The First Shuttle Crash
Long before the Roswell riddle, Texas had its own strange story of the crash of an unidentified flying object and the recovery of its pilot. It happened in the Wise County community of Aurora, west of Fort Worth — a decade before Orville and Henry Wright got their flimsy plane…
Ibrahim Ferrer
You can’t blame Ry Cooder for wanting to try something new. It’s been six years since the original Buena Vista Social Club sessions and almost 50 years since prerevolutionary Cuban music had its heyday. Ibrahim Ferrer’s first solo CD, Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer, referenced the classic Cuban…
Rockets Court Date?
While the Houston Rockets battle down the stretch for a position in the NBA playoffs, another sort of court date may await them. If the Houston chapter of the NAACP has its way, the contest could take place at the Harris County Civil Courthouse. Houston NAACP Executive Director Yolanda Smith…
Willie D
Like Gandalf coming back from the dead in The Two Towers, Willie D strives to lead his followers in the right direction. And if you question his motives, he’ll knock you upside the got-damn head with his staff. Time hasn’t mellowed Willie D, not a bit. He’s still as volatile…
Letters
Foster Parents’ Lament Support the Rogerses: I would like to add a fact or two [“Fostering Abuse,” by Margaret Downing, March 27] about the Rogers family and CPS in Brazoria County. I have personally been in the Rogerses’ home a number of times, as they were the foster parents of…
Dreaming the Impossible Dream
They say that the most segregated hour in America is noon on Sunday, and that old saw holds as true in Houston as it does elsewhere, but here, midnight on Saturday runs a close second. For the most part, the multitude of races that call this city home go their…
Lord of the Dance Music
Just across the street from Christian radio station KHCB-FM, Mark Diaz, a.k.a. DJ Mark D, puts out his own audio broadcast, trying, like his neighbors, to attract lost souls with the soothing sounds of salvation. Surrounded by his technical gadgets, anime action figures, turntables and computer equipment, this 13-year “cheesy…
Jeff Black, with Ian Moore
B-Sides and Confessions Volume One makes a cleverly appropriate title for Jeff Black’s new Dualtone album. Following a roots-rock album backed by members of Wilco for the once-hip, now-vanished Arista Austin label, Black’s latest songs are scraped-bottom meditations on life that have a just-out-of-rehab Tom Waits appeal. A typical quiet…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, April 10 Guys get turned on by watching girls roll around with each other in slippery substances, and President Sam’s Bar and Grill is capitalizing on this bizarre phenomenon with its Pudding Wrestling Thursdays. Girls with names like Tonya, Candi and Nikki don bikinis and grapple with each other…
Club Directory
Aaron Michaels 930 FM 518, Kemah, 281-334-3610. Absinthe If you think youll be able to quaff a couple of the notorious green fairies of van Gogh and Gauguin infamy before painting your masterpiece, youve got another drink coming. No, theres no absinthe here, but there are plenty of other spirits…
Dud Can Dance
In 1997’s The Apostle, Robert Duvall took on a subject near and dear to his heart: Southern Pentecostal preachers. No one would make the film for him, so he went ahead and directed it himself, garnering much acclaim from media both secular and religious for his warts-and-all portrayal of a…
Cartoon Networks
No doubt Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein thought they were doing something wholly original when they started using comics in their work in the early ’60s. But when the two artists, who didn’t know each other, happened to both bring their paintings to the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York,…
Fight Club
Among Anger Management’s copious flaws is the fact that its premise doesn’t wash. Adam Sandler’s Dave Buznik, a designer of catalogs for overweight-cat clothing, isn’t really angry at all; he’s just a self-loathing, introverted mess whose insecurities date back to a crowded street party in Brooklyn circa 1978, when he…
Party on the Patio
A guard is sitting on the front porch of the Glassell School of Art, resting his elbows on his knees in the fading afternoon sun. Greenish light glows through the corrugated fiberglass roof and onto the bare wood of the floor planks. Everything has the fresh-cut-lumber smell of unlimited potential…
Bot Love
BattleBots fans, here’s your chance for a live, grassroots display of might, ingenuity and all things robot. The FIRST Robotics High School Championship will showcase robots created by more than 230 international high school teams. Of course, the folks at FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) aren’t…
Sexual Healing
Then you see a glamorous movie star like Kate Beckinsale tying her hair back and wearing glasses, it’s surefire shorthand that she’s an uptight soul. But just in case you aren’t familiar with all the usual signals, writer-director Lisa Cholodenko gives a couple of even more obvious ones in her…
Hai Art
Rarly in “The History of Japanese Photography,” an important and unprecedented survey at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, there’s an extraordinary image in which a painted figure peeks around a hand-painted photograph of a Japanese man in traditional samurai dress. He holds a pointer to the photograph, as if…
First and Ten (Months to Go)
(Sat 4/12) Super Bowl XXXVIII will land in Houston in January 2004, and the fanfare begins in earnest this weekend with the city’s official Super Bowl Kickoff Party. Lots of folks are already marking the days until the real thing — after all, it’s been 30 years since the Lombardi…
Don’t Go Changin’
While the restaurant may have changed its name from Sonoma to 1415 Bar & Grille (so named for its address, 1415 California, 713-977-7911), one dish did not undergo a makeover: the braised crackling pork shank ($16). Slow-braising ensures that the meat falls easily from the bone while the exterior crackling…
Are You There, Ethel?
