On The Hot Seat
Twelve-year-old Daniel Lopez looked forward to going back this summer to Houston’s east side, where he had lived until he was about four. When his parents split up, Daniel moved to the north side of town with his mom, but even eight years later, the boy still held fond memories…
Real & Bold
Last year Mary J. Blige recorded and released the best R&B tune that no one heard. A sparkling, wondrous composition, “Beautiful Ones” is a love song that’s so sincerely romantic it makes other tunes look selfish and superficial by comparison. Chances are, in ten years people won’t be looking back…
Babe’s Bad Night
The unusually breezy summer evening was more than perfect hunting weather for Philip Schoppe. The dogs were packed in the truck, his knife tucked securely in his back pocket, and dusk was just completing its short run for the day, giving way to dark. Sweat, swine and grain mixed to…
We’ll Pay the Filing Fee…
CAUSE NO. ________________ In the District Court of Harris County, Texas National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Voters of the City of Houston, Texas vs. Drayton McLane, Larry Dierker and “Baseball Team” PLAINTIFFS’ ORIGINAL PETITION To the Honorable Judge of Said Court: Come now plaintiffs NASA and the City of…
Mission: Impossible?
Don Hall usually wears a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, and after he’s been out a few sweaty hours in August, he looks a lot like his homeless clients. He has a shaggy mountain-man beard, and when he looks you in the eye, his nose points toward your right ear. You…
Letters 2000-08-17
Big DeelI couldn’t believe it. The power and the strength to not give up and give in [“Left for Dead,” by Wendy Grossman, August 3]. The fact that Tracey was strong enough for herself is incredible. But her strength for us, the rest of the world, is immeasurable. How in…
The Russians Are Melting
The motley crew of Russians had a slightly shell-shocked look as they settled around a conference table in a well-chilled Post Oak office building late last week. The Insider had seen those glazed faces before on newcomers who have just had an eyeball-to-eyeball encounter with a peak August midday sun…
Swimming in Pasta
The late Charles McCabe, who wrote a column for the San Francisco Chronicle for more than four decades, remembered in one piece how he had become enamored of Italian cooking. As McCabe wrote it, he was a young reporter in prohibition-era San Francisco. This was a time when that West…
Hot Wheels
I have never read The Odyssey, A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, or, for that matter, the Bible. But I have read, from cover to cover, Occupation: Skateboarder, the just-published autobiography from Tony Hawk. I have never seen most of the films of Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Bresson, or…
Rotation
Earth Crisis Slither Victory Records There must be some sort of irony in the fact that Earth Crisis has reunited with Victory Records. After its stint with Roadrunner Records ended as quietly and inexplicably as it began, Earth Crisis returned to the label where it launched for what should be,…
Turning the Camera on Mark Seliger
Not just anyone can convince Jerry Seinfeld to don an Elvis outfit, or Mick Fleetwood a bridal gown. Getting celebrities to do outrageous things is just a part of the job for chief Rolling Stone photographer Mark Seliger, who will be returning to Houston for a benefit exhibition. “A good…
Street Scene
Every culture regards certain places as special, distinct, transcendental, holy. They are the wellsprings of a community’s myth and legend. A cave, whence imagined ancestors first strode forth into sunlight to populate a valley with offspring. A mountain, its summit trodden by watchful gods. A riverbank haunted with antique memories…
Touchy Subjects
When someone asked Steve Harvey on a recent episode of Politically Incorrect whether black men masturbate, the cool-as-cookie-dough comedian simply said, “We don’t discuss it. We don’t bring it up. In fact, it never happened.” As uncharacteristic as it may seem, there are a lot of things black people just…
Loco for Loroco
At a vacant lot at the corner of Hillcroft and Bissonnet a garage sale is in progress. I ask several people standing around the cash table which of the many pupuserias around here they would recommend. “We’re all Mexicans,” the lady taking the money tells me. “Go down Bissonnet another…
Freedom from Choice
Given the overwhelming number of menu options at most restaurants — options that can, paradoxically, cause a control freak like me to mix and match dishes, creating even more options — I have slowly come to the conclusion that I am better off without choices. I first discovered this culinary…
Time Capsule
Adorned with souvenir plates from states such as California and Florida, the walls at Mama’s Cafe [6019 Westheimer, (713)266-8514] are a virtual travelogue of the United States. The dishware on display takes me back to the kitchens of my grade-school chums. Along with the aroma of Mama’s cooking, it evokes…
