Silent Type
Everyone has a story to tell. Some people keep their stories private, creating a mystery; others will assault you with their most personal — and often most boring — details over a beer at an office mixer. The most interesting ones, however, turn their tales into art, perhaps because they…
Hillbillies Deluxe
It seems somehow appropriate that when Rick Miller, the force behind Southern Culture on the Skids, is contacted at his house/ studio in North Carolina for a scheduled interview, his girlfriend answers and says, “He went to pick up some lumber with a buddy.” Visions of a whisker-chinned Miller sipping…
The Hustle
As general manager of the newly opened Have a Nice Day Cafe (544 Texas Avenue), Bill Haecker has done everything to hype the place except run butt-naked through the Galleria with a smiley face painted on his ass. As it is, he often wears a bike helmet with Have a…
Playbill
It’s easy to hate Cowboy Mouth, particularly when most everyone’s exposure to the band has been through that odious single “Jenny Says.” When drummer/ singer Fred LeBlanc starts preaching some life-affirming claptrap, you can almost picture him wearing a ripped-up T-shirt that says, without a drop of irony, “Choose Life.”…
Playbill
Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock are the current magnates of the rap/ metal industry, but compared to the politically charged and intense Downset, they’re little more than mail-room clerks. Instead of stone-stupid lyrics and predictable tunes, Los Angeles-based Downset incorporates the features found in hard-core punk, reggae, metal and hip-hop…
Turn The Beat Around
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. — Corinthians 12:6 Come with me / Hail Mary nigga, run quick see / What do we have here now? — Tupac Shakur, “Hail Mary” It all started with the voice. There was…
Playing Cool
There’s definitely something weird going on in the British pop scene. Years after tasteful Yanks allowed classic works such as Saturday Night Fever and Grease to dissolve into our vast iconic array, villainous limey programmers were still hyping them over there. Thus, the dual plagues of disco and ’50s rock…
Life in the Slow Lane
Time was putty in the hands of Robert Earl Davis Jr. On the turntables, as DJ Screw, he could cut back and forth, reversing records and recuing them so swiftly you’d swear the record had been chopped by a computer. Day to day, Robert Earl maintained a leisurely pace, always…
Connect the Dots
Apparently some people like geometry. Marco Villegas is one of them. His exhibition at Lawndale Art Center, “Flat latex paint on raw stretched canvas,” has its origins in the obtuse angles and parallelograms of your ninth-grade math class. The title of the show is as direct and matter-of-fact as the…
Left Return
On a bitterly cold night in December, comedian Paula Poundstone takes the stage at La Zona Rosa, seven blocks south of the Texas Governor’s Mansion in Austin where George W. Bush waits — like most everyone else in the country — for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether he…
Puff It Up
Being as the owners are now actually trying to get you to pay for it, chances are you didn’t read the latest issue of Inside Houston magazine. We’re here to tell you what you missed. The December 2000 cover story was “Houston’s Herald Angels: Up Close and Personal with Some…
Ask and Ye Shall Receive
We were sorely disappointed to read recently that the Houston Chronicle, as it begins the build-up to its 100th anniversary, is unable to locate a copy of the first edition it ever printed. They’ve looked everywhere, we were informed in a front-page story, but to no avail. Many Houstonians must…
Conditional Amore
The bruschetta is a do-it-yourself project at divino. This version of the Italian-restaurant staple features slices of grilled bread, naked but for a drizzle of greenish olive oil, with three little bowls of savory spreads on a big white plate. The toppings are pureed white beans, tapenade and tomato chunks…
Down in the Valley
Kathleen Cambor grew up in Pittsburgh, and she thought that everyone who grew up there knew about the Johnstown flood. A century before, Johnstown had been a little steel-making city, only a short train ride away from polluted Pittsburgh, in a pretty section of the Allegheny Mountains. Fifteen miles above…
Stirred and Shaken
Three twentysomething bleached blonds in blue jeans share a giant sandwich at the bar, while the New York Giants eat the Philadelphia Eagles’ lunch. First the subway series and now this. I order a Manhattan. At Champps Americana [1121 Uptown Park Boulevard, (713)627-2333], well-scrubbed white people gather to watch the…
Spring Time for Ben and Betti?
Poor Betti Maldonado just can’t seem to get out of Ben Reyes’s shadow. The association of the former Houston media consultant and port commissioner with the trash-talking ex-councilman helped land her in the federal slammer two years ago after both were convicted of bribery and conspiracy. Now her association with…
Fade to Black
For 17 years, Dorothy Swanson has waged the loneliest battle: keeping good shows on television, a medium that exists as if only to taunt her. You can hear in her voice the toll such a struggle has taken on her. Her voice breaks and softens when she speaks about the…
Letters
Full-time Friendly A proper pad: We live in space no. 600 of Space Center RV park. The park that you picked to visit [“RV Xmas,” by Brad Tyer, January 4] is not your typical park for full-timers. It has a large population of people like my wife and me who…
BET’s Reason to Keep Smiley
You know, BET celebrated its 20th anniversary last fall, yet the cable channel still gives the perception that it’s broadcasting from 1986. (It still plays videos in mono, for chrissakes!) Black people still watch the channel — where else can you get an endless supply of Toni Braxton videos, stand-up…
Gimme a Torah
Think all blacks vote straight Democratic? Think there are no black followers of Judaism? Think African-Americans and Jews don’t get along? Say any of this to Tony Award-winning actress Nell Carter, who will be speaking to the Jewish Federation Tuesday about her conversion to Judaism, and she’ll say, “Gimme a…
Hidden Charms
You won’t find the encrusted snapper ($19.95) on the menu at Vinnie’s Italian Café [5413 Bellaire Boulevard, (713)667-7740]. You have to track down a waiter, wink twice and provide the secret password before he’ll tell you about the dish. Well, not really, but what started out as an occasional special…