Uh Oh! Shuffle Your NFL Draft Big Boards…The Texans Need a Kicker!
“No. I think we’re going to look to put the best kicker on our football team. If that’s a young guy, if it’s Neil [Rackers], if it’s another veteran that’s out there, then that’s what we’ll do. We’re very interested in bringing Neil back and talking to his representatives about…
Ashley Greene: So Drunk She Didn’t Notice Her 5-Year-Old Son Swallowing Drugs, Cops Say
A Webster woman was so intoxicated that she did not notice her five-year-old son swallowing narcotics, Webster police say. Ashley Christine Greene, 29, has been charged with child endangerment, KPRC reports. The boy was also intoxicated and was hospitalized. Police did not say what drugs he had ingested. Greene was…
Brunch and Beer at City Acre Brewing
Although it’s not set to open until October, City Acre Brewing — the soon-to-be brewpub on Highway 59 between Tidwell and Parker — is already drawing huge crowds. They were out in force this past Saturday morning, when the City Acre team debuted a handful of new beers for its…
Breathe (Slightly) Deeper, Houston: Our Air Quality Improves a Little
You may not have noticed, but Houston’s air quality has gotten (slightly) better, according to the annual report by the American Lung Association. Don’t get too happy, though: We’re still the eighth-worst city for ozone pollution in the U.S. But when it comes to short-term particle pollution, we are kicking…
Readers Poll: Who Is the Most Overrated Artist in Rock History?
The concept of “overrated” and “underrated” has always confused me. There are groups that are critically lauded, yet got little commercial love, like The Band. And then there are groups that were almost universally reviled by critics, like Journey, who consistently managed to sell out shows, sell millions of albums…
UPDATED: A Jiro: Dreams of Sushi-Inspired Meal at Kata Robata Disappoints
UPDATE: Ryan Snyder, Chief Operating Officer of The Azuma Group, contacted us about this story. After the jump is his unedited response to the piece, in its entirety. Jiro: Dreams of Sushi is a fascinating movie about passion and work ethic. It also happens to feature a sushi chef. It…
Please RSVP to Our Shot in the Dark Photo Show
Rocks Off is getting excited about our upcoming concert-photo exhibition Shot In the Dark, which is now less than a month away on Thursday, May 17. You’ll see dozens of photos from recent Houston concerts as they have been shot by nine or ten of our best photographers, appeared on…
Fracking Wreaks Fiery Havoc with Texas’s Well Water
Fracking is supposed to be an energy godsend, a cheap way to get lots of natural gas. But property owners are finding it brings along with it such problems as flames coming out of their water hoses and wells, and poisonous chemicals in their drinking water. There’s a big fight…
The Chill: When Is Wine Too Cold?
In the wake of the Twitter response to yesterday’s post on “The Pour: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?” (in other words, when should waiters refill or wait to refill your wine glass?), I thought I’d post on another issue that wine lovers often face in restaurants: Wine so chilled…
The Damn Quails & 10 Other Bird-Brained Bands
Tonight the Houston Press Concert Series resumes at Pub Fiction with Oklahoma duo the Damn Quails. The Quails’ song “Fools Gold,” from their 2011 album Down the Hatch, is tearing it up on Texas country and roots-rock radio right now, landing them three Lonestar Music Awards and airplay on BBC…
Everybody Loves Raymond Peña’s Donut Heaven & Grill
Well, at least Alison Cook and I seem to. In a funny bit of overlap, the Houston Chronicle’s food critic visited Peña’s Donut Heaven & Grill during the same general time frame last week — she for one of her Burger Friday posts, and I for this week’s cafe review…
Kelly Wilson: East Texas Jailer / Author Charged with Inmate Sex
Angelina County jailer and author Kelly Wilson has resigned her position and faces criminal charges after authorities in Lufkin alleged that she had a sexual relationship with a male inmate. According to the Lufkin Daily News, the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office got a tip that there was some illicit hanky-panky…
Some Performances Stronger Than Others in the First-Ever Gay Musical, La Cage aux Folles
For more on the TUTS production of La Cage aux Folles, read our interviews with George Hamilton and Logan Keslar. The setup: Bashing leading man George Hamilton in this touring production of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s 1984 Tony-winning musical, presented by TUTS (and in association with George Hamilton Productions),…
Blue Hate Special: Loving to Loathe Guy Fieri
We’ve all seen this spiked, peroxide-dyed Food Network star eating his way across America’s heartland. We’ve all heard him choking out limp catchphrases around mouthfuls of food, wheezing out airy, hyena-like whinnies of laughter while wiping grease and mustard off of his perfectly manicured, bleached goatee. We’ve all cringed at…
Test-Drive Five Gourmet Burgers During Tillamook Burger Week April 28-May 5
The Tillamook Cheese Loaf Love Tour starts this Saturday in Houston, and it’s gonna be a juicy one. For one week, five local restaurants will offer gourmet Tillamook-inspired burgers that sound so irresistible, you might be tempted to try them all. 1. At BRC Gastropub, Chef Lance Fegen has created…
We Hereby Declare the Death of Film Photography
It’s dead. For real this time. This week, the British Journal of Photography reported that Fujifilm — who makes the wonderfully saturated and potent negative and slide films for 35 millimeter, medium-format and large-format cameras — is raising the retail cost on all of its photographic film by double digits…
Councilmember Helena Brown Is Ready to Take Your Reservation
When she isn’t busy arguing that licensing dogs is an egregious case of government intrusion into private lives, or that the UN is aiming to take over America cities like Houston if eternal vigilance is not kept up, councilmember Helena Brown apparently works the front desk at a Marriott, if…
5 Bands That Should Break Up Immediately
Music fans are selfish. We might act like we only want what’s best for our favorite bands, but the truth is that we really just want what will give us the most gratification. A lot of ink, both real and digital, has been used this year to talk about reunions…
Reality Bites: Cheaters
There are a million reality shows on the naked television. We’re going to watch them all, one at a time. “To be with another woman, that is French. To get caught, that is American.” — Inspector Andre, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels I know the premise of this weekly exercise is that…
Comment of the Day: The Twitter Cop-Taunter
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula…
Go Strained or Go Home — Top 5 Uses for Greek Yogurt
Nonfat Greek yogurt should be in your life. I don’t know how else to put it. Since it’s strained to remove excess whey, it has a thicker, almost creamier consistency than its non-strained counterparts. And in some cases (be sure to check your labels), it can contain twice as much…
Say Anything’s Max Bemis: “We’re Lucky We Continue to Grow”
Since their breakout album Is a Real Boy came out in 2004, emo/pop-punk band Say Anything has been the soundtrack to many a teenager’s life. For this blogger, Is a Real Boy skirted the clichés of many emo albums of the times by being more personal and honest. Front man…
Last Night: The Black Keys & Arctic Monkeys at the Woodlands
The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion April 24, 2012 It’s hard to find an honest-to-Jesus, meat-and-potatoes (and possibly bourbon-soaked) rock show in 2012. Enter the Black Keys and the Arctic Monkeys last night at that lil’ ol’ shed in The Woodlands, who delivered nearly four hours of…
Revising a Classic: Seven-Layer Bars
“Seven-layer bars,” also known as “magic bars,” are one of my favorite baked goods, falling just behind chewy chocolate chip cookies. You may wonder why, then, I would ever mess with the traditional recipe, which calls for butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, coconut, nuts (usually walnuts), sweetened condensed milk, butter and…
Latin Wave 7: Actress Stephanie Sigman Talks About Miss Bala
Miss Bala stars Stephanie Sigman and Noe Hernandez; Gerardo Naranjo directs. There are no good guys in Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo’s Miss Bala, just bad guys in varying shades of black. Naranjo shows us a world so corrupt and lawless that even the victims seem complicit in their own abuse…
Tavarius Williams: Alleged “Dog-Flipper” on the Loose
One of our alert friends from the animal welfare community just alerted us to a sad story from Tanya Wisler, a Chihuahua breeder in Kingwood, who says she was looking for a forever home for one of her dogs, but the dog wound up in the hands of an alleged…
White Houston’s Love Affair with the Suburbs Officially Over
