Garcia alleges, routinely engaged in bullying tactics during that time.

“I remember teachers yelling at us,” he recalled, “suspensions being given out like nothing. The assistant principal would wait at the parking lot. If you were late, he’d point at you and say, ‘Go home.’ He would pick fights with kids, pushing students to the point where they would act out.”

Following the pattern of his past teachers in Florida and Crowley, Can educators

allegedly failed to inquire into or even acknowledge the stressors and life situations that cause students to be tardy or short-tempered.

“I had so much anxiety about being late,” Garcia said, adding that he once received a speeding ticket while racing to school after a late night of working and minimal sleep. “The students there didn’t want to be late. We aren’t doing this because we don’t care. There was shit we were going through making us late.”

In 2017, Garcia co-founded United Fort Worth while studying at Texas Wesleyan University. The grassroots group that advocates for social justice causes now manages a community center in the Polytechnic Heights community. Garcia headed the nonprofit for five years, but he said his childhood brushes with the school-to-prison pipeline called him to mentor troubled youths.

At the end of 2022 and after working one year at Polytechnic High, Garcia resigned, claiming school leaders were not receptive to the reform-minded teachers’ advocacy for listening to students and considering the challenges and traumas at home when meting out discipline. When Garcia tried to reenroll students, he alleges, school leaders were more concerned about enrollment numbers than the welfare of the withdrawn pupil.

“They were worried that if a student already dropped out, he would only drop out again,” Garcia said. “And that would make the school’s numbers look bad.”

His former principal at Can-Westcreek was still heading the Southside charter school, so Garcia applied and was accepted to work as a student advocate, one of two such positions, at the beginning of 2023. As the name entails, student advocates are counselors of sorts and use their personal knowledge of students to solve issues of truancy and misbehavior without resorting to expulsions or suspensions.

Garcia was able to reach many of his goals during the spring semester under the leadership of Principal Ku-Masi Lewis.

“I wanted to be in a space to empower young people who have experienced things I experienced,” he said, “but when I was a substitute at Polytechnic High School and student advocate at Can Academy, what I saw was triggering. My inner child was screaming out.

I saw adults yelling at kids. I saw a lot of suspensions. One student, a young Black girl, was tackled by a police officer and embarrassed. I saw a teacher tell a student that he doesn’t care about him. I saw the embarrassment in the kid’s face. The same thing happened to me.”

One Can Academy-Westcreek employee who asked to go by LaKay said her campus provided a safe space for students before the current principal and assistant principal took office in August. The campus is down to one counselor now, LaKay said, and the atmosphere feels more like a “juvenile detention center” than it did the year prior.

“If a student is late in the morning, then they have to wait until second period,” she said. “They are waiting out in the cold when they should just let them in. When I was a student at Can, I didn’t have the support of my parents. I can see how these students feel.

I’ve heard the principal tell a student, ‘It’s OK if you just get withdrawn,’ knowing that Can might be the kid’s last option.”

During the spring 2023 semester, Can leadership “started giving me some leeway,” continued on page 7

Kyndal Tell, who lives with her mother and grandparents, has to share the family’s sole laptop.

schools. Although no Fort Worth law restricts how close stores can open near schools, the businesses cannot advertise tobacco within 1,000 feet of a school. A cursory look at Google Maps found several vape retailers within a block or two of Can Academy-Westcreek.

Many North Texas schools have adopted zero-tolerance vaping policies following the passage of HB 114, adding yet another means of forcibly removing students without considering the individuals’ circumstances or emotional predispositions. After several months at Can Academy and just as the fall semester was starting, Garcia resigned.

“The school year has been filled with threats and isolation for me,” Garcia wrote

in his letter to Can’s principal. “I felt like I no longer have access to create the space necessary to uplift my students through the student advocate role. I realized this when a frustrated student on my caseload was vocal and angry that they were not able to meet with their advocate after multiple requests.

My students needed to talk to someone they shared trust with. I have also been hurt by the number of kids pushed out from our school by our attempt to address vape abuse. Our school is supposed to prevent dropping out, not accelerate it.”

The culture at Can-Westcreek has become decidedly more authoritarian and punitive since September, said Kyndal Tell, a senior set

continued on page 8

fwweekly.com

Garcia recalled. “It wasn’t perfect, but I started to see changes in my students. There is a benefit to learning [the students’] stories. Once you understand their story, you get a better idea why there are behavioral issues coming up.”

Garcia’s office became a safe space where students dealing with stressors from within and outside the school could converse with the student advocate. Over the summer, Lewis left the school, and Can-Westcreek hired two new principals. In the days before the start of the fall semester, which is divided into two quarters, the two new leaders communicated their zero-tolerance policies to staffers, Garcia said.

“In the first two weeks of the fall semester, 15 kids were withdrawn for vape-related issues,” Garcia said.

The timing was expected. September saw the implementation of HB 114, which allows schools to easily expel students for vaping and criminalizes student possession of five or more e-cigarettes as a potential Class B misdemeanor. In a press release, Fort Worth ISD officials said that any student found in possession of a vape pen would be disciplined in accordance with the new state law.

Around 2.5 million middle and high school students reported using electronic cigarettes last year, based on findings from the National Youth Tobacco Survey. The popularity of vaping among teens, the survey says, is partly due to marketing efforts by electronic cigarette companies and the placement of e-cig stores near youth-heavy areas, like high

to graduate at the end of the year. Tell said she suffers from sometimes debilitating anxiety and depression. Her years in two different public schools were marked by bullying by teachers and fellow students. During the pandemic, online courses through Crowley High School gave her the chance to disconnect from her peers, which was welcome because being around too many people, like classmates, worsens her anxiety and depression symptoms. She soon dropped out entirely for two years. When she enrolled at Can Academy-Westcreek in early 2022, Tell was initially impressed with the program, especially how it allowed students to choose how many courses they could take each quarter. The new administration created a decidedly more hostile learning environment, compelling Tell to share her experience even at the risk of retaliation by school leaders.

Under the new administration, students are no longer allowed to contact student advocates and counselors directly.

“You would think the school is for criminals,” Tell said. “We are treated like prisoners.

We aren’t allowed to have backpacks. Our advocates can’t be our advocates anymore. Mr. Garcia’s office was a safe space for us. Now, we can’t step foot in any of their offices. He understood what we were going through. After talking to him, it felt like we had someone on our side.”

A few weeks ago, Tell documented an intercom message from the principal ordering teachers to confiscate students’ smartphones.

Tell said the principal threatened everyone with withdrawal if they complained.

