All the James Bond Theme Songs, Ranked Worst to First
Earlier this month, Sam Smith announced that he has recorded the theme song for the upcoming James Bond movie, Spectre, due in theaters October 26. Entitled “Writing’s On the Wall,” the theme has been described by the singer as a “classic love song” and will be released this Friday. This may be…
How I Learned to Drive Is a Great Ride
September in Houston is too hot to wear a hat, but if I wore one I’d fling it off my head in jubilation. Look to the Heights intersection of White Oak Drive and Harvard Street. That’s where The Landing Theatre Company and Obsidian Theater are currently co-producing Paula Vogel’s searing…
Was Henry Clay America’s Greatest Statesman?
Henry Clay: America’s Greatest Statesman By Harlow Giles Unger 336 pp. $25.99 Da Capo Press Though history has not been as effusive when it comes to the remembered legacy of Congressmen compared to Presidents, Vice Presidents, and military leaders, their impact on government can sometimes be even greater (just ask…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 58: Simply Grilled Fish at Ibiza
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
An Older, Wiser Michael Moore Invades Europe
“I’ve turned into this kind of crazy optimist,” Michael Moore admits in his new documentary Where to Invade Next, his first film in six years. At 61, the gadfly savant has mellowed. Instead of charging into rooms, he shuffles, the American flag wrapped around his shoulders like a grandmother’s shawl. Conservatives…
Eat This: Chocoflan
You know that agonizing decision that gnaws away at you when faced with a dessert menu containing both flan and chocolate cake? Agonize no more and get on board with chocoflan, also known as pastel imposible or “impossible cake.” When making chocoflan, chocolate cake batter is poured into a cake…
Big Dreams Yield Big Results in Amazing Videosculpture Installation
While I can’t answer Katja Loher’s question in her “Where Does Time Begin?” exhibit at Anya Tish Gallery, I do know that her videosculptures all begin with a moment of dreaming. Photographs fall short in capturing the depth and layering found in this New York-based Swiss artist’s three-dimensional works, which…
Remembering Rick Perry, the Smart Guy Edition
It was always going to be this way. Despite his infamous painkiller-fueled bid for the GOP presidential nod in 2012, we all knew that former-Gov. Rick Perry hadn’t given up his dreams of presidential glory just as surely as we knew that he would never really make it very far. Still,…
The Great Gatsby Trips Up Over Technical Problems, Acting Twitches
The set-up: Having just seen Theatre Southwest’s production of Christopher Durang’s wacky Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, some dialogue slapped me upside the head that might best describe what’s gone wrong over at Bayou City Theatrics in its production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 jazz-age novel. Innocent, hopeful…
New York Post Back Cover Calls Eli Manning “The $84 Million Dope”
Every NFL team wants its franchise quarterback. I’m not really breaking any news with that statement. Hell, after Sunday’s Hoyer-Mallett puke-laden roller coaster ride against the Kansas City Chiefs, no city is more aware of the need for “The Guy” at the most important position in sports than the city…
Students Killed, Others Injured in Early Morning HISD School Bus Crash [UPDATED]
A high school student was killed and three others were seriously injured this morning when a schoolbus crashed at the 610 South Loop and Telephone Road, according to HISD officials.The bus was heading to Furr High School, but also included students from REACH Charter High School, located at Furr. It’s…
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike: A Wistful, Raucous Farce
