Fort Worth Weekly // October 26 - November 1, 2022

BY E.R. BILLS

EDWARD

BY BUCK D.

BY STEVE STEWARD

By Edward Brown

By E.R. Bills

By Patrick Higgins

Fort

For

By Steve Steward

For

817-321-9700

817-321-9719

817-987-7689

For

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by

METROPOLIS

Harvesting Misinformation?

Trailing behind in polls, county judge candidate

Tim O’Hare and his supporters allege his Democrat opponent committed — you guessed it — voter fraud.

BY EDWARD BROWN

Attorney Steve Maxwell expected a big crowd when he arrived at Tarrant Coun ty GOP headquarters on the East Side last month. Local Republican leaders organized the press event to announce the release of video footage that allegedly ties Democrat county judge candidate Deborah Peoples to voter fraud.

Maxwell and friend Art Brender, both of whom are former Tarrant County Democrat ic Party chairmen, grabbed a chair and made small talk with a Star-Telegram reporter.

“Only four people were there,” Maxwell said.

Soon after the two sat down, an uniden tified event organizer told them to leave.

“ ‘You guys are not welcome,’ we were told,” Maxwell said.

The video in question appears to show an unnamed Fort Worth police officer hav ing an in-depth conversation about voter fraud with Charles Jackson, a homeless Black man. Based on records from the Tar rant County District Clerk, Jackson’s rap sheet includes two counts of assault, six counts of theft (two of which are felonies), three counts of possession of controlled sub stances, two counts of trespassing, and one count of providing false voting information.

One confidential source with close con nections to Fort Worth police alleges that one or more Fort Worth cops tipped off members of Citizens for Election Integrity, a local right-wing group that peddles voter fraud conspiracy theories. The Fort Worth Police Officers Association has openly en dorsed Peoples’ opponent for county judge, Republican Tim O’Hare.

The original open records request, which the city recently released, confirms that a member of Citizens for Election Integ rity requested the footage last year. A police spokesperson said his department did not

leak the video or knowledge of it to the elec tions group. Based on the original request, the unnamed officer’s last name is Cotten.

Citizens for Election Integrity is out to prove nearly nonexistent voter fraud be cause some Republicans wouldn’t win oth erwise. In one website video, the elections group alleges that Tarrant County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia, who previous ly worked for the voting system Smartmatic, has ties to vote rigging. Right-wing pundits falsely allege that Smartmatic was responsi ble for illegally flipping the 2020 presiden tial election in favor of President Joe Biden. Smartmatic attorneys are currently suing Fox News for $2.7 billion in damages for spreading lies about a stolen election, lies that singled out Smartmatic.

A spokesperson for O’Hare’s campaign ignored my requests for comment. Peoples declined to comment on this story, but she has publicly stated that the video amounts to false information from a desperate candidate.

With less than two weeks until the mid terms on Tue, Nov 8, polling for Tarrant County’s most contentious race bodes well for Peoples. Her campaign released results from a PredictWise poll that show the former business executive leading O’Hare by eight points with 24% of voters still undecided. Pre dictWise does not disclose how many Tarrant County residents participated in the poll.

Supporters of O’Hare have latched onto Jackson’s misdemeanor charge of falsely signing a mail-in ballot to make him out to be at the center of an alleged voter fraud scheme. Based on a copy of Jackson’s indict ment, this crime happened in 2018.

In the video, Jackson tells the officer that Peoples paid him $200 per falsified bal lot, an allegation that Brender and Maxwell found to be absurd, given that Tarrant Coun ty Democrats work on a slim budget and that Peoples’ only position at the time, Democrat county chair, was and remains nonpaid.

“The guy’s credibility is so low, you don’t know whether to believe anything he says,” Brender said of Jackson.

Being a county chair for the Democrat party is an often-thankless position that par ty leaders rarely fight over, Brender added.

One local publication has gone all-in on promoting the video. Dallas Express is running a Facebook ad with a headline that leaves no room for nuance.

“Newly released body camera footage reveals a massive voter fraud conspiracy with the current Democrat nominee for Tar rant County,” Deborah Peoples, the ad reads.

The man behind the promoted post is

Dallas Express publisher Monte Bennett, the Dallas-based billionaire who, based on campaign finance report disclosures, has donated $100,000 to O’Hare. Launched in 2021, the online publication repurposed the name of a longtime progressive Black-owned newspaper that closed in 1970.

Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn, who has endorsed O’Hare, said his office will not investigate the video’s authenticity, and the Tarrant County district attorney’s office has so far declined to look into the bodycam footage. The only law enforcement agency investigating the matter, based on public statements by Waybourn, is the state attorney general’s office, whose leader, the indicted Ken Paxton, narrowly avoided be ing disbarred for using his position to fur ther the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. The disgraced oneterm former president lost resoundingly and by 7 million in the popular vote.

In September, the Court of Criminal Ap peals upheld its previous ruling that the at torney general must receive permission from county prosecutors to pursue voter fraud cas es. Through an opinion, Judge Scott Walker explained the reasoning behind the ruling.

“I still agree with our original decision handed down in December, when we recog nized that the specific powers given to the At torney General by the Texas Constitution do not include the ability to initiate criminal pro ceedings — even in cases involving alleged vi olations of the Election Code,” Walker writes.

In the week before March’s primary, O’Hare’s team spread lies about opponent Betsy Price to skew poll numbers in his favor. In his baseless claims, he portrayed Price as pro-abortion and pro-riots. O’Hare’s support ers, according to multiple sources who have received phone calls from the Republican can didate’s team, are using the police cam video to sway Democrats to vote for O’Hare.

Charles Jackson (shown here) speaks to an unnamed Fort Worth police officer in a video that Republican county judge candidate Tim O’Hare is using to discredit his Democrat rival.

He Lives!

The former “oneman Fort Worth film industry” is back.

