Happy New Year Grilled Oysters
What goes better with cold Champagne than hot grilled oysters? Also known as barbecued oysters, they are made by putting a fresh shucked oyster on a gas grill and spooning in some melted butter and garlic–you can add parmesan if you like. It was Drago’s in Metairie that made char-grilled…
Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 4
Tom Waits, Jones Hall, June 22: “Us Rain Dogs fans had to make do with a spastic “Cemetery Polka” that was a fair representation of Waits’ cross-pollination of beatnik jazz and guttural blues; whether or not he’s your cup of bourbon, the man does have a unique sound.” Peter Murphy,…
The Best Videos of 2008, Part 1
10. TV on the Radio, “The Golden Age” 9. Arcade Fire, “Black Mirror” 8. The Kills, “U R A Fever”…
Shuck U: The Right Tool
The big brute of the oyster-shucking world is called a “Galveston knife” (on the left). It’s an eight-inch knife with a stout four-inch blade designed for opening large oysters like the five-inch Espiritu Santo Bay oyster shown beside it. (Espritu Santo Bay is down around Port O’Connor.) The knife shown…
The Best Local Songs of 2008, Part 1
“Song About My Mom,” Jenny Westbury: This song likely encompasses all of Westbury’s tunes. It’s silly, serious and most of all lyrics meet instrumentation in perfect harmony. Westbury’s lyrical phrasing makes it seem as though rhyming couplets pour as effortlessly out of her mouth as water does from a faucet…
Top Ten Names in Sports for 2008
Time for one more year-end top ten… 10. Kimbo Slice – he was supposed to be the man who brought Ultimate Fighting to the masses. Instead, in his second national fight on network television he ended up getting his ass kicked while the league he fought for went out of…
Top Ten Names in Sports for 2008
Time for one more year-end top ten… 10. Kimbo Slice – he was supposed to be the man who brought Ultimate Fighting to the masses. Instead, in his second national fight on network television he ended up getting his ass kicked while the league he fought for went out of…
Gazing Ahead into 2009, Part 2
[Note: see here for Rocks Off’s previous prognostications.] U2 (March) Best Case Scenario: Armed with the backing of Live Nation, they release their best album in over a decade and Bono shuts his face as they sell out Reliant Stadium in two minutes. Worst Case Scenario: The recession (finally)…
Top 9 Reasons to Stay Home for 2009
Can’t decide on your plans for New Year’s? Or whether you want to have plans? Hair Balls has come up with nine reasons to ring in the New Year in your own humble abode. Cheers. 1. The booze is free. Well, at least it is after you buy it from…
Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 3
Sean Reefer & the Resin Valley Boys, Boondocks, April 28: “Reefer and friends can be a benign ensemble whose greatest sin (and virtue) is defibrillating the shade of Hank Williams Sr. for an audience whose appetite for debauchery is more in line with grandson Hank III.” Mike Ness and Jesse…
Hitsville: The Year in Music, by the Numbers
You don’t need a half-wit music critic to tell you it’s been a remarkable year for America, one historians will be discussing and researching for centuries to come. War, financial collapse, politics, technology: All have been dinner-table topics for many Americans. Racial barriers in 2008 were demolished by a Midwestern…
The Ongoing Saga of the Mac Haik Ford Deposition
Here’s some good news for people who just can’t get enough of videotaped depositions in civil lawsuits: The depo of Mac Haik Ford’s chief financial officer is back on YouTube. Some history: In 2007, a woman named Elizabeth Harper sued the auto dealership for fraud after she learned it didn’t…
Morrissey Will Take Miami and the Points
“Every Day Is Like Sunday” If you haven’t read “Songs from the Heart of a Marketing Plan,” Jon Pareles’ essay outlining how, basically, the only way for artists to sell their music these days is by licensing it to sell something else, in the New York Times, go ahead and…
Morrissey Will Take Miami and the Points
“Every Day Is Like Sunday” If you haven’t read “Songs from the Heart of a Marketing Plan,” Jon Pareles’ essay outlining how, basically, the only way for artists to sell their music these days is by licensing it to sell something else, in the New York Times, go ahead and…
Gazing Ahead into 2009, Part 1
Can 50 Cent come back? Find out in February… As another year closes, our thoughts turn to the next 12 months and the musical treasures they stand to offer. Who knows if a small band from Cleveland playing a gig in the back of a pool hall tonight will be selling out…
KBR Sued Again, This Time for Male-on-Male Sexual Harassment
A new lawsuit adds an unusual dimension to all the claims of sexual deviance at Kellogg, Brown & Root. Gregory Thomas, a former KBR employee, is suing because he says that another male employee sexually harassed him in the office while working in Iraq, and that he was fired after…
