Spin Sisters
Last fall, Club Diesel’s Thursday-night dance party known as “Community” devoted an entire evening to female DJs. A lot of ladies, both in front and behind the DJ booth, attended, but one of the biggest draws, Sista Stroke, was not there. The DJ had more pressing concerns, namely her eight-year-old…
First Out of the Gate
It’s lunchtime on a Monday afternoon in a second-floor office off Woodway just outside the Loop. Inside the office, there’s the faint aroma of poor boys being consumed. Elsewhere in the city — wherever Lee P. Brown may be on this day in late January — there may be the…
Kid Stuff
Kid Rock, it’s time you and I had a talk. I’m not here to blow sunshine up your ass; I don’t work for Rolling Stone. It’s high time we addressed the elephant in the living room; you know, the one that everyone knows is there but refuses to acknowledge. Thing…
The Ballad of the Singing Shuttle Bus Driver
Intro It’s just before Christmas and nobody wants to be at the airport. Most especially the people in the city economy lot. These are the thrifty people. The ones who are willing to spend only $5 a day even if it means waiting for a shuttle that has to drive…
Alone Again, Naturally
Darden Smith’s latest album, Extra Extra, is subtitled Darden Smith Sings Twelve Songs By Heart. To which you could easily add well, duh. The session, after all, features a dozen of Smith’s best compositions from previous releases, all newly recorded. Such a move obviously raises the question, Doesn’t he have…
Hot Shots
Even in ordinary times, the meningitis vaccine is pretty pricey — it wholesales for $60 a pop. But the outbreak of the disease has brought on an anti-meningitis bull market in the Houston area. The Houston Press phoned most of the pediatricians listed in the yellow pages and found a…
Tender Is the Nightlife
Nestled on the top floor of the Village Arcade, The Gatsby Social Club (2540 University) is, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, a place full of money. Tagged at around $3 million, this five-month-old art deco hideaway (formerly Cody’s in the Village) couldn’t be more elegant if Tom Wolfe, dressed…
Hard Knox
The prospect of prosecuting law enforcement officers in Houston courts has long been formidable; just ask any of the attorneys from the civil rights divisions of the U.S Department of Justice or the Harris County district attorney’s office. In the late 1970s Houston police officers received probation in the drowning…
Sade
After an eight-year recording hiatus, Sade is back with Lovers Rock, a session that isn’t a radical departure for the vocalist but sounds practically revolutionary when compared to the low-class, anti-intellectual, aggressive posturing of contemporary pop music. Her music is the embodiment of finesse, understatement and elegance, traits that can…
Parking Whoa
As she has done for the last 17 years, Charlotte Spinks Browning soon will load up her long, expensive aluminum horse trailer and make the trek to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. But this time it will be different. When she pulls up to the Reliant Astrodome complex, she’ll…
Lil’ Flip
With the release of The Leprechaun, local MC Lil’ Flip proves there’s more than one way to win these real-life Survivor games. Call him the anti-Richard Hatch. Unlike that flabby, effete, naked bastard — unlike even all these H-town rappers who talk about how mighty a playa they are, gaining…
Caveat Vendor
I drop my first $5 token into the Art-o-mat, pull one of the yellowed knobs, and ker-chunk: My selection hits the bottom of the machine. My prize is a beat-up block of gray wood, wrapped in cellophane and precisely the size of a pack of cigarettes. On it, Dolen Smith…
Playbill
Martin Sexton doesn’t look like the type of guy who’d take you to church. Sure, he’s got a baby face, but those soft features are framed by long and unruly hair, and he tends to prefer what could charitably be called thrift-store fashions. You sense that underneath the oddly cuddly…
Back to the Future
When the lights finally came up in the Washington, D.C., movie theater, Leonard Nimoy sat still, silent, and a bit shaken. He could scarcely believe what he had seen–and what he had not seen. The movie was beautiful, but beneath the surface sheen, there was no heart, no soul. It…
Playbill
In a just world, where talent and creativity would be valued more than banality and style, most jazz and classical musicians would be wealthier than their pop counterparts. But life isn’t fair, and Eminem has sold more albums than Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington combined. The cold truth…
Political Shark Alert!
The last time City Hall politicians jumped into the middle of a water fight, it resulted in an FBI investigation of pass-through contributions to councilmembers. This time around, the city tried to get the politics out of the construction of a multimillion-dollar water-processing plant on Lake Houston. Officials created an…
Quid Pro Quo?
Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, with a screenplay by David Mamet and Steven Zaillian, is being released exactly ten years after Silence of the Lambs, the film that established Hannibal Lecter as an iconic villain in our culture, right up there with Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th’s Jason…
Brown, Gay Leaders Cut Deal on Antidiscrimination Legislation
In a landmark meeting over the weekend, Mayor Lee Brown and Houston gay leaders have agreed to substitute an ordinance extending insurance coverage for same-sex domestic partners of city employees for broader antidiscrimination legislation to be introduced at City Council in the coming months. The decision sets the stage for…
Dumb and Dumbest
The man who made Problem Child, Beverly Hills Ninja and Brain Donors — movies that are to humor what Robert Downey Jr. is to clean living — has, perhaps all too explicably, become Hollywood’s most coveted and celebrated comedic director. “From the director of Big Daddy” — so blares the…
No Contest
KPRC-TV has been criticized for its idiotic devotion to giveaway contests during sweeps, the times when a station’s ratings are used to determine advertising rates. Every eyeball is sacred during such periods, one of which began February 1. Channel 2 has regularly enticed viewers by giving away thousands of dollars…
Her-story Lessons
The Delany sisters were two special old ladies. Highly educated and politically passionate, these women were born to an ex-slave in the late 1800s and lived to bear witness to an entire century of American history, from the tragedy of Jim Crow laws to the comedy of Dan Quayle’s vice…
Letters
Residency Woes Feeling like forever: Your article “Rejection Slips” [by Melissa Hung, January 25] was awesome. Thanks for the insights. I am in a similar situation. I am married to a U.S. citizen, and my husband filed for permanent residency for me back in September 1999. I know that’s less…
Bored Stiff
When it opened in New York in 1998, David Hare’s The Blue Room received megatons of publicity, mostly for its main marketing hook: Nicole Kidman revealing, during one particularly shadowy moment, her reportedly beautiful backside. Too bad she wasn’t available for the Theater LaB Houston production, since I can think…
Please Pass the Puccini
Imagine savoring mouthfuls of spaghetti and meatballs, steaming garlic bread and a pungently dressed salad in your favorite trattoria. Then suddenly, singers in Italian-American garb rise from the table and begin crooning harmony from a familiar Puccini score. That’s what’s on the menu when OrchestraX presents Gianni Schicchi, a two-course,…
No Artificial Flavors
Garden Ridge is the indisputable Inner Circle of Hell. Go there on a Saturday: Your eyes will sting from the tear-gas effect of vast quantities of potpourri and scented candles as you find your escape route barred by shopping carts overflowing with faux flora and fauna. Judging from Lisa Ludwig’s…
Grunge Residue
The postgrunge age is fraught with ironies. Alternative music has become the mainstream it rebelled against. But now that Seattle is no longer the center of a musical revolution, bands once again have the freedom to experiment, and the group creating the biggest stir on the Northwest scene is a…
Harebrained
The etymology of “Welsh rarebit” is about as elusive as the animal in its alternative name: “Welsh rabbit.” The dish, available at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck [2425 Norfolk, (713)528-5999], is considered pub grub, but Duck owners Rusty and Theresa Andrews have elevated it to a higher plane. This tangy appetizer for…
Junk-Food Journalism
“Whither goest thou, America?” wrote Jack Kerouac, the thinking man’s bad writer of the 1950s. Every now and then, some work of mere mortal beings comes along to lift the veil, or perhaps the hem, of time and let the rest of us catch a glimpse of the future of…
For the Love of Sauerkraut
Chef John Schuster and his wife, Maria Nopper, ran a restaurant in the Black Forest of Germany. In a freak accident, a tornado picked up the place, transported it across the Atlantic and dropped it into a Midtown strip center. That’s the best explanation I can come up with for…
Prelude to a Kiss
Speaking off the toque: Joe Mannke, chef and owner of Rotisserie for Beef and Bird [2200 Wilcrest, (713)977-9524]. Q: Since your restaurant is frequently cited for its romantic atmosphere, what would be an extra-romantic dinner menu for St. Valentine’s Day, the food equivalent of splitting a 100-milligram tablet of Viagra?…
Stirred and Shaken
Half the interior at Américas [1800 Post Oak Boulevard, (713)961-1492] looks like the inside of a giant woven basket, and the other half looks like a Mayan ruin. When the restaurant first opened, its innovative architecture and cuisine were said to be a weaving together of New World cultures. Now,…