Letters to the Editor
Pawn Problems The drug connection: I spent ten months working for a pawnshop chain upon graduation from college [“Eaten Alive,” by Josh Harkinson, January 26]. I’m very confident that we would not have 75 percent of our drug problem if pawnshops didn’t exist. I had addicts selling their mothers’ or…
Live Fast, Die Young, Leave Good-Looking Art
Jean-Michel Basquiat burst onto the New York art scene at the beginning of the ’80s, the decade of the overnight art star. These were the Reagan years: Greed was good, and Wall Street was booming, distributing buckets of disposable income and fueling new collectors. Organized by the Brooklyn Museum, a…
The Kidd’s All Right
DJs today have it so easy. With the kind of technology that’s available, just about anyone can make a mix effortlessly. But Chicago house DJ Stacy Kidd learned to spin the old-school way; he spent two years mastering the art of the mix using two cassette players (remember those?) before…
Sweet Tart
The wonderful thing about the maracuyá cheesecake ($5) at the Lemon Tree Restaurant (12591 Whittington, 281-556-0690) is the incredible juxtaposition of the mouth-puckering sourness of the thin, amber-colored maracuyá fruit glaze and the sweetness of the cheesecake. Maracuyá is a kind of South and Central American passion fruit that vaguely…
Gaps in Coverage
This is a sidebar to this week’s feature, “Wize Guys” In some cases, there are discrepancies between employee credentials boasted on GlobalTec’s Web sites and records from the Texas State Securities Board and the National Association of Securities Dealers. In other cases, employees’ implied expertise in securities fails to mention…
Capsule Reviews
“Beth Secor: atavistically speaking” Beth Secor loves to tell stories, writing and delivering funny, poignant and autobiographical monologues. In her visual art, she makes portraits inspired by people’s stories. Her current show at Inman Gallery presents a range of people young and old, modern and historic. The paintings are small…
Freaky Frames
Talk about A-list! The cartoon short Save Virgil combines the prodigious talents of Adam Corolla, porn star Ginger Lynn and our man Gary Coleman. The film’s playing at the Alamo Drafthouse for the 2006 Spike and Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation, so grab the booze, apologize to your…
Who Is Marc Sparks?
This is a sidebar to this week’s feature, Wize Guys” Marc Sparks, a self-described entrepreneur and philanthropist, says he helped create GlobalTec. GlobalTec spokesperson Dori Madison says Sparks is no longer part of GlobalTec. However, his media company, Splash, claims to own Traders Television Network, GlobalTec’s satellite TV channel. The…
Tae Kwon Ho
Every fighting game needs a hook to stand out: Mortal Kombat has gore, Soul Calibur has weapons, Def Jam has hip-hop stars. And Dead or Alive? It has boobies. The DOA series — developed by Tecmo — made its name with a cast of fighters who look like pinups and…
Whoa, Baby
Despite its name, Wondergirl isn’t another entry to the comic book movie party. No, Wondergirl is a play, and the name’s a nod to a more unsung type of hero. The first play by local favorite actor and director Rutherford Cravens, the work centers on Hal and his wife, Jenny,…
That’s the Way They Get By
“Do you remember when you were small / And all the people seemed so tall?” — John Lennon, “Remember,” 1970 “Do you remember when you were small / how everybody would seem so tall?” –Spoon, “Me and the Bean,” 2001 “I’m into tension,” says Spoon front man/mastermind Britt Daniel, in…
Like Star Trek with Worms
Dune: Extended Edition (Universal) On paper it sounds insane: A mammoth sci-fi epic directed by David Lynch, based on an intensely weird Frank Herbert novel about ecology and giant worms. What resulted was a flop that has yet to be remedied by multiple edits through the years. This disc includes…
Libertarian Laffs
Since showing up on Houston airwaves four years ago, Chris Baker has been called everything from a “genius” to a “right-wing, bald blowhard” (love those listener forums). But whatever side of the fence the NewsRadio 740 talk show host leans on (he claims to be a libertarian), dude can be…
Mercy Eventually
My dad is 74 years old and lives four miles outside a small town in central Texas. Needless to say, he’s not exactly up-to-date on the latest in alternative country. If he listens to anything other than his Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams records, it’s usually…
Our top DVD picks for the week of January 31
Benny Hill: Complete and Unadulterated — The Hill’s Angels Years, Set Four (A&E) Billy Graham Presents: Gift Set (Fox) Bubble (Magnolia) Captains Courageous (1937) (Warner Bros.) Drake & Josh Go Hollywood (Paramount) Extreme Comedy Collection (Team America: World Police, Beavis and Butt-head Do America, and Jackass: The Movie) (Paramount) Four…
The Butler Did It
What’s the best way for a comedian to jump-start her career? The good ol’ TV guest appearance. Recently, Brett Butler, a veteran of her own sitcom, Grace Under Fire, made excellent use of her guest spot on My Name Is Earl, playing Earl’s white trash ex-mother-in-law. She pretends to be…
Never Go to a Party in Friendswood
A couple of years ago, we used Amazon.com sales data to examine the musical tastes of Houston and the suburbs. This time we’ve done that one better by ranking each municipality’s taste — we assigned each CD a rating of one to five stars, added them up and took the…
Get Shorties
If you’re anything like us, it’s Friday and you’re done with paying attention, at least for any extended length of time. Thank God for Microcinema International’s 11th season of the short-film series Independent Exposure. The show’s shortest film, Epic Drag, a live-motion piece, is a mere 60 seconds; the longest,…
Between the Cracks
Band name: Another Run Web site: www.myspace.com/anotherrun Native or transplant? Native What’s in a name, particularly yours? Two words When did you form? Well…we have actually been together since 2000, but until 2005 we were searching for a singer. Then we found out it was us. Releases/discography: No Sleep Tonight…
The Hamachi on Pluto
At Masa Sushi near the Johnson Space Center, I considered six slices of yellowtail that had been lightly seared and topped with a little bit of fresh jalapeño. The sashimi sat in a pool of yuzu citrus juice and soy sauce on a strikingly modern white plate. It all looked…
Bite the Bone!