Ain’t No Party Like a Recession Party
It’s the eve of New Year’s Eve, so Hair Balls decided to check out the downtown Spec’s to see if, and how, people are stocking up for their New Year’s bashes. A lot of people were in the store. Lines to the cashiers were about five deep, the liquor isles…
Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 2
Gram Rabbit, Super Happy Fun Land, January 31: “Gram Rabbit is the face of 21st century glam; denser than Scissor Sisters and more fun than Ladytron. If everyone who heard Roxy Music got these sorts of ideas, the world would be a vastly better place.” (Chris Henderson) Over the Rhine,…
Shuck U: How to Open an Oyster
Scrub the oyster under running water to remove any mud. Never submerge an oyster in water–it will expel all the delicious oyster liquor. The pointy end of an oyster is the bill. The rounded end is the hinge. To shuck the oyster, hold it down on a table or work…
Texans Fire Three Defensive Coaches
And so it begins. Looking to deflect the blame from his incompetence, Gary Kubiak lowered the boom on three of his defensive coaches today, firing defensive coordinator Richard Smith, defensive backs coach Jon Hoke, and defensive line coach Jethro Franklin…
Texans Fire Three Defensive Coaches
And so it begins. Looking to deflect the blame from his incompetence, Gary Kubiak lowered the boom on three of his defensive coaches today, firing defensive coordinator Richard Smith, defensive backs coach Jon Hoke, and defensive line coach Jethro Franklin…
Digitalia: Aquarium Drunkard
Special guest Drunkard Holden Rushing of Small Sounds Named after a line in Wilco’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” L.A.-based music blog Aquarium Drunkard offers an eclectic mix of indie and classic rock, with a few dashes of country, soul and R&B thrown in for good measure. Launched…
And Now We Turn Our Attention to the 2009 Texas State Legislature and the Texas Education Agency
By now, most everyone has heard something of the off-the-mike November conversation between Texas Education Agency Deputy Comissioner Lizzette Reynolds and Associate Deputy Commissioner Gina Day that was made public last week. After a very brief meeting, someone forgot to turn off her microphone and the two were recorded as…
Football Star Sausage Smackdown!
I was standing in the pre-packaged sausage aisle of Disco Kroger. And right there at eye level was one of the greatest head-to-head matchups in football history. Yes, I said football. Earl Campbell’s Hot Links vs. Vince Young Hot Links. The blog post wrote itself. “The taste of Vince…
A Man. A Plan. A Small Battery-Operated Device.
How many times have you wished you had your own drumset, so you could bust out a rim shot every time your buddy says something outrageously funny, like “Get-r-done!”? Well, one Houston man is trying to turn that dream into reality. Glen Jackson, a 48-year-old refinery worker, recently patented the…
Tuesday Morning Quarterbacking: Texans Settle Into Mediocrity
Okay, so the Texans beat the Chicago Bears on Sunday to finish their second straight season at 8-8. That’s two seasons in a row of mediocrity. Can I have a YAY TEAM! Over at the Chron, Richard Justice thinks the team is heading in the right direction and has turned…
Tuesday Morning Quarterbacking: Texans Settle Into Mediocrity
Okay, so the Texans beat the Chicago Bears on Sunday to finish their second straight season at 8-8. That’s two seasons in a row of mediocrity. Can I have a YAY TEAM! Over at the Chron, Richard Justice thinks the team is heading in the right direction and has turned…
Aftermath Extra: The Best Concerts of the Year, Part 1
[Note: Aftermath attended all these shows and reviewed most of them. Even he couldn’t see them all.] Six Organs of Admittance, Walter’s on Washington, January 18: “[Ben Chasny’s] quieter moments reminded me of the softer side of bands like Pavement and Guided by Voices, and the mournful specter of Townes Van…
Lonesome Onry and Mean: 2008’s Heavy Rotation
For the second (third?) year in a row, LOM didn’t vote in either the Nashville Scene’s best of country music poll or the Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop best of American music poll. I’m just not a good list-maker. Detest that stuff. Just trying to compile a list of possibles…
Texas Exorcism Case Goes to Washington
With the Christmas season lingering, there’s one fellow who’s been left out of the merriment and good tidings. A certain fellow with horns and a pitchfork. And he seems to be doing whatever he can to snatch a bit of the spotlight, as evidenced in an exorcism lawsuit that might…
Top Five Movie New Year’s Eve Parties
Tim Robbins once called New Year’s Eve “amateur night for drunks,” and the tiresome celebrity pinko was absolutely right for once. The forced merriment and lack of decent bowl games means people put that much more effort into inebriation, with predictable results. Luckily some people found ways to make the…
Were These Really the Best Songs of 2008?
