Clubland
Obviously looking to cash in on Houston’s mushrooming DJ work force, Artuzzi’s has started Spin, a weekly event showcasing some of the city’s most relevant and well-versed turntable technicians. Every Thursday night at the posh River Oaks nightspot, four DJs will tackle an array of sounds, from electronica and techno…
Trunk Show
So a guy goes into a bar and sees another guy sitting there nursing a beer, looking incredibly depressed. The two strike up a conversation, and the first guy asks the second guy why he’s down. “I hate my job,” the second guy says. “Where do you work?” “I’m with…
Tutoned and Ready
Granted, a good chunk of the crowd will show up for Tommy Tutone’s lone hit, “867-5309/Jenny.” But the Texas native, last heard from in the ’80s, comes to Houston armed with a surprisingly fresh “comeback” CD, Rich Text Files. Buoyed by Tutone’s husky, frozen-in-time vocals, the new material veers from…
Fool’s Gold
Epics aren’t what they used to be. Hal Hartley’s new film Henry Fool has been described using the “e” word by sources ranging from Janet Maslin to Hartley himself. But instead of the noble buddy team of Achilles and Patroclus, here we have a rather more scruffy duo, Simon Grim…
Rotation
Beastie Boys Hello Nasty Capitol How heated has fan anticipation been for the Beastie Boys’ latest? It’s been reported that at a recent record store robbery, a guy with a gun demanded not only cash but a copy of Hello Nasty. Lucky him: Hello Nasty is a stunning return to…
Buffed Up
Director/writer/composer/star/visionary Vincent Gallo, a left-field character actor whose best work has been in the films of mainstream eccentrics like Emir Kusturica (Arizona Dream), Abel Ferrara (The Funeral) and Alan Taylor (the low-key Palookaville), arrives as full-blown auteur with Buffalo ’66, a million-dollar art project currently on the cover of both…
Dish
Life After Leno Shades of The Truman Show: Imagine waking up one morning to find Jay Leno mentioned you the night before. That’s exactly what happened to local restaurateur John Crapitto back in April. Leno displayed a blown-up copy of the advertisement for his restaurant Crapitto’s (2400 Mid Lane, 961-1161)…
Mark of the Zzzzs
In The Mask of Zorro, Anthony Hopkins plays the eponymous masked hero as if he were doing Shakespeare. He’s trying to turn a kitsch hero into a real one, and his efforts are so weirdly off key that you don’t know whether to applaud or titter. This dolorous Don Diego…
Modest Mex
I like Bocados very much, though it can sometimes be tough on the nerves. Because the door has a tendency to stick, it’s a struggle just getting into the place. My guests, in fact, couldn’t get in at all and were forced to wave their arms and make funny faces…
Courtship, River Oaks Style
On the night of November 14, 1996, Linda Sarofim Lowe awaited as the high black gates of her River Oaks Boulevard estate opened wide for the arrival of Earle Lilly. She knew him first as her lawyer — and then as her lover. On that evening, Lilly came carrying the…
Hot Plate
How do I spell relief? The way everyone does: B-R-E-A-D P-U-D-D-I-N-G. There’s lots of great bread pudding in Houston. It’s one of the reasons I live here. But the very, very best is the chocolate/sour-cherry kind ($6.50) available at, what for bread-pudding lovers, is Rome and Jerusalem and Gwyneth Paltrow’s…
No State Bar to Intimacy
Allegations of lawyers indulging in intimacies with clients have been around since long before millionaire divorcee Linda Sarofim Lowe alleged she was laid by lawyer Earle Lilly. In confronting those issues, the State Bar of Texas has not been slow to act — it has yet to take any forceful…
No Account
Every June, as the city prepares its budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, one particular piece of business appears on the City Council agenda. Officially known as an “Ordinance Providing for the Continuation of Appropriations,” it gives the city legal authority to keep operating if there are…
The Insider
A Shrub Grows in the Huntingdon As Democrats scorch their own earth Former mayor Bob Lanier hand-delivered his re-election endorsement to Texas Governor — and undeclared presidential candidate — George W. Bush last week in a style all his own. Stripping off a trademark sweater like the one he wore…
Letters
Upbeat on Brown I read your profile of Lee Brown [“Muted Mayor,” by Tim Fleck, July 2]. I watched him fail as New York police commissioner, but your account gives me some cause for optimism. It looks like he’s on the job this time, and I’m delighted by his interest…
The Menu That Fell to Earth
WALLER — The Internet come-on might’ve piqued the interest of extreme adventurer Tim Cahill, author of the tomes A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh. Regular-guy Cahill makes a living doing irregular-guy kinda stuff — drunken diving for sea snakes, that sort of thing; when he’s…
Range Rover
Texan Larry Gatlin is passionate about several things. One is writing and performing country music, as he’s done for decades with the Gatlin Brothers and as a solo artist. Another is spending time on the range — with clubs and carts, not horses and cattle. “Coach [Darrell] Royal beat me…
Night & Day
Thursday July 16 Though both were born in Houston and consider themselves “visual diarists,” the dual exhibitors of “In Situ: Responses from Charles Mary Kubricht and Ann Stautberg” were unaware of one another — and of the striking parallelism of their techniques — prior to teaming up for this show…
Looks Matter
For six years, Girls Against Boys (GVSB to its fans) has been laying down reality-noir soundtracks that openly embrace and explore the lusty, dirty and hidden side of human nature. But at a recent performance on the Late Night with Conan O’Brien show, the Washington, D.C., band displayed its own…
The Lost Years
Culturcide’s implosion at the tail end of the ’80s might have been more of an event if the band hadn’t been so uneventful in the first place. Rather than self-destructing in a fist-clenched blaze of glory, Houston’s seminal underground deviants suffered an anonymous meltdown, their various personal, legal and financial…
Static
Legalize it… It’s hard to imagine a more lethal recipe for anarchy than mixing advocacy of an illicit substance with the support for an illicit radio station. But that’s precisely the blend that resulted when the Montrose Radio Collective (94.9 FM) recently moved its pirate operations to the Texas Hemp…