Jose Sanchez, 20, Porfirio Sanchez, 45, Bayou Body Count Nos. 72 & 73
Two are dead in what some might call a step-filicide and suicide, which is just a fancy way to say that a man killed his step-son and then himself.Harris County Sheriff’s investigators say that 20-year-old Jose Sanchez and his step-dad, Porfiiro Sanchez, got into it on March 20 at their…
Kingwood Donuts
On a jaunt into Kingwood the other morning, our brain a jumble of repetitive street names, we stumbled across a donut shop in another well-landscaped brick strip mall. And while we haven’t made any sort of badge-and-gun transfer from Robb Walsh to patrol the donut beat, we found Kingwood Donuts…
Game Time: Texans Sign DeMeco Ryans, Their Dwight Shrute
When a big sports news story breaks, my tendency is to spend about eight seconds internalizing it and wondering what it means to the subject of said news and what it means to me as a fan. From second number nine forward it’s time to figure out other angles the…
Sampler Plate: This Week In Food Blogs
Each week, we put together a sampler plate of the most interesting links from both local and national food blogs. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below. Robb Walsh: Although he’s still blogging here from time to time –…
15 Years Later, Selena’s Death Still Leaves A Hole In Corpus Christi’s Heart
Rocks Off pretty much spent half our life down south in Corpus Christi, so it was a big deal in our family when Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla-Perez was gunned down 15 years ago today. We grew up hearing her music on the radio down there, and you couldn’t walk…
Dean Denies (Knowledge Of) TAKS Cheating At Key Middle School
In today’s latest revelations concerning the alleged standardized cheating, employee theft, and other massive problems at Key Middle School (and involving Kashmere High), Dean of Instruction, Dolores Westmoreland insists she didn’t know of any cheating going on involving the TAKS test at Key.”To my knowledge, the testing procedures of the…
Headed to Round Top? Eat in Burton.
This week and weekend is the annual Round Top Antiques Fair, a gigantormous event that draws tens of thousands of people from all over the country, all looking to score the very coolest in antique furniture, knick-knacks, jewelry, and finds. Thinking about heading up? With so many out-of-towners coming in,…
Coffee Review: Has Bean’s Farmer Direct Bolivia Machacamarca
The UK coffee crowd has been gaining momentum for quite some time now, and we were lucky enough to get to sample this gem from Has Bean, a coffee-roasting and home-brewing supply company out of Stafford, UK…
Anna Garza Reports Back From The Girls Rock Camp Alliance Annual Conference
Last fall, Rocks Off’s Gina Miller interviewed Anna Maria Garza, founder of Girls Rock Camp Houston, about what it took to get the local chapter of the organization, which organizes a weeklong camp teaching girls the ins and outs of rock and roll – from playing their instruments to silk-screening…
If The Wife Is On To You, Of Course You’re Going To Do Your Child-Porn Viewing In Your Classroom
Wives. Amirite, fellas, or amirite?You try to settle down with your child-porn collection at home, and all of a sudden the ol’ ball-and-chain is on your case. Sure, she (somehow) doesn’t call the cops or divorce your sick ass right there, but still, you know she’s going to be watching…
Recipe: Vegetarian Matzoh Ball Soup
Over the years we’ve met many a lovely vegetarian and invited them to our Seder. We wanted them to be able to try our specialties, so we created this soup. The matzoh balls are prepared and cooked the same way as the version with meat (we shared that recipe yesterday),…
A Weekend With The Patriots Outside A Home Depot
Photos by Britney Jackson”Obamie is a comma commie” says the fine print, for some reason. Britney Jackson was just headed to the Home Depot near Gulfgate this past weekend, looking to repair a fence.She walked into a border war.The stalwart members of some group had gathered there, presumably since some…
Don’t Start A Band, Unless You Can Sleep Through Hours Of Pointless Arguing
First and foremost, before we upset our fellow musicians, let’s make one thing clear in case you didn’t pick up on it from the last “Don’t Start A Band” blog: We’re all idiots. That includes us. If you have chosen to pursue the dream of rock stardom or, like us,…
Church Goes After People Who Like Free Cars, Beer And Getting Laid
How will you celebrate the resurrection of God’s only son? Well, if your family is observing this wonderful holiday at a church that’s not giving away free cars and TV’s, you’re a chump!Corpus Christi’s Bay Area Fellowship Church is giving away over $2 million in prizes — without a catch…
The Basics: How to Cook an Egg
Have you ever noticed how the easier something is to cook, the harder it is to get it right? For some, it’s mashed potatoes. For others, it’s soup. One chef told us that egg day was her hardest day in culinary school. She would impress her instructors with intricate sugar…
The County’s Plans For The Astrodome, Revealed
A near-exhaustive investigation by the Houston Press has found that the county is about to announce its solution to one of the more annoying, intractable problems it faces: what to do with the empty, old Astrodome.A lot of things have been proposed, but all have foundered on the rocks of…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes #73 Greek Burger at the Hubcap Grill, 1111 Prairie
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
Jimi Hendrix’s Pyromania And 5 Other Great Moments In Instrument Destruction
We’ve all seen the famous footage of Jimi Hendrix humping, burning, and finally smashing his guitar to bits at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. What not many people realize is he initially performed this act of musical instrument immolation some months before, at the suggestion of writer Keith Altham,…
Houston Chronicle’s Adoption Joke Falls Flat (Updated)
Bloghouston noticed a brief correction on the Houston Chronicle website this morning: Many readers called to correctly point out that our April Fool’s joke on Page D2 of Tuesday’s Star section was insensitive and inappropriate. We agree and apologize. See story on Page E1.Well, that whetted the appetite. What horrid…
Bruglarized: Rocks Off Photog’s House Robbed And You Can Help Him Rebuild
Tuesday afternoon around 5 p.m., Houstonist editor, Rocks Off photographer and Prairie Cadets lead singer Marc Brubaker came back to his Denver Harbor home to find that burglars had cracked a window and entered his home through an A/C unit opening. They ended up stealing two Mac computers (a desktop…
Top 10 Restaurants in Upper Kirby
Let’s leave aside a second some of the things we hate about the Upper Kirby district — the bizarre desire to forge a connection with the U.K. based solely on sharing the same initials and installing anachronistic red phone booths on random street corners, the fact that Kirby itself is…
The Rocket Is Tweeting About His Erections, We’re Pretty Sure
There’s an update in the enthralling love story of Roger Clemens and Mindy McCready!!If you haven’t been following events, McCready is apparently the subject of a sex tape during which she was interviewed and said The Rocket sometimes had trouble getting it up, and that her former boyfriend (actor Dean…
Exxon Leads The Environmental Fight By Suing The U.S. Over Winning World War II
If there’s one company out there that won’t put up with illegal oil dumping, it’s Exxon. These guys are hawks about pollution, and they will sue whoever the hell they need to in order to bring evildoers to justice.So they’re suing the United States, which blithely went ignored all sorts…
Melissa Savcic, Not Jessica Alba But Both Band And Kickboxing Singer-Songwriter
Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group “Artist of the Week,” bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn’t awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. The other day President Obama* emailed to ask…
Coogs Have Pitching Problems As They Face An Underachieving Rice
The Houston Cougar baseball team got off to a poor start to the season. Coming into the Houston College Classic at the start of the month, the team was 2-5, and they were lucky to have gotten their two wins. Then they pulled off the major upset at Minute Maid…
