Southern Living
There’s no place like home — at least no place like this home. James Gallery is a converted house that, for its current exhibition, has been given yet another makeover: It now looks like a double-wide model home from a surreal, alternate Texas. Part Gallery Furniture, part gun show, part…
Blaffer’s Brouhaha
When the ten students in the master’s of fine arts program returned to the University of Houston after their winter break, they couldn’t wait to complete their thesis projects. Sure, they were looking forward to getting their degrees. But more than that, they were eager to prepare their artwork for…
Power Surge
Comeback records usually fall into one of two categories: those released after the artist has issued several clunkers in a row, or those released after the artist has been absent from the recording studio for years, typically because of the all-too-frequent “personal turmoil.” Singer and guitarist Chris Duarte, who turns…
An Intern’s Downturn
An anxious Leah Caldwell took the stage last month at the junior assembly of Cypress Springs High School, only one big step away from her quest to win a free trip to the nation’s capital. She was vying for the Bill Archer Internship Program, a one-week, expense-paid visit to Washington,…
Smokin’!
When King’s X bassist and singer Doug Pinnick encouraged the Fondue Monks, one of Houston’s most familiar and stable bands, to get out of town and play more, he certainly couldn’t have imagined how the Monks would finally accomplish this task: through the auspices of Big Tobacco. Last October the…
Where the Home Fires Really Burn
Bangkok and the Bayou City have something in common. There, as here, the best Thai food can be found in humble mom-and-pop restaurants where they aren’t afraid to let bold flavors shine bright. In Bangkok, I ate the best pad thai of my life at a little stall on a…
Hick Hop
Nashvillians attempt to explain their utterly baffling road system by comparing the city to a great wheel. In this analogy, the hub is downtown, and the ten or so hinterland-bound main roads, often called pikes in the local parlance, form the spokes. Each of these spokes has its own personality:…
Something’s Fishy
Speaking off the toque: Scott Tycer, chef and owner of Aries [4315 Montrose Boulevard, (713)526-4404]. Q. How can diners tell if their fish is fresh or previously frozen? A. You can tell very quickly, whether the fish is raw or cooked. Freezing causes the proteins to break down. There are…
The Thrill Is Gone
Billy Blues Bar & Grill (6025 Richmond), the famed playhouse best known for its music, food and that big-ass saxophone out front, officially shut its doors at the end of January. The club’s abrupt closing, which came about a month after management promised that the 12-bar venue/rib shack would morph…
Stirred and Shaken
The place is dark except for lots of little white candles burning on the shelves behind the bar and on every table at The Hub [312 Main Street, (713)224-8880]. A jazz quintet called the Dave Marcellin Trio is cruising along on the momentum of a fine rhythm section. (I suspect…
Changing of the HISD Guard
To the long-suffering employees slaving away in the guts of the HISD’s Taj Mahal administration building, President George W. Bush is indeed an education savior. He freed them from the seven-year reign of Superintendent Rod Paige by boosting him to education secretary. With that appointment, Bush also indirectly provided tickets…
Happy Hearst
The past year has been a rough one for the Hearst Corporation, the people who own the Houston Chronicle. There was a tough strike against the chain’s Seattle paper; there was a very messy, embarrassing and expensive brouhaha in San Francisco as the company dumped its longtime paper and bought…
Cough It Up
Sometimes, usually out on the golf course near his home in upstate New York, Dan DeCarlo feels terrific, far younger than his 81 years. He’ll thwack the ball, reflect upon his 55 years of marriage to the same beautiful woman and occasionally contemplate a life spent drawing and creating some…
Letters
What a Circus! Regarding Richard Connelly’s piece on the Chronicle’s lame coverage of the inaugural protests downtown [News Hostage, February 1]: We’re two of hundreds of clowns who showed up to protest the recent joke of an election. The Chron did have a photographer down there; he even made sure…
Insane Clown Posse
