The Santa Express
Santa training this year was a Power Point presentation on maximizing your potential — how to be the best Santa you can be. About 20 seasonal workers met in a conference room at the Sheraton Brookhollow, just after Halloween. They were old, stocky fellows with long gray beards. A few…
News of the Weird
Lead StorySynergy!: In October the pharmaceutical division of Japan Tobacco, the world’s third-largest cigarette company, bought the rights to lung-cancer vaccines now under development by the U.S. firms Cell Genesys and Corixa. Now under one roof are the cause, treatment and potential prevention of lung cancer. The Continuing Crisis The…
Dance Fervor
The George R. Brown Convention Center, with its patriotic, primary coloring and its cartoonish nautical motifs, would seem like the last place in Houston to have a spiritual experience. The Cullen Sculpture Garden, yes. The Rothko Chapel, of course. Hell, maybe even Houston Raceway Park, if you happen to hit…
For Me?!
First of all, the Internet is good only for email and some big-butt Web sites. That said, I was surprised and taken aback by David’s gift. But with this CD, David has showed me a glimpse of the Web’s true usefulness. He has, in pitch-perfect clarity, created a sturdy and…
Lost in The Woodlands
Dolores Dean lives in a small house made of pressboard with a rusted metal roof. When it rains, she puts out buckets to collect water from the ceiling. The woman, in her late fifties, gets by on a fixed income with her disabled, diabetic husband and six-year-old grandchild. “Life can…
Dish
Foodie fans of chef/restaurateur Monica Pope won’t have to wait much longer for the opening of her baby bistro, only two doors north of her original Boulevard Bistrot [4319 Montrose Boulevard, (713)524-6922]. The new 43 Brasserie — a nickname that sprang from its street address, 4315 Montrose, and stuck –…
The Insider
Houston politician-turned-East-Coast-professor Kathy Whitmire began introducing a tall, hazel-eyed 40-year-old named Alan Robert Wehmer to her friends here as her new beau last spring. The 53-year-old Whitmire, a former city controller and five-term mayor from 1977 to 1991, has been a widow since the ’70s. One friend described her earlier…
More Than a Mouthful
I’ve been to Bocados several times now, and I’m still confused whether this cozy little Montrose cottage is a cafe or a club. By club, I mean in the sense not only of a nightclub, but also of a private, members-only sort of hangout. It’s not that I’ve gotten the…
Step Right Up
“There’s a sucker born every minute,” or so said Phineas Taylor Barnum, the greatest American trickster who ever lived. As a boy of 12, Barnum sold lottery tickets. In 1835 the 25-year-old huckster honed his skills touring the globe with Joice Heth, a woman who claimed to be George Washington’s…
Little Shiva
A longtime Rice Village favorite, Shiva Indian Restaurant is named after Lord Shiva, one of the most complex of Indian gods — “destroyer and restorer, ascetic and symbol of sensuality, herdsman and avenger.” In other words, a mass of contradictions, somewhat like the restaurant itself. The interior itself offers some…
Club Christmas
“Home for the holidays” always sounds better than it is. After you’ve gotten through all the sibling rivalries, parental nitpicking, crappy-present complaints and the increasingly traditional family-member- coming-out-of-the-closet announcement, you’ll need release and relief — a Calgon-take-me-away moment, if you will. And this year, there’s someplace to escape besides the…
Hot Plate
Dim Sum, Lone Star-Style: The sassy “Texas Pot Stickers” ($6.50) dished up at downtown’s Travis Cafe [208 Travis, (713)223-4073] are delightful little dumplings packing a powerful punch of flavor as big as, well, Texas. The dense, smoky trout stuffing is fortified with glossy black beans and playfully dotted with colorful…
Goth Via Space City
In Hebrew mythology, Asmodeus is the king of demons who is as evil as he wants to be. Sometimes, though, Asmodeus is seen as the impish deity who brings carnivals, fashion and music to mankind. This latter description is appropriate for the goth band Asmodeus X, not only because the…