Through April 19 at Stages Repertory Theatre, 3201 Allen Parkway, 713-527-0123. $30.
Bird Brains
(Thu 4/10) What’s floating around in Big Bird’s big yellow head? “I imagine a place with lots of feathers and bright colors and pretty songs,” says Bird, as channeled by a Sesame Street Live rep during an interview. “I imagine a parade!” What about Ernie? He dreams about being captain…
Made With Love
Maybe all you want out of your pop music is a few minutes of escape, a radio-friendly respite from the heavy humdrum of your workaday existence. Maybe you likes to hang with 50 Cent, who survived a few gunshots (and doesn’t let you forget it) to party another day; or…
A Spot of Blush
(Thu 4/10) Though it’s only a few months old, the new NoDo nightspot M Bar has established quite a little flagship night with its Thursday-evening happening known as “Blush.” This aptly named event features an all-female lineup of DJs hashing out some sonic grooves. “We’re just keeping it real and…
Dead Wrong
Red flowers bloomed on Rick Rojas’s father’s grave at Hollywood Cemetery — but he didn’t know who had planted them. His father, Brigido Rojas, is buried on a sloping hill covered in clover and headstones with mostly Hispanic last names. A few yards from Little White Oak Bayou, there’s a…
Where the Kid Stuff Ends
(Fri 4/11) Known for his popular children’s books Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein is considered an angel by most parents. Wrong. In fact, Silverstein, who died in 1999, was first and foremost an adult-oriented writer. His artwork and poems debuted in an insert…
He Got Miffed, She Got Even
Sylvia Garcia has been a county commissioner only three months, but she’s already finding the position has a lot more muscle than her previous post as Houston city controller. Commissioners Court has long been a hardball venue for the good ‘ol boys, but the rookie is showing it’s a game…
Wet Noodle
Veal piccata: $14.95 Lasagna: $8.95 Spaghetti and meatballs: $8.95 Fettuccine Alfredo: $9.95 Chicken Marsala: $10.95 Margherita pizza(12-inch): $11.95 Cristini pizza(12-inch): $10.95
War Is Not Hell
As the Bush administration’s Iraqi adventure rumbles on to its inevitable conclusion, the big debate in journalistic circles has been over the Pentagon’s policy of “embedding” reporters among troops. About 600 slots have been made available for reporters to accompany soldiers, sailors and fliers as they invade the oil-rich land…
Grape Escape
There are only 56 master sommeliers in the United States. At 30 years of age, Paul Roberts is one of the youngest. Unfortunately for Houston, Roberts is leaving his post as wine director for Cafe Annie (1728 Post Oak Boulevard, 713-840-1111) and taking a job at the French Laundry in…
Billboard Blues
You never know what new stuff you’ll learn about Houston by reading The New York Times. On March 29, for instance, we — and the rest of the nation — found out that the Bayou City is apparently home to a roving cadre of political-thought-police posses. The antiwar group United…
Weapons of Mass Distraction
Countdown 8 p.m. EST, Monday, March 17 In the lobby of the Radisson Deauville, on the eve of the Winter Music Conference, the music stops when President Buzzkill addresses the world. The face of George Bush replaces the Dirty Vegas video on the big-screen TVs in the center of the…
The Band Plays On
It was close to midnight on Saturday, March 29, and the major dealers in the Houston Symphony contract negotiations were once again at a virtual standstill. Crowded into donated conference rooms at The Woodlands Convention Center, downing pot after pot of coffee, neither management nor musicians would budge. As if…
Distress Signal
It happens exactly three minutes into “Ay Distress,” the first song on No Silver/No Gold, the Baptist Generals’ first album for Sub Pop Records. Singer-songwriter Chris Flemmons wails into the silent night, going out on a high note of sorts: “Cover up the light,” he cries. “You can dream it…
Muting the Critics
In June 2002, two doctors told the Texas Medical Association’s Advocacy Committee that their hospital valued money over patient safety. These aren’t just any two physicians — they are the current and former chiefs of staff at Cleveland Regional Medical Center. And their hospital is owned by Community Health Systems,…
Guilloteens II: Electric Boogaloo
A couple of years ago, the Fatal Flying Guilloteens were at the top of their game. Not only was their punk-garage music synonymous with what was hot, but they had started to accrete band folklore. Tales — not all of them untrue — were spreading in the bars about the…