The Gutter Twins Maybe Rocks Off spent a lot of 2008 with his head in the archives, but he was paying attention to new stuff too. Occasionally. It’s as easy as satellite radio, channel 47’s (Ethel/Alt Nation) weekly new-music hour Submission/Transmission. Monday night, S/T happened to be playing its picks…
R.I.P. John Byrne (Count Five)
Count Five, “Psychotic Reaction” Here comes sad news that will bring down us dancing drunken fools who make our way up to Boondocks every third Saturday for Reverberation. John Byrne, lead singer of Nuggets mainstays the Count Five, has passed away at the age of 61. The San Jose-based band’s…
The Worst Lyrics of 2008: NCAA-Style Showdown
And now it’s time for the “I love you like a fat kid loves cake” memorial Worst Lyrics of 2008, March Madness-style tournament, this year a terrifying mélange of appalling oral-sex requests, bargain-bin philosophies, grammatical atrocities, and cringe-inducing pillow talk. To elevate the drama, I provided a trusted colleague with…
The Egg & I
At the newly refurbished shopping center on Memorial and Kirkwood that was once anchored by Hungry’s and the slightly shady Russian food store, Moscow Market, a change has taken place. This same change is pervading all of west Houston, as 1960s-era strip malls up and down Memorial are shaking off their…
Aftermath: Robert Earl Keen at House of Blues; Dash Rip Rock at the Continental Club; Hayes Carll at Warehouse Live
Photos: Hayes Carll/ Craig Hlavaty; Dash Rip Rock, Robert Earl Keen/ Chris Gray On their 1996 self-titled debut LP, Hee Haw-loving Nashville ironists BR5-49 cut a song called “Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts).” Anyone who has read either the paper or this site in the past few weeks will no doubt know…
The Whole Wide World: Toubab Krewe’s Live at the Orange Peel
Toubab Krewe Live at the Orange Peel (Upstream) www.toubabkrewe.com Listening to Toubab Krewe, you’d never guess that all its members hail not from the Western African nation of Mali, but from Asheville, N.C., where the band recorded its latest disc at the Orange Peel – the same venue where Smashing…
Roger Clemens Learns What’s In A Name
The Associated Press is reporting that Memorial Hermann is dropping the “Roger Clemens” from the Roger Clemens Institute for Sports Medicine at Memorial Hermann facility.The “Memorial Hermann” part will stay, apparently, unless there’s a steroid scandal.MH spokeswoman Ann Brimberry refused to say whether the move had anything to do with…
Morrissey Will Take Miami and the Points
“Every Day Is Like Sunday” If you haven’t read “Songs from the Heart of a Marketing Plan,” Jon Pareles’ essay outlining how, basically, the only way for artists to sell their music these days is by licensing it to sell something else, in yesterday’s New York Times, go ahead and…
Flashback: No Talk at Walter’s on Washington
Photos by Craig Hlavaty…
Rosa’s Photo Corner: Pasadena Rocks, Balaclavas and J. Mascis
“The sign that Pedro is wiping his ass with says ‘Pasadena rules.'”…
The Five Least Significant Deaths In Houston This Year
We’ve already noted the five biggest local deaths in 2008; now it’s time to look at the five deaths that leave the smallest amounts of sympathy or significance.5. The Playoff Chances of the Texans and Astros. Insignificant because really, did anyone expect anything different? The teams blew when they least…
Classic Rock Corner: In Memoriam 2008
You know, the Grim Reaper don’t care if you’re a multiplatinum music legend, a one-hit wonder or studio-only sideman – he’s comin’ for you someday! And in 2008, he seemed to like keyboardists and drummers most. A number of classic rockers left for “The Great Gig in the Sky,” foremost…
IMAX© and Turn Down the Volume: Adventures in Movie Theaters Part 1
It sounded perfect. The AMC movie theater at First Colony Mall was offering The Day the Earth Stood Still in IMAX format. What better way to see Klaatu the alien and his big robot Gort operate as they try to figure out if our planet should be saved or not?AMC…
Five Biggest Houston Deaths This Year
One thing about being famous and dying — you don’t want to do it too late in the year.Early December, great; you’ll be fresh when every media outlet puts together its “They Will Be Missed” list (We’re looking at you, Van Johnson). Late December and you find yourself left off…
Chess Pie: A Southern Tradition
Chess pie is one of those forgotten vestiges of old Southern culture, like RC Colas and Moon Pies, that hasn’t yet been snapped up by nouveau foodies and made trendy again, as has been done with greens, grits and pork fat. It’s all for the best, really. Chess pie isn’t supposed…
Turning the Screw: Sans Bayonet, ESG, Dustin Prestige, Diddy, Ghostface, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Young Jeezy, Ike Turner and More
Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off’s weekly rap post. It probably won’t rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: Sans Bayonet feat. Rob Prophetik, “Evolution” Wire To Wire ESG is talking about his forthcoming album, which will be available…
College Bowl Game Preview: Picks by A Real Expert, Part Two
The college football bowl season is here, and it’s become such a confusing mess of odd-sounding games played in smallish towns with mediocre teams that you need an expert to figure it out. And nothing says “expert” more than a teen-aged kid, whether the subject is football, driving, or how…
College Bowl Game Preview: Picks by A Real Expert, Part Two
The college football bowl season is here, and it’s become such a confusing mess of odd-sounding games played in smallish towns with mediocre teams that you need an expert to figure it out. And nothing says “expert” more than a teen-aged kid, whether the subject is football, driving, or how…
Top Ten Pop Songs of 2008
Pop music often gets a bad rap for being disposable or vapid, and in many cases that’s true. (Katy Perry, Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls, step right up!) But every year, a few irresistible bits of innovative ear candy rocket up the charts and seep into our subconscious. The…
If They Think That’s A Big High-School Stadium….
