Remembering Doug Sahm
The night after Doug Sahm died of heart failure, I tried to explain his significance to an Austin newcomer who didn’t know who he was. I offered an analogy: It was like losing Duke Ellington, Count Basie or Miles Davis. It was that important. A few days later, someone else…
Merry Sex Mess
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, a grown-up bit of holiday fare written by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts, is a crowd-pleasing revue that sparkles like a tree full of Christmas lights. It’s the sort of musical that elicits audible giggles at the funny parts and whispers of “isn’t…
Have Voice, Will Travel
At the height of his grandiosity in the early 1970s, Elvis held a press conference after one of his shows and was asked how he managed to maintain his image as a “shy country boy.” “I don’t know,” the King said inquisitively, and stood up to reveal the gold belt…
Rusty
After releasing Cryptic Writings in 1997, the members of Megadeth read some printed comments from Metallica’s Lars Ulrich saying that he wished Megadeth would take more risks with its music. As you might know, guitarist Dave Mustaine, with bassist David Ellefson, formed Megadeth in 1983 after a short and stormy…
Mr. Robotic
If there’s anything that could make me believe in a cruel and vengeful God (or in the existence of the Dark Prince himself), it’s the incredible success of writer-turned-director Chris Columbus. Columbus is, in sheer dollar terms, the most successful comedy director of all time, having been at the helm…
Blast from the Past
Everyone knows what being a rock and roll star means today. It means having your face on Rolling Stone, having your voice heard all over radio and having your private life picked apart by gossip-hungry airheads. Aspiring rock stars now know that making music is only half the job. Bedding…
My Life as an Orphan
It is rare to find a movie that is as accomplished, multilayered and rewarding as the novel from which it was adapted, but The Cider House Rules is such a film. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom (My Life as a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?), the film displays the kind of…
Rotation
Low Christmas Chair Kickers’ Union Christmas albums don’t seem like Low material. Usually this band’s music is minimalist and its lyrics filled with Eastern religious references. To suddenly go all Christian and sentimental is kind of weird, even for a corn-fed indie cult band from Minnesota. Still, the pulse races…
Getting to Know You, Again
I sincerely hope that Jodie Foster gets a chance to relax and unwind this holiday season, because the lady has obviously worked like a horse to instill her latest role with humanity and significance. As intrepid British widow Anna Leonowens, in the huge and poetic new Anna and the King,…
Local Rotation
South Park Mexican The 3rd Wish: To Rock the World Dope House Records Okay, first thing about Carlos Coy, better known to the hustlers and hustlettes of Houston as South Park Mexican, is that he is just a man. Sure, he may come off like a don, a capo, a…
Mousetrap
It’s too tempting to resist. You see, there’s a secret about Stuart Little that the fine folk at Sony don’t want to blow. It’s not that every one of the half-million computer-generated hairs on the mouse’s head is cute as the dickens. It isn’t that human stars Geena Davis and…
Paperless Record Deals
Like many artists scrounging for a record deal, Levon Louis of Lunatex has been through the time-honored task of shipping his band’s demos to major record labels all over the earth. A few months ago, as he was preparing to ship another one of Lunatex’s CDs out, Louis had an…
Back to the Futurist
Seated in a Montrose living room, Doug Michels is witnessing one of those bizarre moments when the past intrudes on the present, appearing suddenly, in Technicolor, like a pomaded lindy-hopper skidding down a ’90s dance floor. Dropped into up-to-the-minute surroundings, the past can seem keenly relevant, fresh, even prescient. And…
Whip Him Good
Managing to alienate both bikers and PTA members really isn’t as tough as it seems. Just wear a pink tutu, stand on a stage with your band, bang out garage punk and rant about any little thing that comes to mind. That’s the modus operandi of Whipping Boy. He’s the…
Smooth Operator
