Bald-Faced Guys: Hilton Koch and Sam Malone
We’ve just received word that Comets owner Hilton Koch is going to be on the Sam Malone Morning Show (Mix 96.5) this Friday, getting his head shaved to fulfill a promise he’d made to the Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital Trauma Unit. Koch agreed to shave his head (and Malone offered…
Drenched in Blog: Nick Cave Digs Lazarus
2008 is but a week away, but it’s already sounding brutal. Next year we can expect new releases from the Mars Volta, a Flight of the Conchords studio record, and a Rick Rubin-helmed Metallica disc. Plus a new Eagles of Death Metal record that I will no doubt be hectoring…
Orphan Ante: The Strange Story of Mike Huckabee and K.A. Paul
Daniel Kramer When it comes to schmoozing with woefully unaware politicians, K.A. “Leper-Stealer” Paul has no competition. The diminutive Indian minister has a Gump-like knack for showing up wherever the cameras are, be it during Charles Taylor’s exile to Nigeria or at an impromptu prayer-session in former House Speaker Dennis…
Over the Holiday: Houston Aeros, Hollow Men, Hit and Run
Welcome back. We hope everyone enjoyed the time off. We sure did. (Insert eggnog joke here.) The Houston Aeros Beat the Springfield Falcons Cal Clutterbuck got the action going with a brutally legal check, and Petr Kalus sealed the deal with two goals worthy of the highlight reel. We Are…
Petr Kalus Scores Two for the Aeros, Taking Down the Springfield Falcons
Our boy Clutterbuck got the action going No sport combines sheer brutality and sheer athletic grace like hockey. And on Saturday night, when the Houston Aeros defeated the Springfield Falcons 2-0, no other player provided a better example of this dichotomy than Aeros right wing Petr Kalus. Meeting for the…
Big Shot: Tunnel Mole Watches Sheryl Swoopes Get Needled
Ferret-hater and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was hospitalized overnight last week while in Missouri for flu-like symptoms, which makes you wonder how much attention to detail is being paid by his handlers. What a sissy thing to take you out on the campaign trail, especially if it’s preventable. Even…
Sanity Claus: Separating Holiday-Music Gifts from Seasonal Disorders
The slump that’s afflicting the music industry has apparently bypassed the holiday genre, since nearly forty new or reissued yuletide releases arrived at our door this year. We were happy to receive some of the discs reviewed below. The rest should have been returned to sender. A slew of CDs…
Sic Affair: Evan Smith, Bill Dingus, Tina Benkiser and Tom Craddick
Just in case you were wondering, yes, Texas politics is still a messy and ethics-challenged affair. The latest hiccup in state politics is a report by the Midland Reporter-Telegram that Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith had a hand in recruiting a candidate to oppose Speaker of the House Tom Craddick…
Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week 16: Super Mario Snubbed, But That’s a Good Thing
There’s been a great deal of outcry and consternation over Mario Williams’s Pro Bowl snub. To be sure, it’s quite a shock, especially when one considers Williams’s place among the AFC’s sack leaders (he’s No. 1). But—call me crazy—I actually see this as a blessing in disguise. Before the year…
Tunnel Mole Strikes Gold, and Garnets and Emeralds and Topaz
Look a little bright in there? Just think about what it does to Tunnel Mole’s eyes. Some bloggers post holiday wish lists, but your humble Tunnel Mole is more concerned about what to give, not to receive. Like, what to give the Real-Estate Tycoon Brother Who Has Everything? My Real-Estate…
All Apologies: The Rockets Are Cursed, and I Blame Myself
I’ve been reading Jason Friedman’s excellent coverage of the Rockets. And I’ve been reading your comments about the Rockets. And I’ve been reading the quotes Jason’s been getting from the Rockets and from the GM. I hear the anguish in your, and their, voices. About a season going wrong. About…
Drenched in Blog: Top Ten Albums of 2007
As previously threatened, I have devised my list of the best albums of 2007. It wasn’t easy. I had to ignore some sales calls at work to make this. Sorry, Weld Tooling out of Tulsa, Daddy has to make his list. Ah, day jobs. Can’t live with them, can’t buy…
Get Lit: Doo Wop: The Music, The Times, The Era, by “Cousin Brucie” Morrow with Rich Maloof
Ah yes, doo wop. Perhaps no other genre is so closely identified with a specific era in time than the one that relied on majestic vocal harmonies to alternately offer pleading paeans to love and nonsensical shimmy-shimmy ko-ko-bops, all delivered by immaculately dressed (and mostly black) singers in uniform silk…
Ms. Aero, Where Are You?