Chef Chat Part 2: Roth Ouch, Donut Jedi
We talked yesterday with Roth Ouch, baker and all around donut jedi, about his shop, Donald’s Donuts on El Dorado. Today we follow up with him about his future donut empire. Eating Our Words: There is a lot of activity going on back there in the kitchen! What are some…
Idol Beat: Hold On, I’m Coming (That’s What She Said)
This is the 12th week of the season of American Idol. We’re down to the top 10 contestants. We’re more than halfway home. In other words, this is when I’m ready for it to be over. This week’s mentor and guest star is Usher, who’s something like 17 times more…
American Idol: Hold On, I’m Coming (That’s What She Said)
This is the 12th week of the season of American Idol. We’re down to the top 10 contestants. We’re more than halfway home. In other words, this is when I’m ready for it to be over. This week’s mentor and guest star is Usher, who’s something like 17 times more…
Stirred and Shaken: Tony’s Corner Pocket’s Banana Split
I might not have agreed to visit Tony’s Corner Pocket (817 West Dallas, 713-571-7870) if I’d known I would end up with my head tilted back dentist-chair style and my appearance examined with a gay-tooth comb. You could say that Sean, the bar’s resident Frank Billingsley look-alike, did not mince…
13 Bands You’re Better Off NOT Searching On Google Images
ESPECIALLY with SafeSearch off. You’re just going to have to take our word for this one, because Rocks Off is more than happy to fall on that grenade for you – you’re more than welcome to tell your boss you really were searching for that Circle Jerks album cover, but…
Fort Bend, You Could Have Had A “Patrick Swayze Elementary”
Fort Bend is opening a new elementary, and they threw open the naming process. Three dozen suggestions came in.Some were old school: Abraham Lincoln Elementary. Honest Abe doesn’t tend to get many things named after him these days outside of Illinois.Hillary Clinton Elementary? It would have been nice, in the…
Houston Cancer Clinic Trying Hard To Keep Under Wraps A Memo Criticizing It
Ed note: This story was revised August 20, 2010. Buried within a convoluted Harris County District Court lawsuit over legal fees is a potential matter of public health — a matter the public may never get to see. At issue is an internal memo — temporarily sealed by the court…
You Might Just Be A Redneck If…You Don’t Recognize The “Celebrity” Grand Marshal Of The Pride Parade
Pride Houston has just announced its “first-ever National Celebrity Grand Marshal” for the 2010 Pride Parade. And it’s…….Bravo’s Andy Cohen?We thought liking Sondheim gave us some gay rep, but we may have to turn in our card: Who the hell is Andy Cohen?He is, Pride Houston says, Bravo’s “Senior Vice…
The Shameless Chef: Capirotada(?)
Got any old bread laying around? Perhaps a loaf that, once you scrape off all the little societies that have been growing on it, still has edible bread in the middle? Well then, I’ve got good news. There’s a traditional Mexican recipe for just such an occurrence, and it just…
The Key/Kashmere Case That May Vanish Into the Void
Investigations are essentially complete into the Key Middle School/Kashmere High School fiasco Superintendent Terry Grier said Tuesday. All except for the part that HISD investigators have discovered that at least one other person and perhaps two were also involved in the multitude of alleged problems at the school and will…
Brew Blog: Samuel Smith’s Organic Cider and Crepes
Rarely do we let sale prices dictate our beer samples, but we were recently taken in by a discount on Samuel Smith’s organic cider at Central Market. We decided to pair up the light beverage with a similarly light dinner of vegetable crepes for your consideration. Admittedly we lost the…
Game Time: Shawn Michaels’ Most Memorable Moments (With Video)
Professional wrestling is one of those things that, if you’re a sports fan as a kid, you probably dabble in at some point. I think at one time or another all of my childhood friends went to the matches at the Hartford Civic Center; somewhere along the way, usually as…
Celebrity Cupcakes
Though Celebrity Cupcakes was included in the Houston Press Cupcake Smackdown, the owners were far from happy afterward. Except for best overall appearance, Celebrity’s cupcakes didn’t fare too well. The owners blame it on the fact that the cupcakes were purchased a day in advance and that they were unaware…
UT Student Breaks Guinness Record For Rock Band 2 Score; Cues Drummer Jokes
A University of Texas student claims to have beaten the all-time high score for Rock Band 2, setting a Guinness World Record after successfully completing all 84 songs in the video game in one sitting. It took Matt Smith, a civil engineering junior, seven hours to play through all the…
No Lard Butts Wanted In The HISD Principal Ranks And Hey, Limit Your Time On The PA System
Principals should be out of their offices 60-70 percent of the time, Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier stated at a media roundtable this morning.Grier was discussing the district’s plans to change how it evaluates teachers and principals, and to Grier’s way of thinking, a principal isn’t doing the job if…
Food and Fun Festival: Houston Press’s Menu of Menus
The Houston Press’s annual gastronomical extravaganza, Menu of Menus, is fast approaching. Last year was my first year to attend and let me tell you, it was amazingly fun. Walking from booth to booth and sampling so many styles and flavors of cuisine was not only a treat, but surprisingly…
Going Gluten-Free At Walmart
At the risk of reigniting the gluten-free debate once again, I mentioned in yesterday’s post on gluten-free pancakes that I’d found a trove of cheap GF products at — of all places — Walmart. I don’t know why I was completely surprised by this discovery, but I was. It makes…
Like James McMurtry? Michigan’s Erik Koskinen Will Scratch That Same Itch
One of the biggest surprises of last week’s SXSW fallout was young Erik Koskinen. Koskinen, originally from Michigan, drove down from Minneapolis to play guitar with Randy Weeks, and LOM met him at KPFT’s 40th-anniversary soiree at the Mucky Duck. We’ve been listening to his new EP pretty much non-stop…
Criminal-Background Checks Delayed In Texas Due To Census
As if that damn census wasn’t so bad already, what with their nonsensical questions and such, now comes word that the Texas Department of Public Safety is going to have to put on hold criminal-background checks because of it.The FBI is going to be so busy doing fingerprint checks on…
Recipe: Matzoh Ball Soup
Today marks the beginning of Passover, or the “matzoh ball soup holiday.” For eight days, Jews around the world groan about eating matzoh, and in turn attempt to hide the flavor by grinding it up and making things out of it. Although matozh ball soup isn’t the most complicated thing…
New On DVD: Elementary, My Dear Iron Man
With his 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, out on DVD today, Robert Downey, Jr. joins a long line of distinguished and, hmmm, sometimes odd, actors to play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous detective. The first name that comes up is Basil Rathbone, who many consider the definitive Sherlock, making 14…
Beyonce Baby Rumors Freeze Internet; Allen Oldies Band Wows New York Times; Justin Bieber, Future Bull Rider
This ROCK SOLID SOURCE claims Beyoncé is preggo. Uh huh. However, it’s being re-reported by publications like the New York Post and The Daily Swarm… so maybe it’s legit? Speaking of rock solid sources, the Allen Oldies Band got a nice little write-up in this New York Times SXSW recap: “Looking…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #74 Jalapeño Gefilte Fish at Rustika on Southwest Freeway
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
All The Taste And Style Of Tony & Carmela Soprano Can Be Yours
A tipster has informed Swamplot that the Memorial mansion up for sale on the Houston Association of Realtors site belongs to none other than Vincent Palermo, who came to town under the Witness Protection Act a while back.KPRC broke the story last year that “Vincent Cabella,” owner of the Penthouse…
Where Are We Is “Grease Monkey” Peeing?