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

continued from page 6

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Feature

7

Feature

continued from page 7

“I was so baffled,” she recalled reacting at the time to the veiled threat. “They have students who really need this school’s help.

They were telling us, ‘Hey, shut up. Do this. If you don’t like this, go ahead and withdraw.’ ” Like many students at Texans Can Academies, Tell comes from a loving but sometimes struggling home. She lives with her grandparents and mother, who works remotely, meaning their one computer is often not available for school use. After graduating, Tell plans to take a short break — a “breather,” as she puts it — before pursuing a career as a vet tech.

“I hear a lot of kids say that if they get withdrawn, they don’t care anymore,” she said. “Some will just drop out and work.

[School leaders] could be putting energy into addressing bullies. Instead, I hear more threats about kids being expelled over phones and vapes.”

The school’s problems, she said, aren’t tied to the teachers so much as the new administrators.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

“If you force out a young man from school, the only place that can offer some structure to them is the streets,” said Rodney McIntosh, founder of VIP Fort Worth.

As head of the nonprofit focused on ending cycles of gun violence in Fort Worth, McIntosh sees the crucial role public schools

8

play in preventing teens from entering the school-to-prison pipeline.

Once on the streets, “they are the perfect candidate for group violence,” he continued.

“I don’t like to use the word ‘gang’ because it’s changing. There’s nothing on the streets that will allow him to be productive — just death, murder, drugs, and gangs.”

One of the most important actions that teachers, mentors, and school leaders can take is to listen, McIntosh said.

“Because these students are so young, we tend to think we can project our thoughts onto their situations,” he continued, “but if we listen, we’ll know why they are hurting.”

Through his nonprofit work, McIntosh implements his experience, listening to the young men while urging them to talk and think through their choices.

I may say, “ ‘Little bro, are you telling me you are willing to find yourself incarcerated because of a statement someone made to you when he didn’t even put his hands on you?

The thing that you are angry about is not as important as you think it is.’ ” Teens and young adults are often not given the opportunity to express themselves, he added.

“They feel like no one listens,” he said.

McIntosh said public school leaders are regrettably reluctant to work with Black mentors with a history of gang membership or a criminal record, even though those men are exactly who at-risk youths would listen to and learn from.

“I believe in our school district and community,” he said, “but our members are often blocked from speaking at schools. They say it’s for safety reasons. Their [mentors] are the

people who want to be invested. These young people would respect them. The [Fort Worth] school district needs to understand that the problem is bigger than them. The people with solutions are the closest to the problem.”

When asked about their future plans, both Ivan and Lorenzo expressed dreams of college, careers, and families.

“I want to be an entrepreneur or into real estate,” Ivan said. “I feel like I’d be good at it because I’m a people person. I’m good at talking to people.”

The 18-year-old said he’ll pursue a bachelor’s degree in sales, something he described as practical, once he is able to finish high school or earn his GED. After years of suffering from homelessness and financially insecurity, Lorenzo said his first priorities are financial stability and a steady home.

“I want to own my own business,” he said, adding that owning a washateria and trading stocks are two of his goals. “I want to be able to help people be able to wash their clothes. There aren’t always Laundromats in low-income communities.”

Ivan wants to own a home within 10 years, own a company, and start a family.

A Fort Worth ISD spokesperson said there are several ways for high school students who are currently unenrolled to complete their secondary education. The options include enrolling in the district’s credit recovery lab or online courses.

“They can also enroll in our Success High School program,” the spokesperson said. “This is a program designed for students who may be returning after having dropped out. The program

offers classes on nontraditional schedules to offer students flexibility. The best first step a student can take to start on the path of enrollment is to visit their neighborhood school.”

The spokesperson added that students and families may also contact Jacqueline.

Navarrete@FWISD.org for help navigating the enrollment process.

In its 2020 report, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition cites restorative justice as an effective alternative to punitive practices like expulsions and suspensions.

“Using methods such as group conferencing, healing circles, check-ins, and mediated victim-offender dialogue (VOD), restorative justice helps the actor consider the consequences of their actions,” the report finds.

“From the requirement of taking responsibility for the wrongdoing to making a sincere apology, [to] developing a plan for restitution satisfactory to the victim, [and] to ultimately following through on that plan, professionals and students agree: Far more accountability is required of a student making amends through a restorative justice model than one who is sent home via suspension or expulsion.”

McIntosh, through his nonprofit, encourages group discussions among community elders and at-risk youths. Any topic is on the table, he said, from advice on how to raise children — many of the boys and young men were not raised by their fathers — to chats about mental illness and the risks of using drugs.

In society and school, many of these young men “lack the opportunity to express themselves,” McIntosh said. “They have more ideas than we think. We have to be able to listen.” l

K R I S T I A N

L I N

Even before the pandemic, people predicted the dismal current state of documentary films. Nonfiction is drawing next to no one at the theaters, and the streaming services are full of airy, content-free docs about already famous people like David Beckham and Lionel Messi. Despite this, I saw tons of stuff on streaming and on the big screen that educated me about things I didn’t know, made me think anew about things I thought I knew, and dazzled me with cinematic creativity. Here are the best documentary films I saw this past year.

1.) Christian missionary John Chau learned the lesson of Ferdinand Magellan and James Cook: You go meddling with a foreign culture that you don’t understand, and somebody’s arrow winds up in your neck.

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ The Mission tells his story through interviews, animation, and excerpts from his and his father’s journals read by actors. Maybe most interesting is how this National Geographic documentary bashes NatGeo for romanticizing people who’ve had no contact with the modern world. This inexorable tragedy (and the year’s best Christian film) shows where religious faith becomes madness. Leave the people of North Sentinel Island the hell alone.

2.) “My brain will desperately want to forget all this, but the camera will not let it happen,” says Mstyslav Chernov in 20 Days in Mariupol. When the Ukrainian

5.) Olfa Hamrouni raised her Four Daughters in a relatively liberal Muslim environment in Tunisia, and yet her two oldest girls ran off to kill people for ISIS. Kaouther Ben Hania’s film tells this story but tells it slant by having Hamrouni interact with her two remaining daughters and two actresses cast as the girls, the real-life versions of whom are currently sitting in a Libyan prison.

Like Preciado, Ben Hania brings together real testimonies and filmed reenactments to create a compelling form of truth.

6.) One of the year’s best animated films was They Shot the Piano Player, a mix of documentary and fiction. An American music critic (Jeff Goldblum) hears the recorded piano stylings of Francisco Tenório Júnior, then travels all over Brazil and Argentina to find out what happened to the samba musician, who went out for sandwiches one night in 1976 and was never seen again. Samba’s all-time greats weigh in on what Tenório Júnior could have achieved, and his sad story plays out in riotous colors by directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal.

