Mad Men

How Do You Dress Your Dog?

So often while watching Mad Men I am completely gobsmacked by the way things used to be in the olden times. I mean, wow -- smoking while you're pregnant? Referring to pot as grass? Crazy pants. I thought had seen it all until season 6, episode four ("The Collaborators") when Don gets stoned and tel ... More >>

Mad Men: Five Academic Theories Explaining Life at SCDP

Last Night: Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo at Stafford Centre

Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo Stafford Centre April 17, 2013 If you grew up during a particular window of the early 1980s, there were certain things you couldn't escape: economic malaise, the San Francisco 49ers, and MTV. If you were an early enough adopter of Music Television, you were more than fam ... More >>

Matthew Weiner Explains Betty Draper, Mad Men's "Melancholy Dame"

Betty Has a Big Season Ahead of Her

The Capitol at St. Germain: Closed for Renovations or Closed for Good?

Last week, The Capitol at St. Germain posted the above image on its Facebook page. The downtown restaurant that was once so promising when it opened in late 2011 suffered in the wake of losing its two opening chefs, Kevin Bryant and Mark Parmley. Lately, every time I walked by The Capitol past happy ... More >>

In Top of the Lake, Peggy Olson Goes to Hell

Clockwork Angels

Veteran rockers Rush brought their steampunk-themed concept album to Toyota Center December 2.

RIP Dave Brubeck: "Take Five" Jazz Great Dies at 91

Dave Brubeck, the professorial jazz pianist and composer whose No. 2 album Time Out was a standard of the Mad Men era, has died at age 91, the Associated Press reported Wednesday morning. Brubeck's manager, Russell Gloyd, told the AP that Brubeck died of heart failure on his way to a cardiologist ap ... More >>

Pam Ann: Cockpit

God Knows Why, But You Can Now Buy Game of Thrones and True Blood Cookbooks

I am the last person in America to have neither watched nor read Game of Thrones and/or True Blood. I'm not being willful about this; I just don't have cable. And my patience for campy vampire TV shows ran out with the cancellation of Moonlight and season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Anyway, I'm ... More >>

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 10 Expense-Account Restaurants

For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2011 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in which the winner had hefty competition from other Houston bars and restaurants. 10. The ... More >>

The Rest of the Best: Houston's Top 10 Happy Hour Menus

For the next 20 weeks, we'll be rounding up the runners-up to our 2011 Best of Houston® winners. In many categories, picking each year's winner is no easy task. We'll be spotlighting 20 of those categories, in which the winner had hefty competition from other Houston bars and restaurants. I look f ... More >>

Christina Hendricks, Olivia Munn, Scarlett Johansson: 22 Famous Leaked Cell Phone Pics That Stopped All Office Productivity

This past Sunday, naughty cell phone pictures of both Mad Men's redheaded bombshell Christina Hendricks and television personality Olivia Munn leaked onto the Internet. No, they weren't together in the photos -- Dear God -- these were separate leaks. Two of the most lusted after female celebs, Hend ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Who's Still Watching The Walking Dead?

Watched the latest episode of The Walking Dead last night. Against my prior inclinations, I'm glad I stuck it out this far. Things have picked up quite a bit since the second half of season two started up a month ago, with more human vs. human and human vs. zombie conflict in the last two eps than i ... More >>

Need A Band Name? Let A Random Gawker Headline Help You!

Gawker is one of the most fun and informative sites on the innerwebs. Where else can you hear about the awful and sexy things that humans do to each other? Each day brings a new bounty of curiousness, like the one about the midget porn star Gordon Ramsay-lookalike that ended up being a hoax. It wasn ... More >>

Thanksgiving Television Episodes That Didn't Knock Us Out From Tryptophan

We can't lie and say that Thanksgiving television specials give us that same warm and fuzzy feeling as their Yuletide counterparts. For starters, there are very few of them and it is difficult to find them anywhere besides the Hallmark Channel. Lucky enough, regularly scheduled television uses the ... 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 >>

Zigga Zig Ah: 10 Girl-Powered Facts About The Spice Girls

​Today, November 4, marks 15 years since the Spice Girls first album, Spice, was released. Closing out 1996 with a titanic dose of girl power, the album would go on to sell almost 24 million copies and spawn countless imitators like B*Witched, All Saints, and later on, the Pussycat Dolls. Ob ... More >>