Do you get laid much if you call yourself the “Grease Monkey”? We’re not asking to be flippant or funny; we really want to know for real. Does that work even if you are married? Is there a Mrs. Grease Monkey, who washes your greasy clothes and sleeps in the…
Chef Chat: Roth Ouch, Donut Jedi
Roth Ouch, owner and head baker of Donald’s Donuts (435 El Dorado Blvd.), has continued the trade his mother and father began 16 years ago. We visited his kid-friendly bakery and talked about what it takes to be a donut jedi. Eating Our Words: How did your family get involved…
Mindy McCready Knows NOTHING About That Tape Where She Spoke Of Roger Clemens’ Small, Limp Penis
Mindy McCready, who has both lived and sung country songs, is apparently feeling some heat over the sex tape in which she allegedly screws someone energetically and then, in an interview, discusses the ins-and-outs (or lack thereof) of having sex with Roger Clemens.Her attorney, a Nashville lawyer who claims to…
Was Chris Brown Shopping For A Birthday Party Spot At The Galleria?
Channel 39 recently posted a short video of Chris Brown as the embattled R&B singer visited the Galleria over the weekend. The video is about a minute of Brown, a small entourage and a phalanx of security guards leaving a shoe store and heading upstairs as other Galleria shoppers dutifully…
Rosalio Ledesma, 28, Bayou Body Count No. 71
Police arrested eight suspected robbers and shot one dead during a stake-out gone horribly wrong.It all started at about 4:30 a.m. on Saturday when HPD officers in the robbery and tactical operations divisions set up surveillance on a building at 1200 Oak Meadows, a little west of Pasadena. They were…
Goat’s Milk Butter: The Greatest Food Ever Created?
Sitting pertly among nearly identical blocks of silver-wrapped packages of butter in the dairy section at Phoenicia was this block of goat’s milk butter from Meyenburg. I would have missed it, if it weren’t sitting directly next to the Lurpak that I needed. For as deeply as my love flows…
Second Lost In Space Festival Is April 30 At Khon’s With My Education, 6 More
Meghan Hendley of Solanae and Marcus Gausepohl from Golden Cities announced another installment of last year’s successful “Lost In Space” music festival Monday afternoon. The second Lost In Space is scheduled for April 30 at 6 p.m. on the rooftop area of Midtown coffeehouse and bar Khon’s. The first installment…
The Jerk Store Calls For A Houstonian
Jerks in Your Area is a website that scours the net for postings on Craigslist, Backpages and message boards looking for, as it puts it, “posts written by or about the biggest jerks out there.”Today’s featured guest: A Houstonian.A once-Jewish Houstonian who’s now a “born-again Wiccan.” One who wants to…
Fine Dining By The Sea(Brook)
“Don’t get too caught up in it; it’s just grape juice,” laughed Mark McWilliams, seated to my right. Those are words you don’t expect to hear from someone who runs a successful winery for a living, but it set the tone for a refreshing evening. Anyone expecting a stuffy wine…
Dirty & Nasty Breaks Down Erykah Badu’s “Window Seat” Video… The Naked One
The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place -lots of times, you’re even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good- so once a week we’re going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask…
Astros Are Looking Like A Hospital Ward….That’s Not A Good Sign
Can you feel it yet? That tingling that comes from Opening Day? It’s just around the corner, so to speak, as the Houston Astros open the season and immediately fall out of contention, next Monday night when Roy Oswalt supposedly faces off against Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum of the…
Old Man Interrupts Lovers In His Garage; Ends Up In Jail
UPDATE: San Antonio’s Channel 5 reports that the mystery female tenant is Moore’s approximately 40-year-old daughter. It’s like a modern-day Texas version of one of the Canterbury Tales…Old men cling to younger women at their own peril.Septuagenarian William Moore awoke in the wee hours of Saturday morning to the sounds…
Distant Early Warning: Drake, Devin The Dude, Hickoids, Record Store Day, Molly Hatchet, Mono, Weatherbox, Etc.
Celtic Thunder: Sat., Nov. 13. Verizon Wireless Theater. Dash Rip Rock, The Hickoids: Fri., May 21. Continental Club. Devin The Dude, The Coughee Brothaz: Tue., April 20. Warehouse Live. Drake: Thu., May 20. Verizon Wireless Theater. Fates Warning, Futures End, Six Minute Century: Fri., July 9. Scout Bar Clear Lake…
Where Are We Drinking?
No, those aren’t Icees in giant margarita mugs; they’re actual margaritas. Do these tongue-staining neon colors look familiar to you? Think you know where we’re drinking this week? Leave your best guess in the comments section below…
Pop Rocks: Underwhelming Boss
Working class America is mad as hell. Luckily, CBS Corporation has their backs with a hard-hitting new show called Undercover Boss.The concept is the stuff proletariat dreams are made of: the CEO of a (usually) mid-range corporation spends a week “undercover” in his own company, working an assortment of low-level…
One Performance-Enhancing Drug Roger Clemens Apparently Didn’t Take: Viagra
Come on, it’s been too long since you thought about Roger Clemens and country singer Mindy McCready having sex. Luckily, Fox News has an EXCLUSIVE report on a new sex tape featuring the hard-livin’ McCready.Not a tape with Clemens; it’s with a boyfriend named “Peter.” Explicit sex, rated XXX, Fox…
Why Texans Are So Bad About Filling Out Their Census Forms
The Texas Tribune reports that our state is among the worst so far when it comes to filling out census forms. Only about 25 percent of Texans have done so, and the only places that have done even less are New York, Alaska, and the magic southern trio of Alabama,…
Write for Eating Our Words
Calling all chefs, home cooks, restaurant scenesters, Food Network watchers, taco truck aficionados, Bellaire explorers, farmers’ market crawlers, people lamenting the departure of Robb Walsh and everyone in between. Think you know what Eating Our Words needs? Like to write? Here’s your chance. We’re looking to expand our roster of…
Headed to Round Top? Eat in Brenham.