Rice’s annual Kinder Houston-Area Survey is out, and as usual there’s a wide range of stuff to ponder in it. One thing we noticed: You can officially pronounce dead white Houston’s love affair with the suburbs. “In 1999, 52 percent of Anglos living in the city of Houston said they…
Supermodel Kate Upton Speaks Out Against Bullying
If school bullies won’t listen to countless news reports about suicides, crying parents, classroom shootings and Hollywood blockbusters about nerd revenge, then Kate Upton is going to try her damnedest to stop bullying in our nation’s educational system. With this new PSA that was released last week, the recent Sports…
The TEA’s New Standardized Testing Performance Standards: As Clear As Mud
The Texas Education Agency has released its new performance standards for the STAAR test, the newest statewide exam whose acronym we can’t be bothered to decipher. The new standards will be phased in, which is good because it may take awhile to understand them. They’re as clear as anything could…
Double Duds: The 10 Worst Duets Since “Ebony and Ivory”
Thirty years ago this week, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder hit No. 1 on the charts with their duet, “Ebony and Ivory.” The song spent seven weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and the past three decades as a joke. Perhaps history’s most hackneyed call for racial…
Sampler Plate: This Week in Food Blogs
29-95: If you hadn’t heard already, the restaurant that was to be conāt is no more (at least in its initially envisioned incarnation). Houston Chronicle food critic Alison Cook has the scoop from chef Randy Rucker on why the location didn’t work out and what his future plans are in…
100 Creatives 2012: Paul Fredric, Author of the Erbeth Transmissions and Its Alternate Earth History
What He Does: To most Houstonians, Paul Fredric (sometimes known as Fritz Fredric) is a longtime master of darkwave and EBM music as part of the Asmodeus X. However, since 2005 Fredric has been pursuing another creative outlet. He is the author of the Erberth Transmissions (Digital copies available from…
Seven Vintage Houston Police Cars, Including the Rare HPD Gremlin
Arcadia Publishing, the outfit that specializes in photo-filled historical books and gave us last year’s look at Foley’s department store, is out with a look at the Houston Police Department. It’s filled with shots of cops through the years, the celebrities they protected, the cases they worked. It also features…
The Dedicated Gamer’s Guide to Living Room Furniture
Art Attack remains committed to helping our increasing gamer readership find ways to spruce up their lives with the perfect game-inspired crafts, clothes and fixtures. Previously we’ve tackled lamps and real-world versions of Portal’s long-fall boots. Now we’ve gone searching for the best way to outfit your living room with…
Happy Malaria Day! A Feverish Playlist
Tuesday night, as blooming flowers filled the spring air with a heady fragrance, Rocks Off hung a wreath made of empty insect repellent cans on our door, and gently tucked our young daughter in with mosquito netting in order to ensure Santa Carrier wouldn’t visit her with his magic bag…
Houston 101: The Assassination of O.P. Dewalt, Black Leader and Lincoln Theatre Manager
On this date in 1931, Olen P. Dewalt was gunned down in the Lincoln Theatre, the city’s first black-run movie palace. Dewalt, a leader in the Independence Heights community and a charter member of the local chapter of the NAACP, was the theater’s manager and had his real estate office…
Griselda Herrera: 12-Year-Old Runaway Girl’s Hickeys Reveal Her Illegal Relationship
A 17-year-old Valley woman has been arrested for harboring a runaway, enticing a child and two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Griselda Herrera was arrested after the 12-year-old girl who she kept at her place returned to her family home, valleycentral.com reports. The family noticed hickeys on…
HISD Seeks Refund from California-Based Vendor for Pink Slime-Filled Hamburger Patties
In the aftermath of the somewhat frivolous “pink slime” scare, the Houston Independent School District wanted to make damn sure people knew it wasn’t purchasing boneless lean beef trimmings (a.k.a. lean, finely textured beef) for its school lunch programs. Or, at least, HISD thought it wasn’t. HISD has since accused…
Russian Radio: Top 5 Tasty Cold War Synth Jamz
Hey, remember the Russians? Before they had a gajillion oil dollars and all those supermodels, they wanted to kill us all. But it wasn’t all creeping dread and mutually assured destruction. Until the Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War was a common subject in popular culture. Besides KGB trenchcoats…
John L. Smith Named Bobby Petrino’s Successor, Leaves Weber State After Five Months
The “gust of wind” that blew Bobby Petrino off of his motorcycle swallowed up another victim on Monday. The Weber State football team now joins the University of Arkansas, Petrino’s wife, Petrino’s kids, Jessica Dorrell, the pride and self-esteem of Dorrell’s fiancé Josh Morgan, and a slew of other ancillary…
Milk Duds Brownies: How to Use That Leftover Easter Candy
My family spoiled me rotten for Easter: I received no fewer than four solid chocolate bunnies (YES!) and an assortment of Robin Eggs, peanut butter cups and other treats including…a box of Milk Duds. Well, that was a lovely blast-from-the-past surprise. I hadn’t had a Milk Dud in about ten…
Houston B-Cycle: Bike-Sharing Program Comes to Downtown
Houston officials will launch next week the Houston version of a popular bike-sharing program. Houston B-Cycle will have three spots and 18 bikes around downtown Houston. Members who pay will be able to take any bike and bring it back to any of the three locations. Fees range from five…
Upcoming: Roky Erickson, Gucci Mane, Marc Anthony, Toby Keith, Daniel Johnston, Etc.
40 oz. to Freedom (Sublime Tribute): Fri., July 27, 8 p.m., $7/$10. Scout Bar Clear Lake, 18307 Egret Bay Blvd., Houston. Aesthetic Perfection: Sat., June 16, 9 p.m., $15. Numbers, 300 Westheimer, Houston. Alpha Rev: Sat., May 19, 8 p.m., $12/$15. Jet Lounge, 1515 Pease St., Houston. America: Thu., Sept…
The Pour: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?
Let’s face it. In restaurants today, most servers are trained to fill your wine glass — even if it’s not empty — as quickly as possible. There are a number of reasons for this. In all fairness to the servers, they are there to serve and for wine lovers, there’s…
Don McLeroy: Former State Board of Ed Chair Gets Colbert Treatment
Don McElroy, the most vociferous of the creationists who led the charge on the State Board of Education to get rightwing dogma into textbooks, was on The Colbert Report last night. He kept his cool and laughed along, but it’s doubtful he won many converts. Unless they were fans of…
DVDs & Blu-rays: Contraband, The Wicker Tree and Czech New Wave
Contraband stars Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale; Baltasar Kormakur directs. It’s a role we’ve seen Mark Wahlberg in many times before — the reformed bad guy trying to stay out of trouble and failing — but he does it so well, we’re willing to give Contraband a look. It was…
Zucchini Flowers in Season, on the Menu
Come spring, the farmers’ market is abundant with fresh, local fruits and vegetables, but I’ve got only one thing on my mind at the moment — zucchini flowers (or squash blossoms, if you prefer). Last year, I wrote about how to stuff and fry the flowers whole, just like my…
Nicky Hopkins: Classic Rock’s Go-To Piano Man
…and on piano… Nicky Hopkins: The Extraordinary Life of Rock’s Greatest Session Man By Julian Dawson Though his name is known mostly to classic-rock liner note readers, even the casual fan has heard his piano work: The wistful opening of Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful,” the pumping keys on…
Justin McDonald and Zachary Bridges: Bad Fake Cops, Including Guyliner & Faux-Hawk
There has been a rash of fake cops in the Lufkin area of late, with two men finding lodgings in the Angelina County Jail after run-ins with their authentic counterparts. Per KTRE, Justin McDonald was jailed for violating the terms of his probation stemming from an incident 14 months ago…
Ask a Rapper: Big Boss E’s Favorite Boss Songs
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. Something you always wanted to…
Fresh Ink Closes Its Series with Simulacrum
For the past year, Mildred’s Umbrella theater company has workshopped new plays before an open audience for their Fresh Ink Reading Series. They solicited the works in hopes of finding a new play to produce in their next season. The plays are given a staged reading, and the audience is…
Crazy for Crawfish at The Hideaway
I’ll make this short and sweet, because let’s just get straight to the point here: The Hideaway on Dunvale served me the best and the largest crawfish I’ve had all season this past Sunday afternoon. We ate ten pounds, all said and done. And at $5.99 a pound (with corn…
Comment of the Day: WORK on James Buchanan’s Birthday?!
