Tag Archives: lunch

Meal deal: Salata opens in Uptown

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Screen shot 2013-04-17 at 2.45.11 PMThe best way to “go green” in Uptown today is with a salad from the neighborhood’s newest eatery, Salata. It’s been open to walk-ins and guests for a few days, but the official grand opening is Thursday. And it pays off in a few ways.

First, all day long they will be serving $5 salads (usually $8). Second, if you’re among the first 50 guests (it opens at 11 a.m.), you’ll win a gift card, ranging from $5 to $50.

But the big pay-off might be to your body. The salads and wraps here are all organic and gluten free; in addition to four lettuce options (including spinach), there are free 42 add-ons (from snow peas to strawberries), 10 house-made dressings and an assortment of proteins. You can also enjoy some bread, soup (check out the tomato basil), even a cookie for dessert since you were good to start with. And if you’re real lucky, maybe the Uptown location’s owner, Raul Ruiz (pictured), will be on-site to welcome you. Beefcake might not be on the menu, but you can get a side of it with Raul.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

WATCH: Occupy Dallas in 90 seconds

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So Rich Lopez and I literally took a swing past the Occupy Dallas demonstration in front of the Federal Reserve Bank on Pearl Street during the lunch hour, and below is what we saw.

It starts off kinda slow, with us sitting at a red light on the Woodall Rodgers service road, and a lone Ron Paul supporter shouting through a megaphone in our direction. (Talk about getting co-opted!!!)

But hang in there because things get pretty intense as we make the turn onto Pearl and a Dallas police officer, noticing Rich with the Flip camera in the passenger seat, yells, “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

As you can see, there was a fairly solid line of demonstrators behind the barricades facing Pearl for an entire block, and when we complied with their demands to blow the horn, there was quite a response.

Consider Dallas occupied.

—  John Wright

New routes means higher visibility for 2011 LSRFA

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Even though Event Manager Jerry Calumn was told routing riders through Dallas and Fort Worth wasn’t possible, he refused to take ‘can’t’ for an answer

Calumn.Jerry
Jerry Calumn

DAVID TAFFET  |  Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

When he took over as the new event manager of Lone Star RideFighting AIDS, Jerry Calumn started hearing about a number of things he “couldn’t do.”

For instance, LSRFA cyclists said they wanted people to come out and cheer them on. But the route the last few years has been mostly rural, and getting groups out was something Calumn “couldn’t do,” he was told.

Riders told him they wanted to ride where people would see them.

“Riders felt disconnected from the cities we serve,” Rider Retention

Co-Chair Michael Wilkesen said.

But changing the route was something Calumn was told he “couldn’t do,” because permits and other obstacles would make it too expensive and logistics would make it too hard.

But Calumn wasn’t willing to settle for “couldn’t do.” So through the summer, he worked quietly with Wilkesen, mapping out a new route and making plans to get people out to cheer on the riders.

The ride begins and ends again this year at the American Airlines

Training and Conference Center in North Arlington, as it has for the past few years. The difference this year is that instead of making loops northwest of the center on Saturday and southeast on Sunday through suburban and rural terrain, this year’s routes move through Fort Worth on Saturday and Dallas on Sunday.

“And you know what it cost us?” Calumn said. “Nothing. Not one damn penny.”

Calumn encouraged the community to come and cheer for riders and suggested some of the best times and places to do that.

The routes

Pit stops and lunch stops for the riders are great places for supporters to gather and cheer them on.

On Saturday, Sept. 24, Pit Stop 2 will be at the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth. Riders are expected through there between 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.
Pit 3 is the lunch stop. That takes place at the Pour House on 7th Street between downtown Fort Worth and the Cultural District. Riders attempting the 100-mile “century” route to Eagle Mountain Lake must leave lunch by 11:30 a.m. Other riders may linger here until 2:30 p.m.

