City of Angels
We talked last week with Los Angeles urban expert Joel Kotkin, author of a study for the Greater Houston Partnership on how to keep Houston growing. Kotkin told the GHP (Houston’s version of the chamber of commerce) they should not follow other cities who have tried to attract “the elite”…
Chan Ho(me Run) Park
The folks at Glamour Shots sure can work wonders. Okay, I know that desperate times supposedly call for desperate measures, but Chan Ho Park? I don’t think that a degree of desperation exists which justifies the Astros signing Chan Ho Park to a contract, even if it is a minor…
But He Seemed So Psyched in All Those Photos…
Here he is, once again looking like he’s ready to kick some ass. Looks, apparently, can be deceiving. Well, I hate to say I told you so, but… With the Astros up 4-3 in the top of the ninth inning, Brad Lidge got his chance for redemption. Mark Kotsay, who…
Tony Soprano Ain’t Dead. Now Shaddap and Pass the Cold Cuts
“‘Dis is nice, but I think we’re supposed to serve prosciutto.” I hate to wait so long to fire back at my esteemed colleague Bob Ruggiero and newcomer Mace Wilkerson and their takes on The Sopranos series finale. While both got me equally fired up and itchin’ to respond, as…
Robb’s Review: On the Menu
Who’s got the biggest carrot in the city? Find out in this week’s Café…
Robb’s Review: On the Menu
Who’s got the biggest carrot in the city? Find out in this week’s Café…
Re: Tunnel Mole Heads Above Ground
Courtesy of On Scene News comes this shot of the scene yesterday at Houston House…
Killer Rep
Looks like State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball) is not without a morbid sense of irony. In order to celebrate all the bills she killed this session, she’s holding an town hall meeting in a funeral home. Among her slaughtered prey were a journalist shield law and a bill to create…
Tunnel Mole Heads Above Ground
One thing about the Houston tunnel system–you’re insulated from the harsh world outside. It’s like the womb. The only dangers are ingesting the wrong things and bad vibes from others. So Tunnel Mole leads a sheltered life and was shocked to emerge yesterday to see about a dozen police cars,…
The Marketing of the Beast Continues…
Daniel Kramer All the media-friendly antics have worked: Creciendo en Gracia finally made the New York Times this weekend. There’s nothing new in the article’s 2,400 words, although we noticed Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda wasn’t quoted anywhere in it, so we shot off an email to media rep (and…
Big Daddy
Fears of Children — dude, is that Ronald Reagan? A wise old T-shirt once said, “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.” Obscure film archivists the A/V Geeks are proving that this weekend at the Aurora Picture Show with “Daddy’s Day,” a series…
Don’t Forget the Other Suckie Astros
There really is no shortage of photos of this guy getting excited. Okay, enough of the arguing with Jason about Brad Lidge. Let’s talk about the rest of the suckie Astros. The Astros lost last night. Again. By a final score of 2-1. The Astros are 4-6 for June, and…
The Sopranos Final Moment — Why It Was Great
Okay, I have heard all the arguments about why The Sopranos finale stunk. Frankly, I ain’t buying any of them. I think those that are trashing David Chase are being shortsighted and hypocritical. Before the last episode all you heard was praise for Chase because he did the unexpected. Now,…
Welcome Back, Brad
No one can accuse him of not being enthusiastic. If you want to win baseball games, you should field your best line-up on a regular basis. Sounds simple enough, right? It’s just common sense. And that’s exactly why Brad Lidge belongs back in his familiar role as the Astros’ closer…
YouTube Monday
Good news for Judy’s fans. The preternaturally snotty prides of Pearland are, at long last, re-releasing all four of their studio albums. This time around they are coming out on two discs – Washarama and The Wonderful World of Appliances on one, Moo and Modomusic on the other. To get…
The Sopranos Final Moment — Why It Was Horrible
For eight years, David Chase and his team of Sopranos scribes have been justly praised as master storytellers. But every story has an ending, and—not for nuthin’, as Paulie Walnuts would say—these finooks blew it big time by ignoring one of the most basic rules of grammar: You always put…
This Isn’t Going to End Well
Well, guess what, kids? The time has come. Brad Lidge is the Closer. Again. No, not that Closer. Or this Closer. The Bullpen Closer. I’ve told you my thoughts on this many, many times. I think this is a mistake. We’ve been hearing, ever since Pujols went deep on him…
When Chasing Ambulances, Be Sure to Buckle Up
