Too Hot to Handle
The sign in the window of the Fire + Ice “improvisational grill” (2801 Kirby Drive, 713-522-4500) was one of the strangest to appear on a newly shuttered restaurant. Addressed to “Houston,” the message read: “Your city was just to [sic] darn ‘hot’ for us, so we’re going back to Bean…
Clear Your Mind
As the car reaches the crest of the eastbound 610 Loop overpass high above the Gulf Freeway, I am confronted with an utterly unexpected sight: immense refineries to the east and south, their cracking towers like organ pipes strung with Christmas lights, huge smokestacks billowing steam and petrochemical funks into…
No Need for Nashville
The music game is one that puts a firm accent on youthfulness, especially these days. But some artists happen to be late bloomers. And 41-year-old Texas singer-songwriter Houston Marchman is one of those who, in his own estimation, has just now arrived. With the songs he’s writing these days, Marchman…
Napster’s Spawn
For all the success the record industry had bludgeoning Napster into compliance, it may have created more problems than it solved. That’s because even as Napster has faded into Internet history, a phalanx of successors has marched on the scene. Already they’re garnering the same popularity Napster once enjoyed, using…
Emo-tional Music
The past couple of years have not been kind to Montrose music venues. The Blue Iguana was torn down and replaced by a branch bank. The spot formerly known as Instant Karma has been idle except for the blink-and-you-missed-it existence of what Racket guesses was a club called the Purple…
Swingin’ in the New Year
Meet the Cosbys — Walt and Chris, not Bill and Camille. They are a loving couple (34 years together now), joint entrepreneurs and pillars of their community. Then there’s the fact that they swing about as hard as a horny-ass Tarzan looking for Jane in the jungle. Walt and Chris…
Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley
Damian Marley, the 24-year-old son of Robert Nesta and Jamaica’s 1977 Miss World, Cindy Breakspeare, has his father’s dreads, his mother’s pretty face and a raspy, just-out-of-bed vocal style all his own. But it took a village to raise his 16-track sophomore outing, Halfway Tree. Like all well-loved children, it’s…
Jerry Lightfoot’s Band of Wonder with Vince Welnick and Carolyn Wonderland
Occasionally there’s something more for the earnest music fan, something beyond the pleasures inherent in a well-written, effectively performed album. It’s the sense of deep satisfaction triggered by recognizing a favorite player’s positive evolution from one project to the next. It’s the thrill that comes from watching talent and passion…
DJ Peretz
Somehow, some way, Perry Farrell, the starry-eyed front man for both Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros and mastermind of that legendary alt-rock road show Lollapalooza, has now convinced himself — and a few celebrities — that he’s a bona fide spin man. Last September, he premiered his DJ persona…
Riding Short
As captain of the first engine to arrive at the Four-Leaf Towers before dawn on October 13, Jay Paul Jahnke had to make a tough call. Flames engulfed a fifth-floor corner apartment in the west tower and pitched wildly in the blustery air, hungrily lapping at the floors above. Startled…
Get a Clue
Who would have guessed that 31 years after M*A*S*H, the film that made Robert Altman’s reputation, he would still be turning out movies as good as his latest release, Gosford Park? Full of the director’s usual energy, powered by the sense of controlled chaos that marks all of his ensemble…
Grassroots Campaign
Thirty years ago, Stephen Hale was arrested for possessing marijuana. Three years ago, his law license was suspended for delivering it. Now the Galveston County district attorney is retiring, so Hale is running for that office on a platform to free the weed. Legally, he can’t refuse to prosecute such…
A Real Howler
Attended by a rather sexy air of intrigue, the hit French film Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des Loups) has arrived upon our shores, and refreshingly, it’s left up to us to figure out just what the hell it is. Monster movie? Costume drama? Martial arts extravaganza? To say…
Political Flights of Fancy
Last-minute changes in political travel plans by two candidates have some local Democrats clapping their hands with glee, while Republican counterparts are scratching their heads in puzzlement. Just minutes before the filing deadline last week, former Texas attorney general Dan Morales made a surprise decision to run for governor instead…
Come Together, Right Now
Bill Viola’s Ascension (2000) is one of those pitch-black video installations where you have to feel your way gingerly into complete darkness. Then, a figure descends onto the screen. In slowed time, he enters the darkened water feet first, his shirt and pants flowing out around him, his arms outstretched…
Top Ten of 2001
No year can end without a summary of the top ten stories of the previous 12 months. Helpfully taking up lots of space in the holiday-season news slump, these quick and easy pieces (almost no assembly required!) are skimmed over by readers checking the ads for post-Christmas bargains. The Houston…
Proof Positive
Out of the mysterious variables of love comes David Auburn’s Proof, a stunning script that has garnered both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award since its 2000 premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City. It has since moved on to Broadway, with Jennifer Jason Leigh in…
Wading It Out
Wading It Out Few flood options: A big thank-you to Brian Wallstin and the Houston Press for keeping the plight of White Oak Bayou-area residents before the public [“Damage Control,” December 13, and “Out of Control,” December 20]. First there’s the trauma of the flood, then the exhaustion — physical…
A Few of My Favorite Things
Let’s see… If I were to create the perfect dessert, what might it be? Well, I’d start with some bread pudding, then maybe add some raspberries and white chocolate and, oh, yes, hot butterscotch caramel sauce. On top of all that I’d place a dollop (large, of course) of Chantilly…
Good Chomanship
Born in San Francisco in 1968, Margaret Cho was raised in the Polk-Haight area by a tribe of trannies (the more politically correct yet hip version of the nearly epithetical “drag queen”). While her parents ran their own bookstore (her mother was in charge of the gay porn section), a…
Raw Talent
Tuna: $2 Giant clam: $4 Sea urchin: $4 Flying fish roe with quail egg: $2.50 Sushi roll combination: $15 Chirashi: $23 Chicken udon soup: $8
Thus Spake Qwfwq
Pinning someone down in an interview can be a bit like making a discovery in an archeological dig. You can sift and pick and brush for hours, and be lucky to walk away with a shard to show for it. Take, for example, the spelling of Museum of the WeirD…