Scorpion on a Plane!
Kid, you’re gonna be a star! The Associated Press reports a man aboard a United Airlines flight bound for Vermont was stung twice by a stowaway scorpion. Yes, we said that correctly: a passenger on a commercial flight was stung twice when a scorpion declared arachnid jihad on his right…
�rale
Our favorite Mexican was on Nuestra Palabra last night. Click here (registration required) to download the audio of Gustavo Arrellano talking about his column, Ask a Mexican, and why he doesn’t think Carlos Mencia is very funny. — Keith Plocek…
Re: In the House
Meet the new boss. So Tom Craddick gets to spend another session in charge of the Texas House. Although we can’t say we’re surprised, we are curious to see what will happen to the 27 Democrats who voted against him. The movement to oust Craddick from his powerful position as…
Take a Shallow Breath
Vandemonium We hope they captured the sweet Flowmasters we installed on our ride. Drivers entering I-10 East at Studemont this morning might’ve noticed something weird as they hurtled into traffic. Parked on the shoulder was a big van with a flashing light and a logo that read “Digital Reality Capture.”…
Lyre, Lyre
Just got back from City Hall, where there was a VIP reception for New Tang Dynasty Television’s Chinese New Year Spectacular. (You know, cuz nothing says “VIP” like being the interim editor of a blog with a marijuana-themed title.) NTDTV is a worldwide satellite network that’s the only option for…
I’m Shocked, Shocked To Be On CNN
The juice, sans white Bronco. CNN entered the Houston Taser debate yesterday, with the opening segment of the Paula Zahn Now show devoted to interviews with HPD Chief Harold Hurtt, councilwoman Ada Edwards, and an eclectic group of commentators. The report centered on the November Tasering of Houston Texans lineman…
Step One: Never Use Your Turn Signals
To help Houston’s 106,000 Katrina evacuees find a job, the Community Settlement Network has utilized that great tool that allows folks to show-off their X-rated Street Fighter overdubs. Think Like a Houstonian, now posted on YouTube, is an eight-minute educational video in which two Katrina survivors help other evacuees find…
Free the Sabbath in the Park 20!
Daniel Kramer This is the face of a hardened criminal. Matt Sonzala, aka “Party Boy,” was making plans for the CMJ Music Marathon last fall when he made a quick post on a message board about heading up to NYC for Sabbath in the Park, dude! It started out as…
I Do, I Do!
We got this nomination for Best Marrying Judge from our friend Jim Sherman. It’s a little early for the Best of Houston awards, but we thought we’d pass it along – just in case any readers are thinking about tying the knot any time soon. – Olivia Flores Alvarez From…
Dead Letter Office
Will all those who are dead please raise your hand? And now, HouStoned presents “Dead Letter Office,” our soon-to-be-ongoing series of letters inspired by Deathswitch.com, a local service that enables folks to send emails after they die. From: “David Harris” [nobsdds@gmail.com] To: “Clara Harris” [clara@hotmail.com] Subject: The Mercedes The brake…
Playbill: Texas Johnny Boy & Milton Hopkins
photo provided by Texas Johnny Boy Blues masters Milton Hopkins (l) and Texas Johnny Boy Enjoy an evening of eclectic blues with the ‘freight train rhythm’ of Milton Hopkins’ guitar playing and the vocals and horn playing of Texas Johnny Boy. Hopkins, nephew of the great Sam “Lightin’ Hopkins, left…
Paxil: Now with Even More Effects!