The set-up: I’m going out a limb with this one, and history may prove me wrong, but I don’t think so. And anyway, who’ll be around to tell me I’m wrong? So here goes… Christopher Durang’s wistful, raucous farce Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2012) is one of…
Travel the World With Baja Berryhill Grill’s September Taco of the Month
Chicken tacadobo. While it’s hard to say this cute portmanteau three times fast, it’s very easy to eat the taco to which this moniker refers in no time flat. Beginning in June 2015, Berryhill Baja Grill kicked off its “Taco of the Month” series and we’ve been enjoying the…
So, Guns Are Now Allowed At The Houston Zoo…
The next time you take your family to the Houston Zoo, you can bring your licensed handgun along, too. The zoo lifted its gun ban after receiving a demand letter from an independent attorney with Texas Law Shield, a Houston-based legal services company focusing on gun rights issues, the Houston Chronicle first reported…
Karbach Brewing’s Restaurant Is Good Enough to Stand on Its Own
It’s 7:15 p.m. on a Saturday and the restaurant inside Karbach Brewing Co. is packed to the rafters. Merry reverberations bounce off the exposed brick and polished concrete and, though it’s a bit cacophonous, it is an enjoyable din. The hostess announces an hour-and-a-half wait, unsurprising given the number of…
Street Art Becomes Fine Art
A Piedmont Park art gallery has been covered with graffiti, but this time it’s fine art instead of street art or tagging. Curated by photographer Joseph TranVan, the “Connect Five” exhibit at The Mariago Collective pays “homage to Houston’s urban dictionary” through photography, pop art, illustration and graffiti. For clean,…
This Week in Houston Food Blogs: High-Protein Recipes and the Sushiito
Fig season is upon us, so Marcy de Luna of Zagat posted this list of must-try fig dishes at popular Houston restaurants. Check out the fig tart at Etoile, which has prosciutto, hazelnuts and ricotta, or the cucidati— traditional fig cookies— at D’Amico’s Italian Market Cafe. Looking for a more…
State Says Mom Poisoned Daughter With Salt to “Seek Attention” From Facebook Group
The last time Katie Alice Ripstra saw Parker, her four-year-old daughter, was August 6, 2013, when she brought her to the emergency room at Texas Children’s Hospital. Ripstra, who is facing two counts of intentionally causing serious bodily injury to a child, was separated from Parker once doctors began to question whether Ripstra…
Santikos Goes Big With Barco Escape to Get You to Go to the Movies
Cinema is largely a business of gimmicks. Movies may be art and have the ability to shock, inspire and/or move us, but that’s only part of the overall world of cinema. Dreams are only part of the Dream Factory, after all. While movie studios have tons of ways to make…
Buffalo Bayou Park Is Getting Ready to Open
Despite all the water that has slammed down Buffalo Bayou over the past few months, the bayou was looking good on Monday morning. The steady whine of construction paused briefly as Anne Olson, executive director of Buffalo Bayou Partnership, stood before a cluster of cameras and talked about the changes…
Austin Craft Beer Bar Defies TABC Ban on Crowlers
At least one Texas bar is ignoring the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s demand to stop filling crowlers. Not too long after our previous article on the ban, owner Mike McKim of Cuvée Coffee Bar at 2000 East 6th Street in Austin declared it is going to continue filling the 32-ounce…
The Con: Anime Matsuri Is Growing, and so Is the List of People Unhappy With It
It’s not uncommon in anime to see a lone girl standing bravely before a colorfully dressed, angry horde determined to get past her, but this was real life and Sarah Skrobarczyk, president of Delta H Con, had to make do with diplomacy given her lack of ninja skills or magical…
Upcoming: !!!, Big Freedia, Frank Turner, Galactic, Radney Foster, Shopping, Etc.
