The media perpetually feeds the public’s hunger for lists.
There are useful lists, such as Oprah’s “Top 10 Superfoods”, Time’s “25 People to Blame for America’s Credit Crisis”, or Esquire’s “Best Bars in America”. Then there are more gratuitous tabulations — Star magazine’s “Best and Worst Beach Bodies”, or The Enquirer’s index of gay and not gay celebrities, for instance.
Maybe it’s the order and brevity lists inject into our overwhelming lives, or that they make large quantities of information more digestible. Whatever the reason, the masses enjoy consuming info in the form of neat numbered and bulleted boxes, and the Advocate is here to oblige. In fact, we love lists so much that we’ve compiled a list of lists (sometimes useful, sometimes superfluous) for readers who can’t get enough of them.
If you’ve seen it, you know it. Someone regularly dresses the fire hydrant right across the street from Times Ten Cellars in seasonally appropriate clothing. It was wearing a white sweater one chilly December day, and in February, it sported a string of Mardi Gras beads. It’s been seen in short and long sleeves, striped and solid button-ups, always with a few buttons undone at the middle allowing for proper fire hose access. This is our neighborhood’s … Best dressed fire hydrant
Their personalities are so magnetic that they can’t carry credit cards. Their charm is so contagious that vaccines have been created for it. The grass is greener on whatever side of the fence they are on. They are … The most interesting people in East Dallas
1. Abel Gonzales. This guy is the master of deep fried foods. He’s brought us, via the great State Fair of Texas, fried Coke, fried cookie dough and, most recently, fried butter. Those grease-dripping goodies have garnered him a spot on “The Tonight Show”, a mention in Rolling Stone magazine and many a Big Tex Choice Award. And every year, Texans wait with watering mouths to see what he’ll fry up next.
2. Andi Comini. She displays a 9-foot dinosaur in her front yard and dresses it in a rotating assortment of hats, sunglasses and scarves, depending on the season. The Forest Hills resident also was a co-founder of the White Rock Lake Dog Park, and she started the Animal Alert program which helps reunite lost animals with their owners.
3. Peter Snell. In New Zealand, the three-time gold winning Olympic runner holds the title “Athlete of the 20th Century”. There, he has his image on a postage stamp, a statue in his honor, his shoes on display in a museum, and he was recently named second on an annual New Zealand Reader’s Digest “Most Trusted Person” list. Here in our neighborhood, Snell enjoys relative anonymity. A Ph.D. now, he has turned his physical genius into scientific practice as an associate professor of medicine at the UT Southwestern medical center. His name still appears regularly in Running Times magazine.
4. Bill Young. As programming director and president of KERA television station, Young has been analyzing the (relatively sophisticated) public’s television-watching appetites and habits for more than 30 years. He likes the British humor, music programs and documentaries he airs on KERA, but he reveals some surprising sensibilities as well. “I shouldn’t admit this … ‘The Family Guy’ is one of my favorite shows. ‘The Simpsons’, too. My appreciation for comedy can go to both ends of the spectrum.”
(Stay East Dallas-y, my friends.)
It’s carwash time. You start with the inside, dropping 50 or 75 cents into the vacuum cleaner slot and … you’re off to the races. Vacuuming furiously, you move hurriedly from one side of the vehicle to the other when the hose gets hooked on a door — oh no! — wasting precious seconds. Will you finish before the time is up? Or will you need to drop another 75 cents on that one measly remaining floorboard? To better your odds of beating the car vacuum clock, we’ve checked out neighborhood carwashes, stopwatch in hand, to find …
car vacuums that go long
1. National Pride Car Wash, Northwest Highway and Plano: 50¢ = 4 Minutes
2. Glasgow carwash, Live Oak and La Vista: 75¢ = 2.5 Minutes
Or have someone else do it
1. White Rock Car Bath, Garland between Peavy and Easton. They’ve been in the car cleaning biz 50-plus years. They know what they are doing, so have a seat in the cool waiting area, and let them do the work at a resonable price.