BY E.R. BILLS

Peoplewho work day-to-day,

blue-collar, service jobs intersect most of our lives all the time, but we don’t give many if any of them a second thought. The pseudo-cheery teen ager handing us our order at the drive-thru window. The bedraggled serviceperson who came out to replace the worn-out element in our water heater. The Big Lebowski-look ing fella who painted all the exterior trim on our house for cheap. A delivery person for a chain sandwich shop, a waitperson, a landscaper, a maintenance employee, or a bartender. I’ve never confirmed the specif ics precisely, but I know that at one time or another Fort Worth native Bret McCormick has been at least half of these folks, so you wouldn’t think he was a disfigured serial killer butchering our unsuspecting neigh bors as a janitor at a Texas high school.

And he’s not.

He just plays one in his latest movie, Christmas Craft Fair Massacre

It’s a wacky, no-budget horror film that will be available from Wild Eye Releasing on DVD and Tubi in mid-December. In fact, it’s so low-budget, it actually cost him more to rent the Bedford Movie Tavern for the premiere than it did to actually complete the production.

To be honest, it seems fitting in a way, for this previously, partially, and perhaps still part-time demented master of Texas schlock to reemerge from the shadows. A tall Timo thy Leary-looking figure of no small renown, McCormick is not exactly a Cowtown knockoff of Ed Wood. He’s more of a Roger Corman disciple, and his body of work is character ized by madcap low-budget zaniness, often produced by sheer force of will alone, when so many others might have quit. At his best, he was half-Stanley Kubrick, half-Mel Brooks, a Frankenfilmmaker, a celluloid dervish of stoic edge with sometimes trashy, sometimes eruditely hashy, blunt humor. After all, most of us weren’t put on this planet to be a big noise or make a big splash. And even if we were, many of us were disinclined to perform the pandering required to put our names up in the big bright lights. McCormick would humbly admit to said ranks. They Live. We live. He lives!

But here’s the difference.

Remember when you were a twenty something sitting around on a crappy couch in a crappy apartment, watching a crappy direct-to-video monster muddle? You were momentarily inspired, and you thought, “Hell, I could do that!” And then, praise the Lord and pass the corndogs, you actually went out and did it?

Of course not.

You may have had the crappy couch in the crappy apartment and been suscep tible to the almost obligatory viewing of crappy direct-to-video monster shows, be cause these are the easy half of the equation. Watching movies and laughing at their in adequacies requires no exertion, little time, and even less talent.

Some of us, however, have seen the 1986 schlock horror classic The Abomination. And the who is the why of the how.

Otto is a directionless young punk whose parents watch religious TV all day and tell him they gave away his college money to help support a television evangelist doing the Lord’s work. Otto isn’t a character in The Abomination. Otto (played by Emilio Estevez) is the main character in the 1984 classic Repo Man, but what if the college money that Otto’s parents sent to that broadcast prophet had yielded a miracle in the clenched opposable-thumbless fingers of “The Monkey’s Paw”?

This — drumroll, please — is Bret Mc Cormick’s territory.

There were more than a few direction less young punks in rural Texas in those days, so McCormick introduces us to Cody (Scott Davis), who is aimlessly adrift, perhaps, but handsome in a redneck, quasi-mulleted sense and even possessed (initially) of a girlfriend. Cody, like Otto, competes with a televangelist for the attention of his mother Sarah, but she is obsessed with binge-watching the techni color savior Brother Fogg to secure spiritual deliverance. She has a terrible cough, sus pects a tumor, and wonders why her son Cody rejects the TV preacher’s delusional aplomb.

Ariel hangs out with her crazy redneck friends, pulling dumb stunts like doing the splits between two trucks racing down a country road, her feet precariously balanced on the open-window doors of the two vehi cles. But as played by Lori Singer, Ariel isn’t a character in The Abomination. McCormick’s budget for The Abomination was 1/1,170th that of the cheesy 1984 classic Footloose ($8.2 million), which starred Singer and, as Ren McCormack, Kevin Bacon.

So, what’s an aspiring filmmaker who sprang from a crappy couch in a crappy apartment to do?

It’s simple, really. And more realistic. Cody and girlfriend Kelly (Blue Thompson) race their friends down a country road, driv ing close enough to pass beers back and forth between their truck cabs. It’s certainly more realistic than Singer’s Footloose stunt and practically a rite of passage in Texas anyway.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s cough worsens, and she desperately prays to Brother Fogg for a continued on page 5

McCormick: “I realize my unconventional cinematic sensibilities aren’t for everyone, but if I can make a feature for less than $1,000 and immediately turn a profit, I find myself in a brave new world.”

Courtesy the artist

remedy, divine intervention, and salvation. And that’s where the weird salivating begins. Cody’s mother coughs up a bloody lung tu mor and, feeling better, tosses it in the trash can. Then, she goes to bed and sleeps the sleep of the damned — sorry, I meant “dim.”

After a day of provincially rambunctious country road beer-swapping, Cody comes home loaded and passes out. The heaven-castout (or hell-cast-forth) bloody lung tumor begins to pulsate. If this sounds wacky or farfetched, remember the parallel points in Repo Man and Footloose. Otto is fetching cars and chasing a space alien stashed in the trunk of a missing 1964 Chevy Malibu. And Ren and the quite fetching Ariel are — as Peter “Starlord” Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy so eloquently puts it — challenging a towering prig (played by John Lithgow) to a “dance-off.”

This is where McCormick really demonstrates his knowledge of the materi al and his meager budget. The bloody, bur geoning, heaven-sprung lung tumor can’t hide in cars (yet), and a dance-off is out of

the question. So, the bloody, pulsating tu mor hits the linoleum and oozes its way to comatose Cody’s bedroom.

Here, instead of discussing how said pulsating, bloody lung tumor scales Cody’s bed, we must examine the influence of Fran kenstein. Victor Frankenstein’s goal is to use science to stave off death, an arguably no ble intention, but his efforts backfire. He creates a monster. Defying science, Cody’s mother attempts to prolong her demise by praying to and paying Brother Fogg, clear ly an ambassador of the Lord. She implores Fogg for a miracle cure and receives one. It’s alive! But unlike Mary Shelley’s mon ster, it doesn’t flee from human beings — it wants to devour them. It’s way more bent on world domination than the Evil Plank ton in SpongeBob SquarePants and arguably as gross and otherworldly as the creature in John Carpenter’s 1982 version of The Thing (whose production and special effects costs were a thousand times higher).

