Kinky Stances
Photos by Steven Devadanam for HouStoned Images Ltd., Ulmtd. Kinky: tough on crack heads, soft on the crocodile guy. The chatter is thicker than cigar smoke as folks wait for raconteur/gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman to hold his first Houston press conference today, much to the delight of H-town Kinky supporters,…
Killer Page, Your Honor!
Wonder if Sharon will approve our friend request… We love a good MySpace parody. Why, just check out ours here, and here. So we think this fake page belonging to Dallas judge Sharon Keller, who’s seeking re-election as presiding judge for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals against J.R. Molina,…
Mommy Inkiest
Mommy Has a Tattoo Books Silly Jimmy, tats aren’t for kids! You’ve probably seen young, tattooed moms carrying around toddlers in the Montrose. But have you ever wondered what the little tykes think of their mommy in all that ink? Yeah, us neither, but apparently author/illustrator/tattooed gentleman Phil Padwe has…
Cryin’ for Crikey
Irwin gone, mate? Locals phoned the Houston Zoo to find out. As you must know, the world is mourning Steve Irwin, the “Crikey!” Australian crocodile hunter who died this weekend from a bizarre run-in with a stingray. The Australia Zoo website crashed thanks to a staggering number of worldwide hits,…
Was Jessica Behind It?
NFL.com Nick could always pursue a singing career… Coming off an impressive win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — and the best preseason in franchise history — the Houston Texans have announced the cuts that will get them down to the final 53 for the regular season start. Sorry to…
Oh, Henry
OnlineAthens.com His stuff really is Overrated… Tired of reading tepid, flack-driven reviews of subpar records wherein everything is a-ok and hunky-dory? Are you sick of the chin-scratching pontifications of Pitchfork scribes, and the herd mentality of the Internet hipster generation? If you answered “Fucking-a right, Bubba” to either or both…
No Love from the Bunny
Courtesy of Playboy Sorry, Amanda just wants to be MySpace friends… The final hours of August are waning, and thus Playboy will have a new Cyber Girl. That’s newsworthy because this month’s Cyber Girl is none other than Amanda Duncan, who hails from Conroe. According to Playboy.com, “the blonde haired,…
Rescue in a Box
HouStoned Images, Ltd. Unlmtd. Caulk and tape? Now that’s savings! Who says Reliant Energy isn’t helpful? Oh, wait, lots of people, especially this guy. Sorry… But hey, wait! As you may have heard, Reliant Energy has started offering “Energy Savings Kits” to customers who apply for electric bill assistance. These…
Capsule Reviews
“Daniel Kayne: Urban-Mix” Walking into Deborah Colton Gallery, one is immediately struck by Daniel Kayne’s large mixed-media prints, some of which resemble the cover art for New Order’s Brotherhood album. The up-close, grainy photos of scraped and textured metal begin to take on meaning when juxtaposed with Kayne’s postcard-size snapshots…
Dark Side of the Moon
Soon after I arrive at the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium (705 Main, 713-228-9472) and order a Dark Side of the Moon, I strike up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me. His name is John, he’s originally from London, and he’s a world-traveling, happily divorced playboy who claims…
Road Rage
Publisher: Vivendi Universal
Platform: PS2, Xbox, PC
Price: $29.99-$39.99
ESRB Rating: T (for Teen)
Score: 7.5 (out of 10)
Great Kebab
The Iskender kebab ($10.49) at Istanbul Grill (5613 Morningside, 713-526-2800) is an excellent rendition of what has been dubbed the national dish of Turkey. Some claim the Iskender kebab was named for Alexander the Great, whom the Persians called Iskender, because it was his favorite food, while others maintain that…
The Short Goodbye
Arrested Development: Season Three (Fox) The final collection of Arrested Development discs feels sadly incomplete: only 13 episodes this time, the result of Fox’s inability to attract viewers to one of TV’s greatest comedies and the network’s unwillingness to give it a full farewell. But none of that diminishes the…
Our top DVD picks for the week of August 29
Akeelah and the Bee (Lions Gate) American Gun (IFC) The Castle of Cagliostro (Manga) Desperate Housewives: Season Two (Buena Vista) Stephen King’s Desperation (Lions Gate) Friends with Money (Sony) Iron Island (Kino) Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (Paramount) Lonesome Jim (IFC) Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (Warner Bros.)…
Monkey Business
“We are also a global leader in providing purpose-bred, high quality…disease-free large animal models to the biomedical research community, principally for use in their drug development and testing studies.” — Charles River Laboratories, 2005 Annual Report In a series of low-slung concrete-block buildings on Almeda-Genoa Road in southwest Houston, hundreds…
Reliantly Unhelpful
In case you haven’t noticed — and if you haven’t, then congratulations on your apparently very comfortable financial circumstances — you are paying a helluva lot more for electricity than you used to. Fortunately, the fine folks at Reliant Energy are here to help. Unfortunately, that help comes with all…
Band on the Run
Timing is everything. Earlier this summer, a young thrash/post-punk band based here released Ugly/Heartless, its debut LP on Texas-based Pluto Records — and no sooner had the disc hit the streets than the shit hit the fan. Because when these musicians banded together during a sweltering summer three years ago,…
Mencia Club
Carlos Mencia is searching for something profound. He lifts a spoonful of soup to his mouth, stops and puts it back in the bowl. He sits back in his chair and suddenly his face lights up. He seems to have had an epiphany. “I had a priest come up to…
Who You Gonna Call?