7.) If you weren’t around in the late 1980s, you might have trouble fathoming what a huge Hollywood star Michael J. Fox was at that time. Davis Guggenheim casts his gaze on the actor, his short-statured frame ravaged by Parkinson’s, in Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. He received his diagnosis when he was still in his 20s, and his sense of living on borrowed time contributed to mistreating people and starring in bad movies (Life With Mikey, anyone?). Now Fox looks back on his life with perspective and no small amount of humor: “In 20 years, I’ll either be cured, or I’ll be a pickle.”

8.) Maybe the prospect of a four-hour Holocaust documentary (four and a half with the intermission) makes you want to crawl underneath the covers, but in Occupied City, Oscar-winner Steve McQueen gives us no historical footage, no photos of the victims or the killers, no interviews with survivors. Instead, he adapts a book by his wife, Bianca Stigter, and shows us footage of the city of Amsterdam during and after the COVID lockdown while narrator Melanie Hyams tells us about the atrocities and acts of resistance that happened at the addresses we see. It makes for an unexpectedly light film, pointing toward the future while acknowledging the past.

9.) Danish director Lea Glob spent more than a decade following French-born fellow Dane Apolonia Sokol from her days as a struggling painter in Paris to becoming an art-world star, with stops in New York, Los Angeles, Szczecin, and Istanbul. The result

is Apolonia, Apolonia, tracking the artist’s fights against self-doubt and sexism in the art establishment, as well as her affair with a stunningly pretty Ukrainian fashion model, which ends in crushing fashion. In less than two hours, the film seems to capture an artist’s whole maturity.

10.) We end with a tie. Renaissance: A Film

by Beyoncé and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour both make it onto this list on their artistic merits, but they also proved to be pop-culture phenomena, and how many documentaries reach that status? They captured perhaps the world’s two biggest music stars right now at the height of their form, and they also pointed to a possible way forward for movie theaters still recovering from the pandemic.

Honorable mention: Raoul Peck’s Silver Dollar Road … Nicole Newnham’s The Disappearance of Shere Hite … Sara Nodjoumi and Till Schauder’s A Revolution on Canvas … Errol Morris’ The Pigeon Tunnel … Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica …

Julie Cohen’s Every Body … Hubert Davis’ Black Ice … Matthew Heineman’s American Symphony … Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President … Anna Hints’ Smoke Sauna Sisterhood …

Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger … D. Smith’s Kokomo City … Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project … Laura McGann’s The Deepest Breath … Wim Wenders’ Anselm …

Sam Green’s 32 Sounds. l

fwweekly.com

B Y

4.) Transgender philosopher Paul B. Preciado has generally spent his time writing essays and curating art shows, but he takes to his first filmmaking effort like he was born for it in Orlando, My Political Biography. The Spaniard who has lived and worked extensively in France takes an incredibly sophisticated angle on his own life and the seminal influence of Virginia Woolf ’s Orlando, staging scenes from the novel with trans actors portraying the century-spanning hero(ine). The way he weaves all this together is awe-inspiring.

The Mission shows John Chau in the Andaman Islands shortly before his fatal trip to meet unreached peoples.

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

In which we count down the year’s best nonfiction cinematic achievements.

3.) Hope you’re hungry. If you’re not, you will be after spending four hours watching Chef Michel Troisgros and his cooks prepare delectable French dishes in Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros. As he has done with other institutions, Frederick Wiseman examines every facet of this three-Michelin-starred restaurant in rural France that seeks to break new ground in sustainable farm-to-table dining. The 93-year-old Wiseman keeps adding to his legacy of great documentaries, and this film shows him at his most appealing.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Top Docs of ’23

Cour tesy National Geographic

SCREEN

journalist heard that the Russians were coming through this city on the Black Sea in early 2022, he rushed over there and documented the invaders bombing the maternity ward of the hospital he was staying in. His account of the three weeks he spent in the city is as breathlessly and tightly edited as any action thriller that played in theaters this year. You can see it for free on YouTube.

9

Contender or Pretender?

Expectations high and low await the NFC East champs.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY 10

P A T R I C K

H I G G I N S

Nothing yanks on the proverbial patella more than Dallas Cowboys football. The sheer magnitude of the chasmic swings vacillating between coke binge-level exhilaration and coke binge comedown-level despair that come with following this team over the course of a season has to be unique to this franchise. Unlike other sports, with just 17 games played just once a week, NFL football already dominates viewer attention. Add to that being the world’s most popular sports franchise, not to mention a storied one with a long history of success (regardless of how many decades we are currently removed from it), and the peerless amount of focus paid to the Silver and Blue by fans, and the local and national media machine can’t help but exponentially magnify every win and every loss to disproportionate levels.

A Cowboys season, therefore, is a test of the flexibility of one’s neck, the transition from one contest to the next a challenge in just how much whiplash one’s spinal column can tolerate.

This is true during an average year.

Doubly so when Dallas forces that usual

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

B Y

Cour tesy DallasCowboys.com

STUFF

game-by-game heaven-or-hell contrast into interstellar overdrive as they seem to have over these last four months. A team perennially plagued by overreaction, both good and bad, gave its observers plenty to blow out of proportion this year.

Overall, it’s certainly been more Jekyll than Hyde. Head Coach Mike McCarthy led his squad to their third consecutive 12-win season, a feat not accomplished in this town since the bygone glory days of the Triplets. As such, Mike & Co. managed to clinch the No. 2 seed in the NFC and will host the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round on Sunday. Yet when the Hyde-ian monster did manage to come out, the destruction it wreaked upon kneejerky fans’ fragile psyches was massive.

This past Sunday, the regular season came to a close in much the same fashion as it began in September with an MVPcaliber Dak Prescott-led offense beating up on an inferior division rival, this time spanking the Washington Commanders (“Football Team” was an infinitely better nickname) 38-10. Including the 40-0 shutout over the Giants in Week 1, this most recent shellacking was Dallas’ ninth win this year by more than 20 points. That’s more such victories than any franchise in the league since the Patriots managed 10 in their “perfect” 2007 season. More often than not, when the Cowboys won, they tended to win in blowout fashion.

The crux, as has been exhaustively highlighted, is that those wins came largely against bad teams. Only four of Dallas’ dubs were against squads with a winning record, making our overall record against winning (see: also “good”) teams right at .500. What exactly does this tell you about your team?

