The Truth Is Out There…
There is an unwritten rule in the secretive mascot community never to reveal the identity of the people inside the costumes. But now the person behind the mask of one of Houston’s most prominent sports teams has broken years of silence and spoken exclusively to the Houston Press, making allegations…
No Miracle on Main Street
Since its creation in 1961, Langston Hughes’s Black Nativity has become the theatrical equivalent of fruitcake: It comes back every year, no matter how bad it is. December just wouldn’t be the same without it. More pageant than play, the thin script tells two Christmas stories that are — as…
Gen Xmas
The tan and blistered bread balloon doesn’t fit on the plate very well. Bigger than a football, it has a weird, formerly animate quality — like a blowfish that’s been deep-fried in mid-puff. My dining companion and editor, Lauren Kern, a twentysomething vegetarian, pokes through the crust with her finger…
Repro Man
Something about The New Yankee Workshop on HGTV makes me want to stick my head in a drill press. Norm Abram (of This Old House fame) doggedly creates a $69.95 retail bench from $150 worth of lumber through 187 intricate steps — measuring, sawing, planing, chiseling, nailing, joining, gluing, sanding…
Who Stollen Christmas?
Joe Mannke is a restaurant legend. Born in Germany, he served as an apprentice in the kitchen of the best hotel in Munich at age 14, then set off on a life of adventure, working his way around the world as a chef. Arriving in New York in 1960, Mannke…
Deli-Gate
“A house divided cannot stand,” declared Abraham Lincoln. But despite his respectable Jewish given name, honest Abe’s advice is not carrying much weight these days with one locally famous Hebrew, Marc Katz, founder of Katz’s Deli and Bar. Marc Katz, 54, is suing his son, Barry Katz, 30, over the…
Hip-hop Harvest
Every Sunday, an assemblage of MCs and DJs convenes in the Third Ward living room of 29-year-old DJ/producer Cipher. To the uninitiated, Cipher’s den may look like a mess. But to record junkies, it’s a treasure trove. Some 2,000 records are shelved and stacked and scattered around various playback and…
More Than a Mere Schmear
I’ve bought my bagels at the Hot Bagel Shop on South Shepherd for as long as I can remember. Not only do they have the best bagels in town, but their breakfast bagels, pizza bagels and bagel sandwiches are legendary in the cheap eats community. When I remarked that I…
Small World
The sound comes popping and stuttering out of tinny-tiny speakers from all around, and underfoot. Glitchy, itchy beats blare from little HitClips micro boomboxes keychained to bicycle handlebars and school backpacks. Chunky guitar rhythms and airy, kittenish vocal harmonies ring out on bright, translucent pocket CD players, scooter radios and…
Warm the Soul
It’s a gray, wintry day in old Houstontown. The problem is, the temperature is still in the 70s. How does one get into a proper holiday mood when the bespoke overcoat hangs forlorn in the closet and only an Aloha shirt is appropriate for daywear? I choose to go downtown…
Fallout From This Year’s Houston Press Holiday Party
HOUSTON — In an announcement that shocked the insular world of alternative newsweeklies, John Lomax, music editor of the Houston Press, has announced that he is leaving his position immediately to pursue a professional singing career. “I have to do what’s right for me, and I feel that I belong…
Bah, Humbug!