The throbbing, bloody lung blessing is actually a curse, and it crawls into the sleep ing Cody’s mouth, where it plants its seeds.

Later, Cody regurgitates the tumor, or one of its brothers, and tucks it under his bed, where it grows into a voracious eating ma chine, eager to be fed.

Here, we must comment on McCor mick’s Alien turn. Ridley Scott also has his extraterrestrial creature impregnate a male character orally, but that fecundated male’s pregnancy results in a nasty newborn-per formed Caesarean. As The Abomination’s budget was 1/13,956th of Alien’s ($11 mil lion), McCormick remains frugally faithful to The Abomination’s theme of oral deliver ance. Cody repeats his mother’s regurgita tive labor, producing another living, bloody offspring from his kisser.

Cody soon begats another tumorous off spring, and, in a matter of days, the growing clan of tumors are hangry.

In Repo Man, Otto never repossesses the 1964 Chevy Malibu and misses out on the alien in tow. Cody gets possessed by his mom’s bloody, coughed-up tumor and feeds his growing litter of abominations any hu mans he can manage to kill: friends, strang ers, his boss, and the tumor’s original progen itor, his own dear mother. In Footloose, Ren and Ariel win their dance-off against the local preacher, but McCormick does them one bet

ter. Cody places one of his offspring in the toi let of the sinister televangelist. Unfortunately for Brother Fogg, the aperture of a toilet bowl is much wider than the eye of a needle.

In bizarre, lean ways, The Abomination is cleverer and more pointed than Repo Man, and some of its $2.68 special effects may be better (though created in the same playful vein). The shoestring-budgeted indie is also more relevant than Footloose, whose smalltown characters seem based on rural Texans. In fact, to be snidely candid, The Abomination doesn’t borrow from Footloose so much as per form a twisted, irreverent response to it.

Can’t say too much more without giv ing up the entire plot, but the film was shot mostly in Poolville, Texas, in 10 days in September 1986. Bret McCormick did the most with what he had and accomplished what many of us thought we could do sitting around on a crappy couch in a crappy apart ment if we just got the chance.

Clearly, McCormick didn’t wait for chance.

In 1983, a screenplay McCormick wrote with Lon Bixby was optioned by Hollywood legend Peter Fonda for $1. Paltry, yes, but it still gave McCormick showbiz cred.

Then, from 1985 to 1998, the budding filmmaker produced more than 20 low-budget features, including Tabloid (1985, a collection

continued from page 5

An unruly, coked-up Dan Haggerty of Grizzly Adams fame starred in McCormick’s 1990 thriller Macon County War.

Courtesy the artist

continued

of shorts that includes McCormick’s clever “Barbecue of the Dead”), the afore-discussed Abomination (1986), Ozone: Attack of the Red neck Mutants (1986), Macon County War (1990, a.k.a. One Man War and starring unruly, cokedup Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty), Highway to Hell (1990, starring screen legend Richard Harrison, who appeared in more than 100 motion pictures from 1955 to 2000), Armed for Action (1990, starring Martin Sheen’s younger brother, Joe Estevez, uncle to Repo Man star Emilio), and Blood on the Badge (1992, also featuring Joe Estevez). In 1992, McCormick also produced both Redneck County Fever and Reanimator Academy (which included a small role for Sarah Paxton, who would go on to appear in Last House on the Left in 2009 and the 2022 Marylin Monroe biopic Blonde) after one-weekend shoots. He was also an associate producer on Night Trap (1993, starring future Hollywood mainstays like John Amos, Robert Davi, Lesley Ann-Down, Michael Ironside, and Mike Starr), and then he produced the 1994 documentary Children of Dracula (a fangin-cheek nod to a genre that would eventually evolve into comedy-reality features like What We Do in the Shadows two decades later). Mc Cormick would also go on to write the screen play for Fatal Justice (also starring Joe Estevez) that year.

From there, McCormick produced Cy berstalker (1995, starring former Re-animator star Jeffrey Combs), Striking Point (1995, star ring Robert Mitchum’s second son, Christo

pher Mitchum, who appeared in more than 60 films, including three with John Wayne), Space Varmints (1995), Takedown (1995, star ring Richard Lynch, a stalwart Hollywood villain of The Sword and the Sorcerer fame), Bio-Tech Warrior (1996), Rumble in the Streets (1997), Time Trap (1997, starring Jeffrey Combs), and the inimitable Repligator (1998, starring Gunnar Hanson).

In the 1995 book Sleaze Merchants: Ad ventures in Exploitation Filmmaking, author John McCarty calls Tabloid “a cross between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the per verse early works of John Waters.” Pop-art icon Andy Warhol even gave it an endorse ment, describing it as a contemporary Nor man Rockwellian vision of “Americana.”

The Confluence of Cult website calls Mc Cormick’s “visceral Super 8 indie” The Abom ination a “messy tangle of glorious splatter and existential absurdity” that stands out as a “worthwhile curio, a sort of 8-track [David] Cronenberg demo.” And the subsequent, non-McCormick-produced 1992 version of Highway to Hell — starring Rob Lowe’s younger brother Chad Lowe, Ben Stiller, Jer ry Stiller, Patrick Bergen, Kristy Swanson, and rockstar Lita Ford — was produced for a budget of $7.5 million and grossed only $26,055 at the box office. Juxtapose that data with the fact that McCormick put together the 1990 version for $20,000 and recouped his budget and then some.

Night Trap earned McCormick his first Joe Bob Briggs review and rating: “Nine dead bodies. Twelve breasts. Blood-drink ing. Wrist-slitting. Two bodies flung through plate-glass windows. Hooker tor

ture. Exploding house. Four motor vehicle chases, with four crashes, explosion and fire ball. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Michael Ironside, as the you-know-who, for saying, ‘Whose body would you like to hold next to you in bed while the other lies rotting in a grave?’ Two and a half stars. Joe Bob says check it out.”

Rumble in the Streets, which McCormick produced for horror legend Roger Corman, received a second, particularly expository Joe Bob write up:

Bret has always been the one-man Fort Worth film industry, but I remember the ole boy when he was making monster flicks for 30 bucks in his cellar.