The Aeros are returning to Toyota Center this weekend for the first time in three weeks. They are finishing up a seven-game road trip against the Iowa Stars tonight, and then will take on the Springfield Falcons tomorrow night and the San Antonio Rampage on Wednesday before going back out…
The Cult of Dani Campbell
Okay, so I suppose it’s time to admit that I’ve caught a little bit of MTV’s “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila,” and all I really have to say about that is HOW COULD SHE HAVE CHOSEN BOBBY OVER DANI? I mean, really. Houston’s very own Vietnamese MySpace nymphette…
John Royal’s Friends’ Top Twenty Sports Moments of 2007, Part Two
Well, if you were reading yesterday, you know I started a Top Twenty Sports Moments of 2007 as submitted to me by my friends. Part one of that list is here. The second half starts now. 11. The Florida Gators pulled off a sweep, winning the two most important titles…
Listapalooza: The Year in Review
Happy holidays, y’all. We’ve been looking back at the past year all week, and now we present our findings all in one place. Click the photos to get the goods. Best Houston Concerts of 2007 Top Ten Worst Song Lyrics of 2007 Top Five Dumb-Ass Houston Sports Moments of 2007…
The Ron Paul Racist Quiz
By now, you’ve probably heard the flap about the white supremacist’s $500 donation to libertarian presidential candidate/vagina doctor Ron Paul’s campaign. The money came from Don Black, who runs a Web site called Stormfront, where inbred redneck troglodyte mouth-breathers talk about how the damn blacks and Jews are effing things…
Ralphiewick Ralph: Damn It Feels Good To Have A Red Rider
There’s something magical about the Geto Boys’ “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta.” The same could be said about A Christmas Story. Here’s what happens when you put that chocolate in that peanut butter. – John Nova Lomax…
John Royal’s NFL Picks, Week 16: It Ain’t Over Till…Whatever, It’s Over
Okay, I’m sick of making NFL picks. And you’re sick of my NFL picks. On the year, I stand at 93-129 after going 6-10 last week. But, to be fair, last week, I did tell you to pick the Dolphins to win, and I did tell you to take the…
Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week 16: On a Quest to Become the Bizarro John Royal
I’m an idiot. No, not because I was foolish enough to think I had broken out of my NFL prognostication slump. The reason I’m beating myself up right now is because within last week’s column, I stumbled upon a stroke of sheer genius (at least by my piddling standards). Here’s…
Drenched in Blog: Radio Blah Blah
Remember terrestrial radio? Cool terrestrial radio? That doesn’t play Fergie and Fall Out Boy all day? It still exists; you just have to seek it out. On Monday, Christmas Eve to all you non-Festivus revelers, Drenched in Blog will be sitting in from noon till 3 p.m. with Mr. Brad,…
Simply the Best: Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen
Houston’s Sylvia Casares-Copeland, of Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen, was named one of the Top Ten Best Latino chefs/restaurants of the year by Siempre Mujer magazine. Casares-Copeland is in good company. The rest of the list includes: Silvana Salcido Esparza, Barrio Café, Phoenix, AZ; Douglas Rodriguez, Ola at the Sanctuary, Miami Beach,…
Rebel Rebel: Straight Talk with Jose de Jesus Ortiz
Rebel Rebel, you’ve torn your dress. Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess. Rebel Rebel, how could they know? Hot tramp, I love you so. — D. Bowie What can I say? I guess Santa got my letter and he has decided to give me an early Christmas gift. How…
Slideshow: Best Houston Concerts of 2007
Okay, so actually it’s just our favorite shows from the past few months, and no doubt we missed a few, but read it and bitch. — Keith Plocek…
Rockets vs. Magic: Hoping, Waiting, Wishing
“I’ve been on teams where there’s no hope. This is a situation that it’s far from a team with no hope. I’ve been there. It’s not pretty. We don’t have that look.” – Rockets forward Shane Battier, following Houston’s 97-92 loss to Orlando Wednesday night. Something’s missing. Do the Rockets…
Roger Clemens Juiced? Wake Me When It’s Over
Major league baseball. Yawn. Steroids. Zzzz. Roger Clemens. Enough already, you’re going to put me in a coma. I swear, only MLB could spend millions of dollars on a no-brainer story and then proceed to torment its fan-base indefinitely with the subsequent deluge of shock, outrage and inaction. You mean…
Slideshow: The Year in Photos
Pitchers, strippers, explosions, wrestlers, sick people, dying people, musicians, greyhounds, ferrets, catty hatin’ and chicken-fried steak — it was one helluva year…
