Houston Ship Channel

Houston's Top 10 Unsung Music Venues

There's no other way to say this except to say it: Houston has a lot of music venues, a lot of music venues, but most of the high-profile shows around here get routed into a handful of places. This happens for any number of reasons, most of them financial: Very few promoters in town can afford to pu ... More >>

Pregnancy Puzzler

Lactation not related to giving birth.

Some Judges Want Paintings of "Shirtless Black Men Hauling...Bales of Cotton" Removed from Courthouse

Six historical paintings at Houston's federal courthouse have raised some hackles with two federal judges, who believe the paintings dredge up offensive imagery of slavery. The paintings, depicting the Houston Ship Channel in the late 1870s, were completed between 1938 and 1941, and were displayed ... More >>

The Bridges of Texas: 12 Beauties

We don't do rustic covered bridges here in Texas; we don't do massive Golden Gate spans either. But that doesn't mean the state isn't home to some beautiful pieces of bridge art. You can look for abandoned bridges here. Here, though, are a dozen of Texas' best. ​12. Suspension Bridge, Waco T ... More >>

Masters of Cyberspace

The Press hands out its first Houston Web Awards.

2011 South By Southwest Supplement

Buxton takes its bump to the roots-rock big leagues in stride.

The Houston Ship Channel Never Looked So Beautiful

Hat tip to Mr. Kimberly over at Neon Poisoning for tipping us off to the excellent photo stream of Louis Vest, OneEighteen on Flickr, who occasionally uploads amazing videos of the humdrum business on the Houston Ship Channel, including the one above.

ExxonMobil's Baytown Refinery Sued For Being So Damn Leaky

Headed to court​Following in the footsteps of Shell and and ChevronPhillips, ExxonMobil has been sued by environmental groups who say its refinery routinely violates clean-air regulations and doesn't really do anything about it. The Sierra Club and Environment Texas announced their lawsuit to ... More >>

Is Ex-Velvet Moe Tucker A Tea Partier Or Not?

​The Velvet Underground has certainly had an interesting second act. After Andy Warhol's favorite NYC "party" band soundtracked countless narcotic jags and laid the foundation for everything from punk rock to shoegaze, its members went on to very different lives: Lou Reed to street-life classi ... More >>

A Taste of Honey: Harvesting A Beehive

Photos by Brittanie SheyTom Helm, urban outdoorsman and hobbyist beekeeper​This weekend we were invited to a honey-harvesting party at the home of Tom Helm, an urban outdoorsman who in 2006 was the subject of our cover story "Dark Water", in which he and then-Press reporter Josh Harkinson kaya ... More >>

Three Hour Tour Turns Into Extended Stay At Allen's Landing for Houston Yacht Club

Photos by Taylor TurnerNot exactly Gilligan's Island.​The not-so-everyday presence of yachts on Buffalo Bayou has been bringing sight-seers to Allen's Landing this week. But the docking is no holiday for the boaters, who've been stranded at the downtown birthplace of the city of Houston since Sund ... More >>

Gene Green: He's Got Everyone Wondering What He'll Do About Latest Clean-Air Bill

Gene Green: Which way will he go?​Health and safety advocates will be watching U.S. Congressman Gene Green closely tomorrow, when his colleagues on the House Energy & Commerce committee are expected to introduce a bill intended to reduce the use of toxic chemicals in consumer products, such as ... More >>

Lyondell's "No Injuries" Refinery Fire Had Some Injuries After All, Suit Says

Workers are claiming "disfigurement"​On May 17, after a fire erupted at a local LyondellBasell refinery, the national headlines read "No Injuries at Houston Refinery."The source? 'Twas the friendly P.R. folks at Lyondell, of course.Given this fact, perhaps it will come to no surprise to learn that ... More >>

Getting Creamed

Online readers respond to high school girls slathered in whipped cream and chocolate.

Exxon Leads The Environmental Fight By Suing The U.S. Over Winning World War II

​If there's one company out there that won't put up with illegal oil dumping, it's Exxon. These guys are hawks about pollution, and they will sue whoever the hell they need to in order to bring evildoers to justice.So they're suing the United States, which blithely went ignored all sorts of Enviro ... More >>

What Are You Looking At?

​ What are you looking at here? A window pane shattered by a rock or bullet? Some kind of art project?No. You are looking at.......