The Texas Bowl fever is building!! Kinda.This year’s match-up between Rice and Western Michigan University isn’t exactly setting too many people’s hearts on fire, although it should turn out to be an entertaining game.Previous Texas Bowls have had bigger names, though, so this one is flying under the radar a…
Houston Aeros, Now with Boos and Bikinis
I heard something on Friday night in Toyota Center I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. The fans were booing the Houston Aeros. Of course, the Aeros were playing some piss poor and rather lackluster hockey, but I’m just not used to hearing fans in Toyota Center boo the team…
Houston Aeros, Now with Boos and Bikinis
I heard something on Friday night in Toyota Center I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. The fans were booing the Houston Aeros. Of course, the Aeros were playing some piss poor and rather lackluster hockey, but I’m just not used to hearing fans in Toyota Center boo the team…
Over the Weekend: 11:30 p.m. at Deco
Welcome back. We hope you and yours had a good holiday, or weekend, or whatever. Here are some photos from Christmas night to help keep you in a merry mood. — Keith Plocek…
Congratulations: It’s a Dopplebock!
While it hasn’t actually been announced yet, beer geeks report that Shiner 100, the beer that will mark Shiner’s 100th anniversary, will be a dopplebock. The robust German-style beer will be labled Shiner Commemorator. Doppelbocks are traditionally darker and stronger than standard bocks. Shiner Commemorator will be 6.7% alcohol. It’s…
A&M Professor Details His Harassment
We recently wrote about Mundhir Ridha, an Iraqi scientist who filed a lawsuit against Texas A&M University and a group its professors, alleging harassment and discrimination. Ridha was in Houston this week, and he agreed to sit down and talk with us about working at Texas A&M. “They put me…
Saturday: Dash Rip Rock at the Continental Club
A sort of swampy Supersuckers, New Orleans trio Dash Rip Rock – whose last album Hee Haw Hell was the rather ambitious cowpunk retelling of Dante’s Inferno – have returned to more earthly concerns on the new Country Grilfriend (Abitian). That means, according to the liner notes, “songs [that] will…
Top Ten Metal Albums of 2008
In a year worthy of your rage, metal delivered in spades. What with the economy circling the drain and Sarah Palin coming down from the tundra and then refusing to go back, 2008’s been the kind of year that really makes you want to smash your head into walls or…
Retro Active: The Ian Gillan-Fronted Black Sabbath
Ian Gillan on his brief stint in Black Sabbath Last week, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi filed a lawsuit against Live Nation, claiming that one of the promotion behemoth’s subsidiaries, Signatures, sold a bunch of Sabbath merch after a licensing agreement expired in 2006. Though the idea of Black Sabbath…
Today Is A Holiday, Dammit
Boxing Day – the day after Christmas — is on most of our calendars, usually with the caveat that it has something to do with Canada. If Americans ever stop to think of it all, most of us grow up thinking it is related to the sweet science.It doesn’t. Instead,…
Five Reasons You Must Visit The Path of Tea
I love exploring this city and discovering new food-related things to talk about. Why, oh why then hadn’t I discovered The Path of Tea, this treasure of a place, when it first opened three years ago? I’m going to dispense with the usual verbage and just list a few of…
Tonight: Hayes Carll at Warehouse Live
Rocks Off: What were the highlights of 2008 for you as an artist? Hayes Carll: The Stingaree Music Festival, playing the Fillmore in San Francisco, and playing on the Later with Jools Holland show on BBC television in London. RO: Low points? HC: Hurricane Ike wiping out Bolivar and Willie P. Bennett, Fred…
Five Worst Hangovers In The Movies
The holidays are upon us, and whether you’re dealing with 8-hour layovers at O’Hare or sleeping on your aunt’s rollout bed with the bar that lays right across your sacroiliac joint or “entertaining” your brother and his brood of monstrous offspring, chances are you’re going to drink. A lot. To…
Post-1990 Holiday Songs That Don’t Blow