This week and weekend is the annual Round Top Antiques Fair, a gigantormous event that draws tens of thousands of people from all over the country, all looking to score the very coolest in antique furniture, knick-knacks and jewelry. Thinking about heading up? With so many out-of-towners coming in, you’ll…
Chingo Bling’s They Can’t Deport Us All Makes Good Census; Still Missing Selena
Our weekend was full of political conversations with folks who we never have political conversations with; let us tell you, we couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. We decided we were going to try and convince everyone we knew back home to fill out the census. Three different conversations: one…
Garden Oaks Comments Live On in Cyberspace (Updated)
The question as to whether Garden Oaks Elementary, now a neighborhood school split between traditional and Montessori classes, should be turned into an all-Montessori school lit up the comment line on the HISDConnect magnet department website a few days ago. And what’s happened to all the comments registered has made…
Farmers’ Market Brunch at Te House of Tea
We’ve been going to the Te House of Tea (1927 Fairview) for many years now. It opened at the height of the tea craze in Houston, a time when it seemed like there was a new tea house opening on every corner. We went soon after it opened and found…
Aftermath: The Swingfield Playboys’ Goofy “Martini And Western” And A Lap-Steel Legend At The Mucky Duck
Ron Crick, rhythm guitarist for the Swingfield Playboys, calls the band martini country — “Martini and Western music for the refined redneck.” The septet, who performed Sunday night as part of their semi-regular gig at Mucky Duck, incorporates influences from Bob Wills to vaudeville and the Andrews Sisters to Django…
The Fight To Save The Alabama Theater’s Art Deco Interior Is Broughten
A lot of people didn’t think Sarah Gish would get far when she formed a group to save the River Oaks movie theater, but the theater is still standing.Still threatened, sure; saved mostly by a slow economy, probably, but in Houston you take what preservation victories you can get for…
This Guy Really Wanted A Cheeseburger – Luckily, Paul Wall Caught It On Camera
No doubt headlining your own SXSW showcase is hungry work, so after he and Chamillionaire closed out the “Best In Texas” night at a sold-out La Zona Rosa March 17, Paul Wall did what a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Texans would do and headed to the nearest Whataburger for some late-night…
This Guy Really Wanted A Cheeseburger – Luckily, Paul Wall Caught It On Camera
No doubt headlining your own SXSW showcase is hungry work, so after he and Chamillionaire closed out the “Best In Texas” night at a sold-out La Zona Rosa March 17, Paul Wall did what a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Texans would do and headed to the nearest Whataburger for some late-night…
Game Time: Assessing The 2010 Final Four
I was on fire. As dismal as my bracket had become whittling the field down from 64 to 16 teams, once the field was down to the Sweet Sixteen, I was seeing things much more clearly. This wouldn’t save my bracket, because brackets are like kids — once you crank…
Picnic, Phoenicia-Style
Every trip I take to Phoenicia (12141 Westheimer) for basic grocery shopping somehow culminates in a giant picnic at my house afterwards, owing to the bounty of ready-to-eat food in Phoenicia’s deli section (which is getting ready to move out of the store itself and into its own, adjoining space)…
Ernesto Alonzo, 38, Bayou Body Count No. 70
Police don’t who did it or why, but a man last seen running down the street with a pack of men chasing him was killed over the weekend in south Houston.Witnesses tell police that Ernesto Alonzo, 38, was at a bar near the 13400 block of Monarch Road early Saturday…
Aftermath: The Examples, Johnny Gunhand & The Ramblin’ Reverends And A Middle-School Band At Fitzgerald’s
Aftermath went to Fitzgerald’s Saturday night to cover two bands: The Examples and Johnny Gunhand & the Ramblin’ Reverends. We were sent by someone whose musical taste we respect, so we were looking forward to what we were sure would be a good show. We ended up spending an hour…
KHOU Scores Top Award For Its Texas National Guard Investigation
KHOU’s look into discrimination and corruption in the Texas National Guard has racked up a slew of awards, and today it won a biggie: an IRE medal.The medal is the highest honor awarded by the Investigative Reporters and Editors association; also winning one this year was The New York Times.KHOU…
Robb Walsh’s 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #75 Spicy Armenian Kebabs at Café Rita on Dairy-Ashford
Over the course of the next few months, I’m counting down 100 of my favorite Houston dishes. I chose some because they are such quintessential Houston creations, others for their cultural or historical significance, and others because they are just so damn tasty. Share your own nominations in the comments…
Aftermath: Booker T’s Rock-Solid Soul And Farm-Fresh “Onions” At Wired Live
Booker T has had a hand (well, two hands) in crafting so many pop, soul and R&B staples that the hardest part of his pre-concert routine must be making out his set list. Where do you put “Green Onions”? How many of the dozens of Stax classics you either wrote,…
Fox News Gets A Laugh Out Of Melanie Lawson’s Mishap
Rocketing around the web last week was a video of KTRK anchor Melanie Lawson falling behind her desk during a broadcast.Lawson handled the thing with the professional aplomb she always shows. Many Houstonians know she has multiple sclerosis, so the whole thing wasn’t as funny perhaps as the usual anchor…
Gluten-Free Is Not For Me
“I’m thinking of cutting gluten out of my diet for a few weeks, to see if it helps with my digestion,” I told my best friend this weekend. He laughed at me. “Good luck with that,” he scoffed. “What, you don’t think I can keep it up?” I asked. “No,…
New Devin, Scarface And Big Pokey Product, The Kanye Abides, Snoop
Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off’s weekly rap post. It probably won’t rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Unexpected Fubu Advertisement Featuring Slim Thug That Bites Apple Commercials of the Week Wire to Wire Here’s that Devin the Dude EP that…
A Choke Job By 790AM’s Adam Wexler
Update: Our own choke job!! We spelled Wexler’s name incorrectly throughout the first time around. Apologies.Everyone working in local sports-talk radio probably hopes for some national exposure. Adam Wexler of 790AM got some this weekend.This YouTube video is working the internet and sports blogs this morning, featuring a hoarse Wexler…
Bartender Chat: Randy Eddy of Mugsy’s On Richmond
After five minutes of sitting at the bar, you would think Randy Eddy knew everyone. He’s been a bartender for 16 years and at Mugsy’s (2239 Richmond Ave.) for as long as we can remember. Almost every person who walked in shook Randy’s hand or gave him a high-five. No,…
Aftermath: Alkaline Trio’s Road Map To Gen-Y Heartbreak At Warehouse Live
For a great segment of Generation Y, Alkaline Trio is the sound of break-ups, make-ups and will forever be the torchbearers of the romantic fuck-up. Few recent bands have been better able to intimate the fury of a messy youthful separation. It’s simple and to the point, forgoing vaguery for…
The Week In TV: Time Runs Out for 24
I miss Spring Break, I’m awash in cancellations, and I don’t get your reference to the Cookie Crisp Wizard. This was the week in TV Land: • As I wrote last week in my post about The Office, it’s possible for a show to overstay its welcome and outlive its…
The World Cup Is Coming To Houston! The Trophy, At Least
While Houston won’t be hosting any World Cup games anytime soon, fans of the world’s most popular sports can at least lay they eyes up on the world’s most coveted trophy.The World Cup trophy is coming to the University of Houston and will be on display as part of a…
Where Are We Eating?
