Loud and Clear
In the middle of a serious discussion about the fickleness of the music-buying public, Everclear’s Art Alexakis cracks wise. “No one talks about bands who have two successful records back to back,” he says. “Do you know why they don’t? It doesn’t happen.” Alexakis has a point. These days, consumers…
Talking the Blues
When two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson began writing Seven Guitars, the play had four characters in it, all of them men. But then a woman appeared in Wilson’s imagination, saying, “I want my own space.” The woman turned out to be Vera, the central female character in his narrative about…
“Fly” Boys
When Sugar Ray’s chart-hogging single, “Fly,” was first completed in rough-draft form during rehearsals in New York City, the band received a taste of things to come. A girl they’d met happened to be in the studio when the band played through a loose version of “Fly.” From that point…
City of Forgetting
The science-fiction works of the late, great Philip K. Dick haven’t been served particularly well on screen. The most recent adaptation, Screamers, was junk; Total Recall had its moments but was less ingenious by half than the short story it was based on. Blade Runner, of course, was brilliant, but…
Static
Slippery Sam… Back in spring 1996, Sam Taylor was brimming with big ideas and grand intentions. The onetime producer/manager/ guru to Katy’s holy-rock troika — King’s X, Galactic Cowboys and Atomic Opera — had suddenly materialized after a lengthy seclusion brought on by career burnout, divorce and health problems. But…
How to Beat City Hall
Jury verdicts against the city of Houston don’t come much bigger than the one awarded last month to Barbra Piotrowski, the striking former beauty-queen athlete who is the paralyzed victim of a notorious 1980 shooting. Depending on who’s doing the counting, the city is facing the prospect of paying anywhere…
Dish
Love for Sale Valentine’s Day was a disaster. She Who Brooks No Nonsense was highly critical of the bar of Toblerone I gave her. But the chocolate was only part of it. A day earlier, she’d asked right out of the blue if I thought we should get married. And…
Alone Together
Moonlight. Mark Olson is staring at the moon, now hovering low in the early evening sky above the desert floor of Joshua Tree, California. He’s staring, unshaven and in rumpled khakis, not to howl or scratch or bay or even to contemplate, but to find Mars and Saturn, brightly flanking…
Rotation
Kristin Hersh Strange Angels Rykodisc When sung to children, lullabies are meant to induce sleep. When sung to adults by Kristin Hersh, they have the opposite effect. And it seems that no matter how sweet or hushed the sound of Strange Angels, Hersh’s lullabies disturb more than they comfort, jolting…
Primal Time
Back in the ’60s and ’70s, when its animation unit was in the doldrums, the Disney studio made a number of live-action “family” comedies (No Deposit, No Return and Freaky Friday, for instance) that were, within their limited ambitions, genuinely funny. The studio’s latest film, Krippendorf’s Tribe, is very much…
Fighting for Franklin
Franklin Chatman is on the move in his grandmother’s backyard garden. Tottering precariously in oversized sneakers, the three-and-a-half-year-old clutches a cherry fruit rollup in one small, chocolate-colored hand; with the other, he clings for balance to a chainlink fence. His grandmother, Virginia Howard, chats with a visitor, but as she…
Culture Clash
Most of the time, Deputy Constable Sgt. J.C. Evans’s job is to seize people’s cars, jewelry or waterbeds. He doesn’t usually deal with artwork worth millions of dollars, as he did last week when he oversaw the seizure of 15 works by Robert Rauschenberg from the Menil Collection, one of…
What a deal!
Every January, Harris County hands out roughly $12 million in federal grants to nonprofit businesses serving people with AIDS, and every year, someone gets mad. This year, the usual level of complaint about who got what was raised a notch. Now everybody wants to know: How can an organization that…
The Insider
Knock Knock: Who’s There? High-society types and bail bondsmen rarely cross tracks unless the wealthy are in legal trouble, but Houston’s Don Vannerson is a notable exception. He’s made a fortune over the years bailing criminal suspects out of jail while rubbing shoulders socially in his off-hours with the River…
Flip-flopping
As the battle over the $200 million airport-concessions contract heads for a showdown at City Hall, the forces behind the bid of CA One Services have turned up the heat and given the other entry, Four Families of Houston, a serious case of indigestion. According to a number of sources…
Letters
Guts and Gumption My compliments and a hearty shout to Brian Wallstin for having the guts and gumption to print the truth about what has really been happening in the Fourth Ward [News, “No Shame,” February 12]. The truly sad thing, as he points out, is that this miserable situation…
Press Picks
thursday february 26 The Houston Ballet The ensemble recycles a trio of music-powered crowd pleasers for its winter-repertory concert. “Second Before the Ground: The Exhilaration of Falling in Love” is set to Pieces of Africa by the Kronos Quartet (which visits Houston tomorrow; see below). The ballet’s choreographic associate Trey…
Platonic Love
Most Houston chefs, I’d guess, are familiar with Plato. At least to the extent of having heard of him. But how many are so familiar that they would name a restaurant for one of his major texts? Only one comes to mind: Alberto Baffoni. As an homage to Plato’s Symposium,…
Hot Plate
Until recently, I dreaded the onset of a muffuletta urge. It always entailed a major outlay: airfare to New Orleans and back, $188, taxis to and from the Central Grocery, $35, one muffuletta sandwich, $9.50. Were it not for Sal’s Italian Cafe and Grill (1508 Hutchins, 225-4950), on downtown Houston’s…