Last Call
Slowdown Showdown
LAST CALLOne thing I love about dive bars is their apparent immunity to the caprices of time. So often they’re locked in whatever decade they opened in, staffed by barkeeps who have poured drinks through multiple presidential administ...
Crowded Streets
LAST CALLSunday night was kind of weird. My afternoon nap went way longer than I intended — essentially, I got ready for the evening at 11 p.m. and headed out not really knowing where I wanted to go or why I wanted to go out at all. I...
Wondercrust: Watch and Riff
LAST CALLWhen Mystery Science Theater 3000 debuted in 1988, did anyone mention that the show owed a huge debt to The Muppets? Because when I was a kid, every time I saw the silhouette of Joel Hodgson and his pair of wiseass robot sideki...
Office Perks
LAST CALLI’d meant to write about The Office in Euless last week, after I’d dropped in on a Monday evening on my way home from Carrollton. But later, about halfway through writing my first draft, I saw on the bar’s Facebook page t...
Take a Lefty
LAST CALLIf you’re one of those people who wonders what goes on in the dilapidated dives lining East Lancaster Avenue, I’d venture to say that those places are probably far tamer than your imagination. Yes, they might look dumpy and...
Baker Street: It’s Elementary
LAST CALLI used to think of Baker Street Pub & Grill as a pretty run-of-the-mill place –– until I found myself turning into a regular. (It doesn’t hurt that it’s near my apartment.) For all my devotion to small businesses an...
The Tweet Life
LAST CALLI like being reductive. It allows me to pare any given situation or personality into a handful of quickly assessable elements. Slashing the fat (trivial details like context and color) creates brevity that’s sometimes useful ...
That Silverleaf Chill
LAST CALLI can’t say I’ve ever been a big fan of cigars, but it’s not because there is something inherently bothersome about them to me. I’ve never minded the smell, and the care and consideration with which cigar aficionados sm...
Kent & Co. Fires on All Cylinders
LAST CALLBack in May, I made a point to belittle Kent & Co. Wines. At the time, Frank Kent Motors was wrapping up construction of its new wine bar/service depot on West Magnolia Avenue, meaning that I was, in effect, reviewing a pla...
A Landmark Game
LAST CALLI am not really a gamer, but I will forever be susceptible to the pixilated flicker of an ancient CRT screen’s silent exhortation to INSERT COIN. What this means for bars is that if you affix a drink holder to a game cabinet ...