So many sushi rolls. So little time. Looks like we’ll be here a while at this rate, not that we’re complaining. Do these heavenly rolls of rice and fish look familiar to you? Think you know where we’re eating this week? You might be surprised… Leave your best guess in…
Too Many Tequila Shots For The Band And More Fabulous Satellite Memories
[Ed. Note: Third in a three-part series. See Part 1 here and Part 2 here.] The V-Roys: Another underattended Wednesday-night gig. The V-Roys had just been on tour with Steve Earle in England and had backed him up on several television appearances on the reggae classic “Johnny Too Bad.” LOM’s…
Baylor Comes Close, But Can’t Pull It Off
It was God versus the Devil. The school with the storied history versus the school with the sullied history. Sampson versus Goliath. A team now more known for postseason meltdowns versus a team hoping to grow into a history of postseason meltdowns.There was the school with what turned out to…
PETA Searches for Sexy Vegetarians, Finds Two Living in Houston
Now that the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is over, those fun-filled folks at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have turned their attention to promoting sex, vitality and good muscle fiber among humans who do not eat meat. As part of PETA’s national search for the Sexiest…
PETA Searches for Sexy Vegetarians, Finds Two Living in Houston
Now that the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is over, those fun-filled folks at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have turned their attention to promoting sex, vitality and good muscle fiber among humans who do not eat meat. As part of PETA’s national search for the Sexiest…
This Week in Deliciousness
Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where bullet ballistics tests on cantelopes, melons, pineapples, and all manner of fruitstuffs remain inconclusive but really fun. We started the week off with a study into the greatest Easter candies, and of course, the title went to Peeps…
Sculptor James Surls Puts A Magnificent Seven On The Rice Campus
James Surls, the sculptor who had seven of his art pieces installed at Rice University last month, enlightened a crowd there recently about his art philosophy and the ideas behind his plant-like sculptures. The seven pieces in the exhibit, which arrived February 21, are entitled Magnficent Seven: Houston Celebrates Surls…
Lunchwalla Makes Planning a Group Meal Far Less Painful
No, it doesn’t cook all the food for you and transport your friends and family to the same place instantaneously. But what Lunchwalla does do — and do well — is offer a platform for you, the constant and intrepid planner, to invite a group to lunch (or dinner) with…
Upcoming Events
Buy your tickets now for our annual Menu of Menus food and wine extravaganza on Tuesday, April 13! Trust us on this one: The tickets sell out fast, and you’re doing a good thing for two worthy charities in Houston, as proceeds benefit the Center for Hearing and Speech as…
Game Time: Sports Fans Everywhere Pour Out a 40 for Chet Simmons, ESPN’s First President
As someone whose business career has largely consisted of working for start-up companies, and whose radio career has consisted of starting an afternoon radio show from scratch on a station started from scratch, I have a special place in the “appreciation” compartment of my heart for risk takers, people of…
The Musical Minds That Made Booker T The Soul Man He Is Today
How good a musician is Booker T? Along with the rest of the MGs, the house band of seminal soul imprint Stax who had several instrumental hits of their own besides backing Stax’s powerhouse roster (Rufus Thomas, Albert King, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding…) throughout the ’60s, the Memphis-born master…
Making Public a Petroleum Club Member’s Libel Claim
Downtown’s Petroleum Club is known for its stuffy, gilded golden rooms where an exclusive membership of businessmen do the foxtrot on Saturday nights and swap stories about the good ol’ days. And Justin Renfrew-Hill, who was at one point listed as an officer for the club’s Young Professionals Association, will…
Dream of Life Offers An Intimate Look At The Newly Widowed Patti Smith
Dream of Life, the 2008 documentary about Patti Smith, opens with Smith’s own narration of the many loved ones she’s outlived over the years. Among those names are her husband, MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith; her brother Todd; and controversial photographer and close friend Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith’s close friendship with…
We’re No. 1! (In Executions)
In its 2009 Death Penalty and Executions report released today, Amnesty International calls Texas the “worst offender,” because — with 24 executions — it leads the country in the number of people it killed last year. In fact, Texas all by itself comes in 7th in the world “trailing only…
Let’s Raise a Glass to Robb Walsh
Eating…Our Words must sadly announce that our intrepid food writer Robb Walsh is moving to freelance status. While he’ll no longer be a member of our full-time staff, Walsh pledges to complete his list of 100 favorite Houston dishes for us. And don’t be surprised to see the occasional blog…
Waiting Room: The Brand-New Health-Care Package Needs Its Own Soundtrack
This past week, the health-care reform debate reached an end, as the bill was passed by Congress Sunday night and signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. At stake was the health and well-being of millions of uninsured Americans who now stand to be covered by socialized government…
Top 5 Vegan-Friendly Foods Even Carnivores Will Love
Bring up “vegan food,” and it’s unlikely your next thought will be “delicious.” True there are a lot of wholesome brown foods found in the vegan world, and the only thing scarier to most Americans than health food is Kim Jong Il’s nuclear missiles. Regardless, there are some lesser known…
Six Canisters Of Radioactive Material Vanish From Truck’s Toolbox In Valley Wal-Mart Heist
A car burglar at the Wal-Mart in Alice swiped a little more than they bargained for last Friday. An unknown person broke into a pick-up truck belonging to ProTechnics, a Houston-based oil and gas exploration company. In the truck’s toolbox the alleged thief found a clear plastic bag containing six…
Fails Of The Week: The Runaways, Pete Doherty, The Strokes And Liam Gallagher
If you’re reading this, you’re either on the Internet, or else you’ve mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We’ll assume the former, and just in case you don’t already know, the Internet has decided that the word “failure” is too long by…
Human Breast Milk – Not Just For Babies Anymore?
To all of you who think you’re up for eating anything, we have one question for you: Would you dare eat breast-milk cheese? Austrian-born chef Daniel Angerer runs the Klee Brasserie in Manhattan. He was already considered a somewhat daring culinary talent who was best known for defeating Bobby Flay…
Geoff Winningham: Traveling the Shore of the Spanish Sea
Hair Balls: One of the things that’s striking about the book is that everything looked very familiar, and yet much more beautiful than when we see it in person. There’s a horse standing in a pasture, there’s a half-empty industrial town or a beach, all things we see in real…
H-Town’s Underground Hip-Hop Scene Rises with Fetti’s Commitment To Catching Every Moment On Camera
So when a man beats you to your own video shoot, there’s a problem. That’s how we really took notice of 34-year-old Mikell Limbrick, the Trinity Gardens representer known to the streets as Fetti. When we filmed the Houston Press Mic Pass (now in its final stage of editing), which…
Wine of the Week: Laxas Albariño 2009
This week, we’re sipping on Albariño. If you haven’t tried Spanish white wine yet, Albariño is a good starter wine. We usually drink Paco and Lola Albariño, which has a nice lime tartness. But, today, our wine gurus suggested a slight “upgrade.” We put down our polka dot-labeled wine and…
Today’s Pep Rally Starts A Two-Month Celebration at Yates
A pep rally at Yates High School this afternoon kicks off two months of events that are scheduled to celebrate the school’s basketball team. The Yates team won a state championship a couple weeks ago, finishing the season undefeated at 34-0. The team was also named the best high school…
Aftermath: Megadeth And Testament Power-Metal Through Irritating Fans
Why would you want to piss off Dave Mustaine? The Megadeth front man doesn’t seem like the proverbial shrinking violet. He’s a pissed-off and generally irritable redhead who sings about crushing people’s heads and not taking prisoners. So why would you want to rush his stage or give him the…
Robert Plant Plays The Woodlands – Finally – On July 24
Robert Plant remembers Houston. In September 2008, the former Led Zeppelin singer and Allison Krauss were scheduled to play the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion behind their multiple Grammy-winning (and downright spectacular) Raising Sand album, but Hurricane Ike had other ideas, severely damaging the Pavilion and forcing that show and several…
Celestial Sandwiches – Day Five
Here it is — our final installment of celestial sandwiches. And though with this entry we now have listed 25 big ones, we didn’t even mention all of our favorites. Yes, that’s how much we love sandwiches. If you haven’t seen them yet, here’s Monday’s, Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s and Thursday’s. Did…
Taylor Swift Madness at the South Regional Semis in Houston
Yesterday was media day at the South Regional, and while the players and coaches got used to the Reliant Stadium court set-up, and while fans got a sneak-peek of just how bad the seating and sight lines actually are, we media got busy coming up with the story lines that…
Me, the Mob, and the Music by Tommy James with Martin Fitzpatrick
Talk about a Cinderella story. At 17 years old, Tommy James of Michigan was a high-school senior, already married with a baby, working in a record store, and failing miserably to get his band, The Shondells, off the ground after a recording a single. Two years later, a Pittsburgh club…
The Office: It’s Not You, It’s Me
At this point I have to really psych myself up each week for The Office. At first I thought it was because the show had changed: I reasoned that the natural growth that comes with six seasons of episodes had moved the show far enough away from its original center…
Who’ll Score Those Dynamo Goals This Season?
