Term Limits: The Next Generation
The early-September night couldn’t have been much steamier and oppressive, at least until Houston Independent School District Trustee Gabriel Vasquez and state Representative Jessica Farrar crossed paths. Both were leaving a meeting in the Montrose, where the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus membership was voting on candidate endorsements in the…
News Hostage
Women’s Lib This one is just for the fellas. Guys, send the little ladies out of the room, please. Slip the fillies a coupla bucks and send ’em to the mall. Tell the ol’ ball and chain it’s time to visit the beauty parlor, your treat. They’re gone? Great. Let’s…
Adrift
A packed Pasadena Convention Center crowd listened intently to a stream of speakers on the evening of August 17, Linda Shead took her turn at the microphone. For the allotted two minutes, the executive director of the Galveston Bay Foundation gave her organization’s stance on the Port of Houston Authority’s…
News of the Weird
Lead Stories Department of Energy security guidelines released in August, in response to reports of Chinese espionage, include a requirement that workers report any “close and continuing contact” (defined as two or more visits) with nationals from 25 specified countries. DOE official Edward Curran acknowledged to reporters that continuing sexual…
District ZZZZs Triumph
When, two months before a general election, the biggest buzz at City Hall is a squabble between Mayor Lee Brown and Continental Airlines over a lead architect for an airport terminal, be assured the municipal times are not just tranquil. They’re heavily sedated. Sure, Metro is moving toward construction of…
Dish
An ugly rumor predicting the imminent demise of The Ale House [2425 West Alabama, (713)521-2333] has been making the rounds lately. The Ale House will be demolished, the story goes, to make way for the parking lot of a new retail center. You see, the funky, white century-old house that…
Cell Phones
Larry Fitzgerald routinely fields inquiries from media around the world wanting to talk to some of the 140,000 inmates incarcerated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. But late last June, this TDCJ public information officer couldn’t suppress his laughter at the request by the Houston Press to interview one…
Secrets of Sonoma
Drive past Sonoma restaurant by day, and you’ll be, at best, puzzled. That’s assuming you even find it, tucked away on the short stretch of California Street between Commonwealth and Waugh. (Sonoma, on California, get it?) The two-story building of worn, yellowish brick looks exhausted by its former incarnation as…
Treated Like a Dog
Roy Pike says his dog, Chief, “ran a close second to my kids.” If Pike went shopping, so did the chow. When the family went boating in a nearby lake, Chief came along. During one boating trip, Chief disappeared in the woods in pursuit of a female chow. Every day…
Rotation
Chris Cornell Euphoria Morning A+M Maybe there’s a person out there waiting for the Kim Thayil solo record. As good as Chris Cornell’s own solo debut is, you just know there’s someone out there longing to hear the bearded guitarist from Soundgarden on tape, by himself. Not that Cornell isn’t…
Insider
It is not the best of times to be a criminal-defense lawyer in Harris County courtrooms. Judgeships are held by more or less conservative Republicans, many of them former prosecutors who are sensitive to the views and political pressure generated by victims’ rights advocacy groups. For the heavily Democratic defense…
Local Rotation
Vince Bell Texas Plates Paladin Records Houston native Vince Bell was a familiar sight on Texas stages (most notably in Houston’s Anderson Fair) in the late ’70s/early ’80s, when he played both onstage and off with such friends as Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith and, his closest compadre, the…
Downing
It was Saturday night, and Claudio Dominguez’s wife wanted to go out to eat. She wanted to go to a restaurant or a taqueria to get some menudo. Claudio was unsure. He and Esmeralda have no car and would have to walk to the restaurant along the streets where Beechnut…
Amplified
Lotta people shit-talk Fitzgerald’s for not caring about the local scene. But when some sturdy local labels wanted to put together a stable showcase, where’d they go? “Fitz seemed like the natural place to have it,” says Joshua Mares of Pinche Flojo Records. “They’re the only place for all-ages showsŠ.And…
Lives at the Crosswalk
Austin filmmakers Lance Larson and Jim Shelton believe in fate. Their jam-packed 27-minute film Crosswalk, which launches The Territory’s 24th season Saturday night, tells the fictional story of Harold Moss, a guy with six months to live, who happens to be at the credit union withdrawing his life savings when…
Playbill
No matter what you think of KLOL’s often too-tame playlist or the obnoxious retards who host its puerile morning show, the radio station’s annual Fall Jamm consistently offers a solid lineup of rock bands on all rungs of the fame ladder. Though this is headliner Lenny Kravitz’s third trip to…
What’s So Funny ‘Bout Burt Bacharach?