Political neophyte Lee P. Brown announced his mayoral candidacy in June 1997 with a daylong string of campaign appearances symbolizing his slogan, “The Mayor for All Houstonians.” For his last stop that evening, Brown’s entourage headed west toward Sandalwood, a comfortable, white and affluent subdivision in a bend of Memorial…
Zoned Out
Opponents of Houston’s special taxing districts applaud a new Texas Attorney General’s opinion that says such zones should be restricted to blighted or underdeveloped areas. However, the opinion also appears to leave it up to the city of Houston to decide what constitutes a blighted or underdeveloped area. After nearly…
Preservation Hall
Trumpeter Calvin Owens was 20 years old when he climbed the steep stairs and edged through the crowd to take the stage at the Eldorado Ballroom at the start of the ’50s. “I was really stoned in heaven at the time,” says Owens, recalling the dreamy launch of his career…
Fresh Air, Times Square
A few weeks ago an Esquire magazine food critic bestowed his “Hick Journalism of the Year” award on a Houston Chronicle writer. We believe he acted too soon. Houston’s Leading Information Source burst forth with a front-page story December 10 that had all the elements of yeee-ha reporting, starting with…
Still Open and Shut
State authorities recently ended their investigation into the bizarre death six years ago of Paul Beauchamp, a case now more mysterious than ever. The investigators from the Cold Case Analysis Unit of the Attorney General’s Office spawned another mystery in their terse letter to the dead man’s still-grieving father, Alfred…
News of the Weird
Lead StoriesLife imitates Weekend at Bernie’s: In November government officials in East London, South Africa, thwarted an attempt by two men and a woman to register a corpse for pension benefits. According to the South African Press Association, the three propped up the recently deceased man (who they said was…
The Insider
For his next junket, Mayor Lee “Out of Africa” Brown might consider a sleigh ride to the North Pole to try to trade back some of those unwanted packages voters left under his City Hall Christmas tree in the recently concluded election. Brown lost big in the first round last…
In the Comfort of Cheese
You know those days: A dark cloud follows you around at work, pouring misery onto everything and anything you do. When you return home, all you want to do is curl up in the comfort of cheese. I was in one of those moods the other day. I definitely didn’t…
Real Life
Recipe for a headache: 1) Cover all surface area, including storefronts, walls and flooring with at least five bright, obnoxious colors. 2) Suspend large video screens from the ceiling that play a continual assortment of commercials, music videos and harmless, insignificant news segments at a moderate volume. 3) Add a…
True Grits
The surprising rebirth of grits, the gloppy goop that many of us were raised on — and which can still be found cuddling next to eggs at the IHOP — has some culinary rebels yelling, “The South shall rise again!” Unlike polenta, the cornmeal mush that when cooled can be…
Willie D. Packs a Wallop
The phone rings. On the other end a man speaks in a foreign accent, like Andy Kaufman’s Latka Graves but with a deeper voice: “Hello, Houston Press? My name is Omar [garbled], and I would like to report a protest that is taking place today.” Pause. “Yes, my people are…
Hot Plate
Waffelupa, A Whomp Bam Boom: The Waffelupa is “world famous,” at least in the Heights, according to its proud inventors at Java Java Café [911 West 11th Street, (713)880-5282]. A crisp, sturdy cornmeal waffle stands in for the standard chalupa’s corn tortilla, but it’s pure Tex-Mex above the waffle-line: A…
The Sound of a Washed-up Career
Quick, which film is the highest-grossing movie musical of all time: Grease? The Wizard of Oz? West Side Story? Can’t Stop the Music with Bruce Jenner and the Village People? Nope, it’s 1965’s The Sound of Music, with its memorable image of a virginal, short-haired Julie Andrews spinning among the…
Bacon, Lettuce, To-mah-toes
Drumroll, please: I am about to reveal the location of the best BLT sandwich in Houston. No trivial matter, this, the making of a world-class BLT. Nor is the price tag attached to the masterpiece insignificant, at ten bucks a pop. Oh, and did I mention that the ultimate BLT…