Fenix*TX Rising
The boys of Fenix*TX are a reminder of the inconsistencies in life, how nothing is ever cast in shades of black or white. They conjure up images of a drunken young doofus who hangs up beer adverts in his room with all the reverence and devotion of a Tibetan lama…
Clinic at Death’s Door
Michael Venator slumped in a chair in his AVES clinic director’s office in a medical high-rise just off the Southwest Freeway at Weslayan. Outside his door, staffers bustled about serving the mostly indigent Hispanic patients infected with HIV. In March 1999 he helped launch the Amigos Volunteers in Education and…
A Spanking Good Time
We start off this column with Martin, a man who just likes to be referred to as… Martin. Who is Martin, you ask? Martin is the owner/manager of DareWare, the popular fetish/bondage/sex retail palace on Westheimer. “People just know me as Martin from DareWare,” he claims. The same goes for…
The Bar: Still Skirting the Past
Three decades ago, a woman wearing a pantsuit in a Houston courtroom might have been considered mildly controversial. But as feminism found its way into the good ol’ boy legal system, dress codes relaxed. A new generation of Houston women lawyers, including legendary divorce attorney Burta Raborn, argued their cases…
Eric Clapton
Each new Eric Clapton release raises fears that he will have finally crossed the line into pure adult-contemporary music, that last purple stop on the musical spectrum before Muzak’s invisible ultraviolet. The watch, however, can be put on hold for at least one more cycle. Reptile carries its fair share…
Wild on the Web
The hacked-off, laid-off staffers who used to work at CNN have begun a Web site, www.tedsturnovers.com, that’s full of rumors, vitriol and job-hunting tips. Since it also includes links to plenty of nude photos of new CNN anchor Andrea Thompson, a former actress, the site has gotten loads of traffic…
Dave Matthews Band
If you’re a fan of the Dave Matthews Band’s loose, collaborative approach to free-flowing, upbeat jams, you’ll likely be disappointed by its latest, Everyday. The new record is like fat-free cheese: a rubbery, tasteless imitation of the rich original. All the same players are there, but the thrill is gone…
The Product
Heath Ledger, wearing the scowl of the anxious and uneasy, is having trouble standing still. He most certainly would rather be anywhere but here: killing time in a TV studio, waiting to be interviewed during a live afternoon newscast. Waiting to promote his new movie. Waiting to assume the guise…
Lupe Olivarez
By choosing Sin Miedo (“Without Fear”) as the title of his solo debut and using a stylized illustration of an evil-eye talisman on its cover, Lupe Olivarez symbolizes his hope for a seamless transition into uncharted territory. Still, the Basics grad hasn’t gone off on some quirky tangent now that…
Letters
Cough It Up Popular poison: The “Lean and Mean” article [by Jesse Washington, April 26] about codeine use was very interesting. I’ve been hearing about “syrup” and hadn’t really cared to look into why it was so popular. Thanks for a very informative story. Deborah Fields Houston Vindicating Voigt Werner’s…
Playbill
Pity poor John Mayall. While the tireless 67-year-old Korean War vet is rightly credited with helping to spearhead the British blues boom of the early- to mid-’60s, any mention of his name inevitably centers on the amazing players who passed through his Bluesbreakers lineup: Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood,…
Hans, Hans, He da Man
There’s a new sheriff at the Houston Symphony, and his name is Hans Graf. He’s the man who won’t cop out when there’s danger all about — or is that Shaft? Anyway, Hans is the guy designated to guide the orchestra for the next five seasons. Graf is filling the…
Playbill
Sweden’s Opeth has long been a fixture on the underground circuit, combining black- and death-metal atmospherics with old-school (read: 1970s) progressive song structures and melancholia. Now 11 years and five records into its career, the band is undertaking its first ever North American tour, logging roughly 40 shows in 50…
Couches from Heaven
It takes only an instant to see that playwright Alicia Mena has moments of extreme excitability. “I found this on the road yesterday!” she beams, pointing to the couch she’s just added to the set of her play There Comes a Time…Existe Romance Después de la Epoca de Oro? (“Does…
Saturday Knight Fever
Let us first in olden verse this critic’s cynical curse disperse: The greet unwashede consummethe crappe, Fro Jerrye Springgere to ganggsta rappe; Bothe yonge and olde, ’tis sore pitee, Doth foule thir hertes with drede teevee, Thus slye produceres, with bisynesse cunning, Devysde a shew to pyne come running Consummeres…
Scone Crazy
It’s a pity that the Schlotzsky’s Marketplace [2929 Kirby Drive, (713)807-9800] is the only location with an in-store bakery and coffee bar, because here you’ll find some seriously good scones. Traditional English scones are round, dainty little things served at high tea with clotted cream and jam. The ones here…