Seven dead bodies. Six breasts. Face-clawing. Dirt clod to the eyes. Bloody scotch-glass crunch ing. Hand-slicing. Hand-burning. Hand-crushing. Close-up heroin in jections. Guy executed by gunshot in a place where … naw, we’re just not going into it.

Leg-stabbing. Flaming cop. One motor vehicle chase, with crash. One mugging. Aardvarking. Electrocution.

Drive-In Academy Award nomina tions for Peggy Ann Mitchell, for writing and singing the main theme song, “She Tries to Fly,” a great song in a genre that usually thrives on bad songs.

Kimberly Rowe, as the hooker who says, “I keep thinking I know you from somewhere — I always remember guys on bikes,” and, “I don’t do that much heroin — just enough to stay straight.”

Mike Nicole, as the scruffy, wise cracking drug connection who says, “My name’s Bob, but I spell it backwards.”

David Courtemarche, as the love struck, homeless singing cowboy.

Patrick Defazio, as the sick, pervert ed, twisted street cop.

B-movie legend Joe Bob Briggs gave 1997’s Rumble in the Streets three and a half stars. “Joe Bob says check it out.”

Courtesy the artist

And Bret McCormick, the director, co-writer, and producer, for doing things the drive-in way, Three and a half stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

In a review of Time Trap, The Terror from Beyond the Daves website claims, “The best way I can describe Time Trap is Star Trek meets Land of The Lost” and rates it “7/10 stun blasters!!”

And Repligator, ranked the 1,096th best film of 1998, received the following review from Triskaidekafiles: “Things could stand to get a little cheesier, but I love the ludicrous ness of every damned thing in this movie. It’s like watching a terrible Doctor Who story from the classic series but with more boobs. I’d almost say watch this just for the enter tainment value alone, because, damn, if it isn’t something unique.”

A nod from Andy Warhol? Compar isons to John Waters, David Cronenberg, Star Trek, Land of the Lost, and Dr. Who? And a fricking Academy Award nomination from Joe Bob Briggs, the all-time, undisputed master of B-movie horror pictures?

Who is this masked, creeping cinephile, and what happened to him?

As McCormick notes in his recent book, Tex as Schlock: B-Movie Sci-Fi and Horror from the Lone Star State, he became obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe when he was not much more than a toddler and fell straight into the suspenseful, buttery-popcorn embrace of B-Movie horror titillation as he approached pubescence.

“Who had time for sports when The Green Slime was playing at the Poly Theater just down the road on Vaughn Boulevard?” McCormick writes. “Who wanted to attend a church or a school function when Dracula Has Risen from the Grave?”

By the time he was old enough to get a job, McCormick — reminiscent of a young Quentin Tarantino — says he was unfit for anything outside a movie theatre. In 1975, he began work as an usher at Cineworld, Fort Worth’s first multiplex. And one day, at Eastern Hills High School, he met an in credibly talented kindred spirit. His name was Bob Camp. Bret and Bob and a small band of Eastern Hills amateur film aficiona dos began shooting Super 8 movies devoted to vampires rising from the grave, skate boarding werewolves, psychedelic halluci nations, and a Blob-esque stop-motion mon ster known as “Splot.”

After high school, McCormick briefly studied under filmmaker Andy Anderson (Interface, Positive I.D.) at UT-Arlington and then earned an associate’s degree from the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California.

McCormick’s buddy Camp would go on to co-found and become a director for Spümcø, the animation studio that created the wonder fully raucous Ren & Stimpy Show, a brilliant, groundbreaking forerunner of so many of the animation series we see and love today. Mc Cormick himself would chase the delightful

B-Movie dreams that so enchanted his youth.

At the end of the day or, in fact, the sec ond millennium, McCormick was burned out and frequently burned by double-dealing, middling movie distributors and ruthless, bot tom-feeding con artists. He walked away from showbiz and didn’t reemerge in the filmic sense until Christmas Craft Fair Massacre

“Rob Hauschild of Wild Eye Releasing sent a crew down to interview me for a spe cial feature on the upcoming re-release of The Abomination,” McCormick said, “and I had a bizarre reawakening. I was excited to learn that their camera guy, Mark Polonia, had made over 80 features! … Somehow that meeting sparked my interest in learning how super low-budget movies were being made today. I found out that you could make fea ture films for practically nothing with your cellphone and edit your footage with free soft ware available online. For the second time in my life, I was bitten by the movie bug.”

McCormick admits that Christmas Craft Fair Massacre was a test project, and the en tire experience was positive.

“I’ve already earned more money from the movie than I spent making it,” he said with a laugh. “If that had been the case the first time around, I never would have stopped making movies. I realize my uncon ventional cinematic sensibilities aren’t for everyone, but if I can make a feature for less than $1,000 and immediately turn a profit, I find myself in a brave new world.”

Look for Christmas Craft Fair Massacre this Christmas season and an upcoming pro duction with a working title of Attack of the Killer Cow Patties sometime next year.

McCormick can be reached at BretAn thonyMcCormick@gmail.com.

From 1985 to 1998, McCormick produced more than 20 low-budget features, including 1985’s Tabloid, a collection of shorts that includes McCormick’s clever “Barbecue of the Dead.”

Courtesy the artist

Dak in the Saddle?

Defense continues to carry the team as the Cowboy offense saw little boost from the return of QB1.

BY PATRICK HIGGINS

Fate apparently decided to make a little karmic withdrawal on Sunday morning as I awoke to a text asking if I’d like to attend the Cowboys’ game against the lowly Detroit Lions. (I am an anxious ball of nerves awaiting what misfor tunes might lie ahead of me in the coming days to balance the scales.) The seats weren’t great, but, hey, they were free. Our end-zone corner sightline high atop section 402 wasn’t ideal, yet even from up where the O2 runs thin and the pitch of the ceaseless stairs risked snap ping a certain out-of-shape fortysomething’s underused Achilles’ tendons, it was easy to see

that QB Dak Prescott, returning after a fivegame absence, was, shall we say, pretty rusty.

As he rolled left off play action on the Cowboys’ first play, Dak spotted a wide-open Noah Brown streaking down the sideline. The quarterback then sailed a pass five yards above Brown’s head. The next play would be a twoyard run stuff, followed by a sack. From the jump, it felt like the offense was poised to con tinue the frustrating malaise it’s seemingly been mired in going back to the middle of last year.