This list was damn near impossible to compile. The criteria: original holiday songs recorded after 1990. There aren’t many tunes that qualify, and of the ones that do, few of them are worth listening to. Like fake marshmallow froth atop a cup of instant cocoa, here’s the crème de la…
An Apalachicola Christmas
Apalachicola is the premier Gulf oyster appellation. Even snobby oyster bars that normally don’t include Gulf oysters feature these beauties from Northern Florida. The last time I checked, Apalachicola oysters were going for $2.25 apiece at Oceanaire Seafood in the Galleria–the same price as the precious little farm-raised oysters from…
Five Ways For Jews To Enjoy Christmas
If you’re one of the unlucky Jews who didn’t get tickets to last night’s sold-out Matzo Ball at the Drake and are fretting about what to do this Yuletide, don’t despair – Hair Balls is here to offer Five Things For Jews to Do on Christmas. This year, skip the…
Tonight: Thunderado and the Handsomes at the Continental Club
After packaging delays and the usual record-business snafus, we finally got our hands on a copy of the new Thunderado, a project of Paul Beebe and Hunter Perrin. Like Thunderado’s live shows, the album features a stripped-down, three-piece power trio; for the purposes of this recording, the third slot is…
“Texas Green” At The Art Car Museum
Here’s a peek at some of the works you’ll see at the Art Car Museum’s 4th Annual Open Call Show: “Texas Green.” More than 150 paintings, installations, videos, and, of course, an art car are included in the show that asked local artists to “think green.” See the rest of…
Top Ten Latin Music Albums of 2008
Americans who still think of Latin music as mariachi bands and gyrating Ricky Martins and Shakiras might want to lend a closer ear to the genre. This country’s Hispanic population isn’t just growing, it’s growing more diverse. More and more unique musical styles are being gobbled up, and that should…
The 12 Greatest Christmas Songs of All Time, Part 2
“Christmas in Hollis” As promised yesterday, on with the countdown… 6. “Frosty the Snowman,” the El Orbits. If you have kids, they’ll love the Dazzling Pete Gray’s Jimmy Durante impersonation. 5. “Christmas in Hollis,” Run-DMC. The boisterous spirit of Queens’s most illustrious (and cold illin’) rappers retains its title near…
Top Ten Sports Moments of 2008
10. Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 to become the first woman to win a major (NASCAR, Indy, Formula One) auto race. 9. Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavine won his 300th game, then retired at the end of the season, to just about cement his selection into the Baseball…
Top Ten Sports Moments of 2008
10. Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 to become the first woman to win a major (NASCAR, Indy, Formula One) auto race. 9. Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavine won his 300th game, then retired at the end of the season, to just about cement his selection into the Baseball…
The Best Pop Culture Gifts of 2008
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who wear fake reindeer antlers during the Christmas season and those that don’t. I am the former. What. You thought I would be the latter? Just because I love to make fun of crap? Honestly, what kind of pop culture…
Merry Christmas from the Rocks Off Family
…and so say all of us! – Chris Gray, Craig Hlavaty, Dusti Rhodes, Keith Plocek, William Michael Smith, Bob Ruggiero, John Nova Lomax, Ernest Barteldes, Brandon K. Hernsberger, Jef With One F, Michael Arceneaux, Linda Leseman, kris ex, Kathy F. Mahdoubi, Rosa Guerrero, Nick DiFonzo, Jason Ferguson and Shea Serrano…
The Muppet Movie
Hollywood lore is full of instances when an actor’s tour de force performance defines a generation. Think Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, De Niro in Taxi Driver and Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. Easily fitting into that category is a green-skinned thespian who shows his chops both as an…
Muriel’s Wedding
Muriel’s Wedding is one of those well-it’s-about-this-but-it’s-not-really-about-this kinds of films. If you couldn’t tell by the title, the 1994 Australian movie follows a woman on her quest to get hitched. She’s hindered by her own lack of confidence — derived mostly from her weight issues and not-so-supportive family — and…
Super Secret Brand X End of the Year Preshow Show!
