Stephen King once advised aspiring writers, “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings — even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart — kill your darlings.” What did popular culture’s most prolific horror writer mean by that? That good storytelling often requires nixing superfluous parts, no matter how much the author loves them. Each month when we publish the Advocate magazine, photos and anecdotes we adore are often left scattered about the figurative cutting-room floor. Please allow us to indulge our egocentric little hearts as we share the more fascinating photos and tidbits from 2014 that almost lost their lives in the interest of brevity and limited page space.
Photo by Danny Fulgencio
Scream for ice cream
October
While shooting photos of activity on Lowest Greenville for a story on the avenue’s recent development changes, our photographer snapped the photo on the previous page of an ice cream truck that sometimes appears on Lowest Greenville at night. A couple that had just gotten married, shown at left, also happened to be walking by. The ice cream truck, called Mr. Sugar Rush, is owned by Evan Patterson, who graduated in 2007 from Texas Wesleyan University with a business management degree. After opening and closing three stores, he sold his car, plus his washer and dryer, and bought an ice cream truck, he says. For the first couple of years, he didn’t take it very seriously. “This year I tried to involve myself as a food truck,” he says. He put LED lights on the truck and tried to get a spot at The Truck Yard, but it doesn’t allow dessert trucks on its lot (Carnival Barker’s Ice Creams operates out of the window there). While driving around the area, Patterson accidentally learned that some of the people coming out of bars really like ice cream. He began making nightly visits to Lower Greenville and other entertainment-oriented parts of Dallas. “By me getting rejected by Truck Yard, it turned into me becoming the ice cream man of Lowest Greenville, Uptown and Deep Ellum. I became kind of an amenity.”
Photo by James Coreas
Got your goat
May
What’s happening to that poor goat? Although it looks like these four fellows — (left to right) David Brumbalow, Brian Bain, Kurt Riddlesperger and David Faber — are preparing for a goat sacrifice, they’re actually just getting pumped up for the Goat Run at Flag Pole Hill. The goat looks decidedly less excited, but we’re hoping he understands it was all for a good cause, to raise money for the nonprofits Seed Effect and Empower Sudan, which benefit the war- and famine-affected South Sudan region of Africa. After human-only 5K and 10K races, the top 10 fund-raisers won the opportunity to race with goats on four-man teams.
Photo by Danny Fulgencio
The Dude
October
When Ebola was reported in East Dallas, people around the city — scratch that, the nation — panicked. But not this guy. This guy laughs in the face of Ebola. During an informational meeting about the deadly virus at the Lakewood Theater, he was cool as could be — sunglasses, brightly patterned shirt, longneck bottle and all. Our photographer wasn’t able to get the name of the attendee after snapping this photo, and our efforts to find his name by plastering the photo all over Facebook were unsuccessful. The mystery is half the fun, so we dubbed him The Dude of Lakewood instead, for his striking resemblance to Jeff Bridges’ iconic character in “The Big Lebowski.”
Photo by Danny Fulgencio
The perfect storm
May
In May, a thunderstorm hit the East Dallas area and toppled more than a few trees (and a port-a-let). While coming out of Lucky Dog Books on Garland, our photographer managed to capture this image of a Jeep slicing through a puddle.
