Most Popular
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Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Mescaline on the Mexican Border
Texas is the only state in the country where peyote is sold legally. Really.
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Little Bitty Burger Barn
"It's okay to be little bitty in the big city" is an apt slogan for this new burger joint, where sliders rule
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Ghost Town CFS: Carriage House Cafe
Step back in time — to a spooky old carriage barn with a monster chicken-fried steak
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Barack Obama and Me (246)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Save Lobo: A Siberian Husky Mix is Sentenced to Die (28)
Why? Because he's big and intimidating and because one family complained about him over and over again
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (13)
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (6)
All This Useless Beauty
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Rotten to the Corps: A Question of Justice at Texas A&M (140)
Thanks to A& M and a district attorney, two cadets escape punishment for beating in a student's face
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge?
All This Useless Beauty
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Tired of the Hype, But That's All There Is
Next month, Houston gets to be a cool kid. But only for a week.
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The improbable redemption of Ashlee Simpson
"La La" Love You
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Rap's Rapidly Vanishing Female MC
The Why Chromosome
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A New Official State Song for Texas?
A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song
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Geraldo Rivera Is Stupid: A Review of His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.
06:06AM 03/09/08 -
Weekend Music: Help Save the Houston Music Scene
03:54PM 03/07/08 -
To Do: Hockey and Roller Derby
04:12PM 03/07/08 -
Sausage Fest: Bangers and Mash at Red Lion Pub
11:40AM 03/08/08
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Latin flames fuel this rockabilly fireball.
Details:
Subject(s): Patricia Vonne
Patricia Vonne has absorbed just about every indigenous musical style Texas has on offer, and can summon any one in the flick of a castanet or guitar pick. She may have acting experience — Vonne's brother is Grind House and Desperado director Robert Rodriguez, who cast her in Sin City and Spy Kids — but she's not acting on Firebird. Picking up where 2005's Guitars and Castanets left off, her third LP mingles Vonne's Latin roots with her rockabilly soul. "Hot Rod Heart," cowritten with native Texan and former Chris Isaak sax maniac Johnny Reno, ably follows G&C's dusty Joe Ely tribute "Joe's Gone Ridin'," as "Jett Rink" canters around the set of her favorite movie, Giant. "Torera" is Shakira-sultry — Vonne has an affinity for lady bullfighters, as well she should — while she turns brassy roots-rocker à la Maria McKee for "Dutch Cigarette," and "Carolina" as close as she's ever come to country. Vonne's riskiest move may be bookending Firebird with "Missing Women/Mujeres Desaparecidas," her tribute to the nearly 500 women missing near Juarez, Mexico since 1993. Both English and Spanish versions are sung in steely Pat Benatar tones, but here love is no battlefield. It's a mass grave.