Nobody’s looking forward to the ridiculous a/c bills that await us this summer. In a move that smacks of either brilliant marketing or guilt, Reliant Energy has a way you can score $2,000 in free electricity — and get really freaking fat, too. At the Reliant Energy Barbecue Ribs PowerEaters…
Adrian Legg
There’s an old saw that guitar players are a dime a dozen. Tom T. Hall once wrote, “There ain’t no money in it and it’ll lead you to an early grave.” Somebody forgot to warn British guitar alchemist Adrian Legg about the pitfalls of the guitarist’s path, and in a…
Frozen Mojito
After a grueling night in the kitchen I work in, I needed to get out of downtown, and more importantly, I needed a drink. I recalled how good the frozen mojitos are at The Flat (1701 Commonwealth, 713-521-3528) and figured that since it was Monday, they wouldn’t be too busy…
Make Ours a Red Head
Perhaps one of the most apropos marketing campaigns we’ve seen in a long time has been the Jägermeister Music Tour. Over the last five years, the thick, ass-kicking alcoholic beverage that brought us the Red Headed Slut has also brought us some of the thickest, most ass-kicking metal acts, including…
Grupo Fantasma
An instant party wherever they set up, Austin’s Grupo Fantasma is to Latin funk what our own supergroup Los Skarnales is to Latino punk. Their Movimiento Popular has all the deep funk grooves of a New Orleans outfit, and each rhythm is trumped by swinging in-your-face hypersyncopated brass arrangements. Always…
Who Is James Dicks?
This is a sidebar to this week’s feature, “Wize Guys” You can’t help but feel bad for James Dicks, who Marc Sparks and George Thompson decided would be the “founder” of 4X Made Easy. When he was deposed for a lawsuit filed against him and GlobalTec in 2004, Dicks had…
Havana Good Time
Thanks to Ballet Hispanico, Houstonians can hit the club without breaking a sweat. This weekend, the dance troupe turns up the heat with NightClub, showcasing sexy tango, saucy merengue and, of course, salsa. The show follows salsa from its beginnings in 1920s Argentina, to the social clubs of 1950s Spanish…
The Gourds, with Last Train Home
Around our house, a new Gourds album is anticipated like a sacred tablet coming down from the mountain or, at the very least, a new episode of David Carradine’s Kung Fu. Allow Quentin Tarantino to make a movie of a recording session for the Gourds’ latest recorded-in-analog album Heavy Ornamentals,…
Hate the Day
For the single among us, it sucks watching co-workers and friends get showered with gifts and affection from their sweethearts on Valentine’s Day. Luckily, the haters at Hater magazine are offering up an alternative to all that romantic bullshit. “I’m not a fan of Valentine’s Day,” says editor Monique Crump…
Spankin’ New Show
So let’s say you find yourself tooling around this weekend thinking, “Man, I could really go for scantily clad people bound and gagged in various bondage getups.” Pinebox Productions hears ya, you deviant. Today, fans of the BDSM, dungeon, goth and fetish lifestyles will converge for “Dark Desires.” Show up…
He Will Bury You
Tommy Lee Jones’s feature directorial debut is probably much as you’d expect: a blast of nostalgia that nonetheless accepts the realities of modernity, which isn’t surprising coming from an actor who’s getting up there in years but has found more fame as an old man than as a young’un. The…
Love the Day
Valentine’s Day can cause a lot of pressure. You’ve got to choose from food, flowers and entertainment, all the while keeping in mind what your sweetie wants. To that end, we’re offering up a quick list of sweet — literally — and romantic V-Day ideas that won’t bust anybody’s wallet…
Garden State
We’re pretty familiar with the story: In the beginning, Adam and Eve found themselves at the Garden of Eden, hung out, named some animals, ran around naked and just had, had to check out that apple tree and the smooth-talking serpent. Suddenly, they were cast out and were forced to…
Ride the Legend
Anthony Hopkins lends style points to any movie in which he appears. The thing may be a dog, but the actor who brought the gruesome psychopath Hannibal Lecter to life and got deep inside a repressed English butler always gives us something fascinating to behold. The depth and gravity of…
Scenes from a Mall
You probably would never venture to a mall for serious art — unless, of course, you’re a fan of old Nagel reprints or “Hang in There!” kitten-on-a-branch posters. But should you find yourself negotiating Memorial City Mall, you can peruse some fine art at the Hokkaido photo exhibit. The show…
They’re Burning Up
If Satan were ever looking for some quality earthly real estate with friendly neighbors, he’d definitely have to consider Sweden. Over the last decade and a half, the benign Scandinavian country has bred some of the grittiest Hades-loving metal acts on the planet. One such act is In Flames, which…