“March” Madness Band Concert: Sun., October 4, 2:30 p.m., Free. TDECU Stadium, 3847 Holman, Houston. #FlySouth Texas Hip-Hop Concert: Sat., October 10, 8 p.m., $5. Black Hole Coffee House, 4504 Graustark, Houston, 713-528-0653. 500 Megapixies: With Poopy Lungstuffing, Judge Brother., Sat., September 26, 7 p.m., $3 to $7. Super Happy…
Cajun House Rocker C.C. Adcock Knows How to Mix It Up
C.C. Adcock is calling from London and he’s pretty stoked. “I just took Nick Lowe’s ten-year old son to see Jerry Lee Lewis at the Palladium last night,” Adcock chuckles. “It was so cool. I love Jerry’s whole return-to-the-scene-of-the-crime angle.” Adcock is referring to the scandal that derailed Lewis’s meteoric…
This Week in Houston Food Events: Banh Mi and Pig Cook-Offs
All Month Long Dessert for the Dogs at Tony Mandola’s When you buy a dessert this month at Tony Mandola’s, 1212 Waugh, Tony will give $1 to BARC, the City of Houston animal shelter. As if that weren’t incentive enough to spend a meal at the creole and Italian restaurant,…
Houston to Surpass Chicago in Population Within a Decade, Still a Crappy City Apparently
There is burying the lede and then there is placing it at the bottom of a pit and imploding a skyscraper on top of it. Reuters reported on Sunday that within 10 years, Houston would edge Chicago as the country’s third most populous city behind New York City and Los…
At Untapped Houston, Music Runs a Close Second to Beer
It could be successfully argued there’s more to life than music and beer, but thousands of Houstonians at this weekend’s Untapped Festival would have gladly debated the subject. With Friday’s rains cleared, all that was pouring at Discovery Green Saturday evening was glorious craft beer, more than 275 varieties from…
J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan Will Impress Children With Its Theater Magic
The set-up: Presented in its own special tent, and featuring an in-the-round 360° immersive experience as digital projections provide Imax backdrop, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, the immortal tale of “the boy who wouldn’t grow up” flies into Houston on its international tour. That Peter Pan doesn’t entirely soar straight to…
The 10 Surliest Texans-Chiefs Rapper Tweets
The Houston Texans’ 2015 season began with HBO’s Hard Knocks introducing the team to America at large. It took a month of filming and some fancy editing to present to the nation our sometimes thrilling and frequently frustrating NFL franchise. Home Box Office could have saved all that time and money…
Art for Elephants
Wendy Maruyama is an artist with a cause. Each year, tens of thousand of elephants—as well as thousands of other animals—are illegally killed for their ivory. This dismaying reality has been the motivation for activist Maruyama’s latest body of work “The wildLIFE Project.” Debuting at the Houston Center for Contemporary…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No 59: Tonkotsu Black Ramen at JINYA Ramen
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
College Football, Week 2 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
Week Two of the college football season brought us thunderous warning from the football gods. In the early games, Jacksonville State took sixth ranked Auburn to overtime. In the early evening games, Toledo actually beat Arkansas. And in the nightcaps, Cal Poly hung around with Arizona State until late in…
Dish of the Week: Country Ham & Red-Eye Gravy
From classic comfort foods to regional standouts and desserts, we’ll be sharing a new recipe with you each week. Find other dishes of the week here. This week, we’re turning south for country-style Red-Eye Gravy. Also dubbed “poor man’s gravy,” “bottom sop,” and “muddy gravy” (among other interesting names), red-eye…
Rockets’ Legendary Big Man Moses Malone Passes Away
Moses Malone once said that he could take four guys off the streets of his hometown of Petersburg, Virginia and defeat the Boston Celtics. This was when the 40-42 Houston Rockets were playing the Celtics for the NBA championship in 1981. Maybe the Rockets would’ve won that title if Malone…
Small Mouth Sounds Gives Us the Silent Treatment
Tonic for our troubles – we search for it in many different ways. Some turn to drink, some bury themselves in self-help books and others seek relief through professional counselling. No matter which road we choose, we’re all after the same thing. To make the pain stop. Doesn’t sound like…
Midtown Nightclub Accused of Discriminatory Practices
Three Houston attorneys who attempted to enter The Gaslamp at 2400 Brazos on Friday night say the club is charging minority males a $20 entry fee while letting in whites at no charge. Brandon Ball says he and two friends, Dan Scarbrough and Ken Piggee, tried to enter The Gaslamp…
Dogs or Cats? Which Are Better Pets?
Pet owners tend to be passionate about the animals they share their homes and lives with, and that’s natural. Our pets become part of our families over time. When it comes to dogs and cats, many pet owners develop strong opinions about which make better companions, and also about why…
NFL Week 1: Chiefs-Texans — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
For the first time since 2009, the Texans opened the NFL regular season with a loss, dropping the 2015 opener 27-20 to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday at NRG Stadium in one of those unfortunate games in which early silly mistakes completely take the crowd out of the game…
Apple Is Missing a Golden Opportunity For MTV 2.0
And the VMA Goes to…APPLE. Last week, Apple unveiled its latest and greatest technology to the public, new products such as iPhone 6s, the iPadPro and Apple TV. All of these will surely line the Christmas stockings of thousands of entitled middle-class teenagers within the quickly approaching shopping season. Make…
The Five Best Concerts In Houston This Week: The Get Up Kids, Tamia, C.C. Adcock, Lenny Kravitz, etc.
