Bunnyface Killahs
Sure, Usher’s admission in the December issue of Maxim magazine that he was attending orgies with Diddy at the age of 16 caused a lot of waves, but it was something else he admitted that has Wack much more concerned. Yes, it seems R&B’s highest paid Michael Jackson impersonator harbors…
It Takes Heart
Houstonians may recognize John DeMers as the Houston Chronicle’s onetime food editor, or as the current host of the radio program Delicious Mischief. But the veteran foodie wants you to know him as a playwright: His debut musical, Deep in the Heart, will premiere at the Hobby Center for the…
Real Greek
There are two ingredients in the food world that always reek of Greek: feta cheese and spinach. Throw them together with scallions, tomatoes and eggs, and you have one delicious Greek omelette ($6.49), available all day at Harry’s Restaurant (318 Tuam, 713-528-0198). Neatly folded over, the Texas-size omelette is so…
Romeo in the Rough
Over the centuries, the legend of Tristan and Isolde has fueled the derring-do of King Arthur, aroused Richard Wagner’s operatic thunder, driven poets as diverse as Shakespeare, Tennyson and Edwin Arlington Robinson to the heights of passion, and helped stock the back streets of Manhattan with companies of leaping Jets…
Leaving His Mark
He’s worked with Paris Hilton, 50 Cent, Kanye West and Andre 3000. He’s also shared the studio with the Desperate Housewives and Jack Black. And let’s not forget Lenny Kravitz. Life is pretty glamorous for Mark Seliger, a ten-year staff photographer for Rolling Stone who also shoots for the Condé…
Purple Popsicle
When I heard about Tuesday-night drag queen bingo at Meteor Lounge (2306 Genesee, 713-521-0123), I slammed my drink down and headed straight over. Bingo was starting just as I arrived, so I bought a stack of cards and found a seat at the end of the bar. I asked the…
Bet on Black
Over the years, moviegoers who double as sports fans have had ample opportunity to pick and choose their favorite miracle — Shoeless Joe Jackson emerging from the tall corn, Rudy suiting up for Notre Dame, Rocky going the distance with Apollo Creed, the U.S. hockey team taking down the Russkies…
Happy New Year (Again)!
Today folks are celebrating a different New Year’s Day at the 32nd annual Julian Calendar New Year Party. The Julian calendar is a timeline concocted by Julius Caesar, but all you need to know is that this party is the place to dance to polka, tango, czardas, hassapiko, frailach and…
The Nude Bomb
The studied British theatricality and sharp wit of Mrs. Henderson Presents are likely to make it a favorite among nostalgiaphiles, theater buffs and the tea-and-crumpets set. Sailing along on the strength of another showy performance by Judi Dench, Stephen Frears’s period frolic is this year’s Being Julia, adorned with the…
Everybody, Run!
If you make it around Memorial Park but the idea of running a marathon scares the sweats off you, fear not. Today you can take to the streets with an estimated 22,000 runners at the Chevron Houston Marathon. Besides the 26.2-mile race, the event features a wheelchair race, the 13.1-mile…
God Save the Queen
When a movie promises that a character played by Queen Latifah may well die during the course of the action, one might hope that the movie in question is Hostel, so that she could be beaten a few times and then dismembered, ideally by someone who sat through The Cookout,…
Still Skinny
After more than 70 years, The Thin Man is still a great movie to watch for this simple reason: It shows a couple actually getting along. This may be hard to believe, especially if you’ve been subsisting on those weak-ass romantic comedies (Bridget Jones’s Diary) and angsty relationship dramas (Closer…
A Bounteous Bunch
Sam Peckinpah’s Legendary Westerns Collection (Warner Bros.) At a mere $42 through most websites, this four-film boxed set ranks among the best ever compiled; not only does it contain the restored version of one of the greatest movies of all time (The Wild Bunch), but also three other brilliant westerns…
Absolutely Fabulous
Family-friendly theater doesn’t get much better than the national tour of the 1977 Tony Award-winning musical Annie. Who cares if it’s sentimental fluff? Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin’s musical, now playing at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, features a redheaded orphan with a grin that won’t…
We Got a Floater
You may not see a lot of value in something like the Houston International Boat, Sport & Travel Show. Sure, maybe a sprawling expo that features five football fields’ worth of sailboats, luxury yachts and powerboats holds nothing for you. But if you’re planning to off your significant other for…
Enter the Dragon
