Mate and Match
Tim Rice’s rock musical Chess has inspired several workaday people to fabricate whole Web sites dedicated to the show. Cyberwriters such as “Jamie” and “Hannah” wax on with astonishing passion, saying things like it’s “the best show in the world (in my opinion anyway)” and “I decided to build a…
Fire Breather with a Sax
There’s a new monster in town. His name is Carlos Garnett, and he’s one of the most intense saxophonists on the jazz scene. Garnett, whose lofty credentials include high-profile associations with Miles Davis and Art Blakey, moved to Katy in May. But his arrival wasn’t met with the kind of…
Ransom Notes
No one likes to be seen as the roadblock to a revolution. The unfortunate soul–or the dumb bastard–who chooses to impede progress is likely to be mowed down by those charging toward tomorrow. He will become a thing to be wiped off the shoes of those who march, march, march…
Merle Haggard
The rock crit party line on the new Merle Haggard CD goes something like this: As with Johnny Cash when he cut American Recordings with Rick Rubin, Haggard now also signs with a streetwise rock label, and makes a breakthrough album that gains him heroic stature with the trendies. But…
Epic Grids
Jennifer Bartlett has formed an unholy alliance with the grid, some sort of Faustian pact to renounce all other forms of composition in exchange for financial success in the art world. Judging from the grid-based works and the six-figure price tags at Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, she and the…
Sonny Stitt & His Electric Saxophone / Stan Getz
Legendary jazz producer Joel Dorn in recent years has become quite the detective. After resurrecting many long-lost albums for the CD age at 32 Jazz and then moving on to Label M, he reached a personal goal of acquiring the rights to the live recordings of the Left Bank Jazz…
Like a Virgin
Sweeps month has arrived yet again, meaning the local TV news outfits are desperately vying for viewers. We have another Wayne Dolcefino investigation from KTRK, we have the obligatory prostitute story (this time from KHOU’s Mexico City bureau), and we have KPRC hyping the public heath hazard of cellular phones…
John McLaughlin / Remember Shakti
John McLaughlin is a restless musician. He changes musical surroundings frequently, always seeking a new challenge. Few musicians have attempted, let alone successfully covered, as much territory as McLaughlin. As his two latest CDs reveal, the 58-year-old guitarist not only is still vital in whatever genre he chooses to play,…
Letters
Boiled by Oil Lube job: Well, finally somebody’s blown the whistle on America’s biggest thieves: oil companies [“Paying the Price” and “Pumped Dry,” by Bob Burtman, October 26 and November 2]. Thanks, Mr. Burtman. When I worked for Texaco in the late 1960s, it was obvious they were fucking their…
StarFX
Bands, especially new local bands, that aim for the commercial end of popular music often end up inadvertently setting themselves up for the big knockdown. For where some might be able to get away with certain creative or sonic flaws simply because: a) they’re “artists”; and/or b) the geographic scope…
Complex Reading
Junot Díaz describes the collaborative reading he’ll be giving with the novelist Chang-rae Lee as: “My God, you couldn’t think of two people writing in a more different tradition.” Díaz grew up in the Dominican Republic; Lee emigrated from North Korea when he was three. The former writes the edgy,…
Dick Dale
Remember the opening scene of Pulp Fiction? Pumpkin and Honey Bunny debate the merits of sticking up coffee shops versus convenience stores before jumping up from the booth with drawn guns. The soundtrack cuts to the opening credits and a mysterio double-picked guitar instrumental. The instrumental is “Misirlou.” The guitarist…
Hollywood Watch
A poet “on watch,” according to author and filmmaker Angela Williamston, is a lyricist on the lookout for anything that can’t be trusted — the government, local politicians or even our own emotions. In Blowin’ Up a Spot Film Fest: A Woman’s Perspective 2000, Williamston is keeping her eye on…
Honor Roles
November may mean Thanksgiving to most of you, but in the film biz it means a rush of “serious” films trying to gouge an impression into the short memories of Oscar voters. This shouldn’t be a bad thing, but since the relationship between “Oscar” and “actual interesting filmmaking” is nearly…
Trading Places
Houston’s hot restaurant scene involves not just new restaurants starting up and old ones closing, but restaurants changing hands as well. In that form of enterprise, one of the major players is Charles V. Miller, of Charles V. Miller and Associates [2918 Crest Park, (281)597-8400]. He has brokered or located…
Likable Losers