One of the highlights of the Fort Worth route will be 22 miles along the Trinity Trail. That scenic system of trails follows the Trinity River as it winds through the city. Riders will pick up the trail near Texas Christian University after the Rainbow Lounge pit stop, detour off the trail for about a mile for the lunch stop and then pick it back up for the ride around the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Wilkesen said that unfortunately the ride cannot go through the Stockyards because of the bike-unfriendly cobblestones in the area.

Day 2 takes riders through Irving to Dallas, then back to the American Airlines training center for closing ceremonies.

The first stop is the new Irving Convention Center.

“It’s an architectural gem sitting in the middle of Las Colinas,” Calumn said.

He said that Irving was excited about the ride coming through the city and was very helpful. Riders travel through Irving both in the morning and afternoon.

A highlight of the Sunday route will be riding through Oak Lawn. This will be the first time the ride has traveled down Cedar Springs Road.

Pit Stop 2 will be at Station 4. Most bike riders will pass Cathedral of Hope between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. The church promised a cheering section as riders pass.

From there the route turns north on Turtle Creek Boulevard and crosses Highland Park before heading north to Webb Chapel Park.

The ride through Irving will be on the Campion Trail. “Irving invested well in its park system and it shows,” Calumn said.

He called the highlight of the afternoon the stop in North Lake Ranch Park, located on one of the highest points in north Dallas County and with a panoramic view of the area. Of course, for riders, that’s a mixed blessing: To get to the highest point means riding up hill. And the uphill ride comes in the afternoon after they have already pedalled more than 40 miles.

But once there, the ride back to base camp for closing ceremonies is mostly down hill.

Both Calumn and Wilkeson said they believe that the higher visibility of the routes this year will help with organizers’ ongoing efforts to grow the ride.

“With more visibility, we’ll get more riders,” Wilkesen said.

In a battle of Dallas vs. Fort Worth, Wilkesen suggested Irving wins as the city most aggressively interested in bringing the ride through town. He said the city even mapped a safe and scenic route for him, saving him a lot of time.

Calumn said Fort Worth has the most sophisticated plan to host groups like this. In Dallas he met with police, parks and events separately. He complimented each department for its cooperation.

But, he said, Fort Worth held one meeting with him that also included the health department.

“That way, police can talk to streets,” he said. “It’s very helpful.”

Closing ceremonies take place at the AATCC at 5 p.m. The Riderless Bike leads the procession as riders return and complete a year of fundraising that is expected to bring the total raised in event history to more than $2 million.

Lone Star Ride Fighting AIDS closing ceremonies, American Airlines Training and Conference Center, 4501 Highway 360 South, Fort Worth (just south of DFW Airport). 5 p.m. Everyone welcome.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 23, 2011.

—  Kevin Thomas

Gay teen beat up at school; police say its not a hate crime

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Rito Osorio, a 16-year-old at Silver Creek High School in Sellersburg, Ind., was beaten up by a classmate last week in a school bathroom as the attacker yelled anti-gay slurs at home. But Sellersburg police refuse to call the attack a hate crime.

The attacker, also 16, was arrested and charged with battery.

Osorio told WHAS Channel 11 that he had never had any confrontations with the boy who attacked him, and when approached him during lunch, tapped him on the shoulder and said “Hey man, we’ve got to talk,” he didn’t think anything of it. Osario followed the other boy into the bathroom where the other boy began punching him and shouting slurs at him as other students watched.

Osario’s nose was broken and he suffered several cuts and bruises. He said the attacker hit him so hard at one point that Osario’s lip ring was jammed into the roof of his mouth, and he will need surgery to have it removed.

But the Sellersburg police chief said it was just a schoolyard fight, not a hate crime, and that the case is closed. But that didn’t satisfy Rito’s mother, Andrea Osario, who said she is afraid her son will be attacked by other students if he returns to school.

Although the WHAS report does not identify Rito Osario as gay, Pam’s House Blend blog said he is openly gay, and that the teen who attacked him said he was angry over rumors that Rito thought he was gay, also.

—  admin

City orders removal of Oak Lawn cross

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The wooden cross at Atmosphere of Praise on Hall Street can be seen at left.

