Wanna-Be Scientist👨🏼🔬 Hack Writer 💻 Mediocre Musician 🎸Decent Dad 👨👧👦
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Articles by Patrick Higgins
There Goes My Hero
It’s Week 2, and I’m already block walking and knocking doors in the campaign for Dak for MVP. “Hello. Do you have a moment to discuss our lord and savior, Rayne Dakota Prescott? Please, take a flyer.” The Mississippi State product has just entered his 11th campaign, and through the first two weeks, he’s already playing as if it could be his best yet.
Same as It Ever Was
Welp, that sucked. After all the excitement and all the hype that fools like me have been fluffing all offseason, the “new look” Cowboys defense walked into Met Life Stadium on Sunday in their season-opening matchup against the lowly New York Giants — against whom Dallas boasted a 10-1 all-time record in season-opening games — only to reveal before a national TV audience that their new look appears strikingly just like the old one.
Cowboys Season Preview
Glory, glory, hallelujah! We made it. Despite temps still flirting with triple digits, the first real harbinger of fall is upon us. Football season is underway! College football is already one week in, and by the time many of you read this, the NFL will already have played a game (or two).
All In (But for Real)
It’s finally time to utter the best four-word sequence you can hear during the summer. No, not “high below 100 degrees,” though that’s pretty close, but the heavenly musical trill of “Football is back, baby!” We made it, kids. We’re safely on the other side of that unbearable gauntlet between the NBA and Stanley Cup finals and the NFL Hall of Fame game. That dark time where the closest thing to sports enjoyment is the exhausting midseason dog-day slog of the Rangers trying to stay in sight of .500.
Notes and News
Awooo! It’s been only two years since one of the area’s most celebrated Americana outfits released what was supposed to be their swansong. Left Arm Tan’s Undefeated was intended to be their last big swing. But champs don’t stay on the mat for long. Shortly after LAT’s end and a dalliance with a new band, the cosmic rockers Marfa Lights, guitarist and principal songwriter Daniel Hines suffered an injury and subsequent surgeries that left him unable to play for a time.
Get in, Loser, We’re Going on Tour
Whether sliding just across the Metroplex or hopping into dingy vans and traversing hundreds of miles, road shows allow area musicians a chance to play for some faces different from those they regularly see at the city’s handful of remaining venues. Not only can going out on the road give a boost to an artist’s career, it’s also an opportunity to elevate Fort Worth as a bona fide music city in the eyes of the rest of the state and country.
Big Shows
For those of us raised on classic rock — or as my one Gen-X-yet-still-ageist pal puts it, “Baby Boomer bullshit” — two indisputably huge concerts are coming to the region this summer. Grab your walkers! Arguably the biggest is Bob Dylan. The legendary troubadour will perform at 8pm on Thu, Jul 2, in Oklahoma at Lucas Oil Live at WinStar World Casino & Resort (777 Casino Av, Thackerville, 866-946-7787). Not to be morbid, but ol’ Bob’ll turn 85 on May 24. Catch him while you can. (Should be easy.
The Case for Mo’ Robo
It’s been little more than a week since the Dallas Stars were eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs 4-2 by the Minnesota Wild. The series loss represents Dallas’ earliest playoff exit in four years. Managing to pile up 10 goals with the extra man through the six games, Dallas attempted to ride their goliath power play from the regular season into postseason success.
High school sports still bring communities together | Opinion
Show Caption Hide Caption Submit an opinion column or letter to the editor at the RGJ Learn how to submit an opinion column or letter to the editor at the RGJ For the last five years at Reno High School, when the gym lights hum and the sneakers squeak and the student band is just a half-beat too loud, you can feel it in your chest. It’s not just basketball. It’s belonging. I love high school sports.
Black History Music
The contribution of Black musicians to Fort Worth is the same as it is to America. It’s immeasurable, invaluable, and woefully underrecognized.
Benito Bowl
As painful as it is to realize, it’s all over kids. With the Seattle Seahawks winning their franchise’s second Super Bowl this past Sunday, another NFL season has come and gone. Time to take off those jerseys, tuck away the foam fingers, and shed the requisite tears before we renew that Pro Football Focus mock draft simulator subscription and begin preparations for the 2026 season.
Super Bowl LX Preview
This Sunday, we observe one of the most sacred of national holidays, an American celebration bested in scope only by Christmas, national “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” and maybe the Fourth of July. That afternoon, historical trends suggest that roughly half of all Americans will be parked in front of their flatscreens for five straight hours gluttonously housing chicken wings and light beer to watch half a billion dollars-worth of television commercials.