When you consider the Cowboys’ performance against the league’s top-tier opponents this season, the picture gets even muddier. Miami and Philadelphia (after finishing the season 1-5, should we really be counting Philthy among the top-tier at this point?) managed squeaker victories over Dallas in their respective home stadiums. The Cowboys also blew out the questionable Iggles and managed to pull off their own squeaker against Detroit (I’m a fan, but the recklessness of Dan Campbell lost the Lions that game)

The connection between Dak and CeeDee is just one reason to feel confident about the Cowboys’ chances in the playoffs.

in Arlington. You figure all these games basically cancel each other out. The big gulp moment comes when you recall the Buffalo and San Francisco games. In these two, both road tilts for Dallas, the Bills and Niners beat the Cowboys all over the field for a combined score of 53-20. The ’Boys were never in either one of them.

These two games alone were enough for many to jump from the Cowboys bandwagon fueled by the same ol’ “can’t win big games” conditioning.

So how do we feel as we head toward the 3:30 kick on Sunday? I’d argue, in spite of the troublesome outing against Buffalo and San Fran, that you should feel pretty damn good. All three phases of your team are running in top form right now.

The defense is Top 5, boasting the league’s interception leader as well as an elite pass rusher. On special teams, your punter and kicker are both Pro Bowlers, and the Top3 offense is helmed by a quarterback who should win MVP but won’t — spare me,

haters; Dak leads every statistical category over Lamar Jackson except for rushing yards — and a wideout in CeeDee Lamb who is setting just about every franchise receiving record. Not only do all of those factors seem like reasons for optimism, but thanks to the Eagles’ hilarious season-capping collapse, the game is also at AT&T, where Dallas has not lost since 2021. We’re sitting pretty high on the rollercoaster right now.

Is it possible the current height is just going to make the inevitable drop that much more terrible? Could it be that a franchise the Cowboys have been fairly historically snakebit by comes to town and pulls off the upset? I suppose.

However, McCarthy’s former club will be trying to do it without one of the greatest to ever do it at the quarterback position. I like the Cowboys’ odds of (thanks to Dan Campbell) hosting another playoff game next Sunday, too. l

Thompson’s Bookstore is temporarily closed due to the explosion downtown.

5.) In celebration of the season’s best crop, Central Market is kicking off its annual citrus festival with a CitrusFest Tasting Stroll 2pm-5pm Sat at all locations, including Fort Worth (4651 W Fwy, 817-989-4700) and Southlake (1425 E Southlake Blvd, 817-3105600). Join them for samples of mimosas and new creations like citrus spring rolls, coriander lime pork chops, pink lemonade cake, and more. There is no cost to attend, but CM asks that you register in advance at CentralMarket.com/Citrus-Stroll-2024 for the stores to plan accordingly.

2.) The theme of this month’s Second Thursday at the Carter is Prairies & Preservation.

At 5pm, visit the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (3501 Camp Bowie Blvd, Fort Worth, 817-738-1933) for an evening of cocktails, conversations, and live music. Pick up your complimentary drink in the atrium and head to The Lounge for a discussion with artist James Prosek about Trespassers: Prosek and the Texas Prairie 5pm-8pm. Seating for the talk is first come, first served. RSVP for free at CarterMuseum.com.

3.) Rockfish Seafood Grill (3785 S Cooper St, Arlington, 817-419-9988) serves up an $8 shrimp boil and $4 Hurricanes 10am-11pm Thu. This special includes a dozen large peel-and-eat shrimp, corn, and potato tossed in your seasoning of choice (“all-in” Cajun butter, garlic butter, Nitro, or plain).

4.) All three Enchiladas Ole locations will celebrate the grand opening of a new one at 6473 Camp Bowie Blvd, Fort Worth (817-386-4555) with complimentary queso and $3 margaritas 11am-9pm Fri-Sat. Congratulations, Mary!

Cour tesy Enchiladas Ole

7.) Enjoy a wine dinner at Ellerbe Fine Foods (1501 W Magnolia Av, Fort Worth, 817926-3663) with Napa Valley winemaker Bob Foley of Robert Foley Vineyards 6:30pm Thu, Jan 18. Six wines will be paired with five courses curated by Ellerbe Owner/Chef Molly McCook. Wine-dinner attendees will have the exclusive opportunity to purchase rare vintages from Foley’s library. The cost starts at $192 per person. Book your spots at Resy.com/Cities/DFW/Ellerbe-Fine-Foods.

Enchiladas Ole is offering $3 margaritas and free queso in honor of its third store opening.

8.) All Fish City Grill and Half Shells locations throughout January will offer “chalkboard specials,” including grouper tacos (with charred pico de gallo, fresh spinach, avocado crema, and cilantro bourbon roasted corn for $15.99) and shrimp-and-andouille mac ’n’ cheese (with creamy smoked gouda and parmesan plus a breadcrumb topping for $16.99), and more. Other specials are unique to each restaurant and will change twice daily. You can see them via live chalkboard cameras at FishCityGrill.com/ Locations. Choose your location and click “daily specials” to see what is available now.

By Jennifer Bovee

fwweekly.com

6.) On Tue, Jan 16, El Chingon (2800 Bledsoe St, Ste 100, Fort Worth, 817-870-9997) will bring back its popular spicy food challenge.

Check-in for Fort Worth vs. The Chef is at 7:30pm, with the contest starting at 8pm.

Finish five rounds of spicy chef-selected food items for your chance to win bragging rights, bottle service for the Tuesday of your choice, and some El Chingon swag, including a gift card. There will be a grand prize for first place and other prizes for second and third. Besides the points for eating the hot, hot food, trivia points will be factored into the total scores.

There is no cost to participate. Find the sign-up sheet at Facebook.com/ElChingonFW/Events.

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

1.) Due to the downtown explosion at the Sandman Hotel two days ago, craft bar Thompson’s Bookstore (900 Houston St, 817-882-8003, @ThompsonsBookstore) — whose location is close to the epicenter of the incident but remains unaffected — will be temporarily closed while the city and emergency personnel continue to assess the situation. In a recent Facebook post, Thompson’s reassured everyone that their staff was all safe and accounted for. “Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends at the Sandman Hotel, and we sincerely hope for their well-being during this challenging time.” During the closure, Thompson’s asks that you follow them on social media for updates.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

This Week’s Top 8 Food & Booze Events in North Texas

Cour tesy Thompson’s Bookstore

ATE DAY8 a Week

11

12

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

EATS & drinks It’s La Buena Vida

B Y

Buena Vida Taqueria exudes tropical feels, which may explain why venturing out on a chilly wintry evening — even with the promise of warm, meat-packed tacos — felt a bit incongruous with the South Main space’s summery vibes. Bright neon pink washed over the single dining room filled with long

Served in a hefty glass tumbler with a green straw, the mojito was a light and refreshing spritzer. The cocktail was heavy on the mint, and the herbal flavors washed over my palate with alternating waves of lime, rum, and a light sugariness. All the flavors worked in harmony, perfectly blending acidity and sweetness while keeping the texture light and far from cloying.