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula…
A Totally Biased Supermarket Ranking
Within this past week, I’ve had occasion to visit the supermarket four times at three different stores. While each store offers its own distinct pros and cons, I can’t help imagining my own perfect, ideal supermarket experience. There would be a large, open space with smaller sections therein. There would…
Powerhouse Prints by Powerhouse Artists at Hiram Butler Gallery
Every five years, Hiram Butler Gallery breaks out its all-star prints from hiding. The current iteration of that concept, simply called “Prints,” reads like a Who’s Who of mid-century print artists: there’s Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra and Cy Twombly, to name some of the 11 artists…
Girl Gone Wild: Madonna’s Top 10 Dance/Club Chart-Toppers
For the past two weeks, Madonna’s latest single, “Girl Gone Wild,” has been sitting pretty at the top of Billboard’s Hot Dance/Club Play chart. That’s the chart that tabulates which songs are getting the most spins in discos and dance clubs. It’s a cool, upbeat track about losing control of…
Hangover Smorgasbord from Aladdin’s Mediterranean Cuisine
This week is “Reader’s Choice” at Fast Times. On the suggestion of commenter Helenafromworchester, I made a trip to Aladdin’s Mediterranean Cuisine on Westheimer for takeout the day after a late night with friends at Jackson’s Watering Hole. My husband had a hangover-hangover, while I had a designated driver/exhaustion hangover…
Photographer Steve Frances and Architecture Porn
Photographer Scott Frances counts among his favorite shots in his new art book “MonoVisioN,” one of a little girl standing in the middle of a gallery in the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. The walls and soaring ceiling are a study in white, the floor blond hardwood. Gold-leafed…
4 Disney Characters You Didn’t Know Had Real Names
Disney is famous for bringing fairy tales to life on the big screen, and most fairy tales are by nature made up of stock characters and archetypes. That’s one of the ways they remain timeless as well as accessible to many different cultures. Still, most Disney characters have names. It’s…
Our Friends Puscifer Playing Bayou Music Center June 27
One of the most memorable shows I’ve seen in Houston thus far was Puscifer, the band that does for lascivious alternative electro-rock what Maynard James Keenan’s other band Tool does for progressive metal. When Puscifer played Jones Hall in November 2009, I was expecting something like the grind-y songs on…
Adrian Comstock & Patricia Hickman: Your Odd Robbery Couple of the Day, Fresh Off a Gunfight with a 59-Year-Old Woman
Two mug shots that you might not normally put together were forever joined thanks to arrests at the Super 8 motel in Humble. Adrian Nathaniel Comstock, 29, and Patricia Lynn Hickman, 56, were both arrested for aggravated robbery for a home invasion that included a shootout near New Caney last…
Pop Rocks: Five Celebrity Couples More Boring Than Giuliana and Bill Rancic
If your response to the news that reality couple Bill and Giuliana Rancic were expecting their first child was “Who the fuck are Bill and Giuliana Rancic?” you’re likely not alone. But rather than simply posit the question on Twitter like so many Dick Clark-deprived youngsters, I chose to edumacate…
Harry Truman and Bess: Another E-mail from Your Dad
Like most of you, I get e-mails from my dad full of “facts” that are basically telling me how much better life was in the past than it is now. People were more respectful, politicians were more honest, and values were more…valued? Case in point, yesterday I received a list…
Mahogany Mason-Kelly, Famous Last Tweets Part XXVI: Don’t Taunt Cops About Your Warrants
Twitter giveth and Twitter taketh away. Especially when you’re colossally stupid about it. Lamar University student Mahogany Mason-Kelly, 20, learned that lesson when she tweeted the message to the right. “I still gotta warrant in pearland..those pigs will NEVER catch me!!!…Never!!!” she tweeted. (We immediately pictured “I’m Homer Simpson, the…
Hipster Lessons: 5 Ways to Make Indie Bands Less Annoying
My girlfriend got a new car recently and it has satellite radio. The result has been a lot of channel-surfing and among the more regular selections is Alt Nation. Though there are certainly some god-awful songs that get played on there, on the whole, it isn’t bad and has even…
Carrie Fisher: Princess Leia, Debbie Reynolds’s Daughter & More
Every family has drama, actress and author Carrie Fisher says. What makes hers worth recounting and putting up onstage is, of course, that she’s the fabled daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher whose father walked out of the marriage when she was two so he could be with Elizabeth…
Where Are We Drinking?
If there’s a perfect bar in Montrose for catching up on a little light German reading, it’s this place. Can you tell where someone was getting in touch with his inner wolf of the steppes while downing a beer? Leave your best guess below…
Ruth Piller: Big-Firm Attorney Says Colleagues Photoshopped Her Face onto Totally Inappropriate Pics
Photoshopped images of a female attorney’s face on the body of a stripper, a naked woman partially covered in sushi, and a woman in knee-high boots and leopard-print bikini are among a bevy of e-mails at the heart of an Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint against the Houston law firm Hays,…
Do You Remember Rock N Roll Comics?
Ilko Davidov’s documentary film Unauthorized: The Story of Rock N Roll Comics is finally available on DVD today after having been originally released in 2005. Hopefully you remember Rock N Roll Comics, the series of illustrated unauthorized biographies that Todd Loren put out to the rage of many until he…
Classic Film Noir Comes to Pearland, and Our Top 5 Noir Films Ever
Tuesday night the Pearland Theatre Guild is celebrating the complicated and dark world of film noir with Noir Nights: Film Noir Social Mixer. The event invites guests to mix and mingle with fellow noir-loving locals while noshing on food and drinks. They even suggest dressing to kill, so to speak,…
Lauren Perkins: Sextuplet Mom, Runner
Taking a baby home from the hospital is daunting enough, no matter how many times you do it. Taking six babies home: All the luck in the world to you, Mom and Dad. Lauren Perkins and her husband David are dealing with that situation, or soon will be, we hope…
Last Night: Marshall Crenshaw & The Bottle Rockets At The Continental Club
Marshall Crenshaw, The Bottle Rockets Continental Club April 22, 2012 Sunday’s Marshall Crenshaw/Bottle Rockets show again raised the question of whether Houston fans of intelligent, literate rock and roll should be disappointed that our city isn’t more interested in this kind of music, or whether we should be grateful shows…
Unidentified Male, 26, Robbed in His Driveway, Bayou Body Count No. 48
A 26-year-old northside man was killed Sunday night when he met a robber on his driveway, police say. The victim, whose identity has not been released, arrived home with his family in the 300 block of San Fernando about 9 p.m. Sunday when he was confronted by “a tall, stocky…
Aeros Pull Out Game Three Win, Live to Fight Another Day
John RoyalOne of the few times the Aeros attacked the opposing goalie on Friday night.The Aeros not only lost game two of the opening round of the Calder Cup playoffs to the Oklahoma City Barons 4-1 on Friday night. They possibly lost goalie Matt Hackett for the unforeseeable future. The…
Anvil’s Matt Tanner Wins the 2012 On the Rocks Bartending Contest
I love judging bartending contests. I love watching bartending contests. The showmanship and passion that is on display at these events — Miss Speed Rack Houston, for example, or the recent Don Q Rum competition (both of which are sending female Houston bartenders to national championships in New York City)…
Taking Instagram Out for a Spin: My Weekend in Photos
App: Instagram Platform: iPhone and Android Website: http://instagr.am/ Cost: Free Until recently, my experience with Instagram was one of admiration and loneliness from afar. Many of my friends belong to #TeamiPhone, while I am stuck with #TeamAndroid. But now, much to the chagrin of the Apple elitists, the popular photography…
Coachella: 10 Hot, Sweaty, Silly Dances, in GIF Form
Note: This was written by LA Weekly’s Rebecca Haithcoat — ed. Rebecca HaithcoatSee also: *Top Ten Awkward Coachella Dance Move GIFs *Our Complete Coachella Coverage During Coachella’s second weekend, temperatures topped 100 degrees every day. Yet somehow folks were dancing even crazy-er! Most just stripped down and let the sweat…
Duncan Hines Frosting Creations
Even before the cupcake craze, I was fascinated with inventive frosting flavors. My wedding cake had maple cream icing (amazing), and I have fond memories of the first time I tasted green tea frosting (thank you, college roommate). In the past, I’ve made my own alternative flavors at home (ginger,…
Calli Dretke: Cops Say Drunk Driver Slams into Blood-Alcohol Testing Van, Bringing Serious Charges for Area Hospital Spokesperson
In a DWI incident that recalled last year’s “Why was the helicopter flying so low?” debacle, a 25-year-old Montgomery woman has been jailed after police said she drunkenly rear-ended a police Blood Alcohol Testing Van. According to the Montgomery County Police Reporter, a county sheriff’s deputy was attempting to subdue…
State of Texas Announces Live Music Grant Program for Free Concerts
The Texas Music Office, a division of the Office of the Governor, announced Friday the creation of the Live Music Grant Program, funding free concerts across the state. But don’t get all excited yet. This is the Texas guv’ment we are dealing with, after all, so there are a few…
Mad Men: What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been
This week’s episode of Mad Men may just be the weirdest 45 minutes the series has ever produced! We’ll get there, but let’s start at the beginning. I had been thinking that this season has been ignoring Peggy; Don’s old comrade has been replaced by his new wife. Mathew Weiner…
Sunday: iFest in Downtown Houston — Galactic, Jason Isbell, Etc.
Houston International Festival Downtown Houston April 22, 2012 With a slight north breeze keeping festival-goers from broiling under a cloudless sky, Sunday’s iFest turned into a perfect laid-back Houston day of rest and entertainment excess. It didn’t hurt that the music lineup was both diverse and stellar, that there were…
Sharif John Reid Loved His iPods & iPhones: Used ID Fraud to Buy $200,000 of Them
When you love Apple, you just plain love Apple. And Sharif John Reid is definitely an Apple-loving guy. Prosecutors say he used dozens of fake credit cards, all with the same name, to purchase iPods, iPhones and other Apple products in Louisiana and Texas. The Memorial City Apple store proved…
Coachella: The Worst of Weekend 2
Daniel KohnIt couldn’t all be great performances, decent recreational drugs and pleasant weather at Coachella. Here are our writers’ picks for their least favorite things from the festival’s second weekend. People Not Here for the Music: If you’re paying $300-$800 for a festival ticket, one might think you were a…
From Corporate America to Catwalk: Jessiica Howell Debuts Her Fashion Line
Jessiica Howell should be proud. The new fashion designer stepped away from a corporate job to bravely debut a Saturday night sneak preview of her self-titled line, Jessiica Howell Fashions, which she created in less than four months. She should also give herself a pat on the back for transforming…
Dear Star Pizza…Is Wax Paper Really Too Much to Ask?