The Rolling Stones On Ed Sullivan Collected In New DVD Package

"Show me your teeth!": Jagger On Ed Sullivan​The Rolling Stones are literally our favorite band of all-time. Yeah, the title of this here music blog should have already given that away, but watching a decade or so of vital Stones history fly by over six episodes on the new The Ed Sullivan Show ... More >>

The Taste of Nostalgia at C&D Burger Shoppe

Photos by Troy FieldsPrepping for a busy lunch at C&D.​Everything about C&D Burger Shoppe has that pleasant glow of a hazy, nostalgic time somewhere in between the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even the slideshow accompanying this week's cafe review of the little burger joint in South Houston lo ... More >>

Last Day To Vote For The Astrodome As A National "Place That Matters"

Is the Dome worthy of a click?​The National Trust for Historic Preservation is running the 2011 edition of its "This Place Matters" competition, where voters support local sites worthy of saving. Getting a big push this time around is the Astrodome, thanks to the folks at Houston Mod, which c ... More >>

Five Favorite Retro Sodas

​I remember as a young child visiting Bread & Circus in Boston and marveling over the fact that the world of soda comprised more than just Coke, Sprite and root beer. Now, I'm a bit more cosmopolitan when it comes to carbonated beverages, and I'm currently obsessed with retro sodas. (Probably ... More >>

Pop Rocks: We Take Our Television Seriously

The TV! The TV!​Hey America, what did you think of the season finale of The Killing? - S U C K S! Not wasting another minute watching or thinking about this show! - I want 13 hours of my life back! - Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me - A cheap, crappy cop-out. Whoa. That ... More >>

Facing Food Fears: #2: Four Loko

​To hell with trepidation. I'm forcing myself to try those five intriguing foods that scare me. I may barf, I may cry, and I may not always enjoy myself, but at least I won't be a coward. #2: Four Loko I know, I know. What the hell happened to #3: The Four Horsemen Burger? Well, end-of-semes ... More >>

Cognitive Dissonance

Unknown is yet another empty-headed vehicle for Liam Neeson.

Why the Golden Globes Are Relevant...No, Really

Just as relevant as the Academy Awards. Sorry.​The 2011 awards season kicked off Sunday night with the 68th installment of the Golden Globes, a.k.a. That Awards Show No One in Hollywood Takes Seriously But They All Attend Anyway Because They're Too Chickenshit to Blow It Off. Though now that ... More >>

Ron Franklin, Luv Ya Blue Voice, Fired from ESPN

Ron Franklin: Voice of the Oilers in the `70s​Ron Franklin, the play-by-play voice of the Luv Ya Blue-era Houston Oilers, was fired today by ESPN, according to media reports. Why? Because he apparently has a workplace worldview developed closely on the tenets of Mad Men. Franklin, who was th ... More >>

Top 10 Recent TV-Show Soundtracks

​A few choice adjectives come to mind when musing on bawdy Eastbound & Down character Kenny Powers. "Inspiring" is not one of them. However, as Rocks Off watched this week's season finale of the side-splitting HBO series, we were pleasantly surprised as we heard indie troubadour Kurt Vile's a ... More >>

Loko Oh No

Testing the new fad drink

A Fire, Karaoke Or Ex-Brothel: Where Were We In Drag?

Pull up a chair, start a tab and order a round of shots, because this is Rocks Off's weekly roundup of the goings-on in the Houston bar scene. Ups and downs, openings and closings, we will cover it all. Hit us up with any hot tips at craig.hlavaty@houstonpress.com. Photos by Craig Hlavaty​Op ... More >>

Massive Montrose Fire Burns Agora Cafe and Antiques Store

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​Click here to see a slideshow of last night's blaze and this morning's aftermath. Last night in the midst of Halloween drinking festivities and the Montrose Costume Crawl, Agora Cafe and Antique Warehaus burned down. The two businesses, at the corner of Westheimer and ... More >>

For Five Bucks I'd...