Fishy Idea
You really have to believe in the freshness of your seviche to showcase it like they do at Urbana [3407 Montrose Blvd., (713)521-1086]. The crisp lime-juice marinade — firmly accented with jalapeños, cilantro, red onions and just a few diced tomatoes — lets the flavor of the seafood rise to…
Reefer Madness
Irish charm and British eccentricity are hot properties on this side of the pond — especially among U.S. moviegoers. Witness the phenomenal success here of The Secret of Roan Inish, in which a ten-year-old Irish girl finds her lost brother living among seals off her country’s rugged western coast, or…
The ABCs of DNA
Robert Del Grande, president and executive chef, Cafe Express Food Group Q. You may be the only chef in America with a Ph.D. in biochemistry. So what do you think about genetic engineering? A. I don’t see genetic engineering as being that different from TV or the cell phone. Like…
Gettin’ the Munchies
Canadian documentarian Ron Mann, who previously examined aspects of pop culture in Comic Book Confidential (1988) and Twist (1992), takes on a broader and more controversial subject in Grass, a history of America’s second-favorite smokable substance. As he has done before, he provides a sugarcoated crash course on a huge…
Progressing to the Majors
When progressive rock slowly devolved into separate classifications — technical masters, conceptual metalheads and jam-band wankers — the actual songcraft that made the genre listenable disappeared. What Houston’s Blue October manages to do is bring the song back to the fore, utilizing arrangements with enough crunch to appeal to 21st-century…
Penis Envy
In this age of cable-ready titillation, there isn’t much we haven’t seen before, right down to Jimmy Smits’s gorgeous naked ass on prime-time TV. So why is everyone at Bienvenue’s production of Naked Boys Singing! grinning like a roomful of pimply-faced kids when ten buck-naked men prance out to sing…
Dude Raunch
Any aspiring metalhead who doesn’t know Jack is shit out of luck. That’s because the cherub-faced teenager with the spiked hair named Jack Osbourne has become, merely by his bloodline, a big wheel in the music industry. His mommy happens to be Sharon Osbourne, the woman whose summer rock tour,…
Gather Around for Storytime
Gather round, kiddies, and listen to a little story of success: Years and years ago, a concert benefiting Amnesty International was held at the L.A. Coliseum. Sting played with a full, fine, jazz-influenced group. Peter Gabriel turned in a set highlighted by a number of astounding special effects. And Bruce…
Romper Room
So the Mercury Room has been getting a lotta love from the Moët of men’s magazines, Playboy. In its May issue (the one with Hef’s twin girlfriends on the cover), the skin mag named the Mercury one of “the best bars in America,” and has allowed the club, the only…
Fringe Radical Cineasts
When John Waters is at his best, as he is with his latest, Cecil B. Demented, he can pull you in like few filmmakers can. But recognizing that fact can sometimes be difficult in today’s market-driven context. In fact, for the first half hour or so of Cecil, I found…
His Truth Is Marching On
It’s been such a long time. A couple of months ago Southern Cross (formerly known as Renegade) released its first full-length work. That’s after 14 years of togetherness, in the same lineup now as in 1986. Lack of money and of know-how and pop culture’s fickle nature are to blame…
Just for Laughs
As any Klump family member can tell you, this has been a hot summer for black comedians. New movies starring Martin Lawrence, the Wayans brothers and Eddie Murphy have already pulled down more than $300 million at the box office, and by the time Chris Rock’s remake of Heaven Can…
Rotation
Ruff Ryders Ruff Ryders Compilation: Ryde or Die Vol. II Interscope Records There are more “families” in hip-hop these days than in an Aaron Spelling TV series, with crews ranging from New Orleans’s Cash Money Millionaires and No Limit Soldiers to New York’s Flipmode Squad and Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy…
Click Art
Positively puny compared to the sprawling summer blockbuster exhibits on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, “The Public Portrait: Photographs by Edward Steichen, Richard Avedon and Irving Penn” supports the notion that good things come in small packages. Modest but rewarding, this ironically low-profile show, ostensibly about high-profile…
Local Rotation
Harlem Slim Delta Thug Self-released Prejudice is a dangerous and all-too-common trap for music critics. Case in point: This CD, by a white Houstonian calling himself Harlem Slim and playing blues, seemed suspect at first glance. But it is a great joy to report that Harlem Slim handily proves himself…