One of several street tacos, the barbacoa came on a lightly toasted flour tortilla and was immaculately prepared with bits of

bright red and white slices of radish, a dash of Cotija, and a light sprinkling of cilantro.

The large strands of meat tinged with chipotle powder were smoky and pungent.

Several mild, plump shrimp arrived perfectly grilled and lightly doused in lime juice on the second taco that had the same toppings as the barbacoa version.

The birria pizza, a thin but dense and flavor-packed entree, could easily feed two.

Hefty chunks of tender beef, gooey white continued on page 15

GIOVANNI’S I TA L I A N K I T C H E N ORDER

DELIVERY 817.551.3713

5733 crowley rd

fort worth, tx 76134 GIOVANNISFW.C OM

fwweekly.com

S T O R Y A N D P H O T O S E D W A R D B R O W N

tables and several smaller four-tops. A single bar with two margarita machines, tequilaand mezcal-heavy liquor bottles, and four macrobrews on tap stand ready to top off diners’ drinks. And there’s the merch.

“I’m a slut for tacos,” reads one T-shirt near the register, “A taco-ho, if you will.”

The venture by Chef Alex Lines (who heads several restaurants across North Texas, including West 7th’s Pour Decisions) leans heavily on tacos with a smattering of creative Latin entrees, appetizers, and cocktails.

Buena Vida’s fork-tender rib meat was too perfect to not greedily savor alone.

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

Buena Vida Taqueria, 314 S Main St, Ste 120, FW. 817-386-5334. 11am-9pm Sun-Thu, 11am-2am Fri-Sat.

Smoky and juicy, Buena Vida’s barbacoa elevated this taco to extraordinary levels of sublimity.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

This new taqueria nicely adds to bustling South Main Village.

13

Hot Deals At Cool Prices

Stock your Kitchen at Mission!

Small wares, pots & pans, and all kitchen essentials available to the public.

Come see our showrooms!

MON-FRI 8am-5:30pm

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

2524 White Settlement Road Fort Worth • 817-265-3973

14

cheese, and drizzles of a spicy red sauce, plus diced onions, cilantro, and a white cream sauce covered two large, toasted tortillas. An accompanying side of decadent and spicy consommé for dunking rounded out the

savory and mouthwatering experience.

Served with tortillas for taco-making at your table, a single large slab of short ribs that the menu said had been slow-cooked for 72 hours harmonized with a hillock of vinegary slaw and pickled red onions. The meat that slipped off the bone made for a juicy and slightly fatty centerpiece, and it was so savory that the tortillas went unnoticed.

No mere afterthought, the side of beans perfectly cooked to a firm texture burst with

the flavors of bacon, onion, and chorizo.

Fort Worth boasts an abundance of great taco options, from trendy Austininspired spots to traditional Mex-Mex joints, but South Main Village just has Tinies — as great as it is, it’s certainly no humble taqueria. Buena Vida, with creative offerings and elevated, immaculately plated fare, is an original and welcome addition to the scene, especially if you’re a taco-ho. And who isn’t. l

Buena Vida Taqueria Short rib tacos ............................................ $23.99 Shrimp taco ................................................ $3.99 Barbacoa taco ............................................ $3.75 Birria pizza .................................................. $18.99 Mojito .......................................................... $10

fwweekly.com

continued from page 13

Buena Vida’s mint-forward mojito was pleasantly light and not too syrupy.

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

Eats & Drinks

If plump, juicy shrimp are your thing, Buena Vida’s seafood-laden taco won’t disappoint.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Part pizza, part birria taco, Buena Vida’s culinary hybrid is packed with rich chipotle flavors.

15

RIDGLE A THE ATER

SAT 3/30 PALE PRO WRESTLING SAT 4/27 CARVIN JONES

SPECIAL 35TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW

RIDGLE A ROOM

SAT G I R L S N I G H T O U T 1/13 M A G I C H U N K S SAT DECLARATION MINISTRIES 1/20 W O R S H I P N I G H T

FRI L I L 2 Z & P E S O P E S O 1/26 T E X A S T A K E D O W N SAT D A V I D R U S T 1/27 1ST TEXAS APPEARANCE!

RIDGLE A LOUNGE

FRI 1/12 LIVE MUSIC FRI 1/19 LIVE MUSIC SAT 1/27 HOTEL BURGUNDY

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

GORGEOUS JETSON & CROWE BOYS

16

S T E W A R D

Kathelin Grey

Caravan of Dreams wasn’t exactly before my time, because I moved here from California to go to TCU in August 1996, which would have been near the end of the legendary three-story venue’s 18-year run. But at the time, I was a recently minted 18-year-old ignorant of just about everything that wasn’t Star Wars trivia, a Bible story, or a ska punk band. I had near-zero interest in jazz, and when I heard about famous jazz performances at Caravan, it did not move my meter in the way that an OC Supertones concert at a church in Bedford would have.

Years later, I’ve learned what I had missed, gleaning second-hand nostalgia from comments in the Fort Worth Memories Facebook group — hundreds of iterations of “I saw ______ there,” the blanks filled in

Standing three stories tall, Caravan of Dreams was divided into three different experiences, including this nightclub.

fwweekly.com

S T E V E

with everyone from Ornette Coleman and Eartha Kitt to the Jesus and Mary Chain and Ratt. Adding to the Facebook group’s collected memories last October, music historian William Williams made available his three-volume history of Caravan of Dreams.

Caravan of Dreamland is a story that’s amazing, fascinating, and funny but, ultimately, a little heartbreaking because nothing in this city has ever followed in Caravan’s wake that comes close to what that place was doing.

I don’t really want to spoil any details because Williams serves them up by the truckload and every one is a reminder of how different things are now than they were between 1983 and 2001, when Caravan was open. Whether you saw shows there or have only heard a grandparent talk about this place, Williams’ history is a fun read, as his interviewees all seem to harbor a fond amazement at what they were participating in.