The Get Up Kids Walters Downtown, September 15 There is a flip side to the emo revival going on these days; not only are there new bands for fans of the genre to enjoy, but the bands that helped them fall in love with the genre are getting back out…
Will Superintendent Terry Grier Be Willing to Step Aside Early and Let Someone Else Run HISD?
Will Terry Grier get to serve out the rest of his superintendency or will he be moved to another position while an interim superintendent runs the Houston ISD? That’s one of the things that’s going to be discussed next Tuesday when the school board meets at 7:30 a.m. Trustee Juliet…
Jim Weider Knows The Weight The Band’s Legacy Carries
The 2014 film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes features a moment that slows down the sci-fi blockbuster long enough to illuminate the lasting impact of The Band’s music. About an hour into the action, a small group of humans who have survived a virus that has killed off…
K-Rino, Point Blank & the SPC Might Still Be Rapping at Warehouse Live Right Now
K-Rino, Point Blank & Friends Warehouse Live September 10, 2015 If it hadn’t been made clear to us yet after three solid decades of hustling and grinding, sometime around 2 a.m. on Thursday it became simply impossible to deny: the South Park Coalition will never stop. The doors to the…
Texas Festivals: In Celebration of Oatmeal, Gators, Mosquitoes & Thumping Watermelons
In a place the size of Texas it’s no surprise that there are countless themed festivals happening in small towns and cities across the state. A little research reveals that lots of fruits, native wildlife, and cultures are represented in festivals all over Texas, and we decided to look at…
Michael Shannon Is a Stern Monopoly Player
LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson found out first-hand that Michael Shannon is a pretty stern Monopoly player during a recent game with the actor, who portrays a tortured Orlando real-estate baron in the upcoming 99 Homes. Nicholson and Village Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl open this week’s Voice Film…
On How The 1979 Astros Are A Lot Like the 2015 Astros
Joaquin Andujar died earlier this week. Andujar was one of my favorite players on one of my favorite ever Astros teams, the 1979 squad that nearly shocked the baseball world. That Astros team was supposed to be bad, but behind great pitching, excellent defense, and the excellent use of Astroturf,…
Woman Arrested at Gynecologist Appointment Could Face Deportation
Blanca Borrego and her two daughters had been sitting in the waiting room of the Northeast Women’s Healthcare clinic in Atascocita for nearly two hours. The last time Borrego had seen her gynecologist was last year, when the doctor discovered the pain in her abdomen had been caused by a…
Houston’s 5 Best Weekend Food Bets: A New Greek-Inspired Brunch
Farmer’s Market Bike Ride @ Onion Creek Saturday, 8 a.m. to noon 3106 White Oak BCO’s Farmer’s Market Bike Ride takes off from Onion Creek bright and early. Meet up for coffees before you embark on an 8-12 mile trip to shop for fruits, veggies, jams, local goods and more…
What Should Have Happened at Taylor Swift’s Houston Show
Wednesday night, Taylor Swift brought her outsized 1989 World Tour to Minute Maid Park. The tour, which kicked off on Cinco de Mayo in Tokyo, Japan, and has grossed more than $130 million, has managed to keep itself in the press all summer because of the many varied and impressive…
Gransploitation: 5 Horror Films With Evil Grannies to Prep for The Visit
This week we get a new M. Night Shyamalan film, The Visit, that I’m sure I will very much enjoy reading the plot synopsis of on Wikipedia over the weekend to confirm I didn’t miss much by not seeing it. Shyamalan hasn’t made a film I enjoyed since The Village,…
Mike O’Malley’s Brilliant Family Sitcom ‘Survivor’s Remorse’ Asks New Questions About the American Dream
The American Dream killed Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, but their TV counterparts have mostly fared better. Sure, Walter White ends up in a metaphorical ditch and Tony Soprano may too. But the serialization of TV storytelling largely means that characters on shows like Roseanne, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,…
Upcoming Houston Food Events: Sip n’ Stroll & Date Night Cooking
Kick-off the return of football season with Cordúa restaurants at the Churrascos Club at NRG Stadium on Sunday, September 13 at noon, where you can tailgate in style as the Houston Texans take on the Kansas City Chiefs. The game-day menu will feature dishes such as slow smoked beef brisket,…
World Premiere: Shinyribs’ Ted Hawkins Tribute, “Who Got My Natural Comb?”
