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Dive Bars
A handcrafted tour of the best, most obscure places to lean on a stool in Houston.
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Getting Off
Attorney Tyler Flood says he wins 80 percent of his clients' DWI trials, even if they were 100 percent drunk as a skunk.
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Houston's Choice for Mayor
Black Guy, Rich White Guy, Lesbian or Hispanic Republican
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Burgers and Hash
Lola, a modern diner in the Heights is dishing up some top-notch Texas short-order cooking.
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Looking for a Bull Market
Killen's Steakhouse in suburban Pearland is probably best during boom times.
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BBQ Buffet
Korea Garden Grille offers a stellar selection of barbecue items in unlimited quantities — and new and interesting ways to eat them.
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Looking for a Bull Market
Killen's Steakhouse in suburban Pearland is probably best during boom times.
-
Dive Bars
A handcrafted tour of the best, most obscure places to lean on a stool in Houston.
-
Burgers and Hash
Lola, a modern diner in the Heights is dishing up some top-notch Texas short-order cooking.
-
Houston's Choice for Mayor
Black Guy, Rich White Guy, Lesbian or Hispanic Republican
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Todd Snider: Peace Queer
Published on October 07, 2008 at 1:54pm
At one point during Peace Queer, Todd Snider addresses his audience, explaining how his friends have remarked his songs are getting more and more opinionated lately. "I did not do this to change your mind about anything, I did this to ease my own mind about everything," he explains. It's as if Snider understands how even his fans might scratch their heads over his eight-song album of social commentary about the grinding demands money-grubbing greed makes on our lives and spirits. They certainly might puzzle over his spoken-word reading of the hokey bully-in-the-schoolyard "lesson" piece, "Is This Thing Working?," later repeated to musical accompaniment as "Is This Thing On?" Someone in Snider's corner should have had enough sense to tell him to play these to himself; that, while they have a certain naive liberal charm, they're only worth hearing once. Not to say Peace Queer is a total waste. With "Mission Accomplished," Snider brilliantly parodies George Michael's "You Gotta Have Faith" with a flippant, ironic lyric. "Stuck on the Corner (Prelude to a Heart Attack)" rocks like Bob Dylan fronting Chuck Berry's vintage band; fans of Snider's Memphis band The Nervous Wrecks will love it. But though his acoustic reading of John Fogerty's "Fortunate Son" may be timely, that doesn't help it hit its mark, and "Dividing the Estate" will never rank very high in Snider's prolific catalog. For all its good intentions, Peace Queer is for Snider completists only
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