John Royal’s Friends’ Top Twenty Sports Moments of 2007, Part One
If you’ve been reading the past couple of days, you’ve seen my list of the Top 20 Sports Moments of 2007. Well, I asked several of my friends for their suggestions, and here’s the first half of what they came up with. 1. Boise State started out the New Year…
Rock Box hosts The Party
One of the few good things about Dallas is its music scene, but unfortunately, it’s in Dallas. Lucky for us, The Proletariat’s weekly dance installment, Rock Box, is letting Dallas dance night The Party take over for the evening, so we can check out some of the city’s finer musical…
Houston Aeros vs. San Antonio Rampage
No other sport mixes the grace, passion, speed and physicality of hockey. (Physicality here translates into fistfights and group brawls, for the uninformed.) And coach Kevin Constantine’s Aeros squad is full of young kids fighting — literally — to make it to the big leagues (a.k.a. the National Hockey League’s…
Esque
Local art space Peel Gallery offers ultra-chic furniture and home items. If you can think of anything more chic than the Portland, Oregon glass and design firm known as Esque, which uses an eco-friendly mix of renewable energy and recycled materials and has helped furnish the homes of Lenny Kravitz,…
Toxic Town
Sad: Wow, your story [“Toxic Town,” by Todd Spivak, December 6] is a real jaw-dropper. I lived in Somerville as a child and moved away after high school. I had no idea any of this was happening and knew some of the people in the photos. Sad story — great…
Eve of Christmas Eve Party
The day before Christmas Eve is like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The family obligations haven’t begun and there isn’t much to celebrate yet except not having to go to work the next day — so you might as well drink. Warehouse Live’s second annual Eve of Christmas Eve Party offers…
Woodlands Town Center Ice Rink and Winter Wonderland
After you’re done cleaning up all the wrapping paper, bows, to-and-from tags and little twisty ties that keep action figures and dolls in their packaging, it might be time for a change of scenery. The Woodlands Town Center Ice Rink and Winter Wonderland is a nice escape, plus it offers…
You (genious)
Usually energetic soul man You (genious) isn’t so peppy the afternoon of our interview. “Sorry, I’m a little out of it today. I did a house party last night. It was crazy,” the local singer says, staring back across the table like he’s about to fall face first into it…
Kente Santa
Want your kids to get a different version of Christmas? One whose emphasis isn’t on getting gifts, but giving them? Then you need Kente Santa. Kente Santa is an Afrocentric version of the department store Santa who takes photos with your kids. This Santa, however, is decked out in Kente…
Donnell Rawlings
When Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan began work on The Chappelle Show, they knew they needed one man: Donnell Rawlings. They hired the comedian, who’d gotten his start on the Brooklyn comedy scene and also toured with the Bad Boys of Comedy, as a principle writer; his mix of topical…
Little Women (The Musical)
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the target market for HITS Theatre’s latest production. The company opens Little Women (The Musical) today, and we’re guessing there’s going to be a lot of estrogen up in that house. The performance brings Louisa May Alcott’s semiautobiographical novel to life with…
In a Jar…at the Smithsonian
Wondering about the title to this collection of monologues and one-act plays, In a Jar…at the Smithsonian? Six of One Productions founder/director/playwright Crystal Jackson says, “Supposedly John Dillinger’s penis is in a jar at the Smithsonian because it was so huge. And I started thinking about what else might be…
Pawel Dutkiewicz BE/TWEEN
As if Houston wasn’t already awash in minimalist monochromatic paintings — see “Robert Ryman, 1976” at the Menil Collection and “Joseph Marioni: Liquid Light” at Wade Wilson Art — Anya Tish Gallery joins the party with “Pawel Dutkiewicz: BE/TWEEN.” The Krakow, Poland-based Dutkiewicz follows a similar conceit as the above-mentioned…
“We Are the Hollow Men” Art Party
When we asked Eli Brumbaugh what to expect at the “We Are the Hollow Men” Art Party, he had to give co-curator Jacob Calle a call. “We didn’t expect this much hype,” Brumbaugh said and apologized for being underprepared for our interview at a coffee shop. Brumbaugh and Calle came…
Die Hard