2. Water Works Auto Spa, Northwest Highway near Abrams. This wash is much younger, but shares the old school commitment to good service — and watch for the $5 full service specials.
This is all about the unexpected. You are at a standby eatery and discover some item on the menu — something you did not intend to order — that throws you for a pleasant loop. Here are …
Menu items that might make you say, ‘Omg! How did I miss this?’
1. Matcha Latte At White Rock Coffee. Most of us hang here for the live music, homey atmosphere, free WiFi and ready access to our favorite legal drug — everyone knows this coffee shop on Northwest Highway and Shoreview has some of the best java this side of Columbia. But I know a few coffee drinkers who have turned to tea after trying the rich, foamy and honey infused matcha tea latte hidden deep within the “other hot drinks” section of the menu.
2. Artichoke Salad At Tony’s Pizza. We’d known well for many years that Tony’s was an entirely reliable joint when it came to pizza, pasta and calzones, but it wasn’t until a recent diet effort that we discovered the Artichoke Salad on the menu. At $4.95, the robust salad is packed with lettuce, Italian ham, mozzarella (drop this if you’re doing the diet thing), black olives and artichoke hearts. The diets didn’t last, but we regularly return to Tony’s for the salad.
3. Hush Puppies at Aw Shucks. We’d been here a million and one times but had never eaten the $1.95 per basket Hush Puppies until it was suggested that we try them. With each layer — from the crispy outer crust, through the sweet cakey inside, right down to the doughy, creamy corn middle — we were more certain we would never look at this old shellfish staple the same way.
Best Biodiesel and Gourmet Tacos
Sure, there are probably a handful of places where you can fill up on gas and tacos in one stop, but the biodiesel and top-of-the-line taco options make Green Spot on Buckner near White Rock Lake a unique neighborhood commodity.
Best movie made in East Dallas (and places nearby)
Bottle Rocket. NorthPark Center, the Ice House building on Commerce (formerly Hinkley Cold Storage) and a home just off Northwest Highway are among the spots director Wes Anderson chose to shoot the cult classic movie, “Bottle Rocket”, starring Luke and Owen Wilson.
Had enough of the daily grind? Grab a good book, or your Advocate, and steal a moment for yourself. Here are a few …
Quiet corners where you can crack a book
1. Mockingbird-Peavy Park. It’s a simple little green space atop the Buckner overpass with a perfectly placed pavilion and one of the prettiest views in the city. Plop down at the picnic table and take in a fall afternoon and an entertaining magazine article. (Oh, and improvements at the accompanying playground are underway.)
2. Tietze Park. Nestle in a tangled tree branch with Thoreau, or your laptop — this park offers nature and WiFi.
3. Half Price Books. Try visiting your local boutique, trying on a dress, and then wearing it around the store … for hours. Or going to your favorite grocery store, opening up a bag of chips, and consuming it right there. If you didn’t get thrown out, you’d at least be frowned upon. Not so at Half Price. At the flagship on Northwest Highway near Central Expressway, it’s perfectly acceptable to cozy up in a nook or cranny of the store with a book for as long as you wish.
Waiting for the light to turn, the line to move or the mechanic to tell you the bad news — seems like we’re always waiting. Here are a couple of …
Places where waiting isn’t so bad
1. A&B Animal Clinic Because the veterinarian here will treat almost any type of pet imaginable, it’s not unusual to have a Gila Monster or a rare exotic bird waiting alongside you in this Garland Road strip center clinic — needless to say, this makes the wait interesting (especially if you have a curious Boxer in tow).
2. Kwik Kar By the Lake A popular kids’ play area makes waiting easier on parents, who can enjoy a cup of fresh coffee in the clean, roomy and comfortable waiting room across from the Dallas Arboretum.
