Press Picks
thursday august 11 Youth Service Provider Summit A confab devoted to figuring out just what we can do about our young folks. Youth service providers and concerned members of the community (such s parents, we hope) will have the opportunity to get together to discuss realistic plans for keeping kids…
Animal Acts
Following that great show biz tradition, a couple of long-ago Hollywood icons are making a comeback. After decades of being relegated to fond memories, laden nostalgia and quaint has-been status, two idols of lore have returned to the silver screen, doggedly determined to prove that they still have it. Sticking…
Spy Games
First, the good news. Clear and Present Danger is much easier to take than its predecessor, Patriot Games, though history and casting keep it from reaching The Hunt for Red October’s appeal. That first installment in the Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan trilogy had the almost unfair advantage of Sean Connery’s presence…
Poison Pens
Depending on whose private correspondence you happen to read, Harris County Civil Court Judge Carolyn Day Hobson is either an incompetent jurist who enriched her hairdresser with court appointments or an independent judge who has alienated lawyer supporters by ruling against them in her court. The four Harris County civil…
Letters
Victimized Again Referencing D.J. Wilson’s article “Talk Radio Takes Aim at the Bad Guys” [News, July 28], I would like to clarify a few points. First of all, the Houston Crime Commission will act as a mechanism or tool in educating the public to insure that legislation is designed to…
Cheap Thrills
I’ve been complaining for years that Houston deserves a great, cheap Mexican fast-food joint. My gripe germinated at a Los Angeles chain taqueria called La Salsa, over a delicate quesadilla, a letter-perfect taco al carbon and three dazzling table sauces. “This is the best fast food in America,” I marveled,…
Hot Plate
Shrimp feat Scampi are ubiquitous. Great scampi are not. So it’s rewarding to run across them — particularly in an unlikely spot like Maceo’s, where the sounds of such prehistoric ditties as “O, My Papa” and “That’s Amore” (sung by Dean Martin) don’t lead one to expect much in the…
Dancing Fool
I can’t believe I did it, but do it I did. You may have heard the spots on KQUE advertising the US Homes-sponsored Forties Follies dances held at various hotel ballrooms around town, but if you’re old enough to be in that ad’s audience, you probably don’t read me, and…
Rotation
Wazobia Seeds of Democracy Aim-West Records The members of Houston’s Wazobia, coalescing at Texas Southern University, represent four countries — Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, America — and boast fluency in seven languages. So it’s not much of a surprise that their musical product is Afrocentric world beat, with nods to Jamaican…
Live Shots
Pantera AstroArena Sunday, July 31 Pantera — the Dallas-based headbangers whose recent CD Far Beyond Driven rode word-of-mouth to Billboard’s number one slot — showcases the most impressive lack of musical ambiguity I’ve ever seen. The baby-faced tat-and-pierce crowd at the AstroArena cheered heartily at any stray spotlight, held lighters…
Famous Amos
Tori Amos’ song-time embodiment of “the bad girl, the self-righteous virgin, the prostitute” and self-proclaimed pursuit of self-empowerment themes seem a tad on the theoretical side for my taste. But all the same, there’s no use denying the magnetic presence the flaming redhead brings to a stage. As an enigmatically…
The Private Life and Public Death of Frank Koury
Even as he lay dying of AIDS, Albert Frank Koury was intent on being a Southern gentleman. It was the way he was brought into the world, 40 years before in New Orleans, and, as much as he had a say in such things, it was the way he intended…
Lost in the Jungle
Bertolt Brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities has always been rather an endurance match. In its 1922 premiere run in Munich, the cryptic play was panned, closed after six performances and was such a thoroughgoing failure that the theater’s artistic advisor was canned. Although one prominent critic wrote that Jungle…
Taking a Bite Out of…
In cultivating a reputation as a hard-nosed jurist and dedicated anti-crime crusader, State District Judge Mike McSpadden won his 15 minutes of national fame a few years ago by promoting castration as an appropriate punishment for sex offenders. But the county courthouse has been abuzz recently over the revelation that…