Although it was the defining action film of its time, we think of Die Hard as one of the ultimate so-bad-it’s-good movies, one worthy of the River Oaks Theatre’s midnight run of wacky cult hits. The 1988 film, which launched Bruce Willis’s movie career, is sublime in its stupidity. The…
“Antonio Moya: The Forcefulness of Color”
The centerpiece of Orinoco Gallery’s “Antonio Moya: The Forcefulness of Color” exhibit is the wall-size Alucinación de cuerpos (Hallucination of Bodies), a bright painting with a red-orange palate that shows oddly shaped human and animal figures walking, floating and crawling across the canvas. Scattered among the bodies are several small…
“Yuletide at the Bayou Bend”
If you’re sick of plastic trees and mechanical Santas, get a hefty dose of old-timey Christmas at the Bayou Bend Collection, the center for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s American decorative arts collection. This year’s “Yuletide at the Bayou Bend” celebrates Houston philanthropist Ima Hogg, who gave the estate…
Christmas! A Love Story
Surely the birth of the Christ child was the most important moment in the marriage of Mary and Joseph, but that’s not all there was to their relationship, was it? Yeah, the kid does have a tendency to overshadow their romance in the historical accounts (see: the Bible), but what…
A Fertle Holiday
Christmastime in Houston always brings out the perennial holiday shows — A Christmas Carol at the Alley, The Nutcracker from Houston Ballet, and the slightly more localized A Fertle Holiday from Radio Music Theatre. In fact, this marks the 23rd year that theatergoers have been privy to the hilarious holiday…
’Twas the Night Before Hip-Hop
There will plenty of stirring happening all through the house at T’was the Night before Hip Hop 2. B-Boy Craig Long and DJMadSounds will be spinning hip-hop from the old and new schools on the ones and twos, along with special guest Ceeplus Bad Knives. The night will also feature…
“Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone”
“I like to get at sentiment through sentimentality,” artist Mary Heilmann was quoted saying in the December 2007 issue of ARTnews. That’s a good way to wrap up the current main show at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, “Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone,” a retrospective of the artist’s work since…
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is to ballet as Beaujolais Nouveau is to wine: Purists and critics may scoff, but thanks to major American marketing and a certain plebeian charm, both have become holiday traditions. As a follow-up to the wildly successful Sleeping Beauty by choreographer Marius Petipa and composer Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky,…
MOLLY’S PUB
Nursing a cold and sporting a slight fever, I left work early and decided to self-medicate at Molly’s Pub (11128 Westheimer, 713-789-9580). It was mid-afternoon, and the good ole boys at this classic Irish pub were in full swing, nary a good ole girl in sight. I parked myself right…
Capsule Art Reviews: “Contemporary Conversations: Robert Ryman, 1976,” “Jerry Kearns: Between Heaven and Earth,” “Little Known Facts,” “Ryan Geiger: Secret Garden”
“Contemporary Conversations: Robert Ryman, 1976” It’s difficult to look at a Robert Ryman painting without an initial feeling of being cheated. The artist has limited himself almost entirely to the color white as a way of boiling down the essence of painting to a reduced process, the very act of…
Boxed Out
As Radiohead’s two different releases this month prove, rock box sets aren’t getting any more sensible. The “discbox” version of their new release In Rainbows is stuffed with extras ranging from the useful (extra music) to the aimless (expanded booklets and artwork) to the mystifyingly redundant (In Rainbows on CD,…
Charlie Wilson’s War
Hell of a thing, getting Mike Nichols to adapt the yer-kiddin’-me story of Charlie Wilson, the congressman from Lufkin, Texas, who damned near single-handedly helped the Afghans kick out the Russians in the 1980s. Says right there on page 11 of the paperback edition of George Crile’s 2003 book Charlie…
Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week:
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two — The War Years (Paramount) Alien Apocalypse (Anchor Bay) Balls of Fury (Universal) Black Moon Rising (Anchor Bay) Boy Eats Girl (Lionsgate) Braveheart: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Bring It On: In It to Win It (Universal) Cinderella II: Dreams Come True Special…
Xmas Present & Past
Nothing says “holiday spirit” quite like stabbing a terrorist or hammering a goomba, as the hottest games this season invite us to do. But no matter how cutting-edge the stars of 2007 may be, they are also unmistakably familiar. This week, we stack the holiday hits of today against the…