The 2010 MLS season is upon us, and there is plenty of reasons to smile if you’re the Houston Dynamo. For one, the players union and the owners just recently agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement, avoiding a players’ labor strike before the start of the season. Then there’s…
The Best Slap-Fights, Verbal Or Otherwise, In Houston Rap History
Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we’ll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it’s either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Last week, Chamillionaire and Paul Wall kicked off their 20-city “In Love Wit My Money” reunion tour in dreaded Austin. It’s…
Health Dept. Roundup: 77064-77071
The next stops on our zip code tour of the city are in 77064-77071, an area northwest of town near Beltway 8. At Hido Japanese Grill & Sushi (17396 Tomball Parkway), a re-inspection on March 22 found potentially hazardous foods being improperly thawed in water. Inspectors also found the place…
We Have An Air Date For Kemah’s Extreme Makeover
In January workers descended on a Kemah home hard hit by Ike, a place where Larry and Melissa Beach have raised a passel of foster kids and quite a few of their own.The CenterPoint lineman’s salary was stretched thin enough without paying for home repairs, but in this case he…
Happy Hour Scene: Darkhorse Tavern
It was sometime during our field sobriety test that we remembered how much we absolutely love Washington Avenue. We were thinking a lot of things when the officer asked us to step out of our vehicle, but chief among them was all the fun that we’d have at jail and…
HISD Employs Shazam-You’re-a-Magnet Strategy In Effort To Save Schools
Under a proposal unveiled today by Superintendent Terry Grier and his staff, Jones High School, for years now one of the most academically troubled schools in the Houston school district, will be turned into a science, technology, engineering and math magnet with a special focus on “green energy.”Fondren Middle School,…
Found In H-Town: A Touching, Heartfelt Letter On The Eternal Verities, Middle-School Style
Walking or cycling around Houston, we always keep our eyes on the ground. We find more stuff that way, and over the years, we have found plenty, enough to publish a full, locals-only edition of Found Magazine if we chose to and could, um, find where we put all our…
The Secret Lives of Peeps
Poor Peeps. Maligned by many, they’re only remembered once a year: at Easter, and not always fondly. But unbeknownst to their detractors, Peeps lead quite a busy life during the rest of the year, as they battle against the tide of naysayers who think that Peeps are sugar-covered marshmallow atrocities…
Can’t Forget The Motor City: Our Favorite Motown Jams, Part 2
Rocks Off – sorry, He Said; we’re still getting used to this whole identity-shift thing – is sure some of our readers think we do nothing except sit around and listen to the Drive-By Truckers all day. To which we say: Have you heard Bettye LaVette’s The Scene of the…
London Calling…With Love
The Financial Times, a London-based paper that covers finances and times, has just given Houston a big, wet, sloppy soul kiss.Reporter Sheila McNulty wrote the article, headlined “Houston: Where Energy Is King.”Let’s just bask in the love….– “With billions of dollars in investments being poured into wind and solar energy…
Food Fight: Battle Banh Bot Chien
Let’s face it: You don’t want to listen to me ramble on about banh bot chien, do you? If you know what it is, you love it with the kind of passion and devotion usually reserved for the Virgin Mary or rare G.I. Joe figures still in their original packaging…
Can’t Forget The Motor City: Our Favorite Motown Jams
She Said has always been a fan of Stax Records, the gritty Southern label started by a white brother-sister team in a movie theater in Memphis. Something about Stax’ organic sound and integrated musical influences (this is the same city that gave us Sun Records) had always felt so raw…
Game Time: Urban Meyer Is A Man, He’s 45!
Okay, if you’re now keeping score at home, in the last three months Florida Gators head football coach Urban Meyer has now resigned, said “backsies” on the retirement and instead taken a leave of absence, and then went “backsies” on the leave of absence after one really good practice.Spring ball…
Alkaline Trio Forges Ahead On This Addiction, Hopes Fans Will Join Them
Popularity can be a mixed bag for a band. With mass acceptance often comes a form of indentured servitude, with each entitled fan expecting the band to continue his or her personal notion of the band’s trajectory, even if that trajectory is effectively standing still. Moody pop-punksters Alkaline Trio have…
5 Worst Foods to Eat Right Before Doing Bikram Yoga
We’ve recently taken up the ancient practice of Bikram Yoga to supplement our neo-hippie health kick. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this type of yoga, it’s the torturous one that is done for exactly 90 minutes in a 105 degree humid room. So it’s basically like doing…
The Dynamo Stadium, One Step Closer To Reality, Due To Elephant Sex
Dynamo president Oliver Luck talked to media all morning about a new soccer stadium, what it will mean to the city and county and Dynamo fans, fun stuff like that. But when we spoke with him, he just wanted to talk about elephant sex. “What’s the elephant gestation period, 18…
There Are Convenience Stores…And There Are Convenience Stores
We have been frequenting a local corner store at 806 Richmond near Montrose called the D & Q. The beer selection here is impressive, to say the least. They have everything. In fact, we would be willing to bet that the D & Q has all the beer that Spec’s…
Dave Mustaine, Johnny Ramone, ZZ Top And A Few Other Right-Wing Rockers
Most people wouldn’t associate right-wing conservative politics with dirty rock and rollers, but you would be surprised. Not all rock cats are card-carrying communists and lily-livered liberals trying to save the sacred animal of the week and converting their buses to biodiesel. In fact, many old-guard rock acts are dyed…
Top 5 Airplane Snacks
Last week, Continental announced that complimentary meals would no longer be offered for most passengers. Starting this fall, healthier meals will be available for purchase to economy passengers. Continental will reserve complimentary meals for first-class passengers, international flights, and domestic flights more than six hours. First, it was luggage. Now,…
Houston To Be Transformed Into District 9, Entirely Plausible Radio Host Says
Alex Jones, the sometimes-entertaining nationwide radio host based out of Austin, has seldom met a conspiracy theory he didn’t embrace whole-heartedly. He’s the author of 9/11:Descent Into Tyranny which, as you might guess, outlines the New World Order’s plans to enslave us all.His latest call to arms concerns Houston. It…
And The Nominees For The Tommy Tune Awards Are…
TUTS annual Tommy Tune awards have become a highly anticipated event among high school drama clubs across the area.Scholarships are awarded, two winners are chosen to go to New York to compete on a national level, and the kids get to perform at the Hobby Center on the night of…
Watch Uncle Charlie Silk-Screen A Poster; Listen To Some Prime Dresden 45
Houston is blessed with an abundance of poster artists: Carlos Hernandez, Dan Castillo, Jason McElweenie, Eli Sebastian Brumbaugh, Summerfest 2010 artist Shane Hillman and, of course, “Uncle” Charlie Hardwick, just to name a few. (If we left you out, please email us some samples of your work.) Like songs and records, the…
Celestial Sandwiches – Day Four
This week we’re offering up 25 of our favorite sandwiches. Below is today’s list. And if you haven’t seen them yet, here’s Monday’s, Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s. Left Coast Chicken with Mustard Blend at Texadelphia – One of our friends, a true sandwich expert, tells us it’s impossible to talk sandwiches…
Astro Memories, Part Three: The Longest Night
Apparently I didn’t get the memo telling me that it’s nostalgia week here at the Houston Press. So even though I’m a bit late, here’s my favorite Astros memory.First, a few things. Lots of you think I hate the Astros. I don’t hate the Astros. I hate what Drayton McLane…
