Dominican Republic

Cesar Cedeno And The Astros Career That Could Have Been

I've written in the past that I loved watching Jeff Bagwell play baseball. He's the best all-around player the Astros have ever had; a superb hitter, base runner and a fantastic defensive player. I've never seen anybody who was better at turning the 3-6-3 double play and he was fearless when it came ... More >>

Rape, Scandal, Greed and Cockfighting -- The 2011 Sports Year In Review

2011: Penn State's horrible year​You know how, in the series 24, the way a season unfolds? How just when you think there has been some sort of resolution to the bad guys being bottled up, right then and there a new (often worse) layer is introduced, and ultimately in like Hour 22 Jack Bauer wi ... More >>

The Best Fourth Songs On History's Greatest Albums

Sorry, Manowar, maybe next year...​As we come up on the July 4th weekend, Rocks Off considered a myriad of blog ideas to commemorate the holiday. Most patriotic songs, album covers, artists? Sorry, Lee Greenwood, Richard Pryor, and Ted Nugent, but it's all been covered. On this weekend of inde ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 1: Anthony Davis of Reggae Hut

Photo by Mandy OaklanderAnthony Davis, chef of Reggae Hut​Reggae Hut, the colorful joint on Almeda Road in the Third Ward, serves up delicious Caribbean fare. Customers gobble up oxtails to the sounds of Bob Marley, his lyrics painted elegantly across the walls. Anthony "Tony" Davis is the man ... More >>

Colores del Carnaval Dominicano

Comment of the Day: Cockfighting and Endorsements

​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involv ... More >>

Texans' Kareem Jackson, Cockfighting Correspondent

You are looking LIVE....​The Houston Texans' Kareem Jackson struggled through his rookie season, having trouble covering receivers. One thing he can cover: Cockfighting. Jackson made his debut as a sideline reporter via Twitter, as reported by CBSHouston, which is the web outlet for KILT-AM. ... More >>

Kareem Jackson, Cockfighting and Perception

That's entertainment​"Look at all these people that be at these chicken fights, you would think its a college football game." -- Reemboi25 (Kareem Jackson's Twitter handle) Early March is the meaty part of the NFL's offseason relaxation calendar for players. The season has been over for a co ... More >>

Brilliant "Color"

Carlos Cruz-Diez gets large-scale retrospective at MFAH.

A Royal Pain In The Ass

​And I was still suffering residual boredom from the last one. I have to give our media credit; unemployment still hovering around 10%, cholera spreading to the Dominican Republic from Haiti, and terror threats abroad, and every morning news show has devoted a good 20 minutes of programming e ... More >>

First Look at J'Ouvert

The restaurant also happens to have wicked awesome to-go containers. It's the little things...​J'Ouvert is a huge holiday in the eastern Caribbean, celebrated from Trinidad to the Dominican Republic, that precedes Carnival each year. It's also a brand-new Caribbean restaurant that just opened ... More >>

Ingredient of the Week: Cilantro MiniCubes

​What is it? A concentrated mixture of cilantro that, per cube, is equal to two teaspoons of fresh cilantro. There are also some random ingredients packed into these bouillon-like squares, including monosodium glutamate (which I've personally never had a problem with), hydrogenated palm oil, ... More >>

FBI Makes Arrests in Sex Trafficking Operation

Not the kind of traffic the FBI is talking about.​In Houston, when we think of traffic, we think of road construction and car accidents and general gridlock. It's annoying, but generally not life threatening.The FBI, on the other hand, deals with trafficking...of the human variety and Friday they ... More >>

Peanut Butter Miracles

Amid the chaos that is Haiti, Dr. Patricia Wolff has made ending child malnutrition her life's work.

Remembering Jose Lima, Entertainer And Recording Artist

Jose Lima gave Astros fans another reason to be sad this year when the colorful, erratic, but always entertaining righthander died Sunday of an apparent heart attack in Southern California. Despite Lima's winning 21 games and making the NL All-Star team as an Astro in 1999, owner Drayton McLane see ... More >>

Mark Kurlansky Sees Eastern Stars

Mark Kurlansky ​Author Mark Kurlansky worked as a journalist covering the Caribbean for several years. When he wanted to write a book about the Dominican Republic that showed the people that lived off the tourist routes, he decided the best way was to focus on one town and tell that town's ... More >>

iFest Aftermath: A Sensory Smorgasbord And Spontaneous Reggae Dance Party

GroovehouseNew Orleans Hustlers Brass Band​ The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley when it comes to Houston weather. That's how Aftermath found ourselves obsessively refreshing the iFest Twitter page around noon yesterday for some sign that the show would go on in spite of the stormy ... More >>

Latin Music At iFest: Legends, Locals And A Party-Starting Funk Crew

Over the next two weeks, Rocks Off will be previewing acts performing at this year's Houston International Festival Saturday and Sunday and April 24-25 broken down by genre (loosely, anyway) and with a guest pick from a true insider: iFest Director of Performing Arts Rick Mitchell. Today, a look at ... More >>

Para Vivir

In the Heights explodes off the stage.