World premieres of albums or singles are, for the most part, the territory of The Wall Street Journal or USA Today, publications with national and international reach or else trade publications like American Songwriter, Paste, Pitchfork, or Rolling Stone. Well, guess which publication is doing a world premiere today of the new Shinyribs…
Sheriff Hickman Offers Vague Plans to Expand LGBT Policy
Lou Weaver grew up respecting the badge. His father was a cop. His father’s friends were cops. And so Weaver never feared the police. That changed when Weaver, who is transgender, was pulled over several years ago on a traffic stop. The officer’s reaction to Weaver explaining that he was…
Remember When Ringtone Rap Ruled the World?
A couple of weeks ago, my friend overheard a trilling sound from my phone. It was a familiar one, because their eyes lit up and mind started twisting out a formula to say the right thing. “Is that the Power Rangers wrist communicator?”, they asked. “Yeah,” I responded. They laughed,…
Openings and Closings in Houston: Überrito Has Good News and Bad News
KA Sushi, 1901 North Shepherd, has had its soft opening. The Heights-area sushi eatery is brought to you by Pak Tsui of Fat Bao, and it’s definitely not just sushi; the menu also sports oxtail or lobster ramen, Wagyu steak and other traditional Japanese dishes with a modern twist. Keep an…
The Terry Grier Era is Coming to a Close, Sifting the Tea Leaves
Leaning heavily on a cane, Terry Grier climbed up on a raised platform in the first floor lobby of the Hattie Mae White Building Thursday afternoon, a consummate showman about to deliver his lines. Smiling benevolently, he looked around at the mass of people assembled there, most of them who’d…
Houston’s 10 Best Bars & Clubs Near the Galleria
The Houston Galleria opened for business in November of 1970 and is the biggest mall in the state of Texas; in case you’re new in town or have been living under a rock, it’s known for its high-end boutiques and department stores that sell expensive items. The Galleria is such…
Talking Houston Music With the Dead Dialect Podcast Guys
Logic 101 would tell us that more Houstonians making killer music results in more Houston music fans discussing that music. Still, in a city of millions, relatively few have chosen to broadcast their thoughts on how vital the arts are to this place. But Brandon Clements and Julian Lara have…
The 10 Best Concerts In Houston This Weekend: Turnpike Troubadours, Untapped Fest, Tallest Man On Earth, etc.
Turnpike Troubadours Revention Music Center, September 11 The world is rapidly waking up to Oklahoma’s Turnpike Troubadours, whose new self-titled LP recently reached the Top 5 of iTunes’ country albums chart in the pre-order stage. At this point the Troubadours are a well-known commodity in these parts, reportedly selling more…
HISD Superintendent Terry Grier Resigns
Terry Grier, superintendent of the Houston Independent School District for the last six years, abruptly tendered his resignation this afternoon at a hastily-called 4 p.m. conference, saying “It’s time.” Grier acknowledged someone could not be superintendent of a district like Houston forever. He also alluded to his recent knee surgery…
HISD Ignores State Law in Fast-Tracking Construction Contracts, Audit Finds
Refusing to be delayed or stymied by something like a state-mandated cap on construction contracts without board approval, Houston ISD’s Construction and Facilities Service Department got creative. To avoid having to actually get prior school board approval of its job-order contracts – as required by law – the CFS department…
Day For Night Aims to Change the Winter-Festival Game
Free Press Houston is getting back into the winter-carnival game with a two-day event that producer Omar Afra promises won’t be “just another festival.” Dubbed Day For Night, the un-festival is scheduled for December 19 and 20 around a six-block area around Silver Street Studio. According to Afra, the plan…
Memorial City Residents Set to Sue City Over “Unnecessary Flooding”