Dear Star Pizza, I want you to know that I am a longtime fan and admirer of your work. Hell, before I was peer-pressured into trying your food I didn’t even like pizza at all, an unheard-of thing in a man of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles generation. The fact…
Coachella: Best of Weekend 2, Day 3
Sunday, our friends at LA Weekly and OC Weekly trekked out to the desert for one more day — ed. Timothy NorrisBy the third day of Coachella’s second weekend — the sixth and final day of this year’s festival — folks had more or less learned to ignore the dust…
Brian Greenhouse: Son of Man Killed on Rodeo Amusement Ride to Get $1.9 Million
A state judge has approved a $1.9 million settlement for the son of the man killed on a Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo ride in 2011. Brian Greenhouse, 46, was thrown 28 feet to his death on the Hi-Miler roller coaster at the 2011 rodeo. His family sued the rodeo…
Wine(s) of the Week: Austin Food & Wine Festival Preview
Anthony Giglio is simply one of the funniest and most fun-to-be-around people I know in the wine writing business today. The New York-born son of Neapolitan immigrants, he loves wine, food and life with a passion that spans the divide between old world and new. And whether he’s guiding a…
Game of Thrones: “Garden of Bones”
There are table-setting episodes, and there are table-setting episodes. HBO has — by necessity — had to cram a lot of activity into each of this season’s installments. Four kings are vying for the Iron Throne, after all, and there are attendant subplots and intrigues aplenty. That said, last night’s…
Rush Closes 2012 Tour in Houston December 2
Canadian rock behemoths Rush are set to close out their upcoming Clockwork Angels tour here in Houston December 2 at Toyota Center. The album, their first studio set since 2007’s Snakes & Arrows, is due June 5 from Roadrunner Records. The band’s last Houston-area date was up at the Cynthia…
Houston Grand Opera’s Mary Stuart: Hail, Joyce DiDonato!
For more on the Houston Grand Opera production of Mary Stuart, read our interviews with Joyce DiDonato, Katie Van Kooten and Eric Cutler. The setup: There’s an old Italian operatic term, one that probably originated at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala (or La Scala, for operaphiles), called “prima donna assoluta.” It…
Tyler Paper Has Greatest Front Page Error Ever
Ah, the mad scramble to get ad revenue for print publications. It now includes those annoying stickers placed on the front pages of papers delivered to homes. Sometimes things can go wrong, and the stickers are placed haphazardly where they shouldn’t. And sometimes things can go very wrong, as the…
H-Town StrEATs Offering a Menu for the Truly Brave
Remember last week when we told you that “ugly” food truck H-Town StrEATs would soon be getting a new wrap and a whole new look courtesy of Dos Equis? Here’s why. The Mexican beer giant is bringing what it calls The Feast of the Brave, a “daring culinary Cinco de…
Saturday: iFest in Downtown Houston — Los Lonely Boys, Los Amigos Invisibles, Etc.
Houston International Festival Downtown Houston April 21, 2012 There’s something beautifully eclectic about Houston’s iFest. Only there can you drink a beer as you stuff your face with curry, shoulder to shoulder with a Buddhist, while listening to Hare Krishnas sing their hearts out. Okay, maybe it’s not the only…
Woody Allen’s Don’t Drink the Water at Country Playhouse: Not Anyone’s Best Work
The setup: Although he had previously co-written the Broadway revue From A to Z (1960), Woody Allen, already famous for his stand-up routines and comedy writing for TV giant Sid Caesar, went solo with his first Broadway comedy, Don’t Drink the Water (1966). The play had a successful run for…
6 Awesome Things About Bobby Petrino’s Resume
The Bobby Petrino Saga. It won’t go away. And that’s good because I can’t look away. Last Friday, I posted the links to and a summary of the various documents that were released to the public. (Hat tip to the Freedom of Information Act, the plague on the house of…
Borgias: Paper Tigers, Porcelain Cannons
In the third episode of this season of the Borgias we open on the aftermath of Juan having killed Lucrezia’s baby-daddy Paolo and making it look like a suicide. What follows is a sad affair that ultimately has Juan banished to Spain to marry without him ever really admitting his…
Saturday: Buzzfest XXVIII at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Buzzfest XXVIII Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion April 21, 2012 See lots more Buzzfest action in our slideshow. Buzzfest has evolved beyond a local live-music institution at this point. It’s closer to a rite of passage, a biannual keystone concert event for Houston’s great, eager suburban hordes. Saturday marked the radio-sponsored…
A Small Matter of Taste
NPR recently aired a fascinating story about the physiology of taste. The segment featured an interview with Barb Stuckey, author of Taste What You’re Missing: The Passionate Eater’s Guide to Why Good Food Tastes Good. The book discusses the variety of tastes that we all experience. By this I do…
What’s Cooking This Week?
I love cooking for my fiancé and for myself, but most of the time, cooking for two proves to be difficult. If I don’t make a plan, I end up aimlessly wandering the supermarket and wasting half the ingredients that I’ve bought (and I HATE food wasters…I’m lookin’ at you!)…
The Cripple of Inishmaan Brings Vivid Irish Characters to the University of Houston
The set-up: The University of Houston School of Theatre brings a bit of Ireland to Houston, re-creating the small-mindedness, boredom and bickering of inhabitants of a coastal island, while etching them vividly, in a dark comedy by acclaimed playwright Martin McDonagh. The execution: The Irish accents are as thick as…
Friday Night: Mt. Eden at Rich’s
Mt. Eden Rich’s April 20, 2012 Friday, Mt. Eden, a music duo from New Zealand that is not Flight of the Conchords, played a show at Rich’s. And they were very good. At least, I suspect that they were, and that’s probably the closest anyone can get to conclusively arguing…
Comment of the Day: Team Cleavage’s, Ummm, Honor Defended
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula…
David N. Washington, 41, Bayou Body Count No. 47
Masked gunman broke into a garage-like apartment in northeast Houston and began shooting, killing one of three men playing video games, police say. David N. Washington, 41, was shot around midnight by one of the two masked gunmen. Others in the place were able to escape or hide. The two…
iFest Weekend One
The most ethnically diverse city in the country showcased its dominance this weekend. The city’s annual International Festival opened to large crowds of diversity-loving Houstonians. If you have never been to iFest, you still have next weekend to make your way over there. Head downtown toward Tranquility Park and you…
Happy Birthday to James Buchanan, Our First Gay President (Possibly): 5 Odd Facts
We doubt you’re reading this, since you are out wildly celebrating the 221st birthday of President James Buchanan. Aren’t you? Of course you are. There are so many reasons to celebrate, like these five: 5. Some people believe he IS NOT the worst president ever, so take that!! Whenever a…
Welcome to My World: 10 Musicians Who Deserve Their Own Reality Show
Ever since The Real World hit the MTV airwaves in the early ’90s, reality television has been all the rage. However, since The Osbournes debuted in 2002, some of that reality programming has catered to music fans. Even such music artists as country artist Tanya Tucker, rapper/minister Reverend Run (of…
Logan Keslar Returns to Houston for La Cage aux Folles
For more coverage of La Cage aux Folles, see our interview with George Hamilton. For one and a half to two hours before every performance — except when he gets to sub in as the son — Logan Keslar gets himself together, shaving away every trace of his beard and…
Where Are We Eating?
This brand-new cafe is located inside of an equally brand-new space, in a part of town that’s heavy on culture but starved for restaurants. It’s possibly too new to even look familiar, but I bet our readers can suss this one out. Think you know where we’re eating this week?…
#puffpuffgive, #tryedbutfailed: 5 Hashtag Suggestions for College Football
The Michigan Wolverines may have ushered in the official Twitterized world of college football by painting #goblue in two spots on the Michigan Stadium turf for its spring game. (Yeah, yeah, Mississippi State has done something similar. Thing is, nobody cares about Mississippi State.) Some other schools could also elevate…
Kathryn Hallberg Is Scary Good on Nocturnal
This fresh-faced young singer-songwriter from the north end of Houston was one of the first artists I wrote a CD review for here in the electronic pages of Rocks Off. Her debut EP, No Surprises, lied right to my face because I was surprised to hear someone who at the…
3 Things from Doctor Who That Exist in Real Life
I came late to the party, but now I am one of those people who fully embrace Doctor Who not as a mere television show, but for the absolute miracle of existence that it is. No show, not Twin Peaks, not Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not even Pushing Daisies, has…
Coachella: Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum Is a Real Hero
Note: This was written by LA Weekly’s Taylor Hamby — ed. “What’s going on over there?” Jeff Mangum, the reclusive singer of Neutral Milk Hotel, halted a rare public appearance at weekend two of Coachella Saturday night to call attention to a distressed fan. At first, Mangum wasn’t sure what…
Coachella: The Buzzcocks’ Steve Diggle Beats the Heat
Meranda CarterBuzzcocks guitarist Steve Diggle braving the elements.You’re hot, uncomfortable, overwhelmed by the 106-degree temperature and don’t know what to do. The good news? Buzzcocks guitarist Steve Diggle empathizes with you. As a veteran of the punk-rock circuit and festival scene, Diggle knows a thing or two about surviving in…
Coachella: Best of Weekend 2, Day 2
More fun in the desert from our friends at LA Weekly and OC Weekly — ed. Meranda CarterSaturday at Coachella meant tributes, tributes, tributes. From Levon Helms to Biggie, everyone got a shout-out. In between all that, some nasty partying and a little recreational drug use. Read our highly-trained writers…
Coachella 4/20: People Were Smoking Weed
Molly BergenFriday was 4/20. It was also Coachella. And so, the percentage of festival-goers who were stoned rose from a paltry 75 percent to a full 98 percent. (These estimates come courtesy of our editor, LA Weekly’s Ben Westhoff, who did a small survey with a margin of error of…
Coachella: Best of Weekend 2, Day 1
Our friends at LA Weekly and OC Weekly are at Coachella again. Here’s what they’re up to. It’s “hot, sultry and steamy,” they say. Here’s the best of what they saw Friday. Timothy NorrisOther Lives: Amidst the day’s scorching heat — when most sane people were asleep in their tents…
Shriya Patel: Promised Husband Massage in Oil, But Doused Him in Gasoline and Torched Him Instead, Police Say
A 25-year-old woman is behind bars after she allegedly set her husband on fire last night in a north Austin apartment complex. Shriya Patel, a native of India, joined her husband of one year in Austin only one week ago. A neighbor told KXAN that he heard what sounded like…
This Week in Deliciousness
Welcome back to the weekly roundup, where yours truly is currently racing against an incoming hellstorm-raingasm, and hoping to get this thing completed before the bottom falls out. Will I succeed? The only way to know is to read on. We started the week off right with sushi, sushi, sushi,…
Hail, Blackouts in Southwest Houston
A big ol’ storm is moving through the area, bringing heavy rains, hail and electricity problems. Hails is falling in Westbury, where the power is out for hundreds of customers, according to CenterPoint’s outage tracker. About 76,000 Houston homes are without power as of 4 p.m. Also affected are areas…
The Petrino Diaries: Meeting Notes, Personnel Files and Other Salacious Details Revealed!