There’s an oft-repeated urban legend about Dragon Quest’s popularity in Japan: So many gamers ditched school and work to play that the government decreed that future releases had to take place on weekends. In reality, there’s no such law, but as with most myths, the message rings true, even if…
Capsule Reviews
Baby: A Musical Stages Repertory Theatre has put together a production of Sybille Pearson, David Shire and Richard Maltby’s charming Baby: A Musical, a rich little work about three couples who must deal with the ups and downs of pregnancy in our modern world. The story takes place in a…
New Heights
We can remember when poppy Astra Heights was considered merely an upper-echelon local band that would probably never make it past opening for a B-list visiting act at Numbers. But recently they surprised everyone (except themselves, presumably) when they moved to L.A. and got signed by Universal Records. What’s more,…
Our top DVD picks for the week of January 10
According to Occam’s Razor (Elite Entertainment) Black Books: The First Complete Series (BBC/Warner) The Chumscrubber (DreamWorks) The Constant Gardener (Universal) Dead Poets Society: Special Edition (Touchstone) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Bueller…Bueller…Edition (Paramount) The Flash: The Complete Series(Warner Bros.) The Gambler (Time Life) Hawthorne Heights: This Is Who We Are (Victory)…
Lawn Signs
Government control is everywhere, but perhaps nowhere more so than on the roads. Think about it. You rarely freak out when you see a cop standing inside a building or walking in a park, unless you’re a kleptomaniac or a psycho. But how about when you’re behind the wheel and…
Love and Haiti
Despite its sunny Caribbean location, life isn’t easy in Haiti, and a busy Atlantic hurricane season isn’t even the half of it. Not up on the latest Haitian coup d’état? The folks at Voices Breaking Boundaries bring you up to speed with their double screenings of Kevin Pina’s documentaries Haiti:…
Roller Grrrls
The last time Heather Reumert saw her fianc, he called her a name no woman wants to hear. It happened about a year ago. They had been dating off and on for a decade, ever since high school. She’d been gaining weight and he’d been treating her like shit. She…
Capsule Reviews
“Perspectives 149: It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” isn’t only rock and roll. The exhibition features almost 200 photographs of figures from the history of rock, but there’s also a smattering of greats from hip-hop, folk, jazz, soul…It’s the kind of show that would make a…
Ahoy, Sailors!
The music of Houston-based indie rock quartet Sharks and Sailors navigates you through turbulent melodies, crashing rhythms and gusty harmonies before finally setting you down like a lost ship after a storm. The vocals of guitarist Al Hendrix and bassist Melissa Lonchambon — who served time in the power-pop band…
The Deal
This is a sidebar to this week’s feature, “Roller Grrrls Roller derby is more like football than you might imagine, with positions analogous to linemen and running backs, except both teams are playing offense and defense at the same time. It all starts when a pack of eight skaters (four…
(Don’t) Forget This
Funny that the operetta Accidental Nostalgia is about memory loss, as no audience member will soon forget this show, which includes its technicians in a dance number, features interaction with videotaped characters and delivers audiences from Georgia to Morocco to Rhode Island. Oh, and it offers some “brief female nudity.”…
Lemonade Stand
Arthur Smith is a 36-year-old Houston resident who has a beef with CarMax, the used-car company. He says he was sold a lemon and wants restitution. To get it he’s been living in a van outside the CarMax lot, 24 hours a day, for more than a month. Smith bought…
Forget the Food
La Strada Sunday brunch is not for everyone. To suggest that it is would be the biggest media snafu since, um, “The Miners Are Alive!” Don’t like noise? Don’t go. Have a thing about people “invading your space”? Stay home. Homophobic? Hit up IHOP instead. When in the mood, I…
Hail the King
On this day, which honors a leader who sought equality and social justice for all people, don’t forget the kiddos. Take them to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration at the Children’s Museum of Houston. Little ones will get to make wings-of-peace hats as they learn about the life…
Letters to the Editor
Derailing DeLay Out with the “con”: I disagree with the predictions that DeLay will win his district since he drew the lines himself [“Dragon Slayer,” by Todd Spivak, December 29]. Prior to re-redistricting, he had a 65 percent voting base. He gave up 5 percent to others such as Ron…
Hey, Ricky!
