Letters
God’s Love My name is Phil Arms. The church that I pastor and I were recently the focus of an article in your paper [News, “Farewell to Arms,” by Randall Patterson, December 7]. If I had been allowed the equal space that I requested to respond to that caustic and…
Press Picks
thursday january 11 Moving Violations You may have seen Emmy-winning TV journalist John Hockenberry recently, not reporting news, but hawking his book. Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence is a tale both of life in a wheelchair and life as a roving correspondent. Riding a donkey in…
Static
A shoe that fits… Sift through the ashes of the deceased post-punk redneck outfits Tab Jones, Fleshmop and Pork Belly Picnic, and you’ll turn up most of the story behind Houston’s Horseshoe, a wild and woolly ’90s answer to the gonzo psychedelic experiments of Country Joe and the Fish and…
Clever Criminals
Los Angeles, full to the hilt with self-centered wannabes and bitter never-weres, is hardly the friendliest environment for a musician seeking fame and recognition. And if a performer already has Cleveland, home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on his side, why would he ever want to head…
Wordless Wonders
Tune into ’90s rock radio sometime, and what do you hear? There’s Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong singing about not having much to sing about. There’s Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan, who, despite all his rage, is still just a whiny brat with bad hair. There’s Joan Osborne with some silly…
The Insider
A Theft in the Family Sister radio stations KTRH/740 AM and KLOL/101 FM have had their share of colorful internal flaps over the past few years. There was the recent HPD investigation into KTRH management’s forged endorsements of award checks to station staffers, and a few years ago there was…
Rotation
Candlebox Lucy Maverick/Warner Candlebox’s Lucy shows what can happen when a million-selling band thinks it can do no wrong — and it’s already screwed up plenty. As the first breakthrough signing on Madonna’s Maverick label, these Seattle-scene tagalongs accompanied their self-titled debut on a speedy trip through MTV’s Buzz Bin…
The Torments of Academia
Should University of Houston playwright-in-residence Edward Albee ever decide to do a sequel to his masterpiece on the petty torments of the academic hothouse, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, he need look no further than the school’s sociology department for material. If half the allegations in a recent federal lawsuit…
The Meatless of the Matter
One recent evening at Wonderful Vegetarian Restaurant, I came to the startled realization that though I was still in Houston, a city that for culinary, as opposed to religious, reasons holds the cow only slightly less sacred than does New Delhi, I had entered very, very deep into the realm…
Hot Torch
These days, you’re lucky if a decent torch singer’s voice gets you a dime for a cup of coffee. So you can bet it’s more than just her bruisingly beautiful singing that gives Austin-based crooner Toni Price an edge over the competition. Credit in part her sheltered Nashville upbringing. While…
Theater Play
For Box Office of the Damned, a musical send-up of all those who sell and buy tickets to the theater, Theater LaB paints its walls bright, happy swaths of yellows, reds and blues, using colors as a primary stroke of festivity. Hung on these walls are posters of famous shows,…
Sisters Song
If it had been made 50 years ago, when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled Hollywood, it’s likely that Georgia would be better than it is. That’s not because Davis or Crawford were necessarily better actresses than Georgia stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mare Winningham, but because Davis, Crawford and…
Moving History
If you love movies, consider this grim statistic provided by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington: more than half of all the movies produced in the United States before 1951 have deteriorated and are lost forever. But wait, there’s even worse news: for those films made during the first years…
Sweet Revenge?
Eye for an Eye is a B movie that somehow won the lottery and got an A movie cast and director. It’s thoroughly shameless in the way it exploits a hot-button issue, then tries to disguise its intentions with a cloud of moral ambiguity. Ultimately, however, there is something perversely…
The Executive Course
If Sharpstown and Brock are turned over to private operators, that will leave Memorial Park, which recently reopened after a $4.4 million overhaul, as the only city-run golf course. Unfortunately for those who want to play Memorial, a popular course that has always had more players wanting tee times than…
Fore!
It’s a beautiful day for golf, and the links at Sharpstown Park have been buzzing since the early-bird seniors teed off at the crack of dawn. Regulars in tennis shoes nod polite greetings from cart seats or pause on the fairway for a quick chat; the faint, rattling plock of…
The Year-Round Go-Round
Few things challenge the sanity and decorum of well-adjusted suburbanites more than an issue that involves their children’s education. For the past three years, year-round schooling has been that issue in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, where the combatants are limbering up for yet another scrimmage in a battle that…