Do your kids dream of growing up to be personal-injury lawyers? Yeah, we didn’t think so, but we bet they’d dig a new Nintendo Wii. Jim Alder – yes, that Jim Adler, the tough, smart lawyer – is asking local kids to submit safety videos in the style of the…
We Really Don’t Understand How This One Made It Past Our Spam Filter
From a Department of Labor press release: U.S. Labor Department’s OSHA cites steel erection companies for continued exposure of employees to fall hazards at Gadsden, Ala., area job site; Department proposes $123,750 in fines for serious and repeat violations…
The Elephant in the Room
I just thought that you guys might like to know that, in winning two of three from the White Sox, the Astros won a series for the first time in nearly a month. That’s the good news. The bad news: Hunter Pence injured a hip-flexor Friday night. He’s day-to-day. Luke…
Even Superheroes Get Groceries
Keith Plocek for HouStoned Images Ltd., Ulmtd. If you’re hanging out down by the bayou this weekend, be sure to check out David Chien’s new sculptures at the Sabine Street ArtPark.They feature superheroes performing quotidian tasks and are a nice contrast to all the minimalist stuff that’s down there. –…
Space Case
Maybe they should consider sending her into space. It really would be a win-win. With Atlantis set to launch this evening, today is supposed to be the day NASA begins moving beyond its rep as a breeding ground for love triangles and murder-suicides. It’s supposed to be the day America…
News Flash: Berkman Suspended
As I’ve been speculating since Wednesday, Lance Berkman has been suspended two games for his actions in the Tuesday night game against the Colorado Rockies. However, since he has appealed the suspension, and since we are dealing with Major League Baseball, Berkman probably won’t start serving this suspension until May…
Last Night: The Hold Steady at Walter’s
Date: June 7, 2007 Venue: Walter’s on Washington Better Than: Watching a concert in hell, but not much So I rode my bike to work this morning. A few miles down Allen Parkway. 90 degree heat. Black T-shirt. Very little shade. Back covered in sweat by the time I got…
Rocked
Not Brad Lidge. So, up two runs going into the 9th inning, Phil Garner decided to let Brad Lidge pitch. (Hold it, there’s someone whispering in my ear.) What do you mean that wasn’t Brad Lidge? (More whispering.) That was Dan Wheeler? Damn. So, up two runs going into the…
Clear Evidence U.S. Torture Rules Have Been Loosened
Houstonians have been subjected for a couple of years now to the inane first-person experiences of Houston Chronicle writer Kristin Finan, who seems unable to write a story that doesn’t feature herself prominently. Finan learns to country-dance. To surf. To be a roller-derby girl. She takes a trip to South…
Great Story, Awful Backstory
For sixty-four years, the manuscript of this amazing novel of Germany’s invasion and occupation of France in 1940 sat undiscovered. That’s partly because the writer, Irène Némirovsky, had been killed in a concentration camp in 1942. She had been planning to write a sprawling, Tolstoyesque novel of the French surrender,…
Re: And They’re Off…
Voting is still open for our May contest for high school photographers. Click here to have your say. — Keith Plocek…
City of Spin
Be sure to come out this weekend for the Houston Press City of Spin. We’ll have some of the city’s best decknicians battling it out to see who can make you shake your ass the fastest. The cover is free and the full schedule is below. –KP…
Yoko Not Included
Local artist David Adickes, a.k.a. that dude who makes those gigantic presidential heads, will christen a new sculpture of the Beatles at his studio (2500 Summer Street) tonight at 7:30 p.m. The Fab Four will eventually be placed on I-10 for all cross-country travelers to see. Take that, Phoenix! To…
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looks like the Chron’s Andrew Guy, Jr. is a big fan of Isiah Carey’s Insite. No word on how he feels about gratuitous exclamation points. – Keith Plocek…
When Animals Attack
We build, we build, we build, scraping the sky, flattening the ground. Freeways, airports, sidewalks, cities. We build, we build, tearing apart Mother Nature, reconfiguring her into bricks and boxes. We build, whipping her into submission. We build, like nothing can stop us. And then one day a freakin’ raccoon…
Rockie Road
At least this guy keeps hitting… I’d like to say that the Astros have gone a winning streak. That the Astros are gaining on the Brewers. I’d be lying. The Astros lost last night. Again. The final score against the Rockies last night was 8-7. I’m beginning to think that…
How Low Can Lidge Go?