When it comes to public restrooms, cleanliness is key, but we want to recognize those spots that do a little extra to make your visit comfortable, convenient and, dare we say, entertaining. Here are …
Perfect places for a pit stop
1. Hotel Palomar/ Central 214. Tucked away from the flow of traffic, the Central 214 restroom gets points for the little extras such as plush hand towels in the ladies room, and several stalls so you won’t find yourself waiting in a line when you’ve gotta go.
2. Lakewood Landing. It’s reasonably clean, most of the time, especially considering that it’s inside the loveable local dive bar on Gaston, but this place also offers unique entertainment (reading material) in the form of its colorful graffiti-covered walls.
3. Lakewood Whole Foods. This one has it all. It is conveniently placed in the heart of Lakewood. It’s parent, kid and environmentally friendly. Neighbors say they love the “super-sterile hand dryers” and “motion-activated sinks.”
4. National Sports Lounge. This Lower Greenville and Martel sports bar has TVs in the stalls. Need we say more?
5. Quick Trip near White Rock Lake. This one gets points for being so conveniently placed near the trails of White Rock. The same could be said for the 7-11 across the street, but it doesn’t compare to QT when it comes to sanitation and stall quantity. QT is consistently clean, spacious, and it beats using the Port-a-Potty across the street.
6. The Port-a-Potty across the street. Not as nice as QT, but when you’re running, walking or biking the trail, the Port-a-Potties west of the White Rock Lake spillway, we suppose, beat using the bushes.
Our neighborhood is teeming with creative minds. In fact, it’s home to several inventors — not the nutty mad-scientist ilk (though we claim and love some of those too), but real inventors whose creations have earned them a pretty penny and a place in history. We’ve come up with a whole list of …
Things invented in East Dallas
1. Pedal Pushers. In 1951, a clothing designer named Maryon Van Gilder ran into a production snafu that left 100,000 pair of pants too short. “Thankfully, it occurred to me the pants would be excellent for bike riding because they wouldn’t get caught in the spokes,” Van Gilder says. “I told one of my assistants to go ahead and put in a hem, and we’d call them ‘pedal pushers’.”
2. Frozen margarita machine. The bartenders at Mariano’s Tex Mex restaurant, formerly located at Old Town shopping center, were peeved at the constant frozen margarita orders because they took so long to make. Owner Mariano Martinez wanted to help his staff without sacrificing his famous margaritas so, he turned an old Slurpee machine into a frozen margarita maker and everyone was happy. Today his original margarita maker is on display at the Smithsonian Museum.
4. Marshmallow gun. For their son’s birthday party, Beaver and Kim Raymond of East Dallas rigged up a toy pump gun that shoots marshmallows. As soon as they saw how the kids reacted, they knew they had a smash hit on their hands. In 2009, their Marshmallow Shooter company saw $7.9 million in sales. They sell internationally at major toy retailers such as Toys R Us, and have appeared on “Ellen” and the “Today” show.
3. “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”. If an original song can be considered an invention, this is one so catchy that — though it might drive you crazy once a year — it will never go obsolete. The mind behind the zany ditty about an alcohol-fueled accident involving an old lady and a reckless reindeer is that of Hollywood Heights singer-songwriter Randy Brooks. Though he must have heard the campy carol a zillion times over the past 30 or so winters, it still warms his heart. “I can’t remember when the emotional high of hearing the song wore off,” Brooks says. “Now it’s more of an intellectual response — one of gratitude for how it has enriched my life.”
5. Fletcher’s Corny Dog. Neil and Minnie Fletcher owned and operated the theater company known as the Madcap Players. People came from all around Dallas to the Fletchers’ Haskell Avenue theater. One night Neil wanted to prepare a snack for the crowd and improvised with what he had laying around his tiny kitchen — wieners and corn meal. He wrapped a wiener in the corn meal, fried it up, and served the first batch of Fletcher’s Corny Dogs to his audience.