The Silent Treatment
On the day she turns nine years old, an Iranian girl must bid childhood farewell. Male playmates are banished; girlish dresses are exchanged for a loose-fitting chador, to hide the curves the wearer will develop as her body matures; and a rigid segregation of the sexes is suddenly enforced. From…
The Weed Eater
A few years ago, in a magazine called Wilderness Way, T.R. Zimmermann gave this recipe for june bugs: Roast them in hot ash until they pop; peel off the legs, wings and wing cases; then eat the crunchy gold flesh. T.R. loves june bugs. Unlike most wild foods, they yield…
Silk Stalkings
Making a fleeting appearance in theaters before its scheduled June 12 video release, Attraction is an oddly compelling indie drama that may linger in your mind long after most of the big-ticket summer blockbusters are forgotten. Writer-director Russell DeGrazier has an unfortunate fondness for underscoring emotional frissons with empty stylistic…
The Aroma of Authenticity
When you walk in the front door of El Hidalguense, the scent of mutton commands your attention. Or is it goat? The restaurant’s specialties are barbacoa de borrego estilo Hidalgo (Hidalgo-style lamb “barbecued” in maguey leaves) and chivito asado al pastor (charcoal-roasted goat). Whether it’s sheep or goat or both,…
Character Assassination
A severed penis in the freezer is only the beginning of Betty’s troubles during her harrowing vacation. Her trip, which makes Dante’s seem like a pleasant stroll, is a roller-coaster ride to hell and back in Betty’s Summer Vacation at Stages Repertory Theatre. Beware, sensitive theatergoer: There’s a flasher in…
Crouching Parsnips, Hidden Rutabagas
Speaking off the toque: Tim Keating, executive chef at DeVille Restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel, 1300 Lamar Street, (713)652-6250. Q. Houston chefs are regularly developing dishes with products that do not appear in local grocery stores, such as galangal, ostrich meat, blue corn and paddlefish caviar. But local supermarkets…
Confidence Man
A public figure who speaks his honest mind is certain to sooner or later find himself occupying one of two narrow niches in the human sociosystem: wise man or fool. (Within the human ecosystem, on the other hand, he will more often find himself simply unemployed.) A few months back,…
Salad Daze
In the kitchen of the gastronomically impressive Aries [4315 Montrose Boulevard, (713)526-8725], a photostatic copy of a handwritten note is taped to an overhead air duct. It is addressed to the owner and chef de cuisine of the restaurant, Scott Tycer, and it reads in its entirety: Scott I knew…
Mixing It Up
Margie Schneider was driving near her home in November 1999 when she noticed that an overgrown field at the corner of Barker Cypress and Keith Harrow Boulevard was being cleared for new development. Once a rice farm, the sprawling plot lay nestled between three leafy subdivisions with more than 3,000…
Stirred and Shaken
The ratty carpet and neon beer signs were so inviting, I couldn’t resist crashing Susie’s welcome-home party at the Hunter’s Pub [10549 South Post Oak, (713)283-5333]. Susie was celebrating by fleecing a guy at shuffleboard — the winner took home ten bucks; the loser had to sing a karaoke tune…
Picking Up the Bill
For several years, state Representative Senfronia Thompson tried to persuade Harris County officials to create special drug courts to oversee intensive supervision of those convicted of using illicit substances or abusing alcohol. Each time she tried, the Houston legislator’s efforts were rebuffed. Now, as a bill authored by the longtime…
Tex-Jap Jazz
In multicultural Houston, keyboardist and native son Morgan Bouldin has survived professionally by being not only talented but flexible. It’s a quality the fickle business of music often demands, even of its best practitioners. But listening to Wide Open Spaces (Heart Sound Records), Bouldin’s new, tastefully smooth jazz CD, one…
The Party’s Over
The life of the party is dead. Nevertheless, when word of his death spread last week, Bruce Henry Davis insisted as usual on having the last laugh. But this time, none of his friends thinks it is funny. The demise of Davis, 52, was duly noted last week in a…
The Big D
Check out the cover of Ronnie Dawson’s latest CD, More Bad Habits. The blond, flat-topped Dawson sits at a table that’s buckling under the weight of mounds of fried onions and potatoes, stacks of ribs, oodles of burgers and beer, and a giant ashtray full of cigarette butts. On the…
Lights! Camera! Justice!
It’s a stiff market for court shows these days. Judge Mills Lane just got the standing three count, and rumors abound about the death sentence of such benchwarmers as Moral Court. Still, Fox Twentieth Television’s PR person John R. Rizzotti is excited about the prospects of the latest installment of…