John Nova Lomax nicked this Photoshopped gem off the Net…
Hellyeah
Former Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul hasn’t made much noise of late, and for good reason: His brother and bandmate, “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, was shot and murdered onstage in late 2004. Hellyeah marks Paul’s return, and his stick work is as fierce as ever. If only this would-be supergroup were as…
Mexican American Culture
Dear Mexican, Why do we always think Mexican men drink tequila and sing mariachi tunes, while the women are pretty seoritas? Viva Mexico Dear Gabacho, Mexicans frequently blame ustedes for perpetuating various stereotypes about nosotros over the centuries, but a big part of the blame also falls on us. During…
E.S.T.
The Esbjörn Svensson Trio has managed a rare feat. By dropping rock, funk, electronica, European avant-garde and classical music into a jazz framework, the group creates music that plays well to jazz fans, rockers, ravers and hip-hoppers. It’s the most successful European jazz band in history and the only non-American…
Sagebrush & Spaghetti
The Sergio Leone Anthology (MGM) Sergio Leone made westerns like Wagner made ditties. This essential boxed set — four films with four discs of supplemental material, much of it scholarly and insightful — shows the Italian director supplanting the elegiac Monument Valley iconography of John Ford with a darker, ruder,…
James “Blood” Ulmer
Guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer is a strange duck. Though he started out in jazz organ combos, Ulmer made his rep with avant-jazz icon Ornette Coleman in the latter’s ebullient “harmolodic” period. Then in the mid-1980s, Ulmer began upping the ubiquitous blues elements of his playing and singing, until he mastered…
Our top DVD picks for the week of June 7
The Abyss: Special Edition (Fox) The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Extra Frills Edition (MGM) Bruce Springsteen With the Sessions Band: Live in Dublin (Sony) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: A Re-Imagining of the 1919 Masterpiece of Horror (Image) CHiPs: The Complete First Season (Turner) Coming to America:…
Andrew Hill
If quintessential bop pianist Thelonious Monk was “Fractured Fairy Tales,” then Andrew Hill, the man Blue Note label head Alfred Lion perceived as the next Monk, was perhaps “Fantasia.” An expansive, knotty collusion of the classical and modern, Hill was given carte blanche when it came to recording for the…
Geekology 101
There is a moment early on in “Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers,” the 14th episode of the brilliant but canceled television series Freaks and Geeks, in which gangly, bespectacled, picked-last-in-gym-class high school freshman Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) arrives home from school, makes himself a grilled cheese sandwich and sits down…
Sage Francis
For a quick summation of Sage Francis’s career to date, spin the first two cuts from his latest Epitaph, Human the Death Dance. Opener “Growing Pains” is a collage of home recordings, beginning when Francis was eight, while “Underground for Dummies” outlines in chalk his rise to the top of…
The Torturer Talks
“I think the public doesn’t care about reviews,” says Eli Roth, writer-director of Hostel Part II, which — surprise! — isn’t being shown to the press before it opens Friday on more than 2,500 screens. Still, the 35-year-old perpetrator of high-grossing “torture porn” does appreciate critical kindness when he sees…
Necrophagist
Turkish-German guitarist Muhammed Suiçmez started death metal band Necrophagist back in 1992, when he was only 17. Seven years later, the band’s recorded output consisted of only two demos, and Suiçmez’s bandmates had quit. Suiçmez recorded Necrophagist’s dizzying full-length debut, Onset of Putrefaction, by himself, and recruited an entirely new…
Dan Deacon
