Deep Ellum, Dallas has a special place in my heart. Prior to my Army days in the late nineties, I made more than a few memories down there. Let’s not forget the booming mid-90’s Dallas alternative music scene.

Now, it’s the same as Bishop Arts and Lower Greenville. All the same stores; all the same clientele. I hear that the music scene is coming back, but that means it would be back with modern music. No thank you. I’ll take nothing less than 1996-ish The Edge playing “Sister” by The Nixons on repeat.

With that new and improved downtown Dallas clientele comes a bit of modern ignorance. In the last few weeks, I’ve been approached twice by people pretending to be parking attendents to steal my money. As my father would say, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck last night, Junior. Your top of the line iPhone 16 Princess with her sparkly nails and thong so tight you could pull off exactly one half of a decent E-minor chord. A fart, to those without minimal musical savvy.

Enjoy this photo of the Queen.

A month ago, I had a book signing event at Poet’s Deep Ellum book store and performed my tasks accordingly like any other paying patron. Weeks pass; all was well until…

I received a bill in the mail from Peak stating I owed them $100. Attached to said bill were two photographs of my truck as it both entered and exited the property. Hells & no; I scanned their little QR code and paid on the spot that day. My credit card statement even validated my shotty, aging memory and I prepared to have a nice conversation with whomever was unlucky enough to be on the other end of the line at the “to-dispute” department.

I managed to talk the poor guy down to $70, but I refused to budge. Yes, I paid my bill, but I left twenty minutes too late. One hundred dollars for twenty minutes? That was when my wife awoke to the conversation at hand.

Being who she is, her thumbs beat mad frenzies through the inter-webs to reveal that Peak Parking is a management company in the Denver-area of Colorado. I guess they manage the lots and own the cameras. When a discrepancy occurs, the information is immediately sold to a collection company in who-knows-where and they begin bullying you with letters, phone calls, etc.

After some deeper-than-deep diving, the company collecting my oops is associated with known scam call-centers. The minute the person on the other line heard my wife say that aloud, he hung up. Biggety-bam.

Well, well, well…

A week later, a second collection company – also publicly known to be a scam call-center, sent me a bill in the mail for the $70 I beat out of the other guy.

You know, Wikipedia says this about Deep Ellum:

Deep Ellum is a neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, home to a diverse array of arts venues, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, businesses, and urban residential units near downtown in East Dallas. Its name is based on a corruption of the area’s principal thoroughfare, Elm Street. Older alternative uses include Deep Elm and Deep Elem.

The area began in corruption! Why did I expect the parking situation to be anything less? As the famous song says:

If you go down to deep elm put your money in your shoes
The women in deep elem, they give you the deep elem blues
Oh, sweet mama, your daddy’s got them deep elem blues

Jerry Garcia would be so pissed off to know that the ‘women in deep elem’ had turned out to be scam callers in Calcutta.

Preach truths, toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon. If you have a moment, give this a listen.