Bad Medicine for Bill White
Conservatives won’t let Mayor White “inject” this election with his voting drive “bug.” (See, what we’re doing here is playing off the immunization theme…) Score one for local Republicans… Today, GOP/conservative patriots helped put a stop to what’s clearly a liberal plot to woo senior citizens by dangling flu shots…
Get the Boo Blues
Shoot, we’ll take this guy’s blues any day of the week. Still stuck for what to do on Halloween? Well, here’s our musical recommendation: the Mucky Duck’s “How Blue Can You Get?” party with Texas Johnny Boy, Milton Hopkins and Earl Gilliam. Texas Johnny Boy calls himself an ‘eclectic bluesician,’…
Hell to the Chief!
Photos by Steven Devadanam for HouStoned Images Ltd., Ulmtd. A multi-tasking protestor denounces prison torture while modeling an excellent Halloween costume. As you know, the Leader of the Free World held court at the Sugar Land Regional Airport yesterday, stumping for one Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. By all accounts, it was a…
They Really Are Dynamo-ite!
Courtesy of the Houston Dynamo Cha-Ching! Brian downed Chivas (get it?) in yesterday’s match. As you may have heard, Houston soccer fans are rejoicing after the Houston Dynamo beat Chivas USA in 2-0 victory yesterday at Robertson Stadium. It was a dramatic match, featuring a bench-clearing brawl and a series-ending…
Note to Vince Young: Send Thank You to Kubiak
You got lucky, VY, really lucky… The biggest news coming out of yesterday’s Texans/Titans game is that Vince Young (you may know him as VY) beat his hometown team. Even the most die-hard Texans fans (both of them) had to smile when Vince dropped back to pass, tucked the ball…
Happy “Halloweird”
Courtesy of Luke Meeken and Andrew Negrey Fun with vegetables: Onion Ainoi “We’ve been scouting for about a year for the weirdest films we could find,” says Stephanie Martz, director of Independent Exposure’s “Halloweird Edition.” Anyone who has seen one of IE’s screenings of experimental and art house shorts knows…
Re: A Rush to Judge Fox
Oh Mike, you attention hound, you. You just knew that Michael J. Fox wouldn’t pull an Alex P. Keaton, and would instead fire back against conservative host Rush Limbaugh’s recent accusations. Calling out a guy for being a Dem is one thing. Saying that he’s purposely not taking his meds…
Football U: Week Four
How many other college football previews reference Fellini and Proust? We’re now into Week 4 of Football U, and in just a month, we’ve witnessed the unthinkable: Rich and John have agreed. Twice. Bobby Bowden is spinning in his grave. Wha? He’s alive? Sorry, it’s his “running game” that’s dead…
Football U: Week Four
How many other college football previews reference Fellini and Proust? We’re now into Week 4 of Football U, and in just a month, we’ve witnessed the unthinkable: Rich and John have agreed. Twice. Bobby Bowden is spinning in his grave. Wha? He’s alive? Sorry, it’s his “running game” that’s dead…
A Wa-Bash
Come for the beer, stay for the rooster. If you’re already planning to enjoy a water-logged happy hour, but haven’t settled on a place, the folks at Wabash Feed Store are inviting anyone and everyone to come by their feed shop and sip some brew at the first ever “Wabash…
The Hunt for Haunts
Daniel Kramer A demon/actor (or is it actor/demon?) scarfs it down before scaring the hell out of some visitors. “Are you ready to have some fun?” Jim Fetterly asked me. “Sure,” I answered. The next thing I know I’m being led through the secret passageways of Screamworld, Fetterly’s haunt. From…
Chamillionaire? Aight, BET!
Courtesy of Chamillionare Expect a Chamillitary presence in Third Ward tomorrow. Ya heard? Houston’s own Chamillionaire will be among the artists appearing at the BET Black College Tour stop at Texas Southern University tomorrow. The rapper and BET are having a bit of love affair these days, besides headlining the…
Snakes on a Plane? Try Shrimp on a Treadmill!
Okay, I have to admit, there’s absolutely no local newsworthiness here, other than former Press staffer/very tall hipster Travis Ritter sent this to us. There’s something very “Moment of Zen” about this clip, which is being forwarded like crazy. As Samuel L. Jackson would say, we got some muthaf***** shrimp…
The Astrodome Speaks
You should know that the Astrodome doesn’t grant interviews to just anyone. Remember the news that NFL stadiums, including Reliant, were targets for a dirty bomb attack? When the threats turned out to be a hoax, we moved on. But some other news outlets, such as our pals at KHOU,…
The Astrodome Speaks
You should know that the Astrodome doesn’t grant interviews to just anyone. Remember the news that NFL stadiums, including Reliant, were targets for a dirty bomb attack? When the threats turned out to be a hoax, we moved on. But some other news outlets, such as our pals at KHOU,…
Capsule Reviews
“Patrick Renner: Trepanned” In the past, Patrick Renner’s work has been about visual appeal and craftsmanship. He’s created massive wooden sculptures by patchworking together multicolored pieces of old painted wood. But in his latest show, Renner is trying, in fits and starts, to be more conceptual, with work about remembering…
Tuck of the Town
Every muscle in China Doll’s powerful thighs jiggles as she struts through the massive hairspray cloud in the dressing room. The ladies have just gotten the call: “Two minutes till showtime!” Their chatter about high heels and eyeliner is drowned out by a blow dryer. As Jill puckers her lips…
Why do Mexicans call people with curly hair chinos?