Don Ray woke up worried early one morning in April, 2009. It had been raining hard all night, so he and his wife quickly started to move everything they could manage in their Memorial City home off of the floor and up to higher ground. Then all they could do…
Lawyer for Couples That Fought Texas’ Same-Sex Marriage Ban Wants State to Pay Up
Attorney Neel Lane isn’t asking the state for much but compliance with the law—and $741,000 in attorney’s fees and costs, which Attorney General Ken Paxton has suggested he doesn’t owe. Lane represented a lesbian couple in their fight against Texas’s ban on same-sex marriage in February 2014. U.S. District Judge…
O Columbia: A 70-Minute Chamber Opera Worth Exploring
When composer Gregory Spears (The Bricklayer) asked his cousins who live in the Houston area what stories they thought should be told, they kept returning to the space program, he says. He and librettist Royce Vavrek, both based in New York City, had wanted to work together and knew the…
Taylor Swift Is the Modern Queen of Pop, For Better or Worse
Taylor Swift Minute Maid Park September 9, 2015 The only thing missing from Taylor Swift’s 1989 World Tour is a giant banner that reads, “Mission Accomplished.” No joke — this show had pretty much everything you could want from a stadium-level pop spectacular: giant video screens; a stage that moved;…
Breaking Bad’s Bill Burr Plans a One-Night Comedy Stand in Houston
Breaking Bad fans, rejoice. Actor, stand-up and podcast mogul Bill Burr arrives in Houston on September 23 for a one-night-only concert in Jones Hall. The 47-year-old comedian, known to many for his work on AMC’s beloved meth-centric drama, admits he hasn’t “done a full night for Texas in years” but…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 60: Rancor Burger at Petrol Station
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
Deputies Involved in Warrantless Roadside Body Cavity Search Under Investigation, Attorney Says
As soon as prosecutors dropped drug charges against Charneshia Corley last month, she filed her official complaint against the Harris County Sheriff’s deputies who arrested her. Here’s how Corley recounted what happened following her June 20 traffic stop in northwest Harris County when sheriff’s deputies claimed they smelled weed: “The…
Student Sent Home For Wearing #BlackLivesMatter Shirt With List of People Killed by Police
Harmony School for Advancement senior Fatimah Bouderdaben wanted to participate with the city-wide tribute to the recently murdered Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth by wearing a blue shirt to school last Friday, but she also wanted to remind people that the issue of police brutality was still under debate…
Hot Dogs 101: How Well Do You Know JCI Grill’s Regional Hot Dogs?
Do you know the difference between a Texas Hot Dog and a Chili Cheese Coney? What about an Empire Dog and a New York Dog? What culture did coneys come from? The answers may surprise you. It’s the business of JCI Grill’s president, Darrin Straughan, to know such things. A…
The Kids Are (Probably) Alright – 5 Reasons Millennials Are Criticized Too Harshly
In recent years there has been a lot of criticism of young people by older generations. This is nothing new really – Older people have probably been slamming up-and-coming generations for as long as they’ve been able to collectively shake their fists and yell at them to get off their…
State Says Judge’s Findings in David Temple Case Stray From the Facts
Harris County prosecutors have filed an objection that calls into question a judge’s findings of suppressed evidence and witness tampering in the 2007 conviction of high school football coach David Temple for the brutal shotgun slaying of his pregnant wife Belinda in 1999. But, as with anything else in the…
Statesboro Revue Want Fans to Experience Their New Video
When the Texas group Statesboro Revue was looking for a name, they wanted to pay homage to the Allman Brothers Band. To do that, they picked one of their favorite ABB selections,”Statesboro Blues.” The only problem is, a newspaper also shares the same name. “Sometimes we get Twitter requests…
My Old Friend Wants to Share a Motel Room. Help!