Funky Fresh
January has earned its reputation as the month in which studios unload all their cheapie horror flicks, but February is the month when we invariably get yet another middle-of-the-road black-urban-professional romantic comedy. (It’s both Black History and Valentine’s month, hence the logic.) In that regard, Something New is anything but…
Flesh for Cash
Every dude needs a wingman like Antonio. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Antonio agrees to loan his buddy Bassanio 3,000 ducats so he can properly chase his main squeeze Portia, a wealthy heiress. But in order to hook his friend up, Antonio has to borrow money from the cruel…
Totally Spaced
There was a time — especially in the ’60s — when Americans were just kuh-rayzee about the space race. Then everyone got into, well, disco. It wasn’t until the ’80s, thanks to a slew of sci-fi movies (the Star Wars and Close Encounters series, E.T.), that space travel was sexy…
Wize Guys
GlobalTec doesn’t want you to read this, so you probably should. The Dallas company peddles investment software on infomercials, luring naive customers to seminars in hotel rooms throughout the country, where evangelistic salespeople preach the gospel of get-rich-quick. GlobalTec’s flagship software, Wizetrade, purports to make users rich by telling them…
Mild Wilde
A Good Woman, Mike Barker’s adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play Lady Windermere’s Fan, has been gathering dust for some time. It played the Toronto Film Festival in the fall of 2004 before opening in 2005 in every country in the world except this one. Such dawdling doesn’t bode well…
Brass Ball
The small town of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, near the New Jersey border, didn’t exactly offer the most urbane environment for the members of Pearls and Brass, whose three members have been playing together since they were 13. “There are two big streets that we walked countless times and that’s about it,”…
They Don’t Fold
Unlike OutKast and Lil’ Jon, who are known for pushing the envelope of Atlanta rap and hip-hop, fellow Hotlanta trio Psyche Origami keep it classic. Backed by two DJs — Dainja and Synthesis — MC Wyzsztyk drops rhymes with the same laid-back, chill groove stylings of De La Soul and…
Arson Is Bad?
If you’ve driven along any of Texas’s major highways lately you’ve seen the signs. A drought has raised the threat of wildfires to dangerous levels, so — as the signs say — there is a “Statewide Fire Danger,” and therefore we are under an “Arson/Burn Ban.” Motorists are urged to…
Endless Love
Ah, love. Where would opera be without it? On some level, every opera is a love story. Most end unhappily, which should give pause to those celebrating St. Valentine’s Day. The lovers are always mismatched; and even in the comedies, while no one dies, people who want true love rarely…
An XL Party
Okay, so it’s a little bit of a downer watching an NFL championship game that’s not actually at Reliant Stadium, but for football fans, Super Bowl XL is the biggest game of the season and the last pigskin action until April’s draft. (You know, when all hell will break loose…
William the Conqueror
When moviegoers delve into the pantheon of revolutionary, uncompromising, maverick filmmakers, the obvious names materialize: Peckinpah, Kubrick, Scorsese, Altman, Lee, Tarantino, even Eastwood. But William Wyler’s name rarely pops up. That’s because your parents — even your grandparents — are probably more familiar with his work than you are. To…
Shots Fired
“Fuck the North Side!” 16-year-old Jesse Jackson Academy student Anthony Bailey yelled from a back window of a parked school bus while flashing cryptic-looking gang signs with his hands. Bailey’s teammates were filing out of Smiley High School and piling into the bus for the 30-minute ride back to their…
Capsule Reviews
Barrymore Theater LaB should serve up baked apples and brown sugar to complement the mouthwatering ham so gloriously played by Charles Krohn in William Luce’s two-man show (the prickly prompter Frank, drolly acted by Josh Wright, remains off stage throughout). The human pork portrayed at this theatrical feast is none…
Dizzy Does It
Houston’s Dizzy Pilot has spent the last year polishing its signature sound, which calls to mind the raw power of early-’90s alt-rock bands. At the quartet’s Walter’s show today, expect them to churn out tunes fueled by fuzz pedals, technical chord progressions and chanting choruses that would make any Nirvana…
Glazed Tracks
Why did Detroit native Eminem to travel to sunny Southern California to hook up with Dr. Dre, when he had super producer Jay Dee — a.k.a. J Dilla — in his backyard? Maybe it’s because Em digs the hardcore thug aesthetic, and Jay Dee is more a purveyor of the…