A Non-Cowboys Move
Because the Dallas Cowboys’ season has been effectively over since the beginning of December, local football addicts have been resigned to obsessing over the coming campaign nearly nine months away, despite the fact that the current NFL season still has two weeks to go before the Lombardi Trophy is claimed.
Wide-Open Wildcards
Though capped by a pair of AFC snoozers, the NFL’s Wildcard Weekend began with four straight one-score thrillers, demonstrating just how close the teams are. At least in the NFC. On Saturday, Matthew Stafford engineered a late touchdown drive to vault the Rams over the upstart Panthers 34-31. The Bears managed another Caleb Williams-led miracle rally, overcoming an 18-point deficit in the second half to take down the Packers 31-27.
Best Local Music
Whether your music collecting began like many of our generation’s with Columbia House’s legendary 10-CDs-for-only-a-penny subscription service offer or like legions of tweens who just last week maybe woke up Christmas morning with their very own record player and a fresh clutch of brand new T-Swift wax, the bug, once caught, is hard to shake. For us, after a few decades and potentially thousands of CDs, cassettes, and LPs later, we’re still adding pieces to our stash.
Best Shows of ’25
One day, assuming we still reside on a habitable planet, when AI versions of Paul F. Thompkins and Michael Ian Black tackle the Big Beautiful Year of 2025 in one of VH1’s campy Best Week Ever-style retrospectives, we’ll be relentlessly quipped into reliving the collective trauma of this foul year.
For Music Lovers
Now that the last of the leftover stuffing we’ve been surviving on for the past week has made its way into the disposal, and the more punctilious of our neighbors have the requisite HOA-approved C9 LEDs lining their eaves, it’s time to turn toward the real meaning of the season: helping multinational corporations get into the black in Q4. If you have a musician and/or music lover on your gift-buying list, you might, even this very minute, be overcome with decision paralysis.
Finding Joy in Sorrow
It could be argued that the ability to feel emotional pain is the defining human quality. Stress, fear, craving, attachment, even joy are all widely shared responses among other forms of life, but with few known exceptions, sorrow appears to be uniquely human. Heartbreak, grief, hopelessness — these aren’t just feelings. To us, they are all-consuming physiological reactions, affecting our bodies as much as our minds. Sadness is fundamental to the human experience.
Too Little, Too Late
I suppose it’s not uncommon to have the “this team drives me to drinkin’ ” feelies about your favorite sports franchise, but the Cowboys’ 27-17 nationally televised ass-whoopin’ at the hands of the lowly Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football was, for me, a new low. That nauseating spectacle helped me find the bottom of a freshly opened bottle of $8 Yellow Tail. Not a normal-sized bottle either. A two-fer 1.5-liter magnum big boy like your auntie leaves at Thanksgiving, no less.
Power Lunch
With any luck, there’s a moment in every kid’s life when listening to some song — perhaps for the first time, perhaps for the hundredth — that suddenly a line reaches through the speaker and cracks like thunder, jolting your bones with electricity, rewiring your brain and your whole understanding of what music is. A series of magical words shatters the fourth wall that heretofore has kept the concept of artistic expression through songwriting at arm’s length.
Love Cuts Deep
This weekend, the 23rd annual ArtsGoggle takes place on the Near Southside. Covering 21 blocks across two streets and boasting more than 1,000 visual artists and more than 50 musical acts, it’s a yearly stop for supporters of local creatives. Despite forcing you to decide between bands slotted in competing set times, often separated by several blocks, these festivals have always been a great way for fans to take in the largest swathe of homegrown musical talent.
Little Good, Little Bad
Through five weeks, NFL football is once again demonstrating why it’s far and away the biggest sport in the country. The parity in the league rivals all others. With the Bills and Eagles each taking the L on Sunday, there are no more unbeaten teams, the shortest timeframe for that feat since 2014.
0 to 40 (Years Old)
Rock ’n’ roll is a young man’s game. Except it’s not. At least not for a particular breed of erudite guitar-driven indie rock. This is the realm of the balding and bespectacled music vlogger. The “r/Pavement” subreddit set. The fortysomething in jean cut-offs and Vans who owns a vinyl collection that dates back to a time when you could buy an LP for $20 instead of $40. This is the realm of Horsepowers, the latest musical endeavor of local indie veterans Aaron Bartz and Jeff Williams.
Live and Let Die
Though more than two months have passed since a Mavericks player has set foot on the court, like it or not, an unavoidable buzz is building around the team. In May, near impossible odds saw Dallas figuratively and literally winning the lottery, securing the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NBA draft. Last week, as expected, they selected standout Duke forward Cooper Flagg, the most coveted NBA prospect of the last decade, save for perhaps San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama two years ago.