Forty milligrams to freedom. The list of bizarre effects associated with the popular antidepressant Paxil is as horrendous as it is long, including: suicide, homicide, electric shock sensations during withdrawal and, for moms-to-be, an array of potentially fatal birth defects. Now the not-always-so-wonderful wonder drug is said to cure, of…
Join the Corps
www.storycorps.net Step into this booth, baby, and we’ll make history. If you’ve ever listened to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and been awoken from its lulling, information-feeding spell by a heartfelt talk between a woman and her granddaughter, you’ve been introduced to StoryCorps. The oral history project turns ordinary people…
In the House
There’ll be no super-secret double vote for Craddick’s ouster. Tomorrow Texas House reps will cast their votes on whether to keep incumbent Tom Craddick as House speaker or give the leadership role to challenger Jim Pitts. Although he has made some friends as Speaker of the House, it’s no secret…
Good Job, Metro !
It’s not often that we get to say something nice about Houston public transportation system Metro, so we can’t pass up the chance to say, “Good job, Metro!” Why the kudos? Metro’s Northwest Transit Center has been dim and dark (and dangerous, we expect) after nightfall for the last several…
No Tourists, But At Least We Can Fucking Park
The Magic Kingdom. The New York Times reported Saturday on the growing problem of parking in San Francisco. A finite amount of space, cheap meters and outrageously expensive parking garages have led to desperate fights over available street spaces. In 2006 there were 28 attacks on meter maids, or whatever…
We’ll Take Popularity over Success Any Day
Do the math, and that’s a $60,000 T-shirt. Looks like the cameras Rick Perry put on the border and made accessible to sit-at-home Minutemen didn’t yield too many results. The Chron has the story: A month-long test run this fall of a Web site allowing ordinary citizens [to] monitor the…
Takin’ It To The Streets
You’ll see the Houston Press Street Team at these great events this weekend: Fri @ Warehouse Live The Bench Fri @ Meridian, Young Guns Metal Showdown 07 with Cinema of Fear, Epic, Cryptic, and Nhuvasarim Sat @ Brian O Neill’s , Rice Village Pub Crawl Sat @ Bronx Bar, Rice…
PB: Luxurious Panthers 1/6
We just got this note from the Luxurious Panthers: Come Out And Live the Roots Rock Lifestyle with The Luxurious Panthers and Ricky Broussard’s Two Hoots & A Holler from Austin,TX. Just in case you didn’t know – the Panthers are a crazy Texas rockabilly outfit and Broussard is a…
Sugar Shack
Courtesy of LSU Sports Information Brandon LeFell, in his pre-Mohawk, pre-superstar days. You’ve just caught a 58-yard bomb that helped bury the storied Notre Dame football team in the Sugar Bowl — where you gonna go? Disneyland? Not if you’re wide receiver Brandon LaFell, the LSU redshirt freshman who nabbed…
Sugar Shack
Courtesy of LSU Sports Information Brandon LeFell, in his pre-Mohawk, pre-superstar days. You’ve just caught a 58-yard bomb that helped bury the storied Notre Dame football team in the Sugar Bowl — where you gonna go? Disneyland? Not if you’re wide receiver Brandon LaFell, the LSU redshirt freshman who nabbed…
Oh, Brother
Here’s a photo of German Moreno. His brother doesn’t care about our families. Not one bit. Not one fucking bit. One of the many rewards of being a reporter, and of especially working for the Houston Press, is that, every once in a while, you’ll get to have international phone…
Anyone Out There Looking for a Sign?
Keith Plocek for HouStoned Images Ltd., Ulmtd. For the last couple of months, there’s been a hand-painted sign at the corner of West Gray and Taft, letting “our defenders” know they are “not alone.” We’ll take a wild guess and assume it has something to do with all the controversy…
Passing a Buck to the Smokers
Daniel Kramer Dave Pickrell cuts through the smoke on the latest tax increase. No word on what he’s doing about the mirrors. We asked Dave Pickrell, president of Smokers Fighting Discrimination, what he thinks about the $1 cigarette tax increase that went into effect throughout the state on Monday. As…
What You Call Hell, He Calls Home
That border fence doesn’t know who it’s messing with. Today the Associated Press has a story on comments made by Sylvester Stallone while in Mexico promoting Rocky Balboa, his latest flick. The article has one helluva title — “Stallone Attacks Mexican Border Fence” — but it leaves so many questions…
Actual Homeless People Need Not Apply
This guy doesn’t stand a chance. All reality TV shows inevitably involve a little begging. Begging for a rose. Begging for a tribe member’s help. Begging for the chance to work for an egomaniacal douchebag. So it was almost inevitable that this tireless quest to lower the common denominator would…
Murderers Row
The newest Carol O’Connell offering In her Mallory books, mystery author Carol O’Connell has constructed the perfect (well for our alternative world) main character. Kathy Mallory, a young New York City detective with amazing detection abilities who apparently lacks any ability to like or love anyone she encounters (even those…
Re: Wait, So You’re Supposed to Tip?