Somewhere near the halfway mark of The Broken Hearts Club, the latest gay romantic comedy (they really seem to be piling up these days) comes a not-unexpected scene where a rock-solidly avuncular/maternal older man (John Mahoney) tells a tremulously insecure younger one (Ben Weber) the “message” that’s at this film’s…
Fusion on the Other Side of the World
Michael Potowski, manager and executive chef at Rickshaw [2810 Westheimer, (713)942-7272], is a genuine exponent of Asian/ European cuisine. With a Japanese mother and a Lithuanian father, Potowski grew up in Japan and studied cooking in Japan and the United States, including study at the Conrad N. Hilton College of…
Future Shock
For decades Texas and other states treated the mentally ill by giving them “asylum” in a hospital or institution. That changed in the 1960s, when the federal government began funding construction of community mental health centers. Today 38 local agencies receive funding for indigent care each year from the Texas…
The Price of Perfection
In a world fraught with ambiguity and doubt, one thing can be stated with absolute certainty: Teuscher champagne truffles are the finest chocolates on the planet. A buttercream core flavored with Dom Pérignon champagne is surrounded by a layer of exceptionally flavorful dark chocolate whipped with cream and butter; the…
The Way Back
Bruce Stohr didn’t know it at the time, but his mental illness first came on when he was in high school. Even for a hormonal teenager, Stohr was emotionally unpredictable and unusually antisocial. He didn’t hang out, play sports or date. At his worst moments, Stohr thought about suicide. “I…
Stirred and Shaken
An e-mail from a bachelorette informs me that I am hanging out in all the wrong places on Thursday nights. I meet her at Sambuca Jazz Cafe downtown. The place is hopping, and the informant turns out to be a tall blond in a little black dress. She and her…
Not Your Standard Issue
“This was our old building,” said Mardie Oakes. She was driving down Lyons Avenue, where weedy lots alternate with tumble-down buildings, and she pointed to a rickety heap that seemed supported mainly by its faux-stone facade. “I used to have squirrels in my office there,” she said. “And I’d find…
Born Again
Steve Earle entered the ’90s with a monkey on his back and left them with a tiger by the tail. Where 1990 found him engaging in his own slow, illegal, lethal injections (to the tune of $500 to $800 a day), he now rails against those who would do the…
Sew What?
A few weeks ago a young man in Dallas decided to watch a little television. After casually flipping around stations, he came across a program on the Discovery Channel called Cracking the Con Game. The show detailed different swindles and frauds perpetrated by scam artists across the country. One classic…
A Newer, Hipper Gospel
If you talk to the average person off the street about gospel music (that is, if you can get somebody off the street to talk about gospel music with you), they’ll probably say that listening to gospel is just about as uncool as listening to opera, or ‘N Sync. Some…
She Doth Protest Too Much?
It was the last day of school in May, and third-grade teacher Gloria Rubac just wanted to go home, drink a margarita and crash. But Gary Graham needed her help. A coordinator for an anti-death-penalty group, Rubac put on a T-shirt showing the condemned convict smack inside a green state…
Midnight Riders
You wouldn’t normally associate the phrase “jacket required” with a concert titled “Gregg Allman and Friends,” but the gravelly-voiced singer and keyboardist hopes to find at least one waiting for him during this stop in Houston, where he got to sample some of the city’s nightlife while filming his small…
Stealing a Look
Louis Haynes was puzzled the first time he noticed that the lights were out on the school zone traffic sign at J. Will Jones Elementary. Maintenance crews opened the metal box attached to the sign pole and quickly diagnosed the problem. The low-voltage battery, which stores electricity from solar panels…
Catch Us If You Can
Steve Chesser waited until after his children had gone to school that September 1 morning. Then he beat his wife, Maria, very carefully — he knew how to do it so that nothing would show — tied her up with duct tape, held a gun to her head and said…
Of Love and Hate
Despite landing a $13 million contract from the Pat Buchanan presidential campaign to create and place political ads for the Reform Party candidate, Houston’s little-known Love Advertising seems remarkably reticent about showing off its product to the homefolk. That may be because some of the TV ads pitch anti-immigration themes…
Getting to the Soul of Houston
Two ham hocks are commingling their steamy juices with the soupy boiled cabbage on my plate. The lady behind the serving line at Alfreda’s Cafeteria on Almeda asked me if I wanted the cabbage in a separate bowl. I assured her I did not. The sweet potatoes and red beans,…