The Grind
For the third straight season, the Dallas Stars are one of the last four teams remaining in the NHL playoffs, yet the jollies could very well be short-lived. After surviving a seven-game battle against the Colorado Avalanche and eliminating the President’s Trophy winner and Central Division foe, the Winnipeg Jets, in six games, the Stars now find themselves in a 3-1 hole against the Edmonton Oilers, the same team to end Dallas’ Stanley Cup dreams a year ago, in the Western Conference final.
Summer Sounds
Hot New Tunes and Shows Look, I know that the Budos Band’s new album, VII, comes out on May 30, and I am unlikely to give anything released after that date a whole lot of my time because I usually put their albums on repeat for a few years after they arrive and don’t get around to listening to much of anything else.
Inside the War Room
This past weekend, the annual NFL player selection process took place in Green Bay. The Dallas Cowboys added nine players to their free agency-depleted roster, and their work over the three days is seen as either disciplined and deliberate, achieving high-value and future Pro Bowlers, or woefully boring and inadequate, inevitably leading to picking even higher in the order at next year’s draft, all depending upon the eye beholding.
Kids, Start a Band
As a grizzled and bitter scene vet still trying to push a few of my own Sisyphean rocks up that old hill of perpetual musical anonymity, there are two laments I often find escaping my lips when I take a look around at the state of local music. The first is, “Where is everybody?” — as in, “Where are the crowds?” Lately, it seems I’ve been playing to rooms more barren than grocery store toilet paper shelves circa March 2020.
The Replacements
As a grizzled and bitter scene vet still trying to push a few of my own Sisyphean rocks up that old hill of perpetual musical anonymity, there are two laments I often find escaping my lips when I take a look around at the state of local music. The first is, “Where is everybody?” — as in, “Where are the crowds?” Lately, it seems I’ve been playing to rooms more barren than grocery store toilet paper shelves circa March 2020.
Pickin’ and a-Grinnin’
Finally, some good news. Football Christmas is here! Thursday night, the NFL begins their annual three-day player-selection spectacular, this time in Green Bay. Football fans, rejoice! And it’s just in time, too. We’re only four months in, but 2025 is already shaping up to be an all-timer for bummer years in local sports.
Cursed
What can I say? It’s downright hellish in Mavsland right now. We’ve spent a little over five weeks in this miserable post-Luka world, and every day is worse than the one before. We mourn. We wail. We pour bleach into our eyes at the sight of a No. 77 jersey in purple and gold. There has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. Human sacrifices! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! What’s worse, there’s seemingly no end to our basketball pain in sight.
Sounds of Freedom
Here’s an interesting gift idea: a record collection of Black artists who, for one reason or another, have called Fort Worth home.
Stupor Bowl
I am in a daze. You know how in movies when there’s a big explosion or violent car crash and suddenly the camera cuts to a tight shot of the protagonist and the image drags in slow motion, the sound dropping to an almost silence, except for a barely perceptible ringing sound layered over the muffled shouts of others onscreen as chaos continues to roil around our hero, but you understand they just aren’t mentally present or aware of what’s happening?
Dr. Doom
For the better part of three decades, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been the most vilified figure in local sports. A little more than a week ago, the baseline ire routinely focused on Jones hit an all-time high after the front office’s nonsensical solution to the Cowboys’ maddeningly failed “all-in” 2024 season seemed to be one of the most lazy and uninspiring coaching hires in franchise history.
Help Wanted
After one of the most maddening seasons in franchise history, frustrated fans, ravenous for their pound of flesh, are now happily feasting on it. With the pitchforks and torches having been brandished for more than a year, the mob has finally gotten its way. Last week, the Dallas Cowboys and head coach Mike McCarthy mutually parted ways. Big Mike is out in Big D.
Getting Funky
Every town has its nicknames. Chicago is lovingly referred to as Chi-Town or the Windy City. NYC is, of course, the Big Apple. Similarly, Dallas (surely in no way overcompensating) is known as Big D. As a fast-growing city on the verge of cracking a million residents, Fort Worth certainly has its share. With its association to the historic Stockyards, it has long been called Cowtown.
Our Musical Wish List
Let’s be honest. At this point, we’re all just trying to run out the clock. The weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s tend to blur into a delirious wash of indistinguishable days with approximately four and a half hours of sunlight and 40-degree temperature swings.
Spring Palace Spreads Out
For more than 100 years, “Where the West Begins” has been the town’s official slogan. In many ways, Fort Worth is a typical big city, boasting nearly a million residents and towering glass-and-metal structures comprising a quintessentially urban skyline. Yet it sits at the edge of the North Texas metropolis, opening to a vast and sprawling prairieland that stretches to the mountains of the far West and eventually to the sea.