Luby’s? More like Screwby’s! Anyone? Earlier this week we posted about Luby’s shelling out $366, 864 in back wages to its employees. For those of you who didn’t see that post (and are too lazy to click on the link above), all you need to know is: There was some…
Re: Wait, So You’re Supposed to Tip?
Luby’s? More like Screwby’s! Anyone? Earlier this week we posted about Luby’s shelling out $366, 864 in back wages to its employees. For those of you who didn’t see that post (and are too lazy to click on the link above), all you need to know is: There was some…
Playbill: Mark Zeus
Mark Zeus Tonight Mark Zeus and The Uncalled 4 host a country music Big Jam at the Lone Star Club, 19333 Hwy 59 N. (west off the feeder; just south of Business 1960) Humble, 281-548-2884. The fun starts at 8:30 and goes on until midnight. Friday, January 5 Mark Zeus…
Pass the Mike
And to think we thought Otto was the coolest. We end the day with the tale of one ass-kicking bus driver. The details come from a Houston Independent School District press release, so do us a favor and mouth the word “allegedly” at the end of every sentence. Last night…
New Bat for the ‘Stros
Our future might’ve just gotten a little brighter. According to MLB.com, Boston Red Sox second baseman Mark Loretta will soon close a deal to come play for the Astros. Apparently there are still a couple kinks to be worked out as far as contractual issues go, but his agent, Bob…
Defending His Semi-Good Name
He should write a letter to his congressman or something. Neil Bush — the Bush who embarrasses his family without creating Middle East quagmires — will do whatever it takes to defend his name, apparently. Bush is the head of Ignite!, an educational-software company that’s been helped along by friends…
Re: Flash Back
Really, on the inside, aren’t we all just female strippers who take their kids to work? Talk about burying the lede. The Chron’s Eric Hanson filed a report yesterday on the latest development in the sick, sick saga of former right-wing radio host/testicle-flasher Jon Matthews. Here’s how the article began:…
Re: Well, We Do Like Cash…
And you thought attics were just places for old women to hang out in Victorian novels. Okay, so either the universe is folding in on itself like some kind of cosmic ouroboros or this whole sell-all-the-crap-in-your-attic trend is getting way out of hand. Not 15 minutes after we posted on…
Tragedy in Webster
The Associated Press reports that a 10-year-old boy in Webster hanged himself on Sunday. The boy apparently was imitating the execution of Saddam Hussein, which, as you well know, was broadcast all over the place. “I don’t think he thought it was real,” the boy’s uncle told the AP. “They…
Well, We Do Like Cash…
JohnSencio.com Wacky! So we assume you’ve all heard of the TV show Cash in the Attic, where a group of people remodel your home and help you try to sell it. Oh, wait, sorry, that’s Designed to Sell. Cash in the Attic is the show where people get their junk…
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
More than a year ago, pop quartet Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin was unknown outside of their native Springfield, Missouri. But music bloggers, the 21st-century tastemakers who love harmonious indie pop and ridiculously named bands (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), made SSLYBY instant indie and Internet stars. Now we…
Suicide Club
The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco’s most famous landmark — and possibly the country’s — makes a lovely place to die. Only a four-foot safety rail separates pedestrians from a 220-foot plunge; climb that, and it’s just a four-second drop to eternity. Factor in its beauty and symbolic value –…
Yppah
For many years, Houston-bred DJ/producer Yppah, known to friends and family as Joe Corrales, was a turntablist who went by the name DJ Giant. Last year, after adopting the Yppah moniker, he signed to the electronic music heavy hitter Ninja Tune (home to Coldcut, Kid Koala, Wagon Christ, Amon Tobin,…
Good Vibrations
If your New Year’s resolution involves living healthier, maybe you could skip the big-ass cake and head down to the Bay-Fest Farmers’ and Holistic Lifestyles Market today. It’s a place where the fruits and veggies are all organic, the remedies for life’s ills aren’t stamped with a Pfizer logo, and…
Vallejo