Dan Deacon, who, along with some like-minded Baltimore weirdos, runs the underground arts collective Wham City, makes a kind of supercharged electronic party music that has been called “Future Shock.” Coined in the ’70s, the term refers to a state of distress induced by rapid social and technological change. In…
Oh, Baby Baby
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Jennifer Potter. While she resided with her outwardly happy blond family in Los Angeles County, she lived mostly in her mind. When she grew up, she would remember things that other people said never happened. She would use different names, depending…
Illinois
Illinois (Chris Archibald on vocals, guitar, banjo and keys; Andrew Lee on guitar and keys; Martin Hoeger on bass; and John-Paul Kuyper on drums) is an eclectic, eccentric, highly energetic outfit that flirts with a wide variety of styles and influences, while always staying grounded in pop-sensible tunefulness. Their songs…
Halo 3
Publisher: Microsoft
Platform: Xbox 360
Price: $59.99
ESRB Rating: M (for Mature)
Release Date: September 25
VietNam
Mickey Madden of Maroon 5 reportedly financed VietNam’s self-titled full-length debut — but don’t hold that against singer/songwriter Michael Gerner. Granted, Gerner’s a classicist of sorts, but he couldn’t be less interested in making glossy pop soul for a new generation. His musical influences lean more toward folk rock, blues…
Brazos River Bottom
It’s Thursday night, just past eight, and my married Yankee sister and I are standing outside the Brazos River Bottom (2400 Brazos, 713-528-9192). “That’s it?” she says. “It looks like an abandoned building!” “Come on,” I tug her arm and pull her inside. The BRB has been a Houston GLBT…
Maserati
Following a four-year hiatus, Maserati returns rejuvenated and reformulated, with Gerhardt Fuchs, of !!! and LCD Soundsystem fame, inducing instrumental acid trips from behind the drum kit. Inventions for the New Season is the Athens-based ensemble’s long-awaited follow-up to their debut, The Language of Seasons. The record is laced with…
Le Viet Restaurant & Bar
Banh xeo does not mean “slightly deflated yellow football” in Vietnamese, though that’s what the version at Le Viet restaurant on Westheimer looks like. As soon as our waitress set it down on the table, I knew we were in trouble. The appetizer was bigger than the entrées. Banh xeo…
Mail Call
Other stages: I was excited to see that finally the comedy scene was getting some coverage [“Funny Business,” by Dusti Rhodes, May 24]. I was, however, disappointed to find that while the article was well written and factual, it showed a very narrow view of the scene. There are many…
Ocean’s Thirteen
Lowest Common Denominator-ism writ large and engraved in stone like the Ten Commandments according to Cecil B. DeMille, the Hollywood blockbuster is often an allegory for itself. Walt Disney, the notoriously litigious studio that successfully changed the nation’s copyright laws to protect its trademark Mickey Mouse but more recently declared,…
The Beautiful Creatures
“Shadowcasting” is another bit of oddness The Rocky Horror Picture Show has added to the cinema world. Not content to just yell at the screen and dress as the characters (thank you, Rocky Horror, for an occasion for guys to wear lingerie and not be considered drag queens), troupes play…
Norah Jones
In 2002, Norah Jones gave Blue Note Come Away With Me, the longtime jazz label’s best-selling album — ever. Ten million discs sold. Her next, Feels Like Home, reached quadruple platinum, while Not Too Late, Jones’s latest, went double platinum after dropping in January. With her breathy voice, jazzy piano…
Busker Love
Once, written and directed by John Carney, is a deceptively simple movie — a narrative strung together by pop songs, but without the sheen (or arrogance) of most cinematic musicals. By day, a Dublin busker (Glen Hansard) sings Van Morrison on a street corner for spare change, which, on occasion,…
Vicki Hendricks
