Back Talk Lake Highlands

Need a car wash?

Head to North Highlands Bible Church (9626 Church, between White Rock Trail and Audelia) tomorrow from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. to get your car cleaned up for $5, and help send neighborhood kids to Young Life camp.

White Rock Marathon loses title sponsor

I’m not really sure what this means for our neighborhood, but it doesn’t sound good to me. According to this DMN column, Wellstone Communities, title sponsor of the White Rock Marathon backed out of a multi-year agreement. "Wellstone president and CEO John Lowery said the slow residential real estate market in the Dallas area makes it difficult for his company to justify the cost of sponsorship."

This weekend: Bringing out the Carrie Bradshaw in all Dallas women

I have a ticket to one of tomorrow night's 7:30 p.m. showings of Sex and the City at Studio Movie Grill. A friend of mine bought them a week ago for eight of us girls who are attending together. Even though Studio Movie Grill in Dallas is showing the movie in four theaters, according to what I just saw on its website, all of tonight's showings at 6:35 p.m. and afterward are sold out.

Car wash: get yours in Lake Highlands

Get your ride shined and help Young Life kids raise money for summer camp — all for only five bucks. Can't beat that.
Saturday, May 31 (TOMORROW)
11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
North Highlands Bible Church
9626 Church Road.

Back Talk benefit: 2 free front-row Texas Rangers tickets for tonight (Friday), first-responder only

IT PAYS TO READ THE BLOG - THESE TICKETS ARE GONE NOW AND ONLY LASTED 3 MINUTES AFTER THE POST WENT UP! BUT JUST SO YOU KNOW TO KEEP READING IN THE FUTURE ... One of our sons has his own baseball team practice tonight, so as a thank-you to our blog readers, I'm offering up 2 front-row tickets and a reserved space parking pass (total value: $161) to tonight's Texas Rangers-Oakland A's baseball game (starts at 7:05 p.m.) to the first Back Talk reader to send an email to [email protected]. These seats are between the visitor's dugout and the tarp, and if you happen to bring along a young child, you have an excellent chance of getting a free baseball: Oakland's third-base coach makes a habit of coming over to the stands between innings and handing out MLB baseballs to kids. Remember - I only have 2 tickets, so whoever asks for them first receives them. And here's a shameless plug: I have these seats for the entire season, but share them with a number of other neighborhood residents. We're always looking for new recruits to our season-ticket group for next year, so if you're interested in potentially buying 10 games from our pool next year, send me an email about that, too.

Harvey Korman's local connection

Several years ago, I did an Advocate cover story about our neighborhood's favorite ex-fire fighter, Burton Gilliam. (Later this year, assuming all works out, we'll actually have those archives on line). Gilliam played Lyle, Slim Pickens' sidekick, in Mel Brooks' classic Blazing Saddles.

Gilliam, whose career has included Paper Moon and the original Pace picante commercial (Git a rope!), told me that Blazing Saddles was the best thing he ever worked on. And he practically waxed poetic discussing the talent involved -- Brooks, Pickens, Madeline Kahn, Gene Wilder and Harvey Korman. And yes, the word genius was used more than once.

Korman died yesterday at the age of 81. So sample this from stewielips at YouTube and have a chuckle. And that's Burton in the black hat, red shirt and black vest next to Pickens.

Technorati Tags: Harvey Korman,Burton Gilliam,Blazing Saddles,Pace picante sauce

Can Applebee's ever be a 'neighborhood' restaurant?

I pondered this question last week as I grabbed lunch at the Medallion Center Applebee's, which is adorned with all kinds of neighborhood-y memorabilia from schools like Lake Highlands High School. The photos, pendants, etc. were collected and hung before the restaurant opened last year.

At one point, the Applebee's commercial jingle was "Eatin' good in the neighborhood", and it clearly likes to bill itself as a down-home gathering place. In the movie "Talladega Nights", it was spoofed as the "fancy" restaurant for the Nascar set, a joke probably appreciated by people on either side of the cuisine spectrum.

Free movies at Victory all summer

Disclaimer: Not exactly in our 'hood, but worth the drive or DART ride.

One of my favorite free summer events is a go. You may remember that in our May 2008 issue, our cover story was all about FREE STUFF. We had to cut one item before going to press because organizers at the time said the event wasn’t yet official. But now it is — Victory Park’s Get Reel Summer Movie Series is officially back. Every Tuesday all summer at 7:30 p.m., Victory will play “blockbuster classics” on those big Times Square-esque screens. This season’s lineup includes (to name a select few) Top Gun (6/3), Footloose (6/10), Jaws (7/1).

Last year the regular event got pretty popular with people scattered throughout the plaza or sitting on nearby restaurant patios. I even remember a couple nights (Star Wars, Wizard of Oz) when true movie buffs (or crazy people) came costumed (though I warn you, a Storm Trooper outfit gets pretty uncomfortable outside in August — I assume). See the whole schedule here. Plus check out these special Wednesday night screenings by the Dallas Opera.

Sexual assault in Lake Highlands: made up?

Last week I posted info about a reported sexual attack in Lake Highlands. You remember, it was all over the news and left a lot of us worried and disgusted — A 23-year-old woman said four men forced her into a van outside Kroger at Lake Highlands Drive and Northwest Highway. Then, according to her story, they took her over to the CVS parking lot across the street where at least one of them raped her. No one questioned her story (at least out loud). Even though it was outrageous. Even though a police spokesman said it was highly unusual for four people to conspire on a crime like this. Even though the same spokesperson said there was "little evidence to go on". We all just wondered how something so awful could happen so close to home, at the businesses we frequent.

Thanks to an observant Back Talk reader, I learned this morning that police (only a week or so since the crime) have dropped the investigation. Seems there is absolutely no evidence to back up the woman's story. Even a surveillance camera covering the site where she said the rape occurred picked up nothing.

Now if I was the victim of the terrible and violent crime she described to police last week, and the police dropped the investigation after a week — I'd be making some noise. Somebody would be making noise. But — chirp — no noise. The case will undoubtedly go away quietly without an investigation into if she made up the story ... and if she did, at what cost to the police department or the public? The story will go away sans the hoopla that accompanied the original story. And most will just remember, even if erroneously, that a violent sex crime happened here in Lake Highlands.

Smart meters: It's not just about the consumer

There has been a lot of buzz this week about smart meters -- electrical meters that allow each of us to parse our use in minute-by-minute increments. There was a particularly intelligent discussion about smart meters and broad band at Unfair Park, the Observer's blog.

Most of the publicity has focused on our pals at Oncor giving us the opportunity to find out just how much difference it makes to run the air conditioning at 76 degrees instead of 78 degrees (or 80 degrees, if you're cheap and from the Midwest). What a lot of the stories have overlooked is that we're not the only piece of the smart meter puzzle.