By the End of Tonight/Tera Melos
Between Motion Turns It On’s Rima, Bring Back the Guns’ Dry Futures and By the End of Tonight’s half of split LP A Complex Full of Phantoms, southeast Texas officially has a true prog scene. Where MTIO thrives on texture and improvisation, Alvin’s BTEOT aims to break the riff-density scale,…
Once, The Simpsons Movie, Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Halloween: Unrated Director’s Cut
Once (Fox) Easily the year’s most perfect pop album — damned good movie too, the finest “musical” of the past 20 years. The disc’s making-of refers to it as a “modern musical,” but Once is as old-fashioned as it gets: Boy (Glen Hansard) meets Girl (Markéta Irglová), they fall in…
Latin American Elites amd Brown Guilt
Dear Mexican, USA citizens are sick and tired that for more than 40 years, Latin American elites have lived like monarchs because they pimp their poor to American businesses for cheap labor that American taxpayers have been forced to subsidize with health care, food, housing, education and so forth costing…
Jimmy Carter Man From Plains
Jonathan Demme, who directed Tom Hanks to an Oscar as the AIDS-afflicted lawyer in Philadelphia, may be the most well-meaning filmmaker in Hollywood; Jimmy Carter, winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human…
Yo La Tengo in Hoboken
Yo La Tengo’s music is ideal for the onset of winter: the exasperated dread when you realize the sun is setting at2:30 p.m. and the temperature in your apartment is hovering around 30 degrees, mingled with the childlike elation of that first cartoon-fluffy snowfall: wildly beautiful and deeply, deeply sad…
Lil Wayne and High School Musical
With his long dreadlocks, croaking voice and penchant for zaniness, Lil Wayne is, to say the least, an unpredictable MC. The former University of Houston political science undergrad has recently undertaken some interesting career moves. This past year, he released free online mixtapes by the handful and recorded guest verses…
All about Eve
We have some hefty issues to face in the next year, like, oh, who our next president’s going to be. So tonight let it all hang out. You know half the city will be hurting tomorrow, and with so many venues vying for your attention, it’s easy to see why…
We Are the Hollow Men
Why anyone would want to have a combination art opening/six-band screamfest anywhere besides an old warehouse abutting the railyards due north of Buffalo Bayou is beyond me — all ages welcome, alcohol aplenty and no annoying neighbors calling the cops to complain about the noise. Best of all, no 2…
Christmas Songwriters Showcase
Welcoming the classic and the up-and-coming, the ninth annual Christmas Songwriters Showcase is a veritable survey course in contemporary Texas country. Hometown headliner Roger Creager has been a diligent student over the past decade, graduating into the upper-class ranks of Robert Earl Keen behind tunes like “The Everclear Song” and…
Os Mutantes
Despite years of speculation about an Os Mutantes reunion concert, it didn’t happen until almost 30 years after the legendary Brazilian psych-rockers’ final lineup broke up in 1978. In fall 2006, three of Mutantes’ original members — brothers Arnaldo and Sérgio Dias Baptista, and drummer Dinho Leme — reunited at London’s…
Band of Heathens
A happenstance arrangement of like-minded musicians whose bands happened to share separate residencies at the same club, Band of Heathens formed out of a sort of modern-day hootenanny atmosphere. Unable to resist the pull of the music, they took their sit-ins a step further into a full-time band, their Wednesday-night…
Coda
An inside source at Atlantic Records faxed the Press a copy of 2007’s hottest guest list…
Bayousphere
You can’t get a lot of pigeon shit unless you feed the pigeons. So Vichien, who only wanted his first name used, has been feeding pigeons at 4404 Richmond for ten years or so. He must either move fast or have a standing account at the dry cleaners. To view…
The Suspects, the Aqua Velva
It looks like local heroes The Suspects did stop worrying and learn to love the ska again. Almost a year after the band’s successful reunion show, their first time onstage together since going their separate ways in 2002, they’re ready to give it another go, with rumors swirling this might…
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Here’s the thing: Tim Burton pulled it off. Nearing the end of an uncommonly strong year for American movies, he’s taken a hallowed classic of the modern musical theater, hemmed in the narrative from well over two hours to well under, cast confessed nonsingers in the principal roles and somehow…