Racket is in no mood for holiday cheer. ‘Tis the season to be jolly and all that, but it’s hard to be merry in the face of the onslaught of abysmal Christmas music coming at the end of a pretty crappy year. After all, 2001 saw Houston drowned in June’s…
The Langley Schools Music Project
As is the case with most “outsider art,” the tale of the Langley Schools Music Project is full of serendipity. It begins in the mid-1970s, when a longhaired, underemployed hippie named Hans Fenger takes a job teaching music at three elementary schools in the rural Langley District of western Canada…
Vanessa Handrick
Though she once called Nashville home and is now a resident of New York City, Vanessa Handrick has strong song ‘n’ dance ties to her native Houston, including the obligatory HSPVA diploma and a stint with Theatre Under the Stars. But sometime after she started performing at age seven, the…
Out of Control
Harris County’s top flood control engineer gave a slide show to a group of colleagues Saturday, showing them what happens when nature overwhelms a community’s best-laid plans. Steve Fitzgerald, chief engineer for the Harris County Flood Control District, said some of the torrents from Tropical Storm Allison last June qualified…
Lil’ O
The only surefire way to enjoy Lil’ O’s Da Fat Rat Wit Da Cheeze is to not take a single ounce of it seriously. For his first album on a major, nationwide label (there was a botched 1997 deal with MCA), Lil’ O attempts to be all things to all…
All That Glitters…
The Aggie Alchemist is back, and this time, it’s virtual. “Dr.” Joe Champion commandeered the brain and laboratory of a chemistry professor at Texas A&M in 1992, and now he’s brought his weird science to the Internet. But be forewarned: The former Houstonian is not turning scrap iron into gold,…
Monte Montgomery
Whether he’s playing Austin’s ancient Saxon or Chicago’s Abbey Pub, Monte Montgomery’s mix of pop and roots rock always leaves ’em stunned and smitten. The consensus: Montgomery is a “guitar god” (the phrase pops up all over Montgomery’s clip file). Guitar One magazine even declared him one of America’s best…
Unfunding a Mandate
A kid gets expelled from school. Or he’s been incarcerated for a crime, serves his term and can move back to his home school, except that it’s a week before the TAAS tests and not a really good time to rejoin his class. That’s where Harris County’s Juvenile Justice Alternative…
Ted Roddy’s Tribute to the King
Though he’s viewed more today as a punch line than a serious musician, Elvis Presley made a lot of really fine music in his career. The goal of Austin music fixture Ted Roddy’s longtime biannual concert is to put the focus back on the songs. “This show will be a…
All I Want for Christmas Is…
Just call it the Endless Campaign. A few Houston politicos got their Christmas presents early this year, but for others the last election has barely ended before the next begins. Among those Energizer bunnies that just kept on going after the municipal balloting concluded are Councilman Chris Bell, the defeated…
The Scabs with Soul Hat
Every time front man Bob Schneider figures he’s had enough of the Scabs, he gets yet another juicy contract offer to bring ’em back one more time. The chunk of cash I saw him flip through before paying off his band at a Satellite gig in the summer was just…
Before the Fall
The Houston Chronicle is pouring on the resources to cover the collapse of Enron, issuing reams of copy on the employees who got screwed and the investigations and machinations. On their Web site, they offer a link to what they call “full coverage” of the issue, which leads to a…
In the Baggins
Since the horrors of dominator culture — destruction, devastation, dumb-assness — do not appear to be receding of their own accord, there’s great poignancy to the new cinematic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The film succeeds as massive, astonishing entertainment; enthralling…
Gang Way
Gang Way Island welcome: The Houston Press has done what the Galveston Daily News lacks the courage and ability to do: an in-depth, investigative report on a problem in its own backyard [“Gangstas in Paradise,” by Margaret Downing, December 6]. The Daily News covers meetings and prints a schedule of…
Capra Corn
Having given us The Shawshank Redemption in 1994 and The Green Mile five years later, director Frank Darabont finally busts his way out of prison with his third feature, The Majestic (which, incidentally, has the worst ad art since Green Mile). Working from a script by Michael Sloane — no…
The Un-Church
As everyone from South Park to Adam Sandler has told us (in song, no less), it’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas. Some deal with the most-hyped of Christian holidays by creating their own customs of going to the movies or a Chinese restaurant. Others appropriate Christmas traditions by…
Talkin’ Tolkien
David Salo’s colleagues and classmates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have absolutely no idea how he spends his free time. It’s not that the 32-year-old linguistics grad student is ashamed of his hobby (or obsession), which has occupied him for some 26 years. They simply cannot be bothered with it…