ROOM FOR TWO? Dear Willie D: I’m meeting an old friend while attending a conference in Chicago next month. Both of us are flying in from different states, and we’re both in relationships. To save money, he suggested that we get one room. I’m hesitant because I know if we…
Guilty Plea in Federal Animal “Crush” Charges (WARNING: Graphic Content)
One half of a Houston couple charged with torturing dogs and cats on video has pleaded guilty to a newly revised federal statute criminalizing “crush” videos. Ashley Nicole Richards, 24, previously pleaded guilty to state animal cruelty charges, and has agreed to testify against her co-defendant, Brent Wayne Justice, 54,…
Earl Sweatshirt Revels In Rap’s Odd Future at Warehouse Live
Earl Sweatshirt, NxWorries, Remy Banks Warehouse Live September 8, 2015 “Kendrick Lamar says that Earl Sweatshirt is the greatest ever.” That was the main piece of evidence in the case made to me by a friendly stranger at Warehouse Live last night that the man we were there to see…
Ted Cruz Finds, and Loses, His Martyr
In late August, Ted Cruz sought to re-frame his candidacy for president. As a result, Cruz emerged a re-invigorated religious-right firebrand eager to wage the culture wars—less repeal-Obamacare-and-abolish-the-IRS, more end-marriage-equality-and-destroy-Planned-Parenthood. First Cruz seized on a wave of undercover “sting” videos an anti-abortion group clandestinely shot with Planned Parenthood staffers frankly…
DuPont and the Chemical Safety Board Should Release Their Reports
It’s been months since the DuPont chemical spill, but now we’re closer to answers about what actually went wrong through a pair of confidential reports — one written by DuPont and one by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board — about what happened inside the pesticide unit at the company’s La Porte plant on…
HPD Will Offer “Safe Havens” to Protect Against Craigslist Killers
Three months ago, city council member Ed Gonzalez began reading about Craigslist killers across the country. There was the elderly Georgia couple who, answering an ad, was shot and killed trying to purchase a vehicle. There was the 19-year-old college student from Illinois who was shot and killed while trying…
Here’s Next Weekend’s Yes, Indeed! Schedule
Can’t say enough good things about what Yes, Indeed! is turning into — nearly 30 acts, most of them local, and just enough exotic talent (read: out-of-towners) to justify calling it a “festival” on three stages spread out over an area roughly the size of a football field; it’s almost…
Bobcat Goldthwait on His Way to Houston Improv
Once best known for playing Zed, the manic cadet in the Police Academy movies, comedian, filmmaker and master of absurdity, Bobcat Goldthwait will be headlining a weekend at the Houston Improv from September 24-27. The 53-year-old has reinvented himself as one of the most successful independent directors working today. His…
Guests to Look For Onstage With Taylor Swift Tonight
BUN B You know anticipation for tonight’s show is starting to build when even Bun B is apparently lobbying to join her onstage. Tuesday morning, the beloved Houston rapper tweeted that he had seen a few dozen(!) trucks outside Minute Maid Park; his later tweet bearing only the hashtag #HeyTaylorBringBunBOnStage…
Look at What Is Happening to Minute Maid Park Right Now
Good afternoon. We interrupt your regularly scheduled Internet programming/time suckage to bring you this photo of the gargantuan spectacle that is Taylor Swift’s “1989” world tour, slowly taking over what used to be Minute Maid Park. That looks like at least a dozen semis, so we hope the production crew…
Explore the World of the Quays in an Essential Retro – and a New Christopher Nolan Doc
In the mid-late-1980s, you couldn’t be a film person, or an art person, or an art-film person, and not see the Quay Brothers’ stop-motion animated short Street of Crocodiles, an adaptation of a 1934 short story by Polish writer and artist Bruno Schulz. Come to think of it, calling this…
Queen of Earth is Pretty Funny, in an Intentionally Bleak Way.
Sometimes a face is enough to anchor a movie. In writer-director Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth, Elisabeth Moss plays Catherine, a young city-dweller who, after recently suffering both her father’s death by suicide and a crushing breakup, treks to the country to spend a week with her best friend,…
Netflix’s Narcos Tries to Be The Wire for Colombia’s Drug War
Narcos, Netflix’s new drug-war docudrama, is nearly as ambitious as its central character, Pablo Escobar. Over the course of ten dense, sprawling episodes, the series tells the 20-year history of the narcotrafficker’s rise and fall in relation to Colombia’s blood-soaked history and the U.S.’s escalating drug war, from Richard Nixon…