Reductively, Caravan of Dreams was the brainchild of some smart people living in a commune near Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the late 1970s. At Synergia Ranch and its Theater of All Possibilities, this group of “actors, artists, and scientifically minded environmentalists” wanted to bring the avant-garde to the mainstream. One member was local billionaire Ed Bass, which is how such a place ended up in downtown Fort Worth as opposed to a city with greater cultural cache.

What I learned about Caravan: You can’t tell its story without first talking about

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

Music historian William Williams’ three-volume history of the legendary Caravan of Dreams hits all the right notes.

Caravan of Dreams’ famous geodesic dome gave downtown’s skyline a futuristic gleam.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Dreamland Caravan

Mary Evans

MUSIC

Bass, which Williams points out up front in the introduction. After describing the counter-culture community that Bass had joined in 1973, the Caravan Story, Williams wrote, “is also the untold story of the personal pilgrimage of Ed Bass himself, who traveled extensively with this radical theater troupe, funding and participating in many of their projects around the world, only to come full circle, returning home to bring this performing arts center into being and, in the process, transforming the desolate downtown landscape of the early ’80s into a vibrant cultural oasis.”

Caravan of Dreams’ opening show was on September 29, 1983, which had been officially declared Ornette Coleman Day by then-mayor Bob Bolen and featured Coleman and his band, Prime Time, whose kaleidoscopic free jazz was about as avant-garde as you could get. A live recording of the performance, Opening the Caravan of Dreams was the first release on the venue’s own record label, which would later produce 13 other albums by outré artists like James Blood Ulmer, Twins Seven Seven, and William S. Burroughs.

The venue’s three floors held a nightclub, a theater, and rooftop garden beneath a geodesic dome, and Williams has organized his three-volume history accordingly. The performances throughout the venue’s existence are what brought people in the door, but the space itself is just as memorable, and by breaking the text into these sections, Williams is able to give a lot of people their due — I never knew I’d be interested in a food-and-beverage director’s account of working at a world-class music venue, but now I know who Richard Bartman is. The interview with Caravan’s food-and-beverage director for a few years in the late ’80s is one of my favorites in the whole collection precisely because it made me imagine what it was like to be there, at a place that actively sought to expose average Fort Worthians to high culture, be it music, theater, visual art, or film, by a regular guy who got to sit at the soundboard while Winton Marsalis was playing.

What seems to have made Caravan particularly special was that for all the high-caliber entertainment provided to a pretty large room, performances were notably intimate, the stage being the same height as a dining table and right up close to the audience.

This is not to say you can’t be close to a nationally touring act playing Tulips FTW these days, but in 2024, it just doesn’t seem like it’s the same thing as a show at Caravan of Dreams was. A lot has changed since then — the venue closed before social media and smartphones even existed — and concerts seldom seem to have the same kind of luster.

But this is not to say that they cannot. Vis a vis the current state of affairs in Fort Worth music, reading about Caravan of Dreams’ magnificence and artistic aspirations gives me hope that someone — probably another billionaire, but whatever — might take a crack at intentionally bringing avant-garde culture to Fort Worth residents in such a way that the city starts to truly value it again, if for no other reason than that clueless 18-year-olds of tomorrow might become interested in a wider world. l

17

14

Promotional Feature

NIGHT &DAY

C o u r t e s y Fa c e b o o k

Shawna has been caring for their own (and other people’s) fur kids for more than 14 years.

Her Fort Worthbased business offers doggie daycare, daily walks, overnight boarding, and wellness checks.

Translation: She’s seen it all.

On an ongoing basis, we will be publishing Shawna’s answers to your questions.

(Think: Dear Abby.) To that end, here is our next Q&A.

Answer: We hope by the time you read this your cat is purrrrfectly fine. Most times a cat sneezing is no big deal. It’s a natural way to clear irritants and likely part of the normal process of clearing their nose. However, if the sneezing is persistent, or if other symptoms are present, it may indicate an underlying issue. We always defer your questions to your veterinarian first and recommend videoing and sending to them.

Is it truly a “sneeze”? Coughing, gagging, reverse sneezing, hiccupping, retching, and wheezing can all be misidentified as a sneeze. Each of these symptoms come with a separate list of possible causes including infections, chronic inflammation, dental disease, cancer, and inhalation of foreign material. All thes things can cause a cat to sneeze. Viral, (feline herpesvirus) and Calicivirus most commonly presents itself with upper respiratory signs, coughing, sneezing, discharge from the eyes/nose.

Bacterial infections almost always play a secondary role in the upper respiratory symptoms. Bordetella, mycoplasma, chlamydia, are all very common with bacterial infection. If symptoms persist over 3 days, it’s time to call the vet.

18

Readers, do you have questions of your own? Please email CritterCorner@FWWeekly.com.

11

As a teenager interested in DJ culture but not the partying aspect, Will Rhoten Thursday needed a handle for his first gig, and DJ Sober was born. With a name like that, he’s the perfect entertainer for tonight’s sober curious event at 6pm at Meow Wolf (3000 Grapevine Mills Pkwy, Ste 253, Grapevine, @MeowWolfGrapevine). Along with a set by him, enjoy complimentary mocktail classes by Beyond the Bar — North Texas’ first alcohol-free bottle shop — at 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm. Tickets to Adulti-Verse Dry January are $45 at Tickets.MeowWolf. com/Grapevine. (For a recap of this event and more about less booze for the new year, check out next week’s Alive & Kicking special section.)

12

Whether you remember the ’90s superstar from his Friday MTV show Totally Pauly or comedies like Encino Man or Son in Law, you surely recall that cultural icon Pauly Shore is a very funny guy. See him live at Arlington Music Hall (224 N Center St, 817-226-4400) at 8pm as part of his Stick with the Dancing: Stories from My Childhood show. Tickets start at $39 on Eventbrite.com, my doodddzzz.

13

The buff Magic Hunks will bear almost all when they hit the stage hard (so hard) Saturday at the Ridglea Room (3309 Winthrop Av, Fort Worth, 817-941-0086) at 7pm. These hot dudes will bring the “thunder with excitement!” for fans 21 and up.

Tickets to Girls Night Out: The Show start at $20 on Eventbrite.com.

15

On various days throughout this month’s Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, Monday including today at 2pm, kids visiting the Fort Worth Museum of Science & History (1600 Gendy St, 817255-9300) are in for a treat. Head to the museum’s Imaginer Studio room for activities and storytime with the beloved book Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson. Though farming families were the Texas author’s intended audience, librarians everywhere discovered Hank and made Erickson and his series a state treasure. Storytime is free with museum admission, which starts at $12 at FWMuseum.org. Visit FWMuseum.org/ Calendar to see the other dates and times.

