Oh, Brother
The brothers at the center of Suzan-Lori Parks’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog bear the unlikely names of Lincoln and Booth — their father’s “idea of a joke.” The names carry some hefty metaphorical weight in Parks’s story about violent sibling rivalry. Stuck together in Booth’s one-room apartment, the brothers worm their…
Carrots in a Stuffed Crab?
And what’s more, it’s a stuffed crab not dripping with hot grease from a recent bath in the fryer. “Stuffed crab” is synonymous with “deep-fried” to most people, but not to Goode Co. Seafood (2621 Westpark, 713-523-7154). There, the stuffed crab contains such unprecedented ingredients as hearts of palm, tomatoes,…
Hecklers Beware
Comedian Jay Mohr is coming to town for six stand-up sets the same weekend as the Super Bowl. So, is he your typical celebrity-turned-sports fan when it comes time for the big game (and the big parties)? We think not. He’s a verifiable sports freak, as his gigs with NFL…
Czech It Out
There are only a handful of operas that, when everything works smoothly, can hit you like the MetroRail meeting an SUV. Czech composer Leos Janácek’s 20th-century masterpiece about small-town life and morals, Jenufa, is one such powerhouse. I would urge you to go and see it, but in the case…
Clyde’s Hideaway
As you probably already know, the Houston Rockets are playing the New Jersey Nets Saturday afternoon at the Toyota Center. If you don’t have tickets to the basketball game, or that football game everyone’s talking about, you may be looking for a good place to watch it on television. Allow…
Kung Fu’d
Two years ago, Harvey Weinstein, who runs Miramax Films with an iron fist that no doubt smells of cigarettes and meat, bought a Hong Kong-made movie called Hero for $20 million. That is an extraordinary amount of money for a foreign-language film made by a director, Zhang Yimou, relatively unknown…
F-Bomb Scare
Along with Coldplay, Travis was once thought to be in line to succeed Radiohead atop the Britpop throne. Despite obvious differences in musical style and execution from Thom Yorke and his auteur buddies, these two bands were expected to fill some pretty perfect shoes. While Coldplay has managed to carve…
Visitors’ Guide
If we are to believe the chamber of commerce types, you, dear reader, are one of approximately 2.3 gazillion folks who have descended on Houston for the Super Bowl, each determined to spend $3,456 a day on souvenirs, barbecue and Texas history books, with perhaps some additional funds outlaid for…
Murderers in the Dark
Timelines don’t seem to have been much of a factor in the brief but productive music careers of DJ Cuba Gooding Jr.’s Brandon Duhon and Travis Rice. The 27-year-olds, both of whom started playing music only four years ago, have known each other for about eight years and played together…
Helping Out a Roomie
If you’re looking for lessons on how to get lucrative city contracts even if you haven’t been living up to the city contracts you already have, Art Lopez is the guy you want to talk to. Thanks to persuasive lobbying by City Councilman Mark Ellis, Lopez’s company recently got its…
I’m a Loser, Baby
It’s no cakewalk being America’s Funnyman. Just ask Neil Hamburger. “These people are degenerate gamblers,” he says, speaking about the hostile audience in his recent concert DVD, Live at the Phoenix Greyhound, filmed at an Arizona dog track. “And face it: A lot of them have serious drinking problems. So…
Fed Up
Every night, Lynn Davis feeds the coyote in his backyard. This week, he’s setting out four raw chickens and a couple of 20-pound slabs of venison. “This coyote’s hungry,” Davis says. And the meat is bait. Davis says he’s trying to get the animal used to coming to his house,…
Scoring the Super Bowl
Cue the godlike voice of NFL Films narrator John Facenda: “Early every year, 22 brawny men with grit, guile and poise join in gladiatorial combat not seen since the glory that was mighty imperial Rome. This is the Super Bowl, a contest pitting strength against strength, desire against desire, the…
Letters
Down on Dillard’s Eye-opener: Yes, you are a tabloid, with all the negativity that supposedly connotes, but thank you for printing a newsworthy story [“A Closer Look at Dillard’s,” by Margaret Downing, January 8] that the mainstream press has been economically intimidated from publicizing. I was horrified to learn of…
Dizzee Rascal
Britain’s most recent urban music import, 19-year-old MC Dizzee Rascal, cleverly paints a desperate but highly realistic portrait of modern life in the big city on his debut full-length, Boy in da Corner. The 2003 recipient of the Mercury Music Prize speaks with an honesty that is invigorating and original,…
Scientific Soothsayer
When Dr. Peter Bishop introduces himself as a “futurist,” he knows that some people probably expect a guy wearing an electrode helmet and blue space suit who answers to the name “Zoran of the Fifth Dimension.” But the very regular Earth inhabitant and chairperson of the Studies of the Future…
