In the Texas Monthly Recommends series, writers, editors, photographers and producers from Texas Monthly share their latest favorite cultural discoveries from the great state of Texas.
The barbecue evening always comes back. As part of the new Texas Monthly Top 50 Barbecue Joints list, the annual Blues, Bandits & BBQ Festival takes place. Founded ten years ago by the Dallas neighborhood advocacy organization Go Oak Cliff as a family-friendly competition with local amateur pitmasters, the event now attracts participants from all over North Texas. It’s also grown from one barbecue day to two. This year’s meeting in Kidd Springs Park starts on Friday evening with a concert – by a blues band, of course. “It’s another reason to drink in the park at night,” says Jimmy Contreras, partner at Go Oak Cliff, with a chuckle. After the show, preparation for the main event begins the next day.
Fifteen grill teams compete against each other in four categories: chicken, sausage, ribs and brisket. Participants will pitch tents and light campfires while they tend their pits overnight.
On Saturday, November 6th, the gates will open to the public at 12pm and the Blues, Bandits & BBQ continues until 6pm with musical entertainment, beer and judgments from food industry people and community leaders. Tickets range from $ 15 (drinks only) to $ 40. The latter brings the participants a grill plate, a cup and two brands of drinks. Bring a blanket or folding chairs and grab a spot to catch the bands as you chew through the holy trinity of brisket, sausage, and ribs.
—José Ralat, taco editor
Listen to Juicy Podcast Episodes on Self Help Guru Rachel Hollis
Since the start of their “Maintenance Phase” podcast a year ago, Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes have explored the wild world of wellness, critically questioning and often debunking the diet and fitness madness of today and then. They recorded the rise and fall of SnackWells Cookies in the nineties, the damage done by the reality competition show The Biggest Loser, and the real story when Angela Lansbury of Murder She Wrote released a fitness video and book. But only once did they devote two episodes to one topic. Much to the hosts’ apparent surprise, they recently debuted a two-part series about Austin-based self-help guru Rachel Hollis, one of the best-selling girl-point-command books (Girl, Wash Your Face; Girl, Stop Sorry).
Hollis, you may recall, watched her self-made world implode earlier this year not long after a livestream in which she commented that she had a housekeeper who cleans the toilets twice a week. When a viewer criticized her for being unassignable, Hollis doubled in and replied boldly over a TikTok video: “Literally every woman I admire in history was unassignable,” she snaps. In the caption below, she listed these women among others: Harriet Tubman, Oprah Winfrey, Malala Yousafzai, and Frida Kahlo (her subsequent apology also receives full treatment in the maintenance phase). Hollis suddenly lost tens of thousands of followers just a month before she was due to begin her next national tour of the Rise Women’s Conferences in her new hometown.
With humor and insight, follow Hobbes (who recently announced he was leaving his other popular podcast You’re Wrong About) and Gordon (columnist for Self and author of What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat in 2020 ) Hollis’ from her Pentecostal upbringing in Weedpatch, California to this year’s controversy that by no means ended her guru career but definitely damaged her brand. They’re compassionate when they should be – Hollis lost her brother to suicide when she was a teenager and received no family support afterwards to help with the trauma, and she’s actually a talented writer – but otherwise analyze and disassemble them the claims astute of their books and messages. “Self-made” means something completely different if you are married to a Disney manager, for example. There’s a lot to unzip; The “unreliable” controversy was just the latest in a series of them, including her surprise divorce last year when she and her husband gave marriage counseling on a podcast asking for $ 1,800 for couple travel. In fact, Hollis won Texas Monthly’s annual Bum Steer Awards last year when she posted an unnamed Maya Angelou quote on Instagram. Even if you don’t know Hollis, the podcast serves as a helpful guide on how to navigate the stormy waters of self-help as a consumer. And if you’re not familiar with Maintenance Phase, these two episodes showcase the brilliant banter between Hobbes and Gordon and their shrewd perspectives, something that is desperately needed right now.
—Kathy Blackwell, Editor-in-Chief
Get weird with the new song from Teezo Touchdown
Beaumont rapper Teezo Touchdown takes on the perspective of a household appliance on his single from the end of September. “I’m Just a Fan” is a three-minute existential ballad about the common fan: always reliable, but often taken for granted and criticized for noise. The occasional crackle of the voice adds to the track’s vulnerability, and its singing becomes increasingly desperate as the instrumentation speeds from a lonely acoustic guitar in the first verse and chorus to a throbbing bass, strings, and a brief drum break on the bridge.
Teezo concludes “I’m Just a Fan” by singing: “What’s the point of being on stage all day if you can’t tolerate the noise I’m making?” A devastating Pitchfork column named him “the latest intolerable fashion rapper,” and criticism argues that his dedication to styling himself is a prime example of his six-inch nails intertwined in his hair would be better received if he was. . . made better music.
Still, the negative review seemed to work to Teezo’s favor, as many others, including myself, double our admiration for him on Twitter. For me, Teezo’s forays into strange fashion offer him another way to be discovered and appreciated. Whoever hears “I’m Just a Fan” can also become fans of his bold choice of style, and whoever only recognizes him as a “Nailhead Guy” is allowed to play his music. The nails don’t distract from the songs; rather, they are part of a whole, two versions of “the noise it makes”. You can see him on tour for Tyler, the Creator in early 2022.
—Ben Moscow, editorial intern
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