It’s best to compare Insane Clown Posse only to itself. To judge the outfit within the context of contemporary rap will lead to only one conclusion: It sucks. There’s no rock connection here at all, except for maybe the same trailer-park mentality shared by fellow Detroit acts Eminem and Kid…
A Day Late, at a Bookstore Close
If you really want to know how good Terry McMillan’s new novel, A Day Late and a Dollar Short, is, don’t pay attention to those stodgy book critics at the Houston Chronicle. If you really want the scoop on the superstar’s latest magnum opus, talk to a black woman. The…
Flowers and Machines
A generation ago, goths were more brooding than shocking. Redefining themselves from the original punk-goths, the younger set reveled in synthmeisters Clan of Xymox, Depeche Mode and the beginnings of a dance movement called darkwave. Remembrance, the debut album from Houston’s Flowers and Machines, celebrates that time before Marilyn Manson,…
Without a Blue Clue
Ever fall asleep while watching a rerun of Taxi on Nick at Nite and wake up to find some guy in a striped shirt talking to a blue cartoon puppy? Out of pure puzzled fascination, you might have watched for a while, trying to figure out what’s up with this…
Playbill
Though he professes to be in touch with his “inner caveman,” Joel Stein and his rock and roll musings are anything but Neanderthal. Brimming with electric vitality, insightful lyrics and funky rhythms, Marionette, Stein’s latest release, is an enchanting romp through his complex and witty psyche, set to sweet guitar…
Holy Water
Brock Wagner, the 36-year-old owner and jack-of-all-trades at Saint Arnold Brewing Company [2522 Fairway Park Drive, (713)686-9494], is the poster boy for thinking outside the box. Wagner founded his brewery after leaving a job as an investment banker. Leaving such a profession to operate a microbrewery is not like quitting…
Playbill
Last year was pivotal for Christy Claxton. After a decade of odd jobs, esoteric advanced degrees and stints in short-lived bands like the watsons, Claxton founded her own Lavender Lounge label and assembled her own group. With her band of Dirty Blondes, she released Out of Nowhere, her first solo…
Morro from Heaven
For those who pay homage to the stone crab by making regular pilgrimages to Joe’s in Miami Beach, you may be heartened to know that you can find these delicacies much closer to home. Truluck’s Steak and Stone Crab [5919 Westheimer, (713)783-7270] serves up “morro” crab every bit as good…
Dead on Arrival
Lance Barton, thin as paper and frail as fine china, is such a horrific stand-up that during an amateur-night performance at the Apollo Theatre he is booed with so much force, he’s literally knocked off the stage. Lance’s manager insists he’s a failure because he’s afraid of being himself; Lance…
The Great EscApe
“Can you hold on a minute?” snaps Wally Swett. “We’ve got a baboon emergency in Blanco.” It can be difficult pinning down the temperamental director of Primarily Primates Inc. for an interview, as some sort of simian crisis always seems to be popping up. Swett has become the man to…
Damning with Faint Praise
Sara is quirky and free-spirited. That at least is the premise of the hilariously wretched new weepie Sweet November, of which Sara, embodied by the breathtaking Charlize Theron, is the heroine. But if you’re smart enough to run in terror at the threat of a character who’s quirky and free-spirited,…
Heir Time
It’s the Debra Duncan Show’s first live taping of 2001. Right at the beginning, a pony named Saint takes a huge, unscripted crap on the carpet. Off camera, producers gasp and cover their mouths. The pony steps in the shit and mashes it into the rug. Someone pulls out a…
Hostage to the Devil
For most middle-class Americans, an afternoon trip to the dentist is the very definition of hell. Nobody knows that better than Keith Reddin, whose clever, if heartless, new comedy, Synergy, takes its audience on a twisting, fantastical spin to the netherworld located, for the time being, on the Alley Theatre’s…
The Sky’s the Limit
Throughout the long presidential campaign, television viewers in swing states like Washington and Oregon were bombarded with advertisements exposing the awful air pollution in Houston. Murky shots of our smog-encrusted skyline flashed by as an announcer solemnly asked whether voters wanted George W. Bush to bring Houston’s kind of air…