If you haven’t been paying attention, coming across Elvis Costello these days can be a jarring sight: the snotty, angry young new-waver 20 years on, pot-bellied, balding and tuxedo-clad, warbling songs he wrote with Burt Bacharach. Just another faded rocker, touring for the fogies in a low-overhead “unplugged” format, perhaps…
Intensely India
Tom Stoppard’s astonishing mind, devastating wit and seemingly godlike knowledge of just about everything in the history of man are evident in Indian Ink, Main Street Theater’s season opener. Exotic, erotic and deeply romantic, this halfway successful play, directed by Rebecca Greene Udden, is filled with some absolutely grand moments…
Chicken Soup for the Cajun Soul
Most people know New Orleans restaurants via the upscale culinary temples that have made Creole cuisine famous, places such as Commander’s Palace, Galatoire’s and Brennan’s. These luxurious places are renowned for their elaborate preparations and rich sauces such as meunière and hollandaise. New Orleans neighborhood joints, though, are another thing…
Taken By Storm
In 1900, Galveston was a bustling port city, racing neck and neck with Houston for supremacy on the Gulf Coast. But on September 8, 1900, Galveston was destroyed. A hurricane struck the unprepared city, killing 8,000 people. The natural disaster remains the deadliest in American history. Author Erik Larson, a…
Hot Plate
But It Hurts So Good: The high-intensity Chocolate Suicide Cake concocted by the Phoenix Bakery and Coffee House in Galveston [2228 Ships Mechanic, (409)763-4611] poses a triple-layered threat of death by chocolate. Velvety layers of moist, dark chocolate cake alternate with devilish stripes of bittersweet chocolate mousse and semisweet chocolate…
Desert Gold
There is nothing gratifying about watching a bullet blast through a woman’s skull. Exploding helicopters and splattered cattle are utterly indefensible. And few would smile at the image of a little boy being obliterated by a flashy missile. So why is David O. Russell’s Three Kings such rousing entertainment? This…
Murfreesboro Rocks
Murfreesboro, an easygoing semi-city, is home to Middle Tennessee State University, which in turn houses something called the Recording Industry Management program. In this college town, rock and roll is no longer a lifestyle. It’s a career. RIM attracts the young creative types who are remaking this part of Tennessee…
Luck of the Puck
The premise is preposterous, the final score inevitable, and the record reading on the feel-good-ometer is totally predictable. But Mystery, Alaska comes furnished with some winning quirks and charms, including a very funny bit concerning premature ejaculation at 20 degrees below zero. So even if you don’t really believe that…
Redemption Rap
When Maurice Williams, better known in local rap circles as Nuwine, was just six months old, he was kicked out of a day-care center. “I was bad from day one, man,” Williams says. “I can’t remember it, but my mama does.” Sitting in the Galleria’s Cheesecake Factory one crowded Thursday…
Senior Fling
Ah, May-December romance! It’s a grand old tradition in movies going back to Daddy Longlegs, and it’s almost always a male fantasy: With the exception of a very small handful of titles, it’s the guy who’s December and the girl who’s May. And even in that small handful, the older…
Fresh Pavement
In the entertainment world, there are natural stars and there are reluctant stars. Stephen Malkmus, leader of Pavement, is that rare person who falls squarely in the middle. He is polite, charming, well-read, articulate and adept at making people feel comfortable while speaking his mind. It comes easily to him…
Hark Felt
A rich mix of action, fable and modern comedy mark the animated Chinese Ghost Story as kin to kung fu director Tsui Hark’s live martial arts movies, but the magic, movement and raw visual poetry of this animated feature make this ghost story unique. The anime, animation and Hong Kong…
Jazz Warrior
For about three decades, Malcolm Pinson has been a fixture on Houston’s jazz scene, a keeper of the bebop flame. “I won’t play anything psychedelic,” Pinson says. “If it’s not straight-ahead, I don’t want to hear it. They’ve been playing [bebop] for 50 years, and how long has classical music…
Those Crazy Kids
The fact that Drive Me Crazy is actually based on a novel (How I Created My Perfect Prom Date, by Todd Strasser) is a sadder comment on the state of contemporary young adult fiction than anything else. Not that the story’s all that bad, but it seems like intellectual bankruptcy…
Waldhauser Surrenders
Convicted contract killer Walter Waldhauser Jr., who changed his name to Michael Lee Davis, is in the Dallas County Jail after surrendering to authorities last week following a recent series of Houston Press articles on questionable dealings of his Dallas viatical company. Waldhauser/Davis, 45, and 32 other people were indicted…