Dear Mexican, Why do Mexicans call people with curly hair chinos? Most chinos I know have very straight, hard-to-curl hair. China Confundida Dear Confused Chinita, Chino is one of the more fascinating homographs (words with the same spelling but different meanings) in Spanish. Its Old World meaning specifically refers to…
Letters to the Editor
A Walk to Remember Brilliant: “The Sole of Houston” is a brilliant article on Westheimer [by John Nova Lomax, October 12]. As an urban planning graduate student, I applaud you. I sent it to my entire class. Keep up the awesome work. You guys need a little more praise. Justin…
Latin Bummer
Publisher: EIDOS Interactive
Platform: PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360
Price: $39.99-$49.99
ESRB Rating: M (for Mature)
Score: 6 (out of 10)
These Dogs Still Hunt
Reservoir Dogs: 15th Anniversary (Lions Gate) Quentin Tarantino’s first film shows its age these days, mostly because we’ve seen all its tricks done far better by now. From the nonlinear storytelling to the pop-culture gabfests to the shameless cribbing from obscure films, everything that once seemed so shockingly fresh has…
Bahn Xeo Buffet
The first time I went to the gigantic new Kim Son restaurant at Bellaire and Wilcrest, it was Sunday around noon, and there was a 20-minute wait for a table in the dim sum hall. So while we were waiting, I walked around and peeked into some of the carts…
The Addams Family: Season One (MGM)
An American Haunting (Lions Gate) Astaire and Rogers: The Complete Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Freak-Out (Anchor Bay) Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies (Shout!) Justice League Unlimited: Season One (Warner Bros.) La Commune (Paris, 1871) (First Run) Looking for Kitty (Velocity/ThinkFilm) The L-Word: The Complete Third Season (Showtime)…
MARFRELESS
Having heard tales about Marfreless (2006 Peden St, 713-528-0083) involving scandal, exhibitionism and hedonism, I head to the 35-year-old bar to see if they’re true. This is the side of Houston’s upper class that I’ve been wanting to observe for years: the inevitable yang to River Oaks’ glossy, bleached-teeth yin…
Badly Drawn Boy
No one’s more British than Damon Gough, which may explain why he hasn’t broken through in the States. If his brilliant score for the Hugh Grant film About a Boy failed to entrance Yanks in sizable numbers, the Springsteen nod contained in his new CD’s title probably won’t reverse the…
SPOOKY SPOTLIGHT
Don’t look now, but that noise behind you is growing louder — and closer. It’s the season to jump at every shadow and run from every black cat. You can drown your fears in drink or amuse yourself by scaring the naive around you. Whether you want to dress like…
Haunts
It was a typical night at The Haunted Hotel in Houston. Owner Jim Fetterly was running around making sure everything was going smoothly. He had no time for foolishness — that’s why he hired actors. A call came in on his walkie-talkie. “Jim, come quick, some guy just crapped his…
Ian McLagan & the Bump Band
Last year when the Rolling Stones played Houston, the Stones guitarist Ron Wood left the after-party and snuck down to the Continental Club to jam with former Small Faces band mate Ian McLagan. (There’s a photo on the wall at Sig’s Lagoon that shows both men in a moment of…
Haunts: Acting Gigs
Entering Screamworld, a group is first led to a queue area where a monster sits in a chair — or what’s left of him. His upper torso is intact, but all that’s left below his chest is his spinal cord. A girl in the group asks the others if he’s…
Sweet Spiciness
The pinkish-brown color of the Mezza red pepper dip ($3.95) at Mezza Grill (6100 Westheimer, 713-334-2000) makes it look a lot like chili, but a taste quickly changes that impression. The dip contains sweet red peppers, olive oil and pomegranate molasses, which imparts a sweet taste. Hot pepper flakes add…
The King Khan & BBQ Show
If baseline three-chords-and-a-thunderbolt rock and roll needs to be reborn, Mark Sultan and King Khan (aka Blacksnake), both former members of the outrageous Montreal punk band Spaceshits, will make great midwives. Sultan objects to the one-man-band label pinned on his last solo project BBQ, but since he played electric guitar…
A Whole Other Magic
Don’t tell Dianne Reeves that jazz singers can’t have million sellers. “That’s not so at all,” she says firmly. “Sara Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald sold millions of records. Billie Holiday, too. Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, Coltrane, all these people sold [millions], and that’s just to name a few.” Of course,…
Ben Folds
Ben Folds’s last CD, Songs for Silverman, is what he calls his “grow a beard, lock yourself in the studio and play for a couple weeks” album. Songs was recorded in the same RCA Studios used by Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, with just Folds on piano, Jared Reynolds on…