Reason number 5,214,819 that the Internet is awesome: You can get entire scripts of virtually any movie online. FREE! While this may not sound cool, it comes in handy when trying to figure out what movie certain famous lines are from or figuring out the names of obscure characters. One…
A Stunning Collection of Latin American Masters at MFAH
The summer after my freshman year of college I volunteered for two months on a work camp in a small village in Mexico. I had two extra weeks before setting sail for home to explore some parts of the country. In Mexico art is encouraged, and it is not uncommon…
Beaumont Diocese Sued over Priest Who Allegedly Abused Teen in 1976
A Dallas County man is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, and Bishop Curtis Guillory, over sexual abuse the man allegedly suffered by a now-deceased priest in 1976-1977. According to the suit filed last week in Jefferson County District Court, the man — identified as John Doe 104 –…
Garbage Postpones Tonight’s House of Blues Show to Unspecified Date
Alt-rockers Garbage have postponed their show scheduled for tonight at House of Blues due to a medical emergency in the family of an unspecified band member, a statement from promoter Live Nation said. “The band will reschedule these dates soon,” the statement said…
Texas Guitar Great David Grissom Digs Way Down Deep
David Grissom has a résumé that most guitarists can only dream of. From his early days with Hank III in Killbilly, Grissom went on to playing, along with Jimmy Pettit and Davis McLarty, for Joe Ely from 1985 to 1991. A hell-for-leather band that could hang with the Clash or…
Upcoming Events: Give the Planet a Hug
This coming Sunday, April 22, is Earth Day. That means plenty of tree-hugging food events that make you want to throw off the surly bonds of cynicism for at least one day and acknowledge that maybe you really do like Earth. And Revival Market is a good place to start…
Texans Cheerleader Vote: Team Cleavage vs. Team Modesty
The Houston Texans want your input on their new cheerleader candidates, just part of the highly scientific process used to decide who gets to take the field. You can view cheerleader video and photos and text your vote to the team. Examining the lineup, it seems clear there are two…
Chef Chat, Part 3: Jose Hernandez of Triniti and His Michelin-Worthy Desserts
Jose Hernandez Triniti 2815 South Shepherd Drive 713-527-9090 This is part three of my chef chat with Chef de Cuisine Jose Hernandez of Triniti. Parts one and two ran in this space in the last couple of days. We’ve been getting to know Chef Jose Hernandez of Triniti this week…
Record Store Day: 8 Ways to Annoy a Record-Store Worker
Tomorrow is Record Store Day, which is a little bit like the Super Bowl of music shopping: People who have no interest in the sport the rest of the year will be front and center. Rocks Off would never, ever tell anyone not to go to a record store, but…
Oh Lord: The “Aggie Swag” Rap Song
Words fail. Follow Hair Balls News on Facebook and on Twitter @HairBallsNews…
The Devil’s in the Details in the Alley’s The Seafarer
For more coverage of The Seafarer, see our interview with Alley Artistic Director Gregory Boyd. The setup: Guess who’s coming to play cards? If you’re hell-bent on seeing Conor McPherson’s brogue-laced Christian tall tale, The Seafarer, read no further, because there’s a spoiler to be revealed. This isn’t disclosed to…
Asia Society: The Week in Photos
It’s time again to check out the Houston Press Flickr Pool and see what kinds of art shots our talented photographers have added. We love street art, unique perspectives and beautiful photos of Houston’s creative community. If you think you’ve got a good eye, drop your pictures in the pool…
Delmus Scott Jr.: Army Postmaster Steals $565,000 Worth of Postal Orders
A man who was the equivalent of a postmaster at an Army base stole 565 $1,000 money orders and managed to convert about $90,000 each to himself and his fiancée before getting caught, federal prosecutors say. Delmus Eugene Scott Jr., 34, of Humble, Texas, was sentenced to almost three years…
Black Market Syndicate: Punk Believers Rejoice with Peasants
Black Market Syndicate are true believers. Besides releasing second album And the Peasants Rejoiced at Fitzgerald’s Saturday, the Houston punk quartet is streaming it all weekend on their ReverbNation page. For the people. Produced by Street Dogs’ Johnny Rioux, Peasants stands up for the powerless and dreams of escaping the…
Odd Pair: What Wine Goes with Breakfast Tacos?
One of the things that I crave the most when I’m traveling in Europe is homemade breakfast tacos made with handmade white flour tortillas by Central Market. And so, when I recently returned from a two-week (and too long) trip to Italy, this staple of Tex-Mex gastronomy was at the…
Comment of the Day: No “LoWe,” But No “The” Montrose Either, Please
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula…
Openings & Closings: The Blind Items Gain Vision Edition
Everyone likes to see a good blind item come to fruition. We have two that gained sight this week. With one of our most recent items, our readers — as usual — were spot-on in their guesses. Ocean’s, the big white house in Montrose that currently serves subpar seafood, will…
Last Night: Ben Kweller at Fitzgerald’s
Ben Kweller Fitzgerald’s April 19, 2012 While I can’t tell you that Ben Kweller is a polarizing, avant-garde, demiurgic artist, I can tell you that while finding a way to rhyme sexy with spaghetti, he remains an excellent musician. Kweller, now 30, has been playing music for years, starting out…
Aeros Majorly Embarrassed in Loss Last Night
John RoyalTry as he might, head coach John Torchetti got absolutely nothing from his squad last night.The Aeros’ Calder Cup hopes rest on the shoulders of second-year goalie Matt Hackett. The Aeros lost game one of the opening round series to the Oklahoma City Barons 5-0 last night. That the…
Community: “Virtual Systems Analysis”
As Ty Webb once said, a doughnut with no hole is a danish. So what name do we give a comedy with no (or few, anyway) laughs? One in which the bulk of a particular episode is given over to introspection and character analysis? In the old days, we might…
Health Department Roundup: Burger King, Chaat and Bronies
You know the Health Department Roundup is going to be a little dull when the only place that earned a citation was a Burger King, and half of the places inspected were schools. (We’re going to say that works about once a year.) Instead of exciting closures and tickets, of…
#1 Crushes: Our Favorite ’90s Rock Vixens
Tonight House of Blues welcomes Garbage back to Houston after a seven-year hiatus. (Sadly, the group had to cancel this Houston date due to a health issue in Garbage man Duke Erikson’s family. The date has not been rescheduled as of yet.) The group, led by fearsome Scottish redhead Shirley…
Bartender Chat: Greg Dean of Khon’s Wine Darts Coffee Art
Earlier this week while walking back to my car after having lunch at Red Pier, I looked across the street and spied the sign for Khon’s Wine Darts Coffee Art. Oh, so that’s where it is. The first time I had ever heard the name was about a year ago…
Tango Master Hector Del Curto Plays iFest
Voted the best bandoneonist (player of a type of small accordion) under 25 in Argentina when he was only 17 years old, Hector del Curto is today a world-class musician. He has played with most of the biggest names in tango, from pianist Osvaldo Pugliese to fellow bandoneonist Astor Piazolla…
iFest’s Jesse Dayton: “I’m Ready to Throw Down”
The last time Rocks Off caught up with Jesse Dayton, he was up to his eyeballs in alligators with his film project Zombex, working on an album of Kinky Friedman cover songs and playing Kinky for a bunch of New York art types in Marfa. One of the hustling-est hustlers…
Six Stupid Reasons to Move to Austin, a Mediocre Town
Some mewling mouth-breather named Ed Reed on a blog called Thought Catalog has fallen in love with Austin and listed off six reasons why more Yankees and Californians should move there and join him. And of course, there’s an obligatory, misinformed slam on Houston, but more on that later… He…
Week in Photos: Dissipate
Each week, we take a dip into the Houston Press Flickr pool and see what our talented photographers have been up to. We’re looking for pictures that represent the best of Houston, from food to art to events, to secret hidden spots of beauty. Just drop them in our Flickr…