I accidentally took some James Taylor-lovin’ folkie music hippies to see Vallejo at the Continental one night last winter. It was late, and we’d already hit a couple of other spots. As we walked in and the music hit us, the look on their faces said, “Earplugs!” One of the…
Positive Exposure
“I’ve never written for personal reasons; even as a child I had this fantasy that somebody would publish it,” says Joan Didion. “By that, I mean the personal reason I write is to have somebody read it.” Didion is an American literary icon who has written for numerous publications, covering…
The Chieftains
Probably the easiest observation one can make about these champions of Celtic music, after 40 albums and 42 years as a band, is that people like them. Can’t argue with success or longevity. But it would be foolish to assume that Bill Kirchen look-alike Paddy Moloney and his brethren just…
Good golonka
The golonka ($16.90) at Polonia (1900 Blalock, 713-464-9900) is a tribute to just how much you can fit on a regular-size plate. A huge pork knuckle — bone, skin and all — is braised for most of the day in a mixture of beer, paprika, onion, carrots and spices, making…
The Austin Lounge Lizards
For 27 years, capital city goofballs The Austin Lounge Lizards have delivered a unique sonic soup of humorous songs, bitingly satirical lyrics and fine pickin’. You pretty much know in advance what you’re getting from the multi-vocalist ensemble — except, of course, for the German hip-hop on their latest disc,…
Predator v. Predator
Notes on a Scandal, brilliantly adapted by Patrick Marber from the darkly comic Zoo Heller novel, is a grim piece of work — Fatal Attraction for the art-house crowd, shorn of its predecessor’s fearful misogyny. Set in a dreary London where a gray funk of fog and cigarette smoke hangs…
Let Them Sell Beer
Kill bill: I laughed when I read your article [“Beer Time in Austin,” as told to Richard Connelly, December 21]. While I hope you are wrong, the betting man should be putting his money with you. I’m getting completely stonewalled by the big beer wholesaler lobbyist, which I do not…
Scents and Sensibility
A multimillion-euro adaptation of a best-selling German novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer relates the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), born in 18th-century Paris with a uniquely puissant sense of smell. He begins life as an orphan, sold into servitude to a brutal tanner, but in Toucan Sam…
Helping Hands
What’s former HISD superintendent Rod Paige — the man who became, as Education Secretary, the poster boy for the No Child Left Behind Act — doing these days? Getting every last dollar he can out of his reputation, thanks to the largesse of his old friends in the Bush family…
Miss Congeniality
I am sorry to say that Peter did not feel very well that evening. His mother put him to bed and gave him a dose of chamomile tea. “One tablespoon to be taken at bedtime.” But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper. — Beatrix…
DISConnect
Last month, EMI Music Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Levy walked up to a podium at the London Business School and told an assemblage of bright-eyed young titans of tomorrow something that, in all likelihood, they already knew full well. “The CD as it is right now is dead,” he…
Pot o’ Gold
December might have been the gloomiest time of the year for theater, but good things come to those who wait. Just look at the stunning lineup of plays that will be offered all across the Bayou City in the coming season. In fact, each and every month offers at least…
DISConnect: Turntables
Even as the packaged compact disc approaches death, vinyl, the music medium it was supposed to have completely destroyed, is showing signs of a small but significant and growing comeback. “Vinyl has totally made a comeback,” says Thomas Escalante, a co-owner of Midtown record shop/novelty store Sig’s Lagoon. “I’ve seen…
Capsule Reviews
A Fertle Holiday One of the best ways to spend an evening this holiday is with the Fertles, the oddball family that resides at the Radio Music Theatre. Yes, it’s time yet again for A Fertle Holiday. The laugh-out-loud show is full of the small-town characters that Rich Mills and…
Not Like Monk
Trumpet player Chris Botti, one of the best-selling jazz artists around today, is famous for once saying, “I don’t want to be a jazz musician.” “Yes, I said that,” he laughs, talking to us from New York City, where he’s in the middle of a 26-day stint at the Blue…
How did the Virgin of Guadalupe Get Her Name?