The city of Dallas wants a cross in the backyard of a property on Hall Street to come down. But apparently God doesn’t.

A cross standing for years in the backyard of the property at 3917 Hall is a city code violation and must be removed. The house is used by Atmosphere of Praise, a group founded by Pastor Linda Harris, who passed away on Jan. 5.

Local gay artist Robb Conover described Atmospere of Praise as “a meeting place for people in the community no one else will have anything to do with.”

He said that Byron Zealey lives at the property.

“Byron prepares lunch and invites people on the street to eat,” he said. “We don’t call it a church. We don’t have a parking problem. People walk there.”

Conover said it’s never a large group of people and not a daily occurrence. He said the house is not a shelter but has been used for meetings since 1999.

Councilwoman Angela Hunt’s office received a complaint from a local businesses. Hunt’s office didn’t say which businesses complained.

Hunt’s staff referred the complaint to city code enforcement. Code enforcement ordered the cross to be removed.

Conover thinks the timing is interesting coming just a week after Harris’ death — and after a notice in Dallas Voice included the address of Atmosphere of Praise.

To comply with the city order, the property owner hired someone to cut down the cross on Tuesday night. But as the workman began to cut it down, the chain on the chainsaw broke.

Zealey said he was consulting with an attorney. On Thursday morning, the cross was still standing.

—  David Taffet

Where Are Our Lunch Counters?

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During the black civil rights movement, the African-American community was beset with legally sanctioned segregation and discrimination. Thumbnail Link: Exposing Segregation At Drug Store Lunch CountersOne visible place where African-Americans were visibly discriminated against was drug store lunch counters.

When African-American community sought show that segregation was the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality, the community used lunch counters as the focus of non-violent protest.

As a peaceful form of protest, black and white students and others sat at lunch counters that were segregated. They refused to leave until they were served. Often, they were not served, but arrested and taken away to jail. The first such protest took place in a Woolworth’s store in early 1960 in Greensboro, South Carolina. Four black students waited for an hour, but they were never served. Their protest was used as an example in nine other states across the U.S., and many lunch counters began to give-in.

Where does the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community have equivalents to lunch counters? Where are we, as a people belonging to a community, exposed to an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality?

With regards to US Code Title 10, Subtitle G, Section 654: Policy Concerning Homosexuality in the Armed Forces {the federal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) code}, the LGBT equivalents lunch counters are military recruiting offices. Just as lunch counters were visible locations that symbolized segregation and discrimination for African-American community members, so too are military recruiting offices visible locations that symbolize discrimination.

With regards to US Code Title 1, Section 7: Definition of “Marriage” and “Spouse” {the federal Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) code}, the LGBT equivalents to the Lunch Counter are the local Office of Register offices where LGBT community members are denied marriage licenses, and the state lines where the marriages of LGBT community members’ marriages are legally dissolved, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offices where LGBT community members’ marriages aren’t legally recognized.

With regards to employment nondiscrimination, the LGBT equivalents lunch counters are the businesses that deny us jobs, and/or deny us equal benefits. Just as lunch counters were visible locations that symbolized segregation and discrimination for African-American community members, so too are Human Resources offices visible locations that symbolize discrimination.

But, the LGBT community has yet to organize non-violent protests at the moral equivalents to the lunch counters of the recent American past — demanding freedom, equality, and justice from those that would choose to use the power of government to deny its citizens human rights. Even though we members of the LGBT community are often still found languishing in the dark corners of American society — finding that we are functionally exiles within our own broader society — we members of the LGBT community aren’t as a community at the moral equivalents to the lunch counters of the recent American past demanding freedom, equality, and justice.

Although we know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed, Thumbnail Link: GetEQUAL Direct Action At The White House Over Repeal Of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (Nov. 15, 2010)still we in the LGBT community aren’t standing up against inequality and discrimination at locations that are the present day moral equivalents to lunch counters of America’s recent past.