16

From alcohol-free drinks to “zesty” salad options (that’s A-Z, folks), the Weekly and Tuesday our advertising partners have a lot of new-year/new-you ideas in our annual self-improvement special section.

Alive & Kicking hits the stands on Wed, Jan 17, so if you have ideas to contribute, email Marketing@FWWeekly.com. As for advertising, our deadlines are on Tuesdays, so contact your account executive ASAP.

17

On select Wednesdays at 2pm thru the end of January, the Wednesday Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (3200 Darnell St, 817738-9215) hosts My Favorite Films, a series curated by Modern auditorium manager Tina Gorski, a lifelong cinephile. “The films in this series may hold special memories for you. No matter how many times you see them, they continue to draw you in one more time.” Today’s feature is The Winslow Boy (1999). When 14-year-old Ronnie Winslow (Guy Edwards) is expelled from the Royal Naval College for theft, his father Arthur (Nigel Hawthorne) is convinced his son was wrongly accused. After acquiring the talented lawyer Sir Robert Morton (Jeremy Northam), Arthur doggedly pursues the case, which becomes a sensationalized public story. As the case wears on, the Winslows’ finances are drained, adversely affecting the older Winslow children.

Tickets are free for Modern members or $5 at the museum admission desk or TheModern.org.

18

Cour tesy Pauly Shore

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

Question: My cat won’t stop sneezing.

Bless you, meow-meow! It just started, so maybe it’s seasonal allergies. Thoughts? Hank’s Mom

If adulting in the new year includes less booze for you, head to the Adulti-Verse Dry January event at Meow Wolf Thursday with DJ Sober.

Cour tesy Meow Wolf Grapevine

Pet Care Advice

For a different kind of open-mic night, head to Arts Fifth Avenue (1628 Sunday 5th Av, Fort Worth, 817923-9500) 6pm-8pm for Sunday Spoken Word. This event curated and hosted by Tammy Melody Gomez of Sound Culture Production features poetry, prose, and other word-based performances. Admission is $5.

ShawsPawsPetCare.com 817-296-1769 (call/text)

Pauly Shore is on the road again. This time, he’s telling stories from his childhood. See him at Arlington Music Hall Friday.

Lucinda Williams & Her Band play the Longhorn Ballroom (216 Corinth St, Thursday Dallas, 214-272-8346) at 6:30pm. The three-time Grammy winner’s tour called Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets: The Story of a Life in Songs features Williams performing numbers from her extensive catalog while sharing backstories from her memoir Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You about her work’s inspirations and origins.

Tickets start at $32 on Prekindle.com.

By Jennifer Bovee

BULLETIN BOARD CLASSIFIEDS

CLASSIFIEDS

fort worth weekly classifieds

bulletin board

Planned Parenthood Of Greater Texas We’re not going anywhere. We know you may be feeling a lot of things right now, but we are here with you and we will not stop fighting for YOU. See 6 ways you can join the #BansOffOurBodies fight on FB @PPGreaterTX. For more info, go to: PPGreaterTX.org

RUSTIC FURNITURE HEADQUARTERS! Unclaimed Freight has financing, layaway, delivery, and 5 locations in Tarrant County to serve you. For more info, visit: MyUnclaimedFreight.com

HOME RESOURCES DIRECTV Get DIRECTV for $64.99/mo for 12 months with CHOICE Package. Save an additional $120 over 1st year. First 3 months of HBO Max, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz and Epix included!

Directv is #1 in Customer Satisfaction (JD Power & Assoc.) Some restrictions apply. Call 1-855-966-0520.

EMPLOYMENT Hysen’s Nizza Pizza is Now Hiring!

Nizza is seeking a counter person, delivery drivers, and wait staff. Apply in person at 401 University Drive, FWTX, 817-877-3900. (Open Sun-Thu 11am-10pm and Fri-Sat 10:30am-11pm.)

HysensNizzaPizza.com

DIRECTV Stream Carries the Most Local MLB Games!

CHOICE Package, $89.99/mo for 12 months. Stream on 20 devices in your home at once. HBO Max included for 3 mos (w/CHOICE Package or higher.)

No annual contract, no hidden fees!

Some restrictions apply. Call IVS at 1-855-810-7635.

UNCLAIMED FREIGHT We are hiring for Sales at all locations.

To apply, please call: 817-277-1516

DISH Network Get 190 Channels for $59.99! Blazing Fast Internet, $19.99/mo (where available). Switch and get a FREE $100 Visa Gift Card. FREE Voice Remote.

FREE HD DVR. FREE Streaming on ALL Devices. Call 1-855-701-3027 today!

EMPLOYMENT NOTICES Companies Offering Travel Accommodations: According to the New York Times, the following companies have said they would cover travel expenses for employees who need abortions: Airbnb, DoorDash, JP Morgan Chase, Levi Strauss & Co, Netflix, Patagonia, Reddit, Starbucks, Tesla, and Yelp.

Additionally, NowThis has listed the following companies also offering the same assistance to employees: Amazon, Apple, BuzzFeed, Citigroup, Comcast, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Lyft, Mastercard, Meta, Microsoft, Paramount, Sony, Tesla, Walt Disney Co, Vox Media, and Zillow. (JMB, FWW) HEALTH & WELLNESS Cardiovascular Disease & Stroke These are leading causes of death, according to the American Heart Association. Screenings can provide peace of mind or early detection!

Contact Life Line Screening to schedule your screening.

Special Offer: 5 Screenings for $149!

Call today! 1-833-636-1757

EARTHLINK Highspeed Internet Big Savings with Unlimited Data!

Fiberoptic Technology up to 1gbps with customizable plan.

Call 855-767-0515 today!

ERIE Metal Roofs Replace your roof with the best looking and longest lasting material steel from Erie! Three styles and multiple colors available. Guaranteed to last a lifetime!

Limited Time Offer: $500 Discount + Additional 10% Off Install (for military, health workers & first responders.) Call 1-888-778-0566.

GENERAC GENERATORS Prepare for power outages today with a home standby generator. No money down. Low monthly payment options.

Call for a FREE quote before the next power outage. 1-844-887-3143

MIND / BODY / SPIRIT Gateway Church Church time is the BEST time! Join us for online church each weekend. Online services start at 4 pm on Saturdays and are available to watch any time after at https://gway.ch/GatewayPeople.

Hannah in Hurst 817.590.2257 Massage Therapy for pain relief, deep relaxation, and better sleep. Professional office in Mid-Cities for over 25 years. “I am accepting new clients now and happy to return your call.” -Hannah, MT#4797.