7 Cool & Cheap Things to Do This Weekend: 4/20, Record Store Day, iFest, Etc.
Today is 4/20, and you know what that means. (Or do you? We always forget.) One thing it means is that Art Inst., Ese, Big Gerb & the Bearded Bandidos and Secret Society are playing a show tonight at Walter’s. Come hungry. Houston House of Creeps is trying to raise…
The Art of Photographic Collage at Bryan Miller Gallery
Collage photography is having a bit of a moment right now in Houston, thanks to a major exhibition up at the Museum of Fine Arts called “Utopia/Dystopia.” For a much smaller show that still manages to cover a lot of ground, there’s also “CTRL group two” at Bryan Miller Gallery…
“Reply All” & the Five Other Dumbest/Most Annoying Things People Do with E-Mail
Hard to believe, but the very first electronic messages were around 50 years ago. It wasn’t the sophisticated, snail mail-replacing juggernaut most of us use every day, but it existed. As it has grown, communication has shifted and things none of us ever dreamed were necessary — emoticons, for example…
Go Gourmet This 420 Day: Houston’s Best Stoner Snacks
Today is 420 Day, the day known fondly to stoners everywhere as a kind of unofficial National Marijuana Appreciation Day. It’s a holiday that’s been around for more than 40 years — you’re not as hip or cool as your parents were, kids; they started this shit in 1971 –…
Squared Circle: Top 5 Songs About Pro Wrestling
Although the wrestling boom of the late ’90s is a fading memory, the absurd mix of sport and theater continues on in bingo halls and arenas across the country. Every night, under the bright lights, someone is trying to avoid being hit with a steel chair. It should come as…
100 Creatives 2012: John Sparagana
John Sparagana does not create art with a specific audience in mind. Ten years ago, he started taking media images that seemed simply informational and transformed them into mysterious works that he hopes people will spend time with. It was a post-9/11 impulse, and Sparagana introduced a series of cast-shadow…
30 Seconds with The Boxing Lesson
Progressive psychedelia is an acquired taste…acquired by being awesome, that is. Austin’s own Boxing Lesson may be one of the best modern practitioners around. If the Legendary Pink Dots teamed with the Cult, you might get somewhere near the throbbing frontal lobe fuck of their work. Seriously, “Health is the…
4/20 Day: 14 Bongs Based on Movies That Should Not Have Bongs Based on Them
Hey, it’s 4/20 day! Be glad you don’t live in Boulder, where the University of Colorado is trying to end the annual massive on-campus celebration of the day by barring any visitors and spraying the quad where it’s held with “a foul-smelling fish-based fertilizer on the grass.” Bummer. Here in…
4 Surprising Things That America Invented
I’m not bashing the good old USA at all here. America is a place where our true religion is “Do something awesome and we’ll give you a million dollars”-ianity, and we are a faithful and devout lot. Look at the response to the death of Steve Jobs. We all wailed…
Shot in the Dark Photo Exhibit Returns May 17
Rocks Off is glad to announce that Shot in the Dark, our exhibition of concert photography that has appeared online and in the pages of the Houston Press, will return Thursday, May 17, at the War’Hous Visual Studios at 4715 Main in the Museum District. This year, since it’s at…
This Guy Really Loves to Rob Check-Cashing Stores
Houston police are looking for the guy on the right, who is making a habit of robbing check-cashing stores around town. He’s described as “a black male, 35 to 45 years of age, 5 feet 7 to 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a slender build and weighing approximately 160…
Miraculously, Nobody Died in This Video of a 76-Year-Old Woman Plowing Her Car Through the Front of This Building
I should probably be writing about the Rockets. Their collapse and continued downward spiral from the NBA playoffs to another crappy back-end-of-the-lottery draft pick is the most relevant story in town right now (until the Texans draft a wide receiver next week, at least). But I can’t bring myself to…
Sunday Brunch…at Whole Foods Market?
Normally on the weekends, you can find me, bottomless mimosa in hand, at one of the many awesome brunch spots around town. But this typically leads to a couple of buckets of beer…which lead to a few outdoor games of bags…which lead to someone losing a bet…leading to a stripped-down…
EXCLUSIVE: Presale Offer For Kenny Chesney/Tim McGraw Tickets
Come Saturday, August 4, Houston country fans will have all the summer bromance they can handle when Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw bring their super giant mega huge “Brothers of the Sun” tour to Reliant Stadium. Maybe they’ll even swap cowboy hats! Haha, we kid. But seriously, we’re very glad…
Spindletop Sued for Gross Negligence After Toddler’s Foot Is Caught In Rotating Floor
Set at the very top of the Hyatt Regency Houston hotel downtown, Spindletop is a popular destination for date nights and special occasions. The rotating floors in the restaurant spin guests slowly around for impeccable views of the city skyline, making Spindletop a draw since it first opened in 1972…
RIP Levon Helm: The Band Drummer And Americana Icon Dies At 71
Levon Helm, the Arkansas-born icon of Americana music, passed away Thursday afternoon after a long battle with throat cancer, his family said on Helm’s Web site. “He has loved nothing more than to play, to fill up the room with music, lay down the back beat, and make people dance,”…
Tough Week: Rockets Go from Sixth Seed to Out of the Playoffs
Remember all the warm, fuzzy feelings last week when the Rockets came home from a 4-0 road trip, knocking on the door of a good seeding in the Western Conference playoffs? It appeared this scrappy, tough team was going to defy odds and make the playoffs with no stars and…
The American Bandstand (Extended) Hot 100
Somehow it’s hard to believe that Dick Clark was only 82 years old when he died after suffering a “massive heart attack” Wednesday morning in Santa Monica, Calif. (Since I managed to survive one myself, I’ve noticed that anytime someone dies of a heart attack, it’s always “massive.”). Despite his…
Houston: More Hipster-Friendly than Salt Lake City and Dallas, at Least
Earlier this month Travel and Leisure asked their readers to rank 35 American cities on the quantity and quality of their live music scenes, coffeehouses, microbrews and independent boutiques. They also asked their readers to quantify more ineffable qualities such as the quirkiness of a city and how offbeat the…
Chef Chat, Part 2: Jose Hernandez of Triniti on His Quest for Perfection
Jose Hernandez Triniti 2815 South Shepherd Drive 713-527-9090 This is the part two of my chef chat with Chef de Cuisine Jose Hernandez of Triniti. Part one ran in this space yesterday. Yesterday, we chatted with Chef de Cuisine Jose Hernandez of Triniti Restaurant about the pastry skills he acquired…
Big Yellow Taxi: Six Songs About Taxicabs
For poor kids, like myself growing up, a ride in a taxicab is a foreign adventure, particularly in Houston where it’s not an especially necessary form of transportation like some other large cities such as New York. For us, it’s the closest we could probably ever get to having a…
Driver Drunk at Rush Hour Kills Man, Bayou Body Count No. 46
A 24-year-old man who was drunk at 6 p.m. killed a 57-year-old man by speeding through a red light, Houston police say. Kevin Aviles was traveling at a high rate of speed on the South Loop’s eastbound service road when he ran through a red light at South Wayside, police…
Free for All: Art Without a Price Tag: Stopped on Track, Lauren Conrad and Shakespeare on the Green – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
On Friday, there are two free and very different film screenings to choose from. Over at Rice University, there’s Andreas Dresen: Cloud 9 and Stopped on Track. The films were award-winners at Cannes. Cloud 9 is about a woman who has an affair after 30 years of married life, while…
A Mouth-Watering Good Time at the Houston Press Menu of Menus®
What do you get when you cross a food sampling event with a live Iron Chef competition, musical entertainment, and an open bar? One hell of an event, otherwise known as the Houston Press Menu of Menus®. Tuesday night, the Houston Press, in conjunction with Stella Artois and Whole Foods,…
Last Night: Sleigh Bells At Warehouse Live
Sleigh Bells Warehouse Live April 18, 2012 Sleigh Bells has to be one of the most polarizing bands in recent memory. To really get a bead on a band these days, you have to go to iTunes. So I looked up Sleigh Bells. “How did this get made?” wondered one…
Comment of the Day: The Twisted Mind of Verna McClain
We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it’s time we paid some damn attention to them. So we’ll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day’s work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula…
5 Reasons You Should Be Watching Bob’s Burgers
Bob’s Burgers entered Fox’s Sunday evening programming quietly last year, filling the void left by the cancellation of King of the Hill. It looked as bad as Fox’s other non-Simpsons/Family Guy animation (see: The PJs and Sit Down, Shut Up). And pun-filled reviews like this one from Entertainment Weekly –…
New DiverseWorks Head Honcho Elizabeth Dunbar Making Changes
Elizabeth Dunbar, who was recently hired as the executive director of DiverseWorks ArtSpace, is making things happen at her new post. Along with creating new jobs at one of Houston’s top art venues, the former associate director/chief curator at Austin’s Arthouse has made some hefty changes to its annual fundraising…
Guy Pulls Gun to Rob Two Undercover Cops, Gets Shot to Death
Bad choice of victim.An armed guy with a bandana over his face picked the worst two people to try to rob last night: two undercover Houston cops. The officers were in the back parking lot of a Gulf Freeway Luby’s about 11 p.m. last night discussing an operation when they…
Brew Blog: Twisted Pine Ghost Face Killah
I know, I know. I just went on a rant about gimmicky beers, and here I go drinking a beer that seems like it was designed for YouTube reaction videos. I don’t know if this makes it better or worse, but it was actually a case of mistaken identity. When…
Sour Lake: Texas Vampires Do Not @!#?ing Sparkle!