Craig’s Hlist: Our Grandmother Gave Us Food Poisoning, You Get These Songs
This is the debut of Craig’s Hlist, wherein the Hlavaty side of He Said She Said backs off from his weekly HSSS duties to record a bi-weekly solo blog of sorts. If HSSS was the Velvet Underground, then Craig’s Hlist is his Transformer or something. Though at best, it probably…
A Field Guide To The Fans In Town For The NCAA Regional
Wow, having a NCAA Tournament regional is almost like having a Super Bowl!! Hordes of fans come to town, pack the bars and strip joints, throw money around like drunken sailors and appall the locals while keeping bartenders and cheap hotels happy.Except in Houston. Which has somehow managed to get…
Don’t Forget About Ruggles
Ruggles Café Bakery (2365 Rice Boulevard) has been a staple of dessert fans for quite a while. We love to hit Ruggles in Rice Village for our traditional white chocolate bread pudding. The melted white chocolate, vanilla bean ice cream and raspberry reduction sauce make this stand out as a…
Y’all Musta Forgot: Scarface’s The Fix
Houston’s history is dotted with albums that, fairly or not, have been swept aside. We’ll examine them here. Have an album that you think nobody knows about but should? Email sheaserrano@gmail.com. Scarface The Fix (Geffen, 2005) The Fix is the seventh solo LP from Scarface, the album that he recorded…
American Idol: The Miley Cyrus Horror Is Over
This week’s non-drama drama on American Idol dealt with the fact that 11 contestants remained at the top of the elimination episode but only the top 10 get to go on the summer tour of malls and state fairs. I’m actually not sure where the tour goes, and am probably…
To Keep Your Daughter Out Of Jail, What Not To Name Her Is Crystal-Clear
The other day, Hair Balls was discussing the case of Crystal Sosa with a friend.Sosa is a young prostitute. Two years ago, her dead infant was discovered stashed in the freezer of the motel where she was staying with her boyfriend. She was eventually convicted of nothing more serious than…
Idol Beat: The Miley Cyrus Horror Ends; Joe Jonas Disses RodeoHouston
This week’s non-drama drama on American Idol dealt with the fact that 11 contestants remained at the top of the elimination episode but only the top 10 get to go on the summer tour of malls and state fairs. I’m actually not sure where the tour goes, and am probably…
Spring Fling
It was just too nice out to hide our faces in the dark dank decor of the bar, so we made some steak sandwiches with caramelized onions and blue cheese and headed into daylight. Hermann Park seemed like a safe bet. We settled down in the herb garden with the…
Pop Rocks: Men Are Pigs, Film At 11
With apologies to Warren Zevon: Keep on riding, riding, ridingTiger and Jesse JamesKeep on riding, riding, ridingAll those tattooed dames 2010 is already proving to be a banner year in celebrity implosion. The continuing saga of serial philanderer Tiger Woods was good enough, but then the news broke that West…
“Michael Peterson: Evolution/Revolution”
Artist Michael Peterson has been busy in the last 20 years, as you’ll see in his new show “Michael Peterson: Evolution/Revolution.” You’ll see the wood sculptor’s early work, mostly lathe-turned bowls, along with his current works, made by another method. These days Peterson uses pieces of wet wood, which he…
Fight Club
Who can resist Brad Pitt at his most brutal? (Well, except for that time he dumped Jennifer Aniston.) In the film Fight Club, Pitt is a very successful soap manufacturer (soap he makes from the fat that’s left over from liposuction surgeries). He meets an ordinary, boring guy trudging through…
Country Playhouse New Play Reading Series: Radiant Star Paladin Pleione
What do you do when your friend – an adult friend, mind you – decides to become a “magical starlight girl”? That’s the announcement June makes to her friends one day in the play Radiant Star Paladin Pleione by Nicholas Garelick. The pressures of taking care of a sick daughter…
La Bohème
There may not be a more romantic homage to the working-class artist than Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème. The popular opera, set in 1830 Paris, tells twin stories, one about a fiery love affair between the penniless painter Marcello and his sexy sweetheart Musetta, the other a heartbreaking tale of love…
Super Size Me
In 2004, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock did what millions of Americans do every day – he ate fast food three times a day. The difference between him and us is that he took a camera along. The resulting documentary Super Size Me showed some surprising results. During the 30 days of…
Bayou City Art Festival – Memorial Park
With the work of more than 300 artists in one place, you might need a focal point at this week’s massive Bayou City Art Festival – Memorial Park to prevent any visual overload. A good one is featured artist Vic Lee, whose dreamy, surrealistic painting Waiting to Fly, created specifically…
Poison Pen Reading Series: Ed Porter, Jason Koo and Taije Silverman
When Ed Porter left an acting career in New York to pursue creative writing at the University of Houston, he was thinking stories, not scripts. What he found was that the two were extremely similar. “Fifty percent of [writing] is the exact same job [as acting]…it is thinking about characters…it’s…
Stop the Presses
It’s the Houston premiere of Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril, a documentary that takes a hard look at the dire state of the newspaper industry and what, if anything, can be done to shake some sense into both journalists and readers. No matter how you look at…
Harlem Gospel Choir
When was the last time the music was so irresistible, you jumped onstage and danced? Well, the Harlem Gospel Choir intends to get you doing exactly that during its one-night-only concert. Made up of some of the most talented singers and musicians in Harlem churches, the performers travel the world…
Call of the Wild: Cristina Mittermeier
Hear about the earth’s last wild places and the planet’s most endangered eco-regions from a woman who’s been there during today’s presentation, Call of the Wild: Cristina Mittermeier. A wildlife photographer, Mittermeier has taken pictures that appeared in popular and scientific publications around the world. Her latest project is a…
Navigating the Cultural Labyrinth: Latinas’ Lives Explored Through Literature and Film
University of Houston junior Erica Fletcher will be presenting her documentary Marianismo during Navigating the Cultural Labyrinth: Latinas’ Lives Explored Through Literature and Film. Marianismo discusses the factors at play in the exceptionally high rate of HIV/AIDS infection of Latinas as compared to that of their white counterparts. Is it…
Walter Mosley: Known to Evil
Walter Mosley, by now, is more than a writer: He’s a brand, a phenomenon, the prolific overlord of noir crime fiction. The author of Devil in a Blue Dress and more than 30 other books and the creator of the characters Easy Rawlins and Fearless Jones, Mosley recently introduced Leonid…
Screen on the Green: Apollo 13
Tom Hank’s character Jim Lovell says the space mission depicted in the film Apollo 13 was a successful failure, in that they didn’t make it to the moon but they did make it back home alive. Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton play astronauts who get caught in space with…
Chicas de Calendario
There’s an easy way to sum up Chicas de Calendario: It’s a Spanish-language stage play based on the British film Calendar Girls. (You remember – a group of ladies, middle-aged and older, raise funds for charity by posing nude for a calendar, with just a few well-placed baked goods to…
Cheaper to Keep Her
Not to be confused with the embarrassing Ken Annakin sex comedy starring Mac Davis, nor the country music song by Canadian Aaron Lines, the romantic comedy Cheaper to Keep Her is the work of Houston-based Je’Caryous Johnson, winner of the 2007 NAACP Trailblazer award. Like a younger Tyler Perry, Johnson…
Wait Until Dark
Audrey Hepburn was beautiful, delicate, self-sufficient and blind in the film Wait Until Dark. Oh, and she was being terrorized by a group of thugs. Hepburn’s character, Susy Hendrix, is married to Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr). After one of his business trips, he unknowingly brings home a doll full of…