Brand X knows that the best part of going to the movies is watching the previews. The local film collective begins its -Monday-night screenings at Domy with a series of old movie trailers and odd video clips. For its Super Secret Brand X End of the Year Preshow Show!, the…
New Year’s Eve Party and Overnight
Kids can blast off into 2009 during the New Year’s Eve Party and Overnight at the Jewish Community Center with a trip to the Rockets game (they’ll be meeting the Milwaukee Bucks), then go back to the center for a DJ and interactive inflatables (think bouncy house construction of obstacle…
Holiday Inn
Here are a few things you probably don’t remember about the 1942 film Holiday Inn: One, Bing Crosby’s character has a nervous breakdown and spends some time in the loony bin. Two, Crosby performs a regrettable blackface bit. Three, Holiday Inn has a mother of a competition between Crosby and…
Sharkey’s New Year’s Eve
Younger partygoers can get an early start on welcoming 2009 with some afternoon fun at Sharkey’s New Year’s Eve at the Downtown Aquarium. Sharkey’s invited a couple of his friends to join in on the party, so kids will see a bird show, and take photos with Sharkey and Nero…
H-Town Sneaker Summit — Winter ‘09
Face it, dude: Your kicks are sooo 2008. So freshen up that mess at the H-Town Sneaker Summit — Winter ‘09. The biannual shoe show features all the latest in wearable and collectable foot apparel from Nike to Adidas to Puma to Converse. It’s all there for your gawking and/or…
New Year’s Eve Bash
Kids, why not make a day of it at the New Year’s Eve Bash at the Children’s Museum of Houston? At the stroke of noon, there’s a Time Square-like ball drop and a parade of “floats” (actually, kids wearing large boxes they’ve decorated for the occasion). Other activities include live…
“I Still Believe in Tomorrow: Contemporary Video from Asia”
Contemporary Asia’s recent cultural and artistic eruption — and the privilege and pain associated with it — is the topic of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s “I Still Believe in Tomorrow: Contemporary Video from Asia,” which features nine videos by five young Asians at the forefront of their art…
Dead Poet’s Slam
Just because a poet’s dead, doesn’t mean her rhymes are, especially not at today’s Dead Poet’s Slam. Each volunteer reader will perform two poems from a dead poet, performing with as much passion and drama as possible. The audience will rate each performance, and the most slammin’ reader gets a…
Jamie Kennedy
It isn’t a straight line from Romeo and Juliet to Scream World 4, but comedian/actor Jamie Kennedy seems to have found his way just the same. Satires like Malibu’s Most Wanted (Kennedy as the clueless B-Rad, a white rapper with no talent and a serious case of jungle fever) and…
Cool Critters Camp
Kids can see nature up close at the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center’s Cool Critters camps, where students age five to 12 will learn about forest animals and the survival skills they’ll use to get through the winter. Students spend most of the day outside in the Arboretum’s 150-plus-acre woods…
Charlie Murphy
Comedian Charlie Murphy allowed the severe saturation of catchphrases such as “I’m Rick James, bitch!” to taint an otherwise hilarious sketch in “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories.” One of the best moments of Chappelle’s Show, “True Hollywood Stories” was great thanks to Murphy’s talent — he wrote the piece and…
Winter Day Camps at the Jewish Community Center
Got a bored kid on your hands this winter break? Send them to one of several day camps over at the Jewish Community Center and they’ll be bored no more. The JCC has lots special-interest camps, including sports-themed sessions (Jr. NBA/WNBA, soccer, tennis and gymnastics), as well as regular activities…
Tommy Drake
There are lots of comedians who incorporate juggling into their jokes, but only Tommy Drake shares this bit of advice for young tossers: “Kids, do try this at home. That’s where I learned how to do it. There’s knives right there in the kitchen.” The former Californian is now a…
Marine Biologist/Zoologist for a Day
Put your kid on a career path starting now at the Downtown Aquarium’s Marine Biologist and Zoologist for a Day events. During the Marine Biologist’s session (December 22), kids will hand-feed stingrays, dissect a squid and prepare food for animal feedings. They’ll also meet some of the aquarium’s more exotic…
Keith & Margo’s Murder Mystery Midnight Madness
At Keith & Margo’s Murder Mystery Midnight Madness, you can ring in the New Year…once you’ve cracked the case. (Actually, your ability or lack thereof to solve the case has no bearing on 2009’s arrival.) The night is great for those with a couple of bucks and some PI fantasies…
The Blues Revue
The Blues Revue makes sure you step into 2009 with some soul in your shoes. Hear all the classics from a pair of faux (but pretty convincing) Blues Brothers (Tom Sofka as Jake and Dave Howell-DePew as Elwood), including “Shake a Tail Feather,” “Think,” “Gimmie Some Lovin” and more. Speaking…
“Jokes & Jamz”
If a house party or a DJ is too small-time for your New Year’s Eve, upgrade your night with “Jokes & Jamz,” featuring a double billing of comedy and crooning. BET staple and Dallas-based radio host Rickey Smiley will take the stage-in-the-round for some stand-up and impressions. Known for his…
Wumwoyo Wa Kwanzaa/The Spirit of Kwanzaa