I had a sliiiiiight overreaction to the last vampire novel I was sent to review because I honestly didn’t know it was supposed to be funny, and also because it was really bad. I was frankly in no mood to read anything more about bloodsuckers, but Bruce McCandless III set…
Best Of The Rest: Houston’s Top 6 Washington Avenue Bars
The Washington Avenue corridor is fascinating if not for the simple fact that its very existence for the last few years has ignited a firestorm of opinions about its worthiness as Houston’s king of party scenes. Last year, Houston Press writers Craig Hlavaty, Shea Serrano and Mike Gigilio did an…
Morimoto Who? Houston has Nobu Kagawa at Uchi
You’ve done it, come on, you know you have. Most American sushi eaters have succeeded in bastardizing the whole tradition and delicacy of sushi. We make paste out of soy sauce and wasabi and dip our beautiful piece of o-toro and rice in it till it’s dripping and then shove…
New Menil Drawing Institute Building Will Be One of the Only Ones Dedicated to Modern Drawing
Some celebrate a quarter-century of existence with some boring cake. For its 25th anniversary, The Menil Collection is constructing a freaking building, one that will be a one-of-a-kind cathedral to visual art. The Menil Drawing Institute (MDI) will be the first major project under the museum’s long-term plan that includes…
Six-String Pawn Stars: Top 10 Famous Stolen Guitars
Tom Petty got a real kick in the balls late last week when he discovered that his vintage blond 1967 12-string Rickenbacker and his Gibson SGTV Junior had been stolen from a California soundstage where the Heartbreakers had been rehearsing for an upcoming tour. Three other vintage guitars owned by…
Demi Mishel Muniz: Immigrant Smuggler Left Diabetic to Die in Ditch
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has charged two people with conspiring to transport and harbor illegal aliens, but their case is more serious than that. Prosecutors say Demi Mishel Muniz, 33, and Luis Aceituno, 26, were tranporting illegal immigrants in a van from Houston to Los Angeles when one of the…
Pop Rocks: Season Four of Arrested Development Is Coming. Does Anyone Care?
This sounds familiar: “Arrested Development’s” long-awaited fourth season will appear on Netflix early next year, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos told reporters at the National Assn. of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas on Tuesday. But it won’t unfold on a weekly basis like a regular TV series; instead, Netflix will make…
App of the Week: No-Wait Checkouts with the Apple Store App
App: Apple Store Platform: iPhone Website: Apple Store App Cost: Free For years I’ve used the self-checkout lanes at grocery stores. Years ago I was a checker at a Kroger, and I find that I’m often as fast if not faster than the checkout person — unless I have produce…
Darlene Mayes: Shocking New Details in Oklahoma Ganja Granny Case
If you want to make it as a writer in Hollywood, you have to hone your ideas into “elevator pitches,” short descriptive bursts that can intrigue the big cigars between floors in office buildings. The case of Darlene Mayes is an easy one: Weeds meets Breaking Bad meets Golden Girls,…
Who Said It: Louis C.K. or Ted Nugent?
Louis C.K.’s hit FX show Louie doesn’t resume until June, but from the buzz going on you would think it starts tomorrow. To get his fans riled up, C.K. let loose a teaser to wreak havoc across the Inter-tubes. The teaser is brilliant, naturally. C.K.’s in-your-face, raw, honest brand of…
Michael Artis: Director Would Shoot Video For Hologram Tupac
Each week, 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. A little horn-tooting: Last year, the Houston Press…
Whatever Happened to Second Breakfast?
“On-the-go Americans increasingly are consuming their morning calories over several hours instead of sitting down to devour a plate of pancakes, bacon and eggs in one sitting,” wrote Candice Choi in the Huffington Post earlier this year. At Time, Kate Springer wrote about the phenomenon in an article titled “More…
The 2012 NFL Schedule Is Here! The 2012 NFL Schedule Is Here!
In the timeless Steve Martin comedy The Jerk, there’s a famous scene where Martin’s character Navin R. Johnson sprints across the parking lot to snag a copy of the new phone book to confirm that, indeed, his name and phone number are included. When he is able to find his…
Project Armageddon: The Phillip Glass Of Metal
Project Armageddon has an album out, an eight-song collection of a particularly unique brand of stripped-down metal called Tides of Doom. As you may have judged from the name, it’s not a sunshine-and-daffodils opus, but rather a bald, stark look at a world careening towards a destruction that it more…
Discovery Green Not As Green As It Had Been, Drive on to Replace the Grass
It was a problem they never thought they’d have. Houston, with more annual rainfall than Seattle, has always been a green city. All the careful plans that went into executing downtown Houston’s Discovery Park never accounted for the possibility that the faucet would be turned off. But last summer’s unending…
Buzzfest XXVIII
Yes, we are now on the 28th Buzzfest in Houston history, making us wonder what 94.5 FM could have up its inked sleeves for the 30th edition next spring. The long-running biannual bash always manages to put up a solid lineup, even if the hipster kids cringe at the thought…
Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series: W.S. Merwin
One of America’s greatest living poets, W.S. Merwin, closes out this year’s Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series with a bang. Inprint Executive Director Richard Levy has high praise for the poet, saying, “Merwin is a poet of such vast and varied accomplishment, of such compassion and creativity and insight,…
Shooter Jennings
Shooter Jennings must have gotten all the black-helicopter paranoia of 2010’s Steven King-narrated, hard-rock-heavy LP Black Ribbons out of his system. His latest album, Family Man, sticks to flying the flag of his outlaw lineage and Southern-rock heroes, and it suits him just fine. Jennings will be right where he…
Fresh Ink Reading Series: Simulacrum
The premise for Greg Hundemer’s play Simulacrum might seem a little far-fetched, but it’s fascinating. A woman has a dream about meeting a man who tells her she’s just a character in a story he’s writing. And she doesn’t completely doubt him. Is her life really just an invention, a…
Marshall Crenshaw, The Bottle Rockets
If Marshall Crenshaw seemed precocious when he first appeared in the early ’80s, it’s because he had already written about as perfect a pop song as there could ever be in 1982’s “Someday, Someway,” which grazed the Top 50 and made him a critical favorite for life. In some ways…
Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow: The Godfather, Part 1
Francis Ford Coppola’s Academy Award-winning film The Godfather didn’t just alter the way the public saw gangsters, it altered the way gangsters saw themselves. Ordinary low-life criminals were suddenly aspiring to have Marlon Brando class. According to Tim Adler, author of Hollywood and the Mob, the film “rehabilitated gangsters into…
Marcia Clark: Guilt by Degrees
Today former Los Angeles deputy district attorney — and, need we mention, lead prosecutor on the O.J. Simpson murder case — Marcia Clark will discuss and sign her new novel Guilt by Degrees. As with her previous novel, Guilt by Association, Clark’s lead character is Rachel Knight, a prosecutor in…
The Black Keys
It’s safe to say that The Black Keys of Akron, Ohio, are now the biggest little band in America, able to make both the indie and the mainstream sets swoon with the duo’s improbable mix of blues, rockabilly, glam and classic-rock swagger. Okay, maybe it’s not all that farfetched that…
Cosa voglio di piu (Come Undone)
In Silvio Soldini’s Cosa voglio di più (Come Undone), Anna is married to Alessio, but she’s having an affair with Domenico, who’s married to Miriam. The choice to cheat frees the lovers from the monotony of their daily lives, but it also forces them to make costly decisions. Bit by…
Exhibition Expedition
Take on a bite-size chunk of FotoFest at today’s Exhibition Expedition. It’s a new endeavor for the citywide photography festival and includes a guided tour of select spaces (Spring Street Studios and Winter Street Studios are both on the schedule), a three-course dinner and cocktails at Beaver’s Ice House, and…
Why Do Mexicans Paint Murals on Lowriders?
