Short Cuts
When Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, Boogie Nights, was released in 1997, critics and film industry types fell over themselves to designate Anderson the next big thing, an auteur in the footsteps of Scorsese and Coppola. His film turned Mark Wahlberg from a has-been underwear model and rapper into a…
The Goode Son
The sun-dried tomatoes scared me. I was worried that something had gotten into Jim Goode. For years I’ve loved his very Texan empire: the two barbecue joints, the taqueria/hamburger emporium, the seafood place, the retail store. The restaurants’ food is a crash course in Lone Star cooking, old-line dishes served…
Tragic Sap
“Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub,” wrote George Orwell, “entry to which is reserved for Catholics only.” This sentiment is on stark display in the work of novelist Graham Greene, whose adulterous relationship (with the very married Catherine Welston, a wealthy farmer’s wife) propelled him to scrutinize the mechanics…
Uploading
Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander couldn’t have picked a better time to slip out of town. Democrats in Austin who have loathed her since she changed parties in the mid-1980s were trying to smear her with a Nixon-like scandal involving audiotapes of phone conversations that her staff attorney recorded clandestinely…
The Insider
As a cat, he’d have exhausted all his political lives by now. If he were a magician, his top hat would have run out of rabbits long ago. But hand it to the Ninth District’s former congressman Steve Stockman of Friendswood: He’s proving it’s nearly impossible to keep a determined,…
The Steve McQueen Affair
Steve McQueen was a genuine Hollywood rebel when the term implied more than just showing off your new tattoo at the Viper Room or running at the mouth about the artistic integrity of “independent” films. He was rude, violent, vindictive, zealously competitive and misogynistic — a man who would step…
Foot Fetish
“Is there anything better than a chick in a hot car?” Hudson Marquez asks rhetorically. “I think all women should drive in high heels.” Marquez, a co-creator of Cadillac Ranch and former member of the 1970s culture-jamming collectives Ant Farm and TVTV (Top Value Television), loves hot rods and women’s…
Hot Plate
Salad Daze: The Thai-style spinach salad, $6.95 at Edloe Street Delicatessen [6119 Edloe Street, (713)666-4302], turns out to be a hearty, giant-bowled assemblage of tender spinach leaves, slivered carrot, thin slippery vermicelli noodles tossed with soy sauce, and veritable slabs of grilled chicken — all sprinkled with spicy roasted peanuts…
Platinum Dreams
In an office on Old Katy Road is a black wall-sized banner that reads in big-ass gold letters: “LATIUM RECORDS: Latin’s Goin’ Platinum.” The statement, in a way, says nothing new, as the success of national Latin artists such as Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez indicates. But in another way,…
Monday, Monday
More than 75 people are packed into a dimly lit room, drinking beer and wine coolers purchased on premises or mixing BYOB drinks from their large bottles and pocket flasks. Equal parts men and women sit and laugh together around 16 blue cloth-covered tables or survey the scene from swiveling…
Playbill
Tommy Castro’s advice to all wanna-be “guitar heroes” would probably sound like this: If you all would just shut the hell up for a second, maybe you’d be in a band somewhere instead of in your basement, blindfolded, trying to play the E-sharp-minor-augmented-ionian scale or whatever. To talk about the…
News Hostage
If you ever want to hear journalists get sanctimonious (an admittedly easy thing to do), just ask them about protecting a source. You’ll hear about the “sanctity of sources,” how journalists have gone to jail before revealing their tipsters, about how important it is for potential leakers to know their…
News of the Weird
Lead StoriesIn a November raid on a warehouse used by Red Command, Rio de Janeiro’s most prominent drug-and-money-laundering gang, police discovered hundreds of freshly made copies of a CD, Prohibited Rap, which the gang’s neighborhood lieutenants had intended as Christmas presents for their best cocaine customers. Lamented one gang member,…
Dish
It started as an improbable hybrid of English pub and Mexican restaurant, but once Elvia’s Cantina [2727 Fondren, (713)266-9631] found its feet as one of the hottest Latin dance venues in town, business boomed. Every weekend the tiny floor is jammed with a dressed-to-kill crowd of Ricky and Evita look-alikes…
Borderline
Roy Beene was a Houston criminal-defense attorney who occasionally landed big-name clients such as capital murder defendant Cynthia Campbell Ray and James “Humpy” Parker, a former sheriff of San Jacinto County. However, his real notoriety came in far more novel ways. Beene was gross. It was a point of pride…
Amplified
Like a dozen or so other major metropolitan daily newspapers across the country, the Houston Chronicle ran a story two weeks ago on National Public Radio’s 100 most important musical works of the 20th century. The headline of the story was “NPR selects 100 top tunes.” (Nothing wrong with this,…
Stadia Watch
When Drayton McLane bought the Astros from John McMullen, Houston fans had no idea how lucky they were. Imagine swapping the skinflint who drove Nolan Ryan out of town and dismantled a playoff team for the most generous, selfless man on the planet. How else to label a person who…
A Fine Kettle of Fish
The best thing about Galveston this time of year is the utter lack of competition for the things I find essential. Video store shelves bulge with first-run movies, The Blair Witch Project and Wild Wild West in ample supply. Grocery store parking lots at peak shopping times are rarely more…
Time Sensitive
Cole Porter and Moss Hart’s Jubilee, a bony old musical from the mid-1930s, has been gathering dust for decades — and for good reason. The silly little show concerning the woes of four unsatisfied royals who must rule despite their rather plebeian desires to spend their days swimming and shopping…
Real Life
One year I stayed up 48 hours so I could sleep through Christmas. I’ve always hated that holiday: It’s the most depressing day of the year. Everyone else is out stuffing stockings, and I’m at home eating leftover Chinese food, watching Miracle on 34th Street for the 30,000th time. The…