McKay Brothers
Outside of last year’s wonderful Doug Sahm tribute album by the Bottle Rockets, Sir Doug seems to have become little more than an afterthought among practitioners of so-called Texas music. Enter producer Gurf Morlix and the McKay Brothers, Noel and Hollin, a pair of South Texas country boys who cover…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, January 29 You might not see comedian Steve Harvey’s toothy grin as often as you did a few years back when he was hosting It’s Showtime at the Apollo and starring in The Steve Harvey Show, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost a step. The man’s still got it…
Fondue Monks (Self-released)
The problem with the Fondue Monks’ first two CDs, The Fondue Monks and Baila Toca, is that neither accurately captured what a truly groovy live act they are. In concert, vocalist Denver Courtney, guitarist Steve Olson, drummer Ronnie Zamorano and his bassist brother Rozz lock into a distinct sound that…
Alan Ruck’s Day On
As viewers of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm know, we’ll sadly never get to see the version of The Producers starring Larry David and Ben Stiller. And just forget right now about trying to score tickets to see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (who originated the roles) during their current return…
Fear, and the Toasters
Fear and the Toasters appear Friday, January 30, at Fitzgerald’s, 2706 White Oak Drive, 713-862-3838.
Turntable Roundtable
SAT 1/31 With Russell Simmons bringing the bling to the political arena of the Dirty Third, Houston is finally getting its props as a major player in the rap game. H-town’s hip-hop heads will have a chance to hobnob with rap politicos at the Hip-Hop Summit, where panelists such as…
DJ Skribble
If you’re an MTV VJ and you’re looking to shore up some street cred, then you probably don’t want to name your 2001 dance mix Essential Spring Break. (Aspirin and birth control not included.) And slapping Matrix cover art on your February release, Reloaded, is not exactly the best way…
Pats and Cats Bring It Back
SUN 2/1 Thirty years ago, Houston played host to Super Bowl VIII. The Minnesota Vikings’ practice facility included a high-school locker room with no lockers and only three functioning showers. The Miami Dolphins got to use the Oilers’ (remember them?) facilities at the Astrodome (remember that?). That Sunday, about 68,000…
Eric Bibb, with Ruthie Foster and Cyd Cassone
Eric Bibb is a singer. No, not a singer in the corrupted sense fostered by American Idol, full of warbling melisma and acrobatics that do much but say nothing. Instead, Bibb boasts the sort of sweetness that made Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson musical monuments: smooth and full of heart…
Now That’s Commedia
SAT 1/31 Believe it or not, your kids are probably already familiar with some of the characters from commedia dell’arte. Popularized during the Italian Renaissance, this form of theater was performed outdoors by professional actors playing a stock reserve of characters. One of them was Harlequin, who generally played a…
College Bored
At times, there appears to be a good movie struggling to get out from within The Perfect Score. The heist genre has been in dire need of a fresh twist for quite some time, and substituting misfit high school students for the usual gang of ex-cons pulling one last job,…
So You Wanna Be an Actor?
WED 2/4 Calling all freaky-deakys: Are you covered in tattoos and piercings? Gay or lesbian and not afraid to show it? A bondage enthusiast or member of the trans-whatever community? Stop making those home movies and be in a real one. The producers of Clubfoot, a chase comedy set in…
Pop It, Lock It, Yo
Good day, friends and homies. I bring word of a project titled You Got Served, which essays the task of appraising the current state of urban American street dancing and the dancers who dance it. The good news is that it’s dynamic, sincere and spirited. The bad news — for…
The Main Event
While the nearby Super Bash may have the quantity, this multiday downtown mega-getdown will have the quality, and what’s more, it’s all absolutely free. Sure, none of the national names on this one are as big as the Red Rocker’s, but when you’ve got Charlie Robison, Los Lobos, Nathan and…
Black Power
Most DIY interior designers have it all wrong when it comes to picking out what paint color will make a room seem bigger. White, the traditional wisdom goes, will make your room larger, while black will shrink it down to a dismal matchbox. Wrong. An all-black room might seem a…
Barbecue for Purists
Adrian Cooper, 33, is a third-generation restaurant man. He learned to cook working beside his grandmother Vivian and his mother, Val, who both ran “bean houses,” as he calls them, in the Fifth Ward. Since that neighborhood boasted Houston’s most famous barbecue back in the days before integration, I ask…