BUY TACO USA! Gentle cabrones: My much-promised Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, has finally hit bookstores! Place your order with your favorite local bookstore, your finer online retailers, your craftier piratas, but place it: my libro editor has already promised to deport me from the publishing industry if…
The Moth Diaries
Here’s a vampire movie with a twist — The Moth Diaries is set in an all-girl’s boarding school and features lots of girl-on-girl action. Vampire action, to be clear. Like all vampire films, lust and fear abound, and, in this case, so does adolescent angst. Based on the Rachel Klein…
Lucha Libre USA: Masked Warriors Live
Mainstream America was long ago introduced to Mexican-style masked wrestling, better known as lucha libre. The style is known for its cartoonish characters — yes, even for wrestling — and extreme focus on acrobatic, superhero-esque moves. Today Lucha Libre USA is hosting Masked Warriors Live, a spectacular card for Houston…
American Parasite
James Sanderson had encountered a rare moment of industrial harmony. It was the early 1990s, and the 750 men and women at Georgetown Steel were pumping out wire rods at peak performance. They had an abiding trust in management’s ability to run a smart company. That allegiance was rewarded with…
The Cripple of Inishmann
Billy Claven lives on a small Irish island, and, like most of his neighbors, does a lot of nothing. Unlike his neighbors, Billy is disabled. He’s The Cripple of Inishmaan. When a film crew starts to shoot a movie nearby, most of the residents see it as a diversion from…
East Side Vacation
See how the pupusas are made at El Petate in our slideshow. The Salvadoran restaurant in a little blue house with a broad front porch, facing Canal Street, has the sort of languidly lazy look to it that would inspire a postprandial nap, were there petates — mats woven out…
Playing for Keeps: Vinyl Essentials
So now that you have picked out a spiffy vintage turntable and decided to start your own vinyl collection, what albums should you pick up to begin your journey? After great debate, here are a few essential albums suggested by our Rocks off music blog readers. Just a friendly warning:…
The 2012 Houston International Festival – Chevron Argentina Living Museum
Argentina is the focus for the 2012 Houston International Festival, and along with loads of music, food and an arts market, there’s the Chevron Argentina Living Museum. A transformed Sam Houston Park will give visitors a taste of Buenos Aires, beginning with a cafe in the architectural style of the…
Vinyl Gets Another Spin
Check out our slideshow on the rise, fall and rise again of vinyl records. In a dark room at A&R Records & Tape west of downtown Dallas, Stanley Getz II cuts an electronic group’s music into acetate — a reference point for what their final vinyl product will sound like…
Capsule Art Reviews: “Anodyne,” “The Cowboy Spirit: Faces of the American West,” “Layers,” “Neurotic,” “Pictures and Words,” “Round 36,” “Space Zombie Mayan Apocalyptic Human Sacrifice Uplift Mofo Party Plan Spring Break 2012”
“Anodyne” It’s difficult to label Joe Mancuso’s work by any traditional means. Is it sculpture? Painting? Installation? All of the above seem appropriate in the Houston artist’s latest show at Barbara Davis Gallery. These art vocabulary-defying conundrums begin with the piece Bouquet. It’s a careful arrangement of polywood, with flower…
La Cage Aux Folles
George Hamilton was thinking to himself, “I ought to go back to Broadway; it’s always something you need to do every three years.” And when he was presented with three plays, his agent pushed La Cage Aux Folles. “It was an intriguing idea, a little off my usual path,” says…
Not Your Kind of People
Garbage, the ’90s alt-rockers consisting of three producers and sultry Scottish siren Shirley Manson, have not put out an album since 2005’s Bleed Like Me. Naturally, fans were excited when the band recently announced a new one, Not Your Kind of People, would hit stores next month. According to Garbage’s…
Capsule Stage Reviews: Menopause The Musical, Oscar in the Box, See Rock City & Other Destinations, The Tempest
Menopause The Musical Menopause The Musical turns angst into rollicking good humor as four disparate female strangers meet and bond over the sharing of common mid-life crises. The set is simple and handsome, and props are expeditiously added and subtracted without slowing the breakneck pace of this surprisingly entertaining vehicle…
”Ai Weiwei: Five Houses”
Artist Ai Weiwei is regularly making headlines these days for his run-ins with the Chinese government. He was arrested and detained last year for “alleged economic crimes” (translation: He’s outspoken, famous and openly opposes state-sponsored censorship). “Ai Weiwei’s Five Houses,” currently making its U. S. premiere at Architecture Center Houston,…
Wrong Time, Wrong Place
Meyson Garcia was a student at St. Pius, where he played on the football team and got pretty good grades. But during the summer before his junior year, he got more involved with Young Life, a Christian program for youth in his neighborhood which headquartered at nearby Waltrip High School…
The Music of Queen: CWMP/ Houston Symphony
Queen is getting its own rockin’ symphony concert, The Music of Queen: A Rock Symphony. The show, led by conductor Brent Havens, combines classic rock with classical symphonic music. Via press materials, Havens said he wanted “to keep the foundation of the music as close to the originals as we…
“Emily Link: TUMULUS”
Death and resurrection are the themes in “TUMULUS,” the newest exhibit at the EMERGEncy Room Gallery at Rice University. (The exhibition space focuses on emerging artists, hence its name.) The three-part installation by Houston-based artist Emily Link showcases her soft sculptures, which she describes as 3-D fabric drawings. One segment…
Melvins + Scion = ???
Almost 30 years after Buzz Osborne founded the Melvins, the band remains hard to concretely classify. You can call them punk, metal, grunge, rock and any one of a dozen other genres, but good luck trying to pin one particular tail on this donkey. But the band isn’t resting on…
Marcel Khalifé and Al-Mayadine Ensemble
Lebanese musician Marcel Khalifé has landed in jail for some of his performances. Known for interpreting the nationalistic and sometimes controversial poetry of the late Mahmoud Darwish, Khalifé includes the Darwish-penned “I Am Joseph, O Father” in his repertoire. The song landed Khalifé in trouble with the law three times…
The Unexpected Man
There are no intermissions, no entrances or exits, director Seth Gordon promises. For 75 minutes in this one-act play, the audience at Stages Repertory Theatre will watch as actors James Belcher and Sally Edmundson, playing characters at critical junctures in their lives, meet in the forced intimacy of strangers during…
Indecent Proposal
Edward Albee’s adaptation of Englishman Giles Cooper’s snake-in-the-garden black comedy, Everything in the Garden, is, perhaps, the most satisfying evening in the theater in a long time — not just at Theatre Southwest, which is having a banner season, but anywhere else in town. Garden is a ripping good show,…
Andreas Dresen: Cloud 9 and Stopped on Track
Christian Emden, associate professor of German Studies at Rice University, calls Andreas Dresen one of Germany’s most celebrated contemporary filmmakers and considers it a coup that the school was able to snag the director for a two-day stint. Dresen will screen Cloud 9, about a woman who has an affair…
No Sparks
It’s Nicholas Sparks’s world; we just live in it. Sparks, in case you haven’t scanned the paperback racks lately, is the former pharmaceutical salesman who’s written 16 bestsellers since 1995, when The Notebook was plucked from the slush pile by a wily publisher. The 2004 movie version of The Notebook…
Rapper’s Delight
Tony iLL stands mostly still, hands at his side. His head is tilted slightly back and to the left as he watches a man rap. He listens closely, nodding with the beat when the emcee hits a groove and smirking when he delivers a clever punch line. When the rapper…
Hausu (House)
Listen to us very carefully because this advice is very, very important. If you feel you must see Hausu (House), the legendary 1977 Japanese horror film, then please go see it at the River Oaks Theatre. Not because it’s a grand epic that can only be appreciated on the big…
Things Are Looking Up
Back with his first film in 14 years, Whit Stillman still operates in a world of his own. It’s true both in respect to the singularity of his deadpan dialogic style, as well as to his hermetic milieu. With Damsels in Distress, Stillman’s follow-up to 1998’s The Last Days of…
Two Blocks, Two Worlds
Census data becomes open to the public after 72 years, so the U.S. government has just released the 1940 census for perusal. That’s the good news. The bad news is the data is put together in a maddeningly frustrating way. You can’t look up individuals by name, only by address…
An Ordinary Family
The tagline to Houston filmmaker Mike Akel’s latest feature, An Ordinary Family, is “A week of vacation. A lifetime to unpack.” Of course, we’re talking about baggage of the emotional kind. Shot entirely in Austin, the drama centers on two brothers during their family’s annual summer vacation. Preacher Thomas is…
The Problem with Romance
The Deep Blue Sea, the first fiction feature in a dozen years from the visionary British director Terence Davies, is a film about love that in no way reassures that love conquers all. Plumbing disquieting depth, Deep Blue Sea investigates the insoluble dilemma of romantic love: the expectation, contrary to…
Ben Kweller
All child prodigies grow up and most burn out, with only the lucky few maturing into capable adult talents that make it over the long haul. At age 30, Ben Kweller is now more than 14 years removed from the dizzying major-label bidding war and late-night talk show performances that…
Lauren Conrad: The Fame Game
You have to figure Lauren Conrad knows what she’s talking about in The Fame Game, her latest novel. Conrad, who starred in MTV’s The Hills and has already written a best-selling series for young adults, wisely sets her leading character, Madison Parker, in a reality show where she’s competing with…
”Modern and Contemporary Masterworks from Malba – Fundación Costantini”
All of the artists represented in ”Modern and Contemporary Masterworks from Malba – Fundación Costantini” are famous in Latin America, but some of them aren’t very well known here in the States. ”Modern and Contemporary” intends to change that. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are household names, of course, but…
Houston International Festival
Texas and South America share vast size and varied terrain, a rich cattle-ranching history and a flair for musical dramatics that makes the two places natural partners for the Houston International Festival. Although Argentina is heavily accentuated this year, the first weekend’s honored guests are Venezuela’s Los Amigos Invisibles, a…
Maria Stuarda
Two royal queens face off in a room, delivering thundering arias. Who cares if it probably never happened in real life, especially when you have diva and mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato as Mary, Queen of Scots singing the title role in Maria Stuarda? The Houston Grand Opera production of Donizetti’s…
Back to the Classics
I first met Olga Tobreluts in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1996 when I interviewed her for the St. Petersburg Times. Sixteen years later, I ran into her in Houston. Tobreluts is one of 142 artists who hail from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine included in the epic, ambitious, Russian-themed exhibitions of…