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

~Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” (16 April 1963)

I don’t believe I’m alone in saying that we are at a point in LGBT civil rights history where we need to expose the illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality at today’s moral equivalents to the lunch counters of America’s recent past.
Pam’s House Blend – Front Page

—  admin

Try the Dallas Black Dance Theatre for lunch this week

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How about a pirouette for lunch

The Dallas Black Dance Theatre is going to make your lunch plans a whole lot more interesting this week. Now an annual event, the mini-series called Behind the Scenes offers noontime performances. That is something totally to be thankful for. The first two shows will offer a sneak peek at their December Winter Series. The troupe performs A Rag, A Bone and a Hank of Hair to the music of Earth Wind and Fire on Wednesday.

DEETS: Dallas Black Dance Theatre, 2700 Flora St. Noon. Free. For reservations call 214-871-2390. DBDT.com

—  Rich Lopez

Finally, a chance to win Joel Burns’ underwear

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Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns has sat with Ellen, and if you play it right, he’ll sit with you. Burns, whose anti-bullying video became an Internet sensation, is himself the prize at the Thursday performance of Fort Worth’s Amphibian Stage Productions’ presentation of No Child… . The play, written by Nilaja Sun and directed by Rene Moreno, is a one-woman show about a teacher trying to make a difference in an inner-city school. The Nov. 11 performance of the play is devoted to the Trevor Project, which seeks to help at-risk LGBT youth. Twenty percent of that evening’s box office will go to the Trevor Project, and those in attendance that night can enter to win the “Lunch with the Hon. Joel Burns” raffle. He’ll also offer a pair of Ellen Show boxer shorts he autographed for auction.

You can find out more at AmphbianProductions.org.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

Gay NASCAR blogger says sport’s fans are more accepting of gays than gays are of NASCAR fans

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Michael Myers, founder of Queers4Gears.com

As we found out when a certain lunch appointment canceled because “two of his employees are going to the races,” NASCAR returns to the Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. While we’re pretty sure these particular employees are straight, the lunch cancellation got Instant Tea to thinking, are there any gay NASCAR fans out there?

Well of course there are — and not just the closeted ones — but we never would’ve imagined that there’s an entire gay NASCAR-devoted website, especially one that doesn’t feature photos of drivers with their shirts off.

Queers4Gears.com, founded by Michael Myers in 2009, has been featured on ESPN.com and was named one of the top 50 NASCAR blogs in the country by SportsManagementDegrees.net. ESPN reported on Queers4Gears after Myers asked a driver a question during a press conference (watch the driver’s reaction in the clip below).

Queers4Gears.com boasts more than a thousand followers on Twitter, and the site currently features a preview of this weekend’s action at TMS. Elsewhere on the site, there are LGBT discounts for an upcoming race in Phoenix, merchandise for sale, and a list of charities including a Nevada AIDS organization. Here’s a snippet from the About section of Queers4Gears:

Q4G founder, Michael Myers, said that he started Q4G as an online home for Gay NASCAR fans. “But more importantly, I want to bring new fans to the sport.” Myers went on to say that NASCAR fans have been more accepting of him being gay than gay people have been accepting of his being a NASCAR fan.

“There are as many misconceptions and stereotypes about NASCAR fans as there are about gay people. I hope in some small way Queers4Gears can help to change that. This has been an incredible first year and I hope to build on the site’s success for years to come.”

—  John Wright

WATCH: Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart’s new video with his side project Former Ghosts

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Freddy Ruppert and Jamie Stewart of FG

Jamie Stewart has a thing for that which grosses us out. Remember this video I posted in which his Xiu Xiu bandmate Angela Seo performed her gagging talents? That’s always a great one before lunch. Now, the gay musician and his side project band Former Ghosts bring us this video for their song “Taurean Nature” from the forthcoming album New Love.The video was posted by Pitchfork.

Stewart bandmate Freddy Ruppert’s day starts off a bit differently than most people’s in this video. In sequined Elvis garb, Ruppert pees, gorges, doesn’t like cute kitties and gets kinda naked. It’s all so strange but also a glorious kind of train wreck I couldn’t stop watching. However, I am swearing off strawberry milk.

—  Rich Lopez