If our experiences with Latin pop stars have taught us anything (see Iglesias, Enrique), it’s that any comments we make about them can be taken way out of context. So we promise we’re not being cute when we say that Ricky Martin will come out and play today for thousands…
What the Funk?
Sure, most DJs in town spin hip-hop, house and/or hipster music. But not the Austin-Houston-based Waxploitation DJ collective, which is firmly rooted in funk and soul. And their medium of choice is different, too. “For the most part, our set is strictly 45s,” says Waxploitation member Brett Koshkin, who’ll be…
Cake Tease
The stalwart athletes are standing in a half-circle, sizing each other up while their handlers prep and fawn over them. You can cut the tension with a knife — a cake knife. Okay, truthfully, the “stalwart athletes” are a bunch of youngish dudes, and their “handlers” are their young, attractive…
Hooked Up
We’re fairly certain that most of the people who’ll come to hear Peter Hook, the bassist for Joy Division and New Order, spin records at 1415 today are retro-heads — born long after JD’s Ian Curtis killed himself in 1980. (Hey, at least there’ll be one person there who lived…
The Beats Go On
In the early hours of this past Christmas Day, 28-year-old Houston techno DJ Bruno B. (Balarezo) lost his yearlong battle with colorectal cancer. Once the shock of his death passed, it didn’t take long for a slew of DJs who have worked with and been influenced by Bruno to put…
Maybe This Time
It’s that time of year again when all our sins come back to bite us on the ass. Right around midnight on New Year’s Eve, we start trying to fix all the things we keep doing wrong — once we’re sober, that is, and after we’ve made out with someone…
Kitsch, Aisle Eight
You wouldn’t immediately think of My Little Ponies or conglomo-store shopping bags as art, but in Virginia Fleck’s hands, they’re as natural as clay or acrylics. The Austin-born artist takes plastic bags and pop-culture items and weaves them into postmodern mandalas — a form of constant circular design in the…
That’s Just Silly
“Everyone’s born an artist,” says Jacob Calle, artist, amateur stuntman and curator of a new gallery show called “We Pretend to Communicate Through Paper Cups and String.” The group exhibit, presented by Dean’s Credit Clothing and Spacetaker.org, evokes a childlike realm — silly, absurd and fun. In fact, Calle imagined…
Year of the Concept
Not since the escapist early ’70s has the thematic “concept album” been so hip. In American Idiot’s vaguely political wake, Ryan Adams has released the autobiographical 29, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are hard at work on a musical essay about singer Karen O’s cat (no joke), and Velvet Revolver reportedly…
Lay It Down
This month marks a return to big-money spectator sports for Houstonians. No, the Super Bowl hasn’t come back to town — it’s time for the trials of Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. Repeated requests to move the proceedings — the “army of truth” was a nice touch, too…
Desi on Deck
Newsweek magazine called her “one of the most influential South Asians in the United States.” The New York Times Magazine dubbed her “one of the ten women of downtown music.” In her near-decade of spinning beats, DJ Rekha has somehow morphed from mild-mannered spinstress to spokesperson for bhangra music —…
Bayou City Music Mindbender, Part II
Touring has yet to pick up after the holiday lull. We’re sick of holidays and holiday parties, football season’s winding down, and the long, bleak winter months stare us in the face. We feel your pain. And so, to kill a few minutes until pitchers and catchers report in the…
What the Dr. Ordered
Theater icon and native Texan Tommy Tune probably wouldn’t call himself a hero, but to Jimmy Nederlander he most definitely is. Nederlander, the head honcho of Broadway’s last family dynasty, found himself in a bind when he realized his newest production, Dr. Dolittle, just wasn’t hacking it. (That’s being diplomatic:…
Give Us the Bird
We’ve always loved Sheryl Crow. When she got engaged to Lance Armstrong, we supported her, saying, “If It Makes You Happy.” Then when the couple announced last month that it was Splitsville, we told her, “A Change Would Do You Good” — and then we asked hopefully, “What I Can…