“You’re a hooker, aren’t you?” “What?!” my friend Liz Mendez stammers. “No, I’m not a hooker. Why do you say that?” “Because only hookers go to work at midnight and get off at five in the morning.” “I’m not a hooker, I’m a piano player.” I think Liz has tricked…
Letters to the Editor
Dr. Pervert Dirty, rotten SOB: I’m Cathryn Blue’s mother. I read your article [“The White Coat Club,” by Craig Malisow, August 17] and wish to thank you with all my heart for writing it. I can tell you what happens when a so-called respectable doctor goes beyond his expertise in…
The Damnwells
After garnering critical acclaim with their 2004 major-label debut, Bastards of the Beat, Brooklyn’s Damnwells spent a lot of time on the road. The ups and downs associated with the long-distance love life of a musician are reflected in the band’s latest album, Air Stereo. Singer-guitarist Alex Dezen’s moody melodies…
Image of the Week
Playing guitar as part of Mariachi MECA brings a beguiling smile to the face of 15-year-old Rebecca Martinez. Members of the band study at Houston’s Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts. They’re the top performers among the program’s 175 students. Click here to enlarge…
Sierra Swan
Spitfire Sierra Swan usually gets written off as just another girly singer-songwriter. That’s a mistake. Yes, she’s beautiful, and yes, her last CD is called Ladyland, but under no circumstances should Swan’s music be dismissed as the mindless pop that impossibly beautiful twentysomethings usually churn out. Drenched in emotion without…
A Pinhed with a Plan
Who knew Houston was Metal Music Central? Pinhed front man and Houston Metal Fest organizer Luis Matos, for one. “We have a big audience for metal music,” he says. “Houston is very well known for hip-hop, of course, with Swishahouse and some big-name rappers here, but there are also a…
Hawg Stop Blues Fest
Ten Years After wasn’t on the A-list of bands coming to these shores in the British blues/rock boom of the ’60s — unlike Cream, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers or the original Fleetwood Mac. But Nottingham’s Ten Years After secured its slice of classic rock fame with a blistering rendition…
Unholy Getdown
You know, it has become fashionable in some quarters, even here in Texas and even among some who profess to love the blues, to hate on Stevie Ray Vaughan. There’s a whiff of bourgeois classism to some of this — middle-class hipsters hold bikers in equal measures of fear and…
Patti Austin
It takes a lot of nerve to do an Ella Fitzgerald tune. Most singers know to leave perfection alone. So why is Patti Austin doing a whole show based on Fitzgerald’s greatest hits? Because Austin has one of the few voices around that can do them justice. For Ella began…
DMX
After a three-year hiatus, DMX (a.k.a. Earl Simmons) returns with Year of the Dog…Again. With Swizz Beatz, Scott Storch, Dame Grease and the Tuneheadz behind the production boards, this latest offering is DMX’s grittiest, most complex project since his 1998 debut, It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot. “Six number one…
Trust the Man
By the time Trust the Man opens this weekend, it will have been nearly a year since it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight. Forget that it’s a year old; this thing tastes a good decade past its expiration…
Why Do Mexicans Start to Drink Swill When They Get to the United States?
SPECIAL FOOD EDICIÓN Dear Mexican, Why do Mexicans forget about great beers like Tecate, Negra Modelo and Bohemia and start drinking swill like Bud Light when they come to the United States? I always remember John Steinbeck’s immortal line — “Ah, Bohemia beer and the Pyramid of the Sun; entire…
Fun Fluff
Joe DePietro and Jimmy Roberts’s enormously successful off-Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change! is a fun bit of fluff that’s supposed to be a great date show. Maybe that’s because the world of love and marriage, as depicted here, looks about as deep and dark as the…
Various Artists
“This ain’t no history lesson,” snarls the opening line to the liner notes of this excellent four-CD boxed set. “It’s about attitude! This is where punk rock began!” To me, the first and last of those bold declarations are exactly wrong. Rockin’ Bones is, in fact, a great history lesson,…
Capsule Reviews
The Dying Gaul Playwright Craig Lucas, who delivered gentle magical realism in Prelude to a Kiss and genuine romance in Longtime Companion, delivers neither in The Dying Gaul. In fact, this bleak, graphic little shocker doesn’t even bring decency or common sense to the table. Wannabe Hollywood screenwriter Robert (a…
DJ Cubanito loves Beethoven but mixes salsa
Alex Carmenates, a.k.a. DJ Cubanito, says his musical influences include Tommy Dorsey and Ludwig van Beethoven, but you won’t hear anything resembling either at his weekly Wednesday gig at South Beach, “Cafe con Leche.” You will, however, hear the hottest hits in the worlds of bachata, salsa, Latin house and…
Elegant “Encounters”
Anyone who’s spent enough time at the Menil Collection’s permanent surrealism exhibit eventually gets the point: Primitive art was a huge influence on the surrealists. But that exhibit is heavy on the Magritte, unfortunately, so the level of abstraction offered by African forms isn’t particularly emphasized. The museum’s current show,…
Mustard on That?
“You want mustard on that?” Larry Puccetti, the bartender at Sonny’s Place on Galveston Island, asked my buddy John Bebout when he ordered a double meat cheeseburger all the way. It was an odd question, since a Texas cheeseburger all the way always includes mustard. But Bebout answered in the…