A handful of three-and-outs and a fumble at the goal line later, and the Cowboys limped into the locker room at the half trailing De troit 6-3. Prescott did manage to get his wheels back late, however, ultimately finishing 19/25 for 207 and a TD on the way to a 24-6 victory.

Sadly, the lopsided final score was far from representative of the flow of the afternoon.

Though he said his surgically repaired thumb wasn’t an issue — “I didn’t even think about it,” he said in the post-game presser — Prescott’s ball placement was consistently suspect and the flight on the ball smelled faintly of waterfowl.

The thumb also can’t account for some of his decision-making. He threw dangerously into double coverage a number of times. The jumpy, impatient Dak that tends to pop up like an irritating yard mole more and more lately reappeared. Perhaps the offense’s overall tooth lessness was no more evident than on a partic ularly hair-pulling drive in the third quarter.

It started with a dazzling 52-yard punt return by former Horned Frog and last year’s USFL league MVP KaVontae Turpin. The Cowboys would again go three and out, shamefully punt ing on a drive that started in Lions territory.

However, Dak’s decidedly Cooper Rushlike performance was helped along to victory

by the same exact things that kept Rush afloat over the last month: a dogged commitment to running the football and elite level defensive play. Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard com bined for 139 yards rushing with Zeke mixing in two TDs on the ground while the defense came alive in the second half, forcing five turn overs (three fumbles and two interceptions).

The game saw the emergence of rookie D-end Sam Williams, who had three tackles and two sacks and forced one of the fumbles. Travon Diggs added one of those INTs to his already ridiculous ball hawking resume. (The other was caught by Jourdan Lewis, who was seen on crutches in the tunnel after the game, suffering a Lisfranc fracture on the intercepting play. He is out for the remainder of the season.)

LB/DE Micah Parsons also continued his DPOY campaign on a play in which he chased down a streaming Lions’ TE T.J. Hockenson, tackling him just shy of the goal line, saving a

touchdown. (Detroit lost a fumble on the next play.) Parsons initially bit on QB Jared Goff’s play action and headed toward the line before realizing his error and turning upfield to use his unreal make-up speed to burst past several other Cowboy defenders and run Hockenson down. Without that play, we may be looking at a very different outcome in the game.

The only deficiency on the defensive side of the ball continues to be in their ability to stop the run. The Cowboys look to change that, however, as they have flipped a sixth-round pick for a big ol’ space eater in defensive tackle Jon athan Hankins from the Raiders. The former second-round pick will add some much-needed size up the middle of the line and should help close off some previously open lanes for oppos ing runners. It’s a nifty move that could make this already elite defense even better.

If there was one lesson to be learned by Dak and the ’Boys from the Cooper Rush era, it’s that No. 4 doesn’t need to be the hero any more. Prescott said as much himself after the game, though those old tendencies showed themselves on Sunday. The Dallas QB’s aver age depth of target was more than 12 yards per attempt. That’s Patrick Mahomes-type terri tory and more than doubles Rush’s in his time starting. Yet it still took nearly half a dozen turnovers to mount just 24 points against the league’s worst defense.

Does it really matter, though? At some point this season, there will likely be a game in which Dak will have to sling it around in some sort of Chiefs/Bills-type shootout, but don’t expect it to happen often. With this defense, 20 points is going to win you most games. Dak might be sitting in the saddle, but, for now, the defense is holding the reins. l

With Dak Prescott back to lead the offense, many expected a spark. It failed to appear.

Promotional support provided by

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Two Women at a Window, c. 1655–60, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Widener Collection, 1942.9.46

This exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum.

The Kimbell Art Museum is supported in part by Arts Fort Worth, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

LT for President

No, really. The NFL Hall of Famer and former Frog would be able to unite TCU like no one before him.

BY JOHN ANDREW WILLIS

Early voting has begun in Tarrant County. There’s a candidate you’ve not thought of but who should be on your radar this election season.

In the first change in top leadership since 2003, TCU is searching for a president. Here’s some free advice for Korn Ferry, the bougey headhunting firm the school has retained: Hire LaDainian Tomlinson. TCU probably won’t, but they should think seriously about it.

Chancellor Victor Boschini, the foremost face of TCU this millennium, is giving up most everything besides fundraising as he works to ward not-too-distant retirement.

LT doesn’t technically meet the job de

in his field of study, as the Ivory Tower types call it. No Ph.D., however, is as elite as the gold blaz er Tomlinson donned as a first-ballot inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017.

Fewer than 400 former players have ever been enshrined in Canton, Ohio. Tomlinson is only the third from TCU in 150 years. By comparison, doctorate degrees are granted like Halloween candy in this country. If TCU’s pre ferred candidate is to have reached the apex of their professional specialty, LT fits the bill.

In his profound 30-minute-plus Hall of Fame speech, Tomlinson recounted that his great-great-great-grandfather was brought to America as a slave.

“The family legacy that began in such a cruel way has given birth to generations of suc cessful, caring Tomlinsons,” he said. “I firmly believe that God chose me to help bring two races together under one last name, Tomlinson.”

Do you think he could handle contentious discussions on campus about diversity, equity, and inclusion?

LT’s life thus far has been remarkable. He retired as one of the best to ever play football, has enjoyed a long stint as an analyst for the NFL Network since, and has been a trustee at TCU since 2018. His early years, however, were a chal lenge that few TCU stakeholders can relate to.

Tomlinson spent most of his childhood in a single-parent home in Marlin (population 5,462), 30 miles outside Waco. Today’s medi an annual family income in Marlin is less than one semester of tuition at TCU.

Universities are profoundly heterogeneous and often siloed to a fault. TCU is better than most and wins awards for a culture of connec tion and engagement across campus. Even still,

biology, and housing to see issues the same. Their objectives are too dissimilar.

No candidate is available who could per fectly balance and understand each function that reports to them. Such a person doesn’t exist.