Kirk Daley, 30, Bayou Body Count No. 19

​Sadly, it wasn't a long week for Mr. Kirk Daley.He and a few co-workers left work early on Monday, probably with a skip in their step, to go cash their tax refund checks at a convenience store in northeast Houston at 8103 Homestead Road. When Daley, 30, was finished and all cashed-up, he began wa ... More >>

Houston's Craziest: The 30 Worst

The troubled people whom Houston police officers hate to see headed their way.

A Quiet Hell

Thanks to lax enforcement by TCEQ, plants along the Houston Ship Channel launch tons of toxic gases into our air, and face little penalty even when they exceed pollution limits over and over again.

The State's Environmental Watchdog Sucks

​Four years ago, Houston Mayor Bill White and his environmental policy director Elena Marks didn't think that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was doing a very good job enforcing pollution violations and keeping the area's oil refineries and chemical plants in check. The city had ... More >>

Pay No Attention To The Massive Police Activity At The Ship Channel Tonight

​PLEASE TAKE NOTE: The Houston Ship Channel will not be the scene of a terrorist attack tonight, one that will involve FBI agents, huge law-enforcement motocades, sirens, lights, all the good stuff.If you see such things, don't start running for the hills. It's a drill, baby."Late this evening int ... More >>

Houston's Waterways Are Filled With All Kinds Of Stuff They Shouldn't Be Filled With, Group Says

​Stay the hell away from Houston's waterways. Don't swim in them and for heaven's sake don't eat the fish.That was essentially the message this morning at a news conference held alongside the Houston Ship Channel, hosted by Environment Texas, an environmental advocacy group, which complied data fr ... More >>

Battleground Fried Shrimp

The Monument Inn continues an old tradition of dining on hallowed ground.

Beaumont TV Station Warns Of Pirate Attacks: We Investigate!!!

Back in November, Hair Balls indulged itself in some utterly sub-Swiftian satire on the possibility of Ike-wracked Galveston reconstructing itself as a haven for pirates. We suggested that Galveston apply for a Federal License to Plunder, citing advantages such as ease of access to all the booty ... More >>

Houston Company Exploits Vietnamese Workers, Suit Claims

A Houston company has been exploiting Vietnamese workers by promising big bucks, bringing them over here to work near the Ship Channel and then gouging them for rent and transportation costs while putting them up in dilapidated housing, a lawsuit claims.Thus it has been in America since...well, sinc ... More >>

A Modest Proposal for the Rehabilitation of Galveston

We've seen the devastation first-hand, read the gloom and doom reports. Bolivar has been erased. UTMB's cutbacks threaten terminal meltdown for the Galveston economy. The schools are in peril. The beaches are ravaged.What is to be done?Predictably, there is a call for casino gambling on the island. ... More >>

Port Arthur Shares The Polluting Load

Galveston -- Exhibit A Against Offshore Drilling?

Special Report: Toxic Town

The East End Trek

H-Town Zydeco

Dr. Roger Wood and James Fraher serve up another heaping helping of Houston music lore

Dark Water

A reporter, a photographer and canoeist Tom Helm paddle from the Galleria to Galveston Bay by canoe and kayak, finding beauty, danger and urban debris in equal measure

He Does Have a Nice Glow to Him...

Kinky Talk

Bring It On

Why Houston should want a nuclear power plant

The Return of the Houston Kid

Rodney Crowell comes back to town with yet another great album under his belt

Over the Limit?

PCBs may prompt a first-ever warning against bay speckled trout fishing

Bridging the Gap

Birders and the port are new buds seeking to block the proposed toll span at Bolivar

Taking a Toll

A bridge to Bolivar might be good for business -- but not for the birds

Best Reminder of Houston's Industrial Roots

Turning Basin observation deck

Green Port?

A Port suit accuses several companies of contaminating its land for decades

On the Waterfront

Lunch with Rory Miggins

Houston Kid

Rodney Crowell sets his topsy-turvy East End childhood to music

In Plane Sight

Alex MacLean's aerial photography puts our development-happy city in its proper perspective

Raw Deal

Oysterman Joe Nelson says pollution is slowly killing Galveston Bay. But is anyone listening?

Absurd Plays for the Holidays

The Unchanging Face of Milby

For more than 70 years, Milby High School has educated working class kids from the East End. In the early 1960s, I was one of them. I recently went back to Milby to see not what had changed, but what, if anything, remained.

Wild Things

With a stiff dose of vatobilly, the Flamin' Hellcats aim to cure rock and roll of what ails it

Letters

Trashing Houston

To a world worried about waste, Houston may offer an answer -- or at least a place for the garbage to go