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Some say on-line shopping is great for those who are too busy, self-important or crippled to go to the mall like normal people. In fact, on-line shopping, particularly for music, is perfect for those of us who want to look like we’ve put some real effort and creativity into gift…
Double Bogey
Let the bloodsport begin: The Millennial Biennial’s roster of artists has been announced, and everyone’s worst fears or best hopes have been confirmed. Now is the time to second-guess the curators. The Whitney Biennial, by the way, is the Whitney Museum of American Art’s regular attempt to exhibit “the most…
Silver and Gold (and Green)
Jewel, Kenny G, Ringo Starr, the Beach Boys, Bill Engvall, Celine Dion, Take 6, The Irish Tenors, Paul Brandt, 98š and Natalie Cole with her deceased father (again). These are just some of the artists who are releasing Christmas records this year. And they are all so utterly worthless that…
Color Commentary
It is said that good writers borrow and great writers steal. In the belief that the same is true for newspapers, this week the Press begins a new feature modeled after New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman’s conversations with artists, recently collected in a book titled Portraits: Talking with…
Rotation
Korn Issues Epic During the introduction track on Issues, the latest from the Bakersfield Five, front man Jonathan Davis says all he wants is happiness. If bliss for a pop-metal band is measured in album sales, Korn may be headed for disappointment. Issues calls to mind the band’s earlier work,…
Thank You Very Little
Ah, what a miracle that Andy Kaufman was. So sublime his wit, so pioneering his spirit. Astonishing! A hero to be loved, adored and emulated by all artists and performers for the rest of eternity. An opener of doors; a smasher down of barriers; a glorious, luminous, intrepid spirit without…
Local Rotation
Rapsta SuperStar of the Ghetto Underground A young buck with a mind full of schemes and lungs full of smoke, neophyte Houston rapper Rapsta neither walks softly nor carries a big stick. On his debut, SuperStar of the Ghetto, he lets you know from the start that he’s a grown…
Paydirt!
Let’s hear it for sports movies! The most avid sports fan can occasionally be bored by lackluster games, but even the casual spectator can appreciate what the big screen can do for an athletic contest, even one played by actors rather than athletes: the closer-than-life close-ups, the dramatic use of…
Amplified
While in Madison, Wisconsin, on tour, Eric Danheim got the call. It was his wife, Betsy. She got the job. “I was happy, ya know,” says Danheim. All he had to do now was tell his band the news: that he and his wife would be relocating from Houston to…
Warp Factor Ten
On the face of it, it wouldn’t seem too hard to do an effective parody of Star Trek. Certainly many have tried; who can forget Jim Carrey on In Living Color’s “Wrath of Farrakhan” sketch, the William Shatner impersonation that Kevin Pollak has practically built an entire career on, or…
Playbill
Whatever Christmas spirit is, it’s not something to be found in crowded shopping malls where you’re as likely to get an elbow in the gut as a message of good cheer. And it’s almost impossible to feel goodwill toward fellow Houstonians when they’re cutting you off on the freeways. But…
Screwball Drama
All About My Mother
Food Stamp Fracas
Amid much fanfare from public officials last June, Texas accepted a record $19.7 million federal bonus for its apparent victory in the fight against food stamp fraud. By relying on extensive computer checks and other investigative techniques that were hailed as a role model for other large states, Texas had…
Postmodern Park
The last half-decade has been very good to Jane Austen: Besides Ang Lee’s estimable 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility, we’ve been given film or TV adaptations of Emma, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice, not to mention Clueless, Amy Heckerling’s remarkably apt updating of Emma. Now Miramax and the BBC…
News Hostage
Channel 13’s Wayne Dolcefino doesn’t always do sweeps-week investigations of strip clubs; sometimes he takes on meatier, more deserving subjects. Such was the case with his recent three-part series that accused the Houston Independent School District of widespread and costly ineptitude in ordering textbooks. HISD regularly orders far too many…