What Texans would do for a Lincoln

Mad Men In Houston: Five Long-Gone Architectural Examples

Martinis will be served​The terrific group Houston Mod is dedicatedto preserving as much as it can of Houston's energetic fling with "modern" architecture and design -- as in Mad Men modern, for a large part.They also mourn the passing of modern architecture that's been demolished to make way for ... More >>

The Anachronistic Chef: Harvest Casserole

​ This is one in a series of posts in which I sample recipes from the days of yore (i.e., not the 1990s). The dishes featured were mainstays of 19th-, 18th- and even 17th-century tables, but for one reason or another (unusual taste, archaic ingredients), have fallen out of culinary fashion. F ... More >>

Wine of the Week: 2007 Alto Las Hormigas Vineyard Selection Reserva Malbec

Like Joan, this wine is full-bodied and delicious.​This little lady flew in all the way from Argentina to treat my taste buds. Never one to rudely dismiss a free sample, or anything related to a South American Malbec, I took one for the team and tasted it for the good of humanity. Newly dis ... More >>

Upcoming Events

Yes, they even have GF chocolate chip cookies.​No big surprise here, but a welcome announcement nonetheless: Houston Restaurant Week has officially been extended until Labor Day, making it -- in effect -- Houston Restaurant Month. HRW was expected to end on August 21, tomorrow, but will now ru ... More >>

The Five Most Underrated Neighborhoods In Houston

This convent is a landmark in Idylwood​Everyone knows THE places to be in Houston. It's just a question of which one fits your taste (and wallet).River Oaks, the Heights, Montrose, Bellaire -- everyone knows those places. But Houston is so vast, so unpredictable, that little bubbles of terrific ne ... More >>

Pop Rocks: It Was You, Don Draper...You Broke My Heart

​We're two weeks into the new season of Mad Men and already we've witnessed the event that may signify the ultimate spiritual and mental collapse of series lynchpin Don Draper. No, I'm not talking about his post-Christmas party tryst with Allison, his loyal secretary (loyal to a fault, it wou ... More >>

The Week In TV: Who Watched Mad Men?

We didn't watch it. But, hey, at least we're honest.​The best thing I watched last week was an airing of Ratatouille on ABC Family. This was the week in TV Land: • I'll tell you right now: I didn't watch Mad Men. "BUT DAN," I can hear you shouting even though you're reading this at work, " ... More >>

The Week In TV: Louis C.K. vs. Mississippi

The same face we made when trying to comprehend why people would voluntarily live in Mississippi.​The weather's terrible, I'm living off DVR'd episodes of Community, and it's possible this is all just a dream. This was the week in TV Land: • AT&T reached a deal with Rainbow Media last week ... More >>

The Marvelous Wonderettes

Something sweet for summer

Pop Rocks: Why You Should Be Watching The Good Guys

​We're in the doldrums, people. Nothing but baseball until August, craptastic "blockbuster" movies for the next two months...hell, even the World Cup is a bore now unless you're lucky enough to have an ancestral connection to one of the remaining teams (go Germany!). What we need is a decent s ... More >>

Representative Harold Dutton: Every Texas Felon Gets A Life Sentence

Criminal records are forever​We like to think life sentences only go to the worst of the worst, the criminals whose deeds were so heinous they stopped just short of deserving the death penalty.According to state representative Harold Dutton, that's not the case. The Houston Democrat and member of ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

Veal. That's right, hippies, VEAL. And it was FRIGGING DELICIOUS.​ Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where all jokes are served up fried in a light, crispy breading with a side of coleslaw. We started the week off right, with some hilariously bungled recipes from one ... More >>

Drinking Your Dinner: 5 Calorie-Laden Classic Cocktails

Photo by coffeegeek​Vintage cocktails are undeniably the booze craze of the moment. Blame it on Mad Men. Blame it on "getting back to our roots" and people starting victory gardens once again. Blame it on books like Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. But classic cocktails are ... More >>

The Week In TV: What Do You Watch During The Summer?

With Treme off the air, what are you going to watch the rest of the summer?​Blah blah basketball blah blah soccer blah blah I miss real shows. This was the week in TV Land: • Treme wrapped its first season last night with an episode that was probably among its best so far, though it also hi ... More >>

The Week In TV: Back For Another Round

Lost may be gone, but these other shows are returning for another season.​Summer is upon us, television is a rocky wasteland, and you're probably out grilling right now. This was the week in TV Land: • Summer's a weird time for TV viewers and often a terrible one for TV fans: There are lo ... More >>

This Week In TV: Miracle Cures From Alien Civilizations

The Yankees won, Doug Hoffman lost, and I'm thinking of joining a neighborhood dad garage band. This was the week in TV Land: • 30 Rock continues to be the quickest comedy on the air and the spiritual descendant of Arrested Development. This week's episode was stuffed with more meta-jokes than ev ... More >>

Andie Ryan: Shakedown

This debut author weaves a story of intrigue and betrayal her first time out

“Genghis Khan”

History’s bad boy goes on display