Kuumba House Dance Theatre’s Wumwoyo Wa Kwanzaa/The Spirit of Kwanzaa is unlike any other holiday celebration you’ll see this year — because Kuumba House Dance Theatre is unlike any other performing arts company in the city. Based on authentic African dance traditions, Kuumba House’s performances are electric and energizing. Be…
“Whimsical Wearables”
Is it jewelry? Or is it art? “Whimsical Wearables: Jewelry for Our Time” doesn’t answer those questions as much as it rephrases them. The exhibit, made up of items from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection, shows more than a dozen pieces of jewelry made from nontraditional materials. Included is a…
Black Comedy
Bargain hunting is the new cool. And Theatre Southwest is offering a bargain–hunter’s dream date for the most important party of the year. After appetizers, Peter Shaffer’s Tony-nominated Black Comedy will get the laughs rolling. The farce follows an artist trying to sell his work to some potential buyers, but…
Great Russian Nutcracker
Put off packing up the tree, lights and eggnog (mmm, eggnog) for another few days. After all, Christmas cheer can last straight through to the new year. Or at least that’s what the Moscow Ballet believes, as it brings its Great Russian Nutcracker to the Stafford Centre for one final…
Back Road Diner
Back Road Diner teaches us the quickest way to a man’s heart is not through his stomach — it’s through his chest…with a knife. The horrific and humorous masterminds behind Troma Entertainment lay on the hip-hop in this film about four boys from the hood who set out on a…
Houston Rockets vs. the Washington Wizards
When a team’s star player is as fragile as a Fabergé egg, there’s nothing like a favorable mismatch at home to keep interest up, and the Houston Rockets vs. the Washington Wizards game should provide just that. Despite Tracy McGrady’s bum knee, the Rockets sit atop the Southwest Division, inching…
Kwanzaa WonderWeek
It was back in 1966 when grad student Maulana Karenga, upset about the Watts riots the year before, decided the African-American community needed a nonsecular holiday of its own, something to affirm its cultural values and history. He came up with Kwanzaa, a winter holiday patterned after a harvest festival…
Capsule Art Reviews: “Blind Lines,” “Frank Zeni,” “Remixed & Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970,” “We the People…”
“Blind Lines” In the 19th century, locks of hair from the living and the dead were considered sentimental mementos. In the 21st century, collected strands of hair are more often than not associated with DNA analysis for a crime lab or paternity test. Mexican artist Gabriel de la Mora uses…
“Tempo: Photography by Lorena Guillen Vaschetti”
Sometimes it’s what you don’t see that’s important. Case in point: “Tempo: Photography by Lorena Guillen Vaschetti,” currently on display at the De Santos Gallery. In her Painted Rituals series, the -Argentinean-born Vaschetti shows viewers glimpses of exotic scenes, such as soft-focus shots of the feet of aborigines dancing in…
Lines and Wine
“Art” in bars usually runs to beer signs, posters or maybe lame paintings by friends of the owner. But Ariane Roesch’s new installation Hot and Grounded at 13 Celsius, a hip wine bar in an old drycleaner’s building on Caroline Street, is pretty amazing. It may glow like a neon…
Robert Earl Keen
For the past 25 years, Sharpstown’s own Robert Earl Keen has been every bit as influential a songwriter and performer as his onetime College Station porchmate Lyle Lovett. Just ask George Strait, who recorded Keen/Dean Dillon co-write “West Texas Town” on his Grammy-nominated Troubador, or Garth Brooks, who references “That…
Santa Baby
We’ve been having trouble figuring out what to buy our friends and family for Christmas this year. To help out on the idea front, we decided to draw inspiration from some of our favorite musical artists’ Christmas wishes. Andrew Volpe, Ludo: “This year, all I want for Christmas is world…
The United Nations of Food at Phoenicia Specialty Foods
The slow-cooked lamb shank was so tender you could cut it with a plastic knife and fork. And since those are the only utensils available in the dining area of Phoenicia Specialty Foods on Westheimer, that’s exactly what I did. The lamb was served over an excellent rice pilaf containing…
Capsule Stage Reviews: A Christmas Carol, A Fertle Holiday, The Nutcracker, Panto Cinderella, Santaland Diaries, Twelve Ways of Christmas
A Christmas Carol Filled with specters and overlaid with deafening thunder and seas of fog, the Alley’s A Christmas Carol reeks of Halloween, not Yuletide. There’s enough aroma of Charles Dickens, but it takes writer Michael Wilson a mighty long time to get to the meat of it. The dancing…
Cedar Creek is a Blend of Dry and Onion
If you guessed the new Cedar Creek (1034 W. 20th St., 713-808 9623) has the same ownership as Onion Creek and Dry Creek, you guessed right. “Our menu is a blend of both Onion and Dry Creek, but this place is much larger than the other two,” says owner Gary…
The Curious Case of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is certainly curious — a modest F. Scott Fitzgerald story, about a man born in the twilight of life and gradually regressing towards dawn, that has been adapted into a two-ton, Oscar-season white elephant. Directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Eric Roth,…
The Reader Is Fundamental
Like Doubt, Stephen Daldry’s The Reader is low-budget, high-profile and beamed straight at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Category of High Moral Tone. Only in this case, the stakes are way higher and the attitude muted to a fault. Based on a partly autobiographical novel by Bernhard…
