John F. Kennedy

The JFK Trauma Room is a State Secret Stored in Kansas? Huh.

Somewhere in Kansas there are boxes of stuff that used to be the trauma room President John F. Kennedy was brought to after that infamous drive through downtown Dallas. And the public isn't allowed to see what those boxes hold. The shots rang out in Dealey Plaza and President John F. Kennedy crump ... More >>

This Day In History: A Jack Ruby Playlist

On November 22, 1963 President John F. Kennedy was shot down by Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being driven through the streets of Dallas. Two days later, Oswald himself was killed at the hands of nightclub operator Jack Ruby as he was being transferred to a county jail. There have been dozens of reas ... More >>

Houston Now & Then

Mashing the city's past and present.

6 Songs for LBJ Day... One's About His Dick

Today is officially Lyndon Baines Johnson Day here in the state of Texas. The late 36th president's birthday was hallowed in his home state after he died in 1973 of a massive heart attack at the age of 64. He would have been 104 today. Johnson ascended to the presidency from the vice-presidency aft ... More >>

Start the Revolution! 10 Songs About Historical Events

If you ever look at music throughout time, along with a history book -- they kind of complement each other. Some of the greatest songs in rock, R&B and rap have chronicled history both social, major news events, sports, entertainment and political. In my opinion, many times, the song is about what ... More >>

10 Best Modern Political Speeches

We'll be hearing a lot of great speeches this election season, but lets take a second to remember the true giants of political rhetoric. 10. Martin Luther King: I've Been to the Mountaintop King delivered this speech in Memphis, Tennessee the day before he was assassinated. After talking for a whi ... More >>

Rest Of The Best: Houston's Top 7 Downtown Bars

Life is about perspective and so is Houston's downtown. Perhaps some look at it as a commercial district and once wannabe party king who lost its luster with the emergence of its cousin Midtown. Or you can see it as a beautiful skyline -- the best in Texas -- that's lightly peppered with a magnifice ... More >>

JFK At 95: What If He Lived?

Had he not been felled by assassins bullets back in 1963, President John F. Kennedy would have turned 95 years old this week. That's if old age and some tragic and wacky Kennedy curse accident wouldn't have done him in first. Would he and Jackie have spent their entire lives together, or would the ... More >>

Presidents' Sons at War: 13 Service Records, from the Mediocre to the Ultimate Sacrifice

Being the parent of someone fighting in a war is no picnic, even if you're a president. In the modern era, several future or incumbent presidents had sons in the military in wartime. Some of those sons did much, some very little, one paid the ultimate price. Let's look, building up to that ultimat ... More >>

Capsule Stage Reviews: Dinner with Friends, Late Nite Catechism, Oscar in the Box, Whatever Happened to the Villa Real?

Fiskadoro: A Techno Adventure In Dubai

"When Jen and I moved to Texas multiple people told us not to do it 'because they killed Kennedy.' The JFK assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby etc. - it seems to be to be a metaphor for the start of all the madness around us." - Fiskadoro's Richard Kimball At our day job, we have a small s ... More >>

Sister's Holy Humor Is Back with Late Nite Catechism

The setup: Denise Fennell, as the teaching nun "Sister," starred in Easter Catechism last year in an extended run, and she returns again with fresh material in a one-person show, Late Nite Catechism, to chide us for our sins, offering the joy of laughter and the forgiveness of holy humor. The ex ... More >>

For President's Day: The Best Movie Portrayals of 15 Presidents

Portraying presidents on screen is always tricky. Crass imitation makes the thing look like a comedy skit, but completely ignoring the mannerisms and voice that people know doesn't work either. There have been some laughingly inept acting jobs when it comes to the 44 people who have been the countr ... More >>

9 Notable Texas Deaths of 2011: Football, Gay Rights & Fodder for JFK Conspiracists

Texas gives to the world, and eventually the people who do the giving die. Such was the case in 2011, when at least nine notable Texans joined the Choir Invisible, the Great Majority, the dead. Without them, there would no Weed-Eaters, and perhaps the greatest college football/politician scandal ev ... More >>

A Smiling/Grimacing Scott Weiland Takes You To His "Winter Wonderland"

Scott Weiland is just a patsy...​A few weeks back I applauded Scott Weiland's Christmas album, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, for it's charming weirdness. It had his signature raspy Stone Temple Pilots baritone, a modern Bing Crosby vibe, and just the right amount of creep to at least wa ... More >>

Great News, Texas: Robert Caro's Newest LBJ Volume Comes Out In May

A new perspective on this odd couple​It's been -- as always -- a long wait between volumes of Robert Caro's masterful, majestic and compulsively readable biography of Lyndon Johnson. News has finally come of the new volume, and even better news is that it won't be the last. The new book, Pass ... More >>

Happy World Mental Health Day! 5 Crazy Songs

Delirium is the youngest of the endless. She smells of sweat, sour wines, late nights, old leather. Her realm is close, and can be visited; however, human minds were not made to comprehend her domain, and those few who have made the journey have been incapable of reporting back more than the tiniest ... More >>

Songs About A Blonde: Happy Birthday Marilyn Monroe

​Marilyn Monroe is one of the first of many women that will completely floor any red-blooded man, gay or straight, at first glance. There is simply no way that those eyes, that smile, that shock of blonde hair, and that figure can leave you feeling devoid of emotion. Girls want to be her, and ... More >>

Five Disastrous Modern-Day Presidential Decisions Not Involving Iraq or Vietnam

Ronald and Nancy Reagan face the consequences.​Making tough decisions is what being a president is all about. But sometimes those decisions backfire. Sometimes the backfire hurts only the president who made the decision; sometimes it hurts a whole lot of other people. Here are five most disas ... More >>