The Ten Commandments of Rap
Unlike every other genre of music, rap is always viewed as something you play. You never hear about the honky-tonk or heavy metal “games” — those genres have “industries” and “businesses,” but hip-hop is damn near universally viewed as a diversion or pastime of some sort. But if rap is,…
James Hunter
James Hunter’s been tagged with that “blue-eyed soul singer” label, and yeah, that’s accurate. It’s also much too small a term to describe him. Hunter sounds like a modern-day Sam Cooke (that’s not a name we throw around lightly, but Hunter earns the comparison). On his last CD he moved…
An Open Letter to Nick Lachey
Dear Nicky, We here at the Houston Press want to offer you our support and assistance during this, your time of post-divorce adjustment. You’ve been putting up a brave front, dating busty tarts and launching a national tour to coincide with your latest CD, but we know that’s all just…
A Guide to Recognizing Your Shrinks
“I guess it doesn’t matter where I begin,” reasons the adult narrator of Running With Scissors, the inevitable Oscar contender adapted from Augusten Burroughs’s wacky memoir of coming out as a gay teen in his adoptive guru’s carnivalesque commune. “No one is gonna believe me anyway.” No one? In fact,…
Quack, Quack
R&B singer Raquel Serenil’s first stab at show business was a Star Search audition at age 11. When that didn’t work out, she started making the rounds here in her hometown, Houston. At 14, she tried to start a Latino version of Destiny’s Child called Kloud 9. When 18 girls…
History Lessons
There’s a scene about halfway through Catch a Fire during which freedom fighters — men and woman, each boasting such nicknames as “Pete My Baby” and “Hot Stuff” — are being trained at an African National Congress safe house in Mozambique. Their ranks consist of South Africans who’ve been politicized…
The 50 Smartest People in Houston
Fifty of the smartest people in Houston are waiting for Toby Lightman to take the stage for her 11 p.m. show at Warehouse Live (813 St. Emanuel, 713-225-5483). Smart because we’ve all made it out to see Lightman, the blond pixie with the big, big voice (well, okay, 49 of…
Assassination Tango
Manufactured history guarantees a manufactured controversy: Gabriel Range’s Death of a President, which docu-dramatizes the 2007 assassination of George W. Bush, has been preceded by a long, raucous fanfare. Excoriated on talk radio, damned as a snuff film, banned by two theater chains, the British production has also garnered celebrity…
Money Waters
Money Waters is a natural storyteller — you don’t wanna stop him, even if you’ve already heard it. The rapper, from the Pleasant Grove area just outside Dallas, is strongest when he and his homeboys are venting their Everyman tales of frustration about nagging wives and big-talking friends. (“Fightin’ and…
Simon‘s Star
Simon Boccanegra, Houston Grand Opera’s season opener, isn’t very well-known, even among opera fans. The first version, composed by Giuseppe Verdi in 1857, flopped. Loosely based on a play about a historical leader in 14th-century Genoa, it lacked the qualities that had made Verdi’s Rigoletto and La Traviata smashes –…
Robert Pollard
Ohio native Robert Pollard’s faux-British accent has never been more pronounced than on “Accidental Texas Who,” the first track on the mega-prolific ex-Guided By Voices leader’s second Merge solo disc of 2006. The range of material on January’s From a Compound Eye was kind of like the menu for an…
Capsule Reviews
A Bad Night’s Sleep This crazy-quilt revue from the loons at Radio Music Theatre is really a show about nothing, but RMT out-Seinfelds Seinfeld — and is much funnier to boot. Although one of the 14 Fertle Family shows, Sleep keeps our favorite family gang off stage until Act II…
Andy Partridge
Either Andy Partridge has way too much time on his hands or he’s simply too prolific to be reined in by the confines of XTC, the proto-punk band-turned-Beatles/Beach Boys disciples he founded nearly three decades ago. It’s likely a bit of both; after all, it has been practically 25 years…
Kingdom Come
Too often, big group shows in commercial galleries end up being a hodgepodge of artists, lacking any organizing principle. They’re sometimes sops to artists awaiting solo shows, or holiday exhibitions geared toward seasonal sales. “Beast” at Finesilver Gallery is an exception. The show presents an array of animal-themed works from…
Spaced Out
Things are a little tense these days among the 15 Harris County criminal court-at-law judges. For some observers, though, it ain’t the tenseness, it’s the absurdity. No one is talking much about it, but the dispute features judge Mike Fields squaring off against some of his brethren. The issue: an…