Risky Business for Valkyrie
Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg — a lot of name for a lot of guy. Born into aristocracy in 1907, he was a soldier by the age of 19 — and, by most accounts, a warrior with the soul of a poet (he was especially smitten with the…
“Nicest Guy” Gets Break
U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore has overturned the capital-murder conviction of Mariano Rosales, ruling Harris County prosecutors had improperly rejected minorities from the jury pool. The technical term for the tossing-minority-jurors claim is a Batson challenge, after the 1986 case where the precedent was set. And when we saw the…
Comets, Stoners, Cougars, Robbers, Filmmakers and Anarchists
Sexist: Richard Connelly’s “Who’s Got Next” [December 11] was a surprise to this Houston Press fan. Why write such sarcastic, mean-spirited and, yes, homophobic drivel? Does he hate all women or just the ones who play sweaty, “unladylike” basketball? Coming on the heels of the Milk film, it’s clear there’s…
SPECIAL YEAR-END EDITION
Dear Mexican, I was driving home on old King Road in San Jose, where a bunch of Mexicans live, and I noticed that almost every house has their Christmas lights still hanging from the rafters and reindeer and Santa Claus decorations weathered by the hot sun on the roofs. It’s…
A New Class of Rappers Finally Bucked Houston’s Syrupy Stereotype This Year
Two thousand five seems like eons ago. That’s when Houston rap, if you’ll remember, exploded into the nation’s consciousness, caricaturizing the 713 as a candy-painted city of overindulgence and megalomania. Mind you, Houston was known to hip-hop cognoscenti well before then — UGK and the Geto Boys have long been…
Cold Shot At The Hideaway
Before even opening the door to the Hideaway at Dunvale (3122 Dunvale), you can hear him. And even if you’re not a music fan, you immediately recognize this young man is doing something remarkable. “The kid is bad,” says longtime Hideaway regular and apparent pseudonym enthusiast Tom “Porn Star,” before…
Winter Wonderglam
The fourthish installment in the annual-so-far Winter Wonderglam series, held this year at the River Oaks Theatre, splits a dingily decadent evening between garage rock and hard noise. Dead Roses headlines with retro glam-punk that’s deceptively tasteful; they’ve been known to cover Roxy Music and the Gap Band. The trio,…
The Year in Albums
Don’t believe the hype. The album is alive and well and procreating furiously. Too furiously. Printed out, the Wikipedia entry for albums released in 2008 — itself far from a complete list — spans 29 pages. Noise got maybe a fifth of those in the mail, and in turn listened…
Andy Vargas, David de la Garza
Having cut his teeth in the big-time music business by joining icon Carlos Santana’s band during the Supernatural tour, California-born vocalist Andy Vargas recently got a lot of exposure for — alongside the Black Eyed Peas’ Taboo and the original composer George Pajon Jr. — “Si Se Puede,” the Spanish…
2008 HOUSTON PRESS NEW YEAR’S EVE GUIDE
Ready to say goodbye to 2008 with its Hurricane Ike and economic tailspin? Not sure about how the next year will go? Don’t sit at home brooding — get your party best on and hit the town. Houston’s bars, clubs and restaurants are setting up for a mind-blowing New Year’s…
New Year’s Eve
Known to those in the biz as “amateur night,” New Year’s Eve is nonetheless a near-guaranteed full house for bands and clubs, and a boon to local music fans — often with free champagne. Throw in the occasional ringer or two, and you’ve got a party no matter where you…
Middlefinger, 30FootFALL
In the late ’90s, Middlefinger ruled the pop-punk landscape in these parts. They won numerous Houston Press Music Awards, including Best New Act and Best Album. MF’s natural habitat was upstairs at Fitzgerald’s, playing to packed local crowds or opening for touring bands, back in the days when Fitz was…
Bayousphere
That is the single most Christmassy sun reflector we have ever seen, and we’ve never seen a woman more ecstatic about getting a tan. Actually, Jessica Schuck is a Katy Colonel, and her happiness stems from the Tigers winning the state high school championship Saturday with a 17-3 win over…
Asylum Street Spankers
Over a decade ago, this Austin-based group allegedly came together after far too many drinks in a Llano hotel, and remains best appreciated by those not easily offended. The Spankers’ all-acoustic, Vaudevillian songs poke fun at everything they possibly can, from “Scrotum Song” to “Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV,”…
Open up at Beaucoup Wings N Wings
The dish called “crawfish bread” ($5.99) at Beaucoup Wings N Wings (3511 Elgin, 713-751-1705) is better than it sounds. A cross between garlic bread and a crawfish poor boy, it’s served on a seven-inch piece of French bread, open-faced — which is important, since that way, you get even more…
Best Films of 2008
Is it a sign of the apocalypse? Something in the water? Or is it just the way the wind is blowing? Whatever the case, when our often-contentious quintet of film critics put their heads together about the best movies of 2008, they managed to agree (more or less) on a…
818 BAR & LOUNGE’S VODKA TONIC
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 818 Bar & Lounge (818 Travis, 713-222-2254). No name. No artwork. No ambience to speak of. No glassware (just plasticware — you stay classy, 818). No bartender (“he’s fixing something”). No Tito’s vodka. No Hendrick’s gin. No limes. No clue. No other customers…