Seeing Red
A scan of the crowd at a typical Cowboys home game normally displays a sea of white and blue. However, this past Sunday, a third hue was suddenly equally represented, lending AT&T Stadium a particularly Francophilic appearance: a bright, vivid red. The Houston Texans came to town to take their turn at pummeling a directionless and injury-depleted Dallas squad and managed to bring with them a sizable contingent of their faithful.
A Three-Ring Affair
Another week, another blowout loss at home. After winning 16 straight in the “sun-bathed,” made-for-TV confines of AT&T Stadium over the previous two seasons, this past Sunday’s 34-6 rollover-and-wet-yourself submission by the Cowboys — this time to their most hated rival, the effing Philthadelphia Iggles — makes five consecutive home games in which Dallas has not only lost but was absolutely steamrolled to the level of maniacal laughter.
Lonnng Season - Fort Worth Weekly
That’s it, folks. No more caveats, qualifications, or sugar-coating. This team sucks. From their patchwork player personnel, their clearly half-assed preparation, and the coaches’ outdated schemes and game-planning to the WTF-are-they-doing?! execution on the field, every aspect of this year’s Dallas Cowboys is bad. I don’t just mean “bad” by the standards of a franchise that has won 36 regular-season games over the last three years. I mean just plain old bad.
Changing Trauma Ray
Since their self-titled debut EP in 2018, Trauma Ray has been a sleeper Fort Worth music success story. Their brand of thundering, wall-of-sound shoegaze hasn’t necessarily led to regular rotation on local radio or press coverage as often as their moves might have warranted, but it has been earning them an ever-growing underground following both locally and nationally.
Mad Man Rules
The world is held hostage by old rich guys. Whether in government, at the pulpit, or at the head of giant corporations, human progress seems to be paralyzed by the hubris of powerful and aging men infatuated with their self-inflated genius continuing to bend the world to arcane worldviews — visions of the way things should be done that were dubious decades ago but are certainly inapplicable to the present day, progress stalled by insatiable egos, inexhaustible means, and rapid cognitive decline.
Leon Simplified
Nostalgia has been a steady part of Leon Bridges’ appeal since his incredible rise began nearly 10 years ago. The Fort Worth native broke into the national consciousness with his sleek vintage fashions and the Sam Cooke-era doo-wop of Coming Home in 2015.
Home Court
The recent struggles of independent music venues across the country have been well documented. It’s a topic discussed in these pages and on social media among musicians, club owners, and fans as consistently as the presidential election is dissected by armchair political theorists on the socials. Sagging attendance and slowing revenue from an alcohol-based business model have led to the closures of several beloved rooms in North Texas over the past year-plus.
Digging Through Lost ’N Sound
As an aging musician with a comprehensive malignancy of good-ol’-days syndrome, I spend a sizable chunk of time contemplating, and consequently lamenting, the current state of independent live music. My personal experience —largely composed of either playing or watching sparsely attended shows — goes a long way toward reinforcing my perception that folks who play music in local clubs, and the folks who like to watch it being played in local clubs, are just getting too damn old.
Hannah Owens Rises
Last summer, in the middle of a set, Hannah Owens passed off her guitar to fellow performer Guthrie Kennard, with whom she was sharing the bill, for him to play a few of his songs. As she ceded the stage to him and was walking off, she missed a poorly lit step at the edge of the riser and fell, unabated, nearly 5 feet to the concrete floor. The gruesome fall broke both her elbows, split her lip open, and even caused a brain bleed.
Here We Go Again … Again
It took less than 30 minutes of football-watching to ruin my Sunday … and the rest of my whole damn week. I didn’t make it to the second quarter of that Cowboys/Saints debacle before I was on the verge of splintering my flatscreen with an expert boomerang remote fling, crying into one of the too-many pillows my wife keeps on the couch, and draining the liquid gold contents of a whiskey bottle all before your Nanna was even home from church.
R.I.P., Daron Beck
The North Texas music community was still reeling from the loss of one unique and creative force within their number with the death of Dooms UK frontman John Freeman last week when word began to spread on Friday of the untimely passing of another beloved figure in the scene. In a Facebook post generated by his partner, Dallas DJ Lisa Adrienne, it was announced that Pinkish Black’s Daron Beck died Thursday afternoon. The extraordinary avant-garde metal singer-songwriter was 48.
Free Jazz Zemire
As a child, Jazz Zemire was fascinated by The Phantom of the Opera. From the moment she saw her first performance, the grandeur of the score and the emotion in the songs spoke deeply to her. As a member of the Texas Girl’s Choir and a self-described “band nerd” throughout high school and while marching at TCU, the Fort Worth native quietly held a dream to one day write a Broadway-style musical.
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