Dear Mexican, How did the patron saint of Mxico get a name derived from Arabic? El Moro Judo Dear Jewish Moor, You’re referring to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the brown-skinned apparition of the Virgin Mary who tradition says appeared before the Aztec peasant Juan Diego in December 1531 just outside…
Papa Didn’t Take No Mess
Spike Lee, in his 1989 masterpiece Do the Right Thing, managed to examine the whole of black thought on the race question. You had the stuttering savant Smiley, Sweet Dick Willie and his streetcorner sages, the drunken but wise and heroic Mayor, and Buggin’ Out, the hotheaded intellectual with the…
A Legendary Outing
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Wii, Game Cube
Price: $49.99
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Score: 10 (out of 10)
In with the New
You hear it at the end of every year — the critical moaning and gnashing of teeth, as music writers and fans alike proclaim what has become a holiday mantra. “This was a bad year for music,” everyone cries, their hands clutching iPods lifted imploringly to the heavens. “Why have…
Weird and Wonderful
Robert Wilonsky and Jordan Harper recap their top DVDs of 2006: Eraserhead (Absurda/Subversive) — Finally available on DVD, David Lynch’s debut film is as captivating and frustrating as it ever was. The print looks great in its own weird way, and the feature-length doc shows Lynch speaking more clearly about…
Rhythm, No Blues
Houston-based R&B singer J Poncio has been around the music industry for years, performing and learning the business. After the group he was with, DVO, failed, Poncio decided to go solo, not only as a singer but also as the head of his own production and promotions company, Urban City…
Capsule Reviews
“The Cat’s Meow” “The Cat’s Meow” is a one-room, in-house affair. One standout is a video by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. In it, a cat, with what looks like a dead flea on its head, laps milk from a saucer. That’s all that happens. But the cat is so…
New Strings
Tuesday night is famous for being dull and dead from a music point of view. Somehow we’ve wandered into Christian’s Totem (7340 Washington, 713-864-9744) — part bar, part cafe and, tonight, part open mike haven for some rough rock and rollers. Corrugated steel wraps around the bottom of the bar,…
Sigh…
The oversized mushrooms look impressive on the plate, but they are tough — tough in that leathery, spongy way that indicates they’re past their prime. The spinach, cheese and crabmeat filling with which they’re stuffed is a bland, vaguely gritty concoction. All things considered, it’s a pretty sad appetizer. Our…
Jay Reatard
Remember the first time you heard the Pixies’ classic “Where Is My Mind?” It condensed the euphoria of cutting anchor and sailing into the abyss into a four-minute pop song. Now Jay Reatard (that Memphis garage punker from the Lost Sounds, the Retards, Angry Angles and probably a dozen other…
ARMADILLO PALACE
Whenever people who’ve never been to Houston picture a night out here, they imagine a bar filled with people in cowboy hats, barstools made from saddle leather and line-dancing along to songs about how awesome Texas is. Although most of us know this image is grossly inaccurate, there are some…