In the public square, the cost, value, and in herent worth of a bachelor’s degree in America has never been more in question. Tomlinson’s journey at TCU was exceptionally unlikely. Let’s just say there isn’t a TCU alumni chapter in Mar lin. However, what LT made of his TCU expe rience and afterward is a perfect example of the intrinsic value of a traditional college education.

Tomlinson moved from humble beginnings to a mansion in San Diego in less than a decade. He can relate to the haves and have-nots be cause he’s been both. His experience making his own luck as a football player speaks to right-ofcenter TCU alumni, of which there are many.

At the same time, being a Black man who’s seen the whole spectrum of socioeconomics throughout life gives Tomlinson an authoritative

permeate the dialogue in the modern academics.

An unexpected hire like Tomlinson is not without precedent. University of Texas Chancellor and former Navy Admiral Wil liam McRaven is a notable example. McRaven, widely credited as the mastermind of the opera tion to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011, delivered a now-viral commencement address in Austin in May 2014 in his military uniform. He re tired from the Navy four months later and was named UT System Chancellor in January 2015.

The safe choice for TCU’s opening is a seasoned but boring academician. A tenured Ph.D. former professor and/or administrator. Someone who is charismatic but also lives for mundane things like the registrar’s course numbering system. Tomlinson is not that.

When asked about the president job last December, Boschini said, “I’m looking for somebody who fits the culture of TCU — other skills can be learned.”

If he means it, the hiring committee should be interviewing Tomlinson. After all, Boschini isn’t going anywhere. The future president will do most of the chancellor’s current job while also working with him. Tomlinson-Boschini would be a powerful duo.

LT is arguably TCU’s most recognizable living alum. Hiring him would be met with ex citement and energy by the TCU community. He’s earned their respect and admiration in his lifetime of achievement. TCU has been trans formed for the better by Boschini’s astute lead ership. He should tap fellow trustee LaDainian

Feel Good

The Frogs have hopped to No. 7 in the rankings after beating their fourth consecutive ranked opponent.

BY BUCK D. ELLIOTT

They did it again. After a nearly catastroph ic beginning to homecoming weekend, the Frogs are still unscathed after dropping 18 points behind the visiting Kansas State Wildcats. TCU’s perfect record has earned them their best ranking since the Boy kin-Doctson era, and fans should feel great about it. Texas Cardiac University has prov en themselves never to be removed from possibly winning a game because of a bigplay offense combined with an opportunistic defense that plays fantastic second halves.

For perspective, TCU finished last sea son ranked 65th in team offense, and now they’re currently fourth. Defense — some thing Fort Worth was supposed to be famous for — was an abysmal 118th statistically. Now they’re 70th. This might not seem impressive on its own, but as the weeks go by, I become more and more confident in Joe Gillespie’s style and scheme. I’ll admit, as anyone sitting near me during a game can attest, that there are times I’ve uttered more than one, “What the hell is going on right now?” But the proof is in the wins, and it’s not how they start but how they finish games.

If we examine this four-game gauntlet from which TCU has emerged, the defense has played absolutely inspired second-half football with possibly the exception of the Jayhawks game, which neither defense de

cided to show up for. Against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Kansas State, Gilles pie’s unit surrendered 13 combined sec ond-half points. Frog stoppers also forced six turnovers during the previous four games, so while they might be giving up points early, they’re stopping opponents when it matters. And those six turnovers do not include the five fourth-down stops that resulted in fresh possessions for the flying Frogs offense.

Another development that seems to have been largely ignored to this point is the ferocity of the purple defense. So far, SMU and Okie State are the only teams that kept one quarterback on the field for the entire game. The Frogs have knocked out the start ing passers for the Buffaloes, Sooners, Jay hawks, and Wildcats (two of them). There aren’t nefarious plans wafting through the defensive huddles, just hard-hitting tacklers punishing those willing to take their health into their own hands by exploring no man’s land beyond the line of scrimmage.

TCU is now one of only six major-con ference unbeatens and are sitting behind once-beaten Alabama. It’s premature to sound the alarm if the hometown boys have a chance of making the college football play offs. Just be assured that they’ll have to be undefeated for the possibility to exist. The Big 12 has already proven itself completely upside down this year as early favorites Bay lor and Oklahoma are in fifth and eighth place, respectively, in the standings. Every team is a threat, albeit the Frogs’ next op ponent, West Virginia, is waiting in Mor gantown with a losing record, fresh from a butt-whooping by also underwhelming Texas Tech. The Mountaineers shouldn’t be overlooked. With a win against Baylor and close losses versus Pitt and Kansas, the couch burners seem to be able to hang around with better teams. Quarterback JT Daniels (#18) is likely to put the ball in the air 40-plus times, which should bode well for TCU’s secondary, which has shown a penchant for shutting down outside receiv ers and picking at least one pass per game. Despite the pass-happy nature of the Moun taineers, the teams that have put them away most convincingly, Texas and Tech, did so by smothering their rushing attack. Hold ing K-State’s Deuce Vaughn (#22) to fewer than 100 yards was impressive last week, and there’ll need to be more of that to keep the most important statistic of zero losses intact.

Sonny Dykes’ offense proved Saturday night that you should always bet on black.

For the degenerate gamblers out there, TCU has covered Vegas’ spread against every team except the Cowboys and are current ly 7.5-point favorites on the road Saturday morning. The Frog offense has repeatedly showed they can score from anywhere and have more 50-plus-yard plays than anyone in the country.

As impressive as it is to watch Max Dug gan (#15) and Kendre Miller (#33) march 99 yards down the field, which they’ve done, TCU found itself needing to achieve scores in the red zone, with a short field, against a stingy Wildcat defense, which they did. Miller, whom I’ve heralded time and again as the glue that holds this scheme together, deserves a day off this week after rushing 29 times for 153 yards and two touchdowns. Duggan, though he seemed less accurate early against K-State, threw for 280 yards and three scores. Mad Max has thrown one interception the entire season against 19 touchdown passes. His single giveaway was at the end of the first half against Kansas in a Hail Mary situation as time expired. To say the senior has been impeccable with his ball security is an understatement.