Crime and mystery writers of the “hard-boiled” school have a lot of kings (James Cain, Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford…) but precious few queens. In fact, the genre of tough-talking PIs, femmes fatales and nihilistic criminals is pretty much a boy’s club. So when Vicki Hendricks’s debut novel Miami Purity came…
Medicine Show No Mo
Not many CD release parties begin with pagan processions. But then again, the Sideshow Tramps (who were, until this gig, called Medicine Show) are not most bands. A little after eleven, as attendees milled about in the verdant, lush beer garden behind Dan Electro’s, a scream was heard from the…
The Wendell Baker Story
The Wendell Baker Story, written by Luke Wilson and directed by Luke and older bro Andrew, bowed in March 2005 at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, where the film had been shot two years earlier. That the movie — which also stars other brother Owen Wilson, Eva…
“A Modern Patronage: de Menil Gifts to American and European Museums”
“A Modern Patronage: de Menil Gifts to American and European Museums” reunites nearly 45 works the couple gave away as gifts — and we’re not talking insignificant hand-me-downs here. The National Modern Art Museum in Paris got Jackson Pollock’s The Deep, a “drip painting,” covered in white drops resembling feathers…
Bjrk
Can you judge a female diva based on how she copes with middle age? Cher has managed several fascinating career reinventions, but generally female artists fare no better than their male peers (e.g., the unseemly evolution from Casanova front man to potbellied leather pants-wearer). Thirty-seven-year-old Mariah Carey has struggled to…
Spamalot
Thank heavens for the Brits — only they could come up with the sort of lunacy that makes Monty Python’s Spamalot such a treat. As the Theatre Under The Stars program says, the wacky musical’s been “lovingly ripped off” from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And…
“Aqui”
The thundering sound of Miguel Angel Rios’s “Aqui” greets those who enter the Blaffer Gallery. The exhibit’s two video installations feature spinning tops used in trompos, a popular game in rural Mexico. The volume is turned up so, as the tops spin, viewers feel like they’re standing under a noisy…
Marilyn Manson and Justin Timberlake
A few weeks ago, on his promotional tour for his new album Eat Me Drink Me, Marilyn Manson decided to tell the world a secret. No, he’s not the illegitimate son of Jerry Falwell. No, he and Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains are not going to team up to win…
Stage Capsule Reviews
It Could Be Any One of Us English playwright Alan Ayckbourn has to be one of history’s most prolific writers for the stage. As of last count, there are 70 attributed works. Ayckbourn loves to play with theatrical structure, usually with simultaneous action that occurs in two places at the…
Ponzo’s
Be prepared to wait 40 to 45 minutes when you order The Sicilian ($12.95) at Ponzo’s (2515 Bagby, 713-526-2426), but it’s worth the wait. Since it has no tomato sauce, this pizza is known as bianca (white). The dough is hand-thrown, then covered with mozzarella, enormous amounts of fresh, chopped…
Ultra-violent Mexican Songs
Violence and Mexican music go hand in hand like tequila and lime. In hopes of furthering cross-cultural understanding, we offer seven significant songs in the Mexican matanza canon, along with the artist who sang the best version and the album on which you can listen to the track. And remember,…
Art Capsule Reviews
“Constructing a Poetic Universe: The Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art” The hits keep coming from the Latin American Art Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The current success is organized by Beverly Adams, curator of the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection. Because the show…
PICO’S
“Two margaritas in, who gives a fuck, my man!?” asks our cabbie on the way to Pico’s Mexican Restaurant (5941 Bellaire, 713-622-8383) as he explodes into a fit of laughter. Mr. Taxi is explaining that it doesn’t matter who has the best margaritas in town, because after two doses, you’re…