The Five Hottest Presidential Mistresses (Not Including Marilyn Monroe)

The item we did earlier this week on the five horniest presidents included research that could led us to conclude either one of two things: Either a) America's presidential mistresses don't photograph well or are painted badly, or b) Not many of them are what you'd call "hot." Still, it's possib ... More >>

The Five Horniest Presidents America Has Produced

Warren G. Harding, sex machine​The Reelz channel finished up its Kennedys mini-series last night, the production that was chased from the History Channel because JFK fans hollered about inaccuracies or too many dramatic liberties. The series itself seemed rather rote, although Greg Kinnear wa ... More >>

And in the End: 20 Final Thoughts on the Final Four

John RoyalLeAnn all dressed up for a white wedding.​In an attempt to wipe that awful excuse for a basketball game on Monday night from my head, I thought I would purge a few things still running through from my mind about the whole Final Four weekend. So... 1. I like attractive women. And ... More >>

President's Day List: Five Biographies You Need to Read

Dutch received undeserved scorn​President's Day is a time to reflect on the people who've lived in the White House, and how best to learn more about them. Presidential biographies have always been a huge industry, with a staggering amount of trees felled for books both incredibly dense and an ... More >>

Five Great Moments In Indecent Exposure

​Recently, Florida's lame-duck governor Charlie Crist has said he's considering pardoning Jim Morrison for his 1969 indecent exposure charge, stemming from The Doors' notorious Miami concert in which a drunken Lizard King swore numerous times and proceeded to whip it out onstage. Of course, Mo ... More >>

Five Graduation Speeches Better Than What You'll Hear This Year

It's Graduation Season, and that means it's time for commencement speeches.Usually delivered by someone you at best only vaguely have heard of, they all start with rueful self-deprecation about how "Once, long, long ago, I too sat at a graduation ceremony and listened to some long-winded boring spe ... More >>

Pop Rocks: "I Nail These Women Not Because They Are Easy, But Because I Am Haahd"

​The Facebers and Twitbooks were abuzz yesterday morning with the news of a recently discovered picture reportedly showing former President John F. Kennedy sunning himself on a boat with naked women frolicking around him...as naked women are wont to do. Allegedly taken in the mid-1950s, this pic ... More >>

The Top Rock-Star Death Conspiracies: Elvis, Michael, Kurt, Tupac and More

It seems that the stranger and weirder our world gets by the day, humanity struggles to find reasons behind all this calamity and tragedy. We try our best to find conclusions to why bad things happen, and when we can't fully fathom that the awful truth is just that, instead try to blame the influen ... More >>

Texas Traveler: Conspiracy Dallas

Photo courtesy of Yelp​A few months ago Texas Traveler visited the always-interesting Sixth Floor Museum dedicated to the "official" account of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. It's definitely worth going to if you're interested in any way in American history or politics, but maybe y ... More >>

Donut Patrol: Ich Bin Ein Bismark

​The Bavarian cream-filled Bismark is the thing to get at Daily Donut on Barker Cypress just north of 290. The cream-filled donut there was delicious, while the raised donut was stale and lame. Though Daily Donut calls this a Bismark, some would disagree with both the usage and the spelling. E ... More >>

Cutout Bin: The Goldwaters' Liberal-Baiting Folk Songs

The Goldwaters Sing Folk Songs to Bug the Liberals (1964, Greenleaf)​The 1964 presidential election was a pivotal point in our nation's history. After years of the liberal leadership and acronym names of JFK and LBJ, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater sought to take the country in a new direction ... More >>

Downtown Friendswood To Repeal Prohibition, Maybe

​For the first time since John F. Kennedy was president, it just may be legal to buy yourself a drink in downtown Friendswood without going through the charade of joining a "private club."The city council last night approved an effort to place on the November ballot a referendum on whether restaur ... More >>

Spacefest: 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

Houston, we have a celebration

YouTube Commercial for Westheimer Block Party March 28

This hilarious clip features cameos by John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, the cast of Mortal Kombat (the video game, not the awful movie), a bunch of low-riders and some bangin' techno beats. Thanks to our pals at Free Press Houston. You know, the more Rocks Off thinks about it - remember, that's ... More >>

JFK's Assassination, 45 Years Later

On Saturday, mourners and conspiracy theorists alike converged on Dealey Plaza in Dallas to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Every year this patch of land in the West End becomes a sort of one-stop shop for shadowy speculation and bitter discour ... More >>

Texas Native Claims He's the Spawn of JFK

Capsule Stage Reviews: Caroline, or Change, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Sugar Bean Sisters

Ich bin ein BFF

Capsule Reviews

A picture of our critics' opinions on local exhibits

Pop Rocks

"Power Pathos" presents pop surrealism with Texas ties

Chicken-Fried Breakfast

The "grand slam" at this eastside diner will easily feed a family of three

It's In The Cards

The Nick-and-Jessica split, tarot-style

Artsy Ambling

Stomp Around to five gallery openings in one night

Live Through This

Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Nellie Connally was in the car with him

Long Shot Against Longhorns

Rice squares off against UT for first time this century

Scared Suburban

There's something missing from the Alley's Frame 312

It's Still News

What's the statute of limitations for rip-n-read violations?

In Cold Blood

Novelist James Ellroy reshapes America's ugly history in his own image

Foregone Conclusion

Even those who don't remember the Cuban missile crisis will know how it ends, long before Days does

Dear Landlord

Quakers face the wrath of Lee Harvey Oswald's "godfather"

Being There

An interview with JFK -- more or less