Typically, a game against West Virgin ia on the road after such a difficult stretch of opponents would give me pause, but this

isn’t the TCU squad we’re accustomed to watching. Two three-possession deficits against ranked opponents couldn’t faze them. If Duggan seems a little off, they’ll hand the ball to Miller or Emari Demercado (#3). If an opponent devotes two defenders to taking away receiver Quentin Johnston (#1) — good luck with that — Duggan can find Taye Barber (#4) or Derius Da vis (#11). Tight End Jared Wiley (#19), who has been only an intermittent weapon, caught the second-most passes against the Wildcats, including a clutch third-down grab and a touchdown. There are simply too many buttons for Dykes to push, and the Mountaineers aren’t going to be able to keep pace.

The primary goal of Dykes and staff is to keep their team focused on the task at hand. TCU won’t face another ranked oppo nent — unless the Longhorns beat K-State — until the potential conference champion ship. Come to think of it, you’d have to cross the state line to find another Top 25-ranked team. It might be hard to stomach for some, but every Texan should climb aboard the Frog bandwagon, because they are the Lone Star State’s best and only chance to send their first-ever representative to the college football playoff this season. l

Kendre Miller (#33) has been essential to the Frogs’ explosive offense this season with 10 rushing touchdowns through seven games.

Courtesy

Here are 8 more winning choices selected by our readers in Best Of 2022. Enjoy!

1.) Best Sushi: Along with serving fun su shi, Blue Sushi Sake Grill (3131 W 7th St, 817-332-2583) prides itself on positively impacting the world’s oceans by responsi bly sourcing its meat and seafood. Through its Conscious Earth program, you can view the restaurant’s supply chain at BlueSush iSakeGrill.com/Conscious-Earth and see where the fish are from and how they are caught.

2.) Best Tamales: From 11am-4pm on the second Sunday of every month, you can purchase locally grown/produced food, fresh fruits, and vegetables from more than 30 vendors — including Mama Lu’s Kitchen (@MamaLuSalsa, 817-255-0910) — and en joy food trucks while listening to live music at Lola’s Local Farmers Market at Lola’s Fort Worth (2000 W Berry St, 817-7599100). On other days, you can find Mama Lu’s at events across North Texas. Follow her on social media for details.

3.) Best Thai Food: As part of a fami ly-owned restaurant group, Spice (411 W Magnolia Av, 817-984-1800) serves authen tic dishes using fresh, healthy products from

local vendors. Along with sister eateries Thai Select and Thailicious, they are the first Blue Zones-approved Thai food eatery in Fort Worth. After a healthy meal, indulge in dessert and try the fried ice cream or sweet sticky rice.

4.) Best Vegan Food: Spiral Diner & Bakery (1314 W Magnolia Av, 817-332-8834) has been the go-to for downhome vegan cook ing in North Texas since 2002. While the Dallas location is closed, Fort Worth’s and Denton’s (608 E Hickory St, 940-514-0101) are holding firm. The bakery is completely vegan, dairy-free, and egg-free, and items are made from scratch with organic flour, organic sugar, and non-hydrogenated oil. Currently, a minimum of five days’ notice is needed for cakes and at least three days for other desserts. With Thanksgiving right around the way, order soon.

5.) Best Vietnamese Food (tie): Chef Tuan Pham spent his mornings in the kitchen as a child helping his family cook. His mother taught him the traditional techniques and family recipes that went back generations. His sisters would later encourage him to cook professionally, thus inspiring Four Sisters — A Taste of Vietnam (1001 S Main St, Ste 151, 682-244-4546). The menu is full of familial touches, from specialty drinks to the Vietnamese coffee flan for dessert.

6.) Best Vietnamese Food (tie): It has been a lifelong dream of owners Lan Trinh and Thu Pham to share a taste of Vietnamese cul ture and food with the people of Colleyville.

Authentic favorites at My Lan Vietnamese Kitchen (5307 Colleyville Blvd, Ste 120, 817-398-4023) include boba tea, beef pho, rice dishes, vermicelli, and traditional Viet namese egg rolls.

7.) Best Waitstaff: Mesquite Pit (MesquiteP it.com, 817-596-7046) is very popular with our readers. Along with best waitstaff, they also won for margarita, queso, restaurant, and steak. Locations include Granbury (919 E Pearl St, 817-579-9113), Mineral Wells (3915

Hwy 180, 940-325-5960), and Weatherford (1201 Fort Worth Hwy, 817-596-7046).

8.) Best Wings: Fort Worth’s favorite spot for wings, Buffalo Bros (3015 S University Dr, 817-386-9601) has a great happy hour (3pm-6pm Mon-Fri). Drink specials include $2.50 brand beers, $3 wells, and $4 house wine. Food specials include 75-cent bone less wings and half-off slices of pizza.

By Jennifer Bovee

ethically sourced seafood and meats at Blue Sushi Sake Grill.

Husband-

Slide It In

BY EDWARD BROWN

Pour Decisions is basically an adult play house. Literally topping the entertainment options is a large slide on the second floor which sends patrons down to the kitchen/ restaurant below. The space also has a cozy

rooftop patio and a neon-lit infinity mirror hallway that a staffer told me makes for great TikTok or Instagram videos.

Co-owner and head chef Alex Lines has launched restaurants and menus across the country, but his main area of focus as a con sultant and chef is North Texas. He recently

revamped the menu at the sports bar Off the Cuff in Deep Ellum.

On my recent visit, the bartender rec ommended a cocktail while I perused the menu. The Good Vibes was refreshing. Cu cumber flavors abounded, followed by cit rusy mint notes and hints of dry sparkling

not overbearingly

wine. The overall effect was tart, light, and intoxicating.

The first appetizer up, the Nashville Hot chicken taco, came with chunks of lightly breaded bird that was mercifully not too spicy, although it had a kick. The thick, continued on page 19

toasted flour tortilla held the hefty mix of meat, shredded carrots and cabbage, and herb-infused mayo together commendably. The single taco was surprisingly filling.

Every bite of the Buffalo mac ’n’ cheese was a nuanced and delightful experience. The dense mix of seashell pasta dredged in mild white cheese was drizzled with piquant Buf falo sauce and topped with fried breadcrumbs and chives. Hidden within the lovely mess were several hearty fried chicken tenders.