Soothing Body Rubs And Come in and Relax Reflexology and Take Away Day Spa Your Stress!

Open 7 Days a Week 10a- 8p COUPLES WELCOME!

Call For Appointment 682-252-8868 or 817-510-3262

MUSIC XCHANGE Music Junkie Studios 1617 Park Place #106, FWTX www.MusicJunkieStudios.com We offer lessons on voice, piano, guitar, bass, ukulele, violin, viola, drums, recording, and music for littles!

EMP STUDIOS Musician-owned rehearsal and recording studios in Arlington and Fort Worth. Onsite screenprinting, merchandising services, recording, mixing, and mastering. For more info, visit: EMPStudiosTX.com PET SERVICES FREE SPAY/NEUTER Texas Coalition for Animal Protection has clinics near you. Schedule an appointment today.

TexasForThem.org PET INSURANCE Are you a pet owner? Do you want to get up to 100% back on Vet Bills? Physicians Mutual Insurance Company has pet coverage that can help. Call or go online for a FREE quote today: InsureBarkMeow.com/FortWrth 1-833-662-1568 PUBLIC NOTICES TDLR Complaints Any Texans who may be concerned that an unlicensed massage business may be in operation near them, or believe nail salon employees may be human trafficking victims, may now report those concerns directly to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) by emailing ReportHT@TDLR.Texas.gov.

SUBMISSIONS We’d Like To Hear From You! Do you have thoughts and feelings, or questions, comments or concerns about something you read in the Weekly? Please email Question@fwweekly.com. Do you have an upcoming event? For potential coverage in Night & Day, Big Ticket, Ate Day8 A Week, or CrosstownSounds, email the details to Marketing@fwweekly.com

Find us at at FWWeekly.com/Classifieds Find usonline online FWWeekly.com/Classifieds

fwweekly.com

DORRANCE PUBLISHING Book manuscript submissions currently being reviewed. Comprehensive services include consultation, production, promotion and distribution.

Call for your FREE Author`s Guide or visit DorranceInfo.com/FTWorth today.

1-866-256-0940

LIFE INSURANCE Up to $15,000.00 of GUARANTEED Life Insurance! No medical exam or health questions. Cash to help pay funeral and other final expenses. Visit Life55Plus.info/FTWorth or call Physicians Life Insurance Company today! 844-782-2870

LEAF FILTER Eliminate gutter cleaning forever with LeafFilter, the most advanced debrisblocking gutter protection. Schedule a FREE LeafFilter estimate today. Ask about 20% off entire purchase. Plus, 10% senior and military discounts available. Call 1-877-689-1687.

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

BUY/SELL/TRADE DEFIANT ARMS Haltom City’s only true gun shop is ready to help you with accessories, ammo and more. Visit us at 5200 Denton Hwy (817-393-7738) or online at: Defiant-Arms.com

DENTAL INSURANCE 1-888-361-7095 Physicians Mutual Insurance Company covers 350 plus procedures. Real dental insurance - NOT just a discount plan. Do not wait! Call now! Get your FREE Dental Information Kit with all the details! Call or visit Dental50plus.com/fortworth (#6258).

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

ADVERTISE WITH US

employment, public notices

19

ADVERTISE HERE! Email Stacey@fwweekly.com today!

ARE YOU PREPARED?

Prepare for power outages today with a GENERAC home standby generator. $0 Money Down + Low Monthly Payment Options. Request a FREE Quote. Call now before the next power outage. (MB)

1-817-752-9457

BECOME a Published Author!

Dorrance Publishing, trusted by authors since 1920, wants to read your book. Manuscript submissions currently being reviewed. Services include consultation, production, promotion and distribution. Call or visit online for a FREE author’s guide: 1-866-256-0940 or DorranceInfo.com/FtWorth. (MB)

RIVER OAKS FLEA MARKET IS CATTLE BARN FLEA MARKET

Lots of name brand merchandise & antiques, tons of goodies and so many treasures that will catch your eye!

Come out and see all your favorite vendors! You’ll be glad you did!

4445 River Oaks Blvd Every Sat & Sun 9a-5p

SAFE STEP: THE #1 WALK-IN TUB

North America’s #1 Wal-In Tub is Safe Step.

Comprehensive lifetime warranty. Top-of-the-line installation and service. Now featuring our FREE shower package and $1600 Off for a limited time! Financing available. Call today: 1-855-868-0192. (MB)

Best Time For Massage? Now!

Hannah in Hurst, professional location, no outcalls.

(MT#4797)

817-590-2257

ELIMINATE GUTTER CLEANING

Eliminate gutter cleaning forever! LeafFilter, the most advanced debris-blocking gutter protection. Schedule a FREE LeafFilter estimate today. 20% off Entire Purchase. Plus 10% Senior & Military Discounts. Call 1-877-689-1687 today! (MB)

ERIE METAL ROOFS

Replace your roof with the best looking and longestlasting material steel from Erie Metal Roofs! Three styles and multiple colors available. Guaranteed to last a lifetime! Limited Time Offer: 50% off Installation + Additional 10% off Instafor military, health workers & 1st responders. (MB)

call 1-888-778-0566 today!

FREE HIGH SPEED INTERNET For Those Who Qualify

Government program for recipients of select programs incl. Medicaid, SNAP, Housing Assistance, WIC, Veterans Pension, Survivor Benefits, Lifeline, Tribal. 15 GB internet service. Bonus offer: Android tablet FREE with one-time $20 copay. Free shipping & handling. Call Maxsip Telecom today! 1-844-600-1065. (MB)

You can have the bathroom of your dreams for as little as $149/month! BCI Bath & Shower has many options available. Quality materials & professional installation.

Senior & Military Discounts Available. Limited Time Offer: FREE virtual in-home consultation now and SAVE 15%! (MB)

Call BCI Today! 1-866-913-0581

JA N UA RY 1 0 - 1 6 , 2 0 2 4

fwweekly.com

HAVE YOUR DREAM BATHROOM!

NEED A FRIEND? Ronnie D. Long Bail Bonds

Immediate Jail Release 24 Hour Service. City, County, State and Federal Bonds. Located Minutes from Courts.

6004 Airport Freeway.

817-834-9894

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

RonnieDLongBailBonds.com

20

Soothing Body Rubs And Come in and Relax Reflexology and Take Away Day Spa Your Stress!

Open 7 Days a Week 10a- 8p COUPLES WELCOME!

Call For Appointment 682-252-8868 or 817-510-3262