Capsule Stage Reviews: A Christmas Carol, Christmas Tree-O, Mr. Pim Passes By, Sister’s Christmas Catechism, The Twelve Ways of Christmas, A Wonderful Life
A Christmas Carol Among the charms of December in Houston is the Alley Theatre’s annual production of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’s amusing, sweet tale about an old man who finds his heart one cold Christmas Eve. This year’s production, directed by James Black, is full of laughs and good…
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit
If you think ex-Drive By Trucker Jason Isbell’s show is going to give you a DBT fix, think again. DBT’s gritty, hit-you-in-the-jaw Southern sear is lost on Isbell’s recent solo record, Sirens of the Ditch (New West). As he revealed last summer in these very pages, Isbell has no ill…
Illegal Immigrants in the Restaurant Industry
My tablemate dipped her doughnut into the cup of hot chocolate and purred while she chewed. “Is this the best thing you ever ate, or what?” she said. We were splitting an order of churros and hot chocolate, which the waiter recommended as the best dessert on the menu at…
Local Motion
Vinal Edge Records 13171 Veterans Memorial Dr. 281-537-2575 1. Faust/Nurse With Wound, Disconnected 2. Paul McCartney, Amoeba’s Secret (Vinyl-only mini-LP) 3. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, American X:Baby 81 Sessions 4. Einsturzende Neubauten, Alles Wieder Offen 5. Om, Pilgrimage 6. Sword/Witchcraft, split LP (vinyl only) 7. Boris with Merzbow, Rock Dream…
Home for the Holidays
Ah, December, a most bittersweet time of year for the Houston music scene. In most cities, it’s a slack time for gigs, both local and national. Not so in Houston. Sure, the big touring acts don’t come around, but as for the locals, it’s another story. This is the month…
Frenchie’s Italian Restaurant
At last: For all the tiramisu I’ve tried over the years — all the questions I’ve asked about each version’s ingredients, and whether it’s homemade — I’ve almost always been sorely disappointed by it. So I was astonished to discover the tiramisu ($5.95) at Frenchie’s Italian Restaurant (1041 NASA Pkwy., 281-486-7144),…
Juno
Juno marks the second film for director Jason Reitman and the first for screenwriter Diablo Cody, author of the Pussy Ranch blog, which, surprisingly, has very little to do with baby kittens. Reitman, having made his debut with a swaggering adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s Thank You for Smoking, is said…
Raveonettes
Finally, the Raveonettes have realized the potential their previous three albums only hinted at — turns out it was just waiting to congeal into Lust Lust Lust. And it’s been a long wait. The Danish duo has always been about minimalism and self-imposed restriction; their 2002 EP Whip It On…
The Kite Runner
Kites fly high over San Francisco Bay and Kabul (okay, China), but not much else soars in Marc Forster’s flaccid adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s vivid 2002 novel, which covers three decades of Afghanistan’s misery under serial totalitarian rule. Arriving on the heels of Atonement, The Kite Runner tells a parallel,…
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan’s fifth album, 8 Diagrams, comes at a time of group strife. Ghostface Killah and Raekwon have laid into Wu ringleader/beatmaker RZA for the album’s creative direction. Calling Wu a sinking ship and RZA a “hip-hop hippie,” Raekwon says the beats on 8 Diagrams are too cerebral. And yet,…
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
As an actor, John C. Reilly is the opposite of Mr. Cellophane. He doesn’t disappear into a role; roles disappear onto him — the unlikely porn sidekick of Boogie Nights, the inadequately adequate family man of The Hours, the cutup cowboy of A Prairie Home Companion, all stamped and imprinted…
Sebastian Bach
Say what you will about his hair-metal pedigree. Talk dismissively about his being firmly ensconced in the reality-TV wasteland (Supergroup, Celebrity Rap Superstar, I Married Sebastian Bach, etc.). The truth is, ex-Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach has a great fucking voice, a powerful, distinctive wail that’s typically the best aspect…
Tornado Burger
There are two kinds of burger patties at Tornado Burger on Murphy Road in Stafford — the regular, seasoned with salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce, and the spicy, which also includes fresh garlic and minced jalapeño for a little bit more money. The first time I visited this fast-food outlet…