Pour Decisions claims they serve the best wings in town, and what I sampled largely backs up that boast. Of the more than a dozen seasoning options, I went with the lemon pepper and Buffalo (both on the lower end of the heat scale). Served with a house-made side of pungent blue cheese, the lemon pepper bad boys didn’t disappoint.

The poultry was juicy and boldly seasoned. The meaty Buffalo wings were similarly fla vorful with the perfect level of vinegary cay enne pepper heat.

Not every item at Pour Decisions is heavy on the calories. The teriyaki chicken lettuce wrap arrived with several crisp Ro maine leaves that were up to the challenge

of supporting the generous servings of diced chicken breast mixed with a not-too-salty blend of teriyaki, diced carrots and cabbage, sriracha, and sesame seeds.

The smash burger fad seems here to stay. Pour Decisions’ smashed-up offering is

notable for being a double patty, which adds girth to a typically flattened experience. The hefty sammy was served with minimal top pings: grilled onions, bits of peppery bacon, and a creamy and smoky aioli. The results were incredibly delicious.

The chile powder-dusted filet in the Nashville Hot chicken sandwich was a scorcher. The juicy bird exploded with fi ery flavor only mildly cooled by thickly cut pickles and a slathering of mayo, and the fries, coated in a sweet/salty/smoky blend of spices, were a real treat.

The menu at Pour Decisions is surpris ingly deep, given the relatively small kitch en, and the quality of the food here exceeds what one typically finds in an entertainment district that specializes in peddling booze. Whether you come for the Instagrammable environs or grub, there isn’t much at this West 7th area newcomer that will disap point. l

Chugging

Edward

Every sip

Good Vibes

Passage to Haltom

The stoner-rocking Me-Thinks release the 2112” they’d been sitting on for two years, and it’s blazing.

BY STEVE STEWARD

If you’re dismayed about the pace of change in this city, I have three words for you: “Keep Haltom High.”

This mantra is the name of the open ing track of 2112”, the latest release from Haltom City stoner-rock legends the MeThinks, and, no, that end-quote mark is not

a typo. 2112” is a three-song collection re leased in the 12-inch 45 RPM vinyl format, and if that sounds excessive, consider that this record comes from a band that has a tra dition — or maybe even a goal — to make each release at least as brilliantly moronic as the last. In that regard, they’ve set the bar even higher for themselves with their latest, and that says a lot, seeing as how their first release, Make Mine a Double EP, spread a single album’s songs across two CDs desig nated “Worse” and “Worser.”

“Keep Haltom High,” like many MeThinks songs, is an ode to marijuana, but the first line, itself a biographical logline for the band, kind of struck me as accidentally poignant. Over the band’s signature fuzzedout thunder, frontman/bassist Ray Liberio bellows, “Last of a dying breed / Still smok ing analog weed / We never went nowhere / We never even cared.”

And that’s the honest-to-Satan truth of it. This is a band that’s been around for over two decades, crewed by longtime buddies, most of whom have been playing together off and on for 30 years. No matter what the Fort Worth music scene has looked and sounded like, the Me-Thinks have persisted, mighty as ever, unchanged and unbowed, like an ancient alligator in a primeval swamp, sur facing every now and again to exhale weed smoke and frighten tourists. The amps nev er get smaller. The volume only gets louder. And the album-cover rock ’n’ roll jokes get funnier every time.

In this case, the joke is 2112, Rush’s 1976 album that found the Canadian

hard-rockers delving ever deeper into prog. And that’s really all I want to spoil for you, because unveiling this slab is seriously just as fun as listening to it. But in the way living fossils have outlasted millennia of disasters and evolutionary fads, 2112” is a testament to a band that kept it together for 21 years, one of which included a pandemic’s quar antine.

The band wrote the songs in 2019 and recorded them at Electric Barryland in Justin in February 2020, after the produc er, Fort Worth’s Jordan Richardson (Ringo Starr, Ben Harper, Son of Stan), returned from playing drums for greasy Fort Worth blues-rockers the Quaker City Night Hawks.

“And then COVID just threw every thing out of whack,” Liberio said. “We had the songs recorded. They just needed to be

mixed and mastered,” and guitarist Doty (House Harkonnen, Duell, Son of Stan, Van Damme) needed to record a solo on one song.

“And then it just stalled,” Liberio said.

“Recently, I got one of those Facebook things where it’s like, ‘Hey, this happened two years

ago!’ And it was a picture of us in the barn [Electric Bar ryland]. And [Richardson] was like, ‘Oh, shit. Was that really two years ago?’ And everyone was dealing with their fuckin’ mental health, too, y’know? Releasing it was the furthest thing from our minds at the time.”

So, the Me-Thinks sat on it for two years, though the delay did give Liberio, who runs the graphic design firm Pussy house Propaganda, time to finish up the artwork before the recording process was complete. Guitarist Marlon Von Bungy, Li berio said, “joked that this is the first record where I had the art done before we got the mastered files.”

Tracked and mixed by Richardson at Electric Barryland and mastered by Chris Hanszek (Melvins, Soundgarden), the record collects “Keep Haltom High” and another Me-Thinks track, “Settle for Less,” on each side, along with a pair of unnamed-but-cred

ited covers. Besides Liberio and bandmates Doty, Von Bungy, guitarist Johnny Trashpockets, and drummer Trucker Jon Simpson, Pink ish Black frontman Daron Beck plays piano on the cover on the first side, and Chris Bellomy contributes a wild sax part on “Keep Haltom High,” dumping a Fear-some solo over the fuzzy loudness like nugs out of a Ziploc bag.

The band will release the record on Sat urday at Lola’s, playing the outdoor stage with Denton’s The Spectacle and Dallas’ Loco Gringos (the late-’80s skatepunks and the Me-Thinks’ main inspiration). As I lis tened to 2112” for, like, the fifth time, I tex ted Liberio about how funny the lyrics are.

“Those words are why we still get a kick out of this dumb band after 21-plus years,” he replied.

The more things change, the more the Me-Thinks stay the same. l

The Me-Thinks’ Record Release

8pm Sat w/The Spectacle and Loco Gringos at Lola’s Fort Worth, 2000 W Berry St, FW. 817-759-9500.

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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

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