Houston International Festival

In the Heights

All that singing and dancing might help the characters in this musical reach their dreams quicker

Answer an Urgent Appeal to Heal Haiti by Getting Some "Swagger"

[Ed. Note: Please email any news of further music-related relief efforts to chris.gray@houstonpress.com.] Bobby Moon & Lil Flip - Swagger from AK Kurji on Vimeo. If you're looking for a way to contribute to the Haitian relief efforts, Houston-based international pop artist Bobby Moon is going to ... More >>

Aventura

Australian Cookie Ignites Debate Over "Creole," To The Bafflement Of Houston Creoles

​It's a never-ending debate around these parts. What is Creole? Is it the same as Cajun? If not, why not? And let's say you were an Australian supermarket chain and were looking for a name for your in-house generic rip-off of the Oreo, and you decided to call it the "Creole Cream." Should you exp ... More >>

Australian Oreo Cookie Ripoff Ignites Debate Over "Creole," To The Bafflement Of Houston Creoles

​It's a never-ending debate around these parts. What is Creole? Is it the same as Cajun? If not, why not? And let's say you were an Australian supermarket chain and were looking for a name for your in-house generic rip-off of the Oreo, and you decided to call it the "Creole Cream." Should you ex ... More >>

Shocking News -- Miguel Tejada May Be Lying Again

Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher​Everybody mocked Rafael Palmerio back in 2005 when, after testing positive for steroids, he blamed the test on a B-12 shot he received from Miguel Tejada. Palmerio is still mocked.  And he is still called a cheater who helped to bring shame on the game of baseball. ... More >>

St. Miguel Tejada, Patron Saint Of Lying

Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher​Apparently Fox Sports Houston did a documentary on Miguel Tejada which aired this weekend. I didn't see it, but listening to Bill Brown and Jim Deshaies talk about Tejada and the documentary during the games with the New York Mets, I couldn't help but reach the concl ... More >>

Italian Filmmaker Just Loves Our Jails

Hot on the heels of winning the Special Jury Prize for best short film at the Houston International Film Festival, Roberto Minervini is working on a feature film that will be shot in Houston and Marfa.MarfaRed, which Minervini tells Hair Balls is "as much as road trip movie as it is an inner journey ... More >>

Sugar Sidesteps Sports-Movie Clichés

Boden and Fleck find the sweet spot.

Astros Spring Training: Six Straight Walks? Not Good.

Photo by hyperscholarI'm sure that several of you saw the score of yesterday's Astros game. It was 12-2 spring training loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. It's spring training, and I'm one of those who believes that the final score is meaningless in spring - though Tampa's manager Joe Maddon did use the ... More >>

Astros Spring Training: Six Straight Walks? Not Good.

Photo by hyperscholarI'm sure that several of you saw the score of yesterday's Astros game. It was 12-2 spring training loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. It's spring training, and I'm one of those who believes that the final score is meaningless in spring - though Tampa's manager Joe Maddon did use the ... More >>

Esmailyn "Smiley" Gonzalez, Say Hello to Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo. Oh, You've Already Met?

Since he has been traded to the Houston Astros, Miguel Tejada has been fingered as a steroids user. It was discovered that he lied about his age - he's two years older than he told everyone - and the name on his birth certificate doesn't quite match the name he plays under. And now there's that wh ... More >>

Miguel Tejada Connected to A-Rod's Trainer

Are the Astros about to get caught up in the Alex Rodriguez mess? Not that anybody's making a big deal about it, yet, but the New York Daily News has a big story out about a trainer Alex Rodriguez has been involved with. The trainer, from the Dominican Republic, is named Angel Presinal, and he's b ... More >>

Miguel Tejada Connected to A-Rod's Trainer

Are the Astros about to get caught up in the Alex Rodriguez mess? Not that anybody's making a big deal about it, yet, but the New York Daily News has a big story out about a trainer Alex Rodriguez has been involved with. The trainer, from the Dominican Republic, is named Angel Presinal, and he's b ... More >>

Top Five Houstonians As Hurricanes

Astros-Rockies: Say Hello to Eny Cabreja

Miguel Tejada: Hey, Maybe I Should Finally Give You My Real Age

This Just In: Get Ready for iFest

Cock Fight: Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal Throw a Couple of Chickens into the Ring

Sugar Skulls and "Sana, Sana"

Special Día de los Muertos Edition

The Marketing of the Beast Continues...

SXSW

At South by Southwest, there's a lot of light shown in the dark

Give Me a "V"

Angry women in tight jeans

Best Latin Club

Caribbean Vacation

Storyteller Edwin Negrón tells stories from other lands

Travail-less Travels

Putumayo and Rough Guide samplers offer up armchair adventures for jittery Americans

The Gift Of Music

2001’s top ten picks

Complex Reading

Junot Díaz and Chang-rae Lee

Global Domination

As in the past, sleepers will steal this year's International Festival

Clutch City Consumption

Bootleg, legit, who cares? We gotta have it.