Driftwood
It’s hard to imagine that the Oklahoma Dust Bowl of the 1930s would hold much interest for British playwright Lans Traverse, but that’s the case with Driftwood, currently making its world premiere at Main Street Theater. Spanning 20 years and moving back and forth across time, the story centers around…
Queen of Spades
Odds are, there isn’t going to be a happy ending for everyone in Queen of Spades, an opera by Tchaikovsky. The action follows Herman, a commoner in love with Liza, a high-society girl who’s about to marry a prince. Liza’s grandmother is known as the Queen of Spades because of…
Megadeth
Following his ouster from Metallica in 1983, Dave Mustaine wasted no time in branching off and forming Megadeth. Most commonly lumped in with the monolithic “Big Four of Thrash” with Anthrax, Slayer and the band that kicked him out, ‘Deth has now held its own for 27 years, with an…
Snow Peas
Hee Kim moved to Houston 15 years ago from South Korea and now manages the newly opened Snow Peas (1045 Blalock, 713-827-8900), a restaurant that bills itself as serving Japanese and Korean fusion cuisine. “We called it Snow Peas because we wanted to signify something green and healthy and something…
Capsule Art Reviews: “2010 Glassell Core Exhibition”, “David A. Brown: Trying to find my way…”, “Dirty Secrets from the Cataract Cinema”, “McKay Otto”
“2010 Glassell Core Exhibition” It’s rare (and maybe impossible) that an annual Core Exhibition fires on all cylinders. There’s always great anticipation and excitement leading up to the opening, followed by a kind of anticlimactic dud. But perhaps that’s the nature of the Core program. It’s a wide spectrum of…
Lively-Hood
In far northside Houston, we sit in a cave. At least that’s what 28-year-old Ruben Reyes calls his apartment/music studio. The streets call him Coast. Somehow the cave reference was an indication that nothing about Coast, or our conversation with him, was going to be normal. We were right —…
The Year SXSW Film Broke
The tagline for the recently concluded 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival was “Tomorrow Happens Here,” slick marketing shorthand for the event’s reputation as a test tube for new cinematic trends and a breeding ground for incestuous indie collaborations (most of the filmmakers now associated with mumblecore first met each…
America the Dysfunctional
Just in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s time again for FotoFest, that epic, biennial photography extravaganza. The 2010 version includes nine official FotoFest venues and more than 100 participating spaces. This thirteenth edition of the biennial has proven lucky for FotoFest — there is some really interesting stuff out there…
Noah Baumbach goes L.A.
Noah Baumbach is 40 years old. He just learned how to drive. A native New Yorker, the writer/director started spending time in Los Angeles when dating his current wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh, but for years he made do bumming rides. “The idea of just getting in the car by myself…
Capsule Stage Reviews: The New Century, Our Late Night, Speech and Debate
The New Century Paul Rudnick’s The New Century isn’t so much a play as it is a series of monologues stitched together to create an hour and a half of intermission-less theater. As directed by Joe Watts for Theatre New West, the show holds together and is both amusing and…
Ohio Barbecue
Rib tips and fries was one of the lunch specials at Bobbie Que’s Rib Shack on Scott Street the day I stopped by. I love the crispy, crunchy texture the little bits of rib meat trimmings get while they are smoking, so I ordered some. While I watched, the restaurant’s…
Sharp-Dressed Fans
It’s not the best of times to be an Astros fan. Last year they were not only bad, they were boringly bad. And they didn’t exactly follow that dismal season with a stunning series of off-season moves to get themselves back on track. Yeah, there’s a new manager in town…
Hot Plate
The carnitas ($5.99) at the food stall at Mi Tienda (1630 Spencer Hwy., 713-941-7550), HEB’s Mexican-themed store, are delicious. They’re different from other carnitas in that they’re not fried chunks of pork; instead, they’re almost like pulled pork, with a flavor that will stay with you for a long time…
Where We’re Going,We Don’t Need iPads
Lost boy John Hughes was inducted into the pantheon this month, when the Academy devoted a moving Oscar-night tribute to the departed writer-director. But do you actually remember being a teenage moviegoer in the 1980s? It wasn’t all some kind of wonderful. Hughes movies came out twice a year, if…
Hearsay’s Gin-Gin Mule
Anthony, the bar manager at downtown “gastro lounge” Hearsay (218 Travis, 713-225-8079), is intent on stealing Houston’s cocktail crown from Anvil. “We want to be the place for cocktails in town,” he said as he served a gin-gin mule, a classic-style concoction that originated at New York’s Pegu Club. Like…
Barnes and Ignobles
Matisse called the Barnes Foundation “the only sane place to see art in America.” But the clamor over moving one of the world’s foremost collections of impressionist, postimpressionist and modern art from its home in the bucolic suburb of Merion, Pennsylvania, to center-city Philadelphia (4.6 miles away) has been anything…
Brazil, Unplugged
Brazilian icon Gilberto Gil has played a major role in the evolution of his country’s music for decades. Today Gil is coming through Houston with The String Concert Tour in support of his latest CD, Bandadois. Gil will appear with his guitarist/percussionist son Bem Gil and cellist/conductor Jaques Morelenbaum, in…
Los Angeles Plays Itself
Sad, funny and acutely self-conscious, Noah Baumbach’s new movie is the sort of mordant character study that people imagine was common in the ’70s. Greenberg is unafraid to project a downbeat worldview or feature an impossible protagonist — I’d be hard put to name one as maddening as the eponymous…
Honor Society
The four good-looking lads in Honor Society could be the New Kids on the Block for the millennial generation. The quartet brings its vibrant R&B-infused pop to House of Blues Thursday as part of the “Here Comes Trouble” tour. Truth be told, Honor Society’s ties to boy bands run pretty…
Welcome to Arizona
COURTS Welcome to Arizona Judge who helped BP junketed partly on their tab By Chris Vogel A Houston federal judge who set aside a $100 million verdict against BP last week has taken an all-expenses-paid educational junket that was partially funded by the oil giant. In 2008, U.S. District Judge Kenneth…
Alkaline Trio
With brand-new album This Addiction, Alkaline Trio has gone straight back to its original indie-punk template with markedly positive results. Free from a major-label deal that saw them a tad stunted for three albums, the band signed to legendary punk label Epitaph and reunited with producer Matt Allison. Allison manned…
Wishes for Wilshire Village
Wishes for Wilshire Online readers comment on “The Battle Over the Wilshire Village Property Goes On,” Hair Balls blog, by Richard Connelly, March 12: Disgusting: Another huge chain coming to gentrify a once-charming area. There’s a Randalls, Kroger and Fiesta all within a mile of this corner, and they don’t…
Booker T
To many, Booker T’s glass-smooth Hammond B-3 is the sound of soul. The 65-year-old Memphis native, born Booker T. Jones, was the driving force behind the legendary MGs, a murderer’s row of musicians also featuring Steve Cropper (guitar), Donald “Duck” Dunn (bass) and the late Al Jackson Jr. (drums). Until…
Speedy Gonzales Rides Again?
>Dear Mexican, I just read that Speedy Gonzales is getting his own feature film and will be voiced by George Lopez. I read in The Hollywood Reporter that Lopez said he gave Speedy his “Latino Seal of Approval.” Who grants this seal? What does it look like? And how did…
Further On Up the Road
It wasn’t hard to remember you don’t have to look very hard at all for music at SXSW; in fact, we were barely even awake when it happened. After arriving in Austin late, late